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Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Murder at the Campfire Cookout by Darci Hannah

Book Description

Converting the old Beacon Point lighthouse into a bakery is as adventurous as Lindsey cares to get. Her mother, Ellie, a former 80s fashion model, likes her creature comforts even more—until she sees a business opportunity for her Beacon Harbor fashion boutique when she’s invited by the Mitten Kittens Glamping Club on a woodsy getaway.

Far from roughing it, the ladies will be warm and cozy in chic vintage campers. Ellie insists Lindsey come along to win the campfire cookout contest. Campfire cooking has come a long way from bacon and beans. Soon Lindsey is making pizza, berry cobbler, and gooey Carmelita camping bars.

But the festive spirit is soon dampened when a body is found in Ellie’s camper. It seems like an accidental death until everyone’s tires are slashed and it’s clear the glampsite has become a crime scene. With no cell service to call for help, it’s up to Lindsey to smoke out the killer around the campfire . . .

Because no one is out of the woods yet.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Murder At the Campfire Cookout by Darci Hannah will be the last in this series, kind of, because there will be a spinoff. This series is ending, but the characters readers have come to love will be back in a spinoff, still set in Beacon Harbor.

The author had the characters step out of their comfort zones, away from the bakery. Lindsey left her boyfriend Rory at home but also Welly, her Newfoundland dog. Lindsey, her friends Kennedy and Colleen, Lindsey’s Mom Ellie, and Ellie’s friend Betty all go glamping. Far from roughing it, the ladies will be warm and cozy in chic vintage campers and Lindsey was chosen to participate in the campfire cooking contest. The campground is way off the grid. Not long after they arrive, bad things begin to happen. Their cars are vandalized and they are stuck there with no phones or internet. Then one of the campers is found dead and soon everyone realizes it was not an accident.

One of the fellow glampers ends up dead from a sabotaged oven. Lindsey and her friends are determined to put the pieces together so they can escape the horror show unfolding at the glamping site and get home. The women realize they need to find who among them could have done this horrible act. They are also worrying about their own safety since a series of suspicious acts also occurs, adding to the tension.

Readers will get the feeling of a locked room mystery with the claustrophobia atmosphere of the isolated campground, a suspicious death, tires slashed, no phone service, and surrounded by trees and a lake in the woods. Everyone quickly realizes they are stranded in the woods with a killer and before others get hurt or killed, they need to find the murderer, with Lindsey knowing she must ‘smoke out the killer.’

As with the previous books, the ending has a twist, but unlike the others, the tension slowly ratchets up over the course of the story. Since this is a cozy mystery, the tone is lighter than a typical suspense, thriller, or mystery. There are funny moments, but the story also will have readers getting edgy with the feeling of those telling ghost stories around a campfire.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Darci Hannah: I thought it would be fun to take the girls away on their special trip, and travel to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, which is a very beautiful area. I went to school up there. It’s very remote. I’ve been camping up there when I was younger. And it’s just pristine and gorgeous and very isolated. There’s still some dense wilderness up there. So, I thought I wanted to take them camping.

EC: Why glamping?

DH: I used to work at our library, near my town, gosh, years ago. This woman came in, and she had this old historic license plate, but it had never been registered to a car. It was from 1976. And she asked if we could register it. She said, ‘Well, I’m in a glamping club, and I have a glamper, and I want to put it on that.’ What they would do is get these old Airstreams very cheaply or campers, and they would gut them. She was showing me all these pictures of her camper, that she had renovated. And then they would rebuild them by themselves, or maybe with their husband’s help, and just make them almost like she sheds. I thought I would like to write about this someday. And this was probably in 2018.

EC: What is a She Shed?

DH: A she shed is often converted from a garden shed. These spaces serve as cozy areas for relaxation, creativity, or hobbies, providing a sanctuary away from daily responsibilities, specifically for women. It was just a very feminine space. And so that’s what these things are.

EC: How did you incorporate glamping into the story?

DH: I figure that my characters are kind of fancy girls especially, Lindsay’s mother, Ellie. She’s not the type of person who would ever go camping, but glamping would work. And so, I thought it would just kind of be fun to have them go on this isolated trip, to just get away and work on some new ideas for a line of clothing.

EC: Kennedy, the best friend, also went on the trip, but seemed out of place?

DH: She is one of those city gals who is overconfident, a diva, overwhelmed where she is right now. High maintenance, likes to be the center of attention, impatient, obstinate, foolhardy, and brazen. And she’s also a loyal friend. She is just so loyal to Lindsey. That’s why their friendship works, because she’s opposite of Lindsey. And in this story, she can’t deal with their situation.

EC: What about the stalker?

DH: They are the motivation behind everything that’s going on. They have a driving need to connect with the person they target. wanting to be a part of their lives through manipulation and controls. It’s a one-sided attraction. But a stalker doesn’t believe it, because they’re delusional.

EC: How does the setting play a role?

DH: I want the reader to be submersed in this beautiful, almost pristine environment. It’s almost like a closed room murder, with a finite number of people, and then, there could be somebody out there. So that’s always a danger in the woods. You don’t know who’s out there. You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know what animals are around us who’ve been in that area.

EC: Why didn’t you have Wellington, the dog, go with them on the trip?

DH: If I brought Welly, he would sniff out the murder right away. Dogs know things. They have senses and so I didn’t want to cheat. I had to make it tough for the characters. and uncomfortable so they would push themselves to these limits.

EC: Is this the last in the series?

DH: Yes, because the publisher decided it, probably when I started this book. These books came out in mass market but bookstores do not want to carry mass market. And it’s very heartbreaking, because the reason this series ended was strictly because of the format. They told me if I wrote another one, that the bookstores would not carry it, and if the bookstores aren’t going to carry your book, there would be a loss of sales.

EC: So, what about the next book?

DH: It will be a spinoff of this series: same character, same setting, and they didn’t give me much to go on. They wanted what I’m writing, but they wanted it with just a new hook, so they could remark it and repackage it. And so, finally, one day, I thought the next logical step would be just branching Lindsey into catering. There will be a little bit of a break before the next book. It’s going to be the same type with just a little different spin. I hope it works. It’ll be a trade paperback.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Insurgent by Brian Andrews & Jeffrey Wilson

Book Description

After rescuing a teammate from a covert detention facility in East Asia, it’s back to business as usual for John Dempsey and Task Force Ember: conducting counterterrorism operations in denied areas.

An opportunity to strike a master Houthi drone engineer sends the team to Yemen, but things start to go wrong almost as soon as their boots hit the ground. What is their local contact hiding, and why didn’t their CIA contact show up to the rendezvous? Meanwhile, First Lady Petra Jarvis’s job—juggling the roles of wife, first lady, and Ember liaison—is about to get a lot harder. The Presidential Election is only two weeks away, and President Kelso Jarvis’s SEAL instincts are failing him. Good in the heat of battle and in the situation room, Jarvis is floundering in debate prep, allowing his political rival to paint him as a caricature of the war mongering, hot-tempered SEAL.

What neither Petra nor Dempsey know is that they are both in the sights of a master spy operating right under their noses in DC—a spy with orders to sow chaos. As Election night nears, Dempsey and Petra are drawn further into his web, and soon it’s hard to tell who is manipulating whom.

A dangerous game is afoot, and to win Dempsey and Ember may well be forced into a bargain with the devil.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Insurgent by Andrews & Wilson has everything readers love about these stories including fast-paced action, suspense, and an intense plot with a level of realism that makes people think these authors have a crystal ball.

The plot has John Dempsey and the Ember task force having an opportunity to strike a master Houthi drone engineer in Yemen. It appears that Task Force Ember’s technology might have been infiltrated by foreign adversaries leading to a cat and mouse between Ember and a psychotic Chinese operative who has grandiose plans to strike massive blows to the United States and Dempsey personally. Meanwhile, First Lady Petra Jarvis’s job of juggling the roles of wife, first lady, and Ember liaison puts her in danger.

High stakes, geopolitically and personally, with life and death consequences has Petra and Dempsey intent on finding the Chinese agent and making sure he fails. Readers will be on the edge of their seats as the tension level builds.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: What is new on the television front?

Brian Andrews: We have a project over at Amblin Entertainment, which is Steven Spielberg’s company. We’re excited about that. It is based on one of the short stories that we have coming out later this year. We’ve had a little bit of musical chairs with the showrunners for the “Shepherd Series” and “Tier One.” We’re on the hunt for our third showrunner for the Shepherd series right now. Still hoping that that will get some movement. We’re interviewing a showrunner for another series called Strike Group that we’re developing, which is about an aircraft carrier, a mystery.

EC: How did you get the idea for this story?

BA: Insurgent is book ten in the “Tier One series” and felt like it is an important book. It was time to circle back almost like an anniversary. We circled back and revisited some of the themes that we introduced in the first book. I think the savvy reader will pick up on that right out of the gate. It opens in Yemen, where Operation Crusader went down with John Dempsey losing his team, which is when Jack Kemper became John Dempsey. He hasn’t been back to Yemen since the Jabouri base was blown up. And, so for him, this is a homecoming, an emotional one, because he’s coming back to this place where it all started. This is why we kicked off the book here.

EC: But the Chinese play a major role in the story?

BA: The world is now interconnected. The Yemenis aren’t just making their drones and their anti-aircraft systems and missiles by themselves. It is not happening in a vacuum. They’re getting help when they’re getting supplied by the Chinese and they’re receiving aid from the Iranians. We’re starting to see that the Chinese, especially over the last five years, are becoming a defense contracting hub. They’re building drones, missiles, and helicopters. They have a guidance system. They’re starting to export the types of products and weapon systems that were previously only in the purview of the United States. Soviets, and the European defense contractors. Now they’ve got a foot in that game.

EC: Does the title mean anything?

BA: It is the origin. We think of an insurgent as an assaulter or somebody who’s coming at you on your home turf with a gun. This title is sort of metaphorical. We’re dealing with a more complicated insurgent. We dealing with a Chinese effort to infiltrate American defense, industrial complex, and our politics on multiple levels.

EC: The structure of this book is different?

BA: We’ve never done this before. in any of our novels. And we were excited and curious to see if people recognize the flash forward open, and then what people think of it. The book is started at the end, and then we come back and bring you back up to that point. You see all the events that led up to the climax.

EC: How would you describe Ren, the Chinese agent?

BA: He is evil, a threat, a psychopath, manipulative, adaptable, sadistic, and loves chaos. This antagonist has got a screw loose. And so that’s something else that we haven’t really explored since Malik, the Russian Zeta, part of the secret Russian task force. He was a little bit sociopathic and on the edge. He went against Dempsey in Red Specter, that was book five.

EC: It’s like the story has a word of warning about the Chinese?

BA: Before, we could exert a certain element of control over bad actors, by depriving them of access to arms and technology. Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, along with terrorist organizations if they couldn’t develop them, their weapons in house, or buy them from the Russians, or get them off the black market, they couldn’t get them. And now the Chinese are happy to supply them with weapons, but not just weapons. It’s not just guns, it’s technology and guidance systems along with drones, engines, and components they couldn’t make themselves.

EC: There is a book quote that says it is hard to kill only with air strikes. Can you explain?

BA: There’s going to be people who are going to question the value of special operations, of teams like our fictional task force, Ember, and operators, like John Dempsey, who must go in on the ground to execute missions and deny areas. People question, why should we take the risk? We can just drop bombs. We can launch a missile, we can blow up their warehouse, or target the home where the guy lives. But just look at Iran. It’s clear the regime is still in control. We could bomb them into oblivion, and if they’re hiding underground, and we don’t have any boots on the ground, we don’t eliminate the regime, the regime will rise again. I think we’ll always have to have boots on the ground whether they’re overt or covert.

EC: Can you explain the book quote, “politicians were the easiest adversaries to manipulate because they lacked principles and acted only in their own self-interest.”

BA: Our goal was to be apolitical in these stories and not pick a side, but we live in a policy driven world, in the geopolitical world. I think it’s okay for characters to call out certain frustrations that we the authors are observing in real life. In American politics that’s driven by self-interest and power. The way that our politicians can change their opinion, and their votes on a dime should be concerning to people. You elect somebody based on what you perceive to be their platform and how they convey to you their belief systems and you’re doing that because you’re hoping that that person will represent you, the voter, and the constituency’s interest when it comes to making important decisions. And then they get in office, and you realize, oh, they don’t care. That was all just a bunch of gaslighting. They just said what they thought they needed to say, and what the voters need to hear to get elected. Then they get in there, and they do what they’re told, or what money buys, or whatever. And I think that this is something that we’re all seeing that politicians are maybe emboldened to even not hide it anymore, because there’s no consequences in their behaviors.

EC: Do you have wishful thinking when you put this quote in by President Jarvis? “I don’t make decisions based on the political climate polling. Whatever the pundits may or may not want or criticize me.”

BA: I think it’s very clear, and should be clear to anyone who reads this book, that President Jarvis is the president that we all want. And President Jarvis is the type of president that all presidents should aspire to. It should be an act of service to be President of the United States. It should be a burden. It should be difficult when you should have sleepless nights because you’re having to put the needs of the country ahead of your own. And as president, you should have to serve your entire constituency. that means people who don’t agree with you on everything that you say. In the Tier One series we want to entertain. But also, we want to present characters who represent a higher purpose. They should be models of heroism. People who do the right thing, do the hard thing, and put country, mission, and team before self.

EC: What’s the importance of First Lady Petra?

BA: She had a military, and an intelligence career. She was chief of staff to the DNI, who was Jarvis. She’s the president’s sounding board, confidant, knows national security, and a woman of action. What the US has never had is a First Lady who came from a background of military service or in the intelligence community. Because in her mind, she brings something different to the table. Jarvis needs her. He appreciates her counsel and her input. She is sort of a counterbalance to him, especially with his Parkinson’s now. Petra would say, ‘I’m going to do both. Why do I have to limit myself? You know, why can’t I be the first lady and continue to be Petra.’ So that’s kind of what we did in this book, her refusing to be put into a box and told that you must do this, because that’s what all the other first ladies did. And there’s this expectation, I hope we communicated in the text, in the story, there’s an expectation that she will behave and be quiet, and go off and do the things that other first ladies do.? But she is not going to do that. She’s supposed to function as the shadow firewall between Director Casey of Tier One, and the Office of the President, to provide a certain level of possible deniability and keep Jarvis at arm’s length from the operation of the task force. The exact role that he filled for President Warner. What we started to put into that subplot in this book is this idea that Jarvis is struggling to give up power and knowledge, the task force decision making. She calls him out on it saying, ‘This was your idea. So, you know, you can’t, you can’t have it both ways. You gotta pick.’ And he lets her be in charge and make the decision making.

EC: The next books?

BA: The next Tier One, book 11 we have not thought about yet. And have not written another Shepherd book.

The next Sons of Valor is what we’re writing right now, starting a new trilogy. It will take “Chunk” Redman, who leads a covert team of elite operators, and Whitney Watts, and the Gold Squadron south of the border, where they’re going to be up against Mexican cartels for the next 3 books. It is titled for now, Sons of Valor 5 and will be out sometime next year.

But we do have a book coming out in November titled Dark Horse. It is a standalone novel. It’s a sort of a modern retelling of Three days at the Condor. It’s about a secret program that the CIA runs where they have a think tank, and the members of the think tank come up with predictive scenarios about things that our adversaries could do. And they feed those scenarios into the analysis machinery of the CIA. And they get discovered and targeted by bad guys with everyone getting killed except one person. And that character is Eva Dasher, and Eva is on the run, being hunted, trying to figure out who’s responsible for this.

We are also writing a short story every month, for the entire year. The first short story was released last December, titled First Ranger. And then we did one a month since. Each of these stories was written to be a potential vehicle that Anderson/Wilson could develop for film and television. It gives our readers and listeners a preview of some non-Tier One and Sons of Valor projects that we’re trying to develop for TV and movies and features. They’re completely different. First Ranger is historical. fiction. It’s the story of Thomas Knowlton, who was America’s first army ranger. He’s a real guy, but we fictionalize the story about how he was recruited by General Washington to form America’s first special forces unit, which were known as Knowlton’s Rangers, covert operations in 1776. Another example is Sledgehammer, that has a retired ground branch operator, Matt Holland. This is a story about a guy who’s retired. He’s in his early 70s and realizes that his daughter who he thought died is still alive. He puts together a team from his past, and they go into Syria to rescue her.

THANK YOU!!

***

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: A Dark Path by Linda Castillo

Book Description

For the first time in print comes a collection of five short stories in the Edgar award-winning Kate Burkholder series, PLUS one new, never-before-published story, from New York Times bestselling author Linda Castillo.

When two young boys don’t return home from an innocent afternoon of fishing, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must track them down before the first winter storm of the season bears down on Painters Mill in THE PACT.

In DISAPPEARED, Kate races against the clock to find a two-year-old who has vanished during a violent thunderstorm. Was the little boy swept away in the rising creek waters? Or is his disappearance even more sinister?

In BLOOD MOON, a man is brutally attacked by a large beast in the woods. Throughout the night, reports of similar incidents escalate and Kate must confront the creature terrorizing the town before violence tips over into tragedy.

When a family dog brings home a human bone, Kate finds herself on a desperate search for answers to end the macabre rumors and ghost stories inundating Painters Mill in the Edgar award-winning short story HALLOWED GROUND.

In DARK STORM RISING, Kate must brave a dangerous blizzard to save an elderly Amish woman from a sinister foe. Will Kate reach her in time to save her life?

In A DARK PATH, a brand-new story, an Amish couple disappears while enroute to town. They’d recently been threatened by their granddaughter’s troubled boyfriend—and there’s heavy weather moving in. Kate rushes toward their remote farm, but a dog on the road causes her to crash into a ravine, where she discovers a shattered buggy. Together, she and her new canine friend must find the couple before it’s too late.

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Elise’s Thoughts

A Dark Path by Linda Castillo has her trademark writing style even though the stories are not as dark as her novels. All six stories feature her blend of twists, mystery, kind-heartedness, some humor, and sometimes violence.

There are five short stories written as novellas plus a new short story that has as its title the same name as the book compilation. In “A Dark Path,” a brand-new story, an Amish couple disappears enroute to town. They’d recently been threatened by their granddaughter’s troubled boyfriend with a storm moving in. Kate rushes toward their remote farm, but a dog causes her to crash into a ravine, where she discovers a shattered buggy. Together, she and her new canine friend, Sherlock, must find the couple before it’s too late.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Why have a collection of short stories?

Linda Castillo: Charlie, my editor, asked me to write that first short story many years ago. I had never read a short story. And his advice to me was, just get to the point. And make them a little bit lighter. I would write a short story, and that short story would be released on Kindle, or, another digital device right before the release of a novel. And I started getting a lot of mail from readers who were saying, ‘I don’t use an e- reader. I like to have a book. I need a physical book. Now I can’t read your short stories.’ Because they’ve only been available on Kindle or another device, Charlie, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, said, let’s do a collection of six or seven stories. And that’s what we did. You know, the first collection was titled A Simple Murder, and since it was very well received, we did this one. Because each individual short story is too short to do a novel, so we did a collection.

EC: Is it different to write a short story than the books?

LC: I would say the biggest difference, of course, is the pacing. Things must happen very quickly. And one of the things that I also try to do, and as you well know, the novels get very dark sometimes. There’s a murder involved, and there are some dark elements in some of the Kate Burkholder novels, especially the early novels. And the short stories, even though some of them deal with darker topics, some of them are fun, some of them are cozier than the Kate novels. For me, as a writer, it was really a nice change. It was a different pace. It’s faster, and, you know, you don’t really have time to develop your characters as much. So maybe it’s a little bit more topical, but in a fun way.

EC: I usually don’t like the short stories because the plots are not detailed enough and there is not much character development. But if a reader has read the Kate books, they will enjoy these short stories. Do you agree?

LC: I have a funny story. There was one reader, and I think she gave A Dark Path a pretty good review, but she said, ‘I’ve not read any of the novels, but these are way too innocent for me.’ And I was dying to respond to her. I wanted to tell her, but the novels are not that innocent. No. I guarantee you’re going to get a murder. But some of them I wouldn’t call them lighthearted stories. But just, a little bit more lighthearted than the, than the novels.

EC: What was your favorite short story?

LC: “Blood Moon.” This is the story with the hog. Anyone who has been out camping or, having a tent in the yard or whatever, sleeping out in the barn or something like that can relate. Telling ghost stories and then hearing a noise and you’re like, what was that? And to me, that’s so much fun and that was kind of the whole idea behind that short story. It was just, really a lot of fun, and, you know, kind of one of those adventures. It was a little quirky, but I really did enjoy that story.

EC: Did the stories have a lesson to them?

LC: I think some had a theme of tolerance. “The Pact,” with the two little boys who did the whole blood brother, cutting the wrist in the beginning. You know, there really is a lesson in that. And then the other one is “Hallowed Ground,” where the Mennonite woman wants to give tours of an Amish cemetery. “Disappeared” also has a theme of tolerance where the Amish girl falls in love and gets pregnant by the English boy and her parents try to separate him from the baby and love of his life. I think one of the things that I always try to do, maybe not in the same way with every story, is that tolerance works both ways. In “The Pact” the Amish parents weren’t exactly wild about those two kids being best friends. These are probably the little moral lessons that we learn as children, and I think, you know, it’s not always a bad thing to have that reiterated as an adult.

EC: Did the setting play a role?

LC: My settings always seem to have stormy weather in them too. Me and weather. I hope readers are okay with that. I’m a huge fan of weather. The first book, Sworn Silence, took place during a long, cold Ohio winter. That was such a big part of the book. It made everything more difficult as far as the investigation and the story. If you add the weather element, you have a man against man, and then you also have man against nature. It adds a little element of moodiness or, just a little something extra that I love, I’m a huge weather fan.

EC: What about the new short story, “A Dark Path?”

LC: There’s a Labrador in the story. We had a yellow Labrador too. I found him when I was living in Dallas where we lived. It was very sad, and the day that I had one of my dogs put down, a woman carried in this emaciated animal, just skin and bones. No hair, just bloody, bloody skin. I thought it was a pit bull. And I told Dr. Williams, I will take that animal. I thought, I just put Blue down and I’m here at this moment because I need to save this other animal. We took him, and we had to feed him. He almost died because he was starved to death. We had to feed him every hour, He got his hair back and his head was no longer bigger than his body, he turned into a gorgeous, sweet tempered yellow Labrador. His name was Nutmeg, and we gave him a very, very good life. And we lost him, a few years ago now. That is who I based the Labrador in “A Dark Path.” I didn’t name him after Nutmeg, but named him Sherlock. I gave the lab in the story the look of the yellow lab Nutmeg.

EC: Will you have Sherlock as a rescue dog working for the police department?

LC: Sherlock bonded with Kate. He has the personality of a lab. He will be a supporting character in future stories. And I don’t know if you remember, but Tomesetti brought home a cat. The books deal with heavy topics of murder. I think the cat and Sherlock bring a level of comfort. And so that’s kind of what I try to do with that. Sherlock will be just a home family member. This story combines the abusive boyfriend with Sherlock saving Kate.

EC: What about the next book?

LC: It’s called The Betrayed and will be out in July 2027. I absolutely love this story. The plot has an ordinary Amish woman, with a family, a husband, and suddenly finds herself the target. Kate comes in blind, having no idea why, why would somebody be trying to murder her. She does not lead a reckless lifestyle, she’s not a risk taker, and she’s lives in Painters Mill. It has some dark moments.

THANK YOU!!

***

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Next Wife by Liz Lawler

Book Description

My husband is everything I ever dreamed of. A handsome, successful doctor who swept me off my feet.

Our new life together is perfect.

He’s perfect.

But am I good enough for him? I never seem to get anything right. And I’m starting to feel a little afraid of the man I married.

He’s taken away my bank card and my phone. I don’t know what to think or what to do. I gave up everything for him and now I’m trapped.

Then a stranger comes to our door. She tells me that I can’t trust my husband.

That I should ask him what happened to his first wife.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

The Next Wife by Liz Lawler explores domestic violence, that includes physical, sexual, mental, and emotional.

The plot explains that Tess Myers met her husband, Daniel, while they worked together in an English hospital. He is a doctor, she a nurse. They got married quickly and then moved to Bath England. After they moved into the house, Tess notices the change in Daniel as he becomes increasingly controlling. As he escalates his abuse Tess knows she must leave him. This is confirmed when a woman in her 80s, Martha King, comes to her doorstep and warns Tess about Daniel’s first wife.

Daniel is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is a psychopath, cruel, nasty, evil and makes Tess’s life unbearable. Yet, outsiders see him as a great surgeon, charismatic, caring, and nice. Daniel is a monster to her and the abuse he inflicted is appalling.

Tess is not the same person she was before she married Daniel. She has become timid, scared, and fearful for her life, being reduced to a shell of her former self.

The relationship between them shows how Daniel uses his power over her, whether at their work or in their home. As Tess’s abuse, sexual, physical and mental, gets worse she feels increasingly alone. Readers wonder if Tess will be able to survive and how she will be able to leave Daniel.

People will be captivated by this story and riveted to their seats as they turn the page. This book begins with a bang of a mysterious murder and ends with a bang of a twist that many will not see coming.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Liz Lawler: Well, the germ of the idea came to me from one of my previous jobs of working at a railway station as a customer ambassador for Great Western Railway, which is one of the main network railways in England. Part of my job was dealing with distressed customers and being mindful of passengers on the platform. Over the time I was there, I did come across a few attempted suicides. I remember this one lady, a businesswoman, beautifully dressed, and I got a feeling about her. Unfortunately, my gut was right, and it was telling me that she was far too close to the yellow line. Basically, what I wanted to do with The Next Wife was really, explore coercive control, the kind of abuse that often starts so subtly.

EC: Was this woman the inspiration for the main female lead, the wife Tess?

LL: She was, although not her character, but the situation. Her character was completely different to Tess’s. It was sad. She was a woman probably in her early, early 40s, maybe late 30s.

EC: Did your nursing career help you to write this story?

LL: Very much so because I was able to pull on all the experiences as a nurse. and almost walk Tess’s line, you know, every part of Tess’s journey in the hospital setting. My nursing background is my solid career background, and that influenced me greatly in everything that I liked because of all the experiences of dealing with people. I predominantly worked in the emergency department. The scene in the surgery, with Tess and Daniel, that’s very realistic. What happened to Tess could possibly have happened. I’m very fortunate to have people that I’ve been in contact, and one of the people that I contacted to make sure I got everything correct, is a vascular surgeon. I got him to read the passages that I wanted him to check and he said, he felt he was there. What happened won’t happen to many people, thank goodness. But yes, situations like that can happen.

EC: How would you describe Tess?

LL: Tess is sensitive, wants to belong. She’s a loner and anxious. Before Daniel, her abusive husband, she was chatty and confident, and somewhat bossy. Now she’s guarded, and feels that she’s in a world of darkness and secrets.

EC: What about the husband, Daniel?

LL: He’s a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To Tess, he’s a Dr. Jekyll and to everyone else a Mr. Hyde. He has a facade of an attentive husband, that he’s kind and considerate to her. He is charismatic. To her, he’s power hungry. Tess doesn’t know anything about him. She doesn’t know anything about his past, about his childhood, all the things that make Daniel’s character what it is. She hasn’t got a clue.

EC: What about the setting of Bath London?

LL: She’s in a new place where she should feel safe. Bath city is considered probably one of the safest cities, not only in the UK, but possibly in the world. It’s a beautiful, calm place, and this is one place where Tess should have felt safe. And it doesn’t pan out like that at all.

EC: What about the relationship between Tess and Daniel?

LL: His behavior escalates little by little. Daniel makes her feel off kilter. He is such a betrayal from someone she loves. To her, he’s critical. He humiliates her. He’s abusive, controlling, cold, cruel, brutal, with no compassion. She feels powerless, really, without answers, without anybody telling her anything.

EC: What was the role of Martha in the story?

LL: She has a real life happening within our own head. But it’s in a different time zone. So, everything she things she is experiencing in the now is something that she’s experienced in the past. What she’s seen, she thinks this is the present, what she’s witnessing. She can’t grasp why Daniel has moved back into this house. Now he’s there, and the only thing that he’s changed is his name. He’s hiding in plain sight with this new wife. Martha is convinced that she knows his first wife. And then she’s convinced that this new wife must be warned. Because unless she warns her, this young new bride is in danger. Martha’s, my favorite character who I fell in love with. When I was writing Martha, my mum was always in my head. My mum would have been out there, rain, snow, trying to warn this new young wife of Daniel’s, that she was in a dangerous situation, because she knew everything that had happened. in the past.

EC: Next book?

LL: The story is set in London. The main character is a nurse that works on the surgical ward. A patient is brought in and he’s a prisoner that has a spinal injury. He tells her that he’s not guilty of the crime sent to prison for and who is the real criminal. She is shocked she knows them. The working title is The Hospital Prisoner and it is due to be published on January 27th.

THANK YOU!!

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Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Lead Me Home by Catherine Bybee

Book Description

Luna Canning trusts numbers more than people—and for good reason. As a forensic accountant who specializes in exposing fraud, she knows numbers never deceive, unlike the toxic family she’s spent a lifetime trying to escape. Now living in her grandmother’s Victorian home, Luna has built a carefully ordered life behind walls she thought were unbreakable.

When her car is stolen from an airport parking lot, former FBI agent turned PI Nate Warren steps in to help—and proves more dangerous to her defenses than any thief. Despite Luna’s ironclad rules about mixing business with pleasure, their chemistry ignites, and for the first time, she considers letting someone past her guard. But just as their relationship begins to blossom, Luna’s manipulative mother arrives unannounced, dragging with her a dangerous man and decades of unresolved trauma that threaten everything Luna has built.

Now Luna must confront the ghosts of her past—both metaphorical and possibly literal, as strange occurrences in her historic home suggest she’s not alone. With a violent threat looming and her heart on the line, Luna discovers that sometimes the hardest person to trust is yourself.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Lead Me Home by Catherine Bybee is the first book in her newest series. The plot delves into how someone can find a love founded on mutual respect and kindness while struggling with toxic family situations. Unfortunately, Bybee experienced something very similar and drew from her own family experiences.

The main female lead is Luna Canning, the youngest of three siblings. She inherited the family home from her grandmother and shares it with a good friend, Miley, and a ghost. Luna is a forensic accountant who trusts numbers more than people. She steeks control and certainty in her life because her past was so unstable.

She is very guarded about her life until one day she meets PI Nate Warren after a coffee spill. They realize they both have been hired to investigate a corporate fraud. At first, they have an uneasy alliance, but both realize they enjoy each other’s company and that there is chemistry between them.

This story intertwines heartbreak, suspense, and healing. But it also highlights sensitive topics of child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, and narcissism.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Is Luna based on yourself?

Catherine Bybee: Luna is very personal to me. If you’ve read the author’s note for the book, I make no secret that my childhood left some scars. And if you’ve met me, you know that snark and independence is part of who I am. So, yes. I drew on my own experiences for Luna, as I do for most of my main characters.

EC: Idea for the story?

CB: I wanted to write a romance that could help women reclaim their agency and set emotional boundaries. We can’t stay silent. That lets our abusers win.

EC: Do you write a certain type of heroine?

CB: One of the things you’ll notice about all my books is that my heroines aren’t victims. They may have suffered trauma, they may struggle with self-doubt, they may have been told they’re worthless. But they will figure out how to move beyond that and claim their power, gain their voice. My heroines learn that the biggest obstacle in your life that is keeping you from whatever it is you want is your own fear. There is no reward without risk.

EC: How would you describe Luna?

CB: Luna is at the stage where she’d jumped off the wheel, but because of what she left, she doesn’t believe the right guy can be out there. And she certainly doesn’t trust herself to make the right decisions when it comes to men. Her walls are high because they have kept her safe.

EC: How would you describe Nate?

CB: Nate is literally able to protect her. He makes it clear that he will do whatever he can to earn her trust. He is willing to show up consistently and does not look for rewards, hoping to get past the walls Luna has built.

EC: Was the house a character in the story?

CB: When I was a child, I lived in an old Victorian home in Queen Anne Hill for a very short time. That house was haunted. Like seriously. It was haunted. I have some theories about why, but that’s a whole different conversation. Honestly, an eerie house where strange things happen? That’s definitely a Catherine Bybee setting. And yes, there are several things in the book that happened to me and my brother and sister when we were living there. It’s been a lot of fun writing a book where the house is as much as a key player in the story as the people who live there.

EC: There are ghosts in the story, literally and figuratively?

CB: As a child, I briefly lived in a haunted house, so that’s always been a real thing for me. Luna’s story, and her siblings and friends, fit naturally into that. They’re haunted by their toxic childhood, the traumas that they had to normalize, and now they’re trying to move past it. I think my readers will be able to resonate with that. Early in my career I wrote a time travel series that had a LOT of magic in it, and readers are still asking for the sixth book. I miss writing paranormal. I like the idea that deceased loving family members are around in spirit looking out for us.

EC: What about the next book?

CB: The second book is about Luna’s brother, Ash, and her best friend, Miley. And we’re going to learn more about her sister Harper’s marriage. Things aren’t looking good there. We’ll find out more about that later in the series. With the house as a central character, there are bound to be more members of this found family moving in.

THANK YOU!!

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Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: D is for Daisy by Shelley Shepard Gray

Book Description

Early retirement never sounded so good to Mervin and Ruthie Miller. After a lifetime in Millersburg, where Mervin worked at a furniture and shed factory and Ruthie helped out at a fabric store, they have exciting plans: They’re going to become “Amish Gentlemen Farmers.” That means buying a 30-acre, ramshackle farm, and all that comes with it—no matter what their grown children, friends, and aching muscles think . . .

Aaron Miller is worried about his parents, but there’s little he can do now that he lives in Kentucky and has a baby on the way. Then his childhood best friend, Kyle Burkholder, makes a heaven-sent offer: he’ll move in with Aaron’s parents to teach them about raising cows and chickens, and even give weekly reports to Aaron.

The arrangement is going well—until Kyle stumbles upon Daisy Lapp who’s just been in a bicycle accident. When he visits her in the hospital, he knows there’s something special between them. So does Daisy. But her something special is the fact that Kyle lives on the farm she’d always dreamed of buying one day. She knows it’s wrong, but she’s jealous. She wants nothing to do with Kyle and politely tells him so.

Still, like the Millers, Kyle’s not one to give up easily. Not on himself, not on the farm, and certainly not on Daisy. With dedication and a leap of faith, the lives they envisioned just might come true.

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Elise’s Thoughts

D is for Daisy by Shelley Shepard Gray is once again a book that will put a smile on readers’ faces and make them feel good. There has never been a book she has written that is not engrossing, captivating, and heartwarming.

The story takes place in the rural Amish community of Walden, Ohio. Mervin and Ruthie Miller decide to buy a farm instead of working in a furniture factory and fabric store. The problem is neither know anything about farming. Their son’s childhood best friend, Kyle Hostetler, agrees to help them out and moves in as their hired hand.

While working, he sees a girl crash her electric bike resulting in her broken leg. When he comes to visit her in the hospital, she shows her resentment by being rude. Kyle finds out that that he lives on the farm she’d always dreamed of buying one day. Daisy Lapp feels the farm next to her parent’s farm had been sold out from under her. Now she is reassessing her life, realizing she
has no boyfriend and no job. She was fired because she is unable to work due to the accident.

Ruthie acts as a matchmaker, having Kyle deliver baked goods to Daisy as she recuperates. Slowly they become friends and Daisy realizes she is attracted to him. But he likes her arch enemy, Winter Walker, a selfish girl who enjoys putting Daisy down. Can Kyle realize the true nature of Winter and decide to court Daisy instead?

Like all her other books this story will warm readers’ hearts. It has appealing characters that are realistic, including Velvet the cow. It is a feel-good book.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Is this a new series of sorts or is it a continuation of your ABC series?

Shelley Shepard Gray: When I first thought of doing ABCs, I really did want to do all 26 letters, which would be the dream. I don’t know if that’ll happen. I ended up with a fictional town named Walden in Ohio because I thought, well, I’m just going to have to keep adding things. I came up with the original idea for books, A, B, and C and had that played out. I decided I’m just going to do the different series and trilogies. C ended the first trilogy with the Schrock family. F concludes this trilogy, and I’m contracted for G, with G, H and I, starting a whole a new series. We’ll see, how many letters I end up getting to do. It may just be D through G. Right now, I’ve written 6 of them. I’m contracted for the 7th letter of the alphabet.

EC: Why did you have the setting of the farm?

SSG: A little bit of this series is kind of a tongue in cheek for my husband. He’s a salesman. We’ve lived all over the country. We’ve always lived in the suburbs, but he had a secret dream of living on a farm. This is a little bit of making fun of myself and my husband. Sometimes, maybe achieving your dream is not all a bed of roses, and there is a lot of hard work. Unlike the song, every dream doesn’t always come true the way you hope it will.

EC: Did you ever hear of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Mystery books that has in the title the alphabet?

SSG: I’ve read a bunch of her books, and my original editor over at Kensington, she’s retired now, but when we were first talking about this, she noted, Shelly, you could be our Amish Sue Grafton. I was like, well, I couldn’t imagine a better role model. It is an ode to her.

EC: How would you describe Daisy?

SSG: She’s a dreamer, but her dreams go up in smoke. She’s a tomboy and feels different than other Amish girls, thinks she’s a misfit. She is frustrated because she feels she needs to re-examine her life and to be useful. Daisy is determined, stubborn, and can be tight lipped, strong, hopeful, modest, somewhat innovative, and insecure. She doesn’t feel tough and independent like others think of her.

EC: Is she a little different than the other female leads you write?

SSG: I love to write a heroine that readers are rooting for. At first, she kind of drove me crazy, because I kept thinking she’s the type of character or person that just kind of wants to yell to everyone: if you just give me a chance, you’re going to like me. I’m worth the struggle to be a friend, because I do know what I’m doing, and I am a hard worker. She’s just begging for people to believe in her, and, but she needs to believe in herself too.

EC: What role does Ruthie and Mervin play in this new series?

SSG: When I first pitched it to my editor, I called it the “Amish Green Acres,” referring to the TV show. So many people seem to think that all Amish are great at sewing. All Amish are great at farming. It was like somebody who thinks, oh, well, when you’re born to an Amish family they just automatically know how to do everything. But I wanted to have an older couple who lived in an Amish city but they always had a dream of having this big farm. They finally get their dream by buying this farm, and they have no idea what they’re doing. That was the inspiration for the books D, E, and F. Different people come into the Miller’s lives to try to help them out in different ways. They are very caring and have a lot of common sense, except when they bought this farm. And there’s always an animal to deal with.

EC: How would you describe Kyle?

SSG: He is a good older brother, protective, friendly, impulsive, and kind.

EC: His sister, Sarah, is hard of hearing?

SSG: She was not based on anyone specific. I was a 6th grade teacher for a long time and I had students with a lot of different learning disabilities in my classrooms. I always tried to make accommodations. Sarah has a caption phone. Her teacher doesn’t really seem to understand how to deal with her. She is teased a lot and because of that is not confident. Kyle is like a lot of older brothers, sisters, parents, who wants to make things right, to fix things. To put Sarah in a bubble, every time things go wrong or things happen, but sometimes it’s out of our control.

EC: What about the relationship between Kyle and Daisy?

SSG: I thought he was a good counterpart for Daisy. He was kind of the opposite of her. She’s a little awkward, a little tomboyish, kind of a wallflower. She just doesn’t quite fit in and never really has. While Kyle on the other side is kind of a catch. People want to be his friend and they look out for him. He’s good at a lot of things. And so, I thought he would be a fun counterpart to her. When they first met, Daisy was kind of rude to him and was confused and irritated by him. He helps her after she gets in this bike accident. Part of the reason she is so difficult with Kyle is she’s just embarrassed. But then they turned into friends because they had reading and farming in common. He believed in her, and thought of her as special and unique. They eventually fell in love with each other.

EC: There is this quote you wrote about a river that very much describes their relationship. Do you agree?

SSG: You are referring to “A river can be shallow or calm, but oftentimes perilous, deep, a strong current”. Daisy, in a sense, felt that her life was filled with disappointments, including at some point her relationship with Kyle because of his infatuation with another Amish girl, Winter. But she is the one who ends up with Kyle and realizes their strengths. She feels successful, she feels good about herself, and feels good about her relationship with Kyle. He always encouraged her to keep trying, to keep looking, and to not give up.

EC: How would you describe Winter?

SSG: I usually don’t like love triangles one bit. I don’t like reading about them. I don’t like writing about them, but for this book, I used it to have Kyle make a mistake. So, he totally gets sucked in by Winter, who is not a nice girl. She was never nice to Daisy. When Kyle found out about that, it just made her in his mind not to be a very nice person. She twists people’s words, is a liar, pretends to be nice, but is aggressive and dramatic. Winter is someone who seeks attention, spoiled, and I would call her a mean Amish girl.

EC: Do you think the names Daisy and Winter really represent the characters well?

SSG: Winter is very cold so I thought it was fitting. She has a cold personality, for sure. And Winter’s almost so stormy, and so was she. Regarding Daisy, I thought of the actual flower, delicate, warm, and sunny.

EC: What role did Velvet the cow play?

SSG: I had Ruthie in the barn doing some farm work. I wanted her to have a safe person, originally, to kind of talk things over with, and then the next thing I know, I wrote a scene in there, and there was the cow, the bovine therapist, a therapy animal. I had written another book for Kensington, titled, Happily Ever Amish, and there was a donkey, and I wrote it in because the heroine didn’t have a lot of friends, and she had to have a way for her to talk to somebody that wasn’t all internal dialogue. I had her talk to this donkey, and it went over well. I think that’s how I came up with, oh, I’ll just have a cow this time. I was able to get out the people’s feelings and thoughts without it being just inside their head. It’s a slow book if it’s just pages and pages of backstory and description.

EC: Next books?

SSG: E is for Englisher. The heroine’s name is Ella, and she’s lost everybody in her family. She is English, her parents had died in a car accident. Ruthie and Mervin turned into her reluctant parents in a way. She goes to their house to kind of be a caretaker, but really, they are taking care of her. It comes out in November, and it’s a Christmas book.

Another series I am writing, the first book in the “Amish Widow’s Club Series,” The Unexpected Caller comes out July 7th. And then the second book in the Widows Club, The Forbidden Caller comes out in September. The premise for this series is a secret Amish widow’s club in Holmes County. Widowed women after a year or so are offered an invitation to join this club. It’s like a support group. They meet, they get together once a month or every couple of weeks and do stuff together. It’s for women who don’t want to get married again. But of course, my heroines get married again.

THANK YOU!!

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