Knot on Her Life (A Quilting Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
7th in Series
Kensington (July 30, 2019)
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages

Synopsis

While quilter Martha Rose awaits the birth of her granddaughter, a neighborhood girl appears at her door with a mystery that can’t be pinned down . .

Martha’s eager to finish the baby quilt she’s making for her new granddaughter, but she scraps those plans when a young girl rings her doorbell begging for help. Poppy Halaby, the foster child of Martha’s neighbor, is an orphan whose parents were murdered by a killer who was never caught. When Poppy’s doting foster mom falls suspiciously ill, Martha is determined to keep the child safe. But she’ll have to unravel more about Poppy’s parents to stitch a broken family back together again—and prevent another crime cut from the same cloth . . .

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Guest Post

Today we welcome author Mary Marks to StoreyBook Reviews and she covers a tricky subject for authors – religion.  I found her comments interesting and gave me something to think about.

This latest book of mine, Knot on Her Life, touches on a very timely issue–that of religious bigotry. When I first started to write the story, I asked myself some “what if” questions. What if an Orthodox Jew married a practicing Muslim? What if they had a child? How would that child be raised? How would their families react? How would their respective religious communities view the marriage? And finally, what if the couple was killed? What would happen to their child?

Tackling those sober questions is especially tricky because one of the “rules” of writing a cozy mystery is that nothing bad can happen to a child. Yet in Knot on Her Life, the child is in real danger because she was witness to the murder. So how did I reconcile the storyline and still remain within the “rules?”

One of the ways I lighten up a dark topic is through humor which is a regular element in my Quilting Mystery series. I insert comedy in three ways; by portraying 1) absurd situations, 2) funny dialogue and 3) quirky characters. What I don’t do is make light of the crime or its consequences for the people involved.

I especially enjoyed writing Knot on Her Life, because, as in all my books, I could weave other threads into the story: quilting lore and techniques; Jewish observance and practices; friendship, food, romance, and a little bit of history.

So often these days we focus on those issues that divide us. However, in Knot on Her Life, I try to show the commonality shared by Jews and Muslims, even though the fictional characters may not recognize or acknowledge them.

For example, the languages of Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages. Salaam Aleikum is so similar to Shalom Acheichem. They both mean “Peace unto you,” a yearning shared by both Jews and Muslims. Other parallels include dietary laws and customs, modest dress for women, and the strict patriarchal system imposed in both Orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities.

Keeping characters alive from one book to the next allows me as a writer to flesh out their backstories and make them more real and three dimensional for the reader. Two familiar characters from previous Quilting Mystery novels appear in major roles in Knot on Her Life. One is Martha Rose’s neighbor across the street, Sonia Spiegelman, who was a former girlfriend of Mick Jagger back in her groovy days. The other returning character with a more significant role is Hector Fuentes. He’s also known as Malo, an ATF colleague of Martha’s fiancé Yossi Levy a.k.a. Crusher.

Someone once asked me what was my favorite of all the books in the Quilting Mystery series. I replied that the question was like asking me to announce who my favorite child was. I love all my books because each one has allowed me to examine different issues that I care about. But I must confess, Knot on Her Life is perhaps the most timely and relevant of all my stories. For that reason I am particularly proud of this book.

And I hope you will like it, too.

About the Author

Born and raised in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, Mary Marks earned a B.A. in Anthropology from UCLA and an M.A. in Public Administration from the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. In 2004 she enrolled in the UCLA Extension Writers Program. Her first novel, Forget Me Knot, was a finalist in a national writing competition in 2011. She is currently a reviewer of cozy mysteries for The New York Journal of Books.

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