Peaches and Schemes: A Georgia B&B Mystery
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (May 11, 2021)
Hardcover: 304 pages

Synopsis

In Anna Gerard’s third delightful Georgia B&B mystery, Nina Fleet learns that despite the satin, lace, and buttercream trappings, weddings often prove to be anything but sweet…

 

Nina Fleet might be new to the innkeeping business, but she’s savvy enough to know that Cymbeline’s tourists aren’t enough to keep her fledgling bed and breakfast going. And so, Nina decides to tap into the destination wedding market by taking a booth at the Veils and Vanities Bridal Expo. The twice-yearly event is sponsored by the town’s two wedding pros: Virgie Hamilton, the sixtysomething owner of Virgie’s Formals, and Roxanna Quarry, a Gen X event planner and Nina’s new friend. But everything goes wrong during the expo’s fashion show, when Roxanna comes tumbling out of an oversized prop wedding cake, strangled to death by her own scarf.

Virgie is arrested for the crime, thanks to Nina’s statement to the police about having overheard the woman accusing her partner of embezzlement. Meanwhile, the situation grows tense with her sometimes nemesis and current tenant, the dashing out-of-work actor Harry Westcott. Harry is concentrating on plugging his most recent side hustle …but he’s not too busy to break the news to Nina that her ex-husband is engaged to be married again.

Certain that Virgie’s only offense is a bad temper, Nina decides to do her own investigating. First, however, she and Harry retrieve Roxanna’s now ownerless dog, planning to foster him until a new home can be found. But local gossip soon convinces Nina that others beside Virgie might have had reason to murder Roxanna. As Nina gets close to the truth, she’s putting her own life at danger. And when Virgie vanishes after being bailed out of jail by an unknown benefactor, Nina fears that if she can’t find the dress shop owner in time, tying the knot will take on a whole new meaning for them both.

Amazon – B&N

Guest Post

Back in the day, writers new to the mystery genre were told by the powers that be (a/k/a agents and editors) that they should kill off their book’s murder victim upfront, right there in chapter one.

Preferably on the first page of chapter one.

And even better if it happens in the first paragraph.

And thus, a generation of writers learned to do all sorts of plotting gymnastics to hit this goal, and many are still writing like this to this day. Sometimes, they pen the murder scene through the (unknown or not) killer’s eyes. Other times, they make the murder scene a prologue, with chapter one and the subsequent chapters a rewind back to what happened before that killing took place. Another way is for the victim to actually witnesses his or her own death. This often ends with the soon-to-be-corpse gasping out, you!, in horrified recognition before expiring. (This also necessitates another character jumping in and picking up the narrative in chapter two.)

In the hands of a skilled writer, all these techniques can work. But there’s one problem when the murder happens right off the bat. With the dead body sprawled right there on page one, the reader has had no chance to know the victim. And, thus, said reader has no emotional stake in the victim’s passing…or in the mystery surrounding their killing being solved.

To be honest, this lack of sentiment isn’t a big deal in a thriller or suspense novel. Victims in these books tend to be stock characters, and the bodies often pile up like cordwood. All these readers really care about is that the protagonist makes it to the end of the story with a minimum of bodily harm. But if you write cozy mysteries like me, you know that characters are as big a story driver as plot…sometimes even more so.

Bottom line, cozy mystery readers want to know and love (or hate!) the characters first before the author dispatches one of them. That ideally involves the future victim living his or her best life for a couple of chapters and interacting with the rest of the book’s characters. That way, when he or she meets the pointy end of a knitting needle or is found drowned in a keg of wine, it means something. The reader is now invested in what comes next, cares as much as the book’s sleuth about bringing the killer to justice.

Though, on the other hand, the reader doesn’t want to wait too long to get to the good part!

I must admit I’m guilty of letting my murder victims wander their books for a good chunk of pages before they meet their final fate. And while I’ve never been chastised by an editor or reader for that, I do have my concerns. Which is why, in my Georgia B&B mysteries, I’ve found a new trick of putting the body on page one without actually doing so.

These books are told in first person from the point of view of my innkeeper/amateur sleuth, Nina Fleet. And with this style of POV, Nina is basically telling us the story…relating what happened as it happens even though she’s actually looking back and already knows how the story goes, if that makes sense. As each book opens, I have Nina ruminate for the benefit of the reader about the fact that, yes, a murder will happen in these pages, though she is coy about revealing who it is. From there we launch into the story. Somewhere between pages fifty and seventy, we finally learn who that foretold dead body is. And then Nina and her cohorts band together for the rest of the book to find the killer.

I humbly think this technique works quite well in solving that “need a corpse on page one” dilemma. Does this workaround work for you? Are you okay with waiting a while before some character stumbles over the murder victim, or do you prefer to see your cozies serve up the dead body right from the start? Leave me a comment and let’s discuss.

About the Author

DIANE A.S. STUCKART is the New York Times bestselling author of the Black Cat Bookshop Mystery series (writing as Ali Brandon). She’s also the author of the award-winning Leonardo da Vinci historical mysteries, as well as several historical romances and numerous mystery, fantasy, and romance short stories. The first book in her Tarot Cats Mystery series is FOOL’S MOON, available in trade, large print, and Kindle versions. Her Georgia B&B Mystery series from Crooked Lane Books launched July 2019 with PEACH CLOBBERED, written as Anna Gerard.

Diane is a member of Mystery Writers of America and has served as the 2018 and 2019 Chapter President of the MWA Florida chapter. In addition to her mystery writing affiliations, she’s a member of the Cat Writers’ Association and belongs to the Palm Beach County Beekeepers Association. She’s a native Texan with a degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma, but has been living in the West Palm Beach FL area since 2006. She shares her “almost in the Everglades” home with her husband, dogs, cats, and a few beehives.

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