Guest Post & #Giveaway – A Whale of a Murder by Valerie Taylor
A Whale of a Murder: A Venus Bixby Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Chatham Crossing — a fictional whaling town situated between Providence and Cape Cod
Publisher : Aspetuck Publishing (April 23, 2024)
Paperback : 358 pages
First in the Venus Bixby Mystery series from award-winning author Valerie Taylor.
Sea breezes and fireworks fill the air in cozy Chatham Crossing, the peaceful and historic whaling town situated between Providence and Cape Cod.
Venus Bixby, owner of the forever popular music store Oldies & Goodies, is counting on the festivities over the Fourth of July weekend to propel her to a position on the prestigious Town Committee.
After years of living in the shadow of her late husband, Venus will finally be the center of attention this holiday weekend: starting with her fiftieth birthday celebration and ending as the parade’s Grand Marshal.
Faster than a cookie crumbles, her dream collapses on the morning of her party when she trips over orange platform shoes in the gardens of the Sofia Silva Whaling Museum and breaks her thumb. When it’s discovered the shoes are attached to the body of the manager of the museum’s gift shop, Venus becomes both a suspect and a sleuth in Chatham Crossing’s first murder in decades.
Given this unexpected turn of events, will Venus ever sing and dance at her birthday party, or will her fractured thumb end up in handcuffs?
Includes cookie recipes and playlist!
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Guest Post
Did you know the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen once said, “Where words fail, music speaks”? Now, while I can’t be certain, I imagine he was lauding music as an art form. But if I take him literally, not figuratively, I could be insulted by his remark. After all, my four published novels each include song playlists. While I was writing, my words didn’t fail me. Rather the songs are intended to add value to my stories, enhancing the reader’s journey in the process.
My hope is that readers will recognize the songs and perhaps smile or laugh. Some of the songs in the lists are either mentioned specifically by name or are recognizable by a short lyric. Occasionally, neither is the case: a song in the playlist is sometimes meant to infuse a mood or tone for a particular scene.
I’d gotten the playlist idea back in 2019 when I was writing WHAT’S NOT SAID, my debut romantic comedy, where I’d sprinkled references to songs throughout. I’d noticed another author had posted a playlist for her book on her website. Certainly, I could easily do that. But what if I actually placed it at the end of the book? In that way, readers would be able to tune in as they turn the pages.
So that’s what I did. The WHAT’S NOT SAID playlist consists of 17 songs. Since readers’ reactions were strongly positive, I decided to make including a playlist in my books a trend, part of my brand. What that meant, however, was that I needed to weave music and songs into each novel going forward.
That was not that difficult for me since I’ve loved music for as long as can remember. I can pinpoint when my interest in music emerged. The year was 1959; the year my father died. The year “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin hit the radio waves and Elvis Presley was shaking, rattling, and rolling.
As it turns out, WHAT’S NOT TRUE has 12 songs in its playlist and WHAT’S NOT LOST has 17.
And then I kind of went crazy. The floodgates of my mind burst.
When I began noodling the idea of writing a cozy mystery, I decided to take Venus Bixby, who is a secondary character in WHAT’S NOT LOST and spin her off as the amateur sleuth. She has such a flamboyant personality I made her the owner of a retro music store and cookie bakery, aptly named Oldies & Goodies. Since her husband owns a dance studio, the residents of Chatham Crossing, the historic whaling village in which they live, dub Venus the Song and Dance Lady.
Naturally, Venus wears this moniker proudly. Almost too proudly, if you ask some of her neighbors. Everyday around town Venus is heard asking each passerby, “What is your favorite song today?”
Given all that as backstory, a robust playlist was inevitable. Would it surprise you that the playlist in A WHALE OF A MURDER: A VENUS BIXBY MYSTERY contains 32 songs! Most are oldies but goodies. Yet several are movie or Broadway hits. As might be expected, each holds a special role in this fun and frothy cozy mystery debut.
I’m gratified by early reviews of A WHALE OF A MURDER that consistently acknowledge the playlist, as well as the dozen or so recipes in the back of the book, as a big plus.
As I continue plotting Chatham Crossing’s next murder and Venus Bixby’s next investigation, I’m all ears listening for the perfect song or lyric to weave into the story.
I call it research.
So that you can tune in as you turn the pages, here’s the link to the A Whale of a Murder Playlist.
About the Author
Valerie Taylor tried to retire in 2016. But life had other ideas. After enjoying some of the best years of her life in Boston and Seattle, she moved back home to Connecticut and embarked on a second career as an author. Her first romantic comedy trilogy What’s Not Said, What’s Not True, and What’s Not Lost won multiple awards. Encouraged by her readers, she created a new cozy mystery series, spinning one of the secondary characters in What’s Not LOST into the role of amateur sleuth in A Whale of a Murder: A Venus Bixby Mystery. When she’s not writing or reading, Valerie enjoys practicing tai chi and being an expert sports spectator.
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