I'm pleased to welcome Vicki Delany back to Cozy Up With Kathy today. Vicki starts a new series with DEADLY SUMMER NIGHTS. This book is the first in the Catskill Summer Resort Mystery series and will be released September 14, 2021.
Kathy: You start a new series with DEADLY SUMMER NIGHTS. Why choose the historical (albeit recent history) time period of the 1950s?
VD: Mainly because I thought it would be fun. I didn’t want to go too far back in time, and recent history is so easy to research. You can watch movies actually made in that time period and read books written then. Plus there are so many photographs. It makes research easy and fun!
Kathy: What led you to the Catskills for this new series?
VD: The time frame came first. I was thinking of either the 1920s or the early ‘50s and once I thought of the ‘50s I thought Catskills and the heyday of the big resorts. It’s important in a cozy series to have a regular turnover of victims and suspects, so a hotel is perfect.
Kathy: The Catskill region was, and still is, a lovely resort area. Did you ever spend the summer in a similar place?
VD: I’ve spent a lot of time in the Muskoka region of Ontario. I would imagine they are much the same. Unfortunately my plans to explore the Catskills in the spring of 2020 came to naught, for obvious reasons (I’m Canadian) so I relied on books and the internet for the feel of the place.
Kathy: Was there a specific inspiration for this story?
VD: Nothing at all.
Kathy: When it comes to writing I understand there are 2 general camps-plotters, who diligently plot their stories, and pansters, who fly by the seat of their pants. Are you a plotter, a panster, or do you fall somewhere in between?
VD: I’m a half and half. I’ll start a book completely free-flowing from the first word to get the characters and the beginning of the plot down. Then about ¼ in, maybe around the time of the murder, I stop and plot the rest out.
Kathy: Authors are required to do a lot of their own marketing, especially for a new release. What's your favorite part of marketing your work? What do you dislike about marketing?
VD: My favourite part is unquestionably travelling to bookstores and conferences and meeting readers and my fellow authors. Which is why the past year and a half has been so frustrating. Zoom and the like make up for that a bit, but it’s not the same. I dislike the immediacy of online efforts sometimes. It has to be done, when it has to be done and not when I’m ready to do it.
Kathy: Will you share any other upcoming books?
VD: Happy to. The Seventh Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, A THREE BOOK PROBLEM, will be out in in January. The second Catskills Resort mystery, DEADLY DIRECTORS CUT, in March. Then the ninth Lighthouse Library book by me as Eva Gates, DEATH BY BEACH READ, in the spring followed by the third Tea by the Sea Mystery, MURDER SPILLS THE TEA, in the summer.
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If you haven't already done so, I hope you'll read my review of DEADLY SUMMER NIGHTS that I posted yesterday.
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Deadly Summer Nights (A Catskill Summer Resort Mystery) by Vicki Delany
About Deadly Summer Nights
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series
Publisher: Berkley (September 7, 2021)
Mass Market Paperback : 304 pages
A summer of fun at a Catskills resort comes to an abrupt end when a guest is found murdered, in this new 1950s set mystery series.
It’s the summer of 1953, and Elizabeth Grady is settling into Haggerman’s Catskills Resort. As a vacation getaway, Haggerman’s is ideal, and although Elizabeth’s ostentatious but well-meaning mother is new to running the resort, Elizabeth is eager to help her organize the guests and the entertainment acts. But Elizabeth will have to resort to untested abilities if she wants to save her mother’s business.
When a reclusive guest is found dead in a lake on the grounds, and a copy of The Communist Manifesto is found in his cabin, the local police chief is convinced that the man was a Russian spy. But Elizabeth isn’t so sure, and with the fate of the resort hanging in the balance, she’ll need to dodge red herrings, withstand the Red Scare, and catch a killer red-handed.
About Vicki Delany
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.
Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
Author Links:
Website – www.vickidelany.com
Facebook – www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor;
Twitter: @vickidelany and@evagatesauthor
Instagram: vickidelany
Bookbub: Vicki Delany Books - BookBub
Purchase Links - Amazon - B&N - Kobo - IndieBound
Love the cover and can't wait to read a print copy and review! Good luck on the tour. peggy clayton
ReplyDeleteThe book looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteMarilynDKC[at]aol[dot]com