I'm pleased to welcome Donna Clancy to Cozy Up With Kathy today. Donna writes the Braddock Mystery series. KILNED AT THE CERAMIC SHOP is the first book in the series and was released last week.
Kathy: Bestselling mystery author Tammy Wright returns to her hometown in KILNED AT THE CERAMIC SHOP. Why made your protagonist an author?
DC: I made Tammy a mystery author because I believed it would give her a leg up in solving mysteries. Besides, I enjoy being an author and creating stories so what better occupation to give my main character.
Kathy: Tammy has returned to help her aunt run her ceramic shop during the busy tourist season. I teach ceramics to my patients at work. We don't have a wheel, but rather pour slip into molds. Do you make ceramics?
DC: Back pre-children, I ran the ceramic shop for The Otis Air Force Base. And then, later, when the base closed, I worked at the Brewster Ceramic Shop giving classes and coordinating shows for the students to sell their pieces. I haven’t done any ceramics in many years but still have many of the pieces I did back then and they decorate my house on the holidays.
DC: When I was eight years old, I read my first Nancy Drew book. I was hooked on the mystery without the gore. I also lived up in the sticks of Maine for nine years and liked the small-town vibe and the people who lived there. You can find so many different characters who have been there their whole lives. I also am an animal fanatic and like the fact that many cozies include cats and dogs.
Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?
DC: I do. When time permits, I self-release a new Christmas Romance each year. I also love to read and write thriller/suspense and also have written in the YA genre, but most of my books are in the cozy genre.
DC: I have signed a seven-book deal with Level Best Books for The Braddock Mysteries series. Tammy, an author returns to her hometown in Braddock, Maine and finds one mystery after another to solve.
Summer Prescott Books Publishing publishes two other cozy series of mine, Trash to Treasure Mysteries and a new one, Paint and Sip Mysteries. Trash to Treasure sees Sage Fletcher, flipping furniture and other items in between finding herself involved in mysteries. Paint and Sip centers on two retired art teachers, Jannelle and Anita, who open a business that offers wine tasting while creating art pieces.
I also have two self-published cozy series. The Shipwreck Café Mysteries feature a handsome male protagonist, Jay Hallett, who has purchased a lighthouse and surrounding buildings to turn into a café. Throw in a lighthouse keeper’s ghost and it’s great mysteries on Anchor Point. The Jelly Shop Mysteries, feature Tabby, who inherits her gran’s jelly recipes and turns it into a business. She has a nose for trouble and her mother insists she is a magnet for dead bodies.
DC: I do. Gladys Twittle will always be my favorite out of all the characters I have written. In the Jelly Shop Mysteries, she is the town busybody, the town gossip, and if trouble is around you can be sure Gladys is right in the middle of it. She dyes her hair to match the big, bright flowered dresses she will be wearing. She can’t stand Tabby and cause most of Tabby’s problems around town. She is the character you love to hate.
DC: I don’t have one specific inspiration. I write what catches my attention at the time although I am partial to Maine and Cape Cod as settings.
DC: I told my mom way back when I was eight years old that someday I would be an author like Carolyn Keene. In 2011, I started to self-publish my works but always had that yearning to be traditionally published. I signed with a terrific agent, Cindy Bullard, at Birch Literary, and now my first traditionally published book, Kilned at the Ceramic Shop, has been released. I’m now sixty-five years old. Lesson here: don’t ever give up on your dreams.
DC: I think the first author would be Stephen King. I used to love his books but they have become gory and dark. I would like to ask him why he changed his style of writing. The second would be Misty Simon, She seems like such a fun person to be around and I’m sure she would liven up the dinner party. Next would be Edgar Allen Poe. I would like to pick his brain and see where the stories came from that he wrote. And finally, it would be a toss-up between Ami Brunni or Adam Berry. They both deal with spirits and the afterlife which fascinates me.
DC: I am currently reading LOST LIKE ME by Ivanka Fear. It is a new release, the second in her series, and it is excellent.
DC: I have many hobbies. My favorite pastime is painting but I also love various other crafts. I dabble in cooking and trying new recipes, but my daughter, Meghan, is a much better cook than I am. For about twenty years I was a wedding planner but gave that up as the brides and families became more demanding. I also love floral arranging as I worked at a florist for eight years and did a lot of their designing and many of my bride’s wedding flowers.
DC: I always have PopTarts, Campbells tomato soup, saltine crackers, and root beer. I have to have my daily bottle of A&W root beer while I am writing.
DC: KILNED is the first of seven cozies signed by Level Best. I have twenty-two books laid out for all my different series and two new series that haven’t been started yet.
DC: I love being able to work at home. My health isn’t what it used to be and I enjoy staying at home with my rescue Papillon, Zumiez, who is fourteen years old and no spring chicken either. It also make me extremely happy when people enjoy my stories. Many hours go into my writing and when it makes people smile and takes them away for the short time they are reading them, I can’t ask for more than that.
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Review
The First Braddock Mystery
Bestselling author Tammy Wright has returned to Braddock, Maine to help
her Aunt Clara. It's tourist season and lifting the heavy slip and molds
as well as keeping up with customers is getting to be a bit much. Her
imagined boring summer at the ceramic shop becomes anything but when Tammy learns her aunt
is being pressured to sell her store. After encouraging her aunt not to
give in Tammy makes a grim discovery. Their delivery person has been
killed and left in Idle Chat and when Clara still refuses to sell she
disappears. Now Tammy will move heaven and earth to find her aunt and
restore Braddock to the peaceful neighborly town it once was.
I really enjoyed getting to know the people in Braddock. Tammy is smart, self reliant, and doesn't back down from a fight. She's resilient and no matter the problems, and there are some major ones in the first Braddock Mystery, she comes at them head on. Aunt Clara, though missing for a good chunk of the book, is a strong presence, one who doesn't suffer fools gladly. Zeke is a perfect romantic interest, as everyone can see, and a great friend. There are many great people...as well as some horrible bullies and nasties.
The mystery was well plotted with intricate sub mysteries and shocking events set so that interest never flagged. I appreciated how people worked together, not only to solve the crimes, but to help one another as well. Plenty of funny moments are interspersed with serious scenes. I still chuckle at Mabel and her shotgun.
A compelling mystery, a touch of romance, and the love of family and friends make KILNED AT THE CERAMIC SHOP a wonderful start to a new series. I look forward to spending more time in Braddock!
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Kilned at the Ceramic Shop: A Braddock Mystery by Donna Clancy
About Kilned at The Ceramic Shop
Kilned at the Ceramic Shop: A Braddock Mystery
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series
Setting - Maine
Publisher: Level Best Books (March 12, 2024)
Print length: 234 pages
Tammy Wright, a bestselling mystery author returns to her hometown to give her Aunt Clara a hand with running her ceramic shop during tourist season. She discovers that two vindictive realtors have been bullying her aunt and others into selling their properties to make room for new housing developments. Those who don’t comply pay the consequences.
Tammy stumbles upon a body, and when her aunt refuses to give in to either realtor she disappears without a trace. With the help of an old schoolmate turned policeman, the writer must step out from behind her computer screen and her fictional mysteries to confront real life crime. If she doesn’t, she may never see her aunt again.
About Donna Clancy
Donna Clancy lives on Cape Cod. She has three grown children and one rescue Papillion named Zumiez. She has a seven-book deal with Level Best Books for The Braddock Mysteries, writes The Trash to Treasure and Paint and Sip cozy series’ for Summer Prescott Books Publishing as well as self-publishing The Shipwreck Cafe and Jelly Shop Mysteries. She loves to write in various genres including suspense, thriller, romance, and YA.
Author Links:
Website http://www.donnaclancybooks.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/dwaloclancy/
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/profile/donna-walo-clancy
Purchase Link - Amazon
Sounds like a good story.
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