Time Flies - Guest Post

I'm happy to let Marty Wingate take over Cozy Up With Kathy today. Marty writes the  Birds of a Feather Mystery series. Farewell, My Cuckoo is the fourth book in the series and was released April 10th.

Time Flies – Or not, depending on what the author wants

By Marty Wingate

Time is fluid – and I don’t mean in any metaphysical, string-theory sort of way. No, I mean in the pages of your favorite mysteries. How else can we account for the Dorian Gray-like life of Richard Jury – Martha Grimes’s famous British policeman who has been solving crime since 1981 and hasn’t aged a day. And neither has his friend’s Aunt Agatha, apparently.

How the years go by is different for us mere mortals from how it is for characters in a series. It’s a choice that the author makes – and as the 24^th Richard Jury book is out this year, Grimes must be doing something right, no matter how slow time moves.

Sue Grafton chose a different route for her protagonist, Kinsey Millhone. A is for Alibi came out in 1982, and Grafton decided to free Kinsey within that decade. So, even as our years went by, Kinsey plodded along only a few months at a time, using an answering service instead of getting messages on her phone, and a street directory to find an address. This had to be hard work, remembering the ’80s – Grafton once said she kept forgetting how big our hair was back then.

For Julia Lanchester and the other recurring characters in my Birds of a Feather mysteries, I’ve taken a middle-of-the-road approach. When I’m in Julia’s world, I know how fast time is going by for her – and it’s always tied into the natural world and the movements of birds. Perhaps for me – for Julia – it isn’t the year so much as the season. When I arrived at the idea for Farewell, My Cuckoo, I knew it would be tied into the old rhyme:

The cuckoo comes in April,

And sings its song in May.

In June it changes tune,

And July it flies away.

Right, so I had the time of year down (the book begins in June) – but which year was it? This is book four in the series, and so I looked back at what had happened last. Book three, Every Trick in the Rook, had taken place in spring. Could Cuckoo follow hot on its heels and start up only a month later?

No, it couldn’t. Too many things had happened in Rook for Julia, Michael and the rest of them to pick up and fly forward so quickly. Things needed to settle down, patterns needed to be established, relationships find a new level. And so, I knew that an entire year had gone by before the opening pages of the new book.

What would they be doing a year later? I knew instantly – and I had my opening scene in a flash.

I hadn’t taken quite so long between book one (The Rhyme of the Magpie) and book two (Empty Nest). That had been a matter of only a few months, just enough time for Julia to grow to love her little Pipit Cottage before she was turfed out so that some major repairs could be undertaken. First she got settled, then she became unsettled – and then settled again, but for a different reason each time. When a person re-settles, it’s never quite back into the same old ways.

Here’s another difference related to how time passes in a series. Because I know these characters are living through events that will change their circumstances, I want to see them grow (and get old – eventually!). The passage of time happens to us all.

It happened to John Rebus in Ian Rankin’s books – the author took his policeman through each year just as we all live through them. And when Rebus arrived at the (then) mandatory retirement age of 60 in 2007, Rankin retired him. You can imagine the uproar from his fans (me included!) We’re fortunate Rebus has come back, and, although he’s one of those consultant-types, he’s still the same old rascal.

Apart from Christmas books, it isn’t often that an author releases a book suited to its place in the calendar. But Farewell, My Cuckoo is about working our way into summer, and so, although the book doesn’t actually start in April, I’m delighted that it’s being released during this most important month. Although, of course, I don’t expect you to take all the way to July to read it!

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Farewell, My Cuckoo By Marty Wingate

Cozy Mystery - 4th in series

Alibi April 10, 2018

Julia Lanchester must defend her love nest from an invasive species: her boyfriend’s sister. And then there’s the little matter of murder . . . “The cuckoo comes in April and sings its song in May. In June it changes tune and July it flies away.” Wedding bells are ringing in the small British village of Smeaton-under-Lyme. Julia Lanchester’s second-in-command at the local tourist center is finally getting married, and the lovebirds are giving Julia and her live-in boyfriend, Michael Sedgwick, ideas about their own future. But before anyone can say “Will you,” Michael’s flighty older sister, Pammy, crashes the party, fresh off a breakup and lugging all her worldly possessions around with her in a tangle of plastic bags. Before long, Julia’s cozy cottage starts feeling more like Pammy’s bachelorette pad. To keep herself from going cuckoo, Julia throws herself into her pet projects at work—until death disrupts her plans. First a body is found on the estate. Then the police discover that Pammy was the last one to see the man alive. And soon Julia gets the feeling that if she ever wants her home—or her boyfriend—back, she’ll have to get to the bottom of this mystery, even if it means breaking a few eggs.  

About the Author

Marty Wingate is a Seattle-based writer and speaker who shares her love of Britain in her two mystery series. The Potting Shed books feature Pru Parke, a middle-aged American gardener transplanted from Texas to England, and Birds of a Feather follows Julia Lanchester, bird lover, who runs a tourist office in a Suffolk village. Marty writes garden articles for magazines including Country Gardens and the American Gardener. She is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Crime Writers Association. She leads garden tours to England, Scotland, and Ireland, spending free moments deep in research for her books. Or in pubs. Marty Wingate’s captivating mysteries can be enjoyed together or separately, in any order:

 The Birds of a Feather series: THE RHYME OF THE MAGPIE | EMPTY NEST | EVERY TRICK IN THE ROOK | FAREWELL, MY CUCKOO  

The Potting Shed series: THE GARDEN PLOT | THE RED BOOK OF PRIMROSE HOUSE | BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE | THE SKELETON GARDEN | THE BLUEBONNET BETRAYAL | BEST-LAID PLANTS

Author Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martywingateauthor  
Twitter: https://twitter.com/martywingate  
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/453259.Marty_Wingate  
Website: www.martywingate.com  
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/marthawingate/  
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marty-Wingate/e/B001JS1AIS  

Purchase Links Amazon B&N Kobo Google Play 

Even Book Characters Need to Eat - Guest Post

Even Book Characters Need to Eat

By Marty Wingate

Writing teachers are quite severe when it comes to food and eating in stories. What is the point of describing a feast if it has nothing to do with the plot? Don’t waste time on how succulent the meat, unless it’s poisoned and your victim is about to keel over, head first, onto the table.

In the Potting Shed mysteries – and especially in The Skeleton Garden, number four – food is integral to my protagonist/gardener, Pru Parke. That’s because she doesn’t cook – she never learned and now, in her mid-fifties, she’s afraid to even try. (This is in sharp contract to the protagonist in my other mystery series, Birds of a Feather. Julia Lanchester is a good cook and loves to eat – she’s one of those irritating people we all know who eats all the time and never seems to gain weight.)

But the kitchen is the heart of the house at Greenoak, and what would a kitchen be without a chicken-and-leek pie in the oven? That isn’t the only reason, there are more: Evelyn – the cook – is a prominent character; gardeners get hungry; it’s England – so there’s always a cup of tea going; and there’s teenage boy in the house, who is the usual bottomless pit.

If she isn’t turning out a steaming pot of boiled potatoes, Evelyn is making her famous (although only runner-up in the village baking contest) ginger teacake or assembling meals for the local pensioners. When Evelyn is present, she’s Queen of the Kitchen, and won’t allow Pru to so much as put the kettle on. Evelyn has a sixth sense when it comes to someone messing about in her domain, and she always seems to know when Pru has violated the rules. Pru does only rarely, and mostly for Saturday breakfast when she occasionally fixes biscuits for Christopher, her husband. It’s the only thing she knows how to make – the Southern kind of biscuits, not the British kind, which are cookies to Americans. But Evelyn can sniff out a dusting of flour better than a bloodhound.

And yet, for reasons explained in The Skeleton Garden, Pru makes the somewhat rash decision to cook a Christmas pudding. For American readers – Christmas pudding is a steamed cake, dense, heavy, moist, spicy, and filled with sultanas (raisins) and often candied fruit. It can be served with a custard sauce or a brandy sauce – I prefer the custard sauce made, of course, with Bird’s Custard, which is a mix and quite tasty.

Once, many years ago, I made a Christmas pudding, and it wasn’t much fun, so I don’t know why Pru got it in her head to take on this project when she could’ve bought one online. Last November, when my husband and I were in England, we visited the lovely Suffolk town of Southwold where we took a tour of the Adnams Brewery which ends in their exceptional gift and kitchen shop. And low and behold, there were Christmas puddings in two sizes, all wrapped up and ready to take home. Perfect – the smaller size came home with us and so, for our Christmas pudding, all I had to do was stir up the Bird’s Custard. Why didn’t Pru think of that?

Empty Interview & Giveaway

I'd like to welcome Marty Wingate to the blog today. Marty writes the Birds of a Feather Mystery series. Empty Nest is the second book in the series.

Kathy: Julia Lanchester is the manager of a tourist center in a small English village. What made you choose this job for her?

MW: Being tourist manager gives Julia access to the entire Fotheringill estate - which includes the village, Seaton-under-Lyme. So many possibilities for trouble!


Kathy: Aside from her boss, Julia doesn’t mix well with the aristocracy. What are your thoughts on class differences?

MW: I enjoy the idea of titles and think that nowadays, the aristocracy are quite down-to-earth, probably because so many of them have had to figure out how to keep hold of their house and lands. I know an estate in Scotland where they’ve turned part of the manor house into a hotel and they have cottages to rent on the estate (you can stay for free if you weed the garden!).


Kathy: There's some birding going on in the Birds of a Feather Mystery series. Do you go birding yourself? Do you have a favorite bird?

MW: I’m the kind of birder Julia is - I enjoy the birds of gardens, woods, and fields, but I’m not looking to create some earth-shattering life list. In England one of my favorites is the pied wagtail - he’s a cutie. In the States, I think the winter wren is my favorite.


Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

MW: I think cozy and traditional mysteries allow an author to tell characters’ stories as well as the mystery - and we also build a setting which is practically a character itself. When I read Christopher Fowler’s books (The Peculiar Crime Unit mysteries), I feel London as an important part of the story.


Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

MW: I’ve written non-fiction (how-to garden books), but cozies are my only fiction - at the moment!


Kathy: Tell us about your series.

MW: Empty Nest is the second in the Birds of a Feather series, which follows Julia Lanchester, tourist center manager. She’s the daughter of a well-known ornithologist (think Indiana Jones), which is where a lot of the birding comes in. She’s also a bit brash and loves chocolate cake. In the Potting Shed series (#4, The Skeleton Garden, will be out in March!), Pru Parke, a middle-aged American gardener, has moved to England. Pro gets involved with a Detective Chief Inspector in London, digs up a murder or two, and moves around the country a bit (#1 - London; #2 - Sussex; #3 - Edinburgh; #4 - Hampshire).


Kathy: Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?

MW: My favorite character seems to be the one I’m writing about at the moment. In Empty Nest, I have a great fondness for Willow, the intern at the tourist center.


Kathy: Did you have a specific inspiration for your series?

MW: I’m a gardener and I love England - it wasn’t difficult to go from there to the Potting Shed mysteries. And because those books have to do with the outdoors, there’s always a mention of a bird or two. So, Birds of a Feather - set in one of my favorite places in England: Suffolk.


Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

MW: I like to tell a good story, and storytellers always need an audience.


Kathy: If you could have a dinner party and invite 4 authors, living or dead, in any genre, who would you invite?

MW: Ray Bradbury - he first inspired me when I was thirteen years old

Louisa May Alcott - what female writer doesn’t want to be Jo?

Alexander McCall Smith - have you heard him speak? He’s like a stand-up comic

Jo Rowling - I love the new PI series


Kathy: What are you currently reading?

MW: Just finished Career of Evil (Rowling) and have started on Ian Rankin’s newest Rebus book.


Kathy: Will you share any of your hobbies or interests with us?

MW: Gardening, travel, writing. That about says it all!


Kathy: Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry.

MW: Olive oil, butter, several kinds of cheese, milk for tea


Kathy: Do you have plans for future books either in your current series or a new series?

MW: I’ve already got Birds of a Feather #3 forming in my head - getting Julia into more trouble - and I’m just finished Potting Shed #5, which will be out in autumn, 2016. More to come for both!


Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?

MW: These characters who seem to appear, fully formed, in my head. I love getting to know them.

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