Those familiar with Game of Thrones will recognize the hallmarks of “grimdark” storytelling. In a grimdark world, morals are flexible. Dark aesthetics and gritty details dominate. Today’s hero could be tomorrow’s villain, if external circumstances change. Given the headlines of the past few years, the moral uncertainty of such stories has a “ripped from the headlines” feel that seems appropriate for our chaotic era.
On their face, grimdarks are everything cozy mysteries are not. Grimdarks are gritty and explicit where cozies are saccharine and romanticized. Cozies are fluffy and escapist. Grimdarks are meaty, heavy, real.
But the more time I spend reading and writing cozies, the more I think of them as tools for confronting, and reckoning with, the same (un)ethical landscapes as grimdarks. Even as I type this, I can hear the distant sizzle of frying synapses as readers try to suss out what a cozy mystery stalwart like bakery owner Hannah Swensen has in common with #teamgrimdark soldier of fortune Jamie Lannister, other than perhaps Nordic good looks and an intense love for their sisters.
My dog died yesterday. There is no silver lining to this. She was my beloved. My sweetest, goodest, irreplaceable baby girl. And now she’s gone.
Peggy was eleven, which isn’t tragically young. Her death, after months of worsening health, was as good as a death can be–peaceful, painless, at home, surrounded by her family.
But she’s dead.
In my day job in the clinical trials office at Virginia Tech’s vet school, I have a lot of end of life conversations. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been telling myself all the things I tell other pet owners. “You’re doing the right thing.” “We are blessed to be able to offer pets a way to end their lives with dignity and compassion.” “Your pet is lucky to have an owner who puts their comfort and happiness above all else.” I say these things to others because I know that words matter. The right words shape our darkest, heaviest pain. They scaffold feelings and fears. Sometimes they give us ways of thinking that help us to snatch a scrap of meaning from the pile of tornado-spun ruins that used to be our hearts.
I was talking to a colleague recently about why I write. I sometimes joke with other writers that I do it for the money, and then we laugh until we cry. There are maybe a dozen people alive who’ve gotten rich by stringing words together, and we are not them. I’d get better ROI from selling my blood plasma. So why do I do it? And why, in particular, do I churn out formulaic comfort reads about, of all things, murder?
As I clung to my little heart scraps in the wake of the emotional calamity of my dog’s death, my reasons came into focus. Part of why I write is because meaning-making is what I feel compelled to do as a human. Everything alive will die, but only humans, and maybe some really emo chimpanzees, actually seem to be aware of this fact. Death fills us with awe and dread. I can’t even begin to fathom it. It is obvious, basic, and mundane, but it’s also too large and bewildering for my puny brain to hold. Death is the ur-Bogeyman, the OG unknowable unknown.
When I write a murder mystery, I can put guardrails on death. I can ensure that the mystery of (the fictional) death is solved and that wrongdoing is dragged into the daylight and wrongdoers are brought to justice. Isn’t that what humans have always used stories for? We take something that makes no sense and build a framework of explanation for it. Word by word, we give it shape. We constrain its scope. We nail it to the wall to be studied. It doesn’t make the bad thing any less bad. A turd in a frame is still a turd. But maybe we can take that turd, put it in a better frame, on a bigger wall where it really catches the light.
I wrote an obituary for my dog the day before she died, knowing that there’d be zero chance I’d have the wherewithal to do it afterward. I wrote it because I knew that telling the story of who she was and what she meant to our family would be important.
Words are not resurrection spells. I wish they were. But in the face of the world’s unfathomable mysteries, in the aching absence of warm, furry cuddles, words give us something to hold.
Peggy Lymm Quigley returned to the light on October 16, 2023, dying peacefully at home, surrounded by her family.
Peggy was born on February 10, 2012 in the quaint English village of Lymm. The family she was born into had named all the other puppies in the litter, but her, they simply called Quiet No Name. She had a sweet and passive disposition, preferring to let her littermates take center stage. When the Quigley Family was given pick of the litter, they knew that this sensitive soul would be the perfect fit for them.
Peggy lived the first year and a half of her life in Edinburgh, Scotland, exploring the city and hanging out in dog-friendly pubs. She especially loved jaunts up Blackford Hill with her father and human sister. From up there, Peggy’s beard could blow majestically in the breeze as she took in views of Edinburgh Castle, Arthur’s Seat, and the Firth of Forth.
Peggy took it in her stride when the family relocated to America in August 2013, making the transatlantic crossing in her usual no-fuss style. She developed a reputation as a sweet and friendly neighborhood fixture, who went on occasional sprees to visit her friends. At Virginia Tech, Peggy trained as a therapy dog, doling out cuddles to stressed students during exam weeks.
When her little brother was born, Peggy again rolled with the changing family circumstances, gently tolerating his clumsy pets and wild games. “Giggy” was one of his first words, and he christened his most beloved stuffed toy “Giggy” in her honor.
Peggy enjoyed walks in the cool weather, pouncing on the snow, chasing waves, and lying quietly in the sun. Most of all, she loved cuddles. Peggy poured her boundless love on everyone who crossed her path, and was loved in return, especially by her extended family. Her mother Mindy was her closest companion. During the Covid lockdowns and every day since, Peggy could be found quietly snoozing under Mindy’s desk chair.
Peggy, we wish you could’ve stayed with us longer. You gave everything and demanded nothing. You loved bountifully and unconditionally, and were loved in return. Your heart was the purest gold.
You’ve written a great first novel. There’s buzz! There’s praise! The book is flying off bookstore shelves. Even the notoriously finicky and hot-blooded reviewers on Goodreads adore it. They’re throwing stars at you like henchmen in a ninja movie. Your publisher loves the book so much in fact, that they want you to write another one.
Pronto.
Welcome to the Land of the Sophomore Slump.
Many writers spend years crafting their first book in a headspace that’s blissfully free from deadlines, contracts, and fan expectations. Then, when their debut novel is (miracle of miracles!) successful, they’re expected to crank out the next book in the series in record time–often less than a year if they’re writing a mystery series. The pressure to live up to expectations has gotten the better of many an author. Even Harper Lee, who penned what is routinely ranked among the greatest American novels of all time, struggled to repeat To Kill a Mockingbird’s success.
My second book, Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust, came out earlier this year, but I had a fortunate turn of fate that kept me from facing the usual pressures that portend the Sophomore Slump. The pandemic delayed my contract and thus pushed back the release of my Deep Dish Mystery Series, which meant that I was able to finish books two and three before the first book even came out. Now that I’m working on book four in the series, though, I’m doing my best to guard against Senioritis!
My own experience leaves me even more impressed when a fellow author manages to pull off a series that improves with each new outing. Forget mere whodunnits, these next-in-the-series reads are truly next-level.
Pop on over to Crime Reads to check out my list of Seven Sophomore Slays that’ll keep you glued to your Kindle…
My favorite kind of reader feedback is when someone tells me they laughed out loud at something I wrote and scared their dog/spit their soda/made fellow passengers on the subway doubt their sanity.
LOLs are my love language.
So I was especially heartened when Holly Adams, the awesomely talented narrator of my Mount Moriah Mysteries and my Deep Dish Mysteries, sent me this outtake of her recording a scene from Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust.
For reference, the dialogue in question involves sous chef Sonya talking to her uncle Avi, an attorney who has come to Geneva Bay to help a friend caught in a sticky situation with the local police. The scene is supposed to read as written below.
“Why did you let her talk?” Sonya said. “You named your dog Miranda, for God’s sake. The only dog in existence named after a constitutional procedure. You always told me not to answer questions if I ever got arrested.”
Avi threw up his hands. “So I’m supposed to tackle your lady friend and stuff a gag in her mouth? I told her to shut her yapper. She didn’t listen to me. Just like your Aunt Ruthie, or little Miranda for that matter. She ate a full tube of your aunt’s red lipstick, did your mom tell you? Now I gotta buy new carpet for the rumpus room.”
Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust
I admit that I, too, sometimes get a giggle out of my characters. The reaction is weirdly detached. I don’t feel like I’m chuckling at my own cleverness or patting myself on the back. I’m laughing at this hilarious group of people who happen to be fictional and live inside my head.
My husband walked by my office one day and caught me in the act–alone, laughing at my computer screen. “You won’t believe what Butterball did!” I said, pointing to the Word document. When I set out to write that scene, I had a vague idea of where it was going, but I had no inkling that Butterball the cat, out of nowhere, would decide to pull off some guffaw-worthy acrobatic antics. That scene is near the end of book three in the series, Public Anchovy Number One, which hits bookstore shelves on December 26th. Hope you’ll find it as LOL-able reading as I did writing.
When I’m thinking up a new character for one of books, I tend to give a lot of thought to how the person talks. In the Deep Dish Mysteries, for example, you know that if someone says, “For Pete’s sake…” that’s Wisconsin farmgirl Melody Schacht. And if a character busts out a witty play on words that makes you laugh and groan at the same time, that’ll be straight from the mouth of sous chef/BFF Sonya. I’m also fascinated by accents, especially unusual ones like the dialect of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, which features heavily in A Death in Duck, from my Mount Moriah Mysteries Series.
As I’m inventing this panoply of distinctive voices, I should probably spare a thought for my longtime collaborator, audiobook narrator Holly Adams. Over the years, Holly has gamely voiced whatever characters I’ve thrown her way. From a gravelly old man on his deathbed to a toddler squeaking out her first complete sentences. A lesser narrator might balk, but not Holly. Bulgarian accent? Sure. Mobster with a pro wrestler physique and a hockey mom inflection? Bring it on. I’m lucky to have her talent at my disposal. Holly has previously shared some of her secrets for giving each character a unique voice. But coming up with accents and voices isn’t the only challenge audiobook narrators face.
In addition to cozy mysteries like mine, Holly records a lot of non-fiction and a LOT of fantasy books. It never occurred to me how challenging it is for a narrator to cope with page after page of made-up names and places. Can you imagine being handed a book from the Game of Thrones series and having to say DaenerysTargaryen five times fast? Harder still, in her non-fiction work, she has to cope with real people’s names in languages that she doesn’t natively speak. In those instances, she has to be even more diligent about getting things right, because there are actual people (besides the author) who’ll know if she gets it wrong.
A few weeks ago, I sat down on Zoom with the extraordinary actor and performer Holly Adams. Holly has narrated almost 200 audiobooks, including both the Mount Moriah Mysteries and the Deep Dish Mysteries. Holly and I covered a lot of ground during our chat, from the challenges of pronouncing made-up place and character names in epic fantasy novels to ways to subliminally make your audience hold their breath.
I “met” Holly in 2014, when I heard her audition tape for the Audible recording of A Murder in Mount Moriah. You can hear an excerpt of her performance here. Her vibrant personality just zinged out of my computer speakers. There was no question of hiring anyone else once I heard that audition. Everything about that audition tape was great, but one thing that absolutely blew me away was Holly’s ability to give each character an instantly-recognizable way of speaking.
I’ll be posting more soon, but here’s a sneak preview of Holly showing how she moves sound around her mouth to create distinct character voices without changing her accent.
First off, if you don’t understand the title of this post, ask a millennial.
I sat down today to do some forward planning for the coming semester and realized with horror and excitement what a crazy hectic travel and event schedule lies ahead of me. Horror because somehow, I still have a day job to do. 😬 And, like, kids and a husband and a dog that I’d like to see occasionally. Excitement because Yay! It feels like I’m a real author doing real author things!
I’d love for you to keep me company IRL or virtually at these events. Or you could stand on the side of the road and hand me an Energy Gel Aqua Caffeine Pouch as I zoom past. 😉
Thank you to Dru’s Book Musings for including Six Feet Deep Dish in the “What Did Women Like in 2022” year-end list! 🤩 The book is in some *very* illustrious company. Here’s a literal sneak peek…
To celebrate the publication of Six Feet Deep Dish, I was invited to write a guest post for the awesome mystery blog, Criminal Element. Read on for more on writing, music, and my uncanny similarity to Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps.
Before a big race, swimmer Michael Phelps listened to a playlist to amp up his energy, increase his focus, and get in the zone. Maybe you can picture him, headphones on, bopping his chin to a beat that was audible only to him. I’m exactly the same. You heard it here, people. Michael Phelps and I are basically the same person. Except instead of setting world records for a sub-two-minute 100m butterfly and going for gold as the most decorated Olympian of all time, I write novels about a fat cat and pizzas.
You ask people about their cupcake preferences, and they probably have thoughts. Chocolate or vanilla, fancy boutique flavors or made straight from the Duncan Hines box, unadorned or topped with edible sugar tchotchkes. These are legitimate opinions, and a variety of taste preferences is generally accepted.
Ask people about their favorite pizza, though, and emotions start running hot. Foldable New York by-the-slice? The pleasingly solid rectangle of a Detroit-style pie? Or a simple, quick-baking Neapolitan? Choose your weapon, because this is a shooting war.
For a chance to win one of three copies of SIX FEET DEEP DISH, read more about this pizza versus pizza battle royale on the Wicked Authors blog…
