TQ: Welcome to The Qwillery!
Annette: It's an honor to be here.
TQ: Writing quirks! What are some of yours?
Annette: I can't seem to write in time-snatches anymore. I like long lengths of time ahead of me to really get percolating. I plot everywhere, so I keep my iPad in my purse & use the microphone on the keyboard to describe the plot into an email that I send myself. I need silence for creation on a blank page, noise (TV) when I'm editing. Music doesn't work. It makes me want to sing. I keep a lavender sachet beside me, and lots of crystals too.
TQ: Who are some of your favorite writers?
Annette: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Maggie Shayne, Madelyn Alt, Janet Evanovich
TQ: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Annette: I'm a plotter when it comes to Romance; gotta know how they're getting to that happily ever after. I'm a pantser when it comes to my first person cozy mysteries. After all, I'm the sleuth. It wouldn't do if I KNEW who did it until I discovered it. If I'd plotted it, I'd be afraid to give it away.
TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?
Annette: Making people understand that if they interrupt me, even for a minute, it will probably take me a half hour or more to get back to where I was, if the brilliant solution to my plot conundrum for that one fleeting moment is even in my head anymore.
TQ: The most recent Vintage Magic Mystery novel is Cloaked in Malice. What inspired you to write mysteries with paranormal/supernatural elements?
Annette: CLOAKED IN MALICE ... for which I hit the New York Times at #30 on the extended list. :) That was a first for me, so I'm very excited.
I wasn't inspired until I was asked. I got a call from my agent, and she asked if I wanted to write a mystery series for Berkley. They sent me the series bible. I kept all the characters but added more and changed names. I took it from the Virginia and set it in Mystic CT, added a Cary Grant clone ghost and the centenarian with attitude that he once loved. Berkley wanted a carriage house. I gave them a building my husband once rented for his business: a funeral chapel carriage house, once a morgue. And I added a sexy detective that our sleuth once maligned with a grammar school name twist. Because of her, Lytton Werner the brat became Little Wiener, which, of course, sticks to this day. I also gave Berkley a first chapter. They liked it and so did I.
TQ: Do you base your paranormal/supernatural elements on existing lore, make things up or both?
Annette: I rarely use existing lore. I make things up, and I don't read other paranormal books so I won't get any ideas from what's out there. I did a lot of research on witchcraft, the actual religion practiced by people you see everyday. I wanted to get that right, though there are so many versions it's hard to go wrong. I made my characters eclectic witches so they could take what they wanted from each form of the craft.
TQ: What sorts of research have you done for the Vintage Magic Mysteries? What is the oddest bit of information that you’ve come across in your research?
Annette: A bit of cool info is that Mystic was named by the Pequots, but the literal translation made the spelling Mystick. Connecticut's forefathers dropped the K. So when I wanted a fictional community near the real Mystic, so as not to involve the city's governing body in my mysteries, I named it Mystick Falls and put it in a wooded area that exists along the Mystic River not far from historic Mystic.
The weirdest thing I did, with husband and camera in tow, was go to the Mystic Train Depot, give my earlier books to the attendant, and ask to study the depot and the area around it. This was for SKIRTING THE GRAVE where a corpse is found at the depot. I didn't know yet how the person was killed there, so I checked out sniper vantage points, opened all kinds outdoor bins and window seats, sheds, watched the trains go by. My husband and I made a day of that, imagining all the gory details of a Train Depot murder.
TQ: Tell us something about Cloaked in Malice that is not in the book description.
Annette: The farmhouse and barn in the story belonged to my grandparents. I spent all my summers there. My cousins didn't know either, but one called. "A summer kitchen from where you can reach the outside well? Is that...?
TQ: In the Vintage Magic Mysteries who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?
Annette: I think Dolly is the easiest character to write. I worked as an administrator for a prep school for 20 yrs and one of the Brother founders was still alive when I started there,100 when I met him, and 107 when he passed. Dolly has many of his colorful attributes. I think Nick is the most difficult to write, probably because he has such a serious side; I mean he's FBI, so he would have to be. Werner, for some reason, comes easier.
TQ: Which character in the Vintage Magic Mysteries has surprised you the most?
Annette: Werner has surprised me the most. He was a blip of a connection to Maddie, our sleuth's past, just to complicate matters, and his personality has expanded the most. I was just as surprised as anybody else to see how much he loves her.
TQ: What's next?
Annette: Look for the 6th Vintage Magic Mystery in February 2013: TULLE DEATH DO US PART.
I'll be writing another Contemporary Bewitching Romantic Comedy Series soon with characters from the accidental witch and triplet witch stories. My readers have been asking about Reggie and Pepper and Shane forever.
Take a look at my Rogues Club and Knave of Hearts Series. The first in each series: UNDENIABLE ROGUE and SEA SCOUNDREL are both free downloads. They're Regency Historical Romances with lots of humor and sexual tension.
Readers can contact me at:
http://twitter.com/annetteblair
To find out when a new book is available, sign up for Annette’s mailing list at:
TQ: Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.
Annette: This has been fun. Thank you for asking me.
Vintage Magic Mysteries
Cloaked in Malice
A Vintage Magic Mystery 5Berkley (Prime Crime), July 3, 2012
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 256 pages
There’s nothing Maddie loves more than fabulous vintage clothes, but the visions she gets while touching them are starting to wear her down. Even so, when a beautifully dressed girl comes to Vintage Magic in search of her past, Maddie isn’t about to turn her away, especially since she bears a striking resemblance to her good friend Dolly Sweet.
When Maddie touches Paisley Skye’s exquisitely crafted child’s cloak, the vision she receives is of the ugliest sort: a decades-old case of kidnapping and murder. To give herself more time to investigate, Maddie enlists the help of her FBI Agent boyfriend Nick and takes Paisley into her home. But when Dolly suddenly skips town, Maddie realizes that uncovering the folds of Paisley’s past will reveal more than one vintage crime...
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Skirting the Grave
A Vintage Magic Mystery 4Berkley (Prime Crime), July 5, 2011
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 288 pages
Maddie Cutler thought she was taking on a new design intern for her boutique. But instead she finds her dead at the train station under suspicious circumstances. Now, Maddie is determined to iron out the wrinkles of this mystery.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Death by Diamonds
A Vintage Magic Mystery 3Berkley (Prime Crime), July 6, 2010
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 288 pages
Madeira Cutler loves her Vintage Magic boutique, but the ‘visions’ she gets from the garments can be hard to handle, especially when she knows the owner. At first she’s thrilled to receive a package containing the beautifully bejeweled dress she designed for actress and old friend Dominique Delong while in fashion school. But the dress comes with a disturbing message from Dominique, who it seems took her last bow under very mysterious circumstances.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Larceny and Lace
A Vintage Magic Mystery 2Berkley (Prime Crime), August 4, 2009
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 304 pages
Maddie Cutler has it all in the bag: fashion, magic—and murder!
If that dress could talk...
With all the stress of opening her new vintage clothing store (in a renovated old morgue) Madeira Cutler feels like a bag of bones—until she discovers the real deal, unearthed by an intruder, in an old body drawer. And the bones are as vintage as Maddie's stock, or so says Maddie's resident ghostly hunk, Dante Underhill.
Could the break-in have something to do with the local playhouse and its curator going down in flames? Somehow Maddie will have to juggle dressing the store, party planning, and crime solving. Add to the brew the local witch's costume ball, being held at her store, and Madeira is wishing she knew how to ride a broom right out of there...
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
A Veiled Deception
A Vintage Magic Mystery 1Berkley (Prime Crime), January 6, 2009
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 256 pages
Madeira 'Maddie' Cutler, vintage clothing lover, and New York fashion designer, comes home to help plan her sister's wedding. At the engagement party, the "Jezebel" trying to steal Sherry's fiance is found strangled with a bridal veil, making Sherry the prime suspect. Besides seeking the real killer, Maddie alters Sherry's vintage wedding gown, worn by generations of the groom's family, and something odd happens. The gown gives Maddie visions, clues to the past . . . and the murder?
Maddie learns she's psychometric, a psychic gift she inherited from her late mother, who was a broom-carrying witch, it turns out. What other gifts did she inherit? When not sleuthing, Maddie acquires the old Underhill Funeral Chapel Carriage House, including Dante Underhill, a chatty debonair ghost in tux and top hat, who can't seem to leave the building. Watch out Mystic, Connecticut! Here comes Vintage Magic, a shop for vintage couture and designer originals, featuring a psychic sleuth, a hunk of a ghost, and a splash of magic thrown in for "charm."
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
About Annette
Contact her at:
http://twitter.com/annetteblair
To find out when a new book is available, sign up for Annette’s mailing list at:
The Giveaways
There is a giveaway of Cloaked in Malice (A Vintage Magic Mystery 5) with this interview. You can also enter to win the Grand Prize by using the Rafflecopter. The comment you leave to enter to win Cloaked in Malice may also be used to enter to win the Grand Prize. Both Giveaways are open internationally.
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