Saturday 27 March 2021

Author Allan Lewis of South Wales, UK.

 





Like many of my author friends, Allan and I ran into each other on different social media and followed each other with an interest of what we are writing about and our novels.


I decided to follow Allan because we not only share the same given name but his books are enticing and I’m anxious to add them to my TBR list.


He has graciously accepted my invitation to be a guest this week for a 4Q interview and rather than share an excerpt, he would like to give them a free copy of “Get Out Of My Dream” if they subscribe to my newsletter? 

FREE Copy of ‘Get Out Of My Dreams’ – Allan J Lewis

 




 

Allan J Lewis was born in South Wales UK, a son of a coal miner, in August 1939, just before the outbreak of World War 2.

He started work underground for the National Coal Board on his fifteenth birthday. He married in March 1961 and has two children, a daughter and a son, and two grandchildren.

Deep down he always wanted to be a writer but he felt thwarted by his lack of education. He would write a few pages and give up, frustrated by spelling and grammar. (This was before the days of personal computers.) As a young man, he didn’t have much time to read or write. He was working two shifts on the coalface, and when his daughter came along he got himself another job as a part-time fireman.

By the time he was in his late forties and his two children had married, he found time to start reading again. He enjoyed the adventure novels of Wilbur Smith and the works of James Patterson and Lee Child. He loves a good crime thriller.

The pleasure he found in reading rekindled his desire to write.

He would create stories in his head but did not put pen to paper in earnest until he retired. Allan has written five books a Mystery/Thriller and five Erotic Adventures.

 

Get out of My Dreams is Allan’s first Psychological Thriller novel and the first in the series of Joe the Magic Man. Where the two main characters are, Joe, who the FBI believes to be a rogue hypnotist, and Joe’s friend Alice Timberlake a freelance journalist, and the two of them with Joe’s gift of getting into your mind, ends up helping the FBI solve difficult crimes.

 

Allan’s Erotic novels are a spin-off from ‘Get Out Of My Dreams” where Joe’s addiction to getting into someone’s dreams leads him to find his dream lover Jean Thornton, who looks forward to Joe’s visits as he takes her on sexual adventures in her dreams, where she could end up as a barmaid back in France in the time of the Three Musketeers, or back in King Henry VIII time and have two young soldiers wanting to marry her. And a few present day time dreams, but whatever dream Joe visited, Jean knew it would be an erotic adventure that she would love. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4Q: First off, Allan, thanks for being our guest this week. Please tell our readers about Joe the Magic Man.

 


AL: I love the “Alex Cross” series by James Patterson and thought I would love to have a series with a character that could help police solve crimes, something like the Castle series someone who is not a cop but helps police. So I came up with the idea of having someone that could read minds, the more I thought about it the more excited I became with all the possibilities a person like that would have, and when I came up with the name of “Joe the Magic Man” the plot thickened and the more Joe used his gift. I realized if someone had those powers the USA Government would see him as a threat to National Security and would want him eliminated, so I have got Joe trying to keep his identity a secret. But there are those in the FBI that see Joe’s gift of reading minds as a weapon to fight crime, and Joe works with the FBI to find out information for them by reading criminal's minds. I came up with the title of Joe because he also has an addiction of getting into young women’s dreams.

 

 

4Q: You have an intriguing selection of thriller novels. Please tell us about your newest work and what readers can expect when they pick up a copy.

 


AL: It is a political thriller titled “Code Red The President Will Die” it’s about the people of Syria and their fight against their government and ISIS, and how one man went to extreme measures to get America’s help to give them the power back to the people of Syria. When that extremist starts poisoning American politicians, the FBI asks Joe to find out who he is and track him down. The story has many twists and turns with an unexpected ending.

 

 

 

4Q: Can you share a childhood memory and/or anecdote?

 


AL: There are so many, one of my proudest memories was when I was fourteen and I was made school captain of the athletic team, I was a sprinter, hurdler, and high Jumper, and that year I won the Rhondda Valley Championship. I broke the record in the hurdles and the high jump and I was the lead man in the 4x100 meters relay that won the school the Valley Championship, and to be called out in front of the school assembly to show the two cups I had won, was one of my fond memories.

 

 

 

4Q: You are also a noted author of erotica. What draws you to this genre?

 

AL: Although my first book “Get out of My Dreams” is a crime thriller, there are a few chapters in it where Joe gets into Alice Timberlake’s dream and takes her on an erotic adventure. That was before he put his gift into good use, by helping the FBI to fight crime; Joe could get into a criminal’s dream and find out if he killed Jane Doe, where he hides the body, and get into a terrorist dream to see where they plan to attack next.




I had a few reviewers that said there was no need for the sex scenes, and there were others that said they enjoyed Joe’s and Alice’s erotic adventure, and that I should write more about Joe’s erotic dreams. So, I thought why not and I wrote my first erotic novel “Tale of the Inn Keeper’s Niece”  The first six reviews I had were all five stars, which encouraged me no end, and now I have four more out in the series of Joe’s Forbidden Dreams.

 

 

 

4Q: Can you tell us a bit about your writing habits? Your favorite spot to write? Has anything changed due to the pandemic?

 


AL: We have a spare bedroom that I use as my writers' den and the wife brings me a mug of tea every hour to keep my old grey-cells happy. I can’t wait for this pandemic to be over and for everything to get back to normal.

 

 

4Q: Favorite author? Novels?

 

AL: I loved the way Wilbur Smith wrote his adventure books, and the many books of James Paterson, and more recently Lee Childs. (Don’t tell anyone, but I pick up most of their books from car boot sales, I can’t pass without having a look to see what’s on offer.) I have no favorite, there are so many.

 

 

**I’m a big Wilbur Smith fan as well. A clever storyteller.

 

 

 

4Q: If you were chosen to write a memoir of anyone living or dead, who would it be?

 

AL:  I am a late starter and I find I am getting more passionate as the years go by and with every book I write. I have written my biography and I keep adding to it as time goes by, it is mainly about my mining experience and the nine years I worked as a part-time fire-fighter, where I saw some horrific accidents. The one that will always be with me was the Aberfan disaster of 1966 where a coal tip slid down the mountain and buried a school killing 116 children. I helped to dig out the bodies of four little girls and their teacher; writing about that brought it all back and I was very emotional more than passionate when I wrote about that day.


 





 

4Q: If you are not writing, what other interests do you have?

 

AL: I have played darts since I was eighteen, and still play in the Sunday and Friday night darts league. I am not as good as I used to be and only play if they are short, but I don’t miss a game. Saturday Night is dance night, the wife and I love our dance and a game of bingo. I met the wife at a dance some sixty-two years ago, she was the prettiest girl on the floor and she still is, and we can’t wait to get back out dancing with all our friends.

 

 


 

 

 

FREE Copy of ‘Get Out Of My Dreams’ – Allan J Lewis

 

 









For all you fantastic visitors wanting to discover more about Allan and his writing, Please follow this link:









 

Thanks again, Allan for taking the time to share your thoughts. Wishing you all the success you deserve with your future writing.

 














Saturday 20 March 2021

Award winning Author Guglielmo D’Izzia of Toronto, ON.

  


 

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Guglielmo as a result of reading his interview on The Miramichi reader (See link below).


His debut novel – The Transaction - has garnered several awards and great reviews. It’s on my TBR list.


He has graciously accepted our invitation to participate in a 4Q Interview and is sharing an excerpt from his novel.




 

Guglielmo D’Izzia is an actor and writer who hails from Sicily. His artistic pursuits have led him to some of the greatest cities in the world: Rome, New York City, and eventually Toronto, where he now resides. He’s a proud graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. The Transaction, his debut novel, won the 2016 Marina Nemat Award (unpublished manuscript), was an award-winning finalist of 2020 International Book Awards (Literary Fiction category), was an official selection for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival | Shoot the Book! Program, and was nominated “Most Promising Author” 2020 by The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Awards. The Transaction is also currently a 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist (Mystery Category).




 

 

 

 

4Q: Congratulations on the success of your novel. Please tell our readers what to expect when they pick up their copy of The Transaction.




 

GD: The Transaction tells the story of De Angelis, an inscrutable northerner, who comes to a small town perched in Sicily's hinterland to negotiate a real estate transaction, only to find himself embroiled in a criminal conspiracy. What follows is a web of unsettling events, involving child prostitution and brazen killings. And at the heart of it: an alluring blue-eyed girl, Marinella. The chance encounter with the eleven-year-old traps him in a psychological and moral cul-de-sac.

In essence, The Transaction is a darkly humorous literary mystery, defiant of rigid genre constructs, prevalent aesthetics, and comfortable thematic boundaries. Its sensorial narrative style, devoid of abstractions, aims to engage the reader’s entire sensory stimuli, in particular to evoke physical reactions.

 

Though structurally linear, The Transaction employs a dual storyline (one unspoken) designed to elude clarity of meaning and motivation; thus, compelling the reader into an active role. The elliptical thread explores the recondite crevices of our psyche where our most illicit urges reside. And just like the hapless protagonist of The Transaction, the readers are forced to confront the most unsettling and grotesque taboos, but, more importantly, to question their complicity in perpetuating them.

The novel has often been described as nightmarish, haunting, disturbing—and it is. This is perhaps, in my view, one of the book’s greatest achievements, for there isn’t a single moment of graphic violence within its slim pages. The narrative relies solely on the power of suggestion.

 

 

 

4Q: It is a tremendous feeling when recognized for the quality of your writing. Please tell us about your feelings towards the Marina Nemat Award, the International Book Awards, the recognition from The Miramichi Reader, and the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.

 


GD: Well, I’m not going to lie. It’s always a great feeling when your writing receives any kind of recognition.

Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much when I started writing The Transaction, for I wrote it first and foremost for myself. Primarily I set out to write the book I would want to read. And for that reason, I didn’t really think I was going to be able to get it published, let alone to receive multiple recognitions for it.

To an extent—although this should never be the goal—being acknowledged makes your efforts seem worthwhile. Surely, one might argue that being awarded for your first book can add further pressure to the often-dreaded sophomore novel. But it can also have the opposite result. In fact, it has given me a much-needed boost and has made me a more confident writer.

 

 

 

4Q: Please share a childhood memory and/or anecdote.

 

GD: This story is probably going to make me look like a ghoul, but, what the hell, I’ll tell it anyway.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, a friend of mine and I decided to go on a quest for the lost fortress of Odogrillo, which was completely obliterated (at least that’s what we thought at the time) by the devastating earthquake of 1693 in southeastern Sicily. But the expedition yielded different, and surely unforeseen results.




We had a fairly good idea on where to start the search, for there already were some scanty ruins connected to the feudal city, which was part of the fortress. For hours, we scoured a large area skirting the river bed, but to no avail. Eventually, we stumbled upon a ransacked archeological site, clearly unmapped, comprised of a very small cluster of ancient Greek tombs. So, we decided to explore the site a little further to see if there were any other burials or artifacts that were missed. However, to our greatest surprise, we discovered an unrelated mass grave.

I remember getting back home that evening soiled from head to toe, my mom shaking her head and saying: “What did you dig up this time!?” The next thing I remember is my mother—still shaking her head—next to a large pot of boiling water, dunking in the human skull I had just brought home. 

 

 

 

4Q: Before donning your writing hat, you were involved in theatre and acting. Can you share some thoughts about that and do you still participate in these activities?

 

GD: Theatre is without a doubt my first love. As much as I adore cinema, it doesn’t even come close to the experience of live theatre. Acting was pretty much all I did for the first part of my life; with a fair amount of success, I might add. When I was living in Rome, I was an up-and-coming voice-over artist, and I was doing quite a bit of theatre. I was particularly proud of being cast in a sumptuous theatrical production of Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, starring one of Italy’s premiere personalities and designed by four-time Oscar winner Milena Canonero. 




Since moving to North America, my acting career has for the most part fizzled. Sadly, these days I don’t get to do much acting, which feels quite strange. However, I’m still open to opportunities, and that’s why I haven’t taken myself completely out of the game just yet.

In any case, all those years of acting and script analysis have taught me many a valuable lesson—in particular, and perhaps the most important one, the art of dramatic writing.

 

 

 

4Q: What’s next for Guglielmo D’Izzia, the author?

 

GD: I must confess that for the past year or so it has been difficult being creative. I really had to push myself to do any writing at all. That said, at the moment, I’m working on several projects in different stages of development: two novels, a screenplay, a TV pilot, and a translation.

 

 

 

4Q:  When you’re feeling the most creative, where will we find you writing? Your writing habits? Your special place?

 

GD: I usually do the bulk of my writing at home. I have a corner dedicated to it. It’s nothing fancy, but comfortable enough. Unfortunately, I have difficulties writing in public spaces (not that that’s even an option at the moment). I simply cannot concentrate with too many distractions around me, but mostly because I have to constantly read whatever I’m writing out loud, especially if it has dialogue in it (a habit I developed as an actor). Rhythm and flow are essential to my writing process, and that’s why I do it.




Morning is when I feel most creative and productive. I’m not particularly disciplined, but I do have a routine of sorts: I put on some background music (mostly Jazz and Classical), brew a really strong cup of French-press coffee, and dive right in. Whenever possible, I try to finish my writing session at an exciting moment or in the middle of a chapter. This makes it a lot easier, or at least faster, for me to get back to it the following day and pick up where I left off.

The days I’m really stuck, I take long walks and/or re-read my go-to authors for inspiration.



 

4Q: Anything else you’d like to tell us about?

 

GD: I’m pleased to announce that an audiobook of The Transaction is in the final stages of production.

 

I also would like to thank Allan for giving me this opportunity to discuss my book and my writing process with the South Branch Scribbler. 

 

***It’s a real treat having you as a guest this week, Guglielmo.

 

 


 

An Excerpt from The Transaction.

(Copyright is held by the author. Used with permission)

 

“There it is,” the conductor says.

“Where?”

“There. See the sign above that door?”

“Yes, and?”

“Well, that’s it.”

What he referred to as a sign is merely a dark brown wooden plank with something daubed on it, which I’m able to decipher solely once we get closer. It reads: Trattoria.

A living room turned into a restaurant. That’s what it looks like. There are five tables in total—three on the left side of the entrance, and two on the right side—with pink tablecloths and modest cruets of olive oil and vinegar as centrepieces. On the right side of the wall facing the entrance, there’s a rudimentary bar; and next to it, on the left, a door frame with a beaded curtain, which I assume leads to the kitchen and toilet. Except for a couple of football banners and a tiny crucifix, the whitewashed walls are barren. As we’re standing by the door, an obese lady with abnormally varicose ankles approaches us.

“Evening,” she says.

I manage for a moment to lift my eyes from her ankles, only to notice that her bosom is hanging so low it touches her navel.

“Evening,” we reply in unison.

“Would you like to sit down?” Her small hooded eyes seek the conductor’s.

“Yes, please,” he says.

“Follow me.”

She rotates her large frame almost in place and slowly shuffles to a table. After gesturing for us to take a seat, she disappears behind the beaded curtain and reappears a few moments later with bread sticks, bread, and butter. “I’ll be right back,” she says and vanishes again.

I’m surprised to see we aren’t alone in the restaurant. Two men, each hunched over a glass of red wine, sit diagonally across from us, whispering to each other; and another man stands at the bar, sipping a digestive liqueur, his curious stare betrayed by the bar mirror.

“She forgot to give us menus,” I say.

“They don’t have menus here. Only dishes of the day.” And flashing a stupid grin, he adds: “Trust me, it’s good.”

I had already sensed he lied to me, but that confirms it. For someone who claimed to had just learned about this place, he seemed a little too comfortable finding it, not to mention strangely too familiar with its peculiarities. I don’t know why he felt compelled to conjure up such a silly lie. What do I care if he’s been here before? I really don’t see the point in all that, considering we hardly know each other. Anyway, I decide not to mention it lest I spoil dinner.

“We have a very nice stew tonight,” the obese lady says, having somehow sneaked up on us.

“Stew? It’s at least forty degrees in here. Don’t you have anything lighter than that?”

Her face contracts like a veal cutlet thrown on a hot grill.

She looks to the conductor. “What’s his problem?” she squeezes through her teeth.

“We’ll have the stew and some red wine. Thank you,” the conductor says in the smoothest way possible. She looks asquint at me and walks away without a word.

 

***

 

So, what brings you to Sicily?” he asks, as I return from the toilet.

“Business.”

“Business? What kind of business if you don’t mind my asking?” He shoves a spoonful of stew in his mouth.

I don’t want to talk about my work, so I hesitate answering him.

“Maybe I’m being too nosy. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. We can talk about something else, all right?”

“No, no, that’s all right,” I say to avoid making a big deal out of it. “The company I work for specializes in fertilizers. We deal quite a lot with the island, actually. I’d say that most of our best customers are from Sicily. Anyway, because of the volume of shipments to the island and the obvious costs, the company is considering opening a branch down here.”

“And you’re supposed to make this happen?”

“Right.”

“You’re a big shot!”

“Not really.”

Glancing over to the bar, I notice a slightly dishevelled man I hadn’t seen enter standing there, checking himself out in the bar mirror. He isn’t the one who was there earlier. He’s definitely taller; also, he has on a different suit.

“Excuse me,” the conductor says, getting up.

I nod and watch him being swallowed by the beaded curtain. As I stoop over my glass of wine, which is making me drowsy, I hear the tinkling noise of the beads. It’s the lady coming my way. She asks if I want a cup of coffee or a digestif. I decline both and tell her I want to wait for the conductor.

“You sure?” She takes the empty plates off the table.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“All right, suit yourself. He’ll be a while though.”

“What do you mean?”

She ignores my question and walks back to the kitchen.

 

***

 

The wait is killing me. It’s been over half an hour, and still no sign of him. One of the two men still sitting at the table diagonally across from me gets up and makes towards the beaded curtain. Past it, he goes straight to the toilet, for I hear him opening the door, which produces a distinct squeak. That’s it. I can’t take it any longer. I stand up and go to see what’s going on. I knock. A voice that is not the conductor’s answers.

“Sorry,” I say.

I look about for other exits. Aside from the one through the beaded curtain leading to the dining area and the one right before it accessing the kitchen, there aren’t any others. With no further option, or at least no better one that I can come up with at the moment, I stride back to the kitchen and barge in. The obese lady is standing by the sink, trying to unclog it with a gigantic plunger. As I move a little closer, I spot from the corner of my eye a wizened little man holding a magazine—her husband I assume—sitting on a stool by a set of stairs, leading to the upper floors.

“Where is he?” I blurt out.

She brandishes the dripping plunger at me. “What’re you doing back here?”

“Where is he?”

“What’s he talking about?” the little man asks, standing up.

“The man I was having dinner with, where is he?” I reiterate, enunciating every word.

“It’s none of your business,” she says. “Go back inside.”

I’m about to fire back at her when I hear heavy steps coming down the stairs. It’s him.

“What’s going on?” he asks, tucking his shirt into his pants.

“Out of here. Both of you,” she bellows. In that very instant, I hear the creak of a door coming from upstairs. I glance up. A girl who cannot be more than twelve hides behind the rail, half naked, looking down at us.

 

***

 

We leave the restaurant, not a word spoken between us. I don’t want to broach the subject, even though all I can think about is the child leaning on the banister, her exposed pubescent breasts showing through the pickets, her deep dark round eyes staring at me. To avoid eye contact, I let him walk several feet ahead of me. He obviously knows what I’m doing, but, aside from a few glances back at me, he doesn’t seem too worried.

Despite the dense silence, occasionally disrupted by the solitary hooting call of an owl, and the sinister atmosphere, it’s a lot easier to walk through the olive grove this time. The vapours rising from the soil, now damp and warm, combined with the complicity of the fat moon’s rays shining through the tangle of branches have formed a low uncanny-looking mist.

Back at the waiting room, I think it best to go to sleep immediately. Most of the passengers are out for the night already, except the two soldiers who are playing cards with great animosity by the teller’s window, away from the benches. As I lower myself on the bench, I notice the old lady’s absence, as well as that of her luggage and the little dog. Someone must’ve come to pick them up while the conductor and I were away. I glance over to him. He’s lying on the floor as far from me as possible within the confines of the waiting room, his broad back to me.

Falling asleep turns out to be impossible. The uncomfortable benches, the unpleasant chartreuse light coming from the fluorescent fixtures above, the heat, and the countless mosquito bites don’t help.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about that child. The whole scene keeps replaying in my head as if in a ceaseless loop, but each time it starts over a detail is lost, another one is gained or merged. During the wee hours of the night the recollection becomes so slippery and amorphous the sole thing remaining strikingly vivid is the child’s stare. It’s only by early morning that, physically and mentally exhausted, I’m able to fall asleep.

 

 

 

Thank you, Guglielmo, for being our special guest this week. Wishing you continued success with your writing.

 


 

For all you devoted readers that wish to discover more about Guglielmo and his writing, please follow these links.

 

The Miramichi Reader Interview. Read it HERE.

The Miramichi Reader review by James Fisher. Read it HERE.



Author’s website: https://www.guglielmodizzia.com/

Publisher’s website: https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771834544

Amazon:  amazon.ca

Indigo: chapters.indigo.ca

Barnes & Noble: barnesandnoble.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/guglielmo.dizzia

Twitter: https://twitter.com/odogrillo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guglielmo_dizzia/

Saturday 13 March 2021

Chuck Bowie of Fredericton, NB. A Talented Author of Thrillers & Cozys.

 



Let’s welcome back Chuck Bowie. One of the Scribbler’s most popular guests.


He is a New Brunswick author of five thrillers and two cozy mysteries. He writes out of Fredericton, NB, Canada.


His most recent visit can be seen HERE.


Chuck introduced me to cozy mysteries and he’s into a great series of his own.

So, let’s talk about cozys.

 

 

A Cozy is Warmer

By Chuck Bowie

 

I’ve just written Book 2 in my Old Manse Mysteries cozy mystery series. I hadn’t finished the edits before being asked, as with Book 1: Death Between the Walls, what is a cozy? (I write thrillers, and the ancillary question is often ‘They’re both mysteries; but How is a Thriller different from a Cozy?’

Hmm.

I’ll begin and end with the same, terse, response: A cozy is warmer. For example, in Book 3 of my Donovan: Thief 4 Hire series, my protagonist says something like “Well, I could kill you now, or you could read about your failures in tomorrow’s paper. Either way, you’ll make headlines.” This is a tough guy, and all this after having shot the bad guy two or three times. So…Donovan will not appear in a cozy mystery, I assure you.




 In Book 1 of my Old Manse Mysteries series, Emma, a thirty-four year old career woman, is convening a meeting of her tenants. She wants to apprise them of their lease arrangements, etc.  But things go off track:

(Emma): “Okay, now, the reason for this meeting is—yes?”

Marjorie wiggled a single index finger at Emma. “Dear, we were wondering when you’ll be arrested for murdering poor Mr. Jones. Because if you have to go to jail, I’d be happy to make you soup on Wednesdays. Everyone says I make splendid soup.” Marjorie sat back, evidently pleased with her contribution.

The reader can see that the tone is decidedly different from one sub-genre to the other. Although these are not hard and fast rules, a Cozy Mystery tones down the sex, the violence, and the language. Concurrently, a cozy will amp up the romance, the humour, and the warmth. If there is a murderer (or even the perpetration of a crime), the guilty individual must be seen or discussed early on in the book. That said, the narrative arc is much the same for thrillers and cozys, which is true for all Western Hemisphere mysteries. The narrative arc of Intro-Challenge-Quest-Complications-Crisis-Ending holds true for most western fiction.





Agatha Christie wrote a few cozys (Murder, She Wrote, Hercule Poirot), well, dozens. Joanna Fluke, a modern prolific cozy author, writes a wonderful series about a baker. In both cases, the running gag is the population of the small town (setting) will soon run out of citizens, such is the death toll of two to three per novel. The heroine isn’t afraid to offer up cheerful one-liners in the face of death, and children, pets and beloved relatives and friends need not fear for their lives as the main character plays detective to solve the crimes.

But there is another element to the Cozy Mystery. How is evil addressed, and why is this an issue? In other mysteries, evil is present, and palpable. It can even set the tone. With a cozy, the warmth subsumes the evil, and the reader can relax, knowing everything is going to be alright. Cozy readers often choose this sub-genre in order to suspend-disbelief, go along for the ride, and not have to worry that something truly awful will (or could) befall these characters the reader has fallen in love with. Nevertheless, they still want the writing to be very good.


Author of Thrillers to Author of Cozys


Until recently, I was happily motoring along, writing a thriller every year or two, and even had an idea roughed out for a new thriller (which turned out to be Her Irish Boyfriend). But a concept arrived into the back of my head, unannounced and uninvited. How about a novel that is a bit of a love letter to my home town? I love writing mysteries, but I want to write a series about a town that might even be considered to be a character in its own right.





A suspense-thriller wouldn’t do as it just wasn’t the appropriate vehicle to deliver this message. Might there be another kind of mystery out there that could fit a more romantic, funnier, and warmer storyline? It turns out, there is. So I tried a cozy mystery about a fish-out-of-water woman just returned home from Toronto after a considerable absence: half of her young life. I surround her with eccentric, charming creatives who embrace her as one of their own (she’s a lifestyles/wine writer).

While it seems she has little in common with the townspeople, she interacts with many citizens in her quest to find the murderer, and she gradually finds her place in the heart of the community. Book 1 ends with Emma trying to decide whether she should return to Toronto, as her fortunes seem to have turned around, but the little New Brunswick town appears to have found its way into her heart. So, the story isn’t over just because the crime is solved.


Book 2: Death Between the Tables


Death Between the Tables opens with a house warming of sorts. Emma throws a fete to celebrate the new-and-improved Arts and Culture centre, resulting in—Oh, no!—another unfortunate situation. Again, eyebrows are raised at the thought of this newcomer, Emma, sitting squarely in the middle of yet another calamity. One of her tenants is the prime suspect, and, for Emma, this will not do. So off she goes in her tiny blue pickup truck, investigating a mystery yet again.

I am having such fun with this series. I’m doing my best to present the absolute warmest aspects of the Miramichi community, and I’m anxious to have guests (Gentle Readers) come to love the fictional town of Newcastle-Chatham as much as I do! But beware, residents of the community. The characters are fictional, the businesses are fictional, and while many of the roads are real(ish), to follow them in the order I present them could get you lost forever.

I’ve decided to write a third Old Manse Mystery. The discerning reader will understand that this statement is in effect a ‘Spoiler Alert’, in the sense that if I go past Book 2, the chances are that Emma might not move back to Toronto. Are you okay with that?




Chuck Bowie is a New Brunswick author of five thrillers and two cozy mysteries. He writes out of Fredericton, NB, Canada. Death Between the Walls drops in April, 2021.


http://www.chuckbowie.ca


Writing as Alexa Bowie

https://www.amazon.ca/Death-Between-Walls-Manse-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B08CRZCMT9/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=alexa+bowie&qid=1615235602&s=books&sr=1-1

Writing as Chuck Bowie

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=chuck+bowie&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_1