1--What is the title of your latest release?
MURDER IN A CAPE COTTAGE
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Tis the day after Christmas, only five days before their wedding, when Mac and her fiancé, Tim, begin a cottage renovation project and open a wall to find a skeleton - sitting on a stool, dressed in an old-fashioned bridal gown, her hands chained to the wall. As Mac delves into the decades-old mystery with the help of her book group, she discovers a story of star-crossed lovers and feuding families worthy of the bard himself. Yet this tale has a modern-day villain still lurking in Mac’s quaint seaside town, ready to make it a murderous New Year’s Eve wedding.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
This is the fourth Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, so the town of Westham on Cape Cod is the setting. Mac and Tim are about to marry, and I wanted some of the action in this book to happen in the Cape Cod-style cottage they share. When I had the idea of discovering a skeleton in the wall, I decided they would discover the decades-old bride during a bit of renovation.
4--Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life?
I’d love to. We’d go for brisk walks along the Shining Sea Trail, talk cozy mysteries, and sip Scotch whiskey.
5--What are three words that describe your sleuth?
Loyal, a neat freak, curious
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned a lot about what a body that has been inside a wall for ninety years would look like. I found a forensic anthropologist to advise me. Some of it is kind of gruesome, but I found it fascinating and used more than one detail he gave me.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Every day when I start writing, I give what I wrote the day before a light edit. That gets me back into the story and ready to keep writing.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Truly excellent local cheeses and a baguette straight from the oven (not mine – I love baking, but good baguettes elude me). With a full red wine, sun-ripened gold cherry tomatoes, slices of crisp cucumber, and maybe some grapes, it’s all I could want. Good cheeses are so expensive, I just don’t even look.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have a lovely second-floor office at the front of my small home. It has a door that closes and windows on the street. I work at my standing desk, and behind me is a futon couch. Bookshelves hold reference books on writing, mysteries by authors I love and admire, and my own inventory of twenty-eight published mysteries.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I love Julia Spencer-Fleming’s novels, with priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne in upstate New York. Julia’s storytelling is brilliant, her characters deeply drawn.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Wow. Maybe it was my mother’s Complete Sherlock Holmes, which I read at around age nine and which hooked me on crime fiction. Or it could have been A is for Alibi, showing me how detective fiction written by a woman with a female protagonist could be so much better than what men were writing. Or possibly the first Katherine Hall Page or Diane Mott Davidson, for the same reasons – plus recipes.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)
After my first mystery was accepted for publication, the excitement mostly comes with contract renewal. Murder in a Cape Cottage was the first book in the renewal for the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, after the initial three-book contract. Authors are never quite sure how well a new series will do, and I was delighted that these books are well-loved enough for Kensington Publishing to want to keep them going. I am now renewed through book seven!
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Crime fiction, of course, is preferably written by a woman with a female sleuth. I read from cozies to suspense, but I stay away from thrillers and anything gory or abusive, and I don’t like unreliable narrators.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
I’m a sucker for older romantic flicks like Dr. Zhivago and Bridges of Madison County.
15--What is your favorite season?
I love summer with all the fresh produce, plus reading on the deck and walking on the beach.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
When possible, I like my sons (and now their wives) to join us for dinner (that I don’t have to cook) and cake. But for big birthdays, I prefer to have a big party that includes dancing. I have one of those birthdays coming up in November, in fact!
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
We’ve just finished the first season of Anika on Masterpiece and really loved it. Looking forward to season two. But I’m also a big fan of Call the Midwife.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Can I plead the Fifth? I love all kinds of ethnic cuisines. Give me delicious, well-prepared food with as many local ingredients as possible, and I’m happy. That said, I do love all kinds of Japanese food, if it’s authentic (no avocado or mayonnaise in my sushi, please).
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I garden, read, and do crossword puzzles.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Four Leaf Cleaver, my eleventh Country Store Mystery, will be out in January 2023. I hope readers will find Maddie and me on my website, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media.
What a great set of questions. Thanks for having me over!
A Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery 4
It’s beginning to look a lot like murder in Agatha-awarding winning author Maddie Day’s latest Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, as Cape Cod bike shop owner Mackenzie “Mac” Almeida and her book club sleuths must solve a murder before Mac and her fiancée’s New Years Eve wedding...
Tis the day after Christmas, following a wicked-busy time of year for Mac’s bike shop. It’s just as well her Cozy Capers Book Group’s new pick is a nerve-soothing coloring book mystery, especially when she has last-minute wedding planning to do. But all pre-wedding jitters fade into the background when Mac and her fiancé, Tim, begin a cottage renovation project and open up a wall to find a skeleton—sitting on a stool, dressed in an old-fashioned bridal gown . . .
As Mac delves into the decades-old mystery with the help of librarian Flo and her book group, she discovers a story of star-crossed lovers and feuding families worthy of the bard himself. Yet this tale has a modern-day villain still lurking in Mac’s quaint seaside town, ready to make this a murderous New Year’s Eve.
Includes Recipes!
Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Cozy [Kensington Cozies, On Sale: September 27, 2022, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781496735676 / eISBN: 9781496735683]
Maddie Day is a talented amateur chef, holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Indiana University, and is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Her short stories have appeared most recently in the anthologies That Mysterious Woman, History and Mystery, Oh My!, Stone Cold, and Fish Nets. She lives with her beau and three cats in Massachusetts, where she's currently working on her next Maddie Day mystery when she isn't cooking up banana walnut pancakes for breakfast.
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