One of my favorite things to hear from readers is that they wish my fictional towns were real. Creating a place where people want to live or visit (if the murder rate weren’t so high!) is one of my main goals when I set out to create a new cozy mystery series. As a reader, setting and characters are the main draws that keep me going back to a series again and again, and I think that’s the case for many cozy mystery readers. In my mind, a well-crafted setting is almost like another character.
The idea for the town of Larch Haven, Vermont, the setting for my True Confections Mysteries, was born when I watched an episode of The Amazing Race several years ago. The racers travel to Giethoorn (a town I’d never heard of) in the Netherlands and had to navigate the canals by boat. I was instantly charmed by the cute homes on the banks of the picturesque canals. I knew right away that I one day wanted to write a cozy mystery series set in a town with canals instead of cars and with quaint, charming cottages.
That idea stayed in my head for years, waiting to be used, until it came time to pitch a new series to my agent in January 2021. When I started working on the proposal for what would become the True Confections series, I looked up photos of other European canal towns and came across some pictures of Colmar, France, another town I’d never heard of. As soon as I saw Colmar’s colorful buildings lining the canal, I knew that was exactly what I wanted the main shopping area of Larch Haven to look like. That’s where you’ll find True Confections, the family-run chocolate shop at the heart of the series.
In the end, Larch Haven basically became a combination of Giethoorn, Colmar, Venice, and a quaint English village with timber-frame buildings and stone cottages. With no cars allowed on the cobblestone walkways (save for emergency vehicles) residents and visitors mostly get around on foot or by boat. As in Venice, visitors to Larch Haven can hire a gondolier to take them on a sightseeing tour around town. Of course, I couldn’t have a town with gondolas without an annual gondola race. From that seed of an idea, the plot for Six Sweets Under grew.
It’s not unusual for me to have a cozy mystery series originate from an idea for a setting, with the characters and premise following later. I now have four cozy mystery series published, three of which started out in my mind as just a setting. When Six Sweets Under is out in the world, I hope readers will be transported to Larch Haven, enjoy their time there, and want to return. Come for the mystery, stay for the coziness!
True Confections #1
In a cute new culinary cozy from USA Today bestselling author Sarah Fox, budding chocolatier Becca Ransom must solve a murder before she meets a sticky end.
Former actress Becca Ransom lived her dream in Hollywood for seven years before returning to her hometown of Larch Haven, known as the Venice of North America. The Vermont town has canals instead of roads, gondolas instead of cars, and charming cottages plucked from the pages of a fairy tale. It’s also where Becca is pursuing her newest passion as a chocolatier at True Confections, the chocolate shop owned by her grandparents, Lolly and Pops.
While Becca’s testing new flavors and reconnecting with old friends, the town is gearing up for the annual Gondola Races, popular with both residents and tourists, with one exception. Local curmudgeon Archie Smith wants nothing more than to keep tourists away from Larch Haven. He’s determined to derail this year’s event and does his best to stir up trouble for the organizers, including Becca’s grandfather.
Following a heated argument with Pops, Archie is found floating face-down in the canal, and Pops finds himself in hot water as one of the top suspects. Becca’s determined to clear her grandfather’s name, but when the case heats up, she could be facing a sticky end.
Mystery Culinary | Mystery Cozy [Berkley Prime Crime, On Sale: February 7, 2023, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593546611 / eISBN: 9780593546628]
Sarah Fox was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia where she developed a love for mysteries at a young age. When not writing novels or working as a legal writer she is often reading her way through a stack of books or spending time outdoors with her English Springer Spaniel.
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