Monday, July 12, 2010

My Own Criminal Mind

I'm new to this blog, so I'll introduce myself in a sort of roundabout way.
After reading my books, friends sometimes confess to being shocked at how my mind works. At church yesterday (yup, I'm the choir director at the local Methodist church) a man came up to me and said without preface, "GO HOME AND DIE?"
He'd found my newest book on Amazon, an e-book from Red Rose Publishing. He thought it sounded quite violent, but he liked the idea of a Vietnam-era mystery once I explained it.
My historical series, which began in January with HER HIGHNESS' FIRST MURDER (Five Star)describes murders on the streets of Tudor London. One friend who read the galley to look for errors claimed she had trouble getting to sleep afterward. To me, it just made sense to combine my decades of teaching English and history and my love of mystery. Tudors and headless corpses? Makes sense to me.
I just contracted with LL Publishing on a paranormal, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY. Sure, it sounds, well, deadly, but what else do we read mysteries for?
My books are not grisly, dark or noir-ish. They are the best plot, characters, setting, and writing that I can devise. If after reading them you believe I have a criminal mind, just remember, we write murders so we don't really have to do them.

4 comments:

Cheryl Tardif said...

Awesome post, Peg. And I loved the last line. hehe

When someone asks me what I do, I like to say: "I kill people off for a living."

I love the shocked, confused, "is she kidding me?" expressions on their faces.

Sometimes I clarify that I write about crime; sometimes I don't. ;-)

I look forward to reading your posts. Now I'm off to tweet your first one.

Cheryl

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

Loved the post.

Sometimes I envision people I don't really like and make them the murder victim. I've heard of female authors who killed off their ex-husbands in books too.

Marilyn

Cheryl Tardif said...

As my mother pointed out, I tend to kill off the mothers. I have no idea where that comes from. Really. I love my mom.

Since I don't have an ex-husband, maybe I'll move on to old school enemies...hmmm...hehe

Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Eileen Schuh: said...

Heavens, ladies, you're vicious! I kill off bikers and drug dealers. Well, once there was this child...