I was recently invited to a local book club (they read A Graceful Death). Book clubs are a great way for authors to meet with readers. You may notice that they also had a prop on the table, but if you haven't read the book, I'm not going to give anything away and tell you what it is.
The main question I'm always asked is if Lowenna is a real village, and the answer is no. But it is a combination of several villages - mainly Perranporth, St. Agnes, Trevaunance Cove (the cover on High Tide is of Trevaunance Cove).They also wanted to know why I chose not to use British sayings, slang and dialect. When I first started reading A Graceful Death to a critique group, I noticed they were confused with some of the language I used. I decided to write with a setting in England, but for an American audience and hopefully enough to give them a sense of setting without disrupting their reading with words or phrases they didn't understand. We had a lively discussion about the cozy mystery genre and finished the evening drinking Earl Gray tea and eating delicious scones with clotted cream.
