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Soft-Boiled Crime in European Locations with JJ Marsh

11/23/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:42 — 12.5MB) | Embed

If you’re yearning to travel, the Beatrice Stubbs series will satisfy.

Jill Marsh’s Detective Inspector Beatrice Stubbs is fighting battles with crime, as well as with her own mind. Beatrice has bipolar disorder and that has an effect on her work. Jill shares in our interview that she wanted Beatrice to be a real person with real-life problems and challenges, not a superhero character.

When Jill’s readers asked for the background on Beatrice and her mental illness Jill obliged by writing the free prequel to the series, Black Dogs, Yellow Butterflies, which you can get here.

Jill also mentions that the European locations of the Beatrice Stubbs mysteries provide a special challenge as every country and police force has their own procedures.

Today’s show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week’s mystery author

Jill Marsh grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for culture took root and triggered an urge to write. After graduating in English Literature and Theatre Studies, she worked as an actor, teacher, writer, director, editor, journalist and cultural trainer all over Europe.

Now in Switzerland, she writes crime and literary fiction to entertain readers with enthralling stories and endearing characters.

Her Beatrice Stubbs crime series topped the Amazon best sellers in “International Mystery & Crime” in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.

To learn more about JJ Marsh and all her books visit JJMarshauthor.com

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Animals, Magic and Mysteries with Melanie Snow

11/16/2020 By Alexandra Amor 2 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:36 — 16.7MB) | Embed

Cozy mysteries with a witchy twist.

Animals, Magic and Mysteries with Melanie Snow

Melanie Snow is the pen name for established and prolific non-fiction author Wendy van de Poll. In this episode of the podcast, Wendy wears her fiction author hat and reads to us from the first book in the Spellwood Witches series, Witch’s Tail.

In the introduction I share that writing the December short story for my patrons has been a bit like driving on square wheels…and that I’m okay with that. Sometimes creativity is smooth and easy, sometimes it takes more effort and a little more coaxing to get a story onto the page.

This week’s mystery author

Melanie Snow is the pen name for Wendy Van de Poll, a bestselling author, pet loss grief coach, and animal medium. She is the author of The Spellwood Witches, a paranormal cozy mystery series.

Her books weave together positive magic, snarky forest faeries, and insightful animals with fun and eclectic humor.

She has been followed by wild wolves in minus sixty degrees, hissed at by a mama bobcat, and played ball with a wild owl—among other animal encounters.

To learn more about Melanie and all her books visit WendyvandePoll/melaniesnow

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One Big Mystery, Four Possible Suspects with Greg Hickey

11/09/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:53 — 15.5MB) | Embed

I love a good whydunnit!

Greg Hickey’s novel, Parabellum, is structured differently from the average mystery novel. This book starts with a horrific, terrifying event and then jumps back in time by a year. It follows four individuals, the ex-athlete, the programmer, the veteran, and the student, and examines their lives and what may have cause any one of them to take their pain out on the group of innocent people from the event at the start of the book.

After Greg reads Chapter 1 of the book to us, I ask him about this structure and what inspired him to write the book this way. We also talk about the themes in the book, including the responsibility of society to take care of its members.

Also in our interview, Greg mentions the free novella available at his website called The Theory of Anything. You can learn more about the book and get your free copy here.

This week’s mystery author

Greg Hickey is a former international professional baseball player and current forensic scientist, endurance athlete and author. He is the author of three novels, including the recently published crime novel Parabellum.

His debut novel, Our Dried Voices, was a finalist for Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Science Fiction Book of the Year Award. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Lindsay.

Learn more about Greg and all his books at GregHickeyWrites.com

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Gripping Suspense and Intuitive Senses with Matty Dalrymple

11/02/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:43 — 14.2MB) | Embed

Matty Dalrymple is my first three-peat guest!

Gripping Suspense and Intuitive Senses with Matty Dalrymple

Author Matty Dalrymple and her protagonist, Ann Kinnear, share a love of aviation. Matty herself learned how to fly, though she had to give it up for reasons she explains in the interview portion of the show.

In The Falcon and the Owl, Ann Kinner is taking flying lessons and trying to protect her privacy from the attention of a documentary filmmaker when she gets tangled up in a mystery at her local airstrip.

As Matty and I discuss in the interview, there are three full-length Ann Kinnear novels, and also six short stories. Learn more about all the books and stories in this series here.

If you’d like to hear my interview with Matty about the first Ann Kinnear book, you’ll find that here. And for more on Matty’s other series featuring Lizzy Ballard you can hear our interview here.

This week’s mystery author

Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers Rock Paper Scissors, Snakes and Ladders, and The Iron Ring; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels The Sense of Death, The Sense of Reckoning, and The Falcon and the Owl; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts, including Close These Eyes and Write in Water.

Matty lives with her husband and three dogs in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and enjoys vacationing on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and Sedona, Arizona, and these locations provide the settings for her work.

Learn more about Matty and all her books at mattydalrymple.com

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Airborne Investigations with Joseph Reid

10/26/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:33 — 14.5MB) | Embed

Thrillers in the sky!

Airborne Investigations with Joseph Reid

I have a friend whose cousin worked as the Canadian version of an air Marshall. I’ve always wondered what that kind of work would be like. He spends his working hours on flights (or did, before covid). I’ve never met him but I’d love to ask him what it’s like being on high alert much of the time but, hopefully, never having to actually deal with armed terrorists.

Joseph Reid’s Seth Walker series comes as close as possible to me being able to ask those questions. The author himself has spent thousands of hours in the air and in airports, which inspired this thriller series. In the interview we touch on the fascinating world of airports, which are like cities unto themselves, and also talk about what inspires Joseph to keep writing.

This week’s mystery author

The son of a navy helicopter pilot, Joseph Reid chased great white sharks as a marine biologist before becoming a patent lawyer who litigates multimillion-dollar cases for high-tech companies. He has flown millions of miles on commercial aircraft and has spent countless hours in airports around the world.

Joseph is the author of the Amazon Charts bestselling Seth Walker series, which includes Takeoff, False Horizon, and the upcoming Departure. A graduate of Duke University and the University of Notre Dame, he lives in San Diego with his wife and children.

Learn more about Joseph Reid and all his books at JosephReidBooks.com

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Ireland, Ghosts, and Violins with Alexia Gordon

10/19/2020 By Alexandra Amor 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:29 — 11.0MB) | Embed

I love a mystery set in a land I’ve long been wanting to visit.

Ireland, Ghosts and Violins with Alexia Gordon

Alexia Gordon’s five-book series of mysteries is set in Ireland. Gethsemane Brown is a violinist living far from her Virginia home in a cliffside cottage in Southern Ireland…with a ghost named Eamon.

If you like It’s a Mystery podcast, you’ll enjoy Alexia’s show The Cozy Corner, which broadcasts every other Wednesday. Alexia interviews authors who write along the crime fiction spectrum from traditional to cozy to the edge of cozy.

This week’s mystery author

Alexia Gordon is a physician by day and an award-winning, own voices crime fiction writer by night. She’s the author of five novels in the Gethsemane Brown mystery series. Her latest, Execution in E was published in March 2020. Alexia is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America.

Learn more about Alexia Gordon and all her books at AlexiaGordon.net.

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