It’s no surprise to anyone who read our Christmas blog that the cozy readers among us love Laura Childs. We are happy to start the New Year with a few words from that author, and we are especially pleased with what she has to say about women over forty!
Known for her Tea Shop and Scrapbooking Mysteries, guest blogger Laura Childs paints a cozy portrait in her New York Times Bestseller, Eggs Benedict Arnold, a Cackleberry Club Mystery.
I’m a big fan of women over forty. Not just because I am one, but because “women of a certain age” have a certain type of sassy smarts. Before I sold my marketing firm and took up mystery writing, I had occasion to work with an awful lot of high-test forty-plus women. These were women who ran companies, served as communications directors, and knew their way around the media. They were savvy, forward thinkers who didn’t get rattled by deadlines, details, and decisions.
Those are pretty much the same attributes I tried to imbue in my characters, Suzanne, Toni, and Petra, the major protagonists in my newest mystery Eggs Benedict Arnold. At their cozy café, the Cackleberry Club, eggs are the morning specialty – fluffy omelets, slumbering volcanoes, toad in the hole, and foggy morning soufflés. But my entrepreneurial ladies also work a double shift as amateur sleuths, because in this go round local mortician Ozzie Driesden is discovered on his own embalming table!
I had a great time writing pulse-pounding scenes that feature a mortuary murder, car chase, terrible discovery in a deserted cemetery, and hostage situation. Of course, the ladies of the Cackleberry Club also managed to pull it together and hold a Knit-in for charity, serve afternoon tea, and stage a cake decorating contest.
I made a special effort to intersperse pulse-pounding action with the genteel art of tea and scones, because I think we all crave a little comfort right now. With all that’s going on in the world, a lot of folks long to return to basics like homemade breakfast, cake and cookie recipes, and neighbors who are quirky but pull together when they have to.
And, of course, I had such great fun celebrating women over forty. They possess such caring souls, entrepreneurial spirits, and have such rich life experiences to draw from. You really can’t find a better model for an amateur sleuth!
Have a wonderful New Year!
Laura Childs
Bestseller List, is available everywhere for $7.99.
Laura Childs writes the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and
Cackleberry Club Mysteries, several of which have made the USA Today and New York Times Bestseller Lists.
The Writers in Residence 