Series Spin-offs – The Writers in Residence

A Guest Post by Liz Hedgecock

I didn’t so much decide to write the Maisie Frobisher books. It was more that Maisie Frobisher decided she ought to have her own series!

Let me explain.

The Maisie Frobisher books are actually a spinoff series: the series they sprang from is the Caster and Fleet Mysteries. I co-wrote Caster and Fleet with another writer who is now a good friend, Paula Harmon.

When we began writing the books, Paula and I hadn’t actually met in real life – only via a Facebook writing group. We were already online friends, we liked each other’s writing styles, and we both wrote historical mystery (among other things). We’re not sure who first suggested writing a book together, but we’re very glad they did!

Maisie is a very minor character in the Caster and Fleet world until she has more of a starring role in book 4, The Case of the Masquerade Mob, which is a romp involving masked balls and all sorts of skulduggery. At the end of the book, poor Maisie, who has had rather a rough time, decides to travel the world and forget about men for a while. That was my jumping-off point, because I’d grown to like Maisie very much and I didn’t want to let her go.

My friend Paula also has a spinoff series of her own, set in the run-up to World War I, which follows the younger sister of one of our protagonists, Margaret Demeray.

I had many reasons to set the Maisie series abroad. Firstly, at the end of Masquerade Mob Maisie was going travelling, and I couldn’t go back on that! Secondly, in the 1890s, when the series is set, the world was opening up. Bigger and more luxurious cruise ships, faster journeys, and more capacity to travel for pleasure. I chose India because it was a well-known destination, the route was interesting, and also because of the opportunity to look at the British in India in the time of the Raj.

I try not to get too bogged down in historical research, though there are all sorts of opportunities to get lost down research rabbit holes! One advantage is that I have a Master’s degree in Victorian literature, so I’m fairly well grounded in some aspects. While I want to make the stories accurate, I don’t want to spoil a story for the sake of including every historical fact I’ve discovered. Probably a tenth of the things I’ve read about make it into the final book.

I didn’t choose the late Victorian period just because I knew a bit about it, though. It’s also fascinating because of what was going on at the time. Women were fighting for their rights, the ‘New Woman’ had arrived, and inventions like the safety bicycle meant that women’s mobility could increase.

The Maisie books are also special to me because they mark a change in the way I write. Up to that point, I had always written at my computer. With Maisie, I had the urge to try something different. In the first book in the series, All at Sea, Maisie is on a ship which is always moving, and she must solve the mystery before the ship reaches port. With that sense of urgency in mind, I tried an experiment. I took my phone for a walk and dictated the book’s opening: a letter from Maisie to her mother, followed by a rather different diary entry on the same subject. The words seemed to flow. Ever since then, I’ve dictated my fiction rather than writing it. The result needs correction and editing, of course, but it’s a really good way to get into the flow, get that first draft down, and spend time walking rather than sitting.

If you do try the first Maisie book, All at Sea, or indeed, the first in the Caster and Fleet series, The Case of the Black Tulips, I hope you enjoy them!

Liz Hedgecock grew up in London, England, did an English degree, and then took forever to start writing. Now Liz travels between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, murdering people. To be fair, she does usually clean up after herself.

Liz lives in Cheshire with her husband and two sons, and when she’s not writing you can usually find her reading, on a walk, messing about on social media or cooing over stuff in museums and art galleries. That’s her story, anyway, and she’s sticking to it.

Website: http://lizhedgecock.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LizHedgecockWrites

Twitter: http://twitter.com/lizhedgecock

Amazon author page (global link): http://author.to/LizH

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Note from Jackie Houchin: I began the Maisie Frobisher series – All at Sea – while on a cruise. (I could so identify with Maisie!) But I got so attached to her sense of adventure and fearless deeds of daring, that I bought the second one (Off The Map). Of course I had to buy that third book with the magnificent Leopard on the cover (Gone to Ground). I’m now reading the fourth one and Maisie is back in London, but still involved in mystery and intrigue. (In Plain Sight)

A character from the Maisie books appears in one of the four Christmas short stories in Liz Hedgecock’s Christmas Presence, Four Festive Stories. It’s a perfect way to sample Liz’s work and to gift for the Holidays!