Introducing Shotgun Moon – and K.C. McRae

Okay – I’ve been hinting at this book for a while on the blog, and if you’re not familiar with my Facebook posts this might be news.

This is the cover for the new book I’ve written as K.C. McRae. I absolutely love it. Many thanks to Lisa Novak, cover designer extraordinaire at Midnight Ink. She caught the flavor of so many elements important to the book – western landscape, threats from nature as well as people, and a sense of freedom despite hardship. Oh, and mystery, of course. And murder. All of it.

Why another name? After all, I’m already writing the Magical Bakery Mysteries as Bailey Cates. Well, it’s only slightly different from Cricket McRae and I wanted to be clear that Shotgun Moon is a different kind of book than the Home Crafting Mysteries, which are cozies.

A cozy, or traditional mystery, is a rather gentle animal. It features an amateur sleuth, usually is set in a small town, and doesn’t feature sex, graphic violence or swearing. They are by definition light and entertaining.

True, I don’t exactly cling to those rules in the Home Crafting Mysteries – there’s definitely some language and a bit of violence (I’ve been asked to tone down a couple of scenes by editors), and I tread into some issues that some cozy writers carefully avoid. One author I approached for a blub said she couldn’t be associated with a book that had THAT in it! It doesn’t matter what THAT was, really. And thank heavens Midnight Ink is more interested in a good story than a bunch of rules.

But: Shotgun Moon is not a cozy. It’s a contemporary western mystery set in Montana … well, I’ll just share the nice endorsement Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries which are the basis for the hit A&E series Longmire gave the book. I’m grateful both for his endorsement and for the fact that he tends to call me kiddo. Funny how weirdly endearing that sounds now that I’m pushing fifty.

“Merry’s got a problem. Fresh from a Texas penitentiary, she returns to Montana to discover that her cousin is suspected of killing a man, trouble the spitfire McCoy knows something about – but you won’t have a problem with K.C. McRae’s western mystery. Shotgun Moon is easy on the ear and the eye – definitely an author and a character to watch out for.”

As it happens, Merry was in prison for killing her rapist. There’s sex and violence in this one, folks. Not a ton, but more than you’d ever find in a cozy.

So: Not so light. And “K.C.” is because I don’t want readers to pick the book up and expect it to be like other books of mine that they’ve read. Simple as that.

Shotgun Moon will be out in September, but it’s already available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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News Bits

First off, good thoughts to you and yours who have been affected by tropical storm Sandy. I’ve been glued to the news with a combination of horror and awe. Here’s hoping for power and safety for everyone, and soon.

--- Guest Posts ---

It’s been a busy time around the Hearth, what with deadlines coming up and two books releasing. The first is Deadly Row to Hoe which officially releases in trade paperback and ebook formats on November 8th but is already shipping from Amazon. So today Sophie Mae is a guest over at Killer Characters, talking about Love and a Full Larder.

And while my alter ego, Bailey Cates, doesn’t have a new book out until December, I/she was invited to guest post over at Sirens of Suspense. Stop by and learn how Halloween and witch costumes fit into the next Magical Bakery Mystery, Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti.

--- New Standalone Mystery! ---

I mentioned a new project in my last post, and here’s the deal – I’ve contracted with Midnight Ink for a (presumably) standalone western mystery called Shotgun Moon. It’s set in contemporary times in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. This one’s NOT a cozy, folks, and so no one will confuse it with my other books, I’m planning to publish it under the name KC McRae. It features Merry McCoy, a thirtyish woman who is coming home to her ranch and small town after a four-year stint in a Texas prison. It’ll hit the shelves and e-readers sometime next fall.

--- Goodreads Giveaway ---

If you’re a Goodreads kind of person and want a chance to win a free copy of Deadly Row to Hoe, I’m running a giveaway until November 15th. Just click on the button in the header above to enter. There are five copies on offer.

---Comment Moderation ---

Well, it’s finally happened: the spammers have tracked me down. There have been a series of odd comments, marketing comments on old posts that most people wouldn’t see, and downright evil links that either Blogger or I have removed before most anyone sees. But I’m getting tired of watching for them so have decided to start moderating all comments. Sorry for the short delays that might cause, but it’s for your Internet safety and my peace of mind.

--- Cool Wallpapers ---

I try to change the wallpapers on both of my laptops every week to keep things fresh and interesting. Most of them I pick up from Vlad Studios for free. Check out the site – they have hundreds of fun, creepy, odd, and beautiful illustrations. The Cheshire cat above will be my wallpaper until after Halloween. And no, they’re not paying me to say nice things about them.

Okay, I think that covers the news for today. Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Last Farmers Market – Sort of

This morning I went to the last summer farmers market to stock up on winter goodies. There was a feeling of finality – fewer booths and fewer vegetables on offer. However, this is always the best time to pick up winter squash and pumpkins at a discount, and I had to make two trips back to the car.

My haul included a loaf of red onion-dill bread, a pound of crimini mushrooms, two white onions and two red ones, a big bunch of carrots, half a dozen crisp Granny Smith apples, two spaghetti squash, two butternut squash, a couple heads of garlic, a pound of fingerling potatoes, and seven assorted pumpkin-type squash.

These last were not of the Jack-o-lantern variety – those are a particular kind of squash that grow large and are great for carving, but not so great for eating. So don’t even try cooking those homogenous big guys found in the bins outside your local megamart – the resulting puree will be dull and watery at best.

For eating you want sugar pumpkins, also known as pie pumpkins. They are smaller and sweeter, with a denser flesh. I bought three of those and three reddish “Rough vif D’Entampes”, also known as Cinderella pumpkin (because the resemble the pumpkin her fairy godmother turned into coach). This is also the variety that the pilgrims are said to have served at the first Thanksgiving, and they’re suitable for pies or any other winter squash recipe. Often you see them much larger than the ones above, which are only about ten inches in diameter. Of course I only paid 50 cents apiece.

Lastly, I got a small Kakai pumpkin. Isn’t it pretty, all orange with those dark green ribs? The man who grew these varieties (and more) told me the flesh of the Kakai isn’t great, and they are hard to peel since the shell is so hard. But get this: the seeds are hull-less! So once we’re done appreciating its beauty, I’ll crack it open, take out the seeds, soak them in brine and then roast them to salty, crunchy goodness.

Yum.

Tonight we’ll have butternut squash soup made with leeks from the garden, bacon from our pork side, cream that was delivered to the front door, and homemade chicken stock. With that I’ll serve slabs of red onion-dill bread slathered with homemade butter and a simple salad of lettuce from the aquaponics place down the road along with arugula, tomatoes and carrots from the garden.

Yep, still managing to eat a few fresh things from the garden, despite snow yesterday. But soon that will be a thing of the past.

However, today was only the final summer farmers market, and in two weeks the winter market begins with many of the same vendors and a slew of new ones. Last year’s winter markets were so packed and so popular that they’ve added several more to the calendar. Yet another way to feel lucky and rich.

If you’re interested in more information about all those funky looking squash on offer this time of year, check out this site.

Now back to writing for me. The deadline for the third in the Magical Bakery Mysteries I write as Bailey Cates approaches, and beyond that another deadline for a book I’ll tell you more about in another post.

Hint: It’s not for either of my existing series…

Invisible Women by Kathleen Ernst

Please welcome Kathleen Ernst to Hearth Cricket! Kathleen is a fellow Midnight Ink author who writes the Historic Sites Mystery Series (as well as several American Girl books). Like me, she has a fascination with history and colonial skills. Unlike me, she has actually worked at an outdoor living history museum. The third mystery in her series, The Light Keeper’s Legacy,  just released this month in both trade paperback and ebook formats. I’ve already downloaded my Kindle copy and can’t wait to start it. And now:

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Invisible Women
by Kathleen Ernst

Anonymous was a woman, they say.  Anyone who loves history—or who has waded into the murky waters of genealogical research—knows that it can be much more difficult to learn about historical women than men.  Men are noted by full name on legal papers and in local histories.   The string of male surnames on a family tree are easier to track than the women of different birth names grafted onto the records by marriage.

During the decade I spent working as a curator at a large historic site, I worked hard to keep women’s stories an equal part of the research and interpretation.  It’s important that our children understand that all women, not just a prominent few, led interesting lives.

Chloe Ellefson, the protagonist of my Historic Sites mystery series, is also drawn to stories of unrecognized, even unknown women from the past.  In the third installment,  The Light Keeper’s Legacy, Chloe is charged with researching and writing a furnishings plan for Pottawatomie Lighthouse.  This magnificent (and real) structure dates back to 1858, and sits within Wisconsin’s Rock Island State Park in Lake Michigan.

When Chloe arrives, she meets Herb Whitby, a volunteer who had taken a lead role in restoring the lighthouse.  It’s immediately apparent that the two are approaching the project quite differently:

“With any luck we’ll find primary source material from some of the women and children who lived here,” Chloe added. “Sometimes the best clues about furnishings turn up in diaries and letters written by the people who had to clean the pieces.”

Herb straightened his shoulders.  “I assure you, the light keepers themselves did a great deal of upkeep on a regular basis.”  He sounded peeved.

And later:

“I know this structure was built in 1858,” Chloe said, as they climbed the stairs to the second story.  “There were some fishing families on the island at that time, right?  I wonder if we could find some written description of the lighthouse from someone in the fishing village.  A letter, maybe.”

“Observations from some barely-literate fisherman would hardly be relevant to this project,” Herb said.  He pointed to a narrow room, facing north.  “This was the assistant keeper’s bedroom.”
OK, Herb, I get it, Chloe thought.  No more references to women, children, or fisherfolk.  The Native Americans who fished these waters were presumably off-limit in his mind, too.

Chloe, of course, continues to delve into the lives of the women who’d once lived on Rock Island.  She becomes particularly fascinated with Emily Betts, who once served as Assistant Keeper at Pottawatomie Lighthouse, and Ragna Anderson, a Danish immigrant who had lived in the fishing village.  She soon discovers that an old tragedy involving the two women might have ramifications in a contemporary murder investigation.

Emily Betts was a real woman who served as Assistant Keeper and was much admired in the community.  I have not yet found any written records, photographs, or artifacts from women who lived in the fishing village, so I created the fictional Ragna Anderson to represent them.

I sometimes miss my old curator days.  But as an author, I now have the fun of featuring real historic sites and museums in the Chloe Ellefson books.  Each mystery reflects and celebrates the contributions of women both real and imagined.  And each, I hope, shines a little candlelight on everyday, invisible women who paved the way for their daughters and granddaughters. 

**
I’m grateful to Cricket for allowing me to be a guest on her blog.  And I’m grateful to readers!  I love my work, and I’d be nowhere without you.  Leave a comment here, and your name will go into a drawing; the winner may choose any of my Chloe Ellefson mysteries:  Old World Murder, The Heirloom Murders, or The Light Keeper’s Legacy.  For more information see my website, http://kathleenernst.com, or my blog, http://sitesandstories.wordpress.com . 

The Light Keeper’s Legacy is Kathleen Ernst’s twenty-fourth published book.  In addition to the Chloe Ellefson series, she has written many books for American Girl, including the six-book series about the newest historical character, Caroline Abbott.  Several of her mysteries for young readers have been finalists for Edgar or Agatha awards.  Kathleen and her husband Scott volunteer as live-in docents for a week each summer at Pottawatomie Lighthouse.

Harvest Moon

Last Saturday hosted the harvest moon, or the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Since farmers traditionally harvested the last of their crops by the light of the harvest moon it seemed like a good idea to emulate them by bringing in all I could yesterday afternoon.

This year spring came early and winter doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. Sometimes by now I’m cleaning up the blackened dregs of all but the hardiest vegetable plants. Yet there’s been no frost in the forecast, and while the nights get chilly enough for a fire on the grate, we still sleep with the windows wide open.

But the vegetable gardens are weary. I can tell. Yellowing tomato leaves, drooping bush beans, a smattering of powdery mildew on the single zucchini plant all broadcast an air of approaching senescence that mirrors the fruit-heavy serviceberries and cottonwood leaves fading from green to amber above.

There were two red cabbages severely threatened by aphids so I grabbed them and ditched the plants – along with one of the broccoli plants also affected. The other broccoli stalks are happy with the cool and continue to offer ancillary florets, so I let them be. The big bean pole is decorated with lots of fat purple and rattlesnake pods lumpy with ripening seeds. They’re heirlooms, so I’m set for bean seeds for next year. I pulled up the spent yellow wax bean bushes, though, along with the edamame and now-tough, three-foot basil.

Though there were plenty of tomatoes on the six plants in the kitchen potager, none had turned red since we got back from the river trip two weeks ago. (Ah – the river trip. Have been gathering my thoughts about how to blog about that.) So I picked all the fruit and dug up the plants.

There were a lot of green tomatoes.

A lot. I bet we’ll still be eating them in December.

Red tomatoes there in the big white bowl below – more green ones beneath them – two fresh quarts of honey from our friends Sherri and Tim’s hives, two tiers of peppers, eggplants, cabbage, garlic, spaghetti squash, and a few rogue apples from the neighbor’s tree, a puppy-pile of zucchini (the largest is two feet long, I kid you not) and jars of dried sage, rosemary and parsley. More parsley hangs, drying, above.

Remaining in the gardens are beets, chard, parsnips, a sprinkling of carrots, broccoli, arugula, and a small plot of underdeveloped bunching onions and leeks. Though I haven’t canned much this year, the big freezer is chock full of garden produce, chicken and pork.

The larder is stocked, and I feel rich.

Signs of Autumn

A rumpled gray sky shadows me on my morning walk, and clear rain-washed air fills my lungs. Each day the changes become more apparent: Winter is coming.

For now, however, I’ll revel in fall. A slight breeze wraps around my moving limbs. The thermometer on the back porch reads 58 F and a couple light layers along with a brisk walk keeps me warm but not too warm. The smell of black coffee drifts up from my blue insulated cup.

This is how I’ve come to start my day. Mind blank, rote routine of feeding cats, brewing coffee, brushing teeth, washing face, getting dressed – then out to soak up some world. Sometimes it’s my neighborhood, sometimes a wander on the nearby bike path through open field or along the running river.

As I go, words begin to swirl in my head. They gather into rough structures – character thoughts, scene ideas, general notions of what I want to address on the page later – notions I left the page with the day before. But for the first couple miles of the walk I keep pulling my attention back to here. To now.

To pumpkins and scarecrows inhabiting front porches though it’s still September. To the echinacea and rudbeckia fading away to become “winter interest” in another couple months. To the leaves turning on locust trees, Virginia creeper, the grass called Northern Lights, burning bushes, and the occasion grape leaf. Most other trees only hint at the blizzard of yellow soon to blanket lawns and gather along curbs. Shiny crabapples above are echoed by orange rose hips below. Mums hunch in tidy domes rich with jewel-toned color, happy with the snap in the air, and the stubborn Russian sage and sunset hyssop are still going strong.

A hint of smoke from an overnight fire reaches my nose. Piles of cut firewood grow daily beside houses. Vs of Canada geese honk overhead. A dozen fat squirrels congregate beneath a horse chestnut tree, busily munching. A young boy walks a leashed Nubian goat on the other side of the street, and we wave to each other. A familiar gray cat runs out, purring, to twine in my feet, begging me to stop and scritch under its chin.

Laughing, I do. I am well trained in this regard.

The second half of the walk either covers territory I’ve already been over or takes me through a kind of Stepford neighborhood with seemingly identical houses, precisely cut lawns, and predictable landscaping. Other than the vista of the foothills nudging the clouds on the western horizon, my interest fades from my surroundings and begins to tend to all those words that have been gathering beneath my conscious notice.

I arrive back home with a clear focus on how to start the day’s writing and where to go from there. It’s a very good way to start the morning.

Full Rich Life

This morning I awoke sore and tired from a long day yesterday working at one of the rental houses. The dear boys who had lived there one short year utterly trashed the place. The levels of gank and ick are hard to describe, not to mention the broken windows, stained carpet, clogged sink (found a butter knife in the pipe!), and scuffed up walls.

We had professionals come in to clean. Twice. The carpet cleaner we keep on speed dial did his magic. K has replaced tile, installed new window blinds, and stripped the carpet off the stairs and covered them with sturdy Marmoleum.

The painter is over there as I type. Yesterday we prepped four rooms for him – a considerable feat since he’s using a sprayer (due to the textured ceilings) and everything we didn’t want painted “latte” had to be covered with tape or plastic. I vacuumed up cobwebs and filled holes with spackle while K took down doors and primed them outside. And do twenty-something young men really need to stick glow-in-the-dark stars all over their ceiling? Really? Apparently one did.

We also cleaned out all the air conditioning units and the heat registers and replaced the furnace filter, blah blah usual maintenance. Dirty jobs, but normal. After a dinner of leftovers and an hour watching the recorded PGA tournament, K went to bed about ten. I settled in and worked on my second review of the page proofs for A Deadly Row to Hoe for a couple of hours.

At seven this morning I rolled out of bed and plunged into the day. Even though I’m tired at the moment, I seem to have a lot of energy these days. That’s good, because there is so much to do. I think the extra zoom in my step has to do with the advent of autumn – little signs like cooler nights and meals that consist entirely of corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, green beans and melon. The freezer is filling with produce from the garden and the farmers market. Juice squeezed from grapes (heated slightly and then mashed in a food mill) and mixed with honey and Bordeaux yeast ferments in a gallon jug in the sink. A few yellow cottonwood leaves have drifted down to the patio. Their brethren will soon follow.

So first thing, coffee mug in hand, I picked a big bowl of yellow wax beans and another of rattlesnake and purple pole beans. Six zucchini were of a decent size to freeze, and the broccoli had produced enough ancillary heads to warrant harvest and freezing.

Back inside I checked email and learned that the copy edits for Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti that were scheduled to come to me on the 22nd were sitting in my inbox and due back on the 20th. Schedules move a lot, but it’s a crazy week to take that on. K’s birthday is on Friday and I’m figuring out a little get together and the rental still needs work (but has to be done by Wednesday). Still, if I finish the Deadly Row to Hoe proofs today (a stretch) then I should be able to pull off the copy edits for Magical Bakery Mystery #2 on time.

So: The beans and broccoli are blanched and frozen. The zucchini is sliced and frozen. The yogurt maker is slowly heating milk and culture on the counter, and piima cream perks away in the cupboard to be made into butter later in the week. Thanks to those extra two hours I spent last night, half the page proofs are done, and I have a couple hours before heading back over to the rental to mow the yard and clean screens and windows. Then on to dinner and discussion with the fabulous ladies of the Old Town Writing Group. 

I really do love fall, and all that goes with it – gardens, produce, getting ready for winter, and, of course, deadlines. I love the variety of my days, and the freedom despite the busyness. K and I are our own bosses, and do our work on our own terms. We’ve both taken risks to be able to live like that. Sometimes I just have to remind myself how extraordinarily good life is – hard work, late nights and all.