Who erased the writer?Winter in Maine is long, dark, and cold, and California transplant Seffi Wardwell is combating the winter blues with a full calendar. Tending the plants at the local bed-and-breakfast, writing reports for the library, and generally keeping an eye on events in Smelt Point barely leaves time for pastry and gossip at Sweet Dreams, the local bakery and heart of the village.
When the participants at an artistic retreat held at the bed-and-breakfast grow combative, Seffi is there to smooth things over, stiffen the spine of the innkeeper, and keep things going. But when a writer turns up dead, Seffi’s called on to wield a different kind of expertise. Then someone lets slip there was poison in a coffee bought at Sweet Dreams, and it looks like Seffi’s favorite source of treats is in real trouble. Can her knowledge of plants save the inn—and the local bakery—before the killer strikes again and tears the heart out of Smelt Point?
Hello, and thanks for letting me come and talk to your readers!
It feels a little odd to be here at Romance Novel Giveaways, because my Seffi Wardwell mysteries aren’t romances (my other mystery series, the Pismawallops PTA mysteries, have more of a romantic element, but no one would call them romances, either). Still, I think that many romance readers enjoy a good cozy mystery, with all the comfort there is in knowing that good will triumph over evil and there’ll be some tasty pastries along the way.
I get asked a lot about the settings for my books, so I’ll give you the inside scoop on Smelt Point, Seffi’s home in Maine. First, yes, I know it’s a bit odd that I set my books in Maine while I live in Seattle. That fact is, I like Maine. I’ve spent just enough time there to feel like I know it a little without getting too hung up on reality, and that coast lends itself to the cozy vibe. Besides, with all those peninsulas and harbors and villages, who’s going to notice that I slipped in an extra?
The setting of Seffi’s books is 100% fictional, and while I pulled a lot of elements from the parts of the coast I know, I pulled others out of thin air because they suited my stories. Smelt Point, like many of the villages on the Maine coast, is a relic of a time before the collapse of the local fishery, though there is still some going on there. Unlike many such villages in reality, it’s managed to hang on as more than a cluster of cottages—there’s a market and a library, as well as a small fleet that fishes out of the harbor—and the fish-processing plant that featured in Seffi’s first adventure, A Coastal Corpse.
Smelt Point—the name of course dates back to the days when smelt were the backbone of the local economy—sits on a knob on the side of the (wholly imaginary) Cat’s Claw peninsula, and has a decent harbor. The village is just short of the end of the Claw, and that last mile of land is now the Painter’s Head Nature Reserve, where when it’s not all under several feet of snow Seffi gets together with her friend Professor Greer to torment—er, to teach visiting students about botany.
Everything in Smelt Point is within about a 15-minute walk of everything else, which is good for Seffi, since she doesn’t have a car right now. If you are coming into the village from the “mainland,” you’ll have a choice of driving down to the harbor, where the hardware/marine supply store and gas station sit, or staying on the higher ground and going down “main street.” In “downtown” Smelt Point you’ll pass the pizza place, the Smelt Point Market, the library, and then Sweet Dream Bakery before you turn down the second side street to Seffi’s house (the first one will lead you farther down the Claw to the Beachside Inn, and eventually—if your vehicle can handle the road—to the Painter Head Reserve).
Seffi’s cottage isn’t large, but it’s as cute as can be, and even before she got it, it had the best garden in Smelt Point, a village that takes gardens and gardening seriously. Once the people figured out that Seffi was as willing to learn as to teach, and would take proper care of the garden, folks began to welcome her to their community. She’d already found the bakery on her own.
That’s pretty much it for the village, geographically speaking. If you want to know about the people who live there… you’d better head on over for a visit! Seffi and the rest of the garden club always have something going on.
Rebecca M. Douglass has lived, worked, and hiked around the American West for more years than she’ll admit, while raising two children to adulthood and dreaming up interesting ways to bump people off. Thanks to good friends in Maine, she has also fallen in love with that mysterious coast. Since retiring from work at the library, the author has moved to Seattle, where she is writing the Seffi Wardwell Mysteries. In addition to her Ninja Librarian series for younger readers and the Pismawallops PTA mystery series, she has had short stories published in a magazines and anthologies. When she isn’t writing, Ms. Douglass likes to go hiking and backpacking, or travels to discover new places or revisit old favorites, including the Sierra Nevada mountains, the desert Southwest, and of course Maine, where so many of the best cozy mysteries are found.
Thanks for letting me come by today!
ReplyDeleteThank you for touring with Great Escapes, and I really enjoyed your Guest Post!
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