Welcome to the first Coffee Chat of 2021!
Although it’s a cold and snowy day in the Midwest, this week’s guest author has made the virtual trip to be with us and bring her featured book, Shuntoll Road. I hope you’ll join me in book talk with mystery writer Leslie Wheeler.
Good to have you here, Leslie. What may I get you to drink?
LW: I start off the day with a cup of chai tea with milk and Stevia sweetener. I switch to coffee for a pickup in mid to late afternoon--instant, again with milk, sweetener and sometimes a teaspoon of cocoa mixed in.
Ally: I assume you’ve already had your morning tea, so let’s see what we can do about that cup of coffee. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll introduce yourself to readers.
Although it’s a cold and snowy day in the Midwest, this week’s guest author has made the virtual trip to be with us and bring her featured book, Shuntoll Road. I hope you’ll join me in book talk with mystery writer Leslie Wheeler.
Good to have you here, Leslie. What may I get you to drink?
LW: I start off the day with a cup of chai tea with milk and Stevia sweetener. I switch to coffee for a pickup in mid to late afternoon--instant, again with milk, sweetener and sometimes a teaspoon of cocoa mixed in.
Ally: I assume you’ve already had your morning tea, so let’s see what we can do about that cup of coffee. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll introduce yourself to readers.
Bio:
An award-winning author of non-fiction, Leslie Wheeler turned to mystery writing to give herself the freedom to make things up. Her two series are the Berkshire Hilltown Mysteries, which began with Rattlesnake Hill and continues with Shuntoll Road, and the Miranda Lewis Living History Mysteries, which debuted with Murder at Plimoth Plantation, recently re-released as a trade paperback by Encircle Publishing, and continues with Murder at Gettysburg and Murder at Spouters Point. Wheeler’s mystery short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including the Best New England Crime Stories series. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Berkshires, where she does her best writing in a house overlooking a pond.
Something that isn’t in my regular bio: “Every Sunday night I read “Dinner with Cupid,” a Boston Globe Magazine feature, where couples are matched for a blind date with dinner courtesy of the Globe. I’m always happy when the date is a success, and kind of sad when it’s not. Either I’m an incurable romantic, or I just like things to work out between people.”
Contact Links:
Website: https://lesliewheeler.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesliewheelerauthor
Twitter: @Leslie_Wheeler
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/728725.Leslie_Wheeler
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/leslie-wheeler
An award-winning author of non-fiction, Leslie Wheeler turned to mystery writing to give herself the freedom to make things up. Her two series are the Berkshire Hilltown Mysteries, which began with Rattlesnake Hill and continues with Shuntoll Road, and the Miranda Lewis Living History Mysteries, which debuted with Murder at Plimoth Plantation, recently re-released as a trade paperback by Encircle Publishing, and continues with Murder at Gettysburg and Murder at Spouters Point. Wheeler’s mystery short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including the Best New England Crime Stories series. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Berkshires, where she does her best writing in a house overlooking a pond.
Something that isn’t in my regular bio: “Every Sunday night I read “Dinner with Cupid,” a Boston Globe Magazine feature, where couples are matched for a blind date with dinner courtesy of the Globe. I’m always happy when the date is a success, and kind of sad when it’s not. Either I’m an incurable romantic, or I just like things to work out between people.”
Contact Links:
Website: https://lesliewheeler.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesliewheelerauthor
Twitter: @Leslie_Wheeler
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/728725.Leslie_Wheeler
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/leslie-wheeler
INTERVIEW:
Ally: What made you decide to write your featured book?
LW: I was inspired to write Shuntoll Road, the second book in my Berkshire Hilltown Mystery series, by my deep and abiding love for the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, where I have lived for many years. The Berkshires I portray is not the one that tourists who flock there in the summer and fall know. Instead, it’s a place “of lonely towns perched high on hills, of narrow, winding back roads, where wildlife outnumbers humans, and the residents often lead hardscrabble lives.” The books are set in a town not unlike the one where I have a house. My town covers a large and diverse area, and each book deals with a distinct part of that area. In Shuntoll Road the focus is on a part of town, where long ago there were two tiny hamlets called Sodom and Gomorrah, because of the evil ways of the inhabitants.
Ally: Do people you know ever show up in your books?
LW: People in my real life have a way of creeping into my fiction. They include family members, friends and neighbors. I follow a “Mr. Potato Head” approach to creating characters. I’ll take a trait from one person I’ve known, and slap it on another, very different character. This helps me disguise characters, especially those presented in a negative light, so the folks they’re based on won’t recognize themselves in my books—at least not to the degree of being able to sue me.
Ally: What’s your writing process like? Are you a pantser or a plotter?
LW: I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, though I prefer to call my process “the discovery method.” I have a general idea about how the story will begin and how it will end, but then I must discover the rest of the story while writing it. If I’m going to do an outline, it’s usually after the first hundred pages, so I can see where I need to go, based on where I’ve already been. The drawback to my method is that if a terrific character shows up toward the end, I have to backfill her into the beginning. The upside is that I’m never bored while writing, because I’m discovering the story in the same way the reader does.
Ally: What’s the best advice you could pass on to other writers?
LW: “Don’t give up,” and “Don’t try to make your novel or short story perfect the first time around.” My first drafts are messy to be point of being embarrassing. But I always try to remind myself not to be discouraged, because I’ve done this before and I can get it right after several drafts.
Ally: What are you working on now?
LW: My next writing project is Wolf Bog, the third book in my Berkshire Hilltown series. I’m currently revising the first draft and it will probably need a couple more revisions before I submit it to my publisher. I’m hoping for publication some time in late 2021 or early 2022.
Ally: Which of the short trivia questions did you choose?
LW:
Ally: What made you decide to write your featured book?
LW: I was inspired to write Shuntoll Road, the second book in my Berkshire Hilltown Mystery series, by my deep and abiding love for the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, where I have lived for many years. The Berkshires I portray is not the one that tourists who flock there in the summer and fall know. Instead, it’s a place “of lonely towns perched high on hills, of narrow, winding back roads, where wildlife outnumbers humans, and the residents often lead hardscrabble lives.” The books are set in a town not unlike the one where I have a house. My town covers a large and diverse area, and each book deals with a distinct part of that area. In Shuntoll Road the focus is on a part of town, where long ago there were two tiny hamlets called Sodom and Gomorrah, because of the evil ways of the inhabitants.
Ally: Do people you know ever show up in your books?
LW: People in my real life have a way of creeping into my fiction. They include family members, friends and neighbors. I follow a “Mr. Potato Head” approach to creating characters. I’ll take a trait from one person I’ve known, and slap it on another, very different character. This helps me disguise characters, especially those presented in a negative light, so the folks they’re based on won’t recognize themselves in my books—at least not to the degree of being able to sue me.
Ally: What’s your writing process like? Are you a pantser or a plotter?
LW: I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, though I prefer to call my process “the discovery method.” I have a general idea about how the story will begin and how it will end, but then I must discover the rest of the story while writing it. If I’m going to do an outline, it’s usually after the first hundred pages, so I can see where I need to go, based on where I’ve already been. The drawback to my method is that if a terrific character shows up toward the end, I have to backfill her into the beginning. The upside is that I’m never bored while writing, because I’m discovering the story in the same way the reader does.
Ally: What’s the best advice you could pass on to other writers?
LW: “Don’t give up,” and “Don’t try to make your novel or short story perfect the first time around.” My first drafts are messy to be point of being embarrassing. But I always try to remind myself not to be discouraged, because I’ve done this before and I can get it right after several drafts.
Ally: What are you working on now?
LW: My next writing project is Wolf Bog, the third book in my Berkshire Hilltown series. I’m currently revising the first draft and it will probably need a couple more revisions before I submit it to my publisher. I’m hoping for publication some time in late 2021 or early 2022.
Ally: Which of the short trivia questions did you choose?
LW:
- favorite accessories: green or purple beret; patterned socks with cats and other animals.
- the best thing a book fan has ever said to you: “. . . we know/knew all the players in this intriguing story, and loved your ‘spin’ on the true crime we endured & that shook our tiny town! Loved the settings, and places, and all the roads you took the reader on, it put me right there with your vivid descriptions.”
- pets: orange tabby named Marmalade
- best place I’ve ever visited: Iceland, because it’s such a beautiful yet strange country.
- one thing I’d try to take with me if forced to evacuate my home: my laptop, where my writing lives.
Shuntoll Road (A Berkshire Hilltop Mystery)
Genre: traditional mystery
Rating: PG-13
Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting and has grown to love, into an upscale residential development.
The fight pits her against Earl, offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Did he die attempting to escape a fire he set, or was the fire set to cover up his murder? Kathryn’s search for answers leads her to other questions about the developer’s connection to a friend of hers who fled New York years ago for mysterious reasons. The information she uncovers puts her in grave danger.
Buy links:
Amazon Kindle/paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Shuntoll-Road-Berkshire-Hilltown-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08F7YQ42H
Encircle Publishing: https://encirclepub.com/product/shuntollroad/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shuntoll-road-leslie-wheeler/1136500170
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1524348304
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/shuntoll-road
Genre: traditional mystery
Rating: PG-13
Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting and has grown to love, into an upscale residential development.
The fight pits her against Earl, offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Did he die attempting to escape a fire he set, or was the fire set to cover up his murder? Kathryn’s search for answers leads her to other questions about the developer’s connection to a friend of hers who fled New York years ago for mysterious reasons. The information she uncovers puts her in grave danger.
Buy links:
Amazon Kindle/paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Shuntoll-Road-Berkshire-Hilltown-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08F7YQ42H
Encircle Publishing: https://encirclepub.com/product/shuntollroad/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shuntoll-road-leslie-wheeler/1136500170
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1524348304
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/shuntoll-road
RSS Feed
