Please Welcome Mystery Author Lia Farrell

with Lia Farrell

We are delighted to welcome mystery author Lia Farrell to Omnimystery News today. That should be mystery authors as Lia Farrell is a pen name used by the mother and daughter writing team of Lyn Farquhar and Lisa Fitzsimmons.

Lia's debut mystery is One Dog Too Many (Camel Press; November 2013 trade paperback), which introduces dog boarding business owner Mae December.

We asked Lia to tell us the backstory to the series.

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Photos provided courtesy of
Lia Farrell

One Dog Too Many is the first mystery in a 3 book series by Lia Farrell featuring Maeve December who runs a dog boarding business in Tennessee. Mae's controversial neighbor Ruby Mead Allison has been feuding with the Road Commissioner. She's opposed to widening Little Chapel Road. While out exercising the dogs she is boarding, Mae comes upon Ruby's dead body. A traffic counting cord lies across her neck.

The idea for this story arose when Lyn (the mom of this mother/daughter writing team) was visiting Lisa in Tennessee. We went out to brunch one Sunday morning and were reading an article in the newspaper about a road widening project in the county. The story detailed a neighbor's frivolous lawsuit intended to derail the widening of the street.

We both read a lot of mysteries and said, "If that were a murder mystery, somebody would knock that lady off." And Lisa responded, "It would make a great novel, wouldn't it?" So we decided to write it. We had a brain-storming session during which we named all the characters and made a plan for the first draft.

Since Lyn lives in Michigan and Lisa lives in Tennessee we decided to send chapters back and forth via e-mail.

It sounded so simple. We wrote the first draft in about nine months and began the agent querying process. Boy we have learned a lot since then!

We were lucky to get Dawn Dowdle from Blue Ridge Literary an agent who was willing to take a chance on our story. I blush when I think of what we sent her as our "finished product." Poor Dawn, she even had to teach us about pov! She wanted us to tell the story completely from Mae's point of view. We didn't feel we could do that because we thought readers would expect to hear about fingerprint evidence, autopsies, etc. Plus we wanted the story to have a love interest.

We decided that four people would tell the story; Ben Bradley, the sheriff, Wayne Nichols, the detective, Mae and her best friend Tammy Rogers. It seemed best for Lisa to write the Mae and Tammy material and for Lyn to write the Ben and Wayne chapters. Dawn gave in reluctantly, but told us we couldn't have more than one pov per chapter. It was a genius suggestion. Months of writing and re-writing later, Dawn agreed that the ms. was ready to send out.

After multiple rejections, we got a rejection from Camel Press, but they were kind enough to make several trenchant suggestions. We re-wrote, Dawn re-submitted and we got Jennifer and Catherine who have been fabulous collaborators. In addition, they gave us a 3 Book Deal! And an adorable cover! Yes, I know, you aren't supposed to use exclamation points! But we are seriously over the moon. The book comes out November, 2013.

We are already hard at work on Two Dogs Lie Sleeping. The plot for this one is much more complex. It features our same cast of characters. July December, Mae's older sister, finds her old high school boyfriend Tommy Ferris dying in his parent's former home. He's been shot in the back. Tommy was last seen in Rosedale on Christmas break during his sophomore year at college. Upon returning to East Tennessee State, he found his roommate had committed suicide. Tommy disappeared the following day. So, it's a new case on top of an old case; thus two dogs lie sleeping.

We can't believe our luck and hope you will enjoy our story-telling.

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Lia Farrell is the pen name of the mother and daughter writing team of Lyn Farquhar and Lisa Fitzsimmons, who live in Michigan and Tennessee, respectively. Both are life-long readers who are also dog lovers. Lyn owns two Welsh corgis and Lisa has two pugs and a Siberian husky. Lisa works as a Muralist and Interior Designer and Lyn is a Professor of Medical Education.

For more information about the authors and their series, visit their website at LiaFarrell.net.

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One Dog Too Many
Lia Farrell
A Mae December Mystery

Mae December runs a successful dog boarding business in Tennessee. When her neighbor, Ruby Mead-Allison, fails to pick up her unruly Pomeranian from Mae's kennel, Mae pokes around and discovers the woman's body. It is clad in one red boot, and there is a vehicle counting cord wrapped around its neck.

While delving into the mystery of Ruby's death, Mae encounters handsome Sheriff Ben Bradley. Together they find no shortage of suspects. Ruby was standing in the way of a project that would widen the road and make the area safer. Was she killed by an angry neighbor? Her estranged husband? Her disinherited brother? The sheriff may not appreciate Mae's amateur detecting, but he does respond to her as a woman. Meanwhile the murderer thinks it's time to put a permanent stop to Mae's meddling.