We are delighted to welcome author Edith Maxwell to Omnimystery News today.
Edith's new first in series mystery is Delivering the Truth (Midnight Ink; April 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk more about her work.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to your new series character.
Photo provided courtesy of
Edith Maxwell
Edith Maxwell: Rose Carroll is a Quaker midwife in 1888, a single woman of twenty-four with a handsome beau from across the river. Rose goes into women's bedrooms to help them with the births of their babies and hears secrets no male detective would ever have access to. She also delivers the newborns of the rich carriage factory owner's wife, those of the poor French-Canadian mill workers, and everybody in between. Those circumstances, along with her curiosity and forthright nature, make her a perfect amateur sleuth.
OMN: Suppose Rose and you were to meet. What would she say to you?
EM: "I am delighted to meet thee, Edith — a fellow Friend and a women with experience in my profession."
OMN: Into which genre would you place Delivering the Truth?
EM: My book will be shelved as an historical mystery, but it's also a cozy: village based, with an amateur sleuth ensuring justice is restored in the end. There is no gratuitous violence or obscenities, and the romance stays just that.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of the book?
EM: What a great question! "1888 #Quaker #midwife catches babies, tracks 2 murderers & arsonist in 1888 Mass. mill town. @midnightinkbook http://amzn.to/1LsoZqY"
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
EM: I'm writing in my home office every morning (except Sunday) by seven AM after an hour of poking around the internet, which I have to get out of the way first or I'll be too distracted to write.
By nature I write "into the headlights" — that is, I don't plot out every scene and conflict ahead of time. Sometimes this leads me into a corner I have to back out of, but usually the process works and I can get a first draft cranked out in about two months. Then I let it gel for a couple of weeks before I dive into revision. I have three multi-book contracts, so I have to write three books a year. So far the process is working!
OMN: Delivering the truth is set in an 1888 mill town. How important is setting to the story?
EM: The setting, which includes the era, informs so much about the story. How people lived, how they communicated, where babies were birthed, attitudes about crime and comportment. The late 1880s were a time of much change — electric lights might have been installed in town, but wouldn't have been in my midwife's modest home, for example. Offices and more well-off people might have had telephones and indoor plumbing — but not Rose. Doctors were not yet delivering babies, but the germ theory of infection was known, so Rose is aware of the importance of washing her hands and keeping things clean in the birthing chamber. Newborns still died, however.
Fingerprinting and blood typing weren't known yet, and police stayed well out of domestic abuse situations. Horses pulled carriages, buggies, and wagons, although Rose rides one of the new "safety" bicycles with both wheels the same size. The abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier was still alive and worshipped in the same Friends Meetinghouse as Rose (and me). I've added him as a secondary character in the series, providing counsel to Rose on occasion.
I love writing in an era where people still wrote notes and the post was delivered twice a day, where recipes include instructions to pluck the chicken before cooking it, where a hi-tech device is a wall telephone.
OMN: How did Delivering the Truth come to be titled?
EM: I named the book Breaking the Silence, since Quakers sit in silent worship and Rose broke out of that in several ways. Midnight Ink changed the title to Delivering the Truth, which is also perfect. Rose delivers not only babies but answers.
OMN: The striking cover depicts a scene from the book. How involved were you with its design?
EM: I sent along suggestions to Midnight Ink about the era, what a Quaker midwife might wear, and what the buildings of the town looked like (and still look like). I absolutely love the cover.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
EM: I read mysteries of course, starting with Nancy Drew but quickly getting into Sherlock Holmes and Poe's stories, and then Agatha Christie. I also read a lot of biographies of strong women. It's no surprise that I write mysteries with strong women protagonists.
OMN: What's next for you?
EM: After I get Delivering the Truth launched, I have two more books coming out at the end of May: Murder Most Fowl, which is Local Foods Mystery number four, and Grilled for Murder, Country Store Mystery number two. Then I'll put the final polish on Mulch Ado About Murder, Local Foods Mystery number five, and send it in to my editor at Kensington, and start writing Quaker Midwife Mystery number three. It's a busy time, but I'm living my dream.
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Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Her short story, "A Questionable Death," is nominated for a 2016 Agatha Award for Best Short Story. The tale features the 1888 setting and characters from her Quaker Midwife Mysteries series.
A former childbirth educator, farmer, and technical writer, Edith is Vice-President of Sisters in Crime New England and Clerk of Amesbury Friends Meeting. She lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats, and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at EdithMaxwell.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Delivering the Truth by Edith Maxwell
A Quaker Midwife Mystery
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Quaker midwife Rose Carroll hears secrets and keeps confidences as she attends births of the rich and poor alike in an 1888 Massachusetts mill town. When the town's world-famed carriage industry is threatened by the work of an arsonist, and a carriage factory owner's adult son is stabbed to death with Rose's own knitting needle, she is drawn into solving the mystery. Things get dicey after the same owner's mistress is also murdered, leaving her one-week-old baby without a mother. The Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier helps Rose by lending words of advice and support.
While struggling with being less than the perfect Friend, Rose draws on her strengths as a counselor and problem solver to bring two murderers to justice before they destroy the town's carriage industry and the people who run it.
— Delivering the Truth by Edith Maxwell
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