with Helen Smith
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Helen Smith to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Cozy Mystery Book Reviews, which is coordinating her current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find her schedule here.
Helen's new mystery is Invitation To Die (Thomas & Mercer, March 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats), introducing amateur sleuth Emily Castles. (The book was first published as a four-part Kindle serial during March and April of this year.)
We recently had a chance to talk to Helen about her book.
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Omnimystery News: Why did you choose to create a series character for your new mystery?
Photo provided courtesy of
Helen Smith
Helen Smith: I enjoy getting to know recurring characters over several books in a series and I hope readers of my Emily Castles books will feel the same way. Emily is twenty-six and I'm planning to keep her at that age rather than ageing her in real time. Her core qualities will remain the same, so she won't change very much, although she will get better at sleuthing as the series progresses!
OMN: Into what mystery genre would you place Invitation To Die?
HS: I would categorize it as a humorous British mystery. It falls under the category of a cozy mystery, too, because all the violence is off the page and there is no profanity or sex in the book. I think it's helpful for readers to know what they're getting, and people who like British mysteries or cozies are likely to give it a go, so I'm hoping there are plenty of advantages in marketing it in that category.
OMN: Give us a synopsis of the book in a tweet.
HS: Invitation To Die: Amateur sleuth Emily Castles teams up with eccentric philosophy professor Dr. Muriel in this entertaining British mystery.
OMN: How much of your own personality or experience did you put into Invitation To Die?
HS: I put quite a lot of myself into my main characters but I invent most of the situations. For example, Emily makes her living doing temporary office work, going from job to job and never quite finding something that satisfies her. When I started out writing, I supported myself and my daughter by doing temporary office work. But I have never solved any murders!
OMN: What about the setting for the book?
HS: I set my books in real places but I change them. Invitation To Die takes place in a hotel in Bloomsbury, London. I had a hotel called the Russell Hotel in mind but I changed a lot of details about it, including the name and the layout. I use London as a setting for a lot of my books because I live here and I love it. But it's a much smaller, friendlier London than the real one — neighbors know each other and help each other out. The goodies and baddies all know each other and are connected in some way. There's a village feel to the London I write about.
OMN: Tell us about your writing process.
HS: I plan the book by doing an outline. I always know the shape of the story and how it will end. I find the story develops as I begin to write but because I know where I'm heading I don't get lost.
OMN: If the book were to be optioned for film or television, who would you choose to play the lead roles?
HS: I'd love to see the series on television. The main character, Emily Castles, is a sweet-natured young woman with short hair and dimples, so Carey Mulligan would be a great choice to play her. Her side-kick is a middle-aged philosophy professor. I'd love to see her played by Miriam Margolyes.
OMN: What's next for you?
HS: I have just finished the follow-up to Invitation To Die. It's called Beyond Belief and it's set in Torquay at a conference of philosophers, psychologists, mediums, hypnotists and TV psychics. Celebrated magician and self-professed sceptic Edmund Zenon has offered £50,000 to anyone who can prove the existence of the paranormal that weekend. When a death by drowning is predicted in a vision, Emily is called in to investigate.
I'm just about to start writing the next book in the series which is set at the Edinburgh Festival. Emily takes part in a theater show in which the boundaries between reality and art begin to blur. She finds herself in danger when she tries to investigate the death of a fellow performer.
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Helen Smith is a member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain and English PEN. She traveled the world when her daughter was small, doing all sorts of strange jobs to support them both — from cleaning motels to working as a magician's assistant — before returning to live in London where she wrote her first novel.
She writes novels, poetry, plays and screenplays and is the recipient of an Arts Council of England Award. She's a long-term supporter of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture and mentors members of an exiled writers group to help them tell their stories. She likes knitting but she doesn't like driving. She likes dancing.
Learn more about Helen by visiting her website, EmperorsClothes.co.uk, or finding her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Invitation To Die
Helen Smith
An Emily Castles Mystery (1st in series)
Twenty-six-year-old Emily Castles is out of work … again. So when famous romance author Morgana Blakely offers her a job helping out at a conference in London, Emily accepts. Just as eagerly, American blogger Winnie Kraster accepts an invitation from Morgana to attend as a guest, not realizing she has, in effect, accepted an invitation to die.
As a cast of oddball characters assembles at the conference hotel, grievances, differences, and secrets begin to emerge. When Winnie goes missing, and then is found murdered nearby, Emily begins to suspect that someone involved with the conference is responsible. Could it be one of the organizers, one of the authors, a member of the hotel staff, or even the supplier of the chocolates for the conference gift bags? Emily teams up with guest speaker and eccentric philosophy professor Dr. Muriel to find out.
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