We are delighted to welcome author Jeannette de Beauvoir to Omnimystery News today.
Jeannette's first mystery in a new series is Asylum (Minotaur Books; March 2015 hardcover and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with her talking about her work.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to your new series lead character. What is it about her that appeals to you as a writer?
Photo provided courtesy of
Jeannette de Beauvoir
Jeannette de Beauvoir: My series protagonist's name is Martine LeDuc; she's the PR director for the city of Montréal. I chose that work because it could give her a certain amount of freedom and flexibility and the potential to be involved in many different aspects of the city's life. I like Martine because, just as I've been thinking ahead in terms of plot, I'm also thinking ahead in terms of her character development — and I think that I can learn a lot from her as she grows and changes.
OMN: You're also the author of several other mysteries. How do you choose between writing one in a series or a stand-alone?
JdB: Oddly enough, one of my primary considerations is place. Place is as much a character to me as are people, and there are places that offer terrific potential for years of exploration … while others just feel like I can only mine them for one story. So I look at a place and some characters to put in it, and make the decisions based on that.
OMN: How would you categorize your mysteries?
JdB: My mystery novels mainly incorporate some historical fiction in some way. Not straight historical mysteries, but novels that enable a conversation between the past and the present.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
JdB: There's a conversation happening here between the past and the present. It's enabled by the protagonist but it also feels to me like the murders meant that the past was already impinging on the present, no matter what Martine did. I think that sometimes even the voiceless find a way to speak from history.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of Asylum?
JdB: 4 Montréal murders lead to a link with the past — and danger in the present.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
JdB: I think that every writer puts something of themselves into their characters, some of it deliberate, some of it unconscious. I suspect that there's a lot of me in Martine, things I don't even notice; but some of it was indeed on purpose. I gave her two stepchildren, because I spent 10 years adapting to having stepchildren and it's not an experience that there's much literature around. On another level, though, as I researched Asylum, the material I was reading raised some philosophical questions for me … so I gave them to Martine to puzzle through. As I said, I learn a lot from her!
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
JdB: I think that as time goes by and I develop as a writer, I become less and less organized around the process, as I learn to trust the voices. I used to outline and then found that the people I put into the story had their own ideas about where the story should go … finally I decided to just relax and let that happen. I usually have a vague idea of what I want to have happen and where I want things to go, and I pretty much stumble along in that direction until one of my characters takes issue with it.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
JdB: I really do want to get it right, especially the history, and I use all the resources that are available: books, the Internet, people, maps, photographs … I try to visit and spend time in every place I write about, and I think that gives the story a little immediacy that it wouldn't have otherwise.
OMN: You mentioned how important place is to your books. How true are you to the settings?
JdB: The physical setting is critical to my books. I've always liked visiting a place where a novel I read was set — I come upon a street or a building that an author described and I feel an immediate connection to the place. I'd like to think that my readers feel that way about how I open various places to them as well.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
JdB: I think that Eastern Europe is an extraordinary place to set a novel or a series — a rich and troubled history with an uneasy present and an uncertain future. I don't think it could get much more exciting than that. I spent some time in Romania a few years ago and felt enormously inspired by it.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests?
JdB: I read — a lot, every day. I was a passionate reader long before I became a writer, and it's very much an addiction, reading, isn't it? I love the theater and go as frequently as I can. Traveling, obviously, and I love museums, all sorts — science, art, history, anything. And it's not a hobby, exactly, but I love great food. Sometimes I even cook it.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?
JdB: Best advice? Keep the seat of your pants in the seat of your chair (no, don't get up to prowl or drink something or check your email … Just keep at it). Harshest criticism: not doing my homework (hence the response I made to doing research!). I think there's a lot to learn in both — hearing what helped others, and hearing what you're doing wrong. My advice to aspiring writers is easy: read. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. If you come to really love words and really love storytelling, your writing can only improve.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a mystery writer and thus I am also …".
JdB: I'm a mystery writer and so I'm also, almost by definition, a voyeur. I peer into people's lives, I ask people personal questions, when walking down a street at night I glance into lighted rooms to see how people live. I have boundless curiosity about my fellow human beings. I believe that people often find this irritating.
OMN: In looking through your previously published mysteries, you've used pen names for all of them. Why is that?
JdB: I use a whole bunch of pen names, though not for this series. In fact, this is my first series written under my real name. Pen names keep things simpler, especially for people like me who write a range of materials — when there's a name associated with a particular genre, series, or publisher, readers know what to expect.
OMN: Tell us more about the cover of Asylum.
JdB: The book cover design is all the amazing people at St. Martin's/Minotaur … isn't it fantastic? I wanted the title to be simple, since (as I noted before) this was my first series written under my real name, which isn't exactly an easy one to remember!
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?
JdB: Best feedback: 1) I couldn't put the book down; and 2) the story stayed with me long after I finished reading the novel.
OMN: Suppose Asylum were to be adapted for television or film. Who do you see playing the lead character?
JdB: I see Martine as smart and casual … I'd love to see Marion Cotillard play her!
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
JdB: I read everything. Everything! Both in English and in French (I grew up in a bilingual household). I remember that my mother (who was American) read a lot of Golden Age mystery authors, and her to-be-read stack next to her bed scared me a little, as they often featured corpses on the covers. But I started reading them, too. When I was a teenager I was too cool for genre fiction, I read existentialist plays and strange literary fiction, and didn't come back to mysteries until I was in my twenties.
OMN: And what do you generally read today?
JdB: I read so much … Every day I try to read something that challenges me, difficult fiction or nonfiction in a subject area that I don't know well. But my evenings are all about mystery fiction … I find it oddly restful. I still love the Golden Age writers, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Rex Stout, Josephine Tey … My favorite author, though, is Phil Rickman, who writes a series about an English woman priest who's also an exorcist, and a number of standalone novels that will scare the pants off you.
OMN: Have any specific authors influence how and what you write today?
JdB: My best-ever writing teacher was Mary Stewart, who wrote romantic thrillers primarily in the 50s and 60s. Reading her novels is like taking a master class in description, characterization, and dialogue.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
JdB: Top 5 places in which to place a mystery series:
1) Eastern Europe;
2) Angers (my hometown in France);
3) Copenhagen;
4) Morocco; and
5) Channel Islands.
OMN: What's next for you?
JdB: The next Martine LeDuc mystery, Deadly Jewels, comes out in March 2016, and I'm currently working on the third one. I'm also looking forward to developing and expanding my writing workshop series, both onsite and online at CapeCodWritingWorkshops.net.
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Jeannette de Beauvoir explores personal and moral questions through historical fiction, mysteries, and mainstream fiction. She grew up in Angers, France, but now divides her time between Cape Cod and Montréal.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at JeannetteAuthor.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Asylum by Jeannette de Beauvoir
A Martine LeDuc Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Martine LeDuc is the director of PR for the mayor's office in Montreal. When four women are found brutally murdered and shockingly posed on park benches throughout the city over several months, Martine's boss fears a PR disaster for the still busy tourist season, and Martine is now also tasked with acting as liaison between the mayor and the police department. The women were of varying ages, backgrounds and bodytypes and seemed to have nothing in common. Yet the macabre presentation of their bodies hints at a connection. Martine is paired with a young detective, Julian Fletcher, and together they dig deep into the city's and the country's past, only to uncover a dark secret dating back to the 1950s, when orphanages in Montreal and elsewhere were converted to asylums in order to gain more funding. The children were subjected to horrific experiments such as lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and psychotropic medication, and many of them died in the process. The survivors were supposedly compensated for their trauma by the government and the cases seem to have been settled. So who is bearing a grudge now, and why did these four women have to die?
Not until Martine finds herself imprisoned in the terrifying steam tunnels underneath the old asylum does she put the pieces together. And it is almost too late for her …
— Asylum by Jeannette de Beauvoir
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