with Liz Stauffer
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Liz Stauffer to Omnimystery News today.
Liz's new murder mystery is Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club (Sartoris Literary Group; June 2013 trade paperback), and we recently had the opportunity to chat with Liz about the book.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the characters of your new series, where they are today and how you see them developing in the future.
Photo provided courtesy of
Liz Stauffer
Liz Stauffer: Lillie Mae is a younger, feistier, Miss Marple sort of character, that, like the small mountain hamlet of Mount Penn that she lives in, will not change in obvious ways from book to book. But Lillie Mae, like Mount Penn, can't help but change in less obvious ways, as she, and her fellow amateur detectives, are exposed to murder and mayhem. Lillie Mae's mission is to keep the tight knit community and its residents safe and intact as the ever encroaching world, out to disrupt their peaceful status quo, closes in on them.
Other characters will grow and develop over time — the younger ones more so than the older ones, but the older characters will change, too. I think, fondly, of Kevin in book one. Another example, Charlie Warren, the home grown policeman, who solicits the aid of Lillie Mae and the Thursday morning breakfast club ladies to help flush out the murderers, meets his future love interest/bride in book one. That relationship blossoms and matures in future books.
OMN: Into what mystery genre would you place the book?
LS: It's been hard for me to label my book, so I do believe traditional labels can be a challenge. Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club is an American village mystery, on the cusp of a cozy, but not really a cozy mystery. I've mimicked a traditional British mystery, but have given it an American flare. Someone once told me the book was pure Americana!
The characters are quirky, but believable. The setting, though isolated, is lovely and inviting. Although a murder disrupts the seemingly idyllic status quo, once the crime is solved, all seems to return to the way it was. Although Thursday Morning is not modeled after Murder, She Wrote, or Louise Penney's Chief Inspector Gamache books, it offers the same feeling of community. A Jan Karon book with murder might be an apt description.
OMN: Tell us something about your book that isn't mentioned in the publisher synopsis.
LS: The publisher's synopsis doesn't mention how multi-dimensional my characters are. While it's true, most characters in most books have different public and private lives, mine have a surprising twist. Not all bad people are all bad. Not all good people are all good. My book tries to demonstrate this truth.
OMN: If you were to tweet a summary of the book, what would you say?
LS: Join with Lillie Mae's spunky Thursday breakfast club ladies to uncover the secrets that lead to murder in an idyllic mountain village.
OMN: Did you include any of your own personal or professional experience into the storyline?
LS: I have a summer house in Pen Mar, Maryland, a mountain village not unlike Mount Penn. And, there is a group of ladies who have been having breakfast together on Thursday mornings for many years. That's the extent of anything real in the book. I did want to introduce a place like Mount Penn (Pen Mar) to the world, since it really is special.
Lillie Mae Harris, my protagonist, and I do share some interests in common, although we're more different than alike. Lillie Mae is a country lady through and through, and I belong in a city. We both love to talk; we care about our friends and family; and, we enjoy meeting new people. We are both outdoorsy, and like hiking and walking. Lillie Mae would ride her bicycle as much as I do, if the country roads were easier to navigate. I like the beach, but Lillie Mae finds it hot and tedious and she has no interest in water. I am a vegetarian; Lillie Mae eats meat. We both love to cook, just do it in very different ways.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
LS: The best advice I've been given as an author is to know my characters. Not just what they look like, but I must know how they think, and what their reactions will be in any situation. Just as with friends, the more time I spend with my characters, the more they teach me.
I offer aspiring authors the same advice. Know your characters. Make them real people with their own thoughts and feelings.
So far, my critics have been kind, but I've learned as much from what they don't say as what they do. People have opinions, and that is good, but not necessarily useful. However, when I find a lot of people have the same opinion, good or bad, I listen and try to learn.
OMN: Complete this sentence: "I am a mystery author and thus I am also …"
LS: I am a mystery author and thus I create and solve puzzles. That's what I love to do. In building my puzzles, I want to be fair to my readers, providing them with the right amount of information to solve the puzzle. I don't want my readers to feel cheated at the end of my books. "Aah, I see," has a much sweeter sound than "you've got to be kidding." Even, "I knew it," works for me, if the reader is satisfied.
OMN: Describe your writing process as you build these puzzles.
LS: When I start a book, I know who gets murdered, who did it, and why. I also have a journal where I keep detailed information about my characters. I do scene outlines, but only three chapters or so ahead of where I'm writing.
I write a book like I play golf. I know where I'm ultimately going; I have a toolkit to get there, but I make lots of adjustments along the way as unexpected surprises and obstacles pop up.
I build a loose synopsis before I begin to write that can and does change, but I rarely add or delete characters. Once someone is in a book, they stay in the book.
OMN: Tell us about the book's eye-catching cover.
LS: We worked with a talented young artist from Ohio, Rachel Turner, to create the Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club cover. I love it! It's simple, clean, and sharp with just the right touch of mystery.
OMN: What are some of your favorite literary series characters?
LS: I'm into the Brits. I love Morse and Lewis, the creation of Colin Dexter. Vera, an Ann Cleeve character, is a new favorite. Inspector Ikmen from Istabul, created by Barbara Nadel, is a great love of mine. Of course, Agatha Christie sleuths Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are all time favorites. How much time to we have? There are so many characters, both in and out of mysteries, that I love, I could go on and on.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And have any of them found their way into your book?
LS: I'm outdoorsy, I like to hike, walk, swim, bike, sometimes on the same day. I'm vegetarian, and eat sorta weird, so shopping for organic food and cooking is great fun for me. I'm a voracious reader, and I love my two lhasa apos. Travel is also a big deal for me. I've traveled to some fifty countries on four continents. I love to discover new places, new cultures, and new friends. I feel so alive when I'm traveling.
Many of my hobbies/interests have found their way into my books.
OMN: What kind of feedback do you get from readers?
LS: I want my readers to love my characters and think of them as friends. Lillie Mae Harris is so real to some of my readers, they often ask what she's up to now, or what's going to happen to her in the next book. People ask me questions about Mount Penn, too. Where is this place? Is a question I hear often.
OMN: What's next for you?
LS: I'm currently writing my third Thursday Morning Breakfast Club mystery. My second one is in the done pile, and hopefully, will be released in or before early 2014. I also have another mystery series that I'd like to publish, but I'm not going to tease you with what it's about.
My grand epic, not even nicknamed yet, set in 1920s Pen Mar against the advent of the mass produced automobile and the demise of the railroads, is under construction. Henry Ford is a central character. This book, based on a lost history, is going to be so much fun to research and write, and, I hope, equally fun to read.
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Liz Stauffer wrote stories in high school, but transferred her writing skills to the corporate world as a means of supporting her two young sons. Moving between educational research and the computer world, she wrote everything from political encyclopedias and travel articles, to marketing literature and software manuals. But it wasn't until she found herself stranded in a South Dakota winter, that she returned to writing fiction.
After a successful corporate career, Liz gave up that world to travel and to write, and in some cases, to combine her two loves. Having lived in some fourteen states during her early adult years, she's traveled to all fifty states, and to some fifty countries on four continents. When not traveling, she lives with her two dogs in Hollywood, Florida.
To learn more about Liz and her work, visit her website at LizStauffer.com or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club
Liz Stauffer
When Clare Ballard sports a new bruise on her right cheek the day after a contentious town meeting, the ladies of the Thursday Morning Breakfast Club suspect her husband Roger of abusing her. That same day Hester Franklin, another breakfast club lady, is called to rescue her grandson Patrick after he is arrested for transporting drugs. Proclaiming his innocence, Patrick threatens that those who set him up will pay. Roger Ballard is high on his list. But it's when Lillie Mae Harris, the club's leader, discovers the body of the local drug dealer on the nearby hiking trail, that the community is upended. Roger Ballard, the primary suspect, goes missing, and when his body turns up in his own back yard, Clare Ballard confesses to his murder. No one believes she did it, but Clare insists she's guilty and mysteriously refuses to talk to her lawyer, the police, or her family and friends. The Thursday Morning Breakfast Club ladies believe she's protecting someone, and they vow to find out who it is.
Charlie Warren, the town's homegrown policeman, using unconventional means, collaborates with the breakfast club ladies to draw out the real criminal. But danger lurks. Alice Portman, the matriarch of the breakfast club, is struck down in her own yard and is sent to the hospital. Then others in the small community start to disappear — one after the other. As the ladies get closer to the truth, they get closer to the danger. With no time to cry over spilled coffee, they form a plan to capture the true culprits before someone else is murdered.
