We are delighted to welcome author Janel Gradowski to Omnimystery News today.
Janel's third mystery in her Culinary Competition Mystery Series is Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes (Gemma Halliday Publishing; May 2015 ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk more about it.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the leads of your Culinary Competition series.
Photo provided courtesy of
Janel Gradowski
Janel Gradowski: The main characters in my Culinary Competition Mystery Series are Amy Ridley and Carla Lance. I love writing the interactions between two, very different personalities. Amy is creative and tends to be a bit dramatic at times. When she's called on to help solve a murder, she's never short on theories. Carla is her best friend and often has to ground her exuberant friend. The ER nurse's no-nonsense personality is an anchor for Amy. Many of my friends are very different than I am so I can easily relate to having a relationship like Amy and Carla do.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of the most recent book in the series, Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes?
JG: How much stress can one woman take? Amy is planning a wedding & trying to find a killer before the crook's deadly scheme takes another life.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
JG: I am definitely a planner. All of my characters are named before I begin writing. Each one has a biography in my series bible and a visual inspiration on a private Pinterest board I keep for the series. I never start writing until I have plotted out every scene on index cards. There is a huge cork board on my bedroom wall where I tack up the cards, which are color coded depending on the plot thread. I can't imagine trying to write mystery without an outline. It would be sort of like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without a picture of what it should look like. I am always in awe of writers who can pull great stories together by just writing and seeing where the story goes.
OMN: Where do you usually most often find yourself writing?
JG: When my kids are in school I write in my recliner in the corner of the living room. I can look out the huge picture window and see deer or turkeys in the field across the road. Since I live a few miles from an airport, on many days I also watch planes coming in for a landing. This set up works fine when I'm alone in the house. When my kids are home I sometimes move to the bedroom to write. Soon I'll be working at a desk in the basement since that will be the quietest place in the house during summer vacation.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
JG: I would love to go to Paris. I have always wanted to go the The City of Lights. I could use my time in Paris to research the setting so my main character, Amy, can go on a food-lovers vacation there too. Taking some sort of cooking class on the trip would be fantastic because it could really fit into my series.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And have any of these found their way into your books?
JG: I learned to crochet from my grandma when I was a child. Then I taught myself how to knit about ten years ago. I also do beadwork. Before I began publishing fiction I had close to a dozen patterns that I designed published in beadwork magazines. I gave Amy a jewelry obsession in my series. She has a giant jewelry cabinet to house her collection. She also likes wearing scarves and cowls a lot in the books set in the winter. Those items happen to be my favorite accessories to knit and crochet.
OMN: How do you come up with the titles for your books
JG: The series titles all start with a food that plays prominently in the story, followed by an ampersand, then a reference to the crime: Pies & Peril, Chicken Soup & Homicide, Christmas Canapés & Sabotage, Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes and coming soon, Barbecue & Bad Juju.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
JG: I am an only child, so I fell in love with books at an early age. Fictional characters were my constant companions while I was alone in my room. The first series that I remember falling in love with was the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. There were so many references to food in those books and I'm sure that's where my love of foodie fiction began. As I got older I progressed to Nancy Drew books, which I collected from used book stores that I begged my dad to take me to. I had no idea that someday those beloved series would merge and I would write culinary fiction.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
JG: Things to eat while in Michigan:
1. Mackinaw Island Fudge;
2. Flint or Detroit-style Coney Dog;
3. Pastie (Cornish meat pie);
4. Faygo pop; and
5. Broiled whitefish.
OMN: What's next for you?
JG: I am currently writing the next book in the Culinary Competition series, which will be released in November. I also have a short story, Barbecue & Bad Juju, from the series in the upcoming anthology Killer Beach Reads from Gemma Halliday Publishing. On the personal side, this summer my oldest daughter will be getting her driver's license and my husband and I will be remodeling our master bathroom. Lots of exciting stuff!
— ♦ —
Janel Gradowski grew up and still lives in the mitten of Michigan. She finds inspiration in her rather ordinary life and spins fictional tales while watching the seasons change outside her windows. In the past she has worked many jobs. Renting apartments, scorekeeping for a stock car racetrack and selling newspaper classified advertisements are some of the experiences that continue to provide ideas for her stories. Now she writes fiction along with being a beadwork designer and teacher.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at JanelGradowski.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes by Janel Gradowski
A Culinary Competition Mystery
Publisher: Gemma Halliday Publishing
Amy Ridley's best friend, Carla, is getting married, and Amy is delighted to be recruited as the head wedding planner — even if Carla's demands are less than conventional. Case in point: Carla insists on a tower of doughnuts in place of a wedding cake. But navigating the world of nuptials becomes the least of Amy's problems when the owner of a menswear shop is found dead, and Carla's fiancée is assigned to the case.
With the honeymoon in jeopardy, Amy and Carla vow to help track down the killer … but they soon discover there are even more sinister happenings affecting the businesses in downtown Kellerton, Michigan. If Amy doesn't figure out who is behind the deadly schemes, the nearly newlywed detective may just be solving another murder — hers!
— Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes by Janel Gradowski
