We are delighted to welcome back author Gayle Leeson to Omnimystery News today.
Earlier this week she asked Aunt Bess of her new 1st in series mystery The Calamity Café (NAL; June 2016 mass market paperback and ebook formats) to introduce herself to us, and we wanted to follow up with her to talk more about her work.
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Omnimystery News: The Calamity Café features the young owner of a small town eatery. Tell us a little more about her.
Photo provided courtesy of
Gayle Leeson
Gayle Leeson: Amy Flowers is a young woman trying to make her dreams come true while living in a rural area. I can identify with that because when I first began writing — in an era prior to the popularity of the Internet — people told me that to become a successful writer, you must live in New York or Los Angeles. I persisted, and so does Amy. The difference is that Amy is trying to give her café patrons the foods they've always loved while introducing them to new dishes they might enjoy … even though she knows that people in her small town are pretty set in their ways and reluctant to try new things.
OMN: How do you see her developing over the course of the series?
GL: I enjoy watching the characters and relationships grow, and I believe my readers do too. For example, in the first embroidery mystery book (The Quick and the Thread, written as Amanda Lee), we were introduced to Vera Langhorne. Vera was a secondary character in the book, and she could have easily been a one-book character. But she showed up in the second book and every book since (the tenth book in that series — Better Off Thread — is coming in December). It has been a lot of fun watching Vera grow from a mousy, browbeaten wife into a sophisticated, vibrant widow. I don't think my main characters change as much as those around them, but of course, cozies are written in first person and we usually don't see changes in ourselves.
OMN: You've written both series books and stand-alones. When starting a new project, how do you decide which it will be?
GL: I usually know when I'm writing a series or a stand-alone but not always. For example, I wrote a stand-alone book (The Flame) about a woman who played a superhero on a children's television show and was also an IRS auditor. The woman and a man she met began investigating a shady attorney who was defrauding estate accounts. But, as I was writing the characters, I really fell in love with them; and I realized that I could easily do a sequel or maybe an entire series around them. In that case, it would depend on whether or not readers of the book would want that. In most cases, my publishers tell me ahead of time that they want the book to be a series and I begin knowing that I want to develop some relationships more slowly, leave some backstory to come out later, etc.
OMN: Suppose Amy were to interview you. What would her first question be?
GL: If Amy, her opening question would be, "Gayle, what's your favorite dish?" And my answer would be, "It's so hard to choose just one! But I think I'd have to go with chicken Alfredo."
OMN: Your mysteries are cozies. Do you find that limiting in any way?
GL: Cozy mysteries are sort of the kinder, gentler, Mayberry-meets-Wisteria Lane mysteries. Most of the time, I think that's great — I don't need to "show" my victim getting his head bashed in or delve into the murderer's thoughts as he committed the crime. But there are things that are simply taboo in the cozy mystery genre. For instance, no aspect of the book should be too much of a downer. I had a series proposal once which was rejected because the mother had early-onset dementia. I thought the dementia — and the heroine's seeking ways to slow down the process — would be interesting for those who had aging parents or caregivers with patients who suffered from dementia. But the publisher at this particular house disagreed. I've been lucky with the café series in that the publisher has allowed me to introduce the reader to some really quirky characters. There's 82-year-old Aunt Bess who's addicted to the Internet; Homer, a bachelor in his late sixties who chooses a new "hero" each day; and Dilly, a woman who comes into the café each day to get a biscuit for the raccoon who comes to her house each evening at sundown. (And I took that character from real life!)
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Gayle Leeson is a hybrid author. That means she's half author, half mom, half entrepreneur — okay, not true … plus, she doesn't have that many halves. It means she's both traditionally and self-published. Her cozy mystery series are written under the names Gayle Trent, Amanda Lee, and Gayle Leeson. She has has stand-alones written under Gayle Trent and G. V. Trent.
She lives in Virginia with her family: husband, two children — who are, incidentally, boy/girl twins, two feral cats, one indoor/outdoor cat, and a Great Pyrenees named Cooper who tries to shepherd them all. When not writing or reading, she can be found binge watching shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at GayleLeeson.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Calamity Café by Gayle Leeson
A Down South Café Mystery
Publisher: NAL
Aspiring chef and small-town Virginia native Amy Flowers is ready to open her own café offering old-fashioned Southern food. But her dream may go up in smoke when someone kills the competition …
Tired of waiting tables at Lou's Joint, Amy Flowers doesn't just quit — she offers to buy the place from her bully of a boss, so she can finally open the café of her dreams. Amy can't wait to serve the kind of Southern, down-home treats and dishes that her grandmother always loved to the kooky cast of regulars at the restaurant. She knows her comfort food will be the talk of the sweet, small town of Winter Garden, Virginia.
At first Lou Lou refuses to sell, but when she seems ready to make a deal, she tells Amy to come see her. Showing up at the eatery ready to negotiate, Amy is shocked to find her former employer murdered. As the prime suspect, Amy will have to clear her name by serving up the real killer — and with Lou Lou's stack of enemies, that's a tall order.
— The Calamity Café by Gayle Leeson. Click here to take a Look Inside the book.
