Tag Archive for: Saralyn Richard

Writing a Series—It’s All in the Protagonist by Saralyn Richard

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Writing a Series—It’s All in the Protagonist

by Saralyn Richard

 

A man wearing a hat photo – Free On Image on Unsplash

 

I never planned to write a series. My first mystery novel, MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT, set in the lush landscape of Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania, centered around a birthday party where old college buddies were reunited for a weekend retreat. Old flames, old rivalries, old resentments resurfaced, and one of the party-goers ended up dead.

Enter Detective Oliver Parrott, young, ambitious, and Black, an outsider in this ritzy community—the better to see through the closed ranks and subterfuge. Undazzled by materialism, Parrott keeps a dogged focus on the people who have had it in for the victim, and readers have responded to Parrott’s character in ways that surprised me.

“We want more Parrott,” I kept hearing, and I found myself wanting to stay with the well-grounded detective, as well. Since that time, I have written a three more Detective Parrott books. I’ve seen Parrott mature and marry. He’s made a name for himself in Brandywine and beyond. He’s tackled challenging cases, faced dangers, stood up for the innocent, and hounded the guilty.

Parrott and Tonya, his fiancée and then wife, make a remarkable duo. Their relationship isn’t perfect (whose ever is?), but whenever one of them needs support and a listening ear, the other is there to give them.

One of my readers leaned over the space between her seat and mine at the theater and said, “Please, please don’t ever let Parrott and Tonya divorce.” Remarks like that let me know that others are invested in my series characters as much as I am. I love spending time with Parrott and his family, as well as the recurring characters in Brandywine Valley and in the West Brandywine police department. It’s like visiting old friends and catching up on their lives.

I’m pretty sure I’ll never run out of things for them to say or do, experiences they need to have, lessons they need to learn. As in real life, there are always surprises, secrets, challenges, and joys. There are always new issues to be confronted, new insights to be gained.

In the next few months, the fourth Detective Parrott book, MURDER OUTSIDE THE BOX, will launch. Parrott is sharper than ever as he deals with an abandoned baby and the murder of a postpartum woman. Parrott’s relationship with Tonya spills over into his case, and vice versa, until the two bits of life are woven into a single fabric.

After more than seven years and twelve hundred pages spent with Parrott and his wife, I’m not sure what path their lives will take next, but one thing I am sure of—they’ll never be bored. And with so much trouble going on in the world, it’s good to have good people like Detective Parrott around to find the truth and right the wrongs.

Who is your favorite fictional protagonist?

Award-winning author and educator, Saralyn Richard writes about people in settings as diverse as elite country manor houses and disadvantaged urban high schools. She loves beaches, reading, sheepdogs, the arts, libraries, parties, nature, cooking, and connecting with readers. Look for her latest Detective Parrott mystery, MURDER OUTSIDE THE BOX, coming soon.

Visit Saralyn at http://saralynrichard.com

Fences
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by Saralyn Richard

 

Do good fences make good neighbors? In the past few months, I’ve gained new neighbors on either side of my house. There’s a brand-spanking-new fence between my yard and that of the neighbor to the north. There’s no fence between my yard and that of the neighbor to the south. I love both sets of neighbors. We’ve shared lots of visits in our front yards, several barbecues and parties, baked goods, pets, children, home improvement advice, and more. They may be pine, and I, apple orchard, but I enjoy spending time with them and being part of their community.

Robert Frost’s MENDING WALL is one of my favorite poems. His last line is the source for my opening question. I find a lot of wisdom in this poem:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

The same analogy applies to my relationships with fellow authors in The Stiletto Gang. I may be police procedural and they cozy writers, but we have much in common, and we can help each other every time we meet to walk the line and re-build the wall (which might just be the website). I’m grateful for my neighbors, my Stiletto Gang colleagues, and everyone who reads this post. May all your walls be mended, and may all your neighbors be good.

Galveston Author Saralyn Richard

Award-winning author and educator, Saralyn Richard writes about people in settings as diverse as elite country manor houses and disadvantaged urban high schools. She loves beaches, reading, sheepdogs, the arts, libraries, parties, nature, cooking, and connecting with readers.

Visit Saralyn and subscribe to her monthly newsletter here, or on her Amazon page here.

 

Welcome to the Gang

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Welcome to the Gang

by Saralyn Richard

Once in a while, a new mystery author puts on her stilettos and joins the crew. The Stiletto Gang is happy to welcome Barbara Kyle, and we know you will enjoy hearing from her on the third Wednesday of each month.

Today, I’m sharing an interview with Barbara. After you’ve read about her many talents and adventures, I know your appetite will be whetted for her first blogpost tomorrow.

Saralyn: Barbara, you’ve had several enriching
and fulfilling careers on the path to becoming an author. Can you tell us a
little about your days as a film, TV, and stage actor, and how that career
influences your life as a writer?

Barbara:  I loved being an actor. On
stage I did a lot of classical theater: Shakespeare and Shaw and Moliere. On TV
I starred in the daytime drama High Hopes, and in the series The
Campbells I had a lovely continuing role as a feisty pioneer innkeeper who
never quite won the heart of the dishy Doctor Campbell. In film, a favorite
role was in a made-for-TV movie about the hostage crisis in Iran when Jimmy
Carter was president. I played the president’s wife, Roselynn Carter. That was
an honor. Later, when I turned to writing fiction, it felt like a natural
extension of acting. I mean, I’d been playing characters written by someone
else for years, so I thought: why not create characters myself, in fact create whole
stories? 


Saralyn:  Your Thornleigh Saga
series is set in Tudor England. What is it about that time and place that
captured your imagination?

Barbara:  The trigger was Sir Thomas
More. He was Henry VIII’s chancellor and friend, but he famously went to the
scaffold to die rather than submit to Henry’s tyranny. That story always fascinated
me. Sir Thomas More had a couple of wards – that’s an historical fact – so I
decided to create another, fictional ward for him and make her the heroine of a
novel. So that’s how Honor Larke came to “star” in my first historical novel, The
Queen’s Lady. Honor becomes a lady-in-waiting to Henry VIII’s first wife,
Catherine of Aragon, and then comes into conflict with Sir Thomas, the man
she’d once revered. By the way, the situation of wardship in that historical
period is fascinating; I wrote about it in this article: Wanted: Rich Orphans: The Tudor Court of Wards.

Saralyn:  When you wrote THE QUEEN’S
LADY, did you know that it would be the start of a series? Did you have an
outline in mind for all seven books?

Barbara:  Not at all – it was quite
a zig-zag path to the series. Penguin published The Queen’s Lady and its
sequel, The King’s Daughter, but after that my editor there moved on, so
I turned to writing thrillers. Then, a few years later, I got a note from that
editor saying she was now editorial director at Kensington Books and wanted to
re-publish those first two books plus sign me to write more. Eventually, the
series grew to seven books that follow three generations of Honor’s family, the
Thornleighs (Honor married seafaring merchant Richard Thornleigh), through
three turbulent Tudor reigns.

Saralyn:  What was it like to switch
from historical novels to thrillers?

Barbara:  The funny thing is, all
my books are thrillers, even the Thornleigh Saga books. Life and death
stakes, implacable antagonists, lethal deadlines – these dynamics drive all my
stories, from the historicals to The Experiment to, most recently, my
novel of suspense, The Man from Spirit Creek. It seems I can’t help it!

Saralyn:  I’ve participated in some
of your author mentoring classes online, and I’ve appreciated how knowledgeable
and organized you are. What particular joys do you find in helping other
authors to achieve success? 

Barbara:  One of the true joys of my
life is cheering the success of writers I’ve mentored. Many of them have become
award-winning authors. Writers usually tap easily into their innate talent, but
talent and instinct only take you so far. When instinct gets stuck, it’s time
to open the toolbox of techniques, and I love showing writers the tools that
can help them get moving again. Anyone who’s interested will find lots of tips
in my videos on my YouTube channel Write Your Page-Turner, and my book Page-Turner. I firmly believe that perfecting
craft is an enriching, life-long journey for all writers.

 

 

Barbara
Kyle
is the author of the bestselling Thornleigh Saga series of historical
novels (“Riveting Tudor drama” – USA Today) and of acclaimed thrillers.
Over half a million copies of her books have been sold. Her latest is The
Man from Spirit Creek, a novel of suspense. Barbara has taught hundreds of
writers in her online classes and many have become award-winning authors. Page-Turner,
her popular how-to book for writers, is available in print, e-book, and
audiobook. Visit Barbara at www.BarbaraKyle.com 

Award-winning author, Saralyn
Richard was born with a pen in her hand and ink in her veins. A former
educator, she loves connecting with readers. Her humor- and romance-tinged
mysteries and children’s book pull back the curtain on people in settings as
diverse as elite country manor houses and disadvantaged urban high schools.


Visit Saralyn at http://saralynrichard.com, on her Amazon page at https://www.amazon.com/Saralyn-Richar…, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Palmcirclepress

First Sunday! New Releases by the Stiletto Gang Members

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New Releases by the Stiletto Gang Members!

Join us in celebrating the latest books written by our blog mates! 


A MURDER OF PRINCIPAL – A million stories beyond the flagpole…

A MURDER OF PRINCIPAL starts when a maverick principal
comes in with a student-centered agenda, and there’s no more business as usual
at Lincoln High School. Killing the principal is just the beginning…

Someone sets fire to Lincoln High and kills its new principal.
Chaos threatens to overtake the urban school. Assistant Principal Sally Pearce,
hired by the deceased principal to help him revamp and change the culture, vows
to carry on the mission. In doing so, she gets caught up in gang threats,
racial tensions, grievances, sexual harassment complaints, and the murder
investigation, as well.

Sally never dreamed, when she stepped up to lead this culturally
diverse school, that she would be faced with solving a mystery and returning
the school to order. When a second murder happens on school grounds, Sally
realizes she is trapped in a cycle of violence that must be stopped.

Universal book link:  https://books2read.com/u/3yz0nl

Learn more at Saralyn Richard’s website:  http://saralynrichard.com 


MALBEC MAYHEM – Mix
a Spanish chef with an Italian winemaker and create some mayhem…Malbec
Mayhem!

Successful
restaurateur Alex Montoya’s charmed life has hit a snag. His trusted business
partner turned out to be not exactly trustworthy, and Alex could be facing jail
time over some of his partner’s shady financial deals. As if that weren’t bad
enough, creditors are calling in loans he didn’t know he had and he’s desperate
to prove his innocence before all his businesses are repossessed. 

After a
career-building stint in Napa Valley, Sofia Pincelli has returned home to
eastern Washington to take over the family’s winery. Running the family
business, however, means dealing with her ailing father’s constant
micro-management—and his disapproval of Alex. Her father’s condemnation of
Alex’s rumored involvement in his business partner’s schemes runs so deep, it
threatens Alex and Sofia’s blossoming romance…along with the Pincelli family’s
signature red wine. Sofia needs Alex’s crop of Malbec grapes to show her father
she has what it takes to make award-winning wine—and save the reputation and
finances of the Pincelli winery.

When the Malbec
grapes go missing, Alex and Sofia must join forces to find the fruit before it
spoils—or risk destroying both of their businesses and their hearts.

Universal book link: https://books2read.com/u/3n8xjP

Learn more at Cathy Perkins website: https://cperkinswrites.com  


MOMS IN BLACK – A Mom Squad
Caper

When Cassandra
Davenport applies for a job at www.savingtheworld.us, she expects to find a
‘green’ charity. Instead, she becomes the newest member of a covert
organization run by ex-government officials. Dubbed the Mom Squad, the
organization is the brainchild of three former college roommates—attorney
general Anthony Granville, ex-FBI agent Gavin Demarco, and tech billionaire
Liam Hatch—all of whom have lost loved ones at the hands of terrorists.
Financed by Hatch, they work in the shadows and without the constraints of
congressional oversight, reporting directly to Granville.

Demarco heads
up one of the six groups that comprise the new operation. He hires Cassandra as
the newest member of his New Jersey based team. In the course of monitoring
possible terrorist threats, the Mom Squad discovers a link to Cassandra’s
ex-husband. Before she’s fully trained, Cassandra is thrust into a world where
her ex may be involved with radicalized terrorists bent on killing as many Americans
as possible.

Universal book link:  https://books2read.com/u/3n8RQR  

Learn more at Lois Winston’s website: www.loiswinston.com