Author’s Choice with Connie Berry

Please welcome Connie to Author’s Choice.

Dear readers, here’s where you get to play along. The author will tell us two truths and one lie (ed comment –I randomized the order). At the end of the questions, we’ll reveal what really happened. Remember, we write crime fiction, so lying is in our nature . . .

Two Truths, One Lie

Truth or Lie?: Several years ago, I traveled for three weeks alone in Patagonia.

Truth or Lie?: I’ve climbed Colorado’s Mount Princeton twice.

Truth or Lie?: I once edited a book published by the Emir of Kuwait.

Eight Quick Questions

Now for some fun insight into today’s author. Here are eight forced choice questions.

1.        First draft: longhand, keyboard, or dictation? Keyboard! I can’t write that fast.

2.        Plotter, pantser, or plantser (that chaotic middle ground)? Plantser—or as I call it, “tent-pole plotter.”

3.        Editing as you go, or vomit draft first and fix it later? Edit as I go. And then later.

4.        Writing snack: sweet, salty, or "I forget to eat"? I’m not big on snacks, but I always have a cup of coffee or tea beside me.

5.        Character names: meticulously researched, stolen from real life, or whatever sounds right? Meticulously researched. Taken from real-life historical documents and the production credits of British TV programs.

6.        Writing space: coffee shop chaos, library quiet, or home sweet home? Home in my combo laundry/office.

7.        Reading your own work aloud: love it, tolerate it, or would rather eat glass? I love it because I hear my words and spot errors and rough patches.

8.        Happy ending, bittersweet, or gut-punch finale? I like endings that are conclusive and satisfying but not necessarily candy-fluff.

About the Book

Enough about you, let’s turn to three questions about your book.

Q: If your main character in this novel showed up at your door right now, what would be the first thing they'd say to you (and would it be a complaint)?

A. Kate and Ivor would look around my house and say, “Ah, so this is why we ended up in the antiques trade..”

Q: What's one thing you hope readers take away from this book?

A. Storytelling is as old as humanity. Readers love a story that transports them to worlds they’ve never known and introduces them to people whose lives are both familiar and utterly alien. I hope I’ve done that in A Grave Deception. Readers can visit fourteenth-century England. They can join an archaeological dig, and they can join Kate and her husband, DCI Tom Mallory, as they discover the truths hidden beneath layers of lies and deceptions.

Q: What question did you want me to ask, and what is your answer? 

A. I’d like to have answered the question, “Is A Grave Deception based on anything in real life?: Like every book I write, A Grave Deception, began with two bits of history that fascinated me. First was a plague village, abandoned when all but a handful of its citizens died in the first wave of the Black Death that swept through England in the mid-14^th century. Second was the discovery in Cumbria in 1981 of the almost perfectly preserved body of a 14^th-century man—St. Bee’s Man, a knight who died in 1368 while on crusade in what is now Lithuania. His body was transported back to England for burial, and the process employed preserved the corpse so well that liquid blood was found in his lungs. Initially the archaeologists thought they’d uncovered a recent burial.

     These two ideas came together, and I asked myself, what if a student archaeological excavation from the University of East Anglia discovers a medieval body in the ruins of a church in an abandoned plague village—a young woman, murdered when she was about to give birth? And what if Kate and her colleague Ivor Tweedy are asked to appraise the grave goods? Could Kate learn the woman’s identity? The identity of her killer? And then what if the body of the lead archaeologist is found in the excavations? And then a third body. What might connect the three murders?

The Big Reveal

Now let’s see how good a sleuth (or guesser) our readers are. Please reveal all.

The lie is that I traveled alone for three weeks in Patagonia. I’m not that adventurous, and I’d get lonely without a travel companion. I did edit a book published by the Emir of Kuwait. It was just after the First Gulf War, and Kuwaitis wanted to show the world what their lives were actually like. The title was The Real Kuwait, written by an American who’d traveled in that country. It ended up being something of a mash-up of tourism, history, and culture. I did what I could.

I also climbed Mount Princeton in Colorado twice in high-school when I worked at Young Life’s Frontier Ranch near Buena Vista. Mostly I pushed campers up the trail. Most had no idea what they’d signed up for.

Here’s a blurb for and some links where you can find Connie’s latest:

Book Blurb

American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston, a fictional village in Suffolk, England.

In a nearby village, a team of archaeologists from the University of East Anglia regather for a second excavation in the ruins of an abandoned plague village on the estate of a wealthy packaging entrepreneur, ten years after the still-unexplained disappearance of his young wife, a runway model and amateur archaeologist who’d been working with the team.

When the miraculously preserved body of a 14^th century woman is discovered in the crypt of the ruined church, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, which includes a fabulous pearl. And when forensic tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the wealthy estate owner asks Kate to identify the woman and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try. At the same time, Kate’s husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own.

[The Book Loft]       [Gramercy Books]       [Amazon]

Want to know more?

For more information about Connie https://www.connieberry.com