Author’s Choice with Sharon Michalove

Please welcome Sharon 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? When I was younger, my dream was to be English

Truth or Lie? I was born at a hospital that no longer exists

Truth or Lie? If I could only eat one thing, it would be Jello

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 all the way

2.         Plotter, pantser, or plantser (that chaotic middle ground)? Plantser (tentpole plotting is my thing)

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

4.         Writing space: coffee shop chaos, library quiet, or home sweet home? Used to be coffee shops and now it’s home sweet home all the way

5.         Reading your own work aloud: love it, tolerate it, or would rather eat glass? I used to read for the blind, so I don’t mind reading aloud, even my own stuff

6.         Happy ending, bittersweet, or gut-punch finale? Happy for the protagonists, not so much for the villain

7.         Deadline approaching: calm and prepared, thriving on adrenaline, or full panic mode? Sometimes I’m ahead of schedule but frequently I’m in panic mode

8.         Book launch day: celebrate big, feel quiet relief, or hide under the covers? Somehow I always forget to celebrate

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. I’m dying for a cuppa

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

A. Reach for the stars and you too can be Miss Marple

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

A.  What gave you the idea for the murder weapon?  looking at Regency cookbooks

The Big Reveal

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

The lie is Jello.

When I was young, I wanted to be English. And reading Agatha Christie was the inciting incident. Once I discovered the England of Poirot and Miss Marple, I not only wanted to travel to England and live in England, I wanted to be English.

When I finally visited England for the first time in 1980, my biggest fear was that England would have become America. Fortunately, that wasn’t true. But I was probably in my fifties before I came to the realization that I could never afford to live in England or become a British citizen. So I’ve done the next best thing—I set my books there. And this book takes place in Hampshire, Jane Austen country in a charming village a little like St. Mary Mead.

I was born at Michael Reese Hospital on the West Side of Chicago. So were my brothers (and I would guess my mom). And then, after 127 years, it was closed down, torn down, and is still waiting for urban renewal. Its success as a Jewish hospital was also it’s downfall as Jews became more accepted in Chicago after the second world war and moved from the West Side to other parts of the city and suburbs.

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

Book Blurb

Jane Austen meets Agatha Christie in a contemporary twist on the traditional village mystery combining  romance, murder, and culinary one-upmanship.

 The village of Chesney Hardcastle is holding a televised cooking contest for the contract to cater the annual Netherfield Ball, a fundraiser for the Jane Austen house in nearby Chawton. All the recipes have to be based on dishes from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Two of the contestants are local.

Darcy Fitzwilliam, a fledgling ice cream entrepreneur and Bennet Longbourne, a disgraced TV  baker are in the competition to promote their new businesses. But beneath the amiable surface are dangerous currents. When one of the judges is murdered on the set, the producers solicit the help of the local Miss Marple,  Lady Agatha Carstairs-Macdonald, much to the chagrin of the local police.

Can she unravel the case and expose the murderer before more mayhem erupts? Only time will tell ...

[Amazon]   

Want to know more?

For more information about Sharon Michalove https://www.coffeeandeclairs.com