This week, I’m hosting author, Maggie King.
Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including the recently-released Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She contributed the stories “A Not So Genteel Murder” and “Reunion at Shockoe Slip” to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies.
Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the American Association of University Women. She has worked as a software developer, retail sales manager, and customer service supervisor. Maggie graduated from Elizabeth Seton College and earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has called New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California home. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, Glen, and cats, Morris and Olive. She enjoys reading, walking, movies, traveling, theatre, and museums.
Where Do I Get My Mysterious Ideas?
Where do I get my ideas? That’s the #1 question I get from readers. The short answer: everywhere. But I never stop at the short answer. Frequently ideas are a collage of memories and characters from my life (or someone else’s life) to which I add a hefty measure of my fertile imagination, resulting in a Picasso-esque creation.
My idea for Murder at the Moonshine Inn came from two sources that I melded into one tale. When my husband retired and took up genealogy, he discovered many new-to-him relatives. He contacted them and they remain in touch to this day. Only one relative refused to acknowledge him, suspecting that he wanted money.
A family I knew in California inspired the second source. This family was shocked when the patriarch, a wealthy widower, remarried a much younger woman who lived life in the fast lane. As a novelty, she often hung out at a redneck bar. He was attracted to her beauty and youth. She was attracted to his lovely money. They both got what they wanted. But was it what they expected? And was it enough?
What inspired Murder at the Book Group, #1 in my Hazel Rose Book Group series? Book groups, naturally. Book groups have a special dynamic and the members can be fascinating to observe. In this story, I explore the decisions we might make as we stand at a crossroads in our lives. I’m intrigued by choices and how so many of us don’t consider the full range of consequences of our decisions and actions.
For “A Not So Genteel Murder” in the Virginia is for Mysteries anthology, I needed a Virginia landmark and I picked Richmond’s venerable Kent-Valentine House, headquarters for the Garden Club of Virginia. But the tale of betrayal, loss, and the power of family ties that I set there was solely based on my imagination, not an outside source.
“Reunion in Shockoe Slip” is a what-if story that I contributed to the Virginia is for Mysteries Vol. 2 anthology. Nancy and Roger were lovers thirty years before and meet again at a book signing in Richmond’s historic Shockoe Slip. Many of us have someone in our past who we’d just as soon leave in the past. But what if we see the person again after much time has gone by? Maybe we share pictures of our grandkids, pets, or milestone anniversary. Or, maybe things go very, very wrong.
Website: http://www.maggieking.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaggieKingAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieKingAuthr
Buy link: http://amzn.to/2dtozWa
Maggie and I would love to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment.
