Real people--by request

by Carola

I had an interesting meeting at Art and the Vineyard (a local outdoor art & wine show) yesterday.

Several years ago, I was asked to give a character in my next book the name of the person who bid highest at an auction in aid of the Eugene Opera (disclosure: I'm a classical music fan but don't care for opera). The winning bid was $800, a woman who want her husband's name used. Turned out his name was Polish, which made for complications, but I got him into Valley of the Shadow, my 3rd Cornish mystery, as a WWII Polish refugee-- If you've read the book, you may have wondered where Skipper Tom Kulick came from! (I had asked about him and learned he was in the US Coast Guard).
 

Yesterday, the Kulicks came to the Oregon Authors booth to see me, They were very happy with the way I wrote Tom in, brought copies to be signed, and asked if I'd be willing to attend a lunch for 12 opera supporters for this year's fund-raising. I'm still not keen on opera, but what could I say? I'll do anything for a free lunch (well, almost anything...)
 
Hope they can find 12 people willing to pay to have lunch with me!

Similarly, someone once paid $500 at a library supporters auction to have me put her sister (deceased) in a book. I asked for information about her and discovered that she had played a brass instrument and loved brass band music. Her name seemed to me more American than English, so I wrote her character as an American visiting England on her honeymoon, in A Colourful Death, the second Cornish mystery.

Nick Gresham, the artist neighbour of my protagonist, Eleanor Trewynn, meets the young couple while listening to and sketching a band playing "Land of Hope and Glory," at Horse Guards' Parade in London. They commission him to paint a picture of the band. Returning to Cornwall, and finding himself chief suspect in a murder case, he keeps humming snatches of the tune as he works out ideas for his painting.


The sister of the bride--so to speak--was thrilled that I'd woven the love of brass music into the story.

 

The only other time I've done something like this was a whole family, whom I put for free into A Mourning Wedding, one of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries.  It turned out their last name, Walsdorf, is from Luxembourg. It was an interesting challenge to fit them into a book set in England in 1923.

I made them a family of poor relations, a refugee from World War I, when the Germans invaded Luxembourg, who had married an Englishwoman. Given the xenophobic feelings of many of the English at that period, they made a great addition to the cast of suspects!

20 years, 25 mysteries

by Carola

I had been writing Regencies for 15 years when my first mystery came out, in 1994.  The 25th comes out in June.  I've been working with the same editor at St Martin's Minotaur for TWENTY years, the longest of any of his authors!

Just in time for that anniversary, the first of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries is being reissued in trade paperback with a brand-new cover, by the artist who has been doing the art for the series since the 12th, Die Laughing.

In comparison, here is the original hardcover, as well as the large print, audio, UK, Polish, and a couple of German translation covers:

original

large print

audio

first German edition

second German edition

UK

US paperback

Interesting to see what different artists make of the story--or at least of whatever they've been told about it! I think the new one is far and away the best, though I don't recall giving Daisy a red scarf. I've already been asked for suggestions for the reissue of the second in the series, The Winter Garden Mystery, and I can't wait to see it (not coming out till Dec. 2016 so I guess I'll have to wait!).

Death at Wentwater Court trade pb due out March 17th, available for preorder.

Misleading cover art

by Carola

I've already posted the covers of the Polish translations of my Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, and commented on the black cat that infests them though not appearing in the books http://murderousmusings.blogspot.com/2013/08/daisy-in-polish.html

This is a much more misleading cover:

The Hebrew translation of Mayhem and Miranda, one of my Regencies. Unless they drastically altered the text in translating it, the pic has nothing whatever to do with the story.

Anyone buying the book expecting a bodice-ripper would be sorely disappointed. What's more, they spelled my name--I'm told--Carol Deen.
 

 This original paperback cover and the ebook cover on the right are far more appropriate.







That was probably the most downright wrong cover I've had, being of the wrong genre, but over the years there has been plenty of just-not-quite-right art.





Of my mysteries, the worst (twice) is Requiem for a Mezzo, the third Daisy Dalrymple mystery.

From this, wouldn't you reckon the victim was a blonde in a red dress? Or, according to the UK edition, a brunette in a blue dress?

 The audio version thinks it was a blonde in a black dress.

My mother, for one, kept switching between text and cover of the first one, thoroughly confused because it's actually a blonde in a blue dress.
 










This cover is really cute: the three-year-old, black-haired like her Spanish mother, is adorable. (We'll ignore the fact that the hero and heroine ought to be watching her and stopping her from feeding a swan--a highly dangerous act!)

Its sequel takes place about three months later. In the meantime the darling little girl has aged by five years or so and bleached her hair:

Odd!

       The ebook cover----> is perfect. I was browsing in a thrift shop in England when I found a print of an artillery officer of the British Army in the Napoleonic era. That's what Captain Ingram is. My Regency ebook publisher used
it, so this is just right.







One that I can't show you because I managed to get it changed is the hardcover of Dead in the Water, the 6th Daisy mystery. It's set in Henley-on-Thames, a small, pretty town 35 miles or so west of London. Luckily my editor sent me a preview--which doesn't always happen. The art showed St Paul's, Tower Bridge, Big Ben... I can't actually remember which London landmarks, but several were squished in. I squealed loudly (via email) and he asked the art department why they'd done it. They said it was to show the book took place in England! As the previous 5 of the series had also taken place in England, it seemed an insufficient reason. They changed it. It's not a very attractive cover but at least it's not apparently set in London.

I could go on practically without end, but don't worry, I won't. Just one more art department decision.



They changed the title of The Actress and the Rake, and asked why, said it was too long. THREE LETTERS they couldn't fit in, apparently. I could have.

So don't ask an author why the cover doesn't fit the book. It's not his/her fault!