Marilyn's Musings

  I thought bringing out book two of my Samuel Craddock series couldn’t be as exciting as my first book, but I was wrong. It’s better, because I’m more clearheaded. When my first book came out last July, I felt like I was walking over a river that had just iced over. Was I on thin ice? Would I fall through and be swept away by the tricky combination of launch parties and bookstore readings and promotion on social media? Could I behave in ways Miss Manners would approve of?   As it turned out, the debut experience was awesome and exhausting—so much so that I barely remember it. People tell me that the launch party I had for old friends familiar with my long road to publication was wonderful, but I was too out of it to notice. No, I didn’t have too much to drink—I was drunk on delight. With the launch of the second book in the series, The Last Death of Jack Harbin , today, January 7, I’m excited, but I’m also more aware of what it means to launch a book. Here are...

                                    Since my debut novel, A KILLING AT COTTON HILL , was published two weeks ago, I’ve done a few readings and talked to a lot of people who are excited about my books. One thing I was surprised about was some of the funny questions people ask me. Here are a few of my favorites: 1) At a bookstore reading, a man asked if I took up crime writing because it’s easier than writing mainstream fiction.   His question made the assumption that crime writing is easier than writing mainstream novels. At one time, I thought the same thing. When I first started writing, I dreamed of being a “literary” writer. But, knowing how hard it was to break into print, I thought maybe if I wrote an “easy” mystery, it would at least get me in print. And then I discovered reality. At the heart...