The author of the charming Mrs. Claus cozy mysteries is with us to discuss the series!
We are grateful to Liz Ireland for participating in our Cozy Scenes and Themes Author Chat. We are delighted to have you with us, along with Colleen from @ILikeOldBooks1213
What inspired the premise of this series?
Big credit goes to my editor at Kensington, the wonderful John Scognamiglio, for sparking my imagination when he said he wanted a new Christmas series...with some kind of Mrs. Claus-like character. I immediately jumped on the idea of setting a series in Santaland, with Christmastown as the ultimate cozy village. I loved the idea of building an entire fictional world that was both slightly familiar to readers and yet all my own.
Did you take anything from your personal experiences or interests?
I did inject a little of myself in April Claus. We’re both amateur musicians, and we both moved from temperate Oregon to more frigid climates. In my case, I moved to Montreal, which isn’t quite the North Pole. But it was still quite an adjustment.
What can we expect in the future for the Mrs. Claus series?
In an upcoming novella, “Mrs. Claus and the Sinister Soda Bread Man,” (which will appear in the Kensington anthology Irish Soda Bread Murder) April will get to take a short jaunt back to Oregon—with a few elf stowaways. And I’m currently working on the sixth full-length Mrs. Claus book, Mrs. Claus and the Very Vicious Valentine. There’s going to be a wedding in Santaland, along with the usual mix of murder and merriment.
You include humor, mystery, holiday-related shenanigans, and even some romance in this series. How do you balance it all?
It’s a juggling act, but it helps to focus on characters. One of the great things about writing the Mrs. Claus series is that I get to spend so much time with this ever-expanding cast of fun characters rattling around in my head. At the same time, I don’t want the book weighted down with too many superfluous character arcs and subplots. It’s hard sometimes to decide which secondary characters will get spotlighted in a book and who will need to take a backseat for a while.
When I’m outlining stories, I start with a check list: What are the reindeer doing? What are the Clauses up to? What’s distracting Constable Crinkles? And I remind myself periodically to check in on everyone involved in the story. It’s always a fist-pumping moment when various plot threads come together.
How many books or series are you currently working on? How do you juggle multiple projects?
I’m strictly a one-book-at-a-time writer. I wish this weren’t the case. I so admire writers who can juggle multiple projects and manage to keep all the plates spinning. Though I haven’t had time to get a new series up on its legs recently, in between Mrs. Claus stories I’ve been plotting out ideas for future non-Claus books.
What are the biggest lessons you learned thus far in your writing career?
I started writing romance novels thirty years ago and have seen so many trends come and go—and occasionally come back again! (Looking at you, chick lit...er, upmarket trade paperback romantic comedy.) No matter where your career takes you, you have to enjoy the writing itself. Publishing will break your heart—projects get rejected, some books don’t meet with the success you wanted for them, and there’s always the temptation to compare yourself to that writer who seems to have crossed over the rainbow into the sparkly world of bestseller lists and six-figure contracts. The most important thing is to keep focusing on the stories that compel you back to the keyboard every morning.
Every once in a while someone asks me if I ever want to retire from writing. My usual answer is, “Maybe someday, and then I can work on that book I always wanted to write but I’ve never had time to research.” So basically I dream of retiring from writing so I can write more.
If you could discuss the writing process with any author, living or dead, who would you choose and why?
I’m in awe of prolific writers like Anthony Horowitz and Elly Griffiths, who not only manage to write multiple series simultaneously, but keep making each individual series better with each book. I would love to soak up any advice or special knowledge that they have.
And I would love to be able to talk to Agatha Christie and figure out how she plotted such perfect mysteries. Unfortunately, from what I’ve read of Christie, she was always very close-lipped about her process. In Dead Man’s Folly, her fictional stand-in, the crime writer Ariadne Oliver, says something to the effect that she just thinks of a plot and then writes it. Easy-peasy, right? I’m sure there was more to it than that for Agatha Christie!
Mrs. Claus and The Nightmare Before New Year's is out September 24, 2024!
Also pictured is the cover of A Letter To Three Witches, the first book in the Cupcake Coven Romance series that Ireland writes under the pen name Elizabeth Bass. Perfect for spooky season!
Comments