Ask the Author: Kate Darroch
Answered Questions (11)
Kate Darroch
Mostly I start writing not knowing what genre it's going to be. The exceptions were my new release Thanksgiving in Welcombe Bay, the start of a Christian Recovery and Redemption Holidays Romance series I'm writing because I was asked to; and Death in Paris, which the muse gave me entire as a Cozy Mystery. I had been intending to write a different book, a historical murder mystery - which I still will when I find the time!! but my darling Màiri came to ne as a whole idea, just as Hunt did, and you don't ignore pointers like that from your muse -- you grab a pencil and write like a maniac until it's all on paper. So Màiri became my Indie debut, and Belle is still languishing as yet unwritten (except for the first chapter). Don't worry Belle, your day will come!
Kate Darroch
GIVEAWAY! My first Christian love story "Thanksgiving in Welcombe Bay" releases next week, get Your Free Copy here on Goodreads! I also write Clean thrillers, and some non-genre-specific books, such as "Chilworth Street" (working title), releasing Easter 2024. I'm working on a RomCom, several Heist stories, and a couple of Spy stories. ALL my work is Clean, and a lot is Humorous. Occasionally I write send-ups and satire. I am also working on a 3 volume medieval fantasy and a historical fiction series set in 1812.
Kate Darroch
Thank you for the nice compliment Gwen. I loved Father Brown when I was 12, and Sherlock Holmes when I was 14. By 18 it was Ellery Queen and Wendell Urth, the Black widowers and a host of other Space Mysteries. Today I enjoy Jana DeLeon's Miss Fortune.
So I guess you could say I was always a Mysteries fan.
I started writign mysteries during lockdown, to give people a fun place to escape to :-)
So I guess you could say I was always a Mysteries fan.
I started writign mysteries during lockdown, to give people a fun place to escape to :-)
Kate Darroch
I travelled extensively before setting down in gorgeous coastal Devon, and almost every Màiri story takes place in a city where I once lived. However, one later story takes place in Vienna. I have never lived in Vienna, so I am planning to live there for 3 months whilst writing that book.
Kate Darroch
In the Màiri Maguire Cozy Mysteries series there will be at least 6 books, and there might be as many as 21, covering all the terms between the beginning in 1970 and the end in 1975, plus the first three books when Màiri is travelling to her first destination school in Istanbul. However, there is also the Màiri's Home for the Holidays series, always happening in Merrylea, Glasgow. That's an open-ended series, with 5 books so far: 2 Christmas stories, a Halloween story, 2 New Year's Eve stories. And there is also a standalone, earlier, St Patrick's Day story, which take place in New York when Màiri is supervising a schoolgirls' trip to the United Nations building.
Kate Darroch
Hello Jena, thank you so much for asking! I've been writing all my life, but I began writing my first cozy mystery on 29th December 2021. It was a gift from my muse - the idea came to me entire and I began writing it down 3 seconds later. I always write the first draft with a sharp pencil, and I blunted 6 pencils writing down the idea germ for the Màiri Maguire Cozy Mysteries
Kate Darroch
My most recent book, not yet released, is Death in Rome. Like my last book, Death on the Istanbul Express, it "grew like Topsy". I was originally intending to write a road-trip short story for my Readers Club.
I wrote the outline.
It was a short story length, so I began to write the story.
And the villains from my first book, Death in Paris, popped up and shouldered their way into the road-trip story! And they insisted on introducing us all to their cohorts, a bunch of villains we hadn't met yet.
So suddenly I had over 10,000 words of Villain-write, and my poor heroine, amateur sleuth Màiri, hadn't gotten to say a word yet!
This wasn't a short story, it was a book.
So I wrote the book.
And at the end, lo and behold, poor Lianna was once again in trouble!
That poor girl is just a magnet for trouble...
So now I'm writing Death in Rome, which was never supposed to be part of Màiri and Lianna's saga at all - they were supposed to be in Istanbul by now! But they're not.. and if they are ever to get there, first they have to get out of all the trouble they're in right now.
So that's why I'm writing Death in Rome. Our friends Màiri and Lianna need to get to Istanbul. Wish them luck!
I wrote the outline.
It was a short story length, so I began to write the story.
And the villains from my first book, Death in Paris, popped up and shouldered their way into the road-trip story! And they insisted on introducing us all to their cohorts, a bunch of villains we hadn't met yet.
So suddenly I had over 10,000 words of Villain-write, and my poor heroine, amateur sleuth Màiri, hadn't gotten to say a word yet!
This wasn't a short story, it was a book.
So I wrote the book.
And at the end, lo and behold, poor Lianna was once again in trouble!
That poor girl is just a magnet for trouble...
So now I'm writing Death in Rome, which was never supposed to be part of Màiri and Lianna's saga at all - they were supposed to be in Istanbul by now! But they're not.. and if they are ever to get there, first they have to get out of all the trouble they're in right now.
So that's why I'm writing Death in Rome. Our friends Màiri and Lianna need to get to Istanbul. Wish them luck!
Kate Darroch
Hello Wendy I am sorry to hear that! Please email me at: kate(AT)darroch.com telling me your LibraryThing moniker and whether you should have received an eBook or a paperback. If paper, also your address. If ebook, which country you live in so that I can give you a voucher for my book.
Hoping to hear from you soon :-)
all the best Kate
Hoping to hear from you soon :-)
all the best Kate
Kate Darroch
For me, the best thing is that I can say what I like and nobody blows up at me. They might write a really unpleasant review, but that's as bad as it gets. Most of the time, an author's readers listen to the story being told, and if they'd rather hear a different story then they read a different book. But they don't usually tell an author that she's got no right to tell the story she's telling; or that she's a horrible person who must be punished for thinking up that story. For me, that's solid gold. I can tell the story I wish to tell.
Kate Darroch
wow! That's a biggie! Top of my list is the re-write of Death on the Istanbul Express. The manuscript got lost somewhere in the cloud so I have to re-write it. Next is Death in Rome, because it should have been ready for release today if all this year's disasters hadn't struck, so I'm looking to get back on track there. Then a second Halloween story which has to be finished in 10 days time from now. Then a Christmas story. My Vella serial Found Money. My Inkit fantasy serial. And finally my new Christian crime series, which I have just begun :-)
Kate Darroch
The mysteries in my own life are all about disappearance - and sometimes reappearance - of objects which could not possibly have disappeared or re-appeared in those particular circumstances.
Here's one example from my business life (I am now retired and writing for personal enjoyment; also to "do my bit" in whatever tiny way I can to make the world less horrendous; and to keep mentally active and fulfilled).
I frequently worked from 7am until 8pm or even later. I was very focussed because often I was tired and so I needed to be totally focussed to "get the job done right".
One evening I was sitting in my office, on the telephone, and suddenly there was a "jagging" pain in my throat. Still concentrating on my call to the exclusion of any other thoughts, I put up my hand to my throat, plucked the opened brooch from my blouse and placed it on my desk.
When I finished my call I went to pick up the brooch, but it was not there.
Thinking that it had fallen, I looked all around the desk and the floor. It was nowhere in sight.
I called in another worker, and together we searched for over an hour. There was no sign of the brooch. There was blood on my throat, where the open "pin" fastener of the brooch had jagged into my neck.
2 weeks later, the brooch re-appeared, with no blood on it, in my dressing table drawer in my home.
This is a real life mystery involving the supernatural, an invisible entity which wished me harm, so if I were to write a story about it - which now that it's been called to my attention I may do as a Halloween mystery story - it would be a paranormal Cozy set in Glasgow in 1971, because my sleuth was in Istanbul during Halloween 1970, so it would have to be set in 1971.
Here's one example from my business life (I am now retired and writing for personal enjoyment; also to "do my bit" in whatever tiny way I can to make the world less horrendous; and to keep mentally active and fulfilled).
I frequently worked from 7am until 8pm or even later. I was very focussed because often I was tired and so I needed to be totally focussed to "get the job done right".
One evening I was sitting in my office, on the telephone, and suddenly there was a "jagging" pain in my throat. Still concentrating on my call to the exclusion of any other thoughts, I put up my hand to my throat, plucked the opened brooch from my blouse and placed it on my desk.
When I finished my call I went to pick up the brooch, but it was not there.
Thinking that it had fallen, I looked all around the desk and the floor. It was nowhere in sight.
I called in another worker, and together we searched for over an hour. There was no sign of the brooch. There was blood on my throat, where the open "pin" fastener of the brooch had jagged into my neck.
2 weeks later, the brooch re-appeared, with no blood on it, in my dressing table drawer in my home.
This is a real life mystery involving the supernatural, an invisible entity which wished me harm, so if I were to write a story about it - which now that it's been called to my attention I may do as a Halloween mystery story - it would be a paranormal Cozy set in Glasgow in 1971, because my sleuth was in Istanbul during Halloween 1970, so it would have to be set in 1971.
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