Chessen Parker's Blog - Posts Tagged "outer-banks"
Introducing the Crystal Coast Mysteries Sleuths!
Join Clara Dare and her friends as they comb the North Carolina coast for clues to uncover the who, why and how of the clever, and often desperate, murders that hit close to home. Experience beautiful beaches, remote island villages, cozy harbors, and coastal living at its finest with the sleuths in the Crystal Coast Mysteries.
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Clara Dare Ivankova
Clara Dare Ivankova is an independent and strong-willed Steel Magnolia. After her parents’ accidental death, the Big Law corporate attorney realizes that the junior partner corner office on the fifty-fourth floor isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, and Clara Dare returns to her hometown to take up a three-generation tradition of floral design on the Crystal Coast.
Joined by her husband, David Ivanka, and his younger brother, Vasek, Clara Dare settles back home on the beautiful, quiet, and unconventionally traditional, Crystal Coast of North Carolina.
In Cargo to Kill For (the third book in the series, taking place less than a year after her relocation), Clara Dare opens The Village Flower Shop in historic Downtown Morehead. Clara Dare lets her entrepreneurial juices flow with workshops and virtual garden clubs from her quaint, old-world florist haven -- all the while making time for her volunteer work ... and solving mysteries (when her unique investigatory skills are needed) with her friend, Detective Tara Thompson.
Detective Tara Thompson
Detective Tara Thompson is a tall, lanky and attractive woman with a flawless mocha complexion and large hazel eyes. After several years at the FBI and several state leadership roles, she returned to the Crystal Coast as a homicide detective following her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. Nothing had really prepared her for the loneliness that her mother’s absence created. Her father, the chief of police in Morehead City since Tara was a small girl, hadn’t coped well either; but at least they had each other.
Tara came out to her family and friends during her first year in college, and her sexual orientation is accepted and respected. After her mother’s death, Tara had thrown herself into her work and hadn’t had the time, or frankly the desire, to bother with dating. She caves into her friends’ nagging, and she reluctantly begins to move forward with her own happiness. In a later book, Tara meets someone special and falls in love.
As children, Tara and Clara Dare used to pretend they were detectives, and even solved a few real mysteries. Reunited as women in their mid-thirties, the crime solving duo take on murderers that hit too close to home and the stakes are much higher this time.
Josephine Dunaway (“Miss Jo”)
The bubbly, petite owner of Josephine’s Boutique (a ladies clothing and accessories shop with over thirty years of history in its location overlooking the Beaufort Harbor), has been “doting aunt” to two generations of friends’ and customers’ children -- Clara Dare and Tara among them. Not only a trusted fashion consultant, but a trusted friend as well, very little goes on in Carteret County about which Miss Jo isn’t acutely aware. Oxymoronically, an organized free-spirit, Jo is involved in the leadership of several local charities, and is a favorite to be selected to serve on event committees. Always seeking ways to enhance a woman’s natural beauty, to Miss Jo, throwing on “any old thing” is like hanging a painting in a closet without a light.
Ella Highmark
Ella Highmark (Ms. Dr. Daniel Highmark) was Clara Dare’s and Tara’s honors English teacher in the ninth and tenth grades, now retired. Ella is also Clara Dare’s neighbor when she settles into the family home. Ella Highmark is every Southern heroine, real and fictional, rolled up in one, voluptuous, honey-dripping ball, with long, black lashes, violet eyes, and dark, fluffy hair. Miss Ella was Miss North Carolina World 1961, and, in the forty-seven years since, she has never seemed to lose her stage presence. She loves to wear bright colors and rich fabrics - often accessorized with chunky jewelry and a tasteful portion of exposed cleavage. She is in grandmother heaven with her flock of five grandchildren and step-grandchildren under the age of twelve. Ella is bubbly with the ability to laugh at herself as much as she laughs at others. She is a frequent “side kick” to Miss Jo, with whom she conspires to set up romantic matches whenever the opportunity arises.
Caroline Stafford
Caroline is a doctoral student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment who is completing her research at the facility on Piver’s Island. A maritime anthropologist who grew up only an hour and a half away from the coast, she and her brother (Luke Stafford) own and operate Wreck Hunter Dive Center (which they purchased from Clara Dare’s Aunt Eloise). Caroline’s beauty, brains, and grace won over Vasek Ivanka’s heart almost instantly, and Clara Dare is fairly certain that she’ll eventually be blessed with the dream sister-in-law.
***************************************************************
Clara Dare Ivankova
Clara Dare Ivankova is an independent and strong-willed Steel Magnolia. After her parents’ accidental death, the Big Law corporate attorney realizes that the junior partner corner office on the fifty-fourth floor isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, and Clara Dare returns to her hometown to take up a three-generation tradition of floral design on the Crystal Coast.
Joined by her husband, David Ivanka, and his younger brother, Vasek, Clara Dare settles back home on the beautiful, quiet, and unconventionally traditional, Crystal Coast of North Carolina.
In Cargo to Kill For (the third book in the series, taking place less than a year after her relocation), Clara Dare opens The Village Flower Shop in historic Downtown Morehead. Clara Dare lets her entrepreneurial juices flow with workshops and virtual garden clubs from her quaint, old-world florist haven -- all the while making time for her volunteer work ... and solving mysteries (when her unique investigatory skills are needed) with her friend, Detective Tara Thompson.
Detective Tara Thompson
Detective Tara Thompson is a tall, lanky and attractive woman with a flawless mocha complexion and large hazel eyes. After several years at the FBI and several state leadership roles, she returned to the Crystal Coast as a homicide detective following her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. Nothing had really prepared her for the loneliness that her mother’s absence created. Her father, the chief of police in Morehead City since Tara was a small girl, hadn’t coped well either; but at least they had each other.
Tara came out to her family and friends during her first year in college, and her sexual orientation is accepted and respected. After her mother’s death, Tara had thrown herself into her work and hadn’t had the time, or frankly the desire, to bother with dating. She caves into her friends’ nagging, and she reluctantly begins to move forward with her own happiness. In a later book, Tara meets someone special and falls in love.
As children, Tara and Clara Dare used to pretend they were detectives, and even solved a few real mysteries. Reunited as women in their mid-thirties, the crime solving duo take on murderers that hit too close to home and the stakes are much higher this time.
Josephine Dunaway (“Miss Jo”)
The bubbly, petite owner of Josephine’s Boutique (a ladies clothing and accessories shop with over thirty years of history in its location overlooking the Beaufort Harbor), has been “doting aunt” to two generations of friends’ and customers’ children -- Clara Dare and Tara among them. Not only a trusted fashion consultant, but a trusted friend as well, very little goes on in Carteret County about which Miss Jo isn’t acutely aware. Oxymoronically, an organized free-spirit, Jo is involved in the leadership of several local charities, and is a favorite to be selected to serve on event committees. Always seeking ways to enhance a woman’s natural beauty, to Miss Jo, throwing on “any old thing” is like hanging a painting in a closet without a light.
Ella Highmark
Ella Highmark (Ms. Dr. Daniel Highmark) was Clara Dare’s and Tara’s honors English teacher in the ninth and tenth grades, now retired. Ella is also Clara Dare’s neighbor when she settles into the family home. Ella Highmark is every Southern heroine, real and fictional, rolled up in one, voluptuous, honey-dripping ball, with long, black lashes, violet eyes, and dark, fluffy hair. Miss Ella was Miss North Carolina World 1961, and, in the forty-seven years since, she has never seemed to lose her stage presence. She loves to wear bright colors and rich fabrics - often accessorized with chunky jewelry and a tasteful portion of exposed cleavage. She is in grandmother heaven with her flock of five grandchildren and step-grandchildren under the age of twelve. Ella is bubbly with the ability to laugh at herself as much as she laughs at others. She is a frequent “side kick” to Miss Jo, with whom she conspires to set up romantic matches whenever the opportunity arises.
Caroline Stafford
Caroline is a doctoral student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment who is completing her research at the facility on Piver’s Island. A maritime anthropologist who grew up only an hour and a half away from the coast, she and her brother (Luke Stafford) own and operate Wreck Hunter Dive Center (which they purchased from Clara Dare’s Aunt Eloise). Caroline’s beauty, brains, and grace won over Vasek Ivanka’s heart almost instantly, and Clara Dare is fairly certain that she’ll eventually be blessed with the dream sister-in-law.
Musings on New Release - Cargo to Kill For
Hello Readers and Beach Lovers!
I really, really enjoyed writing Cargo to Kill For! I don’t think I can say that with enough emphasis. I think it shows in the novel, as well.
Clara Dare has settled into her new life on the North Carolina Coast. Readers of Blackbeard’s Curse will, I think, appreciate the developments in Clara Dare and Tara, as both characters and friends, as the series progresses. I thoroughly enjoyed creating the cast for this installment of the Crystal Coast Mysteries!
Developing the story line was a challenge. My initial premise was simple...so I thought.
You see, I also enjoy the group of authors and books in the intersection of sub-genres covering espionage, suspense, and thrillers. I have found that, inevitably, in many of these books, there is that one little snag in the plot where the local fuzz’s involvement can’t be avoided, and the hero’s or heroine’s success depends on whether or not the locals boggle it.
My premise for “Cargo to Kill For” started with the idea that I would tell the “cozy mystery” that happens behind the scenes during such a snag. A novel in a novel! Maybe more like, “Behind the Music” by the time Clara Dare and Tara are done. LOL!
Trying to capture the gravity of the overarching plot within the confines of the Queen of Crime’s “malice domestic” was a very rewarding balancing act for me, as a writer.
For those readers who may have struggled with my attempt at capturing the unique brogue of the outer and inner banks that derives from the Queen's English spoken by the original European settlers of the area (The Lost Colony), you will be relived that I've dialed it back. I hope my readers still feel the "time-and-reality suspension" that many vacationers feel when they visit the Crystal Coast - however, it is more subtle. Non-native Carolinian readers of both Blackbeard's Curse and Cargo to Kill For, have told me that this book is easier to read if you aren't a frequent visitor to the area. Those readers that had moved away still found nostalgia in the pages, so I felt a sense of mission accomplished!
I really hope that my readers enjoy the results as much as I enjoyed the process!
Happy Sleuthing,
Chessen
I really, really enjoyed writing Cargo to Kill For! I don’t think I can say that with enough emphasis. I think it shows in the novel, as well.
Clara Dare has settled into her new life on the North Carolina Coast. Readers of Blackbeard’s Curse will, I think, appreciate the developments in Clara Dare and Tara, as both characters and friends, as the series progresses. I thoroughly enjoyed creating the cast for this installment of the Crystal Coast Mysteries!
Developing the story line was a challenge. My initial premise was simple...so I thought.
You see, I also enjoy the group of authors and books in the intersection of sub-genres covering espionage, suspense, and thrillers. I have found that, inevitably, in many of these books, there is that one little snag in the plot where the local fuzz’s involvement can’t be avoided, and the hero’s or heroine’s success depends on whether or not the locals boggle it.
My premise for “Cargo to Kill For” started with the idea that I would tell the “cozy mystery” that happens behind the scenes during such a snag. A novel in a novel! Maybe more like, “Behind the Music” by the time Clara Dare and Tara are done. LOL!
Trying to capture the gravity of the overarching plot within the confines of the Queen of Crime’s “malice domestic” was a very rewarding balancing act for me, as a writer.
For those readers who may have struggled with my attempt at capturing the unique brogue of the outer and inner banks that derives from the Queen's English spoken by the original European settlers of the area (The Lost Colony), you will be relived that I've dialed it back. I hope my readers still feel the "time-and-reality suspension" that many vacationers feel when they visit the Crystal Coast - however, it is more subtle. Non-native Carolinian readers of both Blackbeard's Curse and Cargo to Kill For, have told me that this book is easier to read if you aren't a frequent visitor to the area. Those readers that had moved away still found nostalgia in the pages, so I felt a sense of mission accomplished!
I really hope that my readers enjoy the results as much as I enjoyed the process!
Happy Sleuthing,
Chessen
