Della Pearl's Blog

Hm...the only puzzles I've created have been autumn themed. Could it be that this is my favorite time of year? 🤔 It definitely is! 

This is pretty near what the town looks like that inspired Sweet Penny Cove. What do you think? Would you like to visit? The Matinee Classics Cozy Mystery Series will take you there!

Click here to do the puzzle!

 

Isn't this cover adorable? There's Rocky the Newfie riding in the back. He's my favorite part, but I also just love the pink Studebaker.
Hopelessly Dead to You is now available for purchase as an ebook, but don't buy it! 🫣
Yep, I said don't buy it. Unless you want to of course, but I want to give it to you for free!A free ecopy of Hopelessly Dead to You is available when you sign up for my newsletter. You can unsubscribe again right away if you wish (there's an easy button), but the ebook is a gift you get to keep.
Here's where you sign up:Della Pearl Newsletter Signup

If the book is free, why did I put it up for sale on Amazon?
Mostly because the cover is so pretty! I love seeing it with the other books.Here's the link to that (Hopelessly Dead to You is at the bottom, listed as "related to" the series):Matinee Classics Cozy Mystery Series

What to know about the book?
It's a NOVELLA. That is the first thing to know. It's about a quarter of the size of the regular books in my Matinee Classics Cozy Mystery Series.
Also, just as all the books in the series include classic movie spotlights, this novella focuses on a single movie title: the 1978 film version of Grease starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta.
Grease meant a lot to me as a pre-teen. Dancing, singing, teen angst...so much fun energy. I still can't stop myself from hopping and jiving and cutting a rug when the music starts. It was a joy including it in my murder mystery story.
If you haven't started the series yet, this is a great place to start!
Happy reading 🔎

 

Una O'Connor and Claude Rains in The Invisible Man (1933)

While the first reason I love writing the Matinee Classics Cozy Mystery Series is because I love vicarious snooping, the other is:

2. I love classic Hollywood trivia!

With every book in the series I choose a few old movies to spotlight. One of those lucky films gets a nod in the title. This time, it's the 1933 classic The Invisible Man starring Claude Rains. It's a terrific excuse to read up on the actors' lives, learn the details about how the film was made, and make connections. For instance, young and beautiful Gloria Stuart, who plays the Invisible Man's former fiancé, is well-known for her portrayal as the elderly Rose in Titanic. That kind of trivia makes me giddy.

And don't get me started on Claude Rains's life story. It's fascinating.

While only a few paragraphs about the movies appear in each book, my research always turns up so much more. I will stop and watch the Hollywood greats every time. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, and so many more.

Una O'Connor
By DVD (Selznick Studio - United Artists) - Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936 film), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

I'll write more next time, but here's a quick note on Una O'Connor, who played the part of Jenny Hall the innkeeper in The Invisible Man. You may recognize the actress as she appeared in nearly a hundred supporting roles in her career, which ranged from 1929-1957. A Belfast, Ireland native, O'Connor played mostly humorous characters, such as the hysterical townsperson in Bride of Frankenstein, and a string of servants, crones, spinster chaperones, and nagging wives.

A Wikipedia article quotes a 1959 post humorous description of O'Connor:

... a frail little woman, with enormous eyes that reminded one of a hunted animal. She could move one to tears with the greatest of ease, and just as easily reduce an audience to helpless laughter in comedies of situation. She was mistress of the art of making bricks without straw. She could take a very small part, but out of the paltry lines at her disposal, create a real flesh-and-blood creature, with a complete and credible life of its own. (Eric Johns)

O'Connor never married or had children, but her legacy continues in her memorable screen presence. I think she steals the show in every scene she's in.

I'm delighted to share that The Invisible Corpse is out in the world!
This book is 2nd in the series. The mystery is a complete standalone, though Stevie, Melanie, Roddy, and the crew have their own lives going on, so I recommend starting the series with book 1, Here's Looking at Murder, Kid .

I have two favorite things about writing this series:
1. I love being with Stevie as she tiptoes somewhere she isn't supposed to go. I remember as a kid wanting to be like Nancy Drew, and sometimes venturing to those forbidden places.
We had a neighbor across the street who lived down a long driveway that disappeared into the trees. We couldn't even see his house, and we never saw him. (Why am I assuming it's a him? Hm.) The only sign of life there was every night around midnight, he backed down his driveway, the headlights shining up into my bedroom window. When he left again was a mystery.
One night around ten o'clock, we knew he wouldn't be home for a few hours and decided to venture down his driveway. We even had a reason in case we got caught, something to do with a school fundraiser. I didn't think to come up with an answer to the obvious question, why we were fundraising that late at night.
I also can't remember who I'd talked into taking this adventure with me, but considering how it ended, I can guess. It wasn't my try-anything friend, and it wasn't my rule-following little sister. It might have been my brother who for some reason trusted me, or my if-you-think-it's-a-good-idea friend. Because once we crossed the street and took a few steps toward that gaping black hole where the trees swallowed the driveway, I knew in my bones that it was a terrible idea to go down there. I told whoever was with me--I'm thinking it was my brother--and we decided to go home.
Nancy Drew would have been so disappointed in me, but we lived to tell the tale.
With Stevie's story, I find that she has no such qualms. She doesn't purposely put herself in danger, but she does venture to places where I never would. Stevie is Nancy Drew in her forties.
2. The second reason I love this series? I'll write about that next time.
Happy reading!Della

I took an hour off from writing to clean the house and accidentally made a puzzle instead. Whoops.

If you like digital puzzles, click on over and have some fun!

The Body and Mr. Chicken puzzle

 

Okay, friends, I just had to see all of these cute covers together. Aren't they fun? Rocky is the best part of them, of course. I especially like the HOPELESSLY DEAD TO YOU cover where he's in the classic car. 

If you're book shopping and thinking, huh, I can't find HOPELESSLY DEAD anywhere, that's because it's not for sale right now. It's only available for FREE.

If you look to the right (or I think it might be above if you're on your phone) and click on Newsletter and a free novella, you can get a copy. You'll have to sign up for my newsletter, but if you want to unsubscribe once you have claimed your free book, no worries! Sometimes my email box gets too full as well, so I get it.

I'll write more another day about how this series came to be. Meanwhile, happy reading, sleuth friends!

~Della

 

 

Autumn is my favorite season, and I know it's silly and no I'm not into the occult but I absolutely love Halloween. Kids in costumes, jack-o-lanterns, cool evenings and crisp leaves and a moonlit night... and chocolate! What's not to love?

Which is why, when I was supposed to be writing book 2 in my Matinee Classics Cozy Mystery Series, I held the presses and slipped in a Halloween story.

In The Body and Mr. Chicken, Stevie and best friend Melanie are assigned to do a community service project cleaning off and documenting graves at the aging Sweet Penny Cemetery. It's an enormous cemetery, with iron gates and odd little hills and tree roots knocking crumbling tombstones wonky. And crows, and creepy crawlies. Not their activity of choice, especially when their work is interrupted by Stevie stumbling on another body.

To buy now or read for free in Kindle Unlimited, click here.

And just to wet your whistle, here's an excerpt from The Body and Mr. Chicken:

We had passedthrough enough fog to see that we had reached the cemetery gates.

As if thingsweren’t eerie enough, we discovered that we were not the only ones there. Agroup of people stood near the cemetery gate, watching as we approached. Goose bumpsrose under my sweater sleeves.

Not the friendliest-lookingfolks. We stopped a few yards away from them—a distance that I judged we could stillmake a quick getaway from, especially if we dropped our tools in their path to slowthem down. They didn’t look like great jumpers, at least not the ones in front.

“Good morning,” Isaid, smiling. Smiling was my favorite disarming tool. It usually broke throughuncomfortable barriers. It didn’t this time.

“Gate’s locked,” amiddle-aged man spoke up. He held a large potted plant. A couple of others inthe group had plants as well, and a few shovel handles poked up in their midst.

A faded cemetery signhanging on the gate posted visiting hours.

“Locked?” Irepeated. “It should have been open by now.”

“No kidding,” awoman next to the man said. She didn’t look like smiling was herfavorite.

Mel nudged me andleaned close as she spoke. “If it’s not open, maybe we can leave.”

“Judith definitelysaid we were to be here today,” I whispered to Mel, though I looked around.Without someone to let us in, maybe we could get out of this assignment,at least temporarily. “Let’s give it ten minutes—”

“Five,” Mel saidwith feeling.

“—five minutes, andif no one comes—”

Before I couldfinish the thought, a grating noise scraped through the air, loud enough towake the dead. And don’t think I didn’t look through the bars to check if it hadwoken any dead, as adrenaline shot to each and every one of my nerve endings. Weall stepped back, Melanie and I and the plant-bearing mourners. Somehow, as ifby invisible hands, the massive iron gate creaked open a foot.

Melanie saidsomething that would have made my mother scowl—may she rest in peace—andinternally I gave an amen.

I hadn’t realizedI’d lifted my shovel in self-defense until I noticed Melanie had her pickaxe uptoo.

“Do we run?” Iasked, not sure what spooky cemetery protocol called for. The other folks seemedunsure as well.

Just as I wasready to turn tail, a sparsely haired head appeared in the gate opening. Mystomach sank. The head was grey, skeletal, and probably freshly risen from thetomb, if my overactive imagination was right.

But the head,which I could now see was attached to a sinewy neck and work shirt matching thegrey color of the man’s skin, and hair, and eyes—so unnerving—spoke to us. Inthe menacing kind of voice you’d reserve for Scooby-Doo monsters, the grey man demanded,“What do you want?”

As the mournershad arrived first, we waited for them to state their case. Plus, I couldn’tspeak for Melanie, but I was wishing hard that I’d used the bathroom one moretime before coming.

“We’re just hereto tend our family graves,” the same woman said.

“Like I told you lasttime, you have to wait for visiting hours!” The grey man’s voice rose with eachword. The group grumbled, but the head at the gate swiveled our way. I hadn’trealized how menacing a monochrome face could be. “What do you want?”

I found my voice,though my bravado seemed to have run off somewhere. I could only speak inquestions. “Judith Christiansen sent us? We were assigned to come as part of thetown historical documentation project? But if it isn’t a good time—”

I let my words diewhen a bony hand loomed into sight, motioning us to come forward. I swallowed awhimper.

“I don’t want to,”Melanie whispered. She’d moved close enough to me that our arms pressedtogether. Or maybe it was me that had moved.

“Let’s just getthis over with,” I told her, though my jelly legs wanted to go the other way.“Otherwise Judith will just send us back again.”

“Or shame us infront of the chamber of commerce,” Melanie said, which I knew was scarier toher than a foggy cemetery and its creepy caretaker. “Again.”

Taking baby stepsand carrying all the equipment on the very precise list Judith had given us, wemade our way to the gate. I took one last look at the mourners, who seemed asjealous of us as we probably looked of them.

Every ounce ofself-preservation in my body told me not to go through the gate, and it wasn’thard to picture myself clinging to the black bars like a child to a parent. Butwe were grown-ups. We had a job to do, an assignment to fulfill, and I wasn’tone to cop out on a responsibility.

Even one in anancient, spooky graveyard in October.

Click here to read the whole story!

IT'S HERE!
First book in a new series!

As a reader, I'm a longtime fan of cozy mysteries. The quirky characters, the quaint settings. A mystery to solve! I have the theme song to Murder, She Wrote running through my head just thinking about it.
As an author, I can't wait to share this story!
Stevie Jewel's favorite pastime is watching old movies. Old as in the golden age of Hollywood. Classic films starring Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart...all the greats.
When she returns to her hometown and gets a chance to help run the local movie theater, she makes her dream come true and brings those classic films back to the big screen.
Stevie also discovers a midlife talent: solving mysteries!
Get Stevie's story here!


An excerpt from Here's Looking at Murder, Kid by Della Pearl:
When the filmended, I sat in my seat, savoring the satisfaction of a well-told story, themusic and end credits keeping me on that high. I lingered in the world of WorldWar II intrigue and danger, the heartbreaking romance. I always hated severingmyself from that spell at the end of a movie, much like having a book hangoverafter finishing a good novel.

Like most timeswhen I went to see a movie, the others in the theater got up to leave before Idid. I always waited until the last credit had rolled. So deep in thought was Ithat it startled me when a gruff but slightly friendly voice said, “That was good.Are you going to do it again?”

Was I going tochoose the greater good after a moral struggle in Casablanca again? Every time!Or did they mean watch the movie again?

I looked up tofind the senior couple sort of smiling down on me. It was the woman who hadspoken, but now the man said in a kind voice, “Good movies really take yousomeplace, don’t they.”

I blinked. That’sright … Pinecone Theater, matinee classics. I was supposed to be working. Ijumped up.

“Am I going to dothis again?” I finally managed. “Yes, definitely. For now, once a week, but Imay do more depending on demand.”

“Do you dorequests?” the man asked.

My heart flutteredlike he’d asked if I wanted to wrap my arms around all my favorite classicfilms and live with them close to me. “I can try. What were you thinking?”

The woman asked,“Do you know Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House? We love that one.”

Okay, my heart wasstraight-up singing at this point. “I love Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.It was on my list, actually. How about next Thursday at eleven?”

They looked ateach other, that kind of look people have when they’ve been married forever andlive their lives in each other’s pockets. Ken and I never had that kind ofrelationship. I supposed we never would now, though I wasn’t sure how I wassupposed to feel about it.

“Could we doWednesday?” the woman asked. “We have doctor appointments next Thursday.”

Small-town livingat its finest.

“Absolutely. I’llput it on the schedule.” I walked out with them. “And if you have any otherrequests, let me know. I’ll do my best.”

They left thelobby, smiling, but not as brightly as I must have been.

“Well, youlook like you enjoyed that,” Melanie said when they’d gone.

“I did! And theydid too. They’re coming back next Wednesday for Mr. Blandings Builds HisDream House.”

“Excellent,”Melanie said, tapping the countertop with her pencil eraser. “Maybe with theadvance notice we can get more people in. Are you going to do it more than oneday a week, then?”

I was gettinglightheaded. This was all too good to be true. “Can I?”

Melanie shrugged.“You run it, you can do it.”

I demurred, notwanting to look desperate. “I’ll work up a schedule, then. Thanks, Melanie. Ihave a good feeling about this.”

“Clearly peopleare interested, and hey, you’re already bringing in concessions money,” shesaid. “And I’m never going to say no to that.”

Then she winked atme. Winked … Hm. That businessman had winked at me too. Two in one day, when Iwas sure I hadn’t been winked at in years.

Funny I hadn’t noticedhim leave the theater, but then I’d been pretty engrossed in the movie.

What if he’d leftearly and I hadn’t noticed? Shoot. I’d have to work on my proprietorobservation skills. I mean, what if he’d wanted more popcorn and I hadn’tserved him? Unhappy customer, fewer sales, less likely Melanie would let mekeep this up.

“Did you alreadyshut things down in the projection room?” she asked.

“Oh, nope. I’ll godo that now.” Actually, I hadn’t even remembered to turn on the lights. Luckyno one tripped coming out.

Each theater, Ilearned, had two light switches: one you could reach when you first entered,and one upstairs just outside the projection room. I flipped on the one by thedoor, and the empty red-purple seats came into dim view. On the screen, themovie credits had ended, and it had reverted to its starting place. The pictureof Rick and Elsa cheek-to-cheek already made me wistful to watch the movieagain, and that Arabianesque musical score rang through the theater. Sucha good movie. I started up the stairs, this time slower, thinking again of thebeautiful, complicated world created so long ago that could still touch me sodeeply.

Something niggledat my brain. Something wasn’t right.

I looked up and realizedthat in that top corner row, still shadowed in the limited theater lighting,the businessman remained in his seat. I could see the reflection on hisglasses. A chill ran through me.

He hadn’t left.

Click here to read the whole story!

Happy reading!

~ Della

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4N37SRR 

Hi all,

The first book in my new series is ready for preorder! What do you think of the cover? I love it. The trees and the dog make me happy, and I just think my designer is amazing.

A small-town movie theater running classic Hollywood titles?

Nice and cozy, until someone dies before the final credits roll.

Sweet Penny Cove hasn’t changed much since Stevie Jewel grew up there, though the dead body she finds in the movie theater is new. Not surprisingly, the death casts a shadow on her best friend’s cinema house where Stevie is a silent partner.

While Stevie settles into her new life, the ferry comings and goings bring a steady rhythm to the little town. Family and old friends are nearby, plus her favorite burger joint is right across the street. Best of all, she gets to share her beloved old movies on the big screen.

If it weren’t for the baffling murder, life would be almost perfect.

Searching for clues to help clear the theater’s name, Stevie discovers mysterious roads and places she never knew existed in her hometown, including murder in a killer’s heart.

What will it take for Stevie to outwit a killer?

If you'd like to preorder a copy to be delivered July 1st, here is the link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4N37SRR

Also, it occurs to me that my first blog post was May 18th. If you're from Washington State you might know that May 18, 1980 was the day Mt St Helen's blew. Yes, I was very much alive and remember the day well. I was at my cousin's house and we felt the BOOM. My aunt was sleeping in that Sunday morning and we thought she had fallen out of bed. Nope!

~Della

 

 

Welcome!

I'm Della Pearl and I write cozy mysteries set in the Pacific Northwest. I love rain, dogs, chocolate, and reading mysteries.

I've been writing for a long time in different genres but always thought that when I grew up I would write my first love: mysteries. Well I'm apparently grown up now because the first books in my new series are getting polished by the editor as we speak. I can't wait to share them with you!

Watch for my next post!

~Della