Have you watched Broadchurch, the mystery series on NetFlix? It has everything I love in a good mystery series. A picturesque, somewhat isolated, small town. A cast of intriguing characters, all of whom seem to have at least one terrible secret to protect. And a heart-wrenching crime that forms the backbone of the story.

I watched Season One of Broadchurch about a year ago, well after I had penned my own first mystery series, the Twisted Cedars Trilogy, yet I was intrigued to notice that I had included all the elements I loved in Broadchurch in my own books. Accident? I think not.

This year when I started my new series (the 3 book, Bitter Root Mysteries) I very consciously set out to create a world and a story that included this same mix of ingredients. I set this new series in Lost Trail, Montana, an isolated ranching and ski town on the border of Montana and Idaho. Almost all the main characters, and most secondary ones in Lost Trail have secrets. And the mysteries are layered, so that while each book has its own resolution, the stories build on one another, until the final, surprising, finale.

I always feel I've succeeded as a writer if my readers tell me they wish they could live in my fictional town, if my characters seem real to them and if the story has enough twists and surprises to keep them turning pages fast and furiously. Time will tell if I've succeeded with Bitter Roots. I hope so!