My friend Joy recently said she might want me to write her obituary. She said this jokingly as a compliment. “Well, after all,” she said, “you are in the cemetery business.”
Gravely speaking, I guess I am, but it’s only in a fictional way. For example, The Cemetery Club, Grave Shift, Best Left Buried and Grave Heritage, all would lead a person to suspect such a thing.
So, I did some serious thinking. What is a mild-mannered, retired kindergarten teacher doing writing books that have to do with murder? The answer is I like happy endings.
That sounds like a paradox but it’s true. Life has enough read-life sad, scary, unexplained happenings that don’t end well. But, if I can take those happenings and give them a satisfactory conclusion, that’s a sort of victory over the real-life stuff, isn’t it? Throw in good friends, warm family, a touch of romance and a cup of coffee and I’ve got a cozy mystery.
It’s fun to read a book that gives us a case of the shivers when we’re tucked up warm and safe in our favorite chair. Sometimes in real life, mysteries go unsolved and justice does not triumph but in my cozy mysteries, that is not true. To top it off, life with Darcy, Flora and Ned is fun. Gravely speaking.
Being nervous about characters, yet knowing that it will all work out right in the end makes a book compelling!
Yes, you’re right. And such fun to envision.