We have a return guest this morning. Author Judy Alter is chatting with us and featuring her latest culinary mystery, Finding Florence.
Welcome, Judy! What may I get you to drink?
JA: Hi, Ally, thanks for inviting me for coffee. Trouble is, I gave up coffee several years ago when it suddenly didn’t taste good to me (I think I had the flu at the time). Now a cup of decaf green tea with honey starts my day off perfectly.
Ally: We’ve had a lot of tea drinkers, and that’s an easy request for my magic pot. Just give us a moment while you introduce yourself to readers.
Judy Alter is the author of four contemporary cozy mystery series—Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, Blue Plate Café Murder Mysteries, Oak Grove Mysteries, and the current Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries, of which Finding Florence is the third. Her earliest mysteries were published by Turquoise Morning Press and are still available. When her publisher went out of business, she became an indie publisher and barely looked back. Find her and a list of her books at http://www.judyalter.com
Judy is an active member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, Story Circle Network, Women Writing the West, and the Texas Institute of Letters. When she is not writing, she is busy with seven grandchildren and a lively poodle/border collie cross. Her avocation is cooking, and she is the author of Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books, Gourmet on a Hot Plate, and Texas is Chili Country.
Born in Chicago, she has made her home in Fort Worth for over fifty years. She writes two blogs: Judy’s Stew (http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com ) and Gourmet on a Hot Plate (http://www.gourmetonahotplate.blogspot.com ).
The Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries are available from Amazon (An Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery (3 book series) Kindle Edition (amazon.com) as are her other mysteries, along with historical fiction, mostly about women in the American West.
Something unique/unusual that isn’t in your regular bio: “My life is pretty much an open book but one thing not generally know is that I used to raise and show registered Carin Terriers. Let’s be honest: I tried to show them. The dogs did okay in the ring, but I was an abject failure. As one friend said to me, “Honey, the judge is interested in the dog’s legs, not yours.” I gave it up. It’s an expensive hobby. But I am a dog lover and could not live without a dog companion.”
Additional author contacts:
Twitter: @judyalter
Facebook: Judy Alter | Facebook
Ally: What inspired you to write the culinary mystery series?
JA: With the third book now in print, I still can’t tell you where this series came from, least of all where Irene Foxglove came from. She was just there, in my mind, one day. Some of my earlier mysteries had culinary aspects to them, but I knew I wanted to make food a bigger part of the picture, so a TV chef was a natural. And the setting? The older I get the more nostalgic I am about my childhood in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, so that’s where the books are set. Another puzzle to me is Henny, formally Henrietta James, who starts out as Irene’s assistant on the cooking show and who tells us about Irene’s adventures. Henny just started talking to me one day, though settling on her name gave me fits.
Ally: Of all the characters you’ve written, who is your favorite and why?
JA: It’s hard to choose my favorite, because Irene at first seems the obvious choice—she’s brash, demanding, attention-getting, always bold, sometimes kind though rarely compassionate, and always interesting. Her French billionaire lover indulges her every whim even as he tries to rein in her worst aspects. But Henny probably is my favorite: in her late twenties, she’s far from her Texas home and madly in love with her new husband, Patrick. She has a love/hate relationship with Irene, and she recognizes that one minute she’s ranting about the chef’s outrageous demands and the next she’s doing whatever Irene needs—including rescuing her from kidnappers. Henny is not all sugar and sweet—there’s a real snarky side to her, and her offside comments about Irene are spot on.
Ally: How long does it take you to write a book?
JA: I wrote Finding Florence sporadically over about a year. I didn’t think I was going to write any more in the Irene series, but one day the idea of a missing body came to me, and I started to write. I probably had about a third of a novel, when other projects called, and I put Irene aside. I’ve done this a couple of times before, until I think it’s becoming part of my process. Perhaps I’m letting ideas simmer in the back of my mind. At any rate, when I went back to it, I thought it wasn’t half bad—and I started writing again.
Ally: Since you’re self-published, tell us about your editing process. Do you use an editor?
JA: My favorite editor was not available this time, so I carefully chose beta readers, considered their comments, and then went over the manuscript five times myself. I’m sure there are still typos and even gaps in logic. Every writer needs an editor.
Ally: Do you write for a specific audience?
JA: I hope this series will appeal to foodies (there’s a lot of food in it, from French to Texan), to Chicago buffs, and to readers who want a little outrageous fun. A reader will have to willingly suspend disbelief and really get into the spirit.
Ally: What are your future writing plans?
JA: I’m weighing my options, but I think Irene and Henny have more stories to tell.
Ally: Which of the trivia questions did you choose?
JA:
- What are you currently reading? My TBR list is long, like that of most authors, but I’m enjoying the Ghost books, a mystery series by Texan Helen Currie Foster. The series sets a widowed woman, a lawyer, in a small Hill Country town between Austin and San Antonio. Think San Marcos.
- An author you’d love to chat with – Susan Wittig Albert, whose China Bayles herbal mysteries are also set in a fictionalized San Marcos. We belong to a small online group and exchange ideas online frequently, but a long chat over a glass of wine would be lovely.
- An item on your bucket list – A return to the places I’ve loved—Chicago, Scotland, and Santa Fe, a city my children and I have visited for years. My favorite piece of jewelry speaks to my love of Santa Fe: it’s a man’s ring, probably old pawn, one big piece of turquoise with a crack across it. The silver mounting has Navajo symbols. I inherited the ring from a close friend who used to go to Santa Fe with us.
- Favorite comfort food – I’m a foodie, so it’s really hard to pick. I love to cook, and I love to eat, but my go-to for breakfast, a snack, or even a meal when nothing else appeals is pretty prosaic: it’s cottage cheese, maybe with Paul Newman’s vinaigrette and some vegetables chopped into it.
Ally: It’s been a pleasure to chat with you again, Judy. Before we finish for today, please show us your featured book. Finding Florence.
JA: Thanks for the tea and the time, Ally.
Genre: To quote the author: “outrageous cozies” that “push the boundaries of what we consider ordinary behavior”
Rating: mild
Irene is back in town. And Henny’s life is a mess.
Irene has flown to Chicago from France in her preferred high style – a private jet. She was accompanied by the owner of the aircraft, her longtime, on again-off again-on again amour, the handsome but mysterious billionaire Chance Charpentier. The reason for the trip? Her infamous “voices” have told her that something is horribly amiss with a person dear to her.
When she arrives, she learns that a death notice for Florence Sherman, her sometime friend, previous neighbor, and member of an historic Chicago family, has been published in the Chicago Tribune. When she calls Florence’s daughter, Alice, Irene’s “voices”-inspired suspicions are confirmed by the strange way Alice and her husband are handling the death. And once Irene discovers her friend’s body is missing, the diva chef refuses to leave until she solves the mysterious disappearance.
But, as long as Irene is in Chicago, Henny’s successful “From My Mother’s Kitchen” TV cooking show, and her precious time with Patrick, husband of her dreams, are seriously compromised by Irene’s insistence that finding Florence trumps any other concerns. So Henny struggles to balance Irene’s demands with the rest of her life and to actually find Florence, dead or alive, so Irene will go back to France.
Irene’s certainty that the past holds the key to Florence’s disappearance brings in a bit of Chicago history, and food references enliven the text. An appendix of recipes from both Irene and Henny’s mom is included.
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