A former entertainment attorney, Susan Lynn Solomon is the facilitator of the Writer’s Critique Group that is co-sponsored by the Buffalo Central Library and Just Buffalo Literary Center.
She is the author of award-winning short stories, including Abigail Bender (awarded an Honorable Mention in a Writers Journal short romance competition) and Sabbath (nominated for the 2013 Best of the Net). A collection of her short stories, Voices in My Head, has been released by Solstice Publishing.
Ms. Solomon is also the author of the Emlyn Goode Mysteries. A finalist in Chanticleer International Book Award’s Mystery & Mayhem Novel category, and a finalist for the 2016 Book Excellence Award. Her first Emlyn Goode novel, The Magic of Murder, has received rave reviews, as have the novelettes, Bella Vita, The Day the Music Died, A Shot in the Woods, and ’Twas the Season. The second Emlyn Goode novel, Dead Again, was a finalist for both the 2017 McGrath House Indie Book of the Year and the 2018 Book Excellence Award. Writing is Murder, the third Emlyn Goode novel was awarded a First Place in the 2019 Chanticleer International Book Award Mystery & Mayhem category.
Stepping aside from mysteries, Ms. Solomon’s novel, Abigail’s Window, has been awarded a gold medal as a finalist in the Readers Favorite novel competition, and the Chanticleer International Book Award gave it the Grand Prize as the best paranormal romance of 2019.
And, as if all that isn’t enough, she has just published another book >>>>
Welcome to my blog, Susan, what is the title of your latest book?
Shooting Parr – it’s the first new Emlyn Goode Mystery in more than a year.
What is it about? Intrepid author Emlyn Goode needs a story for her next book. The next thing she knows, a child is pulled from the Niagara River! The corpse of that little girl is soon joined by the dismembered body Emlyn discovers on the Hyde Park Golf Course. What else can she do but climb into the middle of Roger Frey’s investigations and drag her best friend Rebecca Nurse along with her? While they search for the killer, two women disappear, and Emlyn is convinced that all these cases are the work of one person.
But her curiosity carries risk. Will she be able to unravel this puzzle before she, too, disappears?
What drove you to write it? Since the first Emlyn Goode Mystery was published in 2015, readers have enjoyed the main characters, Emlyn Goode, and Niagara Falls detective, Roger Frey, and especially their developing relationship. Over the past year so many readers have asked when these characters would at last get married, that I decided to return to the Emlyn Goode series and lead Emlyn and Roger to their marriage… although not too quickly. Shooting Parr ends with Emlyn and Roger ready to get married. In the next book…
What are you working on at the moment? The next Emlyn Goode Mystery is about half-written. This one will be titled Honeymoon Murder. As the title suggests, I won’t let Emlyn and Roger have a relaxing honeymoon. With all the trouble I keep getting Emlyn and her friends into, I’m surprised that they continue to talk to me.
What have you found to be the most challenging aspects of being a writer? For me the most challenging aspects arise once a first draft of a new book is finished. This is when the real work begins. I will go through the story at least two more times, tightening scenes and sentence structure, adding a few clues and red herrings before I show the first chapters to my novel writers’ group. Incredibly talented writers, they see things in the story line I’d missed. Based on their comments, I go back to the beginning and do another draft. As a result, I will have worked on eight or nine drafts before the novel is submitted to Solstice Publishing.
The book is then sent to Tony Kohler, my editor. Prodded by Tony there will be another three drafts before the book is released.
And the most rewarding? I have experienced so many rewarding moments since my first stories were published. Certainly, one is when I see a review written by someone who enjoyed my book. A second is at a fair when someone who has read my books stops at my tent. We talk about writing and then that person buys other books. Meeting new people in person and on social media sites is always a thrill. Perhaps, though, the most rewarding moment came when a young author I had worked with at the Buffalo Writers Critique Group had his first novel published.
What is your top tip for an aspiring writer? First, keep writing, don’t let negative comments or rejections deter you. I have a shoebox filled with rejections I received before my first stories were accepted by literary journals.
Second, join a writers group and consider each comment that the other writers make—both about your work and the work of others. Twenty years ago, when I began to write seriously I was introduced to the Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Writers Group. When I attended my first meeting of that group I thought I was, as my grandmother would’ve said, a whole goddamit. I soon learned otherwise. Because my back didn’t go up when I was told a sentence I wrote was clumsy or the structure of a chapter seemed out of place, or my protagonist was far from lovable, I worked with each comment, rewrote and rewrote the sentences and story sections. Within three years my first short stories were published, and then my first novel.
Where can readers find you? All of my books can be found on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Susan-Lynn-Solomon/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ASusan+Lynn+Solomon
I write an almost daily post on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/susan.solomon.33
Or you can come and see me in person! On September 10 I’ll be selling and signing my books at the St. Peter’s UCC Craft & Vendor Fair (that’s at 1475 Orchard Park Rd., West Seneca)
Excerpt from Shooting Parr
In a parade of three cars, we drove down the Niagara Scenic Parkway, got off at the traffic circle and then, by-passing the entrance to Goat Island, turned onto Main Street. Nearing the Niagara Falls library, one car behind the other we pulled to the curb at the triangle corner of Main Street and Portage Road. Now I knew the place Seth and April Frey had chosen for my birthday brunch. Not a fancy restaurant—fancy isn’t the Frey style. Here we would not be faced with an overloaded breakfast buffet like at the Ponderosa—overstuffing their stomachs also isn’t in the Frey playbook. Today I would be treated to my birthday morning meal at the Why. No question mark after the name of this luncheonette, it had apparently been named for the way the streets it straddled formed a Y.
As I slid from the passenger seat of Roger’s Trail-blazer, I glanced around.
“What’re you looking for?” he asked.
“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah.”
Jonathan had parked in front of us. He and April left Jon’s blue car and went inside the restaurant so quickly, I figured they wanted to ensure that everything had been arranged as they’d specified. Seth walked up to where I stood next to Roger.
Again, I looked around. “Where is everyone?”
A breakfast crowd that flowed into a lunch crowd often filled the Why, and on weekends it always did. This meant that finding spots for three cars to park near the restaurant would be impossible. Today the block was almost clear of cars.
Roger shrugged and looked a question at his brother.
Giving us his signature dimple-cheek smile, Seth said, “We gonna eat or stand out here people watching?” He hooked his arm around mine and led me up the street.
As we neared the corner a man and a woman emerged from the restaurant. Just outside the door he stopped, grabbed the woman by the hood of her yellow sweatshirt and pushed her against the windowed wall.
“Why the hell didn’t you call first?” he shouted. “You couldn’t find out there’s a private thing goin’ on in there, ’steada makin’ me come all the way here and we can’t get in?”
Sounding like she spoke through tears, the woman said, “But Mike, how could I know about that? The Why never closes for a party.”
I recognized the woman. About the same height as my five-foot-seven and a little stout with long black hair tied in a ponytail, this was Irene Temple who had started to work at the Bella Vita Hair Salon about two months before.
The man leaned close to her with the fingers of one hand spread on the window. His lips tight and his body tense, it looked as though he might smack her.
I pulled free of Seth and quick-stepped toward the couple. Roger and his brother moved just behind me.
“Irene, I didn’t know you come here,” I said.
Roger, his face stern, took his badge from his pocket and held it out.
The man backed away. “Don’t want no trouble,” he said. His dirty blond hair was almost completely covered by a stained blue baseball cap with the charging buffalo logo of our professional football team. He wore a red and black plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I looked down at his clenched hands, then up at his tight jaw—the weakest jaw I had ever seen.
“I…” Irene hesitated, and turned her head to look at the man she’d called Mike. Strange, I didn’t see any fear in her eyes.
……..
NB: Links to Margaret’s books and social media
You can find all my books and short stories on Amazon books, At least one story always free. ALL BOOKS FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED