About Me
My life has altered dramatically since I wrote this a while back, so I’ve made a few changes. Of course, my history hasn’t changed: I was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, and have lived here nearly all my life. I’ve read English mysteries since I was a teen-ager, though, and they bred in me a love of England that led to my first mystery series. I knew it was unlikely I could ever afford to live in a lovely little seventeenth-century cottage somewhere in Kent or Sussex—but if I created a character who did just that, I could live her life vicariously, and instead of costing me a fortune, that life would actually make me some money. Such a deal!
Thus was born Dorothy Martin, who is essentially my alter-ago, though she’s named after my favorite cousin. She appeared first in a short story I wrote many, many years ago. It has never been published, but Dorothy waited patiently in the wings, and when the idea for her first book came into my head, there she was, ready to take center stage.
That book, The Body in the Transept, won the Agatha award for Best First Novel of 1995, and Dorothy has gone on to ten more adventures since (and I’m working on another). In 1998 I began to hanker after a new character, a new setting, and—I’ll admit it—a little more income. So I came up with the series set in my home town, starring a strong-willed young Swedish housemaid. Housemaid? Yes, because that series is set about a hundred years ago, when the wealthy families in America still had servants. Hilda Johansson works for one of the wealthiest families in South Bend, the Studebakers. You may know them as automobile manufacturers, some years back, but in Hilda’s time their main products were wagons and carriages. I’ve enjoyed the research these books have required, and I’ve grown to love Hilda and her fellow immigrants to a South Bend very different from the one I live in now. A new Hilda, Murder in Burnt Orange, will be out in the fall of 2011 from Perseverance Press.
What’s ahead? Hard to say. My first publisher, Walker, stopped doing mysteries several years ago, so my agent had to scramble to find me new houses. My latest publisher for the Dorothys is Severn House, based in London. Appropriate, don’t you think? In fact, they’ve decided to use English spelling in my books, so I’ve had to learn about colour and honour and metre and centre, and so on. I’m glad Word can tell the difference! And I think Perseverance wants more Hildas.
The thing is, I’ve had to sort of reinvent myself, not just as an author, but as a person. In late 2009, I lost my husband of 38 years, and living alone is taking some getting used to. Well, I say alone. I have, at this writing, three cats and, for the first time in my life, a dog. Now there’s an adjustment. Maisie is a dear, but I speak Cat much better than Dog, and we’re having to get to know each other’s ways. I’ve never had to take an animal out for walks before, and walking in northern Indiana this record-setting winter hasn’t been easy. At least she and the cats have adapted well to each other. Of course the cats taught her, early on, who’s in charge.
I’m still singing in my church choir and (in summer) gardening, when my deadlines will allow. My house is getting dirtier and dirtier, and so far, no lamp I’ve rubbed has brought me a genie to do the work.
I’ve heard from quite a few of you, and love your comments, so keep them coming. Living a rather solitary life, I cherish contact with my readers.
And I promise I’ll try to do better keeping this page up to date.
