LET'S GET COZY! MURDER ON THE HOUSE: AUTHOR INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

 

GIVEAWAY ENDED
MURDER ON THE HOUSE

A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery

BY JULIET BLACKWELL

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Juliet Blackwell is back with the third in her national bestselling paranormal mystery series about a woman who owns a construction company and also specializes in ridding homes of unwanted ghosts.  

Mel Turner’s secret is out: having successfully “dealt with” ghosts in two haunted San Francisco homes, the Haunted House Quarterly publishes an article labeling her a ghost buster.  Turner Construction’s office is flooded with requests for her services.  

Ignoring her new-found fame, Mel is called in to consult on the renovation of a beautiful old gothic home.  The prospective buyers insist that the home is haunted; they plan to market it as “San Francisco’s Most Haunted Bed and Breakfast.” But they need Mel to convince the house’s unfriendly ghosts to go along with their plan. Soon the house has another ghost – that of the recently murdered, and very confused, owner. And Mel must find out who wanted the house badly enough to kill.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Juliet Blackwell is the NYT bestselling author of the Haunted Home Renovation mystery series (If Walls Could Talk, Dead Bolt, Murder on the House) and the Witchcraft mystery series (Secondhand Spirits, A Cast-off Coven, Hexes and Hemlines, In a Witch’s Wardrobe). As Hailey Lind, Juliet penned the Art Lover’s Mystery series, including Agatha-nominated Feint of Art. A former anthropologist and social worker, Juliet has worked and studied in Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Italy, the Philippines, and France. She now lives in a happily haunted house in Oakland, California, where she is a muralist and portrait painter. She was a two-term president of Northern California Sisters in Crime.   Visit Juliet at www.julietblackwell.net; http://www.facebook.com/JulietBlackwellAuthor; and Twitter @JulietBlackwell

AN INTERVIEW WITH JULIET BLACKWELL:
Welcome, and thank you for agreeing to an interview for BOOKIN‘ WITH BINGO. Is there any personal information you would like to start out with today?
1. Thank you for having me! I’m a former anthropologist, so when I set out to write paranormal mysteries I wanted to base the tales in traditions and folktales from all over the world.  I don’t adhere to any one tradition; rather, I have fun picking and choosing the parts I want to include as I write my stories. And one of the best aspects of being a writer is that I get to spend so much time researching, reading about history and talking to people about their beliefs.

2.  Where did you get the inspiration or idea for this book?
Murder on the House takes place in a neglected historic house in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. The building is based on a home I visited when I was working as a decorative painter—back then, I spent a lot of time on renovation job sites. The new owners of the building wanted us to play up the idea that the house might be haunted, because they were going to open a Bed & Breakfast and wanted it to have a special appeal. The “haunting” in the book is based on a true story from the early 1900s, when a prominent San Francisco family was found, deceased, in their beds.  That story began to blend in my mind with the idea of a B&B full of ghosts. 

3. How did the title of your book come about?
Oh, that’s a tough one!  I’m actually terrible at titles.  But with the Haunted Home Renovation series, I keep thinking of titles that include a reference to the building arts, or homes or houses.  One day I heard someone say a drink was “on the house” and I thought to myself—great title! The next in the series will be called “Home for the Haunting,” which I also love :)

4. Do you see yourself in your characters? Which characters are easiest or more difficult to write?
I see a lot of myself in Mel Turner, protagonist in the Haunted Home Renovation series.  She’s a former anthropologist, went through a difficult divorce, and her father is essentially my father!  Of course, there are differences as well…I don’t spend a lot of my time with ghosts, for example. And my romantic life is very different from Mel’s.  But I can relate to her feelings of insecurity and the yearning for escape, even while she is coping with her work, her family, and the burden of too many obligations.

5. What books would you say have made the biggest impression on you, especially starting out? What are you currently reading? 
Before I started writing, I read Janet Evanovich’s first few books in her Stephanie Plum series and I realized I could be funny, and base a semi “cozy” novel in an urban setting.  So she was wonderfully motivating! When I was much younger, Elizabeth Peters was my first introduction to smart, fun adventure mysteries.  The stack of books-to-read by my bed is always high, but at the moment I’m reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – it’s a great novel so far.

6. What is the next or current book/project you are working on?
Currently I’m writing the fourth Haunted Home Renovation book, Home for the Haunting.  It takes up Mel’s story after Murder on the House, which will be released December 4th .  The fifth Witchcraft Mystery, Tarnished and Torn, is already with my publishers and will come out in July of next year.  So after I finish Home for the Haunting, I will start on the sixth Witchcraft mystery…after spending six months with Mel and the gang, it’s always fun to check in with the characters from the other series!

7. What is something about you that you would want people to know about you that we probably don’t know?
I have a weakness for potato chips and good scotch.  Wait…maybe you *did* know that!  It’s not exactly a secret amongst my colleagues. :)

8. Do you own an eReader of any kind and how do you feel about their impact on books, as well as you as an author?
I feel good about anything that encourages people to read!  Personally, I like paper – I spend more than enough time sitting in front of electronic devices during my work day!  I also like reading in the bath, and I’d be afraid of dropping an ereader.  Plus, I like to keep my favorite books on the shelf, where they sit like good friends….even just seeing their covers reminds me of their stories, and makes me happy.  However – ereaders are great for people who travel, people with vision problems, and people who find paper books hard to hold…or just people who enjoy gadgets more than I do.  So I don’t have any judgment around the use of ereaders – as long as people keep reading!  

9. What is your advice to anyone, including young people, who want to be writers?
Don’t stop.  It’s really as simple as that.  A lot of people have a story they want to tell, but only a fraction of those people sit in a chair and work at their novel for as long as it takes.  If you want to write, WRITE. Don’t read books on writing, or go to workshops on writing, or take creative writing in school, unless those things help motivate you to sit down and write your own story.  Too many people procrastinate by trying to figure out a “trick” to writing, when the only thing you really need to do is sit down and write, and by writing, you will find your voice.  Martha Graham once said: “there is only one of you in all time.  This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist…it will be lost.” Know that your voice is worth fighting for, and that it should be heard.  Then get to work!  

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KAYLEIGH AND THE GOOD FOLKS

AT OBSIDIAN AND PENGUIN BOOKS,

I HAVE ONE COPY OF MURDER ON THE HOUSE,

TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

 
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GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, DECEMBER 12

   GOOD LUCK!