I love New England, as that’s my “home territory,” and I also have a growing number of books set in the West. My husband is from Oregon, and we used to live out there. Our oldest daughter lives in Idaho. I’ve always loved watching and reading westerns, and now I enjoy writing them as well.
What do you look for when you’re shopping for a book to buy for yourself?
I like enough of a plot to keep me thinking. A good mystery or suspense book holds my interest well, whether in a historical or contemporary setting.
Give us a little tour of the setting for this book.
Pieces of the Past is set in western Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Hills region. The fictional town of Maple Hill is located fairly close to Pittsfield and North Adams. Each book in the series is set in a different month chronologically. You’ll get the full autumn foliage tour in the first few books. My story comes in January, so we’re in the middle of a New England winter. The small town setting is perfect for these cozy mysteries.
What other books do you have coming out soon?
I’m very excited about my April book, Love Finds You in Prince Edward Island. Set in 1860 when the Prince of Wales (Queen Victoria’s son) visited the island, this is the first Love Finds You book set in Canada.
Also releasing this month (January) is my Alaska Weddings collection from Barbour. It contains all three of my contemporary Alaska romances—Always Ready (Coast Guard setting), Fire and Ice (sled dog trainer), and Polar Opposites (wildlife scientist). It’s a fun collection.
Please give us a glimpse inside your home.
Our family moved in May 2010 from Maine to western Kentucky. We love our new state and our new home. It is built on a hillside, and the main level is on top. My office is in a corner room that has window views toward the road and the driveway. Sometimes I see wildlife out my windows, and I love it. So far: turkeys, herons, cardinals and many other birds, deer, and squirrels. The two youngest of our six children still live at home. We have three pets right now: a dog, a cat we adopted from the shelter, and a horse.
This book is number 6 in the Patchwork Mystery series from Guideposts. Each of the books up to this point is written by a different author. Some of the other writers for the series are Kristin Eckhardt, Cara Putman, and Camy Tang. Readers can order the series (link below) from the beginning if they wish. A new book will continue to release each month for quite some time—I am now working on Book 16, to release in November 2011. It’s called Nothing to Hide and features the same ongoing characters readers have come to love. But any one of these books could be read as a standalone cozy mystery. Each one has some sort of tie-in to Sarah Hart’s (the main character’s) interest in quilting and restoring old quilts.
Lena, here’s the Guideposts link to this series:
https://www.shopguideposts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=15401&catalogId=16903&productId=853423
Tell us about the story.
In Pieces of the Past, Sarah makes a quilt for her father out of his old flannel shirts and takes it to him at the nursing home. Vern, another resident of the home, admires it and asks Sarah for help in tracking down Alice, a woman he loved before the war. Sarah thinks it’s so romantic she agrees, but she soon discovers that some things about Vern’s story don’t add up. She searches for Alice, only to discover that the woman vanished decades ago. Where is Alice now—or better yet, WHO is she? And why does Vern really want to find her?
Sounds intriguing. Please give us the first page of the book.
Here’s a short excerpt from Chapter One:
As Sarah stepped to his side, Vern shifted and a small square photograph fell from his shirt pocket, landing face up on the carpet. Sarah picked it up.
She glanced at it as she held it out to him. A young woman smiled softly at whoever had taken the picture, the life in her eyes shining clearly from the black-and-white wallet size picture.
“Oh. Thanks.” Vern took it and stuck it into his pocket.
Sarah released the brake on his wheelchair. “She’s striking. It that a picture of your wife?”
He hesitated, not meeting her gaze. “No. She. . .her name was Alice.”
“She’s very pretty. That picture looks as though you’ve been hanging on to it for a while.”
“Oh, yes.” He smiled then. “Been carrying that for a long time. It went to Guadalcanal with me.”
“She must be special.”
“Well. . .yes.”
Sarah remained silent and waited. Something about the yellowed picture made Vern uncomfortable.
He gave a halfhearted shrug. “I haven’t spoken with her in years.”
“You lost touch?” Sarah asked.
“Something like that. After the war, I tried to find her, but. . .Well, some things just don’t work out.”
How can readers find you on the Internet?
Come see me at: http://www.susanpagedavis.com/
Thanks, Lena! Glad to be here this week!
And I'm thrilled to have you here again.
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