Spend Your Thanksgiving with Author Karen C. Whalen!
Enjoy My Interview with this Cozy Mystery Author
Hope everyone is stuffed with wonderful food and ready to sit back and relax. Since you’ll need something to do to stay awake, I have a wonderful interview below with Cozy Mystery Writer, Karen C Whalen, (https://www.karencwhalen.com/). She has two wonderful series, The Dinner Club Mysteries and The Tow Truck Murder Mysteries, out now. Karen has started a third series set at a fictional North Carolina beach. Karen is a very busy writer. In fact, she just released Book #6, Booty in the Back Seat, with Wild Rose Press in her Tow Truck Murder Series on November 18. Don’t you just love the cover?!
Her Dinner Club Mysteries feature empty nester, Jane Marsh. The first book, Everything Bundt the Truth, tied for First Place in the Suspense Novel category of the 2017 IDA Contest sponsored by Oklahoma Romance Writers of America. It features strong friendships and family ties. Both series are set in Colorado. Her second series features a wonderful main character, Delaney Morran, who receives a tow truck as her inheritance. What happens next will make you laugh, cry, and try to solve the crime. She has more books planned for this series. The third in the Tow Truck series, Eyes on the Road, was a Second Place winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Awards in the Cozy Mystery category.
Karen also published, Murder at Sea Oats Beach, in June 2024. It won the 2024 Firebird Book Award in the Summer Beach Read category. How can you not love a cozy mystery set at the beach involving Breanna Hart who volunteers at an animal rescue? The sequel, Washed Up at Sea Oats Beach, will be available in Spring 2025.
So you see Karen has enough mysteries to keep you busy over Thanksgiving, Christmas and beyond! Her books are available on Amazon, Kobo, Books-a-Million, and Barnes & Noble. Plus, check your local library for paperback and audio copies. Don’t forget to sign up for her newsletter so you can keep in touch with her!
Author Interview with Karen C. Whalen
1. What’s your latest book? When did it come out? What’s it about?
Booty in the Backseat, the sixth in the Tow Truck Murder Series, was released on November 18, 2024. In Booty, high-heeled tow truck driver, Delaney Morran, is shocked to discover bags of money in the backseat of a Volvo. She’s even more amazed to find a severed hand in one of the bags. She learns the car belongs to the aunt of her friend, Rory. The booty in the backseat, amounting to half a million dollars, raises questions, but more mysterious is the disappearance of Rory’s uncle.
Spruce Ridge, Colorado is home to the rich and famous, and the uncle is a well-known movie producer. With that much money…and a severed body part…and the uncle gone AWOL…Rory fears a kidnapping. When his aunt finally admits to receiving a ransom demand but was warned against calling the police, Delaney agrees to help. Is the kidnapper a drug kingpin seen with the victim? His neighbor who has reckless parties? Someone connected to his new film? Or, perhaps the victim’s spouse trying to cover up the murder of her husband?
When a dead body turns up next, and it’s not the kidnapped victim, Delaney has two crimes to solve.
2. How does a story idea come to you?
I often think of a working title first, which tells me what the story is about. For example, my husband came up with the title for Booty which made me think of bags of money and kidnapping. Sometimes I change the title, but in the case of Booty, I kept it.
3. What’s your writing process/routine?
If I don’t start writing in the morning, I won’t write at all that day. I’m a morning person. But once I get started it’s hard to break away.
4. How long have you been writing?
Before my first novel was published in 2016, I wrote for magazines for many years.
5. What is the hardest part of writing to you?
Figuring out when the novel is done. I want to keep revising, because the best writing is in the revision. I want it to be the best possible work that it can be. But then I get to the point where I can’t read it one more time, and I get an idea for the next book.
6. How do you select your character’s names?
I spend a lot of time on the protagonists’ names. Supporting characters names will come to me. I decide on lesser characters by choosing names that are very different from the other characters’. I keep an alphabetical chart of the names in each book so I don’t repeat them. I have read books where the names are so similar I get them mixed up. For Delaney Morran, I wanted an Irish name and one that could be shortened to a man’s name (her dad’s), so I did a bit of research and tested several names with my readers. Bottom line, I liked the sound of it.
7. What’s Your Writing Space Like?
I have an office with a bookcase, a trundle bed, and a desk. Very simple. But I often work in the living room and on the patio. Sometimes at coffee shops.
8. Do you only write Cozy Mysteries? Do you want/plan to write other genres?
Yes, I only write cozies, but I also write beach read cozy mysteries.
9. What question do you wish someone would ask you about yourself or your books and no one has?
Who inspires me. My favorite authors, that’s who. My favorites do change, but right now they are Janet Evanovich, Craig Johnson, and Katherine Center. I can read and re-read their books.
10. How can readers get in touch with you and find out more about your books?
At my Website: https://www.karencwhalen.com/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whalencozyauthor
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karen_c_whalen_author/
Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’ll be back in two weeks with some more Holiday fun and announcements! I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read “Feisty Deeds: Historical Fictions of Daring Women.” And of course, my story, “Junebug” on page 198. We would appreciate a review on Amazon or Goodreads. You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon, BookBub, Kobo, and Barnes&Nobles.
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