Open for Submissions: DEADLY YELLOWSTONE: A COLLECTION OF MYSTERY SHORTS

Thalia Press announces an opportunity for your mystery short story to be included in our next anthology, Deadly Yellowstone: A Collection of Mystery Shorts.

Here is the description of the anthology:

Explore the treacherous and awe-inspiring landscape of America's first national park in this new anthology, “Deadly Yellowstone." With scalding geysers, stampeding buffalo, and ravenous grizzlies, danger lurks at every turn.
As a global tourist magnet, Yellowstone National Park attracts not only nature enthusiasts but also those with sinister intentions. Unravel the mysteries within the park's boundaries as ten gripping short stories delve into baffling events amidst the beauty and danger of Yellowstone.

Submissions guidelines include: *Note extended deadline—June 30.

·      Your story should be set within the borders of Yellowstone National Park. Use of the unique landscape and wildlife of Yellowstone is encouraged!
·       We’re looking for great stories and unique voices that entertain the reader. Your story can be serious or humorous, but it must be a mystery or crime fiction story. 
·       Your story should not exceed 10,000 words. Our sweet spot is 3,000 to 7,000 words. No flash or fan fiction, please.
·       Submit your story as a Word Doc attachment to thaliapress@gmail.com.
·       For the subject line of your submission: please start with the title of your story, followed by a dash and your full name. 
·       While we prefer original stories, we will consider reprint submissions so long as you have all rights back to your story. If your story is a reprint, please indicate this on the manuscript when submitting it.
·       Publication is projected for October 2024. The book will be printed in both eBook and paperback formats.
·       Ten short stories will be chosen for inclusion in this anthology. 
·       The deadline to submit your story is June 30, 2024. Authors of stories selected for inclusion will be notified by July 30, 2024. 
·       If your submission is selected for publication, you will be asked to provide a 150 word or less author bio. You may include information on where readers can purchase your other work in this bio.
·       Payment for accepted stories will be $25.
·       Authors accepted for publication will be able to order author copies of the anthology at cost.
·

       For questions please email Lise McClendon, Editor at thaliapress@gmail.com. 

Fifteen years down "la rue" - Kickstarter Post by Lise McClendon, author of the Bennett Sisters Mysteries

Hard to believe but it’s been almost 15 years since Blackbird Fly, the first in the Bennett Sisters Mysteries, was launched. There are now 18 books in the series (including two trilogies of novellas.) Hey, my sisters were shocked when I told them there were that many books too! Many of the books are set in France, where one is hard-pressed not to encounter croissants, wine, sunshine, cheese, and delightful countryside vistas. But also, because this is a mystery, various malcontents, villains, and heroines, of course. 

New to the series? Read the first part of ‘Blackbird Fly’ HERE
 
To celebrate I am releasing a hardcover version of this first book in the series. It’s a book close to my heart. I sold it to a New York publisher who then took a turn and never published it. When independent publishing became viable, I decided to give it a life there. It has been my most successful book by a wide margin, with over 3000 reviews on Amazon. Like Merle Bennett, the main character who has a huge challenge in her life when her husband suddenly dies, I decided to accept mine and not to give up on Blackbird Fly.

 

Why Kickstarter? 

What is Kickstarter anyway? Like me, you may not have explored the crowdfunding platform. It’s a place for creatives where you can find all sorts of projects, from table-top games to comics to special editions to films. This special deluxe edition of Blackbird Fly is not just a hardcover, but one with a new cover design, dust jacket, and all sorts of interior illustrations like the color title page. Special chapter heading art is in the background here:

Kickstarter projects work like this: Before the campaign starts you can go to the campaign page and click to be notified when the project is live. You’ll get an email from Kickstarter when it does. Then you can check out the stuff on offer: lavender sachets, bookmarks, the main event— the hardcover— plus packages featuring e-books, swag, character cards, and more.

Twelve character cards available

This is a collectible edition that includes a bonus companion short story about wine fraud detective, Pascal, when he disappears during the story. (Not available at any retailer.) During the Kickstarter you can also get the deluxe edition e-book to read to keep the collectible hardcover pristine.

Digital bookmarks with every pledge

When is this happening?

The Kickstarter goes live today, Monday, April 10. If you can click through and support as a follower, that is very helpful. You know, social proof. Who knows, you may see something interesting.  

Get an early bird discount on the hardcover

Pledge early to get a discount

Facebook Launch party and giveaway

Come by Facebook for the launch party on Monday, April 10 at 10 am Pacific Daylight Time. Give me a pep talk! I will need it. This whole process is a bit nerve-racking! 

Hope to see you at the party or on Kickstarter! 

Lise

Read more at lisemcclendon.com or on Facebook

 

 

THE WINERY OF HIS DREAMS: Guest Post by Lise McClendon

Lise McClendon: The Winery of His Dreams

Pinch me: the Bennett Sisters Mystery series has been going strong for thirteen years already, starting in 2009 with Blackbird Fly. Sometimes it’s hard to believe. It’s humbling that readers still want to explore the world with the five sisters and their partners— and for me to come up with new and delicious adventures for them. It’s not always easy, which may explain why I’ve written two stories now featuring Pascal d’Onscon. He is middle sister Merle’s partner. As a member of law enforcement in France, he has access to the best things. 

By which I mean criminals, of course. 

I am writing fiction, I tell myself. Anything goes, as long as you can sell it properly to the reader. I can involve my five lawyers in any and all sorts of legal issues, secrets and lies and sketchy characters. But I do try to keep things on a somewhat realistic level. So far I have dealt with squatters, wine scams, drug deals, art theft, runaway dogs, and of course a bit of bloody murder. Stumbling over dead bodies in every book stretches credulity at times, especially if your characters are civilians. The five sisters are in various stages of midlife and are professional women, attorneys, not detectives. 

Are my books cozies? Yes and no. They aren’t the typical cozy and yet they aren’t gritty either. I have been known to call them ‘women’s suspense’ which doesn’t actually exist as a sub-genre. International crime? Sure… but… You decide, reader. And, please, tell me your verdict. 

The problem I faced with the latest novel, Château des Corbeaux (Castle of Ravens— #17 in the series), is that I have given my wine fraud detective, Pascal, an office job in Bordeaux. (What was I thinking? That this would create tension for him, what he needs to do versus what he wants to do? So that worked.) He works for the Republic’s agency that keeps wineries honest, assures that the grapes are from the proper AOC, honoring all rules and regulations the French have for their sacred nectar. Plenty of money in French wine, thus plenty of wine crime to go around. 

In the 2020 book, the first starring Pascal, he is summoned to the Champagne region to investigate a bottle of still white wine with a Champagne producer’s label, a vigneron travesty. (There is no point in still wine if you have grapes growing in the proper Champagne AOC. Make bubbly and make money is the implied motto.) That book, Dead Flat, also chronicled Pascal’s dilemma about whether to accept a promotion in the agency. By Château he is out of field work and into the office, renting a smelly apartment, and hating every minute of that illustrious French invention called bureaucracy. 

His dissatisfaction with office work bubbles up in his mind as the idea emerges of owning a vineyard of his own. The desire grabs Pascal— being back on the soil, feeling the terroir, the grape on his tongue, the sun on his face. Although he has never been a farmer and in the past disparaged them as being prey to the whims of weather, markets, and a hundred other things, the idea blossoms into an obsession when he spies an abandoned vineyard seemingly waiting for his loving attention. 

Thus begins his struggle to become a vintner. Not an easy one for Pascal— one day discouragement and resignation that it will never come to pass because he is too poor to buy a Bordeaux vineyard. (They are often priced in the multi-millions and he is, as he often says, a simple public servant.) The next day a glimmer of hope with strapped owners needing a cash infusion. And then, a death in the vineyard to upset all dreams. 

The beautiful countryside of France is again a character in the story, providing spectacular imagery, delicious recipes, and rich history. The rolling hillsides planted with undulating rows of vines, dotted with the turrets of châteaux. Wide rivers flowing to the sea. Quaint villages hiding their secrets behind the intoxicating smell of baking bread and the piety of charming churches. I love the long, bloody history of France and have managed to wind the prehistoric age into this book. There are archeological sites all over France but we tend to hear about Viking ships unearthed in England. France too had its ancient tribes and lost settlements. Iron Age and early Roman finds figure in the tale. 

Will Pascal get his vineyard? Will Merle buy her cottages? What is ailing Francie? How did the man come to die in the vineyard? 

After those questions, the main events of the mystery, are resolved a few loose ends remained. So I wrote a free bonus epilogue that you can link to at the end of the e-book. (Use the QR code in the paperback.) 

Some secret treasures to be revealed… Enjoy! 

 ~~~ 

Lise McClendon has been telling tales ‘with heart and a little kick ass’ for a few decades. Her first two series feature an art dealer in Jackson Hole and a private detective in pre-war Kansas City. Her Bennett Sisters Mystery series now numbers seventeen with the publication in December 2021 of Château des Corbeaux. Lise has served on the national boards of Mystery Writers of America and the International Association of Crime Writers/North America. She lives in Montana and California, and online at lisemcclendon.com

This #@%&#!! YEAR: Guest Post by Lise McClendon

Lise McClendon: 
This #@%&#!! YEAR 

This year, 2020, has been called many names, none of them complimentary. Yet the world still spins and we try to live our lives as best we can. This spring, as the severity of the pandemic was becoming clear, like many I struggled to make sense of it all. How to wring something positive out of such a huge negative? Although I had plenty of “free time” I couldn’t write very much— I was too worried about everything. America, and the world, had shut down, locked down, was sheltering in place like victims of a mass shooting. But this enemy was invisible. The coronavirus, COVID-19, had arrived.

Feeling helpless, unable to do anything to stop the spread of the virus, I did the only thing I could think of— gather writers to talk about their experiences, to channel stories about the pandemic, to release their anger and isolation through fiction, essays, and poetry. I reached out to three mystery writer colleagues, Kate Flora, Taffy Cannon, and Gary Phillips. They agreed to help, casting a wide net to their author friends. I called the anthology STOP THE WORLD because it felt that way: everything had just stopped.

I wondered if anyone would respond honestly. The pandemic was stifling creativity and plainly freaking everyone out. Some wrote back that they had nothing to say, or that their little corner of the world was unchanged. After a week or two I told my co-editors we would probably have to start cold-calling strangers, begging them to contribute. But then, as things happen, the pieces began to roll in. Through April, into May, gut-wrenching personal essays, dystopian fiction, and elegant poetry were submitted. By June we had 40 pieces from 10 countries.

The subtitle, Snapshots from a Pandemic, was Taffy Cannon’s idea, to reflect the short takes we requested. We wanted slices of life, nothing too heavy because our hearts were already plenty heavy. We asked for honesty, and we got it. We asked for emotion, and it’s there in spades. It’s the sort of anthology you can dip into, read a poem, read an essay, and set down. Another day you can read a wild tale of imagination from Romania, or listen to two farmers chatting in Ireland. You can see how others coped by walking, by trying to work, by focusing on the things you can actually deal with like an invasion of ants.

The three co-editors and I all contributed our own pieces. Gary Phillips wrote a tale of a fictional epidemic where everyone is required to have six people around them at all times, the flip-side of isolation. Taffy Cannon chronicled her victory garden that helped her cope. Kate Flora and I both lamented being stuck at home and our lack of writing productivity, in our own different ways.

It was fascinating to see the variety of responses, and inspiring as well. This moment in time will pass but we will remember it, honor our sacrifices and those of others, and, if we’re lucky, talk about it for the rest of our lives.

The contributors are: George Arion, Meredith Blevins, Sarah M. Chen, Robin Burcell, Tim Cahill, Richard Cass, Eoghan Egan, John Shepphird, Gary Phillips, Adriana Licio, Lise McClendon, Mike Monson, Merrilee Robson, John Clark, Piet Tiegeler, Travis Richardson, Caitlin Rother, Naomi Hirahara, Kate Flora, Donna Moore, Tatjana Kruse, Dan Fesperman, Tami Haaland, Taffy Cannon, Matt Coyle, Marian Stanley, John Rember, J. Madison Davis, Wendy Hornsby, Sharan Newman, Jacqui Brown, Craig Lancaster, Z.J. Czupor, Gerald So, Allen Morris Jones, Wendy Salinger, Jim Nisbet, Paul Jeffcutt, and Keith Snyder. STOP THE WORLD: Snapshots from a Pandemic is available everywhere August 4. All profits go to charity. Find it in bookstores and online.
 _______

Lise McClendon is the author of 23 novels including the comic mystery, Beat Slay Love, written with Gary Phillips, Kate Flora, Taffy Cannon, and Katy Munger. Her long-running series, the Bennett Sisters Mysteries, is now 13 books strong. The most recent release is Dead Flat, featuring her French wine fraud detective. Coming in October is Lost in Lavender.

WRITING A MYSTERY NOVEL: What kind of brain does it take? Guest post by Lise McClendon

Lise McClendon: 
Writing a Mystery Novel: What kind of brain does it take?

There are so many personalities in the world, and traits within them. The human race is infinitely varied, and so fascinating, especially to writers. But what sort of brain— personality traits— does it take to write a novel? Specifically a mystery novel?

For one thing, you have to enjoy the organization of a million pieces into a coherent whole, somewhat like putting together the Starship Enterprise out of Legos. Except you don’t even have picture instructions, you have to make up the instructions yourself. But like Lego projects the more you do, the better you get. The more you write the more you see that going down that path lies madness, or that path lies rich complications. You learn to choose wisely. You save time and energy by figuring out which direction will work for you, for your story, based on what has worked in the past.

That is not to say the start of each novel doesn’t bring a certain amount of panic. Especially when you’re writing a puzzle mystery or any story with elements hidden from but teased to the reader, the blank page can be a horror. How on earth did I do this before? Well, in reality, last time you probably had a really good outline, figured out “who dun it” and more importantly, why whoever did it, before you started, and had a decent, if vague, idea how it was all going to end.

So what kind of personality is that? Truthfully every writer has a unique approach to his or her work, a way to find a story that is tested and true. For me, there is a certain mechanical aspect to this organizing of plot elements. Not in a bad way, although I am not particularly mechanical. I can visualize well, I can see how things might work if you flipped them upside down. (This happened once while my husband and his friend were trying to put together the frame of a raft— I said, just flip it over. They were amazed.) And like most writers, I am observant. As writers we learn to really look, to observe the way people dress, the way they interact, the way to sun shines on their shoulders. We listen to their voices, we hear their accents. So all those details sit in a big jumble in our brains until we finally figure out a way to use them in a story.

In my most recent mystery, Blame it on Paris, I had a few self-made mysteries that, like a reader, I wasn’t sure how I would suss out. In fact, more than a few. But like visualization a writer learns to trust some weird element of intuition that tells him or her that the answer is there. Just keep going, keep looking. I wasn’t sure how I was going to clear this American student jailed in Paris on drug charges. It seemed sort of like Midnight Express, a hopeless case of probable guilt. But eventually my nose led me down paths to the answers. (My outline failed me in many ways: who wrote that damn thing?!) I wasn’t sure how I was going to clear Francie Bennett on sexual harassment charges either. Sure, it was convenient that she had to take a leave of absence so she could go to Paris and meet her sister, Merle, but what was going to happen at her law firm?

So many questions that the plot set-up asks and to which the writer must find answers. Not just good answers, because this is a mystery. The answers must be unpredictable, even clever sometimes, but also fair in retrospect. Writing mysteries and thrillers is such an odd profession. Thinking up crime (or ripping it from the headlines) and discovering how to find justice and truth— there is more drama on the television news than we could ever imagine. So in fiction our writerly brains find order, logic, meaning, compassion, and occasionally, revenge. That is our duty, and our joy.

Lise McClendon’s latest mystery is Blame it on Paris, the seventh in the Bennett Sisters Mystery series, released August 24. Learn more at her website: lisemcclendon.com
 

Lise McClendon Literary Salon: June 6

Join Mystery Readers NorCal for an evening Literary Salon in Berkeley (CA) with mystery author Lise McClendon.

When: Wednesday, June 6, 1 p.m. (note the early time)

Where: Berkeley. RSVP by making comment below with your email
 
Lise McClendon is the author of five books in the Bennett Sisters mystery series. The series begins with Blackbird Fly; the latest is The Frenchman. That novel spawned a bonus novella ‘written by’ the main character, Merle Bennett, a gothic mystery called Odette and the Great Fear. The next installment releases this summer. She wrote two mystery series, the Alix Thorssen and Dorie Lennox mysteries set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and World War II-era Kansas City (The Bluejay Shaman; One O’clock Jump). She also writes stand-alones as Rory Tate. Jump Cut is a romantic thriller set in Seattle; PLAN X is a Shakespearean thriller featuring a Montana policewoman.

Her short story, Forked Tongue, is featured in the 2017 anthology, The Obama Inheritance, edited by Gary Phillips. In 2015 she released (as Thalia Filbert) the darkly comic culinary thriller she wrote with four other well-seasoned crime writers, Beat Slay Love: One Chef’s Hunger for Delicious Revenge.

Traditionally published for many years, Lise now runs a small press with her fellow author, Katy Munger: Thalia Press. A former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, she lives in wilds of Montana near Yellowstone National Park and online at lisemcclendon.com.

***
Upcoming Literary Salons (more to come)

June 13: Terry Shames & James Ziskin
July 12: Cara Black
September 26: Lisa Brackmann

Inventing the Culinary Thriller: Guest post by Taffy Cannon

Taffy Cannon:
Inventing the Culinary Thriller

The wonder is that nobody ever wrote a culinary thriller before Beat Slay Love. Published under the pseudonym Thalia Filbert, the book was actually written by Lise McClendon, Katy Munger, Kate Flora, Gary Phillips, and me—all members of the Thalia Press Author Coop. 

Yes. Five authors, one book. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Food has long been a popular ingredient of the mystery world, from Miss Marple taking seed cake with her tea to Jack Reacher ordering peach pie with his coffee. Male detectives are believed to be more nuanced when they can whip up a vinaigrette or produce a specialty that isn’t breakfast. Female detectives may ignore cooking altogether, but they can usually recognize a fine meal when one shows up and they always know the best available takeout.

An entire universe of cozy mysteries related to food has been wildly popular for years, offering bakeries and catering and B&Bs and cheese making and confectionary and wineries and pretty much any food-related setting short of the Deep Fried Bug Café (which may be under contract at Berkley).  

Beat Slay Love takes the food-related mystery to an entirely new level.

Structured in classic thriller format, the book features a series of nasty chef-related murders in a range of memorable locations across America. An FBI agent and a food blogger team up first to acknowledge the existence of a serial killer and then to try to stop the killings. And the killer has an intimate acquaintance with the world of celebrity chefs, the Food Network, and all things foodie.

Technically the book adheres to thriller conventions: Multiple points of view, including the killer’s at a fairly early stage. Interesting and occasionally exotic locations. Snappy dialogue. Short paragraphs and fast pacing. An action-packed denouement that both surprises and renders justice.

Beat Slay Love was written in serial fashion by five established mystery writers whose communications were handled almost entirely by email. We literally cover the four corners of the country, from San Diego to Maine and Montana to North Carolina. With some 75 published novels and a century or so of mystery-writing experience, we began writing this group mystery about three years ago.

Little precedent existed for a serial novel, at least not since the 19th century. Multiple authors limited the field even further, basically to two books. Naked Came the Stranger was written by Newsday reporters in 1969 and Naked Came the Manatee was first published in the Miami Herald Tropic magazine in 1995.

I once participated in a convoluted serial novel where a hundred San Diego writers each contributed a couple of pages after seeing only the two pages immediately preceding their own sections. The lead-in pages I got were so incomprehensible that I covered myself by working in the possibility of perceptions being skewed by acid in the drinking water. I never even tried to read the final copy.

And so I opted out of the planning stages of Beat Slay Love. I didn’t see how this book could possibly work, particularly when it was clear from the get-go that there would be no outline, no rules, nothing but a commitment to let ‘er rip and see where matters went.

Amazingly, it did work. When I read the first sections written by the four authors who started down the Beat Slay Love road, I was hooked and signed on immediately. I learned not to worry where a storyline might be headed (or land), to pay reasonable attention to what had preceded what I was now working on, and to have faith that all the disparate threads we spun would eventually come together.

Those threads didn’t need to make a tapestry, either. I knew I’d be quite pleased if we only ended up with an awkwardly embroidered kitchen towel. But we did a whole lot better than that. We came up with a book I’m proud to be a part of.

Beat Slay Love is not a police procedural or a cozy. It contains no recipes, though a great deal of food preparation and gustatory delight takes place in its pages. It is more on the order of a romp with attitude. Did I mention there’s a lot of sex?

Beat Slay Love also displaces my 1975 piece on the Miss Texas Pageant as the most fun I’ve ever had on a single writing project.

Read an excerpt here: https://thaliapress.wordpress.com/beat-slay-love/ 

That Old French Feeling: Lise McClendon Guest Post

Today I welcome mystery author Lise McClendon. Lise McClendon is the author of 11 mysteries and thrillers, and also writes as Rory Tate. The Girl in the Empty Dress is now available in print and e-book, at all major retailers. 

Make a comment below to win an ecopy of The Girl in the Empty Dress.

Lise McClendon: That Old French Feeling

You may have been to France. Probably to Paris or the Côte d’Azur. But there is another France far from beaches or art museums or fashion runways -- that’s where I chose to set my suspense novels, Blackbird Fly and The Girl in the Empty Dress.

Does setting matter? Yes, very much to me as reader and writer. Although both books feature five American sisters, the novels rely as much on their setting as almost anything else. My “other” France, the Dordogne region of southwest France, originally called the Perigord, is a fertile region known for its foie gras, duck confit, and black truffles. Its back roads wind through deep canyons, with villages clinging to cliffs. Here the Hundred Years War was fought and Nazis laid waste to the land. Remnants of war and violence remain.

Much of Blackbird Fly is centered around small village life. In the second book, out this month, the Bennett sisters, all five lawyers, take on a walking tour of the Dordogne. Merle Bennett, the middle sister, is turning fifty. In Blackbird Fly she goes to the Dordogne to fix up the house she inherits. She needs to sell it but she is strangely drawn to the little town and hasn’t sold out yet. The sisters use the house as home base for their walking tour in the second book. The “girl” in the title of the sequel, The Girl in the Empty Dress, is a law colleague of one sister. Secretive, demanding, and a bit rude, she hasn’t made many friends among the Bennett girls as the story starts. Her secrets become the key to unraveling several mysteries.

History really comes alive in these old places where the village walls are still solid after 800 years. But the delicacies of this area are the real delights. Black Perigord truffles are famous around the world. They’re a fungus, like mushrooms, that grow underground in the roots of oak, hazel, and cherry trees. Difficult to harvest, they are becoming more scarce as climate change alters their natural habitat in these sunny hills and valleys.

To harvest truffles originally pigs were used. Unfortunately pigs liked to eat them on the spot. Now dogs are more often trained to follow the scent of the truffle. You can imagine that a highly-trained truffle dog would be essential to any truffle hunter, and worth its weight in gold. In The Girl in the Empty Dress the women come across an injured dog in the ditch. This dog, they soon find out, is famous for its truffling exploits. How it got to be injured and out on its own sets off the mystery.

I went on a French walking tour myself, in Burgundy a couple years ago. Six women, a love of wine and cheese, and winding trails through the vineyards made for a fabulous time. Afterward I saw a ‘Sixty Minutes’ story on truffles. One man, a dog owner who had his prized truffle dog stolen, really got to me. He searched for years for his dog, never to find her. I decided to write about a stolen truffle dog. I couldn’t figure out how to come at the story, then the walking tour came back to me. The dynamics of a small group are always interesting. The sixth wheel, the woman who is secretive and annoying, sets up the conflict. As a writer once you come up with the central conflict you’re off to the races. Plus a luscious setting of course. I’m taking suggestions for wine pairings. Mysteries and a crisp Sancerre anyone?

What's in a Name? Guest post by Lise McClendon

Pen Names, Pseudonyms, AKA:  Decisions to be made. They're all part of the writing process. Today I welcome Lise McClendon aka Rory Tate.

As Rory Tate, Lise McClendon recently published Jump Cut, a thriller set in Seattle and the tiny republic of Moldova. She is also the author of seven mystery and suspense novels. Read about them at her website, or at Rory Tate’s website (where there is a trailer for Jump Cut.) Rory Tate also has a story in the Thalia Press Authors Co-op collection of short stories: DEAD OF WINTER. Lise McClendon has served on the national boards of Mystery Writers of America and the International Association of Crime Writers, as well as the faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. She lives in Montana.

What’s in a Name? by Lise McClendon

Pseudonyms in crime fiction have a long, colorful history, from the collective who wrote Nancy Drew to the group of writers behind Ellery Queen. Sometimes an author is trying to hide his professional life from the tawdry thrillers he pens. But most of the time a pseudonym is a marketing angle, a way to ‘sell’ a novel. Maybe your real name has too many consonants. Or you are so prolific your publisher gets worked up about your burgeoning oeuvre. Or the computerized stats of booksellers are working against you.

My reason for changing names is a classic one: to reach more readers. My series novels are whodunits in the traditional vein. My first mysteries, the Alix Thorssen novels, are written in first person and feature an amateur sleuth in a small resort town, stumbling over the bodies of acquaintances. My historical mysteries with Dorie Lennox, set just as World War 2 breaks out, are in the hardboiled camp, reflecting that time period of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I even went so far as to write a homage to Chandler in Sweet and Lowdown.

I wanted to try something more modern when I wrote Jump Cut. To write a contemporary thriller about ordinary people. No spies, no techno wizards, no heroes without names. Just a regular reporter, struggling to make a life for herself. And an ordinary cop who gets in trouble with the department through no crime of his own.

It’s called a thriller but it’s probably not exactly that either. (I have a hard time slotting myself. Who wants to fall into a predestined cog?) There’s action and danger, for sure, but also the search for redemption, honor, and connection which I think every good novel should have, whether you’re writing about the end of the world or the end of the widow lady next door. Oh, and sacrifice. Every novel needs a good sacrifice.

I probably should have used my new penname, Rory Tate, on my 2009 stand-alone, Blackbird Fly. It’s not a series book either. A suspense novel, it probably falls in the line of women’s fiction too and has gained a wider audience than my mystery novels. (Strangely, some people don’t read mystery fiction. Shocking to discover!) But I didn’t use the penname until now.

As Rory Tate I can be anybody: male, female, British, American, Canadian -- Australian even! (Fancy a little rugby?) I thought about keeping my true identity a secret, making a game of it. Who is Rory Tate? What mystery aficionado doesn’t like a good secret identity? I remember the fun stories about the discovery of who Paul Garrison really was. (Read Justin Scott’s journey for a real pro at pseudonyms.) But in the end I decided that the people who knew my writing as Lise McClendon might possibly want to read another novel by said author. And how would they find me?

So murder and secret identities will out. I hope to find new readers with my snappy, new, androgynous name, people who don’t necessarily read about Rocky Mountain backwaters or the gritty streets of Kansas City during the war. People who like to read about people like themselves: city dwellers, young professionals, struggling careerists. Reporters and policemen, daughters and sons.

And people who, as Rory might say, like a cracking good yarn. As always.