SASSCER HILL'S ODYSSEY: Guest Post by Sasscer Hill

SASSCER HILL:
SASSCER HILL’S ODYSSEY 

My author journey has been a long and crooked path. My first book, the “Nikki Latrelle” novel, FULL MORTALITY, came out with a very small press in 2010 and was nominated for Best First Agatha and Macavity Awards. Three books later, I had a new agent and landed a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Minotaur for the “Fia McKee” mystery series.

Sadly, I learned that my Minotaur editor, who loved the books, had to battle with the marketing and sales departments who were convinced a horse racing mystery was a nonstarter. With that self-fulfilling prophecy firmly in place, they had the satisfaction of being right. Even with a $10,000 Ryan Award for Best Book in Racing Literature and excellent trade reviews, including a starred Booklist review and an Editor’s Pick in the Toronto Star, sales of the two “Fia” books languished with little publisher support and an author with no money to push the books.

I began a new murder mystery about a nineteen-year-old American gypsy girl from a clan of con artists known as Irish American Travellers. The novel is as much a coming of age story as it is a mystery-thriller. Unfortunately, my agent was convinced she’d have trouble selling the book since the Fia books sold poorly. We parted ways, the book is finished, and the Travels of Quinn will be out under my own imprint, Wild Spirit Press, on February 11.

The largest US clan of Travellers is located in the town of Murphy Village, about thirty-five minutes from my South Carolina home in Aiken. Like grifters, the men and boys travel out of state, during warm weather, running home improvement swindles. Many Travellers speak a secret language, a mixture of Gaelic and English called “Cant.” It’s useful when pulling off a scam. But many people who know them, say most Travellers are honest hard-working people.

I found their culture fascinating. Children are taken out of school no later than seventh or eighth grade. Girls stay at home and are locked into marriage contracts, often when only five years old. Locally, we've seen little girls with diamond engagement rings, and they are always dressed to kill. Full makeup, and "big hair" with teasing, mousse and extensions, and sometimes even wigs. These people are extremely insular, sticking to themselves, and avoiding outsiders as a way of preserving their culture.

Imagine, if you will, the story of Quinn O’Neill, a young woman born into this culture. Her mother, an outsider who regrets marrying into the clan, abandons Quin when the girl is only two. Quinn is bright and many in her clan resent that she has educated herself with books. Erroneously, they believe she’s a snob, like her beautiful, educated mother, who they despised. Imagine that Quinn wants out, but she’s torn with indecision. Her father and hated stepmother signed her into a marriage contract to a young criminal she doesn’t love. But can she bear to leave everything she knows and face ostracism by her own people? Is there even a way she can escape?

With a nod to my fans who love horses, I included the beautiful Gypsy Vanner horse in the story. When Quinn is arrested and jailed for theft, she pays restitution by working on a horse farm that raises Gypsy Vanners. Unfamiliar with horses, her love for them surprises her. They introduce her to a different world. They give her hope she can find a better life.

Travels of Quinn is a coming of age novel. But it is also a murder mystery, and when the farm’s owner is brutally murdered, Quinn becomes the prime suspect. On the run, she uses every scam and con she knows to save herself. Can she find the real killer before she’s imprisoned for life or murdered because she knows too much? I hope you will take a ride with the Travels of Quinn, a mystery-thriller of deceit, murder, greed and hope.

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Sasscer Hill is an Award-winning Author of Mysteries & Thrillers. TRAVELS OF QUINN, 2-11-20, a novel of deceit, murder, greed and hope. Author of Multiple Award Winning “FIA McKEE” Series & the Multiple Award Nominated “NIKKI LATRELLE” Series. http://SasscerHill.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SasscerHill/

Sasscer Hill: Racing Mystery Author Digs Deep to win 2-Book NY Publishing Deal

Today I welcome Sasscer Hill. Sasscer Hill has been involved in horse racing as an amateur jockey and racehorse breeder for most of her life. Now that she’s turned to writing, her mystery and suspense thrillers have received multiple award nominations. She sets her stories against a background of big money, gambling, and horse racing. Her first book in the "Nikki Latrelle" series, FULL MORTALITY, was nominated for both an Agatha and a Macavity Best First Book Award. The second book in her "Fia McKee" series won First Place in the Carrie McCray 2015 Competition for First Chapter of a Novel. The following article appears on an Aiken, S.C. website, and on the author's website. Reprinted with permission.

Sasscer Hill:

Back in 1994, I wrote a romantic suspense novel and landed a literary agent. I thought the rest would be a slam dunk! The agent sent it to major publishers. They rejected my novel, and, the agent dropped me. I was devastated.

Eventually, I started a mystery series, got a new agent, and by the time I wrote the second “Nikki Latrelle” novel, RACING FROM DEATH, it was 2005. Both books lingered at big publishing houses for many months before being rejected. More years crawled by.

I met the owner of a small press who offered to publish RACING FROM DEATH, but I wanted to wait for the big NY deal. While waiting, the stock market crashed. The Maryland racehorse market went down the drain right behind it, and so did my income.

February of 2010 was a terrible month. My longtime favorite author, Dick Francis died. I was diagnosed with lymphoma, and my horse farm was hit by the worst blizzard in the history of Maryland. Desperate, I asked the small press owner if he’d consider the first in the series, FULL MORTALITY. He read the manuscript during the blizzard and accepted it the next day. When my literary agent warned against a small press publication, saying NY publishers wouldn’t touch the rest of my series, we parted ways.

Miraculously, FULL MORTALITY was published in May of 2010, received rave reviews, and was nominated for both Agatha and Macavity Awards. Even better, my lymphoma treatment was successful.

The award nominations helped secure a better agent with a successful track record. But by the time I finished the third book in the “Nikki Latrelle” series, I knew my old agent was right. Big publishers weren’t interested in the latest in a series already in the hands of another publisher–unless it had humongous sales. A word to the wise: you are unlikely to get humongous sales with a small press.

My new agent told me to start a new series. So I did, creating “Fia McKee,” a thirty-two-year-old agent for the real life agency, the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau. I drove up to Fair Hill, Maryland, in the winter of 2012, and interviewed the bureau’s President and Vice President. Then, I sold the farm that had been in my family for over two hundred years, my horses, and bought a house in Aiken. I finished the manuscript of FLAMINGO ROAD in 2014 and started the second in the “Fia McKee” series in October that year.

My agent began shopping for publishers in December of 2014. The next spring, an editor at St. Martins Minotaur showed interest, but had reservations about readers’ interest in a horse racing novel. I immediately went to work obtaining statistics on the surprisingly strong popularity of horse racing. Things like NBC’s unprecedented ten-year extension agreement to broadcast rights to the Breeders Cup weekend races as well as the eleven qualifying races that precede that two-day, all-star event. I noted how a recent ESPN poll showed horse racing is the most popular non-team sport, beating out tennis, boxing, and even NASCAR! I sent the report to my agent, who sent it to St. Martins.

Less than a week after this, the Carrie McCray committee awarded my in-progress novel, the second in the “Fia McKee” series, with “Best First-Chapter of a Novel.”

Amazingly, that same week, my small-press trilogy received a glorious endorsement from Steve Haskin, the senior Correspondent for the Blood-Horse, and a former national correspondent for the Daily Racing Form. The recipient of eighteen awards for excellence in turf writing, Haskin wrote,
“Sasscer, the honor comes in your accomplishments and talent, and you should take great pride in such a magnificent trifecta. Congratulations!!! Well done. Dick Francis lives!”

But the brightest star to align that week was a racehorse named American Pharoah. Deep in my heart, I’d believed if the colt could pull off the historical and momentous feat of winning the first Triple Crown in 37 years, it might nudge a publishing offer from St. Martins my way. White knuckled, I watched the final race at Belmont. When American Pharoah blasted around the track on the lead, rocketed down the stretch, pulling away from the Belmont field, I screamed, “My God, he’s going to win!”

Then he opened up and won by daylight! I burst into tears, turned to my husband, and said, “I think I’m going to get an offer.”

I could feel the bright star that is my love for horses rising over me. Pharoah’s race drew 22 million television viewers, and the subsequent radio, television, and social media attention was phenomenal. Within a week, American Pharoah appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and a day later, I received a two-book offer from St. Martins Minotaur.

Best of Racing Literature Awards

From the Daily Racing Form:

The six semi-finalists for the seventh annual Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award have been announced. Conceived and launched in 2006 by the late Castleton Lyons owner Dr. Tony Ryan, the award has annually showcased the best of racing literature. Originally known as the Castleton Lyons Book Award, the name was changed to honor its founder, who died in 2007.

Congrats to nominee Sasscer Hill for Racing From Death (Wildside Press)

The other nominees: 
Flying Change: A Year of Racing and Family and Steeplechasing
Author: Patrick Smithwick
Publisher: Chesapeake Publishing

Kentucky Derby Dreams: The Making of Thoroughbred Champions
Author: Susan Nusser
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

My Year of the Racehorse
Author: Kevin Chong
Publisher: Greystone Books

The Garrett Gomez Story: A Jockey’s Journey Through Addiction and Salvation     
Author: Rudolph Alvarado, with Garrett Keith Gomez
Publisher: Caballo Press of Ann Arbor

The Kentucky Derby: How the Run for the Roses Became America’s Premier Sporting Event
Author: James C. Nicholson
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky

When Racing Was Racing – A Century of Horse Racing
Author: Adam Powley
Publisher: Haynes Publishing

The winner of the 2012 Book Award will be announced on April 10 at Castleton Lyons during a cocktail reception held in a room above the farm’s stallion barn.  First prize is $10,000, with $1,000 awarded to each runner-up. In addition, all three finalists will receive a Tipperary Crystal trophy.

Sasscer Hill: Special Kentucky Derby Guest Post

Napravnik & Pants on Fire winning $1million Louisiana Derby

For today's Kentucky Derby, I welcome Mystery Author Sasscer Hill as a guest blogger.

Sasscer Hill lives on a Maryland farm and has bred racehorses for many years. A winner of amateur steeplechase events, she has galloped her horses on the farm and trained them into the winner's circle. She is the author of several mysteries in the Chesapeake Crimes' anthology series, and her articles have appeared in numerous magazines. Full Mortality is her first novel. The first chapter of FULL MORTALITY is available to read online at http://fullmortality.blogspot.com/

SASSCER HILL:

There are several colts I like in the Derby. A horse named Dialed In, whose trainer is Nick Zito; a horse named Nehro, with Steve Asmussen as the trainer; and finally, my emotional pick, Pants on Fire.

How can you not like a racehorse with a name like Pants on Fire? My heart is bound to this colt and his female jockey because of the rider’s connection to my horse racing mystery, Full Mortality. My book features the young, female, Maryland-jockey, Nikki Latrelle. Two of the themes in the Latrelle series are “fighting the odds,” and “chasing the dream.” In the Derby, Pants on Fire will be ridden by a young Maryland gal who, like Nikki, is competing with the male jocks. Her name is Anna Napravnik. Fans call her Rosie because of her red hair.

Many believe Pants on Fire has a lot of speed, but not the stamina to go the Derby distance of one and one-quarter miles. His pedigree and improving performances suggest otherwise.

“Fire’s” trainer is a man named Kelly Breen who knew his colt had brilliant speed. But Breen entered Fire into the one-million-dollar Loiuisiana Derby a few weeks back as a “rabbit” – that is, a horse to set a rocket pace that forces the other horses to go faster than they like, and allow a come-from-behinder with a late kick to blow by the field in the last strides. Fire was supposed to do this for Breen’s other entry, Nacho Business.

But Fire blossomed right before the Louisiana Derby, and despite Breen’s pre-race planning, he sensed his colt was sitting on a big race in the Louisiana Derby.

“I told Rosie,” Breen said, “that I thought this horse was coming into his own. So I said to her, ‘Give it a shot. Don’t just think we’re in here because we have nothing better to do. He’s doing awfully well. You don’t have to wing it and be a rabbit. Just be in a spot where you can win it when the time comes.’”

And she did!

Now, Pants on Fire is giving Anna Napravnik the chance to chase her biggest dream – winning the Kentucky Derby. Can you imagine the remarks by pundits and the press if the redheaded, Anna “Rosie” Napravnik beats the boys and wins the Kentucky Derby riding a horse named Pants On Fire?

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For a list of Kentucky Derby Mysteries, go HERE.