The Good Pharmacist’s Deadly Secrets follows a fae seeking a quiet life in a small town when she’s accused of murder and must unravel the pharmacist’s secrets before she’s arrested. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

I had just finished the last book in a series and wanted to start a new one using the same world but tweak the genre to include one of my favorites—cozy mystery. Sloan, a side character in the first series, was the natural choice as a protagonist for the new series. Readers loved her, and her personality made her perfect to fill the role of amateur sleuth.

As far as the secrets she uncovers—My husband and I owned a Home Care business for years. During that time I came across several examples of adult children treating their parent rather poorly. Those of us in the office would scratch our heads and wonder ‘how could they treat their mother or father like that?’ Well, come to find out, sometimes the parent had mistreated their kids in the past. Most people assume everyone loves their parents, so I thought this would make an interesting story.

Sloan is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind her character’s development?

Thank you! Sloan is one of my favorite characters. I love her sassy attitude.

She first appeared in Xander’s Folly, the second book of my urban fantasy series, The King’s Jewel. I based my world-building in that series on the Celtic Mythology of the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danann.

I started developing Sloan by researching the mythology around the Irish god Lugh of the Long Arm, whom she represents in the series. Lugh was the master of all arts and came to the Tuatha de Danaan as an outsider.

At first the character was going to be a boy, but I thought switching that up would make her even more interesting. Then I looked at her age, that fact she lived on her own and thought about how that would shape her personality. Although Sloan is in her twenties, the Sidhe are long lived and look much younger and their age compared to humans, so she is often mistaken for a teenager. But, she is an adolescent by Sidhe standards and often acts that way.

I wrote a about her character development in more detail on my website. If anyone is interested, they can read it here: https://www.belinda-gordon.com/readers-questions/where-did-sloan-murrays-character-come-from/

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

People aren’t always what they appear to be. This is true of Sloan and many other characters in the book. They are keeping secrets—hiding something from the rest of the world.

Another theme that always pops up in my books is family; what makes people family—it isn’t always blood relations—and how do they come together.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

A second Findale Fae Mystery is in the works, so Sloan and her cohorts will be back. But it won’t be my next release. My next book, coming out in November, is something totally different. No fantasy or mystery in this one. I would classify it as women’s fiction.

The title is Having It All and that’s kind of what it’s about. Dalia, a career woman in the ‘90s juggling her job, motherhood and marriage, believes she should be able to have it all with no need for give and take. After all, that’s what the women of her generation have been told to expect! Devote 100% to everything and do it all perfectly. And it’s working… until it isn’t. When things begin to fall apart, Dalia needs to decide what’s really important and what she can live without.

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