Mancini Blue follows a grieving widower as he investigates a murder marked by his late wife’s signature blue paint, uncovering secrets in Savannah’s art world involving a missing painting, forged prescriptions, and suspicious shipments. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

This story world grew organically from real-life circumstances and my imagination. As it happens, I live in a rural community that has no bookstores in the entire county. However, several ladies dedicated to the arts got a sweet deal to restore our old jail to become an art center. One of my sisters, a quilter, got in on the ground floor. She arranged for me to do a talk for the art center, and from that moment on, my life was entangled and enriched by the Old Jail Art Center and beautiful art. In time, I became a member of the organization (and they stock my books!) and work one day a month in the art center, surrounded by beautiful art.

I also had a mother-in-law who was a very talented artist. One of the treasures I rescued as we were going through her things was her palette. I framed it and hung it with her other works in watercolor, pastels, and oils. The bold colors in her oils became the color scheme of all my décor.

When I reach the end of a series, I take time off before I start in a new direction. My muse often wanders in its own lane, and I knew I needed something different from my last work. In addition, I wanted to have several points of view, so I landed on third-person POV. I began with these characters: a misunderstood and flawed male protagonist, a female police chief with a chip on her shoulder, and a villain ruled by deceit, jealousy, revenge, and anger.

Then, before I decided anything about the story world, my muse let me know in no uncertain terms that we were writing in the art world about the death of a famous artist. By this time, I had many experiences in the art world with artists, their families, and patrons. Framing this story in the world of art suited me fine because when I ignored my muse in the past, the story never got anywhere. We were both on board for this odyssey.

Did the mystery or the character of Bob come to you first?

I have come to the story world process in many different ways. No matter which order the process happens, it is organic, with one element building on the other. Sometimes it can be as little as an overheard remark that sparks my creativity. To answer the question, Bob came first this time. Sometimes I am lucky, and a character comes to me fully hatched. Bob came to me in steady waves, like ocean breakers rolling into the shore. He was all Southern man despite his veneer of civility. He’d had every opportunity-the best education, money to start his own investment business, and a wife who adored him. His two sons were a credit to the family.

Then Bob’s world fell apart. His wife died. Suicide, the cops said, when there was no sign of foul play in her locked studio. No way, Bob said. He railed against everything, drank too much, and got in bar fights. Nothing could drag him out of his despair. His sons presented him with the option of a treatment center or jail time for his outrageous behavior.

Feeling he had no choice, Bob went with the therapy option, and he liked it so much that he dallied there a while, unready to face the world again. When he left the center, he didn’t want his old life, his family home on a downtown Savannah square, or his company. So he moved an hour south and set up an art gallery there. This is the starting point of Mancini Blue because his life is about to change again.

How did you balance emotional heaviness with the novel’s lighter moments?

One of the longstanding comments about my body of work is that I have quirky characters. That comes naturally to me because I’m a bit quirky myself. I know innately what it is like to be different from others, but I’ve never seen that as a hardship. In my author life, it has been a gold mine because I’m all about the lighter and tender moments. But giving characters darkness and having them stay in it is not something I want to write about. My lane is cozy mysteries, albeit I write on the darker side of cozies.

Showing Bob’s tenderness and care for his niece, her daughter, and Sophie’s ancient dog reveals that he’s not a bad guy. Bob has a caretaker personality, and when his wife died, he lost his tether to reality for a while. Grief takes many forms and varies in emotional depth and circumstance. Bob didn’t know how to process his grief, and being a Southern man, he lost himself in drinking and fighting for a while. All of that happened in the days and weeks following Sophie’s death. The book opens a year later, but his backstory helps everyone know that Bob has deep emotions, that he is more than a stock character. He can manage life now, but his heart is still bruised.

Getting back to the question, I’ve found that having lighter elements offset emotional heaviness makes for a great story. As both authors and readers know, conflict is the engine that drives a story. In addition, I used those moments to redeem Bob in the readers’ eyes. I always knew he was a complex, likeable guy who acted out only because no one would listen to him, let alone believe him when he said his beloved Sophie was murdered. Where the story begins is the moment of change for Bob. To shed his darkness, he must get justice for his late wife. So, he puts on the hat of an amateur sleuth.

If you could ask readers one question after they finish the book, what would it be?

I’d ask readers what their favorite part was. I’m always curious about responses to the world I’ve cobbled together, word by word. For other books I’ve written, readers have fallen in love with one of the characters, or one of the pets, and yet for others, it’s the laid-back vibe of a Southern small town where everyone knows everyone else. As a person raised this way and who moved back to their hometown later in life, I run into people all the time in the grocery store who know my family or me. It is very centering, and even though I am admittedly quirky, I belong here.

Thanks for your interest. I hope you’ll pick up Mancini Blue, and it will be your cup of tea!

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