1st Christmas cozy on the shelf! A Holiday Habit is out!

During my first phone conversation with my awesome editor, Sinclair Sawhney, she asked about my vision for the Nun the Wiser Mysteries. I explained how I wanted Sister Bernie and Detective AJ Lewis's friendship and trust to gradually build, the importance of their mutual respect, and how I loved featuring a relationship that bridged so many differences, including a decades-wide generation gap. I wanted to highlight different people living at The Abbey: Senior Living along the way, give them character arcs, and broaden the scope of the series to encompass more of Eugene, Oregon beyond The Abbey. Sister B would pursue a new hobby in each book, one that correlated with the mystery on tap, and she'd consistently use her newly acquired skill in her end of the investigation.

"All of that sounds good! You should write a Christmas mystery. Those are really hot," Sinclair advised.

Huh. I'd never thought of doing one, but if your editor gives you a suggestion, you're a fool not to take it.

The idea of a Christmas mystery wasn't new to me. Years ago, my good friend MK Graff turned me on to Kate Kingsbury's Christmas mysteries, which I really enjoyed. I'd noticed more writers producing holiday-themed stories in their series. I told Sinclair I was game to try my hand at writing one. Naturally, Sister B would like Christmas and have traditions during the holiday season that would wrap neatly into her character arc, right? The plot was the real stumper for me, however.

A cozy Christmas mystery can't skew too dark, right? It feels wrong to depict any crimes against children or animals. A desperate stranger in town found dead in an alleyway is an overdone trope, as is theft, so I dismissed those ideas. I poisoned enough people in the two of the Nun the Wiser Mysteries so far, so I didn't want to revisit that idea... A Christmas prank gone wrong? Maybe...

While I continued to write Dropped Like a Bad Habit and A Fatal Habit, I began reading other people's Christmas mysteries. What vibe did they go for? What storylines worked? How dark, gloomy, or threatening were they? Was there room for capers and craziness?

S-l-o-w-l-y an idea emerged. A COLD case! Distant enough to balance the emotional weight of someone's untimely death but how to make it personal so Bernie'd care about solving it? (Thank God she's 80! Her age gave me a l-o-n-g timespan to work within! I had nearly 65 years of her life to work in an unsolved crime!)

Fortune intervened! I ran into someone I hadn't seen lately and while we caught up, she told me about her husband's new project. It snagged my imagination and gave me enough anchor to flesh out a crime with an inciting incident connected to Bernie!

Once I started writing, more ideas came to mind. Trouble at a shopping mall gave AJ and Taylor another case to investigate. Of course, the folks at The Abbey: Senior Living were busy with holiday preparations and activities. And readers had demanded SOMETHING happen between AJ and Meadow, so I had to include THAT...

Ho-ho-holy moly! FOUR books in this series now!

Dear reader, it took a long time to assemble the parts of this story, but I think it came together pretty darn well. No animals or children were harmed, Christmas gets saved for some characters, and a group of elderly people sing off-key on a cold December night. Oh, and someone does whip out a sprig of mistletoe because some tropes feel necessary.

Because of G's football schedule and some other madness here, my in-person launch party won't happen until Nov. 21st (from 3 - 5 p.m. at Kerrigan Brothers Winery!). That's going to be MY big, jolly holiday party, with gifts and treats and Christmas music!

Spill it, reader. Tell me whether you're planning to read A Holiday Habit OR tell me your favorite Christmas trope!