The Community on the Shore: a guest blog by Wendy Sand Eckel

 
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We host lots of old pros here at Jungle Reds, but there's a special pleasure in helping to introduce a debut author.  Wendy Sand Eckel has a background in criminology and psychotherapy, but unlike many first-timers, she wasn't driven to recreate her own work in fiction, Instead, MURDER AT BARCLAY MEADOWS was inspired by a place, the uniquely rural and watery communities of Maryland's Eastern Shore. It's there her heroine, Rosalie Hart, retreats to put her life back together after her marriage of twenty-plus years collapses. Are there bodies? Of course there are, and a suspicious sheriff, and a rugged man who knows his way around a farm, and a gaggle of friends dying to poke their noses into murder... but above all, there's the beautiful, tide-driven Eastern Shore...

One day in Miss Haver’s fourth grade class, I decided I was going to live in the State of Maryland when I grew up. We were studying the fifty states and their capitals and I had become enamored with Maryland’s state flag. It was the coolest flag I’d ever seen.

At the time, I lived in New Philadelphia, Ohio, population 14,000. It was a nice enough town, with a football team that was referred to as the ‘Fighting Quakers.’ No one seemed to get the irony. But growing up I felt as if I had been squeezed into shoes that were too small. So on that fateful day in fourth grade, I hatched a plan to bust out of there first chance I got.

I didn’t make it to Maryland until I was twenty-four. I started out in the suburbs of Washington D.C. where I learned to drive like a beltway bandit and developed a loathing for tourists. But once my children were born, it was time to find a quieter place to settle.

The only way to get to the Eastern Shore of Maryland from the west is to traverse the terrifying and sometimes paralyzing, Chesapeake Bay Bridge. At 4.3 miles long and a maximum clearance of 186 feet, driving over it is an experience that can trigger shallow breathing and light headedness in even the hardiest of drivers.

Once you touch down on the Eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay you have entered ‘the land of pleasant living.’ The terrain is pancake flat and prone to flooding due to the matrix of rivers and inlets plunging into the shoreline.

During his tenure as Maryland’s governor, William Donald Schaefer made it his mission to build a major highway through the Eastern Shore all the way to the Atlantic. He termed it, “reach the beach.” Unfortunately he was overheard referring to that part of his state as ‘the shit house side of Maryland.’ To this day you can still find pickup trucks sporting bumper stickers expressing pride for being from such a place.

But the Eastern Shore isn’t to be passed over. It is rich with culture, history, and it’s own unique flavor of quirkiness. Acres of smart growth legislation have kept most of the towns small, the farms big, and the big box stores quarantined to strips along the highway.

I lived there for eight interesting years and may retire there if I have my way. I lived in Kent County, located about 20 miles north of Route 50, the highway that slices through the middle of the ‘shore.’ The county seat has a population of 4,000. It has remained that size for hundreds of years.

In Kent County it’s not unusual to find watermen in their rubber waders at the mini stop stocking up on a case or two of beer at four in the morning before they go out on the water to hunt for blue crab, giant rockfish, or bushels of oysters. One town in particular has a shoes optional policy. It isn’t written in law, it’s just one of those things that everyone knows.

The land is rich, the people kind and friendly, doors are never locked, and street signs are superfluous. I nestled in when I arrived and soaked it up. But the residents of Kent County are proud people and are often suspicious of newcomers like me. Rightly so because most don’t stay. New arrivals often try to modernize and ‘improve’ the small towns. But inevitably they slow their pace, speak with the slightest hint of a twang, and forget where they put their house keys.

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that I found myself back in a small town. Although small enough, Kent County felt different from the home of the fighting Quakers. On the Eastern Shore the land is lush and the culture flavorful. People are tanned and weathered from life on the water, both for work and pleasure. One feels connected with the soil. Relationships tight. Families close by. Moods become tidal. Both feet are planted solidly on the ground.

I had to leave. And one day I will return. But for now, I can write about this unique and magical place that I love and at least on some level, feel as if I am once again immersed in that community.

MURDER AT BARCLAY MEADOW:  Rosalie Hart's world has been upended. After her husband's affair, she exiles herself to her late aunt's decaying farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore. When she finds a body floating in the marsh grasses of Barclay Meadow, she feels a responsibility to find out the truth about the girl's "accidental" death.

Friends from her creative writing class, local farmer Tyler Wells, who is assisting in the restoration of Barclay Meadow, and an interest in baking spurred by her aunt's yellowed recipes help Rosalie start to come alive again. But as she zeroes in on what really happened to the dead girl, she begins getting ominous threats...

You can find out more about Wendy, and Murder at Barclay Meadow, at her website. You can friend her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter as @WendySandEckel, and hear her talking about books and writing on YouTube.