Ellen Crosby--Magical Writing

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What a treat it is for me today to have my friend--and one of my favorite writers--Ellen Crosby as our guest. I'm so excited about her new book, THE VINEYARD VICTIMS, that I have it pre-ordered and will be waiting eagerly for it to appear on my doorstep next Tuesday morning. And I love Ellen's topic. I've called this thing that happens to writers synchronicity, but I think I like Ellen's term better.

Here's ELLEN CROSBY on Magical Writing

       

Katherine Neville, a good friend and international best-selling author, once told me that when she writes her books, magic happens. A book will fall off a library shelf open to a page containing the exact information she was searching for. A stranger turns up in her life with the precise answer to a research question just when she needed it. At first I thought this was simply Katherine, whose newsletters arrive on the summer solstice or the autumn equinox or Twelfth Night, because she is so tuned in to the karma of everything around her—until it started happening to me.

      Initially I thought it was a fluke, or maybe merely my imagination, but my husband began commenting on the uncanny coincidences that kept occurring: I’d start writing a book and, presto, the subject I was researching would turn up prominently in the newspaper or in an NPR story. Or I’d meet that stranger who had answers to my research questions. The Vineyard Victims, the 8^th book in my Virginia wine country mystery series, was no different—though with a bit of a twist. Some of my synchronicity—or just plain good luck—happened while I was writing, but for the first time it showed up when the book was done, as well.

      In my story, Jamie Vaughn, a wealthy presidential candidate who owns a vineyard in Virginia, drives his gold SUV into a stone pillar at the entrance to Montgomery Estate Vineyard and dies in a fiery crash. Though friends and family believe it was an accident on a rain-slicked country road, Lucie Montgomery is convinced what happened was deliberate. Jamie had recently lost the presidential election by a close vote—yes, he also won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College like you-know-who—and there were rumors of massive campaign debts. His last words to Lucie, who he’d nearly run off the road moments before the crash, were to find someone named Rick and ask for his forgiveness. Determined to carry out Jamie’s final wish, Lucie’s investigation leads her to Charlottesville and an elite, brainy group of friends at the University of Virginia who had kept some very old and dark secrets for more than twenty years.

      When I first came up with the idea for The Vineyard Victims, Donald Trump hadn’t even decided to run for president. Trump is not the only celebrity to own a vineyard in the Old Dominion—there are a bunch of ’em—but when he began campaigning, all of a sudden the media was full of stories that were a gold mine of research information.

      What intrigued me most about writing this book was exploring how someone as famous and instantly recognizable as, say, a presidential candidate, could keep a terrible, life-altering secret that nobody knew about or suspected—and get away with it. And what worried me as well was whether readers would believe it could really happen.

      Last weekend my husband and I flew to Boston to attend a memorial service for a dear friend who passed away in Geneva last July. Catherine was the very first person to read my manuscripts years before I was published; we met in Switzerland thirty years ago. Later I moved to London where she often came to visit and her comments and critiques continued, usually in my kitchen over a cup of tea. When our family finally returned to America, Catherine and I spoke over Skype. And when The Merlot Murders was published in the US, she left the first review on Amazon: thoughtful, honest, and constructive as always. For the last few years her fight against breast cancer—keeping the beast at bay, as she called it—meant she needed to focus her energy on more important things.

      After her service on Saturday morning, her husband arranged a luncheon at a picture-postcard perfect inn overlooking the ocean in the town where they own a summer home. A group of us had been chatting on the terrace watching her grandchildren play in the autumn sunshine with the fluffy white dog that had been her therapy dog. Out of the blue the conversation turned to the topic of the secret lives of famous people. I have no idea who brought it up—it wasn’t me. Honest.

      “Well, there’s Charles Kuralt,” someone said. “He had two families for more than thirty years. His first wife didn’t find out about the other woman and her kids until his funeral.”

      Charles Kuralt? The famous and instantly recognizable host for a quarter of a century of CBS’s “On the Road”? The man who appeared on national television each week with a voice you’d know anywhere? Everyone’s favorite uncle, who told heartwarming, nostalgic stories about a kinder, gentler America and made us feel good about our country? He duped his wife and daughters until the day he died and never ’fessed up?

      On the drive back to Logan Airport, my husband, a retired journalist whose first job was as a desk assistant at CBS in New York, said, “I never knew that story about Charles Kuralt.” 

      Neither did I. But I did know who was responsible for the subject coming up precisely when it did.

      Catherine.

DEBS: Ellen what a spine-tingling story. Coincidence. Or no? I am absolutely convinced that magical writing happens. Reds and readers, what about you?

     

For many years Ellen worked as a freelance journalist in the US and while living overseas in London, Moscow, and Geneva, Switzerland before turning to writing fiction full time. Her last job as a stringer was as a regional feature writer for The Washington Post, covering many of the places where her wine country mysteries are set.

Here's more about THE VINEYARD VICTIMS: When Jamison Vaughn—billionaire real estate mogul, Virginia vineyard owner, and unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate—drives his gold SUV into a stone pillar at the entrance to Montgomery Estate Vineyard, Lucie Montgomery is certain the crash was deliberate. But everyone else in Atoka, Virginia is equally sure that Jamie must have lost control of his car on a rain-slicked country road. In spite of being saddled with massive campaign debts from the recent election, Jamie is seemingly the man with the perfect life. What possible reason could he have for committing suicide . . . or was it murder?

Before long Lucie uncovers a connection between Jamie and some of his old friends—an elite group of academics—and the brutal murder thirty years ago of a brilliant PhD student. Although a handyman is on death row for the crime, Lucie soon suspects someone else is guilty. But the investigation into the two deaths throws Lucie a curve ball when someone from her own past becomes involved, forcing her to confront old demons. Now the race to solve the mystery behind the two deaths becomes intensely personal as Lucie realizes someone wants her silenced . . . for good.