Three Million Words by Sheila Connolly #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: For your Saturday reading...our friend Sheila Connolly had multiple careers before turning to writing. But by now she figures she has three million written and published words, including her new release, #7 in the County Cork series. Wow! It's a wonderful story. Welcome Sheila! (and ps, she's giving away a copy to one of you lucky commenters...)

Sheila at age 4

SHEILA CONNOLLY: I didn’t start out wanting to be a writer, much less a mystery writer, but I should have known better. At least, all the evidence was there.

It all began with a Band-Aid. Really. When I was eight, I had a close friend who lived in the house behind us, and we roamed all over the neighborhood together (our parents would have been horrified if we’d bothered to tell them). One day we were sitting under one of the elderly apple trees in my front yard and discovered one of those metal snap-top Band-Aid containers, and near it, a used Band-Aid (aha! Call Forensics!). It was a part of the yard that few people ever passed through, much less with a box of Band-Aids, but the two of us sat there and made up an entire story to go with the skimpy evidence.

In eighth grade I wrote and illustrated a short book about a mouse. In Spanish. In high school a friend and I wrote a short play about a group of people getting trapped in an elevator. In French. (And also a terrible poem titled Daffodowndilly, now lost to history.)

Perhaps my favorite example: my mother’s second husband once lived next door to Edward Adams in suburban New Jersey. In case you don’t know, Edward Adams was the son of Harriet Stratemeyer, who in turn was the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, head of the large syndicate that published (among other books) the Nancy Drew Series, which I devoured at a young age (when my 50-cent allowance could pay for one book).

But wait! There’s more! I knew Ed Adams, so when his daughter was touring colleges, he asked if I’d give her a quick tour of Wellesley (which grandmother Harriet and I just happened to have attended), and a place to sleep. Of course I was delighted (although she ended up going to Harvard and became a doctor, not a writer.) It was years before I realized that I had done a favor for the grand-daughter of Nancy Drew (Oh, all right—she didn’t actually write all the books, but she wrote many of the plots and oversaw production and so on. Close enough.).

Why did it take me so long to realize I was supposed to be a writer? I made detours through biology, art history, municipal finance, professional genealogy, and non-profit fundraising. (You may notice that none of those careers lasted.) What was I thinking?

I finally started writing seriously in 2001. I made a brief stab at mysteries with romance, but I simply don’t have a romance voice, so I turned to mysteries full time. And I loved it. I think I’ve used everything I ever learned in all the other temporary professions, and I still have a lot of material to work with. 

When I started writing, I had no idea what I was doing, much less how to get anything published—that was a very distant dream. I just knew I loved doing it. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do. All these years later I still love writing, and I’ve still got plenty of ideas.

And that title for this post? By the end of this year, I will have 
three million words in print, not including the abandoned drafts and simply bad early efforts. That would have been unimaginable when I started, nearly 20 years ago. And I am grateful for all the people who have helped me (and not laughed at my orphaned manuscripts), and particularly the people who have read my books and made nice comments.  Thank you, everyone!

Lucy: Sheila will be here today answering comments and questions, so bring them on!

ABOUT THE LOST TRAVELLER: Boston expat Maura Donovan came to Ireland to honor her grandmother’s last wish, but she never expected to stay in provincial County Cork―much less to inherit a house and a pub, Sullivan’s, in the small village of Leap. After a year-long struggle to stay in the black, Sullivan’s is finally thriving, and Maura has even brought back traditional Irish music to the pub. With a crop of new friends and a budding relationship with handsome Mick Nolan, Maura’s life seems rosier than ever―but even in Ireland, you can’t always trust your luck.

It begins with Maura’s discovery of a body in the ravine behind the pub. And then, the Irish gardaí reveal that the victim’s face has been battered beyond recognition. Who is the faceless victim? Who wanted him dead? And why was his body dumped in the backyard of Sullivan’s Pub? Even after the dead man is finally given a name, nobody admits to knowing him. In the tight-knit world of Leap, no one is talking―and now it’s up to Maura to uncover the dark secrets that lurk beneath the seemingly quiet town.

“This seventh in Anthony and Agatha Award nominee Connolly’s ‘County Cork Mystery’ series (after Many a Twist) is a thoughtfully executed and charmingly talkative cozy. The Irish setting is authentic, Maura is a delight, and the characters are gaining depth as this series matures.”
—Library Journal starred review

“Inviting...As usual, Connolly’s lively characters and lovely landscape enhance her well-wrought, thought-provoking plot. Series fans won’t be disappointed.”
—Publishers Weekly