In Our Time by Abby Collette

JENN McKINLAY: Author serendipity: that time, at Bouchercon in Dallas, when I went to the Berkley cocktail party with my fellow Red, Rhys Bowen, and met a lovely author named Abby Collette. We all bonded over the amazing guacamole being made right in front of us and started chatting about our books, as authors do. 

Abby mentioned her first mystery with Berkley was coming out and it was set around an ice cream parlor. I had just been asked to read a new mystery in the same setting. Abby and I realized her book was the book I was about to read! Crazy, right? 

Suffice to say, I loved the book and I adored my time with Abby. She is delightful in person and on the page, and she's here to tell us about how she's getting through quarantine and about her fabulous cozy mystery: A Deadly Inside Scoop.

On Sale: MAY 12th

Abby Collette: Books can transport us from the world we’re in and the troubles that surround us to the good places within its pages. A much needed getaway. Inside books we find heroes, love, laughter, beauty, escape and mirrored characterizations of our wonderful world with all of its quirks and flaws. I love getting lost in a book, and as a writer I love creating those worlds. But since our real world has been turned upside down, I’ve had a hard time writing. Someone told me I was grieving. I can’t say that isn’t true. 

In these days the invasion social media has into our lives may have turned into a good thing. (Never thought I’d say that!) Many have used it to reach out, share and comfort. I especially appreciate the encouraging words coming in from the literary community.

Recently, as inspiration, it has been floated around how Newton, while quarantined, wrote an essay that was the basis for calculus. And how Shakespeare, on being ordered to stay inside, penned King Lear. Proof certain good things can come from bad times (although I don’t know whether there are many of us who think calculus is a good thing.) 

Most everyone appreciates Shakespeare and what he has given to the literary world and our lexicon. While it isn’t for sure that he wrote King Lear while on quarantine, it is true that he and all of London (during Shakespeare’s London years) were often ordered not to venture outside during many of the years he wrote plays. Reading his works, it is evident how that world seeped into the words, characters and plot devices of the stories he created.

For instance, in Romeo and Juliet, a sudden plague outbreak forces the messenger dispatched to take a letter to Romeo into quarantine. The note explained that Juliet had faked her death. But for the “shelter at home” order given to the messenger, Romeo would not have thought Juliet was dead and that story could have had a happy ending. And in Macbeth and indeed King Lear, Shakespeare included references to the ongoing pandemic of his time.  

Unlike Shakespeare, I don’t want the stories I pen to be plagued (no pun intended) with the circumstances of our present time. As I move through these days and try to make my isolation period more productive, I have been reminded by my writing community that writing can help to work through feelings, to stay positive because writing for me is familiar and comforting and I too can escape.

I write cozies, and in them we always find that the amateur sleuth makes the best of a bad situation, which, as you know, is usually murder. And in my latest book, A Deadly Inside Scoop, Win, the main character is no different. She reopens her family’s ice cream shop after a long remodeling delay only for an unexpected snow storm to hit. Because of it, no one shows up. But like Newton and Shakespeare, she does. She shows up and doesn’t let her circumstances keep her down. Remembering how her grandmother persevered, Win decides to take that snow and make snow ice cream. 

After a slow start, I’ve found ways to stay motivated by staying connected. I’ve taught a three-week class with Literary Cleveland, a local organization committed to helping writers and readers, and I’ve been able to check in and spend time with my weekly library #amwriting group, both via video chat. And I’ve been inspired by the stories I’ve again started to write.

The time that Newton was quarantined history has called his annus mirabelis—a remarkable or auspicious year. Maybe we, like Newton, Shakespeare and Win in my book, can turn this year around into something better, maybe even great. Only history will tell.

How about you, Red and Readers, how are you finding your time in quarantine? Anyone coming up with a new calculus? Please say no.

WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY, and internationally best selling author, Abby L. Vandiver, also writing as Abby Collette, has always enjoyed writing, combining that with her gift for telling stories and love of mystery, she became an author.

Abby's an hybrid author. Her debut novel, In the Beginning and its sequels, Irrefutable Proof and Incarnate are fact mixed with fiction, mystery/sci-fi novels not written as action packed or fast paced, but as "what-if" alternative history stories. After those books were published, Abby switched to writing cozy mysteries. Finding much success, she has three series so far, Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery, Normal Junction Cozy Mystery and Tiny House Mysteries, all self-published. In 2017, she contracted with Henery Press for a 3-book deal to pen the series Romaine Wilder Mysteries. Her new #ownvoice cozy mystery series, An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery by Berkley Penguin will debut in May 2020. The first book in the series is A Deadly Inside Scoop. 

Abby, a former lawyer and college professor, has a bachelor's degree in Economics, a master's in Public Administration, and a Juris Doctor. A lifetime resident of Cleveland, Ohio, Abby spends all of her time writing and enjoying her wonderful grandchildren.

Abby's got many more books to come, so stay tuned!

Visit her: www.abbyvandiver.com
Email her: abbylvandiver@aol.com
Follow her: @AbbyVandiver
Keep up with new releases: www.bookbub.com/authors/abby-l-vandiver