Sherry Harris on Creating a New Series #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: We love Sherry Harris and her writing and are delighted to help her introduce a new mystery series! And I'm a little embarrassed...you'll see why...welcome and congrats Sherry! (Her alternate title could be: What Lucy Burdette Had To Do With My New Series Without Even Knowing It) 

SHERRY HARRIS: Thanks, Lucy and the Reds for having me back to talk about From Beer to Eternity the first book in my new Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mystery series. Lucy had something to do with this series even though she didn’t know it. 

My editor at Kensington and I had been tossing ideas around for a second series for a while, never settling on something we both loved. In February 2018 he wrote suggesting a series in a beach bar in Key West. 

My first, second, and third thoughts when I saw his message were: Lucy writes the wonderful Key West series and I don’t know anything about Key West. When I read one of Lucy’s books I feel like I’m there. I don’t think I can do that. (In an interesting twist of fate my husband and I were going to visit Key West for the first time a few days after he wrote. We were staying with Barbara Ross and her husband and were getting together with Lucy and her husband too. What a strange coincidence!)

So I wrote him back: Interestingly enough my husband and I are going on our first trip to Key West on February 8th. However a friend of mine, Lucy Burdette, writes a food critic mystery series set in Key West and I feel like she's covered almost everything you've mentioned. Her series is up to seven books and I think there are more coming. (Her tenth book in the series, Key Lime Crime comes out on August 11, 2020!!!) 

And then I added: But I have a suggestion. My mom lives in a resort town in the panhandle of Florida -- Destin. It's a spit of land between the gulf and a huge bay. It's also called the Emerald Coast, the Redneck Riviera, and LA -- lower Alabama. We were stationed there for almost three years. It has three distinct seasons -- snowbirds, spring breakers, and summer people. There's a pirate festival -- Billy Bowlegs. There's a place called Crab Island which is really a shallow area of the bay. Boaters gather there all of the time. There's a couple of floating restaurants. The last time I was there the local government was trying to pass a law to have more control over Crab Island and the restaurants. There's snooty rich locals. There's kids brought over from Europe in the summer to work at all the resorts and water parks. There's suspect land deals and overbuilding.

A friend and I were at a restaurant/bar in Grayton Beach a several years ago. The tables were about an inch apart from each other so we were more or less sitting with seven Harley riding doctors and having a good time. A man with a big belly wearing a Speedo walks in and the place almost goes silent until one of the doctors pipes up. "Guess he's not from around these parts."

At my daughter's elementary school she had to say "yes ma'am or no sir" to all of her teachers. We started picking up drawls in the time we lived there. 

He wrote back: Till then, Key West is out, Destin is in. (Been there actually). So, knock me out a page or two with the overall premise and a paragraph or two on the first three in the series. Just so I have something in hand. 

And thus, the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon series was born—in part thanks to Lucy! 

Reds, Do you follow authors to a new series? Also I'd be happy to give away a copy of From Beer to Eternity to one commenter. Thanks again for having me!

Here’s a bit about the book: 

A whip smart librarian’s fresh start comes with a tart twist in this perfect cocktail of murder and mystery—with a romance chaser.

MURDER ON TAP

With Chicago winters in the rearview mirror, Chloe Jackson is making good on a promise: help her late friend’s grandmother run the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle. To Chloe’s surprise, feisty Vivi Slidell isn’t the frail retiree Chloe expects. Nor is Emerald Cove. It’s less a sleepy fishing village than a panhandle hotspot overrun with land developers and tourists. But it’s a Sea Glass regular who’s mysteriously crossed the cranky Vivi. When their bitter argument comes to a head and he’s found dead behind the bar, guess who’s the number one suspect?

In trying to clear Vivi’s name, Chloe discovers the old woman isn’t the only one in Emerald Cove with secrets. Under the laidback attitude, sparkling white beaches, and small town ways something terrible is brewing. And the sure way a killer can keep those secrets bottled up is to finish off one murder with a double shot: aimed at Chloe and Vivi.

Bio: Sherry Harris is the Agatha Award nominated author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mystery series and the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mystery series set in the panhandle of Florida. She is the immediate past president of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America. Sherry loves books, beaches, bars, and Westies — not necessarily in that order. In her spare time Sherry loves reading and is a patent holding inventor. Sherry, her husband, and guard dog Lily are living in northern Virginia until they figure out where they want to move to next.