THE MEMORY OF SNOW by Julia Buckley

Jenn McKinlay: One of my very favorite traditional mystery writers, Julia Buckley, is here today and I am just delighted to host her. I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at her latest project Death at Castle Dark under the pen name Veronica Bond, and I have to say it's excellent! It was one of those books where I just couldn't wait to get back to it -- always the sign of an excellent mystery. But here she is to talk about her upcoming release in another of my favorite series. Take it away, Julia.

Julia Buckley

Julia Buckley: My latest Hungarian Tea House mystery  begins with snowfall. Not any snowfall, but one of those magical snows with big fat flakes that comes just once in a while and transports us to a fairy tale like setting. The mystery begins with a man Hana sees in the snow, and who seems somehow troubling in that context. Thus begins the tale . . .

But Hana’s experience got me thinking about the nature of memorable snows. I remember, of course, the giant snowfalls, starting with the big blizzards in Chicago, which stopped traffic on Lake Shore Drive and sealed people into their homes. My husband recalls dragging a sled to the grocery store with his mother, both of them straining through the drifts, only to lose a boot on the way home--a boot that was never retrieved from the massive mounds of snow. But there were other snow memories.

I went to college in Valparaiso Indiana, which is famous, my  meteorology professor assured us, for the most snowfall, the highest number of inches. He claimed that this made Valparaiso famous worldwide. I tended to believe him when I had to walk to class over a large field that we lovingly called “The Tundra,” the Midwestern Wind biting into every exposed bit of skin, the snow dragging at me with each step like some tenacious god of the underworld, bent on pulling me down.

Then there were the fun snows. I can recall many a snow battle in my own yard, with my brothers and sisters. I was the youngest, and my older brothers did not show mercy just because I was relatively small  and not as wily. I was routinely pummeled. When I took my high school entrance test on a snowy January day, my brother Chris (who was cute and popular, with his blond feathered hair) and his friends decided to attack me with snowballs on my way out of the building. They chased me down while I screamed with a combination of joy and terror, eventually collapsing into the snow drifts next to the parking lot, where a group of teenage boys scooped up snow and threw it on my prone body. I was yelling, and a big chunk of snow got into my mouth and choked me. For a few seconds i thought I would die of snow, there outside the high school I hoped to attend, but I was also conscious of the fact that four popular SENIOR guys had a acknowledged my presence enough to tease me mercilessly. The ice particles melted in my throat. I survived my hazing by snow, and they helped me to my feet. For some reason it is not a traumatic memory, but a funny one.

I met my husband in my junior year of college, on a BLIND DATE AT A FORMAL DANCE. That’s right--potentially the most awkward way to meet anyone, but we hit it off right away, and he would come to visit Valpo some weekends, including the snowy ones. Once we had a lengthy and invigorating snowball fight: my boyfriend, my roommate, and some of my dorm friends. There was strategy; there was running and hiding; there was a great deal of laughter, and a little bit of falling in love amidst bright white mounds of snow, glittering in the sun like diamonds.

I had a student once who had come to America from Africa sometime during grade school. When I asked students to write an essay about a  memorable thing, he wrote about the first time he saw snow--how magical it was to him, who had only heard of it but never seen it in person, never experienced the white, wet flakes that fell from the sky. He had never forgotten that moment that he went outside and saw that it was real--not a legend or a fantasy, but a real phenomenon; he had the joy of experiencing an American winter as a very excited child.

I try to imagine how it must have been for him, and I remember those snows of my own childhood--the truly special snows with the fat white flakes that took forever to fall and allowed that extra moment to appreciate their beauty, their shimmery whiteness, their symmetry and uniqueness. Those were snow-globe snows, and that’s the sort of snow Hana experiences in DEATH ON THE NIGHT OF LOST LIZARDS (available for pre-order now~).

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Though we’re about to experience a hot summer, this might be the best time to read a book set in a snowy world--a way to cool down as you sunbathe on your patio or deck or tiny balcony.  The novel taps into Hungarian Christmas traditions, but it is the snow that takes center stage. I remember a quote from Tennessee Wiliams’ The Glass Menagerie, a background image that read "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?"  (Where are the snows of yesteryear?) In this novel, Hana remembers her grandmother’s description of the snows in Békéscsaba, her hometown. Hana and the reader will understand that it is not the snows her grandmother remembers with such nostalgia, but the time in which those snows fell--her youth, her time with her family, her love of her homeland. I suppose our snow memories are a celebration of the same things.

How about you, Reds and Readers, what are your best snow memories?

More about Death on the Night of the Lost Lizard: Along with her mother and grandmother, Hana Keller has achieved renown serving tea and cakes with a European flair, but when a local professor is killed, she uncovers a serving of suspects instead…

Hana Keller is getting ready for a lovely holiday season. When she receives a rare tea set as a birthday gift, she decides to host a tea at her apartment for her closest friends. During the cozy get-together, one of Hana's friends gets word that a murderer is on the loose. Hana soon learns that the victim was Sandor Balog, a professor of Hungarian Studies at the local college.

With her growing psychic ability, Hana senses that she is going to be pulled into the investigation of  the professor's death somehow. With her sexy boyfriend Erik on the case, Hana finds the Tea House steeped in suspects. She studies the smiling faces celebrating the season, but the real killer is good at hiding the truth and putting Hana in the hot seat….

The entire Hungarian Tea House Series: