What's in a name? by Edith Maxwell/Maddie Day

 JENN McKINLAY: As always, it is delightful to have out Reds friend Edith Maxwell (aka Maddie Day) here to celebrate her latest release!

Edith/Maddie: Thanks so much, Jenn, for hosting me on one of my favorite blogs. I’m delighted to be back on the front half to celebrate last week’s launch of Murder Uncorked, the first in the new Cece Barton Mysteries. I’m super-thrilled to finally have a series set in my native and beloved California, and I’m more than grateful you took time to read an advance copy and offer a glowing endorsement.

JENN: My pleasure. It's a wonderful mystery!

It’s been quite a celebratory week. On Friday evening we packed the house at Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport, MA for a launch party. I flew to San Francisco a few hours (literally) later. On Sunday the Pedroncelli Winery in the Alexander Valley opened their doors for my author event at a location not far from my fictional town of Colinas. 

The next afternoon I had a lovely conversation at Book Passage in Corte Madera with Rhys, a bookstore I’ve always wanted to do an event at. Tonight I’ll be chatting with Catriona MacPherson in Davis at The Avid Reader, with wine and cheese. Then I’ll retreat to San Francisco for a couple of low-key days with family and old college friends before heading back east.

Quite apart from release week, I support several fabulous charities in my area. The Merrimac River Feline Rescue Society (MRFRS) does great work accepting cats and adopting them out, as well as trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats who really don’t want to be inside. I have adopted cats from the society and have volunteered for them.

The Pettingill House supports families in need with food, clothes, school supplies, and many essential services. And Amesbury’s Carriage Museum is our historical museum. It educates and entertains about my town’s industrial history, from water-powered nail factories through carriages and textile manufacturing to the early 1900s electric cars and other car bodies made right here.

All three organizations have silent and live auctions as part of their annual fundraising galas. I realized that, after I started going to auctions like the one at Malice, offering the right to name a character is super popular with readers. Who doesn’t want to see their own name in a mystery novel? (For the MRFRS auction, winners often choose to have their cat remembered instead of a human.)

The high bidder on my first naming offering was Diane Weaver. I had thought she would have a walk-on part as a farm customer in one of my first Local Foods Mysteries. To my surprise she ended up being an undercover DEA agent! The real Diane was delighted.

I offered naming rights for a Pettingill House auction a few years ago, and they called me up on stage to introduce the item. Cathy Toomey, a local real estate agent (whom we bought our house from eleven years ago) was the aggressive high bidder and became Catherine Toomey, shopkeeper and grandmother, in the next few Quaker Midwife Mysteries. 

I loved watching the numbers go up and up during the bidding. The donation is free to me and brings much-needed funds into the charity’s coffers.

A year ago, when I was about to send in the Murder Uncorked manuscript, Kelly Daniell was the high bidder at the Amesbury Carriage Museum’s Driving Through History auction. She happens to be the executive director of the museum and is the mom of two young children. When I asked what name she wanted me to use, Kelly said, “I can’t pick one kid over the other. So, name the character after me!” Me: “I can do that.” 

I’d already written the Sonoma County sheriff’s detective with a different name, but I had time to slide Kelly Daniell into the manuscript, instead. She and I had fun a month ago posing at this year’s fundraising event – which had, in case you can’t tell, a 1920s theme – in front of a 1927 Ford with its owner and a fellow antique car enthusiast.

I can’t wait to hear what Kelly thinks of her alter ego in the Alexander Valley. That same evening, I again offered naming rights to a character in my next book.

This time Pamela Fenner, a friend, small publisher, and staunch supporter of the museum, was the high bidder. Her bidding contest with another local resident exceeded any amount my character naming donations had previously raised (thanks for your generosity, Pam!). After the auction, she said she wanted me to use her late husband’s name. They had lived in northern California for some years, and she said he loved researching and making wine.

I am currently writing Deadly Crush, the second Cece Barton mystery. Paul Fenner is now getting a second life as the chief of the Colinas Police department - a tall man who makes and sells wine on the weekends.

Pam had also won the Carriage Museum high bid a few years ago and asked me to name the character after her twin sister, Penelope Johnson, who at the time was in very poor health. Penelope died before the book came out, but she was delighted to know she would live on as a Westham police department detective in my Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries.

I don’t plan to stop offering these auction offerings. Winners often need to be very patient, with the long lag time between when books are turned in and when they’re published. They don’t seem to mind. By the way, if you run one of these live auctions, plying guests with alcohol first lends itself to reckless bidding, just saying.

Readers: Reds, what real people’s (or animal’s) names have won a spot in your books? Commenters, what name would you use if you won this kind of auction? Have you ever won? 

I’d love to send one US reader a signed copy of Murder Uncorked (ebook to commenters outside the US).

As the manager of Vino y Vida Wine Bar in Colinas, Cecelia “Cece” Barton’s first Alexander Valley harvest is a whirlwind of activity. Her twin sister, Allie Halstead, who owns a nearby Victorian bed & breakfast, is accustomed to the hustle and bustle of peak tourist season. But Cece barely has a moment to enjoy her new home while juggling her responsibilities at the bar and navigating the sticky politics of the local wine association. Just when it seems things can’t grow any more intense, Colinas is rocked by a murder within the wine community . . . and Cece is identified as a possible suspect.

With her reputation and her livelihood on the line—and the Sonoma County deputy sheriff breathing down her neck—Cece has no choice but to uncork her own murder investigation. Tensions are already high in the valley, as a massive wildfire creeps toward Colinas, threatening homes, vineyards, and the vital tourist trade. And now, with a murderer on the loose, and Cece’s sleuthing exposing the valley’s bitterest old rivalries and secret new alliances, Colinas feels ready to pop. But with Allie’s help, Cece is determined to catch the killer and clear her name before everything she’s worked so hard for goes up in flames.

Maddie Day pens the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the new Cece Barton Mysteries. As Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell, she writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. A member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud Lifetime member of Sisters in Crime, Day/Maxwell lives with her beau and their sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media:

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