BOOKED ON MURDER by Marilyn Levinson

JENN McKINLAY: If you know me at all, you know I have a soft spot for stories about libraries. Well, our today's guest Allison Brook (aka Marilyn Levinson) has given us an even better setting -- a haunted library! Take it away, Marilyn.

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MARILYN/ALLISON: One reason why I love writing cozy series is because it gives me the opportunity to write about many subjects. Of course my characters and their story lines are my major concern. I love the excitement of setting up murders and sprinkling my plots with clues and red herrings. But writing cozy series also offers me the chance to explore other topics. Here are two I've included in BOOKED ON MURDER, the eighth and final book in my Haunted Library series.

My sleuth, Carrie Singleton, the head of programs and events at the Clover Ridge Library in Clover Ridge, Connecticut, has come across a centuries-old diary while helping the reference librarian put the library's historical collection in order. It was written by a woman named Verity Babcock, who lived in the sixteen hundreds and was hung as a witch. Verity Babcock's diary never existed because Verity Babcock is a character I created based on what I'd read about people who were accused of being witches. Between 1647 and 1663 of the 43 cases of witchcraft, 16 resulted in executions, mostly hangings. Or at least 34 were accused of witchcraft and 11 were hung.  Numbers vary somewhat because of poor documentation. The first Connecticut hanging took place years before the Salem Witch Trials.

JENN: I was raised in CT, and I had no idea. Fascinating!

Carrie and other characters are outraged by what Verity had experienced when she was accused of witchcraft by a neighbor whose husband died after taking some of Vertity's herbal medicines. This woman had begged for Verity's help when her husband was deathly ill and had little chance of recovering. I explore the reasons why women and a few men were accused of witchcraft when witchcraft was a capital offense in the Colony of Connecticut. For years, relatives of victims and other concerned citizens tried to get these victims exonerated with no success. Finally, in May 2023, while I was writing this book, both the Connecticut House of Representatives and Connecticut State Senate voted in overwhelming numbers to exonerate 12 people who were convicted of witchcraft in the seventeenth century. I was delighted that that long overdue wrong had been righted, but for the purpose of my novel I took literary license and continued to write it as though the victims had yet to be pardoned.

A secret society is another topic I explored while writing BOOKED FOR MURDER. Carrie receives a formal invitation to attend a meeting of the Wise Women's Circle, a loosely formed organization in Clover Ridge. Carrie has never heard of the Wise Women's Circle, and she is astonished to discover that many of the women she knows, including a few she is close to, are members. At the meeting she learns that the group's mission statement is to help women in trouble or danger; women who suffer in painful silence. 

Carrie has been invited to join the group because she has helped many people. She is shocked to learn the Wise Women sometimes resort to "other" methods to achieve their ends, and has to think good and hard whether or not to join.

How about you, Reds and Readers, would you join a secret society?

About Marilyn: A former Spanish teacher, Marilyn Levinson writes mysteries, novels of suspense, and books for kids. Her books have received many accolades. As Allison Brook she writes the Haunted Library series. Death Overdue, the first in the series, was an Agatha nominee for Best Contemporary Novel in 2018. Other mysteries include the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club series, the Twin Lakes series, and Giving Up the Ghost. Her suspense, Come Home to Death, was released in April, 2024, and her suspense, Dangerous Relations, will be republished in 2025.

Marilyn's juvenile novel, Rufus and Magic Run Amok, was an International Reading Association-Children's Book Council Children's Choice and has recently come out in a new edition, followed by Rufus and the Witch's Drudge, the second book in the Rufus series. And Don't Bring Jeremy was a nominee for six state awards. Her YA horror, The Devil's Pawn, came out in a new edition in January, 2024.

Marilyn lives on Long Island, where many of her books take place. She loves traveling, reading, doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku, chatting on FaceTime with her grandkids and playing with her kittens, Romeo and Juliet.

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