I write sitcoms. I also collect cookbooks. by Ellen Byron

 Jenn McKinlay: Happy Sunday, Reds and Readers. I am absolutely chuffed to have our dear friend Ellen Byron here today! As always, she brings the laughs and today is no exception. Welcome, Ellen.

Ellen Byron: You’re probably wondering how the two disparate things in this blog post title are related. That answer is simple: each inspired one of my current mystery series. Why I’m bringing them up simultaneously is a bit more complicated. But I’ll get to that.

First, about the sitcoms. I spent twenty-five years working on them, along with my supremely talented TV writing partner. We were lucky enough to snag a seat at the writers table on some popular shows like Wings, Just Shoot Me, Still Standing, and Fairly Odd Parents. The photo is from my days on Wings. I blurred the images of the writing staff because one of my coworkers partly inspired the murder victim in my new book, A Very Woodsy Murder. (And no, I won’t tell you who!)

Comedy is notoriously ageist. One day on Just Shoot Me, a writer came into the room and declared, “Today is my thirty-sixth birthday. My career is over.” This really hit me because I was five years older than him. 

I used this moment, along with the ups and downs of my own career, as motivation for Dee Stern, the sitcom writer protagonist in my new Golden Motel Mysteries. Dee’s TV career is already on the downswing when she discovers that at the mere age of forty, she’s eligible for her union’s Longevity Committee. All signs point to a career pivot, so she buys an aged but charming retro motel in California’s Gold Rush Country, along with her first ex-husband turned best friend. They’re determined to succeed but it’s rough when their first guest is offed and Dee’s nemesis gives their hostelry the snarky nickname, “Murder Motel.”

Okay, now to cookbooks. For decades, my family owned a tiny cottage on Connecticut’s Bantam Lake. One of our favorite activities was antiquing in the historic and quaint northwestern Connecticut towns. One day, my brother and I wandered into a particularly cluttered antique shop and I noticed this book sitting in an open drawer:

I loved the cheery, period artwork and the way the recipes, culled from hotels across the country, turned the book into a sort of time tunnel back to the 1950s. I bought the book and became hooked on collecting vintage cookbooks. I’ve lost count of how many I have.

I translated my beloved hobby into the premise for the Vintage Cookbook Mystery series, where Ricki James-Diaz runs Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop in New Orleans’ Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, a nineteenth-century Garden District mansion. Rick finds herself helping to solve murders that could doom her venture as well as Bon Vee, all while trying to solve the mystery of her own mysterious birth.

Why am I writing about two series in one post? Because I’ve had books in each of them release within six weeks of each other. A Very Woodsy Murder: Golden Motel Mystery #1, launched July 23rd. French Quarter Fright Night: Vintage Cookbook Mystery #3 will officially release on September 3rd. And I’m so excited about both releases that I couldn’t bear to pick one over the other. I hope you all face the same dilemma and solve it by reading both books!

To celebrate the double release, I’m offering a giveaway that pays homage to both books. It includes Stoney the Bear, official mascot of the Golden Motel Mysteries, and a vintage cookbook from my collection, along with swag.

Readers, have you ever been to Gold Rush Country or New Orleans? Comment to be entered in the giveaway.

BIO: Ellen is a USA Today bestselling author, Anthony nominee, and recipient of multiple Agatha and Lefty awards for her Cajun Country Mysteries, Vintage Cookbook Mysteries, and Catering Hall Mysteries (as Maria DiRico). A Very Woodsy Murder is the first book in her new Golden Motel Mystery series. She is also an award-winning playwright and non-award-winning writer of TV hits like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly OddParents, but considers her most impressive achievement working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. Visit her at Cozy Mysteries | Ellen Byron | Author

ABOUT A Very Woodsy Murder… Dee Stern, a sitcom writer whose career is on the downswing, impulsively quits her job on the Kidz Channel sitcom “DUH!” and buys a rustic motel in a small California Gold Rush town at the foot of a national park. But Dee soon finds herself totally out of her element as both a motelier and an amateur sleuth when she discovers the  body of a guest straddling the property line between her motel and the national park. There’s nothing funny about murder. Or is there?

ABOUT French Quarter Fright Night… It's Halloween in New Orleans, and the staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum is setting up a haunted house tour for their visitors. But when flashy movie star Blaine Taggart and his entourage move into the mansion next door, gift shop proprietor Ricki James-Diaz gets a fright of her own, especially after Bon Vee’s prop tomb becomes a real tomb for Blaine’s obnoxious assistant. As the Big Easy gears up for the Big Scary, it seems everyone has skeletons in their closets. Can Ricki reveal the shadowy killer before someone else becomes part of the Halloween horror show?