Two-Time Rita Finalist Maris Soule

The Write Way Café welcomes two-time Rita finalist Maris Soule, who loves to ask unusual questions, such as what would Lara Croft be like in her seventies?

Thank you for inviting me to talk about my writing and about the two books I have coming out this summer. Although I didn’t seriously start writing until I was 40, it seems as though I’ve been writing forever.

I started out writing romances and had 25 published, 2 being RITA finalists and several winning awards. But I love reading mysteries and suspense, so I guess it’s no surprise that a lot of the plot lines in my later romances started to include a mystery. In 2007 finally gave in and moved over to the dark side…at least a bit darker than a romance. The Crows was my first book where the mystery/suspense was the focus of the story with a bit of romance in the background. That book led to As the Crow Flies, where my protagonist, P.J. Benson, again gets involved in a mystery and the romance continues. That book ended with P.J. wondering if she might be pregnant and with her boyfriend, Sheriff’s Detective Wade Kingsley, out on his boat on Lake Michigan with his ex wife.

Well a lot of my readers started pestering me. Was P.J. pregnant or not and would she marry Wade? So I started working on another P.J. Benson mystery. But while writing that book, a new character suddenly popped into my head and insisted on her story being told. (I’m sure other writers understand what I mean about a character invading my thoughts and insisting on her own story.) Mary Harrington began as a question. What would Lara Croft or Nikita be like in their seventies? And what if no one knew this woman had been an assassin in her youth, not even her family?

I loved writing A Killer Past. My P.J. Benson mysteries were told in first person. A Killer Past is told in third person, using both Mary Harrington’s POV and Jack Rossini’s. Poor Jack is the police sergeant trying to figure out how a woman in her seventies could put two teen-aged gang members in the hospital, and why Mary won’t admit it, especially since doing so has now put her in danger of retaliation from the gang. Even more frustrating and intriguing for Jack is why he can’t find any information about Mary before she moved to the town of Rivershore, Michigan.

Once that book was finished, I started looking for an agent to represent it. I also went back to the P.J. Benson book and wrote Eat Crow and Die, the third in my “crow” series. And yes, it answers if P.J. is pregnant. It also allowed me to use the memory I had of watching a boat explode on a lake. In Eat Crow and Die, Wade’s boat explodes and his ex-wife and her new husband die. How convenient, the investigating sheriff’s deputies decide, that Wade and his son Jason just happened to be at the front of the boat when the explosion occurred so they weren’t injured. Did Wade rig that explosion to eliminate his ex? P.J. decides, if she doesn’t want the father of her unborn child thrown in prison, she’d better figure out who did cause the explosion.

Well, I was thrilled when I received a contract from Robert Hale Ltd. to publish A Killer Past in hardcover* and a contract from Five Star/Gale/Cengage to publish Eat Crow and Die in hardcover and as an e-book. I had no idea at the time that the two books would be released back-to-back. A Killer Past will be available here in the United States and Canada in June. (It was released in the UK in April.) Eat Crow and Die will be released in July. I love both of these books, but wow, it sure would have been nice if they’d come out at least six months apart. Will anyone buy both books? I hope so. It’s like having two of my children in a competition; I want both of them to win.

If you would like more information about me, these two books, or my other books, please visit www.marissoule.com and I would love it if you would “Like” me at www.facebook.com/MarisSouleAuthor

*A Killer Past is supposed to be in e-book form, too, but so far I haven’t seen any info about that.