by Lois Winston

I once read that Agatha Christie didn’t believe in mixing romance and mystery, even though (little known fact) she wrote a handful of romances along with her many mysteries. Much has changed in cozy and amateur sleuth mysteries since Dame Agatha’s day. Many authors now dip their characters’ toes into the dating pool. Some even plunge them headlong into romantic rapids. Still others even dare to leave the bedroom door open a crack.

Lois Winston

Once Anastasia took over my life, I stopped writing romance—sort of. (Keep reading for an explanation.) Anastasia is a very demanding protagonist. Since 2011, with the release of Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, I’ve written twelve other books in the series, plus three novellas.

When I made the move from romance to mystery, I found I had to switch up my writing style. Although a good book, no matter the genre, will contain both internal and external goals, motivations, and conflicts for the protagonist and other main characters, romances are primarily character-driven. The events are spurred by the internal goals, motivations, and conflicts of the hero and heroine. Mysteries are primarily plot-driven with the events spurred by external goals, motivations, and conflicts. Mysteries don’t have heroes and heroines. They have protagonists who are either amateur or professional sleuths, and those protagonists may or may not have a love interest.

However, even if there is a love interest, in the traditional cozy, the love story plays second or third-fiddle to the mystery. Sometimes, the love interest is mostly off-camera, only referred to occasionally by the protagonist. After all, a mystery is first and foremost about the sleuth finding out whodunit.

When Anastasia’s husband permanently cashed in his chips at a roulette table in Las Vegas, her comfortable middle-class life crapped out. Suddenly, she found herself juggling two teenage sons, a mountain of debt, a communist mother-in-law, a mother claiming descent from Russian nobility, and her dead husband’s loan shark. Add in a French bulldog, a Persian cat, and a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and you’ve got chaos galore—and that’s before the first dead body shows up in Anastasia’s life!

However, because I like to think outside the box, I wanted to mesh my romance roots with my newfound love of mystery writing. If I was going to write a long-running, multi-book series featuring the same characters, Anastasia needed a character arc that included internal, as well as external, goals, motivations, and conflicts. Along with figuring out whodunit in each book, I wanted her to experience emotional growth as the series progressed.

However, much to my chagrin, I’d created a character with a mind of her own. From Day One, Anastasia refused to go along with what I wrote. Granted, I can understand not wanting to deal with dead bodies all the time, but I’m writing a murder mystery series. I need my sleuth to find whodunit, and for that, I need dead bodies.

She responded by threatening to lure my muse over to her side. My muse is temperamental enough. Because I don’t want her forming an alliance with my sleuth, I realized that I needed to dangle a huge carrot in front of Anastasia to gain her cooperation.

Enter Zachary Barnes. I introduced him in the first book when Anastasia rented out the apartment over her garage to him. He claimed he’s a photojournalist. But was he? Anastasia is convinced the photojournalism gig is cover for his real profession—working as an operative for one of the government’s alphabet agencies. After all, the guy travels to places like Guatemala and Madagascar, often at a moment’s notice. And he carries a gun.

Zack also looks like someone dumped the genetic components of Pierce Brosnan, George Clooney, Patrick Dempsey, and Antonio Banderas into a pan and baked up the epitome of male perfection. Anastasia wasn’t sure what Zack saw in her, but she couldn’t resist his charms, and as the series progressed, she eventually succumbed to them.

Yes, I’m a devious author who will do anything to gain the cooperation of my characters.

I’ve recently released Sorry, Knot Sorry the thirteenth book in the series. In Anastasia’s world, a little more than a year and half has passed since I turned her life upside-down. However, things have been looking up for her. She and Zack recently married, and a production company wants to option the rights to her sleuthing exploits for a TV show.

But you know, that’s not going to last very long, right? After all, I am writing mystery, and there will be dead bodies.

Sorry, Knot Sorry
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 13

Magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack may finally be able to pay off the remaining debt she found herself saddled with when her duplicitous first husband dropped dead in a Las Vegas casino. But as Anastasia has discovered, nothing in her life is ever straightforward. Strings are always attached. Thanks to the success of an unauthorized true crime podcast, a television production company wants to option her life—warts and all—as a reluctant amateur sleuth.

Is such exposure worth a clean financial slate? Anastasia isn’t sure, but at the same time, rumors are flying about layoffs at the office. Whether she wants national exposure or not, Anastasia may be forced to sign on the dotted line to keep from standing in the unemployment line. But the dead bodies keep coming, and they’re not in the script.

Craft tips included.

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about her and her books at www.loiswinston.com.

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