by Sharon Marchisello

This week we have a review of a brand new mystery in a brand new series by Ann Claire, along with an interesting interview with Ann. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime & Croissants by Ann Claire
Reviewed by Sharon Marchisello

I’m not a cyclist, but I am a Francophile, so I was willing to give this book a try. And I’m certainly glad I did. A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime & Croissants is the first book in a new cozy mystery series by Ann Claire.

After the hit-and-run death of Gemma, her best friend, Sadie Greene, the first-person protagonist, gave up her orderly, predictable life as an actuary in a Chicago suburb to buy a bicycle tour company, Oui Cycle, in southern France. It was a dream she and Gemma once shared, and now Sadie is living it alone.

When the story opens, Sadie is about to lead a new tour from her quaint village, Sans-Souci-sur-Mer. Her former boss and his family have joined, and they have an agenda to persuade Sadie to return to the company back in the U.S. The group also includes twin sisters from Scotland, a lone German philosopher/cyclist, and a renowned, caustic British critic known to make or break a business through his reviews.

Each chapter begins with a paragraph from the tour brochure cheerily describing the scheduled activities for the day. Then onto the real story… and how much goes wrong. Including a murder on day three. And another one on day six. Suspicion falls on every member of the group, as well as Sadie’s two employees who are handling the tour’s logistics. The company has recently been the target of a local vandal, and Sadie wonders if pranks and property damage could have escalated to violence. Each day concludes with an entry in Sadie’s journal, where she rehashes the events with Gemma and speculates on the investigation.

The writing is excellent. The author did such a great job describing the gorgeous setting and the delicious French food and wine; I felt like I was there. She slips in interesting facts about the history, flora, and fauna through Sadie’s tour guide lectures in a way that advances the plot without feeling like an info dump.

The mystery was well done, and I didn’t figure out the killer until the end. Sadie is a likable heroine and I look forward to reading more of her adventures in this series. Highly recommended!

Sharon Marchisello (sharonmarchisello.com) recently signed a three-book contract with Level Best Books for a cozy mystery series involving a woman who does animal rescue. Her first two mysteries were published by Sunbury Press: Going Home (2014) and Secrets of the Galapagos (2019). She has also written a nonfiction book (Live Well, Grow Wealth), travel articles, and short stories. She earned a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and is active in Sisters in Crime. She lives in Peachtree City, GA, where she does volunteer work for the Fayette Humane Society and the Fayette County Master Gardeners.

Interview with Ann Claire:

KRL: How long have you been writing?

Ann: I’ve always enjoyed writing, but I first started thinking about writing a mystery around 2010. I wrote a bunch of first chapters before finally finishing a full draft.

KRL: When did your first novel come out, what was it called, and would you tell us a little about it?

Ann: Bread of the Dead, written under my pen name Ann Myers, came out in 2015. It’s the first book in the Santa Fe Café Mysteries, each set around a holiday season – Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, and Christmas – in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The protagonist, Rita Lafitte, is a newly divorced single mom and café chef whipping up southwestern cuisine while solving crimes with her octogenarian sidekick and mentor. In Bread of the Dead, misbehavior stirs up a pan de muerto baking contest, and deadly trouble soon follows. Rita’s beloved landlord dies in an apparent suicide. Rita and her friends sift out evidence of foul play, putting themselves in danger.

KRL: Have you always written mysteries/suspense and if not, what else have you written?

Ann Claire
Photo credit Eric P. Perramond

Ann: In fiction, I’ve always written mysteries. I love cozies because they can combine my two favorite genres, the books I load up on at the library and bookshops: mysteries and cookbooks. Many of my books include recipes.

Some of my previous jobs also focused on writing: grant writing, copy editing, freelance writing, teaching, and printing tiny street names on hand-drawn maps for a major roadmap company. The mapping sounds like I’ve been around since the 1800s, but it was actually the early 2000s.

KRL: What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest book/series?

Ann: Credit for thinking up a cycling crime-solver goes to my brilliant editor, Wendy McCurdy. Wendy went on a cycling tour and thought it would be a great backdrop for a rolling mystery. A tour group is a little closed community. Friends and strangers are thrown together. People far from home on vacation mode act in ways they might not dare in everyday life. And there’s so much potential for things to go wrong, especially on bikes! A cycling tour can also explore new destinations in each book.

I loved the idea and leaped at the chance to set a mystery in France. My husband is half-French, with family in a lovely corner of southern France near the Spanish border. In A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime and Croissants, American expat Sadie Greene has moved to this region to live out her dream of running bicycle tours. A tragedy compelled her big move, but also spurs her to seek justice when crime strikes her tour.

KRL: It sounds like so much fun! Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to experience from your work?

Ann: What I love about cozy mysteries is that they entertain while also weaving in specialized topics and serious themes too. I’ve learned about crafts, cooking, catering, yoga, party planning, hats, and blacksmithing from cozies to name just a few topics. In a Cyclist’s Guide, I hope readers will enjoy traveling along with Sadie and her Oui Cycle crew. Aside from her fictional homebase in Sans-Souci-sur-Mer, the places her tour visits are real, from castle towns and hot spring spas to wineries and the high Pyrenees Mountains. Of course, there are lots of stops for croissants, clues, and sightseeing in between.

KRL: Do you have a schedule for your writing or just work whenever you can?

Ann: I work whenever I can. The fun thing about my current bicycling focus is that I can take a break to ride my bike and call it research!

KRL: What is your ideal time to write?

Ann: Early morning or late at night, two times that don’t necessarily mesh well. Lately, I’ve been staying up late to the delight of my nocturnal feline assistants. As I write this, it’s almost midnight and the cats are helpfully keeping me alert by attacking the window blinds.

KRL: Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Ann: I outline. I need to know who did it and what the killer is doing in the background. Each time I start a book, I’ll tell myself I’ll outline in such detail that I’ll only have to fill in bits of dialogue and setting later. Oh, if only… As I develop the characters, the story shifts. I’ll usually get to the murder, then readjust the outline in chunks, aiming for the major plot points and big reveal.

KRL: Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Ann: Yes! The first manuscript I queried received interest from a few agents. I credit the title, which had a fun pun that I still yearn to use. However, the full manuscript was then rightfully rejected. It wasn’t ready or right for the cozy sub-genre. Shattered, yet still somehow naïve about how hard it would be, I tried again and wrote Bread of the Dead. With that book, I was fortunate to connect with my amazing agent Christina Hogrebe who has guided my publishing journeys.

KRL: Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?

Ann: I’m not sure if this is a great acceptance story or oversharing, but Christina received offers on my first book, Bread of the Dead, on a day when my husband and I were traveling to France. Despite my love of travel, I am a bad flyer. In the event of turbulence, you do not want to be seated beside me. I will grip the armrest or your arm in a sweaty panic. To counteract this, I have an anti-anxiety prescription. Side effects include sleepiness, fantastic! and possible mild amnesia, also good in certain circumstances – I’ve forgotten terrifying taxi rides, for instance.

When Christina called with the news of offers on my book, I was about to board an international flight and was already pre-groggy. I hope I expressed proper thrill. When she called again with news of an accepted deal – the call authors are supposed to remember forever – it was well past midnight, and my husband and I were conked out in a hotel in Spain. My husband didn’t wake up. I was still under the influence of my anti-flight-menace medication. In the morning, I questioned whether I dreamed the call. It really did happen, but I wish I remembered it better.

KRL: Most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

Ann: I’m grateful for the bookshops who’ve invited me for events. Colorado’s Tattered Cover Bookshop has been wonderfully supportive, and I’ve had great fun doing several events there with friends from Sisters in Crime-Colorado. I also got to do a book fair in my hometown in Pennsylvania, hosted by From My Shelf Books and Gifts and their bookshop cats. Any event associated with bookshop cats is special in my book.

KRL: What are your future writing goals?

Ann: I’m currently drafting the second book in the Cyclist’s Guide Mysteries. Sadie and her Oui Cycle crew travel to Alsace in A Cyclist’s Guide to Villains and Vines. A body spills out of a wine barrel and Sadie and her guests, a senior cycling club dubbed the Silver Spinners, become entwined in the investigation both as suspects and sleuths.

KRL: Who are your writing heroes?

Ann: There are so many, but one I must mention: Agatha Christie. What an amazing woman and writer! I discovered her autobiographical works and travelogues when I was writing my Christie Bookshop Mysteries. Agatha Christie traveled the world. She worked on archeological digs with her second husband. She was one of the first western women to surf – imagine! She’s still the best-selling fiction author of all time, and she wrote the longest-running play. Her characters and stories endure. She’s incredible!

KRL: What kind of research do you do?

Ann: I wish I could cycle my protagonist’s tour routes and savor all the croissants. Time, funds, and my cycling abilities didn’t allow for that. However, I am fortunate to have visited the beautiful region on her itinerary. As for cycling, well…when my agent pitched me as a potential writer of this series, we admitted that I wasn’t exactly an expert cyclist. That was a nice way of saying my bike had been resting up in garages for the last decade or so. I’ve since had my bike tuned up and we’ve been out on the bike paths together. I’d like to think that re-learning to ride has been good research. Mysteries need mishaps and struggles.

KRL: What do you like to read?

Ann: Mysteries of all sorts are my favorites. I especially adore humorous cozies and mysteries set abroad or in isolated places. I’ll always go for a mystery set in a snow-bound manor house.

KRL: What are your favorite TV shows or movies?

Ann: I’m late to this series, but I’m merrily working my way through Only Murders in the Building. I also adore Knives Out and The Glass Onion for their fun Agatha Christie-esque characters and plots.

KRL: Love those too! Have you any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Ann: Keep writing. Finish that draft! I’m repeating this to myself right now, because I need to keep going and complete a first draft.

KRL: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Ann: Perhaps people don’t know I have multiple identities? Just in pen names. I’m Ann Myers for the Santa Fe Café Mysteries, Nora Page for the Bookmobile Mysteries, and Ann Claire for the Christie Bookshop Mysteries and Cyclist’s Guide Mysteries. Ann Myers and Ann Claire reference my beloved grandmother and great-grandmother. In Nora Page, I thought a completely different alias might turn me into a book-marketing and social-media maven. Spoiler: I was still my same introverted self! My real name is Ann, but my surname has been deemed difficult to remember, spell, and fit on paperbacks.

KRL: Do you have any pets?

Ann: Yes, two cats. We adopted them as tiny fluffy kittens a few days before the first pandemic lockdowns. We stocked up on canned goods, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and cats!

KRL: Is there anything you would like to add?

Ann: Thank you, Kings River Life and fellow mystery readers! This has been such a fun interview!

KRL: Thank you for taking the time to join us here! Website? Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?

Ann: Please stop by my social media sites and say hi! I’m on Instagram at instagram.com/annclaireauthor and Facebook at facebook.com/AnnClaireMysteries.

For links to A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime and Croissants, please check out Kensington Publishing: kensingtonbooks.com/9781496745682/a-cyclists-guide-to-crime-and-croissants.

You can click here to purchase this book.

To enter to win a copy of A Cyclist’s Guide to Crime & Croissants, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “cyclist” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen June 8, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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