About the Book

Book: Luck of the Irish Cozy Mystery Anthology

Authors: Kate Darroch, Jessica Thompson, Kathleen Kalb, C A Phipps, Amy Grundy,  J R Lancaster, Jaclyn Weist, Jessica Brimer, K Rose, and W Jenkins

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Release Date: March 17, 2024

A fabulous collection of Cozy Mysteries from your Favorite Cozy Authors –  published on St Pat’s Day, so they ALL feature The Luck of the Irish. ALL PROCEEDS go to help children living in ghastly conditions in internment camps.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Authors

Living on the picturesque Devon coastline, Kate combines her passion for cozy sleuths and her experiences living in many countries to create compelling Travel Cozies.
Màiri Maguire, a Scots Irish schoolteacher from 1970s Glasgow, the heroine of Kate’s debut novel, Death in Paris, has earned Kate many international book awards, including Incipere’s Best Christian Fiction 2022, consolidating her reputation as a notable author.

Kate hopes her readers will enjoy Màiri’s adventures as much as she enjoys Father Brown, Sherlock Holmes, and that old movie, the Perils of Pauline.
Next, Kate created Huntingdon Hart Investigates. Hunt is a dryly witty, prescient, tongue-in-cheek combo of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, who’s in endless pursuit of a much older woman.
Kate’s most recent opus is the Christian Second Chance for Lasting Love series, Sweets By the Sea, a depth saga of Recovery and Redemption which her readers insist is even more adorable than her Cozy Mysteries. The first book in the series is Thanksgiving in Welcombe Bay, which has been rapturously received by Readers Favorite’s critics.

Jessica Thompson is the award-winning author of the Amazon best-selling mystery novels “A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide” and “A Caterer’s Guide to Love and Murder”. Her latest novel, “Shoot Shovel and Shut Up,” is a classic mystery that won second place in the Firebird Awards. Jessica’s “Beyond the Woods: A Supernatural Anthology” is a family-friendly collection of her own campfire stories. Jessica is also Assistant Finance Chair for the Storymakers Guild.

More from Kate

Recipe for Irish Stew and an introduction to the book and why my fellow authors and I created it.

The Luck of the Irish: a Cozy Mystery Anthology from 10 Cozy Authors

Editors:  Kate Darroch and Jessica Thompson

You will love this Cozy Mystery anthology crammed with Cozy Mysteries from 10 Cozy authors

Renowned, like Kathleen Marple Karb, and New, like J R Lancaster

Let’s start our St Pat’s Day Celebrations the right way, with delicious things to eat and drink! Food for the body.

Irish Stew

A Royal Chef cooked this yummy Irish Stew Recipe at Sandringham House

Learn his delicious, although not strictly traditional, Irish stew recipe – and surprise your loved ones with a dish fit for a King!

Darren McGrady    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9HWZe9cSrM

Continuing our St Pat’s Day Celebrations, the right way, with Fascinating Mysteries full of Luck! Food for the mind.

The title says it all! Ten Cozy Mysteries from beloved Cozy Authors to give you food for the mind throughout the celebrations!

And winding up our St Pat’s Day Celebrations the right way, with a thought for those less fortunate… Food for the soul.

Why did 10 Authors get together to give you this super collection of Cozy Mysteries? Because we were aghast at the plight of children in border internment camps. We funded all costs of publication. 100% of all book sales proceeds goes to RAICES

Help these kids in dire need. And have fun reading Cozy Mysteries at the same time.

Interview with Kate

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve just always written. I wrote my first novel at 12. During my business life, I wrote whenever I could squeeze out an hour or even twenty minutes. When I was 48, both my sons were at university, and I realised I could finally take some time for me. So I wrote.

How long does it take you to write a book?

It varies tremendously. I try to write 2 chapters each workday. But sometimes I’m inspired, and the words just flow and flow. While at other times, I’m gritting my teeth and taking tea breaks between paragraphs. However long it takes to write the story, it takes me three times as long to polish it up until I feel it’s good enough to publish.

What is your real-life work schedule like when writing?

When I’m in good health, I start to write as soon as I wake up, stop around 10am to bathe and breakfast, stop for lunch when I’m hungry and go for a walk after lunch. Then I’m doing admin tasks until teatime, spend time with family, and after dinner I’ll try to put in another couple of hours writing. If I’m ill, which has been a great deal of the time during the last three years, I might not start writing until after dinner. And some weeks I don’t write at all because I’m spending so much time on boring, tiring, medical stuff.

What are your favorite books to read?

I love mysteries, science fiction, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Dickens, and other classics, biographies, and history. Also anything which helps me learn something that’s new to me.

When did you write your first book and how old were you?

I wrote a novel for children when I was 12, about a boy who had a time-travel ring.

How do you create your main characters?

They just come to me, a Gift of the Muse. I’ve never sat down to construct a character. When I was at university – I went part-time at 48 to learn dramatic writing –  the profs would ask us “What’s your hero wearing? What did he eat for tea?” and I would just open my mouth and words would come out. I never, ever, think about creating my characters, they’re living breathing people to me, they do what they do and then I tell you about it.

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

The middle. Sometimes I have to work very hard to construct part of the middle. And sending the complete book to get editorial comments, which I almost never agree with.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Walk by the sea. Play with dogs. Cook with my family. Visit museums. Binge watch TV shows that have a we-did-that-when meaning for us. Solve puzzles. Play cards. Watch films. Travel. Sew. Go to the theatre. Meet up with friends. And read. And read. And read.

What does your family think of your writing?

They don’t. I never ask for an opinion, and they never give me one.

Do you base your characters on real people?

Yes and No. My experiences with other people color my writing, of course. There are bits of my sister in four of my female characters. And bits of me in some characters too. But on the whole, I would say not. They’re real people to me. They write themselves.

Have you experienced writer’s block, and how do you handle it?

I agree with Dorethea Brande. Writers write. You take a sheet of paper and you put words on it. So, maybe today, those words aren’t any part of my work in progress. Doesn’t matter. I put words on paper. When I’ve put enough words on paper, a story begins to emerge. The important thing is to keep on writing the wrong words until the right words start to come.

As one famous writer put it, ‘You can’t edit an empty page’.

Meaning it doesn’t matter how lousy the words are, you can fix that later; but you can’t fix the words that you didn’t write.

Another famous writer said, ‘You can’t wait for inspiration to strike. Sometimes you have to go after it with a club.’

What they were really saying, and what I’m saying, is: if you’re a writer, then putting words on paper is your job. You must treat it as a job. Say you’re a podiatrist. You wouldn’t go into your consulting room and say “Oh, I can’t see patients today. I have podiatrist’s block.”

So if you’re a writer, and a deadline is looming, you want to do anything in the world except write. You’d rather clean out the attic, even. So, fine. Go clean out the attic. And then come and open your notebook or your laptop, and put words onto a page. Because that’s your job. You’re a writer.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

How very, very, hard the business of publishing books is. Writing can be cruelly hard work, especially when you change some bit of business and that necessitates a Page 1 re-write; but it’s a stroll in the park compared with producing an actual book and making it available to the reading public.

How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

As of today, I have 17 books available to download, and I am slowly turning my digital books into printed books and audiobooks. I don’t have a favorite. I’m a writer. Which means that I’m totally incompetent to judge the quality of my own work. It’s notorious that writers and editors disagree strongly about the things to change in any given book draft. 

We have a phrase in the writing business, ‘Kill Your Darlings’. Meaning that anything a writer particularly likes about his/her work, is almost certainly going to get edited out before it gets to the reader, because without exception, we writers like best those bits of our writing which spoil the whole story.

Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

Please go to https://books.katedarroch.com where you will find a free book for each of my current 5 series. Take as many or as few reads as you like. If you enjoy my free books, there are stories about the same characters which you can get at all the major online retailers.

Any current or upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

Very dear to my heart is the book releasing on Saint Patrick’s day, 17^th March 2024, Luck of the Irish. It’s a Cozy Mystery anthology which I teamed up with 9 other Cozy authors to write, for the benefit of a non-profit, RAICEStexas.org

There are 10 Cozy Mysteries in the anthology, each of which takes place on a Saint Patrick’s Day, and each of which has a dash of luck in it. Some of the stories will make you chuckle and all of them will keep you guessing. If you enjoy Cozy Mysteries, then this book is a steal at just $3.99

Also coming soon is my Travel Cozy trilogy, Death in Europe; and the first Huntingdon Hart thriller.

Blog Stops

Blogging With Carol, March 14

By the Book, March 15

Texas Book-aholic, March 16

Life on Chickadee Lane, March 17

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, March 18

Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, March 19

Babbling Becky L’s Book Impressions, March 20

Locks, Hooks and Books, March 21

Gina Holder, Author and Blogger, March 22 (Author Interview)

For Him and My Family, March 22

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, March 23

A Reader’s Brain, March 24 (Author Interview)

Book Looks by Lisa, March 24

Holly’s Book Corner, March 25

Pause for Tales, March 26

Lights in a Dark World, March 27

Giveaway

To celebrate their tour, the Cozy Authors are giving away the grand prize package of a $50 Amazon gift card and paperback copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

https://promosimple.com/ps/2a7aa/luck-of-the-irish-celebration-tour-giveaway