Maddie's Third Adventure Already!

It seems like barely yesterday I was dressing up in my black-and-purple Steampunk outfit for the launch of  MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND, and wondering privately whether anyone besides family and Tyche Books staffers would show up to find out about this debut novel from a relative unknown.
Yet it was two years ago last week. 
 
How time... or in this case, taffeta... flies!

It hasn't happened in isolation. Although I write the stories, their production is truly a team effort. My heartfelt thanks go out to the following stalwart supporters of Maddie's adventures:  Steampunks of SASS and The Airship's Mess Deck; fellow writers from Sisters In Crime and Calgary Crime Writers; the dedicated production team at Tyche Books who keep on the hop getting everything together in time for launch day; Super-Fans Lex Robertson, Cindy Bedford, and Karen M. Owen; my agent and cheerleader Olga Filina of The Rights Agency; and of course Kevin, who handles a lot of daily life for months on end while I live in Maddie's world with Tweetle-D and the other talking clockworks.

From the Book Jacket: 

Maddie Hatter’s third Adventure finds her in Venice on an all-expenses-paid assignment: report on the season’s most extravagant Carnevale costumes. Determined to land an inside scoop, she enlists the help of her half-Venetian friend, Lady Serephene, to penetrate Madame Frangetti’s Costume Atelier in disguise.

Serephene is pursuing plots of her own: training in secret for a career that’s forbidden by her family, and flirting madly with a low-born Scottish inventor in his airship laboratory.  When the inventor’s fabulous new fabric is targeted by industrial spies, Serephene risks not only her family’s displeasure but her own safety to protect him and his work.

Pursued through the floating city’s legendary canals and squares, Maddie must draw on all her hard-won survival skills to keep herself and Serephene out of the spies’ clutches. With the help of unexpected allies among Venice’s underdogs, the daring young ladies just might reach Carnevale’s grand finale alive.

If you're in the Calgary area, you're very welcome to attend our LAUNCH PARTY on October 23rd at 7 p.m. at Owls Nest Books in Britannia Plaza (149th St & Elbow Drive SW). Costumes welcome but not mandatory. There will be prizes! Check out the details on Facebook.

Pre-orders of MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA are now available at:

Barnes & Noble (Nook) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta-jayne-barnard/1127175003?ean=2940154941607

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07613F87Q

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07613F87Q

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta/id1292381422

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta

A Post-Festival Post

Photo credit to AJ Proc

What a wild and wonderful weekend! 

From finally shaking hands with Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory (my agent Olga's boss) at his seminar on Thursday through to a last meal with friends from far away at Sunday suppertime, it was one ever-flowing meet-and-greet with eager readers and other writers. all  passionate about their work and their genres. 

There were many more panels and presentations than I had a hope of getting to, and many great authors I either didn't get to meet or only nodded to as we rushed past each other in the hallways. This really is an amazing festival-slash-conference-slash-freewheeling party; one person can never see, let alone participate in, everything. 

My fun with panels began with a hilarious set of mysteries plotted from audience suggestion at "Who Killed this Character" ably moderated by Mahrie G. Reid of Calgary Crime Writers. Tying together parakeets, goats, blackmail and an air traffic controller with a victim and a murderer in under 15 minutes was no easy feat!

Photo credit to AJ Proc

Presenting this season's books with other Tyche Books authors was a blast. Time travel and kidnapping, ghosts and baseball, deep-dark Noir to light-bright Steampunk, Tyche has reading for every taste and age. Check out Axel Howerton's FURR, EC Bell's DYING ON SECOND, Simon Rose's TWISTED FATE,  Pat Flewwelling's upcoming HELIX: SCOURGE OF BONES   and of course MADDIE HATTER AND THE GILDED GAUGE.

Pat Flewwelling setting up her reading from her second HELIX book.

Later Saturday afternoon I had a howling good time debating all aspects of writing paranormal mystery with fellow panelists EC Bell, Erin Lindsey, and SG Wong: Ghosts and Fae, mythical and mystical dangers, magical systems and their limitations, and how to throw a challenging obstacle in the path of a character who can throw a fireball back. The audience of mainly mystery writers asked great questions and kept us on our toes. Panelists' personal ghost stories had us on the edge of our seats and shivering with the chill of the unknown.

SG Wong's latest!

Sunday's Elements of Suspense panel - featuring members of Sisters In Crime Canada West - was a real thinker. Old WWC hands SG Wong and Eileen Bell and me, along with newcomer Merrilee Robson, wrestled with the differences between suspense and tension and how to express them through our characters, plots, and settings. 

EC Bell, hiding her wicked wit behind a pale, cool facade

We all threw out examples of writers who do it well, and how we think they manage it. And we gave a collective whoop of delight at learning that the inimitable Deanna Raybourn will be coming to When Words Collide in 2018. #fangirling 

Photo credit to Constantine K

At the end of the day, Sisters in Crime Canada West presented Women of Mystery, moderated by the sparkling SG Wong (our chapter's president). We fabulous four presented our new books, told jokes, threw candy and gave away prizes. 

Look for SG Wong's  DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST and Merrilee's MURDER IS UNCOOPERATIVE as well as my second Maddie Adventure and Eileen's Marie Jenner mystery series (4th one, DYING ON SECOND, is coming out in September). 

The Maddie Hatter Adventures and I would also like to thank all the people who threw their coins and bills into my collection box for Girls Not Brides. The weekend total came to nearly $200 over just 4 panels, adding to the money raised at my Calgary and Edmonton book launches.

 Girls Not Brides empowers young women everywhere

Since Maddie herself was a runaway to avoid being pressured into marriage, it seemed fitting to collect for this very reputable organization that helps girls all over the world stay out of early/forced marriage and in school, learning whatever skills they need to become healthy, productive, independent citizens. I am thrilled that so many wonderful attendees at When Words Collide supported the cause, and wish to shout out to fellow crime writers SG Wong, Eileen Bell, and Erin Lindsey, who amplified my meager effort in word and in deed.

All in all, it was a marvelous weekend, one I'd happily repeat a lot sooner than this time next year. For now, farewell and happy reading/writing/listening to stories of your choosing.

For up-to-the hour news on Maddie's Adventures and my own, follow us onnFacebook or Twitter

Sleuthing for Girls

Did you know Nancy Drew wasn't the first young, female sleuth in the annals of American mystery literature? Did you read Nancy, or some other contemporary crime-solving girl detective?

By pure coincidence, my bedtime book is a mystery by Susan Kandel, author of "Not a Girl Detective" which is not about Nancy but about the obsessive fans who collect her books, go to conventions, and even mimic Nancy in their clothing and decor. An author worth sampling if you enjoy well-crafted mysteries about Golden Age American mystery writers

Back to Girl Detectives: 

I favoured Trixie Belden over Nancy, in large part because Trixie's community felt more real and accessible to me than Nancy's idealized, chore-free existence ever could.

 In adventures published between 1948 and 1986, Trixie dived headlong into risky situations in a way that made my timid pre-teen heart beat green with envy. And she had friends, staunch ones, who had her back and helped her out of scrapes while still carrying on with their own lives. I yearned for friends like Trixie's. She got to go exciting places (in the vein of the Bobbsey Twins I'd read voraciously in my earliest reading years). 

The series didn't age gracefully as it grew; the later books lack the lively curiosity of the younger Trixie and acquire a more formulaic feel akin to the Nancy Drews. See more about Trixie at this website run by devoted fans

Pre-dating Trixie was Judy Bolton, created by Margaret Sutton. I discovered Judy in my 20s, though, by the accident of working in a small prairie library in the 1980s. The elderly librarian there hadn't yet seen the need to weed out Judy Bolton books in favour of more modern series. Older by five years than Trixie at the start of her series, Judy had more personal autonomy (more like Nancy) and a strong sense of what some call moral justice, rather than legalist justice. While solving a mystery, she looked at people as much as at objects. She grew up, got married, moved along with her life. That series ran to over 30 books between 1932 and 1967, with one new title (finished by another author) released in the late 1990s and the 39th book published in 2012.

Nancy and Judy were approximate contemporaries, Trixie came a bit later. Years before them all, books were being written about teenage and young adult girl detectives. This article linked below is a good introduction to some of the most popular. The social and historical root-stock - the Women's Suffrage movement and the First World War, for example - were particularly interesting as (I almost blush to confess) I had not considered how the great social changes of the early 20th century would naturally have been reflected in books for girls as much as for any other audience.

I've read some of the authors discussed in this article, but not heard of others that were likely quite popular in my grandmothers' youth. More books to seek out and add to my teetering To-Be-Read pile!

The Secret History of the Girl Detective

Who's your favourite girl detective?  

 Find me on Facebook