Special Guest – JoAnna Carl – Author of The Chocolate Clown Corpse (Giveaways too!)

One of my all time favorite cozy series is the Chocoholic Mysteries so when JoAnna Carl was available to drop by I jumped at the chance!

FOUR THINGS READERS DON’T KNOW ABOUT WRITING
THE CHOCOHOLIC BOOKS
(And One I Hope They Do Know)
By JoAnna Carl

1. I know practically nothing about making chocolate and less than that about making fancy luxury chocolates like the ones created by my fictional chocolate company, TenHuis Chocolade.
At the time I was inspired to write a series about a chocolate shop, my younger daughter was business manager for such a firm. She gave me a tour, and I interviewed both the company’s owner and the lady in charge of producing the chocolates. If I had a question, I called and quizzed one of them. So it’s their knowledge of chocolate that’s represented in the books. Not mine. I can only hope I got it right.

2. Today my source of chocolate knowledge is Elizabeth Garber, the proprietor of Best Chocolate in Town, a luxury chocolate company located in Indianapolis.

I was introduced to Elizabeth by Jim Huang, one of the world’s experts on the mystery novel, who at that time owned a mystery bookshop in an Indianapolis suburb. Elizabeth, her husband, and her mother-in-law were all mystery fans who shopped at his store and liked my books. Today, if I need to know about chocolate, I call Elizabeth and ask. Bless her heart, she tells me the answer. Right now we’re planning a big remodeling project for TenHuis Chocolade.

3. I could never have written the Chocoholic series if I hadn’t spent twenty-five years as a newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist. Because, as items 1 and 2 indicate, I still work the same way a reporter does.

A reporter finds a “source,” a person who can explain the information the news story needs. It’s best if the source can give snappy quotes while doing it.

4. The columnist part of newspaper work was important to me, too. If I hadn’t written a personal column, I would never have had the confidence to write a novel.

The column showed me I could write something with a lot of myself in it that people liked to read. As a journalist, I had been trained to keep my own opinions and personality out of what I wrote.

When my boss asked me to try a personal column, I had no idea what would entertain readers. My first column began, “My grandmother wrote a recipe in the flyleaf of her Bible.” Basically, the column was about how Gran’s love of cooking was mixed up with her instinct of service and kindness to others. I was amazed when people came up to me at parties and told me stories about their own grandmothers and how they expressed goodness and love. Their stories touched me, and I realized I had touched others.

AND THE ONE I HOPE YOU ALREADY KNOW
5. Some critics don’t like “cozy” mysteries, saying they trivialize crime and evil. I think, instead, that cozies make these things manageable. Crime, evil, and general rottenness are so frightening that I have to add coziness or I can’t handle their existence at all.

So in The Chocolate Clown Corpse I dress up my heroine, Lee Woodyard, like a clown and have her chase another clown up and down the stairs of a hospital. I create a mad chase through the snow – on sleds. In The Chocolate Book Bandit I attack a villain using a library book cart as a weapon.

By making the events slightly ridiculous, I cope with them. And aren’t all of life’s events at least slightly ridiculous?

~JoAnna

To find out more about JoAnna Carl visit her webpage here.

The Chocolate Clown Corpse:
A Chocoholic Mystery
14th in Series
An Obsidian Mystery
New American Library(November 4, 2014)
Published by The Penguin Group
Hardcover: 240 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0451240675
E-Book File Size: 643 KB
ASIN: B00INIJKUC

 

 

Revenge is sweet for a killer on the loose—and it all started with the murder of Warner Pier’s most hated clown….

Everyone who knew the bozo wanted him dead. Odd, then, that a complete stranger was accused of bursting Moe Davidson’s balloons. But it’s been a month since the miserable shop owner of Clowning Around was killed, and everybody’s moving on, including Lee Woodyard. Her chocolate shop, TenHuis Chocolade, is next door to Moe’s shuttered tourist trap, and it’s giving her delicious ideas to expand. But over whose dead body?

Moe’s widow, Emma, and her two stepchildren list the property for sale, but when Lee tours the building, she finds Emma unconscious. Now Lee wonders whether Moe’s real killer is still at large and is taking care of unfinished business. Unfortunately, since the town is celebrating Clown Week, there are so many potential suspects in grease paint and floppy shoes it’s not even funny.

For Lee, protecting Emma, freeing an innocent man, and rolling out hundreds of her clown-themed chocolates is a pretty tall order. But so is staying alive long enough to find out which one of her neighbors is a killer in disguise.

Includes Tasty Chocolate Trivia!

Thanks to the people at Penguin I have 2 copies of The Chocolate Clown Corpse
and 2 copies of The Chocolate Book Bandit to give away!

Contest is open to anyone over 18 years old
with a US or Canadian mailing address.

Duplicate entries will be deleted. Void where prohibited.

You do not have to be a follower to enter but I hope you will find
something you like here and become a follower.

Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow.
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If you publicize the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere you will receive
5 Bonus Entries For Each Link.

Contest Will End November 27, 2014 at 11:59 PM CST
  Winners Will Be Chosen By Random.org
Winners Will Be Notified By Email
and Will Be Posted Here In The Sidebar.

CLICK HERE FOR ENTRY FORM

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”