Weed Lake: A Fuchsia/Brilliant, MN Crossover
by Julie Seedorf
I am delighted to welcome Julie Seedorf to
Escape With Dollycas today!
Quirky Characters
by Julie Seedorf
I love quirky characters. I also like to read quirky plots that are paired with those quirky characters. Perhaps that’s why two of my series, the Fuchsia, Minnesota series and the Brilliant, Minnesota series
I’ve been trying to analyze why unique traits in characters in books draw me in, and especially why I can’t help but automatically write characters that seem too over-the-top to be true. It isn’t something I plan when I begin my books, the characters seem to become these wild out of control people that even I can’t control with my writing.
The more I got deeper into my books I could see my mom who at the age of 90 was on her roof patching it. My mother, who after having her driver’s license taken away tried to rent a car. It just so happened I was at the garage getting my car repaired when she called to secure a rental. Then there’s the memory of visiting her in the nursing home at the age of 93 (the roof thing scared me, so it was the wrinkle farm) and cleaning out her pockets and drawers and finding them full of pills. Thinking she hadn’t been taking her pills I marched out to the nurse’s desk. They weren’t her pills. She had been helping other residents who didn’t want to take their pills by hiding them for them.
My mother who at the age of 93 declared to the waitress in a restaurant that it was her 100th birthday. The waitress believed her and brought her a cake. After our meal she thanked us for celebrating the last year of her life with her. I asked her, “Why do you think this is the last year of your life?” She answered, “I’m 100 years old, how much longer do you expect me to live?” Yes, there was a lot of my mother in Granny.
Jezabelle Jingle is the opposite of Granny. She has her quirky moments, but she is milder, calmer and uses an entirely different way to solve crimes. I can’t tell you how she came about because I honestly don’t know. I just started writing and there she was.
Both women are surrounded with wild characters. Granny’s neighbors and friends support her zany ideas and embrace who she is, although her family doesn’t appreciate her uniqueness. It took Granny a long time to recover from others’ expectations, breaking out of the mold that people put her in. That’s why she enjoys the quirks of her friends and holds at length those that want her to go back to being the responsible person she had to be during her midlife. How many of us were changed by the perils of our lives and those that surround us?
Jezabelle has her neighbors to help her solve the puzzles of Brilliant. They are a mixture of sensible and quiet personalities with weird side traits and many secrets. Jezabelle and her neighbors have each other’s backs. They help each other but always find trouble.
Granny and Jezabelle are opposites and in this case opposites don’t attract. That’s why I put them together in a setting outside their communities. We live in an era where there is dissension between opposite views, and I felt it was the perfect time to bring them together to see if they could put their feelings for one another aside to solve a crime.
All in all, in my life, it’s the quirky friends over the years that I remember and that hold my heart. Perhaps it’s the reason I write the quirky characters. I would like to have more friends like Granny and Jezabelle’s friends. Or perhaps I live my life vicariously through them. As adults we tend to stay away from those that are different. The unique, unusual personalities enrich Granny and Jezabelle’s lives, maybe they would ours too. Should we take the risk?
Thank you Julie for visiting today!
Keep reading to find out about Julie’s new book!
About Weed Lake
Weed Lake: A Fuchsia/Brilliant, MN Crossover
GrannyEdith Press (March 1, 2022)
Print length : 228 pages
Digital ASIN : B09QJ74MMD
Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt, aka Granny, and Jezabelle Jingle are supersleuths in their own communities, Granny from Fuchsia and Jezabelle from Brilliant. Because they live only twenty miles apart in rural Minnesota, they are careful not to encroach on each other’s territory. Granny and Jezabelle both believe a rivalry exists on who is the better crime solver.
When Delight Delure, Granny’s friend and Jezabelle’s niece, sends them on vacation with the women’s two best friends, Mavis and Lizzy, they don’t know they will be actual cabin neighbors at Weed Lake in Northern Minnesota. During a skirmish with each other and an accidental plop in the lake, they find a dead body. Adding to the mystery are clues and puzzles left on their doorstep that may warn of danger and others that show friendship and caring. Which one should they believe? Are their lives in peril, or are they being pranked, and to what end?
The two cunning amateur sleuths work together to solve a murder that Sheriff Phil Puxatawny doesn’t take seriously. But mayhem breaks out, having all four women wondering if they’ll leave Weed Lake alive.
About Julie Seedorf
Julie Seedorf grew up in Southern Minnesota, attending grade school and high school in a small community. She learned the value of small-town life and small-town relationships. Still living in rural Minnesota, she cherishes the beauty of the changing seasons and the various landscapes the state offers.
Through the years, she has worn many hats. Her favorite was activity director in a nursing home and finally computer repair and sales, eventually earning her own business before retiring to write and enjoy life.
She is a wife and proud mother of two boys and one daughter, along with four grandchildren. Being a mom and grandmother is her favorite career. Julie feels no other job can hold a candle to raising up a child in the way they should go. Remember the poem? Watching the world through a child’s eyes and seeing them light up with wonder takes us to the beauty of simple things we sometimes lose as an adult.
Julie has four-book series. Granny’s In Trouble, Fuchsia, MN, Brilliant, MN, and the Whistle Stop Series. She likes to write light mysteries occasionally bordering on silly and fantasy because she believes we need to take ourselves out of the real world for a space of time to laugh and relax.
Author Links
Website – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – Blog – Blog – GoodReads –
Purchase Links:
Amazon – Apple – Kobo – Angus & Robertson
Also by Julie Seedorf
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Your mom sounds great! Congratulations on the new book!
Congrats on the new release! Thanks for sharing the wonderful stories about your mother.