Special Guest – Marla A. White – Author of Recipe for Murder (A Pine Cove Mystery) #GuestPost #Giveaway #GreatEscapesBookTour @marlawriteswords

Recipe for Murder (A Pine Cove Mystery)
by Marla A. White

It is my pleasure to welcome Marla A. White
to Escape With Dollycas today!

The most common question I’m asked by readers is how I write. How do I come up with stories? The answer to that is probably as varied as there are books on the shelves of a library. Plotter or punster? Inspired by real life or wild fantasies? If you’re toying with an idea for a story or novel and are wondering what to do next, here’s a look at how I write. Take what works for you.

Write what you know…sort of:

I teach students at UCLA Extension how to write screenplays and TV pilots, and one of the oldest maxims they’ve been told by other teachers is to write what they know. But that doesn’t mean write about being a college student who wants to learn about making movies. Nobody wants that story. It means to write about the emotions you’ve experienced – love, loss, and joy – but through someone else’s eyes.

Stephen King was never a dancing clown named Pennywise, but he probably understood what it meant to be a misfit as a child. At some point, weren’t most of us? Louise Penny isn’t a man, but she writes the heck out of all of her characters, male and female, in her Three Pines mysteries because she has empathy. I was never a cop or the owner of a B&B (yet!) but the Pine Cove books are more about family – the one you’re born with and the one you choose – than the killers she tracks down.

Are there moments from real life in the books? Sure. The town itself is mostly based on the real-life town of Idyllwild. Mel’s inability to make coffee? Guilty. Her fear of heights? Yep, we share that too. Dr. Linda Hart playing the guitar as a hobby is an homage to my late sister, Linda Hart, who played folksy songs on the guitar when I was a kid. Mel’s family is a version of my own large family, but a very different version than you see in my Keeper Chronicles books. There, the family of fractious archangels is probably closer to my siblings, but there’s love there all the same. The scars Gabriel gets at the end of book one? Three days after I bought my new car, I came out of the grocery store to find two long scratches down the passenger side. People are jerks, but it inspired me to give my hero physical as well as emotional scars to bear. In “Cause for Elimination,” the horse-related stories, from pink fringe chaps to having a chair made of the hide of a horse the person used to own, are all based on real people I knew.

So as you read through any of my books, know that real life inspires some details, but not the murders. Mostly.

To outline or not, that is the question:

I’m a plantser, I guess? I need an outline, a road map, so I know where I’m going. Tami Hoag once said that she doesn’t know who the killer is when she starts a book. Hats off to her. I love her writing, but I don’t even know how she does it. How do you plant the clues that will make a reader say, “Oh, that’s what that meant!” when they get to the end? I definitely need a cheat sheet. In fact, for “Recipe,” I had to make a murder board, just like Mel does in the book, to keep all the suspects and clues straight.

But I remain flexible as I go along and let the story grow organically. For instance, in “Cause,” the character of Dearg, my Scottish eventing god, was only meant to be in one scene, but he would not shut up and ended up being a key character at the end. Fun fact: his name is a Scottish Gaelic word that means “red” but also intense, and a few folklore references as well. It was the name of a horse I rode in Ireland that I fell in love with the moment we went over our first jump.

The original story for “Recipe,” born out of the last of the NaNoWriMo that I took part in, was rushed and took a super dark turn in the last third of the book. Pro for those kinds of writing sprints? I got the first draft done. Con? It was, I’ll admit, not great and certainly not a cozy. That’s okay, I had something to work with and could take what I liked – Jackson coming back from New Orleans and needing help to solve the murder of a classmate. I kept Mel being angry with him for being gone for so long and for apparently having a new girlfriend, if social media is to be believed. Gone was his amnesia – turns out that’s harder to reasonably pull off than soap operas would lead you to believe. Definitely scrapped was the human trafficking element. Yikes! No idea why my brain went there.

The nuts and bolts of it all: 

After the outline, I write out a rough draft of each scene. Yes, scenes, not chapters, because I’ve been doing script development too long to switch gears now. Besides, chapters are usually made up of 3 to 4 scenes for me. Next, I’ll go back in and fill in dialogue and more detailed descriptions like sounds and smells. I’m not looking for perfection, that’s about 3 drafts away, but I want to like the scene and where it’s going before I move on to the next scene. Rinse and repeat.

It drives my writing partner on our hockey romance series crazy. She prefers to craft every word to perfection. It makes for an interesting partnership! The best advice I have if you want to write is to just do it. Find the time, let the words be imperfect. It’s okay if your story isn’t quite there – yet.

Thank you, Marla, for visiting today!

Keep reading for more information about Marla and Recipe for Murder!

About Recipe for Murder

Recipe for Murder (A Pine Cove Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Pine Cove, a fictional version of Idyllwild, a tiny town on top of a Southern California mountain
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wild Rose Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 17, 2026
Print length ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
Paperback
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1509265759
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509265756
Digital
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509265763
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0GTRJ24MV

Mel O’Rourke traded her LAPD badge for the quiet life, running a bed-and-breakfast in tiny, quirky Pine Cove.

But when Jackson Thibodeaux, the charming café owner who broke her heart, stumbles back into town, her tranquil second act is toast. While attending a culinary academy in New Orleans, Jackson found the body of a classmate. The police rule it a suicide, but Mel’s instincts—and Jackson’s near miss with a bullet—scream murder.
Between a cooking school full of shady suspects, a reformed cat burglar for a sidekick, and a complicated love triangle involving the deputy sheriff, Mel has her hands full.

Perfect for fans of the sweetness of Jenn McKinlay and the snark of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan.

5 stars!
When Mel’s love interest returns to Pine Cove, he’s followed by a killer!
~Boys’ Mom Reads!

About Marla A. White

Marla White kills people for a living—on paper, at least.

An award-winning mystery and suspense author with roots in Hollywood, Marla White made a striking debut with Cause for Elimination, earning recognition from Killer Nashville, the RONE Awards, Reader’s Favorite, and a second-place finish with the Orange County Romance Writers in Romantic Suspense.

Originally from Oklahoma, Marla carved her path through multiple states before landing in Los Angeles, where she built a career in television development and now teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension—including the fine art of script coverage and story analysis.

When she’s not plotting her next murder (fictional, we promise), she can be found in her garden, on a hiking trail, cheering for the LA Kings, or field-testing craft cocktails in the name of research.

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TOUR PARTICIPANTS – Please visit all the stops. 
June 10 – Jody’s Bookish Haven– SPOTLIGHT
June 11 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 12 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen– SPOTLIGHT
June 13 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
June 13 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews– SPOTLIGHT
June 14 – Books1987 – SPOTLIGHT
June 15 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – REVIEW
June 16 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT  
June 17 – deal sharing aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
June 18 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading Books – REVIEW
June 18 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 19 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER GUEST POST
June 20 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
June 21 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
June 22 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
June 23 – Bigreadersite – REVIEW

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