Something Borrowed, Something 90% Dark
(A Bean to Bar Mystery)
by Amber Royer
I am delighted to welcome Amber Royer
to Escape With Dollycas today!
Writing to Live Vicariously
by Amber Royer
I’m coming up on my 27th wedding anniversary. (By the time you are reading this, it will probably have passed.) When Jake and I got married, we were basically still kids, all of 19 years old, totally broke, and not prepared for life. The last thing we were thinking about was a fancy wedding. Not that weddings in the 90s were anything like weddings are today.
I’ve been teasing a wedding in my Bean to Bar Mysteries
the scenes meant I got to live vicariously through her. And since I am a bit extra, I intentionally planned to release the wedding-themed installment in my series the week after my anniversary, to spend a little more time in the glow of all the romance. While the book is a cozy mystery, so obviously bad things do happen, this is the book that brings together so much of the character-building Felicity has done so far over the series. And now that she has moved on from grief, and figured out who she is, she’s given herself until the day of Autumn’s wedding to choose between her two love interests. Which means I finally got to write the scene that has been books in the making, where she confesses her love.
I know love triangles are hard to write without leaving someone bitter and broken, but I think I managed to keep everything upbeat and leave both guys with the future they really needed. Both characters will appear in future books in the series, as they are both a big part of Felicity’s community and friend circle – and folks she’d likely run into the next time she finds herself embroiled in solving an unexpected murder.
But as for researching the logistics of Autumn’s wedding itself – I had a bit of fun with it. Jake and I went to a bridal expo to get ideas, and at every table we approached, someone asked us if we’d chosen a date yet. I’d explain that we’d been married for many years – but that the characters in my book were getting married. This proved to be a good conversation starter. Wedding planners started to open up and tell us about the craziest things that had happened to them or their clients at weddings. We talked to a DJ who made me promise that the bad guy in my book wouldn’t be a DJ. I even met another writer, who gave me a bookmark for her historical fiction. But more importantly, I learned a few things about logistics that wound up going into the book. For instance, I found out that in Texas, if alcohol is going to be served at a venue, there has to be on-site security, which changed a number of things about the way I had to write the climactic scene. Because those guys weren’t going to just stand around and let heroes and villains play things out in front of them. Honestly, I think the way I wound up writing it was more interesting than what I had originally planned.
And the ideas that were sparked from visiting with vendors included the idea of the outdoor coffee and cocktail carts, which started out as just fun set dressing when Felicity was exploring the venue, but likewise came in handy for getting characters in the right place at the right time.
I love getting to do the kind of research where you get to see and taste and ask questions you might otherwise not have thought to ask. That’s one of the things I love about being a writer. You have a reason to travel and to go to events, and people talk to you about their passions and careers because you are asking specific questions. (Sometimes I’m even proposing scenarios – such as when I was doing research for one of the earlier books in the series and needed to know what artifact from a pirate ship my characters could potentially find.) Because of that, living through your characters, while true, can sometimes turn into just living and writing a version of that. And your lived experience helps feed the emotions on the page, whether the experience and the fiction line up 1 to 1 or not. I know what it’s like to be in love, though not in a love triangle. So I can write Felicity being nervous to share how she really feels. At the same time, I get the whole wish-fulfilment thing of having 
her throw a fancy party with all the things I would love to do if I could go back in time, because that’s where the conversation with the big emotional payoff is set. There’s that synergy sometimes in making art, where you get to feel braver than you really are because that’s what the character you are writing feels, or you’re able to come up with the witty comeback at just the right time because the scene pauses until you get it perfect. It’s a fine line between that and indulging in vicariously living through the characters in a way that brings the plot to a halt, gives the characters impenetrable plot armor, or bores readers as you meander. But I think honest art does require you to put something of yourself into the book, to some slight degree, in most of the characters, concerns and themes.
About Something Borrowed,
Something 90% Dark
Something Borrowed, Something 90% Dark (A Bean to Bar Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting – Texas
Golden Tip Press (September 12, 2023)
Print length : 301 pages
Digital ASIN : B0C9YXTC78
Felicity Koerber’s bean to bar chocolate shop on Galveston’s historic Strand is hosting the friends and family coming into town for her best friend Autumn’s wedding. As matron of honor, Felicity has a ton of tasks to complete – including making chocolates for the gift bags. She doesn’t have time to solve another murder. But when one of the bridesmaids becomes a prime suspect in the death of a visiting real estate agent, Felicity has to put her detecting skills to use again to keep the wedding plans from getting derailed.
She’s already nervous about the impeding deadline she’s given herself to finally choose between her two love interests – and figuring where life goes once she makes her choice. But add in a missing pigmy goat and a new coffee shop that wants to partner with her, and she’s frazzled.
She begins to discover that not everything is as it seems among the wedding guests. Can she handle the wedding preparations, pull off turning her shop into a concert venue, and unmask the killer – before anyone else dies?
About Amber Royer
Amber Royer writes the CHOCOVERSE comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series, and the BEAN TO BAR MYSTERIES
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It is my pleasure to shine my spotlight on
. She is also the author of STORY LIKE A JOURNALIST: A WORKBOOK FOR NOVELISTS, which boils down her writing knowledge into an actionable plan involving over 100 worksheets to build a comprehensive story plan for your novel. She blogs about creative writing techniques and all things chocolate at 
I think part of it is familiarity. And that’s the balancing act, right? If the references are too obscure, you’re making the reader feel like an outsider if they either don’t get it, or they have to go look it up. And yes, not every reader is going to get every reference, no matter how grounding or commonplace it may seem to you as a writer. But if you try to challenge readers, or to show off your knowledge of obscure trivia or rarely read books, you can easily alienate them instead.
What I like to do if I’m not sure readers are going to know a reference is to provide enough context that the reader can get a general idea of what I’m talking about, even if they haven’t read or seen the source material. For instance, in 
, the setting is a murder mystery cruise, and there are a couple of costumed events that take place. My protagonist, Felicity, and her friends have chosen not to dress up. Logan, who is usually a leather jacket and serious face guy, has opted for a Hawaiian shirt. Autumn, Felicity’s free-spirited best friend, has on a full set of vintage rhinestone jewelry. And there’s Felicity in slacks and a basic blouse. So when one of the partygoers assumes they are in costume, and identifies them as Thomas Magnum, Phryne Fisher and Jessica Fletcher, respectively, the in-the-know reader is immediately going to get the joke. But for other readers – and because getting a character’s reaction to events is the easiest way into making that character feel like a real person – I give Felicity’s internal narration. She’s a bit discombobulated and a little indignant that her two friends naturally look like “cool” detectives, whereas she’s been described as more ordinary. So even if you’ve never seen a single episode of Magnum, you have enough information to feel like you are now on the inside of the reference.
Jake and I participated in an event recently where you got clues that took you to different points in Downtown Dallas, and you used your phone to access interviews and information that would guide you to the next spot to get the next clue. We weren’t interacting with other players, but many of the participating teams were dressed in matching tee-shirts, or full on team costumes. I borrowed this idea for the LARP that takes place early on in the book, and these costumes not only provide more opportunity for references, but become an integral part of the plot.
series, I painted Felicity as a voracious reader, who loves travel and experiencing different parts of the world, both in books and in person. She reads widely across genres. This gives me a lot of references to pull from.
book. This is a book that Felicity sees and has her hands on at some point in the story. The book either holds a clue, or sparks an epiphany, or otherwise helps Felicity to advance the story. It also serves as a source of parallels and metaphors. In 
, the grounding book was Jane Austen’s Emma. In 
, the grounding book was 
by H.G. Wells. Now, for 
, I’ve chosen 
. For a novel set on a murder-mystery-themed cruise, where Felicity is surrounded by mystery writers and far too many potential suspects, it had to be a Christie novel for her to effectively draw those parallels. I introduce the book as one of the big prizes in a ship-board raffle, and Felicity is impressed by the fact that so many of the writers she talks to were inspired by Christie – including Autumn, who was a former mystery writer herself.
. I was hooked when I found out it was about a spice shop. And when I saw it was set in Seattle, I knew there would be coffee. And coffee is one of my favorite things. (Bonus: I was interviewed last year by Erin Andrews of Indi Chocolate, who has a shop in Pike’s Place Market, where Pepper has her fictional shop. It has been cool seeing that space brought to life in the story. You can catch the Virtual Chocolate Salon re-watch at: 
. I am a total sucker for anything that feels like it is going to be a bit meta, and from the blurb, it feels like this book is going to have a UHF-esque imagination dovetailing into reality kind of vibe.
’s Poirot novels.
’s Mrs. Pollifax series
’s The Cat Who series.
’s Ellie Haskell series.
’s Goldie Bear series.
boarder on the more actiony side of cozy, with one of Felicity’s love interests being a former bodyguard. And in this one, one of Felicity’s employees goes missing at the same time as the murder. 70% Dark Intentions deals directly with the fallout of the first book in the series, where after being threatened by the murderer, someone in Felicity’s life has developed issues with self-confidence.
