The Pleasure of Signings

Book signings are fun! At least they are for me. So far, I’ve been on three for BEAGLEMANIA, the first book in my new Pet Rescue Mystery series. The first was at the grand reopening of Flintridge Bookstore, in Flintridge, California, along with several other mystery writers. Fun event!

The second was at Mystery Ink, in Huntington Beach, California. Two wonderful pet rescue groups brought dogs along for attendees to play with, and Sandy Robins, a delightful writer on nonfiction pet topics, brought a Toyota Venza equipped with special pet-friendly safety accessories to demonstrate, too. People popped in and out and bought books. Delightful!

Then, last weekend, I signed at Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks, California. People from their book club attended along with people I knew from writing and pet-related organizations. I gave a presentation that mostly consisted of answering questions about my new Pet Rescue Mystery series, where it is so far and where it’s going. I also discussed aspects of the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series, from which the Pet Rescue series has spun off.

One of the most fun things for me was the ideas people tossed to me about ideas for more Pet Rescue books! I made notes, and you never know. Some might appear in the future!

Am I done? Not hardly. Next Saturday is my signing at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena, California. It’s in conjunction with the Pasadena Humane Society’s adoption event. Rain is predicted, but I hope the weather behaves enough to permit a good turnout of pet adopters and book buyers.

The following weekend, on Saturday, March 26, I’m signing at the Bookstar in Studio City. Bookstar is located in a former movie theater--and my name is already on the marquee! That signing will be at the same time as a weekly pet adoption event on Ventura Boulevard right outside Bookstar.

That pretty well covers my March signings, but I’m also signing in April. Plus, I’m on some panels. I’m keeping busy. I’m selling some books. And I’m also having one heck of a good time meeting people, getting ideas--and, yes, encouraging the idea of pet adoptions.

Do you attend book signings? Where, and do you enjoy them?

An ill wind, and then...

From the moment we heard the Santa Anas would blow at hurricane-force levels, we knew what was coming.

And still, the onset of the first fast-moving, rampaging firestorm came as a shock to the community, because it hit the sector of our society that is usually the most privileged and protected—Malibu. I heard about the fires when I clicked on the television news that morning at nine a.m. I immediately called my best friend from college, who lives on the beach in Malibu. Turned out she had no idea there was a major fire going on, because her power was out.

I gave her updates from the reports on CNN, and told her to pack up her most important items. But like any good Malibu-ite (Malibuan?), she already had everything organized, the same way Californians learn to keep an "earthquake survival kit" tucked away in some dusty corner of their garages.

I kept hearing local reports that people were trying to get into Malibu, not leaving. I remembered my friend who had no clue that a disaster was racing down a canyon toward her house. Her church had already been destroyed, and it was directly across the street from her son's school.

And so, like the former journalist that I am, I called the CNN news tip line and told them that power was down in some areas of Malibu, and suggested that perhaps people who had friends in the area should call them on their landlines, which still seemed to be working. The CNN tip-taker was very nice and took a lot of notes, but I never saw the tip come over the news that friends should call their friends and family in the area to roust them out.

That day ushered in a strange, surreal week in Los Angeles. We woke up each morning to discover a fine layer of ash—like dust in the attic—settled over cars and surfaces. The skies seemed permanently overcast, but from smoke, not clouds. It became slightly irritating to breathe, no matter where you were. People all around me were coughing more. We had spectacular, firestorm-fueled sunsets that were even more beautiful than our worst pollution-caused sunsets. In some places in Southern California, you could stare directly at the sun, because it had diminished into a swollen, tangerine orb behind the layers of smoke.

My Malibu friend seemed quite relaxed about the flames that were racing her way. She even met me for lunch Monday afternoon—and then was turned back by police when she tried to return home. She and her family spent a couple of days as Malibu refugees, which does seem like an oxymoron.

But still, this experience hasn't soured any of us on living in California—or even in Malibu. We do have occasional impressive catastrophes here. Earthquakes, firestorms, city-wide riots, to name a few. But every other day, it's paradise here. The weather is so wonderful and consistent, you almost forget what "real" weather is. And we don't deal with the far more frequent disasters that plague other areas of the country, such as hurricanes, snowstorms, and tornadoes.

When all is said and done, I'm staying put. Everyone I know is, too.

Where you live, are there any recurring disasters that you've just learned to accept, prepare for and deal with? Do other aspects of the environment offset the occasional problems?

Life—and the book tour—continues...

I had a wonderful book signing event on Wednesday at the
B Dalton in the mall at Los Angeles City Hall. The bookseller, Candace Davis, set up a nice table—complete with a vase of flowers!—and I sold lots of books. I was impressed by how many men bought the book. But that was encouraging--I think diet, exercise, humor and murder mysteries is a combination that will interest many readers in America, not just women.

On Saturday, I spoke to a nice-sized crowd at Mysteries To Die For in Thousand Oaks. The staff and Heidi made me feel very welcome. I recruited a good friend of mine who once attended the same diet clinic as me in Durham, North Carolina (DYING TO BE THIN is set in a fictional diet clinic, AKA fat farm). We regaled the crowd with stories about how the real diet doctors would roam the town, tracking down and busting people who were cheating on the program.

Whenever a diet doctor entered the building, the cheating dieters would flee--running for the ladies room, exits, wherever we could find to take cover.

Ah, those were some good times.

Cozy mysteries and Sex! Violence! Chicks Gone Wild!

I have a confession to make.

When I started writing DYING TO BE THIN, the first installment in the Fat City Mystery series, I was not fully aware that the mystery sub-genre known as “cozies” had to follow certain restrictive guidelines. With some glaring exceptions, most cozies are written according to the following rules:

• They have “kinder, gentler” story lines.
• There is little graphic violence.
• Murders are mostly presented off-stage.
• Sex tends to be delivered in “fade to black” mode. (You know, like the couple in From Here to Eternity; you get to see them thrashing around in the surf. But then, just when the action gets interesting, the scene ends.)

And so…ahem. In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that even though DYING TO BE THIN often gets lumped in with cozy mysteries, readers will encounter a few “uncozy” passages:

• Murder victims are presented splat on the page, complete with a discussion of the deceased-one’s physical appearance (including, in the case of one victim, the impact of weaponized fondue forks).
• There are frequent and colorful references to a fictional S&M scene in the story’s locale, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
• The plot line is neither kind, nor particularly gentle. But it is often humorous.

My thought is that the concept of a "cozy" mystery is expanding in terms of the amount of sex and violence that readers will accept. What do you think?

And if you have a chance to read DYING TO BE THIN, I’d so appreciate it if you’d go to my web site http://www.kathrynlilley.com/, and send me an email with your feedback.

Visiting Thousand Oaks, California on Saturday

This weekend I'll be visiting Mysteries To Die For for an informal discussion and signing, so please drop by for a chat!

Saturday, October 20, 1 PM
Mysteries To Die For
2940 E Thousand Oaks BlvdThousand Oaks, CA 91362-3278