WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Friends & community!




I spent several hours last night in the delightful company of a group of slightly wacky and totally wonderful friends. We call ourselves PBS -- the Pink Bra Society and guess what we're expected to wear to each gathering! Along with other clothes, of course!

We started out as a group of four, all from the book world, and at that point were known as WDGOM (We Don't Get Out Much), although we found that finding a free evening in common was becoming increasingly more difficult so the name had to go.

As we added more members, mostly again from publishing, we came up with PBS, in honour of one of our own, a breast cancer survivor. Also, because none of us are quite ready to join the Red Hat ladies.

So, we sat out on the deck in the heat and humidity but saved by a nice breeze, shared lots of food and wine and our lives. We all love laughing; we're there to listen and support each other; and, we're great friends.

That's a real life community. I write about a fictional community of friends who together, read books and fight crime. That may be putting it a bit strongly...they read and sleuth. But it's the friendship and community that are integral to the Ashton Corners Book Club mysteries.

The majority of cosy mysteries revolve around friendship and although the crimes can be as devastating as in a harder boiled mystery, it's the manner in which the crimes are described and solved that mark the difference. Friendship, community counts in a cosy.

As in real life!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAY

Time off...or not!

It's a holiday today in Ontario -- Family Day. But for me it's a work day. Mainly because I didn't have time to write on the weekend, nor for a few days before that. Life happens, doesn't it?

However, I must admit the reason I'm posting this blog so late is a book. Unfortunately, not the one I'm writing. I made the mistake to opening a book called The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen, one I've had on the go for about a week and pick up whenever I take time out for tea. This morning, I opened it while enjoying my second espresso. My mistake because I couldn't put it down this time -- had to keep going to the end.

It's not a mystery, although there is a murder from the past that plays a role in bringing people together. It's a book about friendship. And, a book about Southern women. And men. I'm reading a lot of books set in the southern states these days, mainly to keep my head in that space for writing my own series. I'm enjoying it there, I must admit. It's a different culture in many aspects, with the ways of the past intermingling with today.

So, that's my holiday. Two hours this morning. Now, it's back to writing although I will have to make it short and get the house ready for my Book Club tonight. That's life again. But that's what I'm writing about...lives involved in a mystery. So, in a way it's research, isn't it? That puts my mind at ease.

How are you spending today?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com