Exclusive interview with author Katherine Bolger Hyde about her new novel
Rating: 4 Stars
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“The series concept was inspired by a combination of my love for traditional mysteries, especially those of the women writers of the British Golden Age, and my love for the literary classics,” says Arsenic with Austen author Katherine Bolger Hyde. “The setting was inspired by a town on the Oregon coast where I spend a week every summer in a writing retreat.”
In Arsenic with Austen, Professor Emily Worthing Cavanaugh is finishing her last class before summer beak at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her elderly Aunt Beatrice has passed away. The funeral is the next day in Stony Beach. Emily expects to only get her aunt’s books. Instead, she’s inherited the bulk of her aunt’s estate, including her aunt’s house Windy Corner. This makes her a considerable heiress. Brock Runcible, a nephew from the other side of the family, is bitter and feels it should be his. When Emily’s housekeeper Agnes Beach dies in a suspicious accident, Sheriff Luke Richards wonders if Beatrice’s death might have been not be so innocent. Emily and Luke work together to find the killer.
Engaging. This is Hyde’s first book in the new series, Crime with the Classics. There’s romance, mystery, and strong character development, plus a hint of a religious theme of forgiveness. The main characters are a bit older than the typical romance, a bit of Tracy and Hepburn The Desk Set meets Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
“I had the first glimmer about four years ago,” says Hughes. “I spent about a year developing the idea while working on other projects, then another year actually writing. I’ve learned that elements of the book that resonate with me…classics, cats, Victorian mansions, the Oregon coast…also resonate with many other people.”
Hughes’ research consisted mainly of rereading all of Jane Austen. She looked into the history of poisons, law enforcement practices, and inheritance laws. She visited the real town that Stony Beach, Oregon, is based upon.
Hughes has published a picture book, Lucia, Saint of Light, and has another one contracted.
Marcia Markland at St. Martin’s Press is Hughes’ editor. “My agent sent the manuscript to Marcia first as they were friends,” says Hughes. “She thought Marcia would enjoy the book.”
“I first met Katherine at a conference,” says editor Marcia Markland. “I was introduced to her by her agent, Kimberley Cameron, whom I have had the good fortune to have known for many years. Our editorial board was immediately impressed by the cleverness of the series concept. We decided to make an offer right away.”
Kimberley Cameron of Kimberley Cameron and Associates in Tiburon, California, is Hughes’ agent. “I met Kimberley at the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference in Corte Madera, California, in 2013,” says Hughes. I had submitted a proposal for her review, and she loved it and asked to see the full manuscript as soon as it was finished. I finished it, sent it to her, and received an offer of representation within a couple of weeks. We went through a brief edit, then she sent the book out. It was Kimberley’s idea to add the quotations from Jane Austen at the beginning of each chapter, which was brilliant.”
Hughes is currently writing the fourth book in the Crime with the Classics series. She’s completed Bloodstains with Brontë, to come out next summer as the second volume of the series. She’s also finished the third volume, Cyanide with Christie. Her YA fantasy, The Dome-Singer of Falenda, releases later this summer.
Hughes lives in a village in the mountains near Santa Cruz, California, where she’s been for 24 years. She was born in New Jersey.
Arsenic with Austen: A Mystery (Crime with the Classics) by Katherine Bolger Hyde. Series: Crime with the Classics (Book 1), Hardcover: 320 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books (July 12, 2016), Language: English, ISBN-13: 978-1250065476 $24.99
