Guest Post: Gigi Pandian - The Elusive Elixir

It's time for some fun facts from Gigi Pandian!

1. I once played the role of Wonder Woman in a play
2. I got married wearing Converse sneakers.
3. As a kid, I didn't have cats or dogs, but rabbits.
4. I have an organic vegetable garden in my backyard, but my husband is the one with the green thumb. I only manage to write fiction about successful gardeners; If I look at a plant, it dies.
5. I think The Goonies might be the greatest movie ever made. Or at the very least it's what inspired me to write my first screenplay.
6. When I was in high school I wrote, starred in (along with my best friend), and directed the epic home movie The Goonies Go to Europe.
7. I love the locked-room mystery genre that was most popular during the Golden Age of detective fiction, and all of my short stories are impossible crime stories. 
8. Like Zoe Faust (the heroine of the Accidental Alchemist mysteries) I adore my Vitamix and use it at least twice a day.
9. Like Dorian (the comic relief in the books) I'm an accidental vegan cook, and cook most of my meals from scratch.
10. Unlike Zoe and Dorian, I'm not a 300-year-old alchemist, nor am I a living gargoyle who was once stone. Sorry to disappoint.
11. I prefer rainy days to sunny ones.
12. I was gobsmacked when the fabulous Terri Bischoff at Midnight Ink wanted to publish the Accidental Alchemist mysteries. I love writing about a mischievous gargoyle chef, but I had no idea others would want to read about him as well. I'm still pinching myself that so many people do.
13. In addition to the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, I write the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries. I think this means as a life choice I've chosen fun and coffee over sleep.
14. My dad is from India. I've traveled there many times and I set one of my books there. The opening scene of Pirate Vishnu is based on a true story that happened to my father.
15. I used to run a blog called Gargoyle Girl, posting gargoyle photographs I've taken on my travels. I gave it up in favor of writing novels, but the archives are still there: www.gargoylegirl.com

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About the new book, The Elusive Elixir

Dorian Robert-Houdin, the three-and-a-half-foot gargoyle chef who fancies himself a modern-day Poirot, is slowly turning into stone, and it’s up to Zoe Faust to unravel the alchemical secrets that can save him. When they discover that a long-lost stone gargoyle with a connection to Dorian has reappeared in Europe, the stakes are even higher.

From Portland to Paris, Zoe searches for the hidden knowledge she needs, but a cold case that harkens back to 1942 throws her off course. With an ailing friend desperately trying to discover his own elixir of life and a new romantic interest offering the first chance at love she’s had in nearly a century, Zoe is torn between a dangerous form of alchemy and her desire for a safer life.

 Gigi Pandian is the USA Today bestselling author of the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories. A cancer diagnosis in her 30s taught her two important life lessons: healing foods can taste amazing, and life’s too short to waste a single moment. Gigi spent her childhood being dragged around the world by her cultural anthropologist parents, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the backyard garden. Gigi’s fiction has been awarded the Malice Domestic Grant and Lefty Awards, been nominated for Macavity and Agatha Awards, and her most recent novel Michelangelo’s Ghost was recently named a “Best of 2016” cozy mystery by Suspense Magazine.

Visit her at gigipandian.com, connect with her on Facebook (facebook.com/GigiPandian) and Twitter (@GigiPandian) and sign up for her email newsletter (http://gigipandian.com/newsletter/).