A Launch Party Delight

Edith Maxwell here, writing from north of Boston where it's finally spring.

Turning the Tide, my third Quaker Midwife Mystery, came out a month ago. It's a long process from when I start to write a book to when it hits bookstore shelves and readers' hands, and I'm so glad this book has finally seen the light of day.

I always like to find new ways to celebrate a book birthday, so this year I threw a party in a local brewery. Brewery Silvaticus opened in my town last fall, and is in a historic brick factory building. I thought the setting was perfect for an 1880s historical novel, exactly the period when the building was fully operational making world-renowned carriages. The owner said Wednesday night is usually their slowest, so we scheduled the event for the Wednesday after the book released.

I invited everyone I  knew, and made sure the word spread around Amesbury, my town in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. A local independent bookstore agreed to sell books. I ordered a cake, and both the brewery and I hoped for a good turnout.

And it was a huge success! See for yourself.

First, the cake. The black color is actually green.

The bookseller, who brought all three released books in the series.

Some of the crowd, which was sizable!

Me introducing the book and doing a short reading.

People bought their own drinks, we schmoozed and ate cake, and I signed books. Lots and lots of books! What could be better?

Readers: Whose book launches have you attended? What was the most unusual setting?

What's an ARC, Anyway?

Edith Maxwell, reporting from north of Boston.

Authors and editors often throw around terms like ARC, but some readers might not be familiar with it. So that's my topic for the month!

ARC is an acronym for Advance Reader Copy or Advance Review Copy, depending on who you ask. They are normally the finished manuscript before it has had its final proofreading stage, so readers inevitably find errors. But it's clearly labeled as such somewhere on the front cover.

In this ARC of Turning the Tide, a label on the top reads, UNCORRECTED PROOF FOR LIMITED DISTRIBUTION. The spine is different from what the released copy will be - see, this one is white and gives the On Sale date.

The back is different, too. The back copy - book blurb and various praise quotes - are the same, but in addition it includes marketing and publicity information, details that won't be on the final cover.

This is a print ARC, but publishers create ebook versions, too, and sometimes PDFs. ARCs normally are ready three to six months before the publication date.

ARCs are really important for authors and publishers. Why? They get the book into the hands of reviewers, primarily. Positive pre-release reviews build hype, let libraries order the book so it is available on the release date, and encourage pre-orders, which translate to built-in sales. ARCs can also be sent to "influencers" who might write an endorsement, and can be used as prizes in contests or giveaways. NetGalley sends ebook versions for approved reviewers who request them. The paper copies can be sent through the mail or handed out at speaking events.

Midnight Ink sent me five paper copies of Turning the Tide for my own pre-release publicity push. So...drumroll please...I'm giving away one copy today (US only)! And if you like the story and post a positive review - before release date on Goodreads and on release date for Amazon - you will have my eternal gratitude and a hug if I meet you in person at a conference or elsewhere. Reviews are easy to write. They don't have to be long, they don't have to rehash the story, and should never include plot spoilers. It can be as simple as, "I loved this book. Rose Carroll is a great amateur sleuth, I love the historical setting, and I can't wait for her next adventure."

Readers: Have you read other ARCs? Do you post reviews? And do other people's reviews and an author's rating influence your buying/reading decisions? (Please include a coded email address with your reply so I can contact the winner.)

Agatha- and Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. Called to Justice, Maxwell’s second Quaker Midwife mystery, is nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. As Maddie Day she writes the popular Country Store Mysteries and the new Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Tace Baker she wrote two books in the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries.

Maxwell is president of Sisters in Crime New England and lives north of Boston with her beau, two elderly cats, and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, KillerCharacters.com, and Under the Cover of Midnight. Read about all her personalities and her work at edithmaxwell.com.

How Hard Is It to Turn a Tide?

Edith here, gearing up for the release of Turning the Tide, Quaker Midwife Mystery #3. 

Actually, I don't think it's possible to turn an oceanic tide. It's not a little boat. It's not even a giant ocean liner or tanker. Our earth's ocean tides are mighty gravitation-powered forces. They come around more or less twice a day, with two high tides and two lows. The moon influences them. The weather influences them. We dinky humans have no effect, unless on a grand climate-change scale.

Don't trust me on this, though. I write novels, not science articles. But I'm pretty sure it's true. So why would I name a book if turning a tide isn't even possible?

The story opens at a meeting of the Amesbury Woman Suffrage Association a few days before election day in November 1888. We now know this was more than thirty years before women got the vote by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US constitution in 1920. But that didn't mean women weren't already protesting and lobbying for the right to express their opinions at the ballot box.

Gradually, inexorably, women were turning the tide of opinion toward allowing half the adult population to vote. In the same way as with the movement to legally enfranchise African-American men, Quakers were in the forefront of the women's rights movement. Midwife Rose Carroll joins forces with other Amesbury suffragists in this book, and her mother - a well-known activist for the cause - comes to town to stand in solidarity across from the polls on election day, as does Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself.

I'm so excited that this book will reach the reading public in three short months! In the meantime, I have five advance reader copies itching to reach the hands of avid fans. I'll give one away to  a commenter here today.

Readers: Do you vote? If not, why not? What do you think of when you exercise your right, not even a century old, to mark that ballot or pull that lever, whether in a local election or to name the next leader of the country?

Agatha- and Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the popular Country Store Mysteries and the new Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. 

She is president of Sisters in Crime New England and lives north of Boston with her beau, two elderly cats, and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, KillerCharacters.com, and midnightwriters.blogspot.com. Read about all her personalities and her work at edithmaxwell.com

An Almost Rose Carroll Story

Edith here, feeling just a little stressed about the holidays and various authorly tasks also on my to-do list. So I thought I would de-stress by asking you to celebrate with me. 'Cause who doesn't love a party?

My newest story, "An Ominous Silence," came out last month in Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017 from Level Best Books! Cue the cries of "Bravo!" and pop the champagne. It is my sixteenth published story (see the whole list here on my beautifully rehabbed new web site), and I have one more  story accepted for publication next spring.

So I thought I'd tell you the origin story behind the, well, story. Get comfy, kids, and put up your feet.

Five of my short crime stories feature Quaker midwife Rose Carroll from my Quaker Midwife Mysteries. One was even nominated for an Agatha Award last year. I had written a sixth for this year's Bouchercon anthology, the theme of which was travel, since the big mystery conference was held in Toronto, Canada. In the new story, Rose and her apprentice are on a train to Montreal in a snowy New England 1890s winter when the train is snowed in on a desolate stretch of tracks. A man is murdered, and his wife goes into labor. Rose comes to the rescue on both counts.

I was about to click Send when I checked the guidelines one more time. Ack! Because the committee wanted truly anonymous judging, authors couldn't use characters from any published book or series. That pretty much trashed Rose Carroll as the protagonist. I was cutting the deadline close, but I still had a few days left before they closed submissions.

So what does the creative mind do? Change the names to protect the innocent, of course. Or the series protag, as the case may be. Rose Carroll became midwife Catherine Colby--not a Quaker--and her apprentice Annie morphed into Genevieve Rousseau. I changed the date to a few years after the published Quaker Midwife mysteries take place and fixed the midwife's speech so she doesn't talk like a Quaker. I printed out the story, checked it one more time, and hit Submit.

Did they accept it? Alas, no. I'm a pretty seasoned author by now, however, and the word "No" no
longer devastates. We find a new venue and try again. Lucky for me, I heard about the rejection before the deadline for this year's Level Best anthology. I hit Submit again. And this time got a hit.

I hope you'll check out the anthology, which is full of dozens of amazing authors and delightful stories. And don't forget, Turning the Tide, Quaker Midwife Mystery #3, will be out April 8 and is available for preorder wherever books are sold!

Readers: What kinds of rejection have you bounced back from, and how? Which sow's ear have you  found a silver lining in, or which storm cloud have you turned into silk (to mix a couple of clichéd metaphors just for the heck of it)?

Real Life Research

Edith Maxwell here, reporting on some inadvertent research I did last week. And giving away a large-print version of CALLED TO JUSTICE!

So I write mysteries featuring a long-ago midwife. Turning the Tide releases next April. Native to Massachusetts, Rose Carroll catches babies, hears secrets, and solves crimes back in the late 1880s. I had a part-time gig as a childbirth educator and labor coach a couple of decades ago. Until last week, the last birth I'd attended in any role was over twenty years ago.

Thirty-two years ago my best friend gave birth to my goddaughter, and I was in the room helping as best I could when she was born at home with the help of independent midwives. Last weekend that goddaughter gave birth to her own first baby, and once again I was there in a supporting role. I was so honored and thrilled to have that circle come round again.

She chose to give birth in a free-standing birth center which is affiliated with the hospital across the street.

Birthing figures from the birth center's living room

Over and over again through out my goddaughter's forty-hour unmedicated labor - mostly at home until the very end - I thought of Rose Carroll. Even though working nurse-midwife (and mystery fan) Risa Rispoli vets all my midwifery scenes before I turn them in, I still wondered if I had been writing details correctly.

Here are a few things I'll be incorporating in my next Quaker Midwife mystery:

• A woman in labor with her first child looks at her husband and says, "No more babies!"
• During the first phase, the mom-to-be goes inward with each contraction, very quietly, very stoically.
• Before active labor kicks in, her contractions slow overnight to every eight to ten minutes, and she snoozes in between.
• After active labor start, with pains coming every three minutes and lasting two, the woman despairs, weeping and swearing, but persevering.
• She throws off any hand or touch that she doesn't want.
• She pushes on her hands and knees for almost two hours.
• The midwife checks the heartbeat during pushing, and has to get the listening device in just the right position to hear the baby's heart.
• The woman swears and grunts as she pushes, her whole body taking part.
• The midwife uses oil and eases the head out slowly so the mom doesn't tear.
• Once the head is out, the baby looks around and smacks its lips together, already alert.
• The cord is a tough membrane and beautiful, silvery and translucent.
• Instantly after birth the mom feels better and speaks softly to her child at the breast.

I'm sure there are more, but this experience - a miracle and an honor for me - really brought birthing alive again.

Readers: Any vivid birth memories you'd like to share?  Your own or that of others? One commenter will win a copy of Called to Justice (make sure I know your email address so I can find the winner).

Cover Reveal: Turning the Tide

Edith Maxwell here, thoroughly enjoying the plentiful fresh produce of a New England August.

I'm so excited I can finally reveal the cover for the third Quaker Midwife Mystery, Turning the Tide! To celebrate, I'm going to give away a large-print edition of Called to Justice to one commenter here today.

Here's the blurb for Turning the Tide: 

Excitement runs high during Presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration, and movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops. When Quaker midwife Rose Carroll finds the body of the group's local organizer the next morning, she can't help but wonder who could have committed the murder.

Rose quickly discovers several people who have motives. The victim had planned to leave her controlling husband, and a recent promotion had cost a male colleague his job. She had also recently spurned a fellow suffragist's affections. After Rose's own life is threatened, identifying the killer takes on a personal sense of urgency.

I wrote about some of my research for the book here last month, and finally I can share the cover. Are you ready? Drumroll please...

The women turn out in force to demonstrate across from the polls on election morning - see them behind Rose? The book will be out next April, and is available for preorder (which, you know, really helps authors - just saying...).

Readers: Do you have any family connections with woman suffrage activists? What other novels do you like that deal with the topic, whether in the nineteenth century or the twentieth?

Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning, Agatha-nominated short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she creates the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries.

Maxwell is President of Sisters in Crime New England. She lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats, and blogs here, with the other Wicked Cozy Authors, and with the Midnight Ink Writers. You can find her on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, and at her web site, edithmaxwell.com.

Studying 1888 Politics

Edith Maxwell here. Now that Called to Justice is launched to rave reviews ("A grand slam!" "A riveting historical mystery," "A mystery that surprises," and "A real page turner," I'm starting to write the fourth book in the Quaker Midwife Mysteries series. Wait, you say. What about Book Three?

Turning the Tide is already in production, and you can pre-order it (please do!) but the cover isn't up yet.

I loved writing this book. The story takes place during presidential election week of 1888. Here's the cover blurb:

Excitement runs high during Presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops. When Quaker midwife Rose Carroll finds the body of the group's local organizer the next morning, she can't help but wonder who could have committed the murder.

Rose quickly discovers several people who have motives. The victim had planned to leave her controlling husband, and a recent promotion had cost a male colleague his job. She had also recently spurned a fellow suffragist's affections. After Rose's own life is threatened, identifying the killer takes on a personal sense of urgency.

What do you think? Sound like a fun read? The research was even more fun. I learned about election cakes. Women used to make these huge fruitcakes and the political party would give out pieces to men entering the polling place in an attempt to woo their vote.

I learned that the parties had different color ballots, and that the party regulars wore different color top hats while campaigning.

 I also studied up on women's suffrage. At the time they wore sunflower yellow sashes to protests and carried placards with slogans like, “Women Bring All Voters Into The World. Let Women Vote,” “Ballots for Both,” “Equal Suffrage,” and “Votes for Women.” Many of the suffrage leaders were Quakers like my midwife, so it wasn't a stretch to make Rose's mother an activist, too. John Greenleaf Whittier goes into vote in the election morning scene, and then comes to stand in solidarity with the women across the street from the polling place.

It was great fun studying Elizabeth Cady Stanton and bringing her  to Amesbury to support the women. She appears in several scenes in the book, even though I don't know if she actually ever visited my town where the series takes place. She was moving on to essays on personal responsibility, and I extracted bits of one for a talk she gave to a women's salon I portray in the book. 

Incumbent Grover Cleveland didn't win the election, as it turns out, even though Rose was on his side. And her investigation of the activist's murder turns dangerous, too. You'll have to read the book to find out if Rose is defeated or not.

What's your favorite election story, or factoid about either elections or women's suffrage in the past?