Debbie de Louise talks about No Gravestone Unturned, Sea Scope and Memory Makers

 

Welcome to awesome author Debbie De Louise! 

My cat Jazz and I had the honor of participating in a Facebook Halloween Party with Debbie 

on Oct 30 and nearly forgot all about her Escape today! 

Debbie De Louise is an award-winning author and a reference librarian at a public library on Long Island. She is a member of Sisters-in-Crime, International Thriller Writers, Long Island Author’s Group, and the Cat Writers’ Association. She has a BA in English and an MLS in Library Science from Long Island University. Her published novels include Cloudy Rainbow, a paranormal romance, and the Cobble Cove cozy mystery series featuring the books A Stone’s Throw, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Written in Stone,  Love on the Rocks, and No Gravestone Unturned. Debbie has also written two Cobble Cove eBooks, Sneaky’s Christmas Mystery (the 2019 winner of the Cat Writers’ Association’s MUSE Medallion) and Sneaky’s Summer Mystery. In addition, she has written a romantic comedy novella, When Jack Trumps Ace, and articles and short stories for several anthologies of various genres. Her standalone mysteries include Reason to Die, Sea Scope, (the 2020 silver medal winner for the psychological suspense category of the Readers Favorite contest), and Memory Makers. She lives on Long Island with her husband Anthony, daughter Holly, and 3 cats, Stripey, Harry, and Hermione.

 What genre do you write?

I write several genres, but mostly mysteries: cozy and psychological. I also wrote a medical mystery, Memory Makers, that came out in the summer. I have a cozy mystery series, the Cobble Cove mysteries that feature a librarian and a library cat in the small, fictional town of Cobble Cove in upstate New York. I've just completed the 5th book in that series, No Gravestone Unturned, a Halloween mystery that was published in October and is currently on blog tour with Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours. The ebook is free from Amazon until the end of the day on November 1. You can get it here: mybook.to/CobbleCove5

 Does your reading choices reflect your writing choices?

Definitely.  I enjoy reading mysteries and thrillers, but I also like to try other genres. I learn techniques from other authors I read such as how to use multiple timelines such as what I've done in No Gravestone Unturned and also in Sea Scope, my standalone psychological thriller that won a silver medal in the Readers' Favorite 2020 contest.

Which type of characters are your favorite to write?

I enjoy writing Alicia, the librarian, because she is sort of based on me. I'm a librarian, and I also write mysteries like Alicia. I also enjoy writing cat characters. At the beginning of my cozy mystery series, Sneaky, the library cat, was an ordinary cat who led Alicia to clues by ordinary cat methods such as scratching on boxes with secret letters. Later in the series, I began to allow readers to "see" Sneaky's thoughts and the other cat I introduced into the series, the female calico, Kittykai. In my new book, they can also see the black cat Salem's thoughts, as well, and follow the cats who investigate the mystery, although Alicia and the other human characters in the book are unaware of this.

If you could offer once piece of advice to a novice writer, what would it be?

I interview other authors on my blog, and most of them answer this question by telling new authors to persevere and never give up. I think that's great advice. There are many challenges to being an author including rejection, poor sales, bad reviews, and time restraints, etc. But if you really love to write and are motivated to publish, you can't let those obstacles get in your way.

Do your characters come before or after your plot?

In my series, the characters come first, but in my standalone mysteries, the plot usually does. Both are integral to a good story.

What are you working on now?

I just published the 5th book in my series, so I'm taking a break from book writing and concentrating on writing stories and articles, although I'm also working on putting together a non-fiction cat book called Pet Posts: the Cat Chats that will deal with health, behavioral, and other feline issues told from the points of views of my current and previous cats. I also submitted a short mystery story to the Bouchercon 2021 Anthology and applied to submit a mystery to a cat fantasy collection being published by author Molly Fitz. I also have an article coming out in the print edition of Catster Magazine in their January/February issue which is actually hitting the stands in November.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.delouise.author/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Deblibrarian

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2750133.Debbie_De_Louise

Amazon Author Page: http://amzn.to/2bIHdaQ
All Author: https://allauthor.com/author/debbiedelouise/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie_writer/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbiedelouise/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/debbie-de-louise

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/debbiedelouise

Debbie’s Character’s Chat Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/748912598599469/

Website/Blog/Newsletter Sign-Up: https://debbiedelouise.com

Sneaky the Library Cat’s blog: https://Sneakylibrarycat.wordpress.com

 

NO GRAVESTONE UNTURNED

It’s October in Cobble Cove, and Alicia is busy preparing for the library’s Halloween party when she learns that John’s aunt from Florida has died and that John’s cousins and their spouses are coming to town to bury their mother. The day after the funeral, the caretaker’s son is found dead by John’s grandfather’s gravestone, from a blow on the head. The only witness seems to be Sneaky the library cat, who, having left the library, turned up at Alicia’s door with blood and dirt on him.

As Alicia, Gilly, and Sheriff Ramsay investigate, a generation of family secrets is uncovered. Are one of the guests staying at the inn a killer? Will the humans solve the crime, and can Sneaky, Kittykai, and Salem, the inn’s guest cat, team up to help?

 

SEA SCOPE

 Sarah Collins needs an escape. Mourning her brother’s death and the impending breakup of her marriage, she returns to her childhood home in South Carolina, where her family operated an inn.

Sarah hasn’t been back to Sea Scope for twenty years; not since she and her brother Glen discovered a body by the nearby lighthouse. She never understood why her parents left Sea Scope so suddenly, or the reasons behind her father's suicide.

After Sarah returns to the inn, she faces long-buried memories, text messages and strange clues. Something is not right in Sea Scope. Reunited with people from her past, she tries to figure out what's going on in her childhood home.

When past and present collide, Sarah must face truths about her family, and what happened that summer day by the lighthouse. But will she survive to tell the tale?

 

 

MEMORY MAKERS

 Twenty-five years ago, Lauren Phelps and her sister Patty were kidnapped from their backyard on Long Island. Lauren escaped her captor, but Patty was killed.

Ever since, Lauren has suffered from nightmares of the “Shadow Man.” Trying to recall his face and avenge her sister’s murder, Lauren, now a kidnapping investigator, enrolls in a clinical trial for a new memory drug.

At the offices of Memory Makers in California, she receives the injections of the Memory Makers' serum, and begins to experience flashbacks of repressed memories. Along with the flashbacks, she receives threats from an anonymous source that point back to her childhood trauma.

Soon, Lauren becomes involved with a fellow trial participant who seeks to recall his own traumatic past. But can Lauren discover the identity of the “Shadow Man” before history repeats itself?