Welcome to award-winning author Ellen Butler!
Ellen Butler is the international bestselling author of the Karina Cardinal mystery series and award-winning historical suspense, The Brass Compass. Her experiences working on Capitol Hill and at a medical association in Washington, D.C. inspired the mystery-action series. The Brass Compass has won multiple awards for historical fiction and is compared to such bestselling novels as Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale. Ellen lives with her husband and two children in Northern Virginia.
You can find Ellen at:
Website
~ www.EllenButler.net
Facebook
~ www.facebook.com/EllenButlerBooks
Twitter
~ @EButlerBooks
Instagram~@ebutlerbooks
Goodreads
~ www.goodreads.com/EllenButlerBooks
Do your characters come before or after your plot?
When I began my writing
career, I started in the romance genre and my novels were character driven. I
had vague ideas of where the plotline went, and what the climax would be, but
the relationship came first. I allowed the characters to drive the love story.
However, as I moved into the thriller/mystery genre, trying to panster a
mystery plot became a nightmare with lots of rewrites and plot holes. I realized
the need to fully plot my stories. Now the plot comes first. Since I write a
series, many of the characters are already developed, I simply slip in new
characters as needed to fill the out the storyline.
How do you choose a
villain and how do you make them human?
My historical spy novel
takes place during WWII, so my villains were laid out for me in the form of
Nazis. However, I will share a character with you who is a bit of an enigma. He
is a French soldier in the German Army. He begins to help my heroine, however
when they come upon members of his military unit, he turns her over to his
commanding officer. The reader is led to believe that he will still help her,
but he doesn’t come to her rescue while she’s being brutally interrogated. The
interrogation ends when Allied forces attack the town. Our Frenchman is killed
by Allied forces, so we don’t really know if he would have helped her or not.
Some readers dislike his character because he is not shown to be black or
white, but rather someone who wants to help, but not enough to put his own on
hide on the line. Is he true villain or is he simply a coward? Are his actions,
or lack of, only human?
Do your reading choices
reflect your writing choices?
It’s funny you asked
this question. Initially, I would have said, “maybe somewhat.” However, during
Women’s History Month, I’ve been writing a series on my own blog about female
authors who influenced me. They are all thriller/mystery/suspense authors. While
I do read many other genres today, in my formative years, I’ve come to realize
mystery authors were my go-to. And it all started with Nancy Drew.
Which type of characters
are your favorite to write?
Sidekicks with personality.
I enjoy writing quirky characters like Karina’s neighbor, Mrs. Thundermuffin.
She wears wacky clothes, walks her cat, Mr. Tibbs, on a leash, and seems a
little dotty. She ends up drawing Karina into a chaotic adventure with an
Egyptian death mask and the reader finds there is much more to Mrs. T. than
meets the eye.
What are you working on
now?
I’m working on the next
Karina Cardinal mystery, Swindler’s Revenge. Someone has framed her FBI
ex-boyfriend, Mike Finnegan, and he delves deep undercover to find out who. He
needs help from outside the FBI and reaches out to Karina. Even though it’s
been splitsville for a couple of months, she still considers him a friend and believes
he’s innocent. Classic Karina, she delves in with both feet regardless of the
dangers that surround her actions. Swindler’s
Revenge releases September 2021.
What sort of research do
you do for your work?
LOTS and LOTS. Luckily,
I live in the Washington, D.C. area, and I have friends who work (or worked)
for certain 3-lettered agencies, police departments, and on Capitol Hill. I tap
into those folks for dialog and behaviors for my Karina Cardinal characters. I
do additional research depending on the plots. For instance, the first Karina
Cardinal mystery, Isabella’s Painting,
incorporates the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist which happened in 1990.
$500 million worth of art was stolen and never recovered. I spent long hours
researching the numerous theories as to who stole the art and why. I interviewed
a retired FBI agent who worked in the Art Crimes division during the heist to
get his take on the burglary. I write Afterword’s for the Karina Cardinal
mysteries focusing on a particular aspect of my research, to inform the reader
what is fact vs. fiction.
Pharaoh’s
Forgery
(Karina Cardinal Mystery 4)
Margaritas, mayhem, and murder. Too
bad her only defense is a cocktail umbrella.
After some of Karina Cardinal’s
recent adventures—her lover Mike Finnegan would call them scrapes, jams, or
pickles—she’s more than ready to blow this D.C. pop stand for a short girls’
trip to Mexico. Until Jillian’s roller skate wreck blows their plan out of the
water.
With Jilly injured and Mike
working, her fellow lobbyist Rodrigo volunteers to share some sun, sand, and
margaritas in Cancun. It’s tough to relax, though, knowing what’s in her
suitcase. A package she promised to hand off to Mrs. Thundermuffin in Mexico.
Mrs. T’s evasive maneuvers around
Karina’s questions wave more red flags than a bullfighter, leaving Karina no
choice but to take a peek. Okay, so it’s not a kilo of something illegal. It’s
an Egyptian death mask that turns out to be a magnet for crooks, conmen,
kidnappers, and outright killers.
When the situation explodes into
chaos, Karina and Rodrigo are lucky to have friends in the right place—at their
backs. But they’re in one hell of a jam. And they could be going home in
something tackier than a souvenir t-shirt—more like a body bag.
Purchase Links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3cJsebU
iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1467026113
Barnes &
Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940163893294
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/pharaoh-s-forgery
