Hi Jodie. Thank you for joining me today. Can you tell me about Murder at the Summer Cheese Festival and what inspired it?

Thank you so much for having me, Laura! I’m really excited to be here.

Murder At The Summer Cheese Festival follows Laura Evans, who’s traded her high-stress Boston restaurant career for the charm of small-town Vermont.

She thinks she’s found peace as the new café manager at the Silver Springs General Store, but when a body turns up after a pre-festival cheese tasting…her boss Maggie becomes the prime suspect. With the festival just two weeks away and the store’s reputation on the line, Laura can’t just stand by and watch her new life crumble!

With the help of her observant landlady, Evelyn Chan, she discovers beneath Silver Springs’ picture-perfect surface lies a web of rivalries, secrets, and scandals.

The inspiration came from so many parts of my life coming together.

My background in hospitality (studying it at university and working long hours in restaurants and cafés) taught me the skills you need for excellent hospitality work are the same an amateur sleuth would need: observation, empathy, and reading the room.

Then there was my love of fall colors, mountains, and all the gorgeous produce of that season: apples, late summer berries, maple syrup, and my favorite, cheese! When I pictured where all this would happen, I immediately thought of Vermont with its stunning fall foliage, beautiful mountains, and those amazing annual cheese festivals.

And I had to include the crafting community. My maternal grandmother, Mama, taught me to knit and crochet, and after nine years as a knitting and crochet blogger, I knew that world had to be part of this story. The crafting community is so generous and kind!

What are the challenges of writing a book in a series? What things do you need to consider?

I knew I wanted to write a series, because the books I enjoy the most are part of a series! If you look at my Goodreads, you’ll see many Poirot and Miss Marple novels!

A series lets the reader become part of the community. You watch people grow, make mistakes, repair relationships, and discover things about themselves. I want readers to feel like they’re returning to a welcoming place when they pick up the next book.

The challenge is keeping track of all the details!

You need to remember what happened in previous books, what secrets have been revealed, and what relationships have developed. I keep detailed notes about every character, location, and item within Silver Springs and the series’ wider world.

You also need to balance making each book satisfying on its own while still moving the series forward. New readers should be able to pick up any book and enjoy it, but long-time readers deserve those lovely little callbacks and character growth moments.

I suppose it’d be like juggling, and I’ll do my best to get it right as the series progresses.

How do you approach the planning, writing, and editing processes and how long does it take you before you complete the book?

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