by: Mallory Pierce
Series: GhostWriter Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Release Date: October 5, 2022
He’s on a deadline; she's just . . . dead.
Brought back from the other side by a séance, Gwendolyn Frink has been roaming the halls of her family’s Victorian house for more than a century. She can’t communicate with the living, she can’t leave the premises, and she can’t stand feeling useless.
Enter Nolan Drake, aka the Guru of Gore. Suffering from a wicked case of writer’s block, the best-selling horror author purchases the empty Victorian, thinking a change of scenery from Manhattan to upstate New York might get his creative juices flowing again.
Gwen is thrilled to have a new housemate even when he turns out to be an antisocial, coffee-guzzling grump—spectral beggars can’t be choosers, right?
Nolan is not thrilled when he discovers his real estate agent's dead body in the attic of the Victorian along with its resident ghost—a very talkative, opinionated ghost who insists on him helping her solve the murder of Morgan Charles.
Can this unlikely investigative duo crack the case so that the streets of Woebrook will be safe for the town’s annual Festival of Frights? Or will they run afoul of the wrong person, dooming them both to haunt the Victorian, and drive each other batty, for eternity?
If you enjoy sassy sleuths and supernatural shenanigans, That’s the Spirit! is the book for you! It’s similar in tone and content to the works of Paranormal Cozy Mystery authors Angie Fox, Erin Huss, and Annabel Chase.
I’m great! Thanks so much for having me.
Congratulations on your new release, That’s the Spirit!. What can you tell me and potential readers about it?
I appreciate the good wishes. I’m so excited for this book to be out in the world!
That’s the Spirit! is a Paranormal Cozy, the first of the GhostWriter Mystery Series. It takes place in a small upstate New York town in the week leading up to Halloween, and spooky things are afoot in Woebrook! The protagonists meet not-so-cute over a dead body and team up to solve the mystery of who done it before the town’s annual Festival of Frights.
Tell me about the two main characters of the story, Gwendolyn Frink and Nolan Drake.
Gwendolyn (don’t call her Gwen!) is a young woman who died in 1913 and has been trapped in her family home ever since. No one’s ever been able to see her in her ghostly form until horror writer Nolan Drake (who’s basically the Millennial Stephen King) takes up residence. To say that the two of them get off to a rocky start would be an understatement. They both have very strong personalities and butt heads over just about everything, but the more time they spend together, the more they find they have in common. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful partnership?
I don’t know if this is giving anything away, but what’s the deal with Nolan? How is it that he can see and communicate with a ghost?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What makes Nolan different from all the other people who’ve lived in Gwen’s house for the last century?
No spoilers here, but I will tell you that this mini-mystery is solved in That’s the Spirit!. I drop some breadcrumbs along the way to the big reveal that astute readers may pick up on.
Aww… A mystery within a mystery. Okay. Can you please tell me about some of the other characters we will meet in this story?
Woebrook is populated with some very interesting people whom Nolan and Gwen encounter while attempting to solve the murder in That’s the Spirit!. There’s a whole slew of suspects who had compelling reasons to want real estate agent Morgan Charles dead, and they all have an aversion to telling the truth. The town’s chief of police is one of the few people in Woebrook, who is not a fan of Nolan and his books, and he’s extremely cranky about the murder. Our leads find allies in the police department as well as close to home, and both of these folks have surprises up their sleeves.
That’s the Spirit! is the first book in your GhostWriter Mystery series. Do you already know how many books you’re going to have in the series?
Not a clue! LOL I have tons of ideas for the series and I included some foreshadowing to several of those future stories in That’s the Spirit!. I would love for this series to be a long-running one as I think the possibilities for these characters are endless. Of course, that all depends on the response this first book gets from readers. If you love Gwen and Nolan and want to see more of them, be sure to let me know!
Will Gwendolyn and Nolan be around for the entire series?
Absolutely. They are the heroine and hero of the series, so they’ll be the ones getting into trouble and solving mysteries in every book.
You’re also romantic comedy author Tracie Banister. What made you decide to give your fingers and keys the outlet of writing cozy mysteries?
I’ve loved writing RomComs for the last ten years, but I’ve been itching to spread my creative wings and try a new genre. Paranormal Cozies are something I’ve read and adored for many years, so writing a book in the genre had been a goal for a while. However, I wanted to wait until I had a series idea that was original and got me really excited. Funnily enough, the concept of a series about a ghost from another era and a modern-day horror writer sharing a house and solving crimes together came to me when I was writing my last RomCom, Straight from the Hart. There was a supporting character in that book who was an actress, and she had a hit show on Netflix that involved the supernatural. I liked the ghost/writer idea so much I decided it was too good to waste as a throwaway bit in Straight from the Hart, so I tucked it away and now here I am two years later with this new book in a different genre!
What do you think Gwendolyn and Nolan would say about you as their creator and person who possibly puts Nolan in tough situations?
Gwen would thank me because she was dying of boredom before I brought Nolan into her afterlife while he would give me a long and wide-ranging list of things he wants me to promise not to subject him to ever again after what he went through in Book 1. I really did torture the poor guy!
I love that answer. Mallory, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions for me. Congratulations again.
My pleasure! It was so nice to chat with you and I hope your readers enjoy the excerpt from That’s the Spirit!.
“Great.” There was an angry-sounding zipping noise. “I’ll add that to the list of things I need to buy in order to make this house livable.”
“Solving this murder should be your primary concern, not appliances.”
“Easy for you to say since you’re dead and don’t have to worry about things like clean clothes and food—argh! That’s another thing I need to do today, go to the grocery store and stock up on pizza, Doritos, and orange soda.”
“Good heavens!” I spun around to face him. “You have the most unwholesome diet I’ve ever borne witness to. No wonder you’re so pale and spindly; you’re nutritionally deprived.”
“I’m lean, not spindly. And writers are supposed to be pale because we spend all our time indoors working on our stories. Speaking of which, I need to get my head back in the game and bang out five thousand words today if I have any hope of finishing this book on time, so get lost.” He flicked a hand toward the door.
I gaped at him in astonishment.
“How can you think of disappearing into a fictional world when there’s pressing business here in the real one? I will not allow you to sit on your bony behind and do nothing while a murderer roams free.”
He groaned in frustration. “You’re so annoying! Why couldn’t I get a ghost who makes the walls bleed or compels me to dance to ‘Day-O’? Either of those would be better than this constant nagging.”
When I gave him a blank stare, he said, “Those were references to The Amityville Horror and Beetlejuice—a book and a movie that are classics in the ghost sub-genre.”
“You really should get out more.”
“Solving this murder should be your primary concern, not appliances.”
“Easy for you to say since you’re dead and don’t have to worry about things like clean clothes and food—argh! That’s another thing I need to do today, go to the grocery store and stock up on pizza, Doritos, and orange soda.”
“Good heavens!” I spun around to face him. “You have the most unwholesome diet I’ve ever borne witness to. No wonder you’re so pale and spindly; you’re nutritionally deprived.”
“I’m lean, not spindly. And writers are supposed to be pale because we spend all our time indoors working on our stories. Speaking of which, I need to get my head back in the game and bang out five thousand words today if I have any hope of finishing this book on time, so get lost.” He flicked a hand toward the door.
I gaped at him in astonishment.
“How can you think of disappearing into a fictional world when there’s pressing business here in the real one? I will not allow you to sit on your bony behind and do nothing while a murderer roams free.”
He groaned in frustration. “You’re so annoying! Why couldn’t I get a ghost who makes the walls bleed or compels me to dance to ‘Day-O’? Either of those would be better than this constant nagging.”
When I gave him a blank stare, he said, “Those were references to The Amityville Horror and Beetlejuice—a book and a movie that are classics in the ghost sub-genre.”
“You really should get out more.”
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Despite having visited haunted houses from San Jose to Savannah, Mallory has yet to have a close encounter with anyone from the Great Beyond and that’s probably for the best because she’s sort of a wimp. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.
That’s the Spirit! is the first of what will hopefully be many Paranormal Cozy Mysteries penned by Mallory Pierce, which is a pseudonym of award-winning Romantic Comedy author Tracie Banister.
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I can't wait to read this book.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed the interview. the book sounds fantastic.
ReplyDeletedenise