by: B.T. Polcari
Series: Mauzzy & Me Mystery
Genre: YA Cozy Mystery
Release Date: June 23, 2025
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
College student Sara Donovan is in the homestretch of graduating when a mysterious package arrives with an invitation to an exclusive contest. One that will drastically change the winner’s life. Included are unsettling photographs from forgettable chapters in her life and a threatening note strongly suggesting she participate.
With no good options, Sara enters the contest and finds herself at a fabulous mansion up against eight formidable opponents, each with a dark secret and all racing to solve seven levels of riddles and puzzles.
After a contestant’s body is discovered, Sara contemplates dropping out when another package arrives, its chilling contents making clear she’s at the center of a dangerous game with deadly consequences if she quits. But what it doesn’t say is—what happens if she wins?
I am doing fantastic! Definitely keeping busy, between post-publication activities and events for Lucky Secrets, and 3-4 projects in various stages of development, I could use another pair or two of hands. But it’s all fun.
Well, good. What drew you to writing cozy mysteries?
There are two elements I look for in mystery books. I absolutely love a complex plot that keeps you off balance and makes you think. And I really enjoy some humor and lightheartedness in a story. Writing cozies allow me to address both elements. Readers of mystery generally fall into two categories—seekers and solvers. Seekers are reading the book for entertainment, just along for the ride, and not really trying to find the killer or solve the puzzle before the end of the book. Solvers, however, are determined to solve the mystery before the end of the book. The sooner the better. This is why I write cozy mysteries the way I do, because they provide an entertainment value that allow the seeker to chuckle (and at times, laugh out loud) and let the story carry them along, yet also provides the solver with a complex plot that can be solved if they pay attention along the way. The clues are there, just not always obvious.
Congratulations on the release of Lucky Secrets, the third book in your Mauzzy & Me Mystery series. Can you please tell me about the series and what readers can expect from Lucky Secrets?
Thank you! It was a lot of fun to write. The series follows Sara Donovan and her clever, scary-intelligent, miniature red dachshund, Mauzzy, as she navigates college at the University of Alabama and at the same time—Life. In the first book, Against My Better Judgment, she is a nineteen-year-old freshman whose parents are paying out-of-state tuition since her family lives in Annapolis, Maryland. In the second, Fire and Ice, it is the summer after her second year back home in the Washington, D.C. area. And in Lucky Secrets, it is the second semester of her third year, although since she is attempting to graduate in three years to save her penny-pinching dad a year of tuition, she is a senior in terms of credits. I discuss Sara a little later, but suffice it to say, I have a lot of fun with her. The tagline from the first book says it all: She’s usually right. But always wrong.
Lucky Secrets is my most ambitious and complicated plot yet. As Kirkus Reviews noted in its review (“Our Verdict – Get It.”), the book is “An enjoyable, complexly plotted series installment that promises more mysteries and thrills to come.” The story, set outside Birmingham, Alabama, at an extravagant estate called El Sueño, pits Sara up against eight formidable opponents with questionable pasts in an exclusive two-week contest. As the contestants quickly find out, hidden throughout El Sueño are seven levels of challenges complete with cryptic riddles that must all be solved to win. The stakes are high because the winner-take-all contest promises a mind-boggling payout that will drastically change the winner’s life for the good. However, when a contestant’s body turns up, suspicions and urgency explode as the remaining contestants race to solve the puzzles without getting themselves dead.
Tell me about some of the characters we’ll meet in the book and series.
Sara, who turns twenty-one in Lucky Secrets, is intelligent, highly observant (she calls it her superpower, although at times, she’s better off not being so observant), klutzy, determined (stubborn?), and is her own person (some call her quirky). The Independent Book Review writes: “Sara is a classic amateur sleuth ala Veronica Mars or Nancy Drew. She’s sharp, determined, and at times in over her head, but she isn’t afraid to ask those around her for help either.” After cracking a few high-profile cases, Sara has become a nationally recognized amateur sleuth. She is a business major but is also taking a few criminology classes because she wants to be a private investigator when she graduates.
Her best friend, going back to the seventh grade, Zoe Harp, is with her at ’Bama and helps with the investigations in books two and three. She is the opposite of Sara, short and feisty, which makes for some fun banter. Also helping with the investigations is her younger brother, Matt, who is a math genius.
In Lucky Secrets, in addition to going to school, Sara works part-time as an office/research assistant for Melvin “Finn” Finnegan, who is a private investigator with his own agency, Finnegan and Associates (there are no associates). Finn is a rough-around-the-edges ex-cop who is a lot smarter than he lets on, and whose wife cleaned out his accounts and left him for her hairdresser. The only thing Finn got from the divorce was his faithful longhaired dachshund, Bertie, a pup with a special knack for signaling when people are misrepresenting the truth. As the story progresses, Finn becomes an important backstop for Sara while Bertie teams up with Mauzzy to assist Sara in their own special ways.
In all three books is Mrs. Majelski, an octogenarian mystery woman with a very colorful past and a knack for showing up at just the right times in each story. I thoroughly enjoy writing her into scenes because there is so much I can do with her character. Consider that the little old lady effortlessly pumps iron in the gym; runs on the treadmill and through parking lots and garages; maniacally works the elliptical without breaking a sweat or loss of breath; nimbly clambers up walls in a rock-climbing room; deftly wields a blowtorch; is a part-time bouncer at Sunny Time’s Stein Room; drives a tricked-out monster truck with a full gun rack; knows how to hack security systems ranging from residential to high-end commercial ones; has shadowy links to international syndicates and intelligence agencies; and more. She is a big favorite with my readers. Even my developmental editor said, “I still wanna be Mrs. Majelski when I grow up.”
Mrs. Majelski sounds really amazing. Since this is the third book in the series, can it be read as a standalone?
Yes, I went to great pains in both the second and third books to write them as standalones, although in Lucky Secrets I had to drop in a few tidbits from the first two without giving away anything. As the Independent Book Review writes: “Reading the first two books might help add some context to this third book in a series, but it’s not required to pick this up. The author does a great job setting up the history between characters without spending too much time re-hashing the previous two books.”
When you started writing Lucky Secrets, did you know who the killer was, or was it a surprise to you, as the story progressed?
Oh, I knew. I am a hardcore plotter who lays everything out in detail before I begin writing. I have heard authors say they want to get the book written to see how it ends or who the killer is, but that is most certainly not me.
Final question. What’s your favorite part of the writing process?
The research, followed by the actual writing. I love researching as I build out the plot because there is so much interesting stuff out there and so many rabbit holes for me to fall into. I love the writing itself because I know exactly where I am going, and it becomes a frenzied, excited push at that point, after months of research and plotting, to finally get the story out of my head and onto virtual paper.
B.T., thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions for me.
Thank you for having me and featuring Lucky Secrets. I enjoyed the chat!
Zoe’s head whipped toward me. With eyes wide, she mouthed law enforcement. I threw her a little headshake, even as my body exploded in tingles. I have no such secrets—anymore. I think. A picture popped in my head of the open safe-deposit box with the gold artifact, gold bar, and emeralds. With my name on the signature card. Somebody obviously manufactured a secret for me. But why? And is it the same for all the contestants? Were they also blackmailed into coming for something they didn’t do? Or were they…
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