Comments on: Prime Thyme Mysteries 2, by Susan Wittig Albert

By: Char

Char — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:55:14 +0000

I am joining in on the tour, a little late, but it’s still so much fun!!! I just did get “Thyme of Death” and can’t wait to get started. I want to visit the rest of the tour first, tho.

What a fun idea!!

By: Karen B

Karen B — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:09:19 +0000

Hi Susan,

I have not read any of your books - oh, horrors! - but I will now since I won Nightshade on this site! Thanks for the generous contest and for introducing me to Pam’s blog.

By: Judith Shaw

Judith Shaw — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:35:16 +0000

I look forward to a book about Smart Cookie. Was sorry to see her engagement end. Hope there is a love interest for her in ‘her’ book.

While you are expanding on your characters don’t forget our smart gal, China’s sidekick, Ruby. She has so many interesting aspects to her life (daughter abondoned, business smarts, cancer surviver, new ager, etc.)

By: mon@rch

mon@rch — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:09:03 +0000

Susan, so glad that you did a guest host on Pam’s site here! This is wonderful and look like some very interesting book! I will have to check them out!

By: Susan Albert

Susan Albert — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:19:41 +0000

Annie, the O.J. connection isn’t one that’s accessible through the book. I didn’t want to date it by mentioning the trial. So it was one of those circumstances that form a project without ever surfacing in the project itself. Another example: I was trying to come up with a way to kill that chile judge in Chile Death, without much success. I happened to catch a TV show where several lawyers and restaurant owners were talking about a restaurant’s liability in the case of a customer who died from a toxic reaction to peanuts, when she had specifically asked if any of the dishes contained peanuts. That was the circumstance that framed much of that book–never apparent in the book itself. That happens a lot, I think. So many odd little things go into the process of building a story. And you wouldn’t know what kicked off the book unless the author just happens to reveal it.

By: Susan Albert

Susan Albert — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:41:36 +0000

Pam–I’d forgotten all about those love-lies-bleeding seeds! Gosh, what an effort that was. Getting the seeds, 3000 seed packets, getting the seed packets printed, the seeds into the packets and sealed, and then handing them out. Whew. Well, all I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And now, hearing that one of those seeds grew up to grace your garden and start a whole new colony of plants–it was worth all that effort, just for that! How lovely. Thanks for sharing!

Rereading my comment above, looks like I misspoke, or rather, mistyped. WORMWOOD (#17) is already written and turned in. (Yay!) HOLLY BLUES (#1 is the next one I’ll write, later this year. Sheila’s book will come after that.

By: Pam

Pam — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:10:57 +0000

Susan, Even though I absolutely love China, it’s great that you’re growing the other characters and that you’re going to do a Sheila book!

And you’ve got me going with thinking about just how China’s family is going to grow!

And remember the seeds you gave with “Loves Lies Bleeding?” It reminds me of all of the Loves Lies Bleeding plants I had growing all over my garden from planting just one of your seeds which grew to a huge plant and spread its own seeds!

By: Annie in Austin

Annie in Austin — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:16:11 +0000

The way you concentrated on the victim in Rosemary Remembered impressed me deeply, Susan, but I didn’t catch the OJ connection. Thank you!

A Smart Cookie spinoff? Cool!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

By: Susan Albert

Susan Albert — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:16:07 +0000

Hello, Mary–Thanks for asking about the Sheila book. I was beginning to wonder if anybody had read that comment! There’ll be lots more on this later, but here’s a sneak peek. The next China book (the next one I’ll write: WORMWOOD is #17, out in April 09) will be called HOLLY BLUES (April 2010). Then there’ll be a Sheila, tentative title HARD LINE 2011). Then another China. The book will pick up Sheila’s life, fill in her back story, give her a crime to solve (I don’t want to give too many clues!), and open the possibility for more books from her point of view, if readers like this one. I’ve long thought that a spinoff in this series would be a possibility: I’ve done a short story collection (UNTHYMELY DEATH) and an almanac (THE CHINA BAYLES BOOK OF DAYS). Both were pretty light. Now I’d like to do something more serious, a little darker, more of a crime novel. China is usually categorized as a “cozy” (although I don’t quite agree: if the books are “cozies,” they’re hard-edged cozies). And I write an ultra-cozy in the Cottage Tales. So it’s time for something a little grittier.

Thanks for asking!

By: Susan Albert

Susan Albert — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:09:23 +0000

Hey, Rhonda–there’s no need for re-release, since all the China books have been continuously in print since the get-go. “Re-release” is a term that’s used when a book goes out of print, stays out for an indeterminate period, and is brought back into print again–sometimes by a different publisher. Example: Charlaine Harris’s Teagarden mysteries, which came out in the 90s, went out of print in the early 2000s, and have now be re-released by Berkley, on the heels of her vampire success.