I’d like
to welcome M. S. Spencer, author of The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the
Ghost Hotel, to my blog today.
RW: How much of your personality and life
experiences are in your writing?
MSS: A lot! As you can see from my biography, I’ve
led a rather eclectic life full of travel & adventure. While every novel I
write is fiction, bits of experiences do crop up in them. Lapses of Memory is
particularly rife with actual experiences. I figure, this way I don’t have to
write my autobiography.
RW: Tell us about your latest book. What motivated
the story? Where did the idea come from? What genre is it? Does it cross over
to other genres? If so, what are they?
MSS: Flotsam & Jetsam: the Amelia Island Affair,
is a murder mystery/romantic suspense novel set on Amelia Island, southernmost
of the Sea Islands on the Atlantic coast. I went to a book signing event there
a couple of years ago and fell in love with the island’s quirky history. It’s
been conquered and reconquered by not just countries, but pirates and
mercenaries. I wanted to write a contemporary story, but one that draws on that
history.
Here’s
the blurb:
Who’s
littering the park with corpses?
State
Park Rangers Simon Ribault and Ellie Ironstone are used to dealing with messy
campers and ravaging raccoons, but when three bodies wash up on the beach, they
mobilize all their powers of deduction. Who are they and how did they get to
the shore of Amelia Island? Are they connected to the secretive League of the
Green Cross? Or linked to a mysterious Jamaican drug ring?
Ellie,
new to Amelia Island, must penetrate a close-knit community if she wants to
find answers to the mystery, all while deciding between two rivals for her
affection: Thad, the handsome local idol, and Simon, the clever, quirky
bookworm.
Simon,
for his part, will have to call on his not-so-well-honed romantic prowess to
lure Ellie away from Thad and at the same time use his wide-ranging research
skills to solve the case.
RW: How many books have you written, and how many
have been published?
MSS: Flotsam & Jetsam:
the Amelia Island Affair will be released this year. It marks my twelfth published
book, all romantic suspense or murder mystery. I wrote one other full
manuscript—a murder mystery set in Williamsburg, Virginia—that sat in a drawer
for a couple of years until my husband inadvertently (Or not? The jury’s out.)
threw it out.
RW: What book for you has been the easiest to
write? The hardest? The most fun?
MSS: The easiest was probably The Pit & the
Passion, released in January. The characters practically wrote themselves and
the setting (a grand hotel in ruins that circus man John Ringling built in the
20s) so much fun. I even managed to set a scene or two in my beloved Paris.
The
hardest was definitely Flotsam & Jetsam: the Amelia Island Affair, which is
due out before the end of this year. That’s the first time I’ve tried a male
POV. I had to worry that I was feminizing him too much—plus there are
surprising gimmicks I had to ditch—like how to describe the characters. Men
usually tell women they have beautiful hair/eyes, etc., thus providing a
description for the reader with little effort. But women don’t do that—so how
to provide an image of the hero to the reader? We’ll see if it worked.
RW: Which comes first, the story, the characters,
or the setting?
MSS: I usually like to set a story where I’m setting
😊 but sometimes I get an idea while
fiddling around on the internet. I’ll follow research leads until something
jumps out. I was reading about John Ringling’s Ghost Hotel—a Ritz-Carlton he
started in 1926 and left unfinished for decades when it struck me—what do you
find at a ghost hotel? Anyone? The Mason’s Mark: Love & Death in the Tower,
is set at the Masonic Memorial and has lots of Masonic intrigue. It came to me
when I was reading about a real life renegade Mason with an incredibly
flamboyant (& wicked) history.
RW: Are you in control of your characters or do
they control you?
MSS: Oh, they definitely control me—even to their
names. My hero/heroine are literally called “/name/” up until about the third
chapter, when they are fully formed little beasts who insist on going their own
way. Sometimes they even bring in relatives I didn’t know they had! In Dear
Philomena, my Chincoteague mystery romance, Dagne drags her no-good father
right onto the page and made me write him in.
RW: A biography has been written about you. What do
you think the title would be in six words or less?
MSS: Been there, done that.
RW: If you were stranded on a tropical island, who
would it be with? You can choose any living, deceased or mythical figure.
MSS: Samuel Johnson, definitely. He had an opinion
about everything and was the greatest wordsmith ever. I could listen to him for
hours. He didn’t mind a dram or two either.
RW: What’s your most embarrassing moment?
MSS: Hard to choose among so many! But one time—I
had my family with me (husband & two young children). We were heading into
DC for a victory parade and the subways were packed. Finally, I went full Nike
(goddess of Victory, not the shoe) and pushed my way onto the car proclaiming
that “I had children with me” as though I expected them to make way for the
royal family. I managed to squeeze us in, turned around, and had a full-blown
panic attack. In the same stentorian tone I announced that we had to get off
RIGHT NOW. I grabbed one child and plowed through the quickly parting sea of
people. Once out, I absolutely, positively died of embarrassment. Especially
once I realized we were six miles from home. And that I’d left my husband and
son on the subway.
RW: I love pizza with (fill in the blank).
MSS: Anchovies, bacon, and pickled jalapenos. Don’t
argue with me 😊
RW: Those are all the questions I have for
you. Thank you for speaking to me.
THE PIT & THE
PASSION:
MURDER AT THE GHOST
HOTEL
The
Plot
At midnight, in the
darkness of a deserted hotel, comes a scream and a splash. Eighty-five years
later, workmen uncover a skeleton in an old elevator shaft. Who is it, and how
did it get there? To find out, Charity Snow, ace reporter for the Longboat Key Planet,
teams up with Rancor Bass, best-selling author. A college ring they find at the
dig site may prove to be their best clue.
Although
his arrogance nearly exceeds his talent, Charity soon discovers a warm heart
beating under Rancor’s handsome exterior. While dealing with a drop-dead
gorgeous editor who may or may not be a villain, a publisher with a dark secret,
and an irascible forensic specialist, Charity and Rancor unearth an unexpected
link to the most famous circus family in the world.
An
Excerpt:
That Hot
Heavy Feeling
He
scratched his neck. “You are no fun at all.”
She
smiled with satisfaction. “Good.”
“Because
you see, while you with such easy indifference relegate Tommy T to a mundane
accident and the benighted Biddlesworth to a watery grave, you haven’t answered
the question of my grandfather’s disappearance.”
“Am I
supposed to?”
He
stopped. An uncertain look passed over his face, catching Charity off guard. “I…I
thought we were in this together?”
A feeling
she couldn’t name rushed through her, one that filled every pore with a heavy
sort of heat. It weighed her down, made her sluggish. Time slowed. She watched
with vague interest as her knees buckled, and the floor rushed toward her. Just
before she smacked into it, two strong arms caught her, lifted her up, and held
her in a crushing grip. “Charity? Are you alright?”
“Yes.
Yes. Oh, Rancor.” After that she couldn’t talk because her lips were smashed
against his and her chest against his and she couldn’t breathe at all, but she
didn’t really need to because he was breathing for the both of them.
A while
later, they sat down on the couch. Rancor traced her cheek with his finger, his
eyes wondering. Charity felt at peace. She had recognized the hot, heavy
feeling and accepted it. Now to explain it to Rancor.
“Rancor?
I—”
The phone rang.
M. S. Spencer
Bio
Although M. S. Spencer
has lived or traveled in five continents, the last thirty years were spent
mostly in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant,
speechwriter, editor, policy wonk, non-profit director and parent. She has two
fabulous grown children and a perfect granddaughter. Ms. Spencer has published
twelve romantic suspense/murder mystery novels, and currently divides her time
between the Gulf coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine.
Book
Links:
The Wild Rose Press: https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/5533-the-pit-and-the-passion-murder-at-the-ghost-hotel.html
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-pit-and-the-passion-m-s-spencer/1127750685?ean=2940158925351
Contact M. S. Spencer
At:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/msspencerauthor
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/msspencerauthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msspencerauthor/
Author Pages
The Wild Rose Press:
Amazon Author Page:
