Happy Release Day to Me! Happy Release Day to Me! Happy Release Day to Jennie; Happy Release Day to Me!!!

by Jennie Bentley

Nobody posted anything this morning, and you know what that means, don't you?

It's mine, all mine! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Today is release day for DIY-3, Plaster and Poison. It should be in a store near you at some point today. However, since it's a good day, and since I'm feeling magnanimous and happy - and since I received my author copies early this time! - I'm going to give you a chance to win your very own copy of Plaster and Poison. (Or, if you prefer, Fatal-Fixer Upper, DIY-1 or Spackled and Spooked, DIY-2, if you haven't yet tried the other books in the series and you want to start at the beginning.) All you have to do is leave a comment saying something nice, like "Congratulations, Jennie!" and you're automatically entered.

If you don't win a book here, there's a chance to win one over on Books on the House, that runs all week long. There's a Q&A with me over there too, that's sort of interesting.

Chasing Heroes has a nice little profile of Derek Ellis, who's the love interest in the DIY series, today. He's good with his hands and has powertools, and what more could anyone want?

And finally, the history mystery in Plaster and Poison has a very interesting backstory, one that's frankly somewhat unbelievable; you can read all about it on Fresh Fiction on Thursday; that's when they're posting my story.

I'll be back tonight to announce the winner of today's little drawing. And after that I'll be back on Friday for my regularly scheduled appearance. Right now I'm off to check a few bookstores and catch my baby in the wild. See you later!

Pretty in Pink!

by Jennie Bentley

Since it's the weekend and nobody else is posting, and since I don't want to wait until the beginning of August for my next scheduled blog date - especially since I'll have other things to talk about then, like the release of "Spackled and Spooked" on the 4th - I figure I'll just take the opportunity right now to share this thing of beauteousness with y'all.

This is the brand-new, seen for the first time yesterday, cover for "Plaster and Poison," DIY#3, coming to a store near you on March 2nd, 2010.

Two cats, as you see; that's Jemmy on the floor and Inky on the bed. You'll note the picture of the Eiffel Tower on the table, and the toile and just general French-ness of the whole thing?

Well, Avery and Derek are renovating an old carriage house behind Kate McGillicutty's Bed & Breakfast, and turning it into a romantic retreat for two, just in time for Kate's wedding to police chief Wayne Rasmussen and subsequent honeymoon in Paris. With Rosemary Baker in town to check out Derek, Shannon gallivanting around with a silver fox, and two sets of initials inside a heart carved in the carriage house wall to track down, Avery has plenty to do even before the bodies start dropping.

"Plaster and Poison" is available for preorder from Amazon right HERE... but without the pretty picture, so far.

So do y'all like my cover? Do ya? Huh?

(Oh yes, to give credit where credit is due: the designer of this beauty is Rita Frangie Batour with the Penguin Group, and the artist is Jennifer Taylor with Paperdog Studio. Just so you know who to ask for when it's your turn.)

Location, Location, Location!

by Jennie Bentley

As you read this, I’m on my way to sunny Saint Augustine, one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Saint Augustine is the oldest town in the US, founded in August 1565, forty-two years before Jamestown and fifty-five years before the pilgrims settled on Plymouth Rock. There’s so much history there—from the first free community of ex-slaves in the country, Fort Mose, and the Castillo de San Marco, to the Fountain of Youth and the Spanish Quarter. And that’s without even mentioning the ghosts. Or the beaches. Or the birds and dolphins and manatees. Or alligators.

I’ve always thought it would make a great setting for a series of books. I even went so far as to pitch a ghost story/mystery idea to my agent once. She picked another idea she wanted me to work on instead, but I haven’t forgotten about it. While I’m waiting for the time to be right, I’m enjoying Nancy Haddock’s vampire series, set in Saint Augustine. If you haven’t yet tried La Vida Vampire and the sequel, Last Vampire Standing, get thee to a bookshop. I intend to get Nancy to autograph me a copy while I’m on vacation, since she lives there.

Setting has always been a very important part of a book to me, both books I like to read and books I write. My favorite books aren’t set just anywhere, they’re set somewhere specific. If the locale changed, the book wouldn’t be the same. That’s the way it ought to be, I think. The setting becomes almost like a character, playing its own part in the story.

I’m partial to ‘real’ settings, with ‘real’ history attached to them. In the first book I wrote, A Cutthroat Business, the setting is East Nashville. I live here, and I wanted to write about what I know. I changed some of the street names, since I don’t want anyone to come knocking on my door to complain, but I know exactly where things are. Savannah’s apartment is on the corner of Fifth and Main, and I know what she’s looking at when she looks out her window in the morning. The decrepit house in the book—the one where the body is found—is based on this one, called the Ambrose House, in Historic East End. (I’ve been looking at for long enough to know what it looked like before someone sunk a million dollars into fixing it up. It's an events venue, and if it weren't so danged expensive, I might just have my release party there...)

Waterfield, Maine, on the other hand—the setting for the DIY-books—is a fictional place. It’s located about 45 minutes up the road from Portland, on the coast, but it doesn’t exist. It’s more a conglomerate of every small town I’ve ever seen, with the landscape I grew up with. Dark pine trees and white birches, a craggy coast dotted with rocky islands, and a Main Street made up of turn-of-the-last-century Victorian commercial buildings. Waterfield’s history is the history of downeast Maine, and if Waterfield was located somewhere else, the series would be different.

While I enjoy reading about ‘real’ settings, though, some of the best locales out there are the fantasy kind. And I mean that literally. The Harry Potter books, with their alternate universe, away from prying muggle eyes. Tamora Pierce’s Pebbled Sea and the countries surrounding it, steeped in ambient magic. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, taking place on planets like Barrayar and Komarr and Beta Colony and Jackson’s Whole. Or if sci-fi doesn’t count—the earth is mentioned once or twice, so it’s not technically fantasy, I guess—Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. (Flat, carried on the backs of four elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle, inhabited by dwarves and trolls, vampires and werewolves. And people. Strange people.)

So what about you? Do you care about setting? If you write, do you make setting an integral part of your work, or could your book be set anywhere and not really miss much by it? (That’s just fine, and works well for some types of books.) As a reader, does it matter to you where the book is set, or is one place pretty much like another? Do you have a favorite locale? Or a favorite author you think nails the setting for his/her books?

I’ll only be around in the morning today, so play nicely amongst yourselves, please, but I’ll check back over the weekend, in case there are any questions I have to answer.

Till next time!