About 'What Happened on Box Hill'
What Happened on Box Hill: Austen University Mysteries 
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series Setting - Louisianna Bayou Wolf Press (February 1, 2022)
240 Pages -- ASIN : B09KQZZPJF
What would happen if you combined all of Jane Austen’s characters into one modern-day novel?
Murder, of course.
When Caty Morland’s roommate, Isabella, falls to her death on Initiation night, Austen University is quick to cover up the scandal and call it a tragic accident. But avid true-crime lover Caty remains convinced that Isabella didn’t fall; she was murdered. With the help of Pi Kappa Sigma President Emma Woodhouse, Caty organizes a dinner party with the most likely suspects, including familiar faces such as Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Knightley, and Marianne Dashwood. The theme of the night is murder, and Caty has three courses to find out what happened to Isabella--and to try to keep the killer from striking again.
About Elizabeth Gilliland
Elizabeth Gilliland teaches English at the university level, putting as much Austen into her syllabi as she can get away with. In 2018, she completed her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, where she wrote her dissertation on Jane Austen adaptations and fever-dreamed this series in a caffeine-induced haze. She is a proud member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and excerpts of the Austen University series have won awards through JASNA and Jane Austen & Co/The Jane Austen Summer Program. She lives in Alabama with her husband and son.
Thank you for having me today! I’m thrilled to be introducing you and your readers to What Happened on Box Hill.
When I first set out to write this novel, I was expecting it to be a fun diversion. I’ve written novels before, but this was the first mystery I’d ever tried to write, even though I’ve always loved reading the genre. Maybe I was trying to lower the stakes for myself by telling myself it was “just for fun,” (or maybe I was really just trying to procrastinate while writing my dissertation!). Whatever the case, I wrote my first draft without paying too much attention to things like genre, style, or conventions.
The first draft was a lot of fun to write because the stakes were so low. Reading back through it, I thought there was a kernel of something worth developing amidst the loose plot filled with too many characters–a diamond in the rough, if you will–but I soon realized it would take a lot of work. Putting together a novel, any novel, requires dedication and perseverance; putting together a mystery, I was beginning to realize, would require precision and a whole new skill set.
I won’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs of a true crafter and sewer (although I do love a good color-coded patterned cross stitch!), but I can imagine it might have something in common with putting together a mystery.
Just as with many sewing projects, writing a mystery requires you to carefully follow a pattern that has been honed and fine-tuned by other craftspeople who’ve come before you. There are expected conventions of the genre that must be included–like clues, red herrings, suspects, memorable characters, and intriguing plot twists.
Like a crafting pattern, originality is encouraged–an artist should try to make the work their own!–but if one deviates TOO far from the pattern then the work becomes unrecognizable. In my first draft of the novel, no one had died until the last thirty pages or so of the book–and it was supposed to be a murder mystery! It’s never fun to have to go back and remove stitches, but sometimes it’s necessary for the project to come together.
I think many crafters could relate to the need for attention to each and every detail of a project. These details might not even be noticeable to anyone else, but you as the crafter will know if you’ve cut corners, missed one of the steps, or if your entire project could fall apart if someone were to pull at just one loose string. The same is true for a mystery novel. By draft nine of this book, each detail is so precise and intentional that I know it’s there and why, even if most readers might never notice! Without that careful attention, the novel becomes too flimsy to stand on its own, even if the overall plot seems to function correctly.
I hope that your readers, whether they be lovers of novels or sewing (or both!), can appreciate the finished product when they get a chance to read What Happened on Box Hill. And I hope that no one will find it too presumptuous if I begin to think of myself as a craftsperson, even though I should never be trusted with a sewing machine. (I will leave that to the true artists!)
Purchase Link Amazon
Have you signed up to be a Tour Host?
Click Here to Find Details and Sign Up Today!
No comments:
Post a Comment