Guest Blogger: Mary Jane Maffini

A perilous partnership?

My new writing partner has a lot to offer. Good thing, because if she didn’t, there wouldn’t be much I could do about it and vice versa. She’s not just my partner; she’s my daughter.  We can hardly fire each other. Luckily we don’t need to because we are very happy with the way our collaboration on The Christie Curse: a book collector mystery turned out.  We are writing as Victoria Abbott and The Christie Curse will be out on March 5th.

Victoria is taller and funnier than I am.  As an artist and photographer, she views the world differently. Things are always popping in her mind. She is a mistress of rapid-fire ideas.  And she wouldn’t get upset about, say, commas. No, they would be my burden.

In a million years, I couldn’t have come up with the larcenous Irish uncles who raised Jordan Bingham and bought her a set of lock-picks for her Sweet Sixteen.

With thirteen books and two dozen short stories published (as me, myself and I: Mary Jane Maffini), I knew how to write a book and a short story, but I didn’t know how this new venture would go.  But so what? Life is boring if you never take a chance. Victoria and I stepped off that cliff full of confidence. If you ask me how we got it done, I’m not sure.  But so far we’re getting very good reaction to our new baby!  Can we do it again?  Let’s hope so.  We’re polishing The Sayers Swindle, the second book collector mystery (December 2013) and beginning The Wolfe Widow, number three in the series (2014).  We’re still speaking and enjoying each other’s company.  

Check out our website at www.victoria-abbott.com and you can always drop by www.maryjanemaffini.com if you’re wondering what else I’ve written and what the dogs look like.

So how about you?  Could you or have you had a collaboration with a family member? And …?

 

About The Christie Curse:

What’s a girl to do? Especially when she has to make a living and raise the money for grad school.  It’s not Jordan Bingham’s fault that most of the members of her large family are known to the police and that her duplicitous ex maxed out her cards before vanishing to parts unknown. She’s a solid citizen and she plans to make a go of it. If this means working for the most hated woman in Harrison Falls, New York, so be it.  After all, the reclusive collector, Vera Van Alst, is all about books and that’s a good thing. Jordan can use the money and loves the Victorian garret that comes with the job in the historic Van Alst House, especially as it means getting out from under her uncles’ watchful and larcenous eyes.  Jordan might even get used to the cat.  Maybe. 

All to say, what could go wrong?  Jordan’s about to find out in The Christie Curse, first in the book collector’s series.

Don’t worry at all about the blushing police officer, Tyler Dekker, or that seductive and sexy librarian Lance DeWitt. Worry about what happened to Jordan’s predecessor, currently six feet under.

Oh and a word to the wise reader: as you’re tiptoeing through The Christie Curse, watch your ankles.