Inspiration is a funny thing…it can sprinkle down from
anywhere and usually when least expected.
In the case of my recent release, The Spinster’s Fortune,
inspiration came while I was researching old newspaper articles about my long
deceased paternal grandfather, a man who died nine years before I was
born. He was an attorney in Washington,
D.C., and had worked on some significant cases. Because of this, there were opportunities to “find” him in the
internet newspaper archives.
I was so excited to
come upon a photograph of him in his early 30s as there are not too many
photographs of him around. But the
story that came with that photograph stopped me in my tracks. It was a stunner. Headlines such as “Spinster, 90, in Poorhouse, Found Owner of
Fortune”, “Old House Yields Additional $1,100 Hidden in Rubbish” and
“Rag-Stuffed Old Box Reveals Rich Treasure” pulled me right down into the
rabbit hole and thus a new writing adventure began. A tale eventually spun out from the real life facts of this case
that my grandfather had been involved in and became an historical mystery that
I titled, The Spinster’s Fortune. So it
is a fictional tale inspired by the real life events, setting and time period
with one of the two main protagonists, Blanche, based on a real person.
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| A spooky house from Mary's past, perhaps? |
The story draws deeply from mystery genre traditions with
gothic roots. It is heavily influenced
by my background as a historian and as a reader with a heavily saturated diet
of mystery/suspense/thriller fiction. After approximately six years of
many rounds of drafts, many rounds of editing and many rejections, The
Spinster’s Fortune, was
recently published in April 2021 by darkstroke books.
about the author… Mary Kendall lived in old (and haunted) houses growing up which sparked a life-long interest in history and story-telling. She earned degrees in history related fields and worked as an historian for many years. Her fiction writing is heavily influenced by the past which she believes is never really dead and buried. Fuelled by black coffee and a possible sprinkling of Celtic fairy dust, she tends to find inspiration in odd places and sometimes while kneading bread dough. The author resides in Maryland with her family (husband, three kids, barn cat and the occasional backyard hen) who put up with her mad scribbling at inconvenient hours. The Spinster’s Fortune, her debut novel, is twisty tale of family deception murky with gothic undertones recently released on 6 April 2021.
about the book… Summer of 1929.
Meanwhile, her house, a crumbled ruin in the heart of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., is pillaged nightly by thieves looking for treasure rumored to be hidden there.
A distant niece, Margaret O’Keefe, is tapped as executor and soon becomes embroiled in the hunt for recovering monies, taking it on as a welcome escape from her financial and marital woes.
As Margaret discovers caches in unlikely spots throughout the house, family mysteries begin to unravel. She questions whether Aunt Blanche is an insane fool or a daring genius, yet Margaret must also wrangle with her own hidden truths.
Pressed towards a convergence of their pasts and presents, the two women must ultimately face down a fateful discovery in order to rectify their lives.
Shrouded in gothic undertones and dark artifice, The Spinter's Fortune is a tale that takes the reader on a strange journey through tangled webs of family deceit. But where does it end?
You can get the book on Amazon
Sounds like an interesting and entertaining read. Nice to meet Mary.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting Allan.
DeleteFab post, and so interesting. Thanks so much for sharing this. I wish you much success.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jane.
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