... to the bog today. Hello Shannon, and thanks for making time in your busy schedule to be here today. So, tell me all about your latest book...
SS Murder by the Book (A Balefire Bay Cozy Mystery, Book #2). This cozy mystery is perfect for fans of small town whodunits, quirky book clubs, and scrappy amateur sleuths with heart!
If you enjoyed Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, Agatha Christie’s Murder is Announced, or The Secret Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams, you won’t be able to put down this cozy mystery with a taste of romance.
AW Sounds like my kind of book! What first got you into writing and why?
SS My mother will tell you I composed my first literary piece at age 5. It was an apology letter to her after I was in trouble.
When I was a child, I was surrounded by readers. I spent summers and every possible moment with my grandmother and four great-aunts in a house on the beach. They began the day by passing around the newspaper and reading whenever they had the chance. There was no television, but there was a wall of books they and I loved. When it rained, I read. Immediately, and while I was still in elementary school, Agatha Christie became my favorite. I love solving a good mystery.
I wrote my first poem when I was 9, after my grandfather’s premature death. We were a close family, and I was overwhelmed by the loss. That was the first time I used writing to soothe myself and organize my thoughts. It was my go-to from that moment on.
AW You write cozy crime with a coastal setting – what a great combination. I’m guessing you live on the coast. To what extent is the fictional location in your books an echo of where you live?
SS Whenever life took me away from the beach, I was terribly homesick. So, when I had my six children, we decided it was time to go home. We bought an old house a block off the beach in Seaside, Oregon. It is a few blocks away from the family beach house. That was 30 years ago.
About 18 months ago I married again. My husband is a wonderful managing editor at my favorite Utah newspaper. He won’t retire for a few years. So right now, it’s Utah and the coast. June 1st, I will go home and stay for most of the summer. I went back and forth eight times last year. I can’t live without the sea.
AW Have you tried/dabbled with other genres or writing for other forms of media?
SS In 2011, I chose to leave a job I loved and thought I would do forever. I worked as an advocate with survivors of intimate-partner and sexual violence. I’m vintage, so at that time the movement was small. But I started at the right time and worked on a new county project. I responded to the crime scene or hospital alongside law enforcement or emergency room staff as part of the Domestic Sexual Assault Response Team with seven law enforcement agencies and two hospitals. I was later grandfathered in as a certified advocate with privilege and became an expert witness in court.
To get the project off the ground, I was the only responder, with my boss as backup, for the first few years. There were 130-plus responses the first year. I can’t tell a true story. I don’t need to. I have plenty to draw from.
When I left the job, I still had things to say. I prayed, and the answer was: Write a book. I wrote alone, by the fire, after everyone was asleep in our old house by the sea.
Beginning in 2014, I also wrote 263 articles for Deseret Digital Media. How fun is that? Some of my articles were syndicated to larger newspapers, which was a blast—Fox, CNN, and a California paper. I also blogged for Hilary Weeks’ Billion Clicks Project and a nonprofit.
It took a few years to finish my first book with the help of my late sister. Everyone told me no one would publish it. In 2017 Cedar Fort published Safe House.
AW Famous authors such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas had a special space for writing. Do you have a writing shed of your own?
SS I wish! I never had that luxury. During Covid, I learned to write in a room full of happy family. I wrote Murder Takes a Selfie and three other books in the summer of 2020, sitting on our deck. We had my 80-year-old mother, my father who had Alzheimer’s, and my daughter’s family living with us. She was pregnant and on bed rest. My mother and I were super-shoppers for my four pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law who lived within 30 minutes of us.
After Covid, we did a DIY project. We cut an archway between my bedroom and the bedroom next to it and created an office. It gave me a place to do Zoom calls and the college classes I’d enrolled in.
You’d think that after Covid I’d go somewhere quiet. Nope. I’d write in my office with my grandson bouncing my yoga ball or new granddaughter. If I need quiet, I write on a picnic table at the cove while the locals surf.
AW And finally, what would your eight-year-old self think, and say about you and your achievements today?
SS She was a strong little thing. She wouldn’t be surprised. At 12, during a church class, we made goals. I wrote 100 goals. Number one: own a house a block off the beach in Seaside, Oregon. It included selling my art in galleries and publishing a book. I have one goal left on the list: go hang gliding. I’ve changed my mind—not happening. I have too much to live for.
about the author… Shannon Symonds writes in an old house by the sea and in the Utah desert. She is the proud mother of six children and Nana to 15. She loves her Savior, time with her family, laughter, walking the beach, clamming, and bonfires.
Shannon is an Indie author and traditionally published author. Shannon’s professional training began at age eight, when she found an Agatha Christie novel and read it on a rainy day at the family beach house.
In 2018 Shannon was nominated for the Storymaker’s Whitney Award, she was awarded the Author to Watch Award for her By the Sea Cozy Mystery YA series, and in 2023 her book, Booked for Murder, was a finalist for the Indie Cozy Mystery of the Year award.
Her books and audiobooks have been available at Costco, Deseret Book, Barnes & Noble, Audible, Amazon, Target, and other retailers. about the book… Ivy Kelly has finally found peace in the coastal town she now calls home. Not only does she have a book club that feels like family, she's entered an exciting new romance with her handsome boss.
But then someone drops dead at the Book and Tea Shop. Ivy's gut insists it's murder. She even thinks the real target might be her boyfriend's prickly mother. Everyone else thinks past trauma is clouding her judgment... Until a celebratory boat ride turns deadly.
With a killer on the loose and danger hitting way too close to home, Ivy recruits her book club back into sleuthing mode. But solving the mystery means confronting feelings she'd rather keep buried and facing a past that never really let her go...
Welcome to Balefire Bay, Oregon. Here the cinnamon rolls are hot, the book club is loyal, and murder is just a plot twist away.
You can follow Shannon on, and get the book on Amazon
