Guest Post and Blog Tour for COLLECTING CAN BE MURDER, A Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mystery by Jennifer S. Alderson

Collecting Can Be Murder (Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – France
Traveling Life Press (May 31, 2023)
Approximately 250 Pages
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BZPHKHGQ

Coming out of retirement can be deadly…

After tragedy struck three years earlier, art sleuth Carmen De Luca vowed to never work in the field again. But fifty is too young to fill her days with water aerobics and bingo, so when her former partner calls and begs for her help, Carmen gladly agrees.

Yet after their first assignment – the recovery of a rare medieval prayer book from an eccentric collector living in rural France – goes horribly wrong, Carmen ends up in the crosshairs of both the local police and a murderer!

With her target dead and the stolen book missing, she and her partner will have to pull out all of the stops to sleuth out the true killer’s identity – before their stay in France becomes permanent.

Introducing Carmen De Luca, an art sleuth with a nose for mystery and the job of locating valuable artwork stolen from museums around the world. If you love strong and resourceful heroines, puzzling mysteries, and a dash of art history, pick up Collecting Can Be Murder now!

Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries:
Book One: Collecting Can Be Murder
Book Two: A Statue To Die For
More adventures coming soon!

These mysteries contain no graphic violence, sex, or strong language.

GUEST POST

Creating a New, Fictional World

By Jennifer S. Alderson

Starting a new series is an exciting adventure because anything is possible. Yet, it is

also a daunting task for the same reason!

After releasing my nineth novel in the Travel Can Be Murder series, it was time to

start on a new idea that had been niggling in the back of my brain for months, but I

hadn’t yet worked up the courage to try writing it.

The biggest obstacle was that I wanted to write this series in first person – something

that terrified me immensely. First person means everything is told from the narrator’s

perspective, which makes it quite restricting to plot and write in comparison to third

person. Yet it can be a delight to read – if the author does it right.

The impetus to create a new, fictional world, was being invited to write a short story

for an anthology entitled, A Bookworm of a Suspect. It took several tries before I

finally found Carmen’s voice, but I now quite enjoy writing from her first-person

perspective!

The resulting story, A Book To Die For, inspired the characters and plotlines for the

Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries. While I had a solid idea of what Carmen did

for a living, I still had to flush out the kinds of assignments she would be given, as

well as the supporting cast of characters and types of settings she would be visiting.

Choosing the Right Settings

The settings of the novels in my Travel Can Be Murder series and Zelda Richardson

Mysteries were important to the storylines, and the locations often influenced the

kinds of murder mysteries my protagonists had to solve. Because travel is important

to me, I want to make certain that the setting is also meaningful in this new series,

even if the specific location is no longer as important to the storyline or plot.

So the next task I had, was deciding how to infuse these books with travel, in a

different way than I had previously done. Which is why I decided to have the settings

in Carmen’s books be restricted to “fancy places” members of high society enjoyed

gathering in – luxurious chateaus, villas, castles, museums, and yachts, for example.

Carmen does share information with the reader about where she is at, but the focus

is not on traveling around the city or country, but on a specific location or two. Not to

say that my art sleuth does not hit the road now and again!

In book one, she is inside of a French villa for the entire novel, which makes it the

least travel-oriented of the novels. Yet in book two, A Statue to Die For, she is on a

boat sailing up the Belgian Coast and makes a stop in Antwerp. So she is also

sharing her perspective on locations not central to any of the books in my other two

series. Books three and four will take readers to lesser-known locations in the

Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy.

Light on Art History

The choice to make Carmen an art sleuth, instead of a plain ole’ detective, has to do

with my personal love of art and culture! It gives me an excuse to learn something

new about an object or artist, as well as share my passion for art with readers.

However, I had already written four art mysteries and didn’t want to rehash the same

kind of storylines. The Zelda Richardson books are quite heavy on art history, which

is why I chose to make the Carmen books lighter qua tone and level of historical

information relayed to the reader.

This also helped to simplify the research needed for each of the Carmen mysteries.

For the Zelda books, I spent six to nine months researching plot lines

because those mysteries are tied to the missing artwork’s history.

For the Carmen books, the missing object’s history is not necessarily connected to

the mystery central to the story. Which meant I only needed a few weeks to find a

great painting, sculpture, rare book, or other cultural treasure that is either truly

missing, or could be. For example, in book one, Collecting Can Be Murder, Carmen

is searching for a rare illuminated manuscript – the Avron Book of Hours – that does

not really exist. However, the art historical information Carmen relays to readers in

the book about these ancient prayer books origins, contents, and history, is.

I hope I’ve made you curious about Carmen De Luca’s adventures and hope you’ll

join her on a mission or two!

About Jennifer S. Alderson

Jennifer S. Alderson was born in San Francisco, grew up in Seattle, and currently lives in Amsterdam. After traveling extensively around Asia, Oceania, and Central America, she lived in Darwin, Australia, before finally settling in the Netherlands.

Jennifer’s love of travel, art, and culture inspires her award-winning Zelda Richardson Mystery series, her Travel Can Be Murder Cozy Mysteries, and her Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries. Her background in journalism, multimedia development, and art history enriches her novels.

When not writing, she can be found perusing a museum, biking around Amsterdam, or enjoying a coffee along the canal while planning her next research trip.

For more information about the author and her upcoming novels, please visit http://www.JenniferSAlderson.com.

Author Links

Website: http://www.jennifersalderson.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jenniferSAldersonauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JSAauthor

Instagram: https://instagram.com/JSAauthor

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/jennifer-s-alderson

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/JennifeSAlderson

Purchase Link – Amazon

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June 20 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT

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June 21 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW

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June 22 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW

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