Around the Fire In-depth Interview with Roxanne Dunn.

Welcome to Around the Fire! Life is just tick-tocking by and here it is mid-December. Holiday festivities are in full swing at my house. Pete and I have a map of local light displays and are driving around the county checking them out. Hali, our doggo, enjoys the evening romps. We went to Walpack, a small historic town and saw Christmas in the 1800s for regular folk. It was quite humble. This past weekend we had an openhouse for everyone to visit and see all my DH's Christmas projects. This Friday we hope to tour Ringwood Manor. Check it out here www.ringwoodmanor.org/victorian-christmas.html  
Now, please help me welcome today's guest, Romantic Suspense author, Roxann Dunn

Roxanne, thank you for joining us today. What refreshment can I get you?
Coffee—strong and hot like the men in my novels as soon as I’m out of bed. Later, when it’s time to sit with a book, champagne, please. It doesn’t have to be expensive—just dry, cold, and bubbly.
My kind of guest. Since it's early, I put on a pot. While I do, will you introduce yourself by telling our other guest who are you other than your bio? 
I’m a true introvert, happy to spend time alone. I play the piano badly, dabble in watercolors, study French in hopes of being able to speak fluently when I’m in Paris next time, and am learning to tap dance because I’ve always wanted to do that. As an entry-level foodie with 83 cookbooks on my shelf, I love to cook for friends. Ten years ago, I retired from a long career as a physical therapist then manager of a team of home health and hospice nurses, therapists, and social workers. That’s when I began to focus on writing.

That's quite a diverse life both past and present. I think as authors, we count on others to have our backs. Who is your support system that contributes to your writing career?
My scribe tribe, ten women I meet at a week-long seminar in Paris every November, challenges and inspires me to write more and better. My invaluable first readers, a critique group of four, help create, revise, and polish my first drafts. My beta readers, six friends who read extensively and critically in the mystery genre, read the finished manuscript. They point out errors and tell me what they liked and didn’t like. This gives me a chance to fix holes in the plot, discrepancies in story lines, and other problems before I send it to my wonderful editor at The Wild Rose Press for her suggestions and final approval.
I also learn from and am encouraged by members of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Pacific Northwest Writers Association. 

You do have a tribe? Who or what books or authors inspire you?
I am a big fan of Elly Griffiths, especially her Ruth Galloway series. Ellis Peters ranks right up there with Elly. I love her Cadfael stories and the way she brings the background history to life right along with the characters. There are many others whose books I have read and reread: Alan Bradley, Jess Walter, Kent Haruf, Alice Muro, and Alice Hoffman, to name a few.

I can make animal noises. Particularly I can imitate a dog and cat fight. Do you have a fun or outrageous talent?
I can’t call this a talent, but I have my pilot’s license and flew our own small plane until we sold it a couple of years ago. My first solo flight—when I took off all by myself and landed again without breaking the plane—scared me to death and I loved it.

What an amazing feeling to be up in the clouds.  I live in a lake community. What is your neighborhood like? Are there places you frequent? What makes them special?
I live on San Juan Island, a tiny chunk of ancient bedrock surrounded by cold water in the northwest corner of Washington State, very near Vancouver Island. 
The island is famous as the site of the Pig War, an international dispute that took place more than 150 years ago. The quarrel is commemorated by American Camp, a national park occupying a windswept prairie next door to my house. 
Here’s what happened. The Hudson’s Bay Company had set up a trading post and claimed the land for England. The American government also wanted the island and encouraged American citizens to go and settle there. In general, everyone got along just fine, until one day in 1859, when a pig belonging to a Hudson’s Bay Company employee wandered into an American settler’s garden and ate all his potatoes. Enraged, the settler shot the pig. He apologized, but Hudson’s Bay did not accept his apology and he began to fear retribution. So, he called for help, and the American army showed up to protect him. In response, the British called up their army and sides both called up their navies. Fortunately, only one shot was ever fired, and the pig took it. The dispute eventually led to an agreement on the border between Washington State from British Columbia.
I’m happy to report that today, all is calm, and I hike miles of trails in the park, enjoying the seasonal changes in wild flowers, animals, and birds.

Well the pig shouldn't have made such a hog out of himself. Sorry, I couldn't help it. The story is hystericl through the lens of history. What kind of research to do you do?
I love doing research. I guess you could say I spent ten or fifteen years researching Murder Unrehearsed, my first. I set it in a remote cabin on a high mountain lake because I had spent many vacations in a place like the fictional one I created. 
Murder Undetected, my second, takes place in Paris and a fictional hilltop town in the south of France. Each scene is pulled together from places I’ve gone with my camera and notepad. When I started writing it, I’d been to Paris several times and visited Provence once, but I wanted to be sure I captured the difference between the big city and the ambiance of a small town. And I wanted to know what it felt like to walk up and down steep cobblestoned streets and sit at an outdoor care in the square on market day, so I made two trips to Gordes, Roussillon, and several other small towns so I could see, taste, smell, and feel the individual atmospheres. 
For Murder Richly Deserved, which will be released next year, I visited the medieval town of Foix in the Pyrenees. The trip turned out to be a wonderful travel adventure, and although I had done a lot of research on line, I was surprised to learn how different it was from the hill towns in Provence. I could not have accurately described the scenes that take place in an ancient castle built by the Cathars without going there and experiencing it.

Getting it right is important. Sea Hunter my first historical, took a great deal of research. I like it too. Do you have a piece of jewelry that means something special to you?
Leilani pearls.I bought a string of pearls at the antique market in Nice several years ago because it reminded me of Leilani Barnett, a member of my Paris scribe tribe, who writes beautifully and seemingly without effort. Words always pour from her pen in lovely script. She never seems to have to correct or change anything. So, on days when I can’t seem to get the words to flow, I put the pearls on and think about her, and magic happens. 

This makes me smile. I can picture you sitting with pearls around your neck. What's the most difficult scene for you to write?
Characters from the opposite sex. I love writing male characters. I grew up with three brothers on an isolated farm—no girls anywhere near—and I was a tomboy at heart. So, I think of my brothers, and I’m off. 

Everytime I open my email someone or company is clamboring for my hard earned cash. What's the best money you ever spent as a writer? 
When I finished Murder Undetected, I paid Eric Witchey, a writer and writing teacher to critique the first thirty pages. I was pretty proud of what I’d written and didn’t expect the criticism he gave me. He was very kind, but said I was “driving to the story.” He meant that the first two pages, which I’d carefully, with many revisions, crafted to depict a tense, dangerous atmosphere, needed to be cut; that I needed to start with the characters on stage and build the tension in their interaction. He was absolutely right. 

Ouch! But that's how we learn and better ourselves. How do you come up with names of your characters?
My characters generally tell me their names, but not always right away, so I’ll give them a temporary name or even an initial, until they become real. 

Roxanne, thank you for spending time with us. I bet others are intrigued about your book. Can you tell us a bit about it and where to find it and also where to find you?​

Murder Undetected
by
Roxanne Dunn
Romantic Suspense
​
Two women. One driven by selfish desire, the other by selfless love: The moment psychologist Brittany Ann Thornton thinks she has her life all dialed in, her perfect little family falls apart, and the FBI seizes all her assets. Trouble pursues her from Seattle to Paris to the south of France. Viane Thibaudet, darling of a quaint hilltop town in Provence, has been getting away with murder. But when she attempts to poison her husband, Brittany steps up to stop her. 

What others are saying.
Lies and deceit. Love and loyalty. Crime and passion. Murder Undetected spans the globe with page-turning suspense, action, and thrills. A classic read with an unforgettable heroine.
Bob Fordice, Fourdice Book Trailer Productions.
Grab your copy today!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=roxanne+dunn&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-undetected-roxanne-dunn/1140053815​

More about the Author.
When I’m not writing, I’m trying to understand how to post on Twitter and Instagram. And cook, clean, garden, do yoga, text my grandchildren, update my website, phone my aunts, teach my husband how to make pie crust, and make sure I have clean underwear. My life is rich and full.
​To quote essayist John Burroughs, “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, and all the friends I want to see.”
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roxannepebblesdunn/ 
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/roxanne.dunn.127 
Website: https://www.roxannedunn.com/