Ah! A new book and a giveaway! Whoo Hoo!
I'm lucky to know Edith Maxwell as an author and as a friend. I've watched her writing career blossom and am amazed she can be involved in multiple community and writing/author groups and have time to polish up her eighteenth novel! Her historical Quaker Midwife series is terrific. Her settings zing with authenticity and her characters are imbued with the conflicts of their time plus modern sensibilities.
If you don't know her books, you should! Here's the inside scoop on her upcoming release. Don't forget to comment or ask Edith a question to enter the giveaway! -cjh
Why
I Wrote Turning the Tide
I’m delighted to be back on Out of the Fog.
Thanks for inviting me, Connie! I thought I’d share how I came to write Turning the Tide, my third Quaker Midwife Mystery, which
comes out April 8. And I’d be delighted to send a signed copy of the new book
to one commenter here today.
The series begins in 1888 and came about
from a simple news story I read in our local paper in 2013. It described the
Great Fire of 1888 in the mill town of Amesbury, Massachusetts, where I live.
The fire, on the night before Good Friday, burned down many of the carriage
factories – and Amesbury was world famous for producing graceful well-built
carriages. The town and neighboring Salisbury had been tussling about who was
going to annex whom, so the municipal fire-fighting equipment hadn’t been
updated. The fire raged, spreading to the telegraph and post offices, so they
couldn’t send for help to other larger towns. Only an overnight rain helped
reduce some of the damage.
I was walking to Quaker Meeting one Sunday
morning after reading that article and a short story about a Quaker mill girl
who solves the mystery of the Carriage Fire arson popped into my head. Poet and
abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier had a bit part in the story, too. I now
have a five-book contract for a series featuring Whittier, that mill girl, and
her aunt Rose Carroll, our midwife-sleuth.
Each of my books in this series has a social issue as a theme. In
book time, Turning the Tide was
getting around to fall of 1888, so I thought woman's suffrage during the
presidential election was a perfect fit. Quaker women were in the forefront of
the suffrage movement, from Lucretia Mott to Susan B. Anthony to Alice Paul. I
brought Elizabeth Cady Stanton to town to rally the ladies, and then
(fictionally) murdered the leader of the Amesbury Woman Suffrage Association. Despite
the murder of one of their own, the women turn out in force across the street
from the polls on Election Day, carrying placards and
wearing sunflower-yellow sashes. I loved delving into the questions of the era,
which is still almost thirty years before women won the vote nationally.
Rose Carroll, midwife, is a strong amateur sleuth. She hears
secrets the police detective never would be privy to from the lips of laboring
women in birthing chambers, places a police officer would never be allowed.
Rose rides her bicycle about town, and delivers killers as well as babies. Her
mother, an ardent suffragist, comes to town in this book to support the protest,
too.
Readers: What historical fiction do you like? Have you had experiences
with midwives in your own life?
Turning the Tide:
Excitement runs
high during Presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association
plans a demonstration and Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the
troops. Quaker midwife Rose Carroll resolves to join the protest along with her
suffragist mother. When she finds the body of the association’s leader the next
morning, she’s drawn into delivering more than babies.
The victim, who had
spurned a fellow suffragist’s affections, planned to leave her controlling
husband. Her recent promotion cost a male colleague his job. A down-on-his luck
handyman was seen near the murder scene. Rose’s own life is threatened more
than once as she sorts out killer from innocent.
Bio:
Agatha-
and Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife
Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. Called
to Justice, Maxwell’s second Quaker Midwife mystery, is nominated for an
Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. Turning the Tide releases April
8.
As Maddie
Day she writes the popular Country Store Mysteries and the new Cozy Capers Book
Group Mysteries. Biscuits and Slashed Browns came out January 30.
Maxwell is president of Sisters in
Crime New England and lives north of Boston with her beau, two elderly cats,
and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com,
KillerCharacters.com, and Under the Cover of Midnight (http://midnightinkbooks.blogspot.com/). Read about all her personalities
and her work at edithmaxwell.com.
