*In which I ask a few silly questions followed by some serious ones about writing…
This month is all treat and no trick. I am so pleased to welcome this month’s guest, the wonderful Saffron Amatti!
Saffron is the author of the Lucas Rathbone Mysteries, a series of historical cozy mysteries with a ghostly twist set in 1920s England. She lives in a rather pretty village in Derbyshire, UK, where she spends an unhealthy amount of time thinking about how to kill people and (nearly) get away with it. This is almost entirely in relation to her writing, but she keeps her family on their toes by throwing a little doubt in occasionally.
Okay, Saffron, since it is full-on spooky season (The BEST time of the year), we’ve got a spoooooky Lunchtime Poll for you today:
If aliens landed on the Earth, which of your characters would you send to greet them?
Clara, for sure! She’s a ray of sunshine, she’d charm even the most hostile of aliens and they’d be BFFs within minutes.
You often talk to your characters in your Instagram writing challenges (for example #SaffronSaysWrite). Have you ever made puppets out of socks or lunch bags to make them talk back to you?
Haha, no, but I might just have to now! Lucas would be adorable as a sock. I’m fairly sure that’s not what you meant, but I stand by my statement 😉
Oooh… I think Lucas sock puppets would be a best seller! If you were a ghost, which type would you be? Benevolent presence, poltergeist or orb?
Benevolent. Though poltergeist sounds fun, I’m too nice to go messing with the living, so those powers would be wasted.
Have you ever worried that your Google searches might implicate you in a crime?
Constantly! But hopefully there’s enough searches like “how do you spell such-and-such word” and “did they have electric toasters in 1928” mixed in with the ones about death to make it pretty clear it’s just research for a book *crosses fingers*
If you were Scrooge and could choose only one, which ghost would you want to visit with: Christmas Past, Present or Still to Come?
Ooh, tough question! But probably Christmas Past. There’s people who are no longer with us that I’d like to see again, even if I can’t talk to them.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters! Or Lucas, probably, he generally gets the ghosties where they’re supposed to be.
The Ghostbusters could have used Lucas, that’s for sure! Thank you for playing along with my silliness. Now I know many of my readers also enjoy British mysteries, so I have lots of questions about your writing process and inspirations.
When you begin a book, do you start with the murderer, the victim, or the method?
Could be any of them, but usually the method. At the risk of sounding like a homicidal maniac, there’s so many interesting ways to kill someone that it’s by far the easiest way to start writing a murder mystery. Usually I read about some weird thing that’s poisonous and go, hmm… how could that be used in a mystery? Who could/would use such a thing, and what would drive someone like that to kill, and who would they murder. It’s like unravelling a knitted sweater, each part leads to the next.
You reference on your website that you have had several spooky experiences. Can you share one?
Sure! My parent’s house has ghost cats in it, so growing up I’d quite often see cats that weren’t ours trotting about the house. We’d hear knocks on the front door when no one was there (and no, it wasn’t local kids, because you’d hear it when you were upstairs, realise no one else answered the door, go and ask why not, and they’d say there was no one there and no knock at the door at all). Something used to walk around my brother’s room when no one was in it, and occasionally someone would say ‘hello’ when there was no one there… Slightly more interesting experiences include a trip to a local art gallery where my mum and I went into a room with a video projected onto the wall, and we both saw the empty room full of smokey, roughly human-shaped columns – and then I saw the silhouette of a short man in a flat cap walk between me and the projected video. I’ve never moved so fast in all my life!
YIKES!!! I’m definitely going to be thinking of that next time I go to the movies. What was your inspiration for writing cozy paranormal mysteries, and why the 1920s?
It probably won’t surprise you that I like watching shows about paranormal stuff, and one day I was watching Paranormal Detectives, where they take psychic mediums to places important to unsolved murders to see if they can connect with the victim and shed some light on the case. I thought that’d be a fun premise for some stories, especially if the psychic was a police officer. I then remembered that I don’t particularly enjoy police procedurals, so Lucas got a change of career to newspaper reporter. As for why the 1920s, I grew up watching Poirot and Miss Marple etc, and as a result have always loved the 1920s/30s. It also means I can do some different things to if I was writing in the modern day – you can’t just call someone up on their mobile phone to find out where they are, for example – and I love the lack of technology. I’m also a huge history nerd, so doing the research is fun for me! It was just after WW1 and there was lots of social changes as a result, so I enjoy telling the stories of “normal” people from that time. There are so many 1920s-era books set in stately homes and centering around the monied classes, and I wanted to tell the stories of regular working people, as well as highlight some of the injustices of the time.
Who is your favorite character to write? Has it changed over the years?
Oh, you know this is like being asked to choose my favourite child, right?! To start with, it was Lucas, and whilst I still adore him, nowadays I’d say Tommy is generally the easiest to write, even though he generally causes me problems. Like, series-changing problems. I’m in the middle of one right now, in fact, because he’s inconveniently fallen in love with someone he shouldn’t have. But Tommy scenes are always fast and fun to write. Hasn’t always been that way, though, and Lucas will always be my first love when it comes to my characters.
Do you have any actors in mind for your dream casting of Lucas, Clara and Tommy?
Yes, but I’m a little out of touch with actors of the correct ages (my gang are 24, 21, and 27 respectively) so the actors I see my characters as probably wouldn’t work now, unfortunately! But in my head, and with them all at the correct ages for my characters, Lucas looks like Gwilym Lee (a.k.a. Sgt. Charlie Nelson in Midsomer Murder), Clara looks like Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald in Dr Who – by the way, I didn’t name her for that Clara, but for 1920s movie star Clara Bow), and Tommy looks like Will Tudor (Olyvar in Game of Thrones). Lucas and Clara have looked like that since I first thought them up, as I’d read that it can be useful to have a real person in mind when writing characters, but as usual, Tommy was more problematic. Probably because he wasn’t originally going to be a character and just sort of… showed up. Anyway, he went through a few other “faces” before I ran across Will Tudor, because I’m probably the only person in the world who never watched GoT!
Ha! That Tommy, I tell you…
If Lucas Rathbone had to team up with another famous literary sleuth, whom would he pick?
Oh gosh, this is a tough one! I like the use of the word “another” in that question, by the way, thank you for that 😊 But Mr Rathbone is not the most sociable of people, you know. Let’s see… He couldn’t stand Sherlock Holmes being a know-it-all. He’d have a similar problem with Poirot. Miss Marple would probably be a good match though. Yes, I think Miss Marple and Lucas teaming up would work well, actually, though he’d quickly get fed up of her cryptic hints. Hmm. So maybe there’s a better match? He’d get bored in a police station so Midsomer/Columbo/etc are out. We don’t do serial killers, so Lincoln Rhymes is out, and he’s squeamish so no to Temperance Brennan or anything else forensics focused. Tempest Michaels would be a great and hilarious fit but he’s probably not famous enough for this question. Inspector Lyndley is dull, and on the flip side, Lucas couldn’t cope with Tommy and Tuppence’s enthusiasm, even though he and Clara have a similar interpersonal dynamic and get into similar crapes… Who’s left? Oh, Father Brown! He’d be good. But the TV version, not the book version. Or Castle, he’d be a lot of fun. And the aunts from Queens of Mystery, he’d love working with them. See, I knew we’d find someone lol. I swear Lucas is lovely really, he’s just particular about the people he goes sleuthing with! Probably because he has to keep his “gift” a secret, it makes him a bit… defensive. In fact, he’d prefer to work with just Clara, but Tommy seems to have tagged along, as is his way.
Which ghost story that you’ve heard/been told/read has most stuck with you?
Confession: I might write about spooks, but I’m a big ol’ wuss when it comes to anything actually scary, so I avoid that kind of thing. However, I did watch a three-part TV series called Crooked House that was on TV years ago (Wikipedia is telling me 2008) written by and starring Mark Gatiss. Though I can’t remember all the details, and I wouldn’t want to share spoilers anyway, but let’s just say I slept with the light on for a long time after watching the final instalment! And flickering lights still make me anxious. The adaptations of M. R. James’s ghost stories are always creepy too – so much so, I’ve been avoiding reading the originals! But it’s spooky season, so perhaps now is the time…?
I am adding all these to my TBR right now. Speaking of TBR…What are you working on next?
I’m currently editing book 6 of the Lucas Rathbone Mysteries. It doesn’t have a title yet, but someone drops dead in the middle of the opening for an exhibition of recently discovered Ancient Egyptian artifacts, and at first glance, it looks like they died from a curse. However, it clearly wasn’t – ghosts are real, obviously, but curses aren’t - and Lucas and co must uncover the truth behind the killing. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m having a lot of fun with it!
I can’t wait to read it! Meanwhile, where can readers find you?
My website is www.saffron-amatti.co.uk, on Instagram I’m @saffron.amatti, and my Facebook page is Saffron Amatti Author.
Saffron, thank you so much for being here! And for continuing to tell the stories of Lucas, Clara, and Tommy, some of my newest favorite literary characters!
Thank you so much for having my in your newsletter! It’s been so much fun 😊