The New Golden Age of Women #Crime #Writers by Teresa Inge

Roses and Readers, please welcome Teresa Inge to our blog today. And be sure to leave a comment for your chance at her giveaway.

The history of female crime writers is a long, undervalued profession. Many of the women who paved the way for today’s fiction writers are no longer in print, with the exception of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Parker, and Patricia Highsmith. Those who remain in print are generally from the British tradition of detective fiction, rather than American noir. Others who helped develop the genre have found a home in classics, genre fiction, and literary fiction.

During the golden age of crime fiction, stories were written about femme fatales who lured men to their doom with a seductive approach. Hard women with sharp tongues became the norm, often written by men. But when Dorothy B. Hughes wrote In a Lonely Place, it became groundbreaking when Hughes got inside the head of a war veteran, serial killer who preyed on young woman. With the introduction of a beautiful neighbor and the astute wife of a police detective, Hughes’ story gained two powerful women.

This spurred momentum to how female crime writers crafted their stories with strong women leads. Along with the feminist movement, the time period brought diversification of women and contributed to crime books written by Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky.

Which leads to today’s crime writers. Take Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl that told a cruel tale of marriage and murder in which the female protagonist killed for no other reason than self-validation. The book sold millions of copies.

But modern-day female crime writers generally tend to write crime novels with more relatable characters and empathy. They write strong female protagonists and don’t believe much in heroes, which makes their storytelling light on gunplay and heavy on emotional violence. This makes their writing a better fit for current times.

Today, women crime fiction writers are here to stay since the momentum continues with more diversification of voices in regards to ethnicity and class. This movement has taken a further approach with mysteries being written by women and read by women.

Contest:

Leave a comment for a chance at receiving a copy of 50 Shades of Cabernet.  

50 Shades of Cabernet – A collection of short stories, each blending a mystery and a glass of Cabernet.

Excerpt: 

Love the Wine You’re With – written by Teresa Inge in 50 Shades of Cabernet

“Get up, Em!” Jules Riley yelled at her sister passed out on the couch.

Em opened her eyes and rubbed her throbbing head. “What time is it?”

“Five o’ clock. You’ve been hungover all day.”

Em twisted her aching body into a vertical position. “How did you get in here anyway?”

“The door was unlocked… I’m serious, Em. You missed a big event today.” Jules was regretting hiring her sister to coordinate events for her event-planning business.

Em ran her hand through her long blonde hair.

Jules pushed a pair of stilettos, earrings, an empty bottle of cabernet and a Post-It note to the back of the couch and sat. She snatched the note, read it, then slapped it against Em’s arm.

Em grabbed the Post-It. “Jax broke up with me?”

“Yes, another boyfriend sick of your partying.”

Em slumped on the couch. “My life sucks! My boyfriend dumped me on a Post-It, and all I do is plan events that I don’t enjoy and book trips that I don’t take. Ugh!”

“That’s what we do. We plan events for our clients and not for us to party. Now listen up. You need to be at Virtually Yours by three o’clock tomorrow for the wine tasting.” Jules turned toward the door. “And clean this place up. It reeks of wine.”

About the author:
Teresa Inge grew up reading Nancy Drew mysteries. Combining her love of reading mysteries and writing professional articles led to writing short fiction and a novel.

Today, she doesn’t carry a rod like her idol but she hot rods. If she’s not signing books, she is assisting two busy executives at a financial firm, attending a car show with her husband, or serving as president of the Sisters in Crime, Mystery by the Sea chapter in Chesapeake, Virginia. Visit Teresa at www.teresainge.com

Buy Link  AMAZON

Teresa Inge: www.teresainge.com

Twitter: @teresainge7 / publisher: @koehlerbooks

Book Cover (attached to email)

Author Photo (attached to email)

The Fun of Being in an Anthology by Betsy Ashton

I've been very lucky over the past few years. I've had a poem about my mother dying of cancer in two anthologies, Voices from Smith Mountain Lake and Candles of Hope. Proceeds from each publication went to charity: Voices supports the scholarship fund for Smith Mountain Arts Council, and Candles supports a UK cancer charity. Voices also published a short story and an essay which had run their life-span for contests. Last year, Reflections on Smith Mountain Lake picked up a different short story and essay. This collection honored the 50th anniversary of Smith Mountain Lake. Again, proceeds went to the same scholarship fund listed above.

And this year, I was invited to submit a story for 50 Shades of Cabernet collected by many of the same writers who were involved with Virginia Is For Mysteries. My story, a true tongue-in-cheek accounting of a winter solstice at a New Age church was too much fun to write.

First, I was honored to be invited. These same writers, many of whom are members of Sisters-in-Crime Internet Chapter, are terrific mystery writers. I felt like a charlatan being in their company, but I put on my big girl panties, put fingers on keyboard and let the story flow.  Many drafts later, I was satisfied with "Midnight in the Church of the Holy Grape" and submitted it. Yes, it's a send-up of In the Garden of Good and Evil. It's also a send-up of many New Age churches, including one out in San Francisco, the Church of the Holy Grape, which is authentic and exists so that the "leader" can buy wine without paying sales tax. But that's a story for a different blog post. Maybe.

Other stories include "Whose Wine Is It Anyway?" by Barb Goffman, "Love the Wine You're With" by Teresa Inge, "Wine, Women and Wrong" by Maggie King, "Life is a Cabernet" by Jayne Ormerod, and "Cobblestones and Cabernet" by Jenny Sparks. Yes, Cabernet had to be mentioned in the story to be included. Overall, there are seventeen stories in the collection.

Here's the plot.

Ryan is a member of this New Age church, the Church of the Holy Grape, which meets four times a year on the solstices and equinoxes to celebrate food and wine. He extracts a promise from,his reluctant wife to join him at the winter solstice meeting. First she reneges, then finally agrees to go one time only. He's ecstatic, because he is supposed to rise in the church to be a guide and wants Lucy to support him.

Things go horribly off track when the leader of the group, the Wrong Reverend Ruby Cabernet, intones a forbidden prayer and summons spirits of the past. These include The Mighty Zin and Madame Sauterne, among others. Mayhem ensues. Let's just say the evening goes so far off script that even Ryan can't see where it will end.

This collection will be out in March 2017. Look for many of us, in small groups or solos, to offer book signings at local wineries. Even if no one shows up to buy a book, we can always indulge in tastings. I wonder how far off script we can go next summer.

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I'm really excited that the trade paper edition of Uncharted Territory was released this week. Please follow me on my website, on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.