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On The Table Read, “the best creativity magazine in the UK“, crime and murder mystery writer Penny Goetjen shares her creative writing inspiration for the Elizabeth Pennington Mystery Series.
Written by Penny Goetjen
The writer’s muse can be elusive, showing up at unexpected times or in unexpected places. Some writers listen to music to set the right mood and derive inspiration; others read their favorite authors.
For me, it’s the locations I’ve traveled to or lived in, and the experiences collected there, that inspire. In fact, before I start writing a manuscript, I begin by selecting the setting.
In my Elizabeth Pennington Mystery Series, the star of the story is the rocky, tumultuous coast of Maine where the old family-run inn is situated high up on a precipice looking out over the ocean. Many readers ask, why Maine? After all, I was born in Connecticut, went to college at The University of Connecticut, raised our three children in the Nutmeg State, and lived there longer than anywhere else.
My desire to transport readers to the land of lobsters, plucked from waters too frigid to do more than stick your big toe in, runs deep. I’ve been trekking there since I was a baby. My mother grew up in Maine and my grandmother lived there until she passed away in her eighties. We visited her every summer for our family vacations, with only one exception, no matter how far away we resided.
For many years we lived in Indiana, and it took three days to make the drive. I sat in the back seat of a four-door sedan with plastic seat covers and no a/c, my older brother inches away and at the ready to tease, poke, and prod like big brothers are programmed to do. In spite of the arduous trip to get there, I fell in love with the coast of Maine at a young age and the love affair continues to this day with annual excursions to the Pine Tree State.
It was in the kitchen of my grandmother’s creaky old house where she taught me to make delectable chocolate fudge, and my first (terrifying) paranormal experience was in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I adored my grandmother and now cherish the grandmother Amelia in my Elizabeth Pennington Mysteries, the character she inspired.
So, years ago when the threads of a murder mystery began floating around in my head, the jagged Maine coastline seemed the perfect place to set what would become Murder on the Precipice. It’s the first in the series and tells the story of Elizabeth Pennington who returns to her childhood home, now a popular seaside inn run by her grandmother, after a young female guest goes missing. Murder Beyond the Precipice and Murder Returns to the Precipice soon followed and Elizabeth’s escapades continued.
The sultry, steamy Caribbean is another location that has wiggled into my heart and found its way into my Olivia Benning Mystery Series. Set in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, soothing sea breezes and palm trees serve as the backdrop. At first sight of the serene turquoise water on approach to Cyril E. King Airport, my heart goes aflutter. It never gets old, and I’ve made many trips there.
The research for this series is a tough task, but one I’m more than willing to undertake. (Wink) Locals and visitors alike will recognize a few landmarks when they read The Empty Chair ~ Murder in the Caribbean as young Olivia travels to the Virgin Islands to settle affairs after receiving word her mother, a highly acclaimed photographer, has perished in a boating accident. But island police have no record of her death or even the accident so Olivia sets out to search to the ends of the island and becomes entangled in a dark web of crime that may have ensnared her mother. Olivia’s adventures continue in the sequel Over the Edge ~ Murder Returns to the Caribbean.
My latest release The Woman Underwater is a contemporary suspense in my home state and is the result of readers asking for a novel to be set there. There’s so much to love about Connecticut, particularly when summer slips into autumn and the glorious foliage turns breathtaking, attracting leaf peepers from far and wide.
I chose to set The Woman Underwater during this time frame in a quaint New England rural town I’ve named Talcottville as well as an all-boys private boarding school in (fictitious) Litchfield Falls with its bucolic campus tucked in the woods near a beaver pond.
When the story opens, protagonist Victoria Sands’ husband has been missing nearly seven years. He’d been a teacher at the school and disappeared on a field trip with his students to New York City, seemingly without a trace. No witnesses came forward. His car was never found. The few tenuous leads the police initially had fizzled quickly. One of the wrinkles in the story is that their son is now a senior at the school. The field trip his father disappeared on is coming up on the academic calendar and he wants to go.
Since settings are such an integral part of my novels, they essentially become one of the characters. The stories simply couldn’t be set in alternate locations.
Clambakes and walks on a fog-shrouded beach in my Elizabeth Pennington Mystery Series couldn’t take place in the Arizona desert. You also wouldn’t find the killer views of serene turquoise water from my Olivia Benning Mystery Series in the mountains of Colorado. And the picturesque New England private school campus with its brownstone buildings and slate roofs in The Woman Underwater wouldn’t have the same feel in a big city like Chicago.
In addition to all the places I’ve fallen in love with, the paranormal experiences I mentioned earlier fuel the inspiration for my writing. I have such a fascination and a connection with what I’ve witnessed or felt that I usually weave a spine-tingling, often subtle, thread into my stories. It’s as natural for me write it in as my yearning to travel.
Award-winning novelist Penny Goetjen writes murder mystery and suspense novels where the settings play as prominent a role as the engaging characters. She is a proud member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. The Woman Underwater is her latest novel.
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