Please welcome Debut Author, Lane Stone, on the worth of a good laugh –

The setting for Current Affairs, the first book in the Tiara Investigations Mystery series, is Sugar Hill, Georgia.  My husband and I split our time between Alexandria, Virginia and Sugar Hill.  I could have set the book in either location but Sugar Hill is a funnier place.  You knew that already, right?  That’s one secret to writing humor – you just heard which was funnier.

I decided I wanted to write a humorous mystery when a series of extremely funny books got me through a rough patch.  While hiking someone told me about a book group for E. F. Benson fans, called the Rye Society.  That week while foraging in the clearance bin at Barnes & Noble, I saw a compilation of the “Lucia” books.  It was three or four inches thick and cost five bucks.  How could anyone turn that down?  It’s called excellent money management.  The first time I tried to read the tome I put it right back on my bookshelf.  I thought it was silly and not my cuppa.   Months later I picked it up again, and had the same reaction.  I knew that these books inspired not just loyalty, but obsession, still ….

In December, 2001, my mother died, and I hadn’t really recovered from 9/11.  My husband was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, and we were living in exile in Fort Lee, New Jersey.  You could see the twin towers from our balcony.  Then all you saw was smoke and rising ash – for months.  If the largest thing in your backyard disappeared you’d never stop looking for it.  So in this time of feeling unable to get my footing,  I gave Make Way for Lucia another go.  It was the funniest thing I had ever read!  I fell in love!  These books had been waiting for just the right time.  They got me through that hellish month.

I had written my first book, which never had nor ever will see the light of day.  Not to get too technical here, but it was crap.  I wasn’t writing in my own voice – don’t know who’s voice it was written in, but it was a boring book.  My goal became to do for some reader, somewhere, what E. F. Benson had for me, either in a difficult time, or just at the end of a long day.  The idea of three former beauty queens from Georgia starting a detective agency came to me and I went on from there.  After about three years of writing, and then another three or four revising and querying, I was offered a contract by Mainly Murder Press. (During the getting pub’d time I was getting edits, both from my critique partner, Jacqui Corcoran, and Sisters in Crime’s Guppy manuscript swap program.  We writers are told to send out fifty query letters then send out fifty more.  My advice from the other side of the fence is this:  make your writing better, then make it better again, then again.  That’s how you’ll get published.)

According to reviewers, Current Affairs is, indeed, funny.  Crime and Suspense Reviewer, Wil Emerson, said, “Lane Stone’s style is both witty and charming … join her on this latest adventure.  And hold onto your belly, it’s a bumpy ride and you can’t stop laughing.”  Sandra Parshall, author of the Rachel Goddard Mysteries, said, “Current Affairs is hilarious and thoroughly entertaining.”  These blurbs made my heart sing.

I hope you’ll give the Tiara Investigations detectives, Leigh, Tara and Victoria, a try and let me know what you think.  I can be reached through www.LaneStoneBooks.com, or on facebook (LaneStoneBooks) and you can follow our standard schnauzer, Abby, on twitter at TheMenopauseDog.  Here’s a link to the video-  http://youtu.be/1mrMqarGPS4

Keep in touch!

Lane

Lane Stone is a member of that rare species known as the native Atlantan, and is a graduate of Georgia State University. She and her husband, Larry Korb, along with the real Abby, really do divide their time between Sugar Hill, GA and Alexandria, VA. Lane is a proud member of the Chessie Chapter and the Atlanta Chapter of Sisters in Crime