Hands Across the Pond

As part of Crime Fiction Week, I’m very happy to have a guest today, Donna Fletcher Crow from the USA.  Donna and I have never met, but we came together through the wonders of email, as we answered one another’s messages on DorothyL, the mystery website and became firm, if electronic, friends. Donna has a new book out, the first in the Monastery Murders series, which I can heartily recommend.

My questions are in italics. So, Donna, over to you!

Thank you so much, Dolores, for inviting me here today to celebrate National Crime Fiction Week in the UK.  If I were a much stronger swimmer I could be there speaking in libraries, doing schools visits and holding book signings with English Crime Fiction writers this week. But realities and distances being what they are I’ll just sit here with a freshly brewed cup of my favorite Yorkshire Gold and wave my book at you.  I am truly delighted that Monarch Books has released A Very Private Grave, Book 1 in my Monastery Murders series, in time for Crime Fiction Week, so I truly feel like I’m celebrating with you.  I’ve been asking my UK readers to go into their nearest Waterstones and ask to see it.  Even if they aren’t going to buy it, it will help create interest.  And asking libraries to buy a book is also a great way to help authors you enjoy.

Donna, can you tell us a little about yourself? For instance, although A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE is a new venture, it’s not your first book, is it?

I’ve been writing all my life and publishing for about 35 years.  Coincidentally, in that time I have published about 35 books.  Most of them are novels dealing with English history in some way. One of my favorites is Glastonbury, The Novel of Christian England.  It’s a grail search epic that covers 1500 years of English history.  Lots of scope there for a history-lover.

One aspect of A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE that I particularly like is the observation of England. There’s a very strong sense of “place”. What appeals to you about England as a setting?

Oh, my goodness.  There isn’t much that doesn’t appeal to me.  I even like the rain.  I’ve often been asked  “why England?”  My instinct is to reply “What else is there?”  But that’s not particularly helpful. It’s just that I never wanted to write about anything else and even when I’m doing something like my Daughters of Courage series which is about Idaho pioneer families, using a lot of my own grandmothers’ stories, I still manage to get in our Scottish Fletcher the Warrior family stories and the story of my great, great grandmother who came to America when the textile mill she was running in Ireland burnt down.  So I guess it’s a roots thing.  And now our daughter is married to an Englishman, so we’ve come full circle.

Felicity Howard, the main character in A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE, is a young American living in Britain who is studying to be an Anglican minister. Felicity seems very “real”. Did you base her on anyone specific or did she just grow in your mind as you were writing the book?

Oh, yes, Felicity is very much based on our daughter Elizabeth.  Their backgrounds are just about identical.  But then it didn’t work very well at all using Elizabeth’s personality, so Felicity got to be very much her own person and is lots more fun to work with that way.  I will just say, though, that when Elizabeth emigrated and I was moaning about missing her I got no sympathy from my friends who would look at me and say, “Well, whose fault is it?”  Since I had taken her on research trips with me since she was 5 years old.

The first part of the action of A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE concerns a fairly brutal murder at the Anglican College of the Transfiguration in Yorkshire. Like Felicity, the centre seems very “real”. Is it based on a particular place? I feel sure there’s a story behind the story!

Dolores, you’re a very sharp reader.  Oh, yes, the College and Community of the Transfiguration is very heavily drawn from The College and Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield where, indeed, Elizabeth did study theology and wound up marrying a C of E priest.  I am a Companion of the Community.  I would be an oblate, but for CR one has to be a celibate male to be an oblate, so I didn’t exactly qualify.  I go there on retreats whenever I’m on your side of the Water.

A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE centres round the 5^th century saint, St Cuthbert, and the extraordinary account of what happened to his body after he died. Have you always been interested in St Cuthbert or was it an interest which arose as you were researching the book?

I first heard of St. Cuthbert when visiting Durham Cathedral in the mid-90’s.  I knew then I wanted to know more.  I got my chance when I took my own pilgrimage in the fall of 2001— actually taking one of the first planes to leave Boise after 9/11.  I visited 17 holy sites in England, Scotland and Wales and really got St. Cuthbert’s story as well as many others which I hope to tell in future Monastery Murders.

Following on from that question, there’s frequent flashbacks to the 600’s in the story. The detail is terrific! How did you go about re-creating that world?

Oh, thank you.  Other readers have mentioned liking those sections, too.  I was very worried about them because they move the reader away from the intensity of the thriller action, but I’m so glad they worked for you.  Maybe readers need a respite from the blood and mayhem.  But then, the Viking attacks and all that Cuthbert experienced weren’t exactly placid, either.  The detail, of course, is based on my being there and then trying to put my reader in the scene as well.

The action of A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE takes place in Northumberland and Cumberland with occasional excursions to the Scottish Borders. The area is very well-described with occasional references to how cold it is! Can you tell us what made you choose to set A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE here?

Once I’d chosen to tell Cuthbert’s story, I just had to follow along wherever he went.  I think that’s one reason I like writing history.  So much of it I don’t have to make up at all and I always feel that the real bits are the best.  Then I try to make the fictional parts seem real.

Although A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE is complete in itself, there’s obviously more to be written about Felicity! Can you give us some idea of how you see the series developing?

Well, obviously Felicity has a lot of sorting out and, I suppose, growing up to do.  She starts out thinking she knows everything and ends up realizing she doesn’t know anything and Antony tells her “I can’t think of a better place to start.”  But then, being Felicity, she never does anything by halves.  If you read the first chapter of A Darkly Hidden Truth, included in the back of private Grave, you’ll see that, having discovered that there is validity to a spiritual life, Felicity has decided to become a nun.  I think growing Felicity up will be lots of fun.