Dianne Ascroft - A Small Town, a Big Party, a Stolen Gift
Dianne Ascroft is a Canadian writer living in Britain. Since moving to Britain in 1990 she has lived in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Online she can be found at http://www.dianneascroft.com. She writes cozy mystery, historical and contemporary fiction, often with an Irish connection. Dianne is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Sisters in Crime, Historical Novel Society, Writers Abroad, Fermanagh Authors' Association and Fermanagh Writers. Dianne started life in a quiet residential neighbourhood in the buzzing city of Toronto and has progressively moved to smaller places through the years. She now lives on a small farm in Northern Ireland with her husband and an assortment of strong willed animals. If she ever decides to write her autobiography the working title will be 'Downsizing'.
Please give us a short introduction to what A Timeless Celebration is about.
Middle-aged widow Lois Stone has moved from the big city to small town Fenwater and is trying to adjust to life on her own in a lovely stone cottage with only her two calico cats for company. As she settles into her new life, two events happen that shatter her serenity: her house is burgled and an antique watch that had belonged to a Titanic survivor is stolen from the local museum. Her best friend, Marge, was responsible for the watch’s safekeeping until its official presentation to the museum at the town’s 150th anniversary party, and its disappearance will jeopardise Marge’s job and the museum’s future. Lois doesn’t intend to let her friend take the blame for the theft. She’s determined to find the watch in time to save her best friend’s job, the museum’s future and the town’s 150th anniversary celebration.
What inspired you to write this story? Was there anything in particular that made you want to tackle this?
The first few books I wrote were historical fiction. Then several years ago, I had an idea for a mystery series, and I knew a small town in Canada that would be the perfect setting for it. That was the beginning of the Century Cottage Cozy Mystery series.
As I mulled over ideas for this first book in the series, I couldn’t help throwing historical elements into the plot. Many people cherish items connected to their heritage. With this in mind, I scanned a museum website to find out what types of artifacts they had in their collection. I noticed a pocket watch that belonged to a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic and this got me thinking about what would happen if such a treasured artifact was stolen. The plot for this book just grew from there.
Why did you pick a small town as the backdrop for your story?
One of the reasons I love writing cozy mysteries is that they allow me to explore the place as well as the mystery at the heart of the story. Readers are drawn to appealing settings. So it’s important that the place where the story is set beckons to readers to step in and stay a while.
With that in mind, it was important to me to choose the right place for this story. Some places just linger in your mind. Something about the atmosphere of a particular location grips you. For me that spot is Fergus, Ontario, Canada, a small town one hundred kilometres northwest of Toronto. It captivated me almost forty years ago when I first visited it, and I knew it was the right place for this series. I wanted to create a warm, welcoming place that would be central to my stories and that readers would want to return to book after book. So I fictionalised the small town that I knew and it became Fenwater, the place that Lois now calls home.
Tell us more about Lois. What makes her tick?
Lois Stone is the main character in the series, and she is definitely one of my favourite characters. The middle-aged librarian is quiet, dependable and trustworthy with an unwavering moral code. Her struggle with grief after the death of her husband, and her determination not to retreat from life, despite her shyness, are challenges that I think will resonate with many readers. Although she is quiet, she has a dry sense of humour and her caring attitude to others shines through her somewhat subdued exterior. I wanted her to be believable rather than larger than life: someone readers will like and relate to.
Lois values her friendships, especially her relationship with her best friend, Marge. The women met when they worked together at the local library in Toronto and Marge encouraged Lois to move to Fenwater. They have been friends for years. Marge is Lois’s shoulder to cry on and rock to steady her in a crisis. She also ensures that Lois’s life is never dull.
Why did you use the theft of an antique watch as the catalyst for your story?
The ideas for my cozy mystery plots come from many different places: incidents that happen to me, random thoughts that cross my mind, bits of trivia that catch my attention and research into the history of the real town Fenwater is inspired by.
I read A Night to Remember by Walter Lord when I was in my early teens and his writing evoked the night the Titanic sank so vividly in my mind that I’ve never forgotten the book and it left me with a lasting interest in the events of that night. The poignant bravery of many of the people aboard the ship as they faced death profoundly affected me. So I’ve always kept tabs any new facts that emerge about the sinking. I was glued to the television when details first emerged about the discovery of the wreck in the mid-1980s. I know others are equally captivated by the ship and the tragedy so when I discovered that an artifact that had belonged to a Titanic survivor was in the museum in the real town Fenwater is inspired by, I knew I had to include a fictional item from the Titanic in my novel and have the plot revolve around its disappearance.
Friendship features prominently in this story. Why did you find this important to write about?
Few of us exist entirely on our own. We enjoy the company of others and friendships are important to most of us. I would describe my cozy mysteries as heartwarming reads, and this is largely due to how I portray the emotional bonds between the characters. Readers want to solve the central mystery in the story but I think they also want the emotional satisfaction that comes from immersing themselves in the characters’ lives and friendships.
Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?
Well, I used to play the Scottish bagpipes, and I was a hospital volunteer and camp counsellor during my teen years. Nowadays writing takes up most of my working hours, but when I have a bit of free time, I like to dabble with creating simple graphic designs. Like my cozy mysteries, my designs are heartwarming and whimsical.
Some of the themes I have created designs for include holidays, mystery readers, historical fiction readers, my cozy mystery and historical fiction series, the natural world, cats, Canada and Ireland. Readers can find my designs on my Redbubble shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/dascroft
Why cozy mysteries? What drew you to the genre?
I was introduced to the cozy mystery genre when I reviewed a few cozy mysteries for author blog tours several years ago. I found that I enjoyed the warmhearted, often humorous stories, and I loved to escape to the charming places where they were set. I started reading cozies for my own pleasure and then I found myself writing them too.
I think a story needs to be compelling, one that will matter to the characters and the reader. But this doesn’t mean that it has to be a larger-than-life blockbuster that includes a huge cast of characters and many flashy settings. It can be set in a small place with characters that live relatively ordinary lives. Cozy mysteries often play out on a small stage but still capture the reader’s imagination. And those are the kind of stories I want to tell. Writing cozy mysteries allows me to give my characters significant problems or conflicts to solve while living in the sort of world readers want to visit. I also get to develop the characters’ personalities to make them believable people that touch readers’ hearts and make readers want to root for them. All of this makes the cozy mystery genre the one for me.
This is Book 1 of your Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries. Can it be read as a standalone? How do the other books in the series tie in with this one?
Yes, A Timeless Celebration can be read as a standalone novel. Since it’s the first novel in the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries series readers can easily slip into Lois Stone’s life and world.
Out of Options, the prequel novella to the series, is set in the spring of 1983, a couple of months before Lois moves to Fenwater. The novella gives readers a glimpse into Lois Stone’s life before she moved to Fenwater, and reveals what prompted her move to the small town.
The Heritage Heist, the second novel in the series, opens a few months after A Timeless Celebration ends. When an antique quilt that is a cherished part of Fenwater’s past disappears from the market before her town’s fall fair and one of her friends is on the suspect list, it’s up to Lois to resolve the quilt quandary.
There are also two short stories in the series: A Craving for Carvings is set in late summer between A Timeless Celebration and The Heritage Heist. When a house is burgled on the street where Lois Stone lives, it’s too close for comfort. She can’t just sit back and wait for the police to catch the crook so she’s on the case.
Thanksgiving and Theft, which will be released in autumn 2021, is set a couple of weeks before The Heritage Heist. While Lois is in Toronto to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends, she interrupts a mugging. Her heart goes out to the elderly woman who has lost a treasured brooch and Lois decides to track down the mugger and get the brooch back.
Do any of your characters ever take off on their own tangent, refusing to do what you had planned for them?
Most of the characters in the series sort of randomly popped out of my head. Some of their characteristics and quirks are inspired by real people but mostly they escaped from my imagination and are now running free to do whatever they please. They often have their own ideas about where the story is going and I have to follow them along the paths they choose.
What did you have the most fun with when writing A Timeless Celebration?
I enjoyed introducing Lois’s two calico cats to readers. They are more perceptive than the average animal, and they have a habit of pointing her toward clues. They are also more clued in about the trustworthiness of people Lois meets then she is. I also had a lot of fun creating Lois’s unusual housemate. The house has been around a long time – more than a century, in fact - and Lois discovered not long after she moved in that it came with a resident ghost. The ghost isn’t your typical spectre and I enjoyed discovering Lois’s thoughts and reactions as she gradually becomes aware that she and her cats aren’t alone in the house.
Do you have any interesting writing habits? What is an average writing day like for you?
Things don’t always go to plan but when they do, I write early in the morning. I’m always the first one up each morning so the house is quiet and there’s no distractions, other than the cat clamoring for her breakfast. In this atmosphere it’s easy to gather my thoughts and put them on paper before my mind gets filled with the other tasks that I have to tackle that day. To fuel my thought processes, I usually have a mug of homemade mocha coffee sitting beside me. As I said, it’s not always possible to put my fingers to the keyboard before my daily tasks overtake me, so if plans go awry, I scribble away whenever I get a few minutes. Living on a farm it’s inevitable that there will be interruptions too. Some of the things that can disturb me include stopping to watch a pheasant, hare or deer amble past my window or dashing out to help round up an escaped goat or cow.
What are you working on right now?
I’m currently writing the third novel in the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries series. Fenwater is very proud of its Scottish heritage and the Burns Night Supper is a big annual event in the town. But when a member of the Burns Night Supper committee is murdered the week before the event, Lois and her friend Marge want to know why. Did a member of the Burn Night committee commit murder?
Where can our readers discover more of your work or interact with you?
Dianne’s website and blog: https://www.dianneascroft.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DianneAscroftwriter
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/DianneAscroft
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