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Saturday, August 26, 2017

Guest Post with Maia Chance

Hi Everyone!

I am excited to be here today to bring you a guest post from author, Maia Chance. Please help me by giving her a warm welcome.

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THE TROPHY WIVES OF ALPENROSE: A MYSTERY
By Maia Chance

It’s 1965, and small-time American con artist Daisy Mattson considers herself more of a survivalist than a gold-digger.  But when her new husband Count Burkhart of Switzerland dies, she suddenly becomes the head of an international luxury hotel chain, heiress to a fortune . . . and the prime suspect for murder.

Daisy’s sister, seventeen-year old Jo, has chunky thighs, a penchant for wool cardigans, and a weakness for chocolate.  In short, she’s the polar opposite of her glamorous older sister.  Pent up in an elite finishing school, Jo discovers a group of distinctly creepy girls who look straight out of Vogue, secretly speak Russian, and who just might have something to do with Count Burkhart’s death.

Enter a butler who’s more James Bond than Jeeves, a sexy Swiss ski instructor, a legendary monster in the decrepit villa across the lake, and a world-famous plastic surgeon who specializes in transforming women into living dolls.  In the charming alpine village of Ober Spyri, the Mattson sisters race to clear Daisy’s name before she becomes the next one laid to rest in Château Burkhart’s family crypt.


Since 2014 I have traditionally published six mystery novels, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret: The Trophy Wives of Alpenrose was the first mystery I ever wrote.  For years it languished “under the bed,” as they say, but I retained a soft spot for this story of two sisters from Idaho navigating danger and intrigue in 1960s Switzerland.  So, this year I took it out, dusted it off, did some revision and editing, and sent it out into the world.

People often ask me about the stories behind my books, and the origins of this one in particular stand out vividly in my memory.  One day when I was hugely pregnant with my first child, I was lolling around eating frozen yogurt and watching 1963’s The Pink Panther.  I adore this movie’s glamorous ski mountain setting and its wonderful retro makeup, hair, fashion, and interior décor—not to mention the hilarious, action-packed plot.  That day, my imagination was captured.  Maybe it was because I had just finished reading  Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which, as you may recall, also has an alpine setting.  Maybe it was just the preggo hormones.

Whatever the reason, between bites of Haagen-Dazs peach fro-yo, I decided that since I couldn’t even get up off my couch, let alone time-travel to a glamorous version of Switzerland in the 60s, I’d just have to, you know, write a book about it instead.  I mean, I was about to have a baby and I was in the middle of a PhD program, so why not?

Once that story seed was planted, I drew from my own experiences (for instance, growing up in rural Idaho, and my own travels in Switzerland), and from some really fun research into vintage fashion magazines, the history of girls’ finishing schools, and Cold War Russian spies.  The book took more than a year to complete, given what was going on in my life.  I wrote the second half squashed in my quasi-soundproof Toyota for an hour here and an hour there while my husband looked after our (noisy) baby.  But I got it done, and now, at long last, it (like, well, a baby) is out in the world.

The Trophy Wives of Alpenrose: A Mystery is available for purchase on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Trophy-Wives-Alpenrose-Mystery-ebook/dp/B073FFLR6G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502475877&sr=8-1&keywords=the+trophy+wives+of+alpenrose

Visit Maia Chance at maiachance.com


and on Facebook at facebook.com/MaiaChance


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Thanks Maia for being here!

 
Happy Reading!

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