It’s our last Promote an Author Tuesday of 2014! Thanks to all of you for stopping by to meet new authors. This week, meet Molly MacRae, author of the Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.
Plagued by Quilt
Yarn shop owner Kath Rutledge is at a historic farm in Blue Plum, Tennessee, volunteering for the high school program Hands on History. But when a long-buried murder is uncovered on the property, Kath needs help from Geneva the ghost to solve a crime that time forgot . . .
Kath and her needlework group TGIF (Thank Goodness It’s Fiber) are preparing to teach a workshop at the Holston Homeplace Living History Farm, but their lesson in crazy quilts is no match for the crazy antics of the assistant director, Phillip Bell. Hamming it up with equal parts history and histrionics, Phillip leads an archaeological dig of the farm’s original dump site—until one student stops the show by uncovering some human bones.
When a full skeleton is later excavated, Kath can’t help but wonder if it’s somehow connected to Geneva, the ghost who haunts her shop, and whom she met at this very site. After Phillip is found dead, it’s up to Kath to thread the clues together before someone else becomes history.
About Molly MacRae
The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, published by Penguin/NAL. Molly’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine since 1990. After twenty years in northeast Tennessee, Molly lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois.
Questions with the Author
Is there a book you wish you had written? (Someone used “Harry Potter” as an example)
Any book by P.G. Wodehouse. He was a comic genius whose writing has given joy to readers for more than a hundred years. His stuff appears to be fluff and flippant on the surface, but he had a keen eye for the human condition and wrote with great heart.
What is your favorite story about your childhood that the family tells over and over?
My sister likes to tell about the time when I was four or five and she came home from college for the holidays. She got in after I was already in bed and asleep, but I woke up when she slipped into the trundle in my room. “Oh,” I said when I saw her, “I thought you were a wolf.” And then I fell back asleep. (It’s true, too. I did think she was a wolf, and although I wasn’t worried by that idea, I was happy to have her home again.)
What’s on your bucket list?
To see flowing lava, go to Shanghai to see where my father lived and my grandmother is buried, learn Tigrinya, visit a Lego factory and see the design process first hand.
Where would your main character go on vacation?
Kath, who’s into textiles and fibers, would like to go to Scotland for a couple of weeks and time the trip so she can go to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival – a celebration of all things woolly and related to yarn, knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving and felting, with tons of vendors and workshops. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? Plus, it’s Scotland!
What is the one thing you can’t live without? That one must have item?
Sorry, there isn’t any one thing I can’t live without. There are plenty of things I’d miss terribly if I didn’t have them – chocolate, for instance (Or my sanity; is that a thing?) Otherwise, I don’t seem to form that kind of attachment. Things come, things go.
Connect with Molly MacRae
You can find out more about Molly at www.mollymacrae.com. You can find her blogging on the first Monday of each month at www.amyalessio.com and on the 23rd of each month at www.killercharacters.com. You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/molly.macrae.9 and Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/MollyMacRae/
Author Teresa Watson 