Mysterious Doings

As a longtime book lover, I have always enjoyed reading mystery novels, and that has not changed since I was in grammar school. Even now, my favorite authors are mystery writers and when I write, that is the genre I like best. 

Today's guest on My Writing Corner brings us a new mystery that sounds like it belongs at the top of my TBR  (To Be Read) pile.

Marian Exall is my guest today. She is an award-winning author of mysteries and historical fiction. She grew up in England, and lived in France and Belgium before moving to the United States where she raised a family and pursued a career as a lawyer.  

She now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Let's learn more about Marian.

What do you enjoy about being an author?

Getting lost in the writing. When it’s going well, I can spend hours writing that feel like minutes. The characters seem to flow through me, rather than me creating them. I’m so lucky to be retired from a “real” job so I can devote time to what I love to do.

What do you find is the most challenging part of being an author?

Promotion! Writing the book is the easy part for me, but once it’s out in the world, getting people to read it (and leave a review, please!) is hard. I’m an introvert, and naturally independent so I’m reluctant to ask for help. I’m also not very tech or social media savvy, which is important for book promotion these days. I have found that in-person events can be really fun, and a good way to generate word-of-mouth publicity.

Tell us about your road to publication.

It’s been a long and winding road! I finished the first draft of Daughters of Riga in 2010. I was a beginning writer and didn’t understand it was a first draft. My editor put me wise. Intimidated, I put the manuscript aside, and turned to writing mysteries. In 2017, after publishing three Sarah McKinney mysteries, I pulled out the draft and started again. I finished in 2020 and began submitting to literary agents. I had big ambitions for this novel! However, after a frustrating year of rejections (and, more frequently, no response at all) I turned to small presses who would accept un-agented submissions. I struck lucky with an introduction to Nan Swanson, editor at the Wild Rose Press. Within a month of submission, I had a signed contract!

What is your book that you will feature today and how did you come up with the idea to write it?

Daughters of Riga was inspired by meeting a Dutch woman living in France: Edith Zwartendijk. Edith was twelve years old in 1939 when her father Jan accepted the post of Dutch Consul in Lithuania. By writing visas for Jewish refugees to Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, Jan saved over 2,300 lives from the Holocaust. Edith told us her father never spoke about the war, and his own government suppressed the facts about his heroic activities. It was only gradually, after his death, that the story emerged through the testimony of survivors. 

My characters are fictional; the book is not Edith’s story or her father’s. But their lives made me think of all the other untold stories of courage and resilience that went undiscovered as that wartime generation passed on. I hope Daughters of Riga honors those untold stories.

Let's get a blurb:

As World War II sweeps over Europe, nine-year-old Danielle Loesseps escapes from Latvia under the protection of the Dutch consul. Her mother, the consul’s secretary, is left behind at the end of a momentous year which sees a heroic scheme to save refugees from the Nazis, the blossoming of a secret love, and an unhappy woman’s revenge.

The consul’s young daughter Berta Vandercam also grows up in the shadow of the war and strives to understand why her father never speaks about their time in Riga.

Memories of the Riga consulate and questions about what happened there haunt the survivors as they remake their lives in the postwar world.

What’s your next project or what are you working on now?

I’m back to writing mysteries! I have two manuscripts more or less ready, both set in the Pacific Northwest where I now live. Look out for Six Degrees of Death later this year.

What advice do you have for beginning writers?

Read! Read widely and critically. See how other writers develop characters through dialog, how to make an arc in each chapter as well as the whole book, how your choices (present tense/past tense; first person/third person) affect the story. 

And if you find an author you admire, connect with them through their website, newsletter, etc. I have found the writing community to be very supportive. You are not alone!

Thank you, Marian, for visiting My Writing Corner today. Following are Marian's buy links for Daughters of Riga and her social contact information.

Buy links:

Amazon 

Bookshop.org 

Barnes & Noble

Social media contacts: 

Marianexall.com

Facebook

LinkedIn

Any questions or comments for Marian?