An Interview with Author Dorothy Bodoin

Author's Website
Dorothy Bodoin on Goodreads

Why did you start fiction writing and what genre(s) do you like to write?
I started writing fiction as soon as I learned to write words and draw pictures to illustrate them. In other words, before I entered elementary school; and I never stopped. I write mysteries because that’s what I always liked best to read.

Why this/these genres? What attracts you to them?
As I grew older and after seeing the movie, Jane Eyre, I was attracted to the Gothic elements in mystery stories. They still fascinate me, along with old science-fiction movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Where Have All the People Gone?

Generally speaking, what is the driving force behind your characters? Have any of your characters changed in dramatic way from what you imagined at the start during the writing process?

My heroine, along with other characters in my series, is driven to help collies in distress and their people, while her husband, Deputy Sheriff Crane Ferguson, has dedicated his life to keeping law and order in his corner of the world. My readers tell me that Jennet has changed over the course of the series. They find her bolder, more willing to take risks, more humorous, and they think she has more confidence in herself. One day I’ll reread my series and see if I can detect these changes.
The first book in my series, Darkness at Foxglove Corners, was intended to be a stand-alone so I didn’t give much thought to how Jennet's character would change.

What do you find the most difficult in finishing a story and approximately how long does it take for you to write a story?

Maintaining enthusiasm for a project is the most difficult aspect of the writing process for me. It takes from four to five months for me to finish a book, depending on what interruptions life throws at me.

Are there other types of writing you do such as non-fiction, or short fiction?
I only write full-length books because I rarely read short stories. I like to spend more time with my characters than the short length allows.

Has your writing affected you in any way and what would you recommend to someone wanting to start writing fiction?

I was always on the introverted side, and my writing has made me more so. I’m happiest when I can stay home and concentrate on my work-in-progress.

I’d advise any one aspiring to write fiction to read. Read in your chosen genre and read anything else that catches your interest. I learned the craft of writing from books like the late Phyllis A. Whitney’s Guide to Fiction Writing and articles in The Writer. Also I studied the work of other writers. If I were beginning a career in fiction writer, I’d take advantage of the many sources for writers on the Internet, including online classes given by successful authors. 

More About All The Pretty Little Collies

The discovery of poisoned meat on the horse farm of her friend and neighbor, Sue Appleton, is only the beginning of the reign of terror that strikes Foxglove Corners one summer.  It seems that anyone owning a collie is a target of the mysterious poisoner who proves impossible to track.  While this is going on, a young girl who has a beautiful blue merle collie named Sparkle to show receives messages warning her to withdraw her dog from all competition or risk losing her.  Jennet vows to help Sparkle's owner and to find and stop the person who is terrorizing Foxglove Corners' collie owners.  But can she do the seemingly impossible?

All the Pretty Little Collies

Now Available!

Twenty-seventh story in The Foxglove Corners Series 

Spring brings danger to the collies of Foxglove Corners when poisoned meat begins to appear in their yards. Another collie is threatened with dire consequences unless her owner withdraws her from all future shows. In the meantime, a ghost moves into the wildflower field planted at the site of the burned down Victorian house on Huron Court.

Dorothy Bodoin lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, with her blue merle collie, Layla. Dorothy worked as a secretary for Chrysler Missile Corporation for six years, two of which were spent in Italy. On returning to the states, she attended Oakland University, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English literature.  For several years she taught English in a Michigan high school before leaving education to write full-time. She is the author of the Foxglove Corners Cozy Mystery series, six novels of romantic suspense, and one Gothic romance.

What They Are Saying About All the Pretty Little Collies:

All the Pretty Little Collies is the twenty-seventh installment in Dorothy Bodoin’s Foxglove Corners Mystery Series. Filled with surprises, twists, and turns, it is another winner that will keep you riveted until the last page.

The book begins with Jennet Ferguson, an amateur sleuth/teacher, visiting a friend’s horse ranch to take her turn caring for her friend’s collies. The dogs discover a slab of raw meat tossed into the grass. Alarmed, Jennet manages to grab the meat before the dogs touch it. Worried, she has it tested by her deputy sheriff husband and discovers that it’s been poisoned. Who could be trying to kill dogs in Foxglove Corners?

Heightening the suspense, Jennet learns that her friend, Annica, has seen a ghost, a young girl picking wild flowers on the site where a pink Victorian house once stood. Intrigued, she investigates the phenomenon.

As if that isn’t enough to keep Jennet busy, she learns that Minta Maynard, owner of a prize-winning blue-merle show dog named Sparkle, is receiving threatening messages in her mailbox. If Minta continues to show Sparkle, the collie will be harmed.

Readers will be perched on the edge of their chairs wondering how these storylines will be resolved. I highly recommend this new addition to the Foxglove Corners Mystery Series.
It is exciting to note that the collie on the cover of this new book is the author’s own blue merle collie, Fantasy’s Bell Bottom Blue—Layla.  —Suzanne M. Hurley, Author of The Christmas Rose, The Dream Smasher and many others.

The Deadly Fields of Autumn

This month Wings released Dorothy Bodoin's twenty-fifth cozy mystery book in the Foxglove Mystery series. What an accomplishment, Dorothy! Congratulations!

I haven't read all twenty-five of these stories, but quite a few, and can attest that they are well written and suspenseful stories. The first book got me hooked on the characters Jennet Greenway, and Deputy Sheriff Crane Ferguson, who from the very first time he stopped her for speeding, showed an incredible attraction to each other. Another aspect I love about Dorothy's books is the Michigan setting, probably because I live in Michigan, but what Dorothy writes about the beauty and weather of this state is accurate.

Now I realize how much catching up I to do. I bought the Kindle edition of this story. Jennet and Crane are married now, but Jennet remains an independent woman, who teaches high school, loves collies, has unusual metaphysical encounters, and of course, finds irresistible mysteries. Surprise! She has seven collies now. She also has a female deputy sheriff stalking Crane, and at a yard sale finds an older rescue collie for sale  along with a haunted antique TV. Good start. 

Books by Rhobin

The Silver Sleigh

By Dorothy Bodoin
Mystery/Crime, 397 pages, cover art by Pat Evans
 
Blurb:
Rosalyn Everett was missing and presumed dead. Her dogs had been rescued, and her house was abandoned. But a blue merle collie haunts her woods and a figure in bridal white traverses her property.

How do the mysteries at River Rose connect to Jennet's purchase of an antique silver sleigh?

Excerpt:
Every time I stepped on River Rose land, the snowswept expanse seemed more bizarre.

Or was 'bizarre' the best word to describe it? Haunted would be better; forbidding better yet. Once before I'd had the feeling that Rosalyn's abandoned house didn't want us invading its rooms.

Now that was bizarre.

This afternoon the usual otherworldly silence greeted me. Scattered animal prints and fallen branches marred the snow. The festive Christmas wreath still adorned the front door in mid-January, its ribbon crisp and bright. A discernible pall hung over the deserted kennel buildings, and the dark woods behind the house rose to meet a sullen sky. They appeared to issue a voiceless warning:

Don't come any closer.

Leaving the Taurus idling, I grabbed a bag of beef chunks and made my way up to the house calling Icy's name loudly.

An echo flung it back to me, an echo followed by a deep bark. Then another. I'd hoped for a response but hadn't expected one.

I called again. "Icy! Treat!"

He emerged from the side of the house near the blue spruce where I'd first seen him. And oh, he was magnificent! Large and majestic with a silvery-blue coat that shone in the last of the afternoon light as if it had been freshly bathed and brushed. Impossible, of course.

The Quicksliver Collie.

I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't move.

A piece of light green material dangled from his mouth. A rag?

"Are you hungry?" I rattled the bag, a sound that unfailingly drew my dogs from all corners of the house.

He tilted his head, licked his chops.

I tossed a chunk of beef into the snow. He lounged for it, swallowed it in one gulp, and stared at the bag in my hand.

"Poor hungry baby."

I tossed two more pieces and eyed the material that had fallen into the snow.

Focused on devouring the beef, the collie didn't object when I bent down to pick it up. Wet and torn, definitely the worse for wear, it was still recognizable as a woman's blouse or shirt, probably silk.

Whose?

The leap was inevitable. Who but Rosalyn Everett would have worn this blouse found on her property?

From somewhere a snippet of information floated into my mind. Sue Appleton saying, "Rosalyn often wore green. It was her favorite color."

Icy had apparently brought the blouse from the woods. If I could find the place… There might be other garments there. There might be a grave.

I showed Icy the empty bag. "No more. Sorry."

He sniffed at it warily, then dashed off back to the yard, up the incline, and into the woods.

Still carrying the blouse, I followed him, followed his imprints in the snow, crossing treacherous roots that reached out of the ground cover to entrap me. Soon I'd lost sight of the dog but not his tracks. He must have come and gone this way often enough to create a path of sorts.

The trees grew close together. Hungry branches reached out for me, snagging my sleeves. In an alarmingly short time, my breath grew ragged and my heartbeat raced. Just when I thought I could go no farther, I caught sight of Icy. He had come to a stop in a clearing at a large nest of branches. His makeshift home or…

Something had disarranged the neat order of the branches, scratched or clawed them aside to expose more green material.

I stopped quickly and grabbed onto the trunk of a slender tree for support, still breathing heavily as the significance of the discovery caught up with me. This was Rosalyn's grave. I had found her.

The collie lay down close to the nest, panting, waiting with the air of one who has completed his mission.

Rosalyn's grave. At last. But shouldn't I make certain her body lay beneath the branches?

Yes, but I didn't want to touch a corpse unless there was no alternative. Not when I was alone in the woods except for a dog who wasn't mine. Not when I had my cell phone in my pocket and access to an officer of the Foxglove Corners Police Department.

Just move the branches aside with your boot, I told myself. You won't have to touch anything.

No. I couldn't be that disrespectful.

Keeping my eye on the gravesite and the guardian collie, I called Lieutenant Mac Dalby.

A Ghost of Gunfire

By Dorothy Bodoin
Cozy Mystery, 392 pages
Cover art by Pat Evans


Months after gunfire erupted in her classroom, leaving one student dead and another wounded, Jennet Ferguson begins to hear mysterious gunshots inaudible to anyone else.

While Jennet fears she may be losing her grip of reality, she encounters a threatening stranger near her home. Soon after, she finds a collie tethered to a tree in the woods and left to die. When another collie meets the same fate, she resolves to find the abuser and put an end to his demented activities

Excerpt:
“There’s something unsettling in the air today.”
Lucy Hazen gazed at the woods across from Jonquil Lane, her eyes searching for the mysterious something that had taken her attention away from my blueberry pie.

“Sure there is,” Brent said. “It’s electricity. There’s a thunderstorm on the way.”

Lucy shook her head. “Besides that.”

“It won’t be here for a while, I hope.” I glanced at the sky, which was still overcast. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but we should be safe for a while. From the rain, that is.

Whenever Lucy talked like a character in one of her horror stories, I’d learned to pay attention. At times she knew an event was imminent long before it occurred.

I surveyed the woods, trying to see what she saw. They were dark and shadowy, as always, but far from sinister, at least by day.

These days, it seemed, I was always poised for the unexpected. For trouble. Always waiting for a rude disruption to the status quo. Like a gunshot coming out of nowhere.

“The flowers can use the rain,” Camille said.

Lucy went back to her pie. As did I, a bit warily.

Any gunfire in the woods would have a natural explanation. In spite of the numerous ‘No Trespassing” and ‘No Hunting’ signs posted at the perimeters, someone always ignored them. The graceful deer that roamed freely in the area were too tempting to escape the notice of illegal hunters. Then there were game birds.

I pulled my mind back to practical matters. We were at the dessert stage of our barbecue. I glanced at the glasses and plates, some of them empty, some almost so. “Does everyone have enough to drink?” I asked. “How about a second helping of Camille’s flag cake?”

“I’ll try a piece of pie,” Brent said, scraping his plate. His cake had been generously sprinkled with halved strawberries, a portion from the edge of the flag.

“Blueberry or cherry?” I asked.

“Blueberry.”

The thunder was closer now, and a gust of wind sprang to life, taking a swipe at the stack of paper napkins on the table. As I anchored them with a salt shaker, I felt a brush of velvet against my ankles. Sky, so easily frightened by storms and loud noises, sought reassurance that all would be well. I stroked her head and whispered, “It’s okay, girl.”

With a whimper, she lay down.

“Let’s clear the tables,” Camille said. “We can finish dessert inside.”

“Did anyone hear that?” Lucy asked.

“The wind?” Brent rose, holding the cake platter. Crane grabbed the pies. Everyone except Lucy had something in hand.

“No, it sounded like a cry,” she said.

Faintly alarmed, I listened. “I didn’t hear anything. Only the wind.”

“It sounded like a cry for help,” Lucy murmured. “Someone out there is in trouble.”

“You probably heard a creature in the woods,” Brent said. “A bird could make a crying sound.”

He put his arm around Lucy. “You’re really concerned?”

She smiled up at him. “Could it be one of the dogs, Jennet?” she asked. “Are they all accounted for?”

Dreams And Bones

By Dorothy Bodoin
Cozy Mystery, 386 pages
Cover art by Pat Evans
Blurb:
Things haven’t been the same for the Lakeville Collie Rescue League since the murder of founder and president Terra Roman. Now they’re faced with a possible lawsuit, the new president having placed a dog in a forever home without the knowledge of the owner. Jennet finds herself in the unenviable position of trying to placate both the new owner and the original one who is determined to get her dog back, no matter what she has to do.

Meanwhile, at the Spirit Lamp Inn, a garden renovation turns up human bones buried in the Inn’s backyard, rekindling interest in the case of a young woman who disappeared from the Inn several decades ago. As Jennet tries to solve this mystery, she doesn’t realize that it may be her last.

Excerpt:

“Do you know if Mister Fowler is coming to the Inn for dinner tonight?” I asked.

The red-haired hostess glanced into the dining room which had filled up in the last half hour. “Mr. Fowler doesn’t let us know his plans. Did you find your friend?”

“Not yet,” I said.

I couldn’t stay at the Inn much longer, but how could I leave, without knowing where Miss Isabel had gone?

I’d simply have to find her.

“I’ll check his office,” I said and left before she could raise an objection.

Once again I stood in a silent, deserted hall knocking at a closed door. Once again a door remained closed, guarding its secrets. Apparently this was one of the nights when Brent was dining at Clovers or the Hunt Club Inn, his two favorite haunts.

What now?

See if Miss Isabel’s vintage Plymouth was in the lot and alert Brent to her absence. Especially if the car was still there. Because if it was, that meant she had never left the Inn.

Another woman goes missing at the Spirit Lamp Inn. Ironically, she was acquainted with the woman who disappeared from the same establishment several decades ago. That woman met with a tragic end.

I could almost see the story splashed across the front page of the Banner.

No. That was taking irony too far. Nonetheless, an eerie sense of déjà vu tugged at me.

Déjà vu is always eerie.

I left a message on Brent’s voice mail and felt a little better about leaving the Inn. Driving in the dark on country roads that might be growing slick as the temperatures dropped was taking a chance. Crane and the collies depended on me. Still, I wasn’t ready to go home yet.

I realized I’d been looking forward to a cup of hot tea and Louise’s homemade pastries, not to mention the chance to have a private visit with Miss Isabel.

I’d have to leave with my curiosity unsatisfied. Why had Miss Isabel issued that strangely-worded invitation? More important, what happened to her? Where was she now?

I remembered the last time Miss Isabel had vanished on the night of Brent’s birthday celebration. We’d found her shivering at the site of the former grave.

History repeats itself.

Look outside, I told myself.

I backtracked to the Inn’s front door. From the shelter of the porch, I peered around the side of the Inn. The erstwhile gravesite glistened in the fading light with nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the property. No dark figure kept a lonely vigil in the snow. I walked to the other side of the porch and saw her car lightly dusted in white.

She was still here then; she had to be.

But where?

All right. There was something else about that night. Marsha Anne and Catherine had found the door to Miss Isabel’s room unlocked. Maybe she was in the habit of going out without locking the door.

It was worth a try.

Back inside, I nodded to the hostess and ascended the stairs once more, hurried to Miss Isabel’s room, and rapped on the door.

There was no answer; I didn’t expect one. Holding my breath, I turned the doorknob. The door opened easily.

A quick look told me that Miss Isabel had indeed planned to invite me to tea: the electric tea kettle on the small table, tarts arranged on a silver tray, and the silver service with a newly-acquired shine in the light of a Tiffany table lamp. The tin was open. Several missing packets told me that she had already sampled the tea.

“Miss Isabel?”

I thought I was speaking loudly. My voice was a croak, strange and unfamiliar in the silent room and my throat was dry. Oh, for a cup of tea!

As there was no answer, I set about making a thorough search of the entire suite of rooms, including the closet and the enormous armoire, half dreading to find her body crammed into an out-of-sight hiding place.

She wasn’t there, and that was good, but on the nightstand a glint of silver caught my attention. It was jewelry, a small silver heart. Wait a minute! It was the heart, the one that Brent’s painter found in a closet, the one suspected of being part of the charm bracelet.

The traveling heart.