Kristen Perrin Guest Post How to Cheat Your Own Death

 

Annie Adams is back on the case in a dual-timeline mystery that shifts between the 1960s and the present day, where nearly identical murders blur the line between a haunting past and a gritty present. Read on for an exclusive essay from Kristen Perrin on writing How to Cheat Your Own Death.

From the gritty streets of 1960s Soho to the lofty galleries of present-day West London, two interlocking mysteries decades apart unfold in this latest instalment in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling Castle Knoll Murder Mystery series.

 

Writing How to Cheat Your Own Death, book 3 in the Castle Knoll Murder Mystery series, surprised me in the best way.

Writers will often tell you similar things about how each book in a series feels as you put pen to paper. The first one is an experiment where you tell yourself a story, often just to see what you can make of it. That experience is very unencumbered by the noise of an audience, and feels both daunting and playful at the same time. Writing the second book is usually referred to as the hardest, because it feels like running up a mountainside in the snow with no shoes on (or some version of writing this was horrible). Because with second books, you have an audience now – people are listening, wondering how you’re going to keep this world and these characters interesting. Will she pull it off? Or will this whole thing fall apart? It’s a lot of pressure. Any further books in a series are wild cards, and each one is a surprise in how the process goes. My writing experience for the Castle Knoll files has followed this pattern, but book 3 is where it surprised me.

How to Cheat Your Own Death was a wild card in that I never expected the defining feeling of writing it to be well, this was delightfully fun. By book 3, I felt like I could breathe as a writer. I knew my characters so well and I honestly just let go and let myself and my plots bounce around into unexpected territory. It was still challenging, as all books are, but the series really feels like my home now.

And the journey of this series has been magical; there have been too many favorite parts of the experience to name. But some highlights have been seeing all the amazing translations (we’ve just reached our 30th language!), getting heartfelt messages from readers who have fallen in love with the books, and seeing How to Solve Your Own Murder as a Barnes & Noble Mystery/Thriller Pick of the Month last year!

Being part of the mystery shelves in bookstores has meant so much to me because mysteries were what really hooked me as a reader. The mysteries I cut my teeth on were the Nancy Drew series, and books like The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. By high school, I was entranced with literary fiction that had a strong mystery at its core, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and The Robber Bride transfixed me. I could never pick a favorite, which is something I love about the genre – every new book will surprise you, each new spin on the classics feels like a new favorite, until the next one. I do hope How to Cheat Your Own Death will be your next favorite mystery.