Agatha Award-winning Daryl Wood Gerber is best known for her nationally bestselling Cookbook Nook Mysteries and Cheese Shop Mysteries, which she pens as Avery Aames. She now debuts the new French Bistro Mysteries with A DEADLY ÊCLAIR. Daryl also writes stand-alone suspense: DAYS OF SECRETS and GIRL ON THE RUN. Fun tidbit: as an actress, Daryl appeared in “Murder, She Wrote.” She loves to cook, and she has a frisky Goldendoodle named Sparky who keeps her in line!
Tell us about your new release.
A Deadly Éclair is the first in the French Bistro Mysteries. It is set in the fictional enclave of Nouvelle Vie, in Napa Valley, California, and features Mimi Rousseau, former chef and current owner of Bistro Rousseau as well as the darling inn next door, Maison Rousseau. Mimi was a noted chef in San Francisco, and it was always her dream to open her own bistro, but it seemed beyond her grasp after being chased back home to Nouvelle Vie by her late husband’s tremendous debt…until her best friend Jorianne James introduced her to entrepreneur Bryan Baker who invested in promising prospects. Now, working the bistro and inn until she’s able to pay off Bryan and call it her own, Mimi is elated to be throwing the inn’s first wedding. That is until Bryan is found dead, and fingers point at Mimi, whose entire loan is forgiven if Bryan dies. As in all of my cozy mysteries, there are recipes included, and I’ve got to tell you that I’ve had such a delicious time cooking French food! One fan said she thinks it has upped my culinary game. Whee!
Which is more important characters or setting?
I find them equally important. The character drives the story, of course, but the setting sets the tone. Whenever I start a new series, I spend a lot of time coming up with the characters that will populate it. They need to carry me through five to ten stories, so I’d better like them and know their purpose. Mimi Rousseau has been a delightful character to write. I love her backstory. I adore her grit. I treasure her relationship with her friends and her mother. She is dedicated and creative and intelligent. As for the setting, I love the backdrop of an idyllic area for a mystery, a place where nothing should go wrong, but it does. Nouvelle Vie, which is a fictional locale in Napa Valley, is a fusion of Yountville—an absolutely terrific town to visit, with beautiful wineries, eateries, and art galleries—and St. Helena, a more laidback version of Yountville, with competing wineries, intimate restaurants, and eclectic shopping venues. While doing my research, I have enjoyed meeting the people in Napa. They understand that the economy revolves around tourism, so they welcome outsiders and they understand the importance of relaxation and comfort. Everyone I’ve met has been open and engaging.
Do you people-watch for character inspiration?
Oh, sure, everywhere I go. In restaurants, at coffee shops, at the grocery store. I don’t gawk, mind you, but I do take notes. If I see a character that I like, let’s say, as a visual, I’ll pop out my cell phone or computer and record details. Quietly. I have been known to jot down a conversation I overhear. The dialogue might sound mundane at first, but it’s always fun to see if I can find the sinister in the conversation. I enjoy studying a person and fashioning a life around them. For example, the guy in the T-shirt and jeans is wealthy beyond means or a techie or a traveler from another country or a gigolo who dupes older women out of their money. I saw a woman the other day with half of her head shaved, the other half dyed white, pink, green and blue. It wasn’t the color of the flag, so what had inspired that combination? What did she do for a living? She was skinny and very tall. Was she a yoga instructor or a beautician? A vegan or meat eater? I’ve often developed one character only to find him or her telling me they are somebody completely different. LOL Yes, they talk to me. What can I say? I think most writers are a tad nuts.
Do you have an interesting quirk about your personality that you’d like to share?
I’m nuts. Oh, wait, I already revealed that. Yes, I am a Type A personality. That alone makes me pretty quirky. I try to do everything perfectly all the time. However—ahem—as a writer I can’t do it perfectly. I can’t write a perfect first draft. I can’t even write a perfect first sentence. I tweak and tweak and tweak. To my benefit, I am also a persevering person. I actually won “most persevering” when I was in high school. Kid you not! And as a writer, I won the “queen of rejection” award from an online writers’ group called the Guppies. The queen is the person who sent out the most queries in a short period of time and was rejected the most. Ugh. Not my favorite award, but I owned it because the Guppies believe that you have to keep trying to succeed and, when necessary, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over. I learned to write because of those rejections. As a Type A person, I would really like to write a perfect first draft…but I never will.
Do you have a recurring theme in your books?
All my books introduce a character who has to start anew. It’s the basic hero’s journey. They face a beginning challenge, but once they find the courage to get up and fight, they learn how strong they are. They also learn how important it is to have family and friends. Those bonds are vital to building a strong foundation. In the French Bistro Mysteries, Mimi suffers a devastating setback because of her deceased husband. In the Cookbook Nook Mysteries, Jenna suffers a great loss and returns home to change her career path and find her smile. In the Cheese Shop Mysteries, Charlotte lost her parents at an early age. In both of my stand-alone suspense novels, the protagonists face an uphill challenge to find the truth.
What is the one question you wish an interviewer would ask you?
Why, why, why do you write? I mean, honestly, if you can do something else, why don’t you? Writing is a solitary profession. Writing has a lot of rejection. Writing isn’t as lucrative as fans of James Patterson might think! Well, here’s why. As a girl, I wanted to write. However, I was told by a teacher not to write. I had no talent. I took that to heart and stopped. [Bad teacher.] From that point on, I didn’t believe I “could.” But when I was an actress, I decided to write a screenplay. I knew I could tell a story. And then I realized that if I could do that, I simply needed to learn how to craft it. I took classes. I studied. I read lots of books on writing screenplays and novels. I workshopped my material. Why do I write? Because I have to. I’ve always had stories churning inside me. I’m always asking, “What if…?” and hearing answers. So I write to tell stories. Will I have time to write all the stories cycling in my head? Probably not. That’s okay. I also write to entertain. As an actress, that was my goal—to entertain. That is also my aim as an author. I am never going to write a book worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize novel—it’s just not my style—but I hope to entertain those who read my books. We all need escapism literature, don’t you think?
What’s next for you?
I’ve turned in the second in the French Bistro Mysteries, A Soufflé of Suspicion. That will come out in 2018. I’m putting the finishing touches on A Cookbook Nook Mystery #6, Pressing the Issue, which will also come out in 2018. And I hope to write and publish another stand-alone suspense. We’ll see.
Would you share an approx. 500 word excerpt from your book?
Sure, here are a few opening pages from A Deadly Éclair. Enjoy.
CHAPTER 1
“Bonjour, Mimi!” Heather Holmes, a lanky blonde in her forties with huge, wide eyes and long, curly tresses, breezed into Bistro Rousseau. She screeched to a halt. “Whoa!”
I stared at the chaos in the center of my restaurant—well, it was almost mine; it bore my maiden name. I would own it when I paid off my benefactor, knock on wood.
“What happened?” Heather asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t know we had tornados in Napa Valley.”
“Very funny.” For the past hour, I had been rearranging the tables. In my haste, I had toppled a few of the cane-backed chairs.
Heather’s giggles sounded so much like wind chimes, I was pretty sure an angel had just gotten its wings. “Actually, I like the way you’ve set things up.” She shimmied down the hem of her slinky black dress; it must have twisted up on her ten-minute drive to work. “Très intimate.” Heather didn’t have a wide French vocabulary. I didn’t care. She was a wonderful hostess and assistant. “Perfect for a wedding.”
The wedding was exactly why I was rearranging. We were hosting our very first out-of-towners’ dinner for our very first wedding party. Bistro Rousseau, which was located in Nouvelle Vie—an unincorporated enclave in Napa Valley, north of Yountville and south of St. Helena, which boasted upscale eateries, inns, jazz clubs, and high-end shops—had only been open three months. We were growing in popularity, but my benefactor and mentor, Mr. Baker—Bryan—said that in order to make a splash, we needed to open the restaurant and Maison Rousseau—yes, I almost owned an inn, too—to destination weddings. And he knew just the celebrity who would want to book one. Angelica Barrington, the thirtysomething talk show hostess of Everybody Loves Angelica fame, was his niece. Bryan and Angelica’s father, a winemaker in the county, were half brothers. Same mother, different fathers.
After Bryan had spent twenty minutes boasting about how wonderful Angelica was, I agreed. Honestly, could I refuse? I had seen her on a celebrity cooking show wielding kitchen utensils like a pro and instantly felt she and I could be kindred spirits.
The wedding ceremony would be held tomorrow, Saturday, in the inn’s beautiful courtyard. Oh, how I wanted everything to be perfect. Needless to say, my stomach was in knots and my almost restaurant was a mess.
“Do you want me to set up the wineglasses?” Heather asked as she stowed her purse in the safe that was tucked into the teensy coatroom.
“That would be great!”
The restaurant was small, but the many mirrors on the walls gave it a larger feeling and reflected the warm twinkle from the lights in the bronze-finished, candelabra-style chandeliers. The focal point, where Heather would set up the tasting, was a hand-carved pub-style mahogany bar I had imported from France. Bryan said, Go big or don’t go at all. I wasn’t accustomed to going big, but this time, I had, and I was thrilled.
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