My Morning Chat with Molly MacRae

Grab a cup of coffee and join Molly MacRae as we talk about her new book Last Wool and Testement. You wont want to miss this!

Isn't that cover Wonderful!!! How can you resist!

Good Morning Molly, so glad you can visit with us , I am excited about your new book coming out Sept. 4th!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I performed my senior ballet recital wearing swim fins instead of toe shoes. I wrote my first series of mystery stories in French (the stories were mediocre, the French passable). I can sing Old MacDonald in Scottish Gaelic. I like everything about books and stories – selling them (once upon a time as manager of an independent bookstore in Johnson City, Tennessee), lending them (currently in the children’s department of the public library in Champaign, Illinois), reading them (everywhere), and writing them (in a snug room under the eaves at home).

How did Kath Rutledge come about and what inspired you to write Last wool and Testament?

The inspiration came from any writer’s dream-sequence-come-true. An agent contacted me and asked if I’d like to work on a project with her. I said sure. She contacted an editor at Penguin. The editor asked if I could write a light paranormal series, maybe with a fiber or textile element. I said sure. “Sure” is the toned down version of my answers to the agent and the editor. Kath, the Haunted Yarn Shop mysteries, and the small town of Blue Plum, Tennessee, are the results.

Why Kath? She’s a fish out of water and I like the storylines that kind of character presents. Why a town in the hills and hollows of east Tennessee? That’s where my heart is. If you haven’t ever been to the Blue Ridge or the Smoky Mountains, you should go, and while you’re there say hey for me.

Can you tell us what you are working on and what is next for this series?

I just finished the second book in the series and am jumping into writing the third. The second, tentatively titled Dyeing Wishes, has Kath and the members of TGIF (Thank Goodness It’s Fiber) involved with large sheep, dyeing, and of course someone dying. The third, tentatively called Spinning in her Grave, takes place during the town’s annual heritage festival called Blue Plum Preserves. As the books go along, we’ll watch Kath adjust to her new situation and learn more about the depressed ghost she’s been saddled with.

Is there anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely imagination?

The force of wool runs strong in my family. My mother’s mother had a shop called the Little Wool Shop. She was a professional knitter (I’m not really sure what that means). My mother was a weaver, spinner, and dyer and for a short time had a little shop called the Weaver’s Cat (though it wasn’t a yarn shop). Both my sisters knit and crochet and one of them weaves.

My contribution is to admire my relatives and to take strands from each of them and spin them together into a story. Kath, her grandmother, and the other characters in the series come from the women in my family who work magic with fibers.

None of them are haunted or kill each other, though, so I made those parts up.

What are the first 5 books in your to be read pile?

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human by Jonathan Gottschall

Summer at Forsaken Lake by Michael D. Beil (juvenile mystery)

Death by Cashmere: a Seaside Knitters Mystery by Sally Goldenbaum

The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred by Samantha R. Vamos

Art & Max by David Wiesner

(The last two are for a program at work – I need to write three questions from the content of each book for a battle of the books competition between a bunch of very bright, cut-throat 1^st and 2^nd graders.)

 Molly MacRae writes the Haunted Yarn Shop mysteries for NAL/Obsidian, making its debut with Last Wool and Testament. In a review, the Boston Globe said Molly writes “Murder with a dose of drollery.” Molly’s stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine since 1990. She spent twenty years in upper east Tennessee, the setting for her stories, short and long. She lives in Champaign, Illinois. You can visit Molly at www.mollymacrae.com and www.killercharacters.com.

Hey everyone , for those who leave a comment for Molly she is giving away a signed copy of Last Wool and Testement to one lucky person So lets show Molly some love and leave her some comments!!!!!!!