Cricket McRae is with us today.

Today we are chatting with Cricket McRae about her new book being released on Nov.6th. Deadly Row to Hoe! Stop by and leave a comment for her!

Tell us about your self.

Random smattering of facts: I live in northern Colorado with my guy and two cats, write two mystery series (the Home Crafting Mysteries for Midnight Ink and the Magical Bakery Mysteries for Penguin under the pen name Bailey Cates), garden madly for three seasons a year, and have a tendency to make a lot of things from scratch. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid, not because I was interested in the plot as much as the detailed descriptions of things like making soap and cheese, preserving and cooking and baking, spinning, weaving and sewing, I'm a local food nut, an only child, and have a perfectly useless but wonderful degree in philosophy. I've been a drivers license examiner, a hotel maid, a librarian and a localization program manager at Microsoft. The only food I don't like is beef liver, I prefer red wine to white no matter what I'm eating, and flying makes me nervous but I do it anyway.

How did you come up with this book and title?

Each of the Home Crafting Mysteries has a different colonial skill as the backdrop to the murder and mayhem. The second in the series, Heaven Preserve Us, was about canning garden produce for winter, but the vegetable gardening itself would have been just as important to the survival of households in earlier times. Add in my own interest in gardening and a fervent belief in buying from local farmers and community supported agriculture and it was a no brainer to set Sophie Mae's next case on a CSA farm. The working title was Digging up Darla -- just because I found it privately amusing. But that title wasn't as "punny" as the previous five books and Midnight Ink asked me to come up with something else. Deadly Row to Hoe is the result.

What are you working on next?

I'm working on the third Magical Bakery Mystery (still kicking around titles) as well as a standalone, non-cozy mystery set in western Montana called Shotgun Moon. Both will release in 2013.

When did you start writing and what inspired you to do so?

I wrote in my journal when I was 19 that by the time I was 50 I would be a mystery writer with two mystery series and write standalones and nonfiction in between. I didn't get serious about pursuing that dream until my late 30s when I left the corporate world, but then I threw myself into my writing career. Now I'm 48, have two series, am writing a standalone and working on a proposal for a nonfiction book. So all I can say is: Write down your goals!

What book are you reading now?

Craig Johnson's As the Crow Flies, the latest in his Walt Longmire series. I love his books (and the A&E series) in part because they are set in a part of Wyoming where my family is from. That, and his writing is smooth and accessible and literary all at once.

Thanks for visiting with us today, am looking forward to this book!

Home Crafting Mysteries

#6 Deadly Row to Hoe: November, 2012
www.cricketmcrae.com
blog: www.hearthcricket.com

And as Bailey Cates

Magical Bakery Mysteries

#1 Brownies and Broomsticks: May, 2012

#2 Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti, December 31, 2012
www.baileycates.com