Not everyone is lucky enough to not only have more than one personality, but to be able to celebrate it. That’s what I’m doing today because in less than a week, a new alter ego of mine if going to be making her first official appearance.
She’s Kylie Logan, author of the Button Box mystery series. Book #1, "Button Holed," hits store and virtual shelves this coming Tuesday, September 6.
It’s been an interesting road to publication for Kylie and it all started, quite simply, because I like buttons. As Josie Giancola, the heroine of the new series comments, buttons are little bits of history, and tiny works of art. They say something about a person’s style, and that person’s social class. Many antique buttons display incredible workmanship, dazzling jewels and even say something about a wearer’s love life; back in the nineteenth century, it was fashionable for young ladies to have a photograph of their beau put on their coat buttons!
Still, I never thought about actually writing a mystery series about buttons until a couple years ago when I visited Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’d just finished lunch at a charming coffee shop and I was alone on the front porch, sipping coffee and knitting, when a couple sat down at the table next to me. There are a couple operative words in that last sentence, namely, alone and next to. You see, they decided to pick that very moment to break up.
I listened to it for ten minutes or so and honestly, I expected them to apologize. After all, there was no doubt I could hear everything they were saying. They didn’t. Instead, they went on and on and I’d had enough. I gathered up my knitting and went next door to an antique shop.
What I didn’t know until I opened the door was that it was an antique shop that specialized in buttons.
Thousands and thousands of buttons.
I was in heaven, and the nice lady who owned the place was only too happy to tell me stories and answer my questions.
It was that encounter that gave me the idea for the Button Box mysteries. Josie owns an antique button shop, too, though hers is in a Chicago brownstone. It’s there that she meets a famous actress who’s come to Josie for the buttons she’ll put on her wedding gown when she marries a European prince. And it’s that actress who is murdered in the shop. When Josie’s cleaning up, she finds an unusual button–one she knows didn’t come from her collection.
As for those multiple personalities of mine . . . readers who enjoy the Pepper Martin mysteries by Casey Daniels can expect much the same light and airy reading experience and (hopefully!) the same sort of humor and intricate plotting. However, there are no paranormal elements in Kylie’s books as there are in Casey’s.
I’m counting down the days and looking forward to next Tuesday. I guess if I ever run into that breaking-up couple again, I owe them my thanks!
Because Kylie is a new person, she has her own email. You can contact her at:
kylielogan@rocketmail.com
Or find her on Facebook. She is also working on setting up a blog. In that sentence, the operative words are working on. Casey Daniels, who is also not very good at technology, would approve.
