Thursday, April 12, 2007

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Sara Rosett

While I'm still swooning over last night's Friday Night Lights finale (stupid show made me cry, and part of that episode took place in my town! Just down the street from me in Texas Stadium!) I've got a new Girlfriends Cyber Circuit interview, with Sara Rosett, author of Staying Home is a Killer. This is the second book in the mom lit mystery series about a military spouse who runs a professional organizing business.

Diaper bag over her shoulder and adorable toddler wriggling in her arms, Ellie Avery strives to balance motherhood, marriage, and her professional organizing business, Everything in Its Place, but her ordered world is thrown into disarray when a fellow military spouse’s death looks more like murder than suicide. Toss in her husband’s deployment and her daughter’s separation anxiety, and Ellie has to keep the home fires burning as she sorts clues from chaos and proves that home is not for killers.

How much of the events in your books are based on or inspired by your experiences as a military wife, and how much are totally made up?
The military aspects of the book are based on things I've experienced. Staying Home is a Killer is about unexpected deployments. We've gone through that many times. The details about the break room that’s a bar and decorated with beer posters is completely true to life! The mystery aspect of the novels are where real life stops. The murder and mayhem are made up.

Have you had any interesting feedback or response from military wives after your previous book in this series?
I was a little nervous about how military spouses would react to the book. I tried to be truthful and portray the good aspects of military life as well as the frustrating parts. Overall, the reaction has been positive. Most military wives have been excited to read a book about their lifestyle.

My mom, the retired officer's wife, would want to know if you have any plans for the wives of any of the commanding officers to die gruesome deaths -- especially right before some more junior officer's wife has to host a tea party for the unit wives. (There may be some fantasizing going on here.)
Well, if I had to host a tea I probably would kill someone off--most likely myself! One reviewer did mention that since I started the Mom Zone series Greenly Air Force Base had become quite a dangerous place for military spouses of all ranks! I'll leave it at that so I don't spoil anything.

(I'm sure Mom could contribute a few wish-fulfillment murder suggestions from her Army wife days.)

What's next for Ellie?
I'm working on the third book in the Mom Zone series called Getting Away is Dangerous. Ellie accompanies her husband to training course in Washington DC and while she's sight-seeing she witnesses a death in the Metro.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about this book?
I'd just add that even though Staying Home is a Killer is about a military spouse there are also themes about motherhood and parenting in the book, too. Ellie's a new mom and struggling to find the right balance, like so many of us!

Fore more info, visit Sara's web site.

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