📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Safe Harbour' Author Mike Martin #Interview
Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, NL on the east coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand.
He is the author of the award-winning Sgt. Windflower Mystery series set in beautiful Grand Bank. There are now 10 books in this light mystery series with the publication of Safe Harbour. A Tangled Web was shortlisted in 2017 for the best light mystery of the year, and Darkest Before the Dawn won the 2019 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. Mike has also published Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries, a Sgt. Windflower Book of Christmas past and present.
Mike is Past Chair of the Board of Crime Writers of Canada, a national organization promoting Canadian crime and mystery writers and a member of the Newfoundland Writing Guild and Ottawa Independent Writers.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: www.sgtwindflowermysteries.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mike54martin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkerOnTheCapeReviewsAndMore
Welcome to The Writer's Life! How did you come up with the idea to write your book?
For me, every book has a seed that grows and finally pops out with one or more of the characters who starts telling me the story. My job is to write it down as closely as I can to what they tell me. Safe Harbour was just like that.
How would you describe your book’s ideal reader?
The ideal reader for me is anyone who gets a few hours pleasure from reading my books. The people who like them most tend to be readers who like clean, cozy-like mysteries with more than just crime or police procedures.
What part of the book was the most fun to write?
The End. That’s a joke. I don’t know how the story ends so every new chapter is an adventure for me. The writing part is all fun. Editing is not so much.
How did you come up with the title?
I only write titles after the book is finished and I usually get feedback from my beta readers. One of them came up with Safe Harbour and it stuck.
What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?
I’m not the mystery fan in the family. That would be my partner. She introduced me to mysteries like Agatha Christie and newer ones like Donna Leon. And fun cozies for the summer
What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?
Keep going. You are almost there. Write as much as you can every day. Read even more. Practice and hone your craft until you are ready to set your work out into the world. You can do it.
How do you use social media as an author?
Social media is a key element in my promotion and it allows me to reach readers all over the world. It is fast, mostly free and can even be fun if I don’t try and just sell books but use it to share some of my tips and techniques with readers and my fellow writers.
What other books are you working on and when will they be published?
The next book in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series will be Buried Secrets and it will be released in October, 2021.
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
I would love to have dinner with Donna Leon in Venice where she lives and where her fab mystery series is set. I love her books and the food she describes in the stories.
Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?
I just want people to have fun. To escape from their problems and concerns for a few hours and to visit one of the most magical places in the world.
Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?
Thank you for the great questions.
Title: SAFE HARBOUR
Author: Mike Martin
Publisher: Ottawa Press and Publishing
Pages: 264
Genre: Mystery
BOOK BLURB:
Sgt. Windflower is on a special assignment in St. John’s and adjusting to life in the big city. He is navigating traffic, a difficult boss at work and what seems like an epidemic of missing girls. He becomes more interested when he discovers that one of the girls is from Grand Bank. Then a girl approaches his RCMP van one night and he is pulled into the underlife of the capital city. But he still manages to enjoy all of the good things in life. His family, old and new friends, and the love of living so close to the Atlantic Ocean. Welcome back to St. Windflower Mysteries.
PRAISE
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