Today’s featured author is Emmeline Duncan, whose Ground Rules mysteries blend coffee and murder. I thoroughly enjoyed her latest release, Death Unfiltered, for the cozy Portland setting and coffee themes (plus its cute pink cover!).
In the interview below, we chat about the new book, her writing process, and her upcoming Halloween-themed cozy. Also included are Emmeline’s tips for supporting local bookstores. 😊📚
Connect with Emmeline on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and her website. Grab a copy of Death Unfiltered from your retailer of choice here (or nab a signed copy from Annie Bloom’s Books).
Hi Emmeline, thanks so much for joining! Death Unfiltered is the fourth installment in your Ground Rules Mystery series. In this book, barista-slash-sleuth Sage Caplin opens a new permanent coffee shop in addition to her existing coffee carts. What do you love about using a coffee theme for these books? And/or, how have you enjoyed seeing the series and its characters grow over four books?
Portland has a robust coffee scene, with different micro-roasters and small shops in every neighborhood. So it felt like the “right” sort of business to use as a starting point since the city’s infatuated—maybe oversaturated—with coffee.
And as big as coffee is in Portland, it’s an international product mostly grown in the “Bean Belt” (a.k.a. the band around Earth that basically falls between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer), which doesn’t include Oregon, as the state is too far north. But as I like to joke, anything can wash up in Portland, including world-class coffee. It also symbolizes how interconnected we are, even if we don’t always realize it, just like how crimes ripple through our lives and communities, even if we’re not fully conscious of it (which is something I play with in Death Unfiltered).
I’ve enjoyed watching Sage’s life evolve over the series, from nurturing her fledgling business to running a small but hopefully growing empire. Sage and [her business partner] Harley are unapologetically competitive and only partially joking when they say they’re aiming for world coffee domination. But they’re compassionate and care about their employees, have good relationships with fellow coffee roasters, and care about their impact on the world, which are fundamental parts of Sage’s worldview. It’s always fun to throw in a murder to make Sage need to adapt on the fly, just when she’s starting to feel like she has everything in control.
The Ground Rules books are set in Portland, Oregon, and the setting adds its own character to the books. With so many cozies set in (often fictional) small towns, what makes a city like Portland a fun setting for mysteries?
Portland is a wonderful, frequently quirky place, and it feels like a natural setting for a cozy mystery. One of my goals is to show the Portland I know and love on the page.
When I first thought of writing a mystery here, I realized a coffee cart was perfect. The city and surrounding suburbs have multiple food cart pods, which started out as a way to turn an empty lot into something useful. However, some of the original pods have since been developed into new buildings, and some of the new pods are now custom-built and de facto community centers. But all of these food cart pods are essentially small communities. Which creates the sort of community one finds in a cozy mystery, even if it’s against the backdrop of a larger city.
One added bonus of using a coffee cart as the center of a mystery is that it’s mobile. In the second book, it allowed me to take Sage, my main character, and Ground Rules on the road to an eco-music festival set in the outskirts of Portland; we then returned to the heart of the city for books three and four. Like many food cart owners, Sage dreams of opening a brick-and-mortar shop. In book four, she makes the jump, and, of course, death follows.
With the action of each mystery centered in a larger city (versus a small town), I can mix up the cast of suspects when each mystery focuses on a different subgroup that Sage comes across. This gives me a broad mix of potential suspects, victims, and villains while keeping the community-driven feel that is so wonderful in cozy mysteries.
What does your writing process look like, particularly for mystery? Are you an outliner, or do you like to write and see how the mystery unfolds?
I’m halfway between a pantser (discovery writer) and a plotter (outliner). I know who committed the crime and why, although I don’t know all the small details in the middle of the story. Over time, I’ve fallen closer to the plotter side since I need to submit an outline to my publisher in advance.
One thing I like to mention when I talk about writing is that there’s no right or wrong way to write a novel. The only thing that matters is the end result: the final manuscript. If that works, you can take whatever twisty road you need while writing it.
You have another book coming out this year: Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop kicks off a brand-new Halloween themed cozy series. Can you share a little bit about this upcoming release? What inspired the theme, and/or what are you most looking forward to in these books?
I’m so excited for Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop to be released. The world of Elyan Hollow and the Lazy Bones Bookshop was a fun place to visit, and I’m so happy I get to write more mysteries set in that world!
As far as inspiration, several Oregon towns were used as the filming sites for beloved movies. Their involvement on the big screen has crept into their identity (or, at least, their tourist board’s marketing plans). The biggest example is Astoria, which is known for The Goonies (although additional movies have been filmed there) and has an annual Goonies Day festival.
But Astoria isn’t the only town known for its fictional self. A small town less than twenty miles from Portland, St Helens, was the filming site for the Halloweentown movies, plus a few scenes in Twilight (like Bella’s house, which is now an Airbnb). The town has a well-attended annual Spirit of Halloweentown Festival each year that runs from late September through October.
I’ve always wanted to play with the idea of a town being known as a filming site and running with it to create something unique. So Elyan Hollow was born, a highly fictionalized version of St Helens that rebranded itself into a year-round Halloween destination. The town is far enough away from Portland to still feel like a small town but close enough to the city to draw crowds to its annual Halloween festival.
My main character, Bailey, has taken over her family’s bookshop, Lazy Bones Books, and she’s determined to succeed. She decides to hold a Spooky Season Literary Festival during the Halloween Festival. She manages to book three amazing authors, including a horror author who is also a hometown hero returning to Elyan Hollow for the first time. And since this is a cozy mystery, death is a surprise festival visitor. Luckily, Bailey has her librarian BFF, Colby, and her Great Pyrenees sidekick, Jack, to help her investigate the crime.
Lastly, what else are you looking forward to? Do you have any other books, events, and/or other projects on your horizon that you’d like to share?
One event I’m really looking forward to is the Ashland Mystery Festival from October 17th to 20th. The festival is highly reader-focused, with a mix of free events, like panels at the local library and author pop-ups around town, plus ticketed events like Mystery Dinners, plays, and more. There’s a mystery for attendees to solve that will take them around Ashland. (If you’ve never been to Ashland, it’s a charming town in Southern Oregon known for its annual Shakespeare festival which runs from late March into mid-October.) There will be fourteen different authors at the festival, including me!
I do my best to keep my website up to date with my events, so readers can check here to find out more information about my Books & Bites talk in July in McMinnville, Oregon. Or my mid-May trip to Yakima, Washington, for the Ground Opening of the Traveling Book Bus in Yakima, Washington, which will include Edgar Award-winning author Tamara Berry (who also writes as Lucy Gilmore), Katee Roberts, and additional amazing authors.
Bonus! Signed copies and bookstore recs from Emmeline:
My local indie bookstore, Annie Bloom’s Books, has a page for readers to purchase signed books. I also partner with Annie Bloom’s for pre-order campaigns that include swag. Click here to order.
Beach Books in Seaside, Oregon is also a great online book option. I drop by their store regularly to sign books, although I can’t commit to fulfilling signed books requests through them. But one great reason to buy from them is, in addition to supporting a fantastic small shop, they include free ARCs in their online orders. Click here to visit their website.
And for anyone without access to a local bookshop, I always recommend Bookshop.org to readers, since they support independent bookstores while also being an excellent online choice. Click here to shop. (But if you have a local bookstore, please support them.)
Thanks so much to Emmeline for the interview. Sleuths, I hope you enjoyed it! If you aren’t already subscribed, please be sure to sign up for the Cluesletter and get author features like this alongside other mystery goodies, delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday.