Big Hair & Buttermilk Pie by Lori Stacy Interview

Big Hair & Buttermilk Pie
by Lori Stacy

Big Hair & Buttermilk Pie is packed with wonderfully worded passages, some super fun characters, and drool-worthy recipes!
~Classy Cheapskate

Quick, cozy, and with many sweet treats, Big Hair and Buttermilk Pie is a quick read, that can easily be read in a day or sitting.
~Nadaness in Motion

I thoroughly enjoyed this story as it had everything including the bad people getting what is due to them. Such a great book..
~Community Bookstop

Fans of cozy mysteries will feel right at home with this new series, and fans of baked goods in general will be craving a run … to their local bakery … by the time they’re finished reading.
~Reading is my SuperPower

Loved this cozy set in Texas (and in my neck of the woods). Of course the main character owns a bakery so that always catches my interest…plus there is a recipe for buttermilk pie at the end of the book.
~Storeybook Reviews

The story is very well-written, and the characters are extremely likable.
~Book Babble

Big Hair and Buttermilk pie is a good, tightly written cozy mystery read with plenty of interesting characters and Texas charm.
~Sissy – Bubble Bath Books

Big Hair & Buttermilk Pie is a fun and easy to read cozy mystery. It has a good mixture of humor, mystery, and a touch of romance that will easily keep the reader engaged as they follow Mandy and Ben’s amateur investigative adventure.
~Jersey Girl Book Reviews

…an enjoyable start to a series…
~Brooke Blogs

Fans of strong and sassy women in their Southern fiction will find much to enjoy in this first book in the Rose Cottage Cafe mystery series.
~Melissa’s Mocha’s, Mysteries and Meows

The plot flowed along nicely, making the book a quick and easy read.
~Sapphyria’s Book Reviews

I really enjoyed this book.
~T’s Stuff

Big Hair & Buttermilk Pie:
A Rose Cottage Cafe Mystery
Cozy Mystery
Superlative Media (April 18, 2016)
Print Length: 116 pages
ASIN: B01DL3XZGI

Synopsis:

Mandy Hemphill is living her dream, running the successful Rose Cottage Cafe in Orchardville, Texas, from the ground floor of a converted, old—and possibly haunted—downtown home. She even had plans to grow her business with a new outdoor patio…if only the mayor wouldn’t have turned her down.

So when the beloved mayor is found murdered, Mandy finds herself among the suspects. And now business at the cafe is dropping faster than a fallen soufflé. How can she prove her innocence and save the Rose Cottage Cafe?

Thankfully Ben, the new owner of The Orchardville Gazette, doesn’t believe she’s guilty. As the two of them set out to find the real killer, they uncover one small-town lie after the next. But the closer they get to learning the truth about who killed the mayor, the more in danger they find themselves.

About The Author –

After her twenty-year career in magazine publishing came to a screeching halt faster than you can say “print is dead,” Lori Stacy decided it was time to finally turn the many stories she had been crafting in her head over the years into books.

Lori has authored a number of fiction and nonfiction books for young adults, has written articles for both print and online publications, and has written about hotels for one of the world’s leading search engines.

She lives in Texas with her husband and three children. When she is not writing, you can usually find her in the kitchen baking treats (which she says are for her children) or trying to train their hundred-pound golden retriever, an obedience school dropout.

You can find out more about Lori and her latest books at www.loristacy.com, provided she didn’t forget to pay her web hosting bill.

Author Links

www.loristacy.com

Purchase Link: 

Amazon

Interview

Where are you from?

I am originally from the South Bay area Southern California.

Tell us your latest news?

I am at work on not one but TWO books - the second in the Rose Cottage Cafe series, which is titled “Sweet Tea and Sass Talk,” and will feature amateur sleuths Mandy Hemphill and Ben Hathaway working to solve the murder of a popular cooking show host. The second book I am working on is a nonfiction title on how to score free deals. It spawned from a freelance assignment (when I am not working on books I freelance write for some local publications) and I am very excited about it, although it has been a HUGE undertaking!

When and why did you begin writing?

My first job out of college was at a magazine (the now-defunct Teen magazine) and although I was hired to do promotions, I begged and pleaded to write for the magazine. My first published article was called “Slumber Party Pointers”—don’t judge me; it was a magazine for teen and preteen girls! I moved from promotions to editorial the first chance I got and have been writing ever since.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I think really the first time I thought I could get away with calling myself a writer was after my first book was published, for Scholastic. Which, looking back, is kind of silly because I had done so much writing prior to that. But having an actual, physical book in print does make you think you can call yourself a writer without someone crying foul.

What inspired you to write your first book?

I am going to go back not to my first nonfiction book for Scholastic, because that was an assignment and subject given to me, but rather to my first fiction novel, Island Girl. I had the story in my mind for a long time, after my husband and I visited the San Juan Islands off Washington state. It was a case of a beautiful place inspiring me. I thought about how wonderful it would be to “summer” on such an island, and came up with a  story of a girl who does just that.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I would say my writing tends toward “sweet” fiction and mysteries. (You won’t be finding me writing erotica any time soon!) That is what I like to read, and it’s also what I like to write. I remember being just out of college and discovering Mary Higgins Clark. I always loved her mysteries because they were not dark. Any time I read a dark mystery or a book with gruesome details, I remain disturbed long after I finish the novel. I’d rather read—and write—fiction that leaves you with good feelings.

How did you come up with the title?

Both of those elements—big hair and buttermilk pie—are plot points in the book. But they are also reminiscent of where I live, in Texas. I wanted the title to be light and fun. Hopefully that’s what it conveys!

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I’d love for the readers to take away a sense of small-town Texas. That’s why I set this series in the fictional Orchardville, Texas. I hope to continue to introduce characters that show the quirkiness, and the friendliness, of Texans.

What would you like my readers to know?

That I really did at one point have an office in a quaint, out of an old, Victorian building that was rumored to be haunted. I had a small office upstairs for a publishing and writing company I had launched in early 2000. The ladies who ran the cafe downstairs told us about the ghost rumor and honestly, any time I was the last person in the building and it was dark outside, I would sprint down the stairs and out of the building. I never saw anything strange, but the ladies downstairs had some pretty frightening encounters, they said.