Readers ask wonderful questions—at book clubs, festivals, signings, and online. Some are about my books. Others are about Erie Bluff, writing, or the research behind my stories. Here are the answers to the questions I get asked most often.
Are your stories true?
That’s probably the question I’m asked most often, and the answer is both yes and no.
No, my characters aren’t based on any one real person. They’re composites. I often create detailed character profiles before I start writing, and each of my main characters has an Insights Discovery personality profile that helps me keep their behaviour consistent—on their best days and their worst.
That said, a few friends have asked if I’d slip their names into my books, and I’ve happily obliged. Usually, it’s just a first name as a private wink. One request even led to an unexpected rewrite: while working on Her Final Toast, I realized that a friend’s name, Lana, was far too similar to another character named Luna. To avoid confusing readers, I switched my friend to her middle name instead.
As for the stories themselves, I enjoy weaving real life into fictional settings. Erie Bluff may be an imaginary town, but many of the situations are inspired by reality. I research how museums operate, how cafés run behind the beaded curtains, and how local government really works. The challenges my fictional businesses face in my novels often come from the real world.
And yes, at least one reader was convinced I was one of my characters. A close friend read A Mercy of Widows and phoned me, genuinely upset that I hadn’t told her about all the terrible things that had supposedly happened to me. It took quite a bit of convincing before she accepted that Heddie’s experiences belonged entirely to fiction. To me, that’s one of the nicest compliments a novelist can receive. If readers believe the characters are real, then I’ve probably done my job.
Where is Erie Bluff? Is it a real place?
No. Erie Bluff is entirely fictional.
That said, if you’ve spent time along the north shore of Lake Erie, you may recognize bits and pieces of it.
Erie Bluff is a composite of several communities near Canada’s most southerly point: Kingsville, Leamington, Colchester and Amherstburg. Rather than copying any one town, I borrowed my favourite aspects of each and imagined how they might fit together.
Amherstburg’s beautiful downtown inspired Erie Bluff’s Union Line. A favourite Kingsville coffee shop planted the seed for the Mystic Leaf Café. The Coast Guard station found in Amherstburg became part of my fictional town. The dramatic bluff overlooking Lake Erie is inspired by Colchester, where an entire stone church—and part of its historic cemetery were eventually claimed by Lake Erie—a story that also finds its way into Hearts, Lies, Alibis.
The natural world, however, is very real. The birds, insects, mushrooms, trees, and wildlife all come from my own observations around southwestern Ontario. So do the vineyards, orchards, greenhouses, fertile farmland, and the ever-changing moods of Lake Erie itself. The sandy shoreline, ongoing erosion, and spectacular storms are all part of life here. If you’ve ever visited this corner of Ontario, you’ll probably recognize more than you expect.
Lake Erie also supports one of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world, making it an extraordinary place not only for wildlife but also for the people who live and work along its shores.
Creating Erie Bluff allows me to celebrate everything I love about this corner of Ontario while giving myself the freedom to invent streets, businesses, mysteries, and just enough trouble to keep my characters busy.
Do I need to read the Eh! Team Mysteries in order?
No. My goal is for every Eh! Team Mystery to stand on its own.
Each book tells a complete mystery with its own beginning, middle, and satisfying conclusion. If you happen to discover Book Three before Book One, I want you to be able to jump right in without feeling lost.
That said, if someone stopped by my table at a book festival and asked where to start, I’d recommend Her Final Toast. It’s where the Eh! Team first comes together, where the main characters are introduced (in some cases to each other!), and where the friendships that shape the series begin.
As the series progresses, the characters continue to grow. Their relationships deepen, they learn from one another, and their lives change from one mystery to the next. Those ongoing storylines reward readers who read the books in order, but they never come at the expense of the mystery at hand.
I wanted readers to have flexibility. Life is busy, and I didn’t want anyone to feel they had to remember dozens of details from a previous novel just to enjoy the next one. If you start with Her Final Toast, wonderful. If another title catches your eye first, that’s perfectly fine too—I promise I’ll help you find your footing.
Why did you become an author later in life?
The short answer? COVID.
Like many people, I suddenly found myself spending weeks alone with far more time than I was used to. I’d always enjoyed writing, but I’d dreamed / fantasized about becoming a writer, I’d never seriously considered writing a novel. One day, almost on a whim, I signed up for a free webinar offered by The Write Practice.
By the end of that webinar, I’d enrolled in their 100 Day Book program.
The challenge was simple: write the first draft of a novel in 100 days. If you finished, you even got a small refund on your tuition as an incentive. It sounded just ambitious enough that I couldn’t resist.
To my surprise, I finished.
More importantly, I discovered that writing a novel wasn’t simply about inspiration. It was about learning the craft. The course included daily lessons on storytelling, weekly critiques, and regular conversations with published authors. I learned about character, structure, dialogue, pacing, and all the things readers never notice when they’re working well.
I was hooked.
After that, I enrolled in a second program, One Year to Publish, which helped me strengthen my manuscript while introducing me to the business side of being an author—websites, newsletters, marketing, and everything that happens after typing “The End.”
Looking back, perhaps it wasn’t such an unlikely career change. Before retiring, I spent many years leading a charity in Calgary, where writing was already part of my everyday work. Storytelling was new. Writing wasn’t.
What changed wasn’t my ability to write. It was finally deciding to tell stories. Looking back, I sometimes wish I’d started sooner. But then again, I don’t think I could have written these books at twenty-five. Life had a few lessons to teach me first.
Why do your books often begin with loss or grief?
Because that’s where so many of life’s biggest changes begin.
Grief is one of the few experiences every one of us will share. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a career, or simply the life we thought we’d have, loss changes us. It forces us to make choices, reassess our priorities, and figure out who we are next.
When I wrote A Mercy of Widows, I had recently been diagnosed with complicated grief following the death of my second husband. Writing the novel became one way of working through emotions I didn’t fully understand at the time. In many ways, the book helped me heal.
Even though my writing has moved into mystery, I think those early experiences continue to influence my stories. The mysteries may begin with a death, but they aren’t really about death. They’re about what happens to the people left behind. They’re about friendship, resilience, compassion, and the ways people find hope again.
When readers close one of my books, I don’t want them to remember the murder. I want them to remember the people.
Is there a little of you in your characters?
Absolutely—but no single character is me.
Heddie Wright, the protagonist of A Mercy of Widows, probably shares the most with me. Like me, she’s middle-aged, loves dogs, and has a slightly quirky sense of humour. She also genuinely wants to do the right thing, even if the “right thing” isn’t always clear.
Where we differ is just as interesting. Heddie tends to give more of herself than I ever would, and once she becomes convinced she’s found the answer to a problem, she can become almost single-minded in pursuing it—even when the solution isn’t realistic.
In the Eh! Team Mysteries, I’d say Dottie is the closest to my heart.
Dottie runs the Why-Not Animal Rescue, and that’s pure wish fulfilment on my part. I’ve always wanted to run an animal rescue, but I’ve gradually (grudgingly?) accepted that writing one into my fictional world is probably the closest I’ll ever come. Thankfully, Dottie has far more energy than I do.
More than anything, though, Dottie believes the world can become a kinder place and works to make that happen. I admire that about her, and I’d like to think we share that hope.
The truth is that every major character carries a little piece of me. Some inherited my sense of humour. Others borrowed my curiosity, my optimism, or even my stubbornness. Thankfully, they also developed personalities entirely their own, which makes them far more interesting to write.
What will readers always find in one of your books?
Dogs, of course.
If you’ve read more than one of my books, you’ve probably noticed that dogs have a habit of sauntering through the story. That’s hardly surprising. I’ve always shared my home with dogs, and I honestly can’t imagine life without them.
Readers may also notice birds, local food, small-town festivals, coffee shops, and the occasional terrible joke. Apparently, I can’t imagine life without those either.
Every novel becomes a little snapshot of the things that make me smile.
How do you come up with your mystery ideas?
Oddly enough, they rarely begin with the mystery. They usually begin with something I can’t stop thinking about.
Sometimes it’s a place. Sometimes it’s an event. Sometimes it’s a question that keeps nagging me until I finally give in and start researching.
For Her Final Toast, I wanted to explore the world of wine. I live in one of Canada’s wine regions, yet I knew surprisingly little about grape growing, terroir, wine judging, and the people behind the vineyards. The mystery gave me an excuse to dive into that world.
For A Mercy of Widows, the spark was my own experience serving as a juror during a murder trial. In Canada, jurors aren’t allowed to discuss what happened in the deliberation room, but people were endlessly curious about the experience. That curiosity eventually became the foundation for the novel. Interestingly, my first draft wasn’t told from Heddie’s perspective at all—it was told by the murderer. It wasn’t until later that I realized the juror had the far more compelling story to tell.
Hearts, Lies, Alibis began in a completely different way. Within a few months, I learned that several friends, acquaintances and relatives had fallen victim to different scams—some with devastating consequences. I wanted to understand how intelligent, caring people could be manipulated so completely. The mystery grew from that question, but so did my hope that readers might recognize the warning signs if they ever encountered a scam themselves.
Looking back, I suppose every one of my books starts with the same question:
“I wonder…”
The mystery comes afterward. The mystery may provide the suspense, but curiosity is what starts every one of my stories.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently writing the second Eh! Team Mystery, Hearts, Lies, Alibis.
Like all of my books, it began with a question I couldn’t stop thinking about. That question led me down a fascinating research rabbit hole into modern scams. The more I learned, the more I realized how sophisticated—and devastating—they can be.
As always, though, the mystery is only part of the story.
One of the joys of writing a series is watching the characters grow. By the time this book begins, the members of the Eh! Team know one another better, trust one another more deeply, and aren’t afraid to challenge each other when they disagree. Their friendships have become richer, and that has made them even more enjoyable to write.
Without giving too much away, I think readers are going to discover new sides of some familiar faces—and I hope they’ll enjoy spending time with them as much as I do.
What do you hope readers take away from your books?
More than anything, I hope readers feel as though they’ve spent time with neighbours.
I also hope readers discover something they didn’t know before. One book explores jury duty. Another ventures into Ontario wine country. Another looks at modern scams. I love disappearing down research rabbit holes, then weaving what I learn into the story. Learning new things is my happy place.
But perhaps most of all, I hope readers learn something about themselves.
One of the great gifts of fiction is that it lets us experience life from inside someone else’s head. We can make difficult choices, wrestle with impossible questions, and survive terrible mistakes, all from the safety of our favourite reading chair.
If my characters help readers see the world a little differently, or perhaps even recognize something important about themselves, then I feel I’ve done my job.
What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received from a reader?
I’ve received many thoughtful compliments over the years, but the ones that stay with me have very little to do with my writing.
Several readers have told me they put their affairs in order after reading A Mercy of Widows. Some updated their wills. Others completed powers of attorney or medical directives. A few simply sat down with their families and had conversations they’d been putting off for years.
That means more to me than any review ever could.
The novel explores what happens when someone dies before sharing important decisions and organizing the practical details of life. While I certainly hope readers enjoy the story, I’m deeply honoured when it inspires them to make life a little easier for the people they love.
To me, preparing a will, a power of attorney, or a medical directive isn’t about expecting the worst. It’s an act of kindness (of deep love and respect) for the people who will one day have to carry on without us.
What question do you wish readers would ask you?
I’d love someone to ask why kindness keeps showing up in my stories.
It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. The world can be a difficult place. We all encounter heartbreak, disappointment, injustice, shameful mistakes and loss. My books don’t pretend those things don’t exist. In fact, many of my stories begin with them.
But I don’t want readers to close one of my novels feeling defeated.
I want the world to be filled with more kindness, humour, hope. A touch of whimsy. I want people to discover that even in the middle of life’s hardest moments, there are still good neighbours, loyal friends, unexpected laughter and solid reasons to keep moving forward.
Perhaps that’s because I’ve lived long enough to know that darkness is real. I’ve also lived long enough to know that kindness is real.
If my books leave readers feeling just a little more hopeful about the people around them—or a little more inclined to offer kindness themselves—then I’ll consider that a story worth telling.
And if, along the way, we’ve shared a few laughs together, so much the better.
