Lockdown, Overcooking and another Mystery Novel — What a Year!
Many authors have had a difficult, if not impossible time finding motivation to write since the pandemic began. That has not been the case for USA Today best-selling author Paula Munier. Characters (one four-footed) Mercy and Elvis return on March 30, 2021 in the third book of her award-winning Mercy Carr mystery series, The Hiding Place. “I was lucky that I finished the first draft of The Hiding Place in March last year just before the pandemic hit full force. So, all I had to do was revise—my favorite part of the process —during the early months of lockdown,” said Munier. “Now I’m writing the first draft of Book Four of the series, and it’s slow going, but then the first draft is always a bit of a slog for me, pandemic or no pandemic.”
The book features protagonist Army Veteran Mercy Carr and Elvis, her canine partner in crime solving. This installment of the series tells the story of a cold case, and the secrets every family tries to keep — and how very wrong things go when those secrets come to light.
The mystery thriller is filled with intrigue, action, resilient characters, the mountains of Vermont, and two amazing dogs. “In every book in the series I explore a different aspect of life in New England, from art and culture to wildlife and nature and the changing of the seasons,” said Munier. In addition to featuring New England themes, Munier usually includes a different kind of working dog in each book. In this book Elvis makes a new friend named Sunny, a wonderful golden retriever inspired by Vermont writer Jerry Johnson’s goldens.
Cosmopolitan magazine published Munier’s first piece when she was 19 yrs. old. “I fell in love with the book business and have worked in this industry in one capacity or another ever since,” she said. Munier is currently Senior Literary Agent and Director of Storytelling for Talcott Notch Literary, which specializes in commercial fiction and nonfiction.
“Like most of my clients I have this swell day job and have to squeeze in my writing time whenever I can,” she said. “I used to travel a lot before Covid, spending a week a month in Manhattan and attending various conferences—and so I did a lot of my writing on planes and trains and buses and in hotel rooms. Now that I’m at home like everyone else, I’ve tried to establish a writing schedule but it hasn’t been easy. I end up writing late at night or early in the morning and on the weekends.”
“When I read, I want to fall into the story on page one and stay in that world until I reach The End,” said Munier. “For me, reading is such a powerful antidote to the real world, especially now. I’m hoping my stories give readers that same kind of welcome escape. And if they happen to fall a little bit in love with my beloved New England, all the better.”
Like most of us, Munier hasn’t been able to pursue many of her usual favorite things to do with her downtime, such as travel, hang out with family and friends, or browse bookshops. “Some of my favorite things that I can still do—like cooking—I may never do again. I’m totally over cooking,” she laughed. The things that have sustained her during the pandemic have been reading, walks in the woods with her dogs, and Netflix. “We set up our first potager garden; my husband built these beautiful raised beds with arbors and I grew all manner of vegetables for the very first time.” Munier lives in Salisbury, New Hampshire in a Colonial built in 1760 with her husband, her parents, three rescue dogs, and a rescue cat.
A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the Mercy Carr series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and won the Dogwise Book of the Year Award. The second in the series, Blind Search, recently won a Dog Writers Association of America award.
The Hiding Place is available at Target, Amazon, and independent bookstores. Paula Munier is a member of the NH Writers’ Project.
