I wanted to be a writer for the longest time. Longer than I can remember, even. Once, going through a box of old stuff from childhood (including some Very Impressive report cards from kindergarten), I came across a tiny pocket notebook, the kind with a plastic spiral on the top and little lined pages inside. And on those pages were scribbles – literal scribbles but I remember being three years old and writing my “first novel” in that notebook. Too bad I can’t read my three-year-old “handwriting.”
As I got older (and learned my ABCs), I kept writing. Books. Short stories. Novellas. My goal was simply to write. Eventually, I began dreaming of seeing my books on bookshelves in bookstores and libraries. In February of 2021, that dream came true.
And I kept writing.
Before I got into the business of writing (and believe me, it is a “business”), I really had no idea what went on behind the scenes. Even then, I never let myself imagine that one day my book would be featured in the New York Times. That’s such an enormous, almost impossible dream that it’s almost unobtainable. Until it wasn’t.
Vinyl Resting Place New York Times Book Review
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/books/review/new-crime-fiction.html
Juniper Jessup, the narrator of Olivia Blacke’s new cozy mystery, VINYL RESTING PLACE (St. Martin’s, 304 pp., paperback, $8.99), planned to make it far, far away from Cedar River, Texas, close enough to Austin for commuting but distant enough to retain serious small-town bona fides. Then, Juni’s sisters, Tansy and Maggie, implore her to return home to help out and sink cash into the family’s record shop and cafe, Sip & Spin. Since her life out West isn’t really clicking, Juni comes home, resigned to making a future in Texas.
At least, until she finds a dead body in a supply closet during a party at the shop, and the main suspect is her Uncle Calvin, a practical joker and Sip & Spin’s silent partner, who becomes an apparent fugitive when he disappears after his arrest. Of course the Jessup sisters put their heads together and figure out who the real culprit is, even if baser instincts — and the presence of Juni’s police detective ex — suggest that’s less than a stellar idea.
Blacke’s previous series, which was set in hipsterish Brooklyn, felt out of tune; the more relaxed vibe of “Vinyl Resting Place” is bolstered by the sisters’ genuine bond, colorful personalities and not-so-gentle conflicts. It’s a winning combination.
