Thrilling news! (For me, anyway.) I’ve received my first invitation to talk about Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder at a book club–well, not counting the club I’m in myself whose members, of course, HAD to pick my book for our January meeting. 
St. Andrews Book Club here in Rocky Mount has invited me to its March meeting. “We would love for you to join us and talk about your book,” the email read. You don’t have to ask me twice, ladies. Your wish is my command.
Why would a book club want to read Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder? some may ask. Oh, let me count the ways:
- It’s a fun, semi-easy read.
- It’s a cozy mystery (nothing rated R; the worst cussing is “hell”).
- The setting is a small town where everybody knows everybody.
- It has a feisty female protagonist (you guessed it–Ms. Dee Ann).
- It’s Southern fiction with quite a few eccentric characters (for example, the Chief of Police, Dee Ann’s babysitter, her landlady).
- It addresses late 1970s social issues such as women’s rights and race relations.
- It depicts what it was like to be a young wife and mother during this time. Maybe book club members would remember the late 1970s themselves and enjoy a trip down memory lane.
Yes, I know, I look absolutely crazy-eyed in this picture, circa 1979. But don’t you love my curly perm?
Oh, I almost forgot: perfect for book clubs, there are discussion questions at the end of Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder. Nobody has to jump-start the conversation.
Sooo, if you are a member of a book club within roughly an hour’s drive of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and would like to have a real live author come talk about her cozy mystery set in a small town in eastern North Carolina, let me know.
Send me an email at patsy.pridgen@gmail. com. and I will be happy to accommodate your club if at all possible. Hope to hear from you!
Patsy Pridgen 