A visit with Laura Childs!

Exciting news, friends! Today is the release day for the new Laura Childs tea shop mystery "The Teaberry Strangler," and we are celebrating bigtime! First, the author herself has generously offered to donate FOUR copies of the book which will be autographed to four lucky readers of this blog! We'll be giving away one each day from now through Friday, and then at the end of the week I'll send all four names and addresses on to the author who will personally autograph the books to the winners and get them in the mail. I hope you're as excited about this giveaway as I am!

Also, Laura graciously agreed to a brief interview today in celebration of the appearance of her new book. I hope you enjoy it!

Your first Tea Shop Mystery, “Death by Darjeeling,” included the name of a tea many of your readers were probably familiar with, but you’ve also introduced us to teas like Silver Needle (which was new to me at the time) and now Teaberry Tea. With all the choices available, how do you decide which tea to feature?

It kind of depends on which teas have catchy names. Gunpowder Green was a natural, as was Silver Needle. But publishers like to prominently feature the words “murder” or “death” in the book title, so a tea name has to be a logical fit. Some of the names I have stockpiled for future use include “Rose Hips Revenge,” “Black Pearl Poison” and “Assam Like it Dead.” If anybody’s got a better title, though, I’m very open!

Does a Minnesota author have to make lots of trips to Charleston to be able to write so convincingly about a southern town?

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Yes, I do travel to Charleston fairly frequently. It’s important to carefully absorb the atmosphere, architecture, and history of the city so I’m able to create a real “sense of place” within the books. Of course, the food and night life isn’t bad either!

Would you ever consider letting Theodosia marry one of her boyfriends?

I’m not sure marrying Theodosia off is all that interesting. Actually, I think it would be better to kill off one of her boyfriends. Bringing his killer to justice would certainly send her on a mission with a vengeance!

Is there a chance we’ll ever see “The Indigo Tea Shop Cookbook” or perhaps “The Laura Childs Cookbook” containing recipes from all your various mysteries?

A lot of folks ask about this, but there are so many wonderful tea party and tea recipe books out there already. I think anything I did might be redundant.

What's the last cup of tea you had and where did you drink it?

Interestingly enough, it was a chai tea latte that I drank on the run yesterday afternoon. I was off to meet a friend – a TV producer who put me in touch with a production company that wants to make a TV series out of the Tea Shop Mysteries!

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Now wasn't that fun! If you want to win the first of the four autographed copies of "The Teaberry Strangler," just leave a comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Good luck!