Please call me Charlee, though. Charlemagne is my fancy author’s name. I mean, really, who’d read a mystery by some pipsqueak named Charlee?

I’ve been writing mysteries since college and was lucky enough to land a no-nonsense agent right after graduation, about eight years ago. She got me a multi-book contract and enough money I could quit my soul-sucking temp job and write full-time. Even though I desperately wanted to, I refrained from flinging my arms around her neck and smothering her with sloppy, grateful kisses. If I had tried, I’m sure she would have stiff-armed me with a tight grimace on her face. Touchy-feely, she wasn’t.

“Full-time writer” is actually a misnomer. It implies I get to write fiction all day, chatting with my muse, plotting yet another demise, crafting the perfect phrase. The truth, however, is that I spend half my time marketing my books so they keep letting me write new ones. I blog all over the place about all kinds of things, hoping something entertaining or provocative will stick in cyberspace and garner some more book sales. I also attend writer’s conferences where I teach workshops to aspiring authors. At my most recent one I presented, “How To Write Realistic Dialogue Without Using Um, Y’Know, or Like Whatever,” “Creating Compelling Characters Readers Will Sell Their Firstborn For,” and “How To Survive Negative Reviews Without The Use of Booze, Doughnuts, Or Your Mother’s Shoulder.”

Fan conventions are a blast and take up some of my time as well. For these events, which cater to mystery fans exclusively, I have to try my darnedest to be charming. I like to bring my boyfriend Ozzi with me to fan events whenever possible because he naturally is charming. It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes, too. I’m not gonna lie . . . I’ve probably sold a thousand books over the last few years simply because buyers got dazzled by Ozzi’s smile.

But those days are gone, I fear. See, my agent, the icy cold one, from three paragraphs ago? She’s dead. And not just dead, but murdered, which is horrid enough. The kicker is that she was murdered exactly the way I wrote in my latest manuscript. Only a handful of people had read it, all friends of mine, so you can see my problem. And I don’t want to brag, because it’s ridiculously unseemly and shameful under these circumstances, but it was a pretty unique way to kill someone. (Yeah. So shameful. I’m sorry I told you that. I feel dirty now.)

So a day in my life used to be filled with literary, highbrow-type activities. Now it’s filled with fighting for my royalty payments since the agency’s assets were frozen, looking for a new publisher since they ditched me at the first whiff of trouble, and trying to convince the book-buying public I’m not a murderer, since all kinds of stories were in the news and all over social media. That stuff just will not die!

And hopefully nobody else will either. That was the last crime I want to be associated with for the rest of my life. One murder is enough for anyone. Any more and I’ll just pull the covers up over my head and stay in bed forever. I can write mysteries, but solving them is an entirely different matter.

If I’ve made you feel broken-hearted for me, sorry not sorry. Please turn those emotions into actions and go to your favorite bookstore and buy all the books with my name on them. Remember, it’s Charlemagne Russo.

You can read more about Charlee in Fiction Can Be Murder, the first book in the NEW “Mystery Writer’s” mystery series.

Mystery author Charlemagne “Charlee” Russo thought the twisty plots and peculiar murders in her books were only the products of her imagination. That is, until her agent is found dead exactly as described in her new, unpublished manuscript. Suspicion swirls around her and her critique group, making her confidence drop as severely and unexpectedly as her royalty payments.

The police care more about Charlee’s feeble alibi and financial problems than they do her panicky claims of innocence. To clear her name and revive her career, she must figure out which of her friends is a murderer. Easier said than done, even for an author who’s skilled at creating tidy endings for her mysteries. And as her sleuthing grows dangerous, her imagination starts working overtime. Is she being targeted, too?

Purchase Link
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Meet the author
Becky Clark is the seventh of eight kids, which explains both her insatiable need for attention and her atrocious table manners. She likes to read funny books so it felt natural to write them too. She surrounds herself with quirky people and pets who end up as characters in her books.

Readers say her books are “fast and thoroughly entertaining” with “witty humor and tight writing” and “humor laced with engaging characters” so you should “grab a cocktail and enjoy the ride.” They also say “Warning: You will laugh out loud. I’m not kidding,” and “If you like Janet Evanovich, you will like Becky Clark.”

Visit Becky at beckyclarkbooks.com.

All comments are welcomed.