Book Tour and Giveaway: A Deadly Inside Scoop (An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery #1) by Abby Collette

Title: A Deadly Inside Scoop 

Series: An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery #1 

Author: Abby Collette 

Publisher: Berkley

Publication Date: May 12th 2020

Print Length: 384 pages

Genre: Cozy Mystery 

~

This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop—with a fabulous cast of quirky characters.

Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family’s ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she’s going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors—many from her grandmother’s original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away.

To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win’s father is implicated in his death. It’s not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she’ll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown…

Goodreads * Amazon *
Barnes & Noble * Kobo * Publisher

I write as Abby L. Vandiver and Abby Collette but you can just call me Abby . . .

I love mysteries! Whatever I write, I put a little mystery into it.

Now I've got a new cozy mystery coming out May 12, 2020. A Deadly Inside Scoop, is part of my new series, An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery from Penguin Berkley. I'm so excited for its release.

Stay tuned as I gear up for Release Day with giveaways, interviews and of course. ice cream. (Okay, I won't actually have ice cream on my page, but I'll talk about it. A lot.)

Website * Facebook * Twitter *
Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Whose Personality Is It, Anyway?
by Abby Collette

Want to write a page turner? Create strong characters.

Don’t worry, it might be easier than you think.

Writing a book is a hard thing to do. Finding your hook, deciding where your story takes place, even getting the right pacing, all of it key to writing a good story, but hard to put down on paper. And many may agree that for your story to be a page turner, the plot is the most important element. That may be true, but I think that creating strong, relatable characters is just as vital for a book. Your character’s portrayals and interactions within the pages of your story will make or break it. Characters move the action forward and draw in the reader.

So how do you do that?

To write good characters you need to establish their motivation and goals, but how do you do that if you don’t know your character’s personality?

I’ll tell you what I—I plagiarize. Okay, okay. It’s not what you thinking. I don’t copy other people’s work, no. I copy their personality.

Cloning. It’s real in my books.

To build a character with an unforgettable personality, a good place to start for inspiration is to look at real people. People you know. You already know how they’ll react in certain situations, what they like and what they don’t. Why not apply that to the character you’re creating?

I don’t really “clone” the people I know. What I do, and you can too, is draw on the emotions or even conversations and observations of a person I know. I use it to create a character who enhances the story I want to tell, one that will help me create a believable world for my story and one that my readers are willing to invest in.

More than likely as a writer of fiction you’ve probably already incorporated another’s personality into your work—yours. Of course you have, after all who else do we know better? You may not have even known you did it. It’s just sometimes by writing in your unique voice, Most times emerging as your protagonist in some form or fashion.

So why not do that with your other characters?

In my Logan Dickerson Cozy Mystery series, as well as my Romaine Wilder Mystery series, I have an elderly woman who I’ve fashioned after my mother. Both are completely different women in my story even though the basis of their character traits came from the same place.

But there are rules to borrowing someone else’s personality.

First, decide how someone you know fit into the story. Will they really bring something to your story or do you have an ulterior motive in including them? Don’t put them in because you have an issue with them or just to kill them off—a bully from your past, a mean co-worker, an ex (I write murder mysteries, of course I think about that). The way you feel about the people you write about will surely make it into their depiction in the story. That won’t make a strong character or a good story.

Second, you shouldn’t write them exactly as they are. Just use some of their traits as a framework. If you are too literal in depicting them —describing them just as they are, you may have the opposite effect and your story may just fall flat.

Use people you know as a model for your characters when their personality will play a role in your story, then add your own details to make them unique. It is an easy trick to make your characters believable, relatable and make your readers really care enough about them to keep turning the page to see how they fare.

Win an ice cream maker and one-time ice cream delivery and ice cream scooper!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the tour HERE for more content!