Inspiration for my Cheese Shop Mystery series

Cheese. It’s classic. It’s comforting. It’s communal. It’s also having something of a Renaissance, in part thanks to social media. Who can resist watching a freshly melted Raclette scraped from its wheel and ooze onto crisped fingerling potatoes? Gatherings that once included a humble cheese platter now boast table-length charcuterie boards and elaborate cheese bars. There’s a universal passion for cheese. 

My passion for writing mysteries didn’t begin with cheese, however. It started with reading mysteries—cozy mysteries, in particular. Cozies are a subgenre of the traditional mystery where an amateur sleuth is the main character. There’s no gore, sex, or swearing. The murder takes place off the page and the victim is typically someone unlikable. I jokingly like to say I write about “nice murders.” It’s more about solving the puzzle of whodunnit, while getting to know the small town and quirky characters of the series. Probably the most important aspect of a cozy, at least from a publishing standpoint, is the theme. Every cozy mystery has a theme, which must be—just as it sounds—cozy. Innkeeper, bakery shop owner, librarian, knitter… you get the idea. 

I suppose this is where I’m supposed to tell you my theme was inspired by my passion for cheese. Although I’ve always enjoyed cheese, it didn’t exactly happen that way.

The first cozy mystery I’d written was about a mom blogger. I’d been a reader of cozy mysteries for almost two decades and I was a mom. I was following the mantra, “write what you know.” The manuscript secured me a literary agent, but it didn’t get me a publishing contract. The consensus was that a mom with a toddler wouldn’t connect with the target audience. I needed inspiration for a new cozy mystery. 

New ideas weren’t the problem. Inspired by my love of the genre, I had plenty. I wanted to write a cozy mystery series where readers would get excited for each book to come, just as I always had as a reader. But in order to have readers, I needed to be published. And to be published, I needed to stack the odds in my favor with a marketable cozy theme. 

Now this is when you might think I was inspired to write my first cheese shop mystery. Nope.

I wrote a second cozy mystery manuscript, this time a culinary cozy, that my agent submitted. Once again, I was getting lots of compliments for my writing, but it looked like the manuscript would be another miss. At the same time, an editor from St. Martin’s Press (a division of Macmillan Publishing) was seeking an author to write a cozy mystery series about an amateur sleuth who owns a cheese shop. Because I’d demonstrated my knowledge of the genre and my ability as a writer, I was given the opportunity to write a proposal. 

 I had a few weeks to come up with the premise, plot, workable mystery, characters, and setting, then use that to write a synopsis, the first three chapters, and summaries for two more books in the potential series. I didn’t have time for inspiration—my muse had to get in a fighter jet and reach Mach 10. 

I began with some cursory research on cheese and came across a cheese trail map for tourists to work their way through the creameries, dairy farms, and cheese shops of northern California. That inspired me to place my fictional small town of Yarrow Glen in the Sonoma Valley. I also liked the idea of writing about cheese in an area known more for its wine. I’d decided Yarrow Glen’s roots would be in dairy farming, with its community members trying to get their town noticed amid the fancier vineyard towns. This led to my desire to create a protagonist who would embody this sense of being an underdog who’s ready to flourish: Willa Bauer. Past tragedies and heartaches kept her bouncing around the country as a cheesemonger until she finally faced her vulnerabilities and put down roots in a new town by opening her own cheese shop, a dream that was derailed many years ago. 

Everything else fell into place after that. I wanted to create a town with a true sense of community. I wanted to explore the relationships among characters of different ages who develop intergenerational friendships. I wanted to show a deep friendship between a man and a woman without any suggestion that they’d be more than friends. And I wanted to plot some really good mysteries. The cheese? I had no idea how inspiring it would become. 

My research for this series has given me an entirely new perspective on cheese. Learning about cheese from my local artisanal cheese shop owners, cheesemongers, and cheesemakers—its history, how it’s made, the multitude of factors that result in how it tastes—is incredibly interesting (not to mention, delicious). Seeing their passion and reverence for it continually inspires awe and ideas. In fact, the cheese takes center stage in the latest book I just completed, Case of the Bleus (Book 4), which revolves around a very valuable bleu cheese—one so sought-after, someone has committed murder to get to its secrets.

 Although the cheese inspiration didn’t come until after my publishing contract, it’s what I rely on for each new book in the series. Who knew cheese paired so well with murder mysteries?

—

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series (St. Martin’s Press) set in the Sonoma Valley, including the Agatha Award nominated first book, CHEDDAR OFF DEAD. Other puntastic titles in this cozy mystery series include GONE FOR GOUDA, CURDS OF PREY, and CASE OF THE BLEUS, with more books forthcoming. Korina is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, and blogs on Writers Who Kill. You’re invited to visit her website and subscribe to her free newsletter at korinamossauthor.com.

CURDS OF PREY

In Korina Moss’s Curds of Prey, murder again comes to Yarrow Glen, and cheesemonger Willa Bauer must be the predator… before she becomes the prey.

Yarrow Glen’s favorite cheese shop, Curds & Whey, gets to be a part of the social event of the season: Summer Harrington’s wedding. Cheesemonger Willa Bauer is going all out for the wedding shower’s cheese bar. But the eagle-eyed Harrington family is proving to be a pain in her asiago. A last-minute tasting ends in disaster when one of Willa’s potential beaux, Roman, gets in a fight with the groom. Then the shower arrives, and while there’s anything but love in the air, there is plenty of cheese. Oh, and Roman… again. The day officially ends in disaster when Willa finds the groom―who also happens to be the mayor’s nephew―in the stable, dead as a dodo. At the mayor’s request, Willa must follow the trail of cheese curds to find a killer while continuing to walk a tightrope between two of Sonoma Valley’s most powerful families.

PREORDER HERE

Tags: featured, womenwriters

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips