Double Grudge Donuts by Ginger Bolton Book 8 Deputy Donut Mysteries
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Meet Ginger Bolton, author of the Deputy Donut Mysteries
Buy Ginger's new book: Double Grudge Donuts by Ginger Bolton - releasing Feb 20, 2024 by Kensington Cozies https://amzn.to/3SgMqIH
Author Chat Questions
0:00 Intro
0:21 Did you want to tell everyone a little bit about yourself?
1:42 So who gets murdered in this book?
2:00 Is he Scottish? And is this like a tragedy for all the Single Ladies inside of Fallbrook?
2:50 How does Emily get involved in this mystery?
6: 27 Falling Brook, Wisconsin, How similar is this to your current small town?
8:33 Are there anything else cool or interesting about Falling Brook? Are they big into cheese like the rest of Wisconsin?
9:52 How did you end up choosing Donuts versus like cupcakes or pastries or ice cream or basically any other shop in the entire world?
11:40 Do you like doughnuts?
12:50 Are you dunking your doughnuts in coffee or a latte, or what do you have with your doughnuts?
13:24 Do you have like in your town, do they have local coffee shops where you can like sit down and hang out?
14:08 How did Emily get the coffee shop or the donut shop?
15:08 Is Emily's dad is a cop?
16:41 Does she have a sidekick or someone that helps her solve these mysteries?
18:18 And does the cat hang out with her at the donut shop all day and the customers all, like, love the cat?
19:25 Is Janet Bolin your other pen name?
22:13 Do you do other things? Cross stitch?
22:50 So in the falling brook, do you have a lot of friends who are cops?
23:58 There's no recipes in the book, right?
24:21 How do you pick which doughnut recipes go into which books?
25:15 What's your favorite at home doughnut recipe?
26:21 What are your writing plans for 2024?
27:10 When does book Book 9 come out?
28:47 Where can readers find you?
Listen Now [Audio Only]
Double Grudge Donuts by Ginger Bolton Book 8 Deputy Donut Mysteries
Feb 13, 2024
29 min 57 sec
This transcript was generated automatically by Spotify. Its accuracy may vary.
0:01
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Cozy Mystery Mingle.And today we have Ginger Bolton.Hi.So if you did not notice, Ginger has a fabulous hat that has a doughnut on it.Because we're talking about her awesome new book, Book #8, which is Double grunge Doughnuts.
0:21
So did you want to tell everyone a little bit about yourself?And then about your book?Oh.OK.Yeah, I I I I write full time.And I've been writing well.I've been writing.I wrote part time for a long time before I wrote full time.
0:38
But now I write full time, and I'm writing the Deputy Doughnut Mysteries.They take place in a doughnut shop in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin, which is a fictional town.And my character, my character owns a Co, owns a doughnut shop and coffee shop.
1:00
And they this is a good place to pick up clues, 'cause there are people that come into this, the doughnut shop, a lot of them are first responders and a lot of her friends and relatives are first responders.So she's doesn't mean to get, you know, solve murders, but it just sort of happens.
1:24
That's her.It is a cat named Deputy, whose own name is Deputy Donut.The the shop was named after her after the cat, and it's depped for short.The cat goes to and from work with Emily, my character, and well, we can get into more detail I guess.
1:42
Later.So who gets murdered in this book?Who gets murdered?Oh, it's Kirk McLean.Uh huh.He's a janitor at the local high school and he plays the bagpipes.OK, so Bagpiper makes you think.
2:00
Is he Scottish?His name is Scottish but he's he was.He was born in the USI think, and he only moved to Fallingbrook in the last few months.OK, because as soon as I heard Scottish Bagpiper, and maybe it's because of that other TV show that's really popular, but I just thought, is he good looking?
2:20
And is this like a tragedy for all the Single Ladies inside of Fallbrook?Wisconsin No, I didn't want to do that to the single lady.So he's he's he's a kind of a middle-aged curmudgeon guy.I think he's kind of scruffy, but his he wears the full highland regalia and does that well.
2:40
So you know his his feats are are knife sharp and everything and he can swagger around in his kilt with the best of them.OK, and so how does Emily get involved in this mystery?Emily she finds his body actually.
2:57
But before that he was falling Brook is holding an arts festival six day arts festival and on the first night is musical Monday.So musicians are taking, are competing in the bandstand in Falling Brook in there in the town square, and a cornet player is playing, and Kirk comes along with his bagpipe behind the audience and starts screeching and squawking.
3:28
And the cornettist, who was actually a good musician, got got flustered and stomped off the stage.Then that night, Emily Emily's parents are staying with her because they're judges for some of the competitions and they're staying in town with her.
3:48
They heard they were waking to the sound of bagpipes, like at 3:00 in the morning, they heard somebody playing bagpipes.Then the next afternoon is Troubadour Tuesday so that the performers are supposed to be singers.So Emily figures, well, you know, this bagpiper's not going to come along and disrupt any performances.
4:07
Wrong.He he disturbs, you know, four teenagers who are singing in a barbershop quartet, and they get flustered and run away.And so by this time, he's annoyed a lot of people in and around Falling Brook.
4:24
And the next morning, Emily and her cat, Emily's cat, walks to work on a leash.They're walking to work, and him and Emily's cat kind of pulls her toward a puddle behind a van, a camper van.And there is there's the there are the sodden bagpipes in a puddle and Kirk McLean who is no longer alive.
4:47
So and beside him is a piece of a deputy doughnut mug mug from her her shop.And so she because and she calls the police immediately of course.And her fiance is the detective, and he comes along and she takes her her information.
5:10
Fall off?Oh, she can't even help.And he that's not working at all.There, there, there.
5:25
Now we're perfect.So she she calls her the cops.She calls her the cops.Body.And because this piece of a mug was near his body, it's, you know, it looks suspicious.
5:44
But she still doesn't really mean to go out and be meddlesome and check on, you know, and solve the crime however it happens, all right.
6:00
Well.Because all these people that come into the shop and the people she meets and and somebody who begs her to to hear her name and.Yeah, and it sounds like you said he's not this hot, dashing single bachelor.
6:15
He was someone that everyone was happy when he died.So there's lots of suspects, yeah.I mean, wouldn't say happy, but you know, it was.There are lots of suspects.Yeah, right.So there's lots of suspects.It's a small town.So, Falling Brook, Wisconsin, How similar is this to your current small town?
6:34
It's I think a lot.Small towns have a lot in common.You know, I've lived in cities and I've lived in small towns and in cities.If you want to do something, you know, if you want to be entertained, you can go out to, you know, a play or a movie or a or a concert or or whatever.
6:56
In the small towns people make their own fun.So they they make festivals, they they throw, they join clubs that do things together.I mean this happens in big cities too.But so so that, you know, I actually see that where I live too.
7:15
Our small town is growing fast.Falling Brook is more stuck in in its pleasant early years it was it was founded in Victorian times and and they've kept a lot of the old buildings and and but but like every small town then they have suburbs.
7:39
I mean a small town doesn't have much in the way of suburbs, but as as you go farther from the center of town, the buildings are newer.OK.Well, it sounds very nice Victorian, very historic and picturesque.Yeah, you can do that when you write.
7:57
Yeah, for sure.And I'm guessing there is not an overabundance of Scottish people there, and I only think that because of the bagpiper.Yeah.No, there no, there aren't.OK.Anything.Else.Oh, go on.
8:13
There's there's a, you know, a variety of people.Wisconsin has a lot of people of Scandinavian descent ancestry, OK, but not Scottish.That would be what you would.That would be what you would probably notice, but but not not so much.
8:33
OK, and then anything else cool or interesting about Falling Brook?Are they big into cheese like the rest of Wisconsin?Oh, well, yeah.I mean everybody is and into the Green Bay Packers and which in Green Bay is pretty far away, but that that that doesn't matter.
8:53
Also, Fallingbrook is surrounded by woods and lakes and streams and you know, waterfalls, Fallingbrooks and rocky places.It's it's very beautiful outside of town.
9:10
Nice.And so would you want to live in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin?If it weren't for the murders.But they have such good Donuts.They have good Donuts, they have other pubs and restaurants that sell good things.They have.
9:26
And I I would love the Inver, you know, to be out in those woods and on those on those lakes in my Iacon, which I don't do much of anymore.But it yeah, I yeah, it's beautiful.
9:43
So yes, I would, but there are a few too many murders.Well, so let's talk about Donuts.Because who doesn't love Donuts?How did you end up choosing Donuts versus like cupcakes or pastries or ice cream or basically any other shop in the entire world?
10:00
Well, you can blame the cozy author Laurie Cass for that.She lives in Michigan and she mentioned a shop in Michigan in Clare, MI that it's called Cops and doughnuts.When the local bakery was going out of business the local detect the Police Department the policemen there were like 9 in the village decided that they would buy it and this was some years ago so they have bought it and called and it's called Cops and Doughnuts.
10:34
It's a bakery, of course.I've been there and their doughnuts are to die for.Anyway, I thought it would be a great idea to have a doughnut shop owned and run by cops, because that's such a, you know, such a cliche that cops do nothing but eat doughnuts and drink coffee.
10:54
And of course that's not true.But so I thought it would be fun to have a shop like that.Where of course, even if the person who ran the shop is not first responder, she's with a lot of them and she can kind of listen to things and hear them.
11:12
And her friends are first responders, so.So she learns a lot there.I mean, that's a genius idea for a setting.I mean, I don't know why there haven't been more.It seems like the most natural place, like you said, to find first responders of all types to get information.
11:29
And and also the bad guys go there too.Yeah, yeah.And like, everyone's just talking about crime and what's going on and everything else.So let's talk about you as a doughnut.So I'm guessing you like doughnuts.
11:45
Oh yes, very much.And are you a Krispy Kreme girl or more of those fancy artisanal doughnuts?Like, what's your favorite?Both.Both OK and what's your favorite go to like?I'll tell you what the artisanal ones are.
12:03
I wouldn't be able to decide if you go into one of those shops that sells those doughnuts that are mounded with everything under the sun and every color, and they're beautiful and they're tasty, and you want one of each and you can't eat one of each.So, so my favorite ones are the plain ones, the.
12:20
Plain ones, OK.I love it.Like a raised glazed doughnut with just vanilla glaze on it color, Or an old fashioned doughnut with cinnamon and sugar and nutmeg on it.And what about the filled doughnuts, like the Bavarian Creamer?
12:37
Oh, chocolate Creamer.Yeah, I like those too, but they're.They're not your favorite, OK?They're not my favorites, but but you know, they're all good.OK, and are you dunking your doughnuts in coffee or a latte, or what do you have with your doughnuts?
12:59
Coffee.Or milk.But yeah, I love coffee, which might be obvious from the way I write the books, too.Well, you never know.I mean, I talk about coffee all the time.I'm not a coffee drinker, but I always put them in the books because that seems more natural.I think everyone loves coffee.
13:15
Yeah, but.But you can't beat milk or to eat with cookies and things like that.Yeah, that's true too.So you're so our coffee shops here are very much like get it and go.They're more like a counter service.Do you have like in your town, do they have local coffee shops where you can like sit down and hang out?
13:34
And do you write at your coffee donut coffee shops?Yeah, we have the kind that you can sit down and hang out and people do.I couldn't.I couldn't write in one because I would be too distracted.By the doughnuts.No.
13:49
Well, yeah, but probably by the conversations.Oh.Yeah, so I mean, I would probably sit there and just transcribe what I heard, which is, you know, also a fun, that would be a fun thing to do.I could walk to the doughnut shop, but I just stay away.
14:07
OK, so this is book 8, so let's just talk to help bring everyone up to speed if they jump into book eight first, how did Emily get the coffee shop or the donut shop?Sorry.She and her partner bought it OK and she had her.
14:24
Her business partner is the father of her late husband.Her first husband was a detective who who unfortunately died in the line of duty and she had life insurance for him.He had life insurance so that that's how she managed to buy a a donut shop and started she first she was just making doughnuts and taking and catering basically and she would make them into this into shapes like cakes and whatever you know pile them up and and people just wanted them and said you know Emily start a start a doughnut shop.
15:03
So she did.And her dad in the books is a cop.Do I read that right or no?No her.No her her ex father.Her father-in-law, the the father of her ex is a is is a detective.
15:20
He he he's retired, he was a police chief.So he was a police chief and detective in Falling Brook.So he knows a lot of history and she can say, did you ever hear anything about this person or that person, OK.
15:36
And so does the father-in-law approve of her, like running out and trying to solve crimes?Not at all.No, so.He will answer her questions if he thinks that she's not going to cause trouble for herself, but he keeps reminding her, you know, stay out of it.
15:53
Don't get into anything.So he's worried about her getting in danger.Yeah, because to him and his wife, she's still a valued daughter, OK?And then what about her fiance?Oh, he doesn't like it either.
16:08
He does not, OK.Though she does, she when she finds something out, she tells him about it and she, you know, she says, oh by the way, somebody was in the shop today and they said blah blah blah.And oh, by the way I went, I went over there and talked to somebody who did.
16:32
So she's pretty honest about it, but not entirely.And of course they would.They would like her to, not to not meddle.OK, so does she have a sidekick or someone that helps her solve these mysteries?That varies from book to book as far as the humans go.
16:51
So she has, she has two best friends from junior high, but one's a police woman, so she's not going to not going to be a sidekick.And the other one's an emergency medical technician.So she's also, she hasn't done that much yet, probably won't because she's having a baby.
17:11
But but that's I'm getting ahead of, I'm, I'm, I'm like 2 books ahead of this, you know.So I'm like going back because it's just coming out.But I just turned in the the nice book.The the cat is, in a way, a sidekick, but the cat doesn't talk or anything like that.
17:33
She will, She'll offer clues, like she'll huff up and hiss, puff up and hiss and arch your back if she doesn't like somebody.But you know you can't really believe a cat about what What she likes and doesn't like, 'cause she likes herrings, whether they're red or not.
17:49
So she's.But she does, you know, things like pull Emily toward, you know, what is that over there?It looks like, you know, a wet bagpipe and maybe a corpse.You.Know.Oh, right, the cat helps you find the body.Yeah, the cat.
18:05
The cat helps you find the body and the cat is often in at the at the takedown OK.And does the cat hang out with?Her oh God helps in one way or another.Like OK.And does the cat hang out with her at the donut shop all day and the customers all, like, love the cat?
18:22
Yeah, except the because I'm I'm most very careful with food safety rules.So the cat is not allowed in the shop with the customers and she's not allowed in the kitchen or the dining room.But they built Emily and Tom her her father-in-law built this shop so that it has an office for them.
18:47
But they put four windows on all four sides of the office. 1 looks into the kitchen, one looks into the dining room, and then one looks into the back alley or the side alley and one looks into the back parking lot.So this cat is seen and can can see and look out.And so people admire the cat.
19:04
She sits in the window so they can see her.So it's like a Kitty playpen?It is.It is, and it has tunnels and ramps and columns and the cat can run up and up to the ceiling and down and all over the place and drop toys on Emily Well.
19:22
That's cute.All right, so let's just talk about your other pen name, Janet Bolin.Am I saying that right?Yep.OK, Threadville Mysteries.You want to tell us a little bit about those 'cause if you guys like Ginger Bolton, she has five mysteries right in the Threadville Mysteries.
19:40
Yeah, she yes.There are 5 Threadville mysteries.Dire Thread.Well, I won't go through them all, but they have kind of like dire threads and threaded for threaded for trouble.And I designed I I designed it.
19:57
I didn't.There were no good fiber arts and thread crafting shops or yarn shops near where I lived.So I designed a town that had everything.I would want.So there's a quilt shop, there's a fabric shop, there's a yarn shop, There's a shop that sells buttons and notions.
20:15
And my character does machine embroidery and sells the machines that you can that you use to do those, which was something I was doing at the time.Now I don't have time.So I designed this town and then and I thought and I would get so into it that I'd think, oh, I'll just run across the street and get some thread.
20:37
Oh no, I can't because I'm not Willow and I don't live in Threadville and I can't just go across the street and buy what I need to make something.So I designed this town, and Willow has a sidekick in that in that series.And her sidekick Haley was raised by three women, one of one of them who's is her mother, her actual mother, but her mother's two best friends.
21:02
And so they call them the three weird mothers.And they they are, they are a little weird.That's.Not, I mean, it sounds like a lot of girl power.It is.It's great fun.Good.
21:18
All right.And so you actually used to embroidery yourself?Yeah, with machine embroidery, like like the the home kind of machine, embroidery machine that not not the gigantic things that you, you know, that you'd see industrially, but you know.
21:34
I is that the same one like I'll go to the store.You know how you can like have it personalized where you at the store is at the same machine you'll be like I want my name like Lisa on the shirt.Yeah, I mean these these machines are like not much bigger than the sewing machine.OK.Yeah.Mine has mine's a sewing machine and then it has this little module that attaches to it and it sits there and goes.
21:57
Oh yeah.I mean, I find those fascinating.When you get them done, you're like mesmerized by watching the magic.I was into all of that and then the software and everything kind of.I didn't keep up with it so.All right.
22:13
Do you do other things?Cross stitch?Crochet.Knit.I crochet and knit.Yeah, OK, Hey, nice.I I keep making shawls that have crocheted shawls that have skulls, skulls crocheted into them, These eyes and teeth and everything.
22:32
Is that just your favorite design to put into something?Yeah, it's fun to do and but who would want one?I guess another mystery author.Yeah, cozy mystery fans.Maybe you can stick a bottle of poison or something next to it.
22:50
So yeah, and I guess we should go back to your other book.So in the falling brook, do you have a lot of friends who are cops?Because it seems like Emily has just all cop friends.Cop.Everything.No, I don't.You don't, OK?But one retired cop friend has been reading my novels and commenting and.
23:11
So.You don't.They don't do that.Oh.Well, cats also probably don't help lead you and come for takedowns at mystery solving.That's what makes it fun.Yeah, yeah.Well, mystery authors don't actually solve mysteries either very often.
23:28
I don't think I don't.I do not either.I think also you know, people who write thrillers about serial killers probably don't kill people a lot either.No, no.That's OK, but I do like eating doughnuts, and I think you do too.So that's that was that's good book research.
23:44
Yeah.Oh yeah, yeah.But yeah, I have to research by making Donuts.Researching for my embroidery was much easier, much less fattening.Oh yeah, I didn't.There's no recipes in the book, right?
24:00
Because doughnuts have to be deep fried.That's like a whole different.Oh yeah.There are recipes in.There, there are.Oh, OK, and so do you have to deep fry the doughnuts in your recipes or that?I I had to.I had to get a deep fryer.Oh, wow.OK, so every single book has.
24:16
Again, it's not an industrial size deep fryer.Right.It's fun for home.So does every single book have doughnut recipes?Yeah.And so how do you pick which doughnut recipes go into which books?Whichever ones I wrote about.
24:33
So OK, so if I yeah, don't put a lot of recipes in because the basic doughnut recipes are kind of like here's the race version and here's the unraised version and so you know it's just just what you add and and how you make it And you can also bake doughnuts.
24:50
So I usually have a deep fried recipe and and at least one baked recipe.You can buy these pans with Little Circle.I have one of those.Yeah.I can bake them.Yeah.The frying looks very difficult.So, well, people, I guess you could use an air fryer, right?
25:07
Yeah.OK, yeah.And so are you testing out all the recipes?Yeah.Oh, you are OK What's your favorite at home doughnut recipe?I think the cinnamon twists came out really well and they're they're in Cinnamon Twisted the the 7th 1:00 and then I forget which book it had it is.
25:29
I think it's the third one.Jealousy filled doughnuts has one called black and white doughnuts and and they're really.Yeah, they're they're chocolate.Yeah, they are basically they taste like an Oreo cookie as a doughnut.
25:46
So that's so you slice the the baked doughnuts in half and you put this filling that's very much like Oreo cookie filling in and those are fun.All right.Yeah, that sounds great.And then Karen said I'd probably have to do extensive donut research if I wrote your book.
26:07
Oh, I.Think Yeah, I think so.That's perfect.In fact, if anybody wants to do extensive donut research and give tell me, send me a recipe, that's great.Yeah, for sure.So I guess what are your writing plans for 2024?
26:25
You said you just turned into book nine and then 10 is on the way, right?Yeah.And so yeah, 10 has to be turned in on September 1st.So I've now written about 6 pages.That's good.I mean, you have plenty of time.You have plenty of time.
26:41
Yeah, I know.And I know where it's going.I know.I write a a a very long outline, which my editor has approved.Not improved, but approved.And so I know where it's going.And I basically know that I have enough.
26:56
You need four or five suspects to to fill out the 80,000 words.So I've got about 1000 words, so that 79,000 to go.All right.And then so when does book does Book 9 come out?
27:13
Later this year.Yeah, November, late November, I think the 26th or around Thanksgiving.And I forgot to ask you this.People can read your books out of order, right?Oh yeah, yeah, if they can.I personally prefer to read series in order because you know, you won't.
27:33
In my book, she won't get any spoilers.You won't find out, you know from book four that, Oh well, that person didn't kill someone in book two because here she is.So there are no spoilers like that.The the main reason to read them in order is that the characters have, you know, and they have a they they grow and progress.
27:55
Their personalities change a little bit, like like there's romance, but managed to get pulled through, stretched out through quite a few books.Yeah, I mean, Emily has a fiance, so we obviously don't start out the book with her having a fiance or the series climbing.
28:13
Up in the in in survival of the fritters.The first one, she hadn't seen him for several years and they were.She didn't really want to see him again because he was her ex husband's partner and they both they both had guilt about about the death and they both and they share they they eventually learn to share their grief and to tell each other no, it wasn't your fault, but but that takes a few books.
28:42
OK to get open.All right.So, oh, so you can.Those are writing plans.And so where can readers find you if they want?Are you, like, big on social media at all?Well, you know you can.Yeah, I'm on Facebook.OK, I'm on Instagram and those are both under Ginger Bolton and and Twitter.
29:03
I don't do much on Twitter anymore.I'm on threads.I haven't really gotten into threads yet.It should have been.That should have existed when I had threadable and and And of course there's my website whichisgingerbolton.com and that that will give you the links.
29:24
OK, and you have a newsletter, right? Yeah, I yeah and and yeah, if you go to gingerbolton.com you can sign up for my newsletter and that would be very nice because I don't send out.I don't send them out very often.I don't.I don't inundate my fans with with newsletters.
29:43
OK.That's all right.All right.Well, thank you so much for being on today and sharing more about your book with us.Oh, you're welcome.Thank you for having me on.Yeah.All right.Bye, everyone.Bye.
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