Cate Lawley writes Cozy Mystery, Paranormal, and Urban Fantasy. Her Cozy Mystery series includes: Death Retired Mysteries, Cursed Candy Mysteries, Fairmont Finds Canine Cozy Mysteries, Furry Fairy Hijinks, Night Shift Witch Mysteries, Ruff Justice Mysteries and Vegan Vamp Mysteries. You can check out all her books on her Website. Cate is a Texan who loves British Mysteries. She has worked as an attorney and a dog trainer, just to name a few. Follow Cate on Facebook, Bookbub, Amazon and Goodreads.

Cate’s book in the anthology is titled The Sleuthing Granny Gang and the Summer Scandal
Death visits the unlikeliest of locales: White Sage’s lavender festival. When the jam contest favorite ends up dead, the Sleuthing Granny Gang ladies are on the case. Former cadaver dog Fairmont helps them sniff out clues, while the group’s leader Zella does her best to keep her silver-sleuth friends from taking dangerous risks. This year’s jam contest has a hefty prize, a contract with an Austin-based jam company. But did the killer murder to level the contest playing field? Or are there other motives at work? Fairmont and the Sleuthing Granny Gang won’t give up until they’ve solved this latest deadly puzzle.

Can you give us some insight into what makes you main character tick?
Zella’s story is all about starting over, finding a new path for herself independent of her ex-husband and their two grown children. As a part of that journey, she adopted her first dog: Fairmont! While she’d likely have some exposure to a high body count in a small Texas town even without Fairmont (cozy mysteries!), with Fairmont’s help, she embraces murder investigations and other various new experiences with more confidence.

Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
Fairmont, the canine hero of my Fairmont Finds series. I wrote the first Fairmont story just a few months after my beloved German shorthaired pointer Vegas passed away. He was special to so many people, not just me. He had his very own fan club. Fairmont is based primarily on Vegas with a few characteristics taken from my current canine love, Memphis.

Is anything in your book based on real-life experiences or purely all imagination? Mild spoiler: Fairmont is a former search dog. His experience and training is primarily in human remains detection. I was a search and rescue canine handler for three years, and much of Fairmont’s (and Zella, his owner’s) experiences are based on my own experiences training and handling search dogs.

What comes first, the plot or characters?
Characters. When I started writing the first Fairmont story, I needed a way to keep Vegas alive a little longer. Fairmont let me do that. I was also considering a big change in my personal life (a cross country move, starting over in a new place), and so I knew that I wanted Zella to experience a similar change. From there, I threw in a murder, some secondary characters, a love interest, and the story was off and running. But I do truly feel like most of the stories I write, in the Fairmont series and otherwise, are about love, friendship, and family, in all of their different incarnations.

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_{Before the release, you are going to want to pre order your copy! Not only will you get it at the lowest price of 99 cents, but you will also get a fun addition that the authors put together for our readers; a recipe book of great summer salads.}

_{We are also doing something extra special for our potential readers; we’ve put together an exciting package with over 30 prizes to win. Ereaders, gift cards, signed copies of books, ebooks, audio books, the list goes on. And you can check out the list AND sign up to win the Mysteries, Midsummer Sun & Murder anthology prize pack by clicking on the box below.}