On Deadly Tides Guest Post - Christy's Cozy Corners

Thanks for sharing!

Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for On Deadly Tides: A Penny Brannigan Mystery by Elizabeth J. Duncan. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!

On Deadly Tides: A Penny Brannigan Mystery

by Elizabeth J. Duncan

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive compensation at no cost to you.

On Deadly Tides: A Penny Brannigan Mystery
Cozy Mystery
11th in Series
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (November 10, 2020)
237 pages

With a picturesque black and white lighthouse, pebble beaches and stunning views of sea and mountains, the island of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales is the perfect place for an idyllic mid-summer painting holiday.

And watercolour artist, businesswoman, and amateur sleuth Penny Brannigan is enjoying the retreat enormously – until she discovers the body of a New Zealand journalist on a secluded beach just as the tide is going out, threatening to take the body with it.

The post mortem reveals the victim died from injuries “consistent with a fall from a great height,” and the death is ruled accidental. But Penny thinks there’s more to the story. Curious how the victim came to such an untimely end at this most inhospitable spot, she uncovers a link to a mysterious disappearance several years earlier.

And as her holiday romance with a wildlife photographer turns to love, she learns some truths about herself, too, that surprise her.

As the winds of change blow through Penny’s own life, she sets sail on a friendly tide for a future she never dreamed possible, in a beautiful place she never imagined.

Guest Post A bit of literary lighthouse love

Authors have long been under the alluring spell of lighthouses. These distinctive and remarkable structures have featured in hundreds of novels from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf to the even more simply titled The Lighthouse by P. D. James.

What is it that attracts authors, along with artists and photographers, to lighthouses, like moths to a flame? Is it their life-saving purpose? Or the practical, tower shape of the structures themselves?

Although lighthouses certainly have a unique beauty all their own, I suggest the appeal is to do with the larger setting that gives the lighthouse its purpose.

Lighthouses are always situated near dangerous, rocky coastlines or hazardous, shallows and shoals and their very presence warns ships that here be danger. Now, of course, with sophisticated electronic maritime navigational aids, lighthouses don’t serve the same essential purpose as they used to, but they continue to hold the same place of romantic endearment in our imaginations that they have done for centuries.

Several lighthouses dot the coastline of North Wales, where the Penny Brannigan mystery series is set, and one in particular has always appealed to me.

Trwyn Du lighthouse, also known as Penmon lighthouse, is situated between Black Point near Penmon at the eastern extremity of the Island of Anglesey and Puffin Island. It marks the narrow passage between the two islands.

The lighthouse, built in 1835-38 and modernized in 1922, features three distinct black bands and has the words NO PASSAGE LANDWARD painted in black on the north and south sides.

I’ve admired the lighthouse for years, and finally found the opportunity to weave it into On Deadly Tides, the eleventh title in the Penny Brannigan mystery series.

As the story begins to unfold, Penny and her friend Alwynne Gwilt are on a painting holiday on the island of Anglesey and on the first morning, set off to paint the lighthouse.

Penny retied her billowing scarf to shorten the ends, and then, her hands thrust in the pocket of her jacket, walked a few paces away. She breathed in the salty tang of the fresh air, listened to the cries of the sea birds, possibly cormorants, as they called to one another, and noted the choppy waves breaking against the base of the lighthouse. Its black and white bands appeared sharp-edged, and the whole of the structure was infused with the kind of sparkling radiance much loved by photographers and artists, as if large bodies of moving water had a magical power to scatter light.

I visited the lighthouse in early December, 2019 with two friends, and as we picked our way along the pebbly beach that offers a splendid view of it, I was reminded of the importance of actually visiting a site that you plan to write about. The lighthouse features an atmospheric fog bell that sounds every 30 seconds. I’m glad I was able to include that detail later in the book, and I’m delighted that an artist’s interpretation of the lighthouse itself appears on the cover.

About Elizabeth J. Duncan

A two-time winner of the Bloody Words (Bony Blithe) Award for Canada’s best light mystery, Elizabeth J. Duncan is the author of two series: the Penny Brannigan mysteries set in North Wales and Shakespeare in the Catskills featuring costume designer Charlotte Fairfax. A former journalist, public relations practioner, and college professor, Elizabeth is a faculty member of the Humber School for Writers. She divides her time between Toronto, Canada and Llandudno, North Wales.

Author Links

Website: www.elizabethjduncan.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/elizabethjduncan

Twitter: @elizabethduncan

Purchase Links

Amazon B&N Kobo