Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Murder in Trastevere: A Roman Holiday Mystery by Jen Collins Moore. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Murder in Trastevere: A Roman Holiday Mystery
by Jen Collins Moore
Murder in Trastevere: A Roman Holiday Mystery
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Rome, Italy
Level Best Books (May 18, 2023)
Paperback : 286 pages
After a decade dominating the expat scene in Rome, Faye Masters has had enough beautiful art, delicious food, and bureaucratic nonsense to last a lifetime. She’s just about decided to pack up and head home when a rival drops dead at one of Faye’s famous cocktail parties. Rumors fly that Faye was the intended target, but the police think Faye might just be an attention-seeking poisoner.
Faye refuses to let the cloud of suspicion stop her from completing a self-imposed 25-picture Caravaggio Challenge. Or keep her from assisting friends Maggie White and Thomas Evans on their painting tours of Rome. But when the leads fizzle out and a series of accidents hit close to home, Faye accepts her own life is on the line. She must search for a killer while keeping up appearances at some of Rome’s most iconic sights.
My review of Murder in Trastevere
Murder in Trastevere by Jen Collins Moore is set in the beautiful city of Rome. Though it’s the second book in the series, the series got a new name, and for this book, a new leading lady. (The author talks about why she did this in her guest post below! Be sure to read it.) For those of you who did read it, don’t worry. Maggie is still in this book! Faye Masters moved to Rome years ago when her husband’s (now EX-husband) job sent him there. Having those years under her belt has given her valuable knowledge for new expats moving to Rome. However, her most recent party has not gone as planned. The guest of honor drops dead, and Faye becomes one of the suspects.
I enjoyed Murder in Trastevere, but it did take me a while to really start liking it which is why I’m giving it a rounded up 4. Faye is definitely a character you’ve got to warm up to. She’s type A to the max, and that has made some of her crowd view her as bossy and basically stuck-up. I can see that, and for the first several chapters, I couldn’t warm up to Faye. However, as I kept reading, she grew on me. You’ve got to take her with a grain of salt and just keep reading. If you know type A people (like seriously type A), they like to be in control. But they don’t see themselves as controlling. They see themselves as helpful! Like, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done. If it gets done, it won’t get done right.” So, Faye arranges card nights, parties, tours, etc. for the group of expats she’s come to know. She needs things to be perfect. So, just give her a chance if she’s coming off as brusque. Once I got to understand her better and see how she interacted with her close friends, I knew that she was just as human as the rest of us. People just don’t understand.
The side characters are well-written with a variety of personalities. I really loved Maggie and her husband because they truly cared about Faye. Thomas is another wonderful character. There are those who abandon Faye because they think she’s guilty and basically a liar. Needless to say, that shocks Faye and hurts her too. The suspect pool is fairly large, so beware of red herrings! I didn’t narrow it down until close to the end when all of the clues started falling into place.
I think cozy mystery readers should definitely give Murder in Trastevere a read. I will absolutely read the next book in the series, and I look forward to more Roman adventures!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
Guest Post from Jen Collins Moore: Is it still a series if you change the main character?
I admire efficient authors, those wondrous people who can sit down, write a story, re-read it once or twice, then submit the thing to their publisher and move on to their next project.
I am not that writer.
My first book, Murder in the Piazza, took five years. I thought my next book, Murder in Trastevere, would be faster since I had learned so much. This time, I told myself, I really know what I am doing.
I had my main character: Maggie White, a plucky middle-aged American expat living in Rome and leading tours for well-healed Americans. She solved the murder of her employer in Murder in the Piazza, which surely meant she could crack the next case in Book Two of the series.
I had a great victim: A corporate highflier who regularly made time to run over a hundred miles (a hundred!) in weekend-long ultra races. Not to mention being tall and slim with perfect teeth and a good sense of humor. All lovely qualities when they are your own. Not quite so nice when they are someone else’s.
I had a great crime: My victim falls dead at a cocktail party given in her honor. It looks like poison, but it’s not clear if the deadly stuff was intended for her or someone else. That’s the tricky thing about poisoned food. It can easily go astray.
And I had my location: Trastevere, my favorite neighborhood in Rome. It’s oozing with ambiance and still has more Italians than tourists, which is saying something in a city as popular as Rome.
My problem was a character who wouldn’t cooperate. Faye Masters, my detective’s friend and rival, was supposed to be the sidekick in this story. She is the Queen Bee of Rome’s expat society and a woman who knows everything about everyone. In my mind, she would be the perfect Watson to Maggie’s Sherlock.
The problem was that Faye wasn’t willing to accept the role of sidekick. I thought it was an upgrade. After all, she was only a minor character in the first book, appearing in just a few scenes. Getting to help Maggie solve this new case should have been enough for Faye. But Faye wasn’t having it. She kept edging into Maggie’s story, putting her own problems front and center.
You see, Faye’s life looks pretty perfect on the outside, and that’s the way she wants to keep it, even though her husband has moved out and her friendships are shallow at best. She can’t bear the idea of anyone knowing how hard she’s working to keep up her act of perfection. And a dead body in her living room is the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and forces her to look at her life with fresh eyes.
Isn’t that a backstory just screaming for main character billing? Faye thought so, and she kept nudging further and further into the story. I fought her off. I finished the manuscript according to my plan and put it aside.
But, when I read it with fresh eyes, I had to accept that Murder in Trastevere was Faye’s story, not Maggie’s. I rewrote the whole darn thing from Faye’s point of view.
And you know what? It might not have been an efficient way to write, but it made the story much better.
As a writer, I like to make plans and outlines, but in the end, I must listen to my characters. My series was called The Maggie White Mysteries, because it was going to follow the woman I fell in love with writing my first book. But when Faye pushed her way into the second one, I realized a different main character would make my books more interesting.
Instead of following one character from case to case, I can follow a community. Many of my favorite characters from the first book still play a role in this new one. But because the story is told from a different point of view, we see them differently. That’s just how it is in real life. We all have different aspects of our personality that different people see.
I’ve renamed my series A Roman Holiday Mystery because that’s what it’s about: mysteries that happen in Europe’s most exciting city, and the people who live there.
I hope you love visiting Rome in my books as much as I do. And I hope you agree that following Faye Masters is just as much fun as following Maggie White. Please add a comment and let me know what you think!
Jen Collins Moore
Jen Collins Moore transports readers to Rome in the Roman Holiday Mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly and Masthead: The Best New England Crime Stories. She is president of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland and a founding member of Sleuths and Sidekicks. A transplanted New Englander, she lives in Chicago with her husband and two boys.
Author Links
Website www.jennifercollinsmoore.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jencollinsmoore
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jennifercollinsmoore/
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Murder in Trastevere Tour Participants
August 14 – Baroness Book Trove – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 14 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT
August 15 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 15 – Brooke Blogs – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 16 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
August 16 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 17 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 17 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
August 18 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
August 18 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 19 – MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT
August 19 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – GUEST POST
August 20 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
August 21 – I’m All About Mystery Books – SPOTLIGHT
August 22 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 23 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
August 24 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 25 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 26 – Jane Reads – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 27 – StoreyBook Reviews – RECIPE
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Sounds great, thank you for sharing.
Looks very intriguing fingers crossed
Thank you for reading! Faye is definitely a challenging character — I’m glad you warmed up to her!
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping!