Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn: An Ariadne Winter Mystery by Ellen Butler. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn: An Ariadne Winter Mystery by Ellen Butler
Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn: An Ariadne Winter Mystery
Historical Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher : Power to the Pen (October 2, 2024)
Print length : 323 pages
Stumbling across a dead body could be the making … or breaking of an aspiring reporter.
During 1958, when the workforce is predominantly male, societal norms dictate women should be compliant, fashionable housewives. To Ariadne Winter, the sole tradition she aims to embrace is that of being fashionable. Amidst the ambiance of Ivy Tree Inn, where she’s been dispatched as a writer for Ladies’ Lifestyle Magazine, her focus wavers as she grapples with an interview assignment concerning a Hollywood starlet on the cusp of royal matrimony—an event hailed as the “Wedding of the Century.” While Ariadne dutifully attends to her task, her heart yearns for the pursuit of her collegiate ambition: to be an investigative reporter for a renowned newspaper.
However, fate intervenes when she discovers a dead body and recognizes the opportunity it presents to write her way into the role she desires. Yet, as Ariadne delves deeper into the lives of the inn’s inhabitants, she uncovers a labyrinth of intertwined relationships and long-buried secrets among guests and staff alike, yielding a plethora of suspects. With a murderer on the loose, her magazine deadline looming, and the inn cordoned off by authorities, Ariadne faces a race against time to untangle the web of deceit and solve the murder before she loses more than just her job.
Character Guest Post by Ariadne Winter
When my author told me to write a guest post for Christy’s Cozy Corner, I asked her what I should write. As she was leaving to pick up her kid from school, her reply was rather hurried and flippant.
“Whatever you want. You’re a journalist, you’ll figure it out,” she said.
“I need more,” I cried.
“Talk about yourself. Tell them about your parents!” she hollered as she backed out of the driveway.
I might as well start at the beginning. My name is Ariadne Winter. I know what you’re thinking. My mother was on a Greek mythology kick at the time she was pregnant with me. Aunt Ruby once told me, I was lucky Mom didn’t saddle me with Persephone or Harmonia—two names under serious consideration.
In Greek Mythology, Ariadne is a Cretan Princess, the daughter of Pasiphae and King Minos of Crete. Growing up, I thought it was swell to be named after a Greek princess. That is, until eleventh grade English, when Mrs. Johnson assigned the class to read the rest of Ariadne’s story. The foolish wretch went and fell in love with Athenian hero, Theseus, and helped him escape the Labyrinth after he slayed the Minotaur. Double-crossing Theseus then abandoned Ariadne on Naxos leaving her there to die. Can you believe it?! What a detestable jerk. Honestly, what kind of man leaves an innocent girl—a princess nonetheless—to die on a deserted island? Lucky for Ariadne, the god, Dionysus, rescued her from Naxos and made her his wife.
I’ve come to realize, I share a similarity with Ariadne of Crete—just as she loved unraveling mazes, I enjoy solving crimes, which often feels like navigating a labyrinth of questions.
I suppose you want to hear about my parents. I adore my parents. My father is a lawyer who works in the city, and I meet him for lunch on Tuesdays. My mother is a housewife, and ever since I flew the coop, she has set her sights on managing as many charity projects as she can jam into her schedule—when she isn’t at the hair salon, or shopping, or lunching at the Tennis and Golf Club, or having cocktails with her coterie of friends. They live on Long Island, New York, which is far enough away from the city where I live, it commits me to coming home no more than every other Sunday.
When I announced my intentions to attend college, and get a degree in journalism, my mother, though hesitant at first to support my decision, decided it was as good a place as any for me to find a “nice, young man to settle down with.” I believe my father knew me better and realized that I had inherited his acutely inquisitive mind with a thirst for knowledge.
He paid my tuition, and, after graduation, helped me locate my first apartment in the city. Even though my mother kept insisting, I could only be respectable if I returned to Long Island. In other words, she wanted me home so she could throw prospective suitors at my head on a daily basis. My father is a highly intelligent man and realized that, if he wanted a peaceful abode to come home to, it would not be one with my mother and I living beneath the same roof. Now my mother is reduced to throwing prospective suitors at my head on every other Sunday when I’m expected to return to the nest. A deal I negotiated after moving into the city.
Finally, I work for Ladies’ Lifestyle Magazine, one of the largest women’s magazines in the nation. I want to be an investigative journalist. However, after being patronized and occasionally outright laughed out of a dozen newspaper offices, my father suggested I take any journalism job “to get my foot in the door.” The reality is, there are plenty of young girls who would cut off that foot to get a job at Ladies’ Lifestyle.
If you want to find out more about me, you’ll simply have to pick up the book, Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn. After all, I can’t give away all the good stuff.
Ariadne in Naxos, by Evelyn De Morgan (1877)
About Ellen Butler
Ellen Butler is the international bestselling author of the Karina Cardinal mystery series. Her experiences working on Capitol Hill and at a medical association in Washington, D.C. inspired the mystery-action series. Multiple books in the series have hit #1 on Amazon bestseller lists in the US and abroad. Book critics call the Karina Cardinal mysteries, “intelligent escapism.” Butler is also the author of the award-winning historical suspense novel, The Brass Compass. The Brass Compass has won multiple awards for historical fiction including: 2022 Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award, 2018 Indie Reader Discovery Award, 2019 Readers’ Favorite Silver Medal Winner. Butler started writing in the romance genre and won the The Romance Reviews Readers’ Choice Award 2015 with her novel Planning for Love. Her 12th book Operation Blackbird, a Cold War Spy novel, was published in October 2022 and won a Next Generation Indie Book Award gold medal for historical fiction.
Serving Up Suspense with Style
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Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn TOUR PARTICIPANTS
October 23 – Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense – AUTHOR GUEST POST
October 24 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
October 25 – View from the Birdhouse – REVIEW
October 25 – MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT
October 26 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
October 27 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
October 28 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
October 28 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
October 29 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
October 30 – Ruff Drafts – SPOTLIGHT
October 30 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – CHARACTER GUEST POST
October 31 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW
October 31 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
November 1 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – REVIEW
November 1 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
November 2 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
November 3 – Christa Reads and Writes – SPOTLIGHT
November 4 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – REVIEW
November 5 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
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Thanks for having Ariadne visit Christy’s Cozy Corners.
You’re welcome! Thanks for sharing her with us!