Welcome to Help From My Friends Friday! Becky Clark returns, this time with another crossword puzzle mystery! I don’t know about you, but this blog says so much about why & how family’s bond. Games? I’m in. Please welcome the hysterical, prolific Becky Clark. ~ Donnell
Author Becky Clark
I come from a huge family—eight kids, two parents. We never had much money (imagine that!) but we always had enough people to field a team, complete a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, or play a board game. Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays would see us all huddled around the table snacking, laughing, and engrossed in games of all kinds.
Tripoley was a favorite, because unlimited numbers of people could play, and it was a combo game that included Michigan Rummy, Hearts, and a hand of poker, so there were many chances to win, some involving just plain ‘ol luck.
I remember once my grandmother was visiting and wiped the floor with all of us, her four-foot-eight-inch frame sitting on stacks of everyone’s chips. Metaphorically, of course. My brother’s friend lost big time that night and when he was invited to join us in another game a couple weeks later asked, “Is that old lady gonna be there?”
My mom had made a Tripoley board out of green felt that covered our entire table. Game Night was truly an event at our house!
As I grew a family of my own, only half the size, we began our own game-
playing traditions. We gravitated to traditional board and card games: Life, Milles Bornes, Trivial Pursuit, Pit, Monopoly, and the occasional game of Twister, otherwise known as Try To Break Mom and Dad Into Multiple Pieces.
But our favorite was Scrabble. All of us love words and Scrabble scratched that itch. When the kids were young, we’d double their score to make it more fair. Sometimes we threw the rule book out the window completely and played “Made Up Word Scrabble,” which is just as it sounds. As long as it could be pronounced and followed conventional grammar and spelling rules, you earned points. The difference was you had to define it and use it in a sentence. It was great fun and—don’t tell my kids—educational too. Plus the scores were massive!
My dad came and stayed with us one Christmas when my kids were teenagers. The new game that year was Scattergories, another word game I fell deeply in love with from the get-go. If you’ve never played, the players get a random letter of the alphabet and cards with ten different categories on them like girl’s names, things in a suitcase, famous duos and such. Then you have to complete your list using the random letter. Say the letter rolled was L. You’d say Lorraine, lacy lingerie, Lerner & Loewe, etc. It’s very challenging because there’s a literal ticking clock while you’re trying to think.
It was the first time Dad played it, and we played several times over the course of his time with us. He told me that during his drive back to Arizona he played it in his head, but a little bit differently. He’d pick a category—fruit, say—and then try to list one for every letter of the alphabet. Apple, banana, cantaloupe, durian….
I was glad he enjoyed it so much because from him, I got my love of crosswords, a more solitary pursuit.
Dad was never so proud of me as when I started doing crosswords in ink.
He didn’t live to see PUZZLING INK, the first book in my Crossword Puzzle Mystery series, or the new one PUNNING WITH SCISSORS, but I think he’d be proud of them too. I mean, they’re both in ink all the way through!
About the Book:
Punning with Scissors … https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FXTDJST
1 DOWN: A PERSON OF INTEREST
Quinn Carr has been quietly creating crosswords for the Chestnut Station Chronicle in her small Colorado town since she was in high school, but she has yet to solve the puzzle of how to make a living from her passion. So she lives with her parents and works at the local diner, catering to regulars like The Retireds, a charming if cantankerous crew of elderly men. The most recent member to join the group is a recently retired tailor, the unfortunately named Hugh Pugh.
4-LETTER WORD FOR “IMPALE”
But Hugh’s misfortune dramatically increases when he’s arrested for stabbing his husband with a pair of fabric shears. With a cryptic crossword clue left at the crime scene, Quinn seems tailor-made for solving this murder. The local police may be determined to pin the crime on the kindly tailor, but Quinn will use her penchant for puzzles and what her therapist calls her “obsessive coping mechanism” to get the clues to line up and catch the real culprit—before the killer boxes her in. . . .
About the Author: Award-winning author Becky Clark is the seventh of eight kids, which explains both her insatiable need for attention and her atrocious table manners. She likes to read funny books so it felt natural to write them too. She surrounds herself with quirky people and pets who end up as characters in her books. Readers say her books are “fast and thoroughly entertaining” with “witty humor and tight writing” and “humor laced with engaging characters” so you should “grab a cocktail and enjoy the ride.” Subscribe to her mailing list to apply to be part of her Review Crew and read her books before they’re published. She writes the Mystery Writers Mysteries, and the Crossword Puzzle Mysteries, among other things.
Becky’s website …. https://beckyclarkbooks.com/
Join Becky’s private group on Facebook … https://www.facebook.com/groups/beckysbookbuddies
Follow Becky at BookBub … https://www.bookbub.com/profile/becky-clark
Follow Becky on Amazon … https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004NQO14I
and at Goodreads … https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4730815.Becky_Clark
Hi, Becky and Donnell! How much fun!! I grew up with sisters and we played tons of games (even Tripoley) and worked puzzles. Now, my grown up game love is still puzzles and mahjong. I love how mahjong works my brain. Congratulations on the book.
Vicki, to this day, I haven’t ever played Majong. Hanging my head in shame. But we have played every board game Becky suggested, and two new ones called Catan and Sequence. We love to work puzzles and playing cards was part of my prenuptial agreement. You and Becky have so much in common–a marvelous sense of humor.
Vicki … I love when people know Tripoley, because it seems to be a bit obscure! A few years back I bought my husband a gorgeous mahjong game, with the heavy ceramic tiles. We tried playing by the rules, but it’s complicated, so we just end up playing Rummy with it. Still feels fancy though!
Donnell … thanks so much for hosting me today and helping to kick off PUNNING WITH SCISSORS. My main character, Quinn, sits around the kitchen table with her parents playing games too. My real-life daughter-in-law owns a toy store so we have access to a ton of games. We need more hours in the day to play them all, however!
I grew up playing board games and games like that all the time. What happened to that pastime? I guess video games, the internet and social media. Too bad. Now I wish I play more of the games of times past with my son when he was little. Though to give myself credit, I did play his favorite video games with him like Jurassic Park, Champions of Norrath and Monster Hunter. Sooo, maybe I wasn’t such a bad mom after all. 🙂
Francelia, I do think video games gained in popularity. Ha! Good for you learning what games he enjoyed. It’s not so much about the games, but in spending time together. I recall (please don’t laugh) playing Mario Brothers with my kids, and Tetris. But board games and card games were our absolute joy.
Francelia … you get tons of credit for playing video games with him. We used to play this video game together called “The Dig.” I was hopeless at it (way too much critical thinking for me). If you tried to do stupid things, a voice would say, “You can’t use those two things together.” Twenty years later we all still say that to each other! I was more of a Pong and Brickles kinda gal. Oh, and we’d always try to be the first to die in The Oregon Trail. Snakebite … yesss!
We try to schedule Game Night so it happens. Pizza, beer, and dessert always sweeten the pot if anyone is reluctant!
We still play board games here, though not as much now that kids are grown. Still lots of puzzling, especially in winter 🙂
Nice to get to know Becky a little better!
Oops … I’m the anonymous comment up there! I forgot not everyone is watching while I type.
Fleur, it is much easier to corral the kids when they’re younger. It’s like with photos, too. We have a zillion cute pics of the kids, but at some point all they started doing was flopping on the couch reading. Not very photogenic!
Thanks for stopping by!
We played scrabble, and on vacation the whole family would play canasta. Fun stuff! I love the idea of a series featuring crosswords. 🙂
Hi Barbara! I’ve never played canasta, but that’s the game of choice in my daughter-in-law’s family. I hear it’s big fun!
I hope you’ll pick up the Crossword series. You don’t have to solve the crossword to solve the mystery … but you can!
Happy Reading!
I love games too! I have two younger brothers and two younger sisters, and some of my favorite memories involve trying to outwit them. My dear, funny punster husband, however, can’t be bribed, cajoled or teased into game-playing, and now that our son is grown and on his own in a faraway land, I’m reduced to pretending to beat my cats at Scrabble. This is often more difficult than it should be. Eagerly awaiting my copy of your new book, as is the UPS man, who is a little bit afraid of me and my veiled questions about his interest in Monopoly.