Happy Friday to you all! Rita A. Popp is my guest today, and you might say the two of us traded places. Rita moved to Colorado. I moved from Colorado to New Mexico, where Rita used to live. Generous as well as talented, Rita hosts the Fort Collins book club. Now it’s her turn to be in the spotlight with her debut novel, The First Fiancee! Please welcome Rita A. Popp! ~ Donnell
Holiday Gift Leads to Author’s Debut
By: Rita A. Popp
Author Rita A. Popp
If it weren’t for a childhood holiday gift, I might not be a mystery writer today. When I was nine, I received a Nancy Drew book on Christmas Eve at the traditional gathering at my Grandma Hertha Arnberg’s house. That year, Grandma Hertha gave me a lovely bride doll. I used to play with her gently, without mussing her hair or wedding gown, then put her back in her original box.
I still have that doll in pristine condition. Until I began writing this guest post, I misremembered Grandma also giving me The Hidden Window Mystery that Christmas. But when I took it off the shelf recently, I found written inside, in my mother’s handwriting, “To Rita from Gertie Arnberg.” I didn’t recall the book coming from my unofficial Great-Aunt Gertrude, Grandma’s second husband’s sister. Knowing that she gave me the book came as a nice surprise!
Unlike my treasured doll, the Drew book shows plenty of wear. I love the dust-jacket illustration: Nancy in pajamas, robe, and slippers, aiming her flashlight at a peacock, the source of a horrible, mysterious screech. I probably read about Nancy’s night-time adventure while safely tucked up in bed in my PJ’s.
Soon, though, the Drew books didn’t satisfy me. I started reading adult murder mysteries, particularly the puzzlers by Agatha Christie. I discovered the fun of trying to figure out “whodunit.” I’ve agitated my “little grey cells” along with Hercule Poirot in every one of his cases but never have bested him at solving a crime. Many Decembers, I revisit two holiday Poirots: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (BBC-TV’s The Theft of the Royal Ruby) and A Holiday for Murder, aka Murder for Christmas, retitled again for TV as Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. For me, as a reader and viewer, Christmastime is prime crime time!
So it’s no wonder that I chose the holiday season for my debut novel, The First Fiancée: A Bethany Jarviss Mystery or that I kept aspects of Nancy’s and Poirot’s detective skills in mind while creating my protagonist. Like Nancy, Bethany is an inquisitive, thoughtful, observant, smart amateur sleuth. Like Poirot, she’s an outsider determined to see a murderer brought to justice.
In The First Fiancée, the inhabitants of a New Mexico mountain village share Bethany’s concern: Is her sister engaged to a 
murderer? In the nearby forest, the bones have been found of the long-missing first fiancée of the guy Bethany’s younger sister intends to marry. The cold-case murder chills the holiday atmosphere as the newly engaged couple get set to open a B&B in a former hunting lodge.
For the setting, I called upon holiday memories of decorating, drinking lots of hot cocoa, and making simple gifts. My family sometimes cut our Christmas tree in the woods behind our house. Bethany helps decorate a fragrant pine from the nearby forest. She sips hot cocoa at a gift shop and orders a café’s comforting, homemade soups while questioning locals who knew the victim. In the café, knitters make red and green booties for hospital newborns under the watchful eyes of a mounted deer’s head draped with holiday lights. Bethany meets the village museum’s curator—an elderly man with a secret—who plays Santa Claus every year at the senior center.
But all is not cheery and bright. Years ago, in real life, I feared that the roads to Grandma’s house might become impassible on Christmas eve. In the novel, a snowstorm threatens to isolate the mountain village from the outside world. Meanwhile, Bethany feels in her bones the presence of a killer lurking among the townspeople. Sends a shiver up your spine, I hope!
About the Book:
The First Fiancée: A Bethany Jarviss Mystery released December 14 from The Wild Rose Press. It is available in ebook and paperback formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers. In this classic whodunit, the discovery of human bones near a remote New Mexico mountain village sets a worried sister on a treacherous path to solve a murder. Bethany Jarviss fears her sister’s fiancé killed the long-missing young woman. He was first engaged to her and swears he thought she left him to pursue a singing career. News of the murder swirls as the newly engaged couple get set to open their bed-and-breakfast inn right before Christmas. Bethany, who once solved the murder of a college girl, gives in to her sister’s pleas to investigate this case. Soon she meets many locals besides her future brother-in-law who had motives for killing his beautiful, thieving, secretive first fiancée.
About the Author: Rita A. Popp writes light and twisty mysteries and other entertaining fiction. Two of her short stories appear in the Sisters in Crime Guppy anthologies Fish Out of Water and Fishy Business. She introduced amateur sleuth Bethany Jarviss in Stiletto Heels in the e-zine Mysterical-E. Bethany takes on another murder case in Rita’s debut novel, The First Fiancée: A Bethany Jarviss Mystery. She and her husband divide their time between their home in Colorado and cabin in New Mexico. Those two states and Rita’s home state, Iowa, inspire much of her fiction. Watch for her story Passing on the Farm, releasing in spring 2023 in The Wild Rose Press’s Jelly Beans and Spring Things series. To sign up for Rita’s newsletter, visit https://ritapopp.com.
Rita, welcome! I can’t wait to read The First Fiancee. You know well and good I love a mystery, but I’m particularly intrigued about your setting!
Donnell, thanks so much for hosting me this Friday! I enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane, with my bride doll and mystery books beside me, as I wrote the post.
Donnell, thank you for introducing me and others to author Rita A. Popp. One never knows what gifting a book to a child will mean later in life. I wish Rita success with her writing!
Bailey Herrington
Thank you, Bailey! I am so grateful that when I was a small child, my mom, a former school teacher, read to me until I could read to her! I still have most of childhood books, including an entire set of the Child Craft books. Most were how-to volumes for new parents, but a couple of them contained classic stories for children. I especially liked the Pied Piper story, which now that I think of it, is a crime story!
Hi Rita and Donnell,
Donnell-Thanks for hosting Rita and her story. Rita-I just bought your debut novel and added it TBR stack-Congratulations.
George, you are my hero! We can read each other’s new books next year for The Sisters in Crime — Colorado Book Club! And thanks for hosting me on YOUR blog at gdcramer.com!
Rita, I’m so excited for your debut, which I thoroughly enjoyed in an advance read! I loved the setting, the characters, and the wonderful plot. I’m delighted to see the cover of an original Nancy Drew. I’m sure it has added value today, although I bet you wouldn’t want to part with it. Have a wonderful time launching The First Fiancee and enjoy this part of the journey! Congratulations. Thanks for hosting Rita and her book, Donnell!
Margaret, you are so generous with your time and in supporting other writers. I’m eager to read the next book in your Timber Creek K-9 mystery series!
Donnell:
Thanks for having Rita on your blog. The more people who know her work the better. I have been reading it for years. I think people will like her style of writing. And this book is a good one. Now, I may be little biased, since I am her husband, but I have always enjoyed reading whatever she has been working on.
Readers enjoy!
Tony, my pleasure!
Tony, I’m fortunate to have you as a first reader and proofreader!