Notes From Kathy

Check out KateEmersonHistoricals.com

10/14/08: The website is up for the novels I'm writing under the name Kate Emerson. There is a series title (Secrets of the Tudor Court) but these books aren't a series in the usual sense. Only the setting---the Tudor court---and some of the royals are continuing characters. Each book will have a different minor historical figure as protagonist. I'm having a wonderful time writing these books, and in the first one there are even a few mysteries to solve, although I would not call the book as a whole a mystery novel. If you're interested in some of the things real women got up to in the sixteenth century, check out the Who's Who of Tudor Women feature. I'll be adding to this as time allows. There are many, many more fascinating females who lived during the sixteenth century. You can reach the Kate Emerson Historicals site by clicking here:

Newsletter Going On Hiatus

9/18/08: Since the Face Down series is on hiatus and the Diana Spaulding Mystery Quartet is complete, Face Down Update and Deadly Tidbits, the newsletter used to publicize those two series, is also going on hiatus. For the time being, news about upcoming projects, historical and contemporary, mystery and non-mystery, will be posted here instead. The last three Face Down mysteries and all four of the Diana Spaulding Mysteries are still in print and the first three Face Down mysteries are available in new large print editions. Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross is scheduled to come out in large print in the spring of 2009. But for right now, that's all the news there is on Kathy's historical mystery novels. Definitely not enough to fill an issue of a newsletter.

Update on Short Story

9/8/08: I've just been notified that "Any Means Short of Murder" (described below) will appear in the January/February 2009 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. That means it should be in stores sometime in November. Or you can go to the magazine's website, The Mystery Place, for information.

New Name for 2009

8/3/08: I'm not trying to confuse fans of my historical mysteries. Honest. But in addition to using the name Kaitlyn Dunnett for contemporary mysteries, I am now also Kate Emerson. That's the pseudonym I'll be using for non-mystery historicals set in sixteenth-century England. Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace is the first Kate Emerson novel and will be out in February of 2009. It is set at the court of Henry VIII, very early in his reign, and the protagonist is a real woman, Jane Popyncourt, who was somewhat notorious in her own time. I'm writing this in August of 2008. I'll be putting up a website for the new name at KateEmersonHistoricals.com sometime during the next couple of months with much more detail. The thing that I think will appeal most to fans of Kathy Lynn Emerson's mysteries is that the novel is as true to history as I could make it. Almost all the characters are real people, although I came up with my own explanation to account for some of the gaps in the historical record. One thing may not please my mystery readers quite so much. In The Pleasure Palace I do not worry AT ALL about anachronistic speech. I do try to avoid anything that would jerk the reader out of the story, but the novel is written in Jane Popyncourt's point of view and readers will just have to accept that it is "Kate Emerson's" translation of a memoir Jane left behind when she died, in France, in the early part of the sixteenth century. If she had left such a thing, it probably would have been written in French, and "Kate" would have had to translate it. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!!!!

There will be a second novel in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series, tentatively titled Between Two Queens Another real person, Anne Bassett, maid of honor to five of Henry VIII's queens, will be the protagonist of this one. I'm writing it now with a deadline of April, 2009.

Scone Cold Dead

8/3/08: This second Liss MaCrimmon Mystery, written under the pseudonym Kaitlyn Dunnett, is just out in hardcover. It is available from Mystery Guild and there will be a large print edition out in December. The first book in the series, Kilt Dead is now available in mass market paperback. The third title is scheduled for October 2009. I have a proposal for more books in the series with the editor now.

New Short Story

8/3/08: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine has purchased "Any Means Short of Murder," a short story featuring Lady Appleton's foster daughter, Rosamond, and Jennet's son Rob as the detectives. Several other characters from the Face Down series also make appearances. I don't know yet what issue the story will appear in, but my best guess is sometime in the next six months. With all the other projects in the works under other names, there is going to be a gap in the Face Down series. I hope to write more short stories and have given some thought to writing a longer mystery novel featuring a grown up Rosamond as the sleuth. Stay tuned for further developments.