What is your
name?
Billie Thomas
Tell us about
you.
I'm a Birmingham-based author writing under a
pseudonym. After my mother, the real
Billie, passed away unexpectedly at the end of 2011, getting Murder on the
First Day of Christmas, the first of a series, revised and published was my top
priority as a way to honor her. In my real life, I write for the advertising
industry and am a founding member of the writing collective, IndieVisible.
Other publications include Bar Code: Your Personal Pocket Decoder to the Modern
Dating Scene. I'm still trying to solve the mystery of my own love life.
Tell us about
your book.
Finding a severed hand at a client’s house might throw
lesser decorators off their games. But Chloe Carstairs and her mother, Amanda,
won’t let a little thing like murder keep them from decking the halls. With a
body under the partridge’s pear tree and a dead Santa in a sleigh, they have to
crack the case before the killer strikes again - this time much too close to
home.
What inspired
you to write this book?
My mom and I have always been big
mystery fans and we traded books back and forth endlessly. No matter how our
relationship was going at the time (can you say ‘rollercoaster’?), our love of
mysteries was always neutral ground. One day, out of the blue, I asked her to
collaborate on a mystery with me. I think I surprised us both, since I’d been
struggling to write another book and hadn’t planned on putting that aside, much
less starting a project with my mom. But the idea of a fun, funny mystery with
a mother-daughter relationship much like our own, appealed to us both.
What can
readers expect when they open your book?
Laugh-out-loud humor, romance and a
delightfully difficult mother-daughter relationship.
Do you have any
suggestions for writers just starting out?
Connect with other writers. I love
writing but it’s not the solitary experience everyone thinks it is. You need to
workshop your early drafts and network at conferences. You need to have a good
support system to commiserate with when rejections start rolling in. And you’ll
need connections to help you market your book – which you’ll have to do
yourself whether you go the indie or the traditional publishing route. I’ve met
some of the best, most creative and generous people through writing. It's
really one of the best parts of this whole crazy gig.
If your book
was made into a movie which actor/actress would play which character(s)?
Definitely a fifty-something Debbie
Reynolds to play the mom, Amanda. She’s the perfect combination of
sophistication and dry humor. As for the Chloe character, Julia Louis-Dryfus at
thirty, maybe. Or Mindy Kaling, though I’d have to revise the plot quite a bit
to accommodate her ability to tan.
Anything else
you want to share with us?
What's the best feedback you could
get about your book?
If I ever hear that a
daughter loved it and passed it along to her mom, or vice versa, saying “this
is so us”, I would be thrilled. I’d bawl my eyes out, probably, but sometimes I
do that when I’m thrilled.
Tell us 5
random things about you the person, not the author:
1) I have an incredible group of
girlfriends who amaze and inspire me.
2) I like outdoorsy granola guys with
sketchy hygiene.
3) Sometimes I wish I had an
etch-a-sketch heart.
4) I consume my body weight in chai
every week
5) I dance to the words.
Where to
connect online
FEATURED
BOOK: Murder on the First Day of Christmas
Genre: Mystery
Buy on Amazon
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