Interview with Kristen Perrin

How to Cheat Your Own Death, the third novel in the Castle Knoll Mysteries featuring Annabelle (Annie) Adams and her eccentric great-aunt Frances, goes back and forth in time between Annie’s present and Frances’s experiences in the 1960s. Read on to find out more from this week’s interview with the author, Kristen Perrin. And don’t forget to read the first two, as they set this third one up in important ways.

As noted in the introduction, How to Cheat Your Own Death is book 3 in your Castle Knoll series. What inspired the series as a whole?

I love the puzzle of the classic murder mystery and had been wanting to try my hand at it for a long time, but wanted to add a fresh take on it. The initial idea was for a crime-solving duo of a great-aunt and her niece, but the great-aunt was already dead. I thought, what if one woman’s contribution to murder solving comes through a collection of notes and archives? I felt like this could be a new spin on the classic “village busybody” trope, but I needed a good reason for Frances to have been amassing all these secrets on the people around her. And that was the spark for the fortune-teller idea—what if she’d been collecting dirt on people because she was absolutely convinced someone was going to kill her? And then I thought, what’s an unconventional reason for that? And the idea that a fortune-teller told her her fate, and then sixty years that fate came true, was born.

That first novel, How to Solve Your Own Murder, opens in 1965, with Frances Adams, whom we later find out is the great-aunt of the main series character, Annabelle (Annie) Adams. What should we know about Frances at this relatively early point in her life?

I wanted to show readers that the paranoid elderly Frances we hear about at the start of book one wasn’t always who she was. I liked the idea of taking a character through a whole evolution, and showing the reader how the events of her life changed her personality over time. And we don’t see that complete transformation in book one, but a small step in that direction. With each new book, hopefully the reader gains just a little more insight into how Frances got the way she was at the end of her life, but in more intricate degrees.

Frances carries the impact of the fortune she receives in book 1 through the rest of her life. How does that determine the task facing Frances’s great-niece in book 1?

Annie starts off trying to solve Frances’ murder simply because she’s been dragged into this strange inheritance competition as a result of Frances’ will—but her motivation changes quickly when she discovers Frances’s diary. From that point, Annie gets to understand more deeply what Frances went through when her friend Emily disappeared, and more about who Frances was as a person. Soon, Annie’s working hard to solve the murder because she wants justice for Frances. She comes to appreciate and like her through the words Frances left behind.

And what should readers know about Annie as a personality? What makes her a good amateur detective?

At the start of book 1, Annie is at a point in her life where she’s a bit adrift, and the idea of unearthing family secrets in a big house in a village she’s never been to sounds like an adventure and a way out of her own stagnation. As the series progresses, Annie realizes that she’s actually got the kind of mind that does well solving murders—she can think creatively, while still keeping track of details and facts, and her willingness to take risks in order to get to the truth means she doesn’t get easily sidelined or discouraged.

Rowan Crane, one of the police officers in Castle Knoll, also makes his appearance in book 1. What should potential readers know about him?

Rowan Crane is the balancing personality to Annie, and the energy between them really propels the cases forward in ways that provide a bit of fun against the darker backdrop of murder. Where Annie can be a bit foolhardy, Rowan is more steadfast and careful. The two characters push each other in ways the other needs, but also a fun fact about Rowan is that he’s become a bit of a fan favorite—I’d say most of the DM’s I get from readers are asking about the potential romance between Rowan and Annie! (And I love that people are so invested!)

Book 2, How to Seal Your Own Fate, involves the death of Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who caused Frances so much distress. How does that death affect Annie and her relationship with Rowan Crane?

One of Annie’s struggles throughout the series is how much her own life starts to mirror Frances’s. With Peony Lane’s death, Annie gets thrown deeper into the world of Peony’s fortunes and has to contend with her own belief in them, and how much she’s willing to let these fortunes dictate her own actions, the way Frances did. Rowan has a more by-the-book kind of logic, so he wouldn’t entertain the idea of the fortunes actually being true, but he’s got a growing concern that Annie might be steering her life in a bad direction, the more Annie takes Peony Lane and her fortunes seriously.

How to Cheat Your Own Death again starts in the 1960s, in this case 1968, then moves to the present. Here Annie is the one dealing with a prophecy from Peony Lane. Could you say just a bit about the problems Annie has to face here?

In book 3, Annie really has to decide just how much she’s willing to step into Frances’s shoes when it comes to these fortunes, and how much she’s willing to believe. With this book we also see the barrier between Annie and Rowan getting together take a clearer shape, and Annie’s own fractured relationship with her parents throwing into question what kind of person she feels she is, and what kind of person she wants to be. The fortune becomes a framework for Annie’s own creative thinking, a way into a style of problem solving that only Annie (and Frances, through her diaries) is capable of harnessing. So in that way, the fortunes are a key tool for her in solving crimes but also one that leads her further down the darker, more obsessive path that Frances ended up at the end of eventually.

Your website says there will be a fourth Castle Knoll novel. Could you give us a hint of what’s involved?

Yes—I’ve just finished writing it! I can give a few small details, namely that this book sees our characters returning to Castle Knoll and takes the dual timeline format of the other three as well. We also get to see a lot more of Annie and Rowan working together, and dig deep into some old ghosts that have been haunting Rowan since his childhood.

Kristen Perrin is the author of the Castle Knoll Mysteries, most recently How to Cheat Your Own Death. Find out more about her and her books at https://www.kristenperrin.com.