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Cozy Mystery Sneak Peek—The Pumpkin Vice Cafe · Reality Writes

0:05
Ellie Alexander: A cold November chill had settled over the Rogue Valley, dusting the top of Grizzly Peak with a powdery white snow, and enticing skiers and snowboarders to the slopes of Mount A for night skiing under a canopy of stars.
0:20
Ellie Alexander: There was a nice lull before the holiday season would kick off, and I was happy to take advantage of the slower pace.
0:28
Ellie Alexander: The plaza was a show of luscious colors, fall, crimson Japanese maples, burgundy dogwoods, flaxen ash and birch trees intermixed with the towering green conifers.
0:42
Ellie Alexander: A golden blush washed over the town as locals enjoyed the calmer energy leading up to the festive season.
0:50
Ellie Alexander: Shops and restaurants were decked out with cheery garlands of rustic pine, crab apples and clementines, rich maroon and butterscotch banners hung from street lamps, announcing next year's lineup of plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
1:06
Ellie Alexander: Downtown practically glowed beneath thousands of twinkle lights strung across Main Street and the eaves of the Elizabethan-style buildings.
1:16
Ellie Alexander: I sighed contentedly, thinking about how lucky I was to live in such a gorgeous place as I took a sip of my coffee.
1:24
Ellie Alexander: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Reality Writes.
1:28
Ellie Alexander: I am Author Ellie Alexander, and that was just an excerpt from my new book, The Pumpkin Vice Cafe, book 23 in the Bake Shop Mysteries, that releases on September 29th.
1:40
Ellie Alexander: And I'm here with a tech guy, and we decided we should shake it up and give you a little taste of what's to come.
1:45
Tech Guy: Yeah, that was that was great.
1:47
Tech Guy: Um, and that book is available for pre-order right now.
1:50
Tech Guy: And for the darlings out there who do want to pre-order, be sure to head to the show notes and look for the link because the publisher is actually doing a special giveaway with this uh pre-order campaign, right?
2:04
Ellie Alexander: Yes, they are.
2:04
Ellie Alexander: So you can win a whole Pumpkin Vice bundle and some special tort merch and bookmarks, and it's it's really good.
2:12
Ellie Alexander: You want to get in on this action.
2:14
Tech Guy: Great, that's awesome.
2:15
Tech Guy: So again, the link will be in the show notes.
2:17
Tech Guy: Uh, so be sure to get in on that.
2:20
Tech Guy: And that book again releases on September 29th.
2:24
Tech Guy: So today's episode is gonna be all about the Pumpkin Vice Cafe, but as usual, it's gonna be spoiler-free.
2:31
Tech Guy: Yes, no, nothing's gonna get ruined for anyone.
2:34
Tech Guy: What you just read was a nice little excerpt from page two, actually, right?
2:40
Tech Guy: Because page one actually does contain a spoiler.
2:43
Tech Guy: So big spoiler.
2:45
Ellie Alexander: Right on the first sentence.
2:48
Tech Guy: Darlings, when we were uh putting this episode together, I was like, you know, it would be really great if you just read uh the first page or the first paragraph or something to just give a a taste of what's to come.
3:01
Tech Guy: And you were like, that's gonna be a little hard.
3:06
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
3:07
Tech Guy: So we are going to talk about the pumpkin vice cafe and the big shop mystery series in general, but uh don't worry, darlings, there will be no spoilers.
3:14
Tech Guy: We've already avoided the biggest one, so uh true, no, no spoilers.
3:19
Tech Guy: But with that being said, let's get into it.
3:23
Tech Guy: Why don't you give everybody a quick overview of the Pumpkin Vice Cafe book 23 and the Bake Shop Mystery series?
3:29
Ellie Alexander: Yes, it's I can't believe that we are already at book 23.
3:32
Ellie Alexander: It definitely seems impossible to me.
3:35
Ellie Alexander: This book is set in fall in November with the changing seasons.
3:41
Ellie Alexander: So we get a little taste of fall, and then we get a touch of winter in this book as well.
3:45
Ellie Alexander: And in a minute, we'll go into a reason behind that.
3:49
Ellie Alexander: Uh, but Jules is baking up a bevy of beautiful fall treats and autumn lattes.
3:56
Ellie Alexander: And uh Lance, her longtime friend, is planning a big event, shall we say?
4:04
Ellie Alexander: Without spoilers.
4:06
Ellie Alexander: Lance is planning a giant event, as only Lance can do.
4:09
Ellie Alexander: Darlings who follow the series for a long time, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
4:13
Ellie Alexander: If you're new to the series, just think big event.
4:17
Ellie Alexander: And uh his event planner has a nasty fall in Ashland Creek and ends up dead.
4:23
Ellie Alexander: And of course, Jules and Lance are back on the case, and they're eating a lot of delicious pumpkin and sleuthing out a killer in the mean streets of Ashland as you do.
4:35
Tech Guy: I love it.
4:36
Tech Guy: I love it.
4:36
Tech Guy: So this is book 23.
4:38
Tech Guy: There's been a lot of bake shop mysteries, a lot of bake shop mysteries.
4:43
Tech Guy: So, what is harder now about writing a new bake shop mystery?
4:50
Tech Guy: And what's easier?
4:52
Ellie Alexander: Ooh, yeah.
4:53
Ellie Alexander: I mean, okay, so let's start with the easy part first.
4:55
Ellie Alexander: And this is true when I'm working with new writers where I talk about muscle memory.
5:00
Ellie Alexander: When you're first building a world, characters, all of the secondary plots, there's so much creative headspace that goes into that because you are literally world building from the ground up.
5:13
Ellie Alexander: When I started the series, I didn't even know Juliet's name was going to be Juliet.
5:16
Ellie Alexander: I had a totally different name for her until I was three-quarters of the way through writing the first book.
5:22
Ellie Alexander: I had posters all over my office of what characters might look like and what they would wear and how do they sound.
5:30
Ellie Alexander: So all of that now is second nature.
5:33
Ellie Alexander: In some ways, it's terrifying because I know these characters as well as I know you or any other member of our family.
5:39
Ellie Alexander: Like it's just so easy to slip into their world.
5:44
Ellie Alexander: I don't have to think about how Lance is going to show up on a scene and what he's gonna say, or Carlos or Jules, or Andy, or any of the long-running characters.
5:54
Ellie Alexander: So that just feels so fluid and natural.
5:57
Ellie Alexander: And for me, it also feels like coming home.
5:59
Ellie Alexander: It's such a gift to write this series because I hope the takeaway for the darlings when you read this is that it's an escape.
6:07
Ellie Alexander: It's an equal escape for me when I'm writing it.
6:10
Ellie Alexander: Cause I'm like, oh, we're back in Ashland, the trees are changing, oh, there's snow dusting the top of Mount A.
6:16
Ellie Alexander: Like it's just, it's so seamless.
6:18
Ellie Alexander: So that's the easy part.
6:20
Ellie Alexander: The hard part, or the thing that's more challenging, I would say, is I feel a lot of I don't want to say pressure, but I feel a lot of responsibility because so many of you, darlings, thank you, thank you, thank you forever from the bottom of my heart, have come along on this journey with me.
6:43
Ellie Alexander: And I don't ever want to let you down, and I don't want to let Jules or the characters or myself down.
6:49
Ellie Alexander: And so I'm always cognizant of how do I make sure it's it stays fresh and authentic at the same time, right?
6:57
Ellie Alexander: Because fresh could look a lot of different ways.
6:59
Ellie Alexander: And I've had this experience, and I know you have too with reading, where it's like, okay, an author is just like bombarding you with all of this stuff that's like, all right, that's fresh, but it's not in line with what we've come to know and love.
7:11
Ellie Alexander: And so it's a real balance point of like making sure that I'm hitting all those right notes, I've got the touch and the flow of what it feels like to be in Ashland and part of Tort's community.
7:22
Ellie Alexander: And then I'm thinking about ways that all of the characters are growing, expanding, changing.
7:27
Ellie Alexander: And then last but not least, it's like, how do you keep the murder fresh?
7:33
Tech Guy: That was actually going to be my next question is how do you keep the murder fresh?
7:38
Tech Guy: How how do you keep the murder surprising 23 books in?
7:43
Tech Guy: And I know we've had discussions about this where you're like, oh, I can't, I mean, it can't be another poisoning.
7:50
Tech Guy: I just had a poisoning, you know, it just like trials of a of a mystery author, but uh, how do you how do you keep it fresh?
7:59
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, it's so funny because I just went to see a Poe speakeasy with uh Gigi Pondian this week.
8:05
Ellie Alexander: And she part way through the speakeasy will do you and I went to one too, which actually became an idea for another future book that I have in the works, but you they actors read Poe's work, and then in between each one, you have a cocktail or a mock tail.
8:20
Ellie Alexander: And Gigi leaned over in between the second or the third third one and said, you know, it is this is really helpful because what it's reminding me is that all of his stories are pretty much the same.
8:32
Ellie Alexander: Um, and I think there is sometimes like that idea of, oh my gosh, I have to make the the murder so outlandish, or I can't do a poisoning again, or I've already just pushed somebody off a cliff.
8:45
Ellie Alexander: I've got to find a new way to have somebody die.
8:48
Ellie Alexander: And I'm not sure that that's true.
8:50
Ellie Alexander: I think that what you have to deliver on, and what I want to deliver on as a writer, is that it's a very tightly crafted plot, that it's a believable villain, it's uh a lot of believable suspects, all who have strong motives for wanting our victim dead.
9:08
Ellie Alexander: And then at the end, that hopefully there's a surprise reveal as to who the killer is.
9:13
Ellie Alexander: And the last thing that I will say about this, and we touched on this a little bit, I think, in the AI episode, but I go into every story with every suspect having such a strong motive, secrets, lies, a viable reason for wanting our victim dead, that a lot of times I will be surprised myself at who ends up being the killer at the end.
9:36
Ellie Alexander: So I I think that really helps too.
9:39
Ellie Alexander: But I have lamented a lot about like, oh, what's a new way to kill someone?
9:46
Tech Guy: Yeah, you don't want to see her internet search history.
9:50
Tech Guy: Um, I'm sure there are people that'd be very interested in that.
9:54
Tech Guy: Uh, okay.
9:56
Tech Guy: So again, 23rd book.
9:59
Tech Guy: Jules has been in everyone.
10:02
Tech Guy: Is there something that Jules does that you have to write in every book that you're just like, I'm just so done writing that, but you've got to do it anyway?
10:15
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm so done with it, but again, I think I'm self-aware when I'm writing that she in every book she has to be baking.
10:25
Ellie Alexander: This is the like crux of the bake shop mysteries, right?
10:29
Ellie Alexander: And I love the baking writing, and it's so easy for me to fall into her rhythm in the kitchen and talk about it.
10:37
Ellie Alexander: But like, there's always gonna be a scene, as long as the book doesn't take place somewhere outside of Ashland, but most of them take place in Ashland and in Tor.
10:46
Ellie Alexander: So there's always gonna be a scene where she's baking in the morning and she has the quiet kitchen to herself, and she's just pondering on how beautiful life is and working on some beautiful dough.
10:56
Ellie Alexander: And then Andy's gonna come in and they're gonna have some banter, and he's gonna go upstairs and make her coffee, and then Marty's gonna come in and talk about bread delivery, and then Bethany's gonna come in, and they're gonna go over like what the design for the pastry is that day.
11:09
Ellie Alexander: So, like that trope, baking trope, I guess, is found in every single book.
11:16
Ellie Alexander: And so when I'm writing them, sometimes I'm like, oh, I've already done this before.
11:20
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I've done this at least 23 times.
11:22
Ellie Alexander: And in some books, more than that, because there's a lot of time that they're spending in the kitchen while she's puzzling through the murder.
11:28
Ellie Alexander: But at the end of the day, like the Poe thing, I hope that one of the reasons that readers enjoy this is for that very thing.
11:37
Tech Guy: Yeah, that makes sense.
11:38
Tech Guy: That makes sense.
11:39
Tech Guy: And the bake shop mystery series would really not be the bake shop mystery series without the baking, right?
11:46
Tech Guy: Exactly.
11:47
Tech Guy: Yeah, yeah.
11:48
Tech Guy: Okay.
11:49
Tech Guy: On this book specifically, the Pumpkin Vice Cafe, what was the first image that came to mind when you were starting to write this?
11:58
Tech Guy: Like what came into your head before the plot even developed?
12:03
Ellie Alexander: I think one of the gifts of writing a long-running series is that when I'm wrapping up the book, the last book, I'm already starting to think about what's going to come next for the characters.
12:14
Ellie Alexander: So I usually have a stack of notes, thinking like, okay, this is where Jules is in her art.
12:18
Ellie Alexander: This is what's happening in Lance's world.
12:20
Ellie Alexander: Like, here's what I imagine will come next.
12:23
Ellie Alexander: So it usually starts with it's very character-driven, I would say, which is surprising because these are mysteries.
12:29
Ellie Alexander: And we've talked at length on this podcast about mysteries at the end of the day, they have to be formulaic in terms of the plot and the plot devices you use to get from a murder to solving it.
12:40
Ellie Alexander: But for this series in particular, it is so character driven that the first thing I'm always thinking about is what's happening next in their lives, in their world, in their like points of connection.
12:52
Ellie Alexander: And then from there, I start to figure out what the mystery is going to be.
12:56
Tech Guy: That's great.
12:56
Tech Guy: Let's talk a little bit about Ashland then, um, because Ashland is itself a character in the Bakeshop Mysteries.
13:05
Tech Guy: Um, it's not only the setting, but it definitely has kind of a life of its own.
13:10
Tech Guy: Ashland in the fall, though, is like a whole thing.
13:15
Tech Guy: What what do you get in Ashland in November that you don't get in June?
13:20
Ellie Alexander: Oh, right.
13:21
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
13:22
Ellie Alexander: I mean, first of all, that that little scene that I read to start the podcast of just the show of color.
13:28
Ellie Alexander: It is a riot of color all through the plaza.
13:31
Ellie Alexander: Lithia Park is stunning.
13:33
Ellie Alexander: Lithia Park is known as the crown jewel of Ashland, and that's it's all jewel-toned, and then you have so many evergreen trees mixed in.
13:43
Ellie Alexander: There's that like Christmas crispness to the air, and the shops are vibrant still, but it's also slowed down just a touch because in the summer with OSF, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it's a lot of tourism in town.
13:59
Ellie Alexander: Whereas October, November tends to slow down just a touch.
14:04
Ellie Alexander: So especially when we were living there, we'd be like, oh, the plaza is ours again.
14:07
Ellie Alexander: We can walk anywhere, we can pop into coffee without a line.
14:11
Ellie Alexander: Like, so it feels uh like it has this real touch of magic.
14:15
Ellie Alexander: And then it is just visually stunning.
14:19
Ellie Alexander: So stunning.
14:20
Ellie Alexander: If you think about like your favorite small town, and then multiply that by 10 and add all the fall vibes, there you are.
14:29
Tech Guy: I would have to agree.
14:30
Tech Guy: Lithia Park, just in general, the the different it is stunning in the summer.
14:35
Tech Guy: It's amazing, but in the fall, it's a whole other story.
14:41
Tech Guy: It's just it is spectacular.
14:43
Tech Guy: Um, super fun to walk through it in all seasons, but the fall is especially colorful for sure.
14:51
Ellie Alexander: Which is one of the reasons we wanted to do Mystery Fest in the fall, because we want you darlings who are coming to visit Ashland to get to experience it at its peak fullness.
15:02
Tech Guy: Yeah.
15:02
Tech Guy: Well, and speaking of Mystery Fest, if for any darlings out there who don't know, it is coming up, and uh, I think there are still a few tickets available.
15:10
Tech Guy: So that is October 8th through the 11th, that's right.
15:14
Tech Guy: I believe.
15:15
Tech Guy: Yeah.
15:15
Tech Guy: And uh you can find more information at ashlandmysteryfest.com.
15:22
Tech Guy: I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.
15:25
Ellie Alexander: Great.
15:26
Tech Guy: Okay.
15:26
Tech Guy: We were talking the other day about the pumpkin vice cafe, and you had gotten a hold of some early reviews, and they were super positive.
15:34
Tech Guy: There were people that absolutely loved it, which is always great for any book you're writing.
15:39
Tech Guy: But these were people who said there were more than one that said this was their first bake shop mystery, and they loved it.
15:47
Tech Guy: So hearing that, does that change your opinion on reading a series in order or where to start in a series?
15:56
Ellie Alexander: Heck no, hell no, no.
15:58
Ellie Alexander: You still read at book one, darlings.
16:00
Ellie Alexander: You start at book one, you read your way through.
16:02
Ellie Alexander: No, I mean, I'm teasing, but I I'm always stunned when readers find the series somewhere farther in, right?
16:11
Ellie Alexander: Uh, and book 23 in particular feels like, wow, like that's deep, deep into the series.
16:17
Ellie Alexander: So I'm always honored and touched if someone enjoys it, especially not having all of the backstory that gets built over 23 books.
16:26
Ellie Alexander: I mean, it's a lot of story arc and growth and development for each character, like I was talking about at the beginning.
16:32
Ellie Alexander: I am always like, okay, how much do I need to put in to every book to make sure that someone who's brand new and picking up the bake shop mysteries for the first time at book 23 with the Pumpkin Vice Cafe is gonna be pretty caught up.
16:51
Ellie Alexander: They're gonna know who all these characters are, and also not bore the darlings who have been there since book one to death.
17:00
Ellie Alexander: And it is that's a really delicate balance.
17:03
Ellie Alexander: I've found some like devices over the years that I tend to fall on, which is that scene like I was talking about where Jules is gonna be baking in the morning and everyone's gonna come in.
17:12
Ellie Alexander: That's really a way for me to quickly introduce all of the characters.
17:16
Ellie Alexander: So you're not gonna get a lot, you're not gonna get his entire backstory, but uh Jules will say, like in her head, something about her lead barista Andy, who is a, you know, like coffee aficionado and a roaster or whatever, and like a sentence about how he dropped out of college and he's working as a barista full-time.
17:34
Ellie Alexander: Or so I'll find ways to introduce everybody without spending a ton of time, where somebody who's read all the way through would just be like, yeah, okay, get to the plot already.
17:44
Ellie Alexander: I know who these people are.
17:45
Ellie Alexander: Don't bore me.
17:47
Tech Guy: Yeah.
17:48
Tech Guy: Yeah, there I I imagine there definitely has to be a really tricky balance to include enough to get people caught up that that aren't uh reading from the beginning, which you said you should never do.
18:01
Tech Guy: But uh but also not not bore the the uh longtime fans who've read every other book in the series, like you said.
18:11
Tech Guy: Um you hinted several episodes ago, you hinted at the fact that longtime darlings out there, longtime readers of the series, would uh be excited to see somebody making an appearance in this book again.
18:26
Tech Guy: Uh and after I wrote this question, then I was like, well, actually, this might be a spoiler.
18:32
Tech Guy: I don't know.
18:33
Tech Guy: So it can you talk about this or is it is that gonna ruin it for people?
18:37
Ellie Alexander: Oh no, I definitely cannot talk about this.
18:39
Ellie Alexander: It will ruin it for you, and I would hate that for you, darlings.
18:41
Ellie Alexander: But what I can talk about, and again, I think this is another opportunity that arises when you have a lot of shelf space with a series, is getting to um bring back characters, maybe who had an appearance at some point in the series, and then they've left, they're coming back, something along those lines, doing a little crossover.
19:02
Ellie Alexander: Um, so I have hinted at this too, but there is a crossover that's happening between a character from another series that I write who's making an appearance in Ashland.
19:13
Ellie Alexander: Uh, and I just love that for the longtime readers because I think it's so fun to like put in little Easter eggs that again, maybe somebody who picks up book 23, it won't be um quite as shocking, shall we say, to them as it might be to somebody who's followed along all the way.
19:33
Tech Guy: Right.
19:34
Tech Guy: And darlings, let me tell you, I know who makes an appearance.
19:39
Tech Guy: And for those of you who've been around, who've been reading Ellie's books for a while, you're gonna freak out.
19:46
Ellie Alexander: I know, I can't wait.
19:47
Ellie Alexander: I feel like I feel like a kid, like, you know, the night before your birthday or something, because I cannot wait for readers to, I can't, darlings, just like send me your DMs and emails when you know, you'll know.
20:00
Ellie Alexander: That's all I'm saying.
20:02
Tech Guy: That's that's great.
20:03
Tech Guy: That's awesome.
20:05
Tech Guy: Uh, because this is a bake shop mystery, there are recipes in it, right?
20:10
Tech Guy: How many of these did you that are in the book that that made the cut?
20:15
Tech Guy: And again, maybe talk uh first for the darlings out there who don't know the process, because you always come up with more recipes than actually make the cut for the book.
20:27
Tech Guy: Um, but of the ones that did make the cut, how many of them did you have to make more than once before you were like, that's good, that's going in a book?
20:35
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, when I'm writing a first draft, I just write whatever is top of mind, whatever seems great, like Jules is making a cake, or you know, maybe it's like, oh, Jules is drinking a banana latte, whatever is fresh on my mind.
20:47
Ellie Alexander: Once I've finished a first draft and I come back and I start layering, editing subsequent drafts, then I'm really concentrating on like, what is she actually baking?
20:56
Ellie Alexander: Can I bake it myself?
20:58
Ellie Alexander: That's when I might start testing some recipes.
21:00
Ellie Alexander: Usually I also finalize the recipes first and then start doing some testing.
21:06
Ellie Alexander: Now, here's where there was a big plot twist.
21:09
Ellie Alexander: This book did not contain any pumpkin recipes.
21:14
Ellie Alexander: It's the pumpkin vice cafe, not a single pumpkin recipe.
21:18
Ellie Alexander: Why?
21:19
Ellie Alexander: Because the first draft that I wrote was set in late December, early January.
21:26
Ellie Alexander: And then we moved around the publishing schedule because this is the first book in the series that is going into trade paperback.
21:36
Ellie Alexander: And so the way that that works with the publishing schedule is that they needed some more time with it.
21:41
Ellie Alexander: And uh, the way everything lined up, then I pushed it forward and made it fall like the cusp of winter, which is a real thing.
21:49
Ellie Alexander: Having lived in Ashland, like snow can creep in.
21:53
Ellie Alexander: We had a snowy Halloween once, you know, like so um fall can be 70.
21:59
Ellie Alexander: In pure sun, or it can be like an icy little early snow, and snow is often then around Grizzly Peak and everything.
22:07
Ellie Alexander: So I like the idea of dancing between those.
22:09
Ellie Alexander: But on the next draft, I went through and I really then sunk into the idea of fall too.
22:16
Ellie Alexander: And that's the other nice thing of just writing a really uh outline-ish first draft because I don't have a lot of sensory details cemented in the story at that point.
22:27
Ellie Alexander: So it was easy to go back in and go, okay, no, we're gonna be in November.
22:30
Ellie Alexander: It's fall, she's making pumpkin.
22:33
Ellie Alexander: But long story short, the last two pumpkin recipes were sort of a scramble at the end because I had already like had some placeholders for other things in mind.
22:42
Ellie Alexander: And then I'm like, oh no, we need pumpkin in this book.
22:44
Ellie Alexander: Ring on the pumpkin.
22:46
Tech Guy: And that's not the first time that's happened in this series.
22:50
Tech Guy: You where you've gotten to the end and you have an idea in mind for the type of recipes, but then one thing or another led to you having to change things up.
23:00
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, no, it's happened quite often.
23:02
Ellie Alexander: So it's one of the things I talk about with coaching writing students is you also kind of have to stay flexible in your writing to be like, okay, like something could change on the publishing side of things.
23:13
Ellie Alexander: You could spark a new idea as you're halfway through a a story and go, oh no, I really want to follow that when I edit a book.
23:19
Ellie Alexander: So yeah.
23:20
Tech Guy: Yeah.
23:21
Tech Guy: Were there any recipes that failed right out of the right out of the gate?
23:28
Ellie Alexander: I didn't really have any fails this time.
23:30
Ellie Alexander: I feel pretty solid about them.
23:32
Ellie Alexander: I did have um originally a pumpkin latte, which is, you know, it's everywhere now, so it's not new.
23:41
Ellie Alexander: But um, no, it's a thing.
23:43
Ellie Alexander: It's it's got its own season.
23:45
Ellie Alexander: Uh I had a pumpkin spice latte that Jules was gonna make with real pumpkin puree, because you know this, but I don't know if the darlings know this.
23:58
Ellie Alexander: I'm not a fan of any sort of like artificial flavoring.
24:02
Ellie Alexander: No, you can't do it.
24:03
Tech Guy: No, no, won't even go near it.
24:06
Ellie Alexander: Won't go near it.
24:06
Ellie Alexander: That's why in the books we Jules talks so much about housemade syrups, which is a point of contention with in coffee edits.
24:15
Ellie Alexander: We won't go there.
24:16
Ellie Alexander: But I tried this whisking some pumpkin puree and a little maple syrup and some spices.
24:25
Ellie Alexander: It was real bad.
24:26
Ellie Alexander: It was just so like thick and dense.
24:29
Ellie Alexander: Like, I'm sure there's a way to do it, but my version was not working.
24:34
Ellie Alexander: So I just scrapped that and went with something else completely different.
24:37
Tech Guy: Well, and that that's another thing that happens all the time with this series, right?
24:42
Tech Guy: Uh, I know it happens because I eat a lot of this stuff.
24:46
Tech Guy: And I think whether you want to or not, yeah.
24:48
Tech Guy: I'm one of the taste testers, the official taste tester.
24:51
Tech Guy: And so I, you know, it happens.
24:55
Tech Guy: And sometimes you something that you're planning doesn't uh turn out the way that you thought it would, and you gotta go with plan B.
25:04
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, and no one wants like pumpkin sludge at the bottom of your coffee.
25:08
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
25:09
Tech Guy: Although we have had drinks like that from coffee shops, like actual, you know, and it's never a pleasant experience.
25:15
Tech Guy: So yeah, probably a good, probably a good decision to uh to do that.
25:19
Tech Guy: Are you sure you don't want to give people a hint on who it's going to be?
25:23
Ellie Alexander: No, oh my gosh, no.
25:27
Tech Guy: Sorry, darlings.
25:28
Tech Guy: I thought I could trick her into uh giving you a hint, but you're just gonna have to wait till September 29th.
25:34
Tech Guy: September 29th.
25:36
Tech Guy: All right.
25:37
Tech Guy: Anything else that you want people to know about the Pumpkin Vice Cafe?
25:41
Ellie Alexander: It's just been such a delight to write this series and I think about how many connections I have personally made because of these books.
25:50
Ellie Alexander: Friendships, businesses.
25:51
Ellie Alexander: Ashland Mystery Fest was born because of this series.
25:55
Ellie Alexander: Like, I never in my wildest dreams, when I wrote book one, would imagine ever that I would have 23 books, let alone all of the ripples and other things that have come because of this fictional world.
26:08
Ellie Alexander: So I'm super grateful.
26:10
Tech Guy: And you get to keep visiting Ashland now that we no longer live there every time you wrote a new book.
26:15
Tech Guy: Yeah.
26:16
Tech Guy: Yeah.
26:16
Tech Guy: Love it.
26:17
Tech Guy: All right.
26:18
Tech Guy: So once again, book 23 in the Bait Shop Mystery series, the Pumpkin Vice Cafe is available for pre-order now.
26:24
Tech Guy: And be sure to, if you are going to pre-order, which would be amazing if you did, be sure to use the link in the show notes uh so that you can enter into the giveaway that the publisher is running for a whole bunch of cool Bake Shop Mystery stuff.
26:40
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
26:41
Tech Guy: With that, send us in your questions if you want to know anything more about the book.
26:45
Tech Guy: Ellie's not gonna give up the the new visitor to Towns or the Returning Face.
26:51
Tech Guy: So just uh maybe anything else besides that, you might you might actually get an answer.
26:57
Tech Guy: But uh uh with that, I'm gonna say until next time.
27:01
Ellie Alexander: Till next time.