Janet Kay Jensen, Author: Book Review and Author Interview: Poaching Daisies by Carole Thayne Warburton

Poaching Daisies

Carole Thayne Warburton

A Yellowstone Mystery

Book Review and Author Interview

Plus a $50 giveaway at Etsy! (see below)

April 12, 2013

The Book Table

29 South Main Street

Logan, Utah

6-9 P.M.

Book Review of Poaching Daisies,

A Yellowstone Mystery by Carole Thayne Warburton

Sometimes, in the small town of Cooke, Montana, you have to wonder if there's room for all the different people who live there: hunters, rangers, environmentalists, and regulars. Then there are the tourists, who come in droves to explore Yellowstone National Park, bringing their own particular brand of baggage (physical and behavioral) with them.

When a bear is killed and Ranger Penny Thornton is the first on the scene, gunshots chase her away, but when she returns to the scene, the evidence is gone. Then several more bears are killed. This is no small matter, as by law every living thing within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park is to be protected and left to flourish naturally, and her beloved Park becomes a crime scene.There's a lot at stake in solving these crimes, and no one's more aware of that than Penny.

Penny lives with her aunt Iris, an unflagging botanist/environmentalist who's bent on eradicating the offensive ox-eye daisy, which in her scientific opinion is nothing more than a weed that threatens other native species. She's on a one-woman crusade, however. It doesn't help when she learns that Russ, the hunter who becomes involved in the investigation of the bears' deaths, turns out to have a planter of them growing right in his own front yard. As the story develops, distinguishing truth from lies becomes as complicated as eradicating the noxious flower.

That's only the first of many clashes Russ and Iris will have; yet soon their tumultous relationship is also touched with humor and warmth as each tries to do what he/she knows is morally right. Then Tyson, the ranger Penny's dating, becomes a suspect, and matters go from bad to worse. In the end there's a showdown with a whole cast of assorted characters, and until the smoke clears, we're not sure who wins.

Poaching Daisies is a unique and engaging story of mystery, suspense, romance, and humor. I especially enjoyed the developing romance between two unlikely characters who seem like polar opposites but become strangely, grudgingly attracted to each other. As always, Warburton's characters are well-drawn and genuine and their dialogue laced with colorful humor. These are people we know, or would like to know. Warburton has spent a lot of time at Yellowstone and knows the park intimately. It becomes another character in the story, and she describes its wild beauty vividly.

In Poaching Daisies we want the good guys to win, but we're not always sure who they are, and Warburton keeps us guessing until the very end.

In connection with her book release, Carole is offering $50 in pottery (her custom pieces) from her Etsy Store. Here is the link, so you can view her beautiful pieces: http://www.etsy.com/shop/paradisepottery

Here's how to enter, and how to make multiple entries:

1. Visit Carole's blog http://carolethayne.blogspot.com and leave a comment telling her why you're excited about reading Poaching Daisies. Remember to include your email address. You can enter the pottery giveaway there. For additional entries, tweet about the blog tour, post about it on your own blog or facebook page, and leave a comment at Carole's blog, telling her where you've spread the word, and be sure to include your email address.

2. Become a follower of the Walnut Springs Press blog http://walnutspringspress.blogspot.com and leave a comment telling them why you're excited about reading Poaching Daisies. Remember to include your email address. For more entries, in the same comment, ll them what other blogs you follow.

To win a Blog giveaway here at my blog:

3. Leave a comment on this blog and tell me why you'd like to win a copy of The Book Lover's Cookbook (Wenger & Jensen, Ballantine Books). Be sure to include your email address.

Interview with Carole Thayne Warburton,

author of

Poaching Daisies

What is your personal history with Yellowstone National Park? Around 1960 my grandpa built a cabin in Silver Gate, Montana which is located one mile outside the northeast entrance to the park. I was three the first year I went and have been going ever since. I haven't missed one year of going to the park, sometimes several times a year. My dad was a workaholic so my best memories of playing with my dad were at the cabin. My mother's father is the grandpa who built the cabin and he died in Yellowstone Park while fishing on the Lamar river. He was only 64 and it happened only four years after the cabin was built. The cabin has been the connecting thread for me to my own brothers, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and for more than thirty years has created memories for my own husband and children, their cousins and aunts and uncles.

Why did you choose Yellowstone National Park for the setting for your book?

Setting always plays an essential role in my novels. Poaching Daisies is my fifth novel and though I know authors who write well about areas they don't know, I've found it so much easier to write a story that takes place in a town and area I know intimately. Yellowstone is such a big, wide open area and yet has the illusion of safety since it's a family destination. Once when we were there, the town of Silver Gate held a meeting about ridding the town of this tiny lovely flower, the oxeye daisy. Shortly afterward, I heard a true story about bear poaching and the idea for the two came together and what better place to set the story than Silver Gate, Montana and Yellowstone.

Are you ever surprised at the way the plot develops? Unlike many of my author friends, I am not an outliner, I'm what's known as a pantser, which means as a writer I fly by the seat of my pants. I've tried to outline, but it doesn't work for me, at least not yet. So I'm always surprised. It's a fun way to write because I never know what's going to happen next. Though it can get me into trouble and fill the story with plot holes that have to be filled and fixed later.

Do your characters ever come up with ideas of their own? My characters always come up with their own ideas. The first novel this was most evident because I paid more attention to it, but I felt like the characters would keep me awake at night. And often the person I intend to be the bad guy, just doesn't want to be and they end up being the good guy. That's happened a few times in my novels, though I won't tell you if it's this one or not.

How long did this book take to write, edit, and see through production? This one took a little longer than some of my books. I'm thinking about four or five years from the time I got the idea until now. I had lots of rewriting and with the help of lots of friends and peers and Walnut Springs, I finally was able to get it out. I am very satisfied with the final product.

What’s your next project? Currently I'm not working on anything for commercial writing. I am writing my memoirs which at this point is just for fun. I believe that writing is never a waste of time and working on this is keeping the creative juices flowing until I start another novel. I am also dabbling with co-authoring a friend's story. While we were working together on her story of searching for her birth mother, she came out as a lesbian to her husband of sixteen years. Everything in her life fell apart and it put our book on hold. And if we'd written the story then, it would have ended without hope. Now a couple of years later, things are beginning to turn around for her. We both feel the time is right to tell her story even though it's not the story we began. I'm a believer that we all should be writing our stories, even if it's just for ourselves, but more often that not, someone else and if we're lucky a lot of someones can benefit from our stories.