Comparing My Applegate Mystery Series to some of my favorite books/series.

When people ask me how my book fits into the cozy mystery or historical mystery genre, I find myself struggling to explain what is unique or different about my book and how it compares to other books set during this time period. At the encouragement of my publisher, Rose Cushing of Cushing Publishing, I’ve decided to analyze and give an honest evaluation of my books compared to some of my favorites in the genre, especially those set during the Victorian Era (1837-1901) also known as the Gilded Age in America.

I chose this time period because of all the innovations, inventions and changes taking place in commerce, society and education at this time. From steam to coal to gas-powered combustion engines, social reform and public education. For the first time in history people of all classes were able to read and write.

How to Sabotage a Wild West Show starts in the American west but moves across the eastern United States experiencing accidents that are soon discovered to be sabotage. Winnie Applegate, the main character is a 17-year-old performer in the traveling show run by her grandfather, Colonel Bill Dexter. When her brother is accused of killing a fellow performer, Winnie is determined to clear his name and discover what really happened. During her investigation, she becomes the target of a killer as she uncovers the plot to stop the show from reaching England.

Book 2 in the Applegate Mystery Series takes place in England with Winnie out of her element and trying to find her place, not just in her new home but also within her own life. As she searches for clues to who is killing the Dukes of Applegate, Winnie once more finds herself as a target and must outwit a killer. Amid the growing pains and heartbreak of first love, Winnie must make many choices, some will affect the rest of her life.

One of my favorite new series is Deb Marlowe’s Victorian Era mystery series, The Kier and Levett Series. I love Kara Levett and Niall Kier. They have a wonderful chemistry, and their differences complement each other. I hope my own romantic couple, Winnie and Harry, have similar chemistry and balance.

I picked up the first book in this series A Killer in the Crystal Palace when I was doing research for my second book in my Applegate Mystery Series. While Marlowe’s time period is a little earlier than my own, her series is set in the middle of the Victorian era and my books are in the later part, we both have female characters with unusual skills.

Kara Levett, a wealthy heiress who has learned to evade capture and when necessary, fight her way out of trouble, skills she has spent years learning after being kidnapped as a child. Because of her wealth she has been able to employ talented people in many walks of life from housebreakers to circus performers, as well as martial artists and other fighters to train her that she might be prepared for any eventuality.

While my character, Winnie Applegate grew up in stark poverty she has had a rich variety of learning experiences from her great grandmother Old Willow Woman who was a Lakota medicine woman and healer, to the performers in the wild west show owned by her grandfather. She and her family travel with the show, performing and taking care of the animals and people who work the show. The years spent traveling and performing have given Winnie a unique education. She has acquired knowledge, especially of medicine, from many of the people she has met along their travels. Winnie is a sponge when it comes to learning and she is always thirsty for more. She is an avid reader, buying or trading books at many of the towns they travel through. With a desire to be useful, Winnie is quick to learn new things to be able to help the show, whether it is learning the newest medical technology or learning a new skill to include in her performance, at merely seventeen, Winnie has acquired several lifetimes’ worth of knowledge.

Niall Kier the big, brawny Scotsman who is Kara’s love interest, I don’t’ know what it is about a Scotsmen, but we do tend to fancy them when it comes to romance. Niall is an artist and a blacksmith who makes the young maids swoon when he works without his shirt. Unlike my character, Harry, who is still quite young and still in the long and lean stage. Harry is also an artist, but he will have to grow into his brawny Scotsman image before Winnie and he are reunited. I mean, really, what is the point of having Scotsman for a hero if he’s not a brawny lad?

I do have a blacksmith or two in the story, Winnie’s father, known as Dr. John Applegate, was a blacksmith’s apprentice before becoming a farrier. He still makes his own tools. Her twelve-year-old brother, Riley also does blacksmithing. He is an inventor and in order to build some of the parts he designs, he’s had to learn blacksmithing. Riley, of course, will have to grow into his character too. Who knows, he might even get his own series one day.

Niall Kier and Kara Levett meet during the Great Exhibition when both are exhibiting their automatons. Their initial interest begins with mutual respect and admiration for each other’s works, but when Kara is accused of murder, Niall tries to come to her rescue but instead, they find themselves rescuing each other.

I think it is important to show all of the characters, especially those in a romantic liaison, having their own agency. Even if one character has more wealth, political power or even physical power than the other, the partner needs to bring something to the relationship. This balance of power is what I try to work into my own stories and what I enjoy in a good romance or any relationship. Deb Marlowe shows her characters filling the needs of the other characters while balancing the deficit within their own personalities. Just as we as humans have our own strengths and weaknesses, so should our characters, and like any good relationship, our strengths should balance our partner’s weaknesses and visa versa.

In my story How to Sabotage a Wild West Show, Winnie and Harry don’t get their happy ever after yet, instead Dr. John finds love and in my soon to be released book, How to Murder a Duke, Winnie’s grandfather is reunited with his first love. At seventeen and twenty-two, I feel Winnie and Harry need a little seasoning before they can end up together. While Kara and Niall move a little quicker into their relationship, I feel I have to pull Winnie and Harry apart before I can bring them back together again.

I have been reading the Barker and Llewelyn Series for several years. It isn’t a romantic mystery series like Deb Marlowe’s Kier and Levett nor a young adult mystery like my Applegate series but all three of these are set in the Victorian era. The two detectives or rather, inquiry agents, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are like the old Odd Couple comedy show mixed with the classic Sherlock and Watson characters. Set in Victorian London, this series is a little earlier than my own, but like my Applegate Series it has a complex blend of characters. While I bring my characters to England from America with a mix of Native American, Hispanic, and British ancestry, the Barker and Llewelyn series has a hodgepodge of characters from Chinese, Jewish, Welsh and Scots with a smattering of others flitting in from story to story. I love stories with diverse characters and it is one of the things I write in all of my stories. My family and my community is not all white so neither should my stories be.

Even though Barker and Llewelyn isn’t a romantic or cozy mystery series, any good series, should have a little romance to balance the rest of the grit and grime of the mystery plot. Llewelyn, a Welshman who when we first meet him was attending university on scholarship where he fell in love in true romantic tragedy fashion. As if by destiny or preordained by poverty, poor Thomas ended up convicted of a crime because of classism. While he is in jail his young wife dies. Just before taking the job with Cyrus Barker, Thomas was contemplating ending it all. I’m not sure who was more surprised that Thomas was chosen for the job, Barker or Thomas himself, but from that first meeting until their last, these odd couple has forged a unique bond, friendship and partnership that is fun to experience. While their friendship is not the bromance of modern times, there is still a love between the two men and extends to many of their secondary characters.

Other romantic entanglements are included in other stories from Thomas’s little crush on Barker’s ward, to his enamoration of a woman assassin, before falling hard for an intelligent Jewess who is way out of his league and destined to marry another. Several stories later, he actually ends up married to the lovely widow. Even Barker has a long-time lady love, but their romantic liaison is kept very proper. While their romance usually plays only a background plot, several stories have featured their romantic relationships and used them to make the danger more personal and perilous.

I have included Dr. John’s relationship with Millie and later with Cassie in How to Sabotage a Wild West Show. Because Winnie and Harry’s relationship would not find their happy ending, I wanted a romance that would, so Dr. John gets both a scary relationship and a happy ever after one. In the upcoming, How to Murder a Duke, Bill and Sarah have waited forty years for their happy ending.

While the Barker and Llewelyn series leans more into mystery and adventure, I still feel that my series compares well with it. Along with our diverse characters, we also attack social subjects that were important then and are still relevant today, tackling them with a strong reliance on historical fact and a bit of humor.

The sheer uniqueness of the characters, some of which are not in their most familiar element, can make for some humorous moments. The variety of relationships can also lend to humor. Long-time friends often deal with each other in manners that from an outsiders’ viewpoints might seem odd or even comical, but with each of our personalities and backgrounds, we have differing relationships and reactions that are acceptable within the context of our friendship. Stories are as much about relationships as they are about the plot. How the secondary characters react and relate to the main characters can add more insight into the the main characters. I hope my own secondary characters offer more insight into who Winnie is and how she fits into the story world I’ve created.

Deanna Raybourn has two series that encompass the Victorian Era. The first, The Lady Julia Grey Mysteries, begins when Lady Julia’s husband dies, and she later learns it was murder. As she investigates with the help of inquiry agent, Nicholas Brisbane, Lady Julia uncovers unpleasant truths and begins to discover herself as she comes ever closer to a killer.

Inquiry agent Nicholas Brisbane didn’t seem to like Lady Julia at first. She is a woman of her time and station, protected and put on a pedestal. It is only after her husband’s death that she comes to know who she is and what she wants as she rediscovers where she fits in the world around her and searches for answers.

While Lady Julia is older than Winnie, they both have a journey of discovery. Just as Lady Julia breaks out of the glass house where she has been kept as lady of wealth and class, Winnie too has to break free from the bonds of childhood and childish fears. Abandoned by her husband’s death, Lady Julia comes to regard her new status as that of freedom, where Winnie, who has always had a bit of freedom within the confines and safety of the show, now must learn to navigate the glamourous and confining world of British aristocracy.

Julia’s relationship with Nicholas starts out slow as he doesn’t like nor trust her. As he grows to admire her, their relationship goes from adversary to friendship to romantic partners. With Winnie and Harry, they fall fast but Harry is not available to love Winnie. His honor and duty war with the desires of his heart, and in the end, Winnie knows she must let him go if there is any hope that one day, they might be together.

The Lady Julia series is set in the late Victorian Era and starts off in London, while a similar timeline as my Applegate series, I prefer to wait before moving my characters to London. Like Ms. Raybourn I believe the best stories are tempered with a bit of humor and romance. I look forward to exploring Victorian London, as well as other adventurous locals as my characters experience new adventures and solve new challenges.

Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series set in 1887 is also a similar timeline as my Applegate Mysteries. Veronica, due to her unusual upbringing, has a unique view of the world and capabilities not common to young ladies of this era. In her earlier books, Veronica is a bit rough around the edges and tends to prick society sticklers on purpose for her own entertainment.

When Veronica teams up with Stoker, a naturalist with a talent for taxidermy, their relationship goes from foes to reluctant allies, to friends and finally to lovers and partners. I love the slow build up of this relationship and hope to use some of the same ideas with Winnie and Harry’s relationship. I have been reading this series for a while and love the progression of Veronica and Stoker’s relationship and their growth both in personality as well as romantic involvement. They have adventures together and while Veronica rushes headlong into the fray, Stoker is a little more cautious. While Winnie is a bit more of a people pleaser than Veronica, she is still the one who will rush headlong into danger while Harry will always be the more cautious one.

Because How to Sabotage a Wild West Show is sort of a western cozy mystery, I thought I’d add Sandra Cox’s Keeper Tyree and Sheriff Keeper into my comparisons. The Keeper Series is an old-fashioned western with a bit of mystery, romance and grit. While my Applegate series only has a taste of the wild west with its romanticized version of how the west was won, the influence of westerns, the portrayal of cowboys, native Americans and other ethnic groups that settled in the west, the adventure, historical events, and changes were a great inspiration in writing this series. The gentleman’s code and the cowboy code of protecting women and children, taking care of your horses, and tending to your own business were codes many good men lived by. That being said, the time period often treated women, people of color, children and even animals in much the same manner, as property of the men. In fiction, we tend to paint the world the way we want to see it and maybe sometimes it really was that great, but most of the time, people were distrustful of anyone who was different and tended to close ranks against those they considered not of their kind.

In comparing my series to that of Sandra’s Keeper Series, we both have strong, capable female characters, adventure, mystery and drama. Like Sandra, my stories have a lot of family dynamics and a focus on community.

While I’ve not read the book series, I have seen the film, Enola Holmes. The Enola Holmes Mystery series by Nancy Springer was adapted for film by Jack Thorne and directed by Harry Bradbeer. This Victorian-era detective series is based on the teenaged sister of the famous Sherlock. Enola travels to London to search for her missing mother and teams up with a runaway lord. They attempt to solve a mystery that threatens the whole country.

I chose to include this in my comparison because Enola and Winnie are of a similar age. Like Enola, Winnie is determined to get to the truth, she is intelligent and scientifically minded. These two young women defy Victorian convention even as they use the expectations and norms in order to keep others at a disadvantage. While the Enola Holmes movie was a little more lighthearted than my Applegate series, it still dealt with many serious issues of the time, some of which are still important today.

Kate Parker’s Victorian Bookshop Mystery series is quite different but set in the same era with an adventurous book seller turned criminal hunter. Georgia Fenchurch is part of the Archivist Society, a quiet spinster book seller by day and an adventurous hunter of killers at night. I included this series in my comparison because just as Miss. Fenchurch is hiding in plain sight, Winnie is too. She doesn’t pretend to be anything but what she is, but she is a dangerous female with intelligence and determination.

I hope you have enjoyed this comparison of books. It definitely made me rethink my own series and where it fits within the mystery genre. I hope you will take a chance on my Applegate Mystery Series. How to Sabotage a Wild West Show is available now at bookstores, Amazon, and Walmart in both eBook and print. How to Murder a Duke will be available soon.

Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/32j4snhr

Universal link: https://books2read.com/Wild-West-Show