There they fall in love and solve the mystery of who killed Andre’s neighbor. Since the Dreamspinner Press readers are so loyal and wonderful, I decided to offer them a special gift with The Player: two books for the price of one! In Part I: The City House, Andre and Freddy meet in Andre’s Hoboken, New Jersey Art Deco apartment building that was previously Freddy’s family home. As Freddy would say, “That’s the bee’s knees!”
The two men would get off to a rocky start, but eventually they would become lovers, a la a ghostly Holmes and earthbound Watson, solving murder mysteries. By playing it, Andre would bring back the ghost of Freddy Birtwistle, the original owner of the house.
Next, I decided a young, gay, mixed race, grade school music teacher named Andre Beaufort would find the player piano in his basement. Sadly, Freddy had died having never found true love. I decided that Freddy was shot at thirty by a misinformed, incredibly wealthy, jealous husband of a socialite. Freddy had a joyous bon vivant personality. His shoes were shiny black patent leather with white spats. True to the period, he was meticulously dressed in a pinstriped black suit and vest, white silk shirt, and gray suspenders with matching bowtie and silk pocket handkerchief. I named my character Freddy Birtwistle and envisioned him as tall and lean with slicked-back jet-black hair, violet eyes, high cheekbones, a thin nose, and rosy cheeks. Since player pianos were popular with the wealthy jetsetters in the Roaring Twenties, I decided the owner was a dapper player (in more ways than one) and socialite from a family who made their fortune in the railroads. As I heard the famous song, I imagined who might have been the original owner of the Pianola. I couldn’t resist sitting down on the bench and pedaling George Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” from 1926. The idea came to me when I visited a little antique stop upstate New York, where I found an old player piano. It also has my offbeat sense of humor, lots of MM romance, dreamy characters, and the sexiest ghost in print. Though I have my popular Nicky and Noah mystery series and Jana Lane mystery series, The Player enters new territory for me with my first mystery for Dreamspinner Press, and my first ghost character ever! And what a mystery and character! The story has all the elements of an Agatha Christie novel: cozy setting, quaint characters, clues, red herrings, plot twists and turns, and a surprise but satisfying HEA ending. Dreamspinner Press readers know me for my quirky sense of humor, unconventional romance stories, and lovable contemporary characters that come from the heart.
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