Meet Susie Black, Author of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series (contest winners announced!)

Susie Black: Author of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series

Meet Author Susie Black, Holly Swimsuit Mystery series

Author Susie Black, mystery writer extraordinaire, and I share the same publisher, The Wild Rose Press. That’s where I met her, in our weekly chat room. Soon we were emailing each other for advice, which turned into an occasional Zoom session. We’ve been learning the ins and outs of social media and other publishing-related tasks together. I’ve read her debut novel, Death by Sample Size: a Hilarious Whodunit (Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book 1), her upcoming mystery, Death by Pins and Needles (Book 2), and some other writing goodies in the writing pipeline that are coming out later this year. Susie employs laugh-out-loud dialogue with her characters, Holly Schlivnik, the Yentas (Holly’s colleagues in the Los Angeles ladies’ swimwear industry), and suspects as she plunks them into settings she worked in for many years. Her plots contain complexity and are highly entertaining. Be sure to enter the contest at the bottom of this blog!

For a fun break in your schedule, I recommend you read one of her books in front of the fireplace, on a bench at the park, or at the beach. Well, anywhere!

Some Interesting Factoids About Susie: 

Susie Black loves swimwear fabric rolls used to create bathing suits.

• • Born in the Big Apple, she now calls sunny SoCal home.
  • Similar to her protagonist in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery series, she enjoyed a decades-long, successful career as a ladies’ swimwear sales executive.
  • She began her career as a manufacturer’s rep in the deep southern states, traveling thousands of miles in a 5-state territory for 5 years.
  • At that time, she was the ONLY woman in that territory doing that type of job.
  • She is short (4’10”) and in order to get all her sample bags into the huge trunk of her car, she had to jump into the trunk to get them all situated.
  • She’s a college graduate who also reads, writes, and speaks excellent Spanish, albeit “with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals.”
  • Her son is a linguistic psychologist who speaks 8 languages fluently; since he speaks Polish and Russian, he was in Warsaw giving psychological counseling to Ukrainian refugees.
  • She recently developed something called “musical ear syndrome,” in which her brain often keeps her busy with the sounds of a choir of men singing in a chanting format she can’t stop. You can look this interesting condition up (and, watch out; it may appear in a future book). Something Special for You: 
    

    Need a Swimsuit? Don’t Panic (a guide for choosing the perfect one)!

    With swimsuit season looming close, you might be in the market to purchase a new bathing suit–or two, and that may seem like a scary shopping spree. Susie to the rescue with “The Fit Guide for Choosing the Right Swimsuit.” This handy resource includes photos of different body types posed in a variety of bathing suits so that you can see the effect of the suit on the figure. It’s a timely booklet to help you match your body type to the perfect swimsuit and is accompanied with advice from Susie Black, an expert in the field of swimsuit apparel. And it’s a hoot to read! 

The Interview! 

Nancy: Q–How many hours a day do you write?

Susie: I don’t have a set daily schedule or a certain number of hours a day to write. I try hard to write at least something every day, but candidly, life often gets in the way of the best-laid plan. That said, I can tell you that I almost NEVER write in the morning. I am a night owl and often do my most productive writing late into the wee hours.

Nancy: Q–What is your favorite childhood book?

Susie: Hands down, all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Followed by the biography of Amelia Earhart. I credit my love of these books with my becoming a cozy mystery author. I’ve always been the curious sort. My parents would attest that I asked nonstop questions and that how and why, rather than mommy and daddy, were my first spoken words. Some narrow-minded folks would say I am nosy…go figure.

Nancy: Q–What inspired you to write your first book? Your latest book?

Susie: Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, I was a successful ladies’ swimwear sales exec in the Los Angeles Garment Center. From the beginning of my career, I kept a daily journal and chronicled the interesting and sometimes challenging people I encountered as well as all the crazy situations I got myself into–and out of.

Susie Black’s Death by Sample Size is an award-winning mystery.

My journal is the source of all my writing, and all my characters are based on real people I knew. My award-winning debut, Death by Sample Size, was inspired by an obnoxious buyer who I daydreamed of murdering after a particularly challenging meeting with her. I was inspired to write Death by Pins and Needles, my latest book (to be released February 15) by a conversation I had with an apparel colleague about a pain in the patootie swimwear showroom manager in the California Apparel Mart that everyone in our industry would not have minded knocking off. LOL.

Nancy: Q–Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

Susie: Beyond elbowing Janet Evanovich out of her #1 position, I see myself as an author who has successfully made her mark in the humorous cozy mystery genre as well as one who has exceeded beyond her reach into collateral as well as different genres. In addition to continuing my current series, I see myself having penned a YA series prequel to The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series with Holly as a high school amateur sleuth. I see a new mystery series not only in the apparel industry but also as a fictionalized version of the true story of a group of Jewish men who collected money from their synagogue congregations and got the New York Jewish mafia to buy and smuggle arms and ammunition into the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.

Nancy: Q–How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

Susie: I have four contracted, unpublished books that will all be released this year. Death by Pins and Needles, the second book in my series, will be published on February 15^th. The other three are slated to be released ninety days apart from then. I have one half-finished book that, candidly speaking, should have been completed by now but kept getting pushed to the back of the line. I am determined to finish writing it so I can submit it to my editor by the end of this year.

Nancy: Q–Was there a person who encouraged you to write?

Susie Black’s mom (left) and Nana (right)

Susie: Yes, my nana encouraged me to write. In fact, it was she who suggested I keep that daily journal. Nana was convinced that the reason I got into the rag business was that I was destined to write about it. Turns out, she was spot on. Somewhere out in the great beyond, I am sure she’s smiling. You’ll find bits and pieces of her wisdom threaded throughout everything I write such as “Man plans and God laughs.” I inherited Nana’s love of perfume, jewelry, taking chances, speaking my mind, a wicked sense of humor, and regrettably, her fear of death that we both nervously compensated with laughing whenever we heard someone died. I incorporated this weird trait into my Holly Swimsuit Mystery series by giving Holly Schlivnik, the protagonist, the same affliction and response to death. 

Nancy: Q–Will you tell us about your latest book?

Susie: Thanks for asking! It’s the second book in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery series. These books can be read in order of publication or read as stand-alones.

Death by Pins and Needles by Susie Black is due for publication on February 15.

Death by Pins and Needles (to be released for publication on February 15):

Who wanted Lissa Charney dead? The list was as long as your arm….but which one actually killed her? The last thing Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected to find when she opened the closet door was nasty competitor Lissa Charney’s battered corpse nailed to the wall. When Holly’s colleague is wrongly arrested for Lissa’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong to sniff out the real killer. Nothing turns out the way she thinks it will as Holly matches wits with a heartless killer hellbent on revenge.

Where Else Can Readers Find You Online?

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

Social Media: https://linktr.ee/susieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Thanks for joining us, Susie! I enjoyed talking and laughing with you! Keep writing, and we’ll keep reading!–xox Nancy

(Please note that I use affiliate links for books mentioned. They don’t cost you anything extra, and they help keep me writing.)

Giveaway Contest Winners! Congratulations to Judy Franz and Ivy Yee Sakamoto, winners of Susie’s ebook, Death by Pins and Needles!