to Three Pines, where the cruellest month is about to deliver on its threat.
Though April has been anything but cruel to me! My second book, A FATAL GRACE (DEAD COLD in Canada, UK and the Commonwealth) has won the Agatha award for best traditional mystery in the United States! The award was given out at a convention in Washington called Malice Domestic. I was there, all prepared and happy to applaud when someone else's name was announced. I thought I'd had a seizure when I heard 'And the winner is...A Fatal Grace'. Huh? I trembled my way to the stage. It's an award voted on by readers so it has great significance. The other nominated writers I was prepared to applaud I'd like to applaud right now. They are: Donna Andrews, Rhys Bowen, Margaret Maron and Elaine Viets. Another piece of amazing news is that my third mystery, The Cruellest Month, has been nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada.  And - in the States, it debuted at number ONE on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's Bestsellers list! That only happens, clearly, because you have bought the books and told others about them. I am so grateful to you! Thank you. You know, as I get older I've realized it's not enough to have great good fortune. The real blessing is knowing how lucky I am. And I know. What a partnership we are. I'll keep writing, if you'll keep reading!

And speaking of which, the next Three Pines mystery is underway. Some writing days are better than others. Sometimes I think it's all hogswollop and sometimes I'm relieved and thrilled and so happy with the manuscript.

The process is so strange and each book feels different. With this one I write happily and quickly, racing from scene to scene and tearing through the chapters. Then I stop. Hit a stage, often the pivotal sections, then I just crawl along as though through a mine field.

Sometimes I write thousands of words a day, sometimes I erase thousands and start again.

But always with the certainty that whatever happens I'm lucky. This is a great job which I choose to do. It isn't always easy, but it is always a privilege.

And then we get days when the book appears on the top of the list. And I just feel so amazed and thrilled. And grateful.

The Cruelest Month has also received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and the Kirkus Review. As well as raves in People Magazine, The London Tmes, The Scotsman, The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as this one in Mystery News where it received 5 out of 5 Quills:

Influenced by Simenon, Christie and Sayers before her, Penny is doing them all one better. ... These books are so much more than traditional mysteries - the writing is sublime and the characters unique yet much more developed than their individual quirks. ...And this place, this wonderous, fantastical place.  You’re just incredibly thankful that it exists, if only in the brilliant mind of Louise Penny....behold the ushering in of a new era of traditional mysteries—21st century-style.

One of the great practicioners of the traditional mystery is Julia Spencer Fleming. She's a personal friend and it's a great pleasure to be able to tell you she has a new Clare and Russ book coming out in June. It's called I SHALL NOT WANT. You can pre-order it! And there's an interview with her on my news and events page.

I've been on tour through the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada with The Cruelest Month. What a great way to see the world.
 
I'll also be doing a number of internet chats and conference calls to book clubs.  If you'd like to organize one with your chat room or book club, please email me.  They're always great fun.

A FATAL GRACE has been nominated for an AUDIE AWARD for BEST MYSTERY NOVEL ON AUDIO.  This is really a tribute to Ralph Cosham, who narrates the book - but I like to take credit. 

Let me tell you a bit about THE CRUELEST MONTH - starting with the spelling.  As though it wasn't bad enough that book 2 had two different titles (A FATAL GRACE in the US and DEAD COLD everywhere else) this book also has a slight change.  As George Bernard Shaw said, England and America are 'Two nations separated by a common language.' 
 
In this case, they're separated by a slender 'el'.  In Canada and the Commonwealth 'cruellest' is spelled that say.  In the US there's one less 'el' - 'cruelest.'  Hence the confusion of spelling on this webpage.  I just alternate as the will takes me.  Free form spelling - perhaps even Australian-rules spelling. 
 
There's also a different US cover, as always.  I really love both covers and it's interesting that without consulting (and certainly without asking me) both publishers picked up on the imagery of the tree.  An imagery that will be clear when you read the book.

It's spring in the tiny Quebec village of Three Pines and an Easter celebration is underway. Its a time of great relief in Canada, when winter loosens it's grip and new, fragile, hope emerges. Everything is coming back to life. Buds are on the trees, crocuses and snowdrops and daffodils are struggling through the newly thawed earth. Life is insisting and insinuating itself.

But not everything is meant to return to life. Some things are better off dead and buried.

I was hanged for living alone, for having blue eyes and sunburned skin, tattered skirts, few buttons, a weedy farm in my own name, and a surefire cure for warts.

When they harvest my corpse Surprise, surprise: I am still alive.

Something nasty is stirring, and you're invited to attend.

Before I was not a witch. Now I am one.

So many people have commented on the beauty of the website that I really want to tell you it's not me. The site is designed and maintained by the most amazing woman, Linda Lyall, who lives and works in Scotland, and whom I've never met, but who is always so creative and thoughtful. Her email, if you're interested in your own site is: l.lyall@ntlworld.com

Many people also ask about the inspiration for my characters and I have to say most have taken on lives of their own, but they've also been inspired by people I love.  For instance, Gamache is inspired by my husband Michael, and Clara by a few wonderful friends and artists, significant among them Sharon Sutherland. So many people have asked about Clara's art that I wanted to link to Sharon's website.  Most of the works there are from her time in Canada's arctic, though she's done many other works too.  Michael and I are fortunate to have her art on our walls. 

Another question that keeps coming up is about the poetry in the books. I really should have made it clear in the acknowledgments that I don't write the verse. Most of Ruth's poetry is from Canadian writers and they're listed in the permissions page of the books. In DEAD COLD/A FATAL GRACE I also use one of my favorite verses of all time, from Leonard Cohen's work "Anthem

When I started writing I wanted to create a village I'd love to live in, with people I'd choose as friends. As a detective I wanted a man I could adore. Someone I'd want to live with for many years. And so Armand Gamache was created. A man of humour and integrity, a thoughtful and kindly man.

I wanted, I realize now, a thoughtful and kindly world. Because the truth is I don't always feel comfortable and at ease. And in the past when bad things have happened in my life I've turned to my old friends Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Michael Innes and Dorothy L. Sayers. And I've felt strangely comforted in the world they created for me. These books are a way to give back, to say thank you. And to find comfort myself in a world not always kind. Each morning now I get to go to the computer and visit Three Pines for a cafe au lait and croissant and maybe a murder.

There's a wonderful line from Auden in his poem to Melville. 'Goodness existed: that was the new knowledge. His terror had to blow itself quite out to let him see it'.The Armand Gamache series is about terror, that brooding whispering terror from deep within. But more than that, these books are about goodness.