It’s another entry in #mybookalphabet! Today’s was a tricky one, as I don’t have many character names or story elements that begin with this letter. But then I remembered Orien, the well-respected governor of Tarreton College, whose untimely death kicks off the plot of A POCKET FULL OF MURDER. . At the beginning of POCKET, Master Orien, the governor of the prestigious Tarreton College, has just offered Isaveth’s hard-working but unemployed Papa a job that could save him and his four daughters from destitution. All seems well until the Lawkeepers turn up at the door, and arrest Urias Breck as the prime suspect in Orien’s murder. . Isaveth knows her father has no motive to kill Master Orien — in fact the opposite — but nobody else seems to believe that he didn’t do it. So she sets out to find the real murderer before it’s too late. In the excerpt I’ve included, she disguises herself as a maid at Tarreton College so she can investigate the scene of the crime, and also get a chance to talk to Orien’s proud and rather prickly secretary about who else visited the Master that day and what really happened. . In many of the Golden Age mystery novels that inspired POCKET and its sequel, the murder victim is a deeply unpleasant person who seems to have earned his or her grisly fate. But real life is seldom so neat or satisfying, and I wanted to explore the impact of a good man’s death on the people left to mourn him — including a couple of characters who turn out to have been somewhat closer to Orien than my heroine Isaveth ever guessed… . If you enjoy reading mysteries, which case or detective have you found the most memorable, and why? . . . #uncommonmagic #apocketfullofmurder #middlegrade #middlegradebooks #middlegradereads #middlegradefiction #middlegradefantasy #middlegrademystery #middlegradelit #mglit #bookstagram #books #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookworm #bookwormlife https://www.instagram.com/p/B_V9QxIgC0d/?igshid=1oi6mded1b0bk
