Spotlight & Giveaway: Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Karen Dukess to HJ!

Hi Karen and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Welcome to Murder Week!

Greetings!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Welcome to Murder Week is about Cath Little, 34, who discovers that her estranged, late mother booked a non-refundable trip for the two of them to go to England to solve a fake village murder mystery. This makes no sense to Cath, who rarely saw her mother, but unable to get a refund, she takes the trip. She teams up with two other solo travelers — Wyatt, 40, who works unhappily in his husband’s birding store, and Amity, 50, a newly divorced romance author with writer’s block. While the three work to solve the fake murder mystery, they also solve the real mystery of why Cath’s mother wanted to take her there. And Cath has a fling — or maybe more — with a handsome maker of artisinal gin who may or may not be part of the fake mystery. So there’s a fake murder mystery, a real family mystery, a dash of romance, and new path for Cath in coming to terms with her mother’s difficult legacy.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“Lots of people think romance is silly,” Amity says. “And to that I say, you find love superficial? Well then, I’m sorry for you.” She tosses back the rest of her wine. “What’s more important than the pursuit of love? Of cherishing someone and being desired in return? If a romance is well-written, it’s a story of being fully human– of firing on all cylinders, sexually, emotionally, and intellectually. There’s nothing more exciting.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• The inspiration for Welcome to Murder Week was a one-week trip to England’s Peak District that I took with my sister. My fictional village of Willowthrop was inspired by a village called Bakewell, home of England’s famed Bakewell Tart.
• The fictional Hadley Hall, home in my novel to the fictional Lady Blanders, was inspired by the medieval estate Haddon Hall, which is owned by someone who is actually called Lady Manners.
• While traveling in the Peak District, I ate the best dessert I’ve ever had in my ENTIRE LIFE: Sticky Toffee Pudding at The Rutland Arms Hotel in Bakewell. Can’t recommend it highly enough!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

My heroine is attracted by my hero’s dark hair, long neck, beautiful face, and charming English accent, but she thinks he is playing a part in the fake mystery and doesn’t know whether to trust anything he says. This uncertainty adds some sizzle to their banter. For his part, my hero is attracted to my heroine’s American directness as well as her obvious love of his hometown and surrounding countryside, which his ex-girlfriend found deadly dull.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I had a lot of fun writing the banter between Cath and Dev and playing up their differences as an American and a Brit. Here’s a little from when they first find their way back to his cottage at night:

“As soon as Dev latches the cottage door behind us, he turns and takes me in his arms.
“Now I’ve got you where I want you.” His lips are on my neck. Is he kidding?
“That’s a classic villain line.” It’s ridiculous how much the pretend danger turns me on.
“Is it?” Dev whispers. His lips move up behind my ear. “It’s also what’s said by a bloke who’s been thinking about this since the moment he met you.”
Between my fingers, his hair is thick and smooth.
“On the village green? When I thought your mother was a fraud?”
“You were so sure of yourself.” He runs his hands down to my waist and pulls me closer. “I couldn’t believe I was attracted to such a brash American.”
“That’s the best kind.” I press my forehead to his, my lips nearly touching his. “Our cockiness gives you stuffy Brits permission to let loose and do wild things like say what you mean.”
“Stop talking,” he whispers.
“See, you’re learning already.”

Readers should read this book….

If they enjoy English village cozy mysteries, like those on Britbox and Masterpiece Mystery; if they love Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice; if they’re a closet or open Anglophile; if they like when unlikely friends become “found family,” if they like stories about complicated mother/daughter relationships, and if they want a book that will feel like a fun and funny escape.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m working on another mystery, this one featuring one of the main characters from Welcome to Murder Week. So not quite a sequel, but related. And that’s all I can say at this point! Follow me on instagram @karendukess to be among the first to know about my next book. I’m also a contributor to Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters, which comes out in November 2025.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 3 finished book giveaway of WELCOME TO MURDER WEEK by Karen Dukessto US addresses only!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you could go anywhere to solve a fake murder mystery, where would you go?

 
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Book Info:

In this delightfully funny and heartfelt new novel from the author of the “bittersweet page-turner” (The New York Times) The Last Book Party, an American woman travels to the English countryside when she discovers tickets her late mother had purchased for a murder mystery simulation in a small British town.

When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet. Baffled but helplessly intrigued by her mother’s secret purchase, Cath decides to go on the trip herself—and begins a journey she never could have anticipated.

Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers—Wyatt Green, forty, who works unhappily in his husband’s birding store, and Amity Clark, fifty, a divorced romance writer struggling with her novels—Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way. Amidst a fling—or something more—with the handsome local maker of artisanal gin, Cath and her irresistibly charming fellow sleuths will find this week of fake murder may help them face up to a very real crossroads in their own lives.

Witty, wise, and deliciously escapist, Welcome to Murder Week is a fresh, inventive twist on the murder mystery and a touching portrayal of one daughter’s reckoning with her grief, her past—and her own budding sense of adventure.
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Karen Dukess is the author of The Last Book Party and Welcome to Murder Week. Karen has been a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations. She has a degree in Russian studies from Brown University and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. She lives outside of New York City and in Truro on Cape Cod, where she interviews some of today’s most acclaimed writers as host of the Castle Hill Author Talks for the Truro Center for the Arts. Find out more at KarenDukess.com.
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