Ellen Byron

A cover reveal and a change of heart.

A few years ago, my cousin Marie and I met up for lunch at some trendy Manhattan restaurant. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but she suddenly went, “You’re a Californian.”

My jaw dropped. I was appalled. I quickly corrected her. “No, no, no. I’m a New Yorker who lives in California.”

I’m sure my instant reaction comes as no surprise. New York’s disdain for its left coast reverse twin is legendary. Although not so much in my family. My father adored California from the first time he was sent there on business in the mid-1960s. He would have moved to Los Angeles in a New York minute if my mother hadn’t balked at it. An avid fan of ballet, opera, and the theatre, she considered LaLaLand a cultural wasteland, so we stayed put in the NYC suburbs.

I adore New York City. It’s absolutely the home of my heart (well, that and New Orleans, as you all probably know). I’d dreamed of moving to Manhattan since I was a little girl playing on a hill in Queens on a summer night and saw the sparkling lights of the magical, mystical island in the distance. When I moved to Manhattan after college, I never, ever imagined living anywhere else. Unfortunately, transitioning from being a playwright to a TV writer necessitated a move to Los Angeles. It wasn’t my native habitat at all.

But…

When my agent and I were batting around ideas for a new mystery series, I came up with a premise that I’ll describe in Hollywood terms: Hacks meets Schitt’s Creek. I channeled my past as a sitcom writer into protagonist Dee’s backstory; she’s a burned-out sitcom writer who impulsively buys a rustic mid-century motel. For the location, I reached into my memory bank for a place my Great-Aunt Molly took me to on my first trip to California as a teenager and I’ve never forgotten. (Sidebar: Molly and Uncle Howard moved from Brooklyn to Modesto, CA in the late forties so he could manage a tomato packing plant.)

This is Columbia Historic State Park. In the Golden Motel Mysteries, it’s Goldsgone, California. Dee’s motel is up the road, in the tiny village of Foundgold. (Foundgold is tiny because when people found gold there during the Gold Rush, they left to spend it. The citizens of Goldsgone weren’t so lucky. They were stuck where they were, and a tourist trap was born – at least in my series.)

I hadn’t been back to Columbia in decades, so a research road trip was in order. In June, Jer and I drove to Oakhurst, CA for the first leg of research. (I cheat geography in the book – Dee’s motel shares a border with a national park, which isn’t at all Yosemite, wink wink.)

From there, we followed the perilous Golden Chain Highway to our Gold Rush Country base in Sonora, CA.

Perilous… but also gorgeous.

With each turn of the treacherously narrow road, vistas confirmed California is truly a golden state. Factor in that the famed Big Sur coastline was only about three hours west of us and you have a confluence of natural beauty that defines the word “breathtaking.”

This spectacular trip proved Marie right – my roots may be in New York and my soul in New Orleans, but I am a Californian. And you know what? I’m proud of it. And I’m thrilled that I get to pay homage to my adopted state in the Golden Motel Mysteries, beginning with A Very Woodsy Murder.

Pre-order link

Readers, have you ever come to love a place you didn’t expect to?

30 thoughts on “A cover reveal and a change of heart.”

  4. Ellen, this series sounds absolutely FANTASTIC!! I love the cover and I super-love the town names!!

    I have come to *like* Seattle after much time spent there of late. I worried that it would be too rainy for this high desert gal, but it’s hard not to love all of that green!

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    1. I’m the exact reverse, Kathy. I had to sacrifice my favorite weather – rain – for the dry climes of SoCal. Actually, that’s how Jer and I connected. We were at a dinner party and he heard me say what I missed the most about NY was the rain!

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    2. My daughter left dry CO to go to college in rainy Portland and everyone told her she was going to hate it. But they didn’t know that she was such a pluviophile. And I didn’t know that I really was either until I went to visit her there all the time!

      I’ve lived in lots of different places—big towns, small towns, desert, mountains, coastline—and I’ve like all of them. Everywhere is interesting!

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  5. I love this cover! And your new book–and series–sounds soooo much fun–can’t wait!

    As for your question, I have an opposite answer: I expected to love San Francisco when I first went there back in the 1970s, but it’s never spoken to me. I just find it crowded, with too few green spaces, and with lousy public transport (and you really don’t want to have to try to park your own car there).

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    1. I’ve always loved visiting SF but thought living there would be rough. And this comes from a New Yorker! But we don’t have those massive hills in SF. And we have great public transportation. Subways rule!

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  6. Love the cover Ellen!

    I’m a life-long Minnesotan, so can relate to the woodsy feel of the cover. I’ve never been to New York. Maybe in another lifetime. lol Wishing you the great success on the new series. Congratulations!

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    1. As a Californian transplanted in the other direction, I can relate! My heart is still in my native state, but I love Massachusetts and am happy to live in the beautiful top right corner of the Commonwealth.

      You know I loved A Very Woodsy Murder almost as much as I love the foothills to the Sierras, where Columbia is. I know your series debut will make a big splash!

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  7. What an exciting new series! My family is from Modest CA and we spent summers in the Sierras about an hour’s drive from Columbia. We went to Columbia often and explored the gold country. Never heard Highway 49 referred to as the Golden Chain Highway but guess it’s a good tie in with the motel. Hope the ghosts at the Fallon House Theater in Columbia make an appearance.

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    1. I’d never heard of it under that name either but it’s appropriate. I love that your family is from Modesto. I wonder if they knew Molly and Howard Seideman, my great-aunt and uncle?

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  11. Ellen, I love your new cover so much–and I already know that the Golden Motel series will be fantastic! Really enjoyed all the CA sunshine in this post. Do you like freezing cold rain and slush? If so, maybe we can lure you back to the East Coast someday. And the place I thought I’d hate living in but ended up loving–NYC! (Especially Brooklyn.) Surprising city I’m not as enamored of? Paris.

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  12. Oh, Ellen, I can’t wait for this series! Congratulations! As for favorite places, I’m a bit of an odd-ball (no huge surprise there!) I am at home in NYC, a beach, or the mountains. I guess for me, it’s not so much as where we are, it’s more about who I’m with.

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  13. Beautiful cover, Ellen! And congrats on the series. You’ve memorialized the various places you’ve lived in your books–New Orleans, Astoria, and now California–memoirs through mysteries. ~Maya

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