Guest Post

Guest Chick: Gianetta Murray and #giveaway

The Chicks are excited to welcome Gianetta Murray to the blog today. She has a wonderful tale to tell about her journey across the pond to a new life and how it inspired her enticing new mystery…

Stranger in a Strange Land

Despite a long career as a librarian and tech editor, I always knew I wanted to write a murder mystery someday. I was just a little vague on what it would be about, who the characters were, where it would be set, and what the mystery would be. But other than that, I was raring to go!

Then, eighteen years ago, I met and married an Englishman and sold off my Silicon Valley life in a series of garage sales before moving to South Yorkshire (with my cat) to live with him. I’d always loved Great Britain and had spend multiple vacations touring it. I was an avid fan of Masterpiece Theater. So I was certain I would be living the dream.

Parts of it have been wonderful. But the challenges were nothing like I thought they would be.

Sure, I miss the sun. And Britain and America really are two countries separated by a common language. My husband’s Yorkshire accent threw me a lot in the beginning. He once visited me in California and I asked if he wanted to try driving my car.

“Martin Short could drive your car,” he said.

I’m still not certain why this made me so angry. It just seemed so rude. At least to Martin Short. So I fumed some and finally asked him why he’d said it. He looked at me curiously for a moment before responding.

“What do you think I said?” he asked.

“That Martin Short could drive my car.”

Sigh. “No, I said I’m not insured to drive your car.”

Crisis avoided. But I expected these kinds of misunderstandings (not that one particularly of course). I knew I would inevitably tell someone I liked their pants (which means underwear in England) or call a bum bag a fanny pack (fanny is rude word here).

What I didn’t expect is the frustration from trying to pay shop owners by placing money on the counter, when they are used to customers placing it in their hands. So many limb collisions! Or that, while you can flush American toilets with a flick of a finger, in the U.K. it requires much more muscle and a certain twist of the wrist. I had to ensure I did some stretches before each attempt for those first couple of years!

But perhaps hardest of all was adapting my conversational style from (as my husband puts it) “Here are the contents of my head: Listen to them” to “A long pause is never uncomfortable unless someone dies while waiting”. Look up “taciturn” and you will see a picture of my husband.

After close to two decades I’m almost comfortable here in Yorkshire, and I realized I had a massive store of (hopefully) interesting anecdotes and character profiles to use in a novel. Add a dead body or two and I was set!

So is my protagonist Vivien Brandt in fact me? While we do share a hair color (at the moment) and some specific adventures, Vivien is younger, fitter, and more enterprising than I am. Because, hey, why write fiction if you can’t live the fantasy? On the plus side, I’ve never discovered any victims of foul play (yet). I’ll gladly leave that to Vivien and her Siamese cat Sydney.

For a chance at a free e-book copy of Moved to Murder, please answer the following question: What’s the funniest situation you’ve ever found yourself in as a result of mishearing or misunderstanding someone? I’ll pick a favorite (or favourite!) tomorrow and share it here in the Comments. And thanks for playing!

Author photo by Martin Liddament

BIO: I am a California native with too many college degrees and probably even more neuroses, all of which I channel into writing before adding a dollop of humor so I can label it entertainment. Like Vivien, I moved for the love of a Brit and now live in relative contentment (except for the occasional and brutally intense craving for Jack in the Box tacos) in South Yorkshire with the aforementioned husband and my two cats Winifred and Cordelia. I’ve retired from my career in libraries and knowledge management to write full-time and, in addition to Moved to Murder, I have published a collection of humorous paranormal stories (A Supernatural Shindig) and have stories featured in the international Paths series and A Hiss-teria of Killers. I‘m currently working diligently on the second Vivien Brandt mystery.

SYNOPSIS: Californian Vivien Brandt is excited about joining her English husband in the lovely South Yorkshire village of Nether Chatby. What could possibly go wrong when she loves all things British and already speaks the language? But when she finds a body, Vivien is forced to admit things have gone very wrong indeed. Now she must navigate the social intricacies of an English village to uncover its secrets and bring a killer to justice, preferably without getting killed herself. Because when the chips (crisps?) are down, the only common language between Britain and American is apparently…murder.

You can find out more, sign up for my newsletter, and connect with me at: gianettamurray.com

35 thoughts on “Guest Chick: Gianetta Murray and #giveaway”

          1. We finally figured out the barista was saying, “Do you want cream in your coffee?” He kept turning up the volume, slurring the ‘cream-in-yours’ with a roll of the tongue. To our untrained southern US ears, it sounded like Gaelic words.

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          3. Welcome, Gianetta, and congrats on your bookish and personal “moving” experiences!

            I could so relate to your post! My boyfriend is from a seaside town north of Yorkshire, and I’ve definitely misheard a thing or ten. Poor Siri and Alexa most often fall victim. His speech-to-text messages are the best!

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          1. Your making me feel better, Gianetta. As noted above, we finally figured out the barista was saying, “Do you want cream in your coffee?” He kept turning up the volume, slurring the ‘cream-in-yours’ with a roll of the tongue. To our untrained southern US ears, it sounded like Gaelic words.

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          2. As noted above to Lisa, “Do you want cream in your coffee?” Whenever we stop at a Starbucks, I ask my wife, “Kaaaream, guurrll?” (I’m still practicing to get just the right roll of the tongue and volume!)

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  2. Yes, British English is so very different from the American variety, and I find that the farther north (or west into Wales) you go the harder it is to understand. And so true about the difference in conversations; I always think the Brits must think of us Yanks as being like puppy dogs who simply can’t withhold our emotions as we speak.

    Congrats on the new book, Gianetta–it looks terrific! And thanks so much for visiting the Chicks, today!

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  3. Congratulations on the new book, Gianetta! I watch a lot of Acorn and BritBox TV. While I love the mysteries and dry humor, often I find myself having absolutely no idea what the characters are saying, even with Closed Captioning on! The colloquialisms leave me absolutely baffled! 😂

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    2. Yup, been here almost two decades, and I still get lost sometimes. Although everyone watches so much American television, they all seem to understand me!

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  4. Gianetta, loved this post! Thanks so much for visiting Chicks today–I now have Moved to Murder on my TBR list. Ireland rather than England, but I had a terrible time with “yer wan.” (To me, “your one.”) Whoooo???

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  7. Welcome, Gianetta! Love this post. And you’re living my longtime dream (which was to go to London to live and write…I even had an inspirational poster of London on my wall all through college)!

    Congratulations on your book and, well, your life! Your husband sounds amazing too. 🙂

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    1. Thank you, Cynthia. London is pretty amazing, although it’s very expensive to live there. I’m not sure South Yorkshire would fulfil those dreams. 🙂 But you should definitely visit and find out!

      Hubby has his good points. He think the near-perfect husband in Moved to Murder is based on him. 😉

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  8. What a fun post! Congratulations on your book! The only trouble with languages that I have is when I watch some mysteries on t.v.

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    1. That was me too before I moved, Linda. I do miss San Francisco a lot! And Disneyland. 😉 Which TV mysteries give you the most trouble?

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