In Lowcountry Bombshell, private investigator Liz Talbot has moved back to Stella Maris, South Carolina (the “lowcountry” island of the title), where she lives in her Gram’s house with her dog Rhett, who is prone to “barking his fool head off” and the occasional company of her best friend Colleen, who doesn’t look a day over seventeen, because that’s how old she was when she died.Ĭolleen doesn’t really like being called a ghost and has told Liz she’s a “guardian spirit” in charge of the whole community, but from Liz’s point of view, she seems to get awfully involved in Liz’s business. (Seriously, I can’t be the only person who cringes every time I hear what’s supposed to be a “southern” accent on a show like True Blood or The Closer.) The result can be as grating to the reader as listening to an actor using a generic “southern accent” composed of equal parts Dukes of Hazzard and Jimmy Carter. Too many writers attempting regional flavor in their fiction lay it on as thick as a Cajun cook seasoning a pot of jambalaya. I mean she understands deep down how Southern people talk and can replicate the cadence and music of that speech on the page as delicately as a master chef adding a last pinch of sea salt to a batch of Hollandaise sauce.

Boyer is the second cozy mystery about private investigator Liz Talbot set on a small-town island in South Carolina (available September 3, 2013).Īnd by “it,” I mean “the southern voice.”Īnd by that I do not mean she throws “Y’all” into every other line of her dialogue.

Lowcountry boil susan m boyer