Why I Love Sadie Hoffmiller

I imagine most of us have comfort foods–something that lifts one’s spirit first by its aromatic quality and then by it’s ability to nourish us and satisfy in a delicious way. A comfort food should be warm, enough to symbolically warm our hearts. For me it’s homemade tomato soup (never from a can) with lots of macaroni noodles, grated cheese and a dash of cayenne pepper. Friends offered their comfort foods: mashed potatoes & gravy, spaghetti w/ meatballs, split pea soup, the restorative chicken soup, etc. Never does downing a carton of mud pie ice cream alone in the dark qualify as a comfort food moment.

Likewise we all have our comfort books, or things we read to ease our grief and troubles, to strengthen and give hope, not to mention to relax or make us laugh. My shelfie of comfort reads would definitely include Jane Austen’s works; the Harry Potter series; The Dark Is Rising series (Cooper); A Long Way from Chicago, A Year Down Yonder, and Fair Weather by Richard Peck; various Terry Pratchett novels; The Trolls by Polly Horvath; The Secret Life of Owen Skye by Alan Cumyn; Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt; past general conference Ensign editions; and the Sadie Hoffmiller culinary mystery series by Josi Kilpack.

Since 2009 Josi S. Kilpack has written a 12 book series that combines delightfully shivery mysteries with some of the best comfort food imaginable. The books feature a character that has become a bit larger than life to me: Sadie Hoffmiller. I’m not going to say that I’m obsessed with her, but I am very fond of this character. (I have smuggled one or two titles in to friends on hospital stays, knowing it was just what they needed.) Sadie is what makes these books work and gives them their following. As of this week, not a single Sadie Hoffmiller book can be found on my local library shelves: every title is circulating amongst happy readers. Probably we can attribute this to the fairly recent release of the last and final series installment:  Wedding Cake. I believe this title may have placed in the latest Whitney awards. Am I right? At any rate, Josi has produced a significant accomplishment as a writer and I wish her well in future pursuits. Check out her newest release, A Heart Revealed, which earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews!

Here is why I love Sadie Hoffmiller, in no particular order…

• She’s an unusual type of heroine…funny and sometimes klutzy, imperfectly impulsive and  intelligent.
• She is your most likeable neighbor who knows a lot about you from observation and her sincere concern. She knows more than you know she knows. Her intuitive perceptions might occasionally be creepy but at the same time may save the day.
• She doesn’t depend on others to validate her or provide happiness, yet she is expressive in her gestures of love. She has a kind heart. A mother bear kind of heart.
• She has lived 20 years as a widow.
• She was never able to bear a child but dotes on her two adopted children, now grown and sometimes lending their mom a hand in solving mysteries.
• She is a worrier and goes a little over-the-top in following her gut feelings and instincts.
• She makes a lot of mistakes and often gets in trouble. This endears me to her and is something I can relate to.
• She’s a retired grade school teacher.
• She’s gutsy and doesn’t let herself be pushed around.
• She still believes in morality but has space for passion too.
• She is in her late 50’s and has had no tummy tuck, lipo, Botox, or otherwise surgical body sculpting. And in spite of gray roots, lines on her face and generous hips, she is allowed an actual, genuine romance…two even.
• She has a keen attention to detail, which I appreciate.
• She is allowed to savor good food and be gentle to herself anyway.
• She trusts her instincts and doesn’t discount them.
• She authentically knows how to make fresh applesauce and can it. (woohoo…it’s a dying art.)
• She possesses integrity but does break rules and is reckless when she feels it is warranted.
• She would be a dynamite friend, mother, sister, grandmother.
• She moves through a period of anxiety and depression from PTSD at the hands of a sociopath. She gets counseling and begins to face her fears.

 

Below is an explanation from Josi’s blog about how the series came to be written, reposted here with her permission.

 

Story Behind the Sadie Stories by Josi Kilpack

In the winter of 2005, fellow-author and friend Jeffrey S. Savage (who also writes under J. Scott Savage) ran a writing contest through his blog. He was currently writing the Shandra Covington Mystery series, which features a spit-fire amateur sleuth who ate like a linebacker. His writing contest asked for the first chapter of a mystery novel that involved food.

I was at an interesting place within my career; I’d been publishing in the LDS market (which is regional, small, and faith-based) for several years, but I hadn’t been able to break out of the low mid-list.

I’d recently submitted a book to Deseret Book, the largest publisher in my market in hopes of getting better representation than I’d had with the smaller press I’d published five books with, and was waiting to see where things would go. Jeff’s contest offered me the chance to write something totally different, and I was ripe for a new challenge.

I came up with the idea to write about a woman whose neighbor is murdered while her lemon tart bakes in the oven. All I had was the idea for the first chapter. I didn’t know why the woman was killed or why the tart was baking–those things weren’t covered in chapter one. I had fun–no pressure!

Years earlier at a writing conference, someone had said to never write about homemakers–they were too boring. I was, at the time, mostly a homemaker who wrote stories on the side. In that moment, I made a mental note to one day write about a homemaker who was anything but boring. I fulfilled that challenge in the chapter I wrote for the contest.

I didn’t win the contest, but I did come in second, and I got a free book out of the deal. I also kept thinking about the story. Since I hadn’t heard back yet on the manuscript I’d submitted, and I wasn’t sure where my career would go next, I decided to write another chapter about the murder and the lemon tart. Then I wrote another, and another. I had a great time coming up with somewhat ridiculous scenarios for my main character, who was named Betty at the time, and giggled to myself as I put together this story one word at a time.

I was about 150 pages into the story, still clueless about who committed the murder or why, when Deseret Book accepted the manuscript I’d submitted.

Reaching a new, bigger publisher was the big time for me, so the murder mystery was put to the side as I focused on my faith-based market books once more—this time with distribution and advertising that made it feel much more like a career than my writing had ever been before.

Over the next 2 ½ years, I continued to work on what became Lemon Tart here and there, mostly when I got stuck on my faith-based stories. It was kind of like a writer’s version of recess—all fun, no pressure.

By the spring of 2008, I had almost finished Lemon Tart. I figured out the bad guy on about page 279 and was beginning to see the story as a real book. It had no religious themes to it, so I started thinking about sending it to the national market. I was under contract to Deseret Book, but I felt sure that they wouldn’t be interested in this story, which involved infidelity, an illegitimate child and, of course, cold-blooded murder—topics not common in my market at the time. I told them about the story with that expectation in mind. They agreed to take a look at the book and release me from the contract if indeed they weren’t interested.

I finished the story and submitted it while researching agents and trying not to intimidate myself. A few weeks later, I heard back from Deseret Book—they loved Lemon Tart. I was surprised, but over-the-moon excited. I’d had a great experience working with them on other books, and I loved the idea of doing this one with them too. It would be a fresh idea for the LDS market, and it allowed me to try my wings in a new genre, but within the industry I was comfortable in.

A few weeks into the editing process, my publisher suggested changing the main character’s name to something a little more sassy. Betty became Sadie. A few weeks after that, they suggested putting recipes at the end of the chapters where Sadie talked about food. My mystery novel became an actual culinary mystery.

I mentioned that I had an idea for another book for Sadie–maybe even two–and would they be interested in making it into a series? They asked me to make sure the third book involved chocolate. I agreed–that wouldn’t be hard to do.

By the time Devil’s Food Cake (book three) came out, we’d agreed on five books in the series, as the previous ones were doing very well. By book four, Key Lime Pie, the series had expanded to seven books, plus the upcoming Sadie’s Little Black Recipe Book that would include the recipes from all the books, to be published when the series concluded. When Blackberry Crumble (book five) came out, plans changed again: the series would include twelve books.

With Pumpkin Roll (book six), the publishing imprint changed from Deseret Book—the more regional arm I’d been published under—to Shadow Mountain–their national label—in hopes of expanding the audience, as Sadie is a national-market book. So far, the change seems to be working, and Sadie spreads further and further from my regional roots.

It’s been a great experience writing about Sadie and challenging myself to keep the stories together yet individual at the same time. We’re putting out two books a year, which has kept me hopping, but it’s also shown me what I’m capable of. At times, the deadlines make my head spin, and I’m in constant fear that the book I’m writing now will ruin everything. But I’m still moving forward and enjoying the ride very much.

The entire experience has been a testament of how small things—an idea to write about a homemaker, a writing contest, and the search for a new challenge—can become great things when we put the time and effort into it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the series as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Thanks for the support!