Please help me welcome today’s guest, Susie Black…
Please tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you live now? Family? Pets?
SUSIE: I am originally from New Jersey, but have spent the lion’s share of my life in Southern California. I’ve been married to the same man for 44 years, and he still makes me laugh every day. We have one adult son who is a linguistic psychologist and lives overseas. No pets now. Losing them was just too painful.
Where did you get the idea for The Forecast is…Murder!
SUSIE: I live in the California desert. One of the local news station investigative reporters I follow had recently relocated to Palm Springs from New Jersey and was quite vocal regarding the challenge of acclimating to our severe weather. Naturally, I pondered, “What if?” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Why did you choose this genre? Is it something you’ve written in before?
SUSIE: I chose to write in the cozy mystery genre because I love solving puzzles. To date, I have published 1 non-cozy prequel to the cozies, 9 cozy mysteries, and cozy number 10 will be released in October of this year for a total of 11 published books.
Was there anything unusual, any anecdote about this book, the characters, title, process, etc, you’d like to share?
SUSIE: Writing a murder mystery that featured weather as a main character with a life of its own was an interesting challenge.
What is the most difficult thing about writing a book?
SUSIE: I am a champ at writing a great beginning and a blockbuster ending, but the “mushy middle” of the plot always gives me heartburn. To avoid getting trapped in the mushy middle, I write the beginning and ending, but allow the characters to direct the middle. However, they know if they screw it up, I take over, and there is a chance one of them will either be written out of the story or killed off. So, they are motivated to do a great job, and they absolutely, positively CANNOT change the ending.
What was the most difficult thing about this one in particular?
SUSIE: Writing how weather, both positively and negatively, impacted the murder investigation.
Are there any tricks, habits, or superstitions you have when creating a story?
SUSIE: Some writers plot their stories while driving, some while in the shower. I plot all mine while walking a 5-mile regimen during the day. I am a night owl, so the writing itself comes after dark. I always have a cup of strong, black coffee on my writing desk next to the computer and only drink out of my lucky mug that my Nana gave me when I first got into the swimwear industry. The mug says: “Things could be worse…we could be trying on swimsuits.” When I am finished with a writing session, at the end of the paragraph or chapter I stopped at, I write myself an instruction for what comes next at that spot in the manuscript.
Do you collect anything?
SUSIE: Yes. Since I was a teenager, I have been an avid stamp collector. I have incorporated this hobby into the protagonist’s persona in The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. I learned valuable storytelling techniques that I used in my mysteries from the wonderful stamp dealer from my youth who had a story about every stamp I purchased from him.
What’s the main thing that you could get rid of in your life that would give you more writing time?
SUSIE: My cell phone, the internet, and all social media.
What’s your favorite book of all time and why?
SUSIE: The Diary of Anne Frank. This book spoke to me as no other book ever has. Anne Frank was a teenager living in mortal danger who still had dreams, plans, and desires that any kid her age would. Her positive outlook on life despite her circumstances changed the way I looked at life, my values, and what was important to me. She would have been amazed at the impact she had on so many people like me.
What’s your favorite childhood book?
SUSIE: My favorite childhood books were the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. I credit these two series with introducing me to puzzle-solving, which eventually led to writing cozy mysteries.
Would you rather have a bad review or no review?
SUSIE: I would rather have a bad review than no review. As a sales exec, I learned that you can’t always please everyone. I also learned to accept rejection and that I would learn more from my failures than I would from my successes. I try to learn something from the criticism and turn a negative review into a positive by improving my writing and not repeating the same mistake in another manuscript.
What is your favorite quote?
SUSIE: I have two: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” “God put our heads on facing forward for a reason.”
What do you want your tombstone to say?
SUSIE: The End.
What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
SUSIE: “If you can say it in five words, she says it in twenty.”
What has been the best compliment?
SUSIE: “I stayed up all night reading your book. I simply could not go to sleep and not know what happened next.”
Your favorite…
Movie: Some Like It Hot
Music: Oldies rock ‘n roll: The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Elvis.
Place you’ve visited: a tie between Cancun, Mexico, and Tahiti.
Place you’d like to visit: Alaska
TV show from childhood: Captain Kangaroo
TV show from Adulthood: a tie between MASH and All in the Family
Food: Pizza
Sports Team: LA Dodgers
Which do you prefer: Board games/card games or television?
Board games.
Nothing turns out the way you think it will
Blurb:
The United Television Network exiles disgraced investigative reporter Sunny Knight to a remote California desert affiliate. Sunny is informed by the station owner that, since nothing happens in the middle of nowhere, the station does not need an investigative reporter, and she is now the weather reporter. After they have a vicious altercation, the station owner’s bridge partner is discovered dead, and Sunny’s boss is arrested for the murder. Despite her differences with her boss, Sunny is convinced that the station owner didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But with a clown car full of viable suspects to investigate, will Sunny bring the right one to justice or become their next victim?
Excerpt:
A stately woman in her mid-sixties opened the door and strode purposefully into the office. Around three inches shorter than me, she carried her rail-thin frame regally—shoulders back, head held high, chin jutted out. A ramrod posture that screamed confidence, control, and power. She wore an expensive-looking sand-colored gauze pantsuit embellished with an embroidered trim and beige macrame sandals with two-inch heels. She styled her salt-and-pepper hair in an upsweep. A jeweled gold comb held the hairdo in place. She sported a set of piercing, steely, wide-set gray eyes that could cut you down to size with a glare that was set above a patrician nose. Her only make-up was a stripe of blood-red lipstick slashed across thin, turned-down lips.
“Mister Durbin,” she glared at Jock and barked in a gravelly voice that sounded as if she gargled with razor blades. “Has the new weather girl managed to grace us with her presence yet?” She tapped the face of a diamond-encrusted watch. “Time is money. And I don’t cotton to anyone wasting either of mine. She must be brought up to speed immediately to take over the eleven o’clock spot tonight.” She drew her lips into a tight, thin line. “The giggly bimbo morning program co-anchor you’ve been using to pinch hit simply won’t do for another segment. The birdbrain is unable to read off of a teleprompter properly, let alone tell the difference between a barometer and a thermometer.”
A nasty sense of superiority coursed through my veins. Then a surprising stab of pity pierced my heart for the poor soul stuck in such a dead-end job.
Jock beamed a hundred-thousand-watt smile at the crabby woman and swept an arm towards me. “Mrs. McClintock,” he purred sweetly as a lover, “Allow me to introduce you to Nelly Dean Knight, our new weather reporter.”
Wait. What? Weather reporter? Who? Me?
She turned her head to follow Jock’s hand as his index finger pointed to me. Mrs. McClintock blinked as she noticed me for the first time.
She eyed me up and down as though examining a head of cattle at an auction. She glanced at Jock’s Hawaiian shirt and rolled her eyes. She clucked her tongue. “At least this one came to work dressed properly…”
She jabbed her right hand out like a fencing sword, clamped her slightly gnarled fingers tightly over mine, and gave my hand a solid shake. “Edwina McClintock. Head honcho of this establishment.”
She let go of my hand and swept hers across the room. “To save us both a lot of time and aggravation, here’s how it works around my shop. I run a tight ship. I don’t put up with crap from anyone…so, don’t even try wasting my time. Show up when you’re supposed to. Come to work prepared. Do your job right. Around here, it’s my way or the highway. Follow my rules, and we’ll get along fine. If not, you and the little still left of your broadcasting career will be history faster than you can say Cactus City.” She narrowed her eyes. “We clear?”
Clear? As mud. Who the hell does she think she’s talking to?
Jock’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars as I snatched my resume off his desk and slapped it into her age-spotted hands.
She glanced at the cover page and shrugged. “So?”
I spoke through gritted teeth. “So, if you bothered to read my resume, you’d see I am an award-winning investigative reporter, not a weather girl, as you disrespectfully referred to me. I dunno who’s supposed to take that dead-end job, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”
Mrs. McClintock narrowed her eyes and studied me curiously, as if I were a newly discovered species.
If the old bat thought she’d intimidate me with her stare-down tactic, she had another thing coming. If you grow up in a house of five kids, you’d better stand up for yourself, or the others will walk all over you.
I tapped my toe impatiently.
Seconds before I was out the door and on my way back to New Jersey, she rolled my resume into a cylinder and smacked it across my arm. She grinned impishly. “You have spunk and guts, young lady. Good on you. I like it.”
She jabbed an index finger into her chest. “You remind me of myself back in the day.”
She tipped her head. “So, here’s the thing. I don’t need an investigative reporter. Truthfully, not enough goes on out here in the middle of nowhere to investigate.” The corners of her downturned lips quirked into a faraway smile. “Mr. McClintock won this station in a poker game twenty-five years ago, and he treated it like a hobby. After he passed, I kept the station for sentimental reasons, but once I chose to hold onto it, I ran it as a business, not a toy.”
She pointed to Jock. “I made the deal with the network under the proviso I’d only be sent the cream of the crop who’d screwed up.” She waved my rolled resume like a baton. “The network sends me every candidate’s resume. Contrary to popular opinion, you weren’t forced down my throat. I could have rejected you, but instead I chose to select you. Why? Because you have a brain and a moral compass—a rarity in the broadcast biz.”
She pointed to a window. “Mr. McClintock and I made our money in the date business. If your fortune depends on the weather, you’d better pay close attention to it and learn to anticipate Mother Nature’s wrath and respect it, or you’ll go broke in the blink of an eye.”
She shook the resume at me. “We can do each other some good. You need a way back into the industry, which I can provide, and I need someone who understands the importance of accuracy in reporting.”
I said, “If the weather reporter is such a critical job, shouldn’t it go to a trained meteorologist?”
She dipped her head. “A reasonable assumption…thirty years ago. Now, thanks to modern technology, a reporter pulls all the information right from the US Weather Service website.”
I grinned. “You don’t need to pay a reporter for the job. Nancy, the receptionist, is qualified. How hard is it to say it’s going to be beastly hot today and a little less hot tonight?”
She steepled her fingers as though she were in prayer. “Lives and livelihoods depend on the weather in this little corner of the world. The key to the job is the way you explain the forecast to our viewers and its meaning to their lives.” She pursed her lips. “You can maximize the importance of any position by the way you approach it. Why not use your investigative skills to go into the field and report how our severe and often unpredictable weather impacts the residents and the economy? Don’t discount the job for a single minute. The weather reporter is critically important to the community we serve.”
The madame missed her métier. She should have gone into sales.
I arched a brow. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, say I agree there’s more to the job than meets the eye. Show me the compensation package.”
Jock handed her a manila folder. She opened it and pushed a sheet of paper over to me.
I scanned it and burst out laughing. I stood and held out my hand. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll make a lot more as a mortuary cosmetician.”
Mrs. McClintock wrinkled her nose. “Good grief. Talk about a grim career choice. That one wins the gold medal.”
I grinned. “Grim, yes, but since death is inevitable, you’re never out of work.”
Mrs. McClintock took a pencil from Jock’s desk and put the sheet of paper between us. “Before you go, just to be sure you understand how much you’re walking away from, let’s go over the offer sheet in detail.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go over it all you want, but the numbers don’t lie. You’re offering a salary of $26,000 a year gross before taxes. How you expect me to live on it is a mystery. I earned double the salary in Newark.”
She nodded. “I did my homework. For a single person to live modestly in Newark, the normal minimum annual income is $46,000. In the first place, the cost of living here is a lot lower than in Newark. But putting that aside, if you don’t focus on the salary and consider the benefits we include, then this offer is quite generous.”
Mrs. McClintock tapped the pencil eraser on the offer sheet. “We offer company-paid health and dental insurance and a non-taxable pension plan that we match dollar for dollar. We offer free housing to our broadcast staff. For a single woman, we provide a furnished two-bedroom two-bath Spanish-style hacienda with utilities, including air conditioning, that you live in rent-free. Trust me, the power bill alone would eat up the lion’s share of your take-home salary. This is a turnkey, professionally decorated home. Just show up with your toothbrush. Our staff also enjoys a generous discount at the supermarket and pharmacy I own here in town.”
She pushed the offer sheet closer to me. “Remember, Ms. Knight, it’s not how much you earn, it’s how much you keep.” She grinned. “And let’s face it, I don’t care how much money they pay you; this is a helluva lot better gig compared to preparing corpses for funerals.”
She had me there.
Buy links:
https://books2read.com/u/3GBDzQ
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Forecast-Murder-Sunny-Knight-Mystery/dp/B0HCRVJ2N9/ref=sr_1_1?
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-forecast-ismurder-susie-black/1150958320?
iBooks: The Forecast is…Murder! by Susie Black on Apple Books
Smashwords: The Forecast is…Murder!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/256383661-the-forecast-is-murder
Contact : E-mail: mysteries.authorsusieblack@gmail.com
A Bit About the Author: Susie Black’s biography
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, multi-award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. She has published ten books in five years, and book eleven is slated for release in October 2026. She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and devoted sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and is the mother of one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Susie Black Social Media Links:
Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
Facebook: Susie Black, author of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series | Facebook
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries
Instagram: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/
Substack: Substack Home -Susie Black
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@author_susie_black_
X: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) / X
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/susieblackwritescozies
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21437641.Susie_Black
Website: Susie Black | Substack
