About Iris Hale
I was a librarian for twenty years before I wrote a word of this.
I grew up two towns over from Millbrook Crossing and came back at twenty-six for a job at the county library that was supposed to last a year. It lasted until I was forty-eight.
In that time I checked out roughly every mystery published in the English language, ran the interlibrary loan desk, sat through more selectboard meetings than any person should, and listened to a small town explain itself to me one request at a time.
I started The Millbrook Mysteries in a spiral notebook the winter the library boiler failed and we all worked in our coats. The first book came out in 2021. There are three now, and a fourth that is being difficult.
Replace this with a photograph of yourself. A real one, taken outdoors, beats a studio headshot every time.
How a book gets made
Three hours, then a walk.
Five in the morning
The first three hours of the day are the only ones nobody wants anything from you. That is when the books get written, longhand, badly, and then again.
The same ridge trail
Two miles up and two back, most days, in whatever the weather is doing. Half the geography in the series is stolen from that walk, including the pull-off at the height of land.
Twenty years of listening
A librarian hears a town explain itself, one request at a time. None of the people in these books are real. Almost everything they say to each other is.
Out and about
Readings and visits
Placeholder listings. Put your real dates in here, or delete the whole section until you have one booked. An empty events page is worse than none.
| Venue | Town | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Millbrook Crossing Free Library | Millbrook Crossing, VT | TBD |
| Hartley Falls Book Barn | Hartley Falls, VT | TBD |
| Grange Hall reading and Q and A | Ashfield, MA | TBD |
| Regional library association panel | Barre, VT | TBD |
Iris will drive to Millbrook Crossing, Hartley Falls, Ashfield and Barre for a library reading, and calls in to book clubs anywhere.
Press and rights
Interviews, review copies, translation and audio.
Iris answers her own mail, so the fastest route is the form. Review copies of all three books are available for trade and library press.