Guest post with Stephanie Hayes

When I spotted this book cover, I just had to reach out to the author and find out more about it's genius title! So I'm absolutely delighted to be handing the blog over to Stephanie Hayes...

I never thought I’d find myself writing obituaries for a living, and yet, there I was. A maven of death. As a journalist working at an inspiring, competitive newspaper, I wanted to get ahead. I wanted to challenge myself and write stories that mattered to people. And in that moment, obits happened to be the available job. I took a gamble on it, and my next year and half writing life stories of the dead for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) not only taught me invaluable lessons as a journalist, it gave me a fun idea for a novel.

What if an obit writer accidentally killed someone, then had to write about the person? What would she do?
That idea became Obitchuary.

I love being a journalist, and have done the job faithfully for 11 years now. But since I was very young I’ve had big dreams of being a fiction writer. I’d started several projects over the years, but nothing flowed the way it flowed when I started crafting the tale of young obit writer Penny Perkins. In the first scene, we find that Penny is standing over a man’s body in the parking lot of her cheap apartment complex, having just brandished a bottle of cheap wine – Misty Mangoberry Merlot – atop his head. By all accounts, her date is dead. This is very inconvenient for Penny, as she writes about dead people for a living.
It sends Penny into an investigation of her date’s life, with the help of an unlikely romantic interest. She learns more seedy truths than she ever cared to learn, all while trying to cover her tracks at work and with her nosy family. It’s a mix of mystery and modern, unvarnished chick lit with a lot of humor set against the unfailingly sweaty backdrop of Florida.
You wanted to know about the title? It just sailed into my head one day over breakfast while I was still writing the book. I chuckled. I couldn’t. Could I? I couldn’t. But maybe. Sure, I could. Ultimately, I decided to go with it. It was a little crass, but then, so is Penny. And at least readers know a bit of what they’re in for.

For more information, visit stephinfections.com

WOW Stephanie you're a genius! I love, love, love this idea behind this book!