Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter write the Pampered Pets mystery series together under the names of their two rescue pets--Sparkle (ML's cat) and Abbey (Anita’s dog).
Mary Lee Salsbury Woods is the "Sparkle" half of Sparkle Abbey. She is the founding president of Sisters in Crime--Iowa and a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Kiss of Death, the RWA Mystery Suspense chapter, Sisters in Crime, and the SinC internet group Guppies.
Anita Carter is the “Abbey” half of Sparkle Abbey. She is President of Sister’s In Crime–Iowa and is also a member of Mystery Writers of America and Kiss of Death the RWA Mystery Suspense chapter.
Hi Mary Lee! Hi Anita! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
Hi, Diane! Thanks so much for inviting us.
Please share with everyone how you came up with the name Sparkle Abbey?
Because we co-write the Pampered Pets mystery series, our publisher asked us to use a pen name. After considering several combinations of our names, none of which really worked; we came up with the idea of using our pets’ names. Sparkle is Mary Lee’s cat and Abbey is Anita’s dog. We have other pets so our pen name could have potentially been Chewbacca Matisse. :-)
Sparkle, please share how you came up with the name Pampered Pets for your series?
Our series is set in Laguna Beach, California. A beautiful community and truly one of the most pet-friendly places on the planet. The main characters in our
series, Caro Lamont and Melinda Langston are cousins and are former Texas beauty queens who have relocated to Laguna where they work with some very pampered pets. Caro is a pet therapist and Mel owns Bow Wow, a pet boutique.
When you're deeply connected and immersed in a book, Sparkle, have you ever had a dream that you felt was not your dream?
While we’ve had some strange dreams (involving penguins no less--and Eagles, the rock band not the bird, and Matthew McConaughey), we’ve not had dreams we felt didn’t belong to us. Those bizarre dreams may be a result of our very
active imaginations, or perhaps sleep deprivation while on deadline. Or too much Starbucks.
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