Meet Author Joani Ascher
Meet fellow Wild Rose author Joani Ascher. Joani writes mysteries and historical romance, and today she shares about her hobby raising seeing eye dogs and and clever way to come up with titles for a series.
Welcome Joani Ascher…
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I live in New Jersey. That fact may not sound like much but it is a key element in being able to raise Seeing Eye dogs, something I wanted to do ever since I was in the sixth grade in Brooklyn, New York. Over the past twenty-five plus years, my family and I have raised fifteen puppies for The Seeing Eye guide dog school in nearby Morristown. It’s a wonderfully rewarding experience, although sometimes a bittersweet one, when the tiny puppy you’ve civilized is ready to go back to the school for formal training. My puppies can be seen on my website: www.Joaniascher.com.
I also work in the children’s room of a local library, ordering and processing new books. So much fun! I like to read, walk, travel, knit, do puzzles, and I watch entirely too much television.
How did you come up with the title?
Titles don’t always come easily to me. For my six-book Wally Morris cozy mystery series, I started with a thesaurus, and went through it until I found a word that spoke to my sense of what emotion a person would need to feel to commit a murder. I chose the word vengeance, and all the titles in the series are three words starting with “Vengeance.” Five books in the series were published by Avalon, now Thomas & Mercer, and I self-published the last one in the series, Vengeance Acts Up, so I could tie up Wally’s story. By the way, the protagonist was named for a former neighbor who, well into her nineties, used to take college courses. So inspiring.
My newest title is Hope’s Daughter, a historical romance published by The Wild Rose Press. Hope doesn’t actually appear in the story, but she was the mother of the main, orphaned character, whom I envisioned as a white-collar Rosie the Riveter. She took over her boss’s business while he was overseas, but when he came back, even though they’d had a close relationship, she found herself out on the street. With two mouths to feed beside her own, her struggles to survive and her love and sacrifices for those close to her, show her true integrity and courage.
How much research do you do for each book you write?
Research is so much easier to do now than it used to be. For my second Wally Morris mystery, Vengeance Tastes Sweet, I went to the Rutgers University Medical Library to look up information that, just a few years later, was easily accessible via the internet. Some of my research got me interested in pastimes I’d never heard about, for example ice fishing on Lake Champlain and elsewhere. I researched that for Vengeance Runs Cold where the desiccated body of a women was found in the closet of an old house. I also visited the Lake Champlain area to get background for my book.
My research for Hope’s Daughter included scouring reference books about the war years, looking up old magazines, and even checking whether certain records were available in the early years of the twentieth century. That last search was to verify certain points that my editor questioned. Again, the internet came through for me, especially when it came to what the fashions were in the forties and early fifties.
Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?
For Hope’s Daughter, I relied heavily on stories told to me by my mother and mother-in-law about various family members who lived mostly before my time. In trying to put names with imagined faces, I ended up with so much material in my story that I had to cut 14 percent before publication.
How did you choose the genre you write in?
I can’t honestly say that I choose the genres. It is more accurate to say the characters and story choose them, including the use of language, descriptions of atmosphere and settings, and the differences with how things were before the internet age. Although not all my books have been published, I have written stories set in the forties, the sixties, and the seventies, as well as many set in the “present,” which includes everything after the late eighties when I started trying to write for real.
Hope’s Daughter by Joani Ascher
In February 1941, Jane Baldwin has two goals—one is to become a stock broker and have her own seat on the New York Stock Exchange, something women have never done. The other is to see her sister finish college and have a good life. Meeting a man who flatters her and entices her interest changes her outlook, and she plans for the day she will wed him. Meanwhile, she is a secretary for a young man who is secretly teaching her the business of stock trading.
War rages in Europe, and Prescott Weaver, Jane’s boss, prepares to serve in the U.S. military as soon as possible. Anticipating his absence, he has Jane learn all she must know to run his office for him. Neither he nor Jane realizes how long their reliance on each other must wait before they can acknowledge the love built silently between them.
And when Jane’s world suddenly crashes, she must find a way to survive.
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Excerpt from Hope’s Daughter by Joani Ascher
From the time she entered the crowded room, Jane was unable to tear her eyes away from the speaker. He stood on the podium, above the noisy crowd, imploring them to be quiet. Lloyd Hammer, the man pictured on the flyer, held up his hands and waited for silence.
“It is vital to our country,” he shouted, “that we insist there be no involvement of either our men or our resources in this trouble in Europe.” His accent, with absent Rs, sounded strange to Jane’s New York ears, but she had no time to think about it as a roar of protest rose from the crowd.
“I have family there,” shouted one man. “We can’t ignore them.” Several people echoed his protest.
Lloyd Hammer held up his hands. “We must,” he said, as the assembled people quieted. “We have just struggled through an era of terrible poverty. We cannot and we must not risk losing what we have worked so hard to rebuild.”
Jane watched people turn to each other, questioning what they heard. She questioned it herself. The thought of ignoring the dreadful trouble in Europe went against her principles and her upbringing. Her father, while too old to have fought in the Great War, had several younger cousins who had, of whom he was exceptionally proud. It was at the wedding of one of them that he had met Hope, a woman who, even though much younger than he, shared his concern for the downtrodden of the world. From everything her father had told her, Jane could not imagine either of her parents agreeing with the man on the stage.
Yet he held her riveted, as he did so many others standing beside her.
Meet Joani Ascher
Joani Wolf Ascher was born in Brooklyn, New York, and, according to early report cards, she enjoyed reading and also writing. A prolific letter writer, back in the day when people did that sort of thing, she related detailed stories to her friends about funny occurrences. Sadly, no examples of her budding career exist.
Unfortunately she didn’t study writing at the State University of New York at Buffalo where she earned a B.A. before moving with her husband to Cincinnati, back to Buffalo, then to Cleveland, and finally to New Jersey, or her career might have started sooner.
In the Wally Morris mystery series, Joani has taken her love of mysteries and her observations of the people around her and created an amateur sleuth living in a small town whom people have compared to Jessica Fletcher.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joaniascher/
Twitter: @AscherJoani
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanitheauthor
Joani Ascher would love to hear from you and answer your questions.
Please post your comments and questions below.
I think we probably live near each other, as I live very close to Morristown as well. I love watching the dogs being trained around the Green. Good luck with your book!