What’s Happening…

I keep reminding myself that Powers of Death is still months from release—but tell that to my imagination!

Picture Sabina’s next mystery cover—what do you see? Email hello@liisaeyerly.com

✍️ Author Lingo: What’s a Trope?

A “trope” is a recurring theme, idea, or storytelling device that readers instantly recognize—like a familiar pattern woven through books, movies, or shows. Tropes are the ‘building blocks’ of storytelling, but what makes them shine is how creatively an author uses (or twists) them.

In my Secrets of Ephesus mysteries, for example, I play with the “clever female sleuth” trope—only mine happens to be a ‘first-century Christian woman’ navigating the intrigues of Roman society. That historical and spiritual angle gives the familiar trope a fresh, distinctive twist.

Here are a few tropes you’ll find in Powers of Death:

• The Reluctant Sleuth – An ordinary person drawn into solving a crime out of necessity or conscience.
• Forbidden Knowledge – Secrets, scrolls, or “dangerous truths” that could upend lives if revealed.
• The Innocent Accused – Someone falsely blamed, driving the sleuth to seek justice
• The Inconvenient Love Interest
• Jealous Relative/Greedy Nephew

New Recommended Mystery Author

Adelia Aguilar is a rare thing in medieval Europe – a woman who has trained as a doctor. Her specialty is the study of corpses, a skill that must be concealed if she is to avoid accusations of witchcraft. But in Cambridge, a child has been murdered, others are disappearing, and King Henry has called upon a renowned Italian investigator to find the killer – fast. What the king gets is Adelia, his very own Mistress of the Art of Death.

I loved it!!! I listened to it on audio, and the narrator was excellent.