The Midsummer Feast: A Celebration, A Community… and the Perfect Crime Scene

If you give a writer a summer festival—all sunshine and celebration and communal joy—they will inevitably imagine someone dying there.

I don't make the rules. I just follow them with enthusiasm and a notebook.

(Don't blame me. Blame the vibes. Blame the fact that nothing says "prime murder opportunity" quite like a crowded event where everyone's drinking cider and pretending to like their neighbors while secretly nursing decades-old grudges.)

The Midsummer Feast & Fair in Murder at the Midsummer Feast started as a simple question: What if Cressida Vale came home to Blackvale during the town's most beloved, most chaotic, most public event of the year? What if her great-aunt Sylvia was in the middle of her annual culinary battle for the Golden Spoon? What if someone died in the most dramatic way possible—face-first in a prize-winning trifle—and suddenly the cozy summer celebration became something much darker?

What if paradise had a body count?

Two days ago, you met Vale & Stone at their very first case. Today, I want to take you deeper into the setting where it all began—the Midsummer Feast itself. Not to spoil anything (I would never), but to explore why festivals make such delicious crime scenes, and how this particular celebration shaped the entire tonal landscape of the series.

Pour yourself something cold. Maybe avoid the trifle.

Let's talk about murder at a town fair.

A Sensory Welcome to the Feast

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine this:

Early summer in the Blue Ridge foothills. The sun hanging golden and lazy in the sky, that perfect temperature where warmth feels like a gift instead of an assault. Blackvale's town square transformed into a sprawling festival—white tents billowing in the breeze, gingham tablecloths weighted down with mason jars full of wildflowers, strings of Edison bulbs waiting for dusk to make them magical.

The air smells like everything. Lilacs from the gardens surrounding the green. Roasted meats from the vendor stalls. Sugar from the pastry competition tent, where bakers guard their entries like crown jewels. Spilled soda turning sticky on the grass. That particular scent of summer celebration—sweat and flowers and ambition all mixed together.

Fireflies are just starting to drift through the meadow at the edge of the fair, little sparks of bioluminescence that make the whole thing feel enchanted. Children run between the tents with faces painted and pockets full of tickets for the game booths. Laughter rises in waves, sometimes genuine, sometimes a little too loud—like it's trying to drown out something underneath.

Music from the main stage drifts across the square. A local band playing bluegrass that makes you want to dance even if you don't know how.

It's perfect. Idyllic. The kind of small-town summer celebration that makes you nostalgic for a simpler time, even if you never actually lived through one.

And that's exactly when I knew someone had to die there.

Why Festivals Make Delicious Crime Scenes

Here's what I love about setting a murder at a community festival: it's a pressure cooker of social dynamics all happening at once.

Think about it. You've got:

Built-in crowds = built-in suspects. Everyone in town is there. Which means everyone with a motive, everyone with a secret, everyone with a grudge is walking around eating pie and trying to act normal while their internal drama is simmering just below the surface.

A hundred tiny dramas happening simultaneously. The baking competition isn't just about who makes the best tart—it's about decades of rivalry, wounded pride, and the kind of pettiness that only small-town proximity can nurture. The craft booth vendors are competing for the best spot. The town council is jockeying for visibility. Teenagers are having relationship drama near the duck pond. Old flames are running into each other at the beer tent and realizing they still have unfinished business.

The push-pull of public joy and private tension. Everyone's performing happiness. Everyone's pretending things are fine. Everyone's playing their assigned role in the town's annual celebration while nursing whatever wounds they're actually carrying. And that gap between the public face and the private reality? That's where murder lives.

Community events reveal who people pretend to be—and who they really are under pressure. They're social theater, and in theater, someone always forgets their lines.

The Midsummer Feast gave me all of this and then some. It gave me Aunt Sylvia locked in her yearly culinary duel with Mrs. Henrietta Dodd, a rivalry so epic it has its own mythology in Blackvale. It gave me townspeople who've known each other since childhood, which means they know each other's secrets, wounds, and weak spots. It gave me the perfect setting for a murder that could only happen here, in this specific community, during this specific event.

It gave me chaos wrapped in gingham.

The Aesthetic of Sunlight With a Bite

Let me tell you about the visual language of Murder at the Midsummer Feast.

Early summer light has this quality—soft and golden and generous. It makes everything look prettier than it actually is. It's forgiving light. Flattering light. The kind that makes wrought-iron garden gates look romantic instead of just old, that makes the half-timbered inns downtown look charming instead of slightly decrepit, that makes floral wreaths look fresh even when they're starting to wilt under the weight of humid air and long-held resentment.

Blackvale in midsummer is gorgeous. Blue Ridge mountains in the distance, soft and hazy. Old money estates with their manicured gardens opening to the public for the festival. The town green itself, centuries old, with trees that have witnessed every version of this celebration since the town was founded.

Everything's pretty.

Everything's hiding something.

The aesthetic I was going for is "cottagecore meets southern gothic"—and the Midsummer Feast is where those two sensibilities collide most dramatically. You've got the cozy surface: pastries and bunting and community togetherness. And you've got the gothic undercurrent: family secrets, old money corruption, the weight of history pressing down on everything.

Sunlight with a bite. Beauty with teeth.

The festival is where Blackvale shows off its best face while all its worst impulses simmer just underneath, waiting for the right moment to surface. And when Mrs. Dodd collapses face-first into her trifle, that moment arrives with spectacular, sticky drama.

Crafting the Tone: Cozy Entry, Gothic Heart

Here's the thing about Murder at the Midsummer Feast that I'm most proud of: it lures you in with warmth and then slowly—so slowly you might not notice at first—lets the shadows creep in around the edges.

The opening is cozy. Genuinely, unironically cozy. Cressida coming home to her great-aunt's boarding house, familiar rhythms of small-town life, the excitement of the annual festival. There's humor (Aunt Sylvia's competitive streak is legendary). There's comfort food. There's the sense of community that small towns do better than anywhere else.

And then someone dies.

And suddenly the same festival that felt charming starts feeling claustrophobic. The same townspeople who seemed quirky start seeming suspicious. The same cozy small-town intimacy that felt welcoming becomes oppressive—because in a place where everyone knows everyone, nobody can hide. Which also means nobody's secrets are safe.

The tonal shift mirrors what happens when you scratch the surface of any seemingly idyllic community. Underneath the charm, there's always complexity. Underneath the warmth, there's always old wounds. Underneath the celebration, there's always someone who's pretending harder than everyone else.

I won't spoil how dark things get (you'll have to read to find out), but I will say this: the Midsummer Feast is my tonal playground. It's where I get to play with the tension between cozy mystery conventions and gothic sensibilities. Where I get to ask: What happens when sunshine can't quite reach all the shadows?

The feast sets the tone for the entire Vale & Stone series. It tells readers: Yes, this will be warm and charming. And yes, it will also be unsettling and complex. Both things are true. Welcome to Blackvale.

Community as Character

One of my favorite things about writing the Midsummer Feast was realizing that the community itself is a character in this story.

Blackvale isn't just a setting—it's a living entity with memory, personality, and secrets. And a festival like the Midsummer Feast is when that entity shows all its faces at once.

Communities hold memories like old wine. Sometimes those memories are sweet—shared histories, traditions that bind people together, the comfort of knowing your place in the social fabric. Sometimes those memories are sour—grudges that have fermented over decades, betrayals that nobody's forgotten even if everyone's pretending they have, hierarchies that no amount of progressive politeness can quite dismantle.

The festival exposes all of it. The interpersonal webs. The shared history that's simultaneously strength and burden. The simmering rivalries that only exist because people have known each other forever. The unspoken loyalties that determine who gets believed, who gets protected, who gets thrown to the wolves.

When Cressida and Miles start investigating Mrs. Dodd's death, they're not just solving a murder—they're learning to read Blackvale itself. Every conversation reveals layers. Every witness has context that goes back generations. Every clue is tangled up in community dynamics that don't make sense to outsiders but are gospel truth to anyone who's lived there long enough.

The Midsummer Feast becomes a cross-section of the entire town. A moment when everyone's roles and relationships are visible all at once. Which makes it the perfect place for Vale & Stone to begin their journey—because to solve crimes in Blackvale, you first have to understand Blackvale. And nothing teaches you a community faster than investigating it during its most public celebration.

The Feast Sets the Table for Everything to Come

Here's what I want you to know about the Midsummer Feast as you read Murder at the Midsummer Feast (or if you're still deciding whether to pick it up):

This event isn't just the backdrop for the first case. It's the foundation for understanding how this series works. How Blackvale works. How Vale & Stone will navigate every mystery that comes after this one.

The feast teaches us:

• That beauty and darkness can occupy the same space

• That communities are complex ecosystems where nothing is simple

• That the cozy surface is always hiding gothic depth

• That the best mysteries happen when everyone has something to lose

• That celebration and suspicion are closer cousins than we'd like to admit

It also introduces you to the specific flavor of mystery you'll find in every Vale & Stone book: crimes that could only happen in this place, among these people, with this particular history pressing down on everything.

And it does all of this while serving you pastries, playing you bluegrass, and making you fall a little bit in love with a town that definitely has bodies buried somewhere (metaphorically speaking... mostly).

Come for the celebration. Stay for the secrets. Leave questioning everyone's jam tart.

That's the promise of the Midsummer Feast. And trust me—Blackvale keeps its promises, even when you wish it wouldn't.

Your Next Steps (Pack Your Festival Attire)

Right now:

• If you haven't grabbed Murder at the Midsummer Feast yet, now's the time! Available in ebook and paperback through Amazon.

• If you have grabbed it and you're reading: Pay attention to the festival details. Notice who's talking to whom. Watch for the moments when someone's smile doesn't quite reach their eyes. I promise, it all matters.

• Make yourself something sweet (preferably not trifle, given recent events in Blackvale)

This week:

• As you read, notice the tonal shifts—where does it feel coziest? Where do the shadows start creeping in? I'd love to hear which moments hit you hardest

• If you're loving it, share a non-spoilery reaction on social media! Tag it with #MurderAtMidsummer or #ValeAndStone

• Tell one friend who loves cozy mysteries with gothic undertones about Blackvale. Better yet, tell them while you're at a summer festival. Atmosphere is everything.

This month:

• Leave a review sharing what worked for you—did the festival setting pull you in? Did the community dynamics feel real? Did Aunt Sylvia make you laugh? Reviews help other readers find Vale & Stone

• Join the conversation here on the blog: What's your favorite summer festival or fair? Have you ever been to one that felt like it was hiding secrets? (Asking for research purposes and definitely not because I'm already plotting future books)

• Consider: If you were investigating a murder at a community event, where would you start? What would you notice first?

Here's my question for you: What's the most dramatic thing you've ever witnessed at a community festival? (Murder optional but encouraged for storytelling purposes.) Drop a comment—I'm collecting data on how festivals bring out everyone's true colors, and I promise to use this information responsibly. Or at least creatively.

May your summer celebrations be murder-free (in real life), your mysteries be perfectly atmospheric, and your desserts be untainted by suspicious ingredients.

Welcome to Blackvale. The Midsummer Feast is just the beginning.

— J.P.

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