Colleen Cambridge Interview: For the Readers
Interview Conducted by Loviisa Pasternak
I was thrilled to sit down with Colleen Cambridge, the author of the historical mystery series An American in Paris. In this section of the interview, we discuss readerly questions, mostly regarding the third book in the series, A Fashionably French Murder, which comes out on April 29th, 2025. Prior to this interview, I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please keep an eye out for the second half of our interview, which is coming soon! In it, we discuss Colleen’s writing process and publishing experience.
Femmage Zine: Thank you so much for being here, Colleen! I am so excited to chat with you. I really enjoyed this series and could fangirl for ages over my favorite moments that range from blood-chilling to heart-warming. I get absolutely sucked into the mysteries, but also am so deeply invested in Tabitha’s relationships with her friends and, of course, the enigmatic inspector! However, for the sake of this interview, I think I should hold myself back and try to prioritize brevity. So, if you were to describe this series in 10 words or less, a sentence or two, whatever feels right, how would you pitch it to a new reader?
Colleen Cambridge: A former Rosie-the-Riveter moves to Paris to live with her grandfather after the Second World War, meets another expat who is named Julia Child, and the two of them keep finding dead bodies all over Paris. That's how I would pitch it. While Julia is trying to teach Tabitha how to cook, Tabitha is trying to catch a killer.
Femmage Zine: Their relationship is absolutely one of my favorite things about this series. But you also include so many other amazing details, whether it's Parisian history, cooking, wine—fashion in this most recent installment—the detail that you include really brings these stories to life. I know you touched upon this in your author's note, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about what the process is like researching for these books.
Colleen Cambridge: When I first started working on the series, I didn't really know a lot about Julia Child or what post-occupation Paris was like. So I started with the basics, like, what was it like living in Paris in 1949—the first book takes place in the summer of 1949—and what was Julia Child like at that time? I started by reading Julia's autobiography, My Life in France, and then I did research on postwar Paris—there are a lot of books about that, which is great. There are memoirs, nonfiction, history books—all sorts of resources.
So, the first book is really building the macro-world. But as you mentioned, as the series has gone on, I'm getting more micro-world, focusing on a certain topic in each book. For the second book, I did a lot of research on what the French did to protect their wines from the Germans during the Second World War. There's an entire book called Wine and War, which I used for a lot of the specifics that I put in that book.
For the most recent one, the one that's coming out in April, A Fashionably French Murder, I did a lot of research on haute couture, then I also read part of Dior's memoir. I also read a memoir by a woman who was a mannequin (a fashion show model) for one of the big names—Chanel, I think. I got a lot of details, down to how they did their make up, which was very specific for mannequins.
So it's just it's a matter of doing a deep dive. It generally turns out that, for each book, I find something to do a deep dive on, while I'm further developing the macro-world at the same time. So to answer your question, I started with the basics, and now, as the series goes on and I get to know the world and the characters, I look for more details to deeply develop.
I've written during the Civil War, I've written during the 1930s, I've written during the 1820s. One of my favorite things about writing during this time period is that there are a lot of photographs, which means I can look at a photograph of a street that I'm describing and know what it looked like, or I can look at photographs of what people are wearing and know what they look like. That's a unique and specific way of doing research, as opposed to just reading what someone else wrote about a time period. Whenever I can get a photograph, that's always helpful as well.
Femmage Zine: Your settings are so vivid, and I love all of the detail that goes into them. Going further in that direction, what was your initial inspiration or inspirations when writing this latest installment? Was it the murder itself, a character, Parisian fashion, what was the element you started with that blossomed into this wonderful story?
Colleen Cambridge: Well, two things. First, this is the third book in the series. The first book was, like I said, the set-up of Paris after the Second World War. The second book, as you know, dealt with wine, which is such a part of the French national psyche. It seemed an obvious next step would be to go to fashion because, at that time, France had to wrest back from London and New York the title of fashion capital of the world. There was a possibility of them losing that title because of the occupation. With Dior coming on the scene in ‘47, it really was an amazing time for French fashion. That was the reason that I chose to focus on the fashion world in this particular book. It’s so inherently French.
The second thing is that, for just about every murder mystery that I write, I start with the murder. I start with a body, found somewhere, killed a certain way. That's always how my ideas start. For this one, I knew I had to kill somebody in a haute couture fashion house. In the first book, I had to kill somebody within Julia Child's sphere so that I could drag her and Tabitha into the mystery. The second book is all about wine, so I had to kill somebody by having them drink poisoned wine. For me, the kernel, the genesis, the seed of the story is always the murder. I may not even know who the victim was. I almost never know the whodunnit when I first start writing. But I always know the murder, and that's how I build the story.
Femmage Zine: That’s amazing. Expanding on that, without any major spoilers, I would love to know: what was your favorite part of writing this latest installment?
Colleen Cambridge: I have two favorite scenes. The first, when Grandpère and Oncle Rafe are looking at redecorating the restaurant, and they’ve had this huge argument. Tabitha walks into the restaurant, and Grandpère is on the ladder, and he's maybe eighty-some years old. She's like, “Oh my God, get down from there!” Grandpère and Oncle Rafe are bickering back and forth, and she's trying to field them. I thought it was a blast, writing that scene.
I also like the scene where she and Merveille go to have cassoulet at a little bistro. It’s a time when they get to actually spend time together without him being too much of a cop and her getting in his way. I like that scene a lot.
I'm sorry to say, and it's not for any reason in particular, that it wasn't any of the scenes with Julia that popped into my head. Maybe because she's a real person, I’m always a little on tenterhooks when writing those scenes. I can't tell you how many people I've run into through the course of promoting the series who've said to me, “Oh, I met Julia,” or “Oh, I knew Julia.” I love writing those scenes as well, but there's always a little sense of don't screw this up because people knew her and can still watch her on TV or read a biography. So, those are fun to write, but I don't always feel as free in those scenes as I do when writing only my fictional characters, if that makes sense.
Femmage Zine: That completely makes sense! And I think that actually leads into my next question really well. What was the biggest challenge that you faced while writing this book? Was it the scenes with Julia or something else?
Colleen Cambridge: Oh, no, I don’t mean to give the impression that writing the scenes with Juila is difficult! It’s funny, because I sort of hear her in my head as she’s going around the kitchen. But there are two challenges. One is specific to those kitchen scenes, but there was another scene that was probably even more challenging. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But first, the scenes that I'm writing with Julia and Tabitha in the kitchen are challenging in the sense that I always need to find something for Julia to cook, so I can explain what she's doing, so it can be a lesson for the reader and for Tabitha, but the scene also needs to allow them to discuss the mystery or whatever else is going on. Those scenes can be complicated—though, hopefully they don't feel complicated—because there's a lot going on and the whole cooking element is so important to the series and to Julia.
A lot of the time, I actually write the dialogue about the mystery in those scenes first, and then go back later and figure out what Julia is cooking. Because remember, in the third book, it's February in Paris. They can't just go to their local Publix or Kroger and get whatever they want. They could get many things, but there was a limitation. While I’m writing, I’m trying to think, Okay, what can they cook? What's in season? What makes sense? What's not going to be too distracting? What's also going to be of interest to an American reader nowadays? I can tell you that a lot of her recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking aren’t ones that many American people would want to cook now, like veal. Anyway, those scenes are challenging because of all the moving parts.
But I think the scene in this book that was probably the hardest for me to write was the one with Christian Dior. I felt like he had to be in the book at some point, especially since he was accused of murder in the first couple scenes, but I wasn't sure what to do with him. That was a challenging scene because I had to present a real character, whom I didn't know as much about as I do Julia, and make him stay in his lane. He is a fashion designer, so he's not going to be doing anything else. That was probably the most challenging scene, which isn't a very long scene for that reason.
Femmage Zine: Well, for whatever my opinion is worth, I thought the scene with Dior excellently fed back into that dynamic that you mentioned earlier with Grandpère and Oncle Rafe. Having Dior step in and smooth things over a little between the messieurs, I thought was such a perfect role to have him fill.
Colleen Cambridge: Good, that's good! I probably put this in the acknowledgements in the author’s note at the end, but all the frocks and gowns that were shown during the Dior fashion show were real. They were the real dresses that Dior made for that season. So if you look up the names, you'll find those actual dresses. That was fun, too. I had to find what he did for that spring/summer season, and those were the frocks and the gowns that I used.
Femmage Zine: Oh, I love that! And I also love that, among the dresses that actually existed, there was such a perfect dress for Tabitha. That worked out wonderfully.
Colleen Cambridge: Did you pick the one that she bought?
Femmage Zine: Oh, for sure! The way it was described, I felt it fit her so perfectly. My next question is, while I myself am partial to Madame X and Monsieur Oscar Wilde (the cat and dog belonging to Oncle Rafe and Grandpère, respectively) do you have a favorite character, or is that kind of like asking you to choose a favorite child?
Colleen Cambridge: It is like asking me to choose a favorite child! They are all my favorite characters, just for different reasons. Grandpère and Oncle Rafe kind of sprang onto the page fully-formed. They are who they are, and I just love writing them. And I think their pets have their own personalities. I also love Inspector Merveille. I think he's very fun and interesting. I mean, I can't pick a favorite here. I really can't. I like Tabitha because she is what I would want to be, if I were an amateur detective and finding dead bodies all the time. I would want to do the sorts of things that she does in the way she does them, sometimes not making the right decision or the best decision, but doing it always for the best reasons.
Femmage Zine: Tabitha is such an approachable character for us, the readers, to see the story through. It makes her a really great POV character. Speaking of readers, we always love the reveal that happens at the end of mystery books. Along those lines, do you ever surprise yourself while you're writing, whether with a clue, a character action, a piece of dialogue, that even you weren't expecting yourself to write?
Colleen Cambridge: Constantly, because I do not plot my books. I started writing stories in middle school, I wrote all through high school, not as much during college, but then, I picked up writing again because I wanted to read a certain kind of book, and nobody was writing it. I was writing for myself. Still, to this day, when I write a book, I'm writing for myself as a reader, so I do not block my books out. When I'm writing a scene, anything can happen. I may go into the scene going, “Okay, they need to find the body in this scene,” or “Okay, they need to find a clue in this scene.” But I don't necessarily know how that's going to happen. Very many times I will just be writing, and I'll put in some detail, which, in the moment, is just a descriptive detail, but then, later in the book, I'll realize how it ties in. It's like my subconscious knows that a detail is going to be important later on. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but it happens all the time, so I just go with it.
Femmage Zine: Oh, that is amazing. I’m going to dig deeper on that when we get into the writer section of the interview, if you don't mind, but, for now, as a reviewer and a beta reader, I’m always interested to know who an author gives their work to first. So, who was the first person that got to read A Fashionably French Murder? Was it a family member, critique partner, editor—who gets the honor of that very first read?
Colleen Cambridge: My sister. My sister has been my beta reader for years. When I first started writing, even after I sold my first book, which came out in ‘07, I had a critique group. That group doesn’t exist anymore, and I've written enough books—sixty-some of them—that I generally have a pretty good handle on how to structure something, how to keep a plot moving, all that stuff. I have two people who generally will read my books prior to my editor. My editor is the only one whose opinion really matters at the end of the day, but my sister always reads first—and she is tough, which is good. Then, I have a friend who will also read most of the time. They are both very widely read.
Femmage Zine: That’s so fun! So many folks on Bookstagram beta read, so I thought that would be a fun question to ask. Next, no pressure, but can you give us any hints about the fourth book, whether that's roughly when we can expect it, any themes, any new or returning settings or characters, anything at all that we can kind of be looking forward to?
Colleen Cambridge: I’m working on it right now! It'll come out a year from this April, so April 2026. It is called In the Spirit of French Murder, and there’s a whole underlying element of supernatural spooky eeriness to it. In this book, I'm deep-diving into some of the strangeness in an old city like Paris, particularly in the Latin quarter, which is the oldest part of Paris. It's where the medieval scholars live, right by the river, and there are all these fascinating stories about weird things that happen there. It's very interesting. I was trying to find a good ghost story to use as a basis, but there aren’t a lot of haunted things or places in Paris. Instead, with its age and traditions, Paris just has a weird eeriness that has seeped into the bones, the bricks, the limestone of the city. Weird stuff happens. I also get a little bit into what it was like working for the resistance in Paris during the war. Those two things are kind of tied together in this book.
Femmage Zine: The eeriness sounds great, and I'd love to learn more about the resistance, so I’ll be looking forward to that! But I also know that you have a vast backlist for readers to explore. So, I'm wondering, for those of us who just can't wait for the next book in this series, which of your other titles would you recommend we pick up next?
Colleen Cambridge: I’ve written another series for Kensington Books, called the Phyllida Bright series. It's set in 1930s England, and the main character is Agatha Christie’s housekeeper, so anyone who is an Agatha Christie fan or who likes the consummate British murder mystery—all the stuff you see at Brit Box or Acorn TV—this is the series for you.
The other series I want to mention is not a mystery series, but it is, I think, really relevant to what's hot in the market, especially on Instagram and TikTok. That is my very first series, which is Gardella Vampire Hunters. It’s basically if Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a Bridgerton. The main character finds out that she is from a family of vampire hunters. She basically has to figure out how she's going to go to balls and meet a husband, while staking vampires all the time. It's very similar to a lot of the romantic books that are doing well right now, from the strong heroine, relationships with love interests, how she deals with evil, the choices she makes, and all of that.
Femmage Zine: That sounds awesome. And, of course, anything compared to Bridgerton is an immediate yes, please from Instagram! Those are two great options for readers to check out.