About Elena Hartwell Taylor
Elena Taylor spent several years working in theater as a playwright, director, designer, and educator before turning her storytelling skills to fiction. Her first series, the Eddie Shoes Mysteries, written under the name Elena Hartwell, introduced a quirky mother/daughter crime-fighting duo.
With All We Buried, Elena returns to her dramatic roots and brings readers a much more serious and atmospheric novel. Located in her beloved Washington State, Elena uses her connection to the environment to produce a forbidding story of small town secrets and things that won’t stay buried.
Her favorite place to be is Paradise, the property she and her hubby own south of Spokane, Washington. They live with their horses, Jasper, Radar and Diggy, their dogs Polar and Wyatt and their cats Coal Train and Cocoa.
BOOKS:
Under Elena Hartwell:
One Dead, Two to Go (2023)
Two Heads are Deader than One (2023)
Three Strikes, You’re Dead (2023)
The Construction of Character (2023)
The Foundation of Plot (2022)
Under Elena Taylor:
All We Buried (2020)
Your biggest literary influencers:
Carlyn Keene, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Lee Child
What readers will take away from your books:
A complex, engaging character struggling with universal issues, wrapped in a twisty plot.
What is your ideal target audience?
Women 13+ and college educated mystery readers of all genders.
If you had to describe your book as a cross between two well-known books, what would you say?
Sheriff Longmire Meets Julia Keller’s Bitter River
The book that changed your life:
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. This book shifted from one my father read to me, to one that I read over and over to myself. I discovered that in books, all things are possible.
Tell us about the protagonist in your latest book, and who would play her or him if they made a movie out of your book?
Bet Rivers is strong, intelligent and capable, but she also isn’t sure what the right path is for her career and future, so she’s feeling off-balanced. Charisma Carpenter would make a fabulous choice to play her on the screen.
If your protagonist could befriend any character from literature, who would he or she choose?
Dr. Doolittle. When Bet’s father died, he also left her with his dog Schweitzer, and Bet is doing everything she can to become the pack leader her dog needs. She would love to be able to understand him as well as her father did.
If you could write a retelling of any book and put your own spin on it, which book would you choose and why?
I would rewrite The Tempest by William Shakespeare, but I’d write it from Miranda’s point of view. I directed a wonderful production of it years ago, and located it under the big top, with circus performers and vintage costumes. I’d like to write a novel based in part on that production.
Your favorite literary character:
This is a tough one! I think I have to go with Kinsey Millhone. Sue Grafton and her private eye taught me a lot about writing mysteries with a female protagonist. And how to make a character strong, but also vulnerable.
ARTICLES / REVIEWS:
Testimonials
” In this seductive mystery Sheriff Bet Rivers homecoming to Lake Collier after the death of her father raises secrets as deep and cold as the glacial lake in which the body of a young woman is found.
- Nina Sadowsky, author of The Burial Society and The Empty Bed
” A lifeless lake, a floating corpse, a small-town sheriff trying to make her mark, ALL WE BURIED is a gripping mystery about memory and the dark secrets we can’t leave behind. Fast-paced and impeccably plotted, the story keeps you guessing as it sinks ever deeper into the community’s troubled past. A late-night read that mystery lovers will devour.
- Lili Wright, author of Edgar-nominated Dancing with the Tiger
” Let’s hope this is the start of a long-lived series!
- Jenny Milchman, USA Today bestselling author of Cover of Snow and Wicked River