Hello and Welcome All!
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Carmen Radtke author of Funerals & Familiars.
Hi Carmen, thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Who inspired you to become a writer?

I’ve always been a reader. I taught myself to read before I started school because every night, when my dad came home, he’d first read the paper. Obviously, there was something special inside, to be more important than us kids. (Now I know it was just a little bit of peace and self care 😆)

Then he brought home an ancient typewriter for me when I was seven! Those keys were hard to move, but I could write my own stories. Early attempts at terrible poetry and a short mystery about stolen diamonds followed. None of them still exist, but I assume they’re no loss for literature.

Watching All The President’s Men and His Girl Friday decided it for me. I became a journalist. Even when I switched to fiction, I used true events and tons of research as my starting point. I still do, no matter if it’s about historical background or Wicca.

What types of scenes are your most favorite to write?

Witty dialogue! And I’m fond of planting small nuggets of information. My favorite scenes in hindsight are those that move or surprise me when I read them again after a decent break. I’ve written mysteries where I’d forgotten the solution, but it made perfect sense on re-reading!

Do you work with an outline, or just write?

My first few mysteries were written with an outline that only existed in my head. These days, I’m older and wiser (and more forgetful) and write down at least a page! I always know the what, the why, and the who. Secondary characters tend to pop up uninvited as I write, and sometimes the notes are a little too cryptic to be of any use.

I’ve never been able to write to a template. Every story evolves at its own rhythm. But I prefer to develop the world before there’s a murder.

What do you do when you are not writing?

Spoil my cat, go for walks, chat online with friends (I’m currently in Italy, which sadly means long distance friendships!), watch tv and read. Although when I’m at crucial parts in my own writing, I only re-read some of my favorites, so I won’t be too distracted.

What are some books you have enjoyed recently?

• Mrs. Claus Saves Christmas by Mona Marple
• The Body in 3B by Eryn Scott
• Paws, Claws and Curses by Deanna Drake
• Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Give us insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?

Bex Merriweather’s completely turning her life around after a divorce at 48! Of course, inheriting witchy powers, complete with a feline familiar, and a leading library helps to make this new chapter in her life special.

Cat Cosmo doesn’t just train her. He makes sure that Bex takes her new duties as good witch and guardian of Willowmere seriously. That includes baking magical treats as a therapy but also solving crimes. Bex is lucky enough to have returned to her hometown and to friends who love and support her unconditionally.

Watching her master witchcraft, find out when to interfere and when to keep her nose out of other people’s affairs, and how to embrace her new chapter is hopefully as fun to read about as it was to write it! Anyone with a cat in their life will also appreciate Cosmo’s importance.

I think even without witchy powers Bex would be special. She’s caring, resilient, and has enough good sense to let go off old grudges and embrace her new self.

How did you come up with the concept and the characters for the story?

This is going to sound really weird! Funerals and Familiars exists because almost two years ago, I fell in love with a set of covers with a witch and a black cat. I snapped them up and put them aside. Instead, I wrote the Genie and Adriana Darling series, with a pet-whispering Ghost sidekick. (It will continue!)

But I still had those covers and a vague idea, when I received an invitation to join a paranormal women’s fiction book club and impulsively said yes. A week later, I had the characters, the general plot, and a deadline! The current cover is a new one, by the way. The set that is responsible for sparking the Willowmere mysteries is still sitting in a folder. 😂

Who was your favorite character to write about?

Cosmo! I adore my beautiful tuxedo cat, but nothing and nobody will ever make me stop missing two black cats who stole my heart in the blink of an eye. Naturally, Cosmo is his own character, but he’s also a love letter to McCoy and Star.

Also, since he’s a cat with powers, it’s much easier not to be envious. I wouldn’t mind swapping with Bex now and then …

Readers should read this book if they like found family & magical second chances, witty talking cats, bookish sleuths, and the idea that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.

Funerals and Familiars

(A Cozy Midlife Witch Mystery)
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Oregon
by Carmen Radtke

Midlife can be murder – or magic…

Almost fifty and freshly divorced, Bex Merriweather is going through The Change – battling hot flashes and night sweats. Little does she realize that when an elderly relative dies and leaves her a lending library in sleepy Willowmere, complete with cat, her whole life is going to change…

Turns out Aunt Violet left behind more than books and home-made herbal teas, like full-blown witch powers, and a small town where murder is very much on the menu. Even Cosmo the cat is no ordinary feline, but a sassy talking familiar. And when rumors about her aunt’s death begin to circulate, Bex has no choice but to embrace her witchy inheritance, and her inner detective.

Now the novice witch, armed only with her circle of lifelong friends and a snarky, judgemental cat mentor, must uncover the truth, before her newly acquired magical life goes up in smoke.

Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries, magical mayhem, and heroines who believe it’s never too late for a new chapter—or a little witchcraft!

AMAZON

 

Coming Aug. 2025

 

Follow the Tour HERE!

3 eBook copies of Funerals and Familiars (A Cozy Midlife Witch Mystery) Willowmere Mysteries by Carmen Radtke via BookFunnel

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Carmen has spent most of her life with ink on her fingers and a dangerously high pile of books and newspapers by her side.

She has worked as a newspaper reporter on two continents and always dreamt of becoming a novelist and screenwriter.

When she found herself crouched under her dining table, typing away on a novel between two earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, she realised she was hooked for life.

The shaken but stirring novel made it to the longlist of the Mslexia competition, and her next book and first mystery, The Case Of The Missing Bride, was a finalist in the Malice Domestic competition in a year without a winner. Since then she has penned several more cozy mysteries, including the Genie and Adriana Darling ghost mysteries and the Jack and Frances series set in the 1930s.

Carmen now lives in Italy with her human and her four-legged family. Although she possesses no witchy powers, she’s known to be easily held spellbound by animals.

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