Earlier this fall, Sag Harbor native Anna Dunworth released her self-published book, Cove Harbor Comeuppance.
A collection of short mysteries inspired by her former whaling village hometown, Dunworth (née Verneuille) is a 2009 graduate of Pierson High School, history teacher turned author, wife, and mother of three children under 5. Her new book draws upon familiar faces, places and scenarios most long-time East Enders can identify, while at the same time, not using or naming any specific people or spots directly.
Occurring over the course of one year, Cove Harbor Comeuppance is set in a small town on the water, which Dunworth, now a resident of Connecticut, cheekily describes as a “little seaside town with a bit of a homicide problem.” Divided into five mysteries, each containing six chapters in a solve-as-you-go style, readers get to experience respective crime scenes found within her Cove Harbor universe, while meeting all the suspects and people who live there (both tourists and year-round residents), and then solving the mystery in a classic, whodunnit reveal.
Anna Dunworth’s Cove Harbor Comeuppance is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble and is also available as an ebook. (Photos courtesy of Anna Dunworth)
Originally, Dunworth’s writing was in the nonfiction world, predominantly comprised of research writing and blogs for businesses. “After I left teaching, when I had kids, I started ghost writing, which was really fun but mostly, again, still sort of nonfiction,” she says. “When I decided to segue into fiction, [I drew upon] my love of growing up in Sag Harbor. It’s so close to my heart and it kind of just felt natural to sort of play off of that connection. Plus, I just love mysteries. I love writing mysteries. I love reading mysteries. So, you put those two things together and you get mysteries in a soft of Sag Harbor.”
Initially, Dunworth first wrote her mysteries pretty quickly, completing each one in about two weeks, but then, in classic writer fashion, setting them aside for years.
“I didn’t really look at them at all, and then when I decided to publish this, I went back and rewrote them,” she says. “I would say that took about six months of writing and revising and sending it through readers and that kind of thing to get it all ready to publish.”
While the writing process wasn’t the challenging part of making Dunworth’s book dreams a reality, figuring out the actual publishing was. Saying it’s been “a kind of long pathway” to get her short mystery stories into a tangible book form, noting the process of getting books traditionally published these days is a lengthy one.
“When I decided to segue into fiction, [I drew upon] my love of growing up in Sag Harbor. It’s so close to my heart and it kind of just felt natural to sort of play off of that connection. Plus, I just love mysteries.”
Anna Dunworth
“I had these mysteries already written,” she says. “Actually, they were one of the first things I had written years ago when I first got into fiction,” originally releasing them through her social media platforms before deciding to self-publish.
“I wanted to explore self publishing. So I thought, ‘I have these mysteries written. Let me do a revision of those and then let me just sort of learn about the process.’ It started as a ‘let me just look into this and see if I can do it. Am I able to design a book cover? What’s the self publishing world look like?’ And then once I started doing it, I just thought, ‘wow, this is great.’ It wasn’t easy because it was a lot of new things to learn, especially in terms of the formatting and the design, but it was really fun and exciting, and it actually convinced me to self publish my next book, too.”
Cove Harbor Comeuppance is available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or on Dunworth’s website. To snag your copy, click here.
