By Alyssa Esposito

Staff Writer

Excitement and mystery were in the air at the second annual Mystery Authors Festival at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts on Saturday.

“I am an avid reader,” said Katie Kelley, tourism development specialist with the city of Suffolk. She said the event started last year when she contacted author Ellery Adams over Facebook, asking if she’d be interested in coming to do a book signing.

To her surprise and excitement, Adams responded with not only an acceptance but also an offer to bring along some of her fellow authors. What started out as a small book signing turned into a whole festival.

In just a year’s time, an 11-author event more than doubled to the 24 at this year’s festival.

Visitors came from all over the state. Judy Tarbox came all the way from Nokesville after learning about the event on Facebook. Patricia Tucker traveled from Richmond, bringing her daughter, Melanie Miller, along for the ride. There were six authors at this event of whom she is especially a fan.

The festival wasn’t exclusively for mystery readers.

“I actually don’t generally read mysteries,” said Nicole Carson, who attended the seminar on how to get published. She likes reading books from many genres, especially suspense and thriller.

During the six-hour festival, a total of 24 authors, including two two-person author teams, participated in readings, workshops, seminars, book signings and discussion panels. Participating authors included Ellery Adams, Sparkle Abbey, Beverly Allen, Maggie King and Joyce and Jim Lavene.

During the discussion panel, while many authors talked about title changes to their book, Sparkle Abbey, a two-person writing team, talked about how they actually sold ideas based on their titles. “That’s a bad thing to do to yourself,” they said playfully.

During the same panel, one author talked about her perseverance over 10 long years. At one point, someone even told her, “You’re just not good enough.” She is now a published author.

The event offered three seminars including “Some Like it Hot: The Role of Romance in Mysteries,” “Location, Location, Location” and “When Death is a ‘Shore’ Thing.” They also held three workshops titled “Cozy Mysteries 101,” “Anatomy of a Murder” and “How Do I Get Published?”

The “Location, Location, Location” seminar included discussion topics around the role of a setting in a mystery novel. The question of whether or not the authors had ever written a story in a controversial location was posed, as was a question about the setting they believed would work for a book about their lives. To this question, creative and serious included Europe, the Roaring ’20s, and a college campus.