Editor’s note: This is the last of a three-part series on former Dunkirk resident, Wendy Corsi Staub, a best-selling author. This week, the focus is on the inspiration and support she gets from the local area and her dad, Reg Corsi.

Hometown best-selling author Wendy Corsi Staub may have relocated to the other end of the state, settling near New York City with her husband and children, but she continues to find much of her inspiration back in Chautauqua County, where she can also find her most dedicated fan base.

“(Chautauqua County) is a vibrant community, home to the friendliest people in the world,” she said. “I’m always warmly welcomed when I visit, as are my publishing colleagues and fellow authors who have accompanied me on book tours. When they comment about the wonderful people who live there, or when readers from across the country tell me that they discovered and loved the area after reading about it in one of my books, I feel tremendous pride to have grown up where I did.”

Recently, Staub visited her alma mater, SUNY Fredonia, for a reading and booksigning, and revealed that she felt like a party-wolf dressed in sheep’s business attire.

“I have lots of friends (and even a cousin or two) among the administration, faculty and staff (at SUNY Fredonia),” she said. “Plus, my niece Hannah is finishing her freshman year there. So there were many familiar faces at the event, and it felt more like a reunion party than a booksigning. The weather was treacherous that day, yet hardy local readers braved the roads to attend, and I was touched and grateful.”

As Staub’s readers already know, she frequently sets her novels in Western New York, with several featuring Lily Dale and the surrounding towns and villages. Her soon-to-be-released trilogy, “Mundy’s Landing” (HarperCollins), is set in a fictional town in the Hudson Valley. The first title in the adult thriller series is “Blood Red,” and will hit bookstores in September.

“It’s set in a small upstate New York town notorious for a series of eerie unsolved murders that occurred in 1916. The people have moved on, but every year, the local historical society invites the world to visit and solve the murders, which – as you can guess – might just result in some new ones,” Staub revealed.

Although she’s a veteran of the thriller genre, Staub explained that writing the “Mundy’s Landing” trilogy presented new challenges.

“This is one of the most complex plots I’ve ever created, because it doesn’t just involve modern day psychological suspense, forensics and procedural, but also historic criminology,” she said. “I’ve been buried in the usual research, but also immersed in so much detail about the year 1916 that I swear I could teach a course at this point. Only a fraction of my research ever makes it into the book, but I live and breathe the setting and characters so that I can make each scene authentic.”

Staub provided even more background on the setting and her inspiration:

“(Mundy’s Landing) is loosely based on Rhinebeck, but with a splash of Fall River, Massachusetts (where Lizzie Borden took an axe) – because it’s on the map mainly due to The Sleeping Beauty Murders, a century-old unsolved serial killer case. The former boomtown fell into an economic tailspin in the 1970s and 80s, but has been thriving ever since the historical society began inviting armchair detectives and crime buffs to visit every summer to attempt to solve the old case. The annual event – colloquially called ‘Mundypalooza’ – doesn’t sit well with some of the old guard, but others welcome tourist dollars and the media spotlight. I love to make my small town settings function as characters, and I love to explore various aspects of small town dynamics, having grown up a small town girl!”

So much of Mundy’s Landing sounds like Chautauqua County, and the first book is centered on the Mundys, who move back to their old hometown to start a family – a situation familiar to many young Western New Yorkers.

“In ‘Blood Red,’ we’ll meet Rowan and Jake Mundy, who moved back to their hometown to raise their kids in a place where – ironically – no one ever locks their doors,” Staub said. “But history may be about to repeat itself. In the next book, ‘Blue Moon,’ a copycat is bent on recreating The Sleeping Beauty Murders, terrorizing the families who live in the old houses where they took place. The third book, ‘Bone White,’ revolves around cannibalized remains of 17th century settlers and opens a new mystery dating back to the founding fathers.”

Another new series from Staub, “The Lily Dale Mysteries,” is set locally and will be launched from Crooked Lane Books in October. The first title is “Nine Lives.”

“These are cozy mysteries written for an adult audience, featuring a young widowed single mom who finds her way to the Dale on a cross-country drive and winds up staying to run a guesthouse and solve a mystery (or many),” Staub said. “For years, those who read and loved my young adult Lily Dale series have been asking for more. I take my readers’ feedback very seriously, and I finally found the time and opportunity, so this is my gift to them. It’s a new series and fresh start, but I promise some appearances by beloved characters from the original books.”

Staub likens this new series to work by one of the modern thriller’s foremothers: Agatha Christie.

“Think of ‘The Lily Dale Mysteries’ as of a modern day Agatha Christie genre, where the murders happen ‘offstage’ and it’s up to our heroine to solve them,” she said.

Unlike Staub’s last Lily Dale series, which was for young adult readers, this series is for an adult audience. However, she promises that those who loved the previous Lily Dale books won’t be disappointed.

“Those who enjoyed my original series and have been wondering what happened to Calla, Odelia, and the gang, will be happy to see that they make an appearance here,” she said.

Staub explained that this series focuses less on paranormal activity, and more on human drama and grace under fire.

“The heroine, Bella, isn’t a medium -she’s the proverbial stranger in a strange land: a destitute, widowed mom of a young son who finds her way to Lily Dale after crossing paths with a pregnant stray tabby cat named Chance,” she said. “Once she’s there, she finds that the cat’s owner, who runs a Lily Dale guesthouse, has died under mysterious circumstances. Now Bella has to pinch hit running the guesthouse, juggle a litter of newborn kittens, and solve a mystery. This isn’t a ghostly paranormal series, though, like my other one. Here, we see the action through Bella’s eyes, so there’s a sort of is-it-or-isn’t-it aspect to the spiritual angle.”

Staub was very careful to represent Lily Dale as it is with this series, and to capture the many varied opinions on Spiritualism in the community.

“(Bella is) torn between believing there’s something to (Spiritualism), and being skeptical and frustrated because, as she thinks, if it’s real, then why hasn’t her late husband come through to her? I like the fact that in this book, as in life, there are no easy answers. Nothing is tied up neatly with a bow. I’ve worked hard to capture and respect the ‘real’ Lily Dale and the caring, vibrant people who live there,” she said.

This series was also inspired by a real-life pregnant cat who, like the cat in “Nine Lives,” presented herself to Staub at a less-than-ideal time.

“She just stuck around as if she was meant to be there. We searched for an owner to no avail, and tried to find a rescue or foster to take her because the timing was terrible – I was about to leave on book tour for most of the summer, and my husband is deathly allergic,” Staub said. “Then she delivered a litter of kittens, became critically ill with an infection, and I rushed her to the emergency vet, where the staff thought I was crazy when I said she was a stray. At that point, my boys had also fallen in love with her, and my allergic husband was most smitten of all. Chance was meant to be ours. We wound up adopting her, and her kittens all went to loving homes.”

Inspiration for a new book series wasn’t the only good thing to come out of adopting Chance. The Staub family is now involved in rescuing and fostering animals from the Manhattan animal shelter, so that many more animals will have the “chance” to find loving families.

Well-loved by cats and readers alike, Staub has a huge fan base, with dedicated readers on both coasts and in other countries. Famous people read her books. She can hold her own with celebrities. But she won’t hesitate to tell someone where her most enthusiastic readers can be found. It’s still Chautauqua County.

“My parents ingrained in me that you should be proud of who you are and never forget where you came from,” she explained. “My western New York roots made me who I am, and I’ll always carry in my memory and heart the people I’ve known and the places I’ve loved.”

And always in Staub’s heart are her parents her late mother Francella, and her father Reg, who was Staub’s earliest and most effective teacher.

“I got my love of books and reading from my mother, but I got my storytelling skills from my father, Reg,” she said. “No one – except maybe his own father, my late grandfather Pat Corsi – can spin a tale like my pop. Looking back on my childhood in Dunkirk, I find that the most memorable moments were spent sitting around dining room tables with family and friends, listening to stories.”

When Staub graduated from high school and told her dad her plan to become a starving artist, he set her straight.

“My father placed tremendous value on education and insisted on sending me to college at a time when I was set to go straight to New York to become a starving artist. Thank goodness for that!” she said. “He always encouraged me to reach high and work hard. Although he was the kind of old-fashioned dad who insisted on taking good care of his little girl (and still does!), he also raised me to be strong and independent enough to take care of myself, and to stay grounded no matter where this crazy career takes me.”

Staub admitted that it wasn’t easy for Reg when she moved across the state, something that she understands more now that she is a parent herself.

“Now, as a parent of a college kid, I know how hard it must have been for him to see his firstborn leave behind family and hometown to move to New York City,” she said. “But when I did it, it was with his wholehearted blessing. Roots and wings – that’s what he’s given me, and it’s a legacy I’m passing to my own sons.”

And even though Reg is here in Chautauqua County, father and daughter don’t let too much time pass between visits.

“Now that it’s harder for me to get back to visit for long periods of time, my father drives down to visit us several times a year, and whenever I’m out on a book tour, he travels to wherever I am if he can. He buys stacks of my books and hands them out to friends wherever he goes. I’m going to have to put him on my PR payroll!” Staub said.

Staub juggles a tough schedule, squeezing in book tours and visits to the movie set of her novel-turned-film “Hello, It’s Me” between her children’s school events and, of course, writing time. But no matter where her work takes her, she loves interacting with hometown readers via social media and invites them to join her on Facebook and Twitter. They can also get breaking news, read about new releases, sign up for her email newsletter and see tour dates for this fall by visiting her website at www.wendycorsistaub.com. And of course, fans should stay tuned for more movie news!

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