Attorney to author: The path behind this Utahn’s first mystery novel, ‘Buried Bones’
SALT LAKE CITY ( ABC4 ) — Dive into a cozy mystery with “Buried Bones,” the fiction debut for local author Bonnie Moore, that follows a series of twists and turns in a small Utah town.
Moore, a semi-retired attorney, accountant, management consultant, and Golden Girls Network founder, said that publishing a fiction book has always been a huge dream of hers that she’s excited to have now accomplished.
“It’s amazing … it’s like achieving a goal in life,” she said.
In “Buried Bones”, a retired prosecutor named Maggie Andersen learns about a murder during a trip in the mountains east of Ogden. Quickly, driven by her strong sense of justice, Andersen, along with her friends, delves into the case to unravel secrets and bring justice to an innocently accused suspect.
“Maggie Andersen has a very strong attitude, or belief in justice for everybody, and she fights hard against this town that wants to convict this guy based on prejudice,” Moore said. “She fights hard against that problem, that they’re trying to convict him without any evidence.”
Moore said that she pulled some inspiration from her own life when developing Andersen, but shared that she is very much her own character, too.
“I used some of my history, i.e., age group, divorced three times, two kids, lived in D.C., attorney, world traveler, owns a ton of books. I also lived in San Francisco for a number of years. I changed some things; I was never a prosecutor. I’m giving her some personality quirks that aren’t ‘me,’ and she’s much better looking and more athletic! (I can dream that I am her!) I grew up in the military, and so did she. She’s more assertive. She went through much of the feminist movement era like I did, and cares about social issues … I was always a bit of a long-er growing up, and so was she. It was just easier to give her attributes that I know and understand,” Moore explained.
Golden Girls Network
Although “Buried Bones” is Moore’s first fiction book, it’s not the only one published under her name. She’s also written “How to Start a Golden Girls Home,” inspired by her own experience.
Moore said following a divorce, she found herself in a five-bedroom house with roommates, which evolved into the Golden Girls Network to create a resource for mature adults to find roommates.
“When I first started GGN, I didn’t realize the extent of older women who end up living on their own. Too young for assisted living, but too poor to have their own place. No family to live with. I think the situation hasn’t gotten any better, either. We are moving into a generation of women who realize they need to be concerned about their financial future, saving for a nest egg, and earning enough to qualify for a decent social security check. I ended up selling the software to a woman in Canada who still runs it, on a much smaller scale, and since the book is still selling, I’m still helping out the cause,” she said.
Inspiration behind “Buried Bones”
Moore herself lived in Utah when she was 12 years old. She graduated from Davis High School and Weber State before moving to San Francisco, and then Washington D.C., after graduating from law school at age 50. Now that she’s retired, she’s returned to the Beehive State, which Moore shares was the perfect setting for her book.
“I live here now, and I decided Utah was a great place to set a story. It’s not used that often,” she said.
Moore said someone mentioned a pioneer cabin their family inherited in a casual conversation with her, inspiring the setting for “Buried Bones.”
“I thought that would be a great location for a story, and that’s how it started, so I created this pioneer cabin and built the story around it,” she said.
Moore shared that she always wanted to write in her life, taking writing classes periodically. In a class she took five years ago, she said every student was working on a murder mystery, and she stuck with hers beyond the class.
“I would add this and add this and do that and make it more complicated. I worked on it for five years, and I used it to learn how to write. I went through a number of editing processes, which I had to learn a lot for it to advance in each of those processes,” she said.
“Buried Bones” is just the start in a series, which will follow the same characters readers come to love as they continue seeking justice.
“I am hoping to do four or five … I love the character and the four people that have come together, they’re going to just keep solving mysteries,” she said.
Following the release of “Buried Bones” this May, Moore reflected on what she learned in the process of writing and publishing her first fiction book.
“It’s a lot harder to do than people think. It really is. I think a good book really needs to show the reader something about the human condition. There’s two levels, the level of the story and then the level of what happens and how the people in the story transform,” she said. ” … I think to really make a story work and connect with people, that element of humanity needs to be there, and that’s sometimes hard to get into a story. It’s also just fun to have something to work on that is challenging like this, and to just keep working on it until you get it done.”
Her biggest advice for those wanting to write a book themselves is not to be afraid to take the first step.
“You have to get started. You have to be willing to start, develop a plan, I think the hardest thing sometimes is for people to just get started on something they dream about. If you have a book in your head and you want to write it, you have to get it out of your head and start working on it,” she said.
From attorney to author
When in D.C., Moore shared she had a very demanding and stressful job as a senior consultant in a CPA firm, which combined her accounting and law backgrounds. In this role, she managed special projects, including investigations into financial malfeasance and mismanagement in governmental agencies. At the same time, she always carried her passion for writing with her.
“I have a manuscript that I worked on twenty years ago that I may still revise and publish. I was writing this manuscript while I was working the stressful job. On a business level, I always had to write the final reports on my projects, so I was doing writing even then,” she said.
When it came to switching to fiction writing, she said it did come with its challenges, but with a sense of accomplishment, too.
“A lawyer learns to think in hard facts, evidence, motives, and strategy. An accountant thinks only in numbers. An author needs to know and understand the emotional side of human nature. I’m enjoying the challenge of learning how to develop characters with emotional histories who act on impulses, follow their intuition, and fall in love,” she said.
To stay updated on Moore’s future releases, follow her online.
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