Photo by Robert Williams
Author Lucinda Michalski poses at her home on Rose Lake and in the background of this photo 12 years ago a blinking light seen from across the lake while Michalski was enjoying a thunderstorm created the spark that eventually became her novel SOS.

Book signing at Backyard Station in Frazee Saturday, Aug. 31

By Robert Williams, Editor

Lucinda Michalski’s debut novel “SOS,” a thriller built on lies, deceit and murder, has garnered a lot of local attention since being released in June. Much of the initial feedback from readers confirm the novel to be a page-turner and hard to put down. The plot is based regionally around Rose Lake and the tale winds around rural Frazee and Vergas to Perham and Detroit Lakes.

That local connection has regional readers excited.

“People are really embracing it here,” Michalski said. “I always say to people Minnesota is like a different world from the big cities. You go up there and you don’t have to worry about anything. Everybody just seems to get along and this has just quadrupled it. This is a great place to live.”

The books are available at local bookstores, including The Backyard Station in Frazee, which will host a four-hour book signing with Michalski beginning at 10 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 31. The novel can also be found on major online store websites for those who cannot attend this weekend.

Lucinda is just getting used to some overnight success. Seeing others enjoy her novel is a reward for years of effort. The book itself is the product of more than a decade of work that began on a stormy night at her lake cabin on Rose Lake.

“To be honest, about 12 years ago,” Michalski said. “I had it all written in one year and then I had to learn to write. I was lucky along the way. I found people that would instruct me, mostly one-on-one, and that worked out real fine until about January.”

Michalski was working with an editor who also planned to publish her book, but funding stalled the project.

“It turned out to be the best thing because from there I had to find somebody who would make a book cover for me and I lucked out there and then through her I found an editor who changed a lot of stuff,” said Michalski.

When Lucinda says she had to learn how to write what she means is she constructed the first draft writing how she speaks but not necessarily through her characters. Undaunted, she sought out more feedback by submitting portions of the book to online contests.

“They all came back with good bases, good characters, good development, but I needed a lot more conversation,” she said.

Further connections led her to the home base of many successful novels, New York City, where she received professional assistance with the manuscript and publishing process.

“They came along at just the right time; it just all fell into place,” Michalski said. “I learned I had to make a lot of it conversation.”

The completion of her dialogue development came a dozen years after one special evening when Lucinda was sitting in her living room on Rose Lake during an electric storm.

“It was raining and pouring, the wind was blowing and the lightning was so beautiful and all of a sudden, honest to God, I saw a blinking light across the lake,” she said.

Her first thought was it was a distress signal.

“And I’m sitting here going don’t be silly,” she laughed. “By morning, I just figured it was nothing.”

However, the incident ignited Lucinda’s imagination and began to take on a life of its own. In the novel, the protagonist Lucy Rydell sees the light multiple times.

“And that’s where the story starts,” said Michalski.

The full story did not begin to form for another two years when Lucinda told her husband Jerry she wanted to write a book.

“He said, ‘Well, go ahead then,’ so I wrote it and it just came within a year from front to end and all the characters,” she said. “The story never changed. The characters never changed. It just took me that long to learn how to write.”

Lucinda put more than a standard effort into creating her novel and adapting it to publishable standards in the murder-mystery genre. For her, it was a full-time job.

“I did work 35-40 hours a week, but I enjoyed it tremendously and Jerry was very supportive all the way through; he’s my main cheerleader right now,” she said. 

Lucinda also had time on her side and an existential perspective on the process and end product.

“My luck was I didn’t have a deadline,” she said. “I didn’t have to worry about a thing and if it didn’t come to fruition…and I don’t know what drove me to do it. Why would anybody stay at that for 10 years? I just kind of really feel it’s supposed to be.”

Writing in the thriller genre comes from Lucinda’s personal preference as to what she reads. Having that experience reading whodunits allowed her to creatively craft the plot of her own novel.

“I didn’t know who did it until about three-quarters through,” she said.

The area in which the book transpires is a past, less-developed version of Rose Lake that has intrigued readers, especially those who know the area well.

“I had a lady who said she spent a lot of time on Rose Lake and it was fun to read the book because she could see where it might have taken place,” said Michalski. 

“SOS” by Lucinda Michalski is neatly constructed with short but poignant chapters for easy reading. The novel is also available on Kindle for digital readers. Lucinda’s book signing at The BackYard Station in Frazee, Saturday, Aug. 31 runs until 2 p.m., but the conclusion is fluid based on customer demand.

Later this fall, the novel will also be available to visitors of Vergas and the Back Roads Art Studio Crawl Saturday, Sept. 21.