Author of the novels Lovers, Grapes and Crimes and Murder at the Wine Cask Inn, also proprietor of A Few Good Books Publishing, Eva selected quotations to appear on A Few Good Books Publishing web page that tell more about her than I could tell as succinctly.

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Douglas Adams

“Never threw up on an editor.” Ellen Datlow

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

Four years ago, on January 20, 2014, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eva on Late Last Night Books online magazine. I present part of it below:

Question: I’ve read and enjoyed two of your cozy mysteries, Lovers, Grapes and Crimes and the forthcoming Murder at the Wine Cask Inn. Plots and characters are madcap, like a ’30s movie—I think of Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby. Where do the ideas for your books and the people in them come from?

Answer: There are times when I see a particular place that catches my imagination and I remember it and start weaving a story around it. Or an incident or conversation will trigger my imagination and I populate it with characters that I feel suit that place. Such is the case with the Georgina series. I have lived and feel a strong emotional attachment to the places in British Columbia where we see Georgina. A few of my characters are a combination of friends and colleagues who I worked with over the years but most are strictly imaginary. One exception (a secondary character) is real and exactly as I describe her.

Question: You once told me that you read the World Classics in Hungarian. Are there Hungarian novels translated into English that Late Last Night Books readers should look for?

Answer: Yes, quite a number of them. One is Sandor Marai who authored forty-six books, most of them novels, and was considered by literary critics to be one of Hungary’s most influential representatives of middle class literature between the two world wars. His 1942 book “Embers” was adapted by Christopher Hampton in 2006 for the stage and was performed in London.
Another prominent Hungarian author is Laszlo Krasznahorkai, very well received by the New York literary circles. One of his appearances in Soho was so crammed that people sat on the floor. “He deals in despair and metaphysical stasis, one part Kafka, one part Beckett, plus a dollop of earthy comedy,” in the words of one critic.
If you go to 20th Century Hungarian Literature, http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3636.20th_Century_Hungarian_Literature ‎, you will find a number of Hungarian authors translated into English.

Question: I know that you spent much of your pre-writing, pre-publishing career in the Toronto area. I can think of two Canadian authors that I’ve read and loved: the multiple-award-winning Robertson Davies and the Edgar-winning L R Wright. What other Canadian writers do you recommend?

Answer: Toronto is my hometown. I grew up there and went to the University of Toronto, majoring in English and French Literature. Among notable Canadian authors, Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature recently. Mary Lawson, who currently lives in England, is a late bloomer. Then there are Lisa Moore, Lawrence Hill, Alistair MacLeod, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, and Yaan Martel, whose book Life of Pi was recently made into an Oscar winning movie. These are just a few, and I haven’t even mentioned the French Canadian authors.

Eva Kapitan was my close friend and the publisher of my first novel, someone with whom I laughed a lot, laughed out loud, laughed hard, someone who blessed many people with her laughter and her ability to inspire laughter in others.

She will be missed, but she will live on in our hearts and in her novels.