Posted on December 17, 2015.
By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Vickie Fee
Former Millington resident Vickie Fee has waited more than a decade to open this Christmas gift. But she’ll have to wait four days past December 25 before the release of her first published book A Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery: Death Crashes the Party. The Dec. 29 debut of Death Crashes the Party will mark the beginning of a series featuring protagonist Olivia and her best friend Diana. “Amazing and surreal,” Fee said releasing her book. “This has been a long, strange trip. After moving to Marquette John said to me, ‘You have time to write your book.’ “It all came together,” she added. “It took 10 to 12 years but it is happening now. I was blown away when my agent told me Kensington had offered me a three-book deal. Seeing my novel in a bookstore on a shelf beside authors I’ve read and admire is truly a dream come true.” Fee’s writing should be familiar to Shelby County as she worked as a reporter at The Millington Star and The Bartlett Express. She met her husband John Fee while they worked at The Star. The couple moved up North a few years ago, but Fee used her Southern roots and experience as a reporter to create her characters Olivia and Diana. In the quirky, close-knit town of Dixie, Tennessee, party planner Liv McKay has a knack for throwing Southern-style soirees, from diamonds-and-denim to black tie affairs, and her best friend Di Southern mixes a mean daiquiri. While planning a Moonshine and Magnolias bash for high maintenance clients, Liv inconveniently discovers a corpse in the freezer and turns her attention from fabulous fetes to finding a murderer. Together, Liv and Di follow a trail of sinister secrets in their sweet little town that leads them from drug smugglers to a Civil War battlefield, and just when they think they’re whistling Dixie, Liv and Di will find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of the least likely killer of all. “While the setting for the books is fictional, I hope it comes across as authentic,” Fee said. “The warmth, humor and charm of the many wonderful people in this area I met during my reporter years has been a key inspiration in my writing.” Fee’s association with The Millington Star spans parts of three decades. After earning a journalism degree from The University of Memphis, she started her career as a reporter at The Star in the ‘80s. Fee returned to The Millington Star in the 1990s, covering primarily South Tipton County. And from 2004 to 2007, she worked as a reporter from the Millington Star and Bartlett Express offices covering Arlington and Lakeland. Now her writing skills will be on display in the first book of the Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery Series. The second book is scheduled for release in October 2016. And part three will come out the following year. On Dec. 29, the shelves, book racks and Online sites belong to Death Crashes the Party. The book will be available at Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon and The Booksellers at Laurelwood. Fee will have a book signing Jan. 9, 2016 at Booksellers at Laurelwood (the old Davis-Kidd bookstore) in Memphis. “I hope to see a lot of old friends out there to share this big moment,” Fee said. Fee, the daughter of Jean Blair and the late Richard Blair of Millington, will be signing copies of her first novel at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis that Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m.
For more information, visit www.vickiefee.com.
