A brisk wind stirs white caps on the Sheepscot River and sweeps over the steep hill, rattling the 200-year-old windows in their frames as mystery author Lea Wait sips tea, waiting for the inevitable question.

She and her husband have had a number of visitors over the years, some uninvited, to inquire about the “Marie Antoinette House” in Edgecomb where they live and are occasionally called to dispel some of the tales that to this day are repeated online and in print.

Wait is certain the ghost of the beheaded Queen of France Marie Antoinette does not roam the halls. She doesn't believe Maine Coon cats were bred from her royalty's Persian cats and Maine racoons, nor does she believe that the ship captain who once inhabited Wait's home had an affair with the doomed queen.

However, this mystery author does draw inspiration from the house and from local history and artifacts that surround her.

Wait's family history and their connection to the famed 1774 Colonial dates back three generations; her parents and grandparents purchased the house when she was 10 years old.

Wait said she draws on her connection to the house, but her stories come as much, if not more so, from her love of history, her experiences with the antique world and an active imagination.

Her latest book, the sixth in her Agatha Award-nominated Shadows Antique Print Mystery series, “Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding,” has just been released through Perseverance Press and is now available in local bookstores.

This latest work continues the adventures of antique print dealer and community college professor Maggie Summer who stumbles upon a case of murder in Cape Cod.

Also available on Amazon, the description reads: “October on Cape Cod is always beautiful, and antique print dealer Maggie Summer is happy to visit there to help with her best friend's wedding preparations. Maggie doesn't anticipate the murder of a neighbor, nor being called into service as a counselor and interpreter. Is she really essential to the investigation, or is she avoiding a critical discussion with the man she loves? Before she knows the answer, there's another murder, and a hurricane, and Maggie herself becomes a target.”

Maggie is a fitting hero for the stories, as Wait has run an antique print business for over 30 years. As fans know and enjoy about her mystery series, Wait includes descriptions of prints at the start of each chapter. These same prints are hung on the walls of her home, tucked neatly in stacks and archived in a room dedicated just to them. These days, she spends much more time writing, but Wait said she occasionally travels to a show or takes appointments to sell prints.

In her travels, she still meets people who want to know about the “Marie Antoinette House.”

Seated on a blue and white patterned couch, Wait explains the facts behind the legendary tale of her family home as the tea in her cup grows cold. She then pulls a blue-jacketed book titled, “A Royal Tragedy” written in 1910 by Nat Wilder Jr. She describes it as being possibly the worst historical novel of all time, one that likely precipitated many of the legendary tales about the house.

To this day, the tales are re-told in online journals and blogs. Summer boats chug past loaded with curious onlookers. Wait has even had uninvited guests walk into her living room wanting to look around.

The house is not open to the public, but Wait shares what she knows about the house, its intriguing history and her family's connection to it on: www.mainecrimewriters.com, in the article titled, “Marie Antoinette, Maine and Me.”

Antique furniture and artifacts are scattered throughout the house, but most prominent are the floor to ceiling shelves full of books, books tucked in every available corner and in every room.

There is a full library of books downstairs. The shelves in an upstairs guest room are dedicated to historical reference books. An adjoining “mystery and suspense room” is chock full of books written by Wait's friends and colleagues, and another room has on its shelves all books for children. Along the wall of the hallway leading toward Wait's study are more shelves of books.

The study is small. Wait glances out of one window she and her husband installed in 2004 to see the front yard and, rising up from her seat, looks out over the steep, grassy slope and the white-capped chop of The Eddy in the Sheepscot River.

Photos above Wait's desk show the smiling faces of her husband and children. In another part of the room is a photo of Wait, about 35 years old, with the four daughters she adopted who were born in Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong and India. At the time, she wrote speeches, made films and was a strategic planner for AT&T. On her website, Wait says her daughters gave her the inspiration to write similar characters in her books for children.

Fragments of the house and its unique features also find their way into Wait's novels. The accidental discovery of an old fireplace mentioned in “Shadows on the Coast of Maine,” her second book in the series, was pulled from a true experience, a discovery made when Wait and her mother were in the process of tearing down a wall. They found the 1774 fireplace even had a functional pot crane.

Some might think the story of the ghost of Marie Antoinette roaming the halls would make for great fiction, but the characters and situations in Wait's books are much closer to life in Maine.

On her website she says of her writing, “Although the major characters in my books are fictional, many of the minor characters are people who actually lived in Wiscasset, and events in the books really happened.

“Also, I’m a stickler for historical authenticity: I even use old dictionaries to check the words in my books to make sure I’m using them correctly for the period.”

She is currently working on two new novels, as well as a new Maine-based mystery series with Kensington Publications in New York. For more about Lea Wait, connect with on her Facebook or visit her website: www.leawait.com/. Also, check out her blog posts on: www.mainecrimewriters.com/.

Readers will also have a chance to meet Wait in person. She is scheduled to present “Wiscasset, from American Revolution to Civil War” at the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, starting at 6:30 p.m., on Wednesday, April 10.