Summertime…and the TBR pile is calling!

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By Lois Winston

A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, released six weeks ago. After a multi-week blog tour to promote the book, I’ve now officially entered the period I call “me” time, a mini-vacation I permit myself after each new book leaves the security of the laptop womb and before I begin seriously thinking about the next book. Much of that “me” time is spent binge-reading (especially since it’s too hot to leave the house!) I’m trying to make a sizable dent in my virtual TBR pile before I add another book to my Kindle library. Here are the books I’ve read so far (in the order I read them) and what I thought.

 

Murder at the Pontchartrain by Kathleen Kaska

Kathleen Kaska always delivers, and once again she doesn’t disappoint in Murder at the Pontchartrain, the sixth book in her delightful 1950s era Sidney Lockhart Mystery Series. This time Sidney and Dixon are in New Orleans, having decided to elope, but it doesn’t take long for a dead body to show up in their hotel room, delaying the nuptials and plunging them into yet another murder investigation as the bodies begin to pile up and Dixon finds himself locked up. Kaska had me guessing whodunit until the very end, and those are the best murder mysteries.

 

The Tiffany Girls by Shelley Noble

A brilliant blending of fact and fiction. When a Parisian woman artist is forced to immigrate to New York, she secures a position at the Tiffany Glass Works, working beside the real women responsible for many of the designs and much of the work attributed to Louis Comfort Tiffany. Noble has woven a well-researched historical novel that will draw you in and keep you turning pages.

 

The Princess Spy by Larry Loftis

A fascinating look at an American woman who worked as an OSS operative in Spain during WWII. I just wish the author had delved more into her life in this biography and spent less time celebrity name-dropping. I also wanted more narrative action and less dry summarization of events.

 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

For such a prolific playwright, so little is known of William Shakespeare’s life and family, including the circumstances of his young son’s death. In Hamnet, the author weaves an engaging tale of what might have occurred and how it may have become the catalyst for one of Shakespeare’s greatest works.

 

Dead Men Need No Reservations by Terry Ambrose

The latest edition to Terry Ambrose’s Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mysteries doesn’t disappoint. I always love spending a few hours with these characters, especially Alex, the precocious thirteen-year-old wannabe sleuth. If you’re in the mood for a light mystery and a few chuckles along the way, this book will give you both.

 

Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich

No matter the lemons in your life, spend a few hours with Stephanie Plum, and you’ll be sipping lemonade. Going Rogue is just as entertaining as all the other books in the series and will certainly make you forget your cares–at least for a little while–as you slip into Stephanie’s world.

 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

I had never gotten around to reading this acclaimed Christie mystery, but I did figure out whodunit before the denouement, so for me that was a bit of a disappointment. However, what’s not to love about Monsieur Poirot?

 

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel this book lived up to the first in the series. I really enjoyed Magpie Murders, but this sequel seemed forced, contrived, and often plodding. I’m someone who enjoys the “book-within-a-book” format when it’s done well, but that wasn’t the case here. The style works best when the two stories alternate, not when the entirety of the second book is dropped into the middle of the other. However, he did keep my guessing whodunit until the end.

 

In addition, I’ve read several mysteries for a contest I was judging and one where I was asked to write a blurb, but since the contest winners have yet to be announced, and the blurb book is not yet published, I can’t mention anything about them.

Now I’m off to tackle the next book on my list…but before I go, If you’re planning a road trip and looking for an audiobook to pass the drive time, I still have a few promo codes available for a free download of A Stitch to Die For, the fifth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Post a comment about your summer reading for a chance to win one.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Where do ideas come from?

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WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM?

by Joyce Woollcott

I wonder, I really do, where ideas come from. Not just ideas for books and short stories and magazine articles, but ideas in all creative fields. Artists, painters, sculptors, potters, movie makers, song writers––anyone at all who creates original content. Of course I do wonder more about my fellow writers. Getting the idea is only the first part, what do you do with it when you get it and how do you put it together as a terrific book?

I struggle to flesh out my novels. For me at least, the initial concept, that what if? moment is the easiest. What if a detective sergeant arrives at a crime scene only to discover he knew the victim? What if a well-respected retired detective chief inspector is brutally murdered in his bed and his past comes into question? I bet this is the stage most writers enjoy most, the idea. How wonderful it is to get that first storyline, that initial spark, the potential it holds, the possibilities.

Then the work begins.

I think after that first initial thought, the book unfolds in a series of ideas. It does depend on how you write, are you a plotter or a panster? I’m a little of both. I generally know what the beginning, middle and end will be, in a vague way, it’s filling in the bits between that present a challenge, and probably not just for me. I think about my story in progress most of the time. Certainly when I have a free moment, just before I sleep and when I wake up. Sometimes I’m watching television or chatting to friends something will come up out of nowhere and I’ll think, oh–that might work.

My husband came up with a great analogy the other day as we were discussing how ideas come together to form a book. He said it sounds like you have many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and you’re slowly putting them together in your head. Each puzzle piece is an idea. Most writing advice I’m hearing these days is to get that first set of ideas down. Get that plot on paper and make it to the finish line. Then you can take a breather and reread it. Start to see which ideas work and which ones don’t.

So, maybe all the pieces don’t quite fit first time, you can’t see where that blue bit goes, or that funny squiggly piece fits, but eventually, after you try putting it here and there, the final piece drops into place and you have the whole picture.

Writing a book isn’t that easy, it’s an exercise in pulling all these ideas together, tidying them up, and arranging them into some sort of order that makes sense.

Now if I could just figure out how to do that, each time I sit down to write a book…

Funny thing is that there’s a… ‘The World of Ian Rankin’ Jigsaw puzzle out now, a day in the life of Rebus in Edinburgh, what a great idea. If only I could buy a complete jigsaw puzzle of my next novel before I wrote it, I would put it together, and voila!

Which incidentally brings me to my next book which is due out in August. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the jigsaw puzzle of it, but at least it did come together, the final piece clicked into place. Hopefully, if you get a chance, you can see if it all fits together nicely. Blood Relations – available next month on most platforms, audio book to follow.

Perfect Sense: A Short Collection of Flashbacks

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By Barbara J Eikmeier

It was the first really hot day of summer. My car didn’t have a chance to cool down between errands. I was hot. My car was hot. Then I stepped into the CVS pharmacy. The blast of cool air from the air conditioned store hit me at the door. In that instant I had a flashback to Clark’s Drugstore, Willows, California, in the early 1970s. Situated on the corner of Sycamore and Butte Streets, I don’t even know why I went there in my teen summers. I certainly didn’t have money to buy anything, and my friends didn’t either. I think we went for the air conditioning! The feeling of the cool air in CVS brought me immediately back to Clark’s Drugstore. It was a fleeting moment, but I liked it.

I walked along Angel Falls Trail. The wide sidewalk was in complete shade, streaks of mud ran across the low spots – a reminder of the heavy rains from the previous night. I rounded the last bend before the bridge and heard the rumble of the water rolling over the falls, which always runs wild after a rainstorm. In a nanosecond it took me back to the Van Duzen River near Fortuna, California. It was 1983. I was a college student. My boyfriend kayaked that river. I often accompanied him. With my feet dangling in the cool, clear water, I studied my nursing lessons while he ran the river. I could hear the rumble of the last waterfall he would clear, just there, where the river curved, out of sight but for the sound of spilling water. Angel Falls Trail brought me back to that place.

I saw him as I left the gym. He was wearing a black cowboy hat and stood studying the blooming bushes. He looked up at me, breathed deeply and said, “They smell amazing!”

I said, “Oak Leaf Hydrangeas. They just started blooming.”

He said, “Oak Leaf?” I walked near the plants and showed him how the shape of the leaf was similar to an oak leaf. He said, “Thank you. I want to get one for my yard. I came around the corner and the smell reminded me so much of my grandma’s house.”

The feeling of air conditioning on a hot day. The sound of a waterfall after a rainstorm. The smell of a blooming shrub. They are things that take us back in time, unbidden, in a flash, sometimes jolting us with the clarity of a memory.

Barbara J. Eikmeier is a quilter, writer, student of quilt history, and lover of small-town America. Raised on a dairy farm in California, she enjoys placing her characters in rural communities.

Family

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I’ve been thinking about families lately. Specifically, two kinds of family: the kind we are born into and the kind we create for ourselves among the strangers we meet in the course of our lives.

I have a brother I love dearly. I never had a sister, but I was blessed with girl cousins who were close in age. As children, we’d play together like siblings. Holidays were always big gatherings, too. And when we got older, we stood as bridesmaids in each others’ weddings. Eventually, we moved away from our family homes and out of each other’s lives.

This week, some of my cousins came to town for an impromptu four-day get-together. From the get-go, I was struck by how easily we slipped back into sister-mode. Making lunch, shopping, and just sittin’ around reminiscing, the bonds between us are still there, despite the years we’ve been apart. It’s such a comfortable, validating feeling to be with them, those people who knew us way back when.

Almost a decade ago, writing groups and writing conferences introduced me to a different kind of family. After attending my first writing conference, I felt like I had finally found my “peeps.” Without these new sisters and brothers, my writing life would be one lonely enterprise.

I’m especially grateful to the angels among them who’ve taken a personal interest in my work. At times when I’ve been ready to tear my hair out in frustration, they come through with encouragement and sage advice.

When I was growing up, I imagined a writer’s life to be a solitary existence. I never imagined that I’d find such a nurturing community here. But that is exactly what happened.

I’m lucky to have all these folks in my life. Whether related by blood or by our love of books, it’s family that makes life worthwhile.

Gay Yellen writes the award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and out later this summer, The Body in the News.

 

Clicking Our Heels – Distractions!

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Are you easily distracted? Is so, by what? Here’s what distracts us:

Robin Hillyer-Miles – Social media.

Saralyn Richard – Social media can take me off of a plot line faster and longer than anything else.

T.K. Thorne – Questions like this. Lol, just kidding. Other stuff on my computer—email, FB, trying to stay up with news, but really I think it is the desire to get those things “out of the way” before concentrating on writing.  Then somehow, it is nighttime. I need to work on that.

Shari Randall/Meri Allen – Everything! I usually write in a room with lots of windows, and I am the Gladys Kravitz of my neighborhood. Every dog walker, delivery truck, or bicyclist catches my eye. But when deadlines approach, I have to put myself in “writer jail.” Writer Jail means a carrel in the library. No distraction = deadlines met.

Bethany Maines – Social media! Sometimes I’ll put my phone on Do Not Disturb and then move it further away from me. I also got logged out of Facebook on my laptop (my primary writing device) and have consciously never logged back in, which has saved me on multiple occasions. And yes, I could log back on, but I would have to go look up my password and it’s so much easier to not to do that. So laziness is working for me in this instance.

Kathryn Lane – My biggest distraction from writing is the research I do for my novels. Although it’s part of my writing process, I enjoy it so much that I over-research. And I know it, but it also motivates me to write.

Mary Lee Ashford – Hands down, social media and mostly Facebook. I so enjoy hearing what everyone else is up to and chatting with friends near and far. I love seeing people’s dogs and cats, hearing about their travels, or celebration. And then pretty soon an hour has passed. What I have to do is log on first thing in the morning with my coffee in hand and let myself be “social” for a bit. Then I have to move to a different device and get busy with writing. With a break for lunch or a water or coffee refill, I check in on what’s going on but I really have to limit my social media time to before or after writing.

Anita Carter – streaming a British mystery show.

Lois Winston – Life in general and a retired husband, not necessarily in that order!

Barbara Eikmeier – Sewing. I sew every day because I have a lot of sewing deadlines for my day job. If I wrote as much as I sewed I’d be a very prolific writer!

Debra H. Goldstein – Life. There’s always something unexpected!

Linda Rodriguez – At this stage of my life, physical illness and pain. It’s been different at other stages.

Donnell Ann Bell – At this point I can honestly say my 89-year-old mother. She’s in transition from her home into assisted living. I’m doing a lot of travel back and forth.

Dru Ann Love – Since I’m not a writer, my biggest distraction from working on my blog is being sick or having something more important to do.

Gay Yellen – My very patient husband and our life together.

Lynn McPherson – My big fluffy dog doesn’t like to be ignored.

Grab a Hotdog!

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Happy 4th of July to Everyone!

I was 25 years old, the mother of a precious five-year-old son, and I did not hold a college degree when I crossed the southern border to live in the US. I was leaving a really bad marriage in Mexico and starting a new life for my son and myself in the US.

I held dual Mexican and American citizenship because I had been born in Texas. My parents lived in rural Mexico, an area without doctors, clinics, or hospitals, so my mother came to the US to deliver me and my siblings. My parents returned home a week after my birth.

Despite being born in Texas, I had never lived in the US. For this reason, I could not automatically bring my son to live here.

So why did I persist and get my three-year-old son accepted as a legal immigrant?

Opportunity!

The decision to leave my country of origin was heart wrenching. Yet I recognized that it would have been nearly impossible for me to find a job in Mexico to support us. Even more challenging would have been to hold a job and to attend a university at the same time.

US immigration laws that were on the books at that time were fully enforced. Consequently, I signed documents stating that my son and I would be deported if I accepted any public housing, food assistance, or any other type of government assistance. For five years, … I had to keep Immigration informed on where I lived and where I worked because my young son was an immigrant. At the end of five years, my son was granted US citizenship.

As much as I love my Mexican heritage, traditions, culture, and the nation’s amazing history, I have never regretted moving to this country. The first ten years were extremely difficult, yet I’ve seen my son grow into a fine man, I’ve acquired an education, I became both a CPA and a certified management accountant, and I worked in international finance for a major multinational corporation. In addition, my international finance career gave me the benefit of travelling the globe. After two decades in international finance, I took an early retirement. And now I have a fun job – I write fiction!

If I had to do it again, would I?

Absolutely! There’s no other country in the world that provides the opportunities that are available here if we choose to work toward achieving something. I love this country!

Happy 4th of July! Let’s grab a hotdog!

***

The 4th of July is a family holiday, regardless of ethnicity. How did you spend yours?

***

Kathryn Lane writes mystery and suspense novels set in foreign countries. In her award-winning Nikki Garcia Mystery Series, her protagonist is a private investigator currently based in Miami. Her latest publication is a coming-of-age story, Stolen Diary, about a socially awkward math genius.

Kathryn’s own early work life started out as a painter in oils. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked on a career in international finance with Johnson & Johnson.

Two decades later, she left the corporate world to create mystery and suspense thrillers, drawing inspiration from her Mexican background as well as her travels in over ninety countries.

Most summer months, Kathryn and her husband, Bob Hurt, escape to the mountains of northern New Mexico to avoid the Texas heat.

Deep in the Promo Weeds

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By Lois Winston

My post last month talked about the five-letter word that sends a shudder through most authors. I’ve been in the promotion weeds ever since, due to the recent launch of  A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Between my own blog, Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers, and the two group blogs I belong to, this one and Booklover’s Bench, I also signed up for a blog tour with Great Escapes Book Tours and booked a few guest blogs on my own. The grand total came to—drumroll, please—26 blog posts through the middle of August!

And here lies the conundrum: How many ways can I talk about my series and the newest book in it without sounding like a broken record? Or worse yet, a carnival barker? Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Be the first to experience the latest murder and mayhem author Lois Winston has dumped on her poor reluctant amateur sleuth!

No one likes being bombarded with “buy my book” pleas on social media. Hard sell often works against an author. Years ago, when I was still writing romance, I attended a conference where a well-known, bestselling author kept pleading with the audience to buy her books because her teenage son was growing so fast that she was spending a fortune every month at Foot Locker. From the sideways glances those of us in the audience were giving each other, I had the sense that this author’s attempt at a cute marketing ploy was backfiring badly. Especially since we’d all seen her latest advance recently posted on Publishers Marketplace. I’ve been published since 2006, and to this day, if you added up all my advances and royalties from the past seventeen years, the total would still be less than what that author had received in one advance.

At any rate, Anastasia and I (some bloggers requested posts written by my sleuth or interviews with her instead of me) have tried—desperately—to keep each of the posts fresh and different. My Great Escapes blog tour began June 19th and runs through July 2nd. You can find the schedule here. Visit each site to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win one of three copies I’m giving away of A Crafty Collage of Crime. Because the drawing won’t be held until after the last guest post goes live on July 2nd, you can also go back and enter at the blogs that have already posted.

I promise I won’t implore you to add to my sons’ or grandsons’ sneaker funds!

Instead, if you post a comment here, I’ll enter you in a random drawing for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of A Stitch to Die For, the fifth book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

A Gathering in Charleston, South Carolina

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by Paula Gail Benson

82 Queen

This year, I had been regretting my inability to attend any writing conferences. Being among writers and readers always helps to inspire and bring new ideas into focus. Not to mention, adding to my “to be read” list.

A few months ago, I heard from a dear friend to so many of us, Dru Ann Love, that she would be coming to Charleston, South Carolina, to tour the city with friends. Could some of us who lived nearby join them for lunch one day?

My work schedule kept changing, so I wasn’t certain until the last minute that I could join the group. I asked my friend Sue Husman, a retired librarian and voracious reader, if she would ride with me from Columbia to Charleston.

For lunch, we had a reservation at 82 Queen, described on its website as “a uniquely ‘Charleston’ dining experience” in “three buildings and a garden courtyard nestled in the Historic French Quarter.” I had not been there in decades, but I knew it would be delightful and memorable.

As we left the Municipal Garage, we ran into Jackie Layton, who writes “cozy mysteries with Spunky Southern Sleuths,” including the Low Country Dog Walker and the new Texas Flower Farmer Cozy Mysteries, which will debut in July. I was impressed to learn that Jackie combines writing with being a part-time pharmacist. She lives in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and her website is http://jackielaytoncozyauthor.com. Sue, Jackie, and I took a few minutes to peruse Buxton Books on King Street before heading to 82 Queen.

We dined upstairs in a room wallpapered with images of green parrots. Dru Ann was our most gracious host, introducing us to her friends, Yifat Cestare from New York and Marla Husovsky from California. Since meeting, they had traveled to join each other at several destinations for exploration, food, and fun. Yifat explained the number one requirement was laughing a lot. We were glad to comply.

My lunch: tomato pie and salad. YUM.

Dru Ann made sure we knew about each of the authors. Tina Whittle and Nora McFarland had traveled from Savannah, Georgia.

In addition to short fiction, Tina Whittle writes the Tai Randolph/Trey Seaver mysteries that feature gunshop owner Tai and corporate security agent Trey. She reads tarot and enjoys boxing, sushi, and mini pilgrimages. Her website is http://www.tinawhittle.com.

Nora McFarland has an MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and has worked in national (CNN) and local news. Her protagonist is Lily Hawkins, a TV News photographer who lives and sleuths in Bakersfield, California. Nora’s website is http://www.noramcfarland.com.

Pralines and Cream Ice Cream for Dessert!

Dorothy McFalls and I always joke that we only meet when traveling to writing conventions. We have both been members of the Lowcountry Romance Writers (chapter of RWA), based in Charleston. Dorothy’s a Charleston resident who writes romance and mysteries. She has two websites: http://dorothymcfalls.com and http://dorothystjames.com. Her mysteries include the White House Gardener, the Southern Chocolate Shop, and the Beloved Bookroom series.

Everyone was very supportive of my short stories, including “Crossfire in the Crosshairs” available in eBook A Death in the Night to be released in August by Dragon Soul Press. You can pre-order here.

Dru Ann had her own happy news that was announced at Malice Domestic. She and Kristopher Zgorski have collaborated to write a short story for a Beatles related anthology that will be edited by Josh Pachter. We are all very excited to read their work. Meanwhile, we’ll be following Dru Ann’s reading adventures at https://drusbookmusing.com/.

The group with something above!

We had a fabulous time, enjoying great food and conversation. One of the topics was about staying in haunted places. I noticed in the photo our server took that a shiny figure seems to float above us. Some might call it a reflection from the light fixture, but I wonder!

Many thanks to everyone involved in this wonderful day. Dru Ann, Yifat, and Marla, don’t you think you could make Charleston an annual destination?

Gay Yellen: Weeding and Wording

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Just found out that today is National Weed Your Garden Day, which couldn’t be more appropriate for me at the moment, though instead of culling crabgrass, I’m weeding out words.

vecteezy.com

The most common offenders I’ve dug up so far are: just, seemed, felt, but, winced, smiled, and a few other crutches a writer too often leans on.

The good news is that this exercise signals my last round of self-editing for The Body in the News, Book 3 in my Samantha Newman Mystery Series. Once this task is completed, I’ll be sending the manuscript to my publisher.

The bad news is, I’ve been so focused on finishing the new book that I completely forgot to plan a subject for this, my monthly Stiletto Gang post. So, in honor of this “national” day, let’s talk about weeds… oops, I meant words.

I was surprised when a friend commented that she thought I consciously chose to use more common language in my books than I use in my natural speech. Well, yes, and no. The characters in my books are not me, and even though I write their dialogue, the way they express themselves is their own.

When the writing is going well, I’m listening to Samantha and Carter and their supporting cast as they dictate their words to me. Older people use different words than younger adults and children do. Sticklers for facts, such as my detective, Buron Washington, are more clipped and precise when they speak. And so on, down to a new character whose vocabulary is unique unto itself.

However, the weeds in this manuscript are entirely my fault, and I must get back to yanking them out, one by one. But before I go, here’s a question:

Does the way a person speaks reveal something unique about their mood or character? How so?

Gay Yellen writes the award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and out later this summer, The Body in the News.