Have been on a Native American reading kick--Osage, Arapaho, Mixtec. Don't know why I haven't talked about Laura Resau before. Not only does she have an anthropological background and done the English-as-a-Second Language bit, but she's a local Colorado author. Worse, her young adult novel, Red Glass, is a wonderful book, even if published in 2009. -- No. I wouldn't know her if I stumbled over her in the daylight.

     Red Glass is a coming of age novel about Sophie, a risk-avoiding teen "amoeba" [a social singleton, isolate, loner, whatever], who learns her strengths by taking action against her better judgement and deciding she likes new self. Given the cliched situation, including a boy as motivation, Resau works writing magic.

     Have you ever thought lush description could be restrained? Well, Resau accomplishes the feat. The action doesn't stop. Yet, the reader can almost reach out and touch the scene they're in. This especially so when she's describing the milpas of southern Mexico/Guatemala.

    Pulled this example at random from when Resau describes the background of a secondary character returning to her house after it was bombed in the Bosnian Wars: "She shuffled and sorted through the debris, picking out pieces of green crystal wineglasses, sharp bits of vases, amber and violet, crushed wings of a blue angel. Some of the glass was smooth, melted in the heat of the explosions, some jagged. Finally, she picked up one shard of red glass, and put it in her pocket."

    I think that's a devastating depiction of the pain of war. And, no...I didn't search for it. The quote was truly a random pick though the piece of red glass appears often in the storyline.

    Yeah. I'm green with envy. Most writers would hit the pathos hard and heavy. But there's lots of humor in the story. On the other hand, even characters, that at first seem a set up for ridicule and comic relief, turn out to have an important role in sending Sophie on her self-revealing adventure in war-torn Guatemala.

    Oh, the storyline. Sophie's family fosters Pablo, an illegal child migrant, whose parents died on their journey to El Norte, the north, the USA. Her family wants to adopt Pablo, but they must first get his relatives', in southern Mexico, permission. Sophie travels south--with Pablo, Dika, a distant relative who's a refugee from the Bosnian Wars, and Dika's boyfriend and his teenaged son--on her journey of discovery.

Each character contributes to the mosaic of love and loss, courage and fear in this complex novel. While the theme is the standard teen stuff: character finding the guts to shed emotional crutches, Resau's storytelling soars. Even the adults learn something from the action. Read an excerpt and more reviews on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.

    A thank you to my blog readers, whoever you are. My last guest blogger, Helena Smole, got an upsurge in her book's borrowing on Amazon after her blog appeared last week. Thank you again.

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    Ended up hosting a reading derby this past week--with two books instead of seventeen. Started reading one book by a favorite author but ended up skimming it more than reading because the book emphasized action rather than character development. Maybe that's one problem for long running series--readers become more interested more in what's happening to the people in the book rather than sis-boom-bah action scenes running one after the other--and they fizzle? At least it was for me. [I did finish and enjoy the book, but it was an also ran.]

   The winner was Kay Hooper's  A Deadly Web , part of her new Bishop Files series. The story's a nice, tight thriller with Bishop trying to find out why psychics are going missing. The plot pits him against a deadly web of psychics preying upon psychics. I get a little tired of conspiracy theories in real life, but where would genre fiction be without them?

   I don't think the people in peril plot line ever gets tiresome once a writer sets up a likable set of characters. In A Deadly Web, you have an attractive main character who needs saving from a fate worse than death, which is more nefarious than the cliche. Since the book fits in the romance-suspense-thriller category, there's a caring male to anchor the MC, a character who is working with another psychic group than Bishop's to save psychics. Even the members of the cabal of villains are interesting and well drawn .

   Problem. Too much talking. Hooper weighed this book down with too much character and not enough action. Worse, the ending seems to dangle without a real resolution. Another way of putting it, the characters didn't seem to grow from their experiences. Granted Hooper needs some loopholes to hook readers for the next book in the series. But to me, the book felt 3/4s baked. Only the end sank rather than the middle.

   The multiple changes in viewpoint also bothered me. Even the secondary characters got their place in the sun. Often felt like Hooper was head-hopping. Thrillers need to get into the perps' minds to create suspense, but this story seemed to be spending as much time on the villains as the heroes. If I counted the pages, I'm sure this wasn't true, but it still felt like it.

   That said, let's talk about the pluses. Hooper's a master at creating a spine-crawling sense of dread in the reader. She sets up a menacing situation and then squeezes it dry. And, Hooper knows how to convey psychic sensibilities so they seem possible even to non-believers.

Recommend in spite of reservations. The book kept me reading well beyond my bed time so I guess it means the book is better than most. But the book definitely isn't Hooper's best.

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    Was reading a perfectly good cozy mystery--by a new author, to me, which I eventually finished with enjoyment. But...the family book exchange interrupted that read. A recent paperback by Aaron Elkins, Dying on the Vine, landed on my dining room table/desk. Of course, I had to take a peek.

   Now, I think of Elkins as a forensics mystery writer, featuring one of my favorite disciplines--physical anthropology. But that isn't what hooked me. The depiction of an old Italian man facing a difficult decision about his four sons' inheriting the family winery did. Yeah, Dying on the Vine began like most cozies--with a description of a bunch of interesting characters. Only Elkins doesn't use first person viewpoint. He uses third, and his stories are based on science.

   Then, for the heck of it, I did some research and discovered Elkins writes cozies, at least according to Wikipedia's definition: "Cozy mysteries, also referred to simply as cozies, are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community." Nothing like having your preconceptions knocked upside-down.

   How can you have a mystery without some violence? After all, most mysteries solve a murder or a conspiracy that includes a lot of deaths. Cozies merely shoved the violence off-screen or ends right after the victim is confronted by the perp, and death might be inevitable. Yeah, there are exceptions, but the generalization holds from my reading.

   Same goes for sex among the long-marrieds. It probably happens, but it's off-scene. The fire of anticipation common in many kick-ass mysteries/fantasies is also missing. There's not even any hand-holding, that I remember.

   Almost as absent as sex was the growth in the main and secondary characters. In fact, this depiction of Lau, Oliver's sidekick, often fell into caricature. I felt his purpose was to make some dumb, somewhat funny, comment to reduce the tension rather than offer a new insight to solving the puzzle. Actually, there wasn't that much tension in the book, even at the end--no showdown with the perp or bringing the suspects into the drawing room to nail down the guilty.

All that said, I recommend the book. It's a relaxing, light, well-paced, well-plotted puzzle. Elkins' skills as a writer keep the storyline moving. And, you'll learn more about bones than you ever thought you wanted to. 



 The Passive Guy, one of my gurus, pointed me to an interesting article in the New Statesman about the importance of story, a commentary on a book by Agatha Christie. You might check it out, especially if reading means you like to immerse yourself in a book.

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   Think I got the goofing-off bug bad--even though my visiting relatives are long home. Neil Gaiman's book, The Ocean and the End of the Lane, was so short I decided to treat myself and give myself permission to re-read a favorite book.

   Did I say "a favorite"? I ended up reading both Tamora Pierce's Alanna, the Lioness, and Keladry of Mindelan quartets in her Tortall series. Would have tried to squeeze in The Immortals quartet, but could only find three of the set on my bookshelves.

   So happens I've reviewed so many of Pierce's books that I don't think there's anything much I can say about them. But the big question is: Why do I keep reading kids' books when I'm an old lady. I re-read Lord of the Rings regularly, too. But it's a more massive series focused on adults. Still, I think Pierce has out produced Tolkien by a long shot.  Maybe even has more readers?

   Maybe I read them because Pierce's books also depict more realistic relationships between men and woman? Actually for middle grade books she comes up for some strange situations in the parenting department. My favorite couple is from the Trickster series where a crow turns into a human to help Alanna's daughter survive after she is kidnapped.

   I'm surprised that Pierce alludes to adult human relationships so often in middle grade books without raising a ruckus. At least, I haven't heard of anyone trying to keep her books off the library shelves or trying to burn them.

   Pierce started writing in the 1980s, presenting strong female characters who could best men at their own games. Not that I'm particularly a feminist. I did manage my kids and still manage my home in a rather traditional peasant manner. But I also do what I want when I want when not carrying my load as part of the team.

   Guess I need another reason for re-reading the same series so many times. The best I can come up with is that Pierce creates such a tangible world the reader gets carried away with the characters. Magic exists in abundance in her Tortall books, but the characters still have to use mundane skills to solve their problems. Yeah, I guess I'm guilty of immersing myself in a rich, comfortable world.

   So, I'll ask the larger question. Why does anyone keep rereading a book or series? After all they could be getting an entirely new experience with a un-read book.

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    Don't know what took me so long to read Neil Gaiman's heroic childhood fantasy The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Maybe I was afraid of having my mind blown by what Gaiman does with the cliche of the loner, bookish kid not liking the caregiver his working parents dump on him.

   Of course, Gaiman wrapped the plot in magic, including three powerful immortals who pretend to be human on the farm at the end of the land.  The heroic battle comes after the narrator becomes the means used by a malignant entity to invade our dimension.

   This is supposedly an adult novel, narrated by an adult who had just given an eulogy at a funeral and decides to kill some time between events by visiting some of his childhood haunts. In matter of fact prose, the unnamed main character tells his dark tale of heroic sacrifice. Yet, the whole story takes place during the narrator's childhood, when he was seven-eight years old.

   The beauty in the reading comes in Gaiman's writing. Yeah. The Gaiman gives the reader the realistic whimsey at the core of all his books. It continually amazed me with how he manages to get such preternatural suspense from such a mundane, suburban setting. Even so, the action doesn't seem to have had much effect on the character. You might even say the story lacks character development. The kid seemed much the same to me at the end as the two ladies who livied at the end of the lane.

   I felt the tale skimmed along the surface of some great thoughts. The story did become a lyrical poem to the wonders of childhood with all its mysteries and what ifs. The bottom line, I think, is that Neil Gaiman has written another modern fairytale in his spare style with depths buried in the action rather than the description.

   Writers can take lessons from how Gaiman creates his images without noticeable adjectives. His descriptions widen the possibilities in the reader's imagination. Most writers narrow down the possibilities within their story lines.

A delightful coming of age story, beautifully written, which will stick into the back of your mind and resurface at unexpected times. Gaiman's amazing imagination and story-telling make this a must read for fantasy readers. You can read more reviews and samples on

   Came across a blog: Write Small: 5 Ways to Make Your Readers Care on Writer's Write by Mia Botha. One thing struck me was that people react to social crises much the same. They pick one cause or the problem of one person to work on. It's the details that matter.

   This pipsqueak writer is far too small to worry about Hugos or Nebulas, but it seems to me everyone should be aware of the current nomination process at the Hugos, a popularity contest which has always ignored some of the most enduring writers in the fantasy/science fiction genres. The Passive Guy, my favorite writing guru, posted this blog: Some Sad Puppy Data Analysis.

   Don't know how many of you read historical mysteries, but Jeri Westerson recently wrote a blog about how she came to write medieval mysteries: Writing Was My Secret. It made me wonder how many readers are secret writers. It's no secret that writers are readers.

    Did enjoy my sister-in-law and daughter's visit. She says she enjoyed it too--in spite of the cottonwoods doing their spring-thing. Barely managed to keep my emails cleaned. The break did energize my #writing. While my brain forgot about the plot of On the Run, the back stories and socio-magical-political structure fell into place. The action and time lines in the whole Andor series have become more coherent in my brain. Like Doom for a Sold Soul happens before the Celestial Wars. Surprising since I write by the seat of my pants. Maybe there's some scientific basis for automatic writing.

   Didn't get anything done on my website...though people seem to be visiting it before I get all the SEO done. Since I haven't gotten anything corrected for the public. Here's the first paragraph of the current version of On the Run, which happens after the Celestial Wars.

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   Finally found a paperback of Charlaine Harris' new series--Midnight Crossroad--and was first annoyed with the arm's length point of view of the tale. Harris chose to reveal the action from mulitiple viewpoints of the rather strange inhabitants of Midnight. At first I didn't care much for the distance, then it grew on me.

   From the beginning, Midnight, sounded intriguing. It screamed small town with deep currents to me. Then, the name Bobo Winthrop popped up on page three. Harris recycled a character. Or, if you want to be more generous, you might say she put Bobo front and center in the plot line, giving him a main role in a new story, if not his own story. If you've only read the Sookie Stackhouse series, you might not recognize Bobo. He was a secondary character in Harris' Lucy Bard series. Poor Bobo, he's still unlucky in love...and family. But Harris creates two interrelated mysteries out of his problems.

   Everyone one of the dozen or so inhabitants of Midnight have secrets, some more hidden than others. Midnight Crossroad concentrates on a newcomer to town, Manfred Bernardo, a psychic, who may or may not be real deal and runs an online psychic business. The poor fellow soon finds himself awash in people acting strangely.

   Harris use of multiple viewpoints gives the reader an intriguing impression of the three most normal people in town. Hints of danger come when two strangers come to an infrequently patronized restaurant. Danger builds when they threaten Bobo for information about a cache of weapons belonging to his super-racist grandfather. But the plot really takes off when the decayed body of Bobo's missing lover is found on the first and only annual town picnic. The mystery plays out until the end.

   The plodding pace of the book is my biggest criticism of the book. First, Harris spends a long time to introduce us to her interesting cast of characters without revealing very much. But, being a master, she still manages to create people rather than stick characters. The weakest link, unfortunately, was her villain. Harris needed to develop his motivations, like she should have explained why he needed an aging arsenal while he seemed to have loads of money. Thought Harris should have made it more front and center why he was chasing a Patriot rumor. After all in this country, rich guys can buy armaments of many kinds of lethal until doomsday.

   My biggest disappointment was the ending, but can't say much about it because of dumping a huge spoiler on you. Just let me say I thought reactions of the characters were too passive.

Recommended with reservations, basically because I felt Harris left too many questions unanswered. Still, Midnight Crossroad is an intriguing read, if not exciting.  






   Still can't use a website builder worth a limp noodle. Oh, the mistakes I make! Have made three calls to the help center to solve, but the page is still shrunk to the size where I can't read the print. The new snippet of On the Run is delayed in the process. This is the revised version featuring Pillar Beccon...whose strange ancestry makes fitting into any of the Andor factions easy. Given all the linear story bits and pieces, I think this is going to be a longer effort than I've self-published in the past. Whatever, my critiquers are liking the change. Maybe someday readers might be able to see what I'm writing now.


One funny note. The Ghost in the Closet still is my "best seller", though can't say I sell much. Most people download one or more of my free stories in spite of my not doing any promotion of them.

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Seems like it never takes me long to return to reading mysteries. This week in addition to some heavy non-fiction I read, Amanda Carmark's Murder in the Queen's Garden came to the top of my current to-read pile. Stickler's can argue that the Nonesuch's gardens belonged to Lord Arundel since he bought the estate from the crown after Catherine Howard's misadventures. But Elizabeth I had stopped at the fabled palace on progress, and I won't quibble.

   As usual, Carmark shines in her descriptions. She gives the reader a tangible idea about life in Tudor England, with all its squalor, riches, and superstitions, though you must give the Tudors credit for not going hysterical over witches like the Stuarts did. 

   What I find amazing is how Carmark narrows in on the telling detail. Just one example: Kate, the MC, being thankful her room wasn't close to the "jakes", aka outhouses, in a clause. London smells got more attention. The pacing, character development, plot line all live up to the standards of the setting.

    That leaves us with the crucial part of any mystery--the villain or perp. I thought her handling of that element lacking. I like the perp to be noticeably involved in the action. Being shoved from behind doesn't cut. The villain's dupe was a sniveling wretch, and the true perpetrator wasn't on scene enough to get a feel for the scheming going on in the shadows. Oh, there were encounters but no indications. Maybe a more astute readers would disagree.

   Perhaps the best part of this series is the growth in the main character's personal and political savvy. Kate Haywood has always been observant, but now she's beginning to make sense of the tortuous schemes of Elizabeth I's court. 

I especially like the concise descriptive points that Carmark uses to advance her story and create the ambiance in which her character interact. Strongly recommended, both as an enjoyable read and a craft lesson.

   Are you dreaming of writing a blockbuster book? Hey, even if you're a reader, you might be interested in this blog that tells you how it's done: How to Write a Dystopian YA Novel in 10 Easy Steps  by Kat Brown. I found this interesting not so much because I expect any of my shorts to be blockbusters, but I seem to be stuck on writing YA coming of age stuff at the moment.

   Seems more people than me are thinking YA. The Passive Guy weighed in on why YA novels are used in so many blockbuster movies.

   Then, there's our own dystopian society. Once the US was exceptional, but Robert D. Putnam has written a book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, showing how the American Dream is about to evaporate. This is a book not only for the American body politic but for writers who need to get more class differences in their writing to make it more realistic. Won't preach, but I'm grateful that a poorer US [in the 1940s & 1050s] managed to support a more helping social infrastructure that allowed the poor to become upper middle class. Anyone for $99 a semester state university tuition, maybe about $2000 a semester in today's money.

   [Yeah, I was one of those kids who went to such a college, only we were so poor we qualified for a free tuition grant funded by the state. Thousands of poor kids got them at the time. But then, I could provide food & rent working for a buck an hour. Yeah, I'm thankful I grew up in the golden age of America.] 


   Was feeling a little sorry for myself  last week when I realized none of the stuff I've been writing the last month or so--trying to bend Cassy Mae's story into a sequel--wasn't cutting the mustard. My critique group wrinkled their noses at how the back story clogged the story rather than illuminated it. Then, I tried their suggestions. Result: a bigger mess.

   Of course, my musician daughter said, "So, what. Salvage what you can and continue writing." Her attitude: It's what happens when you create. Yeah, I think it was good advice for anyone.

   Actually, I had already salvaged the plot line with a new main character and sent it to my critique group. If the first response to my new first chapter is any measure, I made the right move. It even starts off in a bus station, so I get to keep my cover. Pill's going to fit right into the 10,000+ words I've already written with very little revision. I like angry Pillar Beccon more than mild Cassy Mae. The book's still set in Andor, only being told from a developing witch's point of view.

   Now, I must post the new story line on my author website. I'm also offering longer excerpts of all my fantasy stories there on my publication pages.

   Do you think I'm strange that I like to have a potential cover of my book while I'm writing?

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   My recent book store adventures continue. Found so many new books last time that a customer thought I was an employee as I walked to the coffee shop. She looked at the pile of books in my hands in disbelief when I told her the books were the ones I was buying. Yeah, I found several books by favorite authors with long series plus a couple new mysteries, including a writer I hadn't read before.

   Normally, I don't talk much about the authors I read automatically. But I've been thinking lately about characters and series and why/how they keep their wheels spinning along, a lot recently because my own reviewers keep insisting I write more about my different characters.

   The puzzle loomed higher while I was glancing through those favorite authors, trying to decide which book I'd read first. Ended up reading Christine Feehan's Viper Game even before Patricia Brigg's new Mercy Thompson. That surprised me, but then, Feehan featured Wyatt & Gator Fontenot's grandmother as a secondary character.

   Romance writers have it the easiest when it comes to keeping their worlds alive, I think. They can give all those relatives, friends, and acquaintances a chance at finding their own "one true love". Mary Balogh and Stephanie Laurens do this  well. The children of Lauren's first batch of Cynsters are now in the process of finding love. Balogh is still mining the social network of the Bedwyns. Both of these are writers of Regencies, and thanks to Georgette Heyer and Nora Lofts, I remain addicted to a good Recency, though the number of fictional earls and dukes have long outnumbered the quantity of real ones in British society.

   Since when did reality have anything to do with romances, anyway? Still, I don't tolerate writers who don't/can't give a feel for the mental mind set of the Enlightenment lurking in the shadows of privilege.

   Back to Feehan. She keeps two paranormal series going--that of her enhanced military operatives and their female counter parts and her benign vampire series, the various Carpathians ruled by Prince Mikhail Dubrinsky. Viper Game belongs to the former series, this time featuring the brother of a former "book star". I like how Feehan has toned down the testosterone of her male protagonists; they were getting just plain annoying, even though she writes a good sex scene, around the middle of the series. Feehan's super villain is still lurking in the shadows, but the series may set up a new compound [aka fortress] of enhanced warriors and their mates. She left hints that another of her misfits might find true love--after some exciting adventures, of course.

    Patricia Briggs keeps her series going by emphasizing one main character, Mercy Thompson, a coyote walker in a world of werewolves. The latest novel, Night Broken, features the manipulative former wife of Mercy's werewolf husband coming to live in her house because she's stalked by a volcano demon/god. Added complications come from a fae walking stick which refuses to abandon Mercy and the need to conceal the powers of a half-fae friend. Yeah, Briggs piles a lot of supernatural into the northwest corner of Oregon, and her fans keep coming back for more.

    I sometimes think that Yasamine Galenorn's Otherworld series has become too complicated. Still, I keep coming back for more, including Panther Prowling, told from the point of view of Delilah D'Artigo, my least favorite of the three sisters featured in the series, though Galenorn has grown the character over the course of the series. Heaps of supernaturals are piled upon the reader in this series with the sisters bouncing around like ping pong balls trying to save Seattle and the human-based earth. Panther Prowling takes a breather from their arch-villain and concentrates on a possessed sword rather than a demon lord trying to conquer the mundane, fae, and demon worlds.

   One note on Galenorn's books. Her publisher, Berkeley, has decided to stop publishing her Otherworld series after ten years and 18 books, citing decreasing sales [if I remember right]. They want her to concentrate on her two new series. Sounds like she's going to. But...Galenorn has the ending of the Otherworld series in sight and is thinking about becoming a hybrid author.

   Interesting. The current publishing paradigm is provided opportunity for established authors as well as pip squeak writers like me to be independent.

All these books are written by master craftsmen. You are going to find tight, complicated plots and three dimensional characters, even among the secondary ones. I recommend the books as do thousands of other fans. Of course, I love Briggs depiction of the Tri-Cities area along the Columbia River.




   What can be more useful than a laugh? Chuckles are nice, but readers of L. D. Masterson's blog often get a belly-laugh or two. I usually read her Hump Day Mish Mash Funnies on the week-end and don't comment as much as I ought. Maybe a link will make up for my lateness.

   Other stuff that pulls me out of my working schedule: The Passive Guy posted some videos on What the English of Shakespeare, Beowolf, and King Arthur actually sounded like. Take a click and see how much you understand. [I was thankful for the subtitles.]

   Then, I recently had a couple guest posts and interviews posted on various sites. You can take a peek at Pat Stoltey, The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Zoe Ambler, and  Savvy Book  Writers.

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   While browsing in a different part of the bookstore, I stumbled across the first book in a new series by mystery writer, Elizabeth George, The Edge of Nowhere. Since we've traveled through Whidbey Island, where the book is set, many times, I picked it up even though trade paperbacks hurt my thumbs when I read. Yeah, George has branched on from her Inspector Lynley series to a new one featuring Becca King, a teen who hears other people's thoughts as whispers.

  Don't worry George's abilities to weave a tangled mystery plot didn't get  totally lost in her foray into the supernatural. The mystery is alive and well in The Edge of Nowhere.

  I did find a couple of road bumps that almost stopped my reading, though. I found the premise that an abandoned teen wouldn't get picked up by the local cops and taken to protective services in such a small place, especially if she landed there without an adult in hand, hard to believe -- even on an island with huge amounts of tourist traffic passing through. Also thought George tended to talk down to the kids, like thinking two syllables in stead of four. If it wasn't for the ages of the characters, I would have called this a tween or upper middle grade book, even if it's over 400 pages.

  With that said, I must say that the last couple of YA novels that have come my way were even more simplistic than George's ... and they were published in hard back by major traditional publishers. *My-hands-are-up- in-the-air* For the record, I didn't think much of the editing for The Edge of Nowhere.

  Characterization felt a little flat here. Still, the characters had just enough quirks to keep them from being predictable. For me the storyline left too many dangling threads at the end, even for the first book in a trilogy.

  But the settings. Oh, the setting. I could taste Whidbey Island and feel the ocean against my skin. Her descriptions evoked the misty closeness of walking through huge, thick growing trees which complemented the mystery well by making it feel spookier.

   Recommended with reservations. It kept me reading.  As a fan of the more intricate Lynley books, I found the book an enjoyable read, but felt it didn't have enough salt and pepper in the mix. As a fantasy reader, I didn't think George developed the paranormal angle enough.

  Did a little bit of this, and a little bit of that last week. Proofing my author website  continues, usually in the wee hours when I normally read. Main achievement? I'm getting an intimate understanding why the gurus say not to proof your own stuff. On the other hand, I need to get it up without embarrassing me too much so I can get it analyzed. *Snarl*

  Biggest accomplishment. I got almost 3,000 words written on Cassy Mae's new story. Have almost 10,000 words down, the beginning of the beginning and the beginning of the middle. Seems I started the story in the middle.

   Have tried something different in my writing this time around. Just wrote scenes one after another without trying to construct them into chapters. When it got near time to submit to my critique group, I went back and revised, but didn't break the piece in two and add a chapter hook. The results wasn't too bad. Can't wait until we get together to discuss the holes in the story lines. I'm deliberately not
spending time on revising this time around. So far, it looks like I'm getting more production out of my writing time.

  I'll end by mentioning my review promo for The Ghostcrow continues on Smashwords if you use the code: RP68A. As a reader of my blog, I don't really expect a review ... but it would be nice. Yeah, I'm shameless.

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   I just love it when a book, especially a mystery, surprises me. At about page 60, I put Marta Perry's Where Secrets Sleep down,  feeling somewhat disgruntled over the routine characters being presented. The book had lost that "just-one-more-chapter" hook.

   The premise of the book is common enough. After a life-shattering encounter, city girl goes to claim a mysterious inheritance in the countryside, in this case Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Amish country. As soon as the townspeople learn she's staying town, strange accidents begin to occur, and the girl learns her grandmother's death wasn't as cut and dried as first believed. Combine that with a romance as a subplot, and I'm sure you've read that scenario before? I know I have in many permutations.

   Oh, the story line was well-paced, and the characters were decently drawn, but they just didn't jump off the page at me. They wakened that "I've-seen-these-guys-before" feeling. Fortunately, I picked the book up again. The stock characters began to act in unpredictable ways even as the sweet romance developed between, Allison Standish and Nick Whiting, in spite of their initial dislike of each other.

   None of the pieces Perry uses in her cozy mystery, of the Amish sub-genre, are particularly original, but I found myself turning the pages once I was a third of the way through. The puzzle of the who-done-it and the nice choice of perps was part of the draw as Allison starts to unravel the clues of her grandmother's death. The murder and mayhem created enough tension to keep this reader reading. Though I thought, the good people were a little too good, and the negative ones didn't have enough redeeming qualities to really confuse the reader. Still, the book was a pleasant read on a couple snowy evenings.

Recommended. Where Secrets Sleep proves the adage its how you construct your puzzle that makes a mystery intriguing. Yeah, it's all in the execution, and Perry does it well. What's more she's left room for two of the secondary characters to have stories of their own. Guess that make Perry a good recycler of settings, too.

   Having problem coming up with ideas for your next story, blog, or ???? Susan Gilbert offers some ideas and links than can help you on her Monday Memos blog: Improve Your Content Idea Generation with Four Tools

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I can't believe, I had never read a Carla Neggers novel before Dark Sky. Looks like she has several series going with over 70 books, some reaching best seller status. Maybe it's because she's billed as romantic suspense writer. Granted I read the genre if it's cheap because I all too often drop it on the trade pile, unfinished, because there's too much mush and not enough tension. Dark Sky, featuring coffee-guzzling US Marshal Juliet Longstreet and enigmatic Ethan Brooker, delivers a believable romance plus lots of action beyond long bedroom scenes.

The novel is part of a series, but it stands alone. It's starts out when one of Longstreet's arrests gets out of prison and seeks revenge. Longstreet takes care of him, but the plot twists. The first villain is only a tip of the storyline. Another more nefarious set of villains is out to get her and Brooker.

I found the book an interesting, neatly-tied packaged thriller with some extra-nice family dynamics. The Longstreet family is threatened along the read but none of them make easy victims, even the ones not in law enforcement.

Dark Sky. Recommended if you want a fast, light read with lots of action, some smiles, well rounded characters, and government intrigue,

Just what I need is another excuse to waste more time on the internet but couldn't resist sharing this:

How and why does the internet seduce you and gobble your time? I'll bet it's because there are articles like this one with a list of 300 free things: 300 awesome free things: a massive list of free things you should really know by Ali Mese. Not only are they free, but some look really useful.

The Ghostcrow is a prequel to The Ghost in the Closet, set when Dumdie Swartz was a teen and hadn't yet accepted her ability to see ghosts. Only she has a worse problem than ghost guts sticking to her. A demon notices her special talents and wants to possess her because she's more talented than its current host, the mundane jock bullying Dumdie.

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