Delicious from the first page to the last. Anne Gracie is one of my favorite authors and it’s always a pleasure to read and review her latest offering. Marry in Scandal was no exception. It’s always a hit for me when Gracie adds old people or young kids as characters in her stories. Lord Galbraith, grandfather to the hero, is painted with subtlety and quiet humor. Edward has dark secrets from the war, that block him from enjoying his family. Lily has secrets of her own that she must divulge if she is to find and keep love.
The writing is superb as always. The ‘Marry in...’ is an entertaining series and should not be missed.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
TS. I first ‘met’ Patrick when I stumbled across The Colonel and the Bee. Something made me order it and read it. Then review it. I don’t generally read fantasy but this was different…and beautiful…and my favorite character in the book was actually the three-story basket attached to the hot-air balloon. I ask, as I do all of my interviewees, for a short bio to begin the interview. Here is Patrick’s answer.
PC. I’ll try to do it all in one breath: born in Milwaukee, grew up in Chicago suburbs, came to LA for film school, worked in film/entertainment throughout my 20’s, now trying to spend increasing amounts of time writing because I love it and I think I could be good at it with enough sweat/luck/coffee.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
PC. I rotate between a shared workspace, coffee shops, libraries, and my own apartment (where I get the least amount done). I live alone so being around people part of the day is nice. My dream work space has electrical outlets, a chair comfy enough to be in for hours but not so comfy you can fall asleep in it, ample people watching, low music, a bathroom, and if we’re aiming high, free refills.
Q. Do you have any special rituals or quirks when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
PC. Coffee and tea are almost always involved, but other than that I try to keep it as un-exotic as possible. Recently I started making the background of my Word docs legal-pad yellow. I heartily recommend this to writers who get sick of staring at bright white all day.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
PC. I’m exceptionally bad at foosball, but above average at ping-pong and pool.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
PC. Morning session/afternoon session, both 3-4 hrs. I’m still working on a more solid process and seeing what works. I heard one writer’s schedule (Dan Brown maybe?) is 4 am-11 am. That sounds weirdly alluring to me but I have yet to wake up at 4 am to give it a try…
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
PC. I think if you’re really procrastinating a lot, over and over again, it could be a case of wanting to be a writer more than actually wanting to write. I think a lot of people torture themselves over this when in reality they might just be chasing the wrong vocation. Some days are better than others to be sure, but if they’re all bad days, there’s no shame in career/hobby course correction.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
PC. Usually they’re a part of the initial idea but I love the revision stage when they start to crystallize and sound more like themselves in the dialogue. I try not to panic if elements like that are less than perfectly clear early on because they usually arrive by the time things wrap up.
Q. What first inspired you to write?
Ballooning over Africa
PC. I came to novel writing through screenwriting, which I came to through a love of movies. I’ve always loved any kind of creative storytelling and the more I write, the more I enjoy it (for the most part), so that’s reassuring to me. Beyond that, it can be a matter of ‘why isn’t anyone talking about this’, or ‘this could be a nice way for people to escape’, or the ol’ reliable: ‘what if’.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
PC. The situation, followed very closely by the characters, and they become inextricable almost immediately (though both bend and change as the story takes shape).
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
Join us March 22nd for the conclusion of this interview with the talented Patrick Canning.
Did you miss my review of The Colonel and The Bee?
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz. March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese
‘Winter of Murder is the tenth book in the World of Murder series, and like its predecessors, it both stands alone as a remarkable read for newcomers and as an excellent addition to the series as a whole. In this story, Detective Stella Garcia journeys to Alaska to visit her son, who is interning with a field biology group in the Alaskan wilderness. He’s only been away from home for six months, but it seems an impossible distance away from her urban world. Unfortunately, the one thing that consumes her professional life is as active in Alaska as in New York, as Stella soon discovers.
Predictably, murder enters the picture and the dead bodies begin to pile up, prompting her to set aside family time in favor of consulting with the local authorities, given her experience and background with solving homicides. Meanwhile, Detectives O’Roarke and Sneed are on their own without their third investigator Stella, which means not only a challenge to their crime-solving abilities, but new opportunities for their evolving relationship. While prior familiarity with these characters and their experiences will enhance appreciation for how much Stella and her comrades have grown since their first appearances in the series, newcomers will find the story completely accessible and thoroughly engrossing.
Personal and professional dilemmas abound, encounters between all are realistically portrayed, and the contrast between Stella’s urban world and the rural wilds of Alaska are well done, creating a compelling environment in which Stella finds herself far from familiar scenarios or approaches to solving problems. The background and atmosphere of Native Alaskans are particularly well done and lend to a story which is vivid on more than one level: as a detective piece, as a story of character growth and personal advancement, and as a cultural inspection of Alaskan peoples and places.
As Stella navigates uncertain territory and affairs, she gains new perspective not only about murder investigations, but her own relationship with her son.Steeped in personal growth and revelation as well as a satisfyingly complex murder mystery that ventures into cross-cultural perceptions, Winter of Murder is a gripping and strong addition to a powerful series. ’ ~~ D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
RL. I sure do. I don’t think I’d stop sometimes, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve got a body and that it gets tired, hungry, thirsty, and sore from remaining in the same position too long.
Q. Do you have a new book coming out soon? If so tell us about it.
RL. I wrote a book last year that is now complete except for some editing. I’m not yet sure when it will be published, but I hope soon. It’s about an old actor, devoted to his wife, who made a few mistakes during his younger years. He gets a chance to redo those years, but discovers all he really wants to do is get back to his wife.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
RL. I switched my acting career from first priority to second about 15 years ago. Writing took its place as my great passion.
Q. How long after that were you published?
RL. It took me eight years to write some books that were publishable.
Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?
RL. I don’t believe that will happen.
Q. What makes a writer great?
RL. Since writing is very much a craft (plus inspiration, of course) I think the major factor is wanting—no loving—to write and doing it until you get good. I’d add one thing to that: nothing you write is sacred. If it’s not exactly what pleases you, throw it away and rewrite it until it does.
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
RL. It is never the same for me. The book I wrote last year unfolded itself within a year. My first two novels took me over 10 years to get right. My memoir, North of Hollywood, took only about a year. I really can’t say what the whole process looks like. I think if I knew that—and this is speaking only for me—I wouldn’t be a very good writer.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
RL. I came from a very dysfunctional family. It was often painful at the time, especially during my teenage years. So, that was certainly a factor. After that, I spent most of my life as a professional actor; my show business life, as a theater actor in New York, and a Hollywood actor, living in Los Angeles, has had a big influence on my writing.
Q. What’s your down time look like?
RL. I read, exercise, meditate, and spend my most joyful times with Linda and my children and grandchildren.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
RL. I have been a playwright (as well as an actor) for most of my life. I prefer writing books now. As to the genre of my writing, some people call it fantasy, but I do like to try to make it as a literary as I possibly can.
…with grandson
Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)
RL. I think life is meant to be joyful. But in order for that to be the case—again, speaking for myself—I have to constantly practice kindness, forgiveness, and the continual understanding that God loves me no more than He loves everyone else.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Book #10, Winter of Murder adds a new chill to the series.
Detective Stella Garcia visits her grown son in the wilds of Alaska. He is interning with a field biology team. Their visit allows them to reunite after R.J.’s six month absence. Stella is delighted to spend quality time with her son. But murder has followed her north to the wilds of this vast winter wilderness and dead bodies start showing up in and around the Native village. Weather forbids local law enforcement from taking on the investigation and Stella is recruited as a murder consultant.
Caused by the absence of Stella, Detectives O’Roarke and Sneed deepen their professional relationship. Once again they are called upon to solve a murder that was meant to look like an accident.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Cactus Flower circa 1969, Rick with Goldie Hawn & Walter Matthau
TS. Rick Lenz is a graduate of the University of Michigan, past member of the Actor’s Studio, and active member in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is a veteran Broadway, television, and film actor who first came to national attention when he repeated his Broadway role in Cactus Flower,
the film version. He went on to appear in a long list of movies and TV shows. As a writer, his plays have been produced Off-Broadway, on PBS television and in regional theatres across the country. His memoir North of Hollywood was called “masterful” by Writer’s Digest, while his first novel, The Alexandrite was named “one of the best books of the year” by Kirkus Reviews.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo of you at work in your shed, room, closet, barn, houseboat….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
RL. I write anywhere I can: in my office on my computer. I write in doctors’ offices on a legal pad and also in the car when my wife Linda is driving. I write on my laptop in bed, or in the backyard on nice days, which most of them are in southern California. I write at the dining room table or, actually, anywhere I can do so without being rude to someone.
Q. Do you have any special rituals or quirks when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
RL. I honestly have no rituals or quirks about writing; I just do it whenever the muse is kind enough to land on my shoulder. My wife suggests I not answer this question in regard to anything else in my life.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
RL. I used to be tall, dark, and more or less handsome. Now, I am not quite so tall and I’m gray, and a bit funny looking.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
RL. I really don’t. I usually meditate in the morning, have coffee then start writing. On the other hand, if I’m going through a period of insomnia, I may write all night—I may do it in bed or sitting in my favorite chair in the living room.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
RL. Write a paragraph or two and see if that doesn’t get you going.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
RL. All of my characters are born when they have to be for the story. Most of my characters—when things are going well—are based on people I have known at sometime during my long life. There are a lot of characters, more than I’ll ever be able to use, lolling about in my brain.
Q. What first inspired you to write?
RL. I’m not sure. I liked the idea of writing when I was a kid. Later, when I became a theater actor and director, I saw the usefulness of writing too. So I was about 21 or 22 when I first started writing short plays.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
Rick’s granddaughter
RL. Sometimes an idea for a character suggests the situation. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. Maybe what I’m saying, probably I am, is that they really show up about the same time.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing? Join Us for Part 2 of this Intriguing Interview ~~ Feb…. 23rd
To Purchase Impersonators Anonymous
and other books by Rick
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Everything you want when you sit down and open the cover of a new book. Friendship, hardship, love, heartbreak, history and finally…hope. Rhys Bowen’s writing never disappoints whether I am reading her Royal Spyness series or her Molly Murphy series or her stand alone fiction (all excellent).
Just a hint of the story as I do not write spoilers. Emily Bryce is a debutante who never had a ‘come out’ as World War I rages in Europe. She is stuck in time, in place, with nothing worthwhile to do except follow her society-ladder-climbing mother around. The opportunity to join the Women’s Land Army and become a ‘land girl’ frees her from her stifling existence and her mother. And this is where her adventures begin.
I was a little put off by the title of this book as I read along. There isn’t one victory garden (in the traditional sense of the term) in the entire book. But then I realized Bowen’s ‘victory garden’ were all the gardens in the story combined making it ultimately The Victory Garden. Sneaky Devil! I highly recommend this book.
Available: February 12th
Did you miss my Interview with this author?
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Book #9 in the World of Murder series is, as its predecessors, inspired by real life events which add an extra dimension of authenticity to the story line. It opens with the dilemma of Penny, who is experiencing an independent life after being buried in childcare and being a wife for eighteen years. A special arrangement has been made with husband Tony that preserves the semblance of their twenty-year relationship while allowing her more freedom; but when she meets Lyle at a bar, things change not because he loves her, but because he, too, plans to entrap her.
Investigators O’Roarke, Garcia and Sneed, come to investigate a murder where Penny is the victim. Could Penny’s husband, who loves her, be the perp? As the homicide detective team uncovers a myriad of perps, mishaps, and convoluted triads of circumstance, readers receive a vivid and fast-paced investigative story that offers more suspects than answers and keeps the action taut with a guessing game that holds no obvious answers and many possibilities.
As a love relationship and a special arrangement morphs into shootings, a cunning perp, and boys who inadvertently become part of a bigger picture they’d never planned, Triad of Murder excels in a romp through juvenile involvements and adult activities that challenges investigators and a community alike.
Stella, Jack, Phoebe, and friendships gone awry intersect over a murder that will keep readers involved in police procedurals and family relationships right to the end.
While mystery fans and prior readers of the series will find this a compelling addition, true crime enthusiasts should also place Triad of Murder (and the entire series, for that matter) on their reading radars: the reality-based events and action are exquisitely detailed and the story is hard to put down.
~~ Donovan’s Bookshelf
To purchase Triad of Murder
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Cocktails with a Dead Man (a book of poetry) is honest, hard hitting, marvelous and humorously clever.
With other poems in this book, the laughs are nonexistent. Albanese’s writing reflects situations (Anniversary Dinner) too painful to face head on. Love torn asunder. (We Need To Talk) Loss and heartbreak we mortals think we cannot survive. A nice mix of despair and irony; my perfect cup of tea. Later in the book is a poem about our dreams of fame as writers. What writers will ‘settle for’ so we can continue to write. (Moonlight Serenade)
If Albanese keeps writing poetry, we just might have another Charles Bukowski on our hands. This reviewer certainly hopes so.
Writers will smile and groan as I did, when reading Sensory Adaptation. When the writing stalls (‘writer’s block’ are words not allowed in this household) and the page remains blank this excerpt of poetry rings with all the frustration and truth we writers feel at times.
Tick-tock, tick-tock
The page is still blank
Writing at the dining room
table
I hear the clock in the family
room to my left
Tick-tock, tick-tock
I hear the clock in the living
room to my right
I hear the clock in the family
room to my left, ticking
at opposing half-seconds
Tick-tick, tock-tock
Tick-tick, tock-tock
120 per minute
30 minutes
3,600 ticks
All I see is white
The cursor blinks
Tick-blink-tick
Tock-blink-tock…
Joe told me, “I allow myself to write shit, then come back and rewrite slightly less shit. Repeat until not shit.” In my opinion, he doesn’t publish work that still contains shit, only distilled…wonderful…poetry.
I am looking forward to interviewing Joe soon. To Purchase
Release date, January 15th
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss February: Rick Lenz, March: Patrick Canning and April: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Robyn Carr writes with a casual flaire that makes the reader feel like they’re sitting in a comfy chair, by a crackling fire, wearing warm socks.
I am a huge fan of the Sullivan’s Crossing series and this latest contribution is a winner. At least three love stories are woven together like a fine tapestry in The Best of Us. Catching up to what’s been happening to the recurring characters in her stories is like running into some good friends you haven’t seen in a while. While a new character drives the whole story when she meets and falls for Rob Shandon, the pub owner.
And the writing is without a misstep. A perfect blend of encounters, conflicts, reunions and happy endings. Bubbling along like a happy creek, you hardly know you’ve finished the book and are left wanting the next in the series….right now!
Did you miss my Interview with Robyn? Click here
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) January: Molly Gloss. February: Patrick Canning and March: Poet, Joe Albanese To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! 
