First page, first sentence, the reader meets McCoy and is hooked. A broke-down, wounded, homeless handsome cowboy. Who can resist? This new book is part of the “Honey Creek” series.
The other characters in this story are equally empathetic and interesting. Jam, Tucson, Pecos, Pop Sadler, to name just a few. My only criticism (if you can call it that) is I would have liked more paper and ink dedicated to McCoy’s story.
This is a story of small town, USA; Honey Creek. Infused with colorful and interesting characters that only Jodi Thomas can serve up.
The writing is supurb…it is Jodi Thomas after all.
On Sale: April 26, 2022
Did you miss my Interview with Jodi?
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You find inspiration in the strangest places. I was dedicated to writing scripts for the stage. A few years back, I attended this production of my children’s play, Emma and the Lost Unicorn, outside of Boston .
After the actors had their curtain calls, the Director told them that if they changed out of their costumes and did their assigned tasks back stage, they could ‘have some time with Trisha’.
So I found myself holding impromptu stage craft classes with these adorable young actors (age 5–18). I was struck how serious they were about their craft. Their questions were very sophisticated. And then it happened……the inspiration to dare to write something completely out of my comfort zone…..a book.
Emma
The youngest ones begged me to write the stories from my scripts into storybook form. They wanted to have Emma, Stare, Cheets, and Stanley in their personal libraries. Six children’s books, a mystery series and three novels later I have found a new outlet for my story telling. These children, who knew no fear, gave me enough courage to try chapter books, poetry, and becoming a novelist. Experimental at times, risky at times, scary, but so rewarding.
I was lucky and had a head start using my stage plays as a story outline as I adapted them to story book form. But for my true crime series and the novels, I was flying solo….staring at a blank screen, typing that first sentence (that I am always talking about).
So step out of your comfort zone and try writing in a different format… it’s very liberating and you might surprise yourself. I did!
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This is one of those rare books where the reviewer wants to give it ten, no, a hundred, no, two thousand stars! The writing is stunning. Ruth Talbot has a delicate, beautiful usage of words that we mortal writers can only dream of for ourselves.
And her words craft a wonderful story. Griping, grim, tragic at times, nostalgic and loving. About friendship, perseverance, crushing hardship, with no real happy ending. Talbot takes us tramping across this great nation of ours during one of the bleakest times in our history. The Great Depression. I, for one, never imagined that children….yes, you heard me correctly….children were cast out into the world to join the thousands of ‘hoboes‘ who jumped on and off trains and used them as their only transportation. Following work and seasonal harvests in order to not starve to death.
Beautiful writing….a book you’ll want to take your time with. Mulling over a turn of phrase in the prose if you are a ‘English literature’ buff….or view, in your mind’s eye, the stunning visuals Talbot paints for her readers.
This appears to be Talbot’s debut novel and we can only hope that she is working on her next one.
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews, February: Jennie Goutet To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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I ordered more books by this author (hope it was not a mistake) based on the first one I had read. This offering Nora Roberts Land ruined a pretty good story. The author kept referring to book titles by Nora Roberts and the protagonists of each story. It became very distracting, very quickly. It smacked of: ‘See how clever I am to know all these titles and their heroes?‘
I first suspected that this was an indie published book because the formatting was all wonky. That’s the first clue that an author self publishes. That’s not a bad thing but the author should do their very best at formatting. The ‘justify’ margin selection would have solved many of the wonky right margins found in this book. It was obvious to me that she had used the ‘left’ margin key. Very distracting.
The characters were a little shallow. The plot was okay but with the many references to Nora Roberts’ characters it came across as CORNY.
The sex scenes were lascivious rather than salacious or scintillating.
I never finished this book. An unheard-of thing for me. I usually stick to the bitter end.
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It’s that time of year….Auld Lang Syne and as the poet, Robbie Burns wrote, “old long since”. And I’m in the mood to tell a story.
Mother, Violet, on right, circa 1922?
In a very ‘Auld Lang Syne’ kind of mood, I remembered things from my long ago youth at holiday time. Especially my mother’s traditions in the kitchen. Christmas dinner was a big stuffed turkey with all, and I do mean all, the trimmings. Dinner began with a ‘shrimp cocktail’. If there was fresh shrimp (there had to have been; we lived in the Pacific Northwest for goodness sakes); my mother had never heard of them. Canned shrimp filled two third’s of a martini glass, topped with her homemade cocktail sauce. A sprig of parsley on top and the glass was then placed on a paper doily covered saucer. On the saucer was ONE, (never two or three) Ritz cracker.
The sage, giblet stuffing, made from scratch and that means my mother saved the heels of bread loaves for weeks. I’ve never tasted dressing as good since. She would make the usual trimmings, gravy from the turkey drippings, green beans (out of a can, of course) flavored with bits of boiled bacon, baked sweet potatoes, and jellied cranberry sauce. She considered whole berry cranberry sauce savage. Home made biscuits and mashed potatoes. And then the pièce de résistance………..her oyster dressing. (Fresh oysters) Heaven in a bite!
Mom & me
Not being a particularly religious family the blessing was be short. If my Dad could get away with it, he would add: “Pass the spuds, pass the meat, for
Godssakes, let’s eat.” We would toast each other with Manischewitz wine. A wine connoisseur Mom was not! And I never knew why a Kosher red wine was part of her tradition.
As dishes were passed around the table, someone would always mention my mother’s off colored joke about a “boarding house reach“. A stickler for good manners, she would instruct us that a ‘boarding house reach’ was when you could ‘reach’ for something on the table and at least one butt cheek remained on your chair. That was an acceptable ‘reach’ and not bad manners. Otherwise, you must ask politely for someone to pass down the dish you wanted.
the flapper days
I was never certain whether she had run a boarding house or had just lived in one sometime during her 1920’s flapper*bar owner*professional bowler* speckled younger days. If she had run a bordello it would not have surprised me! Miss you, Mom!
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A sweet little story ideal for an easy read during the holiday season. If you’re a fan (which I am) of the Irish Country series, you’ll love this novella.
The village of Ballybucklebo turns out strong for the Christmas season. All the characters that readers have grown to love return in this book. Including a few new ones that are a complete surprise. The prodigal son returns after decades of being banished in Australia. A new young family (temporarily) in trouble arrives to shelter for awhile. Engagements and new marriages abound.
Fans of Patrick Taylor will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Did you miss my Interview with Patrick Taylor?
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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What makes us, as readers, care about the characters in a book? What is it about one book over another? I recently took a chance on a couple of new authors (to me) and was pretty disappointed. The books were like eating a slice of Wonder White Bread, with nothing on it; not even butter. Bland, tasteless and of little interest.
Sophie was listless, I’m sorry to say with long run-on sentences. Beachcomber Motel was not interesting for a different and ‘deadly’ reason; the characters were not well drawn. They could have been more interesting; instead all three had been ‘done wrong’ by life. And quite frankly, I didn’t care about them. The love story of Jules didn’t develop until the last few pages and was more like: ‘Oh! I forgot to finish up Jules and Nick’s story.’ But, I misspoke, it wasn’t finished up but left the reader dangling mid-relationship with those two. Probably in the author’s hope that readers would be enticed to read a sequel. Both of these are going to be a series, which I cannot recommend. 1 out of 5 stars
This is beginning to sound more like a book review but hang in there….I will get to my point about writing.
4 out of 5 stars
So I gave up on those two and cracked another new one; The Stationmaster’s Daughter. I was instantly engaged and worried about Tilly and her dad, Ken, Ted and Annie. Of course, the setting didn’t hurt; a discarded railway station out in the wilds of Dorset. (UK) Through no fault of her own, Tilly’s been kicked pretty hard by life. We find that out (artfully written) pretty soon after page one but with no feeling of being rushed. Then there are flashbacks to 1935 when the trains were running in rural counties.
So no surprise, the difference is simple. It’s all about the writing. That something that a writer has in their storytelling that weaves a charming, enticing, well-drawn and interesting tale. This one’s about trains; I don’t care about trains except if they are on time and relatively clean. But the writer based the back story on trains in their heyday; the steam locomotion. And it was just enough that a reader like me didn’t grow weary with the history of trains. It was well balanced with beautifully drawn characters. And the dialogue was excellent; I could hear their voices.
It’s all in the writing. Full stop!
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Matthews To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Pebbles is a rescue dog, golden retriever/collie mix
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
SO. Often. I can sit at an airport with my laptop and write, lost in the story—aka ‘the zone.’ Very irritating for anyone who tries to talk to me.
Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up? If so tell us about it.
New Release
SO. I am currently working on part 10 in the Sandy Cove series, or maybe I should call it part 4 in the Starlight Cottages series, which is a series within a series,
set in a coastguard station just outside the fictional village of Sandy Cove. The Lost Promise of Ireland, book 9 (Starlight Cottage #3) will be published in mid-December this year.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
SO. When I started writing fiction.
Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?
SO. No. I think we’ll always have both. A lot of readers love to hold a ‘real’ book in their hand.
Q. What makes a writer great?
SO. A great writer is someone who can pull the reader into the story from the very first page and hold his/her attention right through to the end.
Work space in Tipperary
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
SO. It’s quite a long, complicated process. First, I write the first draft from start to finish, then I go over it and chop and change quite a bit before I send it to my editor. After that there are four different rounds of edits: structural, line edit, copy edit and proofreading. The final stage is checking through the different formats, Kindle, e-book and PDF (for paperback). In all, three different editors work on the book. All this can take up to two months before publication.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
SO. Mostly in the settings (I have lived in quite a few different countries and travelled a lot) and things that have happened to me through my life that have touched my heart and my emotions. Love, tragedies, illness and so on.
Q. What’s your down time look like?
SO. If you mean what I do to relax, it’s mostly about the outdoors. I love hiking in the beautiful mountains of Ireland, or walking on the beaches. I also like yoga or any other kind of workout.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
Friendly horse on my walk
SO. I have co-written four detective stories and also written two historical novels based on the lives of my great-aunt and her daughter who had fascinating lives.
Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)
SO. Count your blessings. And carpe diem.
Did you miss Part 1 of this fascinating Interview?
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Swedish by birth and Irish by marriage, Susanne O’Leary is the author of 35 novels, mainly in the romantic fiction genre. She has also written four crime novels and two in the historical fiction genre. She’s been the wife of a diplomat (still married to the same man, now retired), a fitness teacher and a translator. Susanne now writes full-time from either of two locations, a big old house in County Tipperary, Ireland or a little cottage overlooking the Atlantic in Dingle, County Kerry. When she is not scaling the mountains of said counties (including MacGillycuddy’s Reeks), or keeping fit in the local gym, she keeps writing, producing a book every six months or so.
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.
SO. I usually write in my little office in our house in County Tipperary, with views of the green hills and mountains. When I’m in Kerry, I write sitting in an IKEA chair by the fire, looking at the ocean when I take a break.
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.?
Work space in Tipperary
SO. I always write in my pajamas and sheepskin slippers, tea in my favourite blue mug with a slice of toast with marmalade that I
nibble on while I read through what I wrote yesterday. Then I write new material for an hour or two, and then I do some yoga (still in my pyjamas) before I get dressed.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
SO. My real first name is Karin. Susanne is my middle name.
Q. What tools do you begin with? Legal pad, spiral notebook, pencils, fountain pen, or do you go right to your keyboard?
SO. Always on the keyboard on my good old Lenovo laptop.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
SO. Early in the morning is my best and brightest time to write!
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
SO. Make a particular time each day your writing hour. If you stick to that, it’ll be easier to get going.
One of the Interviewer’s favs
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
SO. That’s an interesting question. My books always start with a
situation, then I put the characters into that, and then they become stronger and stronger right through the first draft. Then I go back to the beginning and flesh them out, because now I really know them.
Q. What first inspired you to write?
Starting the day with an ocean swim
SO. I started my writing career by writing non-fiction and wrote two books about health and fitness (I am a trained fitness teacher). While writing these books, I discovered how much I loved the actual writing process. My then editor gave me the idea to write a fun novel based on my experiences as a diplomat’s wife. This became my debut novel, ‘Diplomatic Incidents’ (now also an e-book with the title Duty Free‘).
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
SO. Usually the situation.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
Part two of this wonderful Interview will be posted Nov. 6th
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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The storyteller was the most respected (and looked forward to) person second only to the Shaman since the time where we scratched images into cave walls. Since time immemorial the storyteller has kept alive the tribe’s history and traditions. The name/word, Storyteller, is alive in most languages today.
We writers keep this age-old tradition alive with our stories, whether we seek the past, write about the present, explore unknown worlds, suggest a fairytale, write our personal (tribe’s) history. In whatever language we choose, we tell a story hoping someone out there will read it and be moved by it.
Irish: Seanachais — storytellers
French: le conteur — storyteller, taleteller, romancer
German: der Erzähler — teller, narrator, storyteller, narrative writer
Spanish: Cuentista — storyteller
Italian: Narratore — storyteller
Hawaiian: Mea haʻi moʻolelo — teller of tales
Icelandic: Sagnhafi — Storyteller
Chinese: Shuō gùshì de rén — storyteller
Russian: сказочник — storyteller, fabler
Scottish: Sgeulaiche — (Gaelic) Tale teller
Swahili: Msimuliaji hadithi — Spinner of yarns
Swedish: Berättare — Storyteller
Vietnamese: Người kể chuyện — Taleteller, teller of stories
Our ‘oral’ storytelling and the passing down of tribe’s history and heroics is becoming obsolete. When I was a girl my mother rarely read me a story. Rather she would tell stories of herself, growing up with 12 siblings in the backwoods of Washington state. There were countless stories of thirteen brothers and sisters and their adventures and misdeeds. I believe it was this story telling by my mother that made me the Seanachais that I am today.
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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