5 out of 5 quills A REVIEW The Queen’s Accomplice On Sale: October 4th
Susan Elia MacNeal plunks the reader down on the streets of war torn, bombed out London. We can see and hear the determination of the British people as they pull together and try to overcome the ravages of war. So how can it be that a serial killer is on the loose mimicking the infamous London ‘ripper’ from a previous century? And targeting only women who are ‘doing their bit’ for the war effort; many of them secret agents for MI-5.
Maggie Hope is still working for the British version of the CIA. But, now she’s been dragged into a murder investigation. And it’s suddenly gotten very personal when her own acquaintances and friends are the victims.
As always, with a MacNeal mystery, there are a couple of story lines within one book and at the end Susan ties it all together with a tidy bow. Fans of MacNeal’s Maggie Hope mystery series won’t be disappointed with this new offering. I was engaged to the last page by Susan’s excellent writing, and now can’t wait for the sequel, The Paris Spy.
Did you miss the wonderful interview I had with Susan: click here ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! October Author, Lisa Jackson. November will be best selling author, Grace Burrowes
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2 out of 5 quills
Pack Saddles & Gunpowder ** A Review
This book has potential. But it’s a trilogy…and unfortunately not in a good way. It is: 1) A mountain horse packing guide book. 2) A treatise about the ongoing struggle between the environmentalists and horsemen with regard to how the high country wilderness should be used and protected. And finally: 3) an underdeveloped mystery. The story is not moved forward by the first two. It would have been much more interesting to weave the trails and lakes more into the story, almost as an after thought. There was a missed opportunity to write a chapter where the environmentalists and horsemen debate the issue with some scintillating dialogue.
More research should have been done with regard to crime scene investigation. When the helicopter arrives to pick up the surviving victim and perps, a detective would have been on board. They would have insisted on interviewing everyone right away, even the young girl, traumatized or not. They would hardly have allowed Cassie to ‘ride off into the sunset’ just because she was an attorney in the city. She was after all the one who shot one of the perps to death. The investigator would also have wanted to see the site of the shooting (a potential crime scene; lawyers kill too) and preserve all evidence until justifiable homicide or homicide was determined. This would also have provided an interesting investigative/forensics chapter.
It barely affected me that the nice all-American family had been hunted and attacked. A chapter with the family back at home with Mom, perhaps, getting ready for the hiking trip,would have helped invest the reader and, once again, was sadly missing. Continue reading “Pack Saddles & Gunpowder by Susie Drougas ** A Review”
I just finished reviewing a poorly written book and it demonstrated the fact that writing a book is not all glory and self satisfaction at seeing your name on a book, as its author.
Far from it! It’s grueling, damn hard work. Any one of you out there can write, the trick is writing well. It’s being willing to rewrite and rewrite some more. And then edit: does this word, sentence, chapter move my story forward? Would my character say this? Sound like this? Behave like this?
Then there’s the delete key. Horrors! Delete some of my brilliant writing? Yes. You better be willing to give up some of those self-proclaimed brilliant words and be happy about it. Because when it’s said and done your book will be better for it.
How do you get from writing that first sentence to a finished book? In my opinion, there is no right and wrong way to prepare. I write my first draft from the seat of my pants; with just an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for days. No plot line, no story line, and in the case of my true crime series, I often don’t know who my killer is until later. I will let my characters take me on their journey and the killer will always revel themselves to me. I marinate, speculate and hibernate.Continue reading “Edit Thyself, Writers!”
Do you read mysteries? Then you’ll love this mystery series set in the tough streets of New York City. Detective Jack O’Roarke, a big rough Irish cop, and his gentle, lady-like partner, Stella Garcia (make no mistake; she can take down a perp twice her size) enter the mysterious world of stripper clubs, art museums, Broadway theatre, the priesthood, and cooking shows to catch their killer.
The series begins with The Art of Murder and currently ends with the most recent, The Taste of Murder, which takes you behind the scenes of reality cooking shows. Please enjoy the following excerpt.
Patrick Shelley, dressed in his signature pink dress shirt and matching paisley tie, walked up to O’Roarke and dropped a case file box on his desk, barely missing the detective’s nose. Another detective, right behind Pat, set two more boxes on a chair and, snorting in disgust, walked away. Pat scowled down at O’Roarke as he flipped open the lid.
“What’s this?” Homicide Detective O’Roarke asked.
“A cold case of mine.” The cop barked. “Boss said to give it to you.” Continue reading “Looking for a Good Mystery?”
5 out of 5 quills A Review Peter May has done it again and we should hold a parade because Entry Island is being released in the USA September 15th.
A bustling murder mystery to be sure…but as Sime Mackenzie is called to the crime scene he experiences an almost debilitating deja’ vu.
Detective Mackenzie is haunted by the certainty that he knows the widow of the murdered man, even though rationally he knows he’s never seen her before, in this lifetime. His dreams are filled with a time long ago when he, as a young man, witnessed and then fled the ‘clearances’ in the Highlands of far off Scotland.
Writer At Play: A Talk with Trisha Sugarek
By Raphael Moran
Here at Indyfest, we try to put the spotlight on some of the most unique voices in the indy publishing universe. Trisha Sugarek is one of those voices. With four decades worth of writing credits to her name, she has a huge diverse line of works on her resume, ranging from plays to mysteries to children’s books. She’s done it all by herself and has been blazing through the publishing world. She also runs a successful website dedicated to the art of writing. Plus, she’s interviewed some of the biggest names in the publishing industry. I had a chance to pick her brain a little to find out about her success in self-publishing, and all matter of other things.
IM: What are some of your major hardships in self publishing?
TS: No major hardships. I have complete artistic control with content and the cover artwork. Exposure is difficult when my true crime mysteries (for example) are competing with a half-million other mysteries. Social media can be the best marketing tool in an author’s toolbox. Self-publishing used to be a dirty word… Continue reading “INDYFEST Magazine Interviews This Author”
In Book 5 in the series The World of Murder, Detectives O’Roarke and Garcia have a cold case dumped on their desk. Despite their objections that they ‘don’t work cold cases’ their Commander tells them that they do now since the new Mayor has asked for them. Three years earlier a relative of the mayor’s was murdered and the case was never solved. The cold case plunged the murder cops into the world of television and competition cooking shows.
All five books are available in paperback and e-books here or on amazon.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Barbara Taylor Bradford was my May author. Coming Soon! Dorothea Benton Frank and the writing duo, Tamara Thorne and Allistair Cross. To receive a free audio book and my sign up! On the home page, enter your email address. I love comments! Take the time to write one at the bottom of the post. Thanks!
I’m certain that there are writers out there that do a thorough story plot, get all their characters in a neat little row, know how their story is going to end. And that’s all before they write a word of their tale.
I, as a writer, would probably frighten some. I just sit down and start typing. Yes, the story has been bubbling, in my head, for days. There comes a point where I have to empty it before smoke seeps out of my ears. Many of my chapters are not numbered because I don’t know yet exactly where they will fit.
And much to my eternal delight (and gratitude) characters just keep showing up. Many of them I never planned. When they made their appearance, I had to shape the story around them….because once they show up, they are NOT leaving! Let me give you some examples. Continue reading “When Characters Come A’Knockin’…Are You Home?”
Here’s just a taste of what’s coming. I’m currently working on Book 6 “Beneath The Bridge of Murder”.
A serial killer is knocking off the homeless and dumping them in the East River. Detectives O’Roarke and Garcia can hardly keep up with the crime scenes popping up all over Manhattan.
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! April’s author is Jodi Thomas. June’s author is mega-superstar, Dorothea Benton Frank. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. I love comments! Take the time to write one at the bottom of the post. Thanks!
A. Someone who makes you forget you’re reading a book, whose writing makes you care about the characters and what happens to them, sometimes so much so that you ignore plot holes and stay up half the night to finish it and then feel sad because there’s not any more book left.
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
A. For me, writing a book (and I’m referring to series now, so I already have a cast of characters and a place) starts with an “aha” idea. I see or hear or read something, somewhere, and it just clicks. It can be as little as a single word, but it’s the core idea that drives all the rest. That doesn’t mean I jump on it immediately and start writing. Usually I’ve got a couple of books at different stages (draft, revisions, edits, proofing), so I’m busy.
But then there’s the moment when the characters for the new book start speaking their lines, and you know the book is coming alive. Sometimes that comes at an inconvenient moment (like when I have a deadline for something else), but I’m a strong believer in the subconscious, which is busy churning away even when I don’t know it.
Of course, it’s still a long slog to get all the words on paper. I may have a fuzzy idea of the story arc, but like many people, I often have a panic moment in the middle when I think that I don’t have enough story to fill up all those empty pages before the end. So far I’ve muddled through.
Then I ship it off to my editor and forget all about it until he or she tells me that I have to change any number of things and I can’t remember why I said them in the first place. Editing is not my favorite part of the process, even though I know it’s necessary.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing/stories?
A. I’ve had a career no one would describe as linear. I have an undergrad degree plus a Ph.D in Art History, and an MBA in Finance, and you’ll notice I’m not working in either field. But almost everything I’ve done, from providing advisory services to a major city, to working as a fundraiser for a library/museum, to being a free-lance genealogist, has found its way into one book or another. I think it makes a difference to a reader’s experience with a book if you can insert authentic details. Anybody can do research, but it’s the little things that make a story feel real.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
Sheila Connolly
A. Sometimes I borrow from real people (some but not all of whom know it). For example, the main characters in the Orchard series are based on a woman I worked with for several years, and who is still a friend, and the guy we bought a house from in Pennsylvania, who continued to be a neighbor for years. That may sound a little odd, but the first possesses a wonderful sense of calmness even in the fact of difficulties, and the second was one of the nicest guys I’ve met—he’d do anything for you, and he was sincere about it. In the Museum Mysteries I had to use another amazing woman I worked with, because her history and her knowledge of Philadelphia are essential. She’s in on the secret now and is one of my biggest promoters. On the other, the hunky FBI agent in the Museum Mysteries is my own invention—and my ideal man (as I may have mentioned to my husband a time or two). Sometimes for the protagonist I use myself—a smarter, younger, better version of me.
Q. What inspired your story/stories ?
A. Places, mainly. The Orchard Mysteries are set in a house that one of my ancestors built, in a small New England town where I have multiple generations of those ancestors—I stumbled on it when I was looking for a bed and breakfast in the area. I worked in Center City Philadelphia in a major institution, and I thought people would enjoy seeing what goes on behind the scenes (the Museum series) while my sleuth goes about solving murders. I also wanted to try setting a traditional mystery in an urban setting. And for
Pub in the village
Ireland…it’s a challenge to portray it without making it too cute, but there is a strong sense of community and connection there that works very well in solving mysteries.
Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?
A. I started out trying to write romance, because I knew it was the largest market, but I wasn’t very good at it. A few years ago I tried my hand at a rather tongue-in-cheek romantic suspense, Once She Knew, that I self-published. That was fun to write, with a lot of snarky dialogue and a plot that involved saving the First Lady’s life. Then in 2013 I pulled a book off from one of those dusty shelves that most writers have—something I’d written years ago, a romance with ghosts, set in an area I know well and featuring a heck of a lot of my dead relatives. I self-published it as Relatively Dead. It sold well, so my agent said, why not do another? Which became Seeing the Dead, last year. Now I’m working on a third one in that series, which looks at the Salem witch trials from a different perspective (and yes, I have a number of ancestors who were accused of witchcraft in Salem).
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
A. I love what I do. It’s like I’ve been preparing for this all my life, but it took a long time before I thought I had something to say. I can’t believe I get to do this for a living, because it sure doesn’t seem like work.
Click here to read Part I of this interview
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. I love comments! Take the time to write one at the bottom of the post. Thanks!
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
