Wednesday, March 21, 2018

A New Suspense

Crime and mystery writers and readers from all over are converging on Reno, Nevada this week for the annual Left Coast Crime Convention. I am lucky enough to not only be there, but to also be part of a panel on romance and suspense.  It should be a fun time. This is one of my favorite conventions because of the great mix of readers and writers. And we're all talking about how to commit crimes and how to solve them, and detectives and poison, and murder, and just lots of mayhem.  I hope to come away with lots of ideas for future blogs and some new writers to feature. And of course, new story ideas for future books!

So perhaps it is very fitting that this week's guest in My Writing Corner is suspense author,  C. B. Clark.

She's an award winning author and her newest book, Broken Trust has just been published by The Wild Rose Press. C. B. says she has always loved reading, especially romance, but it wasn't until she lost her voice for a year that she considered writing her own romantic suspense stories. Since then she has had four books published with The Wild Rose Press. She grew up in the Northwest Territories of Canada and has previously worked as an archaeologist and educator. Now she writes and she says she enjoys hiking, canoeing and snowshoeing with her husband in central British Columbia -- ah, one of MY favorite places.


Her newest book sounds great. Here's the blurb:

After five years of hell with an abusive husband, Natasha Hartford vows to never trust another man. Then she stumbles onto a murder scene and stumbles onto sexy, stubborn Homicide Detective Chase Brandon, a take-no-prisoners tough guy who will settle for nothing less than the truth. Sparks fly, but Chase's suspicions and Natasha's innate distrust block the way to happiness. 

The detective struggles with his own troubled past and is determined to find the truth behind the shadows dimming Natasha's eyes. As more murders occur, and a possible connection to her ex-husband appears, Chase fears her life is in danger. 

Natasha and Chase race to find the killer before he strikes again. Their survival depends on their willingness to put overcome their mistrust of one another. Can they overcome their fears and find love again?

Let's get an excerpt:

     The thick carpet muted the tapping of her high heels as she fled through the reception area and down the hall to the elevator. In spite of her cowardly retreat, she wanted to should in triumph. She'd been terrified of angering the surly detective, but she'd dragged up her courage and told him what she thought. Blood buzzed through her veins, fueled by an adrenaline rush. Damn, it was good to have her old fire back.
      She glanced down a short corridor on her left and stumbled to a stop. How had she missed the ropes of yellow police tape blocking the entry to one of the rooms? Her breath hitched in her throat. That must be where the grisly crime had occurred.
      The shocked truth struck her like a blow--Jonas Waverly was dead. Murdered in cold blood. She staggered and grabbed onto the wall.
      "Ms. Hartford, wait."
       She glanced back.
       Detective Brandon strode along the corridor toward her, his long legs eating up the distance, a determined expression on his face.
      Her earlier spurt of courage vanished and she whirled and dashed toward the bank of elevators. Chest heaving, heart pounding, she hit the button for the
elevator, jabbing it again and again.
      "Look, I'm sorry," he said, catching up. "I was hard on you, but I'm just doing my job. A man was murdered." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I have to examine every possible lead, question every person of interest."
       She shuddered and punched the down button again. Person of interest? Her? She was a person of interest in a murder investigation?
      "Can we go somewhere and talk?"
      She shot him a look, making it clear what she thought of his suggestion.
      He lifted one shoulder. "Maybe we should grab a coffee? I have a few more questions I'd like to ask."
       The elevator pinged and the doors opened with a hiss, revealing a middle aged man and an elderly woman who stared at them with vague interest.
       Natasha stumbled toward the elevator.    
       Detective Brandon grabbed her arm, holding her back. "Ms. Hartford, please wait."
       Warmth from his large, tanned hand seeped through the thin material of her raincoat and raised goosebumps on her arm. "Let me go." Her voice was shrill, with rising hysteria. She tugged, but he held on, his grip tightening."

Yikes! Don't we want to read more?  yes!  Here are the buy links.
The Wild Rose Press
http://bit.ly/2l1XB36

Amazon
http://amzn.to/2nECqvx

Itunes
https://apple.co/2EgzGyy

Nook
http://bit.ly/2CYB1os

Kobo
http://bit.ly/2CYB1os

googlebooks

http://bit.ly/2FaLmi

Thanks, C. B. for being my guest today and telling us about your newest book.

Any comments or questions for C.B.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Joy of New Reading Pleasures

When you are an avid reader you are not only always watching for new books by favorite authors, or books in your preferred genre, you're also always looking for new authors to discover. One of the best discoveries to make is not only an author you had not read before, but someone who writes the sort of stories you love to read!  That was my joyous discovery in the past couple of weeks as I became acquainted with author Jo Hiestand, who writes in the mystery genre. Her works were very appealing and naturally I had lots of questions I wanted to ask her!

Jo, how did you become a writer.  Have you always wanted to write fiction?

First, thank you for having me as your guest today, Rebecca. I’m honored to be here. Now, to your question…
I’ve lived most of my life in St. Louis, Missouri, where I was born.  I wanted to be a writer since I was in grade school but I didn’t do anything about it until I was in my fiftiesI took a continuing education class through the local community college.  That writing teacher ignited my desire and I started writing in earnest.  My first novel, A Staged Murder, was published in August 2004.
Part of the trouble with deciding to write seriously, why it took me so long to get going, is that I have too many interests.  It was difficult to narrow it down.  I love musicI play guitar and the harpsichordso I thought about being a professional folksinger or a concert pianist.  Photography, drawing, quilting and baking also take up large parts of my lifecould I do something with that?  A hobby at one point was writing a script on some topic, like autumn or the day in the life of a pond, then go out and take illustrating photographs, record the narration (tape recorders were the medium back then) and plop it all together with music as a multi-media show with the projected slides, recorded narration and music.  That was so cool!  Could I professionally sell those to school districts for their curriculum?  I also toyed with the idea of setting up a tearoom, baking and selling cheesecakes, creating my own recipes and putting them in a cookbook….  Clearly, I was destined to use all this in my writing, ha ha!
I grew up reading The Three Musketeers, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Kidnapped…  I loved authors such as Walter de la Mare, Daphne du Maurier, Mary Stewart, and Charles Dickens.  Then, in my adult pre-published years, I devoured every book of the Golden Age mysteries of Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey.  I loved the mood of the writing as well as the locations.  Without thinking about it, this atmospheric feel has crept into my writing in the form of my scene descriptions and location choices-–dilapidated stone barns, thunderstorm in the forest, midnight on the moors….
I’m a nature lovertrees, the land, birds, wildlife.  These elements crop up in my writing as descriptive scene writing and as character traits. 
I first tried my hand at writing when I was a teenager. I didn’t know a thing about plotting or editing or that certain publishers accepted certain genres. I didn’t know how to develop characters or describe a scene. Needless to say, that first book was awful, and I still cringe when I think about it.  I can’t remember the title of the thing, but the first lines are engraved on my memory, unfortunately. “You’re an ungrateful nephew, that’s what you are!” yelled the aunt. “But auntie…” “Quiet,” snapped the aunt. “You’re not getting any  more money. I’m cutting you out of my will.” “But auntie…”  Thankfully, the rest of this scintillating dialogue has been lost to the flames decades ago. Through reading authors I admire I’ve learned about plot and pacing and characters.  I’ve learned how to write in a more compact style and let the reader draw assumptions.  I ‘show’, now that I can write descriptively, so I think that brings the reader into the story. Thankfully (to me, if not to readers), I kept trying, and it paid off when the first novel of my Peak District British mystery series was accepted by a publisher.

How did you get started in your writing career? 
I’d been writing and submitting and getting rejections. But some of the rejections came with a few handwritten notes, which I learned was a “good sign” that I was close to producing acceptable stuff. I’d founded the Greater St. Louis chapter of Sisters in Crime (the international mystery writers/readers organization).  One of our members was Shirley Kennett, a published mystery author.  After some back-and-forth debate with myself, I asked her if she’d read my first Peak District mystery and tell me what was wrong with it, since I just couldn’t get it to an acceptable stage for publication. She read it, and wrote a five-page report on its strengths and weaknesses. But the three best pieces of advice were to change one of the male police detectives to a female, change the 3rd person POV to the woman’s 1st person POV, and to give her a female friend in whom she could confide. I bristled at the suggestions: I loved my book and characters, I didn’t want to change them. But the book was  not publishable, so after a few days I decided to follow her suggestions. I changed what needed changing, submitted it, and the first publisher I submitted it to took it. It pays to listen to advice!  When ten books in that series were out, I began another series.  The McLaren Mystery series saw the light of day in 2011; it features ex-police detective Michael McLaren who now investigates cold cases on his own. 

What are you working on right now?
At the moment, I’m polishing the second draft of the ninth book of the McLaren mysteries, Photo Shoot. If all goes well, it will come out August 2018.  I’m racing against the clock on this one so I can take it to a 30,000-attendee Scottish highland games festival this fall and sell it and my other books at my booth. (The story’s based in Scotland instead of his more usual locale in Derbyshire, England) I have another “Scottish” McLaren book, An Unfolding Trap, which is book five. I figured if I wanted more book sales at the Games I should have more than one book set in Scotland. So I came up with Photo Shoot. It’s a bit more personal than most of the books, in that this deals with his family in Auchtubh, Scotland—his grandfather, uncle and the uncle’s new wife. The uncle asks McLaren to investigate the year-old unsolved murder of his first fiancĂ©e. So I spend about half my writing time researching Scottish things I don’t know, like grade levels/ages of school children, dates for fishing seasons in lochs and which ones allow fishing from boats and which allow fishing from the shore, how many Scottish members of parliament represent each person, how long does the train ride from Edinburgh to Callander take, what Edinburgh neighborhood would a young career person live in, what is the name of a male lamb…  Your normal research topics.

Your books are coming out in Audio.  How do you like working in that medium, and how do you think it enhances your books?
Yes, the first McLaren mystery, Cold Revenge, came out January 2, 2018. The others are contracted and should be following this year, I assume. Audiobooks are a new experience for me and I have a lot to learn about the process. I’m in awe of the actors who narrate these books. Such talents, not only in reading but also speaking in different accents. James Lyne, who narrates Cold Revenge, even sings the song in the book! (A song is important to either the victim, to McLaren or to the plot in each McLaren book. The lyrics are part of the story.)  James Lyne puts such emotion into the scenes that my characters seem to step off the page, fully alive and feeling. The story’s so much richer in the audiobook form; the characters are real people. It’s a humbling experience to listen to such talented narrators, and it reminds me not only how important characterization is but also of my duty to write as well as I can.

 How do you come up with characters?
It’s probably no different from most authors. My characters are a mixture of people I know and invented traits I need them to have.  Detective-Chief Inspector Geoffrey Graham, in my Peak District series, is a combination of Ngaio Marsh’s Alleyn, a former minister in my church, and my imagination.  Police officer Scott Coral is 90% real, based on a friend of mine. Michael McLaren is about half and half. He’s based on a real British police detective but I made up a bit of his personality. I think a fragment of me creeps into some of the characters without my being aware of that. Friends will sometimes say a certain phrase in a book is “pure Jo”, but I don’t catch those when I’m writing.
 Characters are the heart of my stories.  They drive the plot.  So, for each book I create a mind map on a piece of paper.  I put my victim in the center of the page, with a circle drawn around that person’s name.  From there, lines like the spokes of a wheel radiate outward.  These are the characters who are connected to the victim, and this includes the killer.  They all must have some relationship to the victim or to each other.  For example, if the victim is a photographer, the characters could be his wife, a gallery owner, a rival photographer, a magazine editor who’s used his photos, his brother-in-law, the landlord of his studio, a client…  You get the idea.  People who are connected to the victim.  From these characters I create their personalities. Then I figure out who would have a reason for hating the guy enough to kill him.  I think this works better than a plot-driven story because the characters never do anything against their personalities.  It’s believable.
I also create a matrix for each character. This is a chart with five columns. The columns are headed: Character, Objectives, Personality Traits, Key Points, and Opponents. The character’s name, age, physical appearance and job go into the first box. Objectives state what each character is trying to attain in the story—fame, marriage, peace, escape from prison, start a business, learn the identity of his birth father…  It’s what drives the character to act.  Personality traits strengthen or weaken the character’s objective. He could be lazy, which would stand in the way of starting a business. Or he could be determined or shrewd or mentally deranged, etc.  Key Points is what might be important to that character, like he lied about his involvement with his former boss.  And then Opponents is anything or anyone that stands in the way of the character attaining his objective. This could be a person in the story or it could be the character’s own weakness. Or it could be something out of his control, like his poverty, or perhaps it’s as fundamental as nature/weather. Like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. So when I have my matrix figured out, I can then write.
For Photo Shoot, the story I’m working on at the moment, McLaren and his grandfather and uncle appeared in book five, so they were established in my mind. I came up with the victim, her ex-husband, the student and his mother, and the local member of Parliament and his wife. Again, these are a mix of people I know or have met, and my imagination. I’ve used co-workers, friends, and even not-so-much friends to fluff out my characters. Every one of the people I meet has a personality trait that might crop up in a story sometime.

What is your next project?
When I complete Photo Shoot I’ll start on book three of my local series. These are the Linn House Mysteries (I write them under the pen name Jessie McAlan). It’s an amateur sleuth series, lighter than the British books.  My protagonist, Rona Murray, is the owner of a bakery/events center. She’s in her mid fifties, been divorced for a year from Johnny, and is trying to make a go of her business, which is on the banks of the Mississippi River about thirty miles south of St. Louis.  In the first book, The House on Devil’s Bar, a woman disappears from her property and is found the next day…dead and close enough to Rona’s place to start the tongues wagging in the small town of Klim, Missouri.  So Rona has to investigate the death in order to keep her business afloat and to clear her name.  Second book is A Hasty Grave, which focuses on a body found buried on her property, a cipher harking back to the James Gang days, and an elderly lady.  I’m developing the storyline for the third book. It begins on Halloween morning at a garage sale and involves a blood-feud.  Haven’t settled on the title yet. That’s something I have to have in place before I can write. A title focuses my mind, for some reason. Early contenders are A Haunting Past, Whispers From the Woods, or Muffled Oars. This is subject to change!  After that, it’s The Stone Hex, the next book in the Peak District mysteries. It centers around the English custom of turning the devil’s stone. It’s a real custom in Devon, but I’m letting a fictional village in Derbyshire have their own go at it. Of course a murder happens that night, and my CID team from the Derbyshire Constabulary investigates.
I guess that’s about it.
If anyone feels inclined, I can be reached at me@johiestand.com  or   www.johiestand.com
Thanks for interviewing me, Rebecca.  This was fun!

Thanks, Jo, for being my guest.  I know I'll be reading or listening to your McLaren series. And I'll be looking for the Linn House mystery series too. 

Any comments or questions for Jo?

Thursday, March 8, 2018

A Romantic Trip Into the Past

The idea of finding romance in another time period has always appealed to me. There's something about a current man or woman finding love with a person from a totally different age that just seems to shine with promise. And that is what we have today in My Writing Corner.  

Author Michelle C. Reilly joins us to introduce her newest book, Savage Winds, the first book in her Savage Times series.

Michelle is a science fiction romance writer who spent ten years in the U. S. Navy and is the single mother of two boys. She currently lives in Las Vegas. She says she is generally an I.T. geek as well as being a geek of other things as well.  She puts her science fiction roots into her newest series with a time travel twist that totally caught my interest. 

Let's hear more about Savage Winds:



Ana Salvatore, a marine biologist, wants nothing more than to have an independent life free of her mobster family. While on an excursion in the Bermuda Triangle with her uncle, his boat explodes, and she wakes to find herself in the arms of gorgeous Captain Jacen Stirling on an ancient ship. It's like a fairytale, until he tells her the year is 1814.


Jacen is on a secret mission for General Andrew Jackson to infiltrate the infamous privateer Jean Lafitte’s encampment to determine his loyalties. When he discovers Ana while on his way to meet Lafitte, he can’t decide if she’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, or the best.

As the Battle of New Orleans draws nearer, can Jacen and Ana work together to help their country beat the invaders? Or will the British, the war, or the savage winds of time keep them apart?


These two characters also grabbed my interest and I asked Michelle to let me do a quick character interview. I needed to find out more about them and their budding romance:


Ana, can you tell us a little about your life as a Marine Biologist.  What made you choose that career?

I’ve always found marine life interesting. As a girl, I spent a lot of time on the ocean with my uncle. I’d dive into books on everything that lived within those depths. Later, I ended up in Santa Barbara, California, with my grandparents, and I was only a few blocks from the beach. I’d walk there every day. It brought me such solitude. It was only natural I attend UCSB and get my degree as a marine biologist. When my grandparents were tragically killed by a mudslide, it kind of threw me for a loop. But they were so proud of my schooling, so I continued until I eventually completed my Ph. D. I hope to one day begin my own program for marine life awareness.

What are you working on right now?

Jacen and I are planning on beginning a new graphic novel series centered around marine life. It’s still a bit of a secret. Of course, since his stories revolve around pirates, we thought this could be a good segue into bringing light to the danger many of the marine life face each and every day.

What frightens you most about your current situation?

I’m very afraid for my and Jacen’s child, and the rest of today’s children. Times are very unsteady. It’s imperative something is done to help ensure our children have a safe future, both with the current violence and with the issues affecting our planet.

What are your feelings about Captain Jacen Stirling? 


He is my world. I could never imagine ever loving someone as I do him. It’s incomprehensible. If someone had told me of a love like this prior to meeting him, I would’ve thought it impossible. I can never imagine living life without him.

Thank you, Ana, for telling us about Jacen and your hopes and fears for the future. 

Want to read more?  Here are the buy links:

 https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/5697-savage-winds.html

https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-C-Reilly/e/B00LE6ULAI/

And if you would like to get more information on Michelle, here is her contact information:



@MichelleCReilly

Thank you Michelle, for being my guest and introducing us to Ana and Jaycen. Any comments or questions for Michelle?


Enjoying the Writing Ride

As a longtime reader of romance and mystery/suspense books, I  have always enjoyed reading books in a series--stories with familiar characte...