I read all the time and often use reading to procrastinate when I should be writing–I’m halfway finished with Birds of a Feather–just need to murder a couple more people and the draft will be finished. To make all this reading in some way useful, as well as to extend my procrastination even further, I sometimes review books at NetGalley—mostly mysteries and fantasies because that’s what we like here. Today’s book is a YA adventure/mystery titled Everything We Never Said […]
Yearly Archives: 2023
15 posts
The phrase of the day is “Fake Book Reviews.” We’ve heard the horror stories about authors who discover people have left bad reviews because of grudges or out of a misplaced fear of competition. Fake book reviews can do lasting damage to book sales and worse to the psyche of the author who is the victim. But maybe we can take something positive away from the unpleasant reality of fake reviews. You may be familiar with this recent story—debut author […]
Here we go again! Aren’t the holidays stressful enough without Mercury Retrograde hanging around for the rest of the year? As for most of life’s little challenges, our two choices seem to be to spend an unhealthy amount of time bitching about it or to carry on. I don’t see why we can’t do a little of both. Mercury Retrograde Astronomy Lesson The innermost planet, Mercury zooms around the sun in only 88 days compared to the Earth’s more sedate […]
Furbabies light up our lives, don’t they? So I’m a cat lady–eight of them at the moment–and each and every one of them has inspired some scene or character in my books. My guest, Author Darlene Dziomba, takes her furbaby love seriously as well. Her new book Fire and Dalmation will be out in March. Immortalize Your Loved Ones as a CharacterDarlene Dziomba When I decided to adopt a dog. It was important to me to find a dog from […]
The Turkish Affair A romantic mystery by J. Arlene Culiner I know many readers expect a romantic suspense to resemble a television drama with stalkers, a serial killer or two, car chases, shoot outs, terror, gun-packing super heroes and heroines. But I’ve always preferred realistic stories, even in the romance genre. I’m certain that, if I were being threatened by a madman, I’d be so wrought up, I wouldn’t have time to fall in love. Besides, in real life, there’s […]
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.If turnips were swords, I’d have one at my side.If “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans,There’d be no work for tinkers’ hands. Scottish Nursery Rhyme You know how I used to spend a great deal of time whining about my soul-sucking day job and how the only thing that kept me from writing multiple books in a single afternoon was the time I had to waste making a living? I begged my […]