An incredibly complex task associated with writing books is determining under which categories–i.e. genres–to list them. Is it a Romance or a Thriller? It seems reductive to categorize any book in such a narrow way. Nonetheless, we must have labels, so we catalog and organize books into genres, subgenres, and sub-subgenres to help interested readers find the perfect read—and so certain giant online retailers can judge us by our genre. I’m getting ready to publish a couple more books—and update […]
Books/Writing
186 posts
My guest, Author Sarah P. Blanchard, tells us about Hawaii’s deadly Nightmarchers and shares more about her debut novel, Drawn from Life. Exciting times in the Universe today! , a psychological thriller, releases TODAY! April 1. Special Price Alert! Get the ebook for 1.99! Hurry because this price is good only until April 7. Go HERE to read an early review. One of Sarah’s characters in Drawn from Life is a rookie detective from Hawaii, where Sarah lived for a […]
Welcome to Novel Magic where we feature books in the genres we love: Fantasy–Mystery–Horror–Thrillers–and Paranormal Mayhem! Authors share insights and ideas as well as info about their books. Today, Novel Magic takes the Way-Back machine to the 1960s to talk about what it meant to be a female police officer. I’ve lived long enough to remember the days when only a few women worked as police officers. Career choices for girls in my hometown were teacher, nurse, homemaker–that’s about it. […]
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 […]
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 […]