Mary Lydon Simonsen's Blog: What readers are saying about The Second Date, page 10

Thank You!

Yesterday was a big day for me. On Kindle, my first mystery, Three's A Crowd , could be downloaded for free. Why would I just give my book away? Mostly because few people knew that, in addition to my Jane Austen re-imaginings, I am also a mystery writer. (I can say that now!) It was the only way I had to get the word out. So after posting a notice on Facebook, I crossed my fingers hoping my friends would help me out. And, boy, did they! Three's A Crowd landed in Kindle's Top 50 for mysteries and Top Ten for Police Procedurals for free Kindles on 8/1/12. I've already seen a boost in sales. Most importantly, I was able to let my friends in the UK know that I have written a British Police Procedural!
As a way of thanking all you lovely people, I am giving away two paperback copies of Three's A Crowd. All you have to do is leave a comment here on my blog (with e-mail address please) or on Facebook or send me an e-mail at quailcreekpub@hotmail.com.
Hugs to all!

FREE - Three's A Crowd on Kindle

Today my mystery, Three's A Crowd , is available for FREE on Kindle. I hope you will download it and meet my character, Detective Sergeant Patrick Shea of Scotland Yard. Even if you don't like mysteries, you can still download it and share it with a friend. I would appreciate it so much, especially if you share its release with your friends. Here's the blurb from the back jacket:

In Three’s A Crowd, we are introduced to Patrick Shea, a young detective sergeant with the Hampden Criminal Investigation Department, whose career is being fast-tracked by the Metropolitan Police in London. With an eye to an appointment with a murder investigation team at New Scotland Yard, Shea is doing everything by the book. Unfortunately, his love life is a bit of a mess and gets messier when he learns his former lover, Annie Jameson, has been assaulted on someone else’s patch. Will Shea’s involvement in the under-the-radar investigation of his ex-girlfriend put his career in jeopardy and possibly her life as well?

If you are a fan of the television series Law & Order UK, you will enjoy Three’s A Crowd. This novella is the first in the Patrick Shea Mystery Series.

Thanks to everyone for their support! Mary

The Rear of Charles I's Horse

When you see a road sign that says X miles to Salt Lake City or Toronto, do you wonder exactly where that spot is in Salt Lake or Toronto? If you have ever been curious about London and Paris, I can tell you where they are.
According to London Remembers, the backside of Charles’s horse “serves as the centre of London for the purposes of measuring distances.  Key “London” into Google Maps and this is where the pin is plonked. Also, supposedly, the street numbering convention is that the low numbers in a street should be at the end closest to this spot—a rule much observed in the breach.”


When in Paris, you will learn that distances to the French capital are determined from the parvis, i.e., the open square in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.




For the benefit of my friend, Angie, who asked for the center point for New York, it is Columbus Circle.




Now you know.

Book Review - Daughter of Time

The mystery begins with Detective Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard laid up in the hospital with a broken leg. Supremely bored, a friend brings him museum postcards with portraits of famous historical characters who have mysteries connected with them (e.g., Louis XVII, the son of the guillotined Louis XVI - did he survive his imprisonment in the Concierge during the French Revolution?). Inspector Grant settles on the portrait of Richard III, the English king everyone loves to hate—thanks in large part to Shakespeare.

Was the king who would have given “his kingdom for a horse” the murderer of a beloved brother’s two sons, known to history as The Little Princes in the Tower (as in the Tower of London)? Tey presents one historical fact after another that adds up to Richard being innocent of the charge of murder, including a continuing good relationship with the boys’ mother and sisters, the execution of the man who did the deed decades after the murder and Richard’s death, and the princes having been declared illegitimate, thereby removing them from the line of succession. If Richard felt threatened by the princes as being the rightful heirs to the throne, why leave the five sisters who had the same claim?

But the question remains: If Richard did not kill the little princes, who did? Tey points the finger at his successor, Henry VII, whose claim to the throne hung upon a thread. Henry fought Richard at the Battle of Bosworth because he wanted to be king, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, really, really wanted him to be king. In the early days of the reign of the first Tudor, Henry was looking for ways to legitimize his claim to the throne. His first step was to marry Elizabeth of York, Richard III’s niece and the sister of the little princes. But if he had wanted to get the people on his side, wouldn’t Henry have mentioned that Richard III had murdered the boy princes? But Henry didn’t. And why did Henry send the boys’ mother/his mother-in-law to a convent when Richard had let them roam free (very un-Plantagenetlike by the way)? There’s a lot a more, but I don’t want to give all the surprises away.

Although Tey piles up the evidence in favor of Richard’s exoneration of the charge of murder, there are some difficulties. We know the princes went into the tower, then a royal residence, during their uncle’s brief reign, but did not come out. In 1933, bones of two children found in the late 17thcentury under a staircase in the tower were analyzed and since interred at Westminster Abbey. The size of the bones seemed to indicate that the children were ten and twelve, the age they would have been during Richard’s reign.

As I said, this story is history driven. It helps if you are familiar with Plantagenet/Tudor history. Because so much is history, there is little character development of Grant or his American gopher, Carradine. But I found this to be a minor issue.

For All the Wrong Reasons Goes Live - Again

As I mentioned in an earlier post, after reading comments from readers, I decided to revise For All the Wrong Reasons . The novella is now 2,000 words longer (approx. 27,000 words), and I think D&E's love story is fully developed. Why didn't I turn it into a full-fledged novel (40,000+ words)? Here's why. If you change the page count more than 10%, you have to get a new ISBN number, the reason being, you basically have a different book. In my opinion, adding a lot new text would be very confusing to readers. They might very well think they are getting an entirely different story. I decided not to go that route because the last thing I want is unhappy readers.
I feel confident that the novella is a fully-realized love story and probably my most provocative Pride and Prejudice re-imagining. Thanks for sticking with me. 

For All the Wrong Reasons Goes Live

As I mentioned in an earlier post, after reading comments from readers, I decided to revise For All the Wrong Reasons . The novella is now 2,000 words longer (approx. 27,000 words), and I think D&E's love story is fully developed. Why didn't I turn it into a full-fledged novel (40,000+ words)? Here's why. If you change the page count more than 10%, you have to get a new ISBN number, the reason being, you basically have a different book. In my opinion, adding a lot new text would be very confusing to readers. They might very well think they are getting an entirely different story. I decided not to go that route because the last thing I want is unhappy readers.
I feel confident that the novella is a fully-realized love story and probably my most provocative Pride and Prejudice re-imagining. Thanks for sticking with me. 

Giveaway of Three's A Crowd

Starting today, I am giving away one copy of my mystery, Three's A Crowd. The giveaway runs through August 17. Here's a description of the novella:

In Three’s A Crowd, we are introduced to Patrick Shea, a young detective sergeant with the Hampden Criminal Investigation Department, whose career is being fast-tracked by the Metropolitan Police in London. With an eye to an appointment with a murder investigation team at New Scotland Yard, Shea is doing everything by the book. Unfortunately, his love life is a bit of a mess and gets messier when he learns his former lover, Annie Jameson, has been assaulted on someone else’s patch. Will Shea’s involvement in the under-the-radar investigation of his ex-girlfriend put his career in jeopardy and possibly her life as well?

If you are a fan of the television series Law & Order UK, you will enjoy Three’s A Crowd. This novella is the first in the Patrick Shea Mystery Series.

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/ent...

Listening to My Readers

Every once in a while, I have the courage to read one-star and two-star reviews. Believe me, it's not an easy thing to do. Recently, I did that with For All the Wrong Reasons . The consensus seems to be that the story was under developed. With that in mind, I reread the novella, and I have to agree. I could have done more with the story. So I have taken it down (it will be down by tomorrow in all venues), and I am going to rework it. Just wanted to let you know.

It's Been A While

It's been quite awhile since I last posted on Goodreads. In that time, I have published several Jane Austen re-imaginings and a mystery. The mystery is quite a departure for me, and I'm hoping that my Austen readers will check out Three's A Crowd. It's a British police procedural set in London where Detective Sergeant Patrick Shea is investigating the assault of his former girlfriend. It's a prelude to a full series of Patrick Shea mysteries. I'll have more in my next post. I just wanted to say hi.

Mr. Darcy Doesn't Get It - Chapter 1

This post previously appeared on Austen Authors.It’s the dog days of summer and much too hot to read–or write–anything serious. Below is the first chapter from a short story/novella/novel I have been working on for about a year. In the story, Austen expert, Chris O’Malley, meets the very real Mr. Darcy at a convention in Baltimore in 2011. Why is Mr. Darcy there? Because back in the Regency Era, the master of Pemberley is in hot water with Elizabeth Bennet. Not only did he insult her at the Meryton assembly, but he messed up the timeline for Pride and Prejudice. If he can’t convince Chris O’Malley to help him, he is in danger of losing the girl.Chapter 1Before going on stage, Chris took one last look in the mirror of the ladies’ room of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Hotel. She was nervous enough without having to worry about unruly hair and badly applied lipstick. The previous year, while appearing on a panel discussing Regency fashion, a woman in the audience had challenged Chris’s use of the word couturier in an article she had written for a Regency Era magazine three years earlier. The correct term wasmodiste as couturier would not be coined until the Edwardian Age. Chris had caught the mistake herself, but not before the magazine had gone to press. Like a dog worrying a bone, her inquisitor wouldn’t let it go, waving the offending article in her hand with religious-like fervor.Her current co-panelists assured her that such a thing was an aberration and to forget about the whole episode, and it was her intention to do so. After all, she had her master’s degree in English Literature and was working on her doctorate. Although teaching at a junior college wasn’t exactly the same as being a professor of English literature at Johns Hopkins or Goucher, it was a good school, and she was proud to be associated with it.Although this year’s session was supposedly a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, when the session was opened for questions, it was obvious that Austen’s masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice, was what was on everyone’s mind. As the time allotted for questions drew to a close, Chris noted that the panel had answered eight Pride and Prejudice questions and three pertaining to Persuasion, but only two on Sense and Sensibility.With her eye on the clock, Mrs. Goldstein was about to wrap it up when the double doors of the room opened wide, and a tall, dark, and handsome gentleman dressed in full Regency attire, from top hat to Hessian boots, made his way to the center of the hall, cutting ahead of the people queued up in front of the microphone.“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, bowing in the direction of the panel, “I have come to make a formal protest.”“Make it over here!” someone from the audience shouted.“As I was saying,” the gentleman answered in a stern tone, “my protest is in connection with my side of the story in Pride and Prejudice, much of which lies hidden. I can assure you that if more people knew my thoughts following the Meryton assembly, they would…”But that was all the intruder got out before the moderator in charge of the microphone informed him that the question-and-answer period had ended. But when a cry of “Let the man speak” rose up, an unhappy Mrs. Goldstein acceded to the wishes of the group.After bowing his thanks to the assembly, the man continued. “Yes, it is true my behavior at the Meryton assembly was less than exemplary…,” and the room burst into laughter, with someone shouting, “Now that’s an understatement.”“If I may continue?” the man said in a voice demanding obedience. “Chapter IV of Volume I of Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice states, and I quote, ‘Bingley and Jane Bennet met tolerably often in large mixed parties.’ Now I ask you, as Mr. Bingley’s guest at Netherfield Park, where was I whilst all this mixing was going on?”“Excuse me, sir,” Mrs. Goldstein said, “but exactly who are you.”“My apologies, ma’am. I thought it was obvious. I am Fitzwilliam Darcy, the scion of Mr. David Darcy of Pemberley Manor, Derbyshire, and Lady Anne Fitzwilliam Darcy, the daughter of the Earl of Stepton.”To this incredible announcement, the room burst into sustained applause. Their response earned a nod from the gentleman.“He’s obviously an actor,” Chris whispered to Mrs. Goldstein, who was showing signs of unraveling. “Someone associated with the conference must have hired him to add a little levity.”“Levity? At a Jane Austen conference?” Mrs. Goldstein said with a wrinkled brow. “If you want levity, read Miss Austen’s books. A conference is serious business.”“As I said,” Darcy continued in a rich baritone, “whilst my friend was becoming better acquainted with Miss Bennet, where was I? I see you have no answer,” he said, scanning the room, “the reason being, Miss Austen elected not to include that in her story. It is my wish to correct this oversight, and I shall tell you that I was at all of those large mixed parties, and at each of these venues, I made subtle overtures to Miss Elizabeth in an attempt to right any perceived wrong. However, all such gestures were rebuffed with no attempt at civility.”“Did you speak to her at one of those card parties they were always having?” an audience member asked.“Yes, I did. During the week immediately following the Meryton assembly, we sat at the same card table twice during a game of Vingt-un, but when I tried to engage her in conversation, Miss Elizabeth answered all of my questions with nods or one-word answers.”“You should have kissed her,” a college student said, bringing the house down.“Surely, you are in jest,” Darcy said, chastising the young woman.“Hell no! I’m serious.”“Madam, unlike Charles Bingley, I am a man of rank. As such, no matter how attractive the lady, I cannot throw myself at her. It simply is not done. However, whilst at Lucas Lodge, I attended to Miss Elizabeth’s conversation on the subject of dancing. And how was I rewarded for my efforts? With mockery: ‘Do you not think, Mr. Darcy, that I spoke uncommonly well?’” he said, mimicking her sarcastic tone. “That statement was meant as a putdown.”Realizing the session had been hijacked by an actor, Mrs. Goldstein thanked Mr. Darcy and asked that he sit down as the session was now over. But, again, the crowd insisted he be allowed to continue, and Mrs. Goldstein, with tears in her eyes, fell back into her chair. That was enough for Chris, and her blue eyes bored into the interloper. On paper, this might have been a good idea, Chris thought, but for someone to engage the services of an actor without consulting the panel was wrong, and this clown had gone too far. Mrs. Goldstein was clearly upset, and she was getting there.“Mr. Darcy, how do you defend your remark that ‘every savage can dance?’” Chris asked, rising from her chair. “Was that not meant to be a putdown of Sir William Lucas and all the other guests? Is that acceptable behavior for a man of your rank?”And to whom do I have the honor of speaking?” the actor asked.“Christina O’Malley.”The gentleman smiled. “Miss O’Malley, you are the very person I have come to see!”With that astonishing declaration, Chris looked at Mrs. Goldstein and shook her head to indicate she had no idea who this gentleman was and that she was not in on the joke. After telling “Mr. Darcy” that she would speak to him in private, she left the stage to take care of the seminar crasher.Personally, this was a huge disappointment for her as she had hoped to make an impression on her fellow Jane Austen enthusiasts, especially since the conference was being held in Baltimore, her hometown. Instead, a wanna-be actor had stolen the show.Mr. Darcy was waiting for her outside the side entrance to the ballroom. Without preamble, she told him she was surprised he wasn’t out in the lobby handing out business cards. But her statement seemed to confuse the man.“Business cards? Why would I do that? There is no one in the lobby with whom I would wish to form an acquaintance.”“Well, you certainly have Darcy’s arrogance down pat,” Chris answered.“Excuse me?”“Who hired you?” Chris asked, the anger evident in her voice.“Hired me? I can assure you I am not now, nor have I ever been ‘for hire?’”Chris now had steam coming out of her ears, and she poked the man’s chest with her finger.“Listen, mister. If you want this conversation to continue, you will tell me who you are or I am going to ask the hotel staff to escort you from the premises. You may think your performance was funny, but I can assure you I did not. Acting the part of Mr. Darcy may have been a crowd pleaser, but there are some serious Austen scholars in that room who could have made a difference in my career. Instead of dazzling them with my expertise, I am having this conversation with you.”Shocked by her diatribe, Darcy took a step back. “Madam, I can assure you I am no imposter. I am Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley Manor in Derbyshire. If you would allow me to explain, I…”“Goodbye.”“Miss O’Malley, there is an explanation,” Darcy said, running after her. “The explanation involves Joseph Caswell.”The mention of Joseph Caswell’s name caused Chris to stop in her tracks. Absent Mr. Caswell’s generosity, she would have been unable to attend a four-year university. By the time her parents had paid tuition to the University of Maryland for her four brothers, money was scarce. The Joseph and Patricia Caswell Foundation had provided the scholarships and stipends she needed to pay her college tuition.But Darcy had no time to elaborate before being spotted by a few of the young ladies who had witnessed his performance in the ballroom.“There are you are, Mr. Darcy. We were afraid you went back to Pemberley,” the spokeswoman for the group said, and they erupted into a fit of giggling.“I’ll leave you to your fans,” Chris said, looking at her watch. “I have another session to attend,” and she turned on her heel and left. After taking a seat, she tried to shake loose the disaster of the Sense and Sensibility session, but it was not to be.“You were on the panel, right?” the woman in the next seat asked her. “What did you think of Mr. Darcy? I mean, other than his tight breeches? My goodness, he’s packed!” she said, placing her hand over her heart.Chris had to admit the actor employed to play Mr. Darcy was a hunk: tall, with black hair, black eyes, a cleft in his chin, and a dimple in his cheek. And the lady was right. His breeches did show off his assets, but maybe he was wearing a cup. If it was the real thing, his girlfriend must be happy.“He made quite a splash, didn’t he?”Chris nodded, accepting the fait accompli. “I imagine there were people who wished he had waited until the end so that others could have asked questions about Sense and Sensibility. Not me. Who cares about Sense and Sensibility when Mr. Darcy’s in the room?”Exactly, Chris thought. – To be continued…Well, what do you think? Should I keep going? I hope you’ll let me know.