Richard Dee's Blog, page 69

Blog Hopping, Critical resources

Welcome back to another BlogHop, with#OpenBook. Read on for this week’s prompt.

What are the most important resources for writers? (Magazines, books, websites, etc.)

I must confess to being somewhat confused. Clearly there are some important writers resources missing from the prompt. How about that most vital of resources, coffee? Not forgetting the ability to listen to two (or more) conversations at once?

Personally, I consider research to be the most important part of my writing. When it comes to resources for research, the internet is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, I wonder how authors ever managed without it.

When used with caution it can lead you on an incredible journey of discovery through the thick jungle of knowledge.

I’ve said it before, Isaac Asimov says it so much better.

To make my research as accurate as possible,

I read a lot. Not just websites, I subscribe to science magazines, and I’m always scanning the shelves in newsagents, to see what catches my eye. If I spot something that gives me an idea, whether it’s for a plot, a setting or just a few lines of dialogue, I’ll buy the publication and read it. Next, I’ll go off and search the web, follow links, just to see where it leads me and how much I can find out. Because, if I’ve discovered one thing; it’s that you can’t write about the future or even an alternative now, without a basis in the facts of today.

I keep an eye on news services, science websites, gossip columns. I’ll look at just about any sort of material for ideas. It doesn’t have to be specifically Sci-fi or Steampunk either, inspiration can strike from any direction.

I’m also a compulsive people watcher (and listener). It’s the best source of realistic conversation, as well as a place where you can pick up even more plot ideas. You can also watch peoples behaviour and how they interact with each other. It all helps when you’re writing dialogue or justifying the motivation of your characters.

The best thing about such overheard snippets is that (no matter how fantastic they sound) they are more than likely to have an element of truth in them.

A lot of (what I think is) my best work has come from overheard comments. In fact, my next novel (and part one of a new series) came from just such a place; a chance remark that I overheard. It was only a few words but it gave me an idea. Eighteen months and 105,000 words later, the first novel is finished, I’m on the second story and it’s still developing.

The story that sparked into life by this comment is not set on some futuristic planet, thousands of years in the future. It takes place in a world very like one that we have known, a Victorian land of innovation; a world of steam and clockwork. With their society on the cusp of technological advance, a group of orphans are all that stands between a madman bent on world domination and civilisation as they know it.

If only I knew who I was listening to, I’m pretty sure they would be surprised to find what they’ve started. By the time the idea had formed in my head, we were miles apart. All I can do is be grateful that I was in the right place at the right time and mention the serendipity of it all in my dedication.

As usual, I’ve managed to digress. My point is that resources can come in unconventional guises. As well as reading, it’s important to watch and listen to the world around you.

I’ll be back on Thursday with another Indie Showcase.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this week’s thoughts, please leave a comment below. Then go and check out the rest of the great blogs on the hop. Just follow this link.

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/p/967209e652ea4b6f972855a4179dad61

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Reblogging. Lucy Mitchell

Here’s a blog post that caught my eye. Please check it out. Make sure that you leave a comment, (leave one here as well).

Let’s spread the word.

Reblogged from BlondeWriteMore



HOW TO SURVIVE LIVING WITH A WRITER OVER CHRISTMAS .







http://blondewritemore.com/2019/12/15/how-to-survive-living-with-a-writer-over-christmas-writingcommunity/

It’s not easy living with a writer. We are peculiar creatures and sometimes we have to be handled with care.

Here are my top tips on how to survive living with a writer over Christmas:

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Home

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The Saturday Rewind. Back in the day.

Here’s a memory from 2002. Back then I was a Thames River pilot, taking ships of all sizes up the River, through the Thames Barrier and Tower Bridge. I was lucky to get involved with National Geographic, who were making one of their Megacities programmes about London. I was involved in the part of the programme that featured Tower Bridge.

I was the pilot taking the Dutch Sailing Ship ‘Artemis‘ through the bridge that night and they got some good footage of me at work. Happy memories.

I’d love to get your comments, please leave them below. While you’re here, why not take a look around? There are some freebies and lots more content, about me, my writing and everything else that I do. You can join my newsletter for a free short story and more news by clicking this link.

I’ll be back on Monday, with another BlogHop, have a great weekend.

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Reblogging. Anne R. Allen

Here’s a blog post that caught my eye. Please check it out. Make sure that you leave a comment, (leave one here as well).

Let’s spread the word.

Reblogged from Anne R.Allen



How to Ride The Publishing Roller Coaster Without Falling Off: How to Stay Sane in a Crazy Business







https://annerallen.com/2019/11/how-to-ride-publishing-roller-coaster/







by Ruth Harris

I don’t really have to tell you, do I?

Success followed by failure.

Ups followed by crashes.

Sinatra sang it: Flying high in April. Shot down in May.

Moodswings.

One week you pop the Dom Perignon.

The next, you’re knee deep in rotgut vodka empties/rumpled chocolate wrappers.

You’ve lost/gained weight.

Your spouse has had it with you.

And your kids think you’re the baby.

And your dog is considering joining the military and volunteering for a suicide mission in Timbuktu just to get away from you and your publishing roller coaster.

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The Indie Showcase presents, R.M. Garino.

Please welcome this week’s guest, a writer of fantasy.

How now folks. I’m R.M. Garino, the author of the Chaos of Souls Series. Ever wish you could bring your D&D characters to life? Well, that’s exactly what we did. Although the overarching story of angels and demons is much older, our two main characters were fleshed out from a D&D game my wife and I played with friends ages ago. They’re introduced, along with their misfit squads, in The Gates of Golorath, and their adventures continue throughout the series. We’ve also released a standalone series, the Chaos of Souls Novellas, which capture separate side stories that enrich the main tale. Requiem’s Reach is the first volume, and we continue from there. If you’re looking for a thoughtful, somewhat irreverent fantasy that puts the stories and characters first, then come on over and give us a read. 

****

R.M. Garino has been writing
for most of his life. Since childhood, he has been fascinated with what The
Story is, how it functions, its hidden depths, and the different masks
it wears.

He is known for writing crisp,
character driven fiction that reads like viewing a film. His world creation is
vast and far reaching, yet his prose is organic and devoid of informational
dumps. The characters are real, believable, and inspire both affection and
compassion in the reader.

Garino has a Master’s in Literature and lives in the mountains of the east coast with his wife, three children, and all the characters still waiting their turn to speak. He is an avid brewer of beer and strong coffee, a voracious reader, an aficionado of fine cigars and single malt scotch, and is not nearly as obsessed with video games as his wife believes him to be. 

Author’s Note about Chaos of Souls:

The Chaos of Souls Series started with a
short story more than thirty years ago. Back then, I was in middle school and I
had a dream; not some grand vision for the world, or my own personal future:
rather it was an ordinary collection of images dredged up from my subconscious
in the night. But it was cool, by any ten-year old’s standards. There were knights,
angels, demons, swords, dragons and magic, all intertwined with stepping into
another world.

My nocturnal musings fascinated me,
especially since everyone assured me they were random nonsense. I knew better,
of course. So I climbed out of bed and stepped over my siblings – we had a
large family in a small house, so my bedroom was just that, a room full of
beds; I had the privilege of having the top bunk. It was my own little space
with a shelf full of knick-knacks and books. It was my own little space, but it
did make getting to the bathroom in the middle of the night an acrobatic feat.
After stepping on a few limbs, and heads I think, I made my way downstairs to
the dining room table where all the school books were kept. I never made it
back to sleep, and my parents woke to find me scribbling away in a loose leaf
binder. I was on page thirteen when they sent me off to school, with a
manuscript titled Journey to the Darkside stuffed in my bag.

What I wrote was tolerable, as far as
dreams go. Hey, I was ten. It made sense in parts, and none in others, as
dreams tend to do. What bothered me was how I told the story. It wasn’t right.
It was nothing like the books I read under my desk in class; The Count of Monte
Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, The last of the Mohicans, The
Lord of the Rings. So, I rewrote it, again and again. I tried to understand
what was missing. I continued reading everything I got my hands on, especially
those books I was told were too old for me.

 It wasn’t long before I noticed the voices when I wasn’t reading.
Not the scary kind that whisper sweet destruction and leave you medicated.
These were the other kind, the ones who have a story to tell with their own
unique inflections. They slipped into my normal narrative feed while I went
through the day. Staring out the window of a New York City bus, I transitioned
from my normal self-depreciating dialogue into some madman’s self-aggrandizing
tale of murder. Like any good citizen overhearing a bloody confession, I wrote it
down like the juicy bit of gossip it was. I didn’t pay attention to the
process. I didn’t notice the empty dust jackets scattered about my room, or the
paper cuts and calluses on my fingers. I didn’t have a problem. I could stop at
any time. Before I knew it, the voices filled notebooks, and I found myself
seeking them out. There were short stories, poems, snippets, and yes, I blush
to confess, vignettes when that’s all I could get.

Years later, at some point in college, I
came to a place where I had to admit the awful truth I had been running from. I
was addicted. Hi, my name is R.M. Garino, and I am a recovering writer. I keep
falling off the wagon.

 I kept coming back to the original dream, though. It never left
me, but it expanded. The short story became a novella, and grew into a novel.
Through the years it evolved with me, but it was never right, never the book I
always wanted to read. Something was still missing.

 Then, I met my wife, Dorothy. At first, she did not like my
writing. Not that she disliked what I wrote, but that I spent too much time
with it, and not enough with her. One day while we were dating, I was stuck
with a plot point and told her part of the story. She fixed it in
about thirty seconds. Later, after we were married, I described the
setting I had finished writing. Pink Floyd’s “Sorrow” played in the
background, and the intro to the song carried her along the destroyed lands,
and she saw it all.

 That was it. That was all it took. She was hooked. The gateway was
opened, and she stepped across into the world my ten-year old self discovered.
She was my missing part. Since then, she has helped me craft it, fixing the
plot holes and adding the voices that spoke in her head. Journey to the
Darkside became The Chaos of Souls Series. The angels the
Lethen’al, the demons became the Lo’ademn, and the knights became the Areth’kon
Blades.

The first part of the story is The Gates
of Golorath. Now, I’m not going to say I’m possessive and reluctant to let
things go, but all it took was a groping brush with death to get me to share it
with others. I hope you enjoy it.

And so, Gather the Blades!

Prologue to the series:

In the beginning, a faction of angels
spurned the will of Heaven and sundered the Veil into creation. As punishment,
their souls were shattered into millions of fragments, called si’ru. The moment
they crossed over, their si’ru mixed with corporeal matter, and they were
reformed into physical bodies. No longer were they Aesari. They became the
E’ine, the First Ones. In time, these beings gave birth to children of their
own, born from the flesh of their prisons. These were the Lethen’al, the
Fallen.

Another faction tried to stop the exodus
with malicious force. These were the Lo’ademn, and they too were punished, cast
out into the Chora, the space between the spaces. By the grace of the Creator,
they still retained their angelic abilities, but were condemned to wander until
their brethren returned home.

The portion of creation where the Veil was
breached was set aside and moved into the Chora, lest any of the Lethen’al
attempted to return. This otherworld was named the Sur, for it a gateway to
other realms.

An angel of tremendous power, an Aesari
named Tarek was positioned there, a lone guardian protecting the paths to
Heaven. It is believed he held his post for millennia, but grew weary of his
role. It is said he learned to hate the E’ine and the Lethen’al, and blamed them
for his exile instead of his own impulsive actions. Soon, he took a new name;
The Apostate, and he vowed to destroy his fallen brethren.

His malice infected the Sur, and it became
a place of darkness.

In the shattering of their si’ru, the
E’ine forgot their past and who they once were. Gone was the purpose that led
them through the Veil of Heaven, and the reason why they were here. They found
clues to their truth, but answers eluded them. In the interim, they raised the
humans to consciousness. But in time, the Lo’ademn learned that humans were
easily corrupted, and their bodies effortless to steal. The Apostate walked the
world in his borrowed skin, and with the monstrous hordes of his creation, the
shrulks, he hunted the Lethen’al to near extinction. He was banished with the
powerful magics of Thenaria Tu’renthien, the Matriarch, and the Lethen’al fled
through the Gates of Golorath back to the Patresilen.

They locked the Gates behind them, and
have not returned.

Seven thousand years have passed since the
Apostate’s exile. The E’ine are all but gone, killed by the Apostate long ago.
The Lethen’al remain ignorant to their true past, but they have evolved behind
the Gates. They have mastered the arts of magic and of war, so they will never
be victims again. Every Lethen’al must pass through the Areth’kon, their
martial school, and become a Blade. At the completion of their training, they
must serve a tour at The Gates of Golorath, where their future will be decided.

But the old ways have grown stale, and new blood will challenge its rule.

Reviews:

“This is a fast paced, wholly unique take on the fallen angel genre and the creation of man. The world building is incredible.”                                                                                                             – JB

Arielle is exactly the kind of female character I want to read about. She’s strong and resilient and can hold her own against the boys. Angus, oh my sweet Angus, is sassy and witty with his banter and one liners.                                                                                                                – Nicole

“The fight scenes were so rousing they had me cringing with imaginary pain.”                                                                                                                Sabrina

“Readers will find The Gates of Golorath, Chaos of Souls has the intrigue of Lord of the Rings; the military challenge of Games of Thrones; and the charm and magic of Harry Potter.”                                                                                                                             – Bruce

“This is truly epic fantasy at its finest. I fell into the first book and the second kept its grip on me. I love Angus and Arielle’s story.”                                                                                                                       -S. Schnider

A
Free Short Story Set In The World Of Chaos Of Souls: (Also available on Kobo
and Google Play)











Links

Link for Initiating Angels: A Chaos of Souls Short Story:https://www.amazon.com/Initiating-Angels-Chaos-Souls-Short-ebook/dp/B07XXGKJLF

Main Series: These are the old school, epic fantasy novels you can
build biceps with. Over 600 pages of magic that will make you laugh,
cry and really become invested in a crazy group of new friends.

Link for The Gates of Golorath: Book One of the Chaos of Souls Series: https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Golorath-Chaos-Souls-Book-ebook/dp/B01MYF2PY0

Link for Angels of Perdition: Book Two of the Chaos of Souls Series: https://www.amazon.com/Angels-Perdition-Chaos-Souls-Book-ebook/dp/B07L7CJ7WK

Novella Series: Even though these can be read on their own,
they connect you to the Chaos of Souls main series. We explore the
characters whose stories beg to be told. This series brings
their side stories to life, at the same time deepening and
enriching the main books. Each book tells a different and complete story
that will make you want for more.  

Link for Requiem’s Reach: Volume I of the Chaos of Souls Novella Series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q4LSF2T 

Link for The Gate of Fang and Thorn: Volume II of the Chaos of Souls Novella Series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W7D6B1X    

Other Links:

Website: https://www.rmgarino.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rmgarino/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/R.M.-Garino/e/B01MYFS8RX

My thanks to this weeks guest for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.

While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.

You might also like to join my team. I’ll send you a bi-monthly newsletter, filled with news, updates and extra content, as well as more about me and my worlds. You’ll also get a free short story and offers on my novels. Subscribe by clicking HERE

If you want to be
featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever
(within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below
and I’ll get back to you.

You can catch up on
previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE

Don’t miss the Saturday Rewind, next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.

Have a good week,

Richard.

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Reblogging. Jim Alexander

Here’s a blog post that caught my eye. Please check it out. Make sure that you leave a comment, (leave one here as well).

Let’s spread the word.

Reblogged from Between the Lines



https://betweenthelinesbookblog.com/2019/12/06/guestpost-from-jim-alexander-author-of-the-light-where-does-time-go-jimplanetjimbot-books-sciencefiction/

I’m delighted to welcome Jim Alexander with a guest post to celebrate the recent release of his second novel ‘the Light’. Jim’s debut novel ‘GoodCopBadCop’ is garnering four and five star reviews on Goodreads.

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Blog Hopping, Please welcome Andorra Pett.

Welcome back to another BlogHop, with#OpenBook. Read on for this week’s prompt.

It’s been a while since we’ve done this. Interview one of your characters. Introduce them to a new audience or give existing readers new insight into their motivations.

Way back in 2916 I wrote a short story, called Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Café. In it, I introduced a new character, an accident-prone, slightly ditzy lady with a past. She was a real fish out of water, having left her job, her man and her planet!

She ended up on a space station orbiting Saturn, where she took over a moribund café. At the time, I didn’t really know where her adventures would lead her. Little did I realise that she would become a somewhat reluctant amateur detective. The short story turned into a novel which now has two sequels, with more adventures to follow. Strangely, she has become my favourite character to write.

I’m very pleased to be talking to her this week, but before we could begin, we had to have a conversation, set out a few ground rules. I knew that she still thought that I’d been a bit harsh in the way I’d described her in the books. I wanted to make sure that revenge wasn’t on her mind.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked innocently, “people might have read about me, all that stuff about the mining station and what I got up to, they could have got the wrong impression.”

“What impression?” I asked. I thought that I had tried to make her sound like the sort of person you’d want to be friendly with, interesting and a bit crazy but never in a nasty way.

“You made me out to be a bit dozy,” she said. “OK, I admit I can be clumsy and sometimes my hormones take control but I’m not that bad. In fact, I’m as sane as most of the people I know.”

“Well, here’s your chance then,” I told her, “tell us about your life before the Oort Cloud Café, what you were like growing up. Show us the real Andorra Pett. Put the record straight. But I want to make sure that we don’t talk too much about your adventures, I don’t want this to be one long spoiler for the books.”

And this was what she said.

Me: Hello Andorra, it’s great to get the chance to find out a bit more about you.

Andorra: Hi everyone, it’s great to be here with you. I’m Andorra Pett but you can call me Andi. I don’t know if any of you have read Richard’s version of my adventures off Saturn but its all lies!

Me: Steady on, that’s not a very good start.

Andorra: Well maybe not all of it but you’ve certainly portrayed me in a less than favourable light, I’m not as dozy as you made out, I’m vaguely domesticated and just because I’m short it doesn’t mean anything. Napoleon was only short and he did alright for a while. And I can work things out if you only give me a chance. It’s when you all start shouting and hassling me that I get confused.

Me: Without giving too much away, can you tell our readers about your life, before you got to the Oort Cloud Café?

Andorra: Sure, I’m the second daughter of Charles Wilson Pett and Magdalena Pett (nee Sloane). It sounds posh, well my father, bless him, was a diplomat and worked all over the place. Hence my name, it’s where he was stationed at the time. Enough said! My older sister is called Argentia, not because Dad couldn’t spell Argentina but because there was all that trouble. Which also saved her from being called Malvina; so maybe it was a lucky escape for her. She’s my big sister and I should love her but…, that’s another story, as you might say.

Me: Don’t give me ideas.

Andorra: (Laughs) As if. We grew up all over the world, moving around every year or so when I was young as dad’s posting changed. It meant that we had little education; we were just left to get on with it. My sister was five years older and like a lot of older sisters took delight in making me look stupid. For a time I never knew that you held both chopsticks in the same hand, it took me a while to forgive her for that one! The one constant in my life was Maisie, the daughter of dads assistant. She was the same age as me and we were inseparable, always in trouble and always laughing.

Then one day, the worst day of my life up to then, I must have been about seven, I was taken to a school. We had returned to London and the only school that would take me (and Maisie) at short notice was a convent. It was full of people who seemed to know each other and I was the strange girl, the one who didn’t know anything and didn’t fit in. I hated it at first; everyone was cleverer than me and knew all sorts of things. I had to sit still, be quiet and listen. I was so relieved at the end of the day.

When I found out I had to go back again, I was shocked, “but I’ve been to school,” I said. Argentia slapped me around the back of the head, “you’re going to have to go lots,” she laughed, “you’ll still be going when you’re sixty.”

“I’ll show you,” I tried to hit her but she danced away, “I’ll have learnt enough by the time I’m fifty, see if I don’t.”

I also found out that you couldn’t trust everything you heard, the other children would tell me things and when I repeated them at home I got shouted at, or sent to my room with no tea. But then I discovered that all the bullying and nastiness could be stopped if you made people laugh. And if you made them laugh about you because you acted stupid, well that was even better, people suddenly wanted to be with me. I developed a way of hiding any knowledge I’d acquired by being silly.

Me: That’s fascinating, what did you plan to do after school, before you left Earth behind you?

Andorra: One thing I found out was that I could draw and paint. Especially cartoons of teachers. That got me into lots of trouble, but it made me even more popular. Then, one day I was investigating the cellar of the house we were in and found a load of old paint tins. They were rusty and uninspiring but when I opened them the colours fascinated me. I played around, mixing them up and splashing them on the walls. I got permission and decorated my room, at first it was hard but as I practised it got easier.

Then it became a regular thing, I used to decorate my room every month or so, with things that I found in the cellars and sheds of the places we were living in. Rusty, half-filled tins of paint and old pieces of fabric I could cope with and make something from. I would hide away for days getting it right and then hold a grand opening, showing everyone my latest colour scheme.

I managed to amaze everyone, including myself and leave school at sixteen, I went to art college, where I learnt how to design clothes, dye fabrics and met my best mate Cy. Poor, long-suffering Cy, he’s still with me now, he’s swapped making clothes for making cakes, back then we didn’t know how things would work out.

Me: Is that the same Cy who shares your adventures?

Andorra: That’s right. We used to wonder what we could do with our lives, after college. “I always wanted to open a clothes shop,” he told me one day in our final year, over a boozy lunch by the river. “How do you fancy it?”

To cut a long story short, AC Couture was born, Cy was tailor and cutter and I was the designer, Maisie was there too. We concentrated on fashion that was six months out of synch with everyone else; working on the theory that as you could never get any clothes for the season you were actually in, I might be able to make a living doing just that.

I could go on about AC Couture and all the adventures I had with that for ages, but then I might get into trouble, especially if I mentioned any names.

Me: How did you get from making clothes on Earth to running a café on the Space station?

Andorra: That’s another long story and if I told you that, you wouldn’t need to buy the books, would you? Let’s just say I had some good times and some disappointments and leave it at that.

Me: Thank you so much for talking to us today Andi,

Andorra: It’s been a pleasure, Richard. Can I ask you to try to make me sound a bit more like I know what’s going on in the next one you write?

If you want to know more about Andorra, you can read chapter one of Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Café  HERE. (Opens in a new window).

Here are links to the novels, the next one, Andorra Pett takes a Break will be published in late 2020.

I’ll be back on Thursday with another Indie Showcase.

Incidentally, I’m very grateful to Matthew Brittan for the wonderful drawings of Andorra. If you’ve enjoyed reading about her, please leave a comment below and I’ll make sure she gets it. Then go and read the rest of the great blogs on the hop. Just follow this link.

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/p/dc09362ae3794256a0d6152de35a5ed0

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Reblogging. Sally’s Café and Bookstore.

Here’s a blog post that caught my eye. Please check it out. Make sure that you leave a comment, (leave one here as well).

Let’s spread the word.

A recent post from Sally Cronin,

http://Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore – Christmas Book Fair – #HistoricalRomance Karen Demers Dowdall, #Thriller Toni Pike, #Design Valentina Cirasola, #Memoir J.E. Pinto

Welcome to this year’s Christmas book fair where I will be sharing the books of all the authors on the shelves of the Cafe and Bookstore with their most recent review in the last six months. I will be selecting authors at random so that there is something for everyone in the post.

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Book Review, Ransom, by Gilbert Stack.

I found Gilbert Stack when he reviewed one of my books. As I always do, I took a look at the links on his email and found this novel. The premise interested me so I had to get a copy.

Blurb

ABBA, Air Supply, Charlie’s Angels, Ronald Reagan—it’s 1981 and real estate attorney, Lynne Winters’, is struggling to manage a constantly complaining mother and a law practice tanking in the worst real estate market in a decade. Then her life really goes insane when a long brown envelope lands on her desk. The heir to the Mackland furniture empire has been kidnapped and the kidnapper has forced Lynne smack in the middle of the ransom negotiations. It’s the most important case of her career, but in a time when professional women too often aren’t taken seriously, it will take all of Lynne’s resourcefulness and grit to find a way to bring the boy safely home again.

My review.

A boy, the son of an apparently rich businessman, has been kidnapped. The person responsible has an unorthodox way of getting in touch to demand his ransom.

Lynne Winters has to deal with this; while juggling her
chaotic personal life, addiction to caffeine and the fact that nobody takes her
seriously. Worse, they suspect her motives.

There’s a cast of believable characters; from the family of the rich victim, all with their own idiosyncrasies, to the police who investigate and Lynne’s mother, who complicates Lynne’s life with issues of her own. The way people react differently to a stressful situation is very well explored, leaving you with suspects, motives and dysfunction. They’re all realistic characters, behaving just like you could picture any family, if they were faced with this sort of situation.

This is a fast-moving, well-written story with enough twists and turns to satisfy and leave you wondering who is at the bottom of things. I particularly enjoyed the authenticity of it. Lynne is portrayed as a real person, not some crime-fighting superhero. Like most of us, she has so much going on, yet she manages to cope with it all, surprising herself in the process.

I also found that Gilbert has written so much more than this book. As well as contemporary thrillers, there are supernatural tales, high fantasy, historical fiction. The question is, which one to try next?

Check out his author page here

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B004M5BKI0

Four Stars from me.

I’ll be back on Monday with another BlogHop. Have a great weekend.

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Blog Hopping, Giving up, Giving In.

Welcome back to another BlogHop, with#OpenBook. Read on for this week’s prompt.

What one thing would you give up to become a better writer?

What? I need to quit one of my vices? Which one? Coffee, going out for lunch with my wife, fish and chips, cream teas, watching my DVD collection of X-Files episodes (series 1-9), 1970s heavy metal music. Which one of them would I be willing to sacrifice?

Or how about one of my writing foibles? Could giving up one
of them make me a better writer? Let’s see, there’s my tendency to write in different
genres, start too many projects, waste time on social media when I could be
writing or marketing.

And then there’s the big one, the pachyderm over there in the corner. I refer to my tendency of getting side-tracked while researching facts, or even going off on a tangent when I’m supposed to be writing about a specific subject. Meaning that I end up writing about something else.

Like I’m about to do here; if I’m not careful.

Being more selective in my research, stopping the search for ever more fascinating facts and obscure knowledge would certainly improve my output.  Although not all of it, Obviously. Because some of my novels have come from side-tracking.

Incidentally, when I was researching the sequel to Life and Other Dreams, I found an interesting place in Belize It’s called Magnetic Hill, or Gravity Hill. It’s on the Hummingbird Highway and gravity appears to be switched off. If a car is stopped at the bottom, it rolls back to the top. I’m sure I can use that in the novel. In fact, as I type this I can visualise where it might fit.

See what I mean? The question is, why do I inevitably seem
to end up getting side-tracked? It’s a combination of things, my desire to know
all there is to know about the things that interest me, the fact that I’m
constantly amazed by the amount of information available, my inability to
concentrate.

As I’ve said before, I thought that writing Sci-Fi would be easy.
I was confident that there would be no need for research, you can’t research the
future, you just need to invent it.

I’m much wiser now, I understand that to create the future, you have to understand the present. You need to know the way things work; so that you can adapt them and move them into your worlds. If you start with something believable, you can take the reader with you when you present him with the new, improved version that comes from your imagination.

To my surprise, despite never wanting to do any, I’ve fallen
in love with research. I can spend hours getting all the facts about something
that might only take up a few paragraphs, just to make sure that I’ve got it
right.

BUT… the problem is, in my thirst for knowledge, I wander off when I see an interesting topic.

Several hours later, I know everything about some niche
subject, sometimes more than one. Trouble is, I’ve forgotten what I was looking
for AND I’m nowhere further forward on what I was actually writing.

I actually wrote a post about the problem, back in 2017, as it related to a book that I was writing at the time. You can find it here.

https://richarddeescifi.co.uk/moving-off-on-a-tangent/

Back to the subject, again.

if I could change one thing, secure in the knowledge that it would make me a better writer, which would I choose? I’d have to say that I can’t decide. I’d love to stop getting side-tracked; if it wasn’t for the fact that it has led me on a wonderful journey of discovery. In fact, all of my annoying writing habits have enriched the experience for me.

Could it be the end of the X-Files on repeat? Or should I
start drinking tea?

I’d love to get your thoughts, please leave me a comment below. Then go and visit all the other great blogs on this hop.

Just click the link to join in https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/5bccf73d059c4cc6bc48650771dcf44b

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