Reyna Favis's Blog, page 4
November 11, 2019
October 31, 2019
Introvert Sleuths Halloween Mystery
The last known point for the subject was under a tree. A piece of tissue, melting in the morning dew, would be used as the scent article. It was a good assumption that this was something the subject might have touched.
I threw the harness down near the fragile scent article and let the K9 circle the area on the 30-foot lead to learn what scents were in the vicinity. After slipping the harness over her head and buckling it securely around her deep chest, I switched the lead from her choke to the harness. I gave her the commands to take scent and then to get on trail.
The K9 moved decisively across the lawn and to the sidewalk. The trail was fairly old, probably about 12 hours , but the cool, humid conditions were great for working scent.
We went up the block, passing several houses. She showed no interest, keeping her nose down and giving no head indications. After continuing past a few more houses, the K9 attempted to enter a driveway. I held her back. She glanced over her shoulder at me, clearly unhappy that I would not let her continue. Yup, I thought.
Working her way past the driveway, she next attempted to follow the walk to the front door of the house. Gotcha.
Expert tip: Don’t TP the house where the search dog lives.
+ + +
Image by my crappy little flip phone
+ + +
[image error]
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search, Soul Scent, and Soul Sign, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
October 23, 2019
SOUL SIGN IS LIVE ON AMAZON !!!
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1694622185
eBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZG9BY2B
Click below for a preview
September 30, 2019
Coming in October — Soul Sign: A Zackie Story of Supernatural Suspense
An old house, a creepy doll, and photographs of dead Victorian children.
Just another day at the office when you are a servant of the Psychopomp.
When snarky psychic medium Fia finds a doll made from human hair, she and her curmudgeon mentor Cam must uncover the link between the doll and a cache of photographs hidden in an old house—Victorian memento mori of dead children.
With the clues pointing to a terrified lost soul and her involvement in a centuries-old murder, the team must unravel truth from lies before a vengeful spirit unleashes fire and death on innocent people.
Perfect for readers who enjoy a little humor in their horror, the Zackie Stories of Supernatural Suspense will keep you reading long into the night.
The third novel of the ZACKIE STORIES.
********************************
Click here to read the first chapter
+ + +
[image error]Find them HERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
August 31, 2019
Introvert Asks: Is Cozy Horror a Thing?
I might have accidentally invented a new fiction genre–Cozy Horror.
According to Wikipedia:
Cozy mysteries, also referred to as “cozies”, are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror.
Sound incompatible, maybe even mutually exclusive? I thought so too, yet here I am, within a few words of finishing SOUL SIGN, and I’m pretty sure I’ve written a Cozy Horror book series.
This was not intentional. In my defense, I see it as a natural by-product of being an introvert. I had been left to my own devices, alone with my laptop, and this is what happened. As I’ve confessed previously, I am a pantser when it comes to writing. That means I write by the seat of my pants–I believe that if there are no surprises for the writer, there are no surprises for the reader. And boy, was I surprised.
The characters in SOUL SIGN and the first two books in the series perfectly fit the Cozy genre. They are an intimate group because they resolve hauntings. Convincing spirits to continue to the afterlife is not something you can openly discuss or put on your resume. And weird undertakings make for weird bedfellows, so it makes sense that these people find each other.
Also in keeping with Cozies, a mystery must be solved: the mystery of why a spirit is unable to move on. The answer is sometimes obvious, but the resolution is rarely straightforward, so these stories are ripe with plot twists. The characters must tease out truth from lies to understand the psychological underpinnings that keep a spirit earthbound. And the truth is not always pretty or palatable. This is where we get cross-pollination from the Horror genre.
Another strong element of the Cozy genre is humor. The humor in the Zackie stories is organically grown from the personalities of the characters, using no antibiotics, preservatives or artificial flavors.
While some of the spirits can also provide moments of comic relief, not all fit this mold. This is another aspect of the horror genre that suffuse these stories. Just like real life, it’s not always fun and fluff. Some things are deadly serious and the characters must up their game in order to survive, with no guarantee that they will succeed.
The scariest part of these stories is finding the readers for this mixed genre. True Cozy readers will recoil at the horror elements; readers seeking pure horror will roll their eyes at the humor. Both of them will leave me one star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Publishers Weekly and book bloggers have had nice things to say about the first two books in the series, so the right readers will not be disappointed in the story.
So, I’m adding Shaun of the Dead or something similar to my keywords, like a message in a bottle. If you have any other ideas on keywords or how to reach readers who would enjoy Cozy Horror, please leave me a message in the comments. Thanks in advance!
+ + +
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
+ + +
[image error]Find them HERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
July 31, 2019
Introvert Reviews “Where the Lost Dogs Go”
The cover of Susannah Charleson’s new book “Where the Lost Dogs Go” says it is a story of love, search, and the power of reunion. What’s left out is that this is also a story of resilience.
It’s about the resilience of the lost animals who must survive in difficult and sometimes hostile environments. If they are granted a miracle and land a new home, they must now adapt to the foreign rhythms of a new family. The example of Ace in the story showed how he continued to feel the loss of his first family, even while finding his place in his new home.
The flip side of resilience in the canine-human bond are the pet owners who must manage the alternating feelings of uncertainty and dread. Pet owners must keep the faith and muster the stamina to continue searching, all while bombarded by the daily demands of life.
The book is also about the resilience of the author, who suffered three substantial losses while she wrote this book. Despite the pain of these losses, she continued to put one foot in front of the other, searching for the lost and helping others.
Susannah Charleson pours her heart into the pages as she describes stories from her childhood that explain why she is so drawn to helping animals. She offers detailed insight into how to search for a lost pet while she relates the story of Ace, a Maltese-Poodle cross. When we first meet Ace, he’s someone’s lost dog who wound up in a shelter in desperate shape. Under the author’s care, he gets his health and spirit back, and he eventually trains to find other missing pets as a MAR (Missing Animal Response) dog.
The story is beautifully written with great storytelling and moments of gentle humor. I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves animals.
+ + +
[image error]Find them HERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
June 29, 2019
Introvert Flash Post: The Day I Learned I Could (Almost) Fly
It was glorious! I was soaring, the wind rushing past me. I had never felt so free and alive. I reveled in my newfound power as the pavement raced by below me. I could defy gravity. I COULD FLY!
Every life has moments of glory. You just have to know when to say “Cut!” and stop filming.
+ + +
[image error]Find them HERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
May 30, 2019
Kitten Wins by #TKO Against Introvert
Fragile. For all their desire to live, two-week-old kittens are incredibly fragile. I give a lot of credit to cat mothers who nurture and raise strong, healthy kittens. I’ve found it takes hard work, sacrifice, and stamina to keep a kitten alive. The picture you see is Mojo at three-almost-four weeks old. I finally feel confident that he’s not going to die.
Mojo came to me when he was one-going-on-two weeks old. The feral mother had gone AWOL and the rest of his littermates had perished. Mojo, his eyes not yet open, had been forced into a blind, desperate dash for life across my mother’s front porch. He had screamed his head off as he ran and had gotten my mom’s attention. She had grabbed him just before he went off the edge of the seven-foot drop. No one with an ounce of humanity would have done otherwise.
What we didn’t know about keeping neonatal kittens alive could have filled an encyclopedia. What I did know was that the frequent feeding schedule was not going to be good for my mom’s health, so I took on the quest of keeping Mojo breathing. Thanks to the Kitten Lady, I quickly got up to speed on what supplies were needed, the frequency of feeding such a young animal (turns out, every two freakin’ hours), how to syringe feed without drowning him, how to stimulate him to eliminate, and how to keep the critter warm enough to sustain life. I set my phone to alarm every two freakin’ hours because no one with an ounce of humanity could let a kitten die when he wanted so badly to live. (Apparently, I own exactly one ounce of humanity because I am NOT doing this again.)
It was in this sleep-deprived state that I left with Rich to go to a Search and Rescue business meeting. I had fed the little beast right before we left to give us ample time before Mojo needed his next feeding. Just as our car reached the bottom of the driveway, two big black dogs darted behind a neighbor’s houses across the street. They ran with the exhilaration of dogs who had temporarily slipped the surly bonds of their earthly owners. I yelled for Rich to stop the car. A vague memory of these dogs behind a fence in a nearby neighbor’s yard flitted through my groggy brain. With a sigh, I resigned myself to doing more peopling than anticipated that evening. Leaving the car, I walked up this other neighbor’s driveway and called to the dogs.
As a K9 handler, I have the magical ability to pitch my voice to make dogs believe that whatever I’m suggesting is a great thing to do. The dogs came running, tails wagging, and dove into our neighbor’s open garage. I followed them in and called for the homeowners. No one answered. I could not leave the dogs in an open garage, since we’d be back to square one, so I knocked on the door leading to their house. The dogs lined up behind me, ready and eager to enter. When no one answered, I decided I was not up for complex problem solving after so many nights with so little sleep, so I opened the door and let the dogs into the house. Calling for the homeowners from the doorway got no response, so I closed the door firmly, making sure the dogs couldn’t get out again. Before leaving, I scribbled a note to give the owners a heads up that their dogs were somehow getting loose.
As we drove down the street, doubt crept up my spine like a colony of fire ants. I turned to Rich and made my confession. “I’m not 100% certain that was the house where the black dogs live.”
Rich furrowed his brow, thinking hard. “Did you sign the note ‘Reyna & Rich’ or ‘Rich & Reyna’ ?”
Tiny drops of sweat prickled along my hairline. Facing forward, I adjusted my seat belt. “I think you should drive faster.”
+ + +
[image error]Find them HERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
April 30, 2019
The Introvert and the Odor Mortis
Because being a writer means following the advice of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and feeding your head.
Submitted for your approval: the details of one head-feeding session….
I am a highly distracted gardener and will not give tender young plants the attention they deserve. My efforts are better spent making compost—better for the plants (because they get good, rich earth from this) and better for the planet (because I reduce the waste that would otherwise end up in landfills and not decay with all due speed). I am almost as good at composting as I am at fixing toilets, my highly celebrated, lame super power. The compost I make is derived from kitchen scraps, mostly fruit and vegetable waste, but also egg shells, coffee and tea grounds, some garden waste, and other relatively inoffensive materials that don’t smell too badly as they decompose.
Decomposition has recently become a frequently used word in my vocabulary. This is mainly because Zackie-O, the introverted Plott hound, is expanding her search and rescue training from live finds to human remains detection. Training involves teaching her to alert using a recall-refind—she needs to come to me and tell me by barking that she has found something and then she needs to show me where it is located.
Unlike trailing, where Zackie-O is given the scent of an individual she needs to find and then works on-lead to follow that scent, human remains detection has her working off-lead to home in on the scent of decomposition. And boy, does she like running off lead. The general advice is that the handler should keep up with the dog and watch the dog’s body language for signs of interest, indicating that she’s picking up on scent somewhere in the vicinity. Good luck with that. Plott hounds are fast and nothing short of an Olympic sprinter is going to keep up with her. This is why training the recall-refind is necessary—it makes her come back and communicate to me that I need to follow her to the source of that scent.
The scent of decomposition is comprised of about 480 volatile organic compounds that are released in a complex mixture as bacteria act on a body. The exact composition of the gases released changes as decay progresses and also varies based on the composition and interactions of the bacterial population in and around the body, the climate, and (to a lesser degree) the genetic make-up and diet of the deceased. Training cadaver dogs to recognize this odor mortis is a real commitment and is a complex endeavor.
To add to the complexity, Washington state has recently passed a bill permitting composting of human remains. This makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of environmental stewardship, since it eliminates from the funerary process the carbon footprint generated by cremation, as well as the toxic chemicals used for embalming. At the end of 30 days, the result of the body composting process is a cubic yard of soil, which the families can use to create memorial gardens and/or donate to conservation groups in the Puget Sound region. The same rules that apply to cremains would apply to this soil, i.e. scattering is restricted to land with an owner’s permission.
As the idea of composting human remains spreads, I foresee some interesting searches in the future.
+ + +
Image by Joke vander Leij from Pixabay
+ + +
[image error]Find themHERE
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, have been described as Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas meets Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse. Readers have praised these novels for the very human stories behind the hauntings that create unexpected plot twists, drama, and even moments of humor. The Zackie Stories are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
March 29, 2019
Book Cover Hell and the Introvert
It all started innocently enough. I needed to create a cover for SOUL SIGN, the third book in the Zackie Stories of Supernatural Suspense. But when Photoshop madness set in, it irrevocably changed my world and I may never be the same again.
I never intended for it to go this far. I think everyone says that. First, there were the free online tools and it was fun playing with their functions and special effects. I was just a casual user. I thought I could use this stuff and then walk away. I didn’t know it at the time, but these were the gateway apps to harder stuff.
I joined Facebook groups to learn about covers. These groups were swarming with pushers and enablers. They told me to add sparkles and to hire costly professional designers. It was all so tempting. I could almost taste the glitzy, eye-catching, gold-encrusted, glowing covers that would shoot my book straight to number one. I wouldn’t even have to write a story. All I needed was the cover.
It was easier than I thought to get photo editing software. You just hand the guy your money and he gives it to you. I became drunk on power. Now easily able to isolate images willy-nilly, I could make things glow with a supernatural aura. I was a young god, creating glowy worlds with the click of my mouse.
Late one night while my husband slept, I made a sparkle brush. He still doesn’t know I have one. I told myself I’d use it sparingly and tastefully, but the more I used it, the more I wanted to use it. I couldn’t get enough. If my husband saw what I’ve done with this brush, I’m sure he’d stage an intervention.
The pushers on Facebook told me about the Internet’s seedy underbelly, where authors could get fonts for cheap. You just needed to earn your street cred, be able to speak the lingo. Before I could stop myself, I learned to casually roll off that of course Cinzel font is used for fantasy covers and to send the right vibe for a romance book cover, foolproof font choices had to be Twilight and Lavenda. All the while, I was jonesing for that sparkle brush.
I know it looks bad, but I can quit anytime I want. I’m just going to finish this one cover and then I’ll get clean. I swear.
+ + +
Original image by lisa runnels from Pixabay I encourage you to look at the original picture before bitterness and sarcasm had its way. I decided to conceal the face of the lovely model so as to cause her no embarrassment.
+ + +
[image error]
If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please visit my author’s website to learn more about progress with the Zackie Story series, author appearances, or to send me a message, etc. Or if you prefer, you can also find me on Facebook (at least until another social media platform emerges that will actually safeguard user privacy). Feel free to friend me and send me a message so I’ll know you’re not just a bot.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels blending fantasy and supernatural suspense, are available for purchase on Amazon and are free on Kindle Unlimited.
If you enjoy the Zackie stories, please, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Your review makes a difference and is incredibly valuable, drawing in other readers and providing access to promotional opportunities that require a specific number of reviews to engage. I’ll be your best friend forever if you write a review.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before the last day of the month.
[image error]
