Kaye Lynne Booth's Blog: Writing to be Read, page 136

“Death Among Us”: A collection of short fiction mysteries

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Death Among Us – An Anthology of Murder Mystery Short Stories, compiled and edited by Stephen Bentley is a curious collection of stories, indeed. As I’ve mentioned before, the problem with short fiction lies in telling a complete story in a condensed form, with beginning, middle and end, and it’s one of my peeves when I walk away from a short story and it doesn’t feel complete, or it feels as if it ended too abruptly, as if the author was in a hurry to wrap things up. Some of the stories in this collection are like that, and some were more telling than showing. A few I didn’t feel really fell into the category of murder mystery at all, but for the most part each one kept me engaged despite all that. (That’s another thing about short fiction; you don’t have to keep your reader engaged for a long period of time, but that also means that you have less time to hook them and reel them in.) And there were some stories in this collection, which I’ll talk about in a minute, that were really well written and I was able to immerse myself in from start to finish.

Of particular note, Michael Spinelli’s No Man’s Land is the tale of a desert manhunt for a gruesome serial killer. It’s well-crafted, and built tension and suspense all the way up to the surprise ending. The two stories by L. Lee Kane, A Deadly Lady and Stop Me If You Can, are really two parts of one tale of abuse and revenge, crafted so that the first part offers the motive for what happens in the second. And Justin Bauer kept me fully engaged clear through Sales Meeting, although I felt the ending was tied up a little too neatly. This is not to say that the other shorts in this collection weren’t good, but these three are the ones that stick out in my mind the most.

I will also mention that there are three stories included by Writing to be Read team member, Robbie Cheadle, in this murder mystery collection: Justice is Never Served, An Eye for an Eye, and The Murder of the Monk. Robbie’s stories are each inspired by factual historic events that have to make one wonder and tell the tales the way she imagines them to have happened.

Overall, this anthology was entertaining, (and, after all, isn’t that the point?). I give Death Among Us four quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.

#Bookreview – Delilah a Frontier Romance by Kaye Lynne Booth

[image error]via #Bookreview – Delilah a Frontier Romance by Kaye Lynne Booth

Poetry For Yourself

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Poetry For Yourself

Poetry has an odd position in the hierarchy of creative media. It’s too personal and intense to be an instrument of mass exposure. How many famous poets are there? Five? Ten? Who comes to mind? Mary Oliver. Of course.

So why do you write poetry? Asking that question is like asking “Why do you fall in love?” You just do…because the love is in you, wanting to get out. It’s a way of falling in love with yourself. Having created something beautiful, you sit back and think…”Oh..did I do that? Where did it come from? Did I channel it from some ethereal spirit?” Sometimes the poems we write seem to belong to independent spirits. They are alien and strange.

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Ghost voices grow

like weaving spires in the corridor of the night.

Stalactites of moonlight,

they hum and fade

through the wake of other minds.

A sheet of star rain glinting light,

a mist of moon- heat lost from sight

these spectral hints emerge

from the night floor in the dark.

Silver waving plants recede forever

in a song of twinkling echoes.

Ghost voices, shadow worlds

arise and converse

while my sleep waits beyond the hills,

listening.

 

If I wrote that it would be evidence that I am certifiably nuts. It must be read carefully, like drinking a fabulous milkshake one mouthful at a time.  Poetry can be a vessel for deadly serious topics, or it can offer room for comedy.

Shit

There’s shit on my shoes;

cat shit, dog shit, I hope that’s all shit.

Every step I take I risk stepping in shit:

Is this not life? There’s nothing wrong with shit.

We need it, like we need bugs

to nourish with its noxious stink the most natural growth.

This poo is for you, it says, as I wipe it off my shoe

with futile hope of avoiding my hands, then washing

again and again. How often in a day do I inwardly exclaim,

“Shit!”?

More than I would admit.

My mind is full of bricks, pies and purges.

Cats, dogs, owls, horses, all shit. People shit,

the cosmos excretes Dark Matter on these very shoes

which I try so hard to keep clean. Many are obsessed

with the minuscule taint of e.coli. Why should I bother to say

“Relax, we are exposed to e.coli and far worse

every day. We are sturdy,

knocking off shits and bugs heroic, undaunted

by the invisible stools of imagination?”. Instead I spread this blessing:

“You must be crazy in whatever way you want.”

Not every disease is preventable, nor is every affliction brought on board

by the shit on our shoes. When you stroke the cat, the dog, the horse

your hands investigate bacteria, resist infection.

After all, shit is the most common thing in the world.

 

 

I’ll be honest. “Shit” is one of the best poems I’ve ever written.  I think. I always feel that way about my latest poem.  It’s got rhythm and it makes people laugh.  What’s better than that?

I know, I’m taking up a lot of space, and I think I’ve posed enough questions. No matter how personal a matter is poetry, its importance is immense. It is filled with our most private introspection. If others read it, so much the better. I didn’t write these things to live in the dark. Some day they may find an audience. Meanwhile, I offer them for the pleasure of a small number of readers who may enjoy them.

A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good.  His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv. 

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Interview with noir author Michael Pool

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My guest today is a talented author, whom I happen to know personally. He was a part of my M.F.A. cohort at Western State Colorado University, and I had the privilege of , being present for his reading from his thesis novel, which was released this past year and fit in with this month’s Crime Fiction genre theme for review, Rose City. A P.I. by day, it’s no surprise that he writes crime fiction. What was a surprise to me was his talent for writing noir with true craftsmanship, which is why I invited him to join me here. Please help me welcome noir author, Michael Pool.

Kaye: Would you share briefly your writer’s journey? How did you get to where you are today?

Michael: A lot of writing, haha. I’ve been writing fiction since my very early twenties, however, I did take about 5 years in my late twenties where I barely wrote at all. In my 30’s I finally decided to take it more serious and began focusing on building a career through longer works. Prior to that, I’d mostly written short fiction. Though I still enjoy short stories, these days I mostly write novels, with a recent focus on detective fiction.

Kaye: Noir fiction takes a look at the darker side of human behaviors and generally features corruption and loose, (or lack of), morals. Why is it your chosen genre?

Michael: Well, I guess first I would say that it’s not my chosen genre. These days I definitely gravitate toward detective novels.

It’s a sub-genre that I have written in quite a lot, however. I would put Texas Two-Step as more of a pure crime novel, although it fits the Elmore Leonard vision of noir to a large degree. Rose City is a Southern Gothic Mystery.

However, I am attracted to noir stories because I like seeing the world through the eyes of an anti-hero. No matter the criminal, they are always the star of their own movie, and always see themselves as the justified “good guy.” What noir does really well is show that there is enough dirt to go around, and thus it turns notions of good and evil on their heads, leaving the reader with the distinct understanding that there are no good and bad people, only good and bad choices.

All of us are always teetering on the edge of destroying ourselves through our shortcomings and noir is all about that process, making it entertaining, if horrifying, to read.

Kaye: What is the biggest challenge in writing noir for you?

Michael: I’m not sure I see it as challenging. I’ve always been a fan of the underdog, and I consider the down and out to be my people in so many ways. I love capturing the world from the view of men and women with their backs against the wall, many of whom have just enough ruthlessness in them to cause catastrophic damage in the pursuit of (often) vein goals which are not necessarily good for them.

Kaye: What is the most fun about writing noir?

Michael: I always joke that I’m a bit of a dark and stormy person, so I like that noir’s tone allows lots of room for that darkness and allows for a lot of intense, violent, complicated conflicts to arise in the narrative.

Kaye: Rose City was your thesis project in your M.F.A. program, but it is also the companion novel to Texas Two-Step. Can you tell me a little about both books and explain how they are related?

Michael: Both books are set in the fictional East Texas locale, Teller County. They are related only by their setting and a shared villain in common. Without giving too much away, there is a villain who skates on consequences in Texas Two-Step that may finally get his in Rose City.

Interestingly, Rose City was written first, as a graduate school thesis. For whatever reason, Texas Two-Step was published first. They can be read in any order.

[image error]Texas Two-Step is a “One last crime” story involving a couple of jam-band obsessed Denver pot growers who, after getting pushed out of the market by legal marijuana, have one last big crop to sell, and turn to an old but reckless associate down in Texas to move the harvest. They soon find themselves tangled up with real, violent criminals in a cat-and-mouse game where everyone involved has an agenda, and a rogue Texas Ranger is on their trail, desperate to nail their associate. It’s a multiple point-of-view book with lots of humor and a satisfying climax.

[image error]Rose City is a “prodical son returns” story where the protagonist, Cole Quick, has left Teller County 14 years earlier after being robbed of a stash of fronted cocaine, taking with him his local debutante girlfriend, whose family all but disowned her as a result. The book picks up 6 months after her untimely death from breast cancer. Cole returns to Teller County for his estranged, abusive father’s funeral, and soon finds himself caught up in his old debt, as well as tasked with proving an old friends death was murder, rather than a vicious murder-suicide. To get back out of town alive, he has to take on the entire crooked town’s structure and bring it down to rubble.

Rose City was the first full novel I had ever written. And, honestly, it was a mess for a long time. Five years of good edits have turned it into a really great novel. It’s emotional, suspenseful, and moves forward at a non-stop pace. It deals with themes of racism, classism, corruption, abuse, and self-destruction in a way that is compassionate but takes a hard eye to the reality these kinds of problems crop up in.

Kaye: In Rose City, Cole Quick has a dark past that he thought he left behind. But a trip back to his home town finds him down and out, and vulnerable. There’s a lot more going on than he is aware of in his old stomping grounds, and almost without realizing what’s happening, he’s swept up into it, and it becomes a matter of survival for him to discover what really happened to his best friend, Jimmy. Are noir protagonists all average guys who get swept up by circumstance and have to fight their way out?

Michael: I don’t think noir protagonists are all average guys. In fact a whole bunch of them are anything but, they’re self-destructive fringe characters living by their own moral codes, and bound for trouble of their own making.

But all of my characters tend to be average men and women caught in extraordinary scenarios. I’m not much for thrillers with  superhuman protagonists, and my writing tends to put a lot of focus on everyday people and their relationships, with the understanding that crime and total destruction are always in the peripheral of our lives, whether we believe it or not. I use crime as a lens to explore the human condition, because it’s an integral part of the human experience. We live in societies with rules, both good and arbitrary, and we all find ourselves running up against those in some ways. But some men and women won’t just accept things the way they are, and that to me is the kind of person who will make a good protagonist.

Kaye: You are the founder and editor-in-chief of Crime Syndicate Magazine. Can you tell me about that? What was your motivation to start it? What can readers find there? What are your goals for it in the future?

Michael: I put Crime Syndicate down about a year ago, just didn’t have time for it anymore. Crime Syndicate did focus a lot on short noir fiction, and there are some incredibly good stories in the three issues I put out. I’m happy to have had the experience, but I’m a writer at heart, not an editor.

Kaye: Noir characters are always flawed in some way. How flawed should a noir character be?

Michael: The important thing is not how flawed, it’s more that their flaw be something that will drive them to make decisions that are not necessarily good for them, and in fact the best noir characters have a flaw that is in direct opposition to their needs, causing a sense of inner conflict that will drive the story to a dark ending.

Kaye: If you could have lunch with any noir author, alive or dead, who would it be? Why?

Michael: I suppose a Dashiel Hammett or Ross MacDonald. Neither are really “noir” authors. I’d put them both more as hardboiled detective writers. But both have been major influences on my writing. I work as a private investigator, and in Hammett I get a very clear sense that he knows the work (which makes sense, because he was a Pinkerton at one time). With McDonald, I love the way he uses the detective as a lens to look at family dynamics and the effects changing social issues and dynamics have on families. It’s something I naturally do in my own writing, and I’d love to pick his brain about process.

Kaye: You are a Jiu-jitsu instructor. Are any of your characters skilled in martial arts?

Michael: Not really, for some reason! I am working on a modern pulp P.I. series (I’m calling it Gonzo P.I. as a style), and that character, Rick Malone, does have some jiu-jitsu experience, which he puts to good use from time to time. But in a lot of ways Rick is also a broken man and an outcast, so he’s still very far from the superhuman or hyper-capable protagonists I was talking about earlier. I love jiu-jitsu, and of course it does show up from time to time in my action scenes!

Kaye: In addition to book length works, you also write short fiction. Your works have been included in several anthologies. Which do you prefer? Why?

Michael: As I mentioned, I mostly write novels now. I prefer them because there is a market for them, haha. No, honestly, I agree with readers on why they prefer novels, and particularly series. When you fall in love with a protagonist you want to spend more time with that protagonist as a reader, and as a writer, I feel the same way. It can be hard to spend a year at a time on the same project, but the end result is more satisfying and makes it much further out into the universe.

Kaye: What parts of you, do your readers get to see in your characters?

Michael: Compassionate but conflicted and flawed characters in my books all have a big piece of me in them. I’m highly emotional, and have had plenty of dark experiences in my personal life. Those experiences crop up in less-than-direct ways in my writing, but anytime you reach an emotional moment in one of my books, you’re definitely interacting with the deepest parts of me as a writer and human being. To me that is a vital part of why I write in the first place.

Kaye: Your books feature intricate storylines that are well thought out. What’s your writing process like? How do you create your plots?

Michael: I’m an outliner these days. I stray from the outline often, but I mark out plot beats in advance as much as possible, and adjust them as I go. I literally keep a beat sheet for each book to make sure I’m staying on pace and on task. I find structure to be freeing rather than limiting. To understand why story structure is so vital you have to understand why humans began to tell stories in the first place, then you can see why structure evolved the way it did, and use that information to create the ever-elusive “uniquely familiar” plot lines that resonate with readers.

Kaye: What is your greatest writing accomplishment to date?

Michael: That’s a tough one! I feel like my greatest accomplishment is just getting to where I am. I feel poised to break through to a larger audience with this next project, finally, but more than that, I feel like I’ve finally become a skilled, adept long-form fiction writer.

Kaye: What are you working on now? What’s next for Michael Pool?

Michael: Right now I’ve just finished the first book in a new P.I. series, Throwing Off Sparks, and am at work on book two, tilted Daughters of the Republic. Both feature my obsessive female East Texas P.I., “Rowdy” Riley Reeves. Riley’s origin story, “Weathering the Storm,” is slated for release as part of The Eyes of Texas anthology on 10/21/2019. Within a paragraph of starting that story I knew she would become a series character, and I’m REALLY excited to share this new series with the world, I think it brings something totally new to detective fiction.

I’m also working on a pulp P.I. novel I mentioned earlier, also the first in a series, called Catfish Quarum. It is set in Colorado and features down-and-out drug-addled P.I. Rick Malone. A second book in that series is currently in the outline stage, titled One Way Out. I have big hopes for this series, it allows me to be goofy and serious all in the same breath, and to really capture a lot of uniquely Colorado social issues and characteristics. Look for it over the next couple years. I wish that were faster, but publishing is its own complicated process, unfortunately.

I want to thank Michael for sharing with us today. I think he has helped to define noir  and differentiate it from the other sub-genres of crime fiction. If you’d like to learn more about Michael or his books, you can visit his author site, or his Amazon author page.

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Treme: David Simon’s Masterwork about New Orleans

 

 

In early October, 2005 my partner and I were driving our new 38 foot motorhome from Ft. Lauderdale to Petaluma,CA.  It was going to be a four thousand mile drive on I-10, the southernmost of our nation’s interstate highway system.  As we drew into the outskirts of Pensacola we noted the ravaged condition of the trees, fences, billboard signs and the Interstate itself.  The campgrounds were jam packed.  We only found a site because someone had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital twenty minutes before we pulled into the Pensacola KOA. 

            We were in the zone of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath and the next four hundred miles would be like driving through a poorly kept secret.  Along the highway were big plywood signs done in red magic marker: FEMA, they said, and sometimes an arrow pointed the way down a dirt road.  These signs were emblematic of the slipshod management of a terrible disaster.  Imagine, plywood planks with red magic marker: this way to the internment camp of white trailers.

            Ahead of us lay New Orleans.  We saw the city only a few weeks after it was submerged and torn all to hell.  When we began watching the TV series Treme (trem-may), we had a visceral sense of connection to the experiences of the characters.

            TREME is producer/director David Simon’s series about post-Katrina New Orleans.  Simon is the creator of crime masterworks like HOMICIDE and THE WIRE.  TREME is something different.  It is a filmic mural that depicts conditions in a ravaged community.  Suspense is not what draws the viewer into the show.  It’s the characters that keep us watching.

Photo By Art Rosch

            One of the major characters of the series is New Orleans itself. There is a depth of culture in this city that is unmatched by any other American city.  Treme is one of the neighborhoods in this town, an area where musicians live and form their community.  They play at one another’s gigs.  They do funerals, following  wheeled black carriages in stately slow-march.  They play at nightclubs where the patrons and musicians alike are having so much fun that it seems almost unreal, as if there can’t possibly be so much joy in this troubled world.  But there it is: real music, dancing, carrying-on and everyone is having a freaking great time. 

            There’s nothing strident about Simon’s portrait of New Orleans.  It’s a town trying to bounce back, but the bounce is a little flat.  People want to rebuild their homes but the promised insurance checks and subsidies keep getting lost in bureaucracy.  A man has spent  three years rebuilding his home with his own money and his own skills. Suddenly a city inspector appears and cuts off his water and power. “The City” wants to see the original deed on the property.  It’s a document whose origins go back two hundred years.  It’s lost in history, lost in the flood.  Can he PROVE that his family has occupied this parcel of land since 1824?

            He forgot a payoff to someone.  He’s lost track of the fifties and hundreds he’s hemorrhaged to fees and penalties.

            New Orleans has become a scene where politicians and developers gather like ghouls to create a theme park where there was once a city.  If they have things their way, it will be resurrected as NewOrleansLand or Cajun-O-Rama.  The citizens of New Orleans are fighting back.  They know their city will never be the same.  But the disaster has made them aware of themselves as an extended family.  There is something special about being a New Orleans native.  There’s a terminology, a language, a history and a lot of blood that goes into the making of a citizen of New Orleans. 

            TREME is strangely relaxing to watch.  Real-life characters like musicians  Carla Thomas, Kermit Ruffins and Allen Toussaint thread through the plot playing themselves, providing a sound track of amazing skill and vivacity.  TREME is loaded with top of the line music.

            “Let the good times roll”, or “Laissez le bon temps roulez” is the unofficial motto of Mardi Gras.  The good times may roll but a new motto is emerging from the frustrated natives of New Orleans.  

          I will paraphrase the words of Sofia, the sixteen year old daughter of  civil rights lawyer Toni Bernette, played by the fantastic Melissa Leo.   Every day Sofia retreats to her bedroom, closes the door,  aims the laptop camera at her face and uploads to YouTube a monologue of rage and bitterness.

           “Fuck you, man, fuck you!” she says.  “If you’re not going to help us, at least don’t hinder us.  Just get the fuck out of our way!” THAT is the new motto of New Orleans.

“Awesome Tales #10”: An awesome tribute to pulp fiction of old

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You just don’t see a lot of pulp magazines anymore in the classic tradition from days of old, but Awesome Tales is a modern pulp magazine pulp fans will take delight in. If your a fan of the dazzling heroes and diabolical villians of the classic pulp traditions, Awesome Tales #10 takes you on a refreshing trip down memory lane with four masterfully written contemporary tales, by four different authors, told in classic pulp form and style.

“No Virtue in Patience”, by John L. French is a futuristic pulp story with tech gangs and computer generated card tournaments. A heist of the biggest solitaire game in town, with a proize of a solid gold deck of cards.

“No Patience for Fools” by Aaron Rosenberg offers a different perspective on the solitaire tournament of the previous story. Cleverly crafted to tell the same story from the opposite side of the law, it has a surprise ending, as well.

In “Broken Doll” by Quintin Peterson, tough guy bionic P.I. Luther Kane sets out to save a one-legged streetwalker named Gypsy, and maybe his own guilt ridden self, but he learns the classic lesson all P.I.s should know the hard way: never trust anyone.

“Give Them a Corpse Part 2” by Rich Harvey is the second part of a three part story featuring the Domino Lady, a classic masked superheroine, complete with crime fighting skills and secret identity, fights against the classic villians of The Black Legion. Like all good cloak and dagger crime fighting serials, this story easily stands alone.

Every one of the stories in Awesome Tales #10 are well-crafted and entertaining. They will satisfy hardcore pulp fans and maybe even earn the genre a few new fans. I give it five quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.

July: On the hunt for crime fiction

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The crime fiction genre covers a lot of ground. By definition, crime fiction involves mystery to be solved, usually who the killer is, or a quest to figure out some type of diabolical plot. Crime fiction stories involve pretty high stakes, and therefore a lot of suspense. Often there is a ticking clock to ratchet the tension even higher. And of course, there is always a crime of some sort to be solved, or prevented; some sort of wrong to be righted.

Crime fiction is a broad term which includes many sub-genres, which focus on the investigation of a crime and the apprehension of a suspect, either by law enforcement agents, as in The Numbers Killer, by my “Chatting with the Pros” author guest, Jenifer Ruff or by a tough guy P.I., as in hardboiled crime fiction such as Jim Nesbitt writes, with his tough guy P.I., Ed Earl Burch in The Best Lousy Choice and the two previous books in that series.

Hardboiled heroes are memorable. Who doesn’t know of Sam Spade or Mike Hammer and their cynical tough-guy images?  They are usually down on their luck, or at least between clients. They are often heavily flawed, often self-destructive, but a ladies man none-the-less, with a love them and leave them attitude and the snappy dialog of the 1920’s. Hardboiled fiction was birthed by Carrolle John Daly and Dashielle Hammett in the 20’s, and carried on by authors such as Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane.

In noir crime fiction, the protagonist is usually an extremely flawed, average guy. He’s usually down and out, or perhaps on a downward spiral in a situation that seems bleak and hopeless. He’s a self-destructive hero, who ends up going against all odds to fight corruption and injustice, not because it is his job, but for strictly personal motivations, which are usually not in his own best interests. An excellent example of this is found in Rose City, by Michael Pool (See my interview with Michael next Monday, the 29th).

And of course, the classic crime fiction is pulp, such as Quintin Peterson writes in Awesome Tales #10, (you can catch my review Wednesday, the 31st). From pulp, we get our classic heroes and fiendish evil villains. It’s from pulp that comic book super heroes and super villains arose, which is yet, another sub-genre of crime fiction, which has expanded with a life of its own to super colossal proportions.

We went on a hunt for crime fiction, and we found quite a bit. I learned a lot and I hope you did to. Now, I’m looking forward to August in a quest for mysteries and mystery authors. My “Chatting with the Pros” guest will be New York Times bestselling author, Gilly Macmillan. I’ll also be interviewing mystery author Gerald Darnell. And I’ll be reviewing a mystery anthology, Death Among Us, as well as a search and rescue mystery, Murder on the Horizon, by M.L. Rowland, and a paranormal cozy, Broomsticks and Burials, by Lilly Webb. I hope you’ll join me.

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“God’s Body”: A post-apocalyptic tale with a new kind of hero.

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God’s Body, by Jeff Bowles has one of the most masterfully crafted openings that I have read in a long time. By the beginning of the second paragraph, he had placed me in the setting, I knew this was like no other story I had ever read, and I was hooked, which is what a great opening should do. It impressed me so, that I asked the author’s permission to reprint it here.

“The toe was an ungodly mountain of flesh. As massive as it was inexplicable. It clung to the Earth like a bulbous pink tumor. Enormous, all-encompassing, the height of a skyscraper, the breadth of Niagara Falls. Rain water washed through its thick patchwork of crevasses and cracks. Long vertical rivers lapped at skin-cell canyon walls. There were flesh creeks and tidal waves. The toenail itself was the hanging shelf of the world.

Then Harold looked higher and saw the rest. Lord God Almighty…”

[image error] You just can’t read this and not want to know more. It’s obvious this isn’t going to be your average, everyday story, and you must read on in anticipation of what will come next. It’s clear this will be a story of epic proportions, and Bowels does not disappoint. God’s Body is an Armageddon story like no other; a post apocalyptic tale of good vs. evil in the best of pulp fantasy traditions, if such traditions existed. Bowles pulls out all the stops, using humor, irony and contemplation of the human condition to tell his tale with skill and craftsmanship. Everything about this story is of epic scale.

I’m not going to give you a rundown of this story line because the whole thing was such an entertaining read that I wouldn’t want to give out any spoilers, but what I will tell you is that in addition to the wonderful writing talent of Bowles, the artistic craftsmanship of Writer’s of the Future illustrator Pat R. Steiner accompanies this story with some truly awesome illustrations like the one seen here.

A truly original story that puts a new twist to an age-old theme. Written with skill and talent in a literary work of true craftsmanship, God’s Body is like nothing else you’ve ever read. I give it five epic quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.

 

Writing for a YA Audience: Family History Packs a Punch

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I’m obsessed with history.  While some people find history depressing, I find it all fascinating, even the parts about serfs and the plague.  Those were times that came before us.  Those people built up the world we live in today.  My ancestors made me who I am through the passing of genetics.

I’d never done much research into my family tree.  I knew that my dad’s grandparents came from Poland.  My mom’s paternal grandparents came from England and Germany.  Her maternal grandparents were English and German too, and one ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War.  My maternal grandmother always wanted to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, but couldn’t present the legal documents to prove it.

Years ago, people started talking about Ancestry.  I didn’t have the funds to join the website, but it encouraged me to do some digging on my own.  Oh, the things I found!   Websites brought me to other websites, and I eventually did wind up on Ancestry.  Everything I found fascinated me, even at 2am when I was still glued to the computer screen.

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Not only did my maternal grandmother’s ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War, but they also were the original Dutch settlers.  I got a friend hooked on finding out about her family tree, and we discovered she also descended from the first Dutch settlers – the same Dutch settlers who were in my family tree!  We officially dubbed ourselves the Bradt Cousins thanks to our Bradt ancestors.

The more I looked, the more I discovered.  An ancestor of mine was even English royalty!

For a while, I considered writing young adult novels based on their lives.  I even started one about my grandmother, but it felt wrong.  I knew my grandmother, but I didn’t know them.  I didn’t want to write something that wouldn’t reflect their thoughts and feelings.  Instead, I took their names and put them into my books.

Honora is Honoria in ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW.

My grandmother’s maiden name of Clark belongs to Clark in TREASURE DARKLY.

Charity is Charity in PATH TO OLD TALBOT.

Keziah is Keziah in GOAT CHILDREN.

Edna Hammer is Edna in COGLING.

Aeltye is Aeltye in VICTORIAN.

The list goes on.  Maybe someday I will do my best to write about their lives, but for now, I hope they feel honored to have their names featured in books.

Jordan Elizabeth is a young adult fantasy author.  She may or may not be staring at a supposedly haunted house trying to see faces in the windows. You can connect with Jordan – and point her in the direction of some paranormal activity – via her website, JordanElizabethBooks.com.

 

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Chatting with the Pros: Interview with bestselling author Jenifer Ruff

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My guest today on “Chatting with the Pros” is bestselling author Jenifer Ruff. She’s booked as a psychological thiller author, but much of her works falls under the genre of crime fiction, as well. She has a knack for keeping the action moving and throwing in surprise twists, which is always great in crime fiction stories. I’m excited to find out what she has to share, so please join me in welcoming her to Writing to be Read.

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Kaye: What elements of storytelling do you feel are specific to the crime fiction genre?

Jenifer: A well-developed and slightly flawed but likable antagonist. An interesting protagonist with clear and shocking or complex motives. A suspenseful, intricate plot with unexpected twists that involves a crime or series of crimes.

Kaye: What is the biggest challenge in writing crime fiction for you?

Jenifer: The most enjoyable parts are creating the plot, the twists, the characters, and the crimes. The hardest part for me is having the patience to go back and edit and rewrite again and again until the writing is the best I can make it.

Kaye: Are there any particular crime fiction authors that you fashioned your writing style after?

Jenifer: There are too many (way too many!) excellent authors and excellent novels out there for me to pick one  in particular.  I learn a little from all of them. I try and read as much of everything as I can—bestsellers in literature for the two book clubs I’m in, and indie authors in the thriller genre for me. I love it when the book I’m reading sparks new ideas, but that can happen no matter what genre or what author. I do know that when I read literature, I get inspired to create all sorts of similes and metaphors and my editor usually nixes almost all of them.

Kaye: You have also written thrillers, horror and YA suspense. What are the differences in writing crime fiction from the other genres you’ve written in?

Jenifer: All my novel are dark and twisty psychological suspense thrillers with disturbed characters readers often can’t help but like. Each book involves crimes, mostly murders. Each has a different contemporary topic—terrorism, sex trafficking, social media, for examples. I think I’ve been consistent with that character-driven style no matter the story or the genre. They’re more similar than they are different, but each emphasizes certain genre elements slightly more than others.

Kaye: What kind of research do you find yourself doing for crime fiction?

Jenifer: With my Brooke Walton series, I did a lot of research about psychopaths, PTSD, and working in a Medical Examiner’s office. For Only Wrong Once, I researched ISIS, particularly their recruiting techniques, and bio-terrorism. I was a little worried about setting off alarms on the internet because of the type of research I was doing for that one.  Pretty Little Girls, the book I’m finishing now, involved research and attending lectures on sex trafficking. I’ve interviewed FBI agents and had a few beta read my books to make sure I wasn’t too far off on anything.

Kaye: You write in several genres. Which genre is your favorite one to write in? Why?

Jenifer: Psychological suspense. I enjoy getting into the heads of my very flawed characters and figuring out how they might react, respond… thinking up actions that would be outrageous for me or any “normal” person, but perfectly normal for them.

Kaye: Besides writing, what are your favorite things to do?

Jenifer: Hike with my dogs and exercise classes – Barre, Pilates, Zumba, athletic conditioning – anything where I’m moving and sweating. If I get on a bike or elliptical it’s because I’m really into whatever book I’m reading and I want to be able to exercise and keep reading.

Kaye: Your most recent crime fiction novel is The Numbers Killer, which I reviewed last Friday. What other novels have you written that would fit into the crime fiction genre?

Jenifer: Only Wrong Once, the Brooke Walton series: Everett, Rothaker, and The Intern. And my newest, coming out soon—Pretty Little Girls.

[image error]Kaye: Can you tell us a little about The Numbers Killer?

Jenifer: It’s the first in a new series about FBI Agent and heiress, Victoria Heslin.  The series will appeal to fans of A.J. Finn, Thomas Harris, James Patterson, Jeffrey Deaver and Karin Slaughter. Most of my early readers have said they couldn’t put it down, which is exactly what I hope to hear.

When a key witness in an organized crime trial turns up dead in his kitchen with liar and the number two scrawled on his forehead, the FBI assumes the murder was a hit to silence him. Then the calls start coming in—more victims with similar markings and no connection to the mob.

As agents Victoria Heslin and Dante Rivera struggle to catch a break in the case, they receive a series of cryptic, personal messages from the killer, complicating the investigation. Something disturbing and frightening is underway, and anyone might be next, including the agents, unless they uncover the common denominator.

Kaye: The old adage is, ‘write what you know’. Obviously, you haven’t lived through the horrendous events featured in your crime fiction stories. In what ways do you draw off of your own experiences when writing crime fiction?

Jenifer: I write about things that might fascinate me – the abnormal and the unexpected. I really admire determined people, but when someone is determined and also misguided, things can get very interesting. I’ve created characters like that in most of my novels.

Kaye: What is the strangest inspiration for a story you’ve ever had?

[image error]Jenifer: The idea for Only Wrong Once was inspired by a secure laboratory at my graduate school that held research samples of the most deadly diseases on the planet – small pox, bubonic plague, and Ebola, to list just a few. And also from a quote by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice  in 2004. She said: “And let’s remember that those charged with protecting us from attack have to be right 100 percent of the time. To inflict devastation on a massive scale, the terrorists only have to succeed once. And we know that they are trying every day.” Her powerful, frightening words inspired the book title and the theme for Only Wrong Once.

Kaye: Is there anything unique or unusual about your writing process?

Jenifer: I don’t think there’s anything unusual about it. I sit down in front of my computer for as long as I can, as many days per week as I can. Even though I write most days, I still consider that time a luxury. I write in my house and I can’t get any writing done if I have housework to do, I’m too distracted by awareness of what needs to be cleaned. So cleaning and chores first, then I can write.

Kaye: If The Numbers Killer was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

Jenifer: I’d love for Blake Lively to be Agent Victoria Heslin.

Kaye: What’s next for Jenifer Ruff? Can readers look forward to more crime fiction from you? What are you working on now?

[image error]Jenifer: The second in the Victoria Heslin series, Pretty Little Girls,  is almost finished and will be published in the fall. I’m waiting on beta readers now, and next it will go out to ARC readers.  In Pretty Little Girls,  Agent Heslin is called to Charlotte, NC to consult on a kidnapping case, but what she discovers ends up being much, much worse. Right now, I’m busy working through ideas for the third novel in the series.

I want to thank Jenifer for joining me today and offering a glimpse into her writing process here. I reviewed her book Only Wrong Once last month when we were looking at thrillers. You can see that review here. You can find out more about Jenifer Ruff and her books at the following links:

Website: http://jenruff.com/index.html

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Jenifer-Ruff/e/B00NFZQOLQ?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1563137616&sr=1-1