Gerrie Ferris Finger's Blog, page 6

At Callaway Gardens in Georgia

I am far from a gardener, but I try. And I visit Callaway Gardens, located in a pine forest south of Atlanta, at least every other year. The lovely gardens have some educational programs for the beginning gardener as well as the advance horticulturist.I took a look at their website and found these two programs in March. We've had a horrid winter here in Georgia -- snow, rain, cold. What, you say, sounds like winter. Yes, but in the South it was a record-breaker in a lot of areas.Nothing like songbirds in a garden and there are ways of attracting them. I have learned that bluebirds will not choose your carefully crafted house if they see a way for a predator, like an egg-sucking snake, to invade the nest.Pine baskets are fun to make and are soooo Georgia.Here's a handy link and a phone number to reserve your place.http://store.callawaygardens.com/Gard... price is per person.From the westsite: Invite Birds into your Yard and Garden $17.00 - $20.00 March 14, 2015, 10 a.m.-Noon
Encourage your favorite feathered friends to your backyard!  Learn how to attract year-round and migratory birds to your home landscape by using “homemade” bird feed, planting native plant species that provide cover and food.  Tour Callaway Gardens’ Certified Backyard Habitat to learn how to identify common, local backyard birds. Materials are provided; bring your own binoculars.


Pine Needle Basketry
First, you go into the forest ... ;-D$58.50 - $65.00 March 21, 2015, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

You’ll make a basket using pine needles and coil basketry techniques.  This beginner class covers the basic skills needed to make the basket.  Complete the class with a basket reflecting personal taste and design.  Lunch is not included in the workshop, but participants may bring a lunch or pick up something from the Discovery Café.  All supplies are included.
Happy Gardening!
This is not an ad, nor was the post solicited by Callaway Gardens.

Social Media and Marketing

Are writers wisely using social media for marketing? Or are we over-using social media to advertise our books. Valid question in this internet age. A lot has been written on the subject and more will come. Please comment below. I'd like to read your thoughts. 
Over-using--or blatant self-promoting--is different and unique to each social media user. I believe friends and followers on social media are used to writers promoting their books, they just don't like too much self-promoting. That's the fine line about which marketing experts speak. 
For me, I focus on what will benefit my upcoming book and not irritate potential readers. I use this blog to reach blog readers and I do blog tours on other bloggers' blogs.
I use Facebook sparingly, in my opinion. I can determine if I've overdone posting by how many friends un-friend me. Same with Twitter. Lose followers and that's a clue I've posted too much. How much is too much? Experts say that for Twitter, once or twice a day is ineffective promo; that three times a day is more effective; but four times is overusing and tweeters will let you know.
As far as email blasting for advertising to anyone besides your family and face-to-face friends, I believe authors are making enemies not fans. It's one thing to do events on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, but without invitation or permission, to send out an ad or a newsletter does not make people happy.
Just my humble opinion, of course. 
My newest release, the 5th in the Dru/Lake series. Find online, brick and mortar book stores, and libraries.

http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A
Happy Reading.Gerrie Ferris Finger
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

DO YOU TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHODUNNIT?

In most reviews of my books, one of the important aspects is figuring  out whodunnit as the reviewer reads the book.

"I figured out who did it early in the beginning," seems to rate a negative point. 

"I didn't figure it out until the middle when such and such clue was revealed." That's gets an okay, but means I need to be more obscure with clues next time.

"I was totally surprised at who did it. Never would have guessed." This is a definite thumbs up.

And that is my goal. It's a mystery, after all. It should stay mysterious until the end.


But I understand the need to know. I was a journalist before I became a novelist. As a reader, I cast about for the villain even though I don't want to know.  (I think it's my earliest mystery reading. Agatha Christie, of course. How she could lead me away from the true killer is still a mystery.)

Does it spoil the ending when I guess right? Sometimes it does, but then, like all readers I hope for a surprise. That begs a question: do I really want to be wrong?

I've been hosted by many book clubs and the members vary in their desire to unmask the bad guys, or girls. Some just enjoy the read. One woman said, "I don't want to know." Another woman said, "I almost always figure out whodunit in the first pages." She says it's because the villain has to appear in the first pages and so it becomes a process of elimination. Well, that's her way, but in today's mysteries the villain often does not come into the story in the first pages. In some not until the last half.

Today it's all about character and character-building. If I can spot a cardboard villain in the first part of the book, I'm likely going to lose interest. Most mysteries are set in the here and now, and so to unmask a villain early is poor writing, or an overlooked clue by the author. 

For my reading pleasure, the bad guy needs to keep his killer self under wraps until he no longer can - and that's at the end.

Go enjoy a book today. It's World Book Day.

Best to all, 

Gerrie Ferris Finger

February 2015 See Kirkus Review BelowRichard Lake of...

February 2015 See Kirkus Review Below



Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police Department gets a cold case when a witness suddenly gets his memory back.

Lake recruits Moriah Dru to look into the murder of Juliet Trapp‚ sixteen when she died‚ and a student at Winters Farm Academy.

Juliet Trapp had told her mother she was going to Bike Week with Wild Blood‚ an outlaw motorcycle gang‚ over the Christmas break.

The police were unable to solve Juliet's murder after interviews with the bikers.

The case roars into high gear when Juliet's father‚ Sherman Trapp‚ is murdered in Chattanooga where Wild Blood is the predominant motorcycle club.

Dru discovers that Trapp was trying to find the killer of his daughter‚ but got too close.

Dru and Lake join forces with a wary Wild Blood to solve the murders and clear the club -- if, indeed, everyone in it can be cleared of murder.



RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD  Kirkus Review
Author: Gerrie Ferris FingerReview Issue Date: November 15, 2014Publisher: Five StarPages: 320Publication Date: January 21, 2015ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-4328-2966-7Category: FictionClassification: Mystery
A tracer of missing children investigates a murder involving an outlaw motorcycle gang. Atlanta Detective Richard Lake asks his girlfriend, Moriah Dru, owner of Child Trace (Murmurs of Insanity, 2014, etc.), to look into the unsolved three-year-old homicide of Juliet Trapp. The spoiled daughter of a wealthy family, Juliet had a history of taking off on wild adventures, and her involvement with the Wild Blood Motorcycle Club may have led to her death. Although her body was found, raped and murdered, near the club's hangout, the police have never proved anything against them. Juliet's missing father, Sherman, may have been reduced to the remains Dru discovers have been stolen from a Chattanoogacrematorium. Dru's only lead in Chattanooga, a Wild Blood girlfriend, has vanished. Since Juliet attended the Winters Farm Academy, Dru starts nosing around there and soon learns that some of Juliet's relationships with the faculty were problematic. One of her two best friends was left a paraplegic by a riding accident during a wild, unapproved steeplechase Juliet planned. The other, Bunny Raddison, proves hard to find. Lake and Dru get permission to ride Lake's Harley with the Wild Bloods to a gang convention in Florida. After Dru fatally shoots a wannabe biker trying to kill Wild Blood leaders at a Blood funeral, the gang agrees to help find Juliet's killer. Dru's mission is complicated by ambitious FBI agent Grady, who has a snitch in the gang. Grady follows the Bloods to Floridaand seems to be trying to roll their case into his big investigation of outlaw bikers. While Dru and Lake desperately try to find Bunny, Dru's computer specialist continues to dig for background. When Dru is nearly taken down by hired killers, she knows she must be getting close to the solution. A heady mixture of thriller and mystery with so many red herrings that you'll need a trawler to catch them all. A blogger's review: http://www.mikishope.com/2015/01/book-review-running-with-wild-blood.html

Thanks for reading my blog and check out the books in the Dru/Lake Series.

Running with Wild Blood
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

Murmurs of Insanity
http://amzn.to/1qnIZf6

The Devil Laughed
http://amzn.to/14cExnt

The Last Temptation
http://amzn.to/NQGdK7

The End Game (national award-winning debut)
http://amzn.to/nndEx2

Also check out The Ghost Ship, A Glorious Curse, Whispering, and the novels in the Laura Kate O'Connell Series: Honored Daughters, When Serpents Die and Wagon Dogs.

Cheers and Happy Reading for 2015!

COMING JANUARY 21, 2015Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police...

COMING JANUARY 21, 2015



Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police Department gets a cold case when a witness suddenly gets his memory back.

Lake recruits Moriah Dru to look into the murder of Juliet Trapp‚ sixteen when she died‚ and a student at Winters Farm Academy.

Juliet Trapp had told her mother she was going to Bike Week with Wild Blood‚ an outlaw motorcycle gang‚ over the Christmas break.

The police were unable to solve Juliet's murder after interviews with the bikers.

The case roars into high gear when Juliet's father‚ Sherman Trapp‚ is murdered in Chattanooga where Wild Blood is the predominant motorcycle club.

Dru discovers that Trapp was trying to find the killer of his daughter‚ but got too close.

Dru and Lake join forces with a wary Wild Blood to solve the murders and clear the club -- if, indeed, everyone in it can be cleared of murder.

Thanks for reading my blog and check out the books in the Dru/Lake Series.

Running with Wild Blood
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

Murmurs of Insanity
http://amzn.to/1qnIZf6

The Devil Laughed
http://amzn.to/14cExnt

The Last Temptation
http://amzn.to/NQGdK7

The End Game (national award-winning debut)
http://amzn.to/nndEx2

Also check out The Ghost Ship, A Glorious Curse, Whispering, and the novels in the Laura Kate O'Connell Series: Honored Daughters, When Serpents Die and Wagon Dogs.

Cheers and Happy Reading for 2015!

COMING JANUARY 21, 2015 Richard Lake of the At...

COMING JANUARY 21, 2015  

Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police Department gets a cold case when a witness suddenly gets his memory back.

Lake recruits Moriah Dru to look into the murder of Juliet Trapp‚ sixteen when she died‚ and a student at Winters Farm Academy.

Juliet Trapp had told her mother she was going to Bike Week with Wild Blood‚ an outlaw motorcycle gang‚ over the Christmas break.

The police were unable to solve Juliet's murder after interviews with the bikers.

The case roars into high gear when Juliet's father‚ Sherman Trapp‚ is murdered in Chattanooga where Wild Blood is the predominant motorcycle club.

Dru discovers that Trapp was trying to find the killer of his daughter‚ but got too close.

Dru and Lake join forces with a wary Wild Blood to solve the murders and clear the club -- if, indeed, everyone in it can be cleared of murder.

Thanks for reading my blog and check out the books in the Dru/Lake Series.

Running with Wild Blood
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

Murmurs of Insanity
http://amzn.to/1qnIZf6

The Devil Laughed
http://amzn.to/14cExnt

The Last Temptation
http://amzn.to/NQGdK7

The End Game (national award-winning debut)
http://amzn.to/nndEx2

Also check out The Ghost Ship, A Glorious Curse, Whispering, and the novels in the Laura Kate O'Connell Series: Honored Daughters, When Serpents Die and Wagon Dogs.

Cheers and Happy Reading for 2015!

MURMURS OF INSANITY

“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible.”—Allan Kaprow
Murmurs of Insanity—crossing the lines.
 
This fourth novel featuring Moriah Dru and Richard Lakedramatizes two separate cases. Running in the background is a case about a young would-be gang banger who witnesses a murder between drug lords and afterward disappears. In the second (primary) case Lake asks Dru to look into a missing art student at the University of Georgia. Lake is an Atlanta police detective and Moriah Dru is a private investigator specializing in tracing missing children.
Throughout my life I’ve had a keen interest in art—I’ve an easel somewhere in the attic to prove it. My interest extends to Performance art, too. Some think of it as avant-garde; and it certainly plays a role in anarchic art such as Futurismand Dada. Some see it as nihilistic, but all agree it’s a hop-step from genres like painting and sculpting. Kaprow, known as the father of “happenings”, was very clear that Performance art is not theater, but, to me, it certainly involves theatrics.
As action art, the artist or artists feel the need to challenge the conventions of traditional art and of society. Doctrine is tested. Brainwashed concepts mocked. In the case of the artists in Murmurs, the trail of Performance clues are meant to shake up a complacent community. What could go wrong?
I’ve tried to show in these divergent cases that societal insanity compels the thuggish and vile in the real world, while in the artist community of a college town, insanity shows up as contrived and annoying. Be that as it may seem, in the end Murmurs of Insanity is a murder mystery.
Oh, and about the cover—dolls give me the creeps. They look like the dead.
 
A Review:
This is an outstanding, complicated, complex, emotionally fraught, novel of murder, and manipulation. It requires careful and thoughtful attention to the details of the crimes, the motivations of the characters and the movement of the plot. The rewards for readers are substantial. Yes, character development and explication is important. Yes, the relationships among the main characters, and there are many, are vital, but, unlike many modern crime novels, in this story the plot is an important and sturdy factor. – Carl Brookins

 

Available online, in book stores and libraries. Ask your bookseller or librarian if it is not stocked yet.

Also in the Dru/Lake series:

The End Game

The Last Temptation

The Devil Laughed.

Running with Wild Blood – Jan. 2015

###
 

MURMURS OF INSANITY

“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible.”—Allan Kaprow
Murmurs of Insanity—crossing the lines.
 
This fourth novel featuring Moriah Dru and Richard Lakedramatizes two separate cases. Running in the background is a case about a young would-be gang banger who witnesses a murder between drug lords and afterward disappears. In the second (primary) case Lake asks Dru to look into a missing art student at the University of Georgia. Lake is an Atlanta police detective and Moriah Dru is a private investigator specializing in tracing missing children.
Throughout my life I’ve had an abiding interest in art—I’ve an easel somewhere in the attic to prove it. My interest extends to Performance art, too. Some think of it as avant-garde; and it certainly plays a role in anarchic art such as Futurismand Dada. Some see it as nihilistic, but all agree it’s a hop-step from genres like painting and sculpting. Kaprow, known as the father of “happenings”, was very clear that Performance art is not theater, but, to me, it certainly involves theatrics.
As action art, the artist or artists feel the need to challenge the conventions of traditional art and of society. Doctrine is tested. Brainwashed concepts mocked. In the case of the artists in Murmurs, the trail of Performance clues are meant to shake up a complacent community. What could go wrong?
I’ve tried to show in these divergent cases that societal insanity compels the thuggish and vile in the real world, while in the artist community of a college town, insanity shows up as contrived and annoying. Be that as it may seem, in the end Murmurs of Insanity is a murder mystery.
Oh, and about the cover—dolls give me the creeps. They look like the dead.
 
A Review:
This is an outstanding, complicated, complex, emotionally fraught, novel of murder, and manipulation. It requires careful and thoughtful attention to the details of the crimes, the motivations of the characters and the movement of the plot. The rewards for readers are substantial. Yes, character development and explication is important. Yes, the relationships among the main characters, and there are many, are vital, but, unlike many modern crime novels, in this story the plot is an important and sturdy factor. – Carl Brookins

 

Available online, in book stores and libraries. Ask your bookseller or librarian if it is not stocked yet.

Also in the Dru/Lake series:

The End Game

The Last Temptation

The Devil Laughed.

Running with Wild Blood – Jan. 2015

###
 

Decatur Book Festival - a Southern city goes book crazy

Dear Readers, Fans and Fellow Writers,

I will be on an Atlanta Writers Club panel on Sunday, August 31 at 5 p.m. at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA., discussing my book MURMURS OF INSANITY. A moderator and three fellow panelists will also be discussing their latest releases and experiences in the writing life.

Please come visit us and have a wonderful experience connecting with us and other book nuts across the Southeast. After the program, at around 6 p.m., I (we) will be signing books.



I invite you to read a review by Carl Brookins, an excellent reviewer of all things book.


Murmurs of Insanity
A Moriah Dru / Richard Lake Mystery
Gerrie Ferris Finger
Five Star, July 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2858-5
Hardcover
This is an outstanding, complicated, complex, emotionally fraught, novel of murder, and manipulation. It requires careful and thoughtful attention to the details of the crimes, the motivations of the characters and the movement of the plot. The rewards for readers are substantial. Yes, character development and explication is important. Yes, the relationships among the main characters, and there are many, are vital, but, unlike many modern crime novels, in this story the plot is an important and sturdy factor.

Since pictographs were scratched into cave walls in the pre-modern era seven thousand years ago, art movements have been subjects for pity, scorn, adulation and ignorance. A modern phenomenon, performance art, plays an important part in this novel, which is set between Atlanta and Athens, Georgia. Some characters, Baxter, Moira Dru, Richard Lake among them, are the principal players. Each is a finely drawn, complex character whose motivations and background influence their attitudes and their actions. One of the interesting elements of the novel is the depth to which the author probes the decisions of the detectives and the way they are influenced by their training, experience and their personal backgrounds.

The other characters, some important to the development of the plot, are less well developed which might be a deficiency, but the pace of the story is at the least adequate and at times, exhilarating. The essence of the plot is the semi-automatic assumptions—several of them—made by police, family, and others about a series of circumstances. In this case, a missing student, tenuously linked to a wealthy restaurateur, is the original incident. The student’s girl friend is accusing the wealthy restaurateur who has a history of tangles with young women. Moira Dru, with aid from her lover, Atlantadetective Lake, drills down to get at the truth of the matter and discovers many surprises, some of which threaten Dru’s existence. A fine, thoughtful novel, well-written and packing plenty of action and surprise.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, June 2014.
Author of Red Sky, DevilsIsland, Hard Cheese, Reunion

 

Preview: MURMURS OF INSANITY -- 4th in the Nationally Award-Winning Series -- released July 16

Pre-order now
http://amzn.to/1qnIZf6




Murmurs of Insanity 
A Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Mystery  
by Gerrie Ferris Finger 
Teen Johndro Phillips is missing after witnessing a drug deal turn to murder in his Atlanta nighborhood. Johndro is a spotter and runner for drug lord Devus Dontel “Big DD” McFersen, who was acquitted when Johndro couldn’t testify against himself.
Lake asks Dru to talk to his ex-wife, Linda. Seems her half-brother’s predilection for young women has gotten him mixed up with the student art community, two of whom go missing. Damian Hansel, his friend Arne Trammel and the mysterious Cho Martine devised a Conceptual Art Performance to shake up the tranquil community. Articles of Damian's turn up on nature trails, and, absent a body, the police think it's a treasure hunt scheme concocted by bored students. Dru thinks not.


From Five Star/Cengage

"The Home of Rising Stars in Today’s Fiction

Gerrie Ferris Finger is a retired journalist and author of several novels, three published in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series: The End Game, The Last Temptation and The Devil Laughed. Murmurs of Insanity is the third in the series published by Five Star. 

PRAISE FOR GERRIE FERRIS FINGER:“A hunt for two young sisters propels Finger’s compelling if at times sobering debut, whichwon the 2009 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition . . . A wellresearched plot and snappy dialogue — plus some fine rail-yard K-9 detecting by Buddy, a German shepherd, and Jed, a Labrador retriever — keep the action moving."— Publishers Weekly on The End Game
“When 12-year-old Kinley Whitney and her mother vanish in the midst of a contentious custody fight between her divorced parents, Judge Portia Devon appoints ex-cop Moriah Dru, who specializes in finding missing children, to locate Kinley. The mother, Eileen Cameron, has a history of drug problems, whereas the professor father, Bradley Whitney, has unexplained sources of wealth and ties to a mysterious men’s club in Atlanta.”— Publishers Weekly on The Last Temptation"



Posted by Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://amzn.to/1qnIZf6