Elena Hartwell's Blog, page 54
April 27, 2022
The House Guest: Cover Reveal
The House Guest — don’t miss the latest thriller by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Cover Reveal + Book & Author Information 
After every divorce, one spouse gets all the friends. What does the other one get? If they’re smart, they get the benefits. Alyssa Macallan is terrified when she’s dumped by her wealthy and powerful husband. With a devastating divorce looming, she begins to suspect her toxic and manipulative soon-to-be-ex is scheming to ruin her—leaving her alone and penniless. And when the FBI shows up at her door, Alyssa knows she really needs a friend.
And then she gets one. A seductive new friend, one who’s running from a dangerous relationship of her own. Alyssa offers Bree Lorrance the safety of her guest house, and the two become confidantes. Then—Bree makes a heart-stoppingly tempting offer. Maybe Alyssa and Bree can solve each other’s problems.
But no one is what they seem. And the fates and fortunes of these two women twist and turn until the shocking truth emerges: You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes you get what you deserve.
To pre-order The House Guest click on any of the following links: Amazon, Macmillan, IndieBound & Barnes and NobleOther books by Hank Phillippi Ryan:
Her Perfect Life
The First to Lie
The Murder List
On the House
Trust Me
THE JANE RYLAND SERIES:
The Other Woman / The Wrong Girl / Truth Be Told / What You See / Say No More
THE CHARLOTTE MCNALLY SERIES:
Prime Time / Face Time / Air Time / Drive Time
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN is the USA Today bestselling author of 13 psychological thrillers, winning the most prestigious awards in the genre: five Agathas, four Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, with 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors.
Book critics call her “a master of suspense,” “a superb and gifted storyteller”; she’s the only author to have won the Agatha in four categories: Best First, Best Novel, Best Short Story and Best Non-Fiction. Her newest is HER PERFECT LIFE, a chilling psychological standalone about fame, family, and revenge. It received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, calling it “a superlative thriller.” B.A. Paris says, “Shocking, suspenseful… kept me guessing until the end.” and Julie Clark says, “You will read this in one sitting!” It is now nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. Her next is THE HOUSE GUEST, coming January 2023.
Hank is a founder of MWA University, host of CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze, and co-host of First Chapter Fun and The Back Room. She is a past president of National Sisters in Crime. Visit Hank at HankPhillippiRyan.com, Twitter @HankPRyan, Instagram @hankpryan and Facebook at HankPhillippiRyanAuthor.
To learn more about Hank, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, Instagram & BookBubCheck out my latest author interviews, click the link here.
Elena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
Header photo from qimono on Pixabay
The post The House Guest: Cover Reveal appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 26, 2022
Dark Obsessions: New Suspense Thriller
Dark Obsessions, the latest thriller by Marie Sutro
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!Don’t miss any author interviews! Click the link here.Dark Obsessions
A GRUESOME MURDER IN THE WOODS IS THE FIRST TERROR TO BE UNCOVERED
Reeling from the trauma of her last case, SFPD Detective Kate Barnes heads to the Olympic Peninsula hoping to heal the present by resolving the past. When the ravaged corpse of an unidentified teen is discovered, her search for personal peace takes a back seat to the quest for justice.
IN A DEADLY WORLD OF DARK OBSESSIONS
As Kate digs deeper, she discovers the victim was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Racing against the clock to rescue the remaining girls, she uncovers a complex series of ever-increasing horrors.
In the darkest corners of Washington state, Kate Barnes will come face-to-face with an adversary so ruthless and powerful that it will take everything she has to save herself, let alone the girls.
To purchase Dark Obsessions, click on any of the following links: Barnes & Noble, Amazon & IndieBoundDark Obsessions is set in a corner of Washington State, not far from where I call home. Tell us about the location. How does it impact the characters?Originally, I had planned to set the story in Seattle but decided it made better sense to cross the Puget Sound and set the story in the Olympic Peninsula. It is one of the most exquisitely beautiful regions in the Pacific Northwest, covered in epic stretches of forest and crisscrossed with an amazing network of rivers and lakes.
The location presents my protagonist with a necessary sense of isolation, forcing her to examine her life in ways she might not have been able to in the hustle and bustle of the big city. It also presents a host of fundamental differences in resources and procedure, challenging her to adapt to a different professional environment.
What should readers know about Kate Barnes, protagonist of Dark Obsessions:Kate is a good person, but like all of us, she has flaws. She is coming off a case in which she was the rookie detective pitted against an insidious serial killer (Dark Associations). The case resurrected a variety of old issues from Kate’s past, issues that were exploited as her Achilles’ heel. She knows she must address them if she is to muster the mental strength required to do the job she loves.
Your family has a long history of serving in the police department. How has that impacted your crime fiction?It compels me to confront realities about the horrific aspects of the job and the trauma it can inflict on those who do it.
Crime scenes are not easy places to visit, nor is it easy to witness the darker sides of human behavior. Most people understand police officers risk their lives on a daily basis, but I also want readers to understand the serious toll it takes on their mental health.
Describe your writing process:I always start out with research.
Once I get a good feel for the main subject matter, I develop a beat sheet and outline the plot points. After developing profiles for the main characters, I jump in and start writing.
Minor characters are created and developed as I go, with additional research peppering the writing and editing process. I use the beat sheet as a guide, but stay open to new ideas and plot points as they develop.
Tell us about California Library Literacy Services:Nationally, it is estimated that over 36 million adults cannot read or write above a third-grade level.
California Library Literacy is a wonderful organization that seeks to assist adult learners in reaching higher functioning levels of literacy. I am honored to have served as a tutor in this fantastic program by helping adults to improve their reading and writing skills.
What are you working on now?I am in the process of writing the third book in the Kate Barnes series. I also have a couple of other projects in the pipeline, including a possible standalone suspense novel.
Final words of wisdom for aspiring writers:
Don’t let fear drive you away from your dreams, but don’t hold on to them so tightly that you close yourself off from new ideas and opportunities.
Attack the craft of writing with passion and dedication. (Address the business of writing with the same level of commitment). Know there will be ups and downs, but stay open and enjoy the ride!
Great advice!Author Pet Corner!
Perseus!
Grace!Perseus
Pack leader extraordinaire and sweetheart to the core (unless you are a lizard).
Grace
Refined elegance balanced by a wicked right hook.
Flynn
Extreme sports athlete and rock music aficionado.
Marie Sutro — Author Dark Obsessions
Marie Sutro is an award-winning and bestselling mystery author. In 2018, she won the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for the Best New Voice in Fiction, for her debut novel, Dark Associations.
She is a member of Sisters In Crime and volunteers with California Library Literacy Services.
Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather all served in the San Francisco Police Department, collectively inspiring her writing. She resides in Northern California and is currently at work on the next book in the Kate Barnes series.
To learn more about Marie, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Facebook, Instagram & TwitterElena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
Header photo from Pixabay
The post Dark Obsessions: New Suspense Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 25, 2022
Cry of the Innocent: Historical Mystery
Cry of the Innocent — historical mystery by Julie Bates
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + PICTour & Author GiveawayCry of the Innocent
April 1774 – Within the colonial capital of Virginia, Faith Clarke awakes in the middle of the night to discover a man savagely murdered in her tavern. Phineas Bullard was no stranger. Faith’s late husband had borrowed heavily from the man and left Faith to struggle to pay the debt.
With unrest growing in the American Colonies, the British are eager for a quick resolution at the end of a noose, regardless of guilt. Under suspicion for the crime, she must use every resource at her disposal to prove her innocence and protect those she loves. Her allies are Olivia and Titus, slaves left to her by her late husband’s family, individuals she must find a way to free, even as she finds they also have motives for murder.
Faith seeks to uncover the dead man’s secrets even as they draw close to home. Determined to find the truth, she continues headlong into a web of secrets that hides Tories, Patriots, and killers, not stopping even though she fears no one will hear the cry of the innocent.
Praise for Cry of the Innocent:“An absorbing, fast-paced, and contemplative whodunit.”
Kirkus Reviews
Genre: Historical Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: June 8th 2021
Number of Pages: 258
ISBN: 1953789773 (ISBN-13:978-1953789778)
Series: A Faith Clarke Mystery, #1
I started writing Cry of the Innocent after a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. It’s been many years ago, but the burning question in my 20 something mind was where were the women? History is filled with important men and how they changed the world, but the fact remains that without women they wouldn’t exist. So what did women do during this time period? My inquiring mind wanted to know.
The truth is that women then, as now, were a vital part of American Life. In Williamsburg, VA, where my story is set, women ran taverns, published newspapers and operated millenaries among other businesses. They wrote letters and raised children and lobbied for various issues. They were the soul of colonial America.
As I write in the time period of Colonial America, I am very aware of the inequities. Unmarried women could not own property. Women could not vote or sit in the House of Burgesses. Women could not be physicians, pastors or work in government. Yet when I read the letters of women of the times period such as Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams, it is clear that women were a vibrant and necessary part of society. I admire them all the more for standing out in spite of circumstances that made it difficult to do so.
My protagonist, Faith Clarke, is a relatively young woman who operates a tavern within a stone’s throw of the Capitol. Her business puts her in the front line of what is happening in the American Colonies. It’s a fact not lost to Patriot Spy Jeremy Butler or to Captain Stephen Grant who supervises Britain’s interests in town. Both see her as a source for information, despite her desire to remain neutral and run her business.
Cry of the Innocent has other female characters that represent the time period. Eugenia is the wife of a wealthy merchant and Faith’s mother-in-law. She lives a life of privilege and enjoys the perks. She is a loyalist who has no desire to lose all the benefits of being part of a powerful European country. Like many other wealthy women, she tries to weild influence through her husband and children with limited success.
Other the other side of the spectrum is Olivia, an enslaved woman who works as a cook for Clarke Tavern. Her greatest desire is freedom for herself and her husband. Although she does not speak a lot, she is a powerful influence within the household. She cooks all the meals, makes decisions on what food to buy and most importantly, she is the rock Faith leans on when her husband dies. Olivia knows Faith doesn’t like slavery and feels guilty for owning them. Rather than harangue her, she plays the long game, subtly influencing her as she shows her skills in the kitchen and managing the tavern.
Georgia Clements runs a newspaper her husband started. She has continued running in after his untimely death as she has raised their son Marcus. She understands the power of information and uses it to support the Patriot Cause. She is also the one who took in a rebellious indentured Scot, Will McKay and has gradually trained him to be a skilled printer. She believes in building a new nation by educating others whether by printed word or learning a trade. Although she is the oldest character in Cry of the Innocent, she is also one of the boldest. Time has only made her stronger.
As any writer, I strive to keep a balance between themes and writing a good story. My goal is to entertain not preach. Yet I am not unaware of the power of a good story to influence others. I try to portray women honestly but with as much importance as the men who are also a part of my stories. As a woman, I have an obvious bias, but I believe my basic premise to be correct. While not lauded in history as much as their male counterparts, women have played a substantial role in history as well as in life. After all, would there be any human life without us?
Excerpt — Cry of the InnocentI1774Muffled pounding jolted Faith awake. A few coals glowed from the fire but offered little illumination to the pitch-blackness surrounding the bed. Nearby her son, Andrew slept soundly in a trundle bed undisturbed by the excited barks of dogs outside in the streets of Williamsburg. Her heart jumped as she looked over to the door separating her bedroom from the main hall of the tavern and saw light coming in from the cracks between the door and its frame. A voice hissed outside.
“Mistress, you need to wake up.”
Olivia’s voice held the rich cadence of someone who had been born far from the English colonies. Faith suspected she had come from somewhere in the West Indies, but she had never asked. Given how long it had taken to build trust, she trod carefully.
There was no reason for Olivia to be outside the door. Given the hour, she and her husband, Titus, should be stirring the fires and fixing breakfast before their guests rose with the dawn. Faith’s feet hit the floor, and she gasped at the cold. Grabbing a coverlet for decency, she stumbled to the door, where her head hit the top of the doorframe. Pain struck like a hammer.
Opening the door a little, Faith stared at the other woman. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a dead man in the private room.” Olivia’s breath came out in silvery puffs that peppered the air. Flour lightly dusted her hands and apron which indicated a sudden interruption from work.
“Are you sure?” Together they had dealt with a number of drunks in the year since the tavern had opened. Seven months since her husband Jon had died, leaving Faith in charge.
“I’m sure. Titus found him when he went to stir the fires before breakfast.”
Cold sweat broke out on Faith’s face as her stomach tied itself in knots. Titus was not one to panic. If he was correct, they had to act fast. Such an incident would only cause trouble.
Outside a rooster crowed warning that dawn paused for no one. Soon her guests would come downstairs for breakfast, and the streets would fill with merchants, slaves and others needing to do business in the capitol. Taking a breath, Faith forced an illusion of calm into her voice.
“Our guests will still expect breakfast. Take care of them. Make use of the boys if you need to. Tell Titus not to let anyone near the private room. I am on my way.” She turned back into her room, stopping by Andrew’s bed when she heard him move restlessly.
“What is it?” He began to stir out of his nest of blankets.
“Go back to sleep. It’s early yet.”
Hurriedly, she threw a skirt and bodice over her shift and stuffed her hair into a mob cap. Grabbing a heavy, woolen shawl, she slipped out down the steps to the backyard. The private room was separated from the main tavern by a narrow alley. It had its own front and back entrance, which made it perfect for meetings and extra work to provide meals and drinks. Side doors opened into the alley, which made delivering food and drink convenient although the walls of both buildings kept the narrow aperture cast in shadows.
Olivia watched her from the doorway of the kitchen, which stood apart from the tavern to lessen the risk of fire. Her son, Joshua, slept upstairs. Faith’s gaze circled the long backyard from where it ended at the path that separated it from the tenement next door to the small barn where animals were just beginning to stir. Something about the quiet made her feel jumpy, as if strange and unfriendly eyes watched. Mist rising from the dew added a ghostly air to the scene. Unnerved, she hurried to the door of the private room. She pulled her shawl closer to combat shivers induced by more than the cold.
The breath left Faith’s body as she took in the scene. However, running from trouble was a luxury no worker could afford. A weak fire from the hearth illuminated a man lying on the floor. The fine pewter of an upended tankard nearby glimmered faintly through the shadows. The room reeked of liquor. Perhaps he had simply passed out. In her few months as mistress of Clarke Tavern, she had handled men worse for drink.
Drunk was preferable to dead. Faith cleared her throat, which was suddenly too dry.
“Please be drunk,” she prayed as she came closer hoping for some indication of life. Reflected light gleamed off the brass buttons of his coat and made threads from his silk stockings gleam like ice. Fine lace covered his belly as the drift of his shirt hung out and onto the floor.
“My lord?” Faith inched forward, frowning. She now remembered who had demanded the use of her private room last night. Phineas Bullard acted like an odious bully sober. God only knew how he would behave drunk.
“Master Bullard!” she yelled, not bothering to be gentle.
The reek of wine made her queasy. She glanced about in disgust. It would take hours to make the room decent again. A bottle of port lay on its side, dripping off the table while a
nearly empty wine bottle lay on the floor. The tavern had very little of that in stock, too little to marinate the floor in it. Finally, fury at the man’s sloth overtook her.
Before reason returned, she grabbed his shoulder and shook it “Get up!”
As she aimed her toe to kick him, Faith stepped into something sticky.
Bending over to examine him more closely, her nostrils filled with the sickly scent of blood and other foul bodily substances. She gagged and backed away. The rising sun streaked in the door, allowing her to see what had not been clear before.
Blood soaked his breeches and collar down to the floorboards; his fine linen shirt savagely sliced into rags, revealing the damage beneath. Drying blood caked his throat and belly. Bullard’s wide open eyes and slack jaw implied the spectacle of his demise shocked him as well. Shaking him had rucked up his shirt exposing what she would have given anything not to see.
As the sun’s rays lit the room fully for the first time, horror overwhelmed her. Life had left him long ago.
“God have mercy.” Faith ran out the door, unable to view the nightmare any longer. Stomach revolting, she retched behind the branches of a bush. Her eyes watered as her stomach clenched into knots and set off another round.
“Miss Faith? Miss Faith!”
She shrieked and whirled around. Titus stood a few steps away. She drew in a relieved breath although she could not stop shaking.
Never had she been so glad to see a familiar face.
Wood chips were scattered in his clothes from where he had been chopping wood for the fires. The fresh scent of pine comforted her assaulted nose. His solid presence as well as the axe he carried, comforted her shattered nerves. Titus would be a formidable detriment to any physical threat.
“Are you ill?”
Faith swallowed nausea and pushed tendrils of hair back up into her cap. She gestured at the open doorway. The thought of what lay inside caused her gorge to rise again. Her nose and throat burned as she struggled to speak. “I will be alright. We need a physician, quickly.”
Titus shook his head. “He’s dead ma’am. No doctor can help him now. Let me get you back to the kitchen. The boys can get the sheriff. Best I stay here until I have had time to look around.” His voice roughened, “He has not been dead long, Miss Faith. Body is not all that cold. We had best not to take any chances. I will feed the chickens for the boys today, and they can go on to school. They should be safe enough in the street.”
Titus walked quietly beside her as they passed the smoke house. A breeze stirred the dead leaves from the nearby street. The big man said nothing as they walked past the barn where the horses shifted about in their stalls. Faith jumped but settled when the big man said, “They’re just waiting for breakfast.” His glance seemed to stop briefly at the small barn where the cow and a few horses resided then continued on their circuit.
Her head whirled as she considered the consequences of what she had seen. Bullard could be an insufferable bully, but she did not want him dead in her tavern. Once the sheriff came, news would spread. The authorities would want answers, and she had none. Given the current strife in the colonies, it was all too easy to find oneself unintentionally wearing a noose.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to put that idea out of her head.
The sun ascended the horizon, lighting the sky, as her feet crossed the threshold of the kitchen. Titus left her there and returned outside. Busy with breakfast preparations, Faith was grateful that Olivia did not mention that her mistress looked terrible and smelled worse. She poured herself a small amount of short beer and rinsed out her mouth. Stepping outside, she spat into the grass away from the walkway before returning to speak.
“Someone killed Phineas Bullard last night. The boys need to get the sheriff. Faith paused to gather her spinning thoughts grateful that Olivia was too busy to turn about and see her.
Her breath came too fast and shallow making her dizzy. She needed to gain control of her wits. Sitting at a nearby bench, she leaned over putting her head in her hands.
This was no time to panic. Too much was at stake. She forced herself to inhale and exhale. Gradually, her head cleared. There was no time to panic. Regardless of how she felt, life continued and with it, the work that survival entailed.
From her seat Faith could see inside the open door of the outdoor kitchen, She watched Olivia stirring the huge stewpot hanging over the fire in the kitchen. Nearby lay a stack of knives with rusty stains waiting for scrubbing. Some looked as if they had been used to separate a carcass. The idea made her gorge rise. Faith frowned. If she did not know better, she would swear Olivia was keeping her back to her. It made little sense but then nothing this morning did. Shrugging, she walked out the door back to the tavern.
Outside the door, Titus lingered carrying a plate covered with a napkin. At her glance, he looked nervous.
Faith smiled. “No worries, Titus. I’m sure you worked up quite an appetite this morning.”
“What? Oh sure, mistress. Quite an appetite.”
He was sweating despite the chill of the predawn air. Faith wondered how much would he had chopped. She felt guilty for sitting when he and his wife had been working. Faith touched his sleeve. “It is of no concern to me Titus.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Faith shook her head as she moved past him. Why would he think her worried about a little food? Surely, he knew her better than that. Normally Titus ate in the kitchen with Olivia. Pushing the distracting thought from her mind, she moved onward, determined to ignore the soft whispers behind her.
She managed to catch the door behind her before it slammed. She hurried down the tavern’s hall to the one private space she possessed. Creaking upstairs warned Faith to hurry. Other sounds told her that there would be chamber pots to empty and clean. Pouring water from the pitcher she had filled last night, she washed her face and combed her hair. This time, she took time to coil her hair and pin it in a respectable manner. Her hands shook as she tidied herself. The steel mirror showed a face pale and frightened.
“God help me,” she whispered before turning to where her son slept. “Andrew, it’s time to rise. I need you and Joshua to go get the sheriff.”
Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here.Julie Bates, Author of Cry of the Innocent
Julie Bates grew up reading little bit of everything, but when she discovered Agatha Christie, she knew she what she wanted to write. Along the way, she has written a weekly column for the Asheboro Courier Tribune (her local newspaper) for two years and published a few articles in magazines such as Spin Off and Carolina Country.
She has blogged for Killer Nashville and the educational website Read.Learn.Write. She currently works as a public school teacher for special needs students. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Southeastern Writers of America (SEMWA) and her local writing group, Piedmont Authors Network (PAN). When not busy plotting her next story, she enjoy doing crafts and spending time with her husband and son, as well as a number of dogs and cats who have shown up on her doorstep and never left.
To learn more about Julie, click on any of the following links: JulieBates.weebly.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @julibates1, Instagram – @juliebates72, Twitter – @JulieLBates03 & Facebook – @JulieBates.authorVisit all the Stops on the Tour
04/11 Guest post @ Novels Alive
04/12 Interview @ Cozy Up With Kathy
04/12 Review @ A Room Without Books is Empty
04/13 Interview @ I Read What You Write
04/14 Review @ Novels Alive
04/15 Review @ Cozy Up With Kathy
04/16 Showcase @ Ravenz Reviewz
04/18 Review @ Buried Under Books
04/19 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
04/20 Showcase @ Nesies Place
04/21 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
04/22 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
04/25 Guest post @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
04/26 Review @ flightnurse70_book_reviews
04/27 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
05/01 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
05/02 Showcase @ Books Blog
05/03 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
05/04 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS
05/04 Showcase @ The Authors Harbor
05/05 Showcase @ pickagoodbook
05/05 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
05/06 Review @ History from a Woman’s Perspective
06/13 Interview podcast @ Blogtalk Radio
06/13 Review @ Just Reviews
Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post Cry of the Innocent: Historical Mystery appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 24, 2022
The Orientation of Dylan Woodger
The Orientation of Dylan Woodger, the latest mystery by Chiuba E Obele
Guest Post + Book & Author InfoThe Orientation of Dylan Woodger
Solving mysteries is never easy. Dealing with an infuriated mob boss and acute amnesia only makes it worse.Dylan Woodger is a college student who is captured and tortured by the mafia. After amnesia obscures the last three years of his life, Dylan learns that he has stolen three million dollars from a ruthless mafia boss. When, how, and why – he doesn’t remember. But someone betrayed him and gave him a drug that erased his memory. He was then given over to be tortured.
Determined to recover his memory, Dylan begins delving into the events of the past. As he struggles to put the pieces of his past back together, Dylan finds himself wrapped up in a path of vengeance made even more perilous by the presence of assassins, gangsters, and detectives. But as each new piece of the puzzle falls into place, Dylan realizes that no one is who they seem, especially himself. He now has links to rapists, white supremacists, and murders. People who claim to be his friends are hiding secrets from him. And his girlfriend is beautiful, but that’s all he knows about her. Who are these people? And who is Dylan? Even he doesn’t know!
The Orientation of Dylan Woodger is the story of a young man who is torn between his capacity to do evil and his desire to do what’s right. This book explores racism and feminism, and addresses controversial topics such as male rape, hate crimes, and misogyny toward women. The characters are disturbing, but the book aspires to be hopeful, as these characters ultimately succeed in finding some measure of humanity.
There are so many unanswered questions . . . But first, Dylan must survive the torture.
To purchase The Orientation of Dylan Woodger, click on any of the following links: Amazon | GoodreadsGenre: Mystery
Published by: Fischer House Publications
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Number of Pages: 377
ISBN: 9798985146400
The pitfalls of depicting rape in fiction and why authors should exercise caution when writing fictionalized portrayals of sexual assault.
Trigger warning: this post discusses the topic of sexual violence in fiction.
This blog post is not about rape survivors who choose to share their stories through writing. Such real-life accounts are as difficult to write as they are important. We should always support survivors who speak openly about their experiences. Rather, this is a blog post about fiction. I’m not talking about authors who try to educate themselves about sexual assault and portray it with integrity and care. I’m talking about authors who feel the need to include sexual assault in their stories solely as a plot device.
When authors seek ways to heighten the stakes of their novels, rape can become a go-to device. In popular fiction, rape is often utilized to either (a) provide evidence of an antagonist’s evil nature; (b) make male characters heroic because they save helpless women from rape or at least seek vengeance for them; or (c) showcase the tragic backstory of a female character.
Rape is often used to develop a male character’s story, either to show how evil he is, or to provide a catalyst for his revenge quest. In such cases, the actual victim’s trauma is sidelined for the male character’s anger, sorrow, or revenge. Too often, women and their abuse are treated as a tool for inspiring feelings, reactions, and character development in men. The story of their rape is not about them or how it affects them; it’s about the man. In other words, women are acted upon rather than acting. While it’s important to write compelling male characters, characterization and narrative strength must be written in a manner that prevents women from becoming passive objects. As author Rob Blair Young writes, “If female characters are consistently being disempowered for the sake of making men more hateable or likeable, then that’s not okay.”
The same problem occurs when writing backstories for female characters. Whether it’s used to drive a heroine’s revenge story or provide us with an understanding of her character, rape as a backstory is a common literary trope. These stories are usually meant to be cathartic and powerful, but a gender comparison is quite revealing: when male characters are disempowered at the beginning of their arc, they are almost never raped. And too often, authors use rape scenes or backstories to explain female characters’ behavior, without addressing sexual assault and its lasting psychological impacts.
When authors are tempted to use these tropes, they must bear in mind that countless people have suffered some form of sexual assault. Survivors of sexual assault, many of whom are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, can flash back to the trauma of their sexual assaults by all sorts of triggers in the world around them: a person, a location, or even something as subtle as a smell. Sometimes these triggers manifest in nightmares, physical sweating, and emotional responses. The trauma associated with sexual assault can also be triggered by its exploitation in fiction. While not all survivors are triggered by literary tropes that involve rape, avoiding these tropes can be a great way to not re-victimize survivors with our words.
Aside from the fact that rape scenes in novels can act as distressing triggers for many people, there’s also the reality of dealing with a sensitive topic in a way that has unintended consequences. As author Rebecca Kelly puts it, “What we read and watch influences the way in which we view rape, and with survivors’ voices so often being ignored and disbelieved, not tackling the subject with this in mind can only compound the undermining of survivors and squander the opportunity to raise awareness.”
But what if you’re writing about sexual violence not as an emotional shortcut or a cheap attempt at characterization, but because it’s important to your story? Well, in such a case, you should always start by doing research. Read about the dynamics of rape and power. Read about rape myths. Read about statistics and research that debunk those myths. And read books written by survivors. When I chose the subject of male rape for The Orientation of Dylan Woodger, I extensively researched the trauma that I brought to bear on my protagonist, and when I finally wrote his story, I had a deeper sense of him not only as a rape survivor but as a person, too.
Another important consideration when using rape as subject matter in fiction is that the experience is never over for the victim when the scene ends. Indeed, one of the aspects of The Orientation of Dylan Woodger that I believe reflects the lived experience of survivors is that it shows that the effects of sexual assault are not short-lived, but rather, they infiltrate every part of a survivor’s life. Sadly, too many novels use rape as a plot device without considering what that experience might be like for an actual person. As Kelly writes:
“A responsible writer, if they have not gone through what their characters have, owe it to their readers and themselves to research in depth so that they can understand what that world might truly feel like for their character. No major character in a novel should be left at the moment of trauma and be expected to continue throughout the rest of the pages as if nothing had occurred.”
Here, Kelly makes another excellent point. A story about a rape survivor — if it is written accurately and informed by research— has the potential to educate readers about the life-long consequences of sexual assault.
But most importantly, before a writer includes a rape scene in their story, they must always ask themselves, “Why is it necessary?” As one Reddit user explains:
“Ultimately, it comes down to Craig Ferguson’s Three Questions. Any time you start feeling nervous about what you’re writing, you should ask yourself these three questions: (1) Does this need to be said? (2) Does this need to be said by me? (3) Does this need to be said by me right now?”
I don’t believe in censoring fiction, but unless your novel is specifically about sexual assault, you should probably remove rape scenes from your story. This is partly because such depictions can sometimes be hurtful to survivors. Granted, there are stories about rape that are worth telling, but without extensive research into the problems that rape survivors face, it’s too easy for fictional depictions to contribute to those problems rather than alleviate them. Besides, there are so many other ways of telling stories without having to lean on a trauma experienced by thousands of people every day. So if you’re an author who is thinking about inserting a rape scene into your story, try to do without it if you can, but if you feel your story would be destroyed without that scene, then consider putting it in only as a last resort.
Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here to read more.Chiuba E Obele: Author of The Orientation of Dylan Woodger
CHIUBA EUGENE OBELE is a poet, writer, and author of The Orientation of Dylan Woodger: A Central New York Crime Story. He can usually be found reading a book, and that book will more likely than not be a crime fiction novel. Chiuba lives and works out of his home in Boston, Massachusetts. When not absorbed in the latest page-turner, Chiuba enjoys spending his summers vacationing with his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews.
To learn more about Chiuba, click on any of the following links: ChiubaObele.com, Goodreads, Twitter – @ChiubaE & Facebook – @chiubaobele7Visit All the Stops on the Tour!
04/20 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
04/24 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
04/27 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
05/02 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
05/04 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
05/05 Review @ Ravenz Reviewz
05/06 Review @ Novels Alive
05/09 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
05/11 Review @ One More Book To Read
05/12 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
05/13 Review @ Nesies Place
08/16 Interview podcast @ Blog Talk Radio
08/16 Review @ Just Reviews
Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post The Orientation of Dylan Woodger appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 20, 2022
Mouse Trap: A Clay Wolfe / Port Essex Mystery
Mouse Trap by Matt Cost
Author Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Author & PICT Giveaway!Mouse Trap by Matt Cost
“Sometimes bad genes need to be stamped out and good ones need to be fostered,” Bridget Engel said. “There’s really no difference between mice and human beings when it comes to genes.” She wore a gray suit, and her blonde hair was cut short in the style that Hillary Clinton had made popular.
When Clay Wolfe rekindles an old romance, the summer is looking bright. It wasn’t.He woke in the middle of the night, gathered his things, and slipped away. After Clay left, Victoria rose from the bed and went into the bathroom, carefully removed the condom from the Kleenex it was wrapped in and put it in a plastic baggie.
Who is the mysterious man who clubs Westy with a hammer and threatens the lives of everybody Clay Wolfe holds dear?Now, Clive Miller was a fixer. He took care of problems that arose. Once given a task, his hands weren’t tied, and he was well-paid for his troubles. There were two simple rules. Eliminate the problem. Don’t draw attention.
To purchase Mouse Trap, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsBook Details:Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Published by: Encircle Publications, LLC
Publication Date: April 13, 2022
Number of Pages: 312
ISBN: 1645993299 (ISBN13: 9781645993292)
Series: A Clay Wolfe / Port Essex Mystery Book 3
I’m often asked what the most difficult part of the writing process is and what pieces of it that I like and dislike. For a time, I fumbled around with my answer to this until I realized that, in reality, there is no part of it that I find difficult or dislike. I enjoy every facet of writing and today I will be sharing with you why. It might also amaze the non-writers out there how many aspects that there actually are to the writing process.
Not every good story necessarily starts at the beginning, but I will do so here. Writing commences with an idea. My Clay Wolfe/Port Essex series begins with Wolfe Trap and the notion tinkling around in the recesses of my brain was what if heroin was being smuggled through lobster traps? Hm. That was the very beginning of not just a new book, but a new series. As I began to look into that topic, I came across a news blip of a woman who’d rubbed the residue from her heroin baggie on her baby infant’s gums to stop the child from crying. Repeatedly. Until the baby died. Terrible. But that had to find its way into the book. Most ideas come from something real.
I write histories and mysteries. In both cases, once the basic concept of the new novel is born, research must follow. For my histories, this usually means preloading by reading multiple books about the time and place. For Love in the Time of Hate, I read five books about New Orleans after the Civil War before I wrote a word. I’ve also found it an incredible experience to visit, and my wife and I spent a fabulous week in New Orleans doing ‘research’. I read more books and internet searches continued after I began writing. With the mysteries, there is not so much preloading. I often just do internet searches and reading to acquaint myself with the topic. These have included nuclear power plants, powerful lobbyists, cults, genome editing, and much more. All great fun to delve into.
Once a degree of research has been done, then the writer will sit down to write. This is a fantastic experience. My current work in progress is about a quarter of the way in and chugging along. The idea for Mainely Wicked was the prevalence of witches in the world today. Many of these witches, or wiccans, are good and believe in healing and magic, but like most religions, what if there is a twisted sect of wiccans out there who have radical belief’s. Around that, I’m creating an entire novel that each and every day I toil around in my mind trying to figure out the age-old question: What’s next?
The idea, the research, and the writing are only the tip of the iceberg. Then begins the editing process which takes on many different hats. The first level begins with myself as I try to clean up the mess I’ve made before sending it off to the housecleaner, in this case, my own editor, Michael Sanders, who has worked with me on all of my books. I usually do two passes before it goes off to him for three more rounds. I’m currently following his advice (mostly) on what we call the global edits, for my most recently completed book, Velma Gone Awry, set for release in December of 2022. This might be my very favorite part of the process. Here, I build scenes stronger, thread in plot pieces, build characters, and overall make the book much better. When I’ve finished with doing this, I’ll send it back for structural editing, and finally line editing, or the spit shine that makes it glow!
Those five edits take place before it even goes on to the publisher. But it is far from the last edits that will take place. Currently, the editor for Encircle Publications, Cynthia Bracket-Vincent, is doing her edits on my fourth Clay Wolfe/Port Essex mystery, Cosmic Trap, due out in September. She’ll convey these to me soon and I’ll go through to see if there is anything that I disagree with. There usually is not as I’ve found disagreeing with my wife or publishing editor to be a bad idea, and authors have a hard time running with bad ideas. At this point it will move onto the line editor who will clean up any items that have slipped through the first six edits. This is currently being done on my book for release in April, Mouse Trap. This generally is down to tiny miscues such as writing form instead of from. Easy to overlook, unless, of course, you are a reader who loves to find mistakes by an author and call them on it. And now, after an idea, research, writing, and seven edits, my baby is born novel is just about ready to enter the world.
One part that I have little to do with, but do get to review, is the cover art. The fabulous Deirdre Wait of Encircle Publications gathers from me the essence of the story and brainstorms some ideas and then comes up with fantastically creative covers, bringing to life my books. And then, let the promotion begin! I currently have over twenty bloggers who review my books and I will have sent ARCs off to them in advance of pub day. This stable was created by sending out hundreds of queries, a process that I try and build larger with every release. A new level of success was achieved recently when Al Warren of NBC Radio’s House of Mystery reached out to me to do an interview in February. For paid advertising, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, and paid for blog tours are all parts of the process.
Pub day! The idea has germinated with research into a written novel and has been carefully worked and reworked as if genome editing were taking place. The book has been set and the cover made and then it is born into the world. I just had the pleasure of welcoming a new book into the world with Mainely Angst. I further had the pleasure of launching and celebrating this new life at Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshop in Topsham and was honored to have a good crowd come and support me. Friends, family, readers, fellow authors, and those I bribed with the offer of buying them a beer afterward all came together to celebrate the birth of my baby.
Write on.
Excerpt from Mouse TrapChapter 1: Monday, July 6th
“Sometimes bad genes need to be stamped out and good ones need to be fostered,” Bridget Engel said. “There’s really no difference between mice and human beings when it comes to genes.” She wore a gray suit, and her blond hair was cut short in the style that Hillary Clinton had made popular.
Victoria Haas was careful to not let her fork drop to the plate and her mouth fall open in astonishment, not the expected response of ladies of power in business and society. Women who gaped did not drink the 2015 Chablis 1er Cru Fôrets for lunch in the swank private dining room of the exclusive Port Essex Harborside Hotel in the company of the CEO of Johnson Labs, one of the premier biomedical research companies in the U.S. and Maine’s third largest employer.
Victoria had been coming here since she could remember, while Engel had only moved to Port Essex some ten years earlier. Yet, she’d never known about this ornate oasis just off the main dining room. It appeared that this private room was reserved exclusively by Johnson for business functions and engagements.
What did Engel mean by stamped out, Victoria wondered? She’d brought up the subject in passing, asking how one could ensure that your baby was genetically gifted only to be somewhat taken aback by the abruptness of the answer. She bought some time taking a bit of the Cobb salad. Even though her ship had passed Engel’s at many political and official functions in the past years, this was the first time they’d met for a social engagement.
“How does one go about stamping out bad genes?” Victoria asked, taking a small sip of the chardonnay. She was also blonde, but was much more fashionably dressed, with a shirtwaist dress, dirndl skirt, Chanel slingbacks, and a string of pearls around her neck.
Engel was looking through the wall-size window into the main dining room, a window Victoria knew was mirrored on the other side. There were four tables in the room she was surveying, but only one occupied, by three men and a woman. This was the room that Victoria knew well, one that she’d eaten in countless times. It was one of the men at the table who’d caused Victoria to bring up the subject of babies. She’d known him since she was a little girl, even having had a fling with him after her senior year in high school, but she’d barely seen him since as their lives has led them in two different directions.
“It used to be easier,” Engel said, her attention drawn to the other room. “There was a time when the disabled, the poor, the inferior, and the promiscuous could be sterilized. Instead of having them grow up to be criminals filling our jails, or to let them starve out of their own imbecility, the United States used to prevent those who were manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”
“Do you know those people?” Victoria nodded her head at the window.
“The two men with their backs to us work for my company,” Engel said.
Victoria nodded, taking another sip of the Chardonnay. She knew that Engel’s company, based nearby in East Essex, did genetic experiments on mice in an effort to eradicate disease, but she wasn’t quite sure where sterilization came in. The waiter approached and poured another scant inch of wine into their glasses.
“It seems that sterilization has long been out of favor,” Victoria said. “Perhaps there are other ways to…ensure that deficient genes are not passed on to one’s offspring?”
Engel turned from the view of the other room and focused on Victoria. “We’ve made great advances in the past few years. Soon, much disease will be a thing of the past.”
“That doesn’t take care of the slovenly or the stupid, though, now does it.”
“No, no it doesn’t.”
“You said something about fostering good genes?”
“Why are you asking?”
Victoria looked at the man facing her in the other room. He was the answer to something she’d been contemplating for some time now. She wasn’t getting any younger, and, for the past year, she had felt this emotional void, an emptiness only filled when she imagined bringing an extension of herself into this world, something larger than her work, her money, or anything she’d ever known.
“I’ve wondered about what it might be like to have a baby,” Victoria said.
“Tiresome,” Engel said, and the two women laughed.
“But truly,” Victoria said. “I have thoughts of becoming a mother.”
“I know the Haas family has impeccable genes and have had so for generations,” Engel said. “What of the father?”
“I haven’t chosen a father as of yet.”
“Does that mean you’re holding tryouts?” The two women looked at each before breaking into giggles.
“In a way, yes,” Victoria said. “I certainly don’t want my child to be average.”
“Or your husband.”
“I don’t believe I said that I was looking for a spouse.” Victoria’s tone changed from jest to business in a split second. “Just a baby.”
“Men can be a nuisance. How do you propose picking a father?”
“I have somebody in mind. I have had his background looked into—in all the usual ways. But if I wanted to do a DNA check on him, how would I go about it?”
The waiter opened the door, and Engel waved him away impatiently. “You could simply ask them to submit to a test. A swab from the inside of the cheek or a blood sample would do fine.”
“That might be a bit delicate.”
“He doesn’t know that he’s applying to be the father?” Engel asked.
Victoria blushed. “Not exactly. How about a hair?”
Engel shook her head. “You’d have to be sure to pull out the follicle and part of the scalp to be certain, and that would be noticeable.”
“How, then?”
“Are you…sexually active with him?”
“Not for nineteen years.”
Engel laughed. “I’m sure the poor dummkopf doesn’t stand a chance against a woman such as you. Tell you what? Why don’t you seduce the poor fool and bring me a sample of his semen? I can have people at the lab analyze it and let you know whether he’s worthy of being the father of your child or not.”
***
“We must first establish the need for utmost confidentiality as concerns any and all of our business dealings and any such information, trade secrets, intellectual property or any related knowledge you may be…exposed to as you go about your work for us.”
The legalese hung heavy in the air over the table in the fancy function room of the Harborside Hotel where they were eating. The clean-cut fellow with the five-thousand-dollar suit had uttered the words more as a threat than a statement, the other man, his duds no less expensive, nodding in rhythm almost as if listening to music. He must be the lawyer, Clay Wolfe thought, wishing they would get to the point, not that he was invited into Port Essex’s inner sanctum for a fine lunch every day, but still….
“Of course,” he replied. “That is a standard clause of my contract.”
“I have a, um, slightly more binding non-disclosure agreement that I’d like you to sign.”
The man had said that his name was Rex Bolton and that he was chief operating officer of Johnson Laboratories. On second glance, he was not as well manicured as Clay had originally thought. His sandy blond hair was tight on the sides but tousled on top, and lines creased his face suggesting worry rather than age.
“I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Clay said, nodding. He hadn’t recognized most of the dishes on the menu and had ordered a Cobb salad. The waiter came and went so quietly and with such self-effacing efficiency that he was almost invisible. Unlike the quite impressive Frederick Remington statue in the corner next to a large mirror that made the room seem bigger than it was.
There were two tables separating Clay and his business partner, Baylee Baker, from the two men from Johnson Laboratories. This was to provide the minimum six feet of social distancing in this time of Covid-19. Baylee was slender with legs that went on forever, a bit of bronze to her skin, and brown hair that matched her eyes. The words Real People were tattooed on the inside of her left forearm. The glass of white wine in front of her was nearly untouched, unlike the surf ’n’ turf, scallops and Angus tips, which she’d demolished, much to Clay’s amusement. The woman had an appetite.
The lawyer, with as yet no name, looked at Baylee. “Absolute confidentiality, Mr. Wolfe, is what we need and expect.”
“Miss Baker is my lead investigator and a partner in the firm,” Clay said. He took a sip of the expensive scotch that he sure hoped was going on someone else’s tab.
“Nonetheless, we must insist,” the lawyer said.
Clay leant back in his chair. His hands pressed lightly onto the elegant tablecloth. He ignored the lawyer and spoke directly to Bolton. “I could tell you that I won’t include her in the case,” he said. “But I’d be lying. If it’s a deal breaker, then I’m sorry.” He steepled his fingers under his chin, his cards played, ready to accept the outcome however it went.
“I’m sure that we can have Miss Baker sign the NDA as well,” Bolton said.
The lawyer reached down to the chair beside him, taking up two thick-stapled copies from a briefcase and sliding them across the dual tables. “Please sign where indicated.” It seems he’d been prepared for this eventuality. They didn’t appear to be men who were surprised by much.
“What do you know about Johnson Laboratories, Mr. Wolfe?” Bolton asked when they were done, the paperwork safely stashed back in the lawyer’s briefcase with copies for Clay and Baylee slipped into a thick envelope.
“They, you, employ quite a few people in the area,” Clay said. “You’ve got a complex in East Essex.” He shrugged. “Testing with mice or something like that.”
Bolton smiled, a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re the largest employer north of BIW with over a thousand employees. This includes over two hundred men and women with doctorates or other advanced degrees who investigate the genetic bases of cancer, disease, autoimmunity, and many other disorders. JOHNS is known for biomedical research that bridges translational and clinical contexts. We integrate mouse genetics and human genomics to understand the underlying cause of human health and disease. There have been nineteen Nobel Prizes associated with our work.”
“So, you do test with mice,” Baylee said.
Clay fought back a chuckle. That was about all he’d gotten out of the mumbo jumbo that Bolton had just spouted out, too.
“Yes, Miss Baker. As a matter of fact, we are the world’s supplier for over nine thousand strains of genetically defined mice.”
“That’s where all those rodents come from,” Baylee said.
“More importantly, they are mammals,” Bolton said. “Very similar to humans in many ways. We have even created a humanized mouse.”
“A humanized mouse?” Clay asked.
“Mouse models with human immune cell engraftment represent ground-breaking platforms to evaluate compounds to treat a variety of human diseases, from cancer and infectious diseases to allergies and inflammation.”
“Oh, I see,” Clay said. But he did not see at all. He did deem it best to not be an ignoramus when trying to land a case from a man in a five-thousand-dollar suit. “How about you tell us why you’re here and what you need from us?”
“We are worried that our research has been compromised,” Bolton said.
Clay nodded. “You must have your own security. Why us?”
Bolton looked at the lawyer, who said, “You understand that breaking the NDA could possibly be a treasonous offense, and that you could be prosecuted as a traitor to the United States of America.”
“You think the Russians or the Chinese are hacking you? Like they did with the Covid-19 vaccine? Because I’m sort of under the impression we should just be sharing that stuff, you know, if it’s going to save human lives.” Clay wondered, what could possibly be hacked in regard to mice?
“It’s more sensitive and delicate than you could imagine, Mr. Wolfe.” Bolton’s voice expressed exasperation.
“Perhaps I should get my lawyer to read through the NDA before I go any further,” Clay said. His lawyer was his grandpops, eighty-four years of age, still with a keen mind.
“That might be for the best,” Bolton said.
“What can you tell us about the case?” Baylee asked. “Without possibly compromising our freedom?”
“I like your directness, Miss Baker,” Bolton said. “Quite simply, somebody has been stealing mice.”
He’s worried that it’s an inside job, Clay thought. But stealing mice? It was quite a leap from that to treason. The mice must be quite special, possessing something so sensitive, that if he, Clay Wolfe, leaked, he could be arrested as a traitor and thrown into some place like Guantanamo without charges or trial. This was serious shit.
“And you suspect your own security team of being involved?” Clay asked.
“We don’t know who to suspect,” Bolton said. “But it is concerning.”
“I think before we get into the nuts and bolts of this that we’ll have our lawyer go over the NDA,” Clay said. “It shouldn’t take long. Perhaps we can get together tomorrow and move forward?”
“Time is of the essence, Mr. Wolfe,” Bolton said.
“Of course, I understand.”
The lawyer reached into his case and retrieved the NDA and slid it back across the table.
“One of our security team disappeared over the weekend,” Bolton said. “He was on the night shift for the fourth. Showed up to work. Was last seen about 2:00 AM. Never checked out. Never went home. Gone.”
Matt Cost, Author of Mouse Trap
Matt Cost is the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of the Mainely Mystery series. The first book, Mainely Power, was selected as the Maine Humanities Council Read ME fiction book of 2020. This was followed by Mainely Fear, Mainely Money, and Mainely Angst. I Am Cuba: Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution was his first traditionally published novel. He had another historical released in August of 2021, Love in a Time of Hate. Wolfe Trap and Mind Trap were the first two in the Clay Wolfe Port Essex Trap series. Mouse Trap is the third in this series. Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries. Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.
04/05 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
04/08 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
04/11 Review @ I Read What You Write
04/12 Review @ flightnurse70_book_reviews
04/12 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
04/13 Review @ Nesies Place
04/13 Showcase @ From the TBR Pile
04/15 Showcase @ nanasbookreviews
04/16 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
04/18 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
04/19 Guest post @ Novels Alive
04/20 Guest post @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
04/21 Interview via Blog Talk Radio
04/22 Review @ Just Reviews
04/23 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
04/25 Interview @ I Read What You Write
04/25 Showcase @ Books Blog
04/26 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
4/8 Review @ Novels Alive
Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post Mouse Trap: A Clay Wolfe / Port Essex Mystery appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 19, 2022
Blood Sugar: Thriller by Sascha Rothchild
Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild
Review + Book & Author InfoBlood Sugar
Ruby Simon has some skeletons in her closet—three, to be exact. But though she may be a murderer, Ruby is not a sociopath, She is an animal-loving therapist with a thriving practice. She has felt both empathy and sympathy. And she has long-lasting friendships, as well as a husband, Jason, whom she adores. But when Jason dies suddenly, the homicide detectives at Miami Beach Police Department begin to question why so many people have died within arm’s reach of Ruby. . . and to doubt her happy marriage.
Ruby suddenly finds herself accused of her husband’s murder—a murder she did not commit, despite the suspicions of her vicious mother-in-law and a scandal-obsessed public. As she undergoes questioning, Ruby’s mind races back to all the details of her life that led her to this exact moment, and to the three dead bodies in her wake. Because although she may not have killed her husband, Ruby certainly isn’t innocent.
“Rothchild gives readers an unreliable narrator who truly lives up to the moniker. . . A compelling and entertaining psychological thriller.”
—Kirkus Reviews
To purchase Blood Sugar, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound & GoodreadsMy Thoughts on Blood SugarLoved the premise and the execution — no pun intended — never have I hoped so much for a killer to get away with murder.Sascha Rothchild’s protagonist kills without remorse. “A calm resolve filled my chest, followed by a burst of gold-glitter excitement that traveled to the tip of every limb.”
At the age of five, Ruby Simon experiences her first.
“Using both my tiny hands, I had just enough grip to pull him down. And hold him down. A calmer boy might have held his breath and kicked free. He was only inches from oxygen. But he wasn’t calm. He was sucking in more and more water. Until he wasn’t.”
The opening sequence introduces us to Ruby’s modus operandi, she identifies an individual who makes the world a lesser place and removes them without a second thought.
“As my mother held me, I waited for guilt to set in. But it never did.”
The startling, delicious first chapter of Blood Sugar leads into Ruby’s adult years and the fourth murder connected to her, but the first she didn’t commit. Suffering from diabetes, her husband dies from complications from his disease.
Or did he?
Rothchild creates a questionable narrator. Is Ruby to be trusted? She’s clearly a killer, but is she also a liar? Something for the reader to find out as they navigate her sometimes violent past and reconcile those events with her present.
The tense plot unfolds as a series of photographs displaying Ruby’s victims are placed one after the other on the table in front of her by Detective Keith Jackson of the Miami Police Department. The good detective questions how four suspicious deaths could occur around one thirty-year-old woman.
“‘How do you explain that, Ms. Simon?'” he asks her.
“It was a valid question.” Ruby thinks to herself.
Ruby Simon had a turbulent adolescence. Running loose on the South Beach party scene, racing from cocaine to cocktails and dancing the night away. An inventive scene, which I won’t spoil, explains how she gets her act together and heads off to college to become a therapist.
There she meets Roman Miller, a man who would become pivotal in her life. “I didn’t necessarily want to sleep with Roman, or date him. But I knew I wanted to know him.” Soon their lives entwine, unravel, and entwine again.
Post college, Ruby meets her husband, the man she loves. Then her life turns upside down again. With dexterity and sparkling prose, Rothchild never lets her protagonist get too comfortable.
Ruby Simon is a complex, compelling character that engenders sympathy regardless of her own bad behavior. She may be a serial killer, but she’s a thoughtful, compassionate individual who wants to help her clients improve their lives. Readers will be transfixed to find out whether Ruby does in fact get away with murder, or ends up convicted of something she didn’t do . . . or did she?
Lovers of domestic suspense and tense, edgy thrillers will devour this excellent debut.
Author of Blood Sugar, Sascha Rothchild
Sascha Rothchild is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, who has written and produced lauded shows such as GLOW, The Bold Type, The Baby-Sitters Club, and The Carrie Diaries. In 2015, she was named one of Variety‘s “10 TV Writers to Watch.”
Rothchild has written for LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Elle, and the Miami Herald, and adapted her article, “How to Get Divorced by 30” into both a memoir and a screenplay for Universal Studios. She graduated from the honors program of Boston College summa cum laude, with a major in theater and screenwriting. Blood Sugar is her debut novel.
To learn more about Sascha, click on her name, photo and any of the following links: Twitter & InstagramLooking for more reviews? Click the link here.Elena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
Header photo by Holgi on Pixabay
The post Blood Sugar: Thriller by Sascha Rothchild appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 18, 2022
Not Your Child: New Suspense by Lis Angus
Not Your Child, brand new suspense by author Lis Angus
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet CornerNot Your Child
Ottawa psychologist and single mother Susan Koss discovers that a strange man has been following her twelve-year-old daughter Maddy. She fears he’s a predator, but it’s worse than that. The man, Daniel Kazan, believes Maddy is his granddaughter, abducted eleven years ago … and he’s obsessed with getting her back.
Susan insists on a DNA test to disprove Daniel’s claim, but the result is one she can’t understand or explain: it says she’s not Maddy’s mother.
Then Maddy vanishes. Susan’s convinced Daniel has taken her, but he has an alibi, and two searches of his house turn up nothing. The hunt is on—police are on full mobilization, and Susan fears the worst.
To purchase Not Your Child, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple & KOBOFind more ITW Debut Authors by clicking the link here.Not Your Child — Author Interview with Lis AngusNot Your Child features single mom Susan Koss. Tell us about your protagonist:Susan is a child psychologist, working in a children’s mental health clinic in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. She’s also a single mom with a twelve-year-old daughter, Maddy. She and Maddy have always been close, but in the past few months they’ve been having “run-ins” where Maddy challenges her mother’s authority. Susan knows that it’s normal for an almost-teenager to yearn for more independence, but still finds Maddy’s confrontations hard to deal with.
When Maddy is followed from school by a stranger, an older man, Susan’s protective instincts kick in, especially once she learns that the man believes Maddy is actually his granddaughter Hannah, who disappeared as a baby from the car crash where her parents died. And he wants her back.
Tell us about your path to publication for Not Your Child:It was a long and twisted path, as first novels often are. In a way it’s taken all my life, but the actual time between idea and publication took four and a half years.
The book started out in 2017 as an impulse project for NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of people commit to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I managed to achieve that word count—a victory in itself—but I let the manuscript sit for a month so I could come back to it with fresh eyes. And when I did, I concluded it was far from ready for prime time. However, instead of shoving it into the proverbial drawer, I decided to keep working on it. That launched me into an intense period of learning about writing fiction and structuring a novel.
I had been writing throughout my career, but it had mostly been research reports and articles and briefings of various sorts. I hadn’t tried writing fiction for years. I began searching the web for advice, and signed up for writing classes. Over the next three and a half years I rewrote the novel multiple times, drawing on feedback from beta readers, other writers, and editors.
I went through a couple of rounds of querying agents. Each time, a few of them asked to see the manuscript, but none offered to represent me. I think I ended up with 81 rejections (including some who simply never replied.)
But I refused to be discouraged: I took this as a sign that the novel still needed more work. In 2021 I engaged another editor and did another rewrite. And this time I started getting positive signs. I was a finalist, and then second-place winner, in the 2021 Daphne du Maurier contest for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense in the division for unpublished novels.
At the same time I was querying again, but this time I didn’t only query agents; I also submitted to a few publishers who accept un-agented submissions. I was encouraged when several of them expressed interest, giving me detailed replies.
And in July of that year The Wild Rose Press, a small press in upstate New York, offered me a publishing contract. On checking with other authors, I learned that Wild Rose has a sterling reputation, so I accepted. From contract to publication has now taken less than a year, which is quick in the publishing industry.
Not Your Child is full of twists and turns, what is your writing process like? Did you outline? Or discover the reversals and reveals through organically writing drafts?Yes, to all of the above. I created an outline when I first started the novel, and it gave me the confidence and structure to keep going. But as I went through subsequent drafts, getting to know my story and my characters better, I found myself restructuring, throwing scenes or storylines out and adding other ones in. I think I ultimately discarded nearly as many words as were in my original NaNo draft.
In my final draft I reorganized the timeline and wrote a completely new ending. By the time I was finished, I still had an outline, but it was very different from the one I’d started with. It was basically reverse-engineered, a spreadsheet listing in order each scene that appeared in the manuscript. That outline was no longer a guide to writing, but a way to visually picture my plot and keep track of my word count.
As for reversals, twists and reveals—they emerged as the story unfolded, but I definitely paid attention to how each one would affect pacing and suspense. I tried not to telegraph something too early, spoiling the effect a later placement could have.
What draws you to writing suspense versus another subgenre of crime fiction?I enjoy reading many crime fiction subgenres, but I especially love suspense novels because of the feeling of tension that builds up the further one reads. It’s the dread of knowing something terrible may happen and hoping it’s possible to stop it, but fearing that the worst may occur after all. The best suspense novels keep that feeling of dread ratcheting up, so that readers are simply unable to put down the book because they need to know what happens.
Why is experiencing that dread so enjoyable?
It’s not unlike the feeling one gets while riding a roller coaster or watching a scary movie, both of which have a lot of fans.
We’re told that “the only thing to fear is fear itself.” Maybe it’s reassuring to discover that fear itself hasn’t overwhelmed us. We can experience fear vicariously in a controlled environment, and return to the apparent safety of our normal world.
How does your degree in psychology help you with creating characters?I’m not sure which came first, my interest in how people function or the academic studies that helped give it structure. Having an understanding of the range of people’s behaviors, emotions and defense mechanisms is definitely useful for a writer. But I’d have to say that my approach to creating characters isn’t mainly based on theory or clinical categories.
I began with a basic “what if.” What if someone showed up and claimed that your child wasn’t your child at all? Then I tried to figure out how that might happen, what kinds of individuals would be affected, what their backstory might be, and how they’d react and interact. I tried to imagine myself inside the characters, to feel what they must be feeling. With each draft I got a deeper understanding of each of the characters. I was into the fourth or fifth draft before a major insight into Susan struck me, for instance.
I think my own life experience contributed as much to creating my characters as my academic studies, or perhaps more. My three main characters—Susan, Maddy, and Daniel—are at different ages, different stages of their lives. I’ve been all three of those ages myself, and the yearnings and concerns that each of them is experiencing are ones I can identify with. None of the characters is “me”—this isn’t an autobiographical novel—but they each have something of me in them. And, I hope, they have something that my readers can identify with too.
What are you working on now?I’m working on a new novel, another standalone. This one also started with a “what if:” What if someone shows up and tells you that your deceased father had another wife, another family? And that your family was the second, secret one?
Once again, I used NaNoWriMo to plunge into exploring that starting premise. I finished November 2021 with 50,000 words of what I’ve been calling a “draft zero”—not quite a first draft, but a good scaffold to build on. Launching Not Your Child has somewhat distracted me from the work of fleshing out the characters and plot of this new book, but I hope to have a working draft by midsummer.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Two phrases come to mind.
First of all, “keep your eyes on the prize.” Know what your goal is and keep working toward it. Don’t be discouraged by initial setbacks. Believe in yourself and your ability to get there.
Secondly, “all writing is rewriting.” I think it was Hemingway who said that, or something like it, and it’s definitely a motto to for writers to live by. I love Anne Lamott, who said that she’d never get anything written at all if she didn’t give herself permission to produce “really really shitty first drafts.” Turning those into sparkling prose is the work of rewriting.
Author Pet Corner!
Cinderella!
Mickey & Scout!I’ve had many animals in my life—I grew up on a farm, so there were horses and cows, chickens and pigs. And we always had at least one dog and several cats. None of these were actually pets; even the cats usually stayed in the barn, and their job was to keep down mice. But one of those cats, a grey tabby named Cinderella, basically adopted me as a young child, letting me use her as a pillow for naps and bringing me “presents” of dead mice. I’ve included a photo of me at age three holding Cinderella, with my big sister Iris behind me.
Moe!So I’ve been a lifelong “cat person.” My husband and I had a long series of cats throughout our married life, both before we had children and while raising our two daughters. At the moment we no longer have pets, but here are photos of our “grand-pets:” terrier-shepherd-mix Scout and tuxedo cat Mickey, who tease and tolerate each other at our older daughter’s house, and Moe, the ginger tabby who rules the roost at our younger daughter’s place.
Don’t miss our upcoming blog when Lis comes back to guest post on her blog tour!Lis Angus
Lis Angus is a Canadian suspense writer.
Early in her career, she worked with children and families in crisis; later she worked as a policy advisor, business writer and editor while raising two daughters.
She now lives south of Ottawa with her husband.
To learn more about Liz, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Twitter, Facebook & InstagramElena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post Not Your Child: New Suspense by Lis Angus appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 17, 2022
Mining for Murder: Cozy Book Review
Mining For Murder: A Happy Camper Mystery
Review + Book & Author Info + Rafflecopter GiveawayMining for Murder
Zo Jones is enjoying the sunny season at her Happy Camper gift shop in Spirit Canyon, South Dakota—when a murder reminds her all that glitters isn’t gold . . .
The South Dakota Gold Rush might be long over, but Zo Jones feels like she’s hit the mother lode when she and her friends browse an estate sale, where a rare old book about the history of Spirit Canyon is causing quite a commotion. In addition to local stories and secrets, the book may even contain the location of a famous stash of gold—a treasure worth killing for.
Zo’s friend Maynard Cline wins the bid on the book, to the chagrin of many interested parties, including the historical society and college history department. But when Zo and Hattie head to Maynard’s mansion to borrow the book for a library event, the only thing they find is Maynard—at the bottom of the mountain. The valuable book is gone. Zo knows this must be murder because there’s no way a germophobe like Maynard would have voluntarily dived into a pile of dirt. Now she’ll have to dig into a new case, and go prospecting for a perpetrator . . .
To purchase Mining for Murder , click any of the following links: Amazon – B&N – Apple – Google Books – Kobo
Mining for Murder (A Happy Camper Mystery)
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Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – South Dakota
Lyrical Press (April 5, 2022)
Print length : 275 pages
Digital ASIN : B0992TPJ24
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Though this is book three in the series, it can easily be read as a standalone.
Always a fan of Mary Angela’s work, Mining for Murder is my favorite to date.
For me, cozy mysteries work best when I want to visit the location, hang out with the protagonist, and don’t have the mystery solved before the sleuth puts the clues together. Angela ticks all those boxes, and gets bonus points for adding in a little romance.
Spirit Canyon is a place I’d love to experience in the real world. With the natural beauty of South Dakota as a backdrop to a quirky community filled with dynamic characters, I’m ready to pack my bags and head to town on vacation, and maybe a little searching for gold or solving a murder or two.
Zo Jones runs the Happy Camper, a gift store with a delightfully eccentric employee named Harley and a big orange cat named George. Filled with fun local crafts and seasonal goodies, it’s the kind of place I’d love to spend time browsing. Zo herself is a delight. Snarky enough to make me laugh out loud and smart enough to legitimately solve the crimes before the local authorities get the chance.
Lastly there is Max Harrington, the kind and cute, local ranger. Part of what I love about their dynamic, is that Zo doesn’t get lost in the fantasy of romance. She’s a contemporary woman who doesn’t have to have a man in her life — even though she likes the idea of a partner. As she says to her friend Jules, “‘I’ve been falling for Max for six months. That’s no secret. It’s the longest I’ve ever dated someone, so maybe I shouldn’t complain, but he’s starting to test my patience.'”
It’s Zo’s open honesty with a touch of sarcasm that makes me want to sit in the corner of the local bar with her and share a beer.
That’s all to say, the entire series is a delight, and the third book is the best mystery yet.
Attending an estate sale at a fancy house on Mountain View Road, Zo and a few allies excitedly watch a rare, hand-bound memoir written by one of Spirit Canyon’s original settlers go for a remarkable sixteen thousand dollars at auction to the wealthy Maynard Cline. It doesn’t take long before the proper ownership of the manuscript becomes a sore spot of contention, as various individuals claim the book.
Zo can’t help but wonder if the pages contain something even more valuable than a first-hand account of the local history. When she and head librarian Hattie head over to Maynard’s fancy mansion to borrow the book for an event at the library, they discover that whatever is in the book might be valuable enough to kill for.
Finding Maynard’s dead body sends Zo on another hunt for a killer, entwined with several great subplots to round out the investigation. Angela evolves the ongoing romance between Zo and Max, continues Zo’s search for her family history, and shows us the complicated lives of her closest friends, including George, my favorite literary Maine Coon.
With a gold mine of twists to keep a reader guessing, Mining for Murder is an excellent addition to a dynamite series. So get out your lantern, because you’ll be up all night reading Mary Angela’s latest.
Don’t miss my reviews of the first two books in the series, Open for Murder and Midnight Spells Murder Mary Angela, Author of Mining for Murder
Julie Prairie PhotographyMary Angela is the author of the Happy Camper cozy mystery series, the Professor Prather academic mystery series, and several short stories.
When Mary isn’t penning heartwarming whodunits, she’s teaching, reading, traveling, or spending time with her family.
She lives in South Dakota with her husband, daughters, and spoiled pets. You can find out more about her loves, including her writing, at MaryAngelaBooks.com.
To learn more about Mary, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads & Instagram
Visit all the Stops on the Tour!
April 5 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
April 5 – Mysteries with Character – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
April 6 – I Read What You Write – SPOTLIGHT
April 6 – Island Confidential – SPOTLIGHT
April 7 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
April 7 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
April 8 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
April 8 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – SPOTLIGHT
April 9 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
April 9 – Books a Plenty Book Reviews – REVIEW
April 10 – Books Blog – SPOTLIGHT
April 10 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
April 11 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
April 11 – Lady Hawkeye – SPOTLIGHT
April 12 – The Mystery Section – SPOTLIGHT
April 12 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 12 – Rosepoint Publishing – REVIEW
April 13 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT
April 13 – Rebecca M. Douglass, Author – REVIEW
April 14 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – SPOTLIGHT
April 14 – StoreyBook Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 15 – Nellie’s Book Nook – REVIEW
April 15 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – SPOTLIGHT
April 16 – This Is My Truth Now – REVIEW
April 16 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
April 17 – The Mystery of Writing – REVIEW
April 17 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 18 – BookishKelly2020 – SPOTLIGHT
April 18 – Diane Reviews Books – REVIEW
Elena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post Mining for Murder: Cozy Book Review appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 15, 2022
The Broken Room: A New Supernatural Thriller
The Broken Room a new supernatural thriller by Peter Clines
Review + Author Interview + Book & Author InfoThe Broken Room
“Absolutely brilliant!” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author
The new supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Peter Clines
You can still owe the dead.
Hector was the best of the best. A government operative who could bring armies to a halt and nations to their knees. But when his own country betrayed him, he dropped off the grid and picked up the first of many bottles.
Natalie can’t remember much of her life before her family brought her to the US, but she remembers the cages. And getting taken away to the Project with dozens of other young children to become part of their nightmarish experiments. That’s how she ended up with the ghost of a dead secret agent stuck in her head.
And Hector owes Natalie’s ghost a big favor.
Now Hector and Natalie are on the run from an army of killers sent to retrieve her. Because the people behind the Project are willing to risk almost anything to get Natalie back and complete their experiments.
To purchase The Broken Room, click any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound & GoodreadsMy Thoughts on The Broken Room“If a dive bar had family, the Pharaon would’ve been the redheaded stepchild.” The Broken Room grabbed me from the opening line.
I’ve always been a fan of Peter Clines, but this is my favorite book to date, bumping even 14 and Paradox Bound off the top of the list, where they had spent years vying for that honor.
Hector is a complex protagonist, who Clines skillfully reveals piece by piece, scene by scene. We know from the opening paragraphs that he’s smart and street savvy, but he’s currently drinking himself to death in a crap bar in Los Angeles. Then a girl walks into the room and everything changes.
The tone of the opening is that of a classic, Noir private eye, as if Philip Marlowe might appear out of the shadows following a plume of smoke from a cigarette, but Clines’ sci-fi sensibility quickly comes through when the girl introduces herself as Natalie Gamma Sixteen and the reader knows to hang on tight, this isn’t going to be a conventional tale of a hard luck drunk finding redemption by saving the girl.
Clines’ ability to combine genres is one of my favorite aspects of his writing. Part thriller, part sci-fi, part horror, part western—yeah, I said it part western—The Broken Room takes the conventions of each genre and mashes them together to build a better whole. With the pace of a thriller, the mad scientists of sci-fi, a twist of paranormal and . . . not to give too much away, but something not quite human, and the good guy rides into town, not on a white horse, but in a stolen car and you bet, it’s that kind of western. Hector could be a fast-moving Sheriff Longmire, if that particular white hat fought with a paranormal sidekick or two.
Clines’ choice to have not one, but two Latinx protagonists also shows his versatility with character, not just genre. While Clines and Hector may be closer in age, Natalie, the twelve-year-old girl, requires that Clines slip himself into a very different set of shoes than the ones he wears on a daily basis.
Of course, Clines also isn’t a retired Army special forces badass who can fight trained assassins and come out on top either, and he nails Hector’s persona pretty darn good as well.
If you’re looking for a breakneck, action adventure with all the ingredients of a cross-genre, mind-bending thriller, The Broken Room is for you. If that’s not what you’re looking for, I have to ask, why the hell not? it’s a hell of a ride.
Read more of my reviews by clicking the link here.The Broken Room — Author Interview with Peter ClinesThe Broken Room uses two point of view characters. How did that writing process happen?
It was kind of inherent right from the start. Hector was the easy entry-point character, so to speak. A (relatively) normal guy who gets something weird and maybe supernatural dropped in his lap.
But even very early on, it was clear part of the story would have to be Natalie’s point of view. There was only one point where they really started tripping over each other, but it was one of those things where even as I was writing it I could tell it wasn’t going to work, so that got tweaked very early in the revisions.
There was actually a third point of view in the very early drafts—Doctor Lourale, the mad scientist behind the curtain, so to speak. But as the story started tightening it up it became clear a lot of his chapters were either redundant or really awkward because I was trying to not give away certain things too early. So a lot of it felt like bad tv shows, y’know, where people have conversations but never use any names or proper nouns and they’re super-vague because they’re trying to be mysterious for the audience rather than talking like normal people.
I think I’d marked half the Lourale chapters for deletion and then I started wondering if I really needed any of them.
What drew you to creating Latinx characters for the protagonists and many supporting characters?It wasn’t really that I was drawn to the idea, like “oh, hey, you know what’s cool right now? Diversity!” It just worked out that these were the best characters for the story.
When I was still beating out the very rough ideas in my head about… geeez, almost two and a half years ago now, I talked to some knowledgeable people and found out how easy—and yeah, awfully, that’s the right word—it would’ve been for some government agency to scoop up a hundred or so kids at the border.
We kept seeing that phrase “lost in the system” and it turns out there was more truth to it than most people want to know. So this gave me an immediate background for Natalie—and by extension, her family—and for the other kids at the Project.
Hector’s creation had a similar arc. In his case, it was figuring out what kind of person could’ve devoted their life to protecting their country and then end up feeling completely betrayed by it.
And even then, this is not a story about the Latino experience in the U.S. I’m a near-middle-aged white guy—clearly not the person to tell that story.
I would read any book with either or both of these main characters, any chance they will appear in another book down the road? (As a side note – please tell me that Quilt will get his own book one day)
First, thank you! Second… well, Hector’s already appeared in another book, sort of.
As I was fleshing him out I realized he was pretty much a slightly-different version of a character (with the same name!) from another book I’s written years ago. I was doing multiverse stuff way before it was trendy (honestly, I almost feel like I should stop now). When he tells Natalie how he ended up in the Army it’s a little nod to the other version of him and the way his life might’ve gone.
As for Quilt… he’s already shown up in so many places. I created him for my “college novel,” The Trinity, and then sort of transplanted him into my “moved to California novel,” The Suffering Map (both unpublished, for good reasons). Years later I made him a lead character in a little novella-thing I did for Audible called The Junkie Quatrain.
He’s in the fourth Ex-Heroes book, Ex-Purgatory. He even gets a quick mention in Paradox Bound. He’s a wonderful “small doses” character.
Although, all that said, I do have a faint idea about how these three might run into each other again…
“Don’t you always drop a silly LOST reference in your books? Where is it in this one?”
Waiting for the answer . . .What are you reading these days?I’m currently working my way through a pile of wonderful books for blurbs, including Nine Tenths by Jeff Macfee, Episode 13 by Craig Di Louie, and one by Brian Clevinger (who writes the friggin’ fantastic Atomic Robo comics).
After that I’ll finally get to dive into my actual TBR pile which has… jeeez, just too much stuff in it.
What are you working on now?I’m currently about halfway into a really weird story that’s kind of an homage to something I loved (and feared) as a kid.
Think of Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids, but with more dinosaurs. And time travel, monoliths, androids, aliens… I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone else does, too.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring WritersUmmmmmmm… get up and stretch now and then?
No, seriously, I think my current words of wisdom are to not sweat the first draft. You’re going to get at least one chance to rewrite this before anyone sees it, so stop worrying if it’s perfect and just write.
This is one of those things that’s really easy to hear but hard to internalize. It took me years to grasp I could just write the first draft and not worry about things. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It doesn’t need to stand up to rigorous peer review. I’m not required to show it to anyone. I can keep writing and fix everything later because it’s just a first draft.
The whole point of it is to give me something I can work with. It’s tough, I know, but for now just write a messy, error-filled first draft and don’t worry about the fact that it’s messy and full of errors.
And also… get up and stretch now and then.
Excellent advice, both the first draft bit and the part about stretching. Thanks for hanging out with us!
Peter Clines — Author of The Broken RoomPETER CLINES has published several pieces of short fiction and countless articles on the film and television industries.
He is the author of the Ex-Heroes series and the acclaimed standalone thriller 14. He lives in Southern California and can be found online on Twitter and Instagram.
Elena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The post The Broken Room: A New Supernatural Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
April 14, 2022
Razing Stakes: The De La Cruz Case Files
Razing Stakes by TG Wolff
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Blog Tour Giveaway!Razing Stakes by TG Wolff
The first day of summer is the last day of a young accountant’s life. Colin McHenry is out for his regular run when an SUV crosses into his path, crushing him. Within hours of the hit-skip, Cleveland Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz finds the vehicle in the owner’s garage, who’s on vacation three time zones away. The setup is obvious, but not the hand behind it. The suspects read like a list out of a textbook: the jilted fiancée, the jealous coworker, the overlooked subordinate, the dirty client.
His plate already full, Cruz is assigned to a “special project,” a case needing to be solved quickly and quietly. Cleveland Water technicians are the targets of focused attacks. The crimes range from intimidation to assault. The locations swing between the east, west, and south sides of the city. This is definitely madness, but there is a method behind it.
The two cases are different and yet the same. Motives, opportunities, and alibis don’t point in a single direction. In these mysteries, Cruz has to think laterally, yanking down the curtain to expose the master minding the strings.
To purchase Razing Stakes, click on any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Down & Out BooksGenre: Mystery
Published by: Down & Out Books
Publication Date: February 14, 2022
Number of Pages: 294
ISBN: 978-1-64396-245-0
Series: The De La Cruz Case Files, 3rd in series
I began writing somewhere back around 2007 solely to entertain myself. I was working as a Civil Engineer (my day job), living in Cleveland, Ohio. One of my clients was in Northern Kentucky, some 5 hours away. Making the drive to and from, several times a month gave me time to think…which turned into time to plot.
Come around to 2013 and I have finished a story called “Lost in Tennessee.” It was a mystery with romantic elements. Through a series of happy events, the romance publisher Entangled Publishing signed me up for a three-book series. Through the editing process, the mystery with romantic elements became a romance with a mystery inside. Published under the name Anita DeVito, the Lost In series gave readers a full length mystery and a full length romance.
I love Romantic Suspense stories. It is my #2 favorite genre behind Whodunnits. I had a lot of fun writing the series and learning from the editors the art and science of a romance. When creating a leading pair, I would start with one character and think who, in real life, would a person like this love? And who would love a person like this? In addition to thinking through the details of the mystery, I had to think through the details of moving a relationship very quickly from the cute meet through happily-ever-after.
While I still write romantic expense for my entertainment, I publish mysteries for your enjoyment. The Whodunnit is front and center with Detective Jesus De La Cruz and the De La Cruz casefiles, but I haven’t forgotten that lessons learned with romances. This is where the left side of my brain and the right side get in sync to work together.
Relationships are not just romantic. There are friends, siblings, employer, etc. In these stories, I work to grow Cruz’s relationships with everyone in his world organically. He gets in arguments with his AA sponsor Dr. Oscar Bollier and his best friend Matt Yablonski. His mother runs him to ground and he is still working to make up lost time with his sister’s family.
When you compare my stories to others in the mystery genre, this is the difference. I give you a mystery to be solved, but Jesus De La Cruz is not a cold cop who day and night lives his job. He isn’t a punch throwing, rule breaking, boss hating cop. He is smart and clever. He loves his family and was surprised when a beautiful woman asks him out. He screws up and works his ass off to fix it. He forgives when he is on the receiving end of the mistake. Cruz is as real as I can make him, reflecting how all of us who work a day job manage to keep all of the balls in the air.
Excerpt of Razing Stakes by TG WolffTen minutes dead. The sun shined brightly, no clouds on this first day of summer, the last day of John Doe’s life. Cleveland police Detective Jesus De La Cruz squatted next to the broken body. The warmth beneath his hand testified to the newness of death.
Two EMTs had worked to sustain the man’s life. One was at the ambulance now, tending to the tools of his trade. The other stood over the body, shaking his head at the victim. “He was dead before we arrived, Detective. He just didn’t know it.” The EMT peeled off his gloves, finality in a simple act. “Damn it if we didn’t fight for him. In the end, he was just too crushed.”
Cruz rose looking east and west, north and south. The crime scene was on the side of a road halfway between East 9th Street and East 55th Street. North Marginal was a two-way street carved between Lake Erie and a spur off I-90 called the Shoreway. Properties cut off by the Shoreway—the Coast Guard station, Burke Lakefront Airport, a private marina, a condominium complex—were accessed from North Marginal. Even at the busiest times of day, vehicular traffic here was scant. Middle of a workday, a steady stream of runners arced around the first responders.
“Popular place,” Cruz said, meeting the eyes of a curious runner rubbernecking as he slowed to a jog.
“It is,” the EMT said. “Few better places downtown for running. A solid two and a half miles with no cross streets. Whoever hit him came from the east. Blew him up.”
The body spoke for itself. No way it could be where it was being hit from the west. Cruz straddled the curb, which was a generous term for the inch separating the driving surface from the running path. A bicycle wouldn’t call it an obstacle. John Doe either never saw it coming or was unable to get out of the way. The impact had launched him into the airport’s tall security fence. The fence bounced him back, the one-hundred-eighty-pound body a pinball rebounding off bumpers.
John Doe had been moved, necessary and appropriate as he’d been alive when he was found.
“Medical Examiner is en route,” the EMT said. “He’s yours now.”
“I’ll take care of him.” Cruz studied the victim. The man was mostly skin. He had taken off his shirt on the warm day, one of the first to be hot. A shirt lay on the edge of the path, marked by an evidence tag. Two other shirts lay close to the body; one black, one yellow and stained with blood.
The running shorts covered hip to mid-thigh. He wore socks, shoes, and a fitness device on his wrist. Skin was scraped off his arms, legs, chest, and face, the asphalt unforgiving. An AirPod was in his left ear, the right one missing.
Squatting again, Cruz felt the side seams of the shorts, finding zippered pockets. Inside the right one was a slim, card-size piece of plastic, a security badge for a building on East 9th Street. The dead man smiled out of a poor-quality image. Beneath was the name Colin McHenry.
“Detective, we found his phone,” one of the officers securing the scene called out. “It’s in good shape. Thumb print pass coded.”
“Open it before the ME takes him. Who found him?”
“A pair of runners. I parked them under the big tree.” The officer pointed across North Marginal to a small grove on a manmade hill. The two men waited anxiously under the tree, watching the activity. Both were runners. Both were shirtless. Both came to attention as Cruz approached and introduced himself.
“I’m Landon Chartres, this is Denny Bradford. We saw him as soon as we came around the bend. He was half in the street.” The otherwise straight line of North Marginal had a large curve bumping out to make space for an exit from the Shoreway. McHenry’s body would have been screened by the fence and shrubs separating the public from the airport’s private property.
“We knew someone was ahead of us,” Bradford said. “When you turn onto the Marginal, you can you see all the way to the curve.”
Chartres nodded like a bobblehead. “We saw the vehicle that must have hit him. It was the only one that passed us before we got to him. Black SUV. Part of the license plate was LDC. Those are my initials, so it caught my attention. I didn’t catch the make or model.”
Bradford looked behind him, to East 9th Street. He repeatedly shifted his weight from foot to foot. “He was only out of our sight to a few minutes. Would you say he had a five-minute lead, Landon?”
“At most. Probably more like three or four. We called 9-1-1 and pulled him out of the road. Anyone coming around the curve would have hit him. We used our shirts to try to stop the bleeding.”
As a pair of witnesses went, these two were easy, answering questions before he could ask them. They wanted to talk, maybe even needed to talk. “Did anyone pass you from behind, coming from East 9th going east?”
The pair looked at each other, huddled like they were on a pitcher’s mound deciding on a call. It was Chartres who answered. “We don’t think so, Detective, but we couldn’t swear to it. We weren’t paying that much attention. But the one that came toward us, the one with my initials, it was flying.”
“Is he going to make it?” Bradford asked, hope in his voice. “The ambulance got here fast. We kept pressure on his wounds, like they tell you to.”
“I’m sorry, he didn’t.” As if on cue, an engine started. The ambulance pulled away without a passenger.
Read more Blog Tour Posts like Razing Stakes — Click the Link Here.TG Wolff, Author of Razing Stakes
TG Wolff writes thrillers and mysteries that play within the gray area between good and bad, right and wrong. Cause and effect drive the stories, drawing from 20+ years’ experience in Civil Engineering, where “cause” is more often a symptom of a bigger, more challenging problem.
Diverse characters mirror the complexities of real life and real people, balanced with a healthy dose of entertainment. TG Wolff holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
To learn more about TG, click on any of the following links: TGWolffCom.wordpress.com,Goodreads, BookBub – @TG_Wolff, Instagram – @tg_wolff, Twitter – @tg_wolff & FacebookVisit all the Stops on the Razing Stakes Tour!
04/01 Interview @ I Read What You Write
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Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
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