Shelley Workinger's Blog, page 15

Please Welcome Vincent Zandri, Author of The Sins of the Sons

Jack “Keeper” Marconi, PI, is a tough man. He’s a gumshoe’s gumshoe who says what he means and means what he says, and he’s willing to back it all up with his fists if necessary. He is also a man who loves to eat and drink what he wants, when he wants. After all, his daily running/weight lifting regimen with his sidekick Blood, a 6’4” African American chunk of ebony granite, burns enough calories to keep him in tip top shape, even if he will never see 50 again.

When a potential client walks into Keeper’s downtown Albany, second floor Sherman Street office, he or she might find the muscular private eye feasting on an Italian submarine constructed of fresh ham, salami, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion slices, plus black olives, green peppers, all stuffed tightly inside a full loaf of freshly baked Italian bread. While washing this feast down with a cold Pilsner beer is always an option, Keeper is known to enjoy it with a glass of blood red Chianti, or even a double shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey, neat.

But allow me to back up a bit, to earlier in the detective’s day... 

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/02...

Please Welcome Bobby Nash, Author of 85 North

We all have them.

If you work as a writer long enough, you will find yourself with a drawer (or in modern terms, a computer file folder) full of unused stories that, for one reason or another, never found a home to call their own. Sometimes it’s because of publisher or editor rejection; other times it happens because projects stall or publishers go out of business. It happens. Things do simply fall by the wayside.

Whatever the reason, things happen, and some stories fall through the cracks.

It’s a crazy business we’re in, isn’t it?

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/02...

Please Welcome Mark Noce, Author of Between Two Fires

Dark Age Dinners in Between Two Fires

Thanks for having me here, Shelley! Today I’m blogging about the medieval meals that would’ve been enjoyed by the characters in my novel Between Two Fires. Set in Wales around the year 600 AD, there definitely were some culinary facts that I had to research and make sure to keep straight throughout my book.

One of the most apparent aspects was that this was before the Age of Discovery, which meant no New World foods. That means Medieval Wales had no sugar, no tomatoes, no corn (maize), or anything else that originated in the Americas. Due to the limited international trade of the era, tea from the Far East and coffee from Arabia were also unknowns at this time in Western Europe.

So what did they eat then?

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/01...

Please Welcome Ottilie Weber, Author of Family Ties

The scent of sweet and cinnamon drift from a country club kitchen. Abby is working at a country club as a waitress with her friend Cory. Dealing with people is not Abby’s strong suit as she is usually equipped with her sarcasm and ready to ‘just tell people how it is’ attitude. However, when Lucy, a chef at the restaurant, makes her specialty cinnamon rolls, Abby can almost tolerate her job.

After years of her family’s history instead of fairy tales like every other child Abby thinks she is far too old to think about those stories. One night...

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/01...

Please Welcome Gabriel Valjan, Author of The Company Files

In The Naming Game, I introduce readers to a bygone era of Hollywood history and intrigue, which includes the seductive glamour of fine dining and drinking in Los Angeles of yesteryear. I mention Musso & Frank, where Chandler, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and West sat, drank, and scribbled. While I don’t have readers sample from the French-forward menu that Musso & Frank still uses, I did mention the Windsor, the restaurant Ben Dimsdale owned for four decades before he reinvented it as an Asian fusion eatery.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/01...

Please Welcome Derek Thompson, Author of STANDPOINT

Thomas Bladen, a spy worth his salt
Derek Thompson looks at his main character’s relationship with food.

Not all spies are suave and sophisticated. Thomas is smart, sardonic, and rough around the edges. He works for Britain’s Surveillance Support Unit – loaned out to any government department that will have them, including law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Other departments call them floaters – it’s not a term of endearment.

Although Thomas works for the SSU in London, this son of a Yorkshire miner has never lost touch with his working-class roots. He’s a man who eats to live rather than living to eat.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2019/01...

WELCOME 2019!

How much time have you put into your 2019 resolution so far?

I logged 1 hour for day 1 toward my goal:

https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/12...

Please Welcome Rose Montague, Author of JADE

About 6 years ago I was working at BAM and developed some back problems. It caused me to wake up in the middle of the night and I would make some coffee and sit at the computer for several hours, waiting for the pain to die down so I could go back to bed. It was so quiet! I finally decided to put that quiet time to good use by writing my first book. I had written a few stories when I was a teenager then life got in the way and I just didn't come back to it. I have always loved books and working at both a library and a book store just fed that passion. The first book I wrote was Jade. It was rough and ragged and pretty silly but overall it was a great story with a lot of action and plenty of humor. Jade was a mix of supernatural creatures and because of that there were only a few things her stomach could handle. If you did a word search of Jade you would find coffee mentioned twenty times, espresso eleven, chocolate thirteen times, and wine thirty-nine (Too funny). I have always loved reading books featuring strong female characters and the three main characters in Jade would all eventually have their own book.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/12...

Please Welcome Gayle Trent, Author of Killer Wedding Cake

Daphne Martin is a cake decorator with an enormous problem in Killer Wedding Cake - her oven is on the fritz. With her mind consumed with finding somewhere else to do the baking for her business, she isn’t very concerned with eating. When her sister Violet agrees to let Daphne commandeer her oven, Daphne orders pizza and breadsticks to feed herself and Violet’s family of four.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/12...

Please Welcome Francesca Varela, Author of The Seas of Distant Stars

My science-fiction novel, The Seas of Distant Stars, tells the story of a human girl—Agapanthus—who’s abducted by aliens and grows up on Deeyae, a red-rocked, watery planet in another solar system.

It may not have the same name in real life, but Deeyae is a real planet. It bears the stoic title of Gliese-667Cc, and it’s known to scientists as an Earth-like exoplanet. That means it’s close to its home star, and could potentially harbor liquid water—and complex life—on its surface.

Gliese-667Cc revolves around a red dwarf star (named Imn in my book), which tinges everything on the planet with a pink-red glow. Red dwarf stars aren’t as warm or as bright as yellow giants like Earth’s sun, so I imagined that life wouldn’t be based around a sun-fed food chain.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/12...