Shelley Workinger's Blog, page 2
February 17, 2023
Please Welcome Jo Robinson, Author of Sands of Time
I’ve always enjoyed the parts of the books I’ve read where the people in them were preparing food, eating it, or just talking about it in general. I also like to know the things that the authors I love get up to when they’re not writing books. Not only the things that they like to eat or drink, but I like to know a little about all their interests. I’m not sure if everyone’s like that, or if I’m just nosier than most. I don’t think so, though. For me it’s always the parts of fiction that are relatable that make me love or hate a book. Most people can relate to some things. Grief, love, laughter, outrageousness, a remembered smell or scenario, but we can all relate to food.
Now that Shelley has brought the food in fiction into sharper focus for me, I realise that my own books are liberally laced with some aspect of eating...
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/02...
Now that Shelley has brought the food in fiction into sharper focus for me, I realise that my own books are liberally laced with some aspect of eating...
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/02...
February 3, 2023
Please Welcome Eileen Schuh, Author of Project W.Olf
Nothing makes a stronger romantic impression, perhaps, than offering up a home-cooked meal. But that cooking has to be taken up a notch to worthy of a scene in a novel. It has to be ‘elevated’, as Chef Ramsay says on his shows.
How about...Can you imagine being able to smell chocolate with 100 percent more intensity than you can now? Peter Kane, the hero in my latest SciFi release, Project W.Olf, can. He’s volunteered for a research project that’s imbued him with the wolf’s olfactory abilities.
That could definitely be a plus in the kitchen. Sniffing out all those spices and herbs. A quick inhale to tell if the steak is rare, or medium. Is the casserole done?
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/02...
How about...Can you imagine being able to smell chocolate with 100 percent more intensity than you can now? Peter Kane, the hero in my latest SciFi release, Project W.Olf, can. He’s volunteered for a research project that’s imbued him with the wolf’s olfactory abilities.
That could definitely be a plus in the kitchen. Sniffing out all those spices and herbs. A quick inhale to tell if the steak is rare, or medium. Is the casserole done?
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/02...
January 20, 2023
Please Welcome Linda Rondeau, Author of The Fifteenth Article
FOOD IN THE NEXT WORLD TO COME
What would people eat in a post-apocalyptic world? Something I had to consider when writing my futuristic political thriller, The Fifteenth Article. The diet in this book is dependent upon where people live. In the cities, only the rich can afford fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits. The rest of the populace subsists on cloned provisions, meager at best.
Nuclear damage to the environment due do sporadic wars, religious confrontation, global climatic upheaval, and the failure of government to fix economic and social issues, led to a second dark age. The Governments consolidate and a world government is formed called The Accord. It was too weak, much like The League of Nations, and was replaced by quasi-democratic system called The Constitutional Government based on Fourteen Articles of Confederation. The world is divided into nineteen provinces, each with a local leadership. Each province has a domed, capital city where citizens enjoy a comfortable life if they promise allegiance to the Constitutional Government.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/01...
What would people eat in a post-apocalyptic world? Something I had to consider when writing my futuristic political thriller, The Fifteenth Article. The diet in this book is dependent upon where people live. In the cities, only the rich can afford fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits. The rest of the populace subsists on cloned provisions, meager at best.
Nuclear damage to the environment due do sporadic wars, religious confrontation, global climatic upheaval, and the failure of government to fix economic and social issues, led to a second dark age. The Governments consolidate and a world government is formed called The Accord. It was too weak, much like The League of Nations, and was replaced by quasi-democratic system called The Constitutional Government based on Fourteen Articles of Confederation. The world is divided into nineteen provinces, each with a local leadership. Each province has a domed, capital city where citizens enjoy a comfortable life if they promise allegiance to the Constitutional Government.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/01...
January 6, 2023
Please Welcome Nicholas Rossis, Author of Pearseus
A conspicuous lack of food
When Shelley asked me for a guest post on the subject of food in my novels, I realized to my horror that food plays practically no role in them! I mean, sure, someone consumes a certain poison at some point plus there is a sort of recipe for an antidote. But that doesn’t count, right? When it comes to food, let’s face it: I’m no Andrea Camilleri.
Which makes no sense, as I love food!
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/01...
When Shelley asked me for a guest post on the subject of food in my novels, I realized to my horror that food plays practically no role in them! I mean, sure, someone consumes a certain poison at some point plus there is a sort of recipe for an antidote. But that doesn’t count, right? When it comes to food, let’s face it: I’m no Andrea Camilleri.
Which makes no sense, as I love food!
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2023/01...
December 9, 2022
Please Welcome Rick R. Reed, Author of TOXIC
Food always plays a big part in my writing. From a major role in my “romance with recipes” series like Dinner at Home, Dinner at Fiorello’s, Dinner at Jack’s and Dinner at the Blue Moon Café to less obvious reading in genres like horror, psychological suspense, mystery and thriller titles, food is always present in one way or another.
Why? Because it’s one thing this author always looks for as a reader or viewer. I want to know what the characters are eating if there’s a scene where a meal is being consumed. For example, today, I was watching an old episode of the great TV series, Mad Men, and two characters met up for lunch…and I was crushed. They didn’t eat! Don Draper had two Old Fashioneds and the woman he was with had only coffee, which she didn’t touch. I was ready to yell at the screen, “but why didn’t you eat?”
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/12...
Why? Because it’s one thing this author always looks for as a reader or viewer. I want to know what the characters are eating if there’s a scene where a meal is being consumed. For example, today, I was watching an old episode of the great TV series, Mad Men, and two characters met up for lunch…and I was crushed. They didn’t eat! Don Draper had two Old Fashioneds and the woman he was with had only coffee, which she didn’t touch. I was ready to yell at the screen, “but why didn’t you eat?”
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/12...
December 2, 2022
Please Welcome Ann Jacobus, Author of The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent
My mom died a few years back and my siblings and I took turns caring for her at home near the end, along with medical and hospice support. It was difficult of course, but to my surprise we all spent a lot of time sharing old stories and laughing heartily, often over food. I then wrote a novel about a troubled 18-year-old tending to her beloved guardian Aunt Fran who has recently been diagnosed with cancer. It’s called The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent (out March 7, 2023)
The story is fueled by good food...
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/12...
The story is fueled by good food...
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/12...
November 11, 2022
Please Welcome Dan Scanlon, Author of The Hacker
The enjoyment of great food and good company is one of life’s familiar pleasures. Including these kind of scenes in a novel can create the same relaxed enjoyment for the reader as the meals themselves. In a thriller they can be used to create the opposite feeling by stressing the absence of normal opportunities to rest and reenergize, keeping tension high. Pressure is created for the reader by keeping the characters sweaty, stressed and always on the move. In The Hacker, investigators race to find a master cybercriminal using the avatar, Dantalion. Any minute they delay is more opportunity for him to wreak damage. Their compulsion to run him down overrides all other aspects of life.
Eating becomes more of a refueling effort than dining, stopping just long enough to bolt sufficient food to keep going and return to the chase. This, combined with scant sleep for time or anything else places the reader in the head of the investigators and I hope, enables the reader to feel the tension as the characters do. But what are they eating?
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/11...
Eating becomes more of a refueling effort than dining, stopping just long enough to bolt sufficient food to keep going and return to the chase. This, combined with scant sleep for time or anything else places the reader in the head of the investigators and I hope, enables the reader to feel the tension as the characters do. But what are they eating?
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/11...
November 4, 2022
Please Welcome Stacey Pierson, Author of VALE
Vale is a Young Adult bayou murder mystery, unique and one of a kind, like a fresh batch of crawfish. And so is the food the characters put into their mouths, and how the food they eat is their personality.
Charles is the plain bagel in the story. He lives with Epilepsy, and with each seizure is like a sprinkling of Everything But The Bagel, which adds another layer to his ever-growing character arc. Layer by layer, bit by bit, Charles add tries new seasonings.
Simple, quick bites represent Leigh. She once was a charcuterie board before she left with different flavors and tasty snacks. Her personality was crunchy like the crackers and crispy like her snappy, sarcastic saying. Now, after her return, she’s silent and missing like the food on the tray.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/11...
Charles is the plain bagel in the story. He lives with Epilepsy, and with each seizure is like a sprinkling of Everything But The Bagel, which adds another layer to his ever-growing character arc. Layer by layer, bit by bit, Charles add tries new seasonings.
Simple, quick bites represent Leigh. She once was a charcuterie board before she left with different flavors and tasty snacks. Her personality was crunchy like the crackers and crispy like her snappy, sarcastic saying. Now, after her return, she’s silent and missing like the food on the tray.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/11...
October 21, 2022
Please Welcome Michelle Tanmizi, Author of Late Dawn
Food in the year 4848
I come from a culture that reveres food and the ritual of eating. Passed around like a fortune cookie is the saying that ‘One lives to eat, and not eat to live.’ But what happens when food becomes scarce in the far-future, dystopian world of Late Dawn, in the year 4848? That is the timeline of my novel.
It is so far in our timeline, it lies on the other side of the horizon of perception where eyes and minds cannot yet reach. I chose such a far timeline for a good reason. I wanted to project an image of a transformed Earth, where climate change had ravaged and damaged it, and where Earthlings (wildlife, nature and insects included) who survived, are living through yet another global disaster. It is a world where humans are no longer Mother Nature’s favourite children.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/10...
I come from a culture that reveres food and the ritual of eating. Passed around like a fortune cookie is the saying that ‘One lives to eat, and not eat to live.’ But what happens when food becomes scarce in the far-future, dystopian world of Late Dawn, in the year 4848? That is the timeline of my novel.
It is so far in our timeline, it lies on the other side of the horizon of perception where eyes and minds cannot yet reach. I chose such a far timeline for a good reason. I wanted to project an image of a transformed Earth, where climate change had ravaged and damaged it, and where Earthlings (wildlife, nature and insects included) who survived, are living through yet another global disaster. It is a world where humans are no longer Mother Nature’s favourite children.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/10...
Please Welcome Michelle Tanmizi, Author of Late Dawn
Food in the year 4848
I come from a culture that reveres food and the ritual of eating. Passed around like a fortune cookie is the saying that ‘One lives to eat, and not eat to live.’ But what happens when food becomes scarce in the far-future, dystopian world of Late Dawn, in the year 4848? That is the timeline of my novel.
It is so far in our timeline, it lies on the other side of the horizon of perception where eyes and minds cannot yet reach. I chose such a far timeline for a good reason. I wanted to project an image of a transformed Earth, where climate change had ravaged and damaged it, and where Earthlings (wildlife, nature and insects included) who survived, are living through yet another global disaster. It is a world where humans are no longer Mother Nature’s favourite children.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/10...
I come from a culture that reveres food and the ritual of eating. Passed around like a fortune cookie is the saying that ‘One lives to eat, and not eat to live.’ But what happens when food becomes scarce in the far-future, dystopian world of Late Dawn, in the year 4848? That is the timeline of my novel.
It is so far in our timeline, it lies on the other side of the horizon of perception where eyes and minds cannot yet reach. I chose such a far timeline for a good reason. I wanted to project an image of a transformed Earth, where climate change had ravaged and damaged it, and where Earthlings (wildlife, nature and insects included) who survived, are living through yet another global disaster. It is a world where humans are no longer Mother Nature’s favourite children.
More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2022/10...
