James L. Weaver's Blog, page 54
March 21, 2019
Book Review – The Good Byline
I was only about a quarter of the way through Jill Orr’s first Riley Ellison Mystery, The Good Byline, when I knew I was going to read the second…and the third when it comes out in June.
The Good Byline introduces us to Riley Ellison, a library assistant in her hometown of Tuttle Corner, Virginia who is trying in vain to overcome the emotional valley she’s in from being dumped by her longtime ex. When she’s asked to write the obituary for her childhood best friend Jordan after her supposed suicide, the red flags fly. Though Riley hasn’t talked to Jordan in years, she knows something is amiss—the Jordan she knew would never do something like that. When a quirky reporter lets Riley know she’s not being paranoid, she’s thrown into a whirlwind of organized crime, suspicious taco trucks, a hilarious dating site, a hunky and mysterious man and all manners of chaos too numerous to be mentioned here.
The Good Byline was just a really fun read that kept me up late for a couple of nights. It reminded me of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, but still unique. Jill Orr’s writing style is crisp, easy to read and keeps you turning the pages. The book is full of quirky characters that are well developed and relatable, and I loved the dating site interludes. Does it get a little convoluted toward the end and push the boundaries of believability as the plot lines are pulled together? Sure, and while it may cause you to slightly raise an eyebrow, it doesn’t stop you from turning the page and, most importantly, it doesn’t take away from what is a very well-written and enjoyable book. I look forward to the next installment.
January 11, 2019
Killing Your Darlings – A Story
KILLING
YOUR DARLINGS
BY JAMES L. WEAVER
The gun weighed heavy in Nick Starr’s
hands, almost as onerous as the dark cloud of rage following him for the last
three years. A cloud he was sure would swirl away if he pulled the trigger. His
finger tightened on the trigger. Demarco stared wide-eyed and fearful at the dark
mouth of the pistol barrel, fully aware his sin of killing Starr’s brother exactly
three years ago on Valentine’s Day in the basement of the very warehouse where
they now stood was coming back to haunt him. If Demarco thought the fact that
Starr wore a badge would save him, he had another thing coming. Specifically, a
hollow-point bullet from a cold steel .45, right between his black and soulless
eyes. The only witnesses would be God and the traitorous Tandy who rested her
manicured fingers on Starr’s shoulder, whispering through her luscious, ruby
lips for Starr to pull the trigger.
“Any last words before I splatter your worthless
brains all over this wall?” Starr asked.
“You can kill me, Starr,” Demarco said,
his thin lip raised in a snarl. “But, it won’t bring your brother back.”
The barrel of the gun wavered in Starr’s
hands, trembling. He then dropped it altogether and turned to me, his face
crunched in disgust.
“Hold the phone a minute. I gotta say
something,” Starr said, staring up to the ceiling with his sky-blue eyes that
drove the women wild. “Splatter your worthless brains all over the wall? Isn’t
that something of a cliché? And Tandy here, would she really be whispering for
me to kill him? She’s a corn-fed stripper from the Midwest, not a cold-blooded
killer.”
I bit the inside of my cheeks to stop
myself from responding and took a sip of coffee, cold and tasting every bit as
old as it smelled. I counted the blinks of the waiting cursor of my laptop. The
damned thing had mocked me far too often over the last couple of weeks. I hated
it.
“Jesus Christ, Starr,” Tandy said,
breaking the silence. She hated interruptions in the action and Starr did this with
painful regularity. Dropping her hand from his shoulder, she tugged in frustration
at her mane of blonde hair. Her hand got caught in a sticky mess of hairspray
and gaudy costume jewelry she thought was real. “The guy held me hostage for
three days and beat the shit out of me.”
“Two days,” Starr said, helping free her
hand. “Genius here forgot to change the timeline in Chapter Twenty. And for
being held hostage, you look awfully goddamn good.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing, Princess. I would think after
such a trying ordeal, you wouldn’t look as if you just stepped off the cover of
Pole Dancer’s Weekly.”
Tandy scowled. “You rotten bastard. It’s
Valentine’s Day, and you’re gonna talk to me like that?”
Starr pumped his broad shoulders. “I got
you a card. What the hell else do you want?”
“You never gave me no card,” she said.
“And I gave you a key.”
“To your apartment. Big deal. You just
want me to come by for sex.”
“Actually,” I said in a futile attempt to
broker some peace between the two, “it is a big deal. In 18th
century Europe, Saint Valentine’s Keys were given by lovers as an invitation to
unlock each other’s hearts. It’s a romantic symbol.”
Tandy softened, adorning a doe-eyed
expression like she just saw the world’s cutest puppy. “Awww, is that what you
meant with the key, Nick?”
“Sure,” Starr said, flashing his capped teeth.
“Let’s go with that.” Idiot. The smile melted from Tandy’s face.
“You’re such a goddamn liar.”
“Guys, chill,” I said. If those two
started fighting, they might not stop. “Can we get back to the book? I’ll fix
it.”
I jotted a note on a pad next to my laptop.
“And,” Starr continued. “You used the word
trigger twice in two consecutive sentences in the opening paragraph. You sound
like an amateur, not a best-selling New York Times author.”
“It’s a draft, but I’ll fix it,” I repeated.
Best-selling New York Times author. That tagline used to sell a lot of
paperbacks. But, an author is only as good as his last book and my last book
wasn’t that great. I knew it and my publisher knew it. No doubt the added
pressure to make this one special led to my writer’s block.
“And you jumped stream of consciousness,”
Tandy said, her Brooklyn accent as thick as sludge. “You jumped from Starr’s
head to Demarco’s.”
I gritted my teeth. “I got it.”
“Starr’s right though,” Tandy said, adjusting
her new fake breasts so they fit in the skin-tight, red-sequined dress. She
pulled out a compact mirror and wiped a smudge of lipstick from her teeth. “This
does feel cliché. I mean, the cop falling in love with the stripper who is
kidnapped by the bad guy who, very conveniently, happens to be the same guy who
killed his brother.”
“I told him that in the last chapter,”
Starr said.
I sighed. “It’s called a plot twist, you
morons.”
“No,” Starr said, grabbing the mirror from
Tandy, checking his image in the reflection, smoothing back his soap opera star
blonde hair. “It’s called you can’t figure out how to get yourself out of the
corner you painted yourself into with this weak-ass storyline.”
“It’s not weak.”
“Tell that to the critics of our last
little adventure. But, whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal,” Starr said. He
handed the mirror back to Tandy, crossed his arms and leaned against the frame
of a nearby rack, waiting.
I rocked back in my office chair and
rubbed my eyes, my head thumping like a drum. I’d been writing for ten hours
straight. And not writing very well. My deadline loomed with the sun which
would crest the city skyline in seven short hours. The finished manuscript of Crimson
Heart, the latest novel of the Cold Metal series in hand or I could find
another publisher. Since Valentine’s Day played such a central role in the
book, my publisher thought having February 14th for a deadline would be poetic.
Dickhead.
Starr waited with uncharacteristic
patience, staring up at me like my frustrated face beamed from the warehouse ceiling.
Tandy slinked to a chair and plopped to the wooden seat. The painted-on dress wouldn’t
allow her to sit with any measure of grace. She struggled to cross her long,
slim legs and lit a cigarette. Demarco looked bored and picked at his
fingernails.
“Just do the scene the way I wrote it,” I
said to my laptop.
“I can’t, man,” Starr said. “It’s garbage.
This whole premise is ludicrous. One, we still don’t know where the Crimson
Heart is and Demarco is the only one who does. Two, I can’t kill this guy in
cold blood. You’ve been cleaning up my renegade image for the last two books.
My fans won’t like me plugging this guy.”
“What the hell are you talking about? He
killed your freaking brother. And what fans?”
“I’m the star of your book, dude. You
can’t make me do something that completely goes against my character.”
I laughed. “The star of the book? You’re
delusional.”
“No, you’re delusional. Everyone loves
me,” Starr said.
“Of course,” I said. “That must be why ‘A
Derek Stone Novel’ sits under every one of the fourteen titles in the series,
you conceited prick.”
A warm hand draped on my shoulder, fingers
long and delicate. With her other hand, my wife set a fresh, steaming cup of
coffee on the table next to my laptop. She smelled like her lilac bath beads.
“You’re talking to them again,” she said.
“That’s not a good sign. What’s the problem?”
I looked over my shoulder. Her long, raven
hair was still wet. Light twinkled in her emerald eyes and a wry smile crept
across her thin lips. After ten years of marriage, she was more beautiful than
the day we met.
“The problem is it’s Valentine’s Day and
I’m sitting in front of my laptop instead of rolling around in bed with you.”
She grinned. “You bought me dinner.”
“Take-out Chinese doesn’t count. You
deserve more.”
“And you made me that pretty, homemade
card.”
“The honey’s sweet,” I sang. “And so are
you. Thou art my love and I am thine. I drew thee to my Valentine.”
She wrapped her arm around my neck and
kissed my temple, soft like a whisper. “You make that up?”
“English nursery rhyme from the 1700’s.
Sorry. Does it turn you on?”
“You had me at thine. So what’s the
problem with the book?”
“Starr is being an asshole,” I said.
“Kill him off,” she said, straightening.
“I never liked the guy anyway.”
“Yeah, right,” Starr spoke from the laptop.
Of course, she couldn’t hear it. “You can’t kill me, sweetheart.”
I paused. “He’s right. I can’t kill him
off.”
“Why not?” my wife asked. “The book is
great so far. He’s just a sidekick to Detective Stone, anyway. You could kill
him off. There’s your plot twist.”
“A sidekick?” Starr asked. “You’re such a bitch.”
I opened my mouth to say something and
then closed it.
“What?” my wife asked.
“He called you a bitch,” I said.
She slapped me on the shoulder. Hard. “Don’t
call me that!”
“I didn’t. Starr did.”
“You tell the son of a…” She trailed off,
stepped away from the table and raised her hands in the air. She chuckled and
not in a good way. “You know, it creeps the shit out of me when you do this.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to them like they’re alive. I’m
afraid I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and you’ll be hovering
over the bed with an ax in your hand saying ‘Starr said I have to kill you’.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Starr said. I
slammed the laptop shut.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“You don’t want to know and I don’t want
to get hit again.” Grabbing her by the waist, I pulled her close. With my face
buried in her chest, the silky robe cool and smooth against my face, I kissed
her breast bone, hard and fast, then planted two more in the nape of her neck,
softer and slower. The spot always made her quiver. I locked my hands around
her waist and gazed into her eyes.
“I will never, ever kill you with an ax,”
I whispered. “You know how I hate the sight of blood. I’ll poison you slowly
with something that isn’t traceable back to me.”
“Asshole,” she said, smiling. Whatever my
shortcomings, I could make her laugh. “Don’t stay up too late. I might have a
special Valentine’s Day present for you.”
She kissed my forehead and broke away. I admired
the view as she crossed the kitchen and headed down the hall toward our
bedroom. Forty-two with two kids and she still had the ass of a twenty-year-old
stripper.
“Yeah, she does,” Starr said, his voice
muffled. I opened the laptop. Starr and Tandy hadn’t moved, but Demarco was gone.
“Where’d Demarco go?” I asked.
“You tell me, lover boy,” Starr said,
smoothing out the wrinkles in the navy suit I put him in. He looked fabulous.
“It’s your world. We just live in it. So, what the hell are you gonna do now?”
As Starr brushed his suit, I realized how
much I loved his character. He was everything I wasn’t. Bold and brash, with an
iron jaw and razor sharp wit. The ladies loved him and the mob feared him. He
was the perfect complement to my main character, Detective Derek Stone. Tonto
with an attitude. How could I kill him off?
But, I was in a major pickle. I’d sat for
weeks in front of my laptop, unsure where to go with the story. The complicated
plot made balancing everyone’s motives and agendas nearly impossible. Criss-crossing
lines and arrows covered a storyboard on the wall of my office, such a mess
even I couldn’t follow it anymore. Every idea I came up with to advance past
this major plot point of finding the elusive Crimson Heart didn’t work or would
require a complete rewrite, and I didn’t have that kind of time.
As much as I hated to admit it, Starr was spot
on. I had painted myself in a corner, but I couldn’t let him be right. The
prick would hold it over me for years to come.
I spun in my chair and studied the storyboard.
After a moment, something clicked. With Demarco gone from the scene, the plot
twist eluding me snapped into place like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I
jumped to my feet in front of the storyboard, working the idea through, tracing
lines with my finger from scene to scene, character to character. I grinned. It
would work. It was right.
I dropped back in my chair to decimate the
blinking cursor. Starr saw it coming. His baby blues narrowed as he worked
through the idea, then widened like saucers at the implications.
“No,” he breathed. “You can’t.”
“I’m afraid I can, big boy. As much as I
hate to do it, I think it’s for the best.”
“He’s too likeable,” Tandy offered,
twirling a lock of her thick, blonde hair with her free hand. She thought it made
her look sexy.
“You’re right,” I said. “Any ideas?”
“Remember the dog he rescued in Chapter
Five?” she asked, raising her plucked eyebrows. “Maybe he didn’t rescue it.”
I grinned. I moved the mouse to the slider
bar on the screen and scrolled back sixty thousand words to the scene in the
alley. Stone and Starr had beaten the crap out of a delegation of gang members
and a stray mutt cowered next to a trash can. I deleted the paragraph where
Starr scoops up the dog and takes it to the shelter, and added a couple of
lines. I scrolled back to the warehouse scene. Starr stood, his eyes shut,
twitching rapidly under closed lids. He looked like Neo in the Matrix receiving
new data. Data received. His eyes snapped open.
“I kicked the dog?” he said, mouth
unhinged, eyes blown wide.
“He pissed on your brand-new, two hundred
dollar Italian shoes.”
“But, I kicked him?”
“People hate douchebags who abuse
animals,” I said.
“You’re a dick.”
I wasn’t finished. I needed to plant one
more seed for the plot twist to work. I scrolled back to Chapter Fifteen. A
scene where Detective Stone leaves his trusted partner, Starr, to safe-guard
Tandy and her twin sister from the mob while he tracked down a lead on the
location of the Crimson Heart. My fingers pounded out a fresh five-hundred and
thirteen words on the keyboard. I scrolled back to the bottom of the book.
Tandy and Starr twitched. When their eyes opened, Starr’s mouth hung ajar.
Tandy’s eyes blazed. She climbed to her feet, clicked her stilettos across the
concrete floor and slapped Starr across his iron jaw.
“You slept with my sister? You son of a
bitch!”
“No, this isn’t right,” Starr said. “I
didn’t do it.”
“Actually, you did,” I said.
“We’ve still got an issue with the Crimson
Heart,” Tandy said, turning in disgust from Starr.
Everyone in the book, both good and bad
guys, and folks that walked the precarious tight-rope in between, were after
the Crimson Heart. An item of untold fortune locked in an impenetrable box only
opened by a single key. Nobody knew what the Crimson Heart actually was, but it
didn’t stop them from killing people for it. The matter of plausibly getting
the key into the right hands had proven tricky. Now it was perfect —— the key, Valentine’s
Day, the Crimson Heart. It was fucking poetic.
“I
got it,” I said, the tumblers clicking into place, my heartrate escalating with
excitement. “Starr stole the necklace Tandy’s grandmother gave her on her
deathbed to pay for his gambling debts.”
“I don’t gamble. I went to Gambler’s
Anonymous two books ago.”
He was right. I scrolled back to Chapter
Twenty, a scene where Stone and Starr rescue Tandy from the clutches of the mob
in the back of the casino. I added a couple of lines, and scrolled to the
bottom.
“You relapsed. You like craps, but you
suck at it. The necklace had a special key on it.”
“Yes,” Tandy said, nodding. “The key to
the Crimson Heart. I like it.”
“This is such bullshit,” Starr said, his
lip curled. He pointed the gun in his hand to the warehouse ceiling, toward me.
“I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you kill me off like some piss ant
secondary character. I’m Nick Fucking Starr.”
I laughed. “What are you going to do?
Shoot me? Go ahead.”
Starr let loose a primeval scream and emptied
the revolver. The barrel flashed and the thunderous echoes of the shots bounced
around the warehouse. He pulled the trigger several more times, the revolver cylinder
quietly clicking.
“Feel better?” I asked.
Starr thumped in a chair, the smoking gun
hanging between his knees. The bullets were gone and so was his resolve. “I
can’t believe you’re doing this to me. You love me.”
“I do,” I said, knowing I had to write the
scene, but not wanting to at the same time. “You don’t know how hard this is
for me.”
My fingers rattled on the keyboard, a blur
of prose finalizing the scene in the warehouse. It felt good to break through
the writer’s-block dam and into the zone where all in the writing world was
right, those flailing loose threads tying neatly together. Starr and Tandy
jumped to life in front of me. A great cliff hanger the audience wouldn’t see
coming. It even set up the next Cold Metal novel perfectly.
Starr was now bound to the chair by tight
ropes. Tandy retrieved a gun from her purse and advanced on Starr, tears
welling in her eyes as she pointed the weapon. She did love him, after all. Ironically,
Starr gave her the piece for protection back in Chapter Eight – an untraceable,
snub-nose .38.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, baby,” Tandy said,
a tear drawing a line through her heavy makeup.
Starr struggled against his bonds, but
only because I told him to. The hopeless resignation to his inevitable demise
flashed in his eyes.
“I do love you, Starr,” I said. “But,
sometimes you gotta kill your darlings.”
I typed the final line, and Tandy pulled
the trigger.
THE
END
October 4, 2018
Jake and Bear at the Movies
Author Note: Since these Jake and Bear are reasonably fresh off nabbing the bad guys in Ares Road and are about to embark on another adventure with a couple of deadly Russian spies in Blackbird Road, it might be a good time to check in with them before the action gets too heavy. I’ll have to say they both kind of bitched and moaned about doing a blog stop, but acquiesced when I threatened to have them both shot in the crotch in the next book if they didn’t do it. Okay fellas, for the sake of your future relationship with your loved ones, give us your top five favorite movies. GO!
Jake – #5 – Dances with Wolves
JAKE: I love this 1990 Western movie starring Kevin Costner, especially the director’s cut even though it’s like four hours long. The score is amazing as is the cinematography. A story about a soldier in search of himself who finds a home among the savage Indians. I can still say his name in Sioux – Sunkmanitu Tanka Ob Waci.
BEAR: Jesus, you’re a dork. You trying to be one of those critic guys? Yeah, this movie is pretty decent. The best character in it is that Indian named Wind in His Hair. That dude was badass. Not a bad pick, Caldwell.
Bear – #5 – The Outlaw Josey Wales
BEAR: Okay, we’ll stick with the Western theme and I’ll go with good ole Clint Eastwood in the 1976 classic The Outlaw Josey Wales. For having such an awful first name of Josey, this movie about a Missouri farmer whose family gets slaughtered by a bunch of soldiers during the Civil War and takes his revenge with a pair of six shooters is just bad ass. Whupped ‘em again, didn’t we Josey?
JAKE: Whupped ‘em again, boy. Yeah, my father Stony and I watched this movie all the time when I was a kid. It was one of the few things he seemed to enjoy out of life besides drinking and shooting pool. Good pick.
Jake – #4 – Fight Club
JAKE: My number four pick is the classic 1999 film Fight Club with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt about a couple of dudes, well kind of a couple, who start an underground fighting ring as a weird way to get back to the basics. Their ring involves into some major mayhem and it’s a real mind-bender ending, but brilliant.
BEAR: That one was a little deep for me. I don’t want to have to think that damn hard watching a movie.
JAKE: You freaking fell asleep a fourth of the way through it, so I’m not sure you’re qualified to say shit about it. It’s a great flick.
BEAR: If you say so. Admit it. You just like watching Brad Pitt with his shirt off.
JAKE: The dude was ripped for that movie. I’d love to have those abs.
BEAR: You really worry me sometimes.
Bear – #4 – Hell or High Water
BEAR: My number four pick is the 2016 film Hell or High Water starring that dude who was in the new Star Trek movies and Jeff Bridges. It’s about a couple of brothers robbing banks in Texas and Jeff Bridges is a Texas Ranger and is just freaking brilliant in it. What the hell was that other guy’s name in it?
JAKE: Chris Pine.
BEAR: Yeah, that’s right. Bridges was up for an Oscar for it and lost to the guy in that movie Moonlight that everyone went gaga about.
JAKE: Moonlight sucked goat balls.
BEAR: I agree. The first third of it was pretty good and then it went off the rails. Hell or High Water is fantastic and I still say Bridges got screwed.
Jake – #3 – Pulp Fiction
JAKE: I just watched this 1994 classic again last week and it is, by far, Tarantino’s best work. Such a mind blowing way to put a movie together and the cast is incredible. I mean, who is not in that movie?
BEAR: Jeff Bridges.
JAKE: But, you have John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Ving Rhames, Harvey Keitel and a shit load of other people. So many classic lines in that. I love it.
BEAR: It was weird. I mean, that whole bring out the gimp scene? That was messed up, man. Decent film, but not one of my favorites.
Bear – #3 – Rocky
BEAR: My number three pick is the winner for best picture back in 1976 – the classic underdog story Rocky. Rocky is a debt collector working for a Mafioso type dude who is given a shot at the heavy weight boxing championship of the world. Debt collecting for a mafia guy, you can relate to that, right?
JAKE: You really took it there? Asshole.
BEAR: This is one of those movies that if it’s on TV, you have to stop what you’re doing and watch it.
JAKE: Agree. Very solid pick.
Jake – #2 – Unforgiven
JAKE: My number two best movie is another Western – Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood. It is, without a doubt, the greatest Western of all time. I think it won Best Picture and Best Director back in 1992. Clint is awesome as William Munny, an ex-outlaw gunslinging killer who has changed his ways, but gets sucked back into it to collect a bounty on some woman raping rednecks. Plus, it has Morgan Freeman in it and that is always a plus.
BEAR: Agree. This is a fantastic movie, but name anything Eastwood’s done that isn’t awesome.
JAKE: Honkeytonk Man where he’s the singer. That movie blew.
BEAR: Oh yeah. Think I blocked that one out. And the fact that he put that Sandra Locke in almost everything. I never understood why he did that.
JAKE: He was sleeping with her.
BEAR: Oh. That makes sense, I guess.
Bear – #2 – The Shawshank Redemption
BEAR: My number two best movie of all time is the 1994 prison break movie The Shawshank Redemption about a banker wrongfully imprisoned for murdering his wife and his lover. And bonus, it’s another Morgan Freeman movie. If you haven’t seen this movie, there’s something seriously wrong with you.
JAKE: You asshole. That was my number one pick.
BEAR: Weaver never said we couldn’t have the same ones. At least we agreed it is one of the best movies of all time.
JAKE: You’re always trying to steal my thunder.
BEAR: Get over it, you big baby.
Jake – #1 – Shawshank Redemption
JAKE: Guess you all already know what my number one is so not much more to say.
BEAR: Heh heh.
Bear – #1 – Jaws
BEAR: My number one is the 1975 adventure film by Stephen Spielberg about a giant ass shark terrorizing a town in New England. Even though it made me not want to ever go into the ocean, it is a classic. Robert Shaw is my favorite and the scene where he tells his tale of being on the USS Indianapolis is one of the best movie scenes ever.
JAKE: Did you know he was completely hammered when he did that scene?
BEAR: No shit?
JAKE: Best monologue in any movie ever.
Jake – Sleeper Pick – End of Watch
JAKE: My sleeper pick is the cop drama End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal from 2012. I just saw this one the other day and don’t even remember it being in the theaters. But, Gyllenhaal plays a South Central LA cop along with Michael Pena. It’s shot kind of like an episode of Cops. It’s incredibly intense and I was completely blown away how much I liked this movie.
BEAR: I agree. Great movie. Audrey couldn’t handle it though. Too intense and too many f-bombs dropped in it.
JAKE: Like she hasn’t heard you say that every other word before.
BEAR: I think I heard it was like the seventh most uses of the f-word in any movie ever. Still, great sleeper pick.
Bear – Sleeper Pick – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
BEAR: My sleeper pick is another oldie, the 1975 nuthouse classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. He plays Randle P. McMurphy who is pretty much a shithead and fakes being mentally ill so he can get out of his prison detail. They send him to this institution ran with an iron fist by this tight-ass Nurse Ratched and his whole plan tragically backfires. Love this movie.
JAKE: Heard of it, but never saw it.
BEAR: Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you? How can you not have seen this?
JAKE: I read the book by Ken Kesey. Didn’t think I needed to see it.
BEAR: There’s a book?
JAKE: Yeah, you dumb galoot. A lot of great movies are based off books.
BEAR: Like, what else?
JAKE: The Shawshank Redemption. Based on a novella by Stephen King. Jaws based on the novel by Peter Benchley.
BEAR: No shit? I need to read more.
JAKE: You said it, not me.
September 26, 2018
Dr. Death – A Must Listen Podcast Series!
Holy shit. That’s the phrase I kept repeating to myself while listening to the new podcast series Dr. Death from Wondery and journalist Laura Biel, a former Dallas Morning News reporter. The podcast covers the life, shocking ineptitude and fall of Christopher Duntsch, a sociopathic neurosurgeon who managed to kill and maim patients in hospitals around North Texas.
Biel narrates the podcast and mixes in plenty of testimony from those affected by Christopher Duntsch resulting in a compelling listening experience. If you’re like me and listen to podcasts while commuting, Dr. Death will leave you sitting in your garage or the parking lot waiting to for the current episode to end and anxious to hop back in your car to catch the next one.
It’s the true story of surgeon with a serious God complex who never should have been put in the position to harm people in the first place. Moreover, it’s a story of the systematic failure of a hospital and legal system that’s supposed to protect its patients and citizens and horrifically fails to do so time and time again.
You will whip through the six episodes in no time and I challenge you not to let your jaw drop. Check it out.
June 25, 2018
Goliath – Season 2 Review (2.5 out of 5)
Finished watching Season 2 of Amazon’s Goliath and have to say I’m pretty damn disappointed. Season 1 was brilliant with Billy Bob Thornton playing the lead role of alcoholic and chain-smoking lawyer Billy McBride. Season 1 was fantastic and full of great characters with a compelling plot and I was stoked for another round.
Season 2 starts off promising before falling completely apart. The plot centers around an innocent kid accused of the murder of two drug dealers. Billy McBride comes to the kid’s rescue and pulls in his cast of supporting characters determined to prove the kid innocent amid a bevvy of dirty cops, a corrupt real estate tycoon, a ruthless limb-chopping Mexican drug cartel and a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose victory could unlock everything the bad guys want…unless McBride proves the kid innocent. Everything was set up for a binge-worthy follow-up to a season I loved.
The Good: Billy Bob Thornton is great as our hero. I love his demeanor and snappy comebacks – you just want this guy to win. I really grew to love Nina Arienda as McBride’s fellow legal counsel Patty Solis-Papagian. Arienda is great in the show and finally shows some nice moments of vulnerability. The gorgeous Tania Raymonde makes the good list as well, though I’m sure she wondered what the hell she did to the writers for them to make her character do such stupid shit. Diana Hopper as McBride’s offspring Denise is quite good as well playing the role of the concerned daughter until the writers throw in a random drunk scene with her at the end. And how can you not love seeing Lou Diamond Phillips – the guy is solid as a rock though his screen time is limited. Also good is the first half of the season which progresses the plot along nicely and kept me clicking the next episode button on my Roku stick.
The Bad and the Ugly: The second half of the season is just freaking weird. The supporting characters become more unbearably over the top than they were in the first half. The dirty cop loses his shit too often, the political lackey can’t stop eating and chewing through his lines and the real estate mogul is an amputee-masturbating freak in bad clothes. And if you want to see comedian David Cross in the stupidest mop wig ever, now’s your chance. I was willing to overlook the bad characters, but the second half of the season just drags along and barely limps across the finish line in episodes seven and eight.
All in all – I give Season 2 of Goliath 2.5 stars out of 5, but I wish the writers would have focused more on the initially promising storyline and characters than trying to gross out and shock the viewers. Though I’m disappointed, I will give Season 3 a shot for Billy Bob and the memory of Season 1.
SPOILERS BELOW: IF YOU PLAN ON WATCHING SEASON 2, STOP HERE! I just want to know if other viewers who have seen the show have the same questions as I do. Feel free to reply.
What happened to the Chinese girl after Episode 7? McBride just shoves the blood covered damsel off for protection to random strangers in a Mexican border town and that’s it?
For an alcoholic and chain-smoker, McBride can run for miles and hop fences without even getting winded. Pretty amazing.
Anyone else bothered by the fact that after McBride barely escapes death, he just popped back over the border without a problem and just waltzed up to the house of the drug lord that tried to kill him accompanied only by Patty?
How in the hell did McBride just happen to find Wyatt’s secret kitchen so they could have their little chat?
How did Roman, while under police protection and about to roll over on a major Mexican drug cartel, only be guarded by one guy and just happen to get away to meet Danny?
Did Brittany, at any point, not get freaked out by Wyatt’s amputee fetish? I know she’s an ex-escort and all, but what the hell?
Billy’s daughter gets all liquored up, crashes into a bunch of parked cars and is screaming like a drunken lunatic outside a mayoral candidate’s office packed with people, the police show up and she doesn’t get arrested? She just leaves with Billy like nothing happened. Really?
There’s more questions, but I’ll leave it at that.
Rebecca Carpenter’s Butterfly Blood Cover Reveal!
Butterfly Blood (Metamorphosis #2)
by Rebecca L. Carpenter
Genre: YA Sci-fi
Release Date: August 2018
Lakewater Press
Summary:
A sixteen-year-old girl who cheated death continues her fight for survival as she goes up against real-life monsters, desperate for her unique blood, while risking everything to reunite with the love of her life, who is battling his own soul-sucking demons.
Pre-order on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DYLLVDX/
The first book in the Metamorphosis series, Butterfly Bones, has a redesign!
BUTTERFLY BONES AMAZON US: https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Bones-Coming-Age-METAMORPHOSIS-ebook/dp/B01M1E9854/
BUTTEFLY BONES B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/butterfly-bones-rebecca-carpenter/1124807692?ean=9780994451170
BUTTERFLY BONES GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30315620-butterfly-bones?ac=1&from_search=true
An excerpt from BUTTERFLY BLOOD:
Darkness consumes him.
Choking.
Suffocating.
His lungs burn as if they’ve been lit on fire.
He reaches out for something.
Anything.
But nothing is familiar.
The smells.
The sounds.
The voices.
And he can’t feel anything.
Except numbness.
Someone speaks.
But it’s a foreign language.
Foreign and muffled.
Light enters his brain, blinding and as painful as staring into the sun.
The brightness grows, with it the sharpness of a thousand needles.
He wants to scream.
He opens his mouth to scream.
But only a weak cry slips over his parched lips.
So dry.
So dry.
The light retracts.
Darkness slithers toward him, coiling up his leg …
Moving ever so slowly until it reaches his mouth and slips inside.
And all he wants to do is drink it up.
So thirsty.
So thirsty.
About the Author
Rebecca Carpenter is a native of western Colorado. She is married with two grown children and has been blessed with four amazing grandchildren. She owns and directs a large childcare center where she shares her love for books. In her spare time, she freelances as a copy editor, helping others attain their writing dreams. She finds solace and clarity while spending time with her husband exploring the beautiful mountains of Colorado.
Author Links:
Cover Reveal Organized By:
June 9, 2018
Book Review – The Outsider by Stephen King
When the beloved hometown baseball coach is arrested in the middle of the big game for the horrific murder and mutilation of a child, the police are sure they’ve got their man. The evidence is overwhelmingly against him including fingerprints and DNA all over the crime scene. They are rock solid in their certainty until it turns out the evidence is equally overwhelming that the coach was over seventy miles away at a very public event at the time of the murder leaving them to wonder, how can the same man be in two places at once?
King has hit a home run in this page turner that I ripped through in a matter of days. The characters are compelling and he pulls in a favorite from the Mr. Mercedes series for an extended stay in the story. The only downfall was the ending which I thought was a bit formulaic for him. I won’t give it away, but if you’ve read King’s works, I think you’ll recognize the locale from a few other books. Still, this is a definite must read for King fans or anyone wanting to dip their toes in his supernatural yarns.
May 30, 2018
Book Review: A Falling Friend
I just finished A Forsaken Friend, the second book in the Friends triology and sequel to last year’s A Falling Friend by Sue Featherstone and Susan Pape. The story follows Teri and Lee as they continue their tumultuous friendship.
Teri is a mess after losing her job at the university and her allowance from her father when his business partner runs off with the money. Now she’s scrambling to find her place in the world with a series of not so good decisions regarding men and finances.
Lee seemingly has it all going with her love life looking up, albeit with her BFF’s ex-husband, but a family crisis and Teri’s lack of support has everything whirling.
A Forsaken Friend is really a humorous and enjoyable tale told from alternating perspectives of two lifelong friends who both love and can’t stand each other. Pape and Featherstone do a masterful job of depicting the same scenes from two different perspectives, yet making each fresh and new.
If you enjoyed A Falling Friend (which I did), you really need to read A Forsaken Friend because it’s actually a better book. If you haven’t read either, then get busy. It’s labeled as “chick-lit”, but anyone who enjoys flawed and real characters thrown into chaos will like this one. Check it out.
OFFICIAL BOOK SUMMARY:
No-one said friendship was easy.
Things can’t get much worse for Teri Meyer. If losing her job at the university and the regular allowance from her dad’s factory isn’t bad enough, now her ex-best friend has gone and stolen her ex-husband! Well, to hell with them all. A few weeks in the countryside at her brother’s smallholding should do the trick – and the gorgeous and god-like neighbour might help.
But then there’s Declan, not to mention Duck’s Arse back in Yorkshire…
It’s not as if Lee Harper set out to fall in love with her best friend’s ex-husband. But, for once, her love life is looking up – except for all the elephants in the room, not to mention Mammy’s opinion on her dating a twice-divorced man. Perhaps things aren’t as rosy as she first thought. And now with one family crisis after another, Lee’s juggling more roles – and emotions – than she ever imagined.
Maybe sharing her life with a man wasn’t such a grand idea.
The FRIENDS trilogy continues in this heart-warming and hilarious hoot as two best friends navigate men, careers, family and rock bottom in this brilliant sequel to A FALLING FRIEND.
February 14, 2018
Book Review – Dead Man’s Badge by Robert E. Dunn
I just finished Dead Man’s Badge by Robert E. Dunn and wow…what a ride!
Dunn hooked me right from the opening paragraph – “Nothing is easy—not even dying. At least for me it wasn’t. The half hour spent digging my own grave in the glare of headlights and the cold of a desert night was literally the hardest work of my life.”
Dunn’s novel follows Longview Moody, a money runner for a Mexican drug cartel, who ends up on the wrong end of a shovel. Though Moody is career criminal, Dunn crafts his character well and you can’t help but like the guy. While running from those who forced him to dig his own shallow grave, Moody assumes his murdered twin brother’s identity and ends up as the Chief of Police in a middle-of-nowhere Texas town terrorized by the Mexican cartels. Those in the town, including our own government agents, don’t expect their new arrival to rock the boat, but Moody has other plans.
The book is well-paced and evolves into quite a page turner in the second half. The characters are rich and their web of loyalties complex. Who are the good guys and will Moody figure it out before it’s too late? You’ll have to read this excellent book to find out.
December 17, 2017
Holiday Blog Hop – The Amazing Rebecca Carpenter
The next stop on the Lakewater Holiday Blog Hop is the amazing Rebecca Carpenter. This insightful and talented Colorado gal is not only a great author, but has a keen editorial eye that I’ve come to admire. Learn a bit more about her below and enter for a chance to win some Lakewater Press books!
For the holiday season, we at Lakewater Press thought it would be a good time to share who we are with a little holiday blog hop.
Between December 1 and the 24th we’ll share holiday interviews with our authors and the Lakewater Press staff. It’s an excellent opportunity for us to get to know each other a little better, and to give our readers a peek behind the scenes–or pages!
Perhaps you’ll even find a new blog to follow, or your next favorite book!
(Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for our holiday giveaway!!)
Today’s interviewee:
Name and LWP affiliation: Rebecca Carpenter, author of Metamorphosis Trilogy & Copy Editor for Lakewater Press
Your blog (url): www.thecaterpillargirl.wordpress.com
Where do you live? In the state of craziness and senility. But if you must have a physical place, Grand Junction, Colorado (the western slope of Colorado) is where I’ve called home my entire life. As a matter of fact, the hospital where I was born later became an Alzheimer’s unit where I worked in my late teens. Is it an omen? I don’t think I can base anything off …where was I going with this thought?
What are your chances of having snow on Christmas Day? I’d say there’s about a 50/50 chance for snow on Christmas day. But I’d sure like to increase those odds. If only the weather would cooperate. So far, Grand Junction is three inches below our average rainfall for the year. Anybody own a cloud-seeding machine? We could use some moisture over here. I’m feeling pretty scaly and itchy, and I’m sure I’m going to shed my skin any day now. Maybe if we all sing a song, Mother Nature will oblige. Sing it with me:
Hello Winter, what do you say?
Are you gonna bring us some snow today?
White and pretty and sparkly too.
So we can build a snowman and go sledding too.
Hello Winter, what do you say?
Please bring us some snow today!
One inches, two inches, just won’t do.
We need at least four to close all the schools.
Snow day, hurray!
Do you have any favorite holiday traditions? Opening one present on Christmas Eve, and after we open presents on Christmas day I make a big brunch and we chill the rest of the day watching favorite Christmas movies like “The Family Man,” “Die Hard,” and of course, “A Christmas Story.” Hubby will inevitably take an afternoon nap, and I sit down with my laptop and write.
Egg nog: Yes or No? Jingle my bells, yes!!! Fill her up!
Are you an artistic gift wrapper or a basic “paper & tape” warrior? When I first start wrapping presents, I’m a wrapping-paper connoisseur, so talented I could apply for a position at the North Pole. And I tape the crap out the gift—no one will peek on my watch. But by the end of the present-wrapping swaray , I just slap that crap on and say to heck with it. It’s all going to be ripped off in two seconds anyway, so what’s the point? To be honest, I much prefer gift bags. Simple. Easy. No skill required.
Do you have any special holiday memories that include books? Are there any specific titles you remember? Every year, before we could open gifts, my mom or dad read the story of the First Christmas. One year I received “Tiger’s Eye” for Christmas. I loved that book and read it over and over and over until the spine broke and pages started coming loose.
What is your earliest book-related memory? I grew up in a religious family, and my parents read the Bible with us every night 
before bed. But I also remember my dad reading “Great Expectations” to us when I was maybe six or seven.
Do you write/work during the holidays? I run a large child care center/preschool and work year round, only closing for major holidays. I use every opportunity to write over the holidays, and I look forward to the large block of time to channel my muse. Some of my best writing occurs during the holidays because I can write uninterrupted. Bring on the holidays. Bring on the creativity. Bring on the writing.
Can you share what you’re working on now? Right now I’m working on book three in the Metamorphosis Series, a young adult contemporary science fiction, but I haven’t decided on a title yet. I’m continuing the dual point of views from book two, and I am excited to tie up some loose ends, throw in a few unexpected plot twists, and finish the series. Will Jeremiah and Bethany end up together? Can a first love be forever?
I’m also revising a middle grade contemporary that takes the reader on a journey through a young girl’s interpretation of her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease. With humor and heartbreak, this book is one of my favorites so far.
What are your goals for 2018? Release the second book in the Metamorphosis Trilogy, Butterfly Blood.
Laugh more. Live more. Love more. And get more sleep.
And I’d like to take a tap dance class.
I also hope to do a better job with promotion and marketing, and finish Butterfly Bones book three, as well as query the middle grade.
Links to all the Lakewater Press participating blogs:
Enter the Lakewater Press giveaway for your chance to win a book of your choice (5 winners to be selected):
