Cathy Perkins's Blog, page 129

A little busy lately...

I’ve been a little busy lately. Okay, a lot busy, but in the best way. My latest Mendenhall Mystery, The Untethered Woman, is finally out, I’m happy to report. Here's the blurb:
A phone call sends Kate Williams, chief of police of the tiny Manitoba town of Mendenhall, rushing home to Quebec to deal with the hit-and-run accident that put her mother in the hospital.
The more questions she asks, however, the more she suspects that the accident wasn’t really an accident. Investigating outside her o...

Let’s Talk About Book Covers

 I think most authors have a love—hate relationship with covers. We love it when we get a good one, but hate it when the cover goes wrong. Authors are hyperaware that bad cover can sink a book before it even gets opened and one word read. So, it's naturally a touchy subject for most of us.
Back in the day, authors got very little input into covers. We were truly at the mercy of our publishers. I’ve heard more horror stories than I could ever repeat in just this one column. There are many...

Thankful for Words

For Americans, next week is Thanksgiving, a day when we express our gratitude for the people and comforts in our lives, typically celebrated with a feast, a symbol of bounty and sharing what we have with others.

But what other bounties do we celebrate? Beyond food, I'm grateful for shelter and clothing. Health and wealth (or at least enough to survive comfortably). These are the concrete or physical, measurable things that often spring to mind when I consider what I'm thankful for. There are a...

New Release, and Interview with Cover Model, Jason Baca

I thought I'd try something a little different today--first up, I'd be remiss not to say my newest book, COLD LIGHT OF DAY released yesterday and this afternoon I'm having a fabulous Facebook Party with lots of stunning guests (Catherine ByBee, Leah Braemel, Allison Brennan, Lori Ryan, Maureen Miller, Julie Moffett, Rachel Grant, Melinda Leigh, Kendra Elliot, Kathy Altman, and M.A. Comley) and prizes! Come join us HERE.

Physicist Scarlett Stone is the daughter of the man considered to be...

Mama Rita’s Holiday Advice.

RELAX. STOP STRESSING. STOP listening to the media telling you everything has to be perfect. It doesn’t! I just used an exclamation point and I never use them.My mother was the East Coast distributor of guilt and I grew up thinking everything had to be perfect.  Of course, for her, it never was. And more important it doesn’t have to be. Honest.I eventually (yes, I am a slow learner) learned it wasn’t about the decorations, table settings, and the right gifts. It was the fun of being with...

Homophones, Typos and Spellcheck Oh My!

This post is geared to anyone who's ever had to write something that someone else is going to read. How many times do you reread something before you turn it in, or hit send? Do you give it a cursory glance or do you scour it for mistakes?

I can only vouch for myself when I say that I obsess over anything I write. Does that mean my manuscripts and emails and texts go error free. HA! Hardly. It just means I'm a Virgo and perfectionist and I hate when I let mistakes get by me.

Take for instance t...

Adding Flavor to your Romantic Suspense

By Sandy Parks

Romantic suspense promises the reader adventure, suspense, and frequently exotic locales. How does an author add the flavor of a location unfamiliar to the reader and carry them along on your great adventure?
Whatever your tools (guidebook, camera, interviews, photos, internet), think about researching as going to a place for the first time. How will you react to the sights, smells, and sounds? Use all your senses. Seems easy, right, but where do you start?

Consider the big visual...

I SPY: Goals, Motivation, & Conflict (GMC)

Join the authors and friends of Not Your Usual Suspects for an occasional series of posts about their world of reading, writing and publishing.
Short and sweet, hopefully both informative and entertaining - join us at I-Spy to find out the how's and why's of what we do.

TODAY'S POST:  I-Spy something beginning with ...


Goals, Motivation, & Conflict (GMC)

Writers have many tools for crafting a story. One of the techniques I use is Debra Dixon’s concept of GMC: Goal Motivatio...

How Walter Matthau Asked Me to Marry Him

I’ve never really told too many people this story, so I thought I’d share it today. It goes a little something like this…a funny thing happened on the way to the dorm…

Walter in Hello Dolly!

In spring 1991, I was a senior at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. (I’m sure I’m dating myself, but who cares. For the record, my internal age is perpetually seventeen anyway.) At the time, I was already engaged (with a sparkly rock on my finger to prove it), only a few weeks from graduation, and l...

Guest Post – The Tenant by Sotia Lazu

I meet the delightful Sotia Lazu through friends and am delighted to join her blog tour for The Tenant!

Hello, and thank you so much for having me.

Inspiration can struck at the oddest of moments, and with me, it’s usually a random sentence I hear that makes me want to build a story based on it.

The Tenant was a different case entirely.

In January 2010, my own tenant’s lease was up, and I told him I need the apartment cleared by the end of March. My then fiancé and now husband was moving to Greec...