Cathy Spencer's Blog, page 13

Town Haunts Review, and Why I Hate Asking Readers for Reviews

Over My Dead Body!The Mystery Magazine Online has published a review of Town Haunts, the second book in the Anna Nolan Mystery series. My thanks to them for their endorsement.

Although I hate to say it, both professional and readers' reviews do seem critical to a book's success. And the reason I hate to say it is because I don't like asking readers to leave a review of my book on their e-retailer's website. Readers were never expected to review books before the dawn of e-books, other than to share their enjoyment of a book with their friends - hopefully. Today, authors are all clamouring for buyers to leave reviews with Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. because it helps us to sell books. Not that readers should feel beholden to leave a review; after all, they've just shelled out their hard-earned bucks to purchase the book. But today's readers don't seem comfortable purchasing a book unless it has a good rating, particularly if the author is new and struggling to build an audience. Good ratings mean more purchases, which lead to more visibility on a bookseller's site, which leads to more purchases.

So, I shall swallow my reluctance and ask readers who have enjoyed my books to please leave a review with their e-retailer, should they be so inclined. And thank you to all of the readers who have left positive reviews already. Your appreciation means a great deal to me, and encourages me to continue writing.

If you would like to be contacted when new books are due for release, please leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app to the right of this post.

Indepth Q&A Published by Mystery Maven Canada

 
Mystery Maven Canada (New, reviews, and schmooze by and about Canadian Mystery writers) has just published "Schmoozing With Cathy Spencer," a question and answer interview with moi. The site mistress, Linda Wiken, has also given Framed for Murder a plug for winning the 2014 Bony Blithe Mystery Award.
I had the pleasure of meeting Linda last weekend at the Bloody Words Conference, where she co-hosted a panel entitled "Pssst, Wanna be a Professional Author" with Don Graves. Not only does Linda host this great website all about Canadian mysteries (yay!), she's also a talented author, writing under the name Erika Chase. Linda is also a former mystery bookstore owner. You could say that she's devoted her life to mystery.

Click on this link to read the interview. If there are any other questions you'd like me to answer, just leave a comment below.

If you would like to be contacted when new books are due for release, please leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app to the right of this post.

Winning the Bony Blythe Mystery Award!

Just returned yesterday from the 3-day Bloody Words conference in Toronto, and what a great weekend it was! It was terrific meeting so many authors and readers of Canadian mystery. I attended several informative sessions, sat on the panel for "Indie Publishing: We're here to Stay," and participated in the "Books with Legs" fashion show of authors wearing their book covers. Here's a picture of me wearing the cover for Town Haunts.



The icing on the cake, however, was winning the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award for Framed for Murder, the first novel in the Anna Nolan series. It was awarded at a costumed banquet on Saturday night. The finalists - Janet Bolin, Vicki Delany, Elizabeth Duncan, Howard Shrier, and I - all read the first 250 words of our manuscripts aloud. I was thrilled when they called my name as the winner! It's so encouraging when your work is recognized, especially when you're a self-published author. 

That's me at the beginning of this post with the  colourful Bony plaque. He's lying on the couch reading a book - a mystery, no doubt - while his bony cat lounges on top. You can bet that the plaque will be hanging over my computer when I'm writing in future. And the $1,000 prize is much appreciated, too.


It was fun seeing all the costumes at the banquet Saturday night. Here are just a few:





And here I am up on stage reading aloud at the banquet:



Thanks a bunch to my husband, Reid, for accompanying me to the banquet and taking the pictures! 
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Framed for Murder or its sequel, Town Haunts, just click on the "Bookstore" tab of this website for further information. 

If you would like to be alerted when the 3rd installment of the series, Tidings of Murder and Woe, comes out this Christmas, just leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app at the top right of this site. I'll send you a brief message with the synopsis, cover, and purchase details. Of course, I won't share your information with anyone else. Cheers!

Going to the Bloody Words Conference Tomorrow

I`m going to the Bloody Words Conference this weekend at Toronto`s Hyatt Regency Hotel. The first item on the agenda on Friday afternoon will be the annual general meeting of the Crime Writers of Canada; not really part of the conference, but taking place beforehand at the hotel. Since I`ve only been a member of CWC for a couple of years, and I was in Calgary during last year`s meeting, this is my first opportunity to meet many of my fellow members.

Other items of note on Friday are sitting on the authors` panel that`s discussing Indie Publishing: We`re Here to Stay, and taking part in a fashion show of book covers. My cover will be the one for Town Haunts. Not sure how we`re going to do that, but I have to wear my cover down a catwalk. Here it is:



Saturday night is the banquet, during which they`ll announce the winner of The Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. (That`s Bony at the top of this post; he looks like such a happy skeleton). My Framed for Murder is one of the 5 finalists, and we authors will be reading the first 250 words of our novels aloud. I`m not expecting to win - I`m the only self-published author - but it would certainly be exciting, especially since this is the last year for the conference and the award. It`s a costumed affair, and my husband and I are going in-tandem, lucky guy.



The conference ends early Sunday afternoon with 3 different presentations. The schedule is jammed with panels and presentations all 3 days, as a matter of fact, and it`s going to be tough choosing which ones to attend. Fortunately, we`re booked into the hotel Friday and Saturday nights, so we won`t have far to go to collapse.

Sure looking forward to it!

If you would like to be contacted when new books are due for release, please leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app to the right of this post.

The Top 10 Regency Best Sellers

Yes, ladies, Amazon has a top ten Regency Best Sellers list, which is  updated hourly! I'm thinking that these are a lot spicier than the regencies Jane Austen wrote.So, as of 9:09 p.m. EDT, here are the top ten Regency Best Sellers, in reverse order:

10. The Convenient Bride: Book 3 (The Clearbrooks)

9. The Unwanted Earl (The Lovebird Series)

8. Shunned No More (A Lady Forsaken)
7. Worth Lord of Reckoning (Lonely Lords)

6. The Three Disgraces Series

5. To Tame a Highland Earl (MacLean Highlander Novel)

4. Daring Miss Danvers: The Wallflower Wedding Series

3. Tempting a Devil: A Loveswept Historical Romance

2. Deceived by a Duke: An All's Fair in Love Novella

1. The Duke's Holiday (The Regency Romp Trilogy)

Book Recommendation: "Jane Austen in Scarsdale"

I picked this up quickly at the library for two reasons:  it took the heroine from Jane Austen's Persuasion and updated her to a high school guidance counselor; I thought it was set in Toronto. I'm not sure why I thought that, since Scarsdale is in New York. However, there is a Scarsdale Road in Toronto, so maybe that's what I was thinking. Macht nichts aus.

It's a romance (for those who don't know the story of Persuasion) about a young woman who loves a man, but breaks off with him because an older, trusted woman convinces her that the relationship is unsuitable. The young woman comes to regret it, however, and years later, they meet up again.

This version of the story is a fast read and fun. What I enjoyed most about it was the issues that a high school guidance counselor faces as the senior students prepare their applications for college, causing great angst among their parents. In fact, it's the parents who care the most about what university their kids get into, and ancillary businesses take advantage of their fear. One of them is a marketer who helps put the right spin on the student. Another is an expert on preparing students to write their SATs; his five principal categories of the test are genius. The author, Paula Marantz Cohen, is an English professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, so maybe she has had personal experience with high school applicants. 

The heroine, Anne Ehrlich, is a dear. She has a touch of seriousness and formality about her without being stiff, plus that deep heart and resignation about the foibles of her father and sister that Austen's Anne Elliot had, although this Anne is not a pushover. The author strikes a nice balance with her; harder to achieve now than it was during Austen's time, when the sacrifices of an unattached female without fortune were to be expected.

It's also a sweet romance, which means that there are no sex scenes, although it's obvious that the heroine is no virgin at thirty-four. Again, hard to do in this age of Fifty Shades of Grey, and something I'm struggling with in the contemporary romance I'm writing, so hats off to Ms. Marantz Cohen.

It's a fun, witty romance. Give it a whirl.

If you would like to be contacted when new books are due for release, please leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app to the right of this post.

HAPPY VICTORIA DAY!

What a grand old lady. Happy Victoria Day, Canada. And happy birthday, Queen Victoria.

Book Recommendation: Louise Penny's "How the Light Gets In"

It's odd to read only the first (Still Life) and the last of Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series, but it's true. I enjoyed the first book, but I didn't quite cotton to the characters. That being said, I highly recommend the final book, How The Light Gets In. It's a masterful book of suspense with three mysteries to be solved, not to mention excellent characterizations and descriptive settings. It doesn't matter that you haven't read the other books in the series; pick this one up. It's a page-turner that will have you sinking in shin-deep. Just like Inspector Gamache does in the snow.

If you would like to be contacted when new books are due for release, please leave your name and e-mail address with the "Contact Cathy" app to the right of this post.

Which TV Mom is Most Like You?

It's Mother's Day this Sunday. Which of these TV mom's is most like you?

Rosanne

The Cosby Show

Family Ties

The Adam's Family

Murphy Brown

Modern Family (take your pick)

Book Recommendation: "A River in the Sky"

Today's recommendation is for Elizabeth Peters' A River in the Sky, part of the Amelia Peabody series featuring the Egyptologist amateur sleuth and her family. It was published in 2010; Elizabeth Peters, the nom de plume for Barbara Mertz, died in 2013, so I believe that this was her last  book. I was confused when beginning the story because the action takes place in an earlier excavation season than some of the previously published books, but Ms. Peters was very clever. The Amelia Peabody books have been published as if they are volumes from the heroine's memoirs, so the stories can be released out of sequence, if she chooses. To my knowledge, however, this was the only book to do so.

The story takes place when Amelia's son, Ramses, is just of legal age and away from home working on an archaeological dig in Palestine. It is 1910, when Palestine is still part of the Ottoman Empire, and it is suspected that a German agent of the Kaiser is stirring up trouble in the politically volatile Holy Land. British intelligence asks Emerson, Amelia's heroic Egyptologist husband, to investigate, and soon Emerson, Amelia, their nephew, David, and their adopted daughter, Nefret, are headed to Jerusalem, where they will rendezvous with Ramses. Except Ramses fails to appear, and the family doesn't know what to think. The story is also told from Ramses' point of view, with the two story lines cleverly interwoven until the family is re-united. 

The reader is in good hands with an Amelia Peabody book. Ms. Peters is a masterful story-teller, with larger-than-life characters, suspense, humour, romance, and interesting historical data about ancient civilizations and life during the Victorian era intermingling in her books. I've read the entire series, and it's very comfortable to dip back into the family's life and see what new adventure they'll be charging into. 

If you haven't read the series, start at the beginning with Crocodile on the Sandbank, when headstrong, spinsterish Amelia becomes an heiress and first meets Emerson, his brother, and a disgraced Englishwoman whom she befriends. Amelia is not your typical Victorian heroine, and her way of doing things is unique. If you enjoy the first book, you'll have 18 others to read, which is always good when you find a series you like.