Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 71

Holiday Reading + Gift Ideas!

Happy Holidays, everyone! Brenda starting off this week's round of book recommendations.

As always, I'm in awe of the quantity of books my fellow Minds have read this past year and encourage you to look back to last week's posts and the ones following mine to get some great gift ideas --  or books for your own to-read pile. My list of suggestions is somewhat more modest in comparison :-) 

I started off the year with a file titled 'Books Read in 2022'. Alas, I only recorded two books and nothing el...

Books I Read Because I Write, by Josh Stallings

I read for many reasons, for pleasure sure, and also for research. I started a new book this year and for inexplicable reasons I knew John Steinbeck was part of the key to the book’s tone. Along the way I read East of Eden two and a half times. It is a dark deeply rich generational novel. I discovered Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel — The East of Eden Letters, a journal he wrote every day before writing on the novel as a way of warming his writing muscles up for the chapter ahead. It encompasses ...

Something for everyone! by Catriona

This isn’t so much a blog of book recommendations as it is a list. It’s everything I read from knocking off work for Christmas last year to what I’m reading right now, plus some atttempt to indentify favourites. 

As in 2021, I’ve made my life a bit easier by choosing a book of the month every month, rather than trying to choose books of the year. Some months were a nightmare. June was a nightmare after eating a wheel of ripe Brie before bedtime. 

Two more things: I enjoyed all of these books. I’l...

New Release News - And My "Twice-Checked List" by Cathy Ace

This week I get the chance to write about “Books (or book-adjacent "things") I'm happy to recommend this gift-giving season” – which is excellent…and a bit daunting, so here goes.

Well, the first thing I want to say is: whatever the reason for the gift-giving, the answer to the question “What should I give?” is always “A book”!

The second thing I want to say is: all the MINDS have books out there – check them out first 😉

So now we’re up to my third caveat which is this: I don’t read anything bu...

Gift Giving and Gratitude from Gabriel Valjan

 

The Minds were queried to give their recommendations for gift ideas. I dread lists because there’s the inevitable, “What about…?” where the ellipsis and trailing voice seems like an indictment. Therefore, I hereby waive my Fifth Amendment right. I enter the graphic as Evidence. A picture may say a lot but it’s also a good shopping list.

            An authorial advantage and privilege is knowing other authors and having the opportunity to read WIPs or get your mitts on ARCs. ...

My Favourite (six) Holiday(s and counting), by Catriona

I know this is A. last week's question and B. Susan's day but I'm tagging on for a very particular reason. I've got a book coming out tomorrow. What's that, you say? In a group blog with ten authors, someone's always got a book coming out? Fair point but the thing is that all five-and-I'm-writing-the-sixth in the series open on a holiday. Sort of.

SCOT FREE kicks off as fish-out-water Scot, Leagsaidh (pronounced Lexy) Campbell, is cowering in her office - she's a marriage and family therapist - a...

Bah Humbug!

by Abir

This week we’ve been asked to talk about our favourite holiday memories.

 

Morning. Friday again, eh? Another week all but over. I hope you’ve achieved more than I have in that time. I seem to have spent a lot of it scanning Black Friday sales and buying things that I convinced myself I really needed but which, now they’re here, I find almost completely surplus to requirements. For instance I am writing this using a new keyboard which I’m having difficulty getting used to because the keys a...

Embarking on a New Adventure from James W. Ziskin

This week we’ve been asked to describe our best holiday memories. But since this is a special week for me, I’m going off script and will write about something else. To wit, my new book, Bombay Monsoon, which hits shelves next Tuesday, December 6. 

Styx & Stone was my first novel, published in 2013. It was the debut for my plucky “girl reporter” heroine named Ellie Stone. I wrote her in the first person, a choice that surely surprised some readers. I used to joke that “I’m 6’ 2” tall, weigh 200 po...

Do You Hear What I Hear?

This week we’ve been asked to describe our best holiday memories.

by Dietrich

Like most of us, I have some great memories centered around the holidays, many of them going back to childhood: the tree, the lights, the presents, and loved ones gathering.

A visit to Santa way back when

Among those memories are the classic tales set around this time of the year, stories that I’ve read over and over since childhood, ones I’ve never grown tired of. And what a joy sharing them with my son when he was growin...

Holiday, Holidays

 

This week we’re posting our favorite holiday memory. Which led me to think about last year. My least favorite memory of the holidays. We had just moved into our third rental place in the LA area. My sweet dog had just died. All of our stuff was in storage, so I had to make do with whatever was in the rental, plus what I picked up at garage sales to fill in the gaps. I missed my friends. I desperately missed my house.
I missed my dog. And here’s the thing. I remember absolutely nothing ab...