Love Potion Number 8.5

By Nancy Madison

Investigating Paul Martin, estranged husband of a missing Richmond architect, undercover detective Julie Taylor finds murder, mayhem and the love of her life. Why does Paul's mother-in-law insist he's done away with his soon-to-be ex-wife? Is he an innocent victim, framed for someone else's crime? Or is Paul a clever monster in disguise?

Love Potion No. 8.5

Ingredients
2 shots cognac-based red passionfruit liqueur (recommended: Alize)
1 shot red cranberry juice
1/2 shot Heavy Cream
Whole strawberry, for garnish

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes.
Shake vigorously and strain into rocks glass with ice. Slice half way up middle center of strawberry and slide onto glass edge to garnish.

Chilling series for Hot Summer Reading

By Matthew L. Schoonover

Arbiter Series, Vol. 1 

    Agustus Pilot, a detective assigned to Special Services, is not a new kid on the block. in fact, he’s an Arbiter, a supernatural being assigned to solve any paradox between God and Satan for the disposition of contested souls. He’s not your average cop. These aren’t your average criminals.

Question from the e-mail:  I have a  story in mind to write set in the 1930s. But I'm wondering about doing research on the period. I'm no scholar and all I really know about the period was stories my grandmother told me about when she was a child in the Great Depression. How much research do I have to do before I begin?

Answer:  According to Stephen King, NONE! In his excellent book On Writing, he said he just sits down and writes his story. If there's something he can't envision he just makes a note in brackets
[ find out what a Stutz Bearcat looks like]. Then once the first draft is COMPLETE, he goes back searches for the brackets and hits the Internet for a picture so he can insert a description...

Of course handling the past IS a bit trickier than a contemporary story, trust me I know. Most of the background for my Spirit Series came out of tales my Great-Granny told me when I was small. She had a hilarious one about trying to climb aboard a streetcar wearing a "Hobble Skirt." I'd sure have to look up a picture of a hobble skirt! She said you couldn't step up without showing your  whole leg up past your knee!

You can use a slang dictionary to give the language a feel for the past, but be sure not to have them say "Twenty-three Skiddoo!" every other paragraph. Pick one or two phrases from the period, but be sure not to overdo it. With slang in any book it's always better to make something up, than to use stuff that will inevitably sound like a cliche. The trick is to not use anything that would not have been around then. Harder to find than hen's teeth, would be fine then, but NOT harder to find that moon rocks. And pick something that will be easily understandable, now. Even in this day and age, where chicken comes from the supermarket, anyone who ever saw Foghorn Leghorn knows that chickens have no teeth.

Then, I'd suggest you use "automobile" instead of "car,"  Or even better, be more specific, say a Model T roadster. If you need an expensive or classy car, make it a Packard,  Pierce Arrow, or La Salle, because those were luxury cars then, and Cadillac is still around now.

Use some brief images to show objects that will help reinforce your time period, as well. Have the lady of the house straighten a pile of Coronet or Liberty magazines, or wear a cloche hat, or some other dated item, but NOT a hobble skirt. They were before WWI and far too early. Now you don't have to do this a lot. More than once or twice a chapter would be overkill. Just give one essential detail now and then and it will remind the reader of the era and give your story just the right touch.

Also Time Magazine put out a great series of books (I think they were called Time Capsules) with things that happened in specific years, lots of photos in them, so if you can get hold of the exact year of your story, that would be all you'd need. 

Just don't forget our old friend Steven's advice. ALWAYS TELL THE STORY FIRST! Then worry about the research.

Devil Made US Do It

by Marie Prato

Emily Divico faces her summer vacation with dread of staying with relatives she hardly knows in a strange country she’s never seen. On top of that, she’s sure she caused her parents’ divorce by betraying her father. And she will be the last one he wants to see.

She’s right about that but not for the reasons she thinks. Dad’s in danger up to his neck and before long Emily will be the only one who can save him.

Her determination to save her gambling-addicted father from the clutches of loan sharks takes her through the beguiling and bizarre city of Palermo, Sicily. In a land where police cannot be trusted, Emily recruits aid from the most unlikely candidates of all. Can wits and broomsticks take on the illegal underground and hope to win? Unwrapped corpses in catacombs and criminals might be enough to frighten off most detectives but, with only days to save her father’s life, Emily can’t give up.

Devilisly Good Cake

Ingredients

12 servings600 cals

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
• 1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup vegetable oil

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• Add all ingredients to list

Directions

Print 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup bundt pan.
3. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before inverting onto a plate.
4. Pour a loose chocolate icing over it and garnish with more chocolate chips. 

Catching UP!

NO Books Went to Press this week.
Payroll is complete.

Galleys that went out, or went out again,  this week:

   MINISTER'S CORPORATE ESCAPADES, Reverend Castle Mystery Series, Vol. 2. by Celine Rose Mariotti.
   In the second book of the Rev. Castle series, the good reverend is solving another big case. This time he is solving a case of corporate sabotage and murder. Tyler Cotton’s environmental company is being sabotaged by four of his employees. Tyler asks Rev. Castle to find out what they’re doing and who’s involved. Rev. Castle sets out on a quest to find the saboteurs, gather the evidence, and bring them to justice. Meanwhile, Tyler is framed for the murder of Jacob Punch, one of the saboteurs.Can Rev.Castle prove that Tyler is innocent? The story has a climactic ending. And in the quest to solve this case, Rev. Castle falls in love with Lydia. A real page turner!

WENDELL & TYLER: END OF THE ROAD: Open Road Series, Vol. 3, by James R. Kincaid

   My mom, had this idea that I should launch a “voyage of discovery (my cool way of putting it)” and spend the entire summer exploring the world outside me and the world within (whatever that means) by driving a luxury camper from Los Angeles to my Uncle Marshall’s in Atlanta.

   So far, the most uncharted, mysterious, and frightening has been my traveling companion, Tyler, (a black girl) who is beautiful, smart, and (I sometimes think) homicidal.

   We’ve been trundling along together for two books now (We’re Off! and On the Road!) seeing all the sites and trying to experience all we can, one way or another.

   Tyler wants to see more of the South and explore history through the Civil Rights Movement. I want to experience Tyler, or at least live long enough to see the Atlantic Ocean.

   As for what happens next, I’m not telling yet, but you can bet it won’t be dull.

HAIL MARY by C.M. Albrecht.

    When retired cop Harry "Bulldog" Drummond dies, his free-spirited widow Mary, suddenly freed from the Bulldog's strait-laced ideas, recruits a couple of gals from her colorful past and the girls go on a tear. Meaning they create mayhem wherever they show up, much to the consternation of Mary's son, Creighton. Poor Cray just lost his job, he has a wife, two kids, two mortgages, a lazy dog and an old Chevy he was planning to replace with a new Jaguar. But the big raise he expected has vanished and so has his mother…along with his aging Chevy. To make matters worse, she doesn't even have a driver's license!

SECOND GROWTH, by Joan L. Cannon

   Serge Dziminowicz is hampered by his past in a dysfunctional family. Having trained himself in self-sufficiency, he fends off approaches from women, shuns occasions for disappointment or betrayal. A college classmate is his only friend. He cannot trust others, or himself. 

   With success come real surprises. Through his professional ability, he meets not only a wife, but a new luxury, a startling attachment with horses, a budding appreciation for the natural world, and a child he adores.

   When his career and his marriage both are destroyed by his feckless father, his reputation and his livelihood in shambles, he is forced to leave behind everything that has become meaningful to him.

   In rural Vermont, he stumbles on a way of life that nourishes a second growth. A near tragedy is the catalyst that enables him to dare to trust. He ultimately learns he must lower his own barriers.

   Second Growth is about overcoming the past, about learning how to accept, as well as how to offer, help. A brilliant physician must find a way to heal himself — in spite of himself.

Work began or continued on the following books this week:

   An Indonesian army general's son, who recently graduated high school, continues his education at a college in San Francisco. The 19-year-old was a boy headed for trouble. His father hoped that the responsibility and overseas life experience would change his son's attitude. In fact the culture shock does make him change, but not in the way his father hoped for...

A HEART DIVIDED, I Live in Two Worlds Series, Vol. 2. by D J Swykert

    Maggie is torn between her powerful love for Tommie Stetter, and her deep and affectionate love for the abiding Jeremy Paull. Maggie is faced with a difficult decision, and against her own ideals, and the teachings of the church and community, she makes an unusual choice.

WANTED: ROYAL PRINCESS SHOCK AND AWE, Royal  Hearts of Mondoverde Series, Vol. 4., by Anna Dynowski

   The popular and royally entertaining Christian romance series continues. 

GAIA'S DREAM, A Collection of Poetry by Terry L. White

   Poetry that embraces the heart and the soul.  

LOVE BITES: A poetry Collection by Barbara Garro

  A Collection of poetry about all aspects of Love.

Cover Not Set

THE LIMITEDS, A Geocaching Mystery, Vol. 2. by Jennifer Kirsch

   Fourteen-year-old, Luke, dreams of spending July at Camp Unlimited, where campers explore cave networks, set off fireworks in pyrotech workshops, and sleep in tree house hammocks. But to get into the camp, Luke needs to demonstrate excellence in a sport, the arts, or school. More likely, he’ll end up at SURF, his town’s rec camp, where athlete’s foot, mildew, and warts plague the gym, bedbugs and lice infest the couches, and clumps of hair make frequent appearances in the burgers. When weird blobs start popping up on Luke’s computer, he’s too busy trying to complete his Unlimited application to notice. But when the blobs start looking like a secret, uncharted geocache, he and his friend Gabe follow their trail, only to find themselves battling superbug viruses and navigating labyrinths while on a quest to save lives.

BLEEDING HEARTS: Killian Kendall Mystery Series, Vol. 1

 Winner of the Stonewall Society's 2002 Pride in the Arts Literary Award in the Whodunit Category! 

 REAP THE WHIRLWIND: Killian Kendall Mystery Series, Vol. 2,  by Josh Aterovis. 

    Suicide, or murder? That's the question in the second Killian Kendall mystery. Will Smith suspects murder when an old childhood pal drowns, and asks his friend Killian for help in solving the mystery.

TRUTH OF YESTERDAY,  by Josh Aterovis

ALL LOST THINGS, by Josh Aterovis

CHANGE  OF WORLDS, by Josh Aterovis

 Jack's News!

  by your Official Bookstore Cat, 

and Gossip Columnist.

Hi Everyone, ;D

A note from my pal President Andy Nunez, that The Writer's Bloc will meet TOMORROW in Meeting room 3 in the Wicomico County Public Library in Salisbury, MD at 1 p.m. All Delmarva writers are Welcome!

Pardon my gloating,  but I had a really nice letter this week from the love of my life,

 Lucy, the sweet  kitty, who (with her brother Darby) resides in the home of author Elizabeth Eagan-Cox.

Elisabeth, and both her kitties, recently moved from the mountains of California, to the mountains of Tennessee.

Dear Jack, 

Lucy here. We heard you asked about us and wanted to know how we are doing at our new home in Northeast Tennessee.

Well... first, let me confide you that Darby has taken to Southern-speak like a Tennessee Williams' cat would. He's droppin' the ending of words and ending most of his sentences with "y'all". If that weren't enough, every time he hears Elizabeth sneeze, he jumps onto her lap and puts his paw on her wrist and tells her, "Bless your little heart." She thinks he's hilarious, what with Darby being a Maine coon and not having a single bit of below-the-Mason-Dixon-Line blood in him, and Elizabeth, well... all her ancestry is Southern, but she doesn't talk that way.  Anyway, enough of that silly Darby.

I'm loving it here. My window world is fascinating. Take for example the little bugs that fly around in the dark of night lighting the way for all the other night creatures. I'm told the little lantern critters are lightning bugs. Elizabeth remembers them from when she was a little girl and says she used to pretend they were fairly lights. And talk about night creatures, we have possums that come right out of the woods behind our yard and up onto our patio. Deer show up now and then, and I've seen huge birds called wild turkeys... Jack, I'm telling you.... these birds are monsters!  

Darby and I watch them from inside, where it is safe, looking out the living room's French doors. We've made friends with neighbors, but not their dogs, though Elizabeth says that Maxie, the bully dog, Bridget the yellow Lab and Comet, a mixed-breed, but probably part Lab, are all friendly dogs. Maxie must be lonely, her owners are away during the day and sometimes she's visits us at the French doors. She's quite a lady with good sense and fabulous taste... I can tell by the way she likes us cats. 

So...Jack, we survived the cross-country move from California to Tennessee, from mountains to mountains and we are lovin' it here. And Jack, we have a guestroom...if ever you are in our neck of the Appalachian woods, stop in for the night and "stay a spell' as Darby would say.

Best to you, from whiskers to tail, 

Lucy.

OH BOY!  I wish I could go for a visit!

I was so glad to hear from Lucy, that I made Arline post her picture on the refrigerator again. (I wore the lat one out, rubbing against it.

Don't forget to let me know what's going on with all of you.

Just send an e-mail to arline@mail.com with 

 "News for Jack" 

 in the subject line, and

I'll make sure it shows up here for all the world to see!

Reading is a Partnership

by Newton Love

   When Nick Schaevers takes the case, his client is already in prison, convicted of murdering a business partner. If ever there was a need for St. Jude--the Patron Saint of desperate situations--to intercede, this was it. To discover who framed his client, Nick must break laws, both statute and spiritual, and wager his life in a dangerous bet before he is through. What's a good Catholic boy doing in the killing business anyhow? Can Nick stay in the business without irreparably staining his soul? In the course of the investigation, Nick meets Wendy Crooks, who may be the soul-mate he had almost given up on meeting. The psychological strain of his life and work circumstances crossed with a new woman causes him to grow but develop new neurosis, too.

Reading is a Partnership between the Writer and the Reader

Noted philosopher and futurist, Marshall McLuhan said, back in the 1960s, that whatever other media might become popular in the future, reading books would always be the "Hottest" because it happens inside the reader's head.  

Remembering the reader is an active participant in our creation, is an important concept for all of us as writers. The reader's imagination is always at work. When we mention a character, he or she will be created in the reader's imagination from the words we give them.  

When the character is first mentioned, we need to give a quick image for the reader to build on and imagine the rest.

Describing a character feature by feature can get to sound like a police blotter. The key thing is to describe them when they are first mentioned, before the reader’s imagination take off without us. Because even if you say nothing more than "Mrs. Goodbody, the housekeeper," the reader's imagination will create a picture to go with the name. Remember, reading is a participatory sport. The reader is always actively involved in creating the characters from your words.
Here’s an example of how to do this from my mystery FINAL EXIT. It contains the first description of my brother and sister team, police Detective Jon Abercrombie and his psychic sister, Jillian, who are at the theater.

Jill leaned closer. “That woman over there thinks we’re twins.” She nodded toward a woman in large improbable pearls who surveyed them through opera glasses.

Actually, Jon knew they looked alike. Same dark eyes, same straight nose, same generous mouth. But his hair was dark where Jill’s was fair, and his jaw was square while Jill’s pointed chin gave her face a heart shape.

This example is by no means perfect, but I believe it gives the reader enough of an outline that they can "see" the two of them in their imagination, while the story gets on with the forthcoming murder.

And because each reader's imagination is slightly different, the two young theater-goers will look slightly different as each reader's imagination supplies the details that reader creates...

Fool's Paradise Day!

by Carolyn LeComte

Sara Chandler has come to the big island of Hawaii to escape her troubled past and find peace in this place all the guidebooks call "Paradise." Lucas Henshaw is the first obstacle in her path to happiness. But he's not the last…

Fool's Paradise Bread

Ingredients

12 servings326 cals

• Giant Food
• 11740 Rousby Hall Rd
• LUSBY, MD 20657

• 2 (1 pound) loaves frozen bread dough, thawed
• 1 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 onion, finely diced

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• Add all ingredients to list

Directions

Print 

1. Thaw frozen bread dough loaves until they can be cut into 1 inch cubes.
2. Toss bread cubes with the grated sharp cheddar cheese, diced onion, olive oil and Italian spices. Place in a 9x9 inch square baking pan. Let sit and rise in a warm place until bread has doubled in size.
3. Bake bread in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and all cheese is melted.