Getting the year off to an ice start...

How to make a white car blend into its background...

This has been an ice winter. (And no, that's not a typo.)

I imagine a good 2/3s of the US is sick of winter by now. I know we were sick of it all the way back in December. We're getting thunder sleet just now, preceded by freezing rain and to be followed by snow. Predicted low tonight of 4. Ugh. Good reading weather, though.

There is an interesting psychological thing that happens locally when icy stuff is expected. Freezing stuff usually stays on the ground a couple of days once it's fallen--usually the temperature is warm enough to melt it off quickly, though the last snowfall we had was on the ground for a week and a half. Not what you would think of as highly dangerous circumstances. But the few days before the storm often sees people in panic mode, buying enough food to survive a month of isolation in their homes. I'm very glad I don't work at a grocery store.

There appears to be some movement on the audiobook front. (Did I mention that Mundania bought a small recording company and is putting its books out in audiobook format? I can't remember.) We'll see how it goes.

Speaking of books, here's some recent reads:

Robert Goldsborough:

More Nero Wolfe~~

Murder in the Ball Park
Death on Deadline
The Bloodied Ivy
Fade to Black

C.S. Forester:

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Lieutenant Hornblower
Hornblower and the Hotspur
Hornblower and the Atropos
Hornblower During the Crisis
Beat to Quarters
Ship of the Line
Flying Colors
Commodore Hornblower
The Hornblower Addendum --Five Hornblower short stories

Michael Robertson:

Moriarty Returns a Letter --Latest in the Baker Street Letters series, and the first of these I've read.

Michael Pearce:

A Cold Touch of Ice --Part of the Mamur Zapt series. Good stuff.

John Mahon:

The Jamaican Affair of 1805 --I have to emphasize that I bought this out of curiousity. CS Forester died partway through writing Hornblower During the Crisis, so the story was unfinished. This book a) was written and published with the approval of CS Forester's sons to finish the story, and b) has a very fan-fictionish feel to it. There are many ways that Hornblower does not act and think like Hornblower in this, at least to my mind. There was an attempt to turn Hornblower's common dandelion-like wife Maria into a rose, and it was almost as if an effort was made to teach Hornblower lessons in humility. I stopped reading this at a certain point, and am uncertain if I will finish it. There is a second story out there that purports to finish Hornblower During the Crisis, but I'm already gun-shy about it and don't know if I'll risk the money on it.

Dean King:

A Sea of Words --This is a lexicon of words and terms used in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series that may be unfamiliar to modern readers, as they are often sea terms used in the 1800's, along with definitions of sails and rigging and stuff. Very interesting. A slow read, though. Nice in small doses. I have not finished this yet, but am working on it a bit at a time.

Current Read:

Lord Hornblower

If you haven't read the Hornblower series, you'll notice that the book that Forester didn't finish is in the middle of the series. That's because Forester actually began writing the series with Beat to Quarters, and eventually circled back to write the early career of Hornblower. It makes for a bit of a jolt when you start at the chronological beginning of Hornblower's career as a Midshipman and move forward until you reach Beat to Quarters. It can feel as if two different people were writing the series, since those first-written books are fuller of detail than the latter-written books.

Enough of this for now. I hope winter ends soon, and that you're not under a blanket of snow at this moment. Brrr.

Recent Reads

And now, for some long-delayed recent reads:

Agatha Christie:

The Murder at the Vicarage
Death in the Clouds
Dumb Witness
The Hollow

"Richard Castle":

Frozen Heat Once again, based on the series Castle, as written by the show's star. (actually written by Dan Brown. Someone had to do it, lol!)

Laurie R King:

Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes meets his match, and his wife.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
The Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
Beekeeping for Beginners Short story, tells the meeting of Holmes and Russell from Holmes' point of view.

Charles Todd:

A Question of Honor Bess Crawford
Cold Comfort: A Novella Ian Rutledge short story

Ngaio Marsh:

The Nursing Home Murders

Ruth Downie:

Semper Fidelis The fifth Ruso novel, set in Roman Britain at the time of Hadrian's visit.

Robert Goldsborough:

Picks up where Rex Stout left off...

Archie Meets Nero Wolf: A prequel to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries
Murder in E Minor
The Last Coincidence

Patrick O'Brian:

The Aubrey/Maturin series, set during the Napoleonic Wars:

Master and Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbor
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
The Truelove
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue at the Mizzen
21: The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey Three chapters of what would have been the next novel, had Patrick O'Brian not died when he did.

The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a sort of conglomeration of incidents from the books, and makes up a sort of 22nd adventure, since it really doesn't follow the plot line for any of them.

These were a mix of ebooks and paper.

Winter hasn't been pleasant for any of us this year, it appears. Looking forward to it ending.

More later~~

Two weeks to the Day of the Doctor

Are you a Doctor Who fan? The fiftieth anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, is coming on November 23. Apparently the BBC is same-time broadcasting to a lot more places than just England for this one, so check to see if you can get it locally. Looks to be quite an adventure!

The BBC has some clips up, viewable here.

Excited, and yet sad at the same time. This is Matt Smith's second last episode as the Doctor.

More later. I have some recent reads to add, though not much news at the moment.

Sad news

I've just found out that Barbara Mertz, who is better known to many of us as Elizabeth Peters, died on August 8th at 85, after a long battle with cancer.

Link to news article

There was mention on her website for a number of months of an Amelia Peabody story that she was writing, but as the mention was taken down, I'm not sure whether to be hopeful that the manuscript was finished. Even if it wasn't, she's left quite a collection of books behind.

Here's another article from the Washington Post

And one more from the Huffington Post

Elizabeth Peters' official Website

May I present...Plus, adventures in middle-aged camping.

This is my son, Ian, and his wife, Raven. They were married at the Disney Boardwalk on June 3rd, on a hot, clear Florida day, with the central lake of that particular resort area behind them. Total list of people in attendance was probably less than 20, themselves included, although the Disney staff on hand brought the numbers up. Disney's contract limited the number of people who could be there, and the venue was very small anyway, so it was really just the right number for the site. I thought her dress was quite beautiful, layers and layers of pink ruffles, and I'm sure I'm not the first mom to think her son was particularly handsome on his wedding day. There was a violin player who played selections from various Disney movies as the bride came up the aisle, and afterward during the reception.

The cake was two-layered and iced in blue, white and cream, with a small copy of a famous Disney castle on top.

The next day, my husband and I went on our first vacation alone in over 24 years, heading just under 200 miles north of Orlando to Amelia Island, which is just inside the border of Florida on the Atlantic coast. You can look across the river there and see Georgia. We hadn't been there in maybe 16 years, so it was pleasant to walk on the beach and enjoy the sun and the breeze. I can't exactly say fresh air, though, as there's a paper mill not far from where we were camping. Sorry, no pictures. I hadn't figured out how to use the camera I'd brought. The wedding photos are courtesy my mother-in-law.

We chose to stay at the Amelia River campsite at Fort Clinch State Park. If you're imagining wads of mosquitoes, you're not far off, though there were less than what I'd expected. Still, we had a nice site within the campsite loop, with enough trees around to keep us mostly isolated from the other sites. The tent we brought was not such a good idea, though. It claimed to have been sized for four people, but was claustrophobically tiny. We ended up visiting Wal-mart and buying the next size tent up, which worked much better for us. On the negative side, it rained the first night, and was humid and oppressively hot, my knees were hurting which made crawling in and out of the tent uncomfortable, and I of course had to get up repeatedly to visit the facilities due to all the water I'd drunk during the day. Dratted middle-aged bladder. It wasn't a fun first night.

We did discover something the first night that was new to us, though maybe not new to you. We were settling in for the night, and had not yet turned out the light inside the tent, when we heard the sound of the ice chest being opened right next to the tent door. That was quickly followed by the sound of rattling plastic and some raccoonish squeals and growls as at least two of the critters fought over the spoils--three souvenir cookies from the wedding and a bag of carob covered almonds, all tucked inside a large ziplock baggie.

Once the critters had dragged away the goodies, my husband reached out and closed the ice chest, which only had bottled water and bottled tea in it at that point. The raccoons came back and opened the ice chest twice more, I guess checking to see if we'd added anything to the chest since the last time they'd been there.

It hadn't occurred to us that raccoons would get into the ice chest. We put the chest inside the tent the next night, and heard them rattling things in someone else's campsite during the night.

The next day was gorgeous, and we spent time on the beach, then walked around the shopping district of old town Fernandina Beach, mostly hunting for souvenirs. It began raining toward evening, and not wanting to be confined to the tent, we went to see the new Star Trek film at the local cinema. By time time we returned to the tent, it was well past ten o'clock, and we crawled in to find that the tent walls had sagged enough to come into contact with our bedding and had leaked. By the time we'd gotten there, it had stopped raining, so we were able to open the windows and get air in. We'd also bought a small fan, which stirred the air inside the tent enough that we slept fairly well in spite of the damp bedding.

We'd been scheduled to stay a third night, but ended up spending it in a motel, due to tropical storm Andrea (Erm...I think that was the name). The park evacuated all campers for fear that the storm would bring some of the very big and very old trees down on tents and RVs. I don't know about you, but I'm just as happy not to get crushed beneath a falling tree.

I know the above makes it sound like I don't like camping. I do. We have a really nice backpacking tent that we used on a trip through Arizona and Utah one year, that housed myself, my husband, and our son quite well, but that was before I injured my knees enough to make it hard to crawl in and out, and before the idea of sleeping on the ground gave way to the idea of sleeping on air mattresses. I think next time we'll bring a tent that's roomier and big enough to stand in, though. I know my knees will appreciate it.

There are two books to report on this time around...

His Majesty's Hope, by Susan Elia MacNeal. Set during WWII. Maggie Hope has been secretary to Mr. Churchill, was assigned to protect Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, and had trained to be a spy. Her first mission has her parachuting into Germany, a job which her German contact is convinced she's not ready for. Third in a series. I'll have to look for the first two.

Proof of Guilt, #15 in the Ian Rutledge series. Inspector Rutledge's unfriendly boss has had a heart attack and is out of commission, though no one knows if it's permanently or not. His temporary replacement is a man from Scotland who has no familiarity with London or the way things are done at Scotland Yard. He's determined to see the case he's assigned Rutledge to finished quickly, even if it means sending innocent people to their deaths for crimes they didn't commit. And Rutledge suspects his former boss has left information in his personnel file that has poisoned this new boss' attitude and expectations of him.

There was a third one, the lastest Maisie Dobbs book. I got partway into it, as far as the point where the brother of the dead woman explains that his sister could ease people's pain just by touching them. Erm...no. I'm not into that. This went on the did-not-finish list.

As far as writing goes, Kira is cooperating at this point, and has even begun to tell me what she would and wouldn't do to an extent. Always a good sign. We'll see how it goes.

More later~~~

Changing of the seasons, in more ways than one

It's been a while since my last post. Sorry for the silence. Life has been a bit busier than usual. My son's getting married. He's twenty-four, and has been dating a young woman in our congregation for a couple of years. They're about to tie the knot.

No, for security reasons, I'm not saying when, but once he's gone, my husband and I will begin that phase of our lives that happens to most couples when their children have all moved out. (Although, my parents actually got to experience the whole having-the-house-to-yourselves thing several times, since my youngest sister is unmarried, and has at various times ended up using their spare bedroom over the years.)

I'm sure this will really hit us after he's gone, but right now everyone's exhausted trying to save money for the big event. For my son, who's been saving for their honeymoon for some time now, this has been more of a marathon than a sprint, but the finish line is coming up, and we'll all have to trust that we'll have what we need when we get there.

There's another bit of news as well. For a long time, I've been trying to get the fourth Patty O'Donnell story off the ground. It's been like going out to chop down a tree, only to find that you're trying to take down a titanium trunk with a stick. No dents, no nuthin'.

If you hang around writers long enough, you will hear that our characters have lives of their own, that they express opinions about what we write and let us know when we've got them doing something they wouldn't do. Not that we're crazy or anything. It's like we have this constant movie in our heads where our characters try out the scenes before we write them. When you've developed a character thoroughly enough, you know how they would react to things.

It seems that I've been misreading what Patty's been telling me. After Reef Runner, she seemed to go into hiding, and I thought what she was needing was a break to recover from what I'd put her through. I've been searching for just the right story to coax her back out, but nothing has worked. She was, in fact, telling me she wants out. She wants to be left alone to raise her family and live her life without villains lurking around every corner. I've decided to honor that and let her go.

It doesn't mean that I've stopped writing. One leading lady has retired, but during the last few years, another auditioned for the part, although I didn't know that's what she was doing at the time. I do not know yet if she's series material, but we'll see how it goes.

And now, on to the real seasonal changes. This spring has been...odd. It's usually warmed up better than this by now. Instead, we're on an up and down and up and down ride with the temperature, they're still getting some pretty hefty snow storms up north, and we're getting rain. Lots of it. Last time I looked, our level on the drought scale is down to D0, which means things are Abnormally Dry, but that's the bottom rank on the scale. The ground is fairly saturated now, and we've got storms coming in over the next few days that are supposed to dump a couple of inches of rain on us. It's enough to make you wish you had rain boots.

I have nothing to report in the 'books read' category, at least not this time around. Haven't had the time or the inclination lately. That will end, I'm sure, but for now it must be endured.

Until next time~~~

November again.

My character Patty is a bit annoyed with me right now. She's been trapped in the back of a horse trailer for a few weeks now, along with a nervous mare. She made it out of the trailer at one point, only to go back in when I changed my mind about how to start the scene. Ah well, I guess that's how life goes when you're a made-up person.

I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a special theory of relativity with regard to the passage of time, one that says that when you hit around age 50, your sense of the passage of time changes so much that it's like driving off a country lane onto a superhighway. It doesn't seem to me like it should be November already.

We got enough rain a while back to move us down to the 'severe' level of drought, but have since moved back up to 'extreme'. In case you're wondering, the levels are: D0-Abnormally Dry; D1-Moderate; D2-Severe; D3-Extreme; D4-Exceptional. I don't know that we were ever actually in the Exceptional category during the summer, but according to the drought tracking maps, we were very close to it. Burn bans and all, which meant a number of unhappy fireworks sellers since not that many people were buying. No burn ban currently. The weather's mostly been clear, with temps in the fifties and sixties during the days. Very little to complain about, though, compared to what's gone on in the Northeast.

One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Janet Reid, who is a literary agent who works with a lot of mystery fiction. In one recent post, she talked about authors who self-published their work with the thought of using it to get the attention of the big presses. She has Some Hard Numbers to report about what those authors are up against. I'd heard some numbers bandied about with regard to how many copies needed to sell before a big press would take notice of you, but these are magnitudes greater.

The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that you need to write because you enjoy it and because you really don't have any choice (a writer will understand what that means), and not because you think you're going to get rich. The Hollywood stereotype of the rich author lounging by the pool with cocktail in hand, taking a break from the latest round of book signings and literary parties, is just that, a made-up stereotype. For the vast majority of us, it ain't gonna happen.

Now, about what I've been reading lately...

On the NOOK:

World's Greatest Sleuth!, by Steve Hockensmith.

Holmes on the Range series. Old Red and Big Red are invited to a contest by Big Red's publisher, pitting themselves against the authors of other dime-novel detective stories and a few real detectives for the title World's Greatest Sleuth. Set against the Chicago World's Fair in the Old West days.

Some Agatha Christie:

Poirot's Early Cases
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Secret Adversary
Three Act Tragedy

In Paper:

The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, by Robert W. Lang

Oldly enough, an interesting read. I find myself looking at cabinet details with an eye toward how they were made. Though it's always better if there's no one else in the room when you open cabinets to look at how the hinges were installed, lol!

All for now~~

Identity Theft, part two

Sigh. Guess someone thought signing me up for memberships on websites without my permission is a good thing.

Imagine my surprise when I checked that given-out-to-friends-only email address this evening to discover that I apparently have a member page on Facebook. The first email came on Wednesday, and there have been 133 of them, some confirming friend requests, and some remarking about photos that have been posted on the account.

Except, I don't have a Facebook account. I never signed up for one because they're too time intensive to take care of.

If you stumble across this thing, I have nothing to do with it. I did notify Facebook that my email was being used fraudulently, so hopefully it'll be shut down very soon.

Green In The Midst Of Drought Edition

I'm uncertain yet if I like the new posting interface on Blogger. Seems sometimes like the guys who design this stuff tinker with it just because they can, and not because it really needed it. Take, for instance, the new Windows 8 interface--they've apparently done away with the iconic desktop and replaced it with tiles as if it were a tablet computer. Sorry, guys. I think I'll stick with Windows 7 as long as possible. I like my laptop to have its wallpaper and all, not look like a tablet. And the chances that I'll get a tablet computer are pretty remote. I'm a writer. I need a keyboard to work with, not what passes for one on the already small screen a tablet computer provides.

Summer seems to want to hang around a while longer. Don't guess I mind that, since it means it stays warm rather than getting cold sooner. This whole year has been running about two weeks early, as far as the weather and the seasons go, though. Not sure what that will mean for this winter. We're supposed to be heading into an El Nino winter, but they're not certain when it will start, since it seems we're in a pause between the El Nino/La Nina cycle.

We've been in the upper ranges of the drought scale for a while now, with the dividing line between Extreme and Exceptional falling very close to us on a map of the State. Hurricane Isaac (tropical depression by the time it reached us) helped take the edge off that, though I know we need a lot more rain that what we got to bring things back to where they should be. I know there were a lot of places that got flooding and tornadoes and wind damage, so it was awe-inspiring to watch on radar as the core of the storm passed somewhere within 50-100 miles to the east of us, all nice and polite and dropping a rather gentle rain with a light breeze most of the day. We maybe got 1 or 2 inches, spread out so much that the ground had a chance to soak it up as it fell.

Of course, now the grass is growing like crazy, so there's the trade-off of someone having to mow in the humid heat. The trees, though, are already half bare. They've been dropping leaves for a couple of months, slowly at first, then more heavily as the drought got worse. With all the dry grass and brown leaves on the ground, there were times recently when it could have passed for fall, if not for the fact that the thermometer reading was up around 100F.

I promised, right before summer hibernation, that I'd post a list of what I'd been reading recently, so I guess I'll see what I can drag up. There may be some duplication from previous entries, since I can't remember precisely what I've already posted...

In paper:

Deader Homes and Gardens, by Joan Hess. New Claire Malloy. Claire, teenage daughter Caron, and new husband Peter Rosen are crammed with their belongings into Claire's small apartment, and it's more than they can take. With Peter off on police business, Claire searches for the perfect house, and finds it...but is it really available? Claire isn't about to let murder stand in the way of getting her dream home if she can help it. Fun read. Given that much of the series is set in a fictional version of the place I grew up, it's easy to picture places I know when reading these.

On the Nook:

A Man Lay Dead, by Ngaio Marsh. First Inspector Alleyn book. Enjoyed it.

Charles Todd: (not in order)

Ian Rutledge series:
A Cold Treachery
The Kidnapping (Short Story)
The Confession
A Long Shadow
A False Mirror

Bess Crawford series:
An Unmarked Grave

James R. Benn: (not in order)

Billy Boyle WWII series:
A Mortal Terror
Rag and Bone
Evil for Evil
Blood Alone
The First Wave

Margaret Frazer: (not in order)

Dame Frevise Medieval series:

Winter Heart
The Murderer's Tale
The Bishop's Tale
The Outlaw's Tale

Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear.

Currently reading on Nook:

Dear Mr. Holmes, by Steven Hockensmith. Holmes on the Range series, short story collection. Narrator Otto has a wonderful 'voice'. Lots of fun to read.

A lot of these I read long enough ago that the details aren't clear enough to give a synopsis. I enjoyed them, though.

Also currently working on Patty's latest.

Until next time~~

Interstellar Illusions

Source: Hubblesite.org

This is one of my favorite Hubble pictures (there are many). The galaxies shown are not actually colliding. They're actually about ten times the distance apart than the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda, and it's just chance that they've aligned in such a way that we can see the nearer one highlighted by the background one.

It's been a while since I posted last. My apologies. I've done some reading to report on, and lots of thinking about the new book, with some stuff seeming to come together in that direction. We'll see how it goes. Next post will hopefully be soon.

Enjoying what seems to be a normal June, though May was significantly drier than usual.

Update

My publisher just let all us authors know that they've acquired a company that records audio books, so at some point in the future, my books may be available for listening to. There's no schedule, and the voice talent will apparently get to choose which books they want to record, so when and if this happens, I'll let you know.

Website updates may take a bit... I had intended to add mobile accessibility to the site, and discovered that in order to do that, I have to know either Javascript or PHP, so I have a bit of learning to do before I can do what I was wanting. Still intending a simple update in the meantime, but the big stuff will have to wait.

Have done very little recreational reading lately, so I have no list to give you this time around.

Do you enjoy Doctor Who? Here's the preview for the upcoming season, courtesy of the BBC: Preview

Spring has been unusual this year. We've been having April weather in March. The old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb all took place within the first week. Not that I'm complaining. Except for the pollen part. So many people have had pollen allergies come up a month earlier than usual, and it's been confusing for everyone.

Not much else for the present~~

An odd sort of identity theft...

Over the past month or more, I've been getting spam from a dating website.

At least, I thought it was spam. It ended up directly in my spam folder, and I deleted it unread, just like I tend to do with all the other spam I get. After a while, though, I noticed the subject lines on the emails were not normal spam subject lines. These looked like the type of emails that social network sites send out to notify you when there's activity on your 'page'. Except, I don't have an account with any dating websites--I've been married for 27 years and love my husband dearly, and have no desire to look for someone else.

Then something else occurred to me--the email address these things were being sent to was a private email that not very many people have. Primarily, people whom I've considered my friends.

It's always a bit icky when you realize someone's appropriated your email. Just ask anyone who's had to explain to their email provider that they've been hacked and their email stolen. This had that extra bit of ickiness, though. Someone I know took my email address, and set up an account with this dating website, in essence stealing my identity and planting it in a public place where I have no control over it. I haven't been to the website. I have no idea what's in the profile on the 'page'.

There are enough clues, between the use of the private email and the profile name, which sometimes pops up in the subject lines of emails sent by the site, that I may have a fair idea who did it, and why. Not cool, guys. And very inappropriate, for reasons that you know as well as I do. Proverbs 27:11. Be wise, and delete the account, please, if you haven't already.

There was a previous version of this post, if you read it and wondered what happened to it. Shortly after it was posted, all email activity from the dating site stopped. It could mean the profile was taken down. If so, thank you. It could mean the email address was changed, in which case the profile may still be active. It's also possible my blog is showing up on the profile page, in which case potential suitors were probably quite turned off. I was way more ticked last night. (If this is showing up on the profile page, please point this post out to the site moderators. Maybe they can do something about getting the 'page' taken down.)

In case you're wondering, a Google search showed the site was one of the bigger free dating sites, and the last email I got from them, which I did open and look at, was a newsletter-type thing letting me know where there was 'singles activity'. Well, I'm sure someone's happy to know there's singles activity out there, but since I'm happily settled, it's not me. The only possible reason I can think of to visit the site would be to check that the profile on it has been deleted.

Recent reads...

I had a list around here somewhere of the books I'd read, but it's managed to get buried, so I'll try to remember what was on it...

Cara Black:
Murder on the Palais Royal-- Aimee Leduc's partner is shot and left for dead, and Aimee's being accused.

Charles Todd:
Wings of Fire
Search the Dark
Watchers of Time
Legacy of the Dead
A Fearsome Doubt
A Lonely Death

Inspector Ian Rutledge. Obviously, I'm trying to catch up on the series.

On the Nook:

Steve Hockensmith:
The Black Dove

Rex Stout:
A Family Affair
Gambit
Too Many Women
Three Men Out

Currently reading:
On paper:
Daphne DuMaurier:
Jamaica Inn

On Nook:
Rex Stout:
The Hand in the Glove

Up Next:

Not sure. I have Death and Judgement by Donna Leon, or another Rex Stout, or half a dozen ebooks by Margret Frazer that I haven't touched yet. Plenty of choices.

I'm planning on doing a redesign on my website, once I can figure out some background art.

Winter has been unusually mild. I'm not complaining. Still have a couple of months to go, so there's plenty of time yet for nasty weather.

Until next time~~~

Rainy November

Well, it's rainy today, anyway. And it's supposed to rain the next couple of days. Sigh.

We had a bit of excitement on Saturday night. About 10:53pm, an earthquake hit an area of Oklahoma centered near Sparks, with an intensity level of 5.6, the highest on record for Oklahoma. By the time it got to us, the intensity level was somewhere around 3, which was enough to make many people sit up and take notice. Most of the earthquakes that we get are so tiny that either we don't feel them, or the vibrations are so slight that we're not certain we really felt it. This one occurred during a pretty strong series of wind gusts, and many of us locally thought it was just the wind shaking things, until it became plain that it wasn't. There was a bottle of water on my dresser, and the water inside picked up the vibration of the ground. It was interesting and a little unnerving to watch.

Yeah, I know, this was child's play compared to the ones California gets, but this isn't California. As someone in Oklahoma stated, we get tornadoes. We don't get earthquakes. The next morning, whenever two people met, the likely first question was, "Did you feel it?" I know I heard it a lot.

The Muse Online Writers Conference went well, at least my part of it. It was the first year I ran the suspense workshop solo. There was a bit of a mix-up about participants being reminded about the conference's starting date this year, so there weren't a lot of people participating, but those who did were there to learn, and it made working with them a pleasure. Hopefully I'll be a bit better prepared next year.

Reading...erm, yes, I have done some. I'm a bit blank on things right now, and will have to refresh my memory on what all I read since last time. That will have to be in another post.

Car Wrecks, BB&BBQ, and the Muse Conference

The last couple of weeks have been busy. We had about $2000 in maintenance work done on the main family car somewhere around a month ago, and just over two weeks later, a young man in a pick-up truck pulled out in front of us at an intersection and there was a collision. Granted, he couldn't see us, because another SUV blocked us from sight until it was far too late. I'm thinking it was his first major collision. You don't have that deer in the headlights look when you've been in a wreck before--you're too busy stepping on the gas pedal trying to get out of the way of oncoming traffic.

The young man had no insurance, something that just astounded my father, who came out to pick us up because our car was undrivable after the wreck. 'How could he get his car licensed without insurance?' he wondered. Insurance companies call such people 'taggers', because they buy insurance just so they can get the tags on their car, then cancel the policy. The police officer who handled the report of the wreck had a nice stack of tickets for him when all was said and done. Just the ticket for failure to have insurance is $500, according to our insurance agency. Fortunately, we keep comprehensive coverage on the family car, and our insurance company has been wonderful through the whole process.

There's an unmistakable roar of Fall in the air. It's Bikes, Blues, and Barbecue week. For the uninitiated, it's rapidly becoming one of the bigger biker rallies in the US. I've heard the number 400,000 tossed around in the attendance area. Lots of free concerts, some barbecue competitions, a few not-so-free concerts. Motorcycles everywhere. Next week's going to seem very, very quiet after this one.

I'll be happy to have that peace and quiet, as next week is the Muse Online Writers Conference, an entirely online conference where instructors and students from around the world can gather at times convenient to them. The workshop 'rooms' are open 24/7, and assignments can be posted whenever, and graded when the teacher is up and ready to work on them. I'll be teaching our Suspense workshop again this year, though I will be doing it solo, because my workshop partner is unable to attend this year. Hopefully everyone will be patient with me.

Gigi Ann of Ann's Reading Corner has posted her thoughts on Reef Runner. Thank you, ma'am!

So far this fall, the weather's been pretty nice. I guess we're getting a break before winter hits us. Definitely not complaining.

Recent reads--

A Pale Horse
A Matter of Justice
both by Charles Todd

These books have a darkness to them that comes from the protagonist's state of mind. A shell-shocked WWI veteran, he has recovered enough to function in his job as a Scotland Yard detective, but never knows when it will catch him at a bad moment during an investigation. Because of that, each book carries a certain level of depression with them, but are worth reading if you space them out with other books in between.

Billy Boyle by James R. Benn

This one was read in a listserv I'm on, but it wasn't until recently I had the chance to read it. Billy Boyle is a newly-minted detective on the Boston police force, just at the beginning of the US's entry to the Second World War. Family connections bring him to the attention of a distant uncle, General Eisenhower, who snaps him up fresh out of Officer Candidate School and has him shipped to London to serve as his own personal investigator. I had a little trouble connecting with the character right at first, but as both author and character grew comfortable with their surroundings, Billy became someone whose adventures I'm interested in following.

On the Nook:

The Black Mountain, by Rex Stout.

The death of Nero Wolfe's friend sets in motion events that not only see him leave the Brownstone, but send him to his birthplace in Montenegro (then part of Yugoslavia) to find the killer. Right-hand man Archie Goodwin spends most of the book waiting for Wolfe to translate for him, since he doesn't speak Serbo-Croatian.

Currently reading:

On the Nook:

Plot It Yourself, by Rex Stout.

Am enjoying this, not only for the usual antics, but because of the fact that Wolfe's clients in this one are authors and publishers.

Up next:

Heat Rises, by 'Richard Castle'.

Book 3 of the series purportedly being written by the character Richard Castle from the TV series 'Castle'. These things are fun. Not outstanding literature, but a neat way of making viewers of the series feel 'connected' to the characters and as if they're participants in a way.

Enough for now. I need to do some prep work for the conference.

'til later~~~

Comment moderation

My apologies, but I've put the blog on comment moderation. I don't have the time and energy to fend off a lot of comment spam, and I certainly didn't start this blog to give folks a place to advertise products.

Legitimate comments will be approved as I get the notifications.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Uncertain weather

This has been one interesting year, weather-wise. I'm sure anyone who's had access to either a TV or the internet knows exactly what I mean by that.

We went from summer to fall overnight, with the passage of one cold front. Days with highs in the nineties went to days in the seventies, and nights in the lower seventies went to nights in the forties. It's great not to roast every day, but now I'm cold, lol! I got adjusted to the hot temperatures. We had that nice rain a couple of weeks back, which has combined with the cooler temperatures to encourage vegetation to make up for lost time in a desperate attempt to reproduce before winter. My husband started suffering from allergies a couple of weeks ago. It really started hitting me just during this past week. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on, but then I noticed things flowering. The grass greened up after the rain, but we haven't had much more than morning dew for the past couple of weeks, so things are still abnormally dry. As far as I know, we're not under a burn ban, but there are enough dead leaves on the ground from the trees trying to save themselves during the heat of summer that a carelessly discarded cigarette or match could cause a disaster.

Gigi Ann of Ann's Reading Corner has posted her thoughts about Blood Money and Rio Star. Thank you very much, ma'am!

The new novel is coming along. I have a bit more research to do on it.

As far as reading goes:

I've just finished A Duty to the Dead, by Charles Todd. The first of the Bess Crawford mysteries, set during WWI.

Murder in Belleville, by Cara Black. Second in the Aimee Leduc series.

Natural Environments of Arizona. This is a textbook, bought for story research. It's about as dry as the title suggests.

Insider's Arizona Guidebook. An Arizona Highways book. Also bought for research. The part of the state that I'm interested in got a small section, but the pictures are gorgeous.

Arizona: A Cavalcade of History, by Marshall Trimble. Actually, I haven't read this yet, but it's on the list, as it's research material.

The Nature of Arizona. A guidebook of plants, animals, and trees in Arizona. Research.

The Mountains Know Arizona. An Arizona Highways book. Expected a trade-paperback type thing, and got an fairly good-sized hardback, with big, beautiful pictures. Definitely useful. Research.

The Mapping of Love and Death, by Jacqueline Winspear. Maisie Dobbs series.

Waiting on my Nook are:

Still Life, by Louise Penny. First in series.

The Black Dove, by Steve Hockensmith. Third in the Holmes on the Range series.

Plot It Yourself
Three Men Out
Gambit
The Black Mountain
Too Many Women
--All by Rex Stout. Five Nero Wolfe books I haven't read yet.

Waiting in paper is: A Pale Horse, by Charles Todd. Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery.

Nearly a third of the way through September already. The older I get, the more I understand what the Bible means when it says that a thousand years is as a day to God.

More to come as things warrant...

~~~

Revenge of Summer, parts One and Two

You may have notice that I haven't said much for the last couple of months. (Well, I know someone has--thanks, Wayne, for asking!)

You may also know that I don't have air conditioning (just look back through my posts from previous summers. You'll find it). If you also know that the midsection of the US has been getting baked in a pressure cooker of a weather system for the past couple of months, you can probably guess what I've been doing. Computer time has been limited in order to protect my computer from overheating on those long and intensely hot days we've had, starting back in June and getting hotter and more intense as the summer progressed. Just right now, we're getting a break because the high pressure ridge that was holding everything in place fell apart and set some rain and cooler weather in, but the weather service indicates that the ridge is rebuilding, so we'll likely be heading right back into heat and drought in fairly short order. Hopefully nothing as intense as it's been. We came one degree short of equaling our all time record high of 110 degrees, and have had 16 days of 100 degree or higher temperatures this year, which is very unusual for us.

I'm not looking forward to that 'part two' of the summer attack. I was really hoping our end of the summer heat was just coming early this year.

Got some reading done, though:

Gamble (otherwise known as Dick Francis' Gamble) by Felix Francis.
I think the family business is in good hands. Felix is already a good writer. There's a lot about this that's familiar, in a good way. I look forward to the next one from him.

An Impartial Witness, by Charles Todd
The first out of this series I've read. World War I nurse helping to solve the murder of a woman who was the wife of one of her patients. This era is getting a lot of play lately, with Jacquiline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs books set in the aftermath of the war, and Todd's other series centered around a man who suffers from the after-effects of battle and traumatic injuries in his life as a police detective.

Swan for the Money, by Donna Andrews
Came in on this series with Cockatiels at Seven. It's okay. Will probably pick up more.

Dare to Die, by Carolyn Hart. One of her Death on Demand books. These later ones are easier for me to read, mainly because the earlier ones felt too much like every police official in the Carolinas was presented at one time or another as a rabid idiot who was so set on convicting an innocent person that only our intrepid heroine could keep an unwilling law and order moving in the right direction. Yes, this was probably typical of mysteries at the time they were written, and yes, it bothers me in other books of the era. I did guess what it was that set Emma's memory of the attack off, and had a fair idea whodunit. I enjoyed her Henrie O series as well, and hope she'll continue writing those. Not at all interested in the ghost series she's writing now.

Next up is Dead in Vineyard Sand, by Philip Craig, and then probably Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny. Sometime soon, possibly Absolute Zero Cool, by Declan Burke, which I'll have to order from overseas, I think.

Thunder and rain approach as I type this. Gotta enjoy it while it's here.

Mundania's having a Sale!

Mundania Press is celebrating its ninth year in business with a sale. All books on their website are 29% off for the month of August.

Yes, that's all books, whether in trade paperback or in ebook format.

If you're thinking about picking up copies of the Patty O'Donnell series as gifts, or if you're missing one and would like to get it at a discount, you can find them HERE. Sale prices are only available on the Mundania website.

If you like humorous crime fiction with a definite noir edge...

Just received word from Declan Burke, one of the rising young stars of Irish crime fiction, that his new book, Absolute Zero Cool, is coming very soon...



Jacket Copy:

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL

by Declan Burke

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” – John Banville, author of THE SEA


Who in their right mind would want to blow up a hospital?

“Close it down, blow it up – what’s the difference?”

Billy Karlsson needs to get real. Literally. A hospital porter with a sideline in euthanasia, Billy is a character trapped in the purgatory of an abandoned novel. Deranged by logic, driven beyond sanity, Billy makes his final stand: if killing old people won’t cut the mustard, the whole hospital will have to go up in flames.

Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned . . .


“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN


Advance Praise for ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL:


“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” - Reed Farrel Coleman, author of EMPTY EVER AFTER


“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill, author of SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S


“If you want to find something new and challenging, comic crime fiction is now the place to go … Declan Burke [is] at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the clichés and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works.” - Colin Bateman, author of NINE INCHES


“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a surreal rollercoaster of a read, full of the blackest humour, and yet poignant. An outrageously funny novel ... The joy is in the writing itself, all sparky dialogue and wry observation, so smooth that when it cuts, it’s like finding razor blades in honey.” - Deborah Lawrenson, author of THE LANTERN


“Burke has written a deep, lyrical and moving crime novel … an intoxicating and exciting novel of which the master himself, Flann O’Brien, would be proud.” - Adrian McKinty, author of FIFTY GRAND



Absolute Zero Cool gets its official launch on August 10th at the Gutter Bookshop, Temple Bar, Dublin. If you're in that area, I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you dropped in.

You should be able to find the book here once it's available, or of course, you can find it on Amazon.co.uk.



In the meantime, you can find Down These Green Streets, a collection of crime fiction short stories by Irish crime writers and edited by Declan Burke, at the link above.