Guest Writer: Robert Richter

Perhaps it's because I was born in Texas, but whatever the reason, I'm enthralled by Mexico and it's rich and varied history. When Robert contacted me and said he'd be happy to write a blog about Mexico, I jumped at the opportunity. Robert writes both mystery and history set in Mexico and his most recent novel is set against the Huichol culture of northwestern Mexico, one of Mexico's most mysterious and isolated indigenous people. I find it fascinating and I hope you will to. Please welcome Robert!

Although I was a wheat farmer for twenty years and still live a reclusive life on the remnants of a family homestead in southwestern Nebraska, I also have an active relationship with Mexico (and other parts of Latin America) that dates back more than forty years. I first traveled alone in Mexico during the cultural turmoil of the Vietnam Era, and I quickly began to realize that the official American version of what Mexico is like as a nation and a people was just as distorted as the official version of that Asian war. Unfortunately, over four decades later, American conceptions of Mexico’s government, culture, and history, including the so-called Drug War at present, remain a politicized distortion in American schools, the American press, and the American psyche.



Perhaps our collective national consciousness is still in denial (and cover up mode) about the fact that we stole nearly half of Mexico’s sovereign territory in the 1840s. Did you know that what American schools gloss over as the U.S.-Mexican War is taught in Mexican history class as The U.S. Invasion of Mexico because, well, that’s just what it was? (You can find verification of this version in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.) A hundred a sixty-five years of Mexico bashing has been a noisy rationale of just desserts all around: the U.S. is superior; Mexico is still lawless and dangerous. This is just one example of how two different cultural realities and perspectives can occupy the same historical space.

While I could rant about such injustices, my only real suggestion is merely that a person ought to travel to Mexico to see for oneself what life is really like there. And by “Mexico,” I mean a place other than the beach resorts—rural and village Mexico, and wild nature Mexico, exotic Mexico.


I return to Mexico each year, in part, to remind myself that day-to-day humanity of my own local community and way of life is the same human nature to be found in rural and small town Mexico (and, would you believe, in most parts of the rest of the world): love of family, devotion to a higher power, communal interaction for the betterment of all. In short, decent human beings working out their lot in life exist everywhere.


I also return to Mexico each year because, well, I just like the life style there. It reminds me of earlier times when my own American culture was more free spirited, less cynical, more informal in business, and less restrictive in personal freedoms. And you can’t beat the affordability compared to the American cost of living. But mostly, I return to Mexico because the history and culture fascinate me with their blend of Spanish colonial and indigenous character. There is still magic in Mexico, different realities side by side, and places where the passage of time means nothing.

I also travel frequently to Mexico because I am a historian and a writer with a scholarly relationship to Mexico past and present. The country’s history and character imbue my work, whether I write fiction or historical narrative, and that work is always composed of personal experience and sound historical investigation, intended to inform and entertain my audience about some real and fascinating aspect of Mexico’s rich culture.


An example subject would be the Huichol and Cora Indians who live in the high sierras of northwestern Mexico where the states of Durango, Jalisco, and Nayarit meet. So isolated and independent, their ancestors were never conquered by the Spanish colonists. Their animistic religious lives, devoted to the worship of the deer, the corn plant, and the peyote cactus, have never been dominated by Christianity. Their language is unwritten, its orthographies created by modern anthropologists who have studied their culture. And Huichol art has come to be known worldwide for its uniqueness in form, style, and subject. Merely Google “Huichol Art,” to verify this point.

The art is also a good example of how their culture has come under stress from outsiders and the modern world. Early Huichol art was entirely devoted to a spiritual connection to and view of the universe and their gods. In particular, the “yarn painting” is traditionally a small rectangular board coated in bee’s wax into which colorful yarns are inlaid in tight, concentric lines, and depicts a scene in which the artist receives a vision from the gods while under the hallucinogenic influence of peyote. The yarn painting tells a story of the artist’s spiritual journey, and originally, such works were never intended to be sold to anyone.


Now, yarn painting is a cottage industry, along with other well-known Huichol art forms like “god’s eyes” and bead inlaid busts of jaguars. This industrial output has been supported by outside do-gooders, including Mexico’s own Ministry of Culture, in well-meaning efforts to help the Huichols preserve their ancient and traditional culture in their homeland sierras. In the evolving production of art goods, the spiritual messages and symbols inherent in early works that found their way into art boutiques and tourist shops have all but disappeared into secular, geometric design. It is still unique Huichol art, but art for contemporary mass capitalistic consumption.


Having moved along the fringes of Huichol culture from time to time during forty years of travel, I’ve seen a subtle evolution in the yarn painting. Once, the vision represented was purely symbolic of the spiritual, a depiction of interaction between the highest powers and the vision seeker. The corn plant, the deer, the peyote, and so many other spiritually imbued creatures—scorpions, eagles, water serpents, grandfather fire, and more—were the elements and the life of the vision and the painting. But gradually, true spiritual stories have given way to nonrepresentational geometric designs and creatures talking to and for an audience of art buyers, not for the shaman—the Huichol religious leader who helps the visionary interpret his religious experience under the effects of peyote.


In other ways, too, the Huichol culture has come under stress of onslaught by modern times. Alcoholism and capitalism work like water seeping into the cracks of a granite mountain to freeze and thaw, expand and contract, until this particular cultural mountain erodes way to boulders, then to gravel, then sand. But capitalism also helps keep the Huichol culture alive in some of its purer forms, too. Those who recognize the artistry in Huichol craft and buy their art sustain a contemporary economic base for an ancient culture, allowing a people to adhere to their cultural values at a level of their choosing. In communities in the highest sierras, some Huichols still follow the shaman in the old ways, never mixing with the outside forces. In flea markets and tourist resorts, some merely dress in native costume and sell their culture’s heritage. As the saying goes, it’s complicated. Two (and more) realities occupy the same human space.


I have tried to present this complication of different cultural realities occupying the same space in a mystery novel called, Something Like A Dream (www.plainventurespress.com ). Set in 1982, at an early stage of corruption by infiltrating contemporary culture, the story is meant to introduce readers to the Huichol people, their cultural and religious life centered on peyote visions and a spiritual relationship to their environment. While I set a contemporary mystery about a wife’s search for her lost anthropologist husband against this indigenous cultural background, the story is really about the nature of Huichol life, and I include a list of anthropological references and a glossary of many Huichol terms. The protagonist of the mystery is an outcast American expat who becomes obsessed with the beautiful wife as he helps her search for her famous husband in the sierra heart of Huichol territory. On this strange pilgrimage he will find a whole new perspective on reality and dream, on deceit and self-deception, on human spirituality, and a miraculous healing ceremony that will change his life forever or simply end it. You are invited to share the search and this look at ancient Huichol life in modern Mexico. You may find that Mexico has much more to offer than its contemporary image portrays.

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You can get more information about Robert's books at http://www.plainventurespress.com/ or at his personal website at www.chase3000.com/rdrichter . I hope you'll give him a visit.

Guest Blog: Kit Sloane

I recently asked Kit Sloane to join us for a blog since she's written about a subject that a lot of folks find very interesting these days: Reality TV. Thankfully, she answered the call and here is her blog. I hope you enjoy it!

I write a mystery series about Hollywood people, The Margot & Max series. She is a film editor. He is a director. They meet very interesting people!


This began when years ago, my then frustrated agent suggested I try writing another series. Yikes! She hadn’t sold my first series during the turbulent late 80’s when publishing houses were becoming conglomerates and editors/authors found themselves suddenly “downsized. I was dumbfounded thinking of all the work needed to create a whole new cast of characters, etc, etc. But I kept my eyes and ears open.



Fortunately, at this time, a dear friend was interning as a film editor at a prestigious production studio and I’d meet her there for lunch. I was fascinated by the shy, retiring, mostly women, film editors I met, far from the perceived “glitz” of Hollywood. What a great background for the protagonist of a mystery story, a woman who is detail-oriented and also a genuinely reticent wall flower. I teamed my Margot O’Banion with her partner, Max Skull, a talented, successful, over-the-top director. He sees to it that she faces the world, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for her.

Now, eight books later, my daughter Annie Sperling (who also does all my book covers. Even with 3-different publishers, they’ve always asked if she can continue doing them!) and her partner, Marc Greville, are production designers in...where else....Hollywood! Making movies is a fascinating BUSINESS. It takes approximately 200 people doing their specific, detailed job to make a movie; from director and actors, to electricians and plumbers. What a fascinating mix! The industry attracts a diverse group of individuals, all talented or highly skilled (or they don’t work), all jockeying for jobs in a highly competitive arena. Incredible fodder for a mystery writer!



My research is done by asking questions and, especially, by listening. When visiting in Los Angeles we often get to go on set during productions. I stand back and LISTEN. People talk. They talk about their jobs, their co-workers, their bosses... It’s like listening to any other water cooler conversations except these people tend to be a bit larger-than-life with added dramatics and the stories are fantastic!



I also have to keep up on the technical changes for making movies. I don't stress these, but Margot has moved from film to taping and digital devices. And I've kept up with the economic changes in the business. Life doesn't stand still!



Having researched everything (I use the Internet, non-fiction books, and even movies) from the House UnAmerican Activities Committees in the 1950s where so many talented writers and actors were blacklisted, to financing and “following the money” as my protagonists make their first independent film, I decided to finally take on reality TV, an especially curious mix of the real and manipulations. I began my research online for the unique terminology that is used and then asked Annie and Marc about friends who’ve worked on these “reality” projects. Wow! The stories they told. THE MAGICIANS, book number 8, came from this research.



So, are all the events I hear about truly subjective or accurate? Probably not. Most story tellers tend toward exaggeration and self-aggrandizement. I mean, we’re only human! But, generally, even in the most outlandish anecdote, there’s a shining kernel of truth. That’s what I look for. That bit of hard fact is often what I base my plot lines on, the unexpected behavior or fashion or trend and the way people act and react to these. That’s what makes a mystery! And many readers say that my stories feel so “real.” Well, they are. Mostly!



THE MAGICIANS
the eighth Margot & Max mystery

from OakTreeBooks


Reality TV can be murder...

http://www.kitsloane.net/

Thank you so much, Kit!

Guest Writer: Bruce Macbain

I love mysteries set in ancient Rome and Bruce Macbain's are some of the best. He also writes for Poisoned Pen Press, which I have a special fondness for, since I remember sharing dozens of their mysteries with my father. In fact, I doubt I would write mysteries if it wasn't for those books my dad passed to me whenever I stopped by his house.

So I hope you'll enjoy meeting Bruce and hearing about some of the fascinating research he's done for his mysteries.

Wandering wombs and talking snakes?

There are some strange and untraveled byways in the ancient world that even professional historians (which I was for many years) rarely tread. Having now turned to writing historical fiction, I am happily exploring some of them.

By way of introduction, I should say that I have written a mystery set in first century AD Rome entitled Roman Games (Poisoned Pen Press, 2010) and am now at work on its sequel, The Bull Slayer. My hero is Pliny the Younger, Roman senator and letter writer extraordinaire, assisted by two other well-known literary figures, the poet Martial and the biographer Suetonius. But it isn’t about them that I want to talk today.

In Roman Games, Pliny’s fourteen-year-old wife, Calpurnia, is having a difficult pregnancy (this much is fact: Pliny mentions her miscarriage in one of his letters). We don’t really know who her physician was but I have put her in the capable hands of Soranus of Ephesus, who was just beginning his career in Rome in the 90’s AD. This young Greek doctor was to become, in the words of his modern translator, “one of the most learned, critical, and lucid authors of antiquity.” Little is known of his life except that he was born in the province of Asia (modern Turkey) and trained in Alexandria. He wrote on many medical subjects but his most influential work was the Gynecology. The following small sample of chapter headings shows the range of this fascinating work:

• What Persons Are Fit to Become Midwives

• Up to What Time Females Should Be Kept Virgins

• What Care Should Be Given Pregnant Women

• What Grows Inside the Uterus of a Pregnant Woman

• Whether One Ought to Make Use of Abortives and Contraceptives, and how

• How to Recognize the Newborn That Is Worth Rearing

• On Difficult Labor

• On Hysterical Suffocation

Hysterical suffocation is the condition of the lady Amatia, a guest in Pliny’s house. Soranus, who is attending Calpurnia, witnesses this lady’s sudden attack of convulsions and volunteers to examine her with a bronze speculum that resembles an implement of torture. Emerging from her bed chamber after a few minutes, he announces triumphantly, “…the lady’s womb is precisely where it should be!”) Soranus was, in fact, one of the few ancient physicians who questioned the common belief that female hysteria was caused by the womb (Greek hysteron) becoming detached and “scampering around like a kitten chasing a ball.” Treatments for the condition generally involved applying evil-smelling substances to the nose or sweet-smelling ones to the nether regions in order to lure the madcap organ back to its proper place. And, despite Soranus’ considerable authority, this continued to be the prevailing theory for centuries among (male) doctors whose imaginations got the better of their common sense.

For anyone interested in the history of medicine, or of women, his book makes interesting reading. (There is a translation with good introduction and notes by Prof. Oswei Temkin [Johns Hopkins University Press] available on Amazon.)

If Greco-Roman medicine has its amusing side, so too does religion. In The Bull Slayer, I introduce a character who is based on one of the most brazen—and successful—religious charlatans to be found in any age: Alexander of Abonoteichus. This man’s astonishing career is described for us by Lucian of Samosata, a Greek writer of the 2nd century AD, who knew him personally.

From obscure beginnings in the ignorant backwater of Paphlagonia, Alexander invented and propagated an oracular cult which took all of Roman Asia by storm and gained enthusiastic adherents even in the highest levels of the aristocracy. As Lucian tells it, Alexander was a “handsome man with a touch of divinity about him….his eyes were piercing and suggested inspiration…his voice sweet and sonorous.” He wore his hair in long curls, dressed in dazzling white, and carried a scimitar in honor of the hero Perseus from whom he claimed descent. But he had a “temperament compounded of falsehood, trickery, perjury and cunning.” Versatile, audacious and adventurous, he “never made a small plan.” When confronted by skeptics, he would foam at the mouth and feign divine madness.

His shtik was elaborate and impressive. He worked with an immense tame serpent (the totem animal of Asklepios), which he wound around his body, concealing its head under his arm. What the audience saw was a fake head made of painted canvas, serpent-like but vaguely human, whose jaws were moved by pulling invisible horse hairs. Through a speaking tube made by joining cranes’ windpipes together, a hidden confederate would voice the oracular responses to people’s questions.

And how did Alexander know what answers to give? The gullible (which included nearly everyone) wrote down their questions on tablets and sealed them with wax. Behind the scenes his many accomplices—he had a huge organization of attendants, inquiry agents, oracle writers, secretaries, seal forgers, and interpreters—removed the seals, read and then resealed them. Run-of-the-mill questions, often relating to health, got standardized responses. But other questions revealed that the writers were up to illegal activities. In these cases he didn’t return the packet with an answer but held on to it and used it to blackmail the sender. Between the drachma he charged for each answer (people often submitted dozens of questions at a time) and the blackmail, Alexander got to be a very rich, and a very dangerous, man. Lucian, who was a thorough-going skeptic, did his best to expose him, tricking him in various ways with phony questions, but nothing availed against his popularity.

Lucian, by the way, is an interesting figure in his own right. We know little of his personal life but he wrote amusingly and insightfully on a wide range of topics. His “True History” recounting a trip to the moon, is the world’s earliest science fiction story. His “Dialogues of the Gods” pokes gentle fun at the traditional myths. And his essay, “On the Death of Peregrinus,” is the biography of still another religious charlatan—a wandering philosopher who, for a time, became a Christian. Peregrinus learned their “lore”, assumed the role of prophet and lawgiver in one of their synagogues, and was revered as a god, “next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world…” Eventually, the Christians caught on to him and tossed him out. He ended his life in 161 AD by publicly burning himself to death at the Olympic Games. (These and other essays of Lucian can be found in several available translations.)

As I began by saying, it’s the less-known, out-of-the-way corners of the ancient world that interest me the most. I hope I’ve shone a light into a couple of them and enticed you to explore them for yourself.

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Thanks, Bruce! I hope folks will check out your book and your terrific website at http://www.brucemacbain.com/ .

Sample Sunday: A Rose Before Dying

It's Sample Sunday and I'm offering an excerpt from my latest mystery, A Rose Before Dying. This is the second mystery in the Second Sons Inquiry Agency mystery series and although Mr. Knighton Gaunt, the founder of Second Sons, is involved, the main investigator is not an inquiry agent at all, it's an earl trying to exonerate his uncle.

It's 1821 and Sir Edward Marlowe has been accused of killing his ex-mistress, Lady Banks. His nephew, Charles Vance, Earl of Castlemoor, is convinced his uncle is innocent and decides to investigate. The killer has left a taunting note and a rose, indicating that another murder will soon take place. Charles has taken the rose to an expert in hopes of identifying it and preventing the tragedy.
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The butler stared at the card and then intoned, “Lord Castlemoor, Miss Wellfleet.”


She wiped her hands on a towel resting on the table and faced him. A tan apron covered the front of her dress from neat collar to hem, and dark, rich earth liberally smeared it in long, sweeping streaks.

“I’m afraid we must disappoint him.” She stared at Charles, but her movements placed the lamp behind her and left her face in darkness. Her expression was hidden, but the light behind her set her hair on fire. The thick coils glowed deep, golden brown in a halo around her shadowed face.

“Are you sure Mr. Lee sent you? Here?” she asked.

“Yes, quite sure.” Charles had the uncomfortable feeling that Mr. Wellfleet was either gone from this house, or worse, from this world. “I take it Mr. Wellfleet is unavailable?”

“You might say that,” she said dryly. “He’s been rather unavailable for the past six months. My father, Mr. Wellfleet, is dead, my lord.”

“I’m sorry. However, I assure you Mr. Lee did send me. And I freely admit it may have been my fault to assume he sent me to speak to Mr. Wellfleet.” His voice slowed as he realized his hopes had faded along with the daylight. Mr. Lee had sent him on a fruitless mission to see a man who had died months ago.

Bitter anger gripped him, clogging his throat. He stared at the woman, unable to speak through his frustration. Someone would die—and soon—because he was unable to identify a single, ridiculous rose.

“Is this your daughter?” she asked, breaking the silence. Her lovely face remained impassive as she eyed the little girl.

“What? No—good heavens, no.”

“Then…who is she?”

“Her name is Rose.” He bit the words off, thinking furiously of a way to identify the next target. There had to be a way, even without knowing the true name of the rose.

“And did you bring her here for a reason, my lord?”

“Well, her name is Rose,” he replied absently.

Rosa collina, Lee had said. Someone named Collins? That had to be the answer.

“I see. So you thought you could plant her in the garden, perhaps? Next to the chrysanthemums?” She paused as if in thought. “Well, Mr. Gibson dug a new bed this morning. I suppose we can plant her there, assuming she will fit. What color are her blooms? I hope they aren’t too garish. I was planning a display of pale pinks and murray-purple in that particular spot. It’s too late to change now. I’ve already begun planting.”

He stared at her only to realize that despite her solemn expression, her hazel eyes glowed with laughter. She looked at the small girl clinging to him and smiled.

Rose stared back, her blue eyes wide before she nodded and said with firm resolution, “Pink.”

“You’re sure? You look rather like one of the mad Gallicas to me. Perhaps you’re a rich red streaked with a few patches of the palest-of-pale pink?”

The little girl shook her head vigorously before stepping over to Miss Wellfleet and taking her hand. “Pink. I’m pink.”

“Then I just may have the perfect bed for you.” Her wide mouth trembled with suppressed mirth. She glanced back to Charles. “Since it seems, despite all appearances and the company you keep, you aren’t quite mad after all.”

She clearly wasn’t convinced of his sanity, however.

He flushed. “I beg your pardon. But truly, I didn’t know where else to take her…”

“And just where are her parents? Her mother?”

“She’s an orphan.”

“That’s certainly convenient, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied stiffly.

She sighed and dipped a corner of the towel into a small, tin pitcher of water on the table. She washed a smudge of dirt from the girl’s cheek, revealing the soft, rosy skin. “Do you even know who her mother is? Or was?”

“Yes. She resides just a few blocks from here.” If she could joke about the situation, he could, too.

“Where?” she asked warily. “Oh, you mean St. Michael’s, I suppose.”

“Yes. At least, that’s what I understand.”

“The orphanage—”

“Workhouse. Would you really ask me to take her there?”

She studied him. “No, I suppose not. But you—”

“I can’t keep her.” He paused. “Can I?”

“It does look odd.” The speculative gleam in her eyes brought out their rich brown color. “And most improper. What I don’t quite understand is your concern for her. Why, out of all the dozens of children wandering the streets of London, did you choose her? Are you certain she’s not yours?”

“No. In truth, I never knew of her existence before today,” he replied honestly. “I just stumbled over her and brought her along.” He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “There’s no compelling logic or reason.”

“I see. However, I fear I must ask again, are you sure she’s not yours?”

“No. Truly. I never meet her until today.”

“That’s hardly convincing, is it?” She asked in her driest voice.

“I assure you, I don’t have a passel of…well, love children, wandering the streets of London.” He flushed with embarrassment. The hot color deepened when he realized she seemed just wayward enough to believe he was more embarrassed that he didn’t have a vast collection of by-blows, than he was by the suggestion he had only one.

Despite his best efforts to educate himself about females, they remained mysterious and largely incomprehensible at best.

This disadvantage struck him disagreeably.

“I couldn’t just leave her to starve.”

“This is most irregular, my lord. Any decent woman would flatly refuse to accept an orphan thrust upon her by a stranger—even one who is an earl.” She sighed. “However, I’m tired and perhaps not at my most sensible. So I suppose she can stay—”

“Thank you!” He leaned forward and almost gripped her hand. “I sincerely appreciate it.”

Miss Wellfleet folded the towel with restless hands. “May I ask if your sole reason for coming here was to divest yourself of Rose?”

“No—no, of course not.” He pulled out the small bundle containing the rose. He knew it was useless, her father, the rose expert, was dead. But he couldn’t stop a small spurt of hope. “I’d like to identify this rose. Do you recognize it?”

“I supposed you’re only asking me as a last resort. Because my father is no longer with us.” She held out a peremptory hand. “Let me see it.”

Her face was a smooth, expressionless mask. However, he detected traces of tired resignation at the implication that she could not be expected to have the depth of knowledge exhibited by a man.

When he placed the limp spray in her palm, she held it up to her nose and breathed in several times with closed eyes, cupping the flowers in her hands. Then she gave it a cursory examination before pulling the petals off of one flower.

“Stop!” He reached over to wrench it out of her hand. She turned her shoulder, blocking him. “What are you doing?”

“Counting the petals. Why?”

“You’re destroying it! How shall I identify it if you ruin it?”

She held it out. “Take it. Plant it, or allow me to root it. Or graft it. If it grows, you can ask your friend, Mr. Lee, to identify it in two or three years from the shape of the bush and bloom habit. Most men who grow roses agree that it takes at least one cycle of blooming to identify a rose with any assurance.”

“Two years!”

“Yes—if you want to be sure. And isn’t that why you wish to identify it? So you can purchase a specimen for your own garden?”

“Yes—but…”

“Yes?”

He gazed into her coolly discerning eyes and realized she was aware that he was not being open with her. But given Mr. Lee’s reaction, he could not bring himself to tell the complete truth. The rose wouldn’t last long enough to find another master gardener, assuming he could even locate one in London. “It’s…a wager. Silly, I know, but one of my friends said I couldn’t identify this rose.” The tips of his ears burned.

“I see.” Her eyes grew colder. “This is all a wager?” She glanced at Rose.

“No, of course not. Not Rose—she’s not part of it.”

Miss Wellfleet’s fingers pushed the petals into a line on the table and hovered over them. Thirteen petals, thin and wilting, spread in a tattered line. The slender spray was dying. The small, tight buds had already blackened and hung limply. His chest tightened with frustration.

Then with a theatrical gesture that suggested more defiance than scientific inquiry, she ripped apart the remaining flowers. She arranged the petals in three parallel lines, one for each flower. The roses didn’t all have the same number of petals. The first had thirteen petals. The next had eleven. The final rose had seventeen.

After examining what remained of the stalk, the yellow stamens, and leaves, she looked at him.

Although she didn’t precisely shrug, there was a quality in her expression that spoke of disdain when she said, “Rosa Collina fastigiata.”

“That’s it?” His tired disappointment reminded him of the lateness of the hour. Useless. He needn’t have come here at all. Lee had it right the first time.

“Well, yes. What were you expecting?”

“Something…more. A name…”

“That is a name.” Irritation sharpened her voice. “Or Flat-Flowered Hill Rose, if you prefer an English one.”

“You’re sure?”’

Her eyes hardened. “As sure as I can be from this small spray.” She flung the petals and twig onto the table. “No one can be absolutely sure without seeing the bush and knowing the growth habit and bloom cycles. Have you any idea how many roses there are?”

“I—”

“That’s why your friend made a clever wager—if wager it was. My lord. And if the true wager wasn’t bringing that girl, Rose, to a spinster plantsman.”

“No. Truly, I apologize. I sincerely appreciate the name. And Rose was an accidental meeting on my way. She was nearly killed in the road a few blocks from here. I couldn’t just leave her—for God’s sake—she’s just a child!”

“No, I don’t suppose you could,” she replied grudgingly. One of her slender hands rested on the girl’s lank hair. “It’s late. You have your name. I hope you win your wager.”

With a coolness he deserved but saddened him nonetheless, she gestured for him to leave. The butler, Mr. Abbott, waited just outside the French doors to the greenhouse. His silent presence ensured Miss Wellfleet had never been truly alone with Charles. Somehow, this reminded him of how attractive he found her, and he flushed when he caught Mr. Abbott’s curious gaze.

However, his embarrassment faded as he remembered his purpose.

A life could be saved if he interpreted Rosa Collina fastigiata properly.

How many people named Collins lived in London? Unless the clue rested with the English name, Flat-Flowered Hill Rose. Did this blossom point to a location instead of a person?

Time was slipping away.
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A Rose Before Dying is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

An Interview with Amy Corwin

This is a strange blog for me. Normally, I prefer to write about the craft of writing, research, life’s general weirdness, and occasionally my books. But a group of fellow writers convinced me to participate in a blog chain on the specious grounds that it’s fun. So here it is. One of my fictional characters, Miss Prudence Barnard, will interview me. Yes, that’s right, the character will interview the writer—not the other way around. And let’s remember this is theoretically fun.


So who is Miss Barnard, anyway? In The Vital Principle, Pru is a spiritualist, though not by choice or even nature. She’s fallen into that pastime to survive in the early years of the 19th century when there was precious little work for a lady. Or rather, there was no work available for a lady if she wished to remain a lady. So Pru, being a spinster with a tiny income, has become a professional guest. She’s invited to various house parties (saving her the cost of rent and food, although the tips for servants are outrageously expensive) because she’s entertaining and seems to be able to talk to the spirit world, which amuses her hosts. Usually. Until her most recent host is murdered.

Oh, by the way, she’s also a fraud and was accused of murder, but that’s another matter, entirely.

Amy Corwin’s Interview conducted by Miss Prudence Barnard

After unhitching the horses from Miss Barnard’s carriage and releasing them into the yard where they will hopefully get along with our two dogs and not eat too many roses, Amy invites Miss Barnard into her log home.

“Take a seat,” Amy says, waving toward the living room before she rushes to pick up the pile of computer, archaeology, and gardening magazines from the sofa. With a glance at the television (muted because her husband seems to enjoy having moving pictures without sound) she also picks up the remote control and turns it off the moving pictures.

Miss Barnard glances around, takes in the two cats flopping around on the floor, the detritus from the dogs, and delicately sits on the edge of the leather loveseat. “Thank you for your invitation.”

“No—thank you! You’re the one doing the interview. So ask away.” Amy distractedly looks around to find another more-or-less open place to sit. She winds up on the edge of the sofa, trying to push Psycho, a toothless and not particularly cooperative marmalade cat off the seat.

The cat immediately jumps into her lap, despite Amy's efforts to remain somewhat cat and cat-hair-free.

“Well, yes.” Miss Barnard rearranges her skirts and smoothes the dark silk. She turns her head to glance out the front window. She frowns. “I beg your pardon, but I have to ask, why is there a skeleton hanging from a tree near the driveway?”

“Oh, you noticed that, did you?” Amy says, trying not to scream when Psycho, in a sudden fit of insanity, grabs her wrist with his two front paws and begins rabbit punching her.

“One could hardly miss it.”

“It’s to discourage unwanted visitors. Will you stop that!" She shakes Psycho loose. He sprawls on the floor before getting up and rushing over to attack the other cat, Cricket. Both animals yowl and begin chasing each other through the living room, knocking over books and magazine with abandon.

Miss Barnard flushes, but continues gamely, “I see—”

“Doesn’t seem to work very well, though. We still get visitors.”

“If you’re implying—”

“I rarely feel the need to imply. When you’re over fifty, you pretty much just say it right out.” The back door slams open and two dogs rush through the house. Cricket, seeing the dogs, yowls. The dogs, seeing Cricket, rush out the front door. Amy ignores them. Cricket decides to also push open the front door and go outside. Psycho resumes his previous interest in Amy's lap and ensconces himself firmly therein.

“I beg your pardon, you’re…well…not very cooperative.”

“Really? Fancy that. Maybe that’s why I write mysteries like A Rose Before Dying. And by the way, stop begging my pardon. I’m not in a position to grant anyone a pardon, least of all a murder suspect.” The animals may take advantage of me, but I'm darned if I'll let a character I made up do so.

Pru straightens and nearly stands before she takes a deep breath. “I sense a certain resistance. Are you certain you want to be interviewed?”

“I’m certain I don’t want to be interviewed, but I agreed, so let’s just get this over with, shall we? You want something to drink?”

“A cup of tea would be lovely.”

“How about tea in exchange for a spirit session? I’ve been told the place is haunted. So far, no luck finding anything except a few snakes wandering around the house. One even tried to use my sewing machine but a lack of hands put a damper on things.” I start getting wound up. "You'd think the least these dogs and cats could do would be to keep the snakes out of the house, but nooooo. They have to act like the Bumpus dogs on Thanksgiving and dash through the house at regular intervals, leaving a trail in destruction in their wake."

“I’d really rather not conduct a spirt session at the moment. I'm sure you understand,” she says, looking around.

“You’re not afraid of snakes, are you?”

“No of course not. You don’t keep them in the house, do you? As pets?”

“Our pets are those hoodlum dogs and cats. If the occasional snake gets inside, it’s due to its own initiative. The best I can do is grab the snake tongs and throw them outside.”

“Do you think there are any here? At the moment?”

I shrug. What can I say? I’m not in control of my environment. When you live in a log home at the edge of a swamp, you take what comes. I know that. I’m resigned. “So, you want to get back to the interview?”

“I’m sorry.” She stands. “But I’ve just remembered another engagement.”

“A séance?”

“Yes. Quite. But thank you, I’ve enjoyed our visit.”

“Wait a minute,” I say as I open the door for her. “It’s still daylight—what kind of a séance starts at two in the afternoon?”

“An urgent one, I’m afraid.” She glides past me and gestures for her driver to catch their horse. Just in time, too, because it was munching on one of my favorite roses, Yolanda. In the meantime, our dogs have come back and have started eyeing the horse with a gleam in their eyes that boded ill for the spindly-legged beast.

“Come back soon!” I yell.

She glances over her shoulder. I could see the words form in her dark eyes, “Certainly. Right after Hell freezes over.”

-------Here is a list of the participants in the Heart of Carolina Writers Blog Chain
Full list of participants:


Aimee Laine: http://www.aimeelaine.com/blog/?p=8654&cpage=1#comment-1608

Lyla Dune : http://lyladune.com/blog.html

Carol Strickland : http://carolastrickland.blogspot.com/

Amy Corwin : *** Me ***
Lilly Gayle : http://www.lillygayleromance.blogspot.com/

Rebekkah Niles : http://juturnafaerthing.blogspot.com/

Laura Browning : http://www.laurabrowningbooks.blogspot.com/

Andris Bear : http://andrisbear.wordpress.com/

Marcia Colette : http://marciacolette.wordpress.com/

Nancy Badger : http://www.nancylennea-inlove.blogspot.com/

Sarah Mäkelä : http://blog.sarahmakela.com/

Jennifer Harrington : http://www.romanceadventures.blogspot.com/

Scott Berger : http://romanticadventurestories.wordpress.com/

My Latest Second Sons Mystery Is Finally Released

A Rose Before Dying is out!

This is it, my second book in the Second Sons mystery series is out! I’m exhausted but very, very pleased. Year ago, I came up with this concept of an inquiry agency manned by all those “spare” second sons who aren’t the heirs and are left with the clergy or military for careers. What if none of those alternatives appealed to them? What if they were willing to give up their social status and had an insatiable curiosity about their fellow human beings? A position as an inquiry agent might just be the ticket!

My first book, The Vital Principle, was finally released in February. That book introduced Knighton

Gaunt, the founder of Second Sons Inquiry Agency (Discreet Inquiries). He was featured in a previous book in the Archer family series, I Bid One American, but he gets a starring role in The Vital Principle.

In the new book, A Rose Before Dying, Charles Vance, the Earl of Castlemoor takes the lead with an assist from Mr. Gaunt. Charles is not an inquiry agent, but when his uncle is accused of murder, he steps in to find the person responsible for killing his uncle’s ex-paramour, Lady Banks, and leaving a rose behind with a taunting note.

A Rose Before Dying let me combine my research into the history of the rose with a classic British mystery and I’m deeply grateful to all the footwork done by rosarians including: Graham Stuart Thomas,

 David Austin, Peter Beales. Their books were invaluable, not to mention the gorgeous new English shrub roses David Austin is hybridizing these days. I have several of his roses in my garden and they are lovely as well as hardy. In fact, their books got me started on growing Old Garden roses and they are truly a delight.

The early years of the 19th century saw an explosion in exploration, with hundreds of new plants being discovered. Roses from China were brought to England and hybridization efforts began, since the China roses had one important difference: they bloomed all season rather than once a season, i.e. they were remontent. The development of the classic florist’s rose, the Hybrid Tea, is a direct result of hybridizing

 European roses with the China rose. Pretty exciting stuff! So I couldn’t resist casting a female character as a rosarian involved in the efforts to cross China and European roses.

In A Rose Before Dying, Vance must seek out a rosarian to help him identify roses the murderer has left as clues, and he finds Ariadne Wellfleet, a woman trying to live independently and pursue the

development of new rose hybrids. Unfortunately, the men in her life are bent on helping her to conform to the more standard feminine role as wife, despite her resistance. Her involvement in the murder investigation puts her—and the members of her household—directly in the murderer’s path.

It's a classic British mystery that I hope all mystery fans will enjoy!
Have a great weekend!

Guest Author: Donis Casey

I'm pleased to have mystery writer Donis Casey here--I'm a huge fan of historical mysteries and she's created a brilliant series set in Oklahoma during the early years of the 20th century. I can't thank her enough for agreeing to appear here.

Bringing the Past to Life



The Scottish novelist Peter May once wrote that “the purpose of research is to inform you, the writer. So that when you come to write, you do so from a position of knowledge... [and so] your reader can trust that you know what you’re writing about.” I write a historical mystery series set in the 1910s featuring a forty-ish woman named Alafair Tucker, who lives with her husband, Shaw, and their ten children on a prosperous horse farm outside of Boynton, Oklahoma. Being as I have no children, have never lived on a farm, never cooked on a wood stove, washed in a iron tub, or sewed on a treadle sewing machine, much less butchered a hog, I do tremendous amounts of research so that I’ll know what I’m talking about.


But only a very small percent of the research I do for each book finds its way onto the page. I’m not writing a history book, I’m trying to create a world, and it’s amazing how little it takes to add just that perfect touch of authenticity to your story.


Years ago, I went to see Laurie R. King speak at Poisoned Pen Bookstore. She was promoting her stand alone, Touchstone, which takes place shortly after WWI. After her talk, I raised my little hand and asked her how much research she does into her setting and time period before she begins writing, and she replied that she does very little beforehand. Instead, she starts writing, and as she writes she discovers what she doesn’t know, and then looks it up.


I do something similar. For each book, I keep a notebook and file full of information that I read up on as I need it. Much of my research may not be used, for as a book advances, some of the ideas I started out with fall by the wayside. Even so, when the book is finally done, I will have added quite a bit to the huge amount of arcane knowledge rattling around in my head.


Why, then, do I spend so much time learning everything I can about the times, lives, and mores of my characters when I know I’m not going to write about most of it? Because my own familiarity with the era I’m writing about is going to show without my having to make a big deal of it. The characters are going to move naturally through their world without thinking about it, just like we do in our own world.


Alafair ponders a problem while scraping the ashes from the fire box in her kitchen stove before breakfast. She doesn’t think about the history, configuration, or general use of the cast-iron, wood burning stove in rural Oklahoma in 1915. But I do. It isn’t a bit important to the story that the reader knows any of those things either. All she needs to know, or cares about, is that Alafair ponders a problem while scraping the ashes from the fire box. One single sentence in the book represents an hour of research and quite an education in cast iron cook stoves for me that may or may not ever be used again. Yet, isn’t that a picture? One tiny detail triggers a mental image and puts the reader in a country kitchen early one morning in 1915.


You always have to respect your reader’s intelligence. Avid mystery readers are often more savvy about how mystery plots are routinely constructed than the writer is, so you’ve really got to be imaginative and on your toes to fool them. And fool them in a logical way. Same thing with readers who love historical novels. The writer has to be really careful not to make egregious mistakes about the time period - events, language, clothing, tools, conveyances.


It’s a tightrope. An author wants to create as authentic a world as she can, but the whole point is to engage and involve your reader in your story, not to write a history book (or handbook on police procedural, or treatise on forensic psychology.) A novelist should strive to be just accurate enough not to alert the anachronism police.


I have just begun writing my sixth book in the Alafair Tucker series. In the earliest novels, Alafair was only vaguely interested in the events of the time. To a farm wife in the middlest of the middle of the United States in 1914, the war in Europe seemed as far away as the moon. But now, I’m getting to a time period where the affairs of the mighty are intervening on her world whether she likes it or not.

The upcoming book is set here in Arizona, where I live, rather than in Oklahoma, where Alafair lives. So here are the problems I have to solve before I even begin: 1. Why on earth would Alafair go to Arizona in the first place? 2. Once she gets there, what is going on that she could get herself involved in, how, and why? So in order to start to construct my story, I began with a trip to my nearest university library where I read through every issue on microfilm of the Arizona Republican newspaper for late February and early March of 1916, and thanks to interlibrary loan, I did the same for the Muskogee (Oklahoma) Phoenix.


I discovered that in Oklahoma, the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916 were some of the rainiest months in years, accompanied by severe flooding. Therefore, there was lots of flu and bronchitis going around - enough that it was mentioned in the newspapers. Handily, in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, Arizona was known as a place where people with chronic lung problems came to let the dry air cure them. Problem number one, solved!


And problem number two? There was a revolution going on in Mexico at the time, as well as the war in Europe. The Mexican Revolution interested the Germans no end, and there were lots of German “military advisers” in Mexico. Even better, in the first three months of 1916, residents of the entire Southwestern U.S. were hysterical over the possibility of a cross-border invasion from Mexico by the Revolutionary Army of Pancho Villa. In fact - and now that almost 100 years have passed, I can be happy about it - in March 1916, the Villistas did exactly that, increasing the hysteria in Arizona to a fever pitch.


For icing on the cake, during the winter of 1915-1916, a major (silent) motion picture, The Yaqui, was being shot in Tempe, the very town in which I set my novel.


If I can’t make a story out of all that, I should have my authorly epaulets ripped off.



Bio


Donis Casey is the author of five Alafair Tucker Mysteries,The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, Hornswoggled, The Drop Edge of Yonder, The Sky Took Him, and the just released Crying Blood. Her award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis lives in Tempe, AZ.


Blurb


"Crying Blood is a thoroughly engrossing evocation of life on a self-sufficient 1915 Oklahoma farm. In Alafair Tucker, mother of ten, Donis Casey has created a clear-eyed woman of her time... This is my first meeting with Alafair Tucker and her family. It will not be my last.” -- Margaret Maron


Links


http://www.doniscasey.com/

http://www.typem4murder.blogspot.com/

http://www.fatalfoodies.blogspot.com/
 
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Thank you, Donis! I don't know about your other readers, but I (for one) do appreciate the research you do, because I have actually had experience with a wood-burning stove (very messy), washed in an iron tub, and sewed on a treadle sewing machine. Thank goodness those are not regular events in my life, however. LOL Poor Alafair.

Indie Publishing and Marketing

I recently wrote another blog for Voices of The Heart about indie (as in independent) publishing versus legacy (or traditional) publishing. It's a hugely popular subject at the moment. Authors struggling to find an audience and make a living at their craft see a handful of authors like J.A. Konrath and Amanda Hocking not only making a living but becoming rich on independently published books. Everyone wants to match their success, or at least be able to pay their bills. Or, even earn enough to pay for their writing-related expenses.

With each passing day, it seems like more and more established authors are hauling out their backlists or even previously unpublished books, blowing off the dust, and squirting them off to Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and Smashwords to make a few bucks. Which makes it even harder for less well-known authors to find their audience as their books are literally submerged under a tsunami of books all in the same genre.

Answers are wishy-washy at best. All of us are mystified about what makes a reader buy one book over another. Read Konrath's blog if you don't believe me. He's experiemented with pricing, blurbs, covers, etc, and still can't quite decide what makes one of his books sell more than another. As for marketing, the most successful independent author out there, Amanda Hocking, is the first to admit she has no idea why her books took off and sold so well. She did shockingly little marketing (frankly, almost none).

As for me, after five small press/legacy published books that haven't quite paid for my writing expenses yet (dues to various writing organizations, paper, ink, that sort of thing), I went indie with one of my latest mysteries and am just as mystified as the others when I see that book, priced at a lowly $.99 outselling my five other books, combined. In fact, by the end of the year, it will have earned more money than I got for an advance for my mystery that isn't even out yet (due out in hardcover in 2012). That's if it continues to sell at the current rate. I'm not even assuming it may increase in sales, or adding in the second book I have coming out soon.

So what conclusions can we draw?
There has to be something....

• Price. Price is a huge factor and it has nothing to do with any esoteric "artistic value to the reader". Get over that idea right now, it will only cause you to make terrible decisions. A lot more people are willing to buy a book at $.99 than at $7.00. It's the revenue stream that matters, not the individual unit price. Believe me. I know. To tempt readers, you need at least one book for $.99 as an "entry-book". (Think like drug pushers and you'll do just fine.)
• Cover. You need a great cover. Or at least not an appallingly bad cover. Or a cover that looks like your 7-year-old daughter created it as she twirled around in a pink tutu. It should look professional.
• Blurb. You need a great blurb. No errors. One that tempts and teases the reader. One that grabs and won't let a reader rest until they buy the book and find out what it's all about. Present the core of the conflict and make it pithy.
• Marketing. To a large extent, marketing is a waste of your time. There are only a few things you can really do that make a difference. Here they are: get reviews for your book; participate in blogs that are NOT hard sells of your book--you need to provide something of interest that may be related to your book, but stop just talking about your book (for crying out loud); participate in some of the groups out there but not as a poster of excerpts, but as a real human with interesting ideas, opinions, etc; Twitter--but not about your book all the time.
       - You'll notice a theme under marketing: shut up about your book, already. What you're looking for is to build a social network and provide your friends and readers with interesting information. It can be related to your book, but if all you do is squirt excerpts out everywhere and post solely about your book, then people will tune you out. They'll have no reason to listen. As Konrath says: it's all about content. Give them something of value. I've seen a huge change in the success of my marketing strategy--such as it is--when I simply stopped chatting up my books all the time. In fact, I sold more books than ever during the month when I was off the 'net entirely and not doing any marketing whatsoever.
        - Note: My first month of sales beat the last year of sales for all of my five previous small-press books combined. Last month tripled that number. This is for ONE book. If my book remains at the same level of sales, by the end of the year I will have already earned what I got as an advance for my most recent legacy-published book. By the time that legacy-published book comes out in 2012, I'll have already earned TWICE that advance; and that is if the sales of my one book remain flat at the current level.
        - Sadly, success breeds success. If your book starts generating sales, that will generate more interest. More interest will generate more sales. This happens organically, on its own, and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. Except...
• Write. Your very best tool is writing the next book and publishing it at a reasonable price. No more than $2.99. Every author has reported that when they published a second (or subsequent) book, it created a jump in sales for all previous books. So your very, very BEST MARKETING tool is...the next book.

• Subject Matter. One of the reasons a lot of folks go indie is because they have a book they couldn't sell elsewhere. Here's the really awkward, wince-inducing thing: if an editor mentioned something like --we're not sure who the audience would be and this genre/subject doesn't really sell... then you need to pause. A big reason why otherwise terrific books that have great covers, perfect blurbs, and a low price don't sell is because readers aren't particularly interested in the topic. Sometimes this is simply because the blurb or description of the story is uninteresting (remember to put the characters and their conflict first--readers connect with the characters--not some artistic or thematic concept-in-the-sky). Sometimes, you've really gone "too far out there" with the story, e.g. Praying Mantis - the story of an epileptic cat-man who is destroyed by love...with a woman who eats cats for breakfast. Literally. You know what I mean.
       - If you really intend to write for an audience as opposed to yourself, you have to consider your readers. They come first. They have to, because they're going to pay their money to read your cr*p. Don't make them regret it.

So that sums up much of what I've learned. For me, it's still a tough decision. I like the money I'm earning as an indie author, but I still want the validation and opportunity to work with other industry professionals (like editors I didn't buy) that legacy publishing brings to the table. And although I plan to have a second indie book out by July (A Rose Before Dying) I'm still fiddling with a manuscript that I may send to a legacy publisher. May.

I guess we'll see what happens.

Guest Author: Alina Adams

Please help me welcome romantic mystery writer Alina Adams! She is doing some phenomenal stuff with combining various forms of entertainment and has a fantastic new mystery involving figure skating. So I won't waste any more of your time, here is Alina!

Confessions of a Writer…

By Alina Adams

As a writer, I have a deep, dark confession to make.

I like television.

A lot.

When I moved to the United States at the age of seven without speaking a word of English, television was there; offering entertainment, friendship, and remedial reading lessons.

I watched it all: sitcoms, soaps, sci-fi, talk shows, game shows, the 3:30 Movie…

No one was too surprised when I ended up working in television.

The fact that I also write books seems to throw some people for a loop, though.

It really shouldn’t. Often, I would read while watching television. (It takes a lot to keep me entertained). And I certainly did my homework with the TV on. (Who doesn’t?)

Professionally, I kept my careers pretty separate. I wrote romance novels for AVON and DELL while also writing and producing soap segments for ABC Daytime and the Daytime Emmy Awards. The closest my two worlds came to overlapping was when I used my experience as a television researcher for ABC, ESPN, NBC and TNT’s figure skating coverage to set the background for my series of Figure Skating Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime).

While working for Procter & Gamble productions, I wrote tie-in books for their TV properties, “As The World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” I also developed a website for them, http://www.anotherworldtoday.com/ , where I combined vintage clips from their soap opera, “Another World,” with fresh written content.

If I could do it for them, why couldn’t I do it for myself?

Especially now that, with the advent of iPhones and iPads and assorted other, non-Apple products, it’s possible to both read an e-book and watch a video at the same time. (Kind of like when I’d do my homework in front of the TV! See, Mom and Dad, I told you it would be a useful skill…. Someday.)

I was going to build an enhanced e-book. Even if no one was quite sure what precisely that was, yet.

Simon & Schuster gave it a try, debuting the Vook (www.vook.com). They offered mostly non-fiction titles, along with a romance by Jude Deveraux and a thriller by Richard Doetsch. (Other fiction titles they just enhanced with non-fictional elements, like authors talking about their books, historical documents, etc…)

But none of those were precisely what I was looking for.

So, I decided to make up my own genre. Because I’m like that. (An obvious side-effect of too much reading and watching TV simultaneously.)

In cooperation with The Ice Theatre of New York (http://www.icetheatre.org/ ), I took an excerpt from my fifth mystery, “Skate Crime,” and enhanced it with videos that actually (I hope) contribute to the story.

And when I say I did it, I mean my husband, the MIT-educated engineer, did it. I just stood over his shoulder and said, “No, not like that. That’s not it. Nope, not that either,” until he finally read my mind and built what I wanted. (I’m like that, too.)

The result is Skate Crime: Multimedia (http://tinyurl.com/SkateCrime ) not exactly a book, not exactly a movie, but… something.

Is it the wave of the future?

I’ll tell you the truth: I have no idea.

I’ll tell you another truth: Neither does anyone else. (And if they say they do, they’re either lying, or whistling into the wind, hoping to hold onto their jobs until retirement.)

Despite the millions of iPads touted sold, we still haven’t hit a tipping point of people looking for enhanced content in their books.

Will that day ever come?

See my answer above.

But, then again, I’m betting that it will. I intend to enhance all five of my Figure Skating Mysteries, as well as my romance novels.

I’m taking a chance (kind of like my parents did when I was seven years old and they decided to pick up and leave the Soviet Union for America; sight unseen)…. Who’s with me?

A bit about Alina:

Alina Adams has written NYT Best-selling soap-opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, Regency and contemporary romances, and non-fiction. She can be reached through her website, http://www.alinaadams.com/ . “Skate Crime: Multimedia” is available through Amazon.com.

----

Thanks, Alina! All I can say is...wow!

I'm really looking forward to the future because I think there are going to be more and more entertainment "products" coming out that combine the best of reading and visual media (e.g. television/movies). This is only the beginning!

Guest Author: Jacqueline Seewald

Please help me welcome mystery writer Jacqueline Seewald

Multi-award winning author Jacqueline Seewald has taught creative, expository and technical writing at the university level as well as high school English. She also worked as an academic librarian and an educational media specialist. Eleven of her books of fiction have been published. Her short stories as well as poems, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in hundreds of diverse publications and numerous anthologies. Her paranormal romantic mystery novels, THE INFERNO COLLECTION and THE DROWNING POOL, have been widely acclaimed. The third romantic mystery in the Kim Reynolds series, THE TRUTH SLEUTH, is a new release. Her recent historical romance set in the Regency period TEA LEAVES AND TAROT CARDS is available in both hardcover and large print editions. A young adult novel, STACY’S SONG, was also recently published to excellent reviews.

So here's Jacqueline!

I’ve now written three novels in a paranormal romantic mystery series. The new murder mystery is THE TRUTH SLEUTH to be published by Five Star/Gale in hardcover edition June 8th and available for pre-order from Amazon, B&N, Target, Borders, etc.


Each of the three novels feature Kim Reynolds, an academic librarian, accustomed to doing research. As she observes to police detective Mike Gardner, reference work is a lot like police detection, you’re trying to solve puzzles and find information that leads to a solution.

With the first novel of the series, THE INFERNO COLLECTION, I wrote the book and rewrote it many times and did considerable research on the topic of inferno collections, both historical and current. Eventually, I cut away over a third of the novel because I felt it should be a fast-paced thriller. I wanted to provide readers with an exciting experience. I attempted to write a novel that would build in tension.

Several of the men who’ve read the book have observed that it has a feminist message. A number of reviewers also commented on the thoughtful ideas in the book and its depth of meaning. Some readers have liked the fact that the novel is something of a “literary” work as well as in the mystery/thriller genre. Different strokes for different folks. I’m hoping that many people, men and women alike, will choose to read and enjoy these mystery novels.

I’ve been asked many times: what is an inferno collection? Simply put, it’s a collection of “condemned” banned or censored books. When a reader/reviewer of The Inferno Collection asked if inferno collections actually exist, I responded that not only did they exist in the past but still exist in more sophisticated and subtle forms today.

It is a fact that librarians have viewed themselves as gatekeepers. For example, libraries such as Boston Public at one time found it necessary to maintain separate inferno collections of banned books considered inappropriate for general public display and reading. Often these were books deemed salacious such as James Joyce’s Ulysses. Another example is the Robert Winslow Gordon "Inferno" Collection in the Archive of Folk Song, Library of Congress, consisting of material separated out because of bawdy and scatological subject matter. Paul S. Boyer in his article “Boston Book Censorship in the Twenties” observed that Boston’s censorship began with the very first governor of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford, but became notorious in the 1920’s when the phrase “banned in Boston” took on new meaning.

It is not only governments and libraries that have chosen to ban books found objectionable for various reasons. Materials are often deemed unacceptable for political or religious reasons or are considered profane, pornographic or sexually too explicit for youth. Publishers and booksellers make these decisions and determinations as well. However, it is well to keep in mind that good books often stir controversy. They are designed to question and make people think. That is not something to fear or repress but rather to admire and respect. As Voltaire, author of the banned satire Candide, once stated: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.”

I hope that many readers will enjoy the three novels in this series: The Inferno Collection, The Drowning Pool and The Truth Sleuth.