Mental Can Openers & Writer's Hash ~ Let's Give That Smelly Rose Another Name

Welcome back, Brad Leach...err, or maybe....

“A rose by any other name...” is a line oft quoted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  While Juliet was a Capulet, a name deemed hateful by Romeo Montague’s family, Romeo found her enchanting.  Why, he reasons, should a name matter so much?  That’s a question many authors ask today.  

Pen names – the assumed appellation of our key-stroke commandos, present, and past.  Many famous authors have them.  Voltaire was actually Francois-Marie Arouet. George Eliot was actually Mary Ann Evans.  Lewis Carroll was known to his mother more properly as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Authors sometimes have more than one.  Joanne Rowling not only used her initials J.K. when she wrote Harry Potter (fearing Joanne would discourage boys), she’s also published under Robert Galbraith, Newt Scamander & Kennilworthy Whisp.  Benjamin Franklin?  Think Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac, Anthony Afterwit and Silence Dogood; Dogood even featured in the movie, National Treasure. Samuel Langhorn Clemmens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, used many monikers, including Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.  Clemmens used so many names in fact, historians today aren’t sure we have identified all his works.

So why use a literary sobriquet?  After all, don’t we want everyone to associate our written works with who we are?  Isn’t it simpler to avoid false names?  Shouldn’t we stand behind what we write – even if it’s way behind? 

There are several reasons to use a pen name.  Security concerns, and marketing top the list.  When John le Carre wrote the Spy Who Came in Out of the Cold, he was actually working for MI-6.  It wouldn’t do to have his real name, David John Moore Cornwell, splashed about.  One writer, whom I know personally, had her house broken into on the assumption that all writers are fabulously rich.  It was too easy to track down an address with a real name. 

Others may need to avoid association with materials unacceptable to their culture, such as Salmon Rushdie.  Many Jewish European writers during the 1920's, 30's and 40's used pen names to protect themselves and family members. And for some, they simply might not wish to embarrass family, such as P.L. Travers, aka Helen Goff, who wrote Mary Poppins based on her own father’s harsh practices.

More often, the use of a nom de plume, as the French say, comes down to marketing.  Readers come to associate a name with a certain reading experience.  Lester del Rey, aka Leonard Knapp, is associated with Science Fiction.  He even started the Del Rey imprint, under Ballantine books.  Del Rey publishes Science Fiction.  So if Lester were to write a romance set in Amish Pennsylvania, readers who buy it, based on his name, would be greatly disappointed.  And romance readers who’ve been around a bit would hardly look up Lester for an Amish romantic love-tussle.  A possible answer, had Lester wished to write romance?  Become “Marietta Greenplows” and watch interest jump. 

Name association is not the only reason.  Association with divisive issues can also be helped with a pen name.  If you’re a spokesperson making statements regarding gay rights, abortion alternatives or some political candidate, why choose to alienate a large segment of the public?  It’s not a case of being ashamed of what you write or what stand you take on social issues, it’s simply economics - separate names lessens the loss of audience?

Of course, another reason is a name that just doesn’t work either on the shelf placement an author might receive or a name that doesn’t fit the genre.  Frederick Schiller Faust sounds like some gothic mystery writer or even a German philosopher.  But change that name to Max Brand, and western cowboys spring to life.  Anne Rice, whose real name is Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, might have felt such an Irish name wouldn’t help her Vampire mystic.  Pearl Grey sounds like a tea, but change it to Zane Grey and it smacks of sage and saddles.  Who wants advice from Pauline Phillips?  But change it to Abigail Van Buren – well, of course, a Boston sophisticate would know what is proper to do or say in any situation!

My reason for a pen name?  Romanticism.  To be someone a little larger than ordinary life.  It’s hard to imagine an audience getting excited over some fantasy written by a leech – horror maybe. But Roulf Burrell and his magic candles?  Ask yourself, who doesn’t want to see Lemony Snicket rather than Daniel Handler or Dr. Suess instead of Theodore Geisel?  Seigfried Q. Hornblatt crouching below a balcony does not inspire.  But change the name to Romeo Montague and now that rose sweetens.🌹

~Brad, now known as Roulf

Take Five With Author Mary Vine

Well, it's supposed to be spring here in the Rockies, but after a snow last week and much cooler weather than I'd like, I decided I'm due for some reading.  And guess what, I find a new-to-me author writing a time travel romantic novella.  Perfect.

Welcome to An Indie Adventure, Mary Vine.  Tell us, what inspired you to write your book, A Nugget of Time?

Hi, L.A., thank for having me as your guest today. I have been in love with the woods of Northeast Oregon for about twenty years now. My husband likes to pan for gold there, but I am more interested in the history of the mining district during the mid to late 1800s. We bought a couple of lots in the ghost town of Bourne (first named Cracker City) and that is where my story came alive. While wondering what it would have been like to live in this town during its heyday, I brought back heroine Dixie Lea, a 21st-century newspaper reporter, to 1870.

If you were not a writer, what vocation would you pursue?

I was blessed to find two jobs I really enjoy. Writing is one of course, and the other is education. I spent 28 years in the field and then retired last summer as a licensed speech and language pathology assistant, teaching k through 12th grades.

Do you prefer to read in the same genre you write in, or do you avoid reading that genre?  Why?

I usually prefer happily ever after romances with mystery and/or suspense and that is what I write. I’ve always liked romantic time travel as well.

How do you create internal and external conflict in your characters?  I find conflict often the hardest to create when I start planning a book.

I don’t know that I have the answer to that specifically. I am the kind of author that doesn’t plan much on paper but lets the story unfold in my head at the computer. But, I usually start the story knowing the setting and the internal struggle of the heroine and hero and go from there.

If you could live during any era of history, which one would you choose?

The 1870s or just after the Civil War. Yet, when I wrote Nugget of Time I had the heroine, Dixie Lea, doing tasks around the house without the use of 21th-century technology and it didn’t seem quite as “romantic” as I once thought. I would like to learn how to wash clothes at the river by hero James Brogan, though.

Give us a brief summary of A Nugget of Time:

A Boise newspaper sends Dixie Lea to interview the owner of the largest gold nugget found in the 21st century. While waiting for him in a mining territory in Northeast Oregon, she walks into a cave. Feeling dizzy, she puts a hand to the wall of the tunnel and wakes up alone on a hill. 

Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Brogan is at a complete loss of what to do with this self-directed woman alone in the woods with no knowledge of how to survive in 1870. His sense of right and wrong gives him no choice but to keep her safe. Yet, someone else is waiting and planning for them to come to a disastrous end.

Buy Links:

Amazon: A Nugget of Time 
Amazon: Snake River Rendezvous 
Amazon: A Place to Land

Bio:

Mary Vine is the author of contemporary romantic fiction books MAYA’S GOLD, A PLACE TO LAND, SNAKE RIVER RENDEZVOUS and historical novella WANTING MOORE, published by Black Lyon Publishing. 

Through Melland Publishing, LLC, she has published a romantic mystery, A HAUNTING IN TRILLIUM FALLS, a time travel, A NUGGET OF TIME and an inspirational children’s book, THE BIG GUY UPSTAIRS. 

She has also published two children’s books by author Velma Parker, EMMA COMES THROUGH and MOLLY’S MONKEYSHINES. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.

Find Mary:

Web Headquarters | Facebook

Five Secrets From Author B.K. Stevens

I'm telling you, we're a lucky bunch to find all these new-to-us authors.  Please welcome mystery writer, B.K. Stevens. Her secrets are really cool, read on.

B.K. (Bonnie) Stevens has published over fifty short stories, most of them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Eleven of those stories, including Agatha, Macavity, and Derringer finalists, are collected in Her Infinite Variety: Tales of Women and Crime. B.K.’s first novel, Interpretation of Murder, is a whodunit offering readers insights into deaf culture. 

Fighting Chance, a martial arts mystery for teens, was an Agatha and Anthony finalist. B.K. blogs at SleuthSayers and also hosts The First Two Pages. She and her husband, Dennis, live in Virginia with their smug cat. They have two amazing daughters, one amazing son-in-law, and four perfect grandchildren.

   

Hi, B.K., please tell us Five Secrets we may not know about Her Infinite Variety: Tales of Women and Crime or you, but will after today!

1)   Thanks for having me here today as your guest, L.A. I often have fun with naming characters—I sometimes name them after people I know, sometimes after characters from literature and mythology. And sometimes I get out my book on the origins and meanings of names. “Death in Rehab,” first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and included in Her Infinite Variety, is set at a clinic for people with unusual addictions—for example, a Jeopardy! fanatic who speaks only in the form of questions, a serial plagiarist who always echoes what other characters say, and a compulsive proofreader who can’t stop correcting other characters’ grammar. The meaning of one name turns out to be an important clue in solving the mystery, so I decided to give all the suspects names that reflect something about their personalities or situations. For example, an angry, resentful character is named Martha (“bitter”), a character who’s eccentric but contented is named Felix (“happy”), and a celebrity who checks into the clinic for court-mandated rehabilitation is named Roland (“famous”).

2)    Here’s a secret that will give you a head start at figuring out what’s going on in one of my stories. Once, when I was teaching Shakespeare’s Othello, I got especially fascinated by Iago. I thought it might be interesting to write a mystery story with a character like Iago in it. So I did. The story got published in a magazine and is now in Her Infinite Variety: Tales of Women and Crime. Which story is it? That’s a secret I’m not sharing—if you read the stories, you’ll know.

3)    Since short story writers don’t have much time to capture the reader’s attention, I always devote special care to my opening sentences. Of all the stories in Her Infinite Variety, I think “Honor among Thieves” has the best opening sentences. Here they are: “The first time it happened, it was just barely a crime. It started as an honest mistake, and she simply didn’t correct it.” Those are the first sentences of “Honor among Thieves.” I think there’s something quietly ominous about those sentences. We don’t know exactly what “she” did (although the title gives us a big hint), but we know it was a crime, even if “just barely.” And “the first time it happened” lets us know it’s going to happen again, and that next time it probably won’t start as “an honest mistake.” So someone who’s generally honest is going to commit a number of crimes. I hope readers will wonder how and why that might happen, and will want to read on.

4)    Sometimes, nasty thoughts can lead to successful stories. For many years, I was an adjunct English professor, following my husband’s career from state to state and patching together any part-time teaching jobs I could find. At one college, the director of the composition program was an unpleasant, obnoxious woman, a gossip and a snoop. She wasn’t qualified for her position, but she’d maneuvered her way into it by playing up to powerful administrators. Adjuncts had no power, so she treated us like dirt. And she found sneaky ways to inflate her paycheck and use college funds for personal purposes. I sometimes fantasized about exposing her and getting her fired, but I never did anything—just fumed. Years later, I decided to write a story called “Adjuncts Anonymous,” about a group of four English adjuncts who fantasize about getting revenge on their despicable director of composition. It starts as a joke, as a way of letting off steam—but then the revenge fantasy seems to be coming true, though none of the four will admit to taking any actions. That story made the cover of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, earned a Derringer nomination, and ended up in Her Infinite Variety. And writing it was good therapy for me.

5)    In “The Shopper,” a young librarian’s house is burglarized while she’s at home, asleep. The police know this burglar’s pattern well: They call him The Shopper because in addition to stealing things with monetary value, he seems to wander through a house picking up anything that appeals to him, whether it can be fenced or not. Then two men the librarian’s never seen before start showing up at the library every day. For various reasons, she suspects one of them is The Shopper, and she fears he’s stalking her. But which man is the one who burglarized her house? Here’s a secret that will help you figure it out. On the second page of the story, a police detective lists all the items stolen from the librarian’s house. Pay careful attention to that list, and keep it in mind as you observe the actions of the two men she suspects. The list offers you valuable insights that should help you zero in on The Shopper. 

Blurb:

Her Infinite Variety: Tales of Women and Crime includes eleven stories of various lengths, types, and tones, from humorous novella-length whodunits to a dark flash fiction suspense story. Most were first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The stories include Agatha, Macavity, and Derringer finalists, along with the winner of a national suspense-writing contest judged by Mary Higgins Clark. 

Some of the women featured in these stories are detectives, and some are victims. Some inspire crimes, and some commit them. The women’s ages vary, and so do their professions—librarian, administrative assistant, housewife, trophy wife, personnel director, college professor. Romance is an element in some stories, but never the primary one.

Always, the stories focus sharply on the various entanglements of women and crime. “These finely crafted stories have it all -- psychological heft, suspense, subtle humor -- and the author's notes on each story are especially illuminating. A treat for lovers of the short story form and students of the craft of writing.”--Linda Landrigan, Editor, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Buy: 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Find BK:

Website | SleuthSayers | Facebook

Mental Can Openers and Writer's Hash ~ Don't Mess Around With An Author's Voice

Brad Leach once again brings us his viewpoint that is both fascinating 

and right-on-point.  

Don’t Mess Around with an Author’s Voice!

     “Agents and editors often say they're looking for a fresh writing voice.  The world needs to honor your voice.  Use the words that come naturally to you and write the stories that haunt you.” Natalie Charles

     What is “Voice” when you write?  Is it another word for your story?  Is it the distinctive way each character speaks?  Is it an ongoing message woven in each story or novel?  I’ve heard it billed as “an author’s style.”  But what is that?

     Voice is one of those confusing writer’s terms kicked around by pipe-puffing, cardigan- clad, sophisticate-writers in loafers, chatting up Susan Sontag wannabes in urban writer’s groups.  He’ll toss it out in reference to his Hemmingway experiment.  She’ll talk about how her younger New York experience formed it.  It’s the je ne sais quoi of the writer’s world.  It’s what you say when you don’t know what to say.

     After exploration and drilling that mandated an OSHA permit, I’ve excavated a definition.  It’s how the author chooses to write something. 

     “What?” I hear you ask, teeth grinding.  “All this fuss and it’s simply what words I choose?”  And at its heart, the answer is “yes.”  But remember, how you choose to write something impacts the reader’s images and moods.  It will appeal to some and put off others.

      Take Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s cliché phrase, “It was a dark and stormy night.” That’s how he decided to open his 1830 Victorian novel, Paul Clifford.  But how many ways can someone open a novel with a storm or bad weather?

     “The storm broke.  Hard.”  Or, “Tidal winds poured even amounts of fury and rain across the alien jungles on the planet’s dark side.”  Or, “Rain for her tears and rents of wild wind for her scratched soul, she was as broken as the sky when lightning tore through it.”  How about, “Rains lashed against umbrellas, black as the clouds, while nasty winds threatened to pluck them from the hands of their proper owners.”

     Each of these choices might illustrate authorial style and could open a story.  The first I was thinking of Louis L'Amore’s style.  The next how Alan Dean Foster might open a fantasy.  The next pulls my mind toward a gothic romance voice; the last I envisioned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  (Authors/estates forgive me if I’ve missed the mark.)

     My point is the author’s “voice” is simply what you choose to say and how you choose to say it.  Some authors are pithy or laconic; some verbose and labored.  Some love description; some loathe it.  Some want to set the scene then hit the dialogue and action.  Others work the setting into the dialogue or action.  It all creates your unique voice or style, like you can recognize a singer by their voice and how they deliver the song.

     You may have had an article or book writer tell you to pick a favorite author and study his or her voice.  Can an author work on “voice” or is it something you’re born with?  Parallel question: Can I sound like Johnny Cash or am I stuck sounding like a braying mule?  The answer is “Yes.”

     I can train my voice, discipline my breathing, adopt pauses, and work on vibrato.  I can study what allows Cash to put a song across. I can improve all those things.  I still won’t sound like Johnny.  But my braying will sound more cultured.  With enough work, it might even merit a nod or two from fellow mules. 

     Now there is a subtle danger to copying anyone’s voice.  In the movie, Ray (based on Ray Charles), Ray is auditioning in a studio, but he’s intentionally sounding like other artists, hoping to get a contract.  A booth producer complains that nobody wants to hear another Nat King Cole or Charles Brown.  Ray’s agent, Ahmet, wanting to save the deal, tells Ray they don’t want a copy-cat.  Ray says that’s what the people want.  Ahmet suggests Ray do a song Ahmet wrote called “Mess Around.”  Ray asks to hear it.  Ahmet asks if he can play stride piano in a “Pete Johnson” style, then he sings it.  Ray listens.  Ray had already learned to play various styles of piano.  He already knew when to breathe or break his voice for emphasis.  In a magical moment, Ray took the song and added his unique style.  It was a hit, and Ray Charles took off.

     This is what we all are trying to do.  Study techniques.  Analyze successful author’s styles, yes.  Not to copy them but to incorporate what they do well into our own words and sentences.  Read, write, absorb techniques; let them inspire us.  We can even practice short snippets.  But then we step back into our own stories and write our own words.  Form our own sentences.  Try writing an opening two or three ways.

     Master literary techniques.  And if some of the ways you say things sounds a bit more like your favorite authors, great.  But ultimately, strive to be the unique voice other authors will hope to incorporate someday.

  

~ Brad

   

Take Five and Meet Author V.S. Kemanis

I'm pleased to bring you another new-to-me author, V.S. Kemanis. A charming women and an author that lives her subject matter-legal, and her passion-writing. 

Welcome to An Indie Adventure, V.  Tell us, what inspired you to write your book Love and Crime: Stories?

Each story in this collection had a unique source of inspiration. The stories first reveal themselves as small ideas that remain dormant for months or even years in the back of my mind. For example, the opening story, “Rosemary and Reuben,” features characters who are challenged emotionally and physically by their heightened senses of smell and taste. That story was inspired by my own extreme sensitivity to smell and a question: how might two people with sensory challenges interact? The idea developed slowly, acquiring scenes and characters until I woke up one day and said, “I’m ready to write this one!”

If you were not a writer, what vocation would you pursue?

Besides fiction writing (a real passion!), I’m fortunate to have many vocations that are all still part of my life in varying degrees. I’m the mother of two amazing daughters, now young adults. I’ve taught, performed, and choreographed ballet and contemporary dance, and even owned a dancewear shop! But the mainstay has been the law. My experience in criminal law as an assistant district attorney inspired my legal mystery novels, Thursday’s List, Homicide Chart, and Forsaken Oath.

Do you prefer to read in the same genre you write in, or do you avoid reading that genre?  Why?

I read many kinds of fiction, but my favorites include the genres I write: literary (both novels and short stories), and legal thrillers. Much of my writing involves psychological suspense, and this is the kind of story that attracts me. Besides the pure enjoyment of becoming fully immersed in a story, I also pay attention to the techniques other writers use to achieve mood and feeling.

How do you create internal and external conflict in your characters?  I find conflict often the hardest to create when I start planning a book.

In my short stories, each protagonist is battling his or her own demon, whether it’s a subtle internal force or an external event. Self-delusion and moral dilemma are some of my favorite themes. To create suspense, I don’t give the problem away immediately. It creeps up on the reader, just as it creeps up on the protagonist, who isn’t always self-aware. For example, in the story “Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt,” an aging ballet critic on his death bed comes to terms with a decades-old source of guilt, remembering events that slowly lead to his final admission of betrayal. In the novel format, the conflicts in my legal thrillers tend to be more external, and they’re very easy for me to find. Courtrooms and lawsuits and criminal trials are rife with conflict!

If you could live during any era of history, which one would you choose?

I’m fascinated by so many different eras! It’s enthralling to let the imagination go back in time. But, bottom line, I’m happy to be living now. Change occurs so quickly, both socially and technologically, that our lives might seem to span several eras! Most of all, I’m grateful to be living in a time and a society in which women have the freedom to do and to be whatever they want.

Give us a brief summary of Love and Crime: Stories:

Loves big and small, crimes forgiven or avenged. These are the themes that drive the eleven diverse stories in this new collection of psychological suspense.

Meet the husband and wife team Rosemary and Reuben, master chefs known to sprinkle a dash of magic into every dish. Lucille Steadman, a dazed retiree who can’t explain why she’s left her husband, only to discover, too late, the meaning of love and commitment in the most surprising place. Franklin DeWitt, an esteemed ballet critic who witnesses—or abets?—a bizarre criminal plot to topple a beautiful Soviet ballerina. Rosalyn Bleinstorter, a washed-up defense attorney whose stubborn belief in her own street savvy leads her unwittingly into a romantic and criminal association with an underworld figure.

These are just a few of the colorful characters you’ll get to know in these pages, where all is fair in love and crime. While the endings to these tales are not always sweet or predictable, and self-deception is rarely rewarded, the lessons come down hard and are well learned.

Love and Crime: Stories has received a Starred Review from BlueInk Reviews and a Five-Star rating from Foreword Reviews

Buy Links: 

Available May 1 in paperback and ebook:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple

Bio:

V. S. Kemanis grew up in the East Bay Area of California in a family with six amazing siblings and parents passionate about politics, social issues, theater and music. Mealtimes were often raucous, stimulating, intellectual and fun gatherings in a household full of family and interesting guests, musicians, actors, artists, professors and university students.

Ms. Kemanis holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, and a J.D. from the University of Colorado, School of Law, at Boulder. In her legal career, she has been a criminal prosecutor of street crime and organized crime for county and state agencies, argued criminal appeals for the prosecution and defense, conducted complex civil litigation, and worked as a court attorney for state appellate courts.

She is also an accomplished dancer of classical ballet, modern jazz and contemporary styles and has performed, taught and choreographed in California, Colorado and New York.

Dozens of short stories by Ms. Kemanis have been published in noted literary journals and award-winning collections. Her three novels in the Dana Hargrove legal mystery series draw on her personal experience in criminal law, juggling the needs of family with a high-powered legal career. Ms. Kemanis is a member of the Mystery Writers of America.

Find V.S.: 

V.S. Kemanis Website | Facebook | Twitter

Last Friday of the Month Recipe from Author Joy Smith ~ GLUTEN-FREE Pumpkin Pecan Squares

I love these Last Friday of the Month recipes, I try them and they are truly delicious.  We've had a few GLUTEN-FREE recipes recently, and you all have told me you're so pleased with them. So, here is another and as I love pumpkin, it sounds perfect. 

Hi L.A. Thanks for hosting me today, and for giving me the chance to spend time with my daughter, who has celiac disease. Like the heroine in my book, she loves making desserts and has developed some great gluten free recipes. I chose to make pumpkin squares as they are mentioned in the first chapter of HEAR ME ROAR, plus the fact that I love anything pumpkin. We worked together, enhancing her basic recipe with pecans. I managed to snap these pictures before our tribe wolfed them down. These cake-like squares are lusciously moist and delicious, and you would never guess they are gluten-free. The cream cheese icing compliments the pumpkin, and the sugared pecan provides a nice sweet crunch. S-o-o-o good!

THE RECIPE

Gluten-free Pumpkin Pecan Squares

Ingredients:

Oil spray

1 8-ounce package pecan halves, divided

4 eggs

1 15-ounce can pumpkin

1-1/3 cups granulated sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour*

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Sugared Pecans

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

4 ounces pecan halves

Cream Cheese Icing

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pound confectioners sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat a 9 x 13 x 2-inch pan with oil spray. Chop 4 ounces of the pecans, and set aside the rest. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, pumpkin, sugar, and oil until well blended. Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chopped pecans. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to Cool. Meanwhile, make the sugared pecans and the icing. Sugared pecans: Heat the sugar and remaining pecan halves in a 10-inch skillet until the sugar liquefies and the nuts are coated and shiny. Stir constantly as this happens quickly. Remove nuts from pan and cool in a single layer on a piece of foil or waxed paper. Set aside. Cream Cheese Icing: Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add the sugar and continue to beat until blended. Frost the cooled cake and decorate with the sugared pecans. Cut into squares and serve.

Blurb for Hear Me Roar: 

Jan Simmons never expected trouble to move into her quiet Charming Way cul-de-sac. Nor did she expect her husband Jeff’s weakness for fast money to drag their once happy family into danger.

When her husband turns to crime, Jan, a people-pleaser with little self-worth, must release the death grip she has on her failing marriage for the sake of her children and draw on her inner strength.

As Jan fights to free her family from a web of lies and deceit she also battles to save herself.

Buy:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Wild Rose Press

Bio:

I've authored a mish mosh of genres. The truth is my nonfiction books have followed my life’s learnings. Thirty-five years ago, when we bought our first boat, I began collecting info that might make cruising easier for other boaters, new and old. When my to-be-married daughter asked for my recipes, I started a cookbook, and then a Lord-help-me book for mom’s going through the wedding planning process.

So fiction writing? How about that? Well, I needed a little fantasy in my life. Did you know writing a novel is more challenging than a how-to book? When I’m not contriving a plot or doing heavy research, you may find me aboard our boat enjoying the salt air or fighting heavy seas with my handsome captain. Oh, and I crochet like mad—prayer shawls to be donated to those in need of a hug—at dock, underway, or at home. I’d love to hear from you! Email me at joywriter1226@gmail.com

Find Joy: 

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Website

Take Five and Meet Author Anne Louise Bannon

 

Once again I'm lucky to find a new-author-to-me. 

Wait until you read the new challenge she's undertaking!! 

And you should love answer to question four, I did.  

Welcome to An Indie Adventure, Anne Louise Bannon.  Tell us, what inspired you to write your book The Last Witnesses?

My research for the first two. It’s kind of hard to explain here, because it involves a potential spoiler. But as I was learning more and more about the 1920s for Fascinating Rhythm and Bring Into Bondage, I heard about this weird conspiracy theory that was going around at the time. Can’t say more, sadly, but I couldn’t help thinking “What if..?”

Also, my two characters, Freddie Little and Kathy Briscow, they kept talking to me and I kept getting more and more interested in them and their lives and the people around them. The only problem I’m having now is that the cast is getting a little on the large side for book number four, Blood Red.

Have you been a lifelong reader of mystery?  What are some of the first books you remember reading?

You know, I think I have been. One of the first chapter books I read all by myself was a book called Key to the Treasure, about some kids who find clues from an old treasure hunt left by (I think) their great-grandfather. I also did some of the classics, Charlotte’s Web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach. I didn’t really discover Nancy Drew until I was 11 or so, but I was definitely reading mysteries before then. And ever since.

What do you do to rev your creative juices?

I walk. I mostly prefer to get from Point A to Point B when I walk, and sometimes I end up focusing on what I’m going to do when I get to Point B. I’m working on a distance walking challenge, and even when I’m in urban areas, there aren’t a lot of distractions, I’m not falling asleep, and on really good days, my brain just kicks into high gear and I’m solving plot problems and developing character twists.

To you what makes a great romance hero or heroine?

I like people who are real in my reading. Nonetheless, my favorite romantic hero is Professor Emerson from the Amelia Peabody series. Emerson is completely passionate about his wife, Amelia, but he also respects her intelligence and challenges her even as she challenges him. And I love their ongoing relationship through the series. That, to me, is almost always more interesting than the happily ever after thing.

You’re having a dinner party.  What character from your novel do you hope doesn’t show up? Why?

You mean besides the bad guy? But, actually, there is also another minor character who I would not want at my dinner table for any amount of money and that’s Father James Callaghan. He’s one of Kathy’s many uncles in New York, and unlike the rest of them, he’s a sour old man. It’s not that he’s a priest – and I have several priest friends. It’s that he’s old and cranky and more than a little self-righteous. Not at all fun as a dinner guest.

Give us a brief summary of The Last Witnesses:

It's back to the 1920s with socialite author Freddie Little and his editor and not-so-blushing bride Kathy Briscow. In fact, Freddie and Kathy are happily enjoying their newly-married bliss when Freddie's sister, Honoria, finds a dead body in her apartment. Honoria had taken the young woman in as a favor to a friend but it soon becomes clear that the favor caught up. Honoria goes into hiding and Freddie and Kathy take up a chase that will lead all three of them across the country and into a conspiracy that, no matter how unbelievable, could get them all killed.

Buy: 

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Bio:

Anne Louise Bannon is an author and journalist who wrote her first novel at age 15. Her journalistic work has appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Wines and Vines, and in newspapers across the country. She was a TV critic for over 10 years, founded the YourFamilyViewer blog, and created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog with her husband, Michael Holland. 

She also writes the romantic fiction serial WhiteHouseRhapsody.com, Book One of which is out now. She is the co-author of Howdunit: Book of Poisons, with Serita Stevens, as well as the Freddie and Kathy mystery series, set in the 1920s, and the Operation Quickline series and Tyger, Tyger. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.

  

Find Anne Louise: 

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Five Secrets From Author L.A. Starks and Her Novel ~ Strike Price

Dear Readers, you know me well enough to understand that I simply had to have L.A. Starks on this blog. After all, who can resist another L.A.?  Not me, and I'm glad I didn't. Her books sound awesome and her secrets are provoking and revealing. 

Please welcome L.A. Starks!

Brought to you by L.A. Sartor :)

Thanks for hosting me today, L.A.

You asked for a bit about me to start off the post. Well, I've learned my parent brain, left brain (engineering), and right brain (thriller writing) experiences developed in me the heightened ability to find (and sometimes deflect, but at least articulate) risky behavior and situations. How high is that zip line you’re hanging onto with just one hand? Which colorless gas is deadliest in a refinery? Would one of my characters accidentally lock herself into a cooling tower? Or could she have been murdered and left there?

Both books in my Lynn Dayton thriller series-to-date, 13 DAYS: THE PYTHAGORAS CONSPIRACY and STRIKE PRICE, have received 5-star reviews. STRIKE PRICE also received the Texas Association of Authors’ First Place award for best mystery/thriller. I’m writing the third book in the series. Four of my short stories have also been published.

Hi, L.A., very cool news about your awards. Will you please tell us Five Secrets we may not know about STRIKE PRICE or you, but will after today!

1) History secrets: Strike Place is all about secrets. Since it’s a current-day thriller, I had to relegate some fairly stunning history to endnotes. For example, while I thought I had a good grounding in Oklahoma history—I grew up there, heard stories from relatives, and was even required to take a high school class on the subject—a long-held secret I learned in the course of researching this book was the Tulsa Riot of 1921. A riot supported by the Ku Klux Klan. Part of that secret was the range of groups the KKK opposed—African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, Asians, Republicans, Congressional “radicals”, and union members. The uprising was shamefully provoked by a local newspaper that no longer exists. In several days of rioting, white citizens destroyed the Greenwood area of Tulsa that had been known as a “Negro Wall Street.” At least three hundred people, mostly African-American, were killed. Many thousands more fled town. The city government refused outside rebuilding offers but did nothing. African-Americans who remained eventually rebuilt Greenwood. The rioting was covered up and the stories of the survivors silenced until Tulsa state representative Don Ross pushed for and led the Oklahoma Legislature to authorize the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1996.

2) Cherokee language secrets: The Cherokees are one of the biggest and most influential tribes in the Oklahoma, with a tribal budget of nearly a billion dollars. Their rich history and language includes the continuous publication since 1828 of North America’s first bilingual newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix (published in Cherokee and English). Cherokee leader Sequoyah is honored as the inventor of the written Cherokee syllabary. Out of respect to the nation and to my readers, I thought it was important to authentically represent this language in Strike Price. In fact, use of the Cherokee language gives rise to key clues. Not only was I able to use actual Cherokee syllabary in the print edition thanks to the Cherokee Nation and to the first editors of the book at L&L Dreamspell, but I was also able to include the syllabary phrases in the most recent e-book edition, thanks to the efforts of my fearless book designers at 52 Novels.

3) Business secrets: What goes around comes around: Oklahoma first attracted attention from the United States government as a candidate for statehood when oil was discovered near Tulsa in 1901. More than a century later, the shale revolution again awakened interest in Oklahoma’s oil and gas reserves with prospectors even drilling some of the same areas that made the Osage the richest people on earth in the 1920s.

4) Osage murder secrets: The story of the Osage has attracted much interest. Among the nearly thirty Native American nations now headquartered in Oklahoma—most forcibly moved there at the tip of a gun—only the Osage retained their mineral rights. When oil was discovered on their land in the early 1900s each member of the Osage tribe, through his or her “headrights,” received a share of the royalties. The headrights became so valuable that outsiders married Osage women and then killed them to inherit the headrights. The newly-formed Federal Bureau of Investigation took on the Osage murders as its first case.

5) The final secret is that: Jesse Drum, one of the lead characters of Strike Price initially came to life in my short story, “A Time for Eating Wild Onions” under a different name, Mitch Oowatie. (Digging for and eating wild onions is a Cherokee tradition.) The short story is set much earlier than Strike Price: the early 1970s as the Vietnam War is winding down, and in a very different place: the intellectual cauldron of San Francisco with its war protests, Alcatraz occupation, and mix of the country’s most idealistic, and in some cases most dangerous, dreamers.

For example, Jim Jones and his cult were in San Francisco at that time and they appear in one of the scenes of A Time for Eating Wild Onions. Later Jones and his group moved to Guyana where, in 1978, Jones directed the massacre of over nine hundred of his followers. In A Time for Eating Wild Onions, Mitch/Jesse’s deadly interaction with his fellow soldier is foreshadowed when they cross paths with Jones. The events and culmination of the story serve as hidden (for a time) background between Jesse and another key character later in Strike Price.

Blurb :
Murder disrupts a billion-dollar oil deal. Strike Price is a story about a business deal turned deadly, concluding with a plot to destroy a hidden, crucial US oil center and bring the US into confrontation with another global power. To stop the plot and save lives, up-by-the-bootstraps Lynn Dayton must trust a Cherokee elder who carries a corrosive secret.

Strike Price features authentic Cherokee syllabary text in clues that tie fascinating Native American history to global high-stakes drama today.

Endorsements:
"If you're looking for big business wheeling-and-dealing, international intrigue, murder, mayhem, and high-geared action, you've come to the right place. Toss in a charming and nervy protagonist like Lynn Dayton and L. A. Starks' Strike Price is right on the money. Well-written, well-plotted and well worth a reader's time."--Carlton Stowers, two-time Edgar winner
                                 
"Strike Price takes the reader from Oklahoma Indian reservations to the streets of Florence, in an imaginative and well informed fusion of oil refining economics, Native American politics, and the potential for lethal mayhem in the global energy market."--Michael Ennis, author of New York Times bestseller, The Malice of Fortune

Buy: 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble |  Amazon - A Time For Eating Wild Onions

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