What Everyone Needs: Someone to Care

Had fun reading Mary Balogh's Someone to Care. No I'm not going to write a review. Actually, I shouldn't even have to say it's good. Her stuff is...mostly because she masterful in setting up her characters to find someone who who will care for them as people not as a means to another goal.

I simply marvel at how Balogh manages to keep her plotlines engaging [not boring], especially since they are romance [one of the most unrealistic forms of fantasy]. I think she and Laurel K. Hamilton [Anita Blake] are the only romance writers I still read from those I was reading religiously five years ago. [Balogh was an outlier since I read mostly paranormal romances.] If anything, Balogh is a leftover from my Georgette Heyer reading of the 1970s.

Writers who want to write romances or include a romantic thread in their books should study how Balogh does it. Readers can just enjoy. Me? I think I'm going to dig into my Georgette Heyers for one of her less well known Regencies instead of the few I still reread regularly.

[Any other Heyer fans out there? What's your favorite book? Frederica immediately comes to my mind, but there are a couple others I can't quite remember the titles of I reread off and on.]

You can check out what other people say about Someone to Care plus read a blurb and reviews. Find both epub and print versions at

Amazon       B&N/Nook       kobo/Rakuten

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Other Interesting Reading

Caught a blog by Janet Reid, agent extraordinaire, on white writers writing black characters when someone pushed the politically correct button. No wonder the alt-right calls fuming liberals "snowflakes". In this case, I think they're either fuming about the right thing in the wrong way or just wanted some media time. Whatever, here's the link to Janet Reid's answer to a pertinent question.  --  Granted I'm influenced by the fact I included black kids in classes in There Be Demons. 

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My Writing Rut

Wasted almost a full week trying to write a battle scene for the first third of Rendezvous with Demons. Have two chapters of character and world development roughed in, have the wall of the nest broached by explosives, have Britt and Gillen secretly shadowing the Crosssings mages, but... the stupid chapter won't get written.  Result, one more week without any real progress on the novel.

Actually it was for a good reason. Britt and Gillen don't go in and save the day ala the calvary. I'm setting her up to be royally put down... I think. This is written on Wednesday. I'll add something more before I post this. I'm wondering myself what answer I'm going to come up with. Didn't get any more written. Good thing the blog got done on Wednessday when I finished the book. -- Yeah, have been distracted by other things.

Think I feel a little envious of corporate authors who get their publicity done by the company. While trying to write, I've been also juggling promotion. Came up with an ad from my artwork of Vetis. Also think I may have found a new artist to create line drawings of my characters. -- Not that I really expect it to increase my sales. You can check out the ebook of There Be Demons on Amazon, B&N Nook, and kobo/Rakuten.

                                     Artwork                                       ad

Make Your Cliche Stand Out from the Crowd

It's no secret that Regency romances are one of the most cliched genres. Just look at the number of the books published in Britain and the US since Georgette Heyer set the formula. I'm guessing there must be over 10,000 dukes [not counting other noblemen] each decade desparatelly searching for a bride. Preferably a spunky "flawed", but beautriful girl who deserves to live in luxury for the rest of her life.

The fact that the "ton" of Great Britain, totally, only totaled about 10,000 adults...and they didn't all die every year...is one of the ironies of the genre cliche.

I'll rest my case that Regencies are fantasies.

Since I'm a fantasy reader, I'll review Mary Balogh's Someone to Wed.

To tell the truth, I don't read many Regencies any more, though I think I still have all of Georgette Heyers books, except My Lord John, stored on my bookshelves. I have this fantasy that I'm going to binge read them in historical sequence. So far, I'm safe. I've never organized them by time period. There one Regency writer, though,  I still automatically buy--Mary Balogh. Why? She makes you engage with her characters as they work through their problems with a romance on the side. They always have a problem much greater than the romance, often a unique problem.

The example I read most recently was Someone to Wed. It's one of her novels involving the extended Wescott family. The book follows the  standard romance, historical variety, formula. Handsome nobleman needs to marry a rich wife, in this case because he's inherited a rundown estate and he has a super-strong sense of responsibility to restore it to profitability but he has no capital. The love interest comes out of left field as a cit who has loads of money but wants a husband. Sparks start to fly when she proposes a marriage of convenience to him. They waltz around a bit and eventually fall in love. He gets the money, and she gets the caring family she's needs.

Think that sounds trite? Maybe. But in Mary Balogh's masterful hands the stoyline of Someone to Wed blossoms. Balogh develops individual characters with believable traits, that  you care and cheer for. She's very sneaky in organizing her novels. Balogh builds a family or clique first. Then, she tells a series of stories of how each lonesome soul in the group finds love and acceptance.

This is all very general because I'm trying to work through her process and presentation.  Plot lines and setting are drawn in bold strokes. Balogh concentrates on the internal conflicts of the characters for her drama. What makes her masterful is that the problems aren't superficial or repetative, but focused on each characters until they are unique individuals. The end result is book after book worth reading. At least, I read them.

Read a more specific description, sample and reviews of Someone to Wed on

Amazon         Nook          iBooks 

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Giveaway Announcement

Like contests and giveaways? Enter the GoodReads giveaway of There Be Demons if you live in the US. Prize is a chance to win one of five hardcover copies of my fantasy book.

Enter here

30 December 2017 to 7 January 2018

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Other Stuff

Not doing much. Got all my Christmas preparation stuff done. All that's remaining is to get the daily stuff done. Son's coming to stay a week, but he's just going to have to tolerate my messy house. I'm not cleaning up my husband's messes.

I think my short Andor works are going to be free for some Smashwords promo around Christmas. [All my short stuff is available there, but not There Be Demons.] Supposedly you can download from them no matter which ereader you use. You might take a look if your eReader needs something new to store. 

Four of my short stories are perma-free on Amazon too.  Otherwise, they are a whopping 99c.

Oh, I won't be doing a blog until January 2018. It's Christmas time. I'm going to sit around enjoying the company of family and friends and binge watch The Lord of the Rings. [Not The Hobbit because I didn't like the movie much. The action scenes dragged on until I found them boring.] Along the way, I'll also probably eat too munch. 

I hope you get to do the same.

If you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you just enjoy,

especially peace and goodwill

and the lack of hatred.

Do Characters with Sad Songs Gain More Avid Readers?

    'Twas a dreary time last week as I skimmed through a couple books trying to stay awake after the news. Then, when grocery shopping, I picked up Mary Balogh's new Survivor's Club mass paperback -- Only A Promise. Balogh is an author with tons of books to her credit and loads of readers who write glowing, well-deserved reviews.

   No, I'm not green with envy. I line up with the fans to buy her books, though not in hardback because they're priced way beyond my wallet's reach. Yeah, Only a Promise gave my blahs a jolt.

   Of course, I decided to sample a chapter when we got home. It turned into three. [Good thing they were short ones. I would have never gotten up to the computer to clean my emails.] The real reading session came that night. I set out to read a third of the book and ended up reading two-thirds by the time my back and thumbs gave out.

   Can't believe I read into the wee hours when I usually quit before midnight. Then, I finished the book off after lunch the next day. Granted Balogh knows the Regency period and gives just enough detail to nail her settings so I don't groan at the factual clinkers.  But the thing's a straight-forward romance!

   The hook is in the details. Balogh's characters make her books shine. She always manages to give an added twist that wrings the stale out of the romance cliches. In the Survivor Club's case, her focus is on PSTD as well as two wounded souls finding each other. Oh, Regencies have maimed heroes by the thousands, even sweet young things recoiling from their scars. The deepest hurts in Balogh's books, even among the most privileged, are the psychological ones.

   The writing manuals give authors many ways to create a three-dimensional character. Balogh extends those techniques to her secondary characters, who show complexities that contradict each other. But her forte is the different psychological traumas she creates for the "people" in her books. The reader benefits when supposedly minor characters appear in another book as the star.

   But what caught my attention most firmly in Only a Promise was the context she uses  for the "love" in her romance. A quote: "There was no euphoria and never would be. She was not in love. There were no stars in her eyes." I also like her sex scenes which act as a bridge between her two protagonists.

Balogh has a talent for mixing and matching ideas so that the story lines in her books seem fresh and original, a stellar feat in the romance genre. Highly recommended. See more an except and more reviews on

Amazon and Barnes & Noble [Nook]

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    Sometimes, I find reading the newspapers frightening. But I also discover some interesting stuff, like in the 14 June 15 New York Times Book Review section. Actor/author/etc., Judd Apatrow is quoted in their author bit: "I have actually convinced myself that buying books is the same as reading."

   I haven't progressed that far. But. I did find two paperbacks, still in the store book bag, under a piece of furniture. Dystopia writers can find some interesting ideas among the various reviews in the same issue. I found them just plain scary.

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My Writing Rut

    Strange things happen when I'm petting Wiggles, my muse. The other cat, Shadow, isn't the friendly type. Of course, Pillar isn't particularly friendly either, but she sometimes does surprising things. Like kissing Nate back at the end of On the Run. How's that for a spoiler? Yeah, I'm finally going to write about a character in a romantic relationship. But it won't be a romance since Nate appears to late in the book to influence the plot's arc.

   Anyway, I wrote 400 words of an ending [after the great battle] Sunday morning, even before I opened my daily comics.

*Patting myself on the back.*

Oh, I'm planning to get another snippet from the beginning of On the Run up on my website.

One Batch of Cookies Down

Trivia:  It's the time of year when my world narrows down to baking cookies and making baklava.  This year it'll take longer since I no longer can handle double batches of dough. (Getting old catches up with you.)

Baking and Christmas was the reason I was so panicky about getting an ending on Emma.  At least, my shopping's done except for the peanut brittle.  Now I've got to wrap the stuff.  Ugh.

Lessons from My Reading:  Finished Mary Balogh's A Precious Jewel.  Cousin Oswald didn't appear again -- but a pregnancy did -- so I guessed wrong.  I marvel that Balogh is able to create characters well-rounded enough that you get teary-eyed even if you know what the ending's going to be.

Didn't guess wrong about the beta-male bit.  While flipping through the book during the news (better than sleeping like the old man), I discovered a 'Dear Reader' note at the beginning from Balogh giving the history of the book.  Mostly about breaking conventions by writing about the tribulations of a beta-male finding his HEA and how the book broke new ground back in 1993. 

Now it's time for all wanna-be writers to take a break and feel *something* about such a long career.  I'm impressed.  Balogh's new books are still lean and wry, compared to other authors who seem to expand the verbiage with each book.  Let that be a lesson for us all.

Truth in reading, I have at least 15 books by Balogh on my keeper shelf -- though some of them will be going out to trade if I ever get ambitious enough to prune the bookshelves.


Progress:  Not much.  I'm stuttering over editing the query and sample pages for Demons.  I'm not an efficient writer.  I re-read and re-edit until I stop finding things to dink.  So far, I've got one sentence that won't flow.  It sits there in the middle of the query like a lump of concrete.  -- The sample pages flow quickly and smoothly ... but are probably a trite beginning.  -- Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.  The whole voice thing and pulling the right character bits out of the story mystify me.

Maren keeps perculating.

Emma is waiting for my first manuscript comments -- from my alpha readers??  After I get the bills paid, I'll print it out and begin playing with it.


Blog?  It's sitting here with all its warts.

PS:  I'm getting some Christmas presents early.  According to the NY Times, P. D. James has a new book out  -- talking about detective fiction.  

Carol O'Connell also has a mass paperback on the best seller list, a new series it looks like.  Loved her Mallory series.  Maybe I should reread Find Me, the last of the series. (Maybe.)


 

A Minor Mystery

Trivia:  Think I've recovered from Thanksgiving.  Too much eating, yes.  (Though I only ate one meal [which lasted several hours]).  The sitting was the worse.  After our family went home, we went to a neighbors for "pie night".

Americans can't be the only ethnic group that practices mass gluttony.  Can they?

Lessons from My Reading:  I keep thinking this should be the title of the blog, but I rather mutter.  I enjoy talking to myself.

The mystery:  Why the h**l am I reading Mary Balogh?   I've stated I don't even care much for romance any more.


I have a very nice YA fantasy filled with runes and Nordic mythology set in an English-ish background by an English author.  Even was getting into the story line after I waded through the backstory and telling.  

(Another side mystery:  Why do the British write such good fantasy?  I've been reading a variety of writers since the 70s ... if you don't include Tolkien who I read in the 60s several times.)

Maybe the question should be:  Why am I reading Mary Balogh's A Precious Jewel, a Regency romance in its pure form (no thriller, mystery, etc. to dilute the relationships).  I hadn't intended on reading it.  I just saw it at the grocery store ... wondering what series she was doing next without looking to learn it was a reprint.  Then, after finishing editing Demons and sending the gargoyles on their way, I picked it up to fill in the time before the 10 PM news.  I was still reading at 11:30 ... when I decided I was tired and didn't want to stay up 'til 2.  (Yes, I considered staying up and finishing the thing.)



Why?  Well, first you have to appreciate the irony of a fallen woman discussing Jane Austin with her madam over tea.


My real answer revolves around characterization.  The people come off the page as possible people, not contrivances.  Also, I discovered one of the few un-hunk heros -- who is struggling through feelings of abandonment.  I think romance writers would put this in a discussion of alpha and beta heros.  Anyway, since it's a romance and HEA (happily ever after) is looming at the end, I assume a nice ordinary, not so good looking Regency guy is going to find happiness.


I'm waiting for the heroine to have the confrontation with the cousins who inherited her fortune by default and forced her "onto the streets".  I'm sure it will be handled with Balogh's usual sense of ironic humor.  Probably tonight.


Progress:  As hinted above, I finished editing There Be Demons from 65,000  words down to 61,000.  I was surprised I didn't get bored with it.  The ending even surprised me, sort of.  So, now I get to market it to agents again.  So, after the holiday market and baking cookies, I get to search through the fantasy agents to find ones that do fantasy and don't mind congenital anger. 

(First, though I'll send it to my 'fantasy agent'.  Rational:  It's sort of a thriller under the YA urban fantasy, and she's said in her blog:  If you have any doubts, send it.  All she can do is say 'it's not for her'.  Also, I've read about another YA agent who says she's their agent.)


Emma's still resting though I have to print her out soon to start major revisions.  I should print out Mariah too since I've changed a huge amount, and my current printout doesn't reflect the book any more.  One reason, I've been ditching prologues.


Maren is still in the research stage.  Have learned that you can do DNA analysis on charred remains (even from the inside of a tooth) as long as it isn't ash.  Thanks to a NCW member for that info.