Witches, Crows and Murder Most Cozy

Witches and Salem are almost synomyns in the US.  Carol J. Perry makes good use of the convention in her cozy mystery series starring Lee Barrett, sometime TV personality. It Takes a Coven is an enjoyable example, so enjoyable that I decided to write a book review even though I'm on vacation.

Barrett's Witch City series is bubbly without being fluffy. She doesn't juggle as many characters as say Louis Penny does, but each of her secondary characters have ongoing subplots that progress from book to book. That for me is masterful writing. [Maybe because I have problems with it.] 

The best thing? I think you can read the book as a stand alone. I haven't read all the books [6] in the series, but I followed the mystery action well integrated with the daily stuff...though I thought the wedding sequences missed an opportunity to be sarcatistic about US wedding preps. The "compromise on the cake" was a throw-away when common sense ruled.

Integrating plot elements so there are no loose, dangling bits can be difficult. Barrett takes her crows, modern witches, and historical witches and weaves an interesting tale of cause and effect. Some plot elements from previous books have been "put to bed" in It Takes a Coven--which leaves me wondering what direction the next book will be taking. Guess I'll have to wait a year to find out.

Check it out for yourself on Amazon, B&N Nook, or kobo/lRakuten. For the record, these links include ebooks.

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Interesting Reading

Writer R. Mac Wheeler takes wonderful photos. Here recently posted some wonderful close-ups of flowers. You can check them out here. He also writes some fun fantasies.

An older Write Unboxed blog had a short, to the point blog on writing a synopsis. Anyone needing to write a short report can benefit from its tips. Take a look.

Ever wonder about what's actually in the food and care products you use? I found this interesting because so many heath articles blame inflamation for tons of bad health conditions. This one has links to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Click here is you want to know what is lurking in your toothpaste, maybe.

Yeah, some of this weren't posted yesterday. Maybe it's another point we should all take...about how long items last on the web. You never know when a search engine might spit out one of your posts. You can't count on the ads taking up enough space to conceal things. I'm still bouncing around the web seeing what there is to see. Am really disappointed in how low search engine results have sunk in the last three-five years.

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My Writing Rut

Have been playing on Fivver, looking for something interesting to promote my books. Found an artist who might be able to create pictures of my characters in my demon books. Here's the one of Vetis, my arch villen, who proclaims in There Be Demons: "The Angeli have lost the war. They just don't know it yet." Now have to figure out how to use the picture.

Next illustration? Britt or maybe a group of demons?

Writing is going slow. Have been working for a week on my first demon fight in Rendezvous. Today I just got to the Freemages blowing a hole in the wall around the demon compound...in Docket's Diggings from Noticing Jamilla. Still, haven't gotten to the big fight.

A *chuckle*. When I "drafted" the book, Britt linking up with Cahal in Pacifica happened in the fourth chapter. I'm working on Chapter 10 on a demon fight I didn't contemplate until Britt got off the bus in the mountains. That fourth chapter was from Pillar's [Running from Demons ?, thinking of title change...] pov. Still have a major fight with a demon biker gang before they even get to Cascadia.

Can Gargoyles Have Problems? A Different Shade of Gargoyle

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Thanks to the family lending library, Gigi Pandian's Accidental Alchemist landed in my to-read piles. It turned out to be a fun, delightful read with its twisting murder plot, complete with bodies, almost bodies, and perp candidates. Best of all it had a gargoyle. I suspect the kids are waiting for me to say something because of Gillen in There Be Demons. [I haven't.]

Okay, I could develop a thing about intelligent gargoyles. Dorian Robert-Huduin is a Notre Dame gargoyle who was accidentally brought to life by an alchemist when the cathedral was being built. Now Dorian's got a problem. He's reverting back to stone and needs Zoe Faust's alchemy skills to translate an ancient grimorie to find the elexir that will prevent his return to stone. The gargoyle is also an accomplished French chef, a plot ingredient which qualifies this series as a cozy mystery, I guess. At least, the title isn't a pun.

Zoe Faust has just moved to Portland, Oregon, and bought a neighborhood's "haunted house". A survivor of the Salem witch trials, Faust is the most undeveloped detective protagonist I've come across in ages. In fact, characters are Panian's weakness. Seldom do they escape the bondage of cardboard figures. Oh, they're described, have secrets, and give many smiles to the reader...but they all tend to remain flat, except for Dorian. He's worth the price of the book.

All in all, a delightful romp, meaning a light quick read for when you want to be be entertained mystery or just tired. You can take a look for yourself by clicking

Amazon       Nook        kobo

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Other Interesting Reading

Ever wonder what the State of Publishing is today? Came across this interesting article reference at GoodReads. Tells you the characteristics that make 100K selling authors successful, both indie and corporate-published.

I not only chuckle at the New York Times Book Review. The real estate ads in the New York Times magazine are also laughable. Condos for $2 million plus home association fees. Real pertinent ads to the American public when the average net worth is under $100,000, I think. 

I know I couldn't afford a $2 million condo, any where. Not that it matters. I wouldn't want to live in New York City. It's dirty and noisy and in ill repair, even though they spend huge amounts of money not getting things to work efficiently. I'll say: subways without elevators for the handicapped and rest my case.

On a writing note. I think I'm going to have to blog every other week. My age is catching up with me. 

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My Writing Rut

Reviews are coming in for There Be Demons [not bad], but not that many sales. Am hoping the sales improve after the ebook version is lowered to $2.99. Currently, the ebook is descounted to $1.99 until 12 November. You can take a look at:

Amazon      Nook       kobo       iBooks

Or, if you'd like to take a chance on winning a free Kindle copy, you can click here if you are a US reader.

I tried to do NaNoWriMo this year as a way to jumpstart the third book for a potential trilogy called The Demon Wars. Oh, I'm making some progress, but definitly missing the 2,000 words a day mark.

I've fallen back into my normal writing pace...and fighting not to pull The Pig Wars, a Far Isles Half-Elven story, out of the bowels of my computer. Think I gave up on NaNoWriMo when I couldn't figure out how to post my daily words on the NaNo graph when I was making my quota, like about days 3 and 4. I think I prefer to keep my undisciplined persona.

Groan. Do Cozy Mysteries Really Need a Pun?

Almost gagged when looking at the new arrivals in the mystery section awhile back, but I bought Grave Errors by Carol J. Perry anyway. Kinda liked the main character when I bought the first book in the series of five books and still do. Still, I object to having to read all the bad puns as I searched for authors I wanted to read.

[Don't get me wrong. I love cozy mysteries, especially ones that happen in a small interacting communities like English villages. It's the puns that gag me.]

Lee Barrent is one of those magical types whose magic is iffy at best. Makes for a good mystery protagonist. There's just enough psi ability for the book to be both an urban fantasy and a cozy mystery.

The setting of Grave Errors is a cliche, -- Salem, Massachusetts. But Dia de los Muertos  makes an appearance--something I haven't seen an American book do very often.

The plot centers on a closed suicide case that comes back to life as a murder investigation-- when Barrett's TV production class sets up a public service campaign to extend the town's Halloween festival by adding the Mexican holiday. Garrett's cop boyfriend isn't happy when the closed case comes back to bite him, but he's learned to pay attention to Barrett's sporatic visions. This book gives the reader a nice romp with well rounded characters, lots of red herrings, and an interesting cat. It all adds up to a fun read.

Check the listings for Grave Errors at these stores\

Amazon       Barnes & Noble      kobo/Apple Books

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My Writing Rut

Haven't written anything worth talking about. Just doing promo stuff. I think getting a book published turns your brain to mush. Even my traditionally published friends look at their Amazon stats at least two, three times a day. The good news is that I've sold a few copies of There Be Demons, even breaking through the 100,000 ranking...but not for long.

If you read this far, you deserve a reward. Night for the Gargoyles, the short story that inspired There Be Demons, is free on the links below. [I don't know if the Amazon link is free in foreign countries, but I fairly sure kobo is.]

Treat Yourself for Halloween:

Amazon       Barnes & Noble      kobo        Apple Books/iTunes

The best group of reviews are on Amazon.

Oh, I guess you can find me among the books at GoodReads . You can find reviews there too. I have several demon-focused short stories listed for free.

How to Remove Your Characters from Their Cardboard Packages

    Since my to-read pile was larded with fluffy, cozy mysteries, I was rather upset after I put a bunch of them on the trade pile without finishing them. I vowed I was going to force myself to read the next one the surfaced to the bitter end -- in hopes of finding out why I had turned on one of my favorite forms of escapism. Only the book was Some Like It Witchy by Heather Blake. I discovered I looked forward to my nightly reading sessions to see how the plot developed -- and how the characters' lives changed.

   Murders seem to make the enchanted Salem village go round, and Darcy Meriweather, witch, wishcrafter, and sleuth, is right there in the middle of events to solve them in this series, helped by her romantic relationship with the village's top cop. This time, a real estate agent is murdered in the midst of showing a house connected to a famous diamond robbery. Of course, the diamonds have magical as well as monetary importance, and who wants them most isn't instantaneously obvious.

   So, what kept me reading when other best selling cozy mysteries got dumped on the trade pile?

   The summary sounds just like a hundred other cozies. The hook ended up being Blake's warmly human characters. The secondary characters had me reading "just one more chapter" until after midnight turned my eyes bleary...just to see how they'd react to the coming twist.

   Some Like It Witchy even created an innovative character type I haven't seen before in my reading. Imagine a person whose visiage turns from fair and inviting in the light to evil and menacing in the dark/shade. Definitely, not someone you want to meet in an alley ... even though all this character's actions depicted in the story line were rather blase plus a nice twist I won't mention for fear of delivering a "spoiler".

   But that one character isn't the only three-dimensional one in the book. Blake's Salem village is filled with individuals -- well-rounded characters who sneakily drop clues to solving the murder in the middle of innocuous conversations. More important, many of the characters have problems of their own that get expanded and/or solved during the course of the book. The people add complexities to the plot line which seem organic to people's lives rather than manufactured by the writer to create thrills.

   Too many of the mysteries I read get set on a one-lane highway to solve a murder, with most of the suspects just red herrings to hide perp. In Salem village, all the characters seem to have secrets which are or are not solved in the current episode in the series. Blake does a good job of wrapping up the loose ends, except for the on-going town secrets -- especially the identity of the mysterious town elder who acts as the "ruler" for the various witches/crafters in the village.

    I recommend Some Like it Witchy because the warm community Blake creates makes an enjoyable read. I could do without the puns in the title, but many more people must like them because so many publishers do it.

See excerpts and more reviews at Amazon and B&N Nook.

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An Interesting Link

What are the rules you think make a successful book? 

   Anyway The Writing Chimp [aka Georgina Cromarty] recently blogged about 9 Writing Rules Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors Should Break. You might take a look and see if your reading supports her claims -- when you're reading the work of a master writer, that is.

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My Writing Rut

    On the Run  continues to develop...or should I say, Pillar continues to develop right under my eyes, even though the story is probably 75% drafted. A critiquer suggested that Pillar needed to talk more; she didn't act like a normal teen. He thought Pillar needed to act more like a natural teen. --  I'm thinking about it.

   Yeah. That was a good critique suggestion if you look at it from how taciturn Pillar is. Maybe too much "action" does happen in her head.

   The insight gave me one of those ta-dah incidents. I spend a lot of time on Pillar's inhibitions on working magic/manipulating energies, but I hadn't thought of other attributes connected to her mixed heritage. Result, is I have a lot more blue notes at the head of chapters to incorporate into the story line.

   Got my demon transition chapter out of the way. This coming week I return to the meeting with Nate, who now will be a sort of love interest. This is where I originally started the novella last spring. Don't think I'll finish by Christmas, but it might be a possibility ... even though it looks like both Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be at my house this year. -- Good thing only family's coming. I don't have to clean up the books ... or, is that straighten?

   My desk, if not my house, is getting cleaned up though. All the yellow sticky notes I've used to save ideas as they occur are getting attached to the chapters that raised them or clipped to clothes pins for the stories I'm not currently working on. I can see the black finish of the desk top rather than a blanket of yellow, green and orange squares.

   Really need to get a new snippet up on my website. Incidently, you can find extended samples of my short stories there if you want to click. They are available on iTunes so I think you can download them on a smartphone to kill time in waiting rooms and sports events.