The Netherfield Affair: A Dark Darcy Mystery by Penelope Swan My rating: 3 of 5 stars *Currently free on Kindle as a stand-alone.* A fun, sweet-natured genre mashup, with hints of Northanger Abbey‘s Gothic imaginings. Hardcore Austen fans should temper their expectations. You will not find the same subtlety of expression or social interplay as in …
Review: The Netherfield Affair: A Dark Darcy Mystery Read More »
Soft Summer Blood by Peter Helton My rating: 4 of 5 stars This soft-boiled police procedural introduced me to a very engaging team of characters, DI Liam McLusky, his sergeant James “Jane” Austin, and their colleagues DI Kat Fairfield and DS Jack Sorbie. The apparently “open and shut” murder that begins the story turns out to …
We’ve been gardening since we got our first “real” house in 2011, and each season includes at least one grave tactical error (Ahem, “learning experience,”). They all come down to one problem – Every year I try to outsmart myself, and it never, ever works. This year, I outsmarted myself twice: I got antsy, and fancy-pantsy. The antsiness …
I’ve been given opportunities to yak about myself a lot the last couple of weeks, so let’s keep this short. First, the lovely Aimee Brown at Hello…Chick Lit, actually let me take over her blog twice. My interview about Agatha Christie and the deadliness of the word “should” is here. Aimee also put up a guest post about the evolution …
In which I run off at the mouth (so what else is new?) Read More »
It took two years to clean out my mother’s house. Stacks and stacks of boxes – closets and attics full. See, Mom was bad with paper and mementoes, but especially pictures. Out of focus, duplicates, the backs of people’s heads, those weird double frames you used to get at the end of a roll of …
I was trained to be an artistic snob, and as Jimmy Stewart would say, I was a very apt pupil. The prevailing attitude in my college theater program — or to do them justice, the attitude I was most primed and receptive for — was that commercial entertainment might be a way to pay …
“So, what brings you here today?” asks the doctor. “Well, I asked my G.P. about getting assessed for Adult ADHD, and she referred me to you.” “And what makes you think you might have ADHD?” “Well, I was reading an article — wait, that’s not the right place to start. My mom died about six …
For a while now, folks have been asking me “How’s the new book going?” Seems like it’s time for a real update. The first draft of “Mister Mottley and the Dying Fall” was my NaNoWriMo project last year, and it was a great learning experience. I learned, for example: The “fast draft” approach is …
[View the story “This week’s #1lineWed – Dialogue” on Storify]
This week I received a fantastic opportunity to attend the Birmingham Gun Show, sponsored by the Alabama Gun Collectors Association. With the support and assistance of one of the Association’s Directors, Brent B. Goodwin, LTC (Ret), I’ll be requesting video interviews with vintage gun collectors to enlighten me — and you — about the real …