Authors and Readers Blog their thoughts about books and reading at Fresh Fiction journals.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sara Edmonds | When It Comes To Location How Much Detail Do You Need?
I was reading Janet Evanovich'sFinger Lickin' Fifteen- and after the gut retching laughter- I realized that even though I have never been to New Jersey, Janet's descriptions make me feel like it is a place I have been to many times before. It also made me reflect on how much detail I need when it comes to location in the book I am reading.
I am not normally cognizant of the locations- or even the background description in general- when I am reading a book I really enjoy. When the author does a really good job of pulling me into the story, my mind tends to fill in any detail that isn't readily there, such a location, or even the general skin and eye description of the main characters. Those things I tend to pull from experience and fill in automatically. And I realize that for most authors there is not enough time, or money, to go to every place a book is set. But I realize that for some readers not having this information may be frustrating.
To read more of Sara's blog about location details please click here.
The editors of Many Bloody Returns deliver the perfect howl-iday gift, with new tales from Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughn, and many more.
New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur, and Carrie Vaughn—along with eleven other masters of the genre—offer all-new stories on werewolves and the holidays, a fresh variation on the concept that worked so well with birthdays and vampires in Many Bloody Returns.
The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone. They are particularly hard for lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest and saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.
Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year’s morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.
Monica Fairview | When Caroline Bingley Spoke...I Listened
On what must have been an ordinary day in my life, I woke up with a strange idea. I ignored it, got on with my usual routine, and hoped it would go away. But it didn’t. So on that perfectly ordinary day, I made a fateful decision: I was going to write about Caroline Bingley. Yes, Caroline Bingley, the woman in Pride and Prejudice that everyone loves to hate.
Surely not? I really had someone rather different in my mind for my next novel. I’d finished An Improper Suitor, a regency romance, and I’d had such a wonderful time writing it that I was all geared up to continue with one of the characters. But Caroline had wormed herself into my mind, and she refused to go away.
The thing is, I was probably one of the few people on the planet that didn’t really dislike her. Which is probably why she’d come to me to plead her case.
To read more about the conversation between Ms. Fairview and Ms. Bingley please click here.
Zack, his dad, and new stepmother have just moved back to his father’s hometown, not knowing that their new house has a dark history. Fifty years ago, a crazed killer caused an accident at the nearby crossroads that took 40 innocent lives. He died when his car hit a tree in a fiery crash, and his malevolent spirit has inhabited the tree ever since. During a huge storm, lightning hits the tree, releasing the spirit, who decides his evil spree isn’t over . . . and Zack is directly in his sights.
Award-winning thriller author Chris Grabenstein fills his first book for younger readers with the same humorous and spine-tingling storytelling that has made him a fast favorite with adults.
SARA ANGELINI | IMAGINING MYSELF IN A JANE AUSTEN NOVEL
I think Jane Austen wrote about me. No, I’m not off my meds, and yes, I realize that dear Jane has been dead for almost two hundred years (and no, I’m not that old). Nonetheless, in my narcissistic view, I am Elizabeth Bennet .
The wonderful thing about Jane Austen’s characters is that I’m not alone. Millions of women have turned the last page of Pride and Prejudice sighed, and wondered "when will my Darcy come?" I believe that’s more than a wish for the perfect gentleman (and don’t get me started on whether Darcy was actually a gentleman!); I believe it’s an affirmation that the reader has become so enamored of Elizabeth that she sees herself as Elizabeth. Who doesn’t want to believe that they are pretty, witty, and saucy enough to knock the stockings off the hottest catch in town?
To read more of Sara's blog and to comment for a chance to win please click here.
With The Shanghai Moon, S. J. Rozan returns to her award-winning, critically acclaimed, and much-loved characters Lydia Chin and Bill Smith in the first new novel in the series in seven years.
Estranged for months from fellow P.I. Bill Smith, Chinese-American private investigator Lydia Chin is brought in by colleague and former mentor Joel Pilarsky to help with a case that crosses continents, cultures, and decades. In Shanghai, excavation has unearthed a cache of European jewelry dating back to World War II, when Shanghai was an open city providing safe haven for thousands of Jewish refugees. The jewelry, identifed as having belonged to one such refugee - Rosalie Gilder - was immediately stolen by a Chinese official who fled to New York City. Hired by a lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, Chin and Pilarsky are to find any and all leads to the missing jewels.
However, Lydia soon learns that there is much more to the story than they've been told: The Shanghai Moon, one of the world's most sought after missing jewels, reputed to be worth millions, is believed to have been part of the same stash.
Before Lydia can act on this new information, Joel Pilarsky is murdered, Lydia is fired from the case, and Bill Smith finally reappears on the scene. Now Lydia and Bill must unravel the truth about the Shanghai Moon and the events that surrounded its disappearance sixty years ago during the chaos of war and revolution, if they are to stop more killings and uncover the truth of what is going on today.
Thank you for having me today at Fresh Fiction to talk about my current book A Marquis To Marry. I’m happy to tell you that this book is the second of in series called The Rogues’ Dynasty. The first book of the series, A Duke To Die For, came out in April 2009 and is still available at your favorite local or online bookstore, and the third book is An Earl to Enchant will be published in April 2010.
I started the Rogues’ Dynasty series with this premise: Everyone in the ton knew that Lady Elder had tried many times by fair and foul means to force her grandsons to marry. After all, she had been happily married . . . four times. Decades earlier she had successfully married off each of her three daughters to titled gentlemen. And in turn, each daughter had given her a grandson all in the same year
From deep in the heart of his eighteenth century English manor, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Tiring of this device, the portly patriarch decides to weave a malicious twist into his well-worn plot. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow — a secret elopement with the beautiful Violet... who was once suspected of murdering her husband.
Within hours, eldest son and appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. Since Ruthven is generally hated, no one seems too surprised or upset — least of all his cold-blooded wife Lillian. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just is brought in to investigate, he meets with a deadly calm that goes beyond the usual English reserve. And soon Sir Adrian himself is found slumped over his writing desk — an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Trapped amid leering gargoyles and concrete walls, every member of the family is a likely suspect. Using a little Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before the next-in-line to the family fortune ends up dead?
A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.
It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.
It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves.
It’s a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives.
GAIL CARRIGER A QUESTION AND ANSWER ABOUT STEAM PUNK
When I knew I'd be writing a little something about steampunk, I thought I'd try to figure out what people still wanted to know on the subject. Steampunk has been around for a while now, and certainly the internet has taken notice. So I took my request, as I do with most things these days, to the web.
Here's what I was asked: 1. What's the best way to explain steampunk to someone totally unfamiliar with the genre?
One can simply say that steampunk is the future as the Victorians imagined it, where steam power never died, and electricity never dominated. Think hot air balloons flying to the moon. If they still seem interested at that point, one can prattle on about Jules Verne and the birth of science fiction; the current aesthetic overtones (which I describe as the love child of a BBC costume drama and Hot Topic); and the importance of creativity, found object art, and the maker mentality in spearheading the movement. If they still seem interested I suggest pointing them to this brilliant overview article by Jeff VanderMeer, which pretty much covers everything. steampunk__an_overview
To read more about the steampunk question and answer with Gail please click here.
Anne Marsh | When Life Throws You Lemons Make A Book
I’ve always loved reading. The standard family joke, when I was growing up, was that you could count on me to have my nose in a book. I had stashes of books everywhere: in the car, my bedroom, every other room of the house. I didn’t walk from Point A to Point Z unless I could crack a book open first and thumb through pages as I walked. I probably missed out on quite a few other interesting sights, but I was hooked. I was a reader. It never seriously occurred to me to try my hand at writing until life interfered and quite literally slapped that book out of my hands. I’d been working my dream job for two years at Pixar Animation Studios (I was a technical writer, thank you very much, which meant that I wrote the instructions for the software the studio used to create their movies), when, out of the blue, my boss called me into his office and informed me that I was a tad bit superfluous.
Crime fiction readers know Quarry, the ruthless killer-for-hire, from Max Allan Collins’ acclaimed novels—most recently THE LAST QUARRY, which told the story of the assassin’s final assignment (and was the basis for the feature film The Last Lullaby).
But where did Quarry’s story start? For the first time ever, the best-selling author of ROAD TO PERDITION takes us back to the beginning, revealing the never-before-told story of Quarry’s first job: infiltrating a college town and eliminating a professor whose affair with one of his beautiful, young students is the least of his sins...
Soul Catcher Someone's got to catch Hell. Otherwise, reincarnation will get you killed...again.
Belle Bridge October 2009 On Sale: October 1, 2009 Featuring: Livia Belane 200 pages ISBN: 098217568X EAN: 9780982175682 Trade Size
Ian’s blood seeped from the gashes in his side onto the gray, weathered floor. This time I couldn’t heal him. I could only free him. Outside, in the strangely bright sunshine of a North Carolina morning, things you don’t want to imagine in your worst nightmares tried to rip the building’s big windows out of their aging brick sills.
Downstairs, the broad chestnut doors of the old Asheville Bible printing shop bulged inward as Pig Face slammed it again. The wood began to splinter.
I cocked the pistol. Everything inside me screamed against pointing it at Ian’s heart. I hated his body; I ought to be able to kill that body without caring. But a funny thing had happened on the way to that moment. I’d fallen in love with my husband again.
I knelt over Ian, straddling him. I put both hands on the shaking gun to steady my aim. My tears fell on his blood-stained face.
He managed a rueful smile. “Now, that’s a sight I’ll remember to death and back,” he whispered. He clamped one bloody hand on mine. As always, we shared the choices, the pain, the passage.
We had found each other again, across centuries. Why hesitate on a single sunny day in North Carolina?
“See you later,” I said hoarsely.
I pulled the trigger.
Dark Urban Fantasy Raw Sex. Violence. Bad Language. Demons.
For fans of my regular books, the good news is that SOUL CATCHER is still very southern (set in Asheville, North Carolina,) and at its heart is a very strong romance plot, albeit one involving reincarnation, murder, and an ending unlike any romance I’ve ever written before. See the video below:
Livia Belane traps demons in her folk-art paintings. She is a legendary soul catcher, a banisher of evil, though she’s just beginning to understand her destiny and its horrible repercussions for her loved ones. For more than two centuries she and her family, including her lost soulmate and partner, Ian Thornton, a soul hunter, have been stalked (and repeatedly slaughtered) by one very powerful and very vengeful demon. Now, in modern times, he’s found them again.
My fascination with urban fantasy novels started when BelleBooks (www.bellebooks.com), the small press I co-own with three other authors, began publishing fantasy novels last year. Editing books about vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, magic prophecies and “other” for our new imprint, www.bellbridgebooks.com, was so much fun I decided to give the genre a try as a writer.
Coming next year: Soul Hunter. Also, new women’s fiction projects as Deborah Smith. Look for CLEMENTINE AND MORNING GLORY next spring.
This last week my seventeen year old high school senior finished the first six weeks of school. I can remember quite clearly when I found out I was pregnant with him, and now he’s preparing to graduate from high school at Christmas. Yes, he’s going to be an early graduate, and we couldn’t be prouder, but where did the time go?
I can also remember being in second grade and the teacher reading Charlotte’s Web and Mr. Popper’s Penguins to us. I don’t recall the teacher’s name, but do recall having to hurry home to ask for my own personal copies of these books. As I’ve aged many things have changed, but I still have and will never willingly part with copies of Charlotte’s Web and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
The instant #1 bestseller from author Michael Connelly--"the best mystery writer in the world" (GQ)--brings back the hero of The Poet in a terrifying new thriller.
Forced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paperto write the definitive murder story of his career.
He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent.
Jack is soon running with his biggest story since The Poetmade his career years ago. He is tracking a killer who operates completely below police radar--and with perfect knowledge of any move against him. Including Jack's.
I was reading Janet Evanovich's Finger Lickin' Fifteen- and after the gut retching laughter- I realized that even though I have never been to New Jersey, Janet's descriptions make me feel like it is a place I have been to many times before. It also made me reflect on how much detail I need when it comes to location in the book I am reading.
A great addition to cozy mystery genre!
