A Halloween Close Call--A Kiki Lowenstein Novella

Need a Kiki fix? For less than a cup of coffee, you can read the most recent adventure of Kiki Lowenstein, “A Halloween Close Call.” Kiki Lowenstein is invited to a Halloween Party at Detective Chad Detweiler's parents' farm. But mysterious happenings around St. Louis have everyone on edge--and Kiki has a close encounter that leaves a surprising clue behind! This 10,000 + word novella is only $1.99 and available at A Close Call .

To get you started, here's a sample:

Chapter 1

“If it’s spooky or scary, count me out.”

Detective Chad Detweiler grinned at me. “Even if I’m there to hold your hand?”

“Sorry. I don’t do scary. I love Halloween but I draw the line at being frightened out of my mind. I get enough crummy surprises in my daily life, thank you,” and to underscore how adamant I was, I crossed my arms over my chest. But I couldn’t look stern for long. Not when I was around my friends, so I spoiled the impact by smiling. I know I did.

See, my name is Kiki Lowenstein, and I’m the original Mrs. Nice Guy. I like butterflies and rainbows, puppies and kittens, sugar and spice, and brightly colored flowers. I always make sure to get my daily quota of cute. You can never have too much cute in your life. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

“So the woman who stared down her husband’s murderer is a big ‘fraidy cat.” Johnny Chambers winked at me. Johnny has Bad Boy written all over him, whereas anyone can see that Detweiler is a Knight in Shining Armor.

I shrugged and stared off into the metal shelves where we kept excess merchandise for the scrapbook store where I work, Time in a Bottle. My friends and I were holding an impromptu get-together here, in the stockroom of the store, to discuss our plans for celebrating Halloween. But walking through a “haunted house,” one of those converted warehouses complete with “zombies” and “ghosts” and “monsters” did not appeal to me one bit. “I did what I had to do to survive. This is different. You all are talking about getting your wits scared out of you as a form of recreation. If that’s your idea of a good time, have at it, go ahead, love you to bits, but I’m taking a pass.”

I know I sounded a bit whiny. I couldn’t help it. Years ago, I learned the hard way that I have a very poor tolerance for spooky stuff. I’d gone with my late husband to a screening of Carrie, the movie made of the Stephen King book by the same name. That last scene where Carrie’s hand shoots up out of the grave had me so terrified I almost went into shock. My teeth chattered and I shook like the leaves on a maple sapling before a tornado hits. It took me weeks to calm down.

I was not interested in submitting myself to being jumped at, touched, or grabbed in the dark by people I didn’t know. Especially if they’re dressed like Frankenstein or the Mummy or even Count Dracula. Ugh.

No sirree. I’m not interest in paying to be shocked and surprised.

Detweiler laughed and pulled me close. “Come here, you.” He hugged me. I relaxed into his arms, a place where I always felt safe. Listening to the soft lub-lub-lub of his big heart reminded me that I wasn’t alone in this world. “If you don’t want to visit a haunted house, we’ll find another way to have fun on Halloween. No problem.”

I stayed in Detweiler’s arms, but rotated slightly so I could see my friends. Clancy and Johnny were joined by Laurel Wilkins and her fiancé Pastor Joe Riley. What a cute couple those two are. Joe and Laurel both are in their late twenties. When they walk by, people turn and stare because they are two exceptionally good-looking people. I mean, you feel like you’re in the company of Hollywood stars when you’re with the two of them. And nice? Shoot. You couldn’t find two sweeter people.

Clancy and Johnny aren’t really a couple, but they are pals, so they occasionally accompany each other rather than sit home alone. It’s an arrangement that suits both of them very well. Clancy could easily be mistaken for Jacqueline Kennedy, she’s got those dramatic, classy looks.

And Johnny, well, Johnny is a scamp. There’s a roguish side to his personality that comes through with every move he makes.
I hated disappointing all of them. They had their hearts set on celebrating this Halloween by all of us doing something special.

The question was, what?

Now that I’d put the kibosh on going through one of the many “haunted houses” that regularly sprang up this time of year all over the metro-St. Louis area, what would we do for fun?

“Look, I don’t want to be a party pooper. You all should go without me. I’ll be fine passing out candy at my house.” Of course, I didn’t mean a word of that. I would hate to be left out, but it did seem like giving everyone else permission to carry on was the gracious thing to do.

“Mo-om,” moaned Anya, my thirteen-year-old daughter, who had just joined us. “I’m too big to trick or treat. Sitting home on Halloween will be, like, totally boring. Geez.”

“I didn’t quit trick or treating until I was sixteen,” said Laurel. “But I understand what you mean, Anya. Don’t worry. We’ll think of something fun to do.”

“Kiki, we wouldn’t enjoy ourselves if you don’t come,” Clancy Whitehead patted me on the back as I pulled free from the big detective’s embrace.

“And Anya’s right. Sitting at home would be a drag. So, we’ll make another plan. I’ve never been overly fond of haunted houses either. Some of them are okay, but I was in one where this hand reached out and--”

“La-la-la-la-la,” I stuck both fingers in my ears and sang. “Don’t want to hear it!”

“Geez, Mom,” said Anya. “You are being such a baby about all this.”

“Anya-Banana, it’s okay. Your mom is just being honest with us. We’re all friends here. That’s the way good friends operate. They take each others’ wishes into account,” said Detweiler. He was the only adult officially authorized to call my darling daughter by her old nickname. The hunky detective and my daughter had a wonderful relationship. He was very careful to be totally respectful and clear about boundaries with her, and he was teaching her that sticking up for her rights and feelings was important. He’d seen too many teens talked into stupid stunts by their peers. And worse, he’d handled a grisly abuse case where the stepfather was molesting his stepdaughter. Detweiler, Anya and I had even discussed the situation over the dinner table one night, with him emphasizing that she should never hesitate to tell the authorities if someone acted inappropriately toward her or her friends. No matter how powerful the perpetrator seemed to be.

I could see that he was supporting me in nixing the haunted house to help Anya realize that friends don’t push friends into uncomfortable situations.

I have to admit, my heart was overflowing with love for my daughter and my new beau. I’d heard a lot of horror stories about women with kids getting involved and bad outcomes. But so far, the three of us had been able to discuss frankly any hiccups along the way to becoming a family.
One of those hiccups was melding with Detweiler’s parents, Louis and Thelma, as well as his sisters, Ginny and Patty. Since Detweiler and his wife Brenda were only officially separated, and not yet divorced, I wasn’t sure how the Detweiler family would feel about me. I thought I remembered hearing that Patty and Brenda were good friends. But I was afraid to ask.

Maybe Johnny was right. I can be a ‘fraidy cat. I know I sure do stick my head in the sand sometimes, so maybe I’m more like an ostrich.

“Don’t worry, Kiki. I’ll come up with something fun for us all to do on Halloween,” said Detweiler, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “That includes you, Anya. My niece Emily has been asking about you. She wants to hear how your kitten is doing.”

Anya’s face broke into a huge smile. “Seymour is getting big. Wait ‘til I tell her about how Gracie picks him up and carries him around.”

Hearing her name, my wonderful harlequin Great Dane started to thump her tail happily. Gracie is totally besotted with Detweiler. She had managed to lean her entire body weight against his leg while we were all talking. Now she was looking up at him with moony brown eyes.

Yeah, no doubt about it. My life was full of love and happiness. This wonderful support system of friends gave me all sorts of self-confidence.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never been more happy or secure.

But I still wasn’t willing to visit a haunted house.

Huh uh.

No way.

**

Hungry for more? Upload the entire novella in seconds from A Close Call.

**
Copyright 2010, Joanna Campbell Slan.

News and Appearances

Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!

Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder.

On November 6, Joanna will be a featured guest of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. See their website for details. On November 13, Joanna will be appearing at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego. For details go to http://www.murderandmayheminmuskego.com/ She will also be visiting the Statesboro Public Library in Statesboro, GA, details to be announced, on December 1 and 2.

Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.She will be appearing: Friday, Dec. 3 - Eagan Community Center, give two talks to a big gathering of librarians from Dakota County. (Contact: Mary Costello, Wentworth Library); Sat., Dec. 4, 11:30 - Luncheon then talk (and selling books), Embroiderers Guild of America chapter, at The Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, 910 County Road D, Roseville, MN. On December 7 - Join Monica for a Publishing Party! for Buttons and Bones at Once Upon A Crime Mystery Bookstore, 604 W. 26th Street, Minneapolis, MN. The party starts at seven pm.

Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her second Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery, as well as her next Harlequin Nocturne.

Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.

Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is editing You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.

Visit us every Sunday--

For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!

Counting Down the Days

It feels so weird to be writing this on Thursday night. It has been a week of last minute preparations for the release of You Better Knot Die. My website needed to be updated, which meant I had to take photographs of the crochet projects. It wasn’t just procrastination that had kept me from doing it. I wanted to take them outside and we’ve been having a freaky October. Usually we have bone dry winds and hot sun, but this year it has been all about gloom and drizzly rain with some actual showers thrown in. My flowers have been perked up by the weather and the bald spots on my lawn are green again, but flat light and gray skies aren’t good for outdoor photographs.

Finally last Sunday I noticed some patches of blue sky in the morning and the sun breaking through. I should have seized the moment, but I thought it would just get brighter as the day progressed. It didn’t. By afternoon the sky was white again, but I went ahead with the photos anyway. I’m glad I didn’t wait until later in the day. The next thing I knew it was drizzling - again. I had expected it to be a day without rain and had hung laundry outside. I only use a dryer as a last resort. I think it cooks your clothes.

When the drizzle turned to actual rain, I had to pull in all the laundry and hanging it on every available spot inside.

I finished all the stuff for my website and turned it over to my webmaster to work his magic.

My editor contacted me about a question and answer thing for the Berkley website. Of course, I said yes. Since they needed it back by Wednesday, I’m guessing it will be up soon.

You Better Knot Die comes out on Tuesday and my plan is to hit as many bookstores as possible and sign stock. Then Wednesday I go to Chicago with a similar plan.

So all my ducks are in a row now. Now I’m going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The other big preparation this week is for Halloween. If it is like past years, we'll have around 300 trick or treaters. I might have bought the candy too early this year. I noticed a lot of it has disappeared. Still time to get to Costco and get another one of those gigantic bags. I haven't decorated yet, but there are still a few days and everything will be on sale at Target now.

What are you doing for Halloween?

xch-ch-changes

Can you feel the earth move as the Killer Hobbies gals all move one spot to the left? Camille has struck out on her own and we've all shifted a day earlier. So here I am on Thursday. Of course it feels a little odd today, but I'm sure in a week or two, we'll all be adjusted.

Why is change so hard? I had a big change forced on me lately. My local grocery store closed. It was a locally owned small chain that had been in business for sixty-seven years. Family owned, the firm used union workers who were mature and friendly. I remember a big party for one of the checkers-on his 25th anniversary. Amazing that anyone could live in the Bay Area on a grocery clerk's salary. Yes, their prices were a bit higher, but they had a full butcher shop and the best produce available outside a farmer's market.

What put them out of business, they say, is changing habits. We're now buying more groceries at places like Target and Walmart than at grocery stores. In my neighborhood, a Costco opened up several years ago. That was the final nail in the coffin for PW.

I understand the convenience. We're all busy. And I like low prices, too. But at what cost?

What do we miss when we don't have a local grocer? Good paying jobs, for one thing. Target and Walmart don't pay their people as much as PW did. Knowledge. I doubt anyone at Target will know what to do with a tri-tip roast or be willing to cut into paper thin strips for fajitas as the butchers would. A sense of community. Passing the time with the checker is a time honored American right. And don't ask anyone at Costco what aisle the toilet paper is. They're too busy handing out free samples of food that will lead you to an early grave.

Yes, this change is not setting well with me. I worry that our society goes for cheap prices, not realizing that they're putting themselves and their neighbors out of good paying jobs.

Any changes not sitting well with you? Do you welcome change? Or dread it?

Home Sweet Home

I’m back after a couple of weeks of travel. Fortunately, I had Internet access. Unfortunately, it was sometimes sporadic and slow. I thank Kate Carlisle again for guest blogging on my day last week.

I missed my pups! Good thing was that my husband had set up our security cameras so we could watch them--and those who were there to take care of them, including our younger son, who moved in for part of the time as he often does when we’re gone, plus a wonderful pet-sitter and a kind neighbor for the times he wasn’t there.

This was one of those trips that are hard to explain about who was where on which day. My husband traveled east first. I joined him, along with his family, and we took a New England/Eastern Canada cruise, which was absolutely delightful. Even though I grew up in Pittsburgh, I’d never been to New England before. Plus, living in LA as long as I have, I miss my formerly favorite season, fall, and the changing leaves. Got to see them this time!

On our return, we went to the ‘Burgh to visit my relatives, then to our house in Maryland, and finally back to New York City, where I had some wonderful meetings with my editors and agent. Next, we attended the Baron Funds annual meeting which always has surprise entertainment. This year, that included, at lunch, Diana Ross, John Mellencamp, and a wonderful Broadway entertainer named Kelli O’Hara. The main entertainers, though, really rocked me--for real! Bon Jovi was the headliner. One of my all time favorites!

Now I’m home, working under deadlines. Hugging my pups, who are acting as if they worried I’d never come home, both insisting on hugs and giving me orders.

I’m posting this blog to be up on Wednesday, for the first time. I know we’re going to miss having Camille blog with us. I definitely wish her well and hope she visits us often.

Do you ever take trips where you have to stop and think about where you’re heading next? Tell me about them!

MOVING DAY

It’s Tuesday, and here I am on Killer Hobbies. I’ve moved a lot in my life, but never quite like this. Usually moving calls for lots of boxes and weeks of settling in.

I had really settled into Wednesday. I wrote it Monday and Tuesday – sometimes just on Tuesday – and posted it early (really early) Wednesday morning. I got to post it early because I am up really early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I go to a water aerobics class (which I send my sleuth to in my Betsy Devonshire mysteries, too), the one they call “Early Bird.” It begins at 6:30 in the a.m., which is awfully early. On the other hand I’m back home around 8, washed, dressed, exercised, and ready for my day. Any of the other classes would put an ugly hole in my day, but not the Early Bird class.

Now Tuesday is my day to sleep in. I try not to schedule anything too early on Tuesdays so I can luxuriate in bed. There are two problems with that. One is, I wake up early anyhow – though not as early as on Monday, Wednesday and Friday – and the second is, my cat Snaps has an uncanny ability to sense when I am awake, even when I lie still and breathe gently. And if I’m awake, he thinks I should get up. He’ll nudge and bump and paw, purring ecstatically because this is a great game to him. If I lose my temper and rise to toss him out of the bedroom, closing the door on him – well, I’m up, aren’t I? And annoyed enough that I can’t go back to sleep.

But we’ll see how this works. Though I won’t be posting before six anymore, we’ll see if I can’t post before seven.

One of the great things about Bouchercon by the Bay – San Francisco, that is – was the chance to meet some of my fellow Killer Hobbiests. I got to teach a class on counted cross stitch. Camille Minchon, late of this blog, was wonderful, there ahead of time, ready to help anyway she could, bringing supplies, offering advice. I am not a great crafts teacher – heck, I’m not that great a stitcher – so I was pleased there was also a great stitcher present who had taught classes on counted cross stitch, and who was especially helpful with a young woman who had never tried the craft before. (I even learned a few things from her!) I had volunteered to assist Angela Daniels in her craft class on Saturday, and Joanna Campbell Slan came in with all sorts of handouts. Angela showed us how to take an old book and turn it into an exotic gift box, or perhaps a place to hide a small valuable. Very clever and not desperately difficult. It’s something I think I’d like to try again, as soon as I find that rarity, a book I don’t want to re-read or sell to Half-Price Books.

My thirteenth Betsy Devonshire mystery, Blackwork, is now out in paperback, and I’m looking forward to the publication of the fourteenth, Buttons and Bones, due in bookstores December 7.

What Readers Want to Know About Dirty Rotten Tendrils

Dirty Rotten Tendrils, the 10th Flower Shop Mystery, hit the bookstores on October 5th. Quite frankly, there are several unanswered questions in this reader’s mind, including, why does florist Abby Knight keep finding corpses? It’s like Grandma always said. “Nice girls don’t associate with dead bodies.”

I couldn’t come straight out and interrogate author Kate Collins; Grandma also claims that direct questions are rude. It did occur to me that Kate’s fellow authors on the Cozy Chicks blog might be forthcoming with details about Abby Knight and Kate Collins if only I asked nicely, so I approached Deb Baker, Maggie Sefton, JB Stanley, Heather Webber, Lorna Barrett, and Leann Sweeney. I began with the most pressing query and phrased it as delicately as possible.

Ten-plus murders! Ten! That’s an awful lot of bodies surrounding florist Abby Knight. And in “Shoots to Kill”, she’s even arrested for murder on page one! She admits to having a short fuse. Is Abby really so unlucky, or is author Kate Collins trying to cover up her protagonist’s nefarious past?

From Leann Sweeney: Unlucky? No. Who wouldn't want a smart, curious, intuitive woman ready to step in and solve a murder? We all have things we like to do besides work at the day job. Like quilting or painting or gardening or catching murderers.

Abby Knight is both a florist and a crusader. Her mother teaches kindergarten and engages in a long list of creative endeavors, such as making designer candy. Are energetic, multi-tasking women like these purely fiction? And what exactly is a Dancing Naked Monkey table, one of Maureen Knight’s many creations?

From Maggie Sefton: Abby Knight delights readers with her creativity, her crusading
spirit, and her tenacity in finding clues and figuring out murders. She
may even take after her energetic, multi-tasking, and creative mother,
Maureen. As for the Dancing Naked Monkey table? Only Maureen really knows.

Abby’s fiancé, ex-Army Ranger Marco is described as tough and sensitive--a man who could cook up an omelet and take down a killer in the same day. The couple has already called it quits once. Any guesses on whether we’ll hear wedding bells in the future?

From Lorna Barrett/Lorraine Bartlett: Does this give you a clue: Dum dum de dum. Dum dum de dum. Dum dum de dum dum de dum dum de dum. (And Abby's had the wedding flowers designed for ages.)

This is just between friends, and I’m not asking because I’m jealous (my thumb is a distinct shade of brown), but is author Kate Collins actually good with plants?
Deb Baker/Hannah Reed: Kate is the queen of green thumbs and can dish dirt better than anyone else! Uh, I mean, mix dirt.

Abby seems a little self-conscious that she flunked out of law school. I’m all too familiar with that feeling of failure. What advice would you give me--I mean Abby--to help her get over her perceived failure?

From JB Stanley/Ellery Adams: I’d tell Abby that when one door closes, another opens. After all, if she hadn’t flunked out of law school, how could she have become the engaging sleuth and skilled florist that we all know and love? Her “failure” has become a source of delight and enjoyment for readers across the globe!

For readers who haven’t enjoyed the Florist Shop Mysteries, can they jump right in with book #10? And what kind of read can they expect?

From Heather Webber: As with all Kate’s books, Dirty Rotten Tendrils is filled with humor, fantastic characters, twisty-turny plots, a bit of romance, and a warmth that’s just Kate’s natural voice. You absolutely don’t have to start at the beginning of the series to enjoy Kate’s books. Jump right in with Dirty Rotten Tendrils, and then once Kate has you hooked (and she will), go back and fall in love with the rest of the Flower Shop Mysteries.

How Kiki Lowenstein Celebrates Halloween

by Kiki Lowenstein

Hi, everyone! As some of you already know, I'm a huge scrapbooking addict. So it's no surprise that Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays. I mean, who wouldn't love all the cool iconic images like Jack-o-Lanterns, ravens, witches, full moons, ghosts, monsters, spiders, black cats, and candy?

At my house, my daughter Anya and I celebrate this holiday by decorating our home and turning it into a mini-haunted mansion. In the windows, I put "ghosts." These are really easy to make. Just Google "ghosts + clip art" and find a simple outline you like. Then copy that outline onto a sheet of poster paper in pencil. When you get the outline exactly the way you want it, you can either outline it in black marker or simply cut out your ghost and use a marker to make the eyes. Then, tape your ghost to the inside of a window.

Planning a party? Here's a super-easy party favor: Wrap a tissue (such as Kleenex or Puffs) around a sucker. Tie the tissue with a bit of white thread or white raffia and draw a ghostly face on the top.





Another fun craft is making decorative chains. You simply cut strips of orange paper an inch wide and 8 1/2 inches long and black paper to the same dimension. Then tape together the ends as you "link" one chain to the next.


To make a neat centerpiece as shown at the top of this blog, cut the top off of an empty plastic water bottle. Now drop the water bottle into a vase. (Tip: Make sure there's at least a 1/2 inch of room between the walls of the vase and the water bottled.) Fill the space BETWEEN the vase and the water bottle with candy corn. Add water to the water bottle and drop in a bouquet.

Or should that be a BOO-quet? Hmmm.

As you can see, you don't have to be a craft wizard to make stunning Halloween decorations!

Tell me--How do you decorate for Halloween? Have any special tips or secrets?

PS Joanna asked me to tell you that "Signlady" won the box of chocolates for being so sweet. Signlady, make sure to email Joanna at joannaslan@aol.com so she can pop your chocolates into the mail.

News and Appearances

Announcing our new line-up--
Mondays will be Joanna Campbell Slan, Tuesdays will be Monica Ferris, Wednesdays will be Linda O. Johnston, Thursdays will be Terri Thayer, and Fridays will be Betty Hechtman. Stay tuned for fun, guests, comments and contests!

Monday's author, Joanna Campbell Slan, is working on the fifth book of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, tentatively titled Ink, Red, Dead (April 1, 2012). A release date of May 1, 2011, has been set for the fourth book--Make, Take, Murder. Joanna will be appearing at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego on Nov. 13. For details go to http://www.murderandmayheminmuskego.com/ She will also be visiting the Statesboro Public Library in Statesboro, GA, details to be announced, on December 2.

Tuesday's author, Monica Ferris, is home from traveling and is working on Threadbare, a new Betsy Devonshire novel.She will be appearing: Friday, Dec. 3 - Eagan Community Center, give two talks to a big gathering of librarians from Dakota County. (Contact: Mary Costello, Wentworth Library); Sat., Dec. 4, 11:30 - Luncheon then talk (and selling books), Embroiderers Guild of America chapter, at The Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, 910 County Road D, Roseville, MN

Wednesday's author, Linda O. Johnston, is busy being ordered around by her dogs. She is working on her second Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescue mystery, as well as her next Harlequin Nocturne.

Thursday's author, Terri Thayer, is celebrating the release this week of False Impressions, the latest in her Stamping Sisters series.

Friday's author, Betty Hechtman, is editing You Better Knot Die. Check her out at BettyHechtman.com.

Visit us every Sunday--

For news and updates. Be sure to check out our websites for more information about our books. You can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.booktour.com for scheduling information on many of your favorite authors!

Too Scary

This week we’ve been writing about chilling reads. Here’s the problem - I don’t read really scary stuff anymore. My imagination gets too carried away. A perfect example happened in my old babysitting days. This particular family didn’t have a television or even a radio. I’d finished my homework and was looking for something to read. I found a magazine with some stories in it.

I don’t remember all the details of the story I read, just that it was about some woman walking across a lawn that turned out to have a portal to another dimension in the middle of it. Of course, she didn’t know about the portal and as she stepped into it, she disappeared.

Well, the story scared me so much, I wouldn’t put my feet on the floor, nor get out of the chair I was sitting in. I wanted to wait until the people came home so if I disappeared as I walked across their living room, they could tell my parents where I’d gone.

And as for scary movies, I won’t even watch the ads on TV.

What about you? Do you find yourself creeped out long after reading something scary or seeing a horror movie?

Because Camille is leaving our blog, next week Monica, Linda, Terri and I will all be moving up one day. See you next Friday.

Scary books

The book that scares me the most is the one I haven't written yet. The blank screen taunts me, daring to get the words and pictures and characters out of my brain and onto the page. I heard Michael Cunningham (author of the Hours and other books) being interviewed on KQED's forum the other day. He said you never write the book you're happy with. That's scary.

When I get scared about writing, I read writing books. How-to's, Dummies, Guides to this and that. I reread old favorites like Donald Maass or James Scott Bell or Sol Stein, but sometimes I buy a new book because I'm always sure that there's an author out there who's figured out a method or a secret or the perfect formula for injecting clues.

Turns out there is not. Just in case you were wondering. The only true formula is to read, write and rewrite. Read, write and rewrite. Rinse and repeat.

I'm teaching a class next week on mystery writing at the Redwood Writers Conference http://redwoodwriters.org/redwood-conference/ so I've been reading a lot about writing mysteries. Trying to pin down how mysteries are different from regular novels.

I'm reading books by Hallie Ephron, James Frey and William Tapply. I got a lot of practical information from the anthology Writing Mystery. Most authors agree that mysteries need a strong hero/heroine, an clever evil villain, a cast of quirky characters to help or hinder progress, a strong narrative hook. Clues must be cleverly disguised.

Easy peasy. So I'm asking readers out there. How do you like your mystery?

James Frey says we like our heros handsome and possessing a special talent. How do you like your protagonists? Do you need to like/love them?

Do you care more about the mystery or the lives of the characters?

Are you trying to solve the mystery? How hidden do you like your clues? Do you suspect every person who's introduced?

Fair play comes up a lot. Did you ever feel cheated by an author hiding the killer too well?

Give me some good feedback, I'll include it in my class notes and I'll send one lucky reader a set of the Stamping Sisters mysteries.

My Big Chill: Tools of the Bookbinding Trade

by Guest Author, Kate Carlisle

A lifelong love of old books and an appreciation of the art of bookbinding led Kate Carlisle to create the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Kate is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She loves to drink good wine and watch other people cook. Kate’s third Bibliophile Mystery, THE LIES THAT BIND, will be released on November 2. Connect with Kate online at www.katecarlisle.com and www.facebook.com/katecarlislebooks.

from Kate:

Thank you so much for welcoming me here today at Killer Hobbies, and thanks especially to Linda O. Johnston and Camille Minichino for hosting me. I’m a longtime lurker and admirer. I think hobbies are a vital part of living a rich, layered life.

I understand the theme this week is “The Big Chill,” which ties in nicely with both my hobby and with my latest release, THE LIES THAT BIND, the third book in my Bibliophile Mysteries series. Because my “big chills” – the things that put visions of murder in my head – are the instruments of bookbinding.

Bookbinding is my hobby, and it’s the career and passion of my protagonist, Brooklyn Wainwright. One of her passions, that is. The other is the very sexy and dangerous British commander Derek Stone.

On the surface, bookbinding would seem to be a benign pursuit. Dusty books and futzy artisans. Delicate papers held in delicate fingers. But during my first class, one look at the tools we would use had bloodcurdling screams echoing in my head.

My mother always did say that I had too much imagination for my own good.

Don’t understand how people can move through the world and not see a murder weapon around every corner. Knitting needles, kitchen shears, even macramé plant hangers can be used to do the Deadly Deed.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I assert that bookbinding is every bit as dangerous as knitting. And you can quote me on that. (Please do!)


This is a sewing frame. Doesn’t it look like a bright and shiny medieval torture device?


A bookbinder’s awl: the ergonomically correct murder weapon.


So why do we risk our lives every day with these lethal pursuits? In my case, it’s because the products of my pursuit are just so darn pretty. Here is a picture of the books I made in a recent weekend class on bookbinding:



Brooklyn teaches just such a class in THE LIES THAT BIND. When the Bay Area Book Arts Center director winds up dead, Brooklyn must discover whether one of her students could be a murderer.

Tell me about your hobby and how its tools could be used as murder weapons. Then let’s brainstorm some unusual hobbies and come up with new ways to turn a good time into a homicide.

Kate will give a copy of HOMICIDE IN HARDCOVER, the first book in the Bibliophile Mystery series, to a random commenter. U.S. mailing addresses only, please.

SCARY!

The scariest movie I ever saw was “The Haunting of Hill House.” You never saw the monster that inhabited the house, you only heard and saw the results of its moving around and making threats. It was also, I think, the scariest book I ever read.

I don’t go to scary movies anymore, though I used to be a great fan of them. The special effects are far more horrific and realistic than they used to be, but often the efforts seems as much to horrify and disgust as to scare. I don’t mind a good scare, but I’m not fond of being disgusted.

I had a super time in San Francisco, none of it scary. I kept a diary of events as they happened, and will post that on my web site, Monica-Ferris.com, under “Adventures.”

One of my favorite jokes involves a discussion among three men as to the scariest sound they ever heard. The first man says, “I woke up the other night and heard someone moving around downstairs – and I was alone in the house.”

The second man says, “I was on safari and one night I heard the cough of a lion right outside my tent.”

The third man says, “I can top both of you. I took my car to be serviced the other day and when the mechanic opened the hood, he gave this long, slow whistle.”

Chilling wine

Revenge is sweet (oops, that was last week), but it's also chilling.

On of the most chilling stories I've ever read is Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." I've certainly been frightened by stories since then, but Cask marked the first time I was scared by words on a page!

What a thrill. I wonder why that is. Would I want to be lured into a corner—it would have to be specialty chocolate, not wine to get me into the cellar—and bricked in? No, no, no. But curled up in a safe place, reading the delicious words:

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

If you have 10 minutes, watch this video and tell me if it gives you chills!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgmKjRMrVGA

Announcing ...

This is my last post to Killer Hobbies, though I'm hoping to invited as a guest!
I have a new name and a new series to launch and I'm afraid you'd notice the great departure from hobbies. I'm now ADA MADISON writing the Professor Sophie Knowles series, featuring a math prof at a small New England college. The first in the series is THE SQUARE ROOT OF MURDER, where, sadly, a chemistry professor is murdered. What was I thinking?

Please (after you read KillerHobbies), drop over to visit me at The Real Me.

Draculas

In keeping with our theme of chilling reads, we are thrilled to share the first chapter of a new novel called Draculas by Joe Konrath (J. A. Kilborn), Blake Crouch, F. Paul Wilson and Jeff Strand.

Moorecook

MORTIMER Moorecook opened the massive oak door of his hilltop mansion just as the FedEx deliveryman was reaching for the doorbell.

"Hi, Mr. Moorecook, I have—"

"You have my package."

"Yeah. Must be special. Only thing on my truck. Never been called out on a Sunday evening before."

Mortimer looked at the cardboard box, covered in FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE stickers and some Romanian customs scrawl. His mouth went dry, and his already bowed knees threatened to stop supporting him.

Finally.

"Mr. Moorecook?"

The old man glanced up at the buff FedEx driver, thinking how he’d once been that young and vital. Never could’ve imagined how quickly and completely that sense of immortality deserts you. So much taken for granted.

"What?"

"Just need you to sign for it so I can keep my job."

Taking the pen in his trembling grasp, Mortimer scribbled in the window of the electronic tracker. Then the box was in his hands. It barely weighed three pounds, but the magnitude of its contents made his arms shake.

"Shanna! It’s here! It’s here!"

Mortimer limped through the atrium as quickly as his thin, frail legs could manage, breathless by the time he reached the study. He set the box down on the coffee table in front of the hearth and eased back onto the leather couch just as his legs were about to give out.

His hospice nurse—a zaftig, forty-something woman named Jenny—rolled his IV bag into the study and plugged the line into his arm.

"Oh, stop it!" He swatted air in her general direction. "I ought to get a restraining order against you people. Everywhere I go, you’re always stalking me with that thing!"

But even as he spoke, he could feel the morphine-push flooding his system, like a good, wet dream.

"Mr. Moorecook, you know what happens if we have any lapses between dosages."

"Yeah, I might actually feel something."

"Is writhing around on the ground in unimaginable pain the kind of feeling you want?"

Of course not, he thought. That's the reason I...

"Mortimer!" Shanna appeared in the doorway of the study. "It’s really here?"

He nodded, eyes twinkling, then turning cold again as he glanced toward Jenny. "Leave us."

Shanna walked past the nurse and came around the sofa. Mortimer could smell whatever body wash she’d used in the shower that morning as she sat down beside him, her brown curls bouncing off her shoulders like an honest-to-god shampoo commercial. She was thirty-five, had been single when she moved out to Durango at Mortimer’s request, but in the eight weeks she’d been here, she’d met a sheriff’s deputy and inexplicably fallen for him. It remained beyond Mortimer’s comprehension how this gorgeous biological anthropologist had seen anything in that redneck, who, as far as Mortimer could tell, was the epitome of what made the world throw-up in its mouth when it thought of Red State America.
Then again, he was old and dying, and maybe just a little bit jealous.

"Help me up, Shanna."

With the morphine flowing, it felt like he floated over to his desk.
He opened the middle drawer, glancing out the big windows into the San Juan Mountains beyond a gaping canyon. The peaks were flushed with alpenglow, the snowfields pink as the sun dropped over southwest Colorado.

Lost in thought, Mortimer hitched up his tailored black pants—so loose now he had taken to wearing the gold-buckled belt left to him by his father—and ran his fingers over the Ouroboros insignia sewn into the breast of his red, silk robe. Then he reached into his desk drawer and took out the bottle he’d been waiting years to open, fighting a moment with the wrapper and cork. At last, he splashed a little of the rosewood-colored liquid into two tumblers.

"I’m not really much of a whiskey drinker," Shanna protested.

"Humor me."

Mortimer raised his glass, already catching whiffs of the fierce dried fruits and peat wafting toward him.

"To you, Shanna," he said. "Thanks for spending these last few weeks with me. I haven’t been this happy since my Wall Street days, raiding companies. I ever tell you—"

"Many times."

They clinked glasses and drank.

"That’s disgusting," Shanna said, setting her glass down.

Mortimer shook his head.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing, it’s just that this is a fifty-five year Macallan. I paid $17,000 for that bottle many years ago, knowing I wouldn’t crack it until a night like this came along."

"You paid too much," she said.

"Some things are worth the price. Shall we?"

They returned to the couch, and Mortimer sat down and dug the Swiss Army knife out of the patch pocket of his linen shirt. It shook in his hands as he opened one of the smaller blades.

"Let me," Shanna said, reaching for the knife.

He recoiled. "No!"

Mortimer inserted the blade and gently tugged it through the tape. He put the knife away and opened the box, pulling out wads of crumpled, foreign newsprint until he felt the smaller box within the larger. He lifted it out, set it on the glass.

It was some kind of black composite, sealed with a steel hasp on each side. He’d had the box specially made, then sent it to the farmer to ensure safe delivery of the item. Its key hung around his neck on a gold chain.
He unlocked the hasps and flipped them open, gingerly lifting off the top half of the box, bringing it onto his lap as Shanna leaned in. They could only see the back of the skull, the bone deep brown, heavily calcified, full of hairline fractures and several larger cracks, one square-inch piece missing entirely. He worked his fingers down into the hard black foam that had protected the skull on its journey across the ocean, and carefully lifted it out.

Shanna said, "Oh my God."

Mortimer stared into the hollowed eye sockets, and then the teeth, which more resembled the dental architecture of a shark than a human being.
Not at all what he’d been expecting, and it didn’t match the artist conceptions in any of the scandal rags. This wasn’t a skull from an old Christopher Lee Hammer film. This was an affront against nature. Mortimer found it difficult to breathe. But he also registered something else, something he hadn’t felt since his diagnosis. Excitement.

"May I?" Shanna asked.

Reluctantly, Mortimer handed Shanna the skull. He didn’t like it leaving his grasp, had to remind himself that this was what he’d been paying her so handsomely for.

Shanna examined one of the yellowed teeth.

"Coffee-drinker," she quipped, and then her eyes narrowed and Mortimer watched as her inner-scientist took over. "They’re at least an inch and a half long, every one of them, even the molars. Huh, weird."

"What?"

"These canines are hollowed."

"What’s the significance?"

"I don’t know. It’s not dissimilar to venomous snakes." She opened the mandible. "Look at the articulation. That range of motion is unbelievable. The jaw structure is…reptilian. There are literally too many teeth to fit in this mouth. See how they overlap? They would’ve shredded the lips off, most of the cheek, exploded the gums, ripped apart the ligaments in the mandible."

"What are you saying? It’s fake?"

"It looks real. No doubt. But it’s just anatomically impossible."

Mortimer leaned closer. "Is it human?"

"Does this look human to you?"

Shanna’s words hung in the air like a crooked painting.

"So...what is it?" Mortimer whispered.

"It’s certainly hominoid. But unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Nothing like this exists in the fossil record. This shouldn’t exist."

"But it does exist. It must be real."

"Look, we’ll have it tested. It’s possible the skull is authentic, but the teeth have to have been implanted."

"Do you know what I paid for this?"

"No, what?"

"Just give it back."

Shanna handed Mortimer the skull and stood up, smoothing out her slacks.

"Mort, I’m really excited for you. Really. And I can’t wait to get started studying this."

Mortimer’s eyes went wide with surprise. "You’re...going? Now?"

"I want to stay. But I promised Clay. He wants to take me—wait for it—to the Tanner Gun Show in Denver. We’re supposed to hit the road tonight."

"Jesus Christ. He must have elephantine genitalia."

"Mortimer!" She gave him a playful bump on the shoulder.

"What? There’s no other explanation. I mean, really? Another gun show?"
"Maybe not."

Something in her eyes...trouble in paradise? He hoped so. He held up the skull, cradling it in both palms. "This is the reason you’re here, Shanna. This is what we’ve been waiting for."

The mandible was still open. The old man grazed one of his liver-spotted fingers across the points of the teeth—razor sharp. He was sure he was only imagining it, but they seemed to send an electrical current through his body.

"Mort? You gonna be all right?"

He looked up at Shanna. Beautiful, youthful, Shanna.

To be young enough again to satisfy a woman like that.

Mortimer smiled. "I hope so."

Then he pulled the skull into his neck, clamped shut the ancient jaw, and the last thing he felt before losing consciousness were those razor teeth sinking through the paper-thin flesh of his throat.

**

Order your copy today from Amazon.

10 Chilling Serial Killer Books

Note: This week we're going to share some of our favorite frighting reads. I vividly remember the summer that I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I couldn't turn the lights off! This list was compiled by the Criminal Justice University.


Serial killers is definitely a topic that send chills down our spines- and for good reason, the atrocious acts they have committed makes you wonder how the majority of these people lived seemingly normal lives. The following books offer some answers and a look into some of the most notorious serial killers minds and lives:


The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
This book, written by Eric Larson tells about the events surrounding Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The story intertwines the true lives of two men, Daniel Burnham- the chief architect of the fair, known as the White City and H. H. Holmes- one of the first serial killers in America. H. H. Holmes opened up a hotel for the fair, which he built and became the location of many of the murders he committed.


Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer
Written by Harold Schechter, Deranged accounts the horror Albert Fish practiced in the early 1900′s as a pedophile, sadist and cannibal. Fish who was mistaken for a gentle, kind white-haired man started by taking a young girl out on an outing and she never returned. The book explores the sadodistic mind of Fisher, who killed and ate as many as 15 children and is believed to be responsible for the murder of many others.


The Stranger Beside Me
The Stranger Beside Me written by Ann Rule is about the life of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy, who was executed in Florida in 1989, eventually confessed to over 30 murders but is believed to have an estimated range of between 26 and over 100 victims. Rule, began writing her book in the 70′s after serial rapes and murders were left unsolved and while still researching and writing the books, the serial killer was caught- it was a friend of hers- someone she had known well and had worked with, Ted Bundy.


The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: An American Nightmare
Written by Don Davis about the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, this book recalls the night a young man came running out of an apartment complex trembling in handcuffs. When the boy led police back to the apartment they found a lair full of body parts stuffed into barrels, filing cabinets and freezers belonging to at least fifteen young men. The Jeffrey Dahmer Story delves into Dahmer’s demented mind and world of mutilation and cannibalism.


Night Stalker
Night Stalker, written by Philip Carlo, tells the story of Richard Ramirez, a serial killer who terrorized the Los Angeles area for over a year. Ramirez was found guilty of 13 murders, 5 attempted murders and 11 sexual assaults and believed to be responsible for many others. Carlo writes on all the time he spent traveling to Ramirez’s hometown interviewing Ramirez, his family and friends, and the detectives who solved the case. Carlo also shares a view into Ramirez’s psyche and how he viewed and justified his attacks in the service of Satan.


The Devil’s Right Hand Man: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Charles Browne
This book, written by Stephen Michaud and Debbie Price, tells the story of serial killer Robert Charles Browne. Browne was arrested in 1995 for the 1991 murder of a 13 year old girl. Convinced Browne had been involved with other murders, the cold-case investigators began a 5 year hunt for the answers with Browne while he was incarcerated at the Colorado State Penitentiary. Through letters, Browne eventually led led them through 20 years of unsolved rapes and murders.


Buried Dreams
Written by Tim Cahill, Buried Dreams recalls the disturbing story of John Wayne Gacy, a Chicago businessman who dressed up as a clown at charity events and birthday parties. In 1980, Gacy was sentenced to death for the murders of at least 33 young boys; most were found in the crawl space underneath his home. Cahill includes graphic accounts of the rapes and murders, as he led a four year investigation with Gacy to compile the facts about Gacy’s childhood, his abusive father and his seemingly normal life, rather a torturer and serial killer.


Zodiac
Written by Robert Graysmith, Zodiac tells of the hooded gunman who terrorized the streets of San Francisco in the late 1960′s and then taunted police with letters about the murders. The book includes details about the murders, the investigation and includes photos of some of the letters the killer wrote to police. The Zodiac killer is responsible for the murders of more than 6 people and believed to be the man behind many more. To this day, the cases have never been solved and the self-proclaimed Zodiac killer has never been caught.


The Last Victim
In The Last Victim author Jason Moss, tricks and seduces notorious serial killers into entrusting him and getting inside their minds. After writing to them in jail, posing as several different people, Moss gained their trust and coerced them to tell why they did what they did. Moss’ book includes getting into the criminal minds with detailed ranting and reasons straight from the words of John Wayne Gacy, which whom he has his closest relationship with, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Richard Ramirez.


Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Monsters
Written by Peter Vronsky, this book analyzes and documents the psychological and investigative aspects of murders by serial killers. Serial Killers: The Methods and Madness of Monsters also showcases timelines and compares first-ever serial killer instances with later century cases and notorious contemporary cases such as Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy. While not all serial killers can be detected, his book also uniquely provides suggestions on what one should to recognize and escape the encounters of a serial killer.

So tell me...what book kept you up at night?

The End of Sweet Week

This week we’re all writing about sweet things.

Thursday night it was almost eight p.m. when I left my yoga class. I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and as I was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, I heard a low flying helicopter and a lot of sirens. My first thought was the cops were chasing somebody. For good reason, in the past one of their high speed pursuits had ended right around there. I looked out into the street and after waiting a few breaths and not seeing any flashing lights, finally pulled out. I made it home without incident. More about that later.

Goldy was waiting by the door to remind me that I was late in taking her for her walk. The good part about it being late is there was less traffic to dodge. There aren’t sidewalks for most of the walk, and I feel like some drivers aim at us. The bad part is that there are more night animals to content with. I took her for an extra long walk since it was so late. As we were walking back, I noticed an animal running up the street. I was hoping it was a raccoon. It wasn’t. Just before we were going to turn on our street, I saw the coyote hiding behind some bushes in someone’s front yard. Was it hiding from us, or planning to attack Goldy? I don’t know, but to be on the safe side I picked, Goldy up. She weighs 20 pounds and isn’t that fond of being carried, plus I had my walking stick (for protection, though waving it around didn’t seem to faze the coyote), my little light (the light is supposed to go on Goldy’s collar, but a screw fell out and so I was carrying it instead) and a bag for clean up (luckily empty). Goldy squirmed and squealed and I had to put her down and reposition everything and pick her up again.

My heart was thumping, from carrying her and concern that the coyote was going to start following us. We got around the corner and down the block before Goldy pretty much demanded that I put her down. I kept looking back, but nothing was following us down the street and we made it home unscathed.

When I watched the news later, I found out there was a high speed police pursuit of a woman driving 100 miles an hour and from the description of her route and the timing, I realized she and the cops must have gone by just as I was approaching the parking lot exit. The sweet part is that I missed getting in the middle of it. And it was sweet that Goldy and I got past the coyote without any trouble.

In case you’re interested the woman kept going all the way to the next county, and drove up to a house, got out of the car and ran in. The cops followed her and pulled her out. A news helicopter got it all on film. They think she was under the influence of methamphetamines.

And in a final bit of sweet news, I found out that Kate Collins, my friend whose family tragedy came just when her book Dirty Rotten Tendrils was coming out, made the New York Times Bestseller list for the first time. So sweet that she has a bright spot at such a hard time.

Did you have some happy news or escape something bad?

Sweet

What's sweet? Sweet tooth, sweet heart, sweet treat.

Sweet is not the decision I have to make this weekend between attending Bouchercon, the biggest mystery fan conference being held in San Francisco OR Pacific International Quilt Fest, the bestest quilt show being held in Santa Clara. Due to some bad karma (not sure what I did wrong), my two favorite interests are colliding this weekend. And I can't be at both. At least not on the same day.

Ordinarily, I'd be at PIQF every day for the four days it's open. I'd be signing books and checking out the quilts and shopping at the vendors. Did I mention there are several hundred vendors? All with things I probably need.

But I'm a member of the local Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, so I'm needed at Bouchercon. Not that this is a hardship. I'll be in good company. Laurie R. King, Robert Crais, James Benn. Name a mystery author and he/she will most likely be there. The breakout sessions will be fun and informative. The authors will be hanging out, eager to meet their fans. It's heaven.

I'll be a part of a continuous conversation tomorrow morning at nine am there. It's an informal drop in session where several authors will be talking about cozies. After that, I'll be hanging out in the hospitality suite. On Saturday, I'll be in the craft room from 3-4pm. That's right, a craft room. My blogmates are responsible for this. We'll be demoing projects all day Friday and Saturday. You can stop by and play.

Sunday, I'll go to PIQF and see the quilts and try to buy what's left at the vendors.

I really do get to do both. Sweet.

Oh, SWEET Acronyms of Life

As you know, we Killer Hobbyists are blogging about sweetness this week. I decided to approach it a little differently. Hope you like it!

What's SWEET?

Sweet? Why Even Entertain That?

So We Embrace Everyone Today!

And now... what does SWEET mean to you?

SWEETHEARTS

Congratulations to Linda Jo Park of Rathdrum, Idaho, for winning a copy of Blackwork! The book is in the mail, suitably autographed.

The theme this week is Sweet things. Or people. Or deeds.

I think one of the sweetest people I’ve encountered in fiction is Jill, a young woman who acts as nanny to the children in Pilgrim’s Inn, by Elizabeth Gouge. Unfailingly gentle and compassionate, even when the children were behaving badly, she shines like a star at twilight in this novel – which is itself a sweet story.

Looking back over my own fiction, I can see I’ve created a number of nice characters, along with the usual villeins. But all of them seem to have some kind of edge – except one: Godwin DuLac, the gay man who inhabits the Betsy Devonshire series. He’s not flawless, and he’s sometimes silly, but he’s talented in the needle arts, and he’s kind, and never cruel or wicked. See? Sweet.

I’ve met lots of sweet and/or kind people in real life. It would take too long to list them all – and I’d probably leave out someone important and be angry with myself. What’s interesting is that what I mostly remember are the little kindnesses, especially those that come when I really need them. And how often that that’s when I don’t deserve them. Maybe it’s the contrast that engraves them in my memory. A long-term sweetheart is the person I married. But an example of just a little sweetness came back when I used to go fishing with a group of people. I had a casting rod and somehow in the course of throwing it out and reeling it in, I got a backlash. It was a really bad one, so I retreated up the bank a little way and was struggling to get it untangled for some while when one of the men, a senior citizen, came and sat down beside me. He said, “I know you’re going to get that worked out, and I’m sure your fingers, being so young, are more nimble than mine. But I bet you’re getting tired of fighting with it. Would you let me take over for awhile?” That was a very long time ago – I’m a senior citizen myself now. But I’ve never forgotten how gently he offered to take the aggravating burden off me. I think I fell a little bit in love with him over that. What a sweetheart!

I’m going to post this early, because very early in the morning we’re taking a flight to San Francisco to take part in the big mystery convention called Bouchercon. More on that next week.

Sweets to the sweet

Queen:
[Scattering flowers] Sweets to the sweet, farewell!

I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife:

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,

And not have strew'd thy grave.

--- HAMLET, Act 5, Scene 1; the queen to the dead Ophelia.

Imagine my dismay when I learned in high school that the phrase "sweets to the sweet" didn't carry the romantic notion I thought it did. First, it referred not to chocolates, but to flowers; and second, well, there was a grave in the picture, not a lovely garden or boudoir. It's about a suicide, not a betrothal.

Nasty.

Maybe that's why I don't use the word very often, unless I'm being sarcastic.

If you hear me say, "Oh, how sweet," I really mean something is cloying and unbearably saccharine.

For GenY, sweet means "good deal" or "ok, I'm there." It's hard to keep up, though, and that may have changed since I asked my GenY nieces and nephews last week.

As far as I'm concerned, the only really sweet things are in bakeries. Or at miniatures shows such as the one I attended this weekend. Here's a table full of half-inch pies.



Now that's sweet.

I hate to ruin a perfectly fine word, but it's not my fault, it's Shakespeare's.

But that doesn't mean there's no sweet contest here! You can win a sweet treat by commenting on what the word means to you!

Fans Do the Sweetest Things and a CONTEST

October 16 is Sweetest Day, so this week we're all blogging about the sweet things in our lives. For me, that definitely includes my wonderful fans.

Sarah Andreotti wrote to tell me that her daughter Quinn (pictured above) considers Paper, Scissors, Death "her book." Quinn takes it everywhere. She even sleeps with a copy!

Last year, a bunch of fans took off work in Pittsburgh to have lunch with me. One of them even brought me a batch of stovetop cookies made from a recipe on my website. I had a blast meeting with the ladies from Pittsburgh!

In St. Louis, a mystery book club that enjoys my books talked a Barnes & Noble manager into having me as a special guest. Then the mystery book club members talked me into creating a new character in my books. Her name will be Bridget Eichen, and she's "scrubby Dutch," which means she's a German immigrant who is houseproud. Boy, will she ever be an interesting addition to Kiki Lowenstein's life.

Another fan showed up for one of my signings in Maryland and brought a small album he'd made. It folded out to show covers of all my books. I was moved to tears.

Diane Von Kresmark of the UK loves my books so much that she devoted a scrapbook page to them.

CONTEST

So here's the challenge. Do something sweet for someone. Tell me about what you did in the comments. You have all week to do this good deed. I'll choose one lucky person and send him or her a box of chocolates.

Short Post

It’s a very short blog today. I hope we didn't have a theme this week. I am hopelessly behind on reading emails and blogs.

I finished rewriting my manuscript for my sixth book earlier in the week. Then it was just proofreading, or so I thought. Proofreading turned into tweaking and then to a little rewriting.

In the midst of it, the first copy of You Better Knot Die arrived. It's my first hardcover and it's beautiful.

I am in the home stretch. I just have only 37 more pages to go over. Then I’ll type in the recipes. They’ve already been tried and tasted. The crochet patterns are written, but all over post it notes and index cards. I need to decipher them and type them in. Then I’m done. And I attack the mountain of laundry and 1700 emails.

The winner of Dirty Rotten Tendrils is Kay. Please email me your snail mail address at hechtmanbooks@aol.com and I’ll send it off to you.

Moonlighting

I'm thinking about romance and mystery. Does every sleuth need a love interest?

After I post this, I'm going to watch Bones. I love this show despite the fact that I have to watch with one hand over my eyes, because I don't enjoy the sight of maggots writhing in decaying flesh or flesh sliding off bones. The sight of horrible remains in nasty places. I don't watch this show to guess who did it, either. The mystery is usually a simple one. I knew the killer in last week's episode the first time he was on screen.

No, I watch it for the sex. Or maybe better to say the sexual chemistry between the two main characters, Bones and Booth. (Those names break my rule for never naming characters starting with the same letter. In this case, I think it was the writers planting the idea that these two belonged together). They don't have relationship outside of their marvelous work one, but the viewers have always suspected something. Last season he finally put his feelings for her on the table, but she rejected him.

So now he's brought home a girlfriend but the fans are clamoring for a Booth/Brennan hookup. The question is would that mean the end of the show?

The trope is that once you satisfy the unspoken needs between two main characters, the show will die. Everyone points to Moonlighting as the prime example of this. But that show was on the air more than twenty years ago. Haven't times changed?

What do you think? Do you like a little romance with your mystery? Does consummation mean the end of the fun?

Blogging

I enjoy blogging--which is a good thing during a week like this. This is my third blog, on different sites, in four days!

I’m delighted to say that I was a guest blogger on Mysteries and Margaritas on Monday. I was interviewed there about how I started writing and what it’s like now--lots of fun talking about myself. If you’d like to learn more, here’s the link: http://mysteriesandmargaritasblogspot.com Scroll down to Monday, October 4, for my entry--and read some interesting posts along the way, while you’re at it.

This week also included my day to blog on A Slice of Orange, the blog for the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America. I’m scheduled to blog there on the sixth of every month. What did I blog about? Book titles, which are definitely on my mind since the title for the second in my new Pet Rescue Mystery series was agreed on last week: THE MORE THE TERRIER, an appropriate title for a story about an animal hoarder. The first, BEAGLEMANIA, is about a puppy mill rescue and some of the puppies are, of course, beagles. Once again, here’s the link: http://occsliceoforange.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-in-name.html

And here I am on Killer Hobbies on a Thursday, blogging about... blogging!

The only problem is that I haven’t really written this week about my main blog topic here or on any of the other sites: pets. My dogs. Anyone else’s kitties or puppies. Or... did I just do that?

I’ve heard that, with other kinds of social networking, blogging is being somewhat left behind. I enjoy both reading and writing blogs, as well as commenting on them.

What’s your opinion? Do you enjoy blogs? Do you like them as much as other stuff like Facebook?

Hardcover Vs. Paperback - And A CONTEST

My first published novel came out in hardcover, from St. Martin’s Press. It had an unusual but perfect cover and, because it took dead aim at a particular set of people who are enthusiastic readers -- members of the Society for Creative Anachronism -- it did well. It had a peculiar title: Murder at the War. The paperback version, from Walker, had a better title, Knight Fall. It did well, too.

I was surprised when MATW came out in hardcover, because what I thought I was writing was a book you buy at the airport or at a bus depot, read on your trip, and leave behind on the seat when you arrive. I meant it to be light but highly-entertaining, full of interesting characters, with a clever plot, and having a satisfying ending, but nothing deeply literary -- just the sort of thing to make the enforced inactivity of travel bearable. But I didn’t think it was the sort of book you buy to treasure and re-read over and over.

It was an honor as well as a pleasure to discover I was wrong, that people liked the books in the Peter Brichter series enough to buy them in hardcover.

There is a certain amount of prestige to having a book come out in hardcover; my current Betsy Devonshire series began as paperback originals, but has now graduated to hardcovers followed, about a year later, by paperback versions. Both versions, unlike my first series, come out from the same publisher, Berkley/Prime Crime.

Speaking of romance, which we seem to be doing this week, Murder at the War featured a happily married couple; the prequel, The Unforgiving Minutes, told the strange and exciting way they met and fell in love. (Sort of like the lines from a song in the musical “Fiorello!” “You remember her, she detested you; you remember him, he arrested you.”) The Dame Frevisse series featured a medieval nun who was above such nonsense as falling in love. My current series has Betsy being pretty much of a dud at finding and holding onto a good man -- though she is currently doing a lot better with Connor Sullivan, who is introduced in my novel Blackwork, and will be prominent in the forthcoming Buttons and Bones.

A CONTEST: You can win a copy of the just-released paperback version of the thirteenth Betsy Devonshire mystery, Blackwork! Suitably autographed, of course. Just answer this question Yes or No by five p.m. Friday, October 9: Are the terms “Counted Cross Stitch” and “Needlepoint” describing the same kind of needlework? In case of multiple correct answers (and I anticipate lots of them, this is an easier question than in my last contest), I will draw the winner at random.

Looking for Love

Welcome to guest blogger CINDY SAMPLE! Cindy, a prolific author, writes the popular “Hot Flash” column for the Gold River Community Newspaper. She's a frequent speaker in the Sacramento area with topics ranging from “Never let a lack of ability stand in the way of success,” “Dating for the Hot Flash Set,” and “You really want to be an author?”

Cindy is the past president of the Sacramento Chapter of Sisters in Crime.


LOOKING FOR LOVE . . . in all the wrong places. Some of you may recall that line from a famous song. It perfectly describes my dating life and that of my protagonist, Laurel McKay, a newly divorced soccer mom.

Ever since DYING FOR A DATE was released, people assume I’m the resident expert on dating, which I guess is why I was asked to guest blog on the subject of romance. Now I will admit that I’ve been brave enough to venture onto a variety of on-line dating sites in search of Mr. Right. And yes, I even admit to going on coffee dates with 34 potential Mr. Rights. My protagonist, on the other hand, was talked into joining a matchmaking agency called THE LOVE CLUB, the safe alternative to on-line dating.

And that’s where our paths diverge. My coffee dates have resulted in interesting conversations with some very cool, mature men, with the exception of the one guy who tried to impress me by sharing that his best friend was an assassin (honest, I wouldn’t joke about that).

Laurel’s first date by contrast wanted to have HER for dessert. So she did what any resourceful woman would do: she whacked him on the head with the first viable weapon she could find, a cell phone. Things start going downhill when he is found murdered the next day, with her unfortunately the last person to see him alive. When her second date disappears during dinner, the handsome detective in charge of the investigation can’t figure out if she is a killer or the next victim.

Rumor has it that authors write what they know. Evidently I know dating, but fortunately all of my exes are still alive. At least I think they are.

So has anyone ever gone out on a date so bad that a few dastardly thoughts crossed your mind? We are all dying to have you share your worst date stories. Share your story or make a comment and you'll be eligible for a copy of DYING FOR A DATE!



For more information or additional dating tips from Cindy, check out her website at www.cindysamplebooks.com.

DYING FOR A DATE is available as a trade paperback and e-book. It is published by L&L Dreamspell and can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Fictionwise, Mobipocket, and any indie store.

Welcome Guest Author -- Cherish D'Angelo

Note: Today we welcome guest author, Cherish D'Angelo, who will be telling us about her new "Cherish the Romance" Virtual Book Tour, which launches the romantic suspense book, Lancelot's Lady.


1. Cherish, you’re a big believer in VBTs (Virtual Book Tours). Tell us what they are and why they work for you.

A virtual book tour (also known as a virtual blog tour, online book tour, online blog tour, VBT and more) is just like a physical book tour, only instead of me traveling across country visiting bookstores and libraries, I travel the internet and make guest appearances on blogs or websites. Online tours are successful because an author can reach larger numbers of readers more easily, without leaving the comfort of home.

VBTs work for me because they're affordable and time efficient. I'm not spending hours traveling across city or beyond. I don't have to spend gas money, or money on flights and hotels. Instead, I find great blogs to visit, ones I know readers will enjoy checking out. If readers leave comments or questions, I can chat with them just as though I'm in a bookstore with them. Sure it's not a face-to-face meeting, but I've gotten to know some great people via the internet.

Best of all, everyone wins. Readers get more information than they would if they met me in a bookstore. My hosts get a bit more traffic and new visitors. And hopefully I'll sell some books in the process so I can keep doing what I love.

2. You’re entering a new genre—Romantic Suspense—with Lancelot’s Lady. Why did you decide to shift gears? How hard was it? Why the pen name?

I decided to switch genres when I heard about a contest that Textnovel.com was sponsoring. They had partnered with Dorchester Publishing to host the "Next Best Celler" romance writing contest. I'd been interested in Dorchester for a while and I thought maybe this would be my way "in". So I entered the contest.

I tossed around the idea of starting a new romance novel, but was drawn to an old manuscript I'd hidden away on my computer for 7 years. It was titled Reflections. I hated that title and immediately thought of "Lancelot's Lady". I re-read the first few chapters and recalled all the major plot points, but I knew I'd be starting from scratch. Every few days I submitted 500 words more of the story to Textnovel. I didn't win, but Lancelot's Lady did place in the semi-finals.

Very soon into it, I realized that there was going to be some major twists and one of them included adding a blackmailing, sadistic private investigator who sets his sights on Rhianna. That's when I knew for sure it would change from a contemporary romance to a romantic suspense. Since I'm used to writing suspense (and YA) under my other pen name (Cheryl Kaye Tardif), this segue came naturally.

I changed my name to Cherish D'Angelo for two main reasons. I was switching genres and that meant a slightly different target audience. And since I have teens reading my other novels, I wanted to separate the more adult writing of Cherish D'Angelo.

3. Your new book is debuting in ebook format only. What does that mean? Why did you decide to do an ebook? Who is your publisher? If it is self-published, please tell us about some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a self-publicized ebook.

Yes, Lancelot's Lady is debuting only in ebook format. For now. Readers will be able to read it on their PC, laptop, and select ereaders and smartphones. My agent is also pitching it to publishers for a possible print deal. When Lancelot's Lady placed in the semi-finals of the "Next Best Celler" contest, I realized that I had something solid. I spent many months tweaking the story, had it critiqued and edited by others and then made the decision to release it myself as an ebook.

The publisher is Imajin Books, my own imprint. I actually licensed the artwork and designed the cover myself and am very happy with it. I had to format the interior pages specifically to the guidelines of each publisher (Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords) and upload all files. This takes some knowledge, but I've been formatting my books for years.

Publishing your own ebook really isn't very difficult, once you know what you're doing. I recommend all authors with backlists or older titles they haven't sold look into this; they can make money from those works rather than keep them in a drawer or computer file.

4. Whale Song has 61 reviews on Amazon. Did you do anything to encourage your readers to share their opinions in a review format?

There are some reviewers whose opinions I respect, so to get my novel in front of them is one of my goals. I always send out ARCs of print books and ebooks. More recently, I experimented with a new contest in which I asked readers to submit reviews of any of my books they'd read. HONEST reviews! I didn't care if they were 1 star or 5 star. I learn something from every review. Only a few people participated in this contest.

Some people submitted reviews on their own, without me suggesting it or having any contact with them prior to their review. Sometimes a fan will email me and tell me how much they enjoyed Whale Song, and I'll then ask them to consider posting a short review. I truly value every review I've received.

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Lancelot's Lady ~ A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her down.

Lancelot's Lady is available in ebook edition at KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers.


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You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) at http://www.cherishdangelo.com and http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com. Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her "Cherish the Romance" Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.

If you have a question for Cherish, please leave a comment.

PRIZE DRAWS and FREE EBOOK

Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook just for doing so. Plus you'll be entered to win a Kobo ereader. Winners will be announced after October 10th.

CONTEST WINNER

The winner of the "name the raven" Contest last Monday was Bookwoman. Please email me at joannaslan@aol.com with a mailing address so I can get your prize in the mail to you.