Try A Little Cozy - Mystery - Janet Lane Walters

Take one retired nurse and former church organist and her "familiar" Robespierre, a Maine Coon Cat and let them have fun. Cozy mysteries always have a  sleuth who isn't official and that's what Katherine Miller is. There are murders this heroine tends to collect.


Murder and Mint Tea is the first of these books. Katherine is very protective of her family and the story unfolds through watching her interact with her family and neighbors in the Hudson Valley village where she lives. This story can be called "when is the villainess going to die."


Murder and Poisoned Tea shows Katherine involved with the church choir and the very talented organist. This book can be seen as who is going to be killed.


Murder and Tainted Tea takes Katherine to visit her friend, Lars in Santa Fe and of course, there is a murder.


There are three more books in the series. Murder and Bitter Tea has Katherine suspecting that a friend was murdered at an exclusive nursing home. She goes undercover as a nurse to find the villain.

Murder and Herbal Tea again sends Katherine on a road trip to help a friend accused of murder. There is a shop where teas and all that goes with them are the focus of the story.


The final book still has to be written. Murder and Sweet Tea has Katherine married to Lars and living in her dream house on the Hudson River banks. There is a romantic suspense author who has an ex-husband, a stalker and an angry agent.


These books have been fun to write and I hope fun to read. I've been told they show my "dark side."

Sentimentality. And Raffie Giraffie.

Award-winning book, The Twisted Climb by J.C. Kavanagh

It's been 23 years since my dad passed away unexpectedly. It would have been his 90th birthday the other day and it got me thinking about how I wished he were here to read my books and be part of my new publishing journey.
He was a bit of a curmudgeon, I have to admit. Growing up in Dublin, Ireland, in a building called The Ballast Office on the River Liffey, he had to be tough. So when he came to Canada in May 1957, he believed that he was tough enough for anything Canada could throw his way.
Until the winds of November.
And the arctic cold in December.
And the snowy blizzards in January.
"How in the name of God would anyone want to live here?" he used to say, clenching his teeth.
Now my dad was not of the Kavanagh clan (that's me mather's side), so I'm not sure if the lack of blue blood in his veins made him more likely to feel the cold. Or should that be the other way around?
"Winter in Canada is not fit for man nor beast," he would say in a bitter voice as he scraped the ice off the windshield of the old Volkswagen Beetle.
Personally, I loved winter. Still do. I love the feel of the wind on my face and the ice-cold velvet of snowflakes on my cheeks. As a child, I would beg to be brought outside. We couldn't afford skis but we did have an old toboggan.
"Will you come with me?" I would ask my dad.
He'd look at me with disbelief.
"You want to go out in that?"
I would squirm in my squeaky snow pants and shuffle my ugly galoshes together - you know the kind - where your shoe fits into your boot. The large metal buckle at the top at the top of the boot did nothing to improve its appearance. Style and galoshes were and always will be, from two different galaxies.
So my dad would mutter something about lost opportunities in the good ol' country and then say NO.

Me and my dad, 1983

Looking back, I realize that he didn't have galoshes - only us kids were brave/stupid enough to wear them in public. He had those rubbery half-shoe type of footware that semi-covered your shoes. We lived in an apartment until I was in my teens and to this day, I cannot remember him enjoying a Canadian winter day while outside.
Well, Dad, I overcame a lot of obstacles since you passed. I wish you were here to tell me "good job" and "to put the Irish lilt in Canadian lore." Then I would tell you that winter in Canada is fit for man and beast but NOT ugly galoshes. With a cheeky grin, I'd then blow you a kiss. I hope it goes all the way to you in heaven.

Creative class at the Library

A couple of weeks ago I had the great pleasure of leading a group of children in a creative writing class. These kids were between the ages of six and ten, so they were too young to read my young adult book, The Twisted Climb. Nevertheless, creativity has no age limits and no boundaries - particularly with kids. I gave them three prompts: twin boys, a giraffe, and a glacier. So in the space of 40 minutes, we wrote a story about Raffie Giraffie. It was spectacular! Here's a synopsis of the story:
Twin boys, Nick and Steve, loved to slide down Raffie Giraffie's neck, through the glacier, into a cave and then into the ocean. While they were playing, along came a creature dressed like a giraffe, but it was really a tiger! When one of the boys began struggling in the water, the tiger ripped off his giraffe costume (but left on the long neck and head) and pointed to his shirt. It said, "Certified lifeguard." To the rescue went Tiger, still wearing the giraffe head like a snorkel. They became BCFs (best creature friends). The end.

There are no walls in your mind. Only those that you build.

Enjoy life!

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb
BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll
A novel for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.Amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

Help from the little people...by Sheila Claydon

Books We Love Author Page

So here I am in Australia again, visiting family. We've spent so much time in Sydney over the past few years, and have so many Australian friends, that it's beginning to feel a bit like home. Visiting, socialising and taking care of our little granddaughter does interfere with the writing of course, but not as much as you might think. 

Take 'Remembering Rose,' Book 1 of Mapleby Memories. I started that while I was helping to care for my then 6 month old granddaughter, and finished it when I returned home. It's a time travel romance but guess who one of the main characters is? Yes, a small baby! It wasn't intentional, nor is the fact that  Book 2 (so far only half written) features that same baby starting school, something very integral to the plot. And what did I do today that might influence how I write about that? Well I took my now 3 year old granddaughter to breakfast at her daycare nursery to celebrate Mother's Day (Grannies and other women special to the children always included) and sat with what seemed like a hundred tinies on mini chairs at a mini table - so watch out for something similar down the line in one of my books, maybe Book 2!

Why do we write what we write. Well for me the idea for a book is usually prompted by a chance remark or a newspaper article, or even by noticing someone or something when I'm out and about. How I weave that into a story is an entirely different matter however, and my eldest granddaughter (now old enough to read all my books and be my number one fan) tells me that she can recognise herself and her sister in some of the earlier ones.  Well not them exactly, but their behaviours and comforters. She's absolutely right and yet none of it was intentional. 

It is true that whatever and wherever the setting for a story, we still include what we know and experience, although to allay any suspicions my husband might have if he reads this (unlikely) I hasten to add that the romance is all imaginary:) No experience there at all!!!!

Several of my other books feature children, including 'Empty Hearts' which will be published later this year. The only difference is that this one is a vintage, written and first published in the eighties, so the little boy in it must have been based on my own children!!! Sorry about that guys, but a writer does what she has to do:)

While I am editing that and finishing Book 2 of Mapleby Memories, there is always 'Double Fault' if you like family stories. That also has children at its centre, and how!!!

Books We Love Author Page

Check out my books on the Books We Love website or visit me at https://www.facebook.com/SheilaClaydon.author/

My Writing--sometmes

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

Romancing the Klondike is available this month in bookstores and on line.

 

I had worked off and on at various jobs for many years while raising my children and when I began taking writing courses I still had teenage children at home. I wrote some historical and travel articles and had them published in Canadian magazines. My children had left home when I got my first contract for a non-fiction travel book, which morphed into seven travel books about the backroads of Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon and Alaska. Researching and writing each one of those took up my days, evenings, and nights for a year. When I finished the last one, I decided to try fiction writing.

     I also decided to get a job since writing can be very lonely. I took training to be a nursing attendant also known as residential care aide and began working in a long-term facility. I also started writing my first mystery novel. Then my husband and I moved to a small acreage Vancouver Island and I got a job in a group home looking after disabled adults.

     I do not like getting up to an alarm clock so I took a position in the afternoons from 4-9 pm. This gives me time during the day to work in my yard, hike, dragonboat, pick and can or freeze fruit from my trees, and of course, write. I am thinking about retiring so I could have more time to write, but I have a feeling that I would also travel more, sit and enjoy the sunsets more, visit family more.

     I try to write something every day, even if it is just some ideas for a scene or someone the main character of my WIP will meet. Usually these ideas occur in the middle of the night so I always keep paper and pen by my bed to write this down.

     And I must be doing something right because I have had seventeen print and e-books published since I began my writing career.

How Hoarding Inspired My Murder Mystery Novel

For more information about Susan Calder's books, or to purchase, please visit her Books We Love Author Page http://bookswelove.net/authors/calder-susan/

Mystery writers joke that one thing they love about the genre is that they get to kill off people in their lives who annoy them. In the case of my new novel, Ten Days in Summer, this joke is mostly true.   

At the time I was developing the idea for the story, my siblings and I were engaged in assorted legalities regarding our late grandmother’s house. With our mother also gone, we had to deal with her only sibling, a hoarder who occupied the home’s second floor. He drove us bonkers.   

Grandma's Bed

Long before my grandmother died, my uncle’s stuff started taking over her premises on the ground floor. I don’t remember visiting there without passing stacks of paper and boxes in the hall. Her living room gradually filled up with television sets that my mechanically-inclined uncle had offered to repair for his neighbours and friends. One afternoon, my young sons counted 22 TV sets in the room. Undoubtedly, the owners had long ago given up on my uncle getting around to repairing them.   

Procrastination is a common trait of hoarders. They can’t decide what to do with an object, so do nothing. A more surprising trait, I learned from my research, is perfectionism. Since they must do something perfectly right, they end up not doing it at all.

Grandma's Table

When it came to dealing with the house that he and my mother inherited, my uncle let everything slide. Scaffolding erected to repair the siding became a permanent fixture. The front steps were a hazard for postal carriers. Notices for unpaid bills accumulated.

My siblings and I left him alone with all this until he told us the house would go to auction if he didn’t pay the city taxes by a cut-off date. Since his respectable amount of pension money had gone somewhere, we paid the tax bill, then paid the next year and the next. We realized the only way to get our money back was to sell the house. My uncle dug in his heels. This was his mother’s home; he would die there.

Except, we discovered, he wasn’t living there anymore. After a water pipe burst, the house became uninhabitable. He lived in his car for several years and ate all his meals at places like McDonald’s. We had assumed that whenever we phoned he just happened to be driving.

Grandma's back porch 

In short, as I was mulling story ideas, my uncle was being a huge pain in my neck. I decided this novel would involve my insurance adjuster sleuth, Paula Savard, investigating a suspicious house fire, where the owner died. I made my victim a hoarder.

The suspects were stand-ins for my siblings and me: two nephews and a niece concerned about their inheritance. Curiously, the annoying uncle I killed off turned out to be the most sympathetic member of his fictional family. I learned much about hoarding while writing the book and confess I understand it better than I’d like, since I have a little of that tendency.

What happened to my real-life uncle? The police found him passed out in his car and brought him to the hospital. They patched him up with medical treatment and decent food and released him to a nursing home. 

Now aged 83, he probably could live independently, but he’s a sociable type and enjoys the residence environment. He loves the politics of the place, especially advocating for the residents against management, and has taken up a new hobby: chess. The first time I visited him at his residence, I couldn’t get over the neatness of his room.  

However, on a recent visit, I noticed stuff creeping in. I suspect some of the staff find him frustrating, and others think he’s a hoot. I thank him for the inspiration.

Cliches: Avoid Them Like the Plague, by Karla Stover

                                       bwlauthors.blogspot.com karla stover


In 1988, Brunswick, Maine's Chief of Police told his police force to quit using the phrase, "Have a Nice Day," when on duty. He called it, "an absurdly shallow insult," And since the phrase is over 800 years old, it's also a little shopworn. The 12th century British poet, Layamon used it in Chronicle of Britain, writing its variant, "Have a good day." A couple of hundred years later, Chaucer became a devotee of the phrase. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms says "Have a Good Day became popular in the 1920s and the rest, dare I say, is history.

The word, cliché, has interesting history. In 1725, the Scottish goldsmith, William Ged, patented a printing process where moveable type struck soft lead to create a duplicate plate. The action made a clicking or clacking sound. Not long after, French printer/engraver, Firmin Didot, (among others) improved the process, and Firman called it stereotype from the Greek words for solid and type. Then printers began calling the plate itself, le cliché, cliché being the past participle of the verb, clicher, which describes clacking sounds. Thus, a cliché was a duplicate of the original and, by the 19th century, when the English adopted the word, it was used to describe something timeworn.

Alexander Pope gave us one well-known cliché: "Hope Springs Eternal," but William Shakespeare gave us dozens: Too Much of a Good thing; "Seen Better Days;" and my personal favorite, "Cry Havoc and let Slip the Dogs of War." He also borrowed from the Bible: "Skin of My Teeth (Job 19:20) and Job also gave us, "Have a Narrow Escape."

Athletes seem as if they never met a cliché they didn't like. Consider the following: "This is a Good Win For us;" "My Comments Were Taken Out of Context,"and my personal favorite, "A Tie is Like Kissing Your Sister."

And then there's politics: "The Buck Stops Here," (about responsibility); "The Smoke-filled Room," (where deals are done); and my personal favorite, "I Know it When I See it," (about obscenity.

In his book, Tales of a Traveler, the American author, Washington Irving wrote, "The inn had been aroused several months before, on a dark and stormy  night" thus giving us one of our best known clichés.

Anyone who Googles or Yahoo(s) the word, cliché, will see that there are dozens of books listing them but few ideas on how to eliminate them. Reading your writing aloud seems to be the best bet. Others include, know your subject; avoid copying another's writing style and, probably the best piece of advice: "be direct, simple, brief, lucid, and vigorous."

As Samuel Goldwyn, head of MGM, once said, "Let's Have Some New Clichés."

History of the Tribe of Possum

So I looked into the natural history of my marsupial buddies today, and here’s what I found. Once upon a time, 70 million years ago or thereabouts, these little guys emerged from the Cretaceous North American underbrush. The proto-possums are called Peradectids, at least, that’s the latest research from the University of Florida and those sooooooutherners  should know a thing or two about possums, after all.

Proto-possum was sharing his territory with the dinosaur, so things were probably pretty tough. Then, just 5 million years or so later—the mere blink of an eye in geologic time—that famous or infamous asteroid struck, putting a sudden, dramatic end to the long reign of dino domination. Possums survived.

What is more, they used the new space they’d acquired, after emerging from various fallout shelters—probably the gigantic ribcages of their now deceased neighbors—and, in a fit of exuberance, split into several families. Eating insects, fruit and eggs and other people’s leftovers, they trudged down Mexico way and over the land bridge into South America, where they continued to evolve. At this time, South America, Antarctica and Australia were still cuddled up together on a big comfy couch of floating basalt, and so from here, the proto-marsupials marched on to find new homes.

The three continents finally parted company and drifted away from one another. Eventually isolated in Australia, the marsupial line would proliferate into many strange and wonderful shapes. Sadly, most of these exotic critters are now extinct or on their way out, like the legendary Tasmanian Devil, who is really—cartoon aside—quite a fetching little beast.   

Meanwhile, in North America, all the possums went extinct during a time when North and South America were no longer connected. Therefore, for an epoch or two, North America was deprived of this a vital member of Nature’s clean-up crew.   Fortunately, for fans, like me, a short three million years ago, the land bridge between North and South America rose again—or the ocean receded, locked up in the polar ice caps or whatever—and possums returned to their ancient point of origin once again.

Now, while you are laughing at possum—mashed by the side of road—no doubt intentionally driven over by some bully of an ape with delusions of grandeur because he sits in a machine with an internal combustion engine—well, think again. The “dawn of man” --and guess what, guys? There wouldn’t have been any “dawn” at all without woman, too—this “dawn” began a mere 3 million years ago, about the time possum was returning from his successful South American road trip.

Now, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit—true proto-primates of our line came on the scene some 55 million years ago—but essentially, possum is, was and has been, possum. You’d recognize a Peradectid as a possum, but you sure as heck wouldn’t recognize that little shrew type critter with the forward facing eyes hanging in a tree as a member of your family.

There’s something to be said for plain and simple, for humility, for making do, and the will to survive, which this primitive, nearly defenseless little beast has in spades . And that’s why I love Possums.