Hidden Messages in Novels by J.Q. Rose

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose
Romantic suspense

A handsome detective, a shadow man, and a murder victim kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.

Click here to find more mysteries by J.Q. Rose from BWL Publishing.

Hello and welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog. I'm mystery author J.Q. Rose.

Hidden Messages in Novels by J.Q. Rose

Hidden Messages in Novels by J.Q. Rose

Readers learn from books. 

Readers are entertained by books. 

Readers are touched by characters in books.

But did you know that within the pages of a book, there are messages from the author? When an author is passionate about a subject, that passion will be incorporated into the story.

Within J K Rowling's Harry Potter books, a werewolf character, Remus Lupin, is stricken with a blood-borne illness which is a metaphor for HIV and the stigma surrounding HIV.

In Laurie Halse Andersen's The Impossible Knife of Memory, a teenage girl must cope with her soldier father's PTSD. The YA novel shows how mental illness can affect everyone in a family. Click here to read the entire article at Bustle.com.

I write mysteries because I love to read them and I love to entertain readers with my stories. But like most authors, I have a message I want to share with the world in all of my mysteries. I wrote Deadly Undertaking with a character stricken with Alzheimer's disease because I am passionate about bringing awareness to the epidemic of AD sweeping our world. 

I have many friends who are or have been caretakers of a family member suffering from this horrible illness. Not only is the patient going through hell because of the effects of the disease, but as the years pass, the loved ones watch as the patient slowly disappears from them overcome from an incurable disease that ravages their mind and body. 

I shared a blog post on this blog with the question, "Can you imagine a world without Alzheimer's Disease?" Medical staff and researchers can. They are working every day to eliminate AD. According to alz.org, the number of Americans with AD is growing fast. Every 65 seconds, someone in the US develops Alzheimer's Disease. It is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. 

June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month

June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month. Click here to go to the Alzheimer's Association website to find out more about AD and to see how you can help with funding research and bringing awareness. 

I hope my mystery novel and this blog post can play a part in wiping out Alzheimer's Disease from our planet.
Click here to read another post on this blog by J.Q. Rose--A World Without Alzheimer's Disease.

J.Q. Rose, mystery author

Click here to connect with J.Q. Rose online.

Charity Donations: Use Your Head as Well as Your Heart to Make a Wise Decision by J.Q. Rose

Happy Holidays from J.Q. Rose

Cozy Mysteries
Find more mysteries by J.Q. Rose at BWL Publishing

Happy Holidays and welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog. 

During this special holiday season, many folks decide to open their hearts and their wallets to make donations to support an organization. 

Giving is a good thing, but not everyone who is asking you to give is good. Scammers will try to take advantage of kind hearts. It's important to use your head as well as your heart to make a wise decision to support an organization that will make the best use of your dollars. So, please, whatever charity or person you choose to support, talk to your friends about it or research online to make sure the money you give will be used toward actually making a difference in their stated mission.

I use Charity Navigator to find out about groups. I especially like to know what percent of the monies donated are spent on administration fees. 

Other sites recommended by the New York Times are GuideStar and BBB Wise Giving Alliance. Click the highlighted names of the sites to research charities and help make your choice no matter what time of year you wish to make donations.

I assume a charity would appreciate a gift of money. But according to the Giving Tuesday #GivingTuesday website, a person can also give of their time, goods, and their voice. 
Today I'm using my voice through blogs and my novel, Deadly Undertaking, to bring awareness to fight Alzheimer's Disease, "the only cause of death in the top 10 in America that cannot be prevented, slowed or cured", according to alz.com. 

I'm sure you know someone in your family or a dear friend who suffered from this disease. You have seen him or her deteriorate because AD has ravaged their brain. So many of those who lost a loved one because of this disease remark that they lost the person way before death took the victim.

The Alzheimer's Association states that "Alzheimer's is an epidemic worldwide." Click here to read the facts that back up this statement. 

When I lost my friend and mentor to AD, I wanted to eradicate this disease by

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose
Paranormal romantic suspense

A handsome detective, 

a shadow man, and a murder victim

 kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.

Available at major digital booksellers.

raising awareness about the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease, so I included a character suffering from AD in my romantic suspense novel, Deadly Undertaking. She is the mother of the main character and plays an important part in the story.
I have pledged to donate the royalties from the October through December sales of this book to fight Alzheimer's Disease. 

If you decide to give to Alz.org or another charity, please remember to use your head as well as your heart to make the decision.

***
Do you have a favorite charity you support? Please share in the comments below. 

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose.

I Did Something Stupid by J.Q. Rose

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders blog. My name is J.Q. Rose and today I am confessing to doing something "stoopid" (stupid). I'm embarrassed to tell you. But I'll it share with you in the hope you will learn the lesson along with me. My piano teacher always told me it's okay to make a mistake, (like hitting the wrong key on the piano), but it's really a mistake to do the same thing over and over again. I hope I've learned my lesson and I will not repeat this blunder again.

<Taking a deep breath.> 
Last summer I focused on getting my book manuscript for Terror on Sunshine Boulevard ready for my publisher, BWL Publishing. Needless to say, I spent countless hours on the novel writing, re-writing, and editing.

I worked hard on it and saved the entire manuscript file to my laptop, feeling very good about how I tied up the loose ends of the story. The next morning, I opened my laptop only to find I could not sign in to the old computer. I entered my password for this computer three times, but my programs didn't open. I shut it down, then tried again. Shut it down. Tried again. I couldn't believe the crazy thing wouldn't open. I remembered I had received several notices for an update and I had postponed them for the last couple of days, so last night I allowed the program to update.

Evidently, during the download, some glitch messed up the opening user program. No, I didn't know that, but that's what my brilliant computer geek guy, Luke, surmised when I dropped off the laptop to see if he could fix it. He told me sometimes this problem is a symptom of a hard drive crash. The hard drive is the place where EVERYTHING is stored.

J.Q.Rose cartoon designed by Miss Mae

I gasped for breath knowing I hadn't backed up all of my files to another storage device for months. I hadn't saved a story I had worked on all summer? Well, not completely. I had a few chapters in Dropbox and on a flash drive, but they had all been revised in the recent months.

I left the laptop at his shop. My mind whirled with the possibilities of losing the entire manuscript. Dread swamped me when I thought about losing all the files for my published books and scribblings of other books and stories. Then the reality of losing all my photos hit me. I never back them up. Heat flashes took over my brain and it wasn't because it was 90 degrees outside. Worry. Worry that I would lose everything. I honestly thought my writing days were over. I couldn't sleep that night.

Later the next morning, my hubby Gardener Ted stopped at Luke's shop to check on the computer. He came bursting in the back door and announced. "Luke thinks he can get the files back!" 

I shouted "hooray" and did a happy dance right there in the middle of the kitchen at that news. Sure enough, the next day, when I picked up the laptop, Luke told me he had restored all the files. 

I feared to ask him how much I owed him. He said, "$35." What? Only $35.00? I could have given him a big hug and a kiss. (No, I didn't. I didn't want to embarrass him.) I practically skipped out of his shop with my darling laptop.

You can be sure my hubby Ted and I dug out our external storage drive and backed up ALL of our files on both laptops that same afternoon.

I think I'm doing well when I remember to hit save while working on a document. But I need to go to the next step and back up the document to another storage method. 

Easy to save files to a flash drive/thumb drive.

It's so easy to pop in a flash drive (thumb drive), save it to Dropbox, email it to myself. So many ways to keep a copy. Learn from my carelessness. Save your stuff!

Do you save your files and pictures to another storage area other than your computer hard drive? Have you lost files forever? 

Please leave a comment below and let us know. Thank you.

###

Mystery author J.Q. Rose

About J.Q.

When J.Q.  isn’t writing, she enjoys photography, playing Pegs and Jokers board games, and traveling with her husband. They spend winters in Florida and summers up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose.

Learning to Grow Lettuce Plants in Water by J.Q. Rose

Hello and welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog!

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Learning to Grow Lettuce Plants in Water by J.Q. Rose

My husband and I were in the floral and greenhouse business for nearly twenty years, so I was familiar with the term, hydroponics. According to Dictionary.com, hydroponics is "the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil." 
In the spring of 2017, hydroponics became very real to me when Gardener Ted decided to try growing lettuce and a few other plants by building a system of pipes to grow plants in water. 

He has grown lots of vegetable and annual plants as well as foliage plants, mums, glads, and Easter lilies in our commercial greenhouses, and he plants a vegetable garden which produces delicious food all summer for our family in Michigan and a small garden in winter in Florida for us. Yes, he gardens twelve months out of the year. A dream come true for him.

Lettuce and other plants growing in Gardener Ted's  hydroponic system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He's always experimenting with new plants and new ways of raising them. But learning how to grow healthy plants in water is definitely not like raising plants in soil! Figuring out how to move the water through the pipes, adding nutrients to the water, and keeping the pH at the right level led to huge challenges for him. He soon learned the weather conditions affected the nutrients in the water. Warm, cold, wind, humidity, etc.affected the growth of the plants. Gardener Ted knew how to deal with weather conditions when plants grew in soil, but figuring out what to do to keep his plants healthy when their roots were only in water was a puzzle, at times frustrating. But he triumphed over the unknown and developed a working growing chamber which produced healthy plants.

Delicious speckled lettuce grown using the hydroponics system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He followed through on producing lots of lettuce grown hydroponically, but the garden lettuce seemed to grow faster. I liked the hydro lettuce because it was clean when he cut it, whereas the garden lettuce had sand and soil on the leaves. 

This spring of 2018 he made improvements to his system and his plants are growing beautifully. We are enjoying a delicious, as well as, a pretty salad every day. And one other perk when gardening, he enjoys sharing his harvest with neighbors, friends and family.

Are you a gardener? Do you have experience with hydroponic growing? 

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose

Rushing Strawberry Season by J.Q. Rose

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders Blog!

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Gardener Ted's answer to getting strawberries sooner.

My dear husband, Gardener Ted, is trying to fool Mother Nature this year. He wants the strawberry plants in our garden to come early, so he erected this unique growing chamber to warm up the ground and get the plants to take off. Michigan springs are rather temperamental having cold days, then having beautiful sunny spring days. 

Close-up of the growing chamber

The plastic keeps the frigid winds away from the plants and helps warm them up when the sun shines. If it's too sunny, he simply grabs the plastic and rolls it up and clips it to the pipes for air to circulate through. 

Strawberry blossoms

Just looking at these strawberries in bloom makes my mouth water for strawberry cake or pie or a bowl of Cheerios topped with the delicious beauties. But, for now, I can only anticipate those sweet treats.

Gardener Ted prefers growing June-bearing berries rather than ever-bearing berries. We get a lot more berries from June-bearing. So, hurry up, June, so we can enjoy strawberries fresh from the garden. Fingers crossed they'll be ready a couple of weeks earlier this year!

Waiting for this season's tasty berries. Yum!

Do you love strawberries? Let us know in a comment below. Thanks for visiting.

Click here to connect online with mystery author J.Q. Rose.

Spring IS Coming! by J.Q. Rose

Welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog!

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Shocking. That's what it was. Snow! A thick, six-inch layer of snow covered the lawns, heaped up in piles along the cleared (thank goodness) roads, and blanketed the tender leaves of spring flowers tentatively breaking through the unfrozen soil to face this wintry spring weather. We drove from Florida back to Michigan last week through rain, wind, snow showers and black ice only to discover our part of the world was still smothered with that white fluffy stuff!! 

So, for all of you (including me) still dealing with winter in the middle of April, I'll share some of my spring photos from years before to give you a taste of what surely WILL come. Don't give up. Spring is on its way.

Hyacinths

Forsythia bush

Pink tulips

Flowering crab

Tulips and creeping phlox

Let's party!!

One good thing I can find about this extended winter weather is the fabulous opportunity to stay in and read a book! Then, this summer, you can read a book at the beach. Anytime, anyplace is perfect for reading.

Wishing you a wonderful spring!

Click here to connect online with mystery author J.Q. Rose.

Have You Played Pickleball? by J.Q. Rose

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders Blog. My name is J.Q.Rose.

BWL Publishing released my latest mystery,Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, in December. I've been hopping around cyberspace introducing the book on my Blog Tour this winter. I enjoy visiting other bloggers and meeting their readers. The most-asked question I have received on this journey is,"What is pickleball?"

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard Winter Warm-Up
2018 Blog tour

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard takes place in Florida at a senior retirement community and golf resort. My main characters, Jim and Gloria Hart, participate in the fun winter activities that take place at the community like golfing, swimming, dancing, game-playing such as horseshoes, shuffleboard, tennis, and pickleball.

Several readers were not familiar with the game, Pickleball. It's similar to tennis, but played on a smaller court usually laid out within a tennis court. Pickleball can also be played indoors, but there are different balls for indoor and outdoor. Both are plastic balls with holes in them like a “nerf” ball.The rackets are basically ping pong paddles on steroids.

The game caught on with seniors because it’s a bit slower than playing tennis and less area to cover. But now, even young folks are playing and enjoying the game.

Take a peek at the video below to see how the game is played. 


Youtube VIDEO: Pickleball Rules | The Definitive Beginner's Resource to How to Play Pickleball from Playpickleball.com

How to Play Pickleball Video

Have you heard of Pickleball? Have you tried your hand at playing the game?  Let us know about your experience with Pickleball in a comment below.

BWL Author J.Q. Rose

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose at her blog, Focused on Story.  

Recipe: Healthy Granola, Happy New Year

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find JQ's books at BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders Blog. My name is J.Q. Rose.

How are you doing with your New Year goals, resolutions, plans? Nearly three weeks have passed. All the "in" people tell us it takes 21 days to make your plan a habit. 

Happy New Year from J.Q. Rose

I believe it. Several years ago I resolved to write every day after lunch. No Internet. No phone. I took my time writing with no limits. Sometimes I played with the story for 15 minutes and sometimes I spent 2 hours on it. That's how I finished my mystery, Deadly Undertaking. 

I continue to keep that habit because it has proven to work well for me. That's how I penned Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, my latest release from BWL Publishing. Now, I look forward to that writing time after lunch and feel cheated if I'm unable to keep that appointment with myself.

Begin Now Quote

If one of your goals for 2018 is to eat more healthy foods, then I have a recipe for you. This granola recipe has all good-for-you ingredients, however, it must be eaten in moderation. I like it sprinkled on top of my Cheerios or yogurt. (not on ice cream, but just between you and me, it's delicious on ice cream!) Caution: It should not be eaten by the bowlful because it has calories and fat in it.

Cathy's Granola Recipe

8 c. oats uncooked (I use rolled oats)

1/2 c. + 1 T. olive oil

1 T. vanilla

1/2 c. + 1 T. honey

1/2 c. each of almonds, walnuts, pecans

1/2 c. each raisins, cranberries, dried fruit

Set oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine oats, oil, vanilla, honey. Spread in single layer on baking sheet. 

Bake 30 minutes turning and stirring every ten minutes. Add nuts after first 10 minutes.

Remove from oven. Cool. Stir in dried fruit. Store in air-tight container.

Yield: 11 cups

Simple and yummy!

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose at her Focused on Story Blog.

Taking Time to Be Mindful by J.Q. Rose

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose
Romantic suspense available in eBook or Paperback

Taking Time to Be Mindful by J.Q. Rose

Grandsons on the shores of Lake Huron--a moment captured with my camera

Time is flying by too quickly. When the sand in an hour glass slips through to the bottom, we can just turn it over and start again. But time doesn't stop for us. We ride it like a rocket ship through the ages and stages of life. At times we need to slam on the brakes of that rocket ship (if they have them?) and take time to be present in the moments of our lives.

I'm slamming my foot down on those brakes this week to be mindful of the moments in my life. I came to this realization because school begins next week for one set of grandkids and the week after Labor Day for our other kids. The summer flew by. Each child is growing up too quickly. This summer I have two grandsons who have their drivers licenses! How did that happen?

Can you see these children all grown up? As they grow, their time with us shrinks. Friends, sports, activities in school will fill up their lives.  Time spent with the grandparents is squeezed into little moments when they are free, instead of the entire long, luxurious days of summer.
 

Appreciate every moment

I decided this week I'll take the time to appreciate the present. I will be mindful of every moment and imprint it on my mind to keep in my heart forever. I want the experiences and to capture each one so one day I can pull them from my memory box and I will savor the memories.

How many of these summer days and evenings do we take for granted? What gorgeous sunsets have we missed this year?  And what delicious food have we just scarfed down and not even tasted?

I hope you have the opportunity to take time to be in the present and appreciate those moments by immersing yourself in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of each one. 

Click here to connect online with JQ at the J.Q. Rose Blog

A World Without Alzheimer's Disease by J.Q. Rose

Cozy mystery author by J.Q. Rose

Dangerous Sanctuary available at the Books We Love bookstore

📚 📚 📚 📚

A World Without Alzheimer's Disease by J.Q. Rose

Can you envision our world without Alzheimer's in it? The Alzheimer's Association can. They are researching and supporting families and caregivers, not in the hope of stamping out Alzheimer's but in their belief it can be eradicated so no one will ever have to deal with the devastation of this disease.

June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness month. Alzheimer's is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior. 

Wear purple on June 21, the Longest Day of the Year,
for Alzheimer's Disease Awareness.

I bet Alzheimer's has invaded your life because you know someone whom you care about has disappeared into the darkness of this disease. We have not experienced it in our family, but I have friends who have. 

When my friend and mentor, Bernie, discovered she had it, she told me one afternoon after inviting me for dessert and coffee. I will never forget the sadness in her eyes as we talked about the diagnosis. Knowing this awful disease is lurking in the future shadows a person every day, waiting for the next degree of losing a piece of oneself.

I dedicated my book, Deadly Undertaking to Bernie, and I included a character suffering with Alzheimer's in the story. This was my way of trying to bring awareness to readers about this debilitating disease.

Today, I am using facts from the Alzheimer's Association site to help spread the word and marshal an army to fight against Alzheimer's.  If we don't take steps to fight and win the battle against AD, the result will be a world-wide epidemic by 2050.

• The number of Americans living with Alzheimer's disease is growing — and growing fast. An estimated 5.5 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer's disease. Currently, there are 44 million people suffering from dementia globally. That number is up 22% over the past three years when there were 35.6 million people suffering from the disease.
• Alzheimer's disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. It is the fifth-leading cause of death among those age 65 and older and a leading cause of disability and poor health. 
• As the population of the United States ages, Alzheimer's is becoming a more common cause of death. It is the only top 10 cause of death that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed.
• Although deaths from other major causes have decreased significantly, official records indicate that deaths from Alzheimer's disease have increased significantly. Between 2000 and 2014, deaths from Alzheimer's disease as recorded on death certificates increased 89 percent, while deaths from the number one cause of death (heart disease) decreased 14 percent.
• It kills more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.
• The costs of health care and long-term care for individuals with Alzheimer's or other dementias are substantial. Dementia is one of the costliest conditions to society.

Alzheimers.net suggests these 7 Things You Can Do to Stop Alzheimer’s by 2025

1. Join a clinical trial
2. Get genetic testing
3. Email, call, and tweet your Congressmen
4. Get educated about Alzheimer’s & Dementia
5. Speak up if you see symptoms
6. Sign the Alzheimer’s petition
7. Volunteer or donate to an Alzheimer’s research or awareness organization

To learn more about AD, visit the following articles.
Alzheimer's Association
Alzheimers.net