For the TBR Pile: Teriyaki Samurai

I'm always a bit skeptical of books that are billed as "hilarious" and "zany." (I'm also deeply suspicious of "whimsical. In general, I have found, I am not a fan of whimsy.") But this book caught my eye today as I skimmed through the daily avalanche of emails offering free (and not-so-free) ebooks. I love road trip novels. (Handling Sin is one of my all-time favorite novels) and I'm always willing to give them a try. the Teriyaki Samurai.  Watch this space!

Some Thoughts on Historical Fiction

From now until the end of the month, enter the March Mayhem contest sponsored by Joanne Renaud, Kat Laurange, Donna Thorland, Lynne Connelly and Kat Parrish. Details and entry form here.

I've always been an omnivorous reader. I've always read a lot of nonfiction--I loved biographies when I was in elementary school and these days I'm a sucker for books like Bowling Alone, The Collapse and Revival of American Community and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. I also love reading travel memoirs, from Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence to Video Night in Kathmandu. When I worked at Warner Bros. there was a travel bookstore just down the street and I probably bought two books a week there. So many places to visit! And I think my fascination with other places has carried over into my fascination with other times. Fatherland and The Years of Rice and Salt.
And alternate versions of time. (Loved Robert Harris'

Even as a kid when I read fiction, I read widely and without a lot of discrimination. I loved mysteries and they were my go-to books of choice, but I lived in a neighborhood with a small library and after I'd read all the mysteries, I started reading everything else. My library had two sections--fiction and nonfiction, plus a shelf of LARGE PRINT books for the grannies and a little cubby hole of children's books for the little ones. And that was it. You had Agatha Christies novels shelved next to Bernard Cornwell's and Arthur C. Clarke. It was like the literary equivalent of the iPod Shuffle. I'd just pick up books that looked interesting.

Excerpt from DOORS by Joanne Renaud

 

From now until the end of the month, enter the March Mayhem contest sponsored by Joanne Renaud, Kat Laurange, Donna Thorland, Lynne Connelly and Kat Parrish. Details and entry form here.

Artist/illustrator Joanne Renaud's new novel, Doors is a sequel to her 2915 A Question of Time. As the title implies, the story involves a form of time travel, but she has created a new twist on an old trope, playing with the multiverse.  Here's how the publishers at Champagne books describe Doors:

Jackie Karam always knew her friend Orne was a weirdo, even before he enlists her help in opening a door to an alternate dimension. His theory is that if one could find a book one lost, a book one loved but can no longer remember anything about, it might open a door to another world. Jackie just happens to have such a book in her past. A science fiction novel her high school teacher had recommended to her before he died in a car crash.

Jackie loves hanging out with her handsome, charming, eccentric friend, so she agrees on a trip back to her hometown to look for Mr. Forrest's book. She finds it in the White Springs library, and just as Orne hoped, opens a door to another dimension, one altered from the world she knows. Not just altered, but better. Her career is a success, her old teacher is alive and well, and her relationship with Orne is so much more intimate. Her own world is so drab and hopeless by contrast, she's tempted to stay.

But does she truly belong in this other world? What happens to this world's Jackie if she stays? And what will happen to her, if she refuses to go back through that door?  

 Sounds like fun doesn't it? Here's an excerpt:

Ordinarily I would have been afraid of running in heels, but I was so determined to get down to the Village that it didn’t occur to me to trip. I think a guy whistled at me while I sprinted down the street, but I barely noticed.

Raggle Taggle Gypsy--a song for St. Patrick's Day

Photo by FreeImages.com

"Raggle Taggle Gypsy" is the Celtic equivalent of "Heard It Through the Grapevine." Everyone with even remotely Irish roots has covered it. Celtic Thunder used it as their curtain call song in one of their tours and while you can hear that version on Jango, the video with the great choreography their tours are known for is no longer available on YouTube.

This version, from Mick O'Connor and "Bobbin Along" is actually one of my favorites. It appears and disappears on YouTube, and has reappeared just in time for a little March 17th celebration. It's no wonder that it's the one Irish song everybody knows. the tune is infectious, bouncy and so lively you just want to dance. It was G.K. Chesterton who said,“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.” 

I don't agree with the "merry wars part," but Irish songs can be so very sad. And the saddest ones are those that are calls to arms from various sides of the sectarian violence known as "the Troubles." "Raggle Taggle Gypsy" comes from a strain of folk songs that inspired the Appalachian folk songs I learned as a child, songs that really haven't changed  much in the hundreds of years they've been sung, songs that were accompanied by fiddles and hammered dulcimers and autoharps and flutes.

I love the ballad language of the song--"the milk-white steed" has been a trope of ballads since forever. And of course, the story is a tale of love and betrayal--a juicy story in other words. And I love a good story.

Sarra Cannon Cover Reveal

Yet another fabulous cover by Ravven. I feel so lucky to have snagged two of her pre-designed covers and look forward to a time when I can afford to have her redo pretty much all my covers. Not that I don't love my current covers but ... Ravven.

Sarra is combining two of her series--The Peachtree Demonds and Beautiful Demons--and this, Forgotten Darkness, is number eight in what she now calls the "Shadow Demons Saga."

Enter and Win!! Five Authors, Fifteen Days, Lots of Prizes

March Mayhem: Five Writers, Fifteen Days, A Whole Lot of Prizes!!!

Enter to win our swag basket including some incredible and unique prizes from five amazing authors, including Donna Thorland, Lynne Connolly, Kat Parrish (aka Katherine Tomlinson), Joanne Renaud and Kat Laurange!

From AAR-nominated author Donna Thorland, we bring you two (2) autographed trade paperbacks of The Dutch Girl and Mistress Firebrand, the latest books in her acclaimed Renegades of the Revolution series!

From bestselling author Lynne Connolly, we bring you one (1) ebook copy of her latest Georgian historical romance, Dilemma in Yellow Silk, and the one-of-a-kind chance to be a character in her next contemporary romance.

Interview with author/artist Joanne Renaud

From now until the end of the month, enter the March Mayhem contest sponsored by Joanne Renaud, Kat Laurange, Donna Thorland, Lynne Connelly and Kat Parrish. Details and entry form here.

And now, on to the interview with Joanne Renaud!

Let’s talk about Doors, your latest novel, a time-travel romance.

Do you listen to music as you write and if so, what was in your playlist for this book?

Why yes, I listened to a great deal of music—Doors is partially about people bonding through music, even if they don’t always listen to the same thing. Orne, the hero of Doors, is an ex-raver who loves electronica, both classic and current (including seminal acts like Phuture and Orbital), and Jackie is an ex-punk who loves Rage Against the Machine.  You can listen to the playlist here—there are many songs that I referred to throughout the book, including Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio,” and Phuture’s “Acid Trax.”

Did you watch any television shows or movies to transport you to the period? Any other resources you used?

Well, Doors isn’t really a time travel book where people travel to another period of history—it’s more about how parallel timelines form as a result of time travel.  It’s more along the lines of Sliding Doors or Lathe of Heaven. (Lathe and Ursula LeGuin was a HUGE influence on this book.) It’s very much in the multiverse theory of time travel. It’s set in the present day. (Well, 2010.)

Your first book, A Question of Time, was also a time-travel romance, but Doors is not a direct sequel. Will there be a third time-travel book to “round out” the series?

Yup! There’s going to be a third book, set in 1966—it’s called Out of Time.  It gets into the origin event of what causes the ‘time bubble’ phenomenon in the first place, plus Cold War spying shenanigans and mod culture and music and lots of awesome swinging ‘60s stuff. It’s set in New York, again, but it’s such a fascinating city to me.

It's Going to be a Long Wait Until May!

Joe Hill has a new book out. The Fireman. It publishes in May and if the reading gods are with me, I'll be lucky enough to read it in manuscript for one of my clients, a film company developing the film version of Hill's novel Heart-Shaped Box. They know I love the man's work--yes, even Horns, which was an interesting idea even though iI didn't think it worked as a movie. (Through no fault of Daniel Radcliffe, who was great in it. And there's one scene he has where the character's mother tells him what she really thinks of him that will break your heart.)

Neon Noir and returning to my roots

My name is Katherine Tomlinson and I'm a short story writer.
There, I've said it.
Yes, I write longer stuff.
Yes, I still write non-fiction.
Yes, I write scripts and teleplays and web series episodes.
But in my heart, I am a short story writer. I say this knowing that even masters of the short story form don't really make much money from their work. Paying markets for short stories are few and far between, although the mystery, science fiction, and fantasy genres are putting up a valiant fight to keep the short story form alive.
I've been concentrating on longer work of late, trying to ignore the siren call of the short story. I'm writing something for Gerri Leen's "Dark Goddess" anthology, and every time the new "Dark Markets" comes out, I see one or two "calls for submission" that pique my interest. Most of the time I ignore that little tingle of electricity and go back to working on my novel. But every so often, I see an opportunity that I cannot ignore. Like the one for a crime fiction story that's "Neon Noir."  Inspired by the 80s with all the fashion and music and awesomeness that decade possessed.
I lived through the 80s.
I got this.

Beauty and the Beast retold in Christine Pope's Wolf of Harrow Hall

"Beauty and the Beast" is one of the most beloved fairy tales ever told. Right now there are two different film versions being developed. Christophe Gans' gorgeous French language version is available on YouTube. And if you go on GoodReads looking for a retelling of the tale, you're directed to a list with 1006 results, one of them my own novelette The Summer Garden. (There are 2611 retellings of "Cinderella" so that's even more popular as source material.)

Christine Pope likes "Beauty and the Beast." She retold it in her novella Breath of Life, which kickstarted her Gaia Consortium Series. And now she's used the story as a basis for a lush, snow-bound love story called The Wolf of Harrow Hall. Part of her Tales of the Latter Kingdoms series--all stand-alone fairy tales--Wolf has a gorgeous cover by Ravven, and an original new mythos that explains the nature of the beast. Buy it now at Amazon and on other publishing platforms.

Drunk on the Moon--Werewolf PI Roman Dalton is back

Roman Dalton, the werewolf PI created by Paul D. Brazill, first appeared on the pages of Dark Valentine Magazine, a orint and digital publication I published. We ran a second adventure of Roman's and soon after that, Paul invited me to join him and a group of other writers (Kate Laity, John Donald Carlucci, Allan Leverone) to contribute a story to his anthology of Roman Dalton stories, Drunk on the Moon.
It was a lot of fun playing in Paul's sandbox and I enjoyed writing my story, which included Persian fire demons, albanian gangster werewolves and a whole lot of weirdness.
There's a new eidtion of the anthology out now with a deliberately retro cover, and newly slicked up stories. Right now it's free on Kindle, so if you like urban fantasy and hard-boiled noir, you should check it out.

Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, a review

In Joseph Kanon’s book, Leaving Berlin, an American Communist writer returns to Berlin as a spy and discovers that the woman he once loved is now a Russian spy. This is a nicely atmospheric, character-driven spy thriller set roughly the same time as Kanon’s previous book TThe Good German. We’re immediately dropped into the complex political and ideological situation that was postwar Berlin, and Kanon does an excellent job of introducing us to the various characters with a minimum of fuss. The city (as much a character as any of the humans) is haunted for Alex, and a series of flashbacks fills in his complicated relationship with his former lover . (All of Kanon’s books have a woman like Irene, even Los Alamos, and we’re reminded of the line from The Good German, “You should never have come back to Berlin.”)

This is Alex’s story and he’s an intriguing protagonist. He’s a man being manipulated, but he doesn’t come off as weak or passive. His friends—like the playwright Bertolt Brecht—and his admirers—almost everyone—respect his work, which is passionate and anti-Fascist and brave. But it’s not simple—nothing is simple in Berlin.