Preview of A Taste for Strange

I published the first book in my Lark Riordan/Max Siwek mystery series in March (Whipping Boy) and I'm closing in on the final draft of the sequel A Taste for Strange. (The third book in the series is called Raw Dog.) I offered this is the intro to the book, which is told from Max's point of view this time out. He's an LAPD homicide detective and his stepsister, Lark Riordan, is a forensic tech. She's also his lover. It's ... complicated.  

A TASTE FOR STRANGE

They found her hanging from a hook in the ceiling, twirling like a broken piñata. Her body was so bruised and boneless it had lost its shape, but her killer had not touched her face, which was flawless except for some cuts in the corner of her mouth where her perfect lips hung open.

Max felt a cloud of depression descend on him. The victim was young, so very young. And so very beautiful.

Shakespeare portrait by Heather Galler

I've been cruising Etsy of late, looking for swag to buy in advance of the October book fair in Sedona where Dark Valentine Press will have a table. And is my wont, I was looking around to see if there was anything new in the Shakespeare section. I found this very cool portrait by Heather Galler and I'm about to go snap it up. Because I deserve a little more art in my life.

BuzzFeed's Take on Films Inspired By Shakespeare

Ledger & Stiles

Some of their picks are pretty obvious, like the Heath Ledger/Julia Stiles rom-com !0 Things I Hate About You, which began life as The Taming of the Shrew. But there are other movie-bard connections that are a little more subtle, incluing Deliver Us From Eva (another Taming of the Shrew) and My Own Private Idaho, which traces its literary lineage back to Henry IV and Henry V.  (Keanu Reeves' street hustler is the Prince Hal character.) Check out the entire list.

Shakespeare on Pinterest

If you're engaged by Pinterest, as I am, you know that there are a lot of topics that seem to engaged Pinners.  They really, really, really like baby elephants. They really like puppies and kitties )who doesn't?) and they like pretty pictures of beautiful places and luscious photos of yummy food. But they also are interesting in Shakespeare's plays. One of my most popular boards is my Shakespeare board, and I'm hooked up to half a dozen others. There are lots of Shakespeare quotes pinned up on various boards. It's all about the words, but on Pinterest, it's about the pictures too.

Monday was a bad day for Juliet

CAPULET

 Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed.

Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love,

And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next—

But, soft! What day is this?

PARIS

Monday, my lord.

CAPULET

Monday! Ha, ha. Well, Wednesday is too soon,

O' Thursday let it be.—O' Thursday, tell her,

She shall be married to this noble earl.—

Will you be ready?

 

Ellen Geer as Lear

Photo of Melora Marshall & Ellen Geer by Ian Flanders

The ultimate play about fatherhood-Shakespeare's -King Lear--gets a sex change in this year's production from the Theatricum Botanicum. Ellen Geer, daughter of the theater's founder, Will Geer, plays the monarch wko has decided to divide her realm into thirds and hand them off to her sons. Geer also directs, along with Melora Marshall, who plays Fool, and the reviewer over at Shakespeare in L.A. gave both raves. (Marshall  is also part of the Geer clan, being Theatricum Botanicum artistic director Ellen Geer's younger sister.)   The play runs through September. For more information on it and the theater's other offerings, go to their site. And don't forget, their summer slate includes A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is always a wonderful experience in the outdoor setting.

Miranda and Theo

Photo: NejroN/Bigstock

 The photographer NejroN has 155 pages of images uploaded to Bigstock. He also posts on Shutter Stock and Fotolia and Dreamstime, among others, but I stumbled across his work on Bigstock. His website has just the basics--a very short bio, a portfolio of images and three ways to contact him. His work is fantastic--people, places, landscapes, up close shots of leaves and bugs. Concept shots. Models in costumes that don't look cheesy.  I'm using one of his shots on the cover of my upcoming novella Bride of the Midnight King and as I've mentioned, it was a particular photograph of two of his favorite models that has inspired me to create a whole new series. Last night I spent a few hours on the site looking through all 155 pages of images seeing what I could find. (I once found the PERFECT models for several characters in a book and didn't snap up alternate photos of them. And now I can't find them.) I will not do that with the characters I'm calling Miranda and Theo. They are vampires and like all the best vampires, they're incredibly stylish. (Think The Hunger meets Only Lovers Left Alive.)

It's funny, the photographer has paired his male model with a couple of different women, one a lovely redhead, but I am so wed to my vision of these people as Miranda and Theo that looking at those other pictures makes me feel like Theo is cheating on Miranda. Of course that could happen, in a relationship that's gone on as long as theirs has.

I cannot wait to start writing this series and I have to wait because my work is expanding to fill all the spaces of my life lately. But in the meantime, I have my images of Miranda and Theo and I have NejroN to thank.