#HEARTBLAZE--Twilight with a Bite!

If you're looking for something new in paranormal romance, you might want to check out Heartblaze 1: Secret Soul, the debut novel by Shay Roberts. the story mixes a contemporary tale about a troubled college student name Emma Rue with a past life adventure when she was a vampire aristocrat. And just to make things more complicated, there's a vengeful ghost trying to manipulate her, an anti-paranormal organization that's out to kill her, and a conflicted werewolf who can't decide between his duty and his feelings.

There's a real depth of world-building here--an element most paranormal romances skip over--and real stakes at hand. This is Twilight with a bite,  a story with some edge to its emotions.

Heartblaze is a great read, and it's available worldwide.

Clean Living--Flash Fiction for Halloween

Rena Jacobs had been offered the job via email, which wasn’t unusual.

People were often embarrassed to be associated with a hoarder house, even if they weren’t the hoarder responsible, and they liked to put as much distance between them and the house in question as possible.

Rena understood the impulse. Cleaning other people’s houses wasn’t exactly the career she’d envisioned for herself. But an art history degree doesn’t go very far in a small town, and when the owner of the gallery where she worked had died, she’d found herself with few prospects. After maxing out her credit cards, and discovering that any job she was qualified for was already being done by unpaid interns from the local university, she’d narrowed her options to medical transcription or becoming a career barrista.

And then one day as she was channel surfing, she came upon a reality show about hoarders. It was perversely fascinating and Rena found herself sucked in. At the end of the episode, a team of specialty cleaners had been brought in to bring order out of chaos. There’d been a phone number to call for people who needed “help with a “situation,” and when Rena had called, she’d found herself on the phone with John T. Macallan, who was more than happy to talk to her about franchise opportunities with KLEEN LIVING.

Are you mysterious?

If you're on Facebook and you're interested in all things mysterious--books, movies, writers, television--consider joining the Bellingham Mysterians group.  We are a book club sponsored by the awesome Village Books in Bellingham, WA but our FB group is open to all. We post articles about books and giveaways and fiction contests and  all sorts of things that might be of interest to the mystery fan. We're looking for suggestions for reading in the next three months. Join the discussion. Make a suggestion. Pimp out your own book!

Find us here.

Shakespeare's Guide to Parenting

Shakespeare was a parent. And he also was the author of the famous line, "How sharper than a serpent is an ungrateful child." (King Lear). This book looks like a lot of fun.

Shakespeare Retold

You may have heard that Hogarth Shakespeare is publishing a series of "Shakespeare Retold" novels in which writers such as Margaret Atwood and Jo Nesbo have been paired with plays. (Nesbo will be doing Macbeth and I cannot wait.) For a full list of writers involved so far, check here.

Sean Haldane: The Devil's Making, a review

Darwin and the edge of the Empire

Amateur naturalist Chad Hobbes—the atheist son of a preacher—has come to the colony of British Columbia to learn a bit about life before he settles down to a life as a lawyer. Unfortunately for Chad, he’s just missed the Gold Rush, which means that nobody in Vancouver or nearby Victoria really needs a lawyer. But what they do need is a policeman. The wilderness settlement has several police officers but none with Hobbes’ particular set of skills. The idea of being a “peeler” appeals to Hobbes and he’s soon thrust into the heart of a murder mystery that has racial and colonial implications.

Hobbes is fascinated by his duties and dutifully records everything he observes in a leather-bound journal his mother gave him before he left home. There’s plenty to observe. Elections are pending and one of the questions is whether B.C. will become part of America. Passions run high on both sides of the question but not as high as when an American “alienist” is found dead and the most likely suspect is a medicine man.

Sean Haldane’s novel transcends genre here with its literate (but never ponderously literary) style and the sharp observations on everything from class to vegetation. (Hobbes is fascinated by the quality of blue in the sky, so different from the English sky back home.)

Fans of historical mysteries are in for a treat with this book.

the horror! the horror!

I am in the process of planning out the rest of the year's writing. I have a couple of short stories I want to finish, one for Gerri Leen's anthology of dark goddess stories, a couple that have been in the works for a year or so. I will also finish up a bunch of the novella-length stories in preparation for finally (FINALLY!!!) getting Misbegotten done. but as the seasons turn and i start looking toward autumn, i start thinking about horror. (See post below)
I used to read a LOT of horror. When I first started writing I wrote a lot of horror. I haven't gotten a lot of traction with that genre though, and I find myself wondering if it's simply not commercial any more. Most of the time I write what I want to write and devil take the consequences, but as a full-time freelancer, I don't just write to amuse myself. So I need to figure out if there's some fiction/fusion formula that will work. Horror/spuspense maybe? Haven't seen that for a while. Maybe something with voodoo? I havne't read a good voodoo story in a long time.