Author Showcase

On November 4, I took part in a Sisters in Crime Canada West author showcase featuring readings by six SinC-CW authors: Karen Abrahamson, Cathy Ace, me, Joanna Vander Vlugt, PD Workman and Susan Wright. All of us were reading from recent releases or about-to-be released crime fiction novels.

My reading was from my brand-new release, Identity Withheld.

It was a lot of fun, especially the interview question at the end. The showcase was recorded and you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LOjBLrw1cE

BUY LINKSKobo | Barnes and Noble | Apple | Amazon

The video lasts about an hour.

The Faerie Summer Bundle

The Faerie Summer Bundle, curated by Jamie Ferguson, is now available from Bundle Rabbit and all ebook stores.

The summer sun bathes the earth in warmth and light,
Faeries dance under the moon at night.
Cross through the portal into a land ancient, beautiful, and wild.
See the wonders that enticed the stolen child.
Come away, O reader! To the Realm of Faerie.
But if you want to make it back home, you had better be wary…

This collection includes twenty tales of faeries and magic set in our world – and in others:

THE FLAT ABOVE THE WYND by Alexandra Brandt
SILVER DUST by Leslie Claire Walker
UNICORN MAGIC by Roz Marshall
BENEATH THE KNOWE by Anthea Sharp
LEXIE’S CHOICE by Deb Logan
FLOWER FAIRIES by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
PAULALEENA by Leah Cutter
ROLO THE GREAT by Annie Reed
THE FAKE PATH TO TRUE MEMORY by Brigid Collins
PROOF OF DEVOTION by Dayle A. Dermatis
BY DAWN’S BLOODY LIGHT by DeAnna Knippling
ONDINE by Brenda Carre
SNAP A TRAP, INC. by Louisa Swann
THE FAERY’S CHOICE by Jamie Ferguson
THE QUEEN OF MAY by Linda Jordan
SKYWALKERS by Marcelle Dubé
STORMRIDER AND THE LADY OF SOUL by Karen L. Abrahamson
THE BODY PLOT by Rebecca M. Senese
THE WISHING RING OF OLD QUEEN MAAB by Steve Vernon
HAWTHORN & WILLOW by T. Thorn Coyle

It’s only $2.99 USD for all 20 ebooks. At Bundle Rabbit, Kobo, Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. Click on the cover below to watch the trailer.

A Yukon Christmas

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of a romantic. I don’t read romances, can’t stand “alpha” males and have no use cowboys-and-babies or sheik stories. But. I do like a believable, solid romance as part of the greater story. Like Karen Abrahamson‘s romantic suspense stories, or Toni Anderson‘s. And every year at about this time, I find myself hankering to write a love story. So without further ado, here’s the cover of my third annual Christmas romance short story, A Yukon Christmas.

Yukon ChristmasA YUKON CHRISTMAS

After her 20-year marriage collapses from inertia, Beatrice Talsma sets off on a year-long, cross-Canada journey to discover where she truly belongs. When she reaches the Yukon, however, her short pause turns into a decision to settle down in this strange new place.

In a complete break with the past, she rents out a cabin in the Yukon wilderness. It’s a wonderful spot, except that her closest neighbor, Henry Pekarik, also her landlord, seems determined to help Beatrice out, whether she wants it or not. It’s becoming harder and harder to resist the man but the real test comes when he invites her to Christmas dinner with his family.

Buy links: amazon.com | amazon.ca | kobo | barnes and noble | smashwords

The Writing Process — Blog Tour

Joanna Lilley, poet, non-fiction writer and all around wonderful woman, tagged me to participate in The Writing Process Blog Tour. The idea behind the tour is that the “tagged” writer answers four questions about her (or his) writing process and then tags one or two other writers to do the same. It seems like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? Here are the questions:

What am I working on?

Weeping Woman Right now I’m finishing the first draft of my fourth Mendenhall mystery, in which my poor heroine, Mendenhall Chief of Police Kate Williams, rushes home to Montreal after her mother is struck down by a hit-and-run driver. Then Kate learns that the accident may have been a deliberate attempt to get her away from Mendenhall.

Cover Tuxedoed ManUnlike many other writers I know, I only work on one thing at a time. If commitments force me to start something new before I’ve finished the piece I’m working on, I set the piece aside until I’ve met the obligation, then I go back to the original story and finish it. My head hurts at the thought of bopping between stories.

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

Backli cover-POD-Dube name-REVI never met a genre I didn’t want to cross. Is it mystery, or is it fantasy? Is it fantasy or science fiction? Or something in between? Pity the poor bookseller trying to figure out where to shelve my books! Even my mysteries cross sub-genres, for Pete’s sake. For instance, the Mendenhall Mysteries are technically police procedurals, but they feel like cozies.

While in some of my stories the fate of humanity teeters in the balance, all my stories start from a small incident and build from there, character by character, until I have a finished story that, miraculously, has a beginning, middle and end.

Why do I write what I do?

Really, it’s not like I have a choice. I write the stories that are in me to write. And there are many, many stories clamoring to be written. They jostle around inside my head, jockeying to be the first at the top of my mind when I finally turn my attention to the next project.

I have noticed a theme in most of my work (I never set out with a theme in mind—it just happens). Almost all my stories deal with someone who is caught between two cultures, two worlds, two stages in his life. Someone who doesn’t fit in the environment in which she finds herself. The stories almost always revolve around my characters finding out where they belong, how they fit. While having misadventures along the way, of course.

How does my writing process work?

I try to write every day after work. I aim for 1000 words a day, but often have to content myself with fewer. I’m a morning person—well, maybe a day person is more accurate. I refuse to get up any earlier than I already do for work. Weekends, of course, are best. Anything past 8 p.m. and really, I’m no good to anyone.

Shoeless Kid As for the actual writing… well. I wish I could say I always have a plan before I start writing and follow it until I have a brilliantly plotted story at the end. Ha. In reality, I almost always start with an incident. Something that catches my attention. For The Shoeless Kid, the first in the Mendenhall Mysteries, I saw a shoe abandoned in the middle of the road. And that got me to thinking about how that could have happened.

So I start writing to find out. It’s messy and convoluted and means going back to fix many, many things. It means a lot of swearing under the breath when I realize I have to trash whole scenes in favour of ones that actually fit.

This latest Mendenhall mystery, for instance. I can’t wait to finish it so I can figure out what the darned this is about.

There has to be a better way.

That’s it for me. It feels a little immodest to be discussing myself in detail. Blame Jo Lilley. Now I’m tagging Karen Abrahamson to join the The Writing Process Blog Tour. Go visit her and learn more about her and her writing. She’s a fabulous writer.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

From the Not Your Usual Suspects blog post August 7, 2013:

Most people take vacations to rest. They go to the cottage, a resort or the beach to unwind and relax.

On my vacations, I go to writers’ workshops in Lincoln City on the beautiful Oregon coast. And there’s nothing restful or relaxing about ‘em.

I’ve just returned from the latest one. It was an eight-day “Advanced Master Writing and Business Seminar” and it was—bar none—the most mind-blowing business experience I’ve had as a professional writer. Some of the topics we covered included:

  • Selling to traditional publishers in the new world
  • Copyright law and contract law for fiction writers
  • Cash streams and cash flow for writers
  • Accounting for writers
  • Advanced audio training for audio books
  • How to sell short fiction to traditional publishers
  • Advanced cover design

The main instructors were Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Scott William Carter. They were aided by Christina F. York, accountant by day and mystery novelist by night (writing as Christy Fifield and Christy Evans); Jane Kennedy, writer and audiobook producer for WMG Publishing; Allyson Longuiera, publisher of WMG Publishing and professional graphic designer; Lee Allred, writer and all-around cool guy; Matt Buchman, who writes fabulous military romances and was a Project Manager in a previous life; and a surprise guest speaker, Mark Lefebvre, who writes fiction under the name Mark Leslie and whose day job is Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations, Kobo Inc. I mean, how cool is that?

Weeping Woman We had the wonderful Sheldon Mcarthur, owner of North by Northwest Books in Lincoln City, who not only submitted to an interview with Dean Smith about how a bookstore owner does business with an independent publisher (including writers who publish their own books), but who also hosted a group book signing at his store, which included me and my two books, The Tuxedoed Man and The Weeping Woman.

Not only did we learn a lot from the formal presenters, we learned a lot from each other, too. We were over 30 participants from all over the U.S. and Canada, not to mention the United Kingdom and Germany. I was seated between two fabulous writers, Karen Abrahamson and Annie Reed, both of whom are well published, experienced and very generous with their knowledge.

Can you see why this was exhausting? I filled two notebooks and by the end of the week, I felt like information had to be shoehorned into my brain because it was already so full.

And to top it all off, the participants were invited to submit two short stories for consideration for two Fiction River anthologies edited by Dean Wesley Smith, and he bought my story for the Moonscapes one!

I left Oregon buzzing with ideas, information and plans. And in spite of the fact that it was very tiring and that no lying about on the beach took place, the writer in me is refreshed and recharged, ready to roar!

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