I'm new to this blog, so I'll introduce myself in a sort of roundabout way.
After reading my books, friends sometimes confess to being shocked at how my mind works. At church yesterday (yup, I'm the choir director at the local Methodist church) a man came up to me and said without preface, "GO HOME AND DIE?"
He'd found my newest book on Amazon, an e-book from Red Rose Publishing. He thought it sounded quite violent, but he liked the idea of a Vietnam-era mystery once I explained it.
My historical series, which began in January with HER HIGHNESS' FIRST MURDER (Five Star)describes murders on the streets of Tudor London. One friend who read the galley to look for errors claimed she had trouble getting to sleep afterward. To me, it just made sense to combine my decades of teaching English and history and my love of mystery. Tudors and headless corpses? Makes sense to me.
I just contracted with LL Publishing on a paranormal, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY. Sure, it sounds, well, deadly, but what else do we read mysteries for?
My books are not grisly, dark or noir-ish. They are the best plot, characters, setting, and writing that I can devise. If after reading them you believe I have a criminal mind, just remember, we write murders so we don't really have to do them.
Step into the minds of this group of talented, twisted, slightly psychotic crime novelists with a penchant for mystery, mayhem and murder. We write crime fiction or true crime that gets the heart pumping and the blood boiling.
Showing posts with label mystery novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery novels. Show all posts
Monday, July 12, 2010
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
It's raining...
Congratulations to Karen Harrington for being roasted!
I opened my front door today to go to work, the forecasts had predicted rain and they were right. It is raining. I don't know what I expected, I guess I kind of thought it would a a sweet sort of rain, the kind that inspires you to snuggle up next to a really good friend or book, maybe catch up on those DVD's that always seem to be collecting dust somewhere.... But no, it's not that kind of rain. It's not the kind of rain that traps you in introspection as you gaze out of your window, it's not even the kind of rain you silently thank for keeping what's left of your lawn from dying and turning the sad, lusterless brown of failure and decay. No, it's a dreary, ugly, mean kind of rain. The kind of rain that makes you turn away in dread, the kind that fills you with dismay at the thought of going out in its soggy, nasty ether. It's a rain cold as the grave and twice as repellent. At home, you close the curtains with a shudder and turn up the volume on your television or radio to drown out the leathery sussuration of its unnatural call. You don't care that it is reviving your lawn or saving the last of this season's tomatoes... this rain is not quite right, it just feels bad. It makes you feel inexplicably lonely, it dredges up memories of things you'd buried deep inside and prayed that you'd forget... yes, it's that kind of rain. The kind of rain that washes the blood of murder victims down sewer drains, that destroys crime scenes and renders evidence unusable. The kind of rain that hides a victims tears, that makes escape from a predator so much harder, that causes the innocent to slip and fall at the worst possible time...
it's a crime writer's kind of rain...
I opened my front door today to go to work, the forecasts had predicted rain and they were right. It is raining. I don't know what I expected, I guess I kind of thought it would a a sweet sort of rain, the kind that inspires you to snuggle up next to a really good friend or book, maybe catch up on those DVD's that always seem to be collecting dust somewhere.... But no, it's not that kind of rain. It's not the kind of rain that traps you in introspection as you gaze out of your window, it's not even the kind of rain you silently thank for keeping what's left of your lawn from dying and turning the sad, lusterless brown of failure and decay. No, it's a dreary, ugly, mean kind of rain. The kind of rain that makes you turn away in dread, the kind that fills you with dismay at the thought of going out in its soggy, nasty ether. It's a rain cold as the grave and twice as repellent. At home, you close the curtains with a shudder and turn up the volume on your television or radio to drown out the leathery sussuration of its unnatural call. You don't care that it is reviving your lawn or saving the last of this season's tomatoes... this rain is not quite right, it just feels bad. It makes you feel inexplicably lonely, it dredges up memories of things you'd buried deep inside and prayed that you'd forget... yes, it's that kind of rain. The kind of rain that washes the blood of murder victims down sewer drains, that destroys crime scenes and renders evidence unusable. The kind of rain that hides a victims tears, that makes escape from a predator so much harder, that causes the innocent to slip and fall at the worst possible time...
it's a crime writer's kind of rain...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Cheryl Kaye Tardif's 'Create a Corpse' Contest
"I kill people off for a living." That’s what bestselling suspense author Cheryl Kaye Tardif likes to say when someone asks her what she does for a living. You don't want to miss reading the rest of this tongue-in-cheek post about mystery, murder, messages...and corpses.
Author Karen Harrington invited Cheryl to share a bit about her mystery/suspense novels and while visiting Karen's blog A Writer's Diary, Cheryl decided to hold an impromptu and ‘deadly’ little contest.
Author Karen Harrington invited Cheryl to share a bit about her mystery/suspense novels and while visiting Karen's blog A Writer's Diary, Cheryl decided to hold an impromptu and ‘deadly’ little contest.
Check out Karen Harrington: A Writer's Diary.
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