Living my Dream by Melinda Wells

Hello. I'm Melinda Wells, author of a current series of "culinary" mysteries: that means murder, with recipes in the back of the book, or, as Berkley Prime Crime put it when they asked me to write this series, "We want cooking, recipes, and murder." The way the editor said "murder" made me think that she might be having revenge fantasies and was seeking a blueprint for the perfect crime.


Berkley had just published the 4th book in the first series I was writing for them. It was set against the background of a popular TV daytime drama and written under my legal name, Linda Palmer. After the 4th book, KISS OF DEATH, came out, my editor called and said, "Even though your heroine, Morgan, can barely make tuna fish salad, because of your 'Aunt Penny' character we suspect that you can cook."














I admitted that I liked to cook. Then she offered me the opportunity to write the cooking series. Excited by the new challenge, I agreed and came up with a proposal for new characters and a new location.


They liked the ideas and said, "Go. But will you use a pen name so readers won't be confused?" Even though I think readers are very smart, I became Melinda Wells for the new series.


I'm accustomed to reinventing myself because I had seven careers before becoming a mystery novelist. They included being a wildlife photographer in Africa, a children's photographer in New York City, writing for TV daytime drama, writing screenplays, assisting a major celebrity with his autobiography, being vice president of a public relations firm, and being a production vice president of TriStar Pictures. There I helped choose the movies we made, and supervised some of them. I also wrote a textbook on screen writing, called HOW TO WRITE IT, HOW TO SELL IT: EVERYTHING A SCREENWRITER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT HOLLYWOOD. It was published by Griffin / St. Martin's Press.


Then one day a long-time friend reminded me of my assorted careers and asked, "If you could be whatever you really wanted, what would that be?"


Without hesitation, I blurted out, "Write mystery novels."


He replied, "Then do it."


Even though I've loved reading mysteries all of my life, writing them never occurred to me until that moment. That was eight years ago. Now, my 7th novel in the past seven years has just been published: THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING."


The first two books in this series are KILLER MOUSSE and DEATH TAKES THE CAKE. This third one was going to be called APPETITE FOR MURDER, but when I was halfway through writing the manuscript, my editor called and said, "We have a new title for you: THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING." I said, "But there's no pudding in the book." She replied, "We love this title -- can't you put in a little pudding?"













We didn't have a phone cam so she couldn't see the expression on my face. I kept my voice calm and pleasant as I said something like, "Oh, what an interesting title." Inside my head, I was screaming "Aggghhh!"


To make my mystery novel fit their title, I had to create two new characters, change who the suspects were, come up with a new motive for the murder, and learn how to make pudding from scratch. (It turns out not to be hard to do. )


The irony of having that title imposed on me is that it has resulted in what I believe is a better book than it would have been with the original title and plot. Sometimes good luck comes in a variety of disguises.


In addition to being a full time writer now, I also teach novel-writing in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. It's a great joy because I'm able to share what I've learned over the years with new writers. I've been fortunate in the past to have tremendously talented people teach me. Now I feel blessed to be able to pass that on to others.


We never stop learning. At least, I don't ever want to stop learning. For the past several months, ever since I finished writing THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING, I've been working on a novel of suspense. Not a "cozy." This book has a male protagonist, and is told in 3rd person. Until now I've been writing female protagonists, told in 1st person. This new book has required me to master new story-telling skills.


Every job I've had in my life has given me satisfactions, but I have never been happier than in these last eight years of writing mystery novels. I hope that my books can provide even a little of the entertainment that other writers' mystery novels and thrillers have given me. Anyway, that's my aim.


Thank you, Kaye, for inviting me to participate on your terrific blog. I'm honored.

Lesa and Jim Holstine

If you're a lover of books, and if you hang out around this internet world of ours, then you must know Lesa Holstine of Lesa's Book Critiques.

You've heard me mention Lesa here from time to time.

She's the woman who keeps a lot of us bloggers on our toes.

She was one of the early ones - she discovered the power of the blogging word early on.

She started promoting writers and their books by writing reviews that are forthright and honest when blogging was still new and finding its way. She has kept the bar high.

Her generosity of spirit, intelligence and humor have won her the friendship and respect of all who come in contact with her.

She's not one to waste her time (or her readers') by writing the negative.

Negativity has no place in Lesa's world.

And right now she's asking for our help.

Lesa needs our prayers and our positive thoughts.

If you know Lesa, you also know she's married to Jim. The two of them have been a team in every respect for a long time; been through all the things you'd expect a team to go through - the ups and the downs.

And right now is the toughest of the downs.

Lesa has let us know that Jim has been diagnosed with metastic cancer. She asks that we send thoughts and prayers.

Let's do it.

Jim Holstine died
Monday, February 15, 2010

Just for Today...Some Mysteries And Muses by Jenny Milchman

Jenny Milchman is a suspense writer from New Jersey, and the married mother of a kindergartener and preschooler. Her first novel is on submission right now, and several of her short stories have been published on line. Jenny co-hosts the series Writing Matters at a local independent bookstore; features authors in the Made It Moments column on her blog, suspenseyourdisbelief.com; and speaks about life as an emerging writer at conferences and on radio.

Jenny's Workspace -
Lovingly referred to as
"A Closet of One's Own"


and swears she could work in a shoebox as long as she has books

Just for Today...Some Mysteries And Muses by Jenny Milchman

If Kaye Barley is one of the queens of mystery, then Meanderings And Muses is its kingdom. Or queendom. The subjects are books. Hundreds, no, thousands, of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels, just waiting to serve us with their plot twists and turns, their characters seeking to communicate and enlighten. So many books, waiting to be discovered, here and elsewhere.

There’s the lonely, middle aged woman who makes up a roommate for companionship—or is she made up? And the little girl who has the power to kill people with her mind—so sad how terribly many people she dislikes. Then the bereft son who enters the Florida wilderness one day—but may not ever come out.

What happened? Why did I do what I did? The characters whisper, holding out a beckoning finger. Come. Come read my pages and see.

How do all these books get born?

I suspect the process is different for every writer. I have a novel on submission right now, and for me a mystery always begins with a question. The one that woke me in the middle of the night a while ago was: What would make a good man commit suicide?

Death is such a selfish beast, and when it’s self-inflicted, it’s tempting to think that the person who died was also cruel in some way. But there are situations that make life crueler than death, and if a man encountered one of them, then perhaps he’d have no other choice.

What would such a situation be?

That became the crux of my first novel, but as any writer knows, a compelling premise has only the smallest connection to a completed book.

The novel I’m speaking of went through thirteen drafts. Yes, lucky thirteen. Then it grew into a whole different book. And I started counting drafts all over again.

Are mysteries particularly unwieldy to write? They usually involve a puzzle, and that means to a certain extent that the writer can’t fly off to great, looping heights in regard to plotting. By the end, everything must make sense in terms of what came before.

So those happy surprises that a writer of another kind of fiction might run with have to be resisted by the mystery writer. Either that or the book will need to be rewritten after ‘the end’ has been penned. This could happen, well, thirteen times or more. Some writers swear by outlines as an antidote to this problem, but so far they haven’t worked for me.

There’s something about those secrets that the characters whisper. I need them to come to me in the dark. If I knew all the ooglies and monsters that would appear as the pages start to accumulate or the word count starts to go up, then I wouldn’t be surprised or scared. And if I’m not, how can I expect a reader to be?

In the end I think we suspense and mystery lovers journey to the kingdom for a few specific things. We trust the authors who birth all those troubled, hurting characters and their stories to surprise and frighten us.

But we also to trust them to do something else. To find the justice in the awful actions that propel a good mystery. The part that says, Yes, something terrible happened. But there was a reason for it. Come.

Come listen to me tell you what it was.

The Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo St. Valentine's Give-Away

Sat., Feb. 6, 2010 -
Lou Lou and Sissyfriss slept long and hard (see below : > ), and woke up with a bit of a headache ( see below : > ), but after a few cups of coffee and a toasted bagel they were both well on their way to feeling fine again. They couldn't wait to slip on those new snowshoes of theirs and do some exploring. We got another 2 or 3 inches of snow overnight and it's really beautiful out there, and these gals can't wait to be out in it! But before heading out for their next great adventure, they tossed all the names of the people who were interested in winning a copy of ROSES into a bowl and drew the winning name.


(note to everyone from Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo. They want you to know this picture was taken this morning. That is NOT wine in those wineglasses. nuh uh. That is apple juice. Sissy & Lou Lou have quit drinking. So they say. We'll just see about that, now won't we? Stay tuned for more adventures from these two.)

The winner of The First Annual Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo St. Valentine's Give-Away is Shirley - boots9k at wowway dot com

Congratulations, Shirley! and I hope you love the book! Drop me note with your mailing address, please ( barleykw at appstate.edu ) and I'll get your book off to you next week.

Come back and let us know how you like it!



The First Annual Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo St. Valentine's Give-Away

Part II
Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

WHAT a day.

The University closed today due to snow and the possibility of ice. We've gotten, oh golly - I don't know - 8 or 9 inches I'm guessing. With some mixtures of ice, rain, sleet and freezing rain all coming down every now and again. Truth be told, I'm not sure what the difference is in all those things other than rain. As far as I'm concerned sleet and ice and freezing rain are all the same thing and they're anything but good. So far, thank goodness, it has not been a bad as the weather folks had originally predicted, but then too - it's still pretty early., so I'm guessing this whole snow for awhile - ice a little - snow some more stuff is going to continue through the night and through tomorrow. But, whatever it does, I'm sure we're not going to get slammed as hard as my friends and family in Maryland where they're getting the worst storm since 1922, with the possibility of as much as 30 inches of snow.

A friend from Cambridge sent me this link to pictures taken at Ocean City and Assateague during the last storm.

http://www.assateaguephotos.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=11114154&AlbumKey=hPYvi

I've never seen snow like that on the Boardwalk and beach in Ocean City, and I think this weekend's storm will be even bigger. WHAT a winter.

And those crazy girls Sissyfriss and Lou Lou showed up at our door again today.



They're getting pretty darn good with those new snowshoes of theirs, I must say. There's just no holding them down. They are absolutely bound and determined that this weather is not going to get in the way of their fun.

They're still staying just down the road with Auntie Coo Coo. I'm not entirely clear about all this, but it seems Sissyfriss and Mr. Sockmonkey are experiencing some marital discord. So, Sissyfriss has been staying with Lou Lou, and the two of them somehow have ended up bunking in with Auntie Coo Coo. But Auntie was weary of them being underfoot, so she shoo-shooed them out of the house today which is how they ended up here.

Along with their bottle of wine.

And the more they drank, the funnier they were. And oooooh, the stories these gals have! They are a HOOT!

So, we spent the day together and had fun, but after awhile (and too much wine) Sissy Sockmonkey got a little bit blue and had herself a little bit of a crying jag. Lou Lou, being the best kind of girlfriend a gal can have, sat with her and talked to her and comforted her a bit. Mostly she just listened and let Sissy have a good cry.



And then they had another glass of wine.

Then, next thing I knew. They were both sound asleep.



They looked so comfortable. And they were snoring so loudly, I just couldn't bring myself to wake them up. So, I took away the empty wine glasses, and tossed a quilt over them. Gave them both a little kiss on the head, turned out the light and left them where I'm sure they'll sleep through the night.

And, tomorrow we'll draw a name, and I'll let you all know who the winner of the St. Valentine's Give-Away is.

Check back, O.K.?

The First Annual Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo St. Valentine's Give-Away

Part I

You may remember my little pals Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo.


They hosted a tea party for me back in June. Remember? And did a lovely job, I must say.


I haven't seen too much of them lately. Seems we were all busy and running in different directions during the summer, then when winter hit, it hit with a vengeance and we've just had a hard time getting together. The roads have been bad a lot and well . . . you know how it is. Life is just busy.


Then out of the blue, lo and behold - here they are. They just showed up at the door this morning. ASU delayed the start of classes today due to icy conditions, and the roads are AWFUL, so needless to say, I was super surprised to see these two out and about! But it turns out they spent the night close by. They were visiting with Lou Lou's elderly Auntie Coo Coo and ending up spending the night. I'm not real clear on all this, but the story I'm getting seems to be that there was wine involved. If you remember, these two do like a glass of wine every now and again.


Anyway.


They heard the news about delayed classes, and thought they'd drop in for a little visit. Slipped on their little snowshoes and voilà, here they are.


Visits with Lou Lou and Sissyfriss are a hoot. They have opinions they're willing to stick by and don't mind telling it like it is. I love that. At this stage of my life it's important to me that my friends are people I respect. Used to be they just had to be fun to hang out with. While it's true I still like fun people, and love more than anything to slap my knee and throw my head back and laugh till I cry with them, that added element of respect is also very important.


While the three of us don't necessarily agree on everything, one thing we absolutely totally and completely agree on, is that we can't let quite so much time pass between visits. Life is too short to let too much time pass without making time for those you care about.


And after coming to this momentous decision, Lou Lou and Sissy decided we needed to toast to the occassion.


uh oh.


In an effort to persuade them not to crack open the wine bottle at such an early hour, I kinda steered the conversation around to what we've all been reading. One thing led to another and next thing you know we're planning a give-away.


Yippee Skippy!


We're calling it . . .


drum roll . . .

The Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo St. Valentine's Give-Away

And yes, we know it's Groundhog Day. We say to heck with Groundhog Day and six more weeks of winter. We say let's start a little early with the celebrations for St. Valentine's Day. That's a much more fun holiday to celebrate. Or at least we think it is. Although, that Groundhog Day movie IS pretty cool . . .


After much discussion, we've decided the book of honor will be . . . . .





Leila Meacham' ROSES.


I read about this book at Lesa's Book Critiques. Being a long time fan of sagas and epic novels which are no longer quite as in favor as they once were, I was tickled pink to read about ROSES. Spanning the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding families of a small town in Texas. It follows their interwoven histories, including all the secrets and tragedies you'd expect in this type of novel. I ate it up. Maybe, just maybe, the re-entry of the family saga is on the horizon due in part to the popularity of Leila Meacham's novel. My fingers are crossed.


If you're a fan of Barbara Taylor Bradford's Harte family series, you might enjoy this one. (or if you remember some of the old Susan Howatch novels - Penmarric, Cashelmara, etc.). If you're a lover of this type of novel, then let me hear from you and I'll maybe send you a copy of ROSES. Leave your name and email address in the comment section below.


Sissyfriss and Lou Lou plan on dropping by this weekend to choose the winning name. Check here on Saturday or Sunday (they won't commit to which day!), and I'll have the winning name at the top of this post. How's that? You need to include your email address though. Without it your name won't be considered.


Do you have a favorite epic novel, or epic novel author you want to squeal about? I'm always on the hunt for these, so let me hear, please!




For full FTC disclosure.
I bought this book.
No payment of any kind has been made for the above stated opinion.

It's There Somewhere by Morgan Mandel

Morgan Mandel is still riding the rails and creating mysteries and romances on the way to her day job as administrative assistant in Chicago’s Loop.

For Romantic Suspense, look for KILLER CAREER, a novel about how a career change could be a killer when a lovely lawyer is mentored by a bestselling author who does more than write about murders.

For Mystery, check out Morgan’s revenge story, TWO WRONGS, set in Chicago, with Marshall Field’s Walnut Room, the Big Tree and more. What happens when your sister is murdered, your testimony sends the wrong person to prison, and now he’s out?


For Romance, see GIRL OF MY DREAMS and find out what happens when a straitlaced assistant enters a reality show to save her ungrateful boss’s neck.

Morgan is Library Liaison for MWMWA, a past president of Chicago-North RWA, belongs to Sisters in Crime and EPIC. Before being published in fiction, she freelanced for the Daily Herald newspaper.














This is where Morgan lives while working on a new children's lesson book featuring Rascal, who is deaf.


It’s There Somewhere by Morgan Mandel

On payday, I was in a hurry at the ATM when I drew out my weekly allotment. Instead of putting my twenties in the zipper compartment of my purse where they belonged, I jammed them into the middle, amidst the clutter of numerous items. I’m one of those women who tend to be organized as soon as a purse is changed, but that quality doesn’t last long.

Anyway, a few days after going to the bank, when I was looking for the money, at first I couldn’t find it. I knew it was there somewhere in my purse. After all, I’d jammed it inside myself. It was frustrating to move everything around to try and find it, but I had no choice. I needed the money.

As most often happens, the experience turned my thoughts to writing. As writers we walk a tightrope. We don’t want to give away the solution to our plot, so we bury it amongst innuendos, red herrings, and other devices to throw the reader off. The missing money is in the book somewhere, but the reader, along with the book characters, need to dig to find it.

So, we don’t want to be obvious, yet we can’t be too devious. It’s no good if a solution turns up way off base, somewhere it shouldn’t be. Characters not introduced earlier in a novel , yet come out of the blue to play an integral role in the climax are a good way to alienate the reader. That would be like my finding the money in my tote bag, when I knew for sure it was in my purse.

That said, readers do enjoy surprise endings. To achieve this, we need to leave subtle hints in the layers of our story to lay a good foundation. Then, when the reader pulls out the money, it will make sense, or should I say cents. (g)

Morgan Mandel

You can find me on the web at –
Personal blog: http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
Group blogs: http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com, http://makeminemystery.blogspot.com and http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com
My website: http://www.morganmandel.com
My ning site: http://bookplace.ning.com
And very often at http://facebook.morgan.mandel and http://twitter.com/morganmandel

We Must All Hang Together by Kelli Stanley

Kelli Stanley’s second novel, City of Dragons, introduces Miranda Corbie—PI and ex-escort in 1940 San Francisco.

City of Dragons (released February 2, 2010) is the first of a series, has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, is an RT Book Reviews Top Pick, and an Indie Next Book for February. “Children’s Day”, a prequel to City of Dragons, will be published in First Thrills: High Octane Stories by the Hottest Thriller Writers, coming June 22nd from Tor/Forge.

Kelli’s debut novel, Nox Dormienda, won the Bruce Alexander Award and was nominated for a Macavity. She lives in San Francisco, and frequents old movie palaces, speakeasies and bookstores. You can find out more about her and her books at her website: http://www.kellistanley.com.

Kelli's cable car "workspace" where she does a lot of her creative thinking. Then, once she gets home, she sits in front of the computer and lets the words flow onto the page.



another "workspace"

We Must All Hang Together by Kelli Stanley

I want to start by thanking Kaye for letting me ensconce myself at her exquisitely comfortable abode, here at Meanderings and Musings. Kaye is such a beautiful, generous and hospitable person that her blog takes on the aspects of a five star—yet secret—bed and breakfast, tucked away in the mountains, still and lovely, but with all the amenities to make you comfortable.

Thank you, Kaye!!

I’m glad to be somewhere so safe, warm and relaxing just the day before by book comes out. City of Dragons launches from Thomas Dunne/Minotaur tomorrow—Groundhog Day!—though it’s far more concerned with other February holidays … Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year, which this year coincidentally fall on the same date.

So I’m nervous. Making the leap from small press to major publisher is a very, very lucky opportunity, and boy, do I know it!

I’ve been touring the web-o-sphere, talking about different aspects of the book … the time and the setting (1940 San Francisco) and why both city and era resonate with me so much … my PI protagonist Miranda Corbie, who is simultaneously a response to misogynistic images of femme fatales and an ode to noir traditions. She was also a Spanish Civil War nurse and an escort before becoming a PI … a woman with a dark, complex past and an uncertain future.

But today, I thought I’d discuss one of the other major themes of City of Dragons: the soul-destroying effects of racism, between, among and shared within cultures.

The action of the novel centers on a murder that the authorities don’t want investigated. Eddie Takahashi is a nineteen year old Japanese-American numbers runner who is gunned down in Chinatown … during a fundraiser for China in the war against Japan. Assumption is that Eddie was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tensions between Chinese-Americans and Japanese-Americans had been building since the start of the Sino-Japanese War, and were brought to the boiling point with the Rape of Nanking in 1937 … Eddie’s death, in the middle of the fundraising Rice Bowl Party, is considered payback—and bad for the businesses the Rice Bowl Party profits. But the boy dies in Miranda’s arms, and she’s not backing off from finding out who killed him and why.

The animosity and hatred and resentment that supposedly triggers Eddie’s death was all too real in 1940. There were boycotts of Japanese businesses—some of which were established in Chinatown—in protest of Japanese atrocities during the war, particularly at Nanking, and if you know anything about the events that happened there, you can understand the emotional outrage and anger that it still provokes.

In fact, today, seventy years later, on the very same block where Eddie is murdered—Sacramento Street at Grant Avenue—there is a small office dedicated to telling the world the truth about the Sino-Japanese War, in the face of official denial by the Japanese government. I didn’t know this when I opened the first chapter of City of Dragons here … and was saddened to find that such an effort is still necessary, a memorial to an event and a period of inconceivable human suffering.

Of course, the terrible irony—the exacerbation of the very real tensions in 1940 San Francisco—is that Asian-Americans were lumped together into a melting pot, equally discriminated against by whites, and marginalized as a totality. Racism operates on so many levels … and leaves indelible scars, often transferred from generation to generation.

As for why I chose to write about this subject? Well, I’m a half-Polish, half English/Scottish/American Indian product of a working class girl from Chicago and a young man from the poverty-stricken coal fields of Kentucky. My parents raised me to recognize the inherent dignity of human beings, to understand that the only truly dirty words are those which are filled with hate. And when I was very young, I witnessed what racism is … and the experience has stayed with me throughout my life.

We lived in northern Florida in 1972, and I remember visiting share croppers. I’ll never forget the smell of poverty, of people trying to scrape by with so little and even less hope.

I remember my father picking up an African-American man whose truck had broken down, remember how scared and nervous the man was over this white guy who stopped to help him. I remember their family staying with us for a night, while my father helped him get the truck running.
And I remember the death threats my dad got at work the next day.

My mom had her own story—she was in line to pay a hospital bill, in a sad, broken-down waiting room without couch or furniture. A white nurse saw her, told her she was in the wrong place, and led her to another waiting room, this one nicely appointed. Only then did my mom realize that she’d been the only white in the ramshackle room.

Two separate rooms, two separate services. Even in 1972.

And this isn’t about Florida. The South often gets a bad rap over racism, but I’ve actually seen more of it as an adult in other places. There are hateful –isms and –phobias of all human kinds, and they are an evil that know no boundaries and call everywhere home … even progressive, liberal San Francisco.

And this, partly, is why I wrote City of Dragons. I believe in the power of fiction, and while my primary goal is to entertain people, I also want to give people something to think about, something to learn, something to discuss. Something that I hope will be a testament to what all kinds of people in all kinds of ages have endured because of race or gender or religion or sexual orientation or whatever other artificial barriers we erect to identify—and divide—ourselves.

1940 San Francisco was a gorgeous and lovely town, full of Benny Goodman swing and Art Deco buildings and pretty hats. It was also a place and time rife with the challenges our species is still trying to overcome. Ben Franklin’s words are more true than ever … if we don’t hang together, we shall most assuredly hang separately.

I hope you enjoy City of Dragons … and the trip back in time. Thanks for listening … and thanks to Kaye again, for having me over!

Fighting Those Ol' Winter Time Blues

This has been a brutal winter. and its really only just begun with another big snow storm due to slam into us tonight and tomorrow. Big plans for cooking up a pot of spaghetti sauce at our house this weekend. If we're going to be snowed in - we're going to eat well. always. It's a rule.

All this has had me thinking back to last winter and what I did to help fight the blues, and found a post here about going to see Willie Nelson in February. Yep. Willie can help fight the blues, for real. He puts on a terrific show and he was just what the doctor ordered.



This year though, Willie's not gonna make it to Boone.

More's the pity.

'Course, even if he did, we're spending so much time being snowed in - or iced in - getting into town to see him might be iffy.





For the most part, we've been able to make it in to work - some days a little later than our normal start time, but we've been there. There were a couple days that we didn't make it, and even a day or two that the University actually closed (VERY unusual). Most of our major problems - including the big power outage that lasted for several days - have been caused by ice.

Feather Photo by Jill Smith
http://jillsmithdesign.blogspot.com/

So. Since Willie isn't planning a trip to Boone this winter, I had to find another way to chase away those Ol' Winter Time Blues.

It started small.

I decided that the prints I bought last May while we were at Topsail Island had languished around the house long enough. Time for a trip to the frameshop. There's some tired old stuff hanging on our walls and it's past time for them to be retired and replaced with some color. These wonderful prints by North Carolina artist Ivey Hayes will be just the thing.
















They'll will come home from the framer's next week with pretty new red wooden frames.

You know what's coming next, don't you? You know how you can not do one thing around the house like this without it leading to something else . . .

And many of you are aware of my love of red. It's all about adding a little red to my life.

Maybe I have cabin fever, but I'm not really sure that's what it is. I'm the original hermit, and could stay in our little house for days and days and days on end without leaving and be perfectly fine with that. It's not at all unusual for me to come home on a Friday after work and not leave again till Monday morning. I love that. As long as Donald and Harley are around. And my books. And if I have email and the internet, I am truly fine. And a phone to check in with my mom. Sadly, I cannot talk the woman into computers and email. Ain't gonna happen.

But the living room started looking as tired and as old as the things hanging on the wall that I'm retiring.

Time for a change!

This chair has been restuffed, reupholstered and re-slip covered more times than I remember. It started out in our apartment in Cambridge when I was a kid. I still love the classic lines, but am over the blue stripes. We had it cleaned not long ago, but it's still kinda dingy. Think it has anything to do with the fact that two cats (George and Martha Ann) once loved and practically lived in it, and now Harley has laid claim to it?





The new look?

Ta DA - - --

here's the fabric I ordered -





And next the loveseat. Gotta go.

It's in pretty good shape, actually, but I'm ready for a change. AND, obviously, in need of some of that red in my life. (Too much red, says Donald. If he's right {as he so often is}, one of these pieces will just have to move to a different room.).




Here's the new loveseat fabric -



So.

What do you think?

I think it'll all look terrific with this chair we bought last year. You can be sure this chair can bear some of the burden of this "Out With The Old!" phase I'm going through 'cause I've been over the moon about it since the day it found its way to our house. It makes me smile, and hopefully, when the other two pieces are re-done they'll all get along famously and I'll be the one smiling like a lunatic.



And next . . . .

hmmmmm . . .

This tired old braided rug will just have to go . . . .

Stay tuned, everyone!

Tell Me the Landscape by Lou Allin

Lou Allin is the author of the Belle Palmer mysteries set in Northern Ontario, ending with Memories are Murder. Now living on Vancouver Island with her border collies and mini-poodle, she is working on a new series where the rainforest meets the sea. On the Surface Die and She Felt No Pain feature RCMP Corporal, Holly Martin, in charge of a small detachment near Victoria. In 2010 Lou will debut That Dog Won’t Hunt, a novella in Orca’s Raven Reads editions for adults with literacy issues. Her website is www.louallin.com and she may be reached at louallin@shaw.ca.

Lou's work view is of Washington State across from the Strait of Juan de Fuca looking at Port Angeles

Tell Me the Landscape by Lou Allin

Northern Ontario and Canada’s Caribbean are as far apart in reputation as in distance, but they’ve been my home. Seven months of winter or of rain, I made peace with my environment by taking Ortega y Gassett’s advice: “Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.”

The Nickel Capital of Sudbury, ravaged for a century by logging, mining, smelting, and acid rain, is no longer the black moonscape where astronauts supposedly trained. In the thirty years that I lived there, an immense regreening program turned the city into a model of environmentalism. Rye-on-the-rocks brought back the grass, and over twenty million pine seedlings were planted in an effort shared by community, business, and government.

Living on a vast meteor-crater lake north of the city, I was blessed with crown land in all directions. Not only could I forge for hours on my own paths with my dogs, but I could paddle a canoe to quiet inlets where bass bit and peregrines nested on high cliffs. The landscape called me to sing its praises. In a paradise of two hundred lakes, I gave my realtor sleuth Belle Palmer a specialty in cottage properties so that she could roam, too.

My first mystery, NORTHERN WINTERS ARE MURDER, opened with a snowmobile accident and the cover picture of a hand frozen in a lake. Like me, Belle rode a modest 250 Bravo, VW of the snowmachine world. What better ending than a rip-roaring chase from jewel to jewel with the ice thawing at the edges? Winter freed us from summer’s limitations.

Switching seasons, BLACKFLIES ARE MURDER’s cover had a pail spilling blueberries and suspicious blood dotting the bushes. The bear-baiting in the initial scene was taken from memory, an ursine smorgasbord of doughnuts tied into alders and lemon pies on rock shelves. Bug dope stained every page, and I have the memory welts to prove it.

The wilderness was ideal territory for dogs, and Belle lived with Freya, a hardy German shepherd. But what about sending a mini-poodle puppy into a blizzard? BUSH POODLES ARE MURDER featured an apricot devil whose paws had to be thawed from ice balls every ten minutes on the snowshoe path. Tiny Strudel (Friday in real life) became a mighty huntress of shrews. On the cover she posed proudly in her Anna Karenina cape.















The beauties of autumn presented a new challenge in MURDER, EH? The final chase scene ended at Thor Lake, faithful to topographical maps. Since each of my books featured a relevant recipe, luckily a deserted cabin had the ingredients for nutritious bannock. To add a macabre touch, the remote lake, accessible only by train, was the scene of a murder-suicide this year.

The final entry, MEMORIES ARE MURDER served up the fly-ridden Burwash area, former scene of an Ontario prison from which no man ever escaped. Elk had been relocated there in a pilot program a few years ago. Belle’s old high-school boyfriend, a zoologist, came north to study the animals and drowned mysteriously. In another life-imitates-art moment, just before the book appeared, hunters found the body of a missing woman very near the opening scene location.

Though evidence pointed to the husband and an accomplice, charges have not been laid.

After leaving behind my plow truck, two snowblowers, five shovels, and a scoop, I moved to Canada’s Caribbean, the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, where the rain forest meets the sea. Bananas and kiwis grow in my yard. Bugs flee the salt air. “Welcome to Paradise,” the realtors say, but they know that BC also means “Bring cash.”

The climate is mild, neither too hot nor too cold. The snow-capped Olympic Mountains in Washington State across the Strait of Juan de Fuca assume a life of their own as mist rolls in and foghorns moan. But gone is the wilderness. The timber companies have been raping the land for over a century, threatening job losses if challenged. They own the major portion of the island and prefer to log near the water where it’s more convenient. Only through world pressure was the treasured Clayoquot Sound saved from the saw. With the market for lumber floundering, their latest plan is to convert their leases to real estate and reap a million dollars an acre. Only sensible zoning can prevent that, and it’s going to be a hard fight.

In my new series, starting with AND ON THE SURFACE DIE, Holly Martin, RCMP corporal, commands a small detachment west of Victoria. She may not have blizzards, but the book ends with a century typhoon that hit as I arrived in 2006. There was no Christmas that year, only two five-day power outages as thousands of three-hundred-foot Douglas firs fell uprooted across power lines, crushing cars and houses. It’s a rough way to make the front page of The Globe and Mail, my neighbour said, her seven-acre waterfront estate of Sitka spruces now a war zone. Woodpiles will be stocked for years, but burning the debris (landfills are scarce on an island) filled the air with smoke January to June.


Learning about my new home has brought more guidebooks. Instead of blueberries, we have salmonberries, salal berries, and the toughest plant in the world, Himalayan blackberries. Tomatoes won’t grow on this windy coast, but artichokes thrive. Bald eagles soar, and western jays squawk. We still have bear aplenty, and deer, too, but elk have replaced moose. How odd that the island has no foxes, but small wonder that it has a rabbit overpopulation. No poisonous snakes, but poisonous salamanders. And an unusual gift, banana slugs, a helpful detrivore which scours the environment and has only one lung! Always present is the generous beast of the Pacific, bringer of crab, shrimp, salmon and “hali,” in this former fishing village, Sooke. With its intertidal zones, world-famous Botanical Beach sets the murder scene in AND ON THE SURFACE DIE. At low tide, the sea creatures emerge. Mussels, starfish, anemones, rock crabs, and the primitive chitons, especially the gum boot variety, huge pink erasers weighing several pounds.

As I was an ambassador for Sudbury, showing its beauties to the world, I’m now sounding warnings for this spectacular part of Canada. Vancouver Island stands on the brink of disaster not only because of the logging, but because so many people want to come and live here. Locals feel like “pulling up the drawbridge,” and perhaps the rising ferry fares will do that. It’s not just our whales that need saving from “development” and the attendant pollution. It’s the land itself. Will the green forces succeed or will we be paving paradise again?

Squealing About A Book

I read a review about a book at Lesa Holstine's blog (Lesa's Book Critiques) that struck a chord. The book was SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT. And then she did an interview with the author, Beth Hoffman, and I was even more sure this was a book I had to read. Lesa said she thought this would be one of the most talked about books of this year, and I have to agree. She also said (quoted from Beth Hoffman's website) that SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT is “Exemplifying Southern storytelling at its best…”


Being a fan of "all things Southern," I just kinda thought this might be my cup of tea.


Sometimes books or authors are recommended by saying, "if you love so and so, you'll love this one." I'm not very good at that. But. I think I might be able to do that with this one. IF you loved Sue Monk Kidd's SECRET LIFE OF BEES, then I do indeed think you'll love Beth Hoffman's SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT.

I sat down with this lovely book this past Sunday and that was the end of my day. Dust bunnies flourished, grew, multiplied and did it all again, and I just didn't care. I found myself quickly and totally bewitched by CeeCee Honeycutt as she struggles to make a life for herself as she also tries, at age 12, to watch over and take care of her mother Camille. Camille thinks it's 1951 and that she's still the Vidalia Onion Queen of Georgia, when actually it's 1967 and they're living in Willoughby, Ohio with a mostly absent Mr. Honeycutt.

After tragedy strikes in Willoughby, CeeCee is whisked away by great aunt Tootie to a place called Savannah. And there she meets a bunch of southern women who do what southern women do - embrace life, laugh irreverently at just about anything, nurture and teach. If you're also a fan of "all things Southern" - and even if you're not - you'll fall in love with these women right along with CeeCee. You'll laugh at the wackiness, and cry at the sadness. You'll be totally smitten with each of these women, expected eccentricities and all, and when you finish the book you'll wish for more.

To quote my friend Nan, "this is a book I'll be packing to take with me to the old folks' home."

Do you have favorite books you'll read again and again, and know that you'll want them close beside you when you've moved into the old folks' home? This is one of mine.

And maybe I'll plan on doing a post with a list of some more of those well loved books I'll be planning on taking with me. Help me here, and tell me what some of yours are 'cause I'm betting some of them might be mine too, and I've probably forgotten a lot of them.





For full FTC disclosure.
I bought this book.
No payment of any kind has been made for the above stated opinion.