Day: October 25, 2021

Analyzing a Book Series

Image credit: tieury / 123RF Stock Photo

The final installment of one of my favorite series of books is coming out next week. I’m looking forward to the story so much that I am re-reading the entire series to get myself immersed in the characters again. I’ve preordered the Kindle version, not something I usually do.

The heroine is a real-estate agent who sees ghosts. The hero is an author. I can’t believe I forgot to add these titles to my earlier blog regarding books about authors, but I did.

I’ve started making notes on these books as I re-read them. In book 1, the author places the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY instead of Rochester, MN. In book 2, the hero removes a locket from the heroine’s neck and pockets it,  yet a few pages later, a ghost rips it from the heroine’s neck.  Neat trick.

So much for editors at the traditional Big 5 Publishers.

But there’s more to my study of these books than finding inaccuracies.

When I read the sixth installment–the last one before the release next week–I was livid. I could not believe the hero was such a jerk at the end of the book. He was angry at the heroine for keeping secrets–when he was just as guilty.

Until I re-read Book One recently. His ex-fiancé kept a devastating secret from him. At the end of Book Two and in Book Three, we learn his college girlfriend kept a life-changing secret from him.  I never put all of this together into a motivation for him until re-reading the books this time around.  Powerful motivation, yes, but the heroine’s trust issues are rooted  in a backstory just as powerful. And at the end of Book Six, the hero betrayed her.

So yes, I am seeking a happy ending in Book Seven.

 

 

 

Memory: The Start of a Family Tradtion

In late January of 1966, Central New York was hit with an epic blizzard that shut the area down for days. Here’s a link to some photos taken at the time.

I grew up in a rural area. My aunt, uncle and four cousins lived next door on one side, my grandmother and step-grandfather lived on the other side of us. My uncle and dad couldn’t get to their jobs, so there was lots of family time between efforts to dig out.  Here’s  a photo  of  my  dad  on  the  1934 Ford tractor  and  my  Grandpa  Jim  working  on clearing away  the snow.

It was during the blizzard that two of my family traditions began.

My parents pulled out the flour, sugar, eggs, and such and went on a baking spree. We worked together as a family. I recall my mom unearthing a cookie press she’d never used, finding a recipe for chocolate spritz cookies and using the cookie press to make them. They were wonderful. A pain to make compared to mom’s usual cookies (and my mom baked great cookies!), but worth the effort. And yes, my dad was also involved in the bake-fest.

The first lesson I learned was to always make sure there is a stockpile of food in the house come winter. Ingredients and basics. It’s a lesson I had to remind my son of when he moved out on his own. Even if you keep only cans of soup in the cupboard, make sure you have something to eat. You never know when a storm is going to hit. Which is why you’ll never find me out on the night before a predicted storm scrounging for bread and milk.  I’m always prepared.

The second lesson is that baking together during a snowstorm makes wonderful memories. Now, I didn’t often get to take snow days with my children, but the times I did, we pulled out a box or two of quick bread mix (I am not my mom) and baked together. I used the time to teach them fractions (if the recipe calls for half a cup, how many quarter cups should you use?) and other life skills. Plus we were spending time together. That was the important thing.

I hope their memories are as nice as mine.

Thursday Thought: Book Cover Heroes

One thing I’ve noticed when reading (older) series/category romance is the cover models frequently resemble actors. Now, this may be true of new issues, but I don’t know newer actors.

Here are a few examples (from the late 1990s/early 2000s:

Probably the least well-known, this guy looks like John Shea. I know John Shea from the TV show: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in which he played villain Lex Luthor.

Alec Baldwin, anyone?

Richard Gere?

And the most recent (in my personal collection):

Will Ferrell.

What do you think? Have you spotted actors on the covers of anything you’ve read?

MJ Monday-Manuscript Excerpt

Besieged by the Moon (tentative release date July 8, 2020)

The cool night air felt light, as opposed to the heavy, humidity-laden summer nights of Phoebe’s home. Nothing weighed her down, not even the awkwardness of her mating with Parker.

“Are you okay to walk?” Parker asked, as if she hadn’t already walked to the diner.

“It’s not the walking that has me dawdling,” she admitted. “Your friend’s mate gives off a lot of negativity. I’m not in the mood to deal with attitude.”

“Well, you and Ethan were giving off some strange vibes,” Parker reminded her.

“You thought they were strange?” Phoebe’s voice rose half an octave. “Try being on our ends.”

“I still don’t understand it.”

Phoebe studied the overhead sky. Too much ambient light in town dimmed the stars, even though she viewed them through the shimmer of tears filming her eyes. “He reminded me of . . . someone. I don’t want to talk about it.”

They walked in silence, their footfalls scuffing on the uneven sidewalks. Most of the houses they passed were dark. Here a backyard light was on; there the pale bluish glow of late-night TV illuminated a window. A string of early Christmas lights twinkled on the eaves of another dwelling. Dog droppings scented the air.

They rounded onto the block on which Ethan’s house sat. Phoebe noted there was only one other house on the block, and it seemed to glitter in the feeble beams of the corner streetlamp.

Help me. Please.

Parker’s head jerked up. “Did you hear that?”

Phoebe nodded. She tilted her head to get a better sense of the direction from which the plea came.

Please. Somebody.

“Over there.” She pointed to the sparkly house across the street from Ethan’s.

“Helga,” Parker muttered, and sprinted toward the house.

Phoebe followed.

“Helga?” he called out. “It’s Parker Rowe, a friend of Ethan’s. Are you okay?

“I fell,” came the weak reply.

He tried the doorknob. Locked. “I’m going to have to break down your door,” he said.

“Wait,” Phoebe said. Wasn’t it just like a male to be destructive when a little finesse would do?

She didn’t have her tools on her, so it took about sixty seconds to disengage the lock rather than the fifteen it should have taken, but nothing was destroyed in the process.

The look Parker gave her as she opened the door, was quick but disturbing. He rushed past her to the occupant, who was sprawled in the middle of the living room floor. “What happened?”

Phoebe followed, nose prickling at familiar scent of burnt sage clinging to the air.

“The batteries in my TV remote are dead, and I haven’t had a chance to get to the store,” an old woman whined, as Parker knelt next to her. “I was going to turn on the TV and fell. I hate getting old.”

MJ’s Manuscript: Excerpt: BESIEGED BY THE MOON

“Just so you know, I’m allergic to strawberries.”
She must have been reading his mind, because he’d been frantically trying to think of a way to make the traditional mating offering of berries.
“I’ve never heard of a werewolf with food allergies.” He was an EMT. The only thing lycans were allergic to was alcohol, and even then the reaction wasn’t an allergy in the sapien sense. The homo lupus couldn’t consume a lot of things sapiens considered normal. Chocolate. Grapes in any form. Artificial sweeteners were deadly. You’d never find a millennial werewolf because avocado toast was poison. But none of these were allergies.
He had a mate. He needed to focus on what was important instead of being distracted by the trivial.
He needed to take Phoebe to Ethan’s house, where he’d better be able to treat her wound and access Selena’s stock herbal remedies. There was even a bed where he could do the deed.
He couldn’t think of a single reason not to mark Phoebe right away. Berries. Right. Not strawberries.
He jammed the key into the ignition and twisted. “Anything else I should know?”

BESIEGED BY THE MOON

Tentatively scheduled for February 2020