Where, oh where, do I start?
I love Lisa Jewell's work; she has been a bright beacon of light in the chaos of 2020 for me. And this novel hammered home why I enjoy her work so much. The story is predominantly told through the perspective of a woman whose daughter went missing years ago and hones in on her grief, her self-blaming, her self-imposed isolation, her shutting down of so many emotions. That's Laurel. Divorced post-loss of her beloved eldest child, Ellie, Laurel hasn't dated... until she meets Floyd. He is charismatic and charming, and his daughter Poppy just so happens to be the spitting image of Ellie when she was young. As the story unfolds, we learn about what really happened to Ellie and why her discarded bones came to be found many years after the fact. We also learn the roles that Floyd, Poppy, and Ellie's eccentric former tutor Noelle play in Ellie's life and death. The reader even gets head-hopped into the minds of a then-living Ellie, Elle, and - in the end - Floyd. This all helps piece the story together, bit by bit. Then She Was Gone culminates with Laurel's sense of closure, something that she needed in order to truly move on with her life. Family dynamics shift in the midst and aftermath of tragic loss, and Jewell excels at conveying these emotions while keeping the reading lured in with a slowly unraveling mystery. BUY NOW on Amazon
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Has your book been out for a while? Newly published? Traditional? Self-pub'ed? Bridges genres? Has M/M romance?
I'll put your book on blast with my blog! You will also get a featured post on my Facebook page. Why get your book blasted by yours truly? I'm an author too. I understand the importance of getting your work out there. It is rough in this ultra competitive market. So, why don't we authors work together? I have over 2,100 readers who follow my page. And they could quite possibly become your readers! Let's get your work out there so that other people can delight in your words. What do you have to do? Send me an email containing the following info on you and your book:
Once you email me, give me about 2-3 business days to reply (I am a single mom of twin toddlers...). Once I get your info, I will let you know when to expect to see your book get blasted! #BookBlast #ShoutOut #ThrillerNovel
Any other small-town girls here? I'm one, and I love a good thriller set in a small town. This is one to snag and read on a dark winter night! Here is a brief synopsis of Desecrate the Darkness: A Vigilante Romantic Crime Thriller (Small Town Secrets Book 1) by A.K. Hughey : Lucia is just a small-town girl who is slowly working her way toward a better life when her ex-boyfriend's car comes crashing through the front of the gas station where she works. Although the cops believe he committed suicide and tried to kill her, the mysterious emails he sent before he died tell another, darker story. Learn more about A.K.'s work by visiting her Facebook page and checking out her author bio on Amazon! #BookBlast #ShoutOut #ThrillerNovel Looking for a haunting thriller to ring in the new year? Check out Alathia Paris Morgan's Aquarius: Murders of the Zodiac! From December 27 to January 3, you can get it on sale from $0.99-$3.99. Check out the summary: Leslie’s first case threatens to end her career, but she’s got a plan. There something else motivating him to commit murders and the reporters are starting to call him the ‘Aquarius Killer’. Why? Unsure of her new skills as detective Leslie teams up with Ryan, making what should be a dynamic duo, yet this madman is one step ahead of them at every turn. Can a psychic’s cryptic warning save the day before he strikes again? Read this thrilling psychological murder series from the beginning to catch up on all of the spine-tingling clues in the Murders of the Zodiacs series. readerlinks.com/l/425908 Alathia's Bio: Alathia's passion for finding justice for victims came from working with several organizations that help those in need. Gaining knowledge from a police ride-along and her criminal justice class while in school, it brings an authentic flavor to her characters in her Psychological Thrillers and Suspense Novels. When she isn't trying to figure out way to save her characters from serial killers, she enjoys watching t.v. shows and reading from her TBR list. Yesterday, I attended a Yule celebration with a group of friends, a few of whom I've known for a while and a couple I was just meeting in person for the first time.
We shared a hearty meal, talked, and watched as three rambunctious little boys (two of whom are mine) ran amok. One topic of conversation - and something that I think will stay with me for the rest of my life - was how women communicate in order to build community. We place heavy emphasis on words to create actions. Several of us in attendance are writers. All of us, I think, are creative. And the men who were there with us (one who was there in spirit, as he had a gig to play) were just as creative and supported us gals as we yammered away. I also looked at how the boys were playing together. Even though they couldn't verbally communicate in ways we adults understand, the three of them were playing and building their world. Words are more than just things that get spoken or written down. They are living in their own right, deep within us, inherent. Even infants and toddlers have worlds they build through communication. And they become immersed in language more and more the older they get. But how do we translate the thoughts and feelings that stir within us into words? How do we get others to understand them? I know that I can articulate some of my feelings and have them be understood by certain people, and most of those people happen to be my female friends. But, to other people, I just come off as an awkward mess. These things have to come out though, so I talk or write. Even my fictional worlds are expressions of something within me. In my WIP (work-in-progress), my female protagonist, Jo, is dictating what I'm writing. I'm opening the doors to my mind and letting her come out. She's fiercer than I am, but she is insecure in some of the same ways. Her world inside of Girl in the Red Parka is my world, too, because I am building it for the both of us. I have been struggling with how I want her story to end. But, I think the truth is, her story has no end. Yes, it will have a conclusion in the book, but that's not the end of Jo's existence because I have already communicated her into the tangible world. Jo has always been there... Silent all these years, to borrow from Tori Amos. My point, I guess, is that we (especially women) will always create the world around us because we need to communicate the world within us. I just binge-watched the third season of Slasher... and I'm not impressed. I'm not going to give away too many plot details since I think you should give this show a try. The first two seasons were relatively good. But Season 3? Let me say this: There is a pretty fat line between gratuitous gore and a psychologically horrific book or movie. What really drives a horror plot is motivation. But motivation doesn't need to be explained. We don't need all the exposition. n Season 3 of Slasher, the motivation speaks to our damaged sociopolitical climate here in the U.S. Yes, there are many everyday horrors that could motivate someone to kill. But the shows takes it to an extreme and beats a dead horse with the concept of revenge. To make their point, all but two main characters (I won't hint at which ones) make it out alive in the final episode. From a psychological standpoint, horror deals with the darkness of the human psyche. We all have our own demons, but it's how we deal with those demons that matters. Take, for example, the movie Session 9. Minimal gore but absolutely psychologically terrifying. "Madness" isn't always obvious, but we get hints of it when we pay attention. When I went back and re-watched the movie, I could see where the character was slipping from reality. He had things that triggered him, but why? The movie just happens to leave the question open of whether he was crazy all along or if something sank its claws into him. That's how reality is. And that's how horror is. We don't need to be beaten over the head with motivation; we want to figure it out for ourselves... Right? I know I like a good puzzle. Horror is about picking up the pieces and coming to our own conclusions about why they were disassembled in the first place. Sure, some gore is necessary, but it should only serve to drive the plot and develop the characters. Gratuitous gore is kinda boring. To sum it all up, motivation doesn't need constant explication. Horror fans like a good challenge. "I'll say this: The scariest monster in the world is human beings and what we are capable of, especially when we get together." - Jordan Peele
As you probably already know, March is Women's Month. Yeah, we get a whole month dedicated to us. To be honest, I'm not totally sure how I feel about it.
Those who know me are probably aware that I don't call myself a feminist. I'm all for empowering women... and men. All women and all men, as much as possible. But I do have this lingering fascination with "wicked" women. Why? I guess I have never seen myself as the "good" girl. I used to have a tank top with the face of The Evil Queen from Disney's Snow White and "I'm no princess" captioned beneath her. Do I think I'm a 'bad" girl? No. And I don't think these women are just "bad" girls either. They have ambitions. Dreams. Motivations. But they're jaded. They've experienced reality, seen society at its worst. Some of them became the "worst". Wicked. Ravenous. That's the alluring part - the hunger. Think about it. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was hungry for dominance and order. Zenia from The Robber Bride is a total "man-eater" who takes and makes opportunities to further herself along. And Lady MacBeth? She's obviously the brains to her husband's brawn and has no problem with using him as a pawn to achieve her goals. She's also much more fascinating than her husband. Oh, and we cannot forget my personal favorite, Bertha. (Yes, from the book I most hate, Jane Eyre.) What Jean Rhys did to humanize her in Wide Sargasso Sea actually made me love the Bronte version of Bertha even more. She has been used and neglected, and she's done taking her husband's shit. Yes, it has driven her pretty crazy, but I don't think we're supposed to simply pity her. She ain't that weak, but a man dared try to weaken her, to take away her hunger. That's why my characters aren't "good girls". They're ravenous women in their own ways. They have problems, and they find ways to go about dealing with them. Sometimes, they're a bit crazy. Sometimes, you might be able to sympathize (or even empathize) with them, but believe me, they don't want your pity... unless it serves their purpose. And the men I write? They're hungry, too. Just don't get the impression that I write my characters based on gender politics. Or politics at all. I've written from different perspectives, and I think that's what we writers do best: We head-hop. I'm not an 80-something black woman, but I can write from her perspective and have her be believable and vibrant. (Mark my words, Miss Ezzy is one hell of a ravenous woman!) So, readers, I hope you enjoy the rest of Women's Month. But I want you to think long and hard about the role of women - and men - in literature and how that reflects real life. Literature is a fantastic mirror by which we can examine ourselves and the world around us. Look into and see what kinds of ravenous women are staring back at you. The Sequence Forms (In Other Words, I Figure Out the Book Order for The Underknown Series)3/11/2019 You know how you're doing something totally different, then an idea strikes you like a bolt of lightning? Well, that happened to me today. I had an a-ha! moment after getting home from the gym and running errands. My day was fairly average, some might even say mundane. But it came to me... The book order for The Underknown Series. Granted, I have known for a while that House of Urchins will be the first installment. I'm approximately halfway through the first draft. That was all I had any clarity on until today. Now, I think I've got the first four books down. I don't know if I'll add more. Maybe. They're all centered around paranormal phenomena and set in Michigan (my home state), so who knows? I always seem to find inspiration in the Great Lakes state. We have so many ghost stories, after all. Anyway, here is the series line-up so far: Book 1: House of Urchins Book 2: Artifacts Book 3: Whispers of the Whippoorwill Book 4: Sickening Sweet And just to show you that I actually have made some progress on House of Urchins, here is an excerpt from the most recently-(and ravenously-)written chapter: A thick black substance surrounded Sola. It was strangely tepid and smoothly caressing her skin. Little electric shocks popped here-and-there along the cervical area of her spine, reaching up into her dome. Crackle-pop! Crackle-pop! It was as though her head was a bowl of Rice Krispies having milk poured over them.
Dee-lish, a bizarrely youthful and cheerful voice echoed around her. Or was it inside her mind? Sola could not tell the difference. She tried to crack her lips apart and ask who had said that, but they were plastered shut – sewn shut. Focusing her eyes down past her nose, Sola could make out the top stitches of thin black thread that bound her lips together. She wanted to scream but knew that she couldn’t. Even the tears that welled up inside her eyes would not cascade their way down her cheeks. Sola was mute. I know it’s scary, the voice continued. I haven’t forgotten how it felt. If she could not speak aloud, Sola thought that perhaps she could do so with her mind instead. Who are you? Sola inquired, trying to erase the terror from her consciousness. Nimeni on Raila. Sola wondered what language the girl had just spoken in. My name is Raila. |
Jen
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