By Vicki Batman OOH, OOH, Look at This Pretty Thing What draws you to a book–the author, the cover, the back cover copy? Do you read the first page? For me, all of the above, especially for a new-to-me author. Something about the cover is attractive–the colorful picture, the hunky hunk, the author’s name, perhaps, […]

By Kassandra Lamb I bore easily, which isn’t always a good thing. About a third of my closet is full of impulse buys that I liked because they were “something different,” but then only wore a few times. They varied a little too much from my normal style. This tendency to bore easily is part […]

When I think about Valentine’s Day, which today is, I think about it in a commercialized sense. Although the holiday’s origin is related to two saints, I had to look that up on Wikipedia. I’m more familiar with the cards, boxes of heart shaped candy, special dinners, and even boxers with cupids and hearts that […]

By C. Hope Clark The most enticing books for me to read spin setting into character. In other words, the story wouldn’t be nearly as delicious without a well-defined sense of place. Even more so if the story couldn’t exist without that specific locale. If a story is in Los Angeles, then it needs to […]

By Maggie King What’s in a name? With due respect to Mr. Shakespeare, who immortalized the catchphrase in Romeo and Juliet, names matter. Ask any parent, pet owner … or writer. People ask me how I come up with my characters’ names. I might hear a first name and read a last name and put […]

I have been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. I’m a 70s kid, and my Saturday ritual was overly sugared cereal and hours of mystery cartoons. Scooby-Doo, The Funky Phantom, Josie and the Pussycats, Jabber Jaw, and so many others helped me realize that ordinary people (usually kids) could solve crimes that sometimes […]

Reading cozy mysteries is fun, writing them even more fun because I get to create a world to my liking filled with characters I’ve grown to love. My Haunted Library mystery series takes place in Clover Ridge, Connecticut. The library is housed in a centuries-old building facing the town Green. There’s a library ghost— Evelyn […]

Thanks for inviting me over, Debra, to help celebrate the release of Murder at the Lobstah Shack at the end of this month! I love little kids. I know you are a new grandma, Debra. I’m not one yet, although I’m eager to be. In the meantime, I’m close to my goddaughter’s little ones, a […]

In November, I think about my mother. She was a driving force in my life until her unexpected death in November 2014. There are still times when I want to pick up the phone and share good news with her or ask for her advice, but I can’t. What I can do is keep a […]

The below blog was a combination of an assignment given to me by my Hi-Lo writing coach (a Hi-Lo series is for struggling readers in K-12 grade levels meaning high-interest, low readability). I was tasked to write anything tongue-in-cheek with a tad of sarcasm while also keeping it real. I decided to combine this assignment […]