Sci-Fi or Fantasy? Both by Sylvie Grayson

MUSE MONDAY

Please join me in welcoming Sylvie Grayson as my guest today.

I never thought I would be writing sci fi/ fantasy. I have read quite a bit of it, but started out writing contemporary romantic suspense. I like the challenge of the suspense, and enjoy the relationships that blossom from the stories. But fantasy grabbed me. Thus began the Last War series. I have four books out now and am working on Book Five.

Writing sci fi was a real eye-opener. Suddenly I got to invent my whole world rather than try to fit the story into the one we live in today. It was astonishingly freeing. Now I go back and forth, one contemporary for each fantasy. It keeps me interested, it keeps me fresh. The only drawback is that because it is an invented world, I have to read my copious notes and pore over the maps and lists of words I have created to get up to speed before I begin each new story.

You’ll notice I move between calling it sci fi and then fantasy, or usually sci fi/ fantasy. That’s because my critique group and I can’t decide where these stories fit, so we put them in both!

Here is the blurb and an excerpt for Khandarken Rising, The Last War: Book One.

Back Blurb –

Major Dante Regiment must find a way to protect Beth, as the Emperor is not the only one causing chaos in Khandarken

The Emperor has been defeated. New countries have arisen from the ashes of the old Empire. The citizens swear they will never need to fight again after that long and painful war.

Bethlehem Farmer is helping her brother Abram run Farmer Holdings in south Khandarken after their father died in the final battles. She is looking after the dispossessed, keeping the farm productive and the talc mine working in the hills behind their land. But when Abram takes a trip with Uncle Jade into the northern territory and disappears without a trace, she's left on her own. Suddenly things are not what they seem and no one can be trusted.

Major Dante Regiment is sent by his father, the General of Khandarken, to find out what the situation is at Farmer Holdings. What he sees shakes him to the core and fuels his grim determination to protect Bethlehem at all cost, even with his life.

Buy link – books2read.com/Khandarkenrising

Excerpt –

Abe left in a fury. Now as he travelled along the Southern Highway, a forest of evergreens flashing past on each side, he felt himself cooling off and rational thought taking over. Madill Advisor might have been Gregoff Farmer’s lawyer, but they could find someone else to do the legal work of enforcing the will and transferring Holdings.

He heard a warning siren and turned his head to see the flashing lights of a Constable patrol truck approaching from behind. He slowed and was pulling his scooter toward the side of the road, when a roar sounded to his right and an aerial scooter came out of the trees. It came fast, heading straight for him. If he didn’t move he’d surely be hit. He gunned the small engine and tried to dodge it. From the corner of his eye, he saw another scooter coming at him from the other side. What was going on? He was going to be mowed down if he didn’t get out of the way of these two maniacs. A shot of alarm urged him on. Aerial scooters had much more capability and speed than his solar vehicle.

He was at top speed now, trying to keep himself on the road with no idea where the Constable patrol truck had disappeared to behind him. A flash of laserfire shot across his bow and he automatically slowed. The next flash hit the scooter, and it stalled for a moment before sputtering back to life. He felt a searing pain in his leg and realized his pants were on fire. Stretching with a gloved hand, he batted at the cloth as his skin singed under the heat, the other hand occupied with keeping the scooter aimed down the road.

The scooter frame jolted under the impact of bullets hitting the fender. He felt a strange sense of destiny. A moment ago he’d thought he could be injured when he saw the first aerial coming at him, but now realized he was under attack and may not even survive the encounter.

What is it About Maine and Mysteries? by Lea Wait

Wicked Wednesday

I love Wicked Wednesday, don't you? Enjoy my guest today, Lea Wait!

Recently I was at Crime Bake, a mystery conference in Massachusetts, and someone asked me, “What’s with all the murders in Maine? Dark winters?”

I assured her we didn’t have a lot of murders. In fact, last year only five states had fewer murders than the twenty in Maine. Most of those deaths were domestic homicides. Sad, of course. But usually involving drugs, alcohol and tempers, not the result of complicated plotting.   

“Then,” asked the woman, “Why are so many mystery writers from Maine?”

She certainly had a point. The number of horror, crime, mystery, thriller, suspense, spy,  police procedural and true crime writers in the state known as “Vacationland” is rather amazing. I’m a member of a loosely organized group who blog at www.mainecrimewriters.com and our membership varies from year to year, but never disappears. In fact, at that mystery conference I met half a dozen aspiring  unpublished mystery authors who, yes, lived in Maine.

So maybe it’s Stephen King’s presence. Or the dark woods and winters. Maybe it’s the mix of people who call Maine home, and the wide variations in economic status throughout the state. Maybe it’s the choice of backgrounds – we have beaches and mountains. Wilderness and cities. Farms and fishermen. People whose families have been here for generations, and people who arrived yesterday.

But, for sure, they don’t kill each other, except in our books. Don’t want to brag, but I alone have killed off more than twenty people in my twenty-one books. And I’m sure that right now, in some study or kitchen or coffee shop in Maine, some writer is killing off another character.

Most of us mystery writers know the others, and some of us are close friends. We have a supportive community. We’re members (with writers in other fields) of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, which sponsors a one-day Maine Crime Wave conference every spring. Many of us are members of the New England chapters of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Maine is lucky to still support about 45 independent bookstores. Almost every town has a library, and many of them host author talks.  

And, perhaps most important, we writers support each other. In addition to that blog I mentioned earlier, we’ve been known to critique each other’s work, celebrate each other’s successes on social media, form panels to speak at libraries, schools and other events, attend each other’s book launches and author talks, and sometimes even share rooms at conferences.

Which is good. Because otherwise it would get pretty lonely, just sitting in front of a computer, thinking of creative ways to kill people.

Not that we don’t do that, too, of course! You’ll excuse me, while I decide which poison will work best in my next book …

Buy Link for Thread the Halls 

Lea Wait Bio:

Mainer and USA Today best-selling author Lea Wait adopted four daughters when she was single. Now she’s married to a Maine artist, and writes mysteries and historical novels about people searching for love, acceptance, and a place to call home. Her most recent mystery is THREAD THE HALLS, a holiday mystery set in Haven Harbor, Maine. For more information about Lea and her books, see her website, www.leawait.com. She also invites you to friend her author page (Lea Wait/Cornelia Kidd) on Facebook. 

Discover...

TRIPPIN' THURSDAY

A few years back, we retired from the day jobs. You followed our farm experiment on Tortuga Thursdays for three years, but we sold the farm. We traded in the little RV for a bigger one, but we aren’t ready to hit the road fulltime. What comes next? We’re not sure. It's all about transition these days. These are...

The In-Between Years

Tonto Creek

The last few weeks have zipped by. Cooler days and chilly nights have come to Tonto Basin. It's all about being outside now. Nearly every morning, on average five days a week, I get in a three mile walk with either a couple of neighbor women or FDW. We've taken some side trails and had some adventures finding our way out. That's what I'm leaving you with today...get out and explore your neighborhood. 

Friends

Beaver was here

Atop the hill

So perfect for Tonto Basin

Eagles

Strange Cloud

Wickedly Twisted Fun by Marni Graff

WICKED WEDNESDAY

Please welcome Marni Graff as guest blogger today!

I’d never written a psychopath before, so found it was great fun to create the character of Viktor Garanin for my new book. Here’s a scene where readers can see how his wickedly twisted mind works: 

It had been a frustrating morning for Viktor Garanin. He arrived promptly as the museum opened, only to be told that the man he needed to speak with, Mr. James Fisher, would be out of the building all morning for a talk at an historical society. He wasn’t expected in his office until 2:30 that afternoon.

            Viktor did a good job of hiding his contempt for the secretary who imparted this information. With her public school accent and haughty manner, all that creamy pale skin and soft blonde hair, she was so condescendingly polite she reminded him of his mother. So terribly British. She represented everything he loathed about the English.

            He’d left the museum in a tense state, fists clenched, wanting to strike out at something or someone. If he knew the town better, he would have looked for a boxing gym to get a bloody nose, or to give a few.

            Instead, he attached himself to a tour headed behind Bath Abbey to the Roman baths, where the green, glowing water, laden with over 40 minerals you could taste—bah!—steamed up into the colonnaded terrace. This was topped with a collection of statues the Victorians had erected of Roman emperors mixed with British governors. Who else would they put up there but themselves? More than just hating British architecture, he hated the people, their looks, their customs and their bloody-minded assurance that they were superior beings. He hated his mother.

           

He’d followed the tour to Pulteney Bridge, the Palladian edifice executed in pale Bath stone often compared to Florence’s Ponte Vecchio as two of the world’s prettiest bridges. This one had a road running through its center. Along either side, shops sold tat of all kinds, strung out across its span. Hideous.

            His contempt for the whole British nation surged, cementing his resolve to see his plan for their ruination through to its culmination, whatever the cost. What was one pitiful life of a dead art restorer compared to the greatness he would achieve with a national outbreak of smallpox that destroyed the entire British population? Then there would be no more weaklings, like his mother, who couldn’t take what his father had dished out.

            At the back of his mind, a small voice whispered that if his succeeded in what he’d hoped, there was no guarantee the epidemic wouldn’t spread to his beloved Russia. Being an island had its advantages for quarantine and control. Viktor thought the world would rise up and make certain that no one from anywhere in the British Isles would be able to leave or travel anywhere. The thought of the resulting international upheaval satisfied him almost as much as the ensuing deaths. If he were extremely lucky, Ireland might be included in the ban, but he wouldn’t dwell on that. Only Vanya would have notice and time to get himself to Russia and join Viktor, back to his homeland.

            Viktor lingered by the weir. The guide informed them that this had been built as part of a flood prevention scheme in the late 1960s. Viktor recognized the site from the most recent film version of Les Miserables, where Russell Crowe as Javert committed suicide. Viktor stared at the thundering water, and pictured himself holding James Fisher of the fancy Holburne Museum over the weir by his ankles, as the man screamed and bucked and pleaded for mercy. The daydream blossomed, and he felt satisfaction flood him when he let go and watched the idiot’s body falling, falling, falling into the rushing water. 

You can find more of Viktor Garanin in Marni Graff’s newest Nora Tierney English Mystery, THE GOLDEN HOUR, set in England. The award-winning series features American writer Nora, living in England, with a nose for murder. Available in paperback, Kindle and Audible (http://amzn.to/2vabUMJ) and at Bridle Path Press: http:// bridlepathpress.com.

#sale Love and Murder Must Reads #MFRWauthor

MUSE MONDAY

My books don't go on sale often, so an announcement is in order. Book two, Southwest of Love and Murder and book four, The Power of Love and Murder in the popular Love and Murder Series have been reduced from $4.99 to $1.99 on most all sites where eBooks can be found. Click on either of these :

The Wild Rose Press - Brenda Whiteside
Amazon - Brenda Whiteside

This sale will end November 16th. Happy reading!

SOUTHWEST OF LOVE AND MURDER

Mystery writer, Phoebe Anderson, owes her success to killing her first husband on paper seventeen years earlier. Now, someone has actually done it. When she decides to take a few days away on the ranch of her best friend’s brother-in-law, she doesn’t expect romance to find her...or murder to follow her.

Mason Meadowlark is happy with his wild cowboy ways, avoiding love since the death of his baby and the end of his marriage twenty years ago. When Phoebe shows up, he fights to control his emotions, but soon wonders if she just might be worth the risk of opening his heart again. 

With an obsessed fan close on her heels, Phoebe is thrown into her own murder mystery…and the next target on his list is Mason.

Undercover Book Reviews

WOW!!!...a ride you sure as heck don’t see coming!

Long and Short Reviews

Southwest of Love and Murder is a very enjoyable book. Although it is book two in a series, it can definitely stand on its own. I recommend it to anyone looking for a romantic suspense with a sexy hero and a sassy heroine.

THE POWER OF LOVE AND MURDER

For thirteen years, Penny Sparks has managed to hide from the political powers who murdered her family. When she unwittingly exposes her true identity, not only is she marked for death, but the people closest to her risk meeting the same fate. 

Jake Winters is out of rehab and coming to grips with his demons. When he meets his sister’s roommate, Jake believes Penny might be that someone who can help him find life after rock star status…until her secrets blow up his world. 

With a government agent turned hit man closing in on her, Penny and Jake race to expose the presidential contender behind the murders of her family. Even if they win the race with death, the murder that stands between them could end their hope for a new life.

N N LIGHT REVIEWS

If you’re a fan of romantic suspense, this is a must read. If you’re a fan of suspense and/or political thrillers, you’ll love it!

KAM’S PLACE REVIEWS 

Like the other "Love and Murder" books in the series, Brenda crafted a story full of mystery, corruption, bit of romance, and ended it all with a happily ever after.

An Interview With a Psychic by Karen Michelle Nutt @KMNbooks #endoftheroad #ghosts

An exciting guest post for Wicked Wednesday. Welcome Karen Michelle Nutt. She's brought us a Q&A with Kaleb Houston, a character from End of the Road. 

The wind blows gently and the morning sun shines bright overhead, keeping away the morning chill as Karen Michelle Nutt makes her way down the Malibu Pier. Since Kaleb Houston doesn't live far from the pier, they decided to conduct the interview here. The sound of the waves crashing against the pillars below is like a siren's call for surfers. Karen peeks over the edge of the railing and in the distance, she indeed spots surfers in the water at Malibu Surfrider Beach as they wait patiently to catch the next ride. When she finally turns away, she spots Kaleb striding toward her. He has dark hair and a scruffy beard he wears more like a badge of honor than a fashion statement. He smiles as he reaches her. Karen hands Kaleb a large cup of black coffee, just like he ordered. She takes a sip of her cinnamon almond latte as he indulges in his drink of choice. Then they're ready to conduct the interview.

KAREN: Let me start by introducing Kaleb Houston, one of the stars in the novel End of the Road. He's here to tell us a little bit about his experiences with ghosts.

KALEB HOUSTON: Yes, I can see dead people. (He teases but then becomes serious.) Since I was young, I could see and talk to ghosts. At least the ones who wanted to communicate with the living. There are different kinds of ghosts and not all ghosts are considered intelligent.

KAREN: Tell us a little about the different types of ghosts you've encountered?

KALEB HOUSTON: Ghosts are usually people or animals that for some reason or another cannot cross over. Sometimes a person will remain earthbound out of fear or they might have a message they want to tell someone before they move on. On some occasions, a love one could be the one holding the ghost earthbound and they won't leave until that love one says goodbye to them.

KAREN: You also mentioned there are intelligent ghosts. What did you mean by that statement?

KALEB HOUSTON: When I say they're intelligent, I mean they are able to communicate or interact with the living. If I rearrange the furniture in my house, they're aware that I did and will walk around it as if they were still alive. However, a residual ghost is like a recording. The ghost may play out certain aspects of a traumatic event. Maybe one that led up to their death or they might play out a time in their life that they enjoyed. Then there is the poltergeist. This usually involves sporadic activity. Noises and maybe objects are moved. Then there is what I like to call a spirit.

KAREN: Aren't ghosts and spirits the same thing?"

KALEB HOUSTON: Some may argue they are but to me there is a difference. What I call spirits are those that have crossed over but come back occasionally to visit loved ones. They don't always appear as they did in life but rather you know their presence when you catch a whiff of the perfume they once wore or there may be a light touch on your arm, a breeze where there shouldn't be one, or perhaps a tug of your hair will alert you that you're not alone.

KAREN: So Lars Gunner, Cecilia's father, is an intelligent ghost then.

KALEB HOUSTON: Yes. He is the most opinionated ghost I've ever met. Stubborn and bossy too. Frankly, I'm not sure why millions fell in love with the rock star. Heck, who am I kidding, the fans are still in love with him even though he died 23 years ago.

KAREN: I have a good idea why. Not only was he a looker, the guy could sing and he wrote his own heartfelt lyrics.

KALEB HOUSTON: Oh no, not you too. (He smacks his forehead with a sigh.) You've fallen for the Nordic god of Rock and Roll just like all his other minions.

Karen chuckles.

KAREN: Maybe just a little.

KALEB HOUSTON: Okay, I must admit he has some good qualities. He cares deeply for his daughter, annoyingly so. He's popped in unannounced at the most inconvenient times. Anyway, Cecilia and I are working together to help him move on to the afterlife. He can't stay on this plane forever.

KAREN: Why not?

KALEB HOUSTON: Ghosts need energy to stay on this plane and more so if they want to be seen. They can draw energy from electricity and batteries, but they can also draw energy from the living too.

KAREN: Obviously, it wouldn't be healthy for a person to have a ghost leach off them for long periods of time.

KALEB HOUSTON: No, it wouldn't. Lars Gunner died when Cecilia was only three years old and as much as I'd like her to spend time with her father and get to know him, he must move on.

KAREN: I suppose he does. I do hope he goes willingly. I like to ask some more questions, but I believe our time is up for today. I want to thank you for meeting me here and sharing your knowledge about the afterlife.

KALEB HOUSTON: My pleasure. If you don't mind, I'd like to let the readers know END OF THE ROAD is available in both print and eBook formats. And for a limited time, the eBook is only 99¢.

Question for the Readers: If you could talk to ghosts, who would you like to have a conversation with and what would you say? Could be someone famous, a rock star, an actor, a writer...

About the Book:

Lars Gunner, the frontman for Silent Plaids, died 23 years ago and his death was ruled an unfortunate accident. Despite the fact he can't recall what happened to him in his last moments of life, he is convinced he was murdered. He has been trapped in limbo until his daughter, Cecilia, unearths his journal and is able to see him. She seeks help from Kaleb, a psychic, but as they resurrect the past, the secrets and lies surrounding Lars' rock and roll life just may be the death of them too. 

AVAILABLE AT:

Amazon US: http://tinyurl.com/yd8o976c

Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/yb4f9cj9

Barnes and Noble: http://tinyurl.com/y8y2qj7g

iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/yao32fk5

Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/yaezvujl

SW: http://tinyurl.com/ybc3vyf6

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Karen Michelle Nutt resides in California with her husband. Though her three children are grown and starting their own adventures, she still has a houseful of demanding pets. Jack, her Chorkie, is her writing buddy and sits long hours with her at the computer.

When she's not time traveling, fighting outlaws, or otherworldly creatures, she creates pre-made book covers to order at Gillian's Book Covers, "Judge Your Book By Its Cover".

Whether your reading fancy is paranormal, historical or time travel, all her stories capture the rich array of emotions that accompany the most fabulous human phenomena—falling in love.

Visit the author at her website: http://www.kmnbooks.com

Blog: http://kmnbooks.blogspot.com

Gillian’s Book Covers, “Judge Your Book By Its Cover”

http://judgeyourbookbyitscover.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorkarenmichellenutt