Archive for April, 2010
Does the Cover Compel You to Buy?
Mary Montague Sikes is an award-winning author, freelance writer, photographer, artist, and teacher who loves to travel, especially to glamorous tropical locations. Because Monti‘s settings include exotic destinations like Jamaica, Antigua, Trinidad, the Bahamas, and St. Martin, her publisher, Oak Tree Books, created the Passenger to Paradise series for her novels. Her most recent research [...]
April 30, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs 
21 Comments
Choose-Your-Own Niche Cozy Recipe
A guide to writing cozy mysteries—reprinted from DorothyL with permission from the author, Suzanne Fleischauer. Thanks for a great laugh, Suzanne! DO-IT-YOURSELF COZY Instructions:  Choose one (or more, it doesn’t really matter) from each set of {bracketed} choices. Our heroine, {Amanda/ Nutmeg/ Kate/ Margaret Mary/ Monongahela} Tyler, an attractive and spunky [Warning: these attributes are [...]
April 29, 2010
Tags: cozy, mystery Posted in: Tales of a Bookseller 4 Comments
Book Review: The Affinity Bridge: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation by George Mann
The Affinity Bridge: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation George Mann Tor Books, 2009 ISBN 0765323206 Hardcover The Affinity Bridge is a mystery set in a steampunk version of Victorian London. Airships, steam-driven cabs, and clockwork automatons are transforming society. Queen Victoria is kept alive on a primitive life-support system. London is experiencing a plague that [...]
April 28, 2010
Tags: mystery, science fiction, steampunk, Tor, Victorian London Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
The Truth of Fiction
Sunny Frazier has been publishing both fiction and nonfiction since 1972. She is a Navy veteran, earned a BA in Journalism, and wrote for a newspaper before joining the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department. During her 17 year career in law enforcement, 11 of them were spent working with an undercover narcotics team. Frazier is also [...]
April 27, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs 9 Comments
Book Review: Old Maid’s Puzzle by Terri Thayer
Old Maid’s Puzzle (Quilting Mysteries #2) Terri Thayer Midnight Ink, 2008 ISBN 0738712183 Trade Paperback I admit it – I’m a fabric junkie and a quilting addict. I don’t know how it happened, nor do I know if it was a subtle or quick transformation. All I know is that I have vague memories of [...]
April 26, 2010
Tags: cozy, Midnight Ink, mystery, quilting Posted in: Full Reviews 4 Comments
A Different Kind of Theft
Not too long ago, a post came up on a yahoo group I’m a member of about a woman who was “stealing” from a bookstore with her iPhone. She was taking pictures of the pages of a book with her cellphone and, when she was observed doing this, the woman looked up guiltily and said, [...]
April 25, 2010
Posted in: Tales of a Bookseller 16 Comments
Book Review: From the Grounds Up by Sandra Balzo
From the Grounds Up Sandra Balzo Severn House Publishers, March 2010 ISBN 9780727868305 Hardcover Maggy Thorsen is looking at possible buildings for her coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds.  She has to reopen after a freak storm takes out the old building. Nothing suits her, and the reasons all make good business sense.  Her realtor Sarah Kingston is [...]
April 24, 2010
Tags: coffeehouse, mystery, Severn House Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
Einstein’s Tongue–Verse 2 of 1,000,000
Good characters are the boon of my days. It’s such a pity that so few of my fellow teenagers agree with that idea, because an agreement is not the same thing as [insert word/phrase I can’t think of at the moment]. You might or might not know what I mean; let me explain. When someone [...]
April 23, 2010
Posted in: Einstein's Tongue No Comments
Book Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms N.K. Jemisin Orbit, February 2010 ISBN 0316043915 Trade Paperback I knew that once my people had been heretics. That was why the Amn called races like mine darkling: we had accepted the Bright only to save ourselves when the Arameri threatened us with annihilation. But what Nahadoth implied–that some of my [...]
April 22, 2010
Tags: high fantasy, Orbit Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
Contest Winners–Motherhood is Murder
What the contest was all about— Nights out are hard to come by for new parents. So when Kate’s new- mommy club, Roo & You, holds a dinner cruise, she and her husband leave baby Laurie with Kate’s mom and join the grown-ups for some fine dining on the San Francisco Bay. But when one of the [...]
April 21, 2010
Posted in: Contests/Giveaways No Comments
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