James Davis is the author of 1930’s Soho crime thriller Noho, published in September 2011 by Wild Wolf Publishing.

A keen writer from childhood it was perhaps inevitable that after university James would end up hunched over a keyboard in London’s Fitzrovia, scratching a living from writing freelance magazine commissions whilst working on his fiction. These formative years are a key inspiration for the setting of Noho.

James had a short story published in a travel anthology, “Travellers Tales From Heaven and Hell”, (Eye Books, 1997) and he went on to become a magazine journalist responsible for chronicling the rise of 1990’s club culture for Ministry of Sound’s “Ministry” magazine. Contributions to “The Face”, “Mixmag”, “Seven”, “The UK Club Guide”, “Metro”, “The Times” and many more were to follow.

James is now a highly regarded digital media expert, having launched the mobile device strategies for “The Sun” and “The Times”, and worked for companies such as MTV on optimising the opportunities presented in the digital space.

A keen traveller, James now splits his time between the UK and Ibiza. Noho is his debut novel, but certainly not his last and James is currently working on his next crime thriller, appropriately enough, set in Ibiza.

A common question I’m asked by readers is where I get my ideas and characters from for my books. It seems to be the one thing everyone wants to know, but there are no clear answers, I guess the most honest one would be “daydreaming”.

As I child I loved to dress up, create new worlds in my head, have imaginary friends, sketch treasure maps, and write stories. As an adult I’ve dropped the dressing up and imaginary friends (most of the time), but I’m still dreaming and still writing. Undoubtedly giving rein to your imagination is important, and also having those “what if?” moments and letting your mind wander away. Great to do, though experience has taught me, not so great to do during meetings or intense conversations…

It’s not just imagination though, for me it can be seeing a face in a crowd, watching an event unfold, even connecting with the past.

For Noho, set in 1930s London, the original drive to set a story in that era originally came from a love of Art Deco, which in turn led to my reading more about the 1930s, and in particular about the West End of London, which after World War One became a haven for refuges fleeing the political turmoil that followed peace and was eventually to lead to the Second World War.

A vibrant multi-cultured community sprung up, rubbing shoulders with the already existing London underworld involved in the bar and clubs in the area. Add in a whole wave of new and often opposing political ideals such as Marxism and Fascism, and you had a fascinating environment fermenting.

I then remembered a brass plaque that used to sit on our fireplace at home. It bore the name James Evans, a relation dispatched to the front line of the Somme and killed on the first day of the offensive at just eighteen. I thought about what he had gone through, how he hadn’t really had his chance of life, about the world that followed the war he never got to see, and about the tragedy of another global war following so fast on the heels of the “war to end all wars”.

All this came together to contribute to Noho, but this is just one set of examples of where inspiration can come from, sometimes it’s simple, sometimes less so, but always dare to dream.

Jeffrey Marks was born in Georgetown, Ohio, the boyhood home of Ulysses S. Grant. Although he moved with his family at an early age, the family frequently told stories about Grant and the people of the small farming community.

At the age of twelve, he was introduced to the works of Agatha Christie via her short story collection, The Underdog and Other Stories. He finished all her books by the age of sixteen and had begun to collect mystery first editions.

After stints on the high school and college newspapers, he began to freelance. After numerous author profiles, he chose to chronicle the short but full life of mystery writer Craig Rice.

That biography (which came out in April 2001 as Who Was That Lady?) encouraged him to write mystery fiction. The Ambush of My Name is the first mystery novel by Marks to be published although he has several mystery short story anthologies on the market. He followed up with Atomic Renaissance: Women Mystery Writers of the 1940s/1950s and Anthony Boucher: A Biobibliography.

His work has won a number of awards including the an Anthony in 2009 for his Anthony Boucher biography, Barnes and Noble Prize, and he has been nominated for an Edgar (MWA), an Agatha (Malice Domestic), a Maxwell award (DWAA), and an Anthony award (Bouchercon). Today, he writes from his home in Cincinnati, which he shares with his dogs.

It’s hard for me to pick up a book these days where I don’t wonder what caused the author to write this book. I wonder why:

• this book is the third in a row to feature a secret from the past
• the second in a row to feature a city park
• the nth book in a row that features a problem father

Craig Rice

What happened to the author to make them want to write this book with these characters and these trappings? It’s all part of what I ponder when I pick up a book. Why do certain themes resonate with an author to the point that they are used again and again?

Critics often say that Ross Macdonald wrote the same book each time, such were his use of themes and families. Most authors aren’t that obvious about what lies beneath the surface. It’s usually in the smaller corners of the book that you find nuggets you’ve seen before.

Part of this comes from my background in literary criticism. It all started when I started writing about Craig Rice, a wonderful comedic mystery author from the 1940s. As I looked at her life and her works, she constantly proclaimed that the lack of her birth parents in her life had made no impact on her; however, I noticed as I closely read her works that none of her characters EVER had parents. They were orphans and foundlings set adrift in the world without parents.

So what did I learn about Erle Stanley Gardner from reading 140 of his books? Three things come to mind. First, he used a lot of his own life for fodder for his book. Gardner’s father was a mining engineer, and so were many of the characters in his books. They were men who had discovered mines or hadn’t discovered mines, depending on the plot of the particular story.

I learned Gardner’s philosophy about the desert. Gardner saw the desert as a place to commune with nature. His novels like The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito reflect that with the clients who live outside even though a mansion awaits. He loved the outdoors, and knew that the desert was a harsh mistress. The desert could kill the man who was unprepared,

Erle Stanley Gardner

but could provide a sturdy constitution to those who were prepared to accept what life threw at them in the desert.

Gardner’s love of life comes through as well. He writes about characters who throw their all into things. These are not characters who sit back and watch life go by. They get out there and participate in life, driving actions and reactions as they go. Gardner was not a wallflower. He rode horses, hunted, explored uncharted lands, sailed the seas and still found time to write 4-5 books a year.

So what would biographers say about me? I’ve tried to think about that, but  the only things that I’ve come across are themes related to broken families and alcoholics. And of course, both of those apply to people in my life, but I haven’t found the little gems like I have in other people’s lives. I’ll leave that to my biographer!

Jeff

And yet…while teaching, doing five-page math problems in graduate school, and doing some serious bonding with Excel, she kept haunting bookstores and compulsively read her way through the library system’s fiction sections in three counties. She took unreasonable joy in fact that, while she very properly interned for a bank during business school, part of what she did for them was write magazine articles. The award she’s secretly most proud of? Her high school English department award.

Being a clever analyst, she eventually admitted she’d always wanted to write novels. And then she went ahead and wrote one. She shoved that in a drawer, took some classes and started again.

Why does she always end up writing paranormals? After five years teaching middle school followed by way too much crunching numbers, writing about blood-sucking demons is only natural.

Liz is the award-winning author of the humorous vampire mysteries Underdead and Underdead in Denial. Look for her next book, Crimson in the Very Wrong Fairy Tale, coming soon!

Is it just me or do other people get terrible food cravings when they read about a character eating something?

British novels are the worst for me. I cannot make it through one without ending up in the kitchen mid-way through making pots of tea and snarfing down tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off. And I’m a coffee drinker and a crust eater. The worst is when they eat bread and butter. I have no idea why I must have it when I read about someone in Britain eating bread and butter but I cannot control myself. It’s so bad that just thinking about it as I write this, I’ve had to stop no fewer than two times for bread with butter.

I don’t always feel this way when I read (thank goodness or I’d never make it out of the kitchen). Not once, for instance, have I felt the need to stand over the sink and eat a peanut butter and olive sandwich when I read a Janet Evanovich novel. But then I will never want a PB&O sandwich so perhaps that’s not so surprising.

The funny thing is that I don’t really get food cravings when I read her novels and it isn’t because of the PB&O sandwiches. Her heroine,  Stephanie Plum, eats just about every junk food on the planet (God love her).

Why is it that I can’t get through Martha Grimes without having a high tea emergency and yet Stephanie can eat birthday cake in front of me and I’m not shoving people aside to get down to the local bakery?  And I really, really, really like birthday cake.

I figured this was just one of those odd little things until the day after Christmas when I overheard this:

Liz’s Dad: (Calling from the kitchen, late at night, sounding confused): Do you want jam on it? Or ham or something?

Liz’s Mom: (Answering back from the bedroom): No! Just bread and butter. And tea. Don’t forget the tea!

Liz: (Races into her mothers room): You! You’re reading a British book, aren’t you?

Liz’s Mom: (Holding book protectively to her chest and regarding Liz with alarm as she snarfs  down a piece of bread slathered with butter.) Yes, why?

Quite possibly I suffer from a terrible genetic anomaly. So I must know. Does anyone else crave food when they read about it? What’s the worst for you? What’s the weirdest? What’s the most you’ve done to get something you’ve read about?

Everyone who leaves a comment gets a chance to win an ebook of Underdead. If you

send me to the kitchen, I’ll throw your name in the hat twice! If I have to get in the car

and go to the store on an emergency run, you’ll be entered three times.

Winner to be announced Sunday, January 29th.

Returning guest blogger Sunny Frazier, whose first novel in the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries, Fools Rush In, received the Best Novel Award from Public Safety Writers Association, is here to remind us all that freshness is not just important for food.

sunny69@comcast.net

http://www.sunnyfrazier.com

http://www.oaktreebooks.com/

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Websites are now as important for establishing identity as a birth certificate or a driver’s license. Yet, I’ve noticed that once an author puts one up, the site is often forgotten and neglected.

I research authors when they send me query letters in my capacity as acquisitions editor for Oak Tree Press. I like to know who I’m dealing with and, short of doing a background check, websites are all I have to give me an inkling of their accomplishments up to this stage in their careers.

When all of us tentatively dipped our toes in the Internet waters, websites had to be done by techy people who knew the bells and whistles. Their expertise came with a price tag. The evolution of do-it-yourself sites taught us all what a domain name was and put self-made websites within reach. They became the way we reached out to the world.

What prompted me to blog about this is the realization that my own website construction didn’t in any way reflect who I am today. I had evolved but my website was stagnant.

Of course, the bio info hadn’t changed. The past is what it is, I can’t recreate it. The second page was updated to show the covers of both my Christy Bristol mysteries. But, where was any indication of my current status of scouting for authors and creating careers? There was nothing showing this progression.

What I saw were pages that no longer had any use. My links page didn’t attract any attention; in fact, other authors were doing it better with a line-up on the perimeters of their sites. I was more interested in their links and using them for my benefit. I scrapped Links and substituted a page showing off covers of books I’d midwifed into print. I included a video of publisher Billie Johnson and I giving our mission statement for Oak Tree Press. I titled the page “Mission: Acquisitions.” Catchy, right?

“On the Road” wasn’t relevant now because kidney failure curtails future public appearances. The nifty idea I had called “The Murder Circle” to promote authors had given away to another nifty idea: “Posse Posts.” The Posse is a marketing group I lead by sending them to websites that expand their knowledge of promotion. Why not make the links available to everyone?

I encourage everyone to examine what your website says about you to the world and try to keep it current with your growth. After all, the idea is to reflect not just who you are but where you’re going in your career.

Nancy J. Cohen is an award-winning author who writes romance and mysteries. Her popular Bad Hair Day series features hairdresser Marla Shore, who solves crimes with wit and style under the sultry Florida sun. Several titles in this series have made the IMBA bestseller list, while Nancy’s imaginative sci-fi romances have garnered rave reviews. Her latest book, and tenth in her mystery series, is Shear Murder from Five Star. Active in the writing community and a featured speaker at libraries and conferences, Nancy is listed in “Contemporary Authors, Poets & Writers” and “Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors, & Poets”.

Shear Murder, my tenth Bad Hair Day mystery, was inspired by visits to Harry P. Leu Gardens in Winter Park, Florida. This lovely nature park hosts many weddings, so the sight of a bride being photographed among the trees is a common one. Its fifty acres encompasses a camellia collection, the largest formal rose garden in Florida, a historical house dating from the 1880′s, a tropical rainforest, a vegetable and herb garden, plus palm, bamboo and cycad sections, and more. It’s a beautiful setting and one that I couldn’t pass up for my story. The main building where guests enter contains a gift shop and reception rooms for special events.

After taking copious notes and photos at this Central Florida attraction, I came home and proceeded to transform the gardens into an imaginary nature park relocated in Miami. Welcome to the fictional Orchid Isle, where Marla Shore, my intrepid sleuth and hairdresser, is a bridesmaid in her friend Jill’s wedding.

Here’s an excerpt from Shear Murder that gives you a flavor for the setting:

Reaching an intersection, Marla examined the signposts. Even though she had been here last night, she couldn’t remember which way to go. She aimed to find the Bride’s Cottage, where Jill was getting dressed.

Lugging her bag full of supplies, she swiped at her forehead, beaded with sweat. Her lavender gown swished about her ankles as she swatted an insect, cursing the humidity. She’d left behind the other bridal attendants, still primping in a private room across from the banquet hall. They had the benefit of air-conditioning, while she sweltered in the afternoon heat.

An evergreen scent pervaded the moist air, likely from the pine needles used as mulch.

Colorful orchids mingled among the tropical foliage along with red crotons, pink pentas, and Chinese fringe flowers. Dense growth peppered the area, broken by a trickling stream. Alongside the path, green liriope acted as ground cover while moss-draped live oaks and laurel fig trees provided shade. Ferns, palms, and bromeliads competed for space. The wedding would take place in the gazebo by the Rose Garden. Should she go left or right? She couldn’t remember if the wedding site was by the Floral Clock or the House Museum.

All seems innocent and wonderful at this point. However, the tranquil scene quickly turns deadly as you can see in this passage with Marla and her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail. They are heading through the park toward a rendezvous with a suspect.

Dead pine needles crunched underfoot as they headed over a less traveled path. An evergreen stand brought a fresh pine scent to her nose. It mingled with a wet earthy aroma and chased away the stench of something rotting in the shrubbery.

A cracking noise overhead made her leap aside just as a large branch fell to the ground in a gust of wind. The breeze picked up, ruffling her hair. She hastened along, aware of clouds accumulating in the wakening sky. Dalton remained silent, his gaze wary as they covered ground.

Straight ahead was the greenhouse, the cemetery off to their left. Marla paused to peer at a memorial plaque in front of the grassy area.

“Dear Lord, it’s a pet cemetery, of sorts. Eww.” Dead animals found on the grounds were buried here in accordance with state regulations. A gruesome tribute, to be sure, but one that respected their natural habitat. With a grimace of distaste, she turned away.

Did you get a creepier feeling from this second excerpt? Words such as dead, stench, rotting, cracking, clouds, cemetery, buried—these should coax you into a watchful mood. Sensory details help bring the scene to life: pine needles crunching underfoot, a cracking noise overhead, a breeze ruffling one’s hair, an earthy aroma.

It’s exciting when we can take a setting we’ve researched and show it through our character’s eyes. With careful planning, our heroine’s sensory impressions will engender an emotional response in the reader, and that’s our goal.

Can you name a place you’ve been that would make a great setting? For what type of story?

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Shear Murder

Who knew weddings could be murder?  Hairstylist Marla Shore is weeks away from becoming a bride herself when she walks down the aisle as a bridesmaid at her friend Jill’s ceremony. Things take a turn for the worse when the matron of honor ends up dead, the cake knife in her chest. Now what will they use to cut the cake?

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Follow Nancy on her Social Networks:

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Leave a comment during Nancy’s blog tour and enter to

win a set of Paua shell jewelry and a signed copy of Shear Murder.

Nancy will announce the winner on January 31st.

Lucy Burdette (aka clinical psychologist and mystery author Roberta Isleib) is the author of the Key West food critic mysteries including An Appetite for Murder (NAL.) You can read more at her website www.lucyburdette.com or follow her on Facebook www.facebook.com/lucyburdette and Twitter www.twitter.com/lucyburdette.

The happy pooch with Lucy is Tonka.

My mother’s not around to ask, but I suspect that my entry into this world wasn’t an easy one. I’m the kind of person who’s more comfortable in the middle of something: I like to know where I’m going and have at least a rough idea of how it’s going to turn out. Beginnings are tough. Okay, let’s face it, endings are tricky too–but more about that in a little bit. In the last year and a half, I’ve acquired a new protagonist, Hayley Snow, a new series–the Key West food critic mysteries, a new publisher, a new editor, and even a new name. A lot of beginnings for a woman who’s most comfortable in the middle. I thought you might be interested in a little bit about how I got here…

I scratched out the opening paragraphs of my first mystery in January 1998–it took me three years to get to know my protagonist, professional golfer Cassie Burdette, well enough to write her story. As with most fictional detectives, Cassie wrestled with skeletons in her closet: her father’s desertion, a melancholy, alcoholic mother, a fog of self-doubt. Ambivalence infused her relationships with men and she tended to defer soul-searching in favor of the anesthetic effects of Budweiser.  Notwithstanding these conflicts, I imagined Cassie eventually thriving on the professional golf circuit through a combination of talent, spunk, and the right friends. Cassie and I spent the better part of eight years together. I finally talked her into starting psychotherapy (with the help of a couple of other characters) to address her low self-esteem and self-destructive tendencies. She began to play better golf, choose kinder men, drink less, and reconnect with her dad.

I’d begun plotting the skeleton for the sixth installment, involving a golf reality show, a hunky cop, and murder, of course, when the word came from my editor: “We’d rather see a new idea—no more golf mysteries.”

Surprised or not, I was flooded with sadness and disappointment. No more Cassie Burdette? I cried, I raged, I shook my fist. Like at the end of a romance, I wished I’d been the one to call it quits.

But as with life, in publishing you either pick up and move on or get left behind. So about six months later, I signed a contract for my next writing adventure. The new series featured psychologist and advice columnist, Dr. Rebecca Butterman, a woman who’d made cameo appearances in several of the golf mysteries. I soon became just as attached to Dr. Butterman as I had to Cassie. I loved the way she could be intensely intuitive about other people’s problems and yet still struggle with her own–she felt so real to me. Even though I had lots more adventures in mind, her series too had run its course, this time after three books. And this led to another trip through the stages of grief, in order to let my character go. (I told you, endings are hard too!)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past ten years, it’s that I’m quite capable of starting over with a new idea. And I’ve also learned that before long, I fall just as hard for the new characters and story as I did for the previous books.  And that’s how I feel now about my new heroine, aspiring food critic Hayley Snow. She’s had a couple of rough endings of her own and is trying to make a brand new life in funky, foodie Key West, Florida.

You remember those early, rosy days of a relationship where everything about your new love interest seems fascinating and you want to tell all about it to your pals? That’s where I am now with Hayley. I can’t wait for you all to read about her life on a houseboat, and meet her new friends (and enemies), and walk the streets of Key West sampling the food she’s describing. I’m thrilled with the cover the folks at NAL designed–and I’ve had a sneak peak at the next one–show-stopping gorgeous! When culinary mystery maven Diane Mott Davidson wrote a blurb for this cover, I was sure I’d died and gone to mystery heaven…

“What fun! ….Key West and food — a winning combination. I can’t wait for the next entry in this charming series.” New York Times bestselling author Diane Mott Davidson

So sure, after ten years I realize that all good things will come to an end. But I also know enough to enjoy every moment with Hayley Snow–and I thank Lelia for letting me share!

Sheila Dalton is the author of several books for children, teens, and adults, including two literary novels, Tales of the Ex Fire-Eater, and The Girl in the Box. Her YA mystery, Trial by Fire, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis, Canada’s major crime writers award, and all her children’s books bear the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Seal of Approval.

You can learn more about Sheila and her work at her website:

http://sheila-anne-dalton.com

The Girl in the Box can be purchased on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Box-Sheila-Dalton/dp/1926607260/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319402246&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.ca/Girl-Box-Sheila-Dalton/dp/1926607260/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319402279&sr=1-1

I chose the above title rather than Why I Love Writing, because the two seem almost separate topics. When you talk about  “writing” you’re talking about a whole lot of things besides getting words on the page, not all of which I enjoy. That word comes trailing all kinds of baggage along with it.

For instance – finding a publisher or agent, working with an editor, promotion and marketing, thinking about your book all the time.

Even some of these can be rewarding, though. I’ve had good and bad editors, and working with a good one is sheer delight. They love your book, and they improve it through careful criticism, friendly prompting, and intelligent suggestions. They can see the book as a whole better than you can, and they also notice your blind spots, and are able to assess your book as  something people might want to read or buy. This is invaluable after you’ve had your head so far buried in it, you blink in the daylight.

Promo means meeting people, either online or in person, and it’s fun and rewarding. You just have to find a balance, or it can get overwhelming.

I can’t think of anything good about looking for an agent or publisher, and thinking about your book all the time is an occupational hazard that can be dealt with only by making a conscious decision not to think about it, to remember all the other things in life that interest you, and really matter. I personally take refuge in meditation, where I try to clear my mind of everything, including an obsession with my latest release, in this case, a novel, The Girl in the Box.

So what do I like about working with words? Putting words on a page is fun, and a challenge, like a good puzzle. I suppose it’s a lot like building something functional, that needs to work a certain way when done. There are those “aha, I got it!” moments that make the struggle worth it. But there is also the fact that language, and words, fascinate me in and of themselves. They are our chief means of communication, and yet they can be misused, misunderstood and misinterpreted, and frequently are, in conversation. Why this is so is interesting to me, though I don’t have the answer; the flaws in verbal communication are obvious and many.

Writing something down is my only chance to use words as effectively and correctly as possible – I can take the time to try to find exactly the right ones, not only to describe or show, but to convey the meaning, the atmosphere, the intention behind them. In aiming for this almost impossible goal, I learn a lot. It’s as simple as that. Even in learning the limitations of words, I increase my understanding. Wanting to understand is one of the chief reasons I took up writing in the first place. When I see that non-verbal communication is sometimes superior, I know it is only through working so intensively with words that I have discovered this.

To catch up with Sheila on her next blog tour stop,

drop by  Tolstoy is my Cat on Thursday, the 19th.

In an era when people are traveling less and are buying fewer books, the small seaside community of Sidney has managed to buck both trends by making itself a destination for book lovers.

This small town of 11,000, about 2 hours by ferry from Bellingham in Washington State, used to be known mainly as a retirement community (“where your grandparents go to visit their parents”) and for its boatbuilding. However, nowadays for visitors, Sidney’s chief attraction is its bookstores. Sidney is a book town, one of only a handful in the entire world, and the only one in Canada. A book town is a town or village with a large number of second-hand or antiquarian book shops, and in this regard Sidney does not disappoint.

With its population of 11,000, and its location at the tip of the rural Saanich Peninsula, Sidney boasts at least 8 bookstores, all within walking distance of each other along the main street of Beacon Avenue. Each of these eight bookshops has a very unique identity in order to service a specific clientele. There are bookstores devoted to antique books, while others specialize in military history or sailing, including nautical maps for boaters who moor at Sidney before exploring the San Juan Islands close by. The heart of Sidney’s book community is Tanner’s Books, which,  after 24 years, has grown into a large full-service bookstore with new releases, bestsellers, and new books in over 50 fiction and non-fiction categories, plus over 2000 magazines and 40 newspapers from Canada.

Tanner’s has been owned and operated by Cliff McNeil-Smith since 2001. A former corporate executive, McNeil-Smith has used his knowledge of the bookselling industry and his business acumen to play a key role in branding Sidney as a booktown. This rebranding occurred at the same time as the local municipality sunk significant resources into revitalizing the downtown area, including implementing traffic-calming measures to encourage visitors to walk around town more, building new sidewalks, and generally making downtown Sidney a pleasant place to spend an afternoon.

The bookstore owners are all experts in their respective fields, and have put together special collections of thousands of titles and categories to choose from, and also benefit from online marketing channels such as Abebooks.com (founded and operated in nearby Victoria, British Columbia). As a result, Sidney’s booktown has thrived over the past decade, and provides Sidney with a unique identity that allows the seaside community to differentiate itself from Victoria, its larger neighbour to the south, itself a tourist destination that is home to Russell’s, the largest used-bookstore in Canada, and Munro’s, one of Canada’s oldest and most successful independent bookstores.

Here’s a sample of the bookstores that make up Sidney Booktown:

Tanner’s Books
The beating heart of Sidney Book Town, Tanner’s has been a fixture in Sidney for nearly 25 years. Besides offering a huge (and we mean huge) selection of contemporary books, magazines and even international newspapers, Tanner’s is famous for its maps and nautical charts, due mainly to the fact that Sidney is a major sailing and cruising destination.

Tanner’s Bargain Books
Just across the street, this bargain bookstore is really a giant “remainder table” with once again a huge selection of hardcovers, contemporary fiction and calendars.

Children’s Bookstore
One of the only children’s bookstores remaining on Vancouver Island, the Sidney Children’s Bookstore has often been the scene of Harry Potter and Twilight book launches, and there are plenty of interesting books

Beacon Books
Beacon books is a used and antiquarian books paradise, and features many rare, collectible and hard-to-find books, plus a huge section on gardening.

Military Bookshop
This bookstore, located beneath the old post office and next to the Sidney Museum, specializes in second-hand military history and biography and ancient and modern war. It also stocks books on aviation, railroads & railways, naval history, transport, heraldry and genealogy, American politics and royalty.

Galleon Books and Antiques
This eclectic shop is a beautifully set-up store with second-hand books, collectibles and antiques. This shop specializes in non-fiction subjects, including BC history, Canadiana, First Nations, military, and art. Antiquarian and collectible books can also be found. Galleon also offers a myriad of period antiques and collectibles.

Haunted Bookshop
If you have been searching for a particular book with no success, chances are you might just find here at this special shop.

Dragon Horse Books
Devoted to a all things spiritual, this bookstore is a mecca for readers hoping to become more enlightened during their soujourn in Sidney.

- Nevin Thompson, a Sidney resident, frequently blogs on behalf of the Cedarwood Inn and Suites, a Sidney BC hotel.

Jeanne Matthews was born and raised in Georgia, where owning a gun is required by law in certain places and “he needed killing” is a valid legal defense to homicide.  Jeanne’s debut novel, Bones of Contention, published in June, 2010 by Poisoned Pen Press, features a conniving Georgia clan plopped down in the wilds of Northern Australia where death adders, assassin spiders, man-eating crocs, Aboriginal myths, and murder abound.  Jeanne currently resides in Renton, Washington with her husband, Sidney DeLong, who is a law professor, and their West Highland terrier.  Her second novel, Bet Your Bones, is available at bookstores everywhere.

www.jeannematthews.com

I was chatting with a reader the other day and he told me he was about half-way through my second Dinah Pelerin mystery, which is set in Hawaii.  He had some questions about one of the victims.  “You know, the guy who’s found dead in the volcanic flow.  What’s his name?”  He looked at me expectantly, waiting for a reminder.  To my considerable surprise and chagrin, I drew a blank.  OMG!  Had I entered some weird fugue state or was this a sign of galloping senility?  The characters in that book had consumed my thoughts and haunted my dreams for over a year.  How could I forget the smallest detail, let alone the name of a major player?  I mean, Sue Grafton might be forgiven for spacing out the victim in “B Is for Burglar.”  Dozens of bodies have piled up in the years between “B” (her second) and “V” (her twenty-second).  But to date, yours truly has an oeuvre consisting of just two published books.  It’s a mite worrying – ominous, even – for the particulars to have faded so soon from memory.  Fortunately, the name came back to me after a few embarrassing seconds, but the episode started me to wondering.  If I’m not losing my marbles, what could account for such a lapse?

Maybe it could be chalked up to Dinah’s itinerant ways.  Pèlerin is the French word for pilgrim and, true to her name, Dinah doesn’t stick around in one place for very long.  She is constantly waving good-bye to characters she’s become involved with and so far, she is the only recurring character in the series.  Her adventures have taken her from Australia (Bones of Contention) to Hawaii (Bet Your Bones) and she’s off to Norway in the third book (Bonereapers) due out in June, 2012.  Maybe I was so immersed in writing the Norway book and getting to know the new characters that the names of Dinah’s “auld acquaintance” momentarily slipped my mind.  Or here’s a thought to conjure with – maybe my absent-mindedness was the result of climate change.

A winter’s day in Hawaii typically dips no lower than a balmy eighty degrees.  But the temperature takes a ninety degree plunge in Bonereapers.  In the Norwegian Arctic where the novel is set, the temperature in December rarely climbs above zero and the notion of “daytime” is wishful thinking because the sun doesn’t shine for three whole months.  During the long polar night, the world is as black as pitch and bitterly cold.  Breathing burns the lungs, blizzards rage across the barren tundra, and the earth is frozen too hard to bury the dead.  Those who die must be shipped south for burial.  During the months I spent writing this book, Dinah shivered and shook and ached from the cold and, vicariously, so did I.  Imagining that kind of cold made me want to huddle under an electric blanket.  The Arctic seemed as far away and alien to Hawaii as if it existed on a different planet – as if it had been created by different gods.  And given Dinah’s fascination with the mythology of the places she visits, the spirits of the ancient Norse deities soon invade her thoughts and wipe out all memory of sunlit beaches and tropical warmth.

So it was with the author.  I must have experienced brain freeze.  Not the kind caused by stage fright or eating too much ice cream.  The kind brought on by a fictional climate change and months spent immersed in the culture and national character of an ice-bound land at the top of the world.

Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series. Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.

Thanks for inviting me to visit at Buried Under Books today, Lelia!

Someone asked me recently, if I won the lottery, would I continue to write? I laughed. The most I’ve ever won from a lottery ticket was $7. When it comes to raffles, lotteries, and games of chance, my luck is non-existent.

To give you an example, for several years now, my local Trader Joe’s has had a weekly drawing for a gift card for people who bring their own shopping bags. A firm believer in recycle/reuse/repurpose, I always bring my own bags with me, and each week I dutifully fill out the little slip of paper with my name and phone number. Not ONCE in all the years I’ve filled out that little slip of paper have I won!

Me, win the lottery? Fat chance! But if I did…

No, I wouldn’t stop writing. I couldn’t. I’m currently writing an ongoing mystery series, and the characters I’ve created have become too much a part of my life. In many respects, they’re my second family — just as dysfunctional at times and equally stubborn — but family all the same. And just like my real family, I couldn’t live without them.

As a matter of fact, Anastasia has become so real to me that when I was making out my Christmas shopping list last month, I added her name! However, unlike my real family and friends, Anastasia doesn’t take a dent out of my wallet. Too bad I couldn’t buy all those other gifts with virtual money!

Whether you’re a reader or a writer, have you ever formed a personal attachment to a character, or am I more than a little bit crazy? (Don’t worry, you won’t be the first to think so!) If you’re a writer, would you stop writing if you won the lottery?

Post a comment, and you could win one of 5 signed copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll I’m giving away as part of my blog tour this month. The full tour schedule can be found at my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. In addition, I’m giving away 3 copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll on Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/15173-death-by-killer-mop-doll

Also, for anyone attending The American Library Association’s Mid-Winter conference January 20-24 in Dallas, Midnight Ink will be raffling off the hand-crafted mop doll shown in the photo during the opening reception Friday evening. Register for the drawing at the Midnight Ink booth #1459.

Leave your comment below to enter the

drawing for a copy of Death By Killer Mop Doll.

Winners will be announced in late January 2012.