A Review of "Women Who Kill - Serial Killers"

WOMEN WHO KILL - Serial Killers by R.J. Parker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an interesting book. It was another free Kindle download and I thought it would good for research on a future book. I was pleasingly surprised to find that it was very informative. It held my interest and I found female serial killers to be a very interesting topic.

I did find a few grammatical and formatting errors. At one point, one of the pages repeated itself for about 10-15 pages. There were so many, I lost track of the number. Other than the repeating pages, the errors did not distract from the topic.

Overall, it was a very nice book.

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"Flash Gold" by Lindsay Buroker: A Review

Flash Gold by Lindsay Buroker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had been wanted to read a steampunk novel for a long time and recently I found Flash Gold available for free on Kindle. When I want to try a new genre, I often go for the freebies first just in case I don't like it. With Flash Gold, I loved it.

This is a short piece of fiction, only a little over 50 pages, depending on the size font you use on your e-reader. I've always loved mechanical things and this story pulled me right in. Kali is a tinkerer having made her own rifle nearly fully automatic, as well as other countermeasures to protect herself and her shop. Her newly acquired companion, Cedar, who she hired on to help her in her race across the Yukon, is a mysterious man, but very likable.

The book is full of action from being attacked by criminals to an air attack by pirates. There was never a dull moment. My only complaint is that it ended too soon, but kudos to the author, Lindsay Buroker for doing that. It only made me want to read the next book in the series, which I believe is a continuation of this story. It's now on my To Be Read list.

If other steampunk novels are like this, I think I've found a new genre to be a fan of.



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Where has the year gone?

In just a few days the year will be half over. I'm always amazed at how quickly the months go by. At least two of my Facebook friends said last week that they have started their Christmas shopping. That's probably not a bad idea. I think I will at least start on a list.

I'm feverishly working on my next novel. It's set in the fall and winter from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day. I worry that I won't get it finished in time for it to be released this winter and may have to wait a year and I don't want that to happen. I have two and a half more chapters to go and pretty much have them plotted out, sort of. I don't go by an outline, but when I get an idea for a chapter, I jot it down on a Post-it Note. God bless Post-it Notes, a writer's best friend, but that's another topic for later.

Happy Christmas in July and I hope that you get your shopping done early.

Carol

Six Sentence Sunday - Saved by the Sheriff

Today, for my Six Sentence Sunday, I have a small excerpt from my book Saved by the Sheriff.

You can choose from several formats of Saved by the Sheriff on the Sweet Cravings Publishing web page, or for your Kindle, or for your Nook.

Blurb:
When writer Jaime Wilson visits Indiana to investigate an unsolved mystery, she finds herself becoming the next target and Sheriff Ben Hunter comes to her rescue. She didn't count on falling in love with him and he didn't think he'd have to work so hard to keep her safe.
 
Six Sentences:
   The next thing Jaime knew they had slid down flat on the seat of the truck as she and Ben continued kissing.
   She felt his hand move under her sweater, making his way to her bra. Her hands were just as busy trying to get to his belt when his cell phone started ringing.
   "Damn. I have to answer this." They both moved back to a sitting position with Jaime still next to him.

Where I Write

A couple blogs by authors that I regularly read recently posted photos of their offices where they write. Most of them were neat and clean. No clutter on the desks, no wadded up papers, dirty coffee cups, or candy wrappers and I just can't believe that is how they really work. Now, I understand how they would want to have a nice photo of their office because it's being put out there on the world wide web for everyone to see. But seriously, it reminds me of the photo going around Facebook about authors and how different people perceive what we do. I love that by the way, and have saved it for my computer wallpaper. For today's post, I decided to show some photos of my offices. Yes, I said the plural. I do the majority of my writing in two different places, my day job office and my home office.

Day job office

Monday through Friday, I spend my lunch hour every day working on my manuscript. Yes, my day job office is very tidy. I pride myself on being organized and since my day job involves confidential files, I have to keep many things filed away. My home office, well that's another matter.

Home office

On the weekends, I mostly work in my home at my desk. I share the office with my husband, whose desk is on the other side of my laptop.My desk is cluttered, but everything on my desk is for research and within reach at anytime. My dictionary and thesaurus are on the floor next to me because there is no room on my desk for them. Honestly, I do clean it off occasionally, but then I can't find anything.

 Obviously, with having a laptop I can be mobile and can sit on the couch or even type a little while in bed before going to sleep. I've written while on vacation with my husband driving down the highway. I've written on an airplane while flying to visit my best friend or my daughter and I've made notes while driving down the highway on the way home from a business meeting. In that case, I was talking into a micro-recorder. But, I think the strangest place I've ever written was when I was sitting in the dentist chair while waiting for my mouth to get numb.

So now when you read any of my books, you will know where I likely was sitting while composing.

Carol

The Weather and J.K. Rowling's New Book

It's been way too hot around here for me to sit for very long at my computer. The heat is finally breaking today, so I wanted to make sure you all knew I was still around. We had rain today and puddles. Oh my gosh, we have puddles in our driveway! It's the first really good rain we've had since Mother's Day in May.

But onto what I really wanted to write about. Have you seen the cover for the new J.K. Rowling's book, A Casual Vacancy, due out later this year? I'm really looking forward to reading the book. I want to see how she handles writing for adults vs writing for young adults. But, the cover, oh my. I'm so disappointed in the plain book cover. I really thought that her book was have a cover that is more reflective of what the book will be about. Maybe once I read it, it will make more sense.

So, my questions to you are, what do you think about the cover and do you plan on reading the book?

Carol

Weekend camping

We had a big family camp out this weekend with my husband's family. It's an annual thing and as usual, we had a blast. No major injuries this year, last year we had a little one with a bee sting. At the left is the lake that our campground was next to. There are several campgrounds in the park and we had this one all to ourselves. A lot of the family members tried their hand at fishing, but the fish were smarter than we were and no one caught anything.

Night time was the best, with all of us sitting around the campfire just talking. It was warm during the day, but cool enough at night that we could enjoy the heat from the fire.

We saw one snake during the camp out and that was a water snake in the lake.  I think if you look close enough at the photo below, you can see it. There's also a fish just below it and to the left to prove that there were fish in that lake.

However, that snake was not the last one we would see for the weekend. When we got home on Sunday, we found the "little" guy below in our house. We live in a pretty wooded area and it's not uncommon for us to find a black rat snake in the house in the summer. I've gotten used to them and as long as I'm not surprised by them or step on one, I'm okay with it. My husband catches them and puts them back outside, WAY away from the house.

Carol