Musings of Two Creative Minds

Blogger’s Note: I know I promised the second entry about things I learned about putting together an anthology, but the bug we’ve been fighting turned into bronchitis, possibly bordering on pneumonia. So we’re both on heavy antibiotics which does not make for very sensible thinking or analyzing, much less writing. So please bear with us and hope you enjoy this latest book review. We hope to be back in the saddle very soon. Thank you. "Ghost Hand" is a thrilling ride into a modern day reality, so like our everyday one, but with a twist... some people have 'Ghost Limbs'. It feels like the author took the concept of 'phantom limb syndrome', when someone suffers the loss of a limb yet still feels the missing appendage, and then made it into something more tangible in a unique way. The characters are born with what would have been a missing limb, except the limb IS there, only it's glowing and almost intangible at times. And sometimes, they seem t...

*Blogger's Note: I know I promised to continue about our experiences with creating our first anthology, but massive colds have been kicking us around.  Hope to get back to that subject next week.  Until then, here's another book review.  Enjoy* This was my first venture into the writing of Miss Grogg and I have to say I was quite pleased.  This tale took me down the winding passages of my own childhood memories involving friends, relatives, and grandparents (who I sorely miss). The story begins with Brandon having to move into his little brother's room, because his elderly great-grandmother is coming to live with his family.  Brandon is not happy about this and even resentful.  But we quickly see the conflicting emotions within him early on when he first meets his great-grandmother who is full of spunk and not one to be pushed around in spite of her advanced age.  But in addition to that fiery spirit she brings an old fashioned trunk that ...

Last night Helen and I finished the final story for our upcoming anthology!      Thank you!  Thank you!  You're all being too kind.  But today's post is not to talk about the anthology itself, as much as what went into making it.  How did it differ from writing full-length novels?  Was it easier?  Was it harder? What was the process like?  Where did we get all the stories for it, etc.?       Well, for starters, coming up with a decent number of stories was and wasn't hard really.  Helen had been writing stories long before e-books and well before I tried my hand at penning a tale.  I can easily say I learned so much from her earlier attempts at getting published, and let me tell you she got damn close to seeing some of her work in print.  But, that's a tale for another entry.       What I want to say is that I learned a lot about what to expect when I decided to try  going...

     First I'd like to thank all the guest bloggers, authors, and reviewers who were so kind to supply our blog with posts. It gave me some much needed time to get some rest and help family members who had suffered a terrible loss. It also allowed us to get back to work on our anthology “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time” which will be coming out in early October, a perfect time for creepy stories and tales of encounters with strange beings. With only two stories left to be completed and edited, we will soon be lining up Beta-Readers and then doing our final edits.      Work has also been progressing on “The Door” latest full-length novel in the Para-Earth Series, and “The Pass” the first installment in a brand new series co-written with Richard Caminiti.      In the meantime, I have been studying and purchasing the necessary equipment to begin audio-readings. As you can see below I've been slowly setting up a “R...

REVIEW BY HELEN KRUMMENACKER      Mystery stories have to work hard to set themselves apart from the crowd. Some do it with an underlying nonfiction theme, such as mystery novels/recipe books. Special settings can be useful. Most of all, characters are a way to be distinctive and memorable. There’s an entire bookshelf in our house of mysteries with animal detectives.      Cats make up the majority of animal detectives, able to roam freely and unobtrusively. Three Bags Full takes a different, and possibly unique path. As the name suggests, the mystery is being worked on by… sheep.     It begins with the discovery of the death of their shepherd. Even they can tell it is not natural causes, because he has had a spade stuck in his body. Whether it is the cause of death or not, it is a definite sign of violence and took place in their pasture, at night, while they were in a barn. They are disturbed; it is very like and yet unlike a wolf atta...

REVIEW BY HELEN KRUMMENACKER Death by the Light of the Moon by Joan Hess was something I picked up from a Friends of the Library sale, a paperback mystery marking itself as A Claire Malloy Mystery. I’d never heard of the series, but the description was interesting. An eccentric, rich elderly lady dies the evening of a party that was meant to reveal her heirs. The protagonist is there by virtue of being a daughter-in-law, and barely knows the family. The basic plot is grounded in the “cozy” style of mystery-- the murder takes place in a somewhat remote area, limiting the suspects mostly to the family, with a few hints about something more being afoot. The protagonist is not a professional detective, just someone with a knack for coming across trouble and ask questions. As the story goes on, it becomes a bit less cozy in both the genre and descriptive sense, as more bodies turn up and the protagonist becomes a target, giving a bit more of a thriller vibe at times. I found t...

REVIEW BY HELEN KRUMMENACKER I’m starting this book review with the book still unfinished. It’s the kind of book that you think about a lot while reading it, even as you itch to turn the pages again. I can’t compare it to the movie or TV show, as I wanted to read it rather than watch it. I would advise this, although the adaptations may be excellent. The voice of the narrator is crucial. The voice of the narrator is crucial to the story’s style. We begin, a little scared, a little confused, picking up meaning from tiny details-- because that is what she can give us. Her voice becomes clearer, gradually, as she moves farther from the drugging and brainwashing and has time to rebuild her story and factor in the new things. But even ¾ of the way through, I still don’t know what goes on in the colonies that has her worried about being sent there, or what the real fate of Unwomen is. Sometimes, it sounds like she’s afraid of being executed and sometimes it sounds like there is som...