Category: Writing

Amazon, Authors Life, Baseball, Blog, book review, Books, Cozy Mystery, novel, Publishing, Writing

Review of Nicole Asselin’s Latest Cozy Mystery – CONCESSION STAND CRIMES – Ball Park Mysteries Book 2

Elgon Williams, Author

Book Description:

HOTDOGS, CRACKER JACK, BEER, and MURDER. PLAY BALL!


MADELINE BOUCHER is still reeling from her first few weeks of working for her family’s Independent League Baseball Team, the Abington Armadillos. She found a dead body and survived a kidnapping before finally clearing her brother of murder. She didn’t think anything could be as dramatic as that, but she was wrong.

Her parents have given her more responsibility in running ballpark events in the hopes that they could retire and leave the team in her hands. Her brother is moving on to the big leagues, so this is her time to shine. Her first task? Deal with a concession stands kerfuffle. Redmond Brewery heiress, Alaska Redmond, storms her way into the ballpark making demands.

The next day, the son of the concessions manager finds Redmond’s body in one of the beer stands along the ballpark concourse. Again, Madeline finds herself immersed in an investigation. While the suspects start piling up, including a promising young player on the team, Madeline knows she must get involved. With the help of Davis, her new love interest, and head of the security department, she delves deeper into the death of the heiress.

Trying to run team events, solve a murder, and have a normal life takes their toll as Madeline comes to depend on those in her baseball-loving community, including Bronia, her old family friend who runs a garden center and helps her make sense of things. She even chances a psychic for advice while at a Salem Warlock’s away game. Will anyone help her untangle the mess of suspects including the victim’s family?

Can she clear the name of the Abington Armadillos and start focusing on the season?

My Take:

The story is what matters most to the reader. So foremost, an author needs to be a great storyteller. Nicole Asselin is that. For the sake of the cozy genre, though, there are tropes and conventions that readers expect, and for this, an author needs to be a well-read fan of the genre and be cognizant of the work of the best-known authors of the genre. No problem there, either. Nicole Asselin is an avid reader who takes weekly trips to her local library and bookstores adding to the to-be-read section of her home library.

In CONCESSION STAND CRIMES we are reacquainted with Madeline Boucher, the cadre of characters from Book 1 in the series, and some new friends as well. There is even a character based on a real person, an Abington resident who won a contest the author ran prior to the book’s composition. The critical challenge of the story is set early and well-executed, setting up the prevailing whodunit element. The victim is an heiress and local celebrity/socialite whose personality is the opposite of the main character who under other circumstances might be considered a peer, as she too is the daughter of a local business owner. The contrast is significant and lends to the initial conflict between them, setting up Madeline as an immediate suspect, though she is almost instantly learned. So now, she is left with the quandary of what happened and why that plays out through the interactions with the many other characters, and Madeline’s desire to clear one of her team’s players of suspicion.

Fans of the series will find a lot to love in this continuation of the storyline established in Book 1. If you’re new to the series, it’s not necessary to start with Book 1, MURDER AT FIRST PITCH, but it’s probably recommended as you’re going to fall in love with Madeline and her friends.

Author Bio:

Nicole Asselin grew up a Navy Brat and spent her formative high school years in the middle of Pennsylvania but always identified with her New England roots. Nicole’s family is originally from Connecticut, and her Grandpa Asselin introduced her into the Red Sox nation where she has been a member for her whole life and her Grandma Asselin introduced her to the world of mystery novels. Now those two loves are combined into her new Ballpark Mystery series.

Nicole graduated from Curry College in Milton Mass with a degree in English/Creative Writing, minoring in Dance in 2004. She also attended George Mason University and received a Master’s in Arts Management. She worked in the Government sector for over ten years before transitioning to Healthcare. Now working just outside of Boston as a Technical Writer, she lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with her three cats Julia, Jacques, and Madeline (no relation to the main character of her book).

Nicole is a current member of Sisters in Crime (National and New England) and the Mystery Writers of America. She sits on the Board of Directors for the NE branches of both groups as Social Media Liaison. She’s attended several conferences in the past few years to study the craft including Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, and the NE Crime Bake. Her short story, “Mile High Murder” can be found as part of Z Publishing’s “America’s Emerging Suspense Writers: East Region” published in early 2019. Asselin is a highly approachable author who makes personal appearances a priority and enjoys meeting her fans or just discussing books in general. Find out more about her and per scheduled events at the author’s website.

CONCESSION STAND CRIMES launches 6.29.22 at Amazon.

Blog, book review, Books, Mystery, New Releases, novel, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Review: BLUE BILLY by Laura Ellen Scott

Elgon Williams, Author

Description:

Turn the Living into Corpses

I am the dirt. I am the grave.
I don’t meditate nor drink. I don’t write manifestos.
I turn people into bodies.

So begins the confession of a boogeyman that no one believes in. As he settles into the abandoned Magic River Café, Blue Billy doesn’t care that it has deteriorated into a derelict, filth-ridden shack on the banks of a rancid backwater. This is his home, now. Or it could be, if it weren’t for three women out to prove that he is real.

Crocus Rowe is a parolee with anger issues, who finds herself on the run after she assaults a professor over his unspeakable crimes. When the professor winds up in a refrigerator submerged in the ironically named Magic River, things look bad for Crocus, whose first call is to Alma Bell, a memoirist and much-maligned Blue Billy “expert” from New Royal University’s notorious Crime Writing Program. Haunted by the unsolved 1992 murder of her best friend, Alma will go to any lengths to prove that Blue Billy is responsible. And then there’s Tara Rowe, Crocus’s damaged cousin. As one of Blue Billy’s rare survivors, she’s endured years of experimental therapy and exploitation to become the person she is today: Blue Billy’s stalker.

Children still whisper “Blue Billy” around the campfire, but if Crocus, Alma, and Tara can uncover the truth behind New Royal’s darkest mystery, they may just put an end to the legend, once and for all.

My Take:

In BLUE BILLY, the third book in Laura Ellen Scott’s New Royal Mysteries Series, she has created a monster that is equal parts myth, local legend, and deranged psychopath. As has become a tradition for Scott’s novels, she assembles a cast of quirky, damaged, dysfunctional characters to resolve the essential crime mystery, a thread that strings all three installments of the series together. And she does it with the expected attention to detail of which nightmares are made and carefully crafted exposition that often makes one’s skin crawl. A deviation from the previous parts of the series, this one ventures into the country where the natural decay of nature has intersected with the demise of what was once a recreational hot spot. There is a scene that involves a submerged refrigerator that I guarantee will haunt you afterward.

But this gritty, visceral story is as much about relationships as it is a series of unsolved murders. Crocus and Tara, cousins who share as much disappointment in their lives as DNA, must resolve enough of their past issues to join forces with Alma, a self-proclaimed expert, in exposing a demonic presence that has plagued the surrounding community. It’s no Sunday picnic at the riverside where the drama draws to its climax where the survival of the trio demands destroying their shared nemesis that no one else believes exists.

If you haven’t yet discovered Laura Ellen Scott, Blue Billy is a great place to start. Even though it is part of a series, it stands on its own, though it will compel you to dive further into the weird world of New Royal, Ohio for more of the background.

About the Author:

Born and raised in the tiny Northern Ohio town of Brimfield, Laura Ellen Scott was named after the classic noir film and song, “Laura,” so it makes sense that she enjoys writing dark, quirky fiction in the tradition of Tom Robbins, Kelly Link, and Robert Altman. She started out writing short fiction, and her stories can be found in places like Ploughshares, Pank, Mississippi Review, and Wigleaf, but it wasn’t until she received an out-of-the-blue email from the great Dorothy Allison (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA) that she started writing novels. That email said, among other things: “Damn you are good. You are just seriously satisfyingly good.” Eventually, Allison would blurb Laura’s first novel, DEATH WISHING (Ig Publishing, 2011), a comic fantasy set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

These days she is an author with Pandamoon Publishing, and her latest novel, CRYBABY LANE, is the second book in the NEW ROYAL MYSTERIES, a series set in a fictional college/prison town in Ohio. The first book in the series is THE MEAN BONE IN HER BODY (2016). The second book is CRYBABY LANE (2017). Book 3 is titled BLUE BILLY, coming 5.11.22. Prior to launching the series, Pandamoon published Scott’s THE JULIET (2016), a western/mystery about a cursed emerald lost in Death Valley.

Scott is a term full professor in the English Department at George Mason University, and she divides her time between Fairfax, VA and Great Cacapon, WV.

Blue Billy is available at Amazon as of 5.11.22.

Blog, book review, Books, Fantasy, Magic, New Releases, novel, Publishing, Writing

Book Review: Faie and Fury – The Faie King’s Mortal Book 1 by Devon Atwood

Elgon Williams, Author

Description:

Anwen is pretty sure she loves her future husband. The problem is, he’s not real.
When Anwen discovers that she has been under an enchantment for months and that her betrothed, Gresham is a mysterious being obsessed with keeping her forever, she escapes to the forbidden Faiewood after a voice on the wind calls her to safety. She finds herself the captive of a green-eyed Faie king who gives cryptic half-truths to Anwen’s questions and refuses to let her leave the Faiewood. With her family’s life at stake, and the safety of all Faie hanging in the balance, Anwen learns that she is his birthright. They are bound by the strings of fate, and she is left with only one choice: trust him, or watch the vales burn.

My Take:

Let’s talk about world-building. It is essential for constructing all fiction, even the genres that appear to be close variants of our world. With fantasy, where the existence of magic redefines the relationships between the living and the physics of their universe, the author’s imagination is fettered only by the nature of magic and the level of magic inherent in nature. For example, do all the inhabitants of the world have access to magic? If not, how is its distribution limited? Do only special beings control the magic? Is there one being or group of beings inherently more powerful? How well the author establishes the rules and consistently follows them allows the reader to suspend disbelief, escape into the story, and become immersed in the conflicts and adventure, same as any other well-told story.

Enter the world of Faie and Fury. Here, Devon Atwood has borrowed some character types and themes from the genre while also paving new ground, redefining myth and legend to suit a well-crafted variation of the eternal conflict of good versus evil. Anwen’s family is under attack without knowing it. When she discovers the truth, she takes flight from the source of the evil, escaping into Faiewood, a mysterious place chock full of dark places and stories of enchantment. Even though the wood borders on her kingdom, she knows next to nothing about it, having never been within it because of the suspected dangers lurking within. And it’s there that her adventures truly begin as she discovers that her fate is directly bound to a Faie who would be king. And in order to save her own family, she must enlist the aid of the creatures of a fantastic world who have at least as much apprehension and misinformation about humans as Anwen does about the Faie.

Faie and Fury is the beginning of The Faie King’s Mortal and for lovers of stories about mythical beings and magical powers. This one does not disappoint. Atwood’s imagination reveals her creation through descriptive prose detailed enough to engage the reader’s senses and it compels us to follow the characters’ travails. We cheer their triumphs and suffer their defeats, eagerly turning pages unto the end. It’s always best to get in on the ground floor of a new fantasy series and having read this one, I’m already waiting for the next installment’s release. As I understand it, the raw tale for Book 1 was composed in about a month. Atwood’s prolific writing schedule bodes well for expectations of Book 2 sometime in the near future. But for now, savor this one as your weekend read. Preorder it now and enjoy the spellbinding tale on Kindle starting April 4, 2022.

About The Author:

Devon Atwood lives in the mountains of Wyoming with her husband, their seven children, and a menagerie of animals. Devon’s favorite thing is writing in silence with a good playlist on in the background, but she will settle for her usual ambiance of bickering children, barking dogs, and Cheerios crumbs under her butt.

​Atwood holds a Bachelor of Science from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and her currently published works include Lunula, Inito, and K-Love.

Authors Life, Blog, Books, Fantasy, Fried Windows, Magic, Magical Realism, New Releases, novel, Publishing, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Writing

Get the Backstory for Free

Elgon Williams, Author

Some of you may have interest in this. It’s for everyone and it’s FREE.

On my Medium account you’ll find the backstory for the Brent Woods character who appears in The Fried Windows series as well as The Thuperman Trilogy. He also pays a visit to The Wolfcat Chronicles which will begin publication later this year with the novel Dammerwald. And Brent is involved here and there along the way in many of my yet-to-be-published manuscripts.

Brent tends to be an alter ego for me, as most of the novels in which he appears are written in the first person POV. He is a lot like me, shares some of my life experiences, but generally, he is more adventurous and less risk-averse than me.

Currently, I am posting chapter installments of FINDING IT, which is part of The IT Series that begins during Brent Woods’ senior year of high school and eventually culminates with his first semester of college. It is important, perhaps, to a better understanding of the events and character interactions in FRIED WINDOWS and NINJA BREAD CASTLES, the latter releases on 4.13.22. You will learn a lot more about what it means to be a wolfcat and how Brent came to realize his incredible abilities. The story is a magical realism/coming of age escape into a world of 70s nostalgia, teen angst, and budding romances. It also provides insight into the illusion that underlies the world and an ongoing battle between those who have the attributes, aka magical abilities, and those who have not.

I invite everyone to follow me on Medium and enjoy FINDING IT, available now.


Authors Life, blizzard, Blog, life, management, retail, safety, uncomfortable, Writing

When you first realize that your company doesn’t really care about you.

Elgon Williams, Author

This is not intended as a hit piece on a former employer, but I think it’s indicative of the corporate mindset in America. And since this happened twenty-seven years ago, the underlying condition resulting in the lack of respect has been around for a long time and likely is endemic in our culture. It came to mind today since a dear friend of mine experienced a similar thing with her employer as blizzard conditions bore down on her part of the country. Some things never change. In the world of business, it is always about the bottom line.

In the winter of 1994, a blizzard was coming. Everyone knew about it for days. We’d been preparing for it at my store, a home improvements center in Connecticut. Customers had been coming in looking for snow shovels, ice melting salt, forget about finding a snowblower, that had sold out well before the first major storm of the season. Despite having ordered more stock of storm-related items, by the day of the storm we were out of everything people might want except for batteries and flashlights and even those were running low.

Earlier that day we had a conference call with the district manager earlier. He said that as soon as the snow began falling we were to cut back our staffing and send our hourly employees home, in the interest of their safety. Anyway, we were not going to be busy, so the general manager and our six assistant managers could handle everything. That all made sense. But it was the rest that kinda irked me.

You see, the general store manager was required, at his discretion, to cut loose the assistants who lived furthest from the store, and to do it in order until there was only the general manager and one assistant – whoever lived closest to the store – remaining to stay until regular closing hours. Under no circumstances short of the police arriving at our doorstep and ordering us to close were we allowed to leave early. The company didn’t want to risk that a single customer would need something we would disappoint them, missing that potential sale.

Guess who was the assistant manager who lived closest to the store?

Here’s ‘the out’ for the company, the absolution of all guilt. They allowed the two remaining managers to split costs on a motel room for the night in lieu of driving home. Oh, and they’d also reimburse us for dinner and breakfast. The problem with all that is that the store wasn’t in the best neighborhood so the accommodations close-by were the sort of fleabag joints that local call girls took their johns. Finding anything better would still entail driving a good bit.

For me, driving home was closer. For the store manager, he lived halfway to Rhode Island. Yet, both of us drive 4X4’s, so driving home wasn’t a huge issue, other than the trip being nerve-racking and it taking a good bit longer than usual at the risk of being stranded if anything bad happened. You never know what you might face during a drive in a snowstorm. Plus, the blizzard would make for whiteout conditions which meant that driving blind was a possibility. And I told the manager that he could spend the night at my place. But he was confident that he would make it home regardless of the road conditions.

Of course, I called home to inform my wife that I’d not be home until very late. She was worried, not only about the bad roads but also driving while physically exhausted. By the luck of the schedule, I’d opened that morning, which meant that I’d been there since 4 AM. It would be one of those long days that we who were in management called working an ironman shift, being there for both opening and closing. It happened from time to time due to call-outs for sickness, covering for a required all-store management training session for which one manager, usually the administrative manager, was selected to run the for the entire day. The fact that we had a name for it should indicate that it happened often enough. Anyway, my wife was livid about how the company was treating its managers.

By 6 PM it was dark outside, except that the foot of snow that had fallen over the course of that reflected the street lights making for a fairly bright parking lot. We had four hours left before we could lock the doors and shut down the computers. We had already closed out all the resisters and put away all the money except for one till at the customer service desk where the register was configured to handle any possible transaction. And the manager and I were both fully qualified at all operations. But it had been over an hour since we’d had a customer. We’d locked all the doors except for the main entrance where the two of were were camped out.

Yes, we had a few customers that evening, averaging about one an hour. We knew the customers personally. They were regulars who lived fairly close to the store. It was weird what they came in to buy, though – nothing you would expect someone to come out in a blizzard to purchase. We sold, five 2X4X8’s to one customer, for example. I mixed some paint for another customer. Most of what we did was answer the phone to inform people that yes, we were open. The number of calls received didn’t match the number of customers who showed up at the door, though.

Shortly before closing, a guy showed up wanting to fill out an employment application. Yeah, I’m serious. That happened. The manager thought it showed how much the guy needed a job. I told him it showed how nuts the guy was. Subsequently, the manager decided to hire the guy. He didn’t last long. My gut was right about him.

Once we had closed out the last register, put away the money, and closed down the computer system for the night, the manager and I said our goodbyes and be carefuls. It took him well over 2 hours to get home, a drive that normally took him 45 minutes. It took me 45 minutes to cover 7 miles. As I was heading north the storm was actually worse around my house than it was closer to the store. When I arrived home, my wife was sitting in the family room, watching something inane on TV. Obviously, she had been worried about me. Heck, I was worried about me, too. It wasn’t an easy drive at all. At times it was difficult to know for certain where the road was. But I’d made it. But what she said to me resonated and remained in the back of my mind for my remaining years with the company, especially every ensuing time I was asked to sacrifice my personal time and safety.

“That’s how much your company thinks of you.”

Amazon, Books, Mystery, New Releases, Noir, novel, Publishing, Writing

Review of 10 DAYS: A Dee Rommel Mystery #1 by Jule Selbo

Elgon Williams, Author

As a father of three, two of them daughters, I struggled to find heroic stories to read to my girls. It was easy to find such fare for my son, but there was a gross absence of children’s books that offered a brave female with whom my girls could identify. And so I fabricated a few stories to tell them at bedtime. But the experience made me acutely aware of gender bias. And it has not been limited to children’s books. Gratefully, that is changing in all age groups, largely due to the explosion of great female authors who are unafraid to buck the system and create strong female protagonists in genres that in the past have been dominated by male main characters.

I had the great fortune to read an early version of 10 DAYS by Jule Selbo. Honestly, it read like a finished work with nothing major that I saw needing to be addressed, which didn’t surprise me. Selbo is a highly competent writer with oodles of experience as a playwright and she wrote numerous screenplays while working in Hollywood. Recently she has become an award winning novelist as well. 10 DAYS: A Dee Rommel Mystery #1 is her debut foray into Crime Mystery fiction, a genre she loves reading.

10 DAYS’ plot is solid, engaging, and compelling. The pacing feels perfect, building suspense toward a thrilling climax. Selbo’s cast of characters, even the minor ones, are authentic, well-developed to the point that some will become your friends while others will feel like enemies. The protagonist, Dee Rommel is, in a word, remarkable on so many levels that she is destined to become a fan favorite. She is a quick-witted badass in ever sense of the word with a burning desire to find justice for the wronged. It often compels her into risky, ill-advised, confrontations with bad guys as she champions her friends and family. And she does it all without toting a gun.

What Selbo accomplishes more than adequately establishes bedrock for the series yet to come. She creates an endearing female noir private investigator with whom most of us can identify. Selbo pays homage to genre archetypes while venturing into some largely uncharted territory, allowing the reader to share Dee’s dilemmas as well as overcoming the pain of her daily routine. We cheer for her because she’s just the kind of heroine who could easily be a sister or cousin. Her strong, overriding sense of justice and loyalty to her friends and family drives her always, even against mounting odds as her principal foil is fully revealed and fleshed out.

The book releases to the public worldwide on August 11, 2021 in eBook and print, so you don’t have long to wait. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a perfect crime fiction novel, but this one will rank on everyone’s list. It checks all the right boxes and appends a few more in the process. I can’t wait to read the sequel. And yes, this thriller deserves to be made into a movie. So, take note, Netflix.

Authors Life, Blog, Books, life, Publishing, Writing

The Plague & Updates on Coming Attractions

Elgon Williams, Author

I’ve spent the past few months revising several old manuscripts, one of them dating back to the days immediately after I finished the first draft of The Wolfcat Chronicles. I’ve breathed some new life and adventure into them prior to submitting them to my publisher. No guarantees any will be approved, but after investing the time, I’ve decided the stories are worth it. My most recent submission is a series called The Attributes, it’s two books plus a 5700 word short story prequel.

Bearded me.

In case you don’t follow me on social media, please do to stay up to date on everything Elgon.

Lately, I’m sporting a Pandemic beard and have grown my hair out to a length it has not been since college. I’m thinking of keeping both, even if I look like Santa’s demented uncle. I may trim the hair and beard a bit before jetting to Florida next month to celebrate my great niece’s wedding. (Congrats Britters – I’ll post some pics if I can.) I don’t know, though. I’m kind of favoring the continued scruffiness. In my old age, I’ve become a rebel again. Leave comments.

On the personal front: Just before Thanksgiving last Fall I contracted the modern day plague. My son and daughter-in-law came down with it around the same time, and I was babysitting for my grandson when I must have been exposed. Definitely not something you want to catch, though my symptoms were not nearly as bad as my roommates, who I suspect caught it from me even with all the precautions of washing hands, wearing masks in the house, and being hyper focused on cleaning surfaces. You see, this virus is as highly contagious as the officials say. Two of my roommates ended up in the hospital, one was there for a bit on a respirator. It is a lottery how bad your response will be to this thing. I believe my immune system fought it off because I take doses of Vitamin D and am otherwise pretty healthy. I had about a week’s worth of aches and pains, a low grade fever that never went past 99.5 F, a cough, and a little nasal congestion. My senses of smell and taste have not yet fully returned, though I’d estimate they’re back to 90%.

Over the past month and a half, I have received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, with no side effects other than my arm being sore around the vaccination site (the first time lingered longer than the second and was a bit more painful). Other than being tired for a day or so and my temperature running about half a degree higher than normal, I was blessed to survive it without much to report. Here are the options as I see it: catch this crud (as eventually you will) and take your chances on how severe your symptoms may become – or – take a couple of shots (the needle is fine gauge so you hardly feel it) and even if you’re one of the 5% who still catch the crud, you won’t have the severe consequences. Protect yourself, your loved ones, and neighbors.

As always, you will do you, but there’s my advice.

We are on track for the final book in the Thuperman series being published sometime this fall. Titled THUPERHEROES, it wraps up the summertime adventures of Will and Sandra, though they will appear as adult characters in future books. We’re also looking at DAMMERWALD, the long awaited Book 1 of The Wolfcat Chronicles, for later this year. And NINJA BREAD CASTLES, the sequel to FRIED WINDOWS, is also currently in edits and may make it to publication before the end of the year. Lots going on in 2021 in the world of Elgon.

Amazon, Authors Life, Blog, Books, Fantasy, Mystery, New Releases, novel, Publishing, Urban Fantasy, Writing

Review: SUICIDE SOULS by Penni Jones

Elgon Williams, Author

Description:

Front Cover

Death is not always final…

Naomi and Luke have only one thing in common: they both died by suicide. They can earn a second chance at life by efficiently guiding their loved ones through grieving their untimely deaths.

Naomi excels at making her friends and family mourn, but the Death Shadow stalks ever closer to Luke. The dark entity carries non-compliant souls straight to Oblivion where unspeakably terrifying torture and the final goodbye await.

The two are forced to work together to navigate the in-between world in which they’re stuck. The only certainty is that the rules are unclear and shifting, and things are not always as they seem.

The pair must prove they’re worthy of another shot at life before time runs out. Can Naomi and Luke get better at living now that they’re dead?

My Take:

You’ve got to love an author who is willing to take chances, challenging norms, and pushing beyond the conventions of a genre. Penni Jones has done that with each of her previous novels: ON THE BRICKS and KRICKET. Although her writing has elements of mystery, suspense, and thrillers, there is always a gritty kind of realism as well. We can readily identify with her characters because they remind us of someone we know, or perhaps ourselves. She is frank, honest, and unafraid to tell us things others might decide not to. And what she says tends to be what we would think if we were in the same circumstances. This lends an immediacy to the story that allows the reader to become immersed into the story and care about what happens to its characters. SUICIDE SOULS is no different in its style but deviates from its siblings in subject matter. It is about life, death, and an afterlife that clearly is not exactly what the characters might have been led to expect. There is depth here that is subtly presented as a fairly simple, straight-forward story becomes more involved and complicated as the telling progresses. And in this, death becomes more and more like life, just with more frustrating differences.

As Naomi and Luke introduce themselves, we not only learn how they offed themselves but, over the course of the telling, we learn more than just the why. We learn about their character flaws, their insecurities, and their self-images that have followed them beyond death. Even though their physical natures perished with their bodies their self-images have followed them beyond the grave. For example, Naomi is busty and, in her own eyes, that has defined her relationships with men. Luke is insure about nearly everything including his obsession with superficial primary gender characteristics. Luke’s eyes rarely stray from Naomi’s boobs, even though they are merely echoes of what they were in life. As the story evolves, each of them must reconcile their pasts with their current situations. In due course, they come to realize how thin and vapid they were in their own lives – and perhaps why these flaws contributed to why they ended their lives. Although their lives were complicated and not all the different from the situations that define many of our own lives and those of our friends, they decided to end it all, only to learn that the end is only the beginning of a more complicated mess.

In death, Naomi and Luke’s existences become convoluted, confusing and, on the whole, a lot worse. Jones envisions an arbitrary structure that permeates everything around her characters as they navigate a minefield of manipulation and selfish intentions set against them. Redemption is not guaranteed as the author presents the world with a wry eye for the absurd and ill-conceived that reminds me of the societal commentaries embedded in the stories of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Jones’ characters make do with their lots as they progress toward uncertain conclusions. What results is an often biting treatment of the human condition that attacks conventional aspirations, ambitions, hopes, and dreams with hellish potentials largely beyond the characters’ control. The taking of one’s life is not glorified. Far from it. Death here is not the escape from life that some assume but an inevitable consequence of a larger process. Nothing is given. Nothing can be taken for granted. Your situation may vary and is not intended to get better. The best anyone can do is paying a lot of attention to the decisions one makes. The result is an engaging story that becomes more compelling and even hilariously farcical at the conclusion.

Author Bio:

Penni Jones

Penni Jones is a writer, movie buff, concert t-shirt enthusiast, reluctant multi-tasker, grunge music listener, and blogger extraordinaire of Scapegoats and Sacred Cows
Penni started writing stories as soon as she learned how to hold a pencil. She is an avid reader whose favorites include Mark Haskell Smith, Ariel Gore, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, Gillian Flynn, Christopher Moore, and Kelly Braffet.

Penni is an Arkansas native with a nomadic spirit. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. She has worked as a bartender, restaurant manager, bank teller, payroll specialist, event planner, and office manager. These days she focuses on writing. She currently resides in Michigan and probably has too many pets. She is currently the Membership Chair of Michigan Sisters in Crime. Follow her on Twitter at .

Pre-Order ebook of SUICIDE SOULS (launches on 2.10.21). Find info on her other books at Pandamoon Publishing.

Authors Life, Books, Editing, New Releases, novel, Publishing, Writing

Review: THE WRITER’S ZEN by Jessica Reino

Elgon Williams, Author

Description:

Front Cover

Based on Jessica Reino’s widely viewed and successful monthly Twitter chat with writing novices and successful authors, The Writer’s Zen is a tool for writers to use during their own journeys from concept to publication and the many different ways to get there. It will help writers stress less during the creative process and find a writing routine that works best for them on their way to publication. Jessica uses her experience as an editor, author, and a senior literary agent to explain the paths that a writer can take to writing success.

Anyone who desires to become a successful author must read this book.

My Take:

Whether you have ever dreamed of being a professional author or are already on your way, THE WRITER’S ZEN is designed to help you explore alternatives to make the most of every opportunity. Best of all, it’s told in a friendly, conversive way offering advice based on the author’s wealth of experience as an author, editor and senior literary agent. Reino presents the various aspects of becoming successful regardless of the author’s background, prior writing experience, or prior knowledge of the publishing industry. She also exposes the changing nature and challenges of the digital age to old paradigms, including self-publishing and using social media in book marketing. As the title indicates, there is a Zen-like balance to be struck and a would-be author’s quest that goes well beyond the hard work and self discipline of harnessing basic composition skills in telling a story or expository, subject-based non-fiction writing.

There is something for everyone, and I highly recommend this book for anyone who aspires to write, whether it is a story, a text book, or the next great novel.

Author Bio:

Jessica Reino is a literary agent and multi-genre author. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, developing new stories, and helping other writers achieve their goals. She is a member of the The Editorial Freelancers Association, The Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
 
To learn more about Jessica, please visit her author website and be sure to connect with her on Twitter @JNRlitauthor where she hosts #thewriterszen monthly chat. Get THE WRITER’S ZEN at Amazon or Pandamoon Publishing.

Authors Life, Publishing, Writing

Holding onto a Dream

Elgon Williams, Author

I suppose waxing philosophical is natural when a milestone is reached, but I tend to be a quiet observer. If you’re expecting a boisterous blowhard pontificating pompous bombast or boring people with flowery fluff, that’s not me. I write a bit, though. Fortunately, I have editors to ground me and help make sense of my ramblings that eventually make it onto a printed page.

There is nothing else like this feeling.

My love of writing compels me in a way that no previous endeavor in life ever has. The physical execution of the process consumes a portion of each day, but truth be known, I am writing all the time, even when I rest, and always when I dream. In fact, a writer is never not writing. Even while suffering from writer’s block, a writer is still engaged in the creative process, whether it is realized or not.

Yesterday, I received a physical copy of the third book I’ve published since signing with Pandamoon Publishing. I published a few others before becoming a Panda, a couple of self-published things, and a pair of works released through another, now defunct, small publisher. Personally, I don’t consider those in my totals anymore. There will come a time when I revisit them as newly minted manuscripts, heavily revised and reborn, because the stories within are important and tie into the overall creative universe that has spawned Fried Windows and The Thuperman Trilogy. But I never recommend them, despite that there are copies of them floating around. You see, publishing is a thing that cannot be undone, especially once an ISBN number is assigned. But One Over X served a developmental purpose for me as an author. It granted me insight into the publishing business and book marketing. And it established a foundation that produced an ambitious project that occupied my time for better than seven years. That series has yet to be published, but I learned many necessary lessons from creating The Wolfcat Chronicles.

I was a different kind of writer twenty years ago when I was working on my first manuscript. My processes and the quality of what I produce has changed, for the better, I think. My stories ramble less. They have coherent structure. The dialog is more realistic, which is always a challenge when you write fantasy. The characters have lives to which readers can relate. All of that was acquired through the processes of learning to write, something that one must teach to self.

A friend and fellow author told me that anyone can dream only to have it evaporate into the mist of morning wakefulness, but an author can capture a dream and give it physical substance. There is a lot of truth in that. And I’m reminded of it each time I hold one of my books. It takes weeks, months and sometimes years to compose a manuscript. It takes courage to send it in raw form to beta readers to test the viability of its story. More months pass in revisions based on feedback received and then several more months pass while the manuscript is edited. Dressing it up into a pretty cover and testing the nearly finished version of the story with advance readers who will hopefully offer some reviews is the next step in the publishing process. And then the book arrives, launched upon a largely unsuspecting world that, for the most part, does not read books anymore.

On the surface, writing professionally does not make sense. For nearly all of us who do it, it will never pay the bills. But there is satisfaction at the conclusion of each journey when you hold one of your dreams in your hands.