Sheila's Guests and Reviews

Today I'm enjoying the joy of mysteries again with a guest post from another mystery writer,Stephanie Joyce Cole, whose novel of unexpected romance, personal reinvention, and mysterious suspense is set in Alaska. We visited Alaska a few years ago and loved it, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to ask the author: Why Alaska? So, over to you Stephanie, and thank you for visiting my blog: (Readers, don't miss the great bonus excerpt from Stephanie's novel, Compass North, below, plus a rafflecopter giveaway!):             There are many amazing places in this wonderful world, and Alaska is certainly one of them.   Alaska is enormous, as you know if you’ve ever seen the map of Alaska superimposed on a map of the United States.   Because it is so huge, there is no one typical place in Alaska.   Alaska can be found in the scenic fishing communities in the fjords along the Alaska Panhandle, in the compan...

I'm screaming... crying... flinging my hands in the air in abject despair, and I'm wondering if the computer would do the same if it could. But it's been a good week, seriously. Look at all those book reviews I posted, and note my frequent absence from Facebook and Twitter. I've been writing and editing and even beta-reading for a couple of friends. And today... Today was the day I was going to finally finish that last read-through of Infinite Sum, ready to send it back to the publisher. Today was going to be great! Except... My computer took 15 minutes to get from gray screen to blue, brought up an error message, took 15 more minutes from okay to black-screened unresponsiveness, produced a start button which I pressed in hopes of stopping, took 15 minutes to the next error message and even more to shut down... And then I began to wonder if my seriously good and wonderfully productive week was suddenly at risk. When I tried to switch the computer back on, it screa...

Printed books are cool! My husband can leave one by the bed and read it every night. When he finishes he can place it subtly on my night-stand, a reminder that he thinks I'll enjoy it too. How would he do that with an ebook? Printed books are easy to carry around, without being afraid I'll drop them or spill coffee on them. Of course, spilling coffee before my husband reads the book would not be recommended. Printed books feel comfortably un-technological in the hands. Oh dear. Am I showing my age? Anyway, I read four printed books last week, while answering phones (landlines and cell), looking up apartments on the internet, researching locations, following links, answering emails, and generally being excessively technological. So here are a few more reviews and coffee recommendations. Enjoy!   but first.... Rumor has it Nazareth Neighbors might be a printed book now too! Find it on Amazon, coming soon to Barnes and Noble, etc. My husband really enjoyed The ...

Our Texas son might be moving to Colorado soon, and our Utah son might move to Portland. In between, we'll offer help choosing apartments, assessing the beauty of views, and searching for furniture. We may even travel to see them too, put bookshelves together and books onto shelves, or offer food and drink. But for now most of our help is offered by internet and telephone, our conversations sprinkled with such strange questions as "Do you think that's a bathroom cabinet behind the next-picture arrow?" and "Is that a reflection of the living room in the side of the washing machine?" Would I even believe this dialog if I read it in a book? Anyway, long dialogs are my reason for being so late with these book reviews, and much coffee has been consumed. So choose your novel, and choose your brew! The End of the Line, By Jim Power , looks at society moving rather than people, in a sweet interracial romance that perhaps offers a chance at ending that line betwe...

Today I'm delighted to welcome author Gary Eddings to my blog. He's the authorof Hollow Point, a  mystery suspense for age 13 and up, where everyone on and off the Reservation might be suspect, and a dangerous drug is could claim more innocent victims while a killer goes free. Gary Eddings is one of four mystery authors touring the net with Juniper Grove this week, so don't forget to read the rest of this post and learn about more books, as well as entering a wonderful giveaway! Having long been hooked on Tony Hillerman's mysteries, and more recently on Montana and Dakota by Gwen Florio, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask Mr. Eddings: How do tribal issues influence the way you write? And here's his answer. Thank you so much Gary! Having had some Native American friends during my life, it occurred to   me that the whole issue of Native American culture in our country was lacking. The indigenous folks of course already knew this for years.   I wan...