Sheila's Guests and Reviews

My novels have mathematical titles - I even call them " mathemafiction " when I'm feeling whimsical. The titles have the advantage that there aren't many other novels sharing them, but that doesn't help people find theem on Amazon. You type one title, and Amazon helpfully guesses you really meant another. So my novel (Divide by Zero - the only one published yet) languishes behind Continental Divides and the Zeros of Dangerous Ideas - and then only if you specify you're looking for a book. Divide by Zero has the disadvantage, of course, that nobody knows what it means, but it's perfect for my book - a village divided under the infinite horror of a terrible crime. Would you pick it up? (Please do!) And will you read the companion novel Infinite Sum, where a middle-aged woman seeks escape from the sum of past trials? Perhaps you'd rather go for a novel with more fire in its title? I've just read two very different, fiery tales, and enjoyed them b...

A house burned down in our neighborhood last night. Flames were shooting into the air, as tall as the highest trees. From the corner of the road a satin ribbon glowed orange and yellow and bright, hiding where the side and the roof of the house should have been. Alarms were beeping (in neighbor's homes I expect). Friends were rushing with garden hoses to dampen the undergrowth, to maybe protect what wasn't yet destroyed. And the air around us roared. I stood on the corner with other neighbors who lived a few streets over. We saw the fire engines arrive, first one, then another. We wondered in fear, in a drought, how many homes might be lost with the flames shooting so hot and so high. (It was raining, though not enough to feel like it was making any difference.) Then suddenly water was gushing in an endless stream and the fire died down to crackling, flickering lights. I was amazed and delighted at how quickly the firemen got there; amazed again at how fast they made a differen...