Sheila's Guests and Reviews

I've long loved to write and tell stories, but I've had a lot to learn, over the years, about how to write and tell stories. First there was that great head-teacher who made me choose between the pencil and microphone, thus teaching me to write. Then there was the brother who told me all fiction is lies, thus teaching me not to write. Then a friend suggested how wrong it was that people never go to the bathroom in children's novels. "Maybe they do in grown-up ones," she suggested. So I started to read the library  book under Mum's bed while I dusted her room. Nobody went to the bathroom there either. So I start to write "real" stories where every detail was told, and then I learned it's better to "show now tell," and then... Well, I learned, slowly. And people don't go to the bathroom much in my books, children's or adult's. After all, I don't tell how many breaths they take from morning to evening either. But how real...

I love to collect guide books from places that I visit. I like them to have a nice mix of pictures and writing, and I like to feel I've maybe had a guided tour, even when I haven't. But I don't often read guide books to places I haven't visited, unless a good friend is sharing their joy in a trip. I love to read fiction about fascinating characters, but I've never been so enthralled with biography. Real characters live such messy lives compared to those of fiction, their stories blurred by paths not taken, and their patterns and symbols jarring when too much is known. That said, I've read a few really great biographies, and one of them is first in today's list of book reviews... Except, it's also a history book, and a guide book, and more. So... if you've ever regretted the fact that you'll probably never see Krakow, or if you're planning a visit, or if you want to know the longer history of the world Pope John Paul II grew up in - the hi...

Strangers, on learning that I'm a published author, frequently ask, "What do you write, then?" They probably want me to answer with a nice simple genre - mysteries say - and I almost wish I could oblige. But instead I tell them I write novels and children's fiction, then elaborate, if they ask, with the fact that my second novel, Infinite Sum, has just been released, and that I have children's books with two different publishers. One children's series (with almost enough books now for a book-a-month club) is the Five-Minute Bible Story series, published by Cape Arago press. And the other is a series of animal stories from Linkville press, with only one book (Tails of Mystery) out so far. My tangled answer got me wondering, do we ask publishers what genre they publish? Technically we authors research our publishers, determine they have an interest in the sort of thing we write, and then submit. But what if the publisher's interests are as eclectic as our ...

Today I'm delighted to welcome author Dan O'Brien to my blog. His new book, first in a new series, is about to come out. It's called Sixth Prime and... well, it's sci-fi, mystery, galactic war, and... well, and something different, plus that interesting question, are you Prime? So, over to Dan, and thank you for visiting my blog. When I started writing  Sixth Prime , I decided early on to do something very deliberate: I would make half the main characters female; I would make sure the personalities better reflected the myriad of the human experience; and I would describe characters without using skin color or any physical identifiers. You might be wondering:  what exactly is the point of that? Women represent half the population .  I would be remiss if I ignored the statistics right in front of me. 82% of readers are female, so why wouldn't you include female characters when so many readers are women. I don't mean the traditional roles of queens and ...

R.J. Sullivan's Commanding the Red Lotus Blog Tour! June 27 to July 3, 2016 Today I'm delighted to welcome RJ Sullivan to my blog, author of the Red Lotus stories. The books are fascinating, of course. But RJ is here today to tell about those often-skipped, hugely important lines that come before the story... the novel's dedication. So... over to you RJ, and I for one am very much looking forward to what you will tell. Anatomy of a Dedication by R.J. Sullivan If other authors are like me, behind every dedication is its own story. Here is the story about the one in Commanding the Red Lotus . Understand as you read that I am reflecting back over thirty years and through rose-tinted glasses. I was also a kid, and as such, not privy to all the details of extended family politics. So I’ll start by saying this is the best that I can recall and I may have it wrong. The worst that may happen is, that after this is published, my cell phone will ring with...

When I was a kid, I used to help out with the cleaning at home. I discovered serious fiction by cleaning my big brother's room very slowly, wafting a duster and devouring pages of his "classics of modern fiction." Meanwhile I found a novel called "Oil" under my dad's side of his bed. Many years later I watched a movie and recognized the tale. And under Mum's side of the bed? That was where I found my first romantic fiction. Soon I realized books under Mum's bed were pretty much the same as Gran's magazines, except a book told the whole story while a magazine only offered a chapter a week. I liked Gran's magazines and would take whole collections to college with me, to read in my down time. I liked Mum's books too, but felt oddly guilty about reading of people falling in love. They were "safe" books of course - no long explicit details of stuff a daughter might not need to know. And they were comfortable in a way my brother...

When I was a kid, writing and telling stories and dreaming of being a famous author one day, my brother told me girls could only be author-ess-es. The word was too hard to say. I decided he was wrong. One day I showed him one of my written stories, instead of just telling my curious tale out loud. He wasn't impressed. He told me fiction is lying, and lying is sin. But fiction was so much a part of me, I had to believe my brother was wrong again. He's now a retired teacher of history and politics, belongs to a writing group, and occasionally pens some really intriguing fiction. Meanwhile I still weave my webs of lies, trying to let the story reveal the truth behind, and dreaming of being a famous author still - not an authoress! And I'm writing book reviews, so find a coffee, join me and choose your read. Where Love Illumines by Donna Fletcher Crow is a beautifully researched story of the early days of Methodism. My beloved Cambridge plays its part, and feels evocat...