Introducing Laurence St. John: YA Author!

            Terror on the East Coast - Two Million Dead!

    TOLEDO, OHIO, March 15, 2018 – Yesterday, more than two million people were killed, including the President of the United States.
    The death toll is the worst in the history of America and the world.
    This tragic day will be known forevermore as “The Day of Annihilation.”
    The CIA has the sole person responsible for the killing of millions and millions of innocent people in custody.
    His name is Tyler Thompson –  a moral person turned evil. The question foremost on everyone’s mind is, why did he orchestrate this horrific act of terror and how did he pull it off?

 This headline is fake news – or is it?

    In his new release, METATRON: DAGGER OF MORTALITY, science fiction/fantasy author Laurence St. John creates an uplifting and inspiring fiction novel that “sustains constant action as 15-year-old Tyler struggles to stop the relentless animosity of a demonic figure and his accomplice! Sometimes you need to go backwards to move forward,” said Piers Anthony, New York Times bestselling fantasy Author of the Xanth series.

    St. John, who hails from just south of Toledo, Ohio, quickly grabs the reader’s attention then poses the ultimate question: Can superheroes really be killed?

    Who is this Black Shadow character and who does he want to get revenge from?

    Tyler must execute the most grueling choice of his life – save himself, save his beloved girlfriend Kendall or save millions of helpless people and hinder Kelltie’s plan.
    In this, his highly anticipated third action-adventure, St. John keeps readers turning the pages up to the last adrenaline-filled moment when Tyler’s fate is determined.
    The story is set in New York, Nevada, and Massachusetts, where the action-packed adventure opens your mind’s eye, conveying the sensation that you’re watching a movie.
    Metatron: Dagger of Mortality is a novel made for the silver screen ― action-packed, emotional and a gripping story that will leave you wanting more.

From the back cover:

    Tyler believes a Superhero’s responsibility is to make the right decision then follow it through to the end. But, what if the outcome results in his death?
      Fourteen-year-old Tyler Thompson has been in isolation for eight months so he could focus on completing his superhero training. Not even one day after his completion, Master Pat Tanaka urgently summoned Tyler. Pat desperately needs his help, but for what?
    Kelltie is threatening Tyler’s destiny of being a superhero by framing him for what will be the largest mass killings in American history and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. She also teams up with Black Shadow, a ruthless demonic figure with his own agenda — to use the Dagger of Mortality and kill Metatron.
    Tyler feeling vulnerable gets inspiration one last time from Master Tanaka’s instructor Master Dogmai. Nevertheless, with the Dagger of Mortality in hand, it’s time for Black Shadow to get his revenge. Tyler must render the most arduous choice of his life. He’ll save himself, save his beloved girlfriend Kendall or save millions of helpless people and hinder Kelltie’s plan.

Can superheroes really die? What choice does Tyler make?

Reviews:

“Metatron – Dagger of Mortality, by Laurence St. John sustains constant action as 15-year-old Tyler struggles to stop the relentless animosity of a demonic figure and his accomplice! Sometimes you need to go backwards to move forward…”- Piers Anthony, New York Times bestselling fantasy Author of the Xanth Series

“Laurence St. John turns up the heat with Metatron – Dagger of Mortality. This book continues the story of Tyler Thompson and his journey of discover as he masters his powers in preparation of a new evil threat. A can’t miss read for middle-grade readers and young adults!”
Braxton A. Cosby - Author of the award-winning Star-Crossed Saga Series

“Dagger of Mortality’ packs a wallop! St. John blends equal parts superhero and X-Files into a high energy yarn sure to inspire.”
Jason Born – Author of The Norseman Chronicles Series

“Teens and adults alike will identify with Tyler and his all too human angst as he executes superhero feats in a way only St. John’s hero can accomplish, with many twists and surprising turns of events in this young adult thriller.”
Kenna McKinnon – Author of Short Circuit: And Other Geek Stories, Blood Sister, and Den of Dark Angels

* * * *

Metatron: Dagger of Mortality was published by Ogopogo Book an Imprint of Imajin Books and is available in eBook edition at Amazon, Google Play and Kobo. Order your copy today.

It is also available in trade paperback edition at Amazon, Books-A-Million, and Barnes & Noble, as well as other retailers.

Buy here:
Amazon – http://getbook.at/DaggerofMortality

* * * *
Laurence St. John is currently working on book four and five in the Metatron Series.

Laurence is also available for interviews/guest appearances.
For book sign dates please see his Facebook page.

For more information please visit:        http://www.laurencestjohn.com

Follow Laurence on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/laurencestjohn

“Friend Request” Laurence on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laurenceastjohn

Imajin Books: http://www.imajinbooks.com

Laurence is a 1983 graduate of Genoa High School, a 1988 Black Belt recipient in Tae Kwon Do and a 2004 graduate of Owens State Community College.

Special Guest Judy Penz Sheluk, has Skeletons in the Attic!

I'm very pleased to host Judy Penz Sheluk, author and Sister and Crime Writers of Canada colleague.  For everyone, this blog will be a fabulous insight into how an idea grows into a book. For those of you who haven't read Judy's books/short stories, this will also serve as a great introduction.

- Cathy

Judy Penz Sheluk: Skeletons in the Attic 

Leith Hampton placed the will in front of him, smoothing an invisible crease with a well-manicured hand, the nails showing evidence of a vigorous buffing. I wondered what kind of man went in for a mani-pedi—I was surmising on the pedi—and decided it was the kind of man who billed his services out for five hundred dollars an hour.

He cleared his throat and stared at me with those intense blue eyes. “Are you sure you’re ready, Calamity? I know how close you were to your father.”

I flinched at the Calamity. Folks called me Callie or they didn’t call me at all. Only my dad had been allowed to call me Calamity, and even then only when he was seriously annoyed with me, and never in public. It was a deal we’d made back in elementary school. Kids can be cruel enough without the added incentive of a name like Calamity.

As for being ready, I’d been ready for the past ninety-plus minutes. I’d been ready since I first got the call telling me my father had been involved in an unfortunate occupational accident. That’s how the detached voice on the other end of the phone had put it. An unfortunate occupational accident.

I knew at some point I’d have to face the fact that my dad wasn’t coming back, that we’d never again argue over politics or share a laugh while watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Knew that one day I’d sit down and have a good long cry, but right now wasn’t the time, and this certainly wasn’t the place. I’d long ago learned to store my feelings into carefully constructed compartments. I leveled Leith with a dry-eyed stare and nodded.

“I’m ready.”

What would eventually become Skeletons in the Attic started life at the food court in the Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. I was sitting with my friends, Larry and Charlotte, having lunch and catching up on life in general. Inevitably, the conversation turned to writing.

Charlotte and I had met at a creative writing workshop a decade ago, and Larry is a retired criminal prosecutor working on his first novel, a legal thriller set in the 1950s. The conversation went something like this:

“I’ve been thinking about starting a new series.”

“Why not write the sequel to The Hanged Man’s Noose?” Larry asked. Larry’s always the practical one.

Because I hadn’t found a publisher yet. Because I couldn’t bear to write a second book when the first one in the series hadn’t sold. Because if I didn’t start writing another book, maybe I never would, and that scared me more than I was willing to admit.

“I thought I’d try something different. Write this book in first person, from the protagonist’s point of view.” [For those of you who haven’t read it, The Hanged Man’s Noose is written in third person with multiple (though primarily two) POVs.]

“Do you have a title yet?” Charlotte, this time.

“No, but I’m thinking of calling my protagonist Calamity Barnstable. Callie for short.”

Charlotte frowned. “I like Calamity and Callie. I don’t think I like Barnstable. Makes me think of a barn and a stable. Maybe Barnes would be better.”

“Maybe,” I said, although I knew it was already too late.

Calamity (Callie) Barnstable had just started living inside my head. She’d be thirty-six, the only child of two only children. Her father had raised her, because her mom had walked out on them thirty years before. She had black-rimmed hazel eyes and a virtually uncontrollable mass of curly brown hair. And she was single, having inherited the Barnstable loser radar when it came to relationships.

I had dated a guy one summer, a triathlete with a fantastic body but not much else to offer. We’d spent more than a few days at that beach while he practiced open water swimming and I admired his form. Unfortunately, I discovered the only thing he was faithful to was training.

“What’s the premise?” Larry asked, interrupting the work-in-progress going on inside my head.

“Her father dies in an at-work accident and leaves Callie everything.” I explain the backstory about her mom leaving.

“Is the father’s death suspicious?” Larry again.

“Hmmm. That’s a good question. I’m not sure yet. The premise is that Callie inherits a house she didn’t know existed, under a very interesting condition.”

“Which is?” Both of them, now. I lean back and smile. I’ve piqued their interest.

“She has to move into the house and find out who murdered her mother.”

“I thought you said her mother left Callie and her father,” Larry said. Did I mention he was a retired prosecuting attorney? Nothing slips by Larry.

“That’s just what Callie’s been told. I still have to flesh out the details.”

“It sounds interesting,” Charlotte said, always the peacemaker. “Where does the story take place?”

“In Marketville. It’s a fictional commuter town about an hour north of Toronto.”

“Marketville, eh?” Larry grinned. “Sounds a lot like Newmarket.”

“Doesn’t it just?”

Judy Penz Sheluk’s debut mystery, The Hanged Man’s Noose was published in July 2015 by Barking Rain Press.

Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in her Marketville Mystery Series, was published by Imajin Books in August 2016. 

Judy’s short crime fiction appears in World Enough and Crime, The Whole She-Bang 2, Flash and Bang and Live Free or Tri.

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She lives in Alliston, Ontario, with her husband, Mike, and their Golden Retriever, Gibbs. Find her at www.judypenzsheluk.com, where she interviews other authors and blogs about the writing life.

Skeletons in the Attic will be released on August 21st in trade paperback and Kindle formats. It is now available for pre-order on Kindle for the special introductory price of .99 (regular $4.99) Find it here: http://getbook.at/SkeletonsintheAttic



Connect with Judy here:
http://www.judypenzsheluk.com/
and here:
https://www.facebook.com/JudyPenzSheluk

Do You Have Cyber Pals?

Yesterday I talked about the friendships that develop when authors meet and share a great deal in common, their writing front and center. These days, you can also have cyber pals. Wiktionary says these are people with whom you "communicate only through the Internet or cyberspace."

Two of my cyber pals are authors Kat Flannery and Luke Murphy. I "met" them because they are also Imajin Authors.

Cyber sociologist Judy Hempel says, "I have met and become friendly with a great number of people I would otherwise have no contact with: people all other the world, people from different cultures and backgrounds, and people with similar interests and/or experiences. Most of these relationships are casual and intermittent but there are a few individuals I would mourn losing touch with. They have become my friends."

That's what has happened with Kat and Luke. We have communicated, of course, about our shared passion of writing. But we've also communicated about other things: our lives outside the writing, our hopes and wishes and dreams, our tragedies and our glories.

Kat and Luke have freebies on until tomorrow as well. Get hooked on their series! Once again, in the tradition of books from Imajin: smart, sassy, entertaining yet challenging, exciting plots and interesting characters, Kat Flannery and Luke Murphy have it all. 

Kat Flannery

http://getbook.at/ChasingClovers
 

With over 100 reviews on Amazon, CHASING CLOVERS

is the perfect mix of sweet romance and Wild West adventure!

“A truly wonderful western that will break your heart at times and lift your spirit at others. A must read for all.”

Longing to escape the awful memories and the saloon she once sang in, Livy Green lies about her past so she can be a wife to John Taylor and mother to his two young children. Overwhelmed by the task, she struggles to put her resentment aside and love them as her own.

John loved his first wife and is still heartbroken over the loss, but he needs a mother for his children. When his distant and unfriendly mail order bride arrives, he begins to doubt his decision, though one glance into Livy's terrified green eyes tells him he can’t turn his back on her.

As Livy's past catches up with her and suspicious accidents begin to happen on the ranch, she is tempted to come clean and tell John the truth. But will he send her back if she does? Or will they forever be CHASING CLOVERS?

Author Bio:

Kat Flannery’s love of history shows in her novels. She is an avid reader of historical, suspense, paranormal, and romance. She has her Certificate in Freelance and Business Writing. A member of many writing groups, Kat enjoys promoting other authors on her blog. She’s been published in numerous periodicals throughout her career. 

Her debut novel CHASING CLOVERS has been an Amazon bestseller many times. LAKOTA HONOR and BLOOD CURSE (Branded Trilogy) are Kat’s two award-winning novels and HAZARDOUS UNIONS is Kat’s first novella. Kat is currently hard at work on her next book.

Luke Murphy

http://ow.ly/Y94KB

What happens when the deck is stacked against you…

From NFL rising-star prospect to wanted fugitive, Calvin Watters is a sadistic African-American Las Vegas debt-collector framed by a murderer who, like the Vegas Police, finds him to be the perfect fall-guy.

…and the cards don't fall your way?

When the brutal slaying of a prominent casino owner is followed by the murder of a well-known bookie, Detective Dale Dayton is thrown into the middle of a highly political case and leads the largest homicide investigation in Vegas in the last twelve years.

What if you're dealt a Dead Man's Hand?

Against his superiors and better judgment, Dayton is willing to give Calvin one last chance. To redeem himself, Calvin must prove his innocence by finding the real killer, while avoiding the LVMPD, as well as protect the woman he loves from a professional assassin hired to silence them.

How it Feels to Complete a Trilogy by Jesse Giles Christiansen

Jesse is one of those people who has become a friend even though we have never met face to face. But we have shared, discussed, debated, and supported one another through our writing journeys. You'll also see why I love his lyrical, poetic style. If you haven't started Jesse's trilogy, check out Imajin Book's big Christmas sale and get them all (one way or the other: on sale or perhaps as a prize!). www.imajinbooks.com

I am born, I live, and I die.

I am born as a Sea Eagle, beautiful and bold yet shy to face a new, white, blinding world. I live in a universe that my readers and I have created, a place where memories become as real as our own, a destination we can always visit upon a wink like a dear hometown. I die as the loops loop themselves, as the t’s cross and remember, and as the dots above the i’s lighthouse a literary frontier.

I may never write another trilogy again, because my writer’s life became a beautiful prisoner to a manufactured world that has not moved the real world enough. Please don’t misconstrue me, I have the most complete faith in my work, but if I’ve learned anything as an author, it is that the retail reality of books is composed of lines of readers waiting along a blinking thoroughfare of restaurants. And all too often the dining rooms of the most innovative chefs are forlornly deserted simply because the other restaurants had lines and theirs did not.

As authors, perhaps we start at the wrong end. Trilogies, if ever written, should come of great stories chained together, and only when the starry-eyed, dog-eared writer has won a long line of bookish followers, should they come to fruition.

I am a literary chef, standing in front of his restaurant with the few tattered tables populated by wide-eyed diners smiling eagerly at passersby, beckoning to them to leave the lines of the conformists. I am holding a platter up high that hurls the most fantastic, unique fumes at you, cuisine to which I’ve dedicated my entire life to creating. And the sign above my little restaurant reads, TIRED OF THE SAME OLD NOVELS?

Yours in literature,

J.G.C.

Beware of what the tide may bring…

Ethan Hodges is deeply unsettled when thousands of decomposed starfish inexplicably wash up along the shore of Pelican Bay. As the ominous sea epidemic spreads to other marine life, he continues to see a suspicious-looking man loitering on the beach.

To solve the mystery, Ethan seeks help from longtime friend, Sheriff Dansby, and Reagan Langsley, a beautiful marine biologist from Lighthouse Point. Spurred by curiosity and jealousy, Ethan’s estranged wife, Morgan, joins them in the investigation.

When the elusive outsider is finally arrested, an enigmatic relationship develops between Ethan and the man. With cautious prodding, Ethan learns that the fate of the world appears to rest in the hands of the tall stranger named…Mr. DM.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Revenge-Captain-Shelby-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B017Y41K4Y/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/m88VaeFPmo0

All About Jesse

 

#1 bestselling author in sea adventures, Jesse Giles Christiansen is an American author whose page-turning fiction weaves the real with the surreal, while also speaking to the human condition. He was hailed by New York Times bestselling author, William R. Forstchen, as "leaving readers so tantalized by the story lines, they think the events actually happened—a demonstration of skill surely to launch this author into the big leagues."

Jesse was born in Miami, FL, playing on beaches as a boy, the sky bronzing him forever and the sea turning his heart lyrical. After spending a summer in Alaska before graduating from Florida State University with a degree in literature and philosophy, he wrote his first novel, Journey into the Mystic.

He feels he is haunted by Hemingway's ghost, not just by the poster in his writing studio that stares at him, saying, "What else you got?" but also by having a café called Hemingway's in the small European city where he writes. Finally, Hemingway became his neighbor on Amazon when his novel, Pelican Bay, outsold Old Man and the Sea.

He currently lives in Lüneburg, Germany, with his wife and their precocious White Siamese cat.

To learn more about Jesse, visit him at www.jessegileschristiansen.com.

Blog: www.jgchristiansen.wordpress.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/JesseGilesChris

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jesse.gileschristiansen.7

Alison Bruce is Back!

 This is my friend Ali and me. This looks like us too.

Alison Bruce and I met through Crime Writers of Canada a few years ago and immediately became friends. That's the way I remember it, anyway.

Her "Deadly Legacy" character, Kate Garrett, is one of my favourite heroines, kick-ass but down-to-earth realistic female who lives slightly in the future.

Now she's back in Deadly Legacy

The Interview

Me: Tell us what this book is about.
Ali: It’s about 111 pages long… Sorry I couldn’t resist.
(You're so funny, Ali. - Me)
In Deadly Legacy Kate lost her father. Now she’s dealing with the fallout. She’s accepted her first case as a private investigator and is looking for a cat killer. At the office, she has to walk on eggs around her new business partner. In her off-time, she is packing up her father’s apartment where she comes across his last case as a police detective. Life is an emotional mine field and yet, Kate manages to solve her current case and a decade old one in the same neighbourhood.

Me: If you could only use one word to describe this book, what would it be?
Ali: Whodunit.

Me: What do you do for fun?
Ali: Reading and writing are both fun and professional activities. Just for fun? I draw cartoon versions of people… like the one of me and you.
(And I LOVE it! - Me)

Me: How would you describe your writing style?
Ali: Funny but not comedy. Adventurous but not super heroic.  Romantic but not sappy. I aspire to write like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance. They make it look easy, but it’s not.

Me: When you begin to write your books, do you know how it ends or is it decided by the actual process of writing?
Ali: I always know how my books are going to start and end. I almost always end up starting at a different point than I intended and end up somewhere slightly different than I planned.

Me: What is your favorite thing about writing?
Ali: Everything when it flows. Nothing when it doesn’t.

Me: If we were to meet for lunch and talk books, where would we go (money is no object)?
Ali: Let’s do Paris. There is (or was) a lovely trattoria on Boulevard Saint Germain in the Latin Quarter. There’s an English book store in the same block. That way, we have a place to shop afterwards. If the weather is nice, we can sit outside and watch the students and tourists go by.

Me: How has your upbringing influenced your writing?
Ali: My parents read…a lot. My mother had a huge collection of mystery novels. I grew up with Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers and that’s just scratching the surface.
My father, on the other hand, loved westerns and thrillers. So I also read Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, Jack Higgins and Alistair MacLean. He also introduced me to Stephen Leacock Award winners Donald Jack and Farley Mowatt (also to Stephen Leacock for that matter).
I don’t think I appreciated how much these authors influenced me until recently.  But maybe the biggest influence was all the travelling we did when I was young. I devoured books in hotel rooms and nights in our ugly family camper, but I couldn’t read in a moving vehicle. Instead, I made up stories in my head. Sometimes my sister and I would play act them, but mostly I had a head stuffed with plots and characters.

Me: How important do you think villains are to a crime story?
Ali: “Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.”
Robert Heinlein said that in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long. I try to keep that in mind at all times… not just when I’m writing. I do my best not to write villains, only enemies. That being said, “A hero is only as good as his villain.”

Me: If you could be anyone else in the world (living), who would you be?
Ali: That’s tough. If I was anyone else, I wouldn’t have my kids, my family and friends. That wouldn’t do at all. In another universe, there is an Alison Bruce that didn’t chicken out of submitting her work when she was in her twenties. If other parts of her life worked out close enough for me still to have Kit and Sam as my kids, I’d be her.

DEADLY SEASON
An Imajin Qwickies™ Mystery/Crime Novella  
A Carmedy & Garrett Mini-Mystery #1
By Alison Bruce
Imajin Books
November 2015

Last month Kate Garrett was a Police Detective. Now she’s a Pet P.I.?

Kate recently inherited half her father’s private investigation company and a partner who is as irritating as he is attractive. Kate has been avoiding Jake Carmedy for years, but now her life might depend on him.

Kate and Jake are on the hunt for a serial cat killer who has mysterious connections to her father’s last police case. Kate’s father had been forced to retire when he was shot investigating a domestic disturbance. Is the shooter back for revenge? And is Kate or Jake next?


Available at:
www.amazon.com/Deadly-Season-Carmedy-Garrett-Mini-Mystery-book/dp/B017AFRN02
store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/deadly-season
play.google.com/store/books/details/Alison_Bruce_Deadly_Season?id=SzvSCgAAQBAJ
www.smashwords.com/books/view/588711

Alison Bruce has had many careers and writing has always been one of them. Copywriter, editor and graphic designer since 1992, Alison has also been a comic store manager, small press publisher, webmaster and arithmetically challenged bookkeeper. She is the author of mystery, romantic suspense and historical western romance novels. Three of her novels have been finalists for genre awards.



http://www.alisonbruce.ca 
(author and business website)
https://www.facebook.com/alisonbruce.books 
(author page)
http://alisonebruce.blogspot.ca 
(author blog)
https://twitter.com/alisonebruce 

On Fire! Kristina Stanley on Researching Arson

Thank you, Catherine, for hosting me.

Are you kidding? Thank you for being here! I am always happy to host a hot writer.

Pardon?

I mean, a writer who's hot. You know, popular.

Oh. Okay.

Also, it was a little play on words...you know, your research on fire...hot...right?

Oh, I see. You're funny.

Is that funny ha ha or funny strange...?

Kristina actually only said that first sentence. The rest I made up. Surprise! Seriously, I am THRILLED to have Kristina Stanley do a return post on research for her second novel. The scenarios are so different, from snow and cold to fire and heat. Her first novel was terrific! I'm looking forward to reading the second.

She also gives a little teaser for her third novel and by the sounds of it, we'll all want to hear about THAT research too!

 Now, here's the real Kristina Stanley.

 

Every novel has a unique subject, giving an author an opportunity to research and learn about something new. I write the Stone Mountain Mystery series that takes place in the remote mountains of British Columbia.

For DESCENT (1^st in the series), the majority of my research focused on ski racing and ski tuning. For BLAZE (2^nd in the series), arson is the crime, so fire fighting was the research topic.

The idea for BLAZE came to me while I was the director of security at a ski resort. Late one night, my phone rang. A set of condos was on fire. My role for the night was to manage the scene surrounding the fire. This included calling for ambulance and RCMP backup, finding rooms for guests who had been displaced, arranging crowd control, and ensuring the firefighters had food and water during the night. The firefighters did all the hard work and saved many condos from burning to the ground.

By morning, I had an idea for a story and had just been given first hand research.

By being on the site of a major fire, my senses and thoughts were filled with:

-       Smell and sounds. Alarms, floors crashing, commands being shouted, burning debris…

-       Water, water everywhere. This is where I learned how much water damage occurs while trying to put out a fire.

-       Fear of people being hurt. I knew many of the firefighters personally, and watching them inside a burning building is stressful.

-       Worry about pets. Luckily no pets were hurt.

-       Desperation of a person whose home is burning.  Standing beside some who is losing their home fills one with a variety of emotions.

These senses and emotions were incorporated into BLAZE. The trick was to turn the experience into a story. With my imagination triggered, I decided arson was the crime, Kalin Thompson was the suspected victim, and I needed to add a forest fire to heighten the danger.

The next step in the research process was to interview firefighters.

-       This was more valuable than reading about events. A firefighter can tell you what they would wear for different fires. I learned about gear for a forest fire versus a structural fire, what a man-down alarm sounds like, and what a firefighter would think and feel while working in a burning building.

After the interviews, I expanded my knowledge with online research.

-       I read news about fires.

-       I watched videos – there is always a video. A little aside about researching for my novel AVALANCHE, if you want to scare yourself google “what does it feel like to be caught in an avalanche," watch one of the go pro videos of a person being buried. I did this and had to go for a walk just to calm down. Now that’s exciting research.

The final step in my research process was to have a firefighter read the fire scenes for accuracy and believability. My thought was if a firefighter believed the scene, then others would too.

Research can be an exciting part of the novel-writing adventure. Just be sure you don’t get so involved in the research that you forget to write.

My Facebook launch party for BLAZE (https://www.facebook.com/events/1630121803934943/) is this coming Sunday, October 25th from 4 to 6 PM EST. I would love to see you there.

For added Facebook excitement, Catherine will be giving away a copy of LEGACY at the BLAZE Facebook launch party. If you’re not familiar with a launch party, drop on by and chat with authors, maybe win a book, and socialize online. I’ve met some fun online friends this way.

Kristina’s Bio

Kristina Stanley is the author of the Stone Mountain Mystery Series. Her books have garnered the attention of prestigious crime writing organizations in Canada and England. Crime Writers of Canada nominated DESCENT for the Unhanged Arthur award. The Crime Writers’ Association nominated BLAZE for the Debut Dagger. She is published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

Before writing her series, Kristina was the director of security, human resources and guest services at a resort in the depths of the British Columbian mountains. The job and lifestyle captured her heart, and she decided to write mysteries about life in an isolated resort. While writing the first four novels, she spent five years living aboard a sailboat in the US and the Bahamas.

Instead of exchanging vows, Kalin Thompson spends her wedding day running from a forest fire near Stone Mountain Resort, and the pregnant friend trapped with her has just gone into labor. Meanwhile, Kalin’s fiancé, Ben Timlin, hangs from the rafters of a burning building, fighting for his life. Can the situation get any hotter?

When the fire is declared as arson, finding the firebug responsible becomes Kalin’s personal mission. In the course of her investigation as Director of Security, she discovers that some people will go to extreme measures to keep her from exposing their secrets.

I love to connect with people online. I can be found at: www.KristinaStanley.com

Follow me on twitter, let me know you read this blog and I’ll follow you back. @StanleyKMS

Or comment on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KristinaStanley.Author

If you're looking for something to read and you haven’t read DESCENT yet, now is your chance before BLAZE comes out. Find it at:  http://mybook.to/Descent

And if you have read DESCENT, I’d be very excited if you pre-ordered BLAZE http://myBook.to/BLAZEbyKristinaStanley

Research Part 2: Guest Author Kristina Stanley

 

Kristina Stanley's debut novel, Descent, was an instant bestseller and continues to garner rave reviews.  She's a fellow Imajin Books author and a great addition to our Imajination team with her enthusiasm, inspiration and support. I'm thrilled to have her here as a guest to talk about research, my pet topic this summer.


Catherine has asked me to talk about researching my novel DESCENT, so let’s talk research.

We’ve all heard the saying write what you know. Well, I think it should be write what you love. If you’re not interested in something, and I mean deeply interested, how can you spend endless hours researching and writing your novel?

In order of fun and importance, my methods of research are:

• Life experience
• Interviewing experts
• Online research

Being the director of security in an isolated ski resort inspired me to write the Stone Mountain Mystery series. I lived the life for almost six years and paid attention to what happened around me. I wrote the first in the series, DESCENT, after I moved from the ski resort to a sailboat in the Bahamas.

In DESCENT, there is skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, night hikes, employee terminations, medical emergencies and interactions with RCMP. Due to my job and my lifestyle, I’ve participated in all these things. This provided the basis of facts. Then comes the imagination. One dead ski racer, many suspects: all the more believable because the underlying story is believable.

When using real life experience, I was careful not to write about actual events or people. The trick is to use an event to spark the imagination, turn it into something evil or dangerous, exaggerate it, expand it, and go from there.

Now here’s an important research tip. Keep in touch with all you work or play with. This group of people will become your experts. After I left the resort I interviewed ski technicians, RCMP constables, snowmakers, lift operators and security officers.  When I needed details, these people were there for me. I found most were happy to contribute to the process of writing a novel. In return, they get mentioned in the acknowledgement section of DESCENT.

Online research is my last resort. For DESCENT, I used the Internet to ensure I used the right language for a skier aiming to be part of the Alpine Canada ski adventure.

So why not descend into fiction and order a copy of DESCENT at amazon.com, amazon.ca or the amazon hosted in your country? To entice you, here is what DESCENT is about:

http://www.amazon.ca/Descent-Stone-Mountain-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B01053N6CA

When Kalin Thompson is promoted to Director of Security at Stone Mountain Resort, she soon becomes entangled in the high-profile murder investigation of an up-and-coming Olympic-caliber skier. There are more suspects with motives than there are gates on the super-G course, and danger mounts with every turn.

Kalin’s boss orders her to investigate. Her boyfriend wants her to stay safe and let the cops do their job. Torn between loyalty to friends and professional duty, Kalin must look within her isolated community to unearth the killer’s identity.

BLAZE (to be release this fall by www.ImajinBooks.com) is the second in the Stone Mountain Mystery series and is a tale about arson, betrayal and revenge. Heading up security was again a great asset. The security team was tightly linked to the fire department, and you guessed it, the firefighters were an awesome group to interview. A first person account of what it’s like to walk through a burning building is terrifying but makes for a good story.

The third in the series, AVALANCHE, has Kalin Thompson searching for a thief, struggling to prove her brother is innocent of a major theft. Unfortunately for Kalin, her brother disappears in an avalanche hours after the theft and is the prime suspect.

REQUEST FOR READER ASSISTANCE: I’m writing the fourth in the Stone Mountain Mystery series. A business partner of Kalin’s is murdered while driving his ATV on a mountain trail. He’s forced into a frothing river… My problem with the fourth novel is I have to stop calling it “the fourth.” I need a title. If you have any suggestions for a title that fits with DESCENT, BLAZE and AVALANCHE, please leave a comment below.

You can find out more about me at www.KristinaStanley.com. I’d love to hear from you so drop by and leave a comment or connect with me @StanleyKMS. Follow me and I follow back.

Thank you, Catherine, for hosting me. It’s a pleasure to share your blog with you.

Research Part 2, Subsection B: Guest Authors Mel Bradshaw and Eileen Schuh

 From Mel Bradshaw, Canadian Author: On research

Check out Mel's historical crime books right here:

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http://booksofmelbradshaw.ca/

Looking for stuff on the Internet is so fast and easy and while, yes, there can be unreliable, irresponsible claims out there, sometimes you're sure you're getting the real goods. Example, I was able to download (for free) a facsimile of A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR THE USE OF CORONERS HOLDING INQUESTS IN ONTARIO, published in 1911.

But, having the good fortune to live in the location where my 1920s novels are set, I can also go out and supplement Google Images with my own photographs of old buildings. Example, the chapel of Toronto's old Central Prison still stands in the middle of Liberty Village. My snapshots are helping me put this relic into my new book.

And of course good libraries still have a place. The current criminal code is available in a flash on the Internet. But how about the criminal code for 1927, when sentences still included so many lashes as well as prison time? Found what I was looking for in the stacks of Robarts Library at the University of Toronto.

From Eileen Schuh, Canadian Author: On Research

Check out Eileen's adult and YA novels here:
http://www.eileenschuh.com/

I wrote my BackTracker novels before researching anything, believing I was channeling my characters' true experiences in the biker gang world of drugs and violence and the dangerous counter-world of law enforcement. When it came time to publish the stories, beta readers and editors alike rather adamantly suggested I first ought to confirm the truth of what my likeable but not-all-that-credible characters were telling me. So...I became a volunteer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. How's that for dedication to my writing career (ha ha)?

The most enjoyable aspect of my volunteer work is the training provided. I've attended sessions on the illicit drug trade, gangs, juveniles, forensics, counterfeiting, firearms, accident investigation, preserving a crime scene, drones, the canine unit...and the list goes on.

Aside from hard-core learning, my volunteering has also 
helped me put faces and emotions to those in uniform, taught me the lingo and police protocol, and got my heart racing at times!

P.S. Even though it turns out my BackTracker characters dictated a pretty accurate description of their exciting lifestyles, I'd not give up my volunteering experiences for anything!

From Me:

Imajin Books is holding its summer sizzle sales & contests right now! Dive in - win - read great books for great prices (including all my books).  

www.imajinbooks.com

Look for the next research blog soon - plus more guest authors. 

A Creative Scrutiny of Research Part One: You ask, "Why?"

As the author of six books and several short stories (eight books if pre-published counts), I have indulged in a lot of research. I use the word indulge on purpose, because most of the time, it’s fun.

Wikipedia states that research (look again? look differently? – see how I get carried away?) is defined as "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications.”

I love that whoever wrote this Wiki page described research as creative. For an author, the inventive part comes when we synthesize the knowledge into something completely unique, a new character, a fantastical society, or an ingenious philosophy.

Why would a fiction author do research, you ask? For me personally, there are a couple of reasons (at least) and I believe most of my author colleagues would agree with them. 

First, a novel must have credibility.

Yes, even if you are writing about a completely fictional town. For my Emily Taylor Mystery series, my imaginary village of Burchill, situated in the middle of Ontario, couldn’t  sport palm trees. The setting, even in a fantasy novel, needs to have some familiarity for the reader or we’ll get completely lost. In a mystery novel, the setting must be pretty real. Burchill is based on Merrickville, Ontario, so I visited, used maps, looked up the geography and topography.

In a mystery, the plot is extremely important. The Emily Taylor Mysteries taught me, often the hard and embarrassing way, that a plot idea often leads to a myriad of investigations. My novels aren’t police procedurals, but they do have policing in them. I learned from some of my endorsers (e.g. author Vicki Delany) that I had to be more accurate.

In The Bridgeman, my main character was the operator of the lift bridge. I knew nothing about that – enter, research! Not to mention puppy mills (heartbreaking knowledge to have), policing of small towns, and First Nation territories. 

For Victim, I ended up having to learn about forests, caves, rescue operations, vegetation and First Nation philosophy.

With Legacy, I expanded into child protection services, hypnosis, oxygen deprivation, post-partum depression, fires, provincial courts and churches.

For Seventh Fire, wrongful convictions took up most of my fact-finding time. 

Sweet Karoline involved history, pow-wows, policing in the US and Canada, and even more thoroughly, psychosis.

See how one little plot points feeds the research machine? And the author simply must do it – otherwise, your readers will pounce on you and refuse to buy the next one.

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: an [author] will turn over half a library to write one book,” said Samuel Johnson, an English author in the 1700’s.

Do fiction authors have to be completely accurate? Well, no. We are writing a story, after all, one that’s not true. However, we must find the balance between reality and imagination to be believable.

Mark Twain famously said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” This quote has often been translated into “the facts” rather than the truth, but I suppose it means pretty much the same thing. I somewhat adhere to this philosophy. I gather the information, then sometimes bend or twist it to fit my purposes.

As Stephen King said, “You may be entranced with what you’re learning about the flesh-eating bacteria, the sewer system of New York, or the I.Q. potential of collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.”

That’s often what I’m betting on when I brush a bit too quickly across the truth or leave out some minutiae.

The second reason for doing research is a big more esoteric. As Robert McKee, the creative writing instructor known for “Story Seminar” has said: “Do research. Feed your talent. Research…wins the war on cliché.”

 

Historical research for Sweet Karoline led me to residential schools where Canadian First Nations children were confined. Although these facts didn’t fit that book’s plot, I used the knowledge for The Three R’s, my story in the anthology Thirteen. 

 Currently, I continue to read everything I can about the schools. I live in Brantford, Ontario, where the Mohawk Institute sits – the model for all the other residences in our country. Ironically, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has just begun to make many of my fellow Canadians aware of this shameful past. Some day, I believe a novel on this topic is destined to burst forth from my fingertips.

Celia Green, a British non-fiction author, said, “The way to do research is to attack the facts at the greatest point of astonishment.”

I like that. Including some of the most poignant, interesting or vital facts can make the story more vibrant, realistic and distinctive.

 “Research is one thing: passion,” said poet Khalid Masood. Very poetic and, I think, true.

Next Time: A Creative Scrutiny of Research Part Two Subsection A: The Author Asks How to Research?

To find all my books and short stories, visit my website: www.catherineastolfo.com