Characters Who Celebrate Christmas In the Story {reading challenge}

Holiday Baking

It's the week of Thanksgiving here in America, and that means I'm busy baking and cooking up a storm. I finally decided on the new recipes I'll be trying. I've been told holidays are not the times to test out new-to-me recipes, but I beg to differ. I've only come across a couple of duds over the years, and thankfully they were ones I taste tested before sharing... which means I didn't share those couple of things. But I've found some really great dishes over the holidays through my teens and twenties. Now that I'm in my thirties, I feel like it's practically tradition for me to try something new for Thanksgiving and Christmas and sometimes even New Year's Day.

Protecting Tanner Hollow by Lynette Eason {a review}

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell Reads. A positive review was not required. These are my honest thoughts.

Lethal Homecoming

Just as mysterious as I recalled! Again, I didn’t figure out whodunit. I liked the family drama and that this was a complex little novella.

Lethal Conspiracy

Wow. So blown away by this one. Such a great addition to the series. I especially enjoyed the wonderful usage of technology and forensic science. The drama and suspense were spot-on and engaging. The faith thread was light, but that did not detract from the amazing quality of this story.

Deadly Deceit by Natalie Walters {a review}

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell Reads. A positive review was not required. These are my honest thoughts.

This story was fascinating. I enjoyed the psychological vibes strung throughout. The pacing was great, as was the setting of small-town Georgia. The journalism angle was well used, though I would have liked to see Vivian working on articles or something even while working on unraveling the mystery for the bigger piece. I thought the journalism was perfectly countered by the other lead’s being a cop. There was a natural push-pull chemistry between the news writer and the police officer, which made the romance quite believable and organic.

NaNoWriMo Has Arrived!

My new computer is working great. The transition came just in time too, because this month is NaNoWriMo. Now, I'm editing on paper this year, but that doesn't mean I don't use my computer. I still have to log in my word count. And if I need to look up something in the manuscript I'm working on that might be found hundreds of pages apart, I can quickly open the computer document and do an easy search. Plus, there's research that needs to be done along the way to make sure that special layer of atmosphere satisfactorily saturates the reader in the world my MCs (main characters) are living in.

The story I'm working on is one that's been in the works for over a decade, first as a screenplay and more recently (since 2012) as a manuscript. I would, of course, love to see both the book and movie versions come to a reality that readers and viewers could enjoy at their leisure. But this writer's got more work to do on them both first.

Things I might be researching while I edit this baby: