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Writing Workshop: Blurbs the Word!
If that back-cover description isn't compelling, your potential audience could be passing you by. Learn how to hook a casual browser and turn them into your next avid reader.
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Writing Workshop: Continuity: Solid Worlds, Believable Characters
Ever have a character change their hair color, accent, or even gender in mid-story? And it's not part of the plot? Oops. If your Loki-wannabe isn't a shapeshifter or a trickster, it's up…
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Book Review: The Witches of Bone Hill
If dark and stormy nights, eccentric Victorian mansions, atmospheric landscapes, chilling family crypts, strong magic, handsome yet brooding groundskeepers, and witchy family legacies appeal to you, this is your next read.
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Book Review: The Secret of the Old Clock
When I was eight, I discovered a secret at my Gramma's house. Behind her huge console television, there was a bookcase built into the living room wall. I had to squeeze my way…
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Book Review: The Workshop: Week One
It's clear that Matt Mills is a writer (yes I know, duh, he wrote this book). But he's a writer that's fought in the trenches and, so far, has lived to tell the…
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Book Review: Mary Berry’s Baking Bible: Revised and Updated
Mary Berry’s Baking Bible: Revised and Updated: With Over 250 New and Classic Recipes by Mary Berry My rating: 3 of 5 stars From the promo blurb: “Baking legend Mary Berry, longtime judge…
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Adventures in Copyediting – Booze and Bullets
As I copyedit/rewrite a 103K-word, modern-day vampire novel, I'm pausing often to consider word usage.
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Book Review: Miss Hazeltine’s Home for Shy and Fearful Cats
Miss Hazeltine is a gentle woman who seems like someone society might label 'awkward'. But the cats that are brought to her school to learn how to be outgoing and brave think she's…
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Book Review: Odds Against (Aces High, Jokers Wild Book 7)
I wouldn’t be conforming to acceptable standards if I wrote a review that recommended a different book. But in the spirit of the Wildcards, I am going to risk insubordination and do what…
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Fantasy Faire 2023: My Literary Festival Events
If you're a Second Lifer and also a writer, you may be interested in attending my special events at Fantasy Faire 2023
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Fantasy Faire 2023: Building a World Without Cancer
Celebrating its fifteenth year, Fantasy Faire 2023 is the largest gathering of fantasy designers, enthusiasts, roleplayers and performers in the virtual world.
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Book Review: From Here to Timbuktu
I love a good treasure romp - and I love steampunk - and I love high adventure in far off exotic lands. So naturally, I eagerly dove into this 'steamfunk' story.
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Book Review: On Earth as It Is on Television
If you set up two television screens side-by-side, then simultaneously watch National Lampoon's Vacation on one and Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the other, while snacking on a pound of crispy…
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Book Review: The Lathe of Heaven
My introduction to The Lathe of Heaven was through the 1980 WNET (public television) film starring Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, and Margaret Avery. I was blown away by the concepts presented and immediately…
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Book Review: In Darkness: The Werewolf
Vickie is a young American woman who has come to England to attend fencing school. She soon finds herself attracted to her landlord's son, Nicholas. Just as romance begins to bloom, she discovers…
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The Dragon Eater
J. Scott Coatsworth has a new queer YA/Crossover Sci-Fantasy book out – The Dragon Eater, Tharassas Cycle book one. There’s a giveaway, and a free book with purchase too! Raven’s a thief who…
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Book Review: The Book of Gems
The Book of Gems by Fran Wilde My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fran Wilde has a knack for pulling readers under the skin of her well-crafted characters, where we intimately ride out…
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Book Review: The Dragon Eater
My reaction to reading this title was, “I have so many questions already.” The rest of the back cover blurb didn’t help that problem much. In fact, it raised many more.
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Book Review: No Whisk, No Reward
This short prequel is a nice little read that cleverly accomplishes four important jobs.
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Book Review: Tempus Fugit – The Engagement Ring
Bravely written in second person, past tense, Jules Pelarski’s The Engagement Ring addresses you, the reader, as the protagonist. You’ll be told what’s happening to you and what’s going on all around you…
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Book Review: We Hope for Better Things
Having previously read three books by this author, I trusted her storytelling skills to thread together three stories set in different times - the American civil war, 1967 Detroit riots, and present day.
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Book Review: Nunslinger Book Three: A Pilgrim and a Stranger
Episode three keeps the tension high and the situation dismal. Abe and Sister Josephine are battling their toughest enemy yet - winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains. But at least they have a…
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Book Review: Skilletheads: The Complete Guide to Restoring, Repairing, and Replacing Cast-Iron Cookware
There's no pleasure that can compare to searing a good steak in a hot, well-seasoned cast iron skillet... unless it's pulling a skillet full of freshly baked, buttery drop biscuits out of a…
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Book Review: Fragile Cargo
By request of the publisher, I will update this space with my review on February 14, 2023, the release date of the book.
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Book Review: Frontier
Told in a series of vignettes and interludes, the story begins in the future on a ruined, mostly-abandoned Earth. The sparse population that remains struggles to survive in spite of a corrupt justice…
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Book Review: Dear Lord Akeldama & Parasolverse Ephemera
Lord Akeldama takes center stage (because of course he does), answering questions posed by real readers of the books set in Gail Carriger's Parasolverse.
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Congee
Congee is a traditional Chinese comfort food, fed to the very young, very old, and invalids. It's good for tummy woes, fighting the flu (or more applicable to current times, Covid) or just…
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Frost Warning Hot Pepper Sauce
A bright, spicy green sauce made from those bell peppers you just ran out and rescued from the frost.
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Book Review: The Princess Bride: The Official Cookbook
The Princess Bride Cookbook: the Official Cookbook by Jenn Fujikawa My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world… except for a nice MLT. Mutton, lettuce,…
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Book Review: One Giant Leap
One Giant Leap by Ben Gartner My rating: 5 of 5 stars “I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.” is how Finley “Fin”…
