On the Night Before Labor Day, a preview of my latest novel: Opening chapter of first story. New Year’s Eve is a time for reflection and change. Jocelyn has more changes coming at her from all directions beginning on a Portland, Maine winter day than she’s faced since her mother’s death. None of it bodes well for […]
If There Are No Losers
I am known as “the mother of those three” – energetic, intelligent, competitive, independent boys. The number of complaints I and their father fielded on a daily basis while they were in primary and secondary school grew exponentially as each followed his brother into the hallways of government-run (public) schools. The main complaint? “They always […]
Linton Robinson’s Latest
Linton Robinson has a writing style like no other. From the first of his books I had the pleasure to read, Sweet Spot, to one of his most recent, Boneyard 11, I have been enthralled by his humor, caustic wit, sarcasm, insights and social […]
What’s Law Got to Do with It?
We have a love/hate relationship with the law. We must have rules to build a society. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding gives us the story of lost boys forming their own laws in an imperfect society to control their fear and desperation, a social order based on the example set by their experience of […]
Our Words, Our Thoughts, Our Stories
A few months ago, I mentioned to a fellow member of a writers’ group that I was working on a post-Civil War manuscript. Her immediate comment was “You’d better be on the right side of that conflict.” My immediate reaction was a silent grimace, and a sense of foreboding. As an amateur historian with a bias […]
How ‘This Can’t Be Love’ Happened
What can I say about my own most recent novel? I loved writing it and the hero, Mike Argent, is now my favorite grumpy construction worker. I first entertained the idea of writing a novel set during the Fringe when I was part of a small group of Welsh theater folk performing a Jeeves and […]
New Release: January 29, 2015
I am proud to announce the publication of my fourth novel, This Can’t Be Love, set in Edinburgh during the summer Fringe Festival. What happens in Edinburgh, stays in Edinburgh — if Mike Argent has anything to say about it. Not every woman drops into Mike Argent’s life the way Jakki Hunter has, at his […]
Men in Uniform – Repost
This article appeared a few weeks before Wait a Lonely Lifetime, my debut novel, hit the libraries and online booksellers. Amazon Publishing had already purchased Avalon and my career as a published author was already on shaky ground. March 23, 2012 The forthcoming publication of my debut novel, Wait a Lonely Lifetime, with Avalon Books calls […]
Review: Black Ransom
When I was writing for Avalon Books, I met Stone Wallace and interviewed him when his Western novel, The Last Outlaw, was released in July of 2011. That interview was reposted here last month. I had ordered a copy of the book to be delivered to a relative’s address in Conneticutt. On the last day I […]
Macho Man, Metro Man, Modern Man
All who read my previous post about Alpha Beta men will have already concluded that I am particularly partial to the male of the species. How this came about from the fourth daughter in a family of five girls and one brother to a fully grown man-lover isn’t hard to understand. Close contact. Through my […]