Treat yourself to recipes for all kinds of cookies–bar, cookie cutter, drop, no-bake, specialty–and hot and cold drinks (with and without spirits) from the kitchens of The Wild Rose Press authors.
I’m happy to share my Raisin Cookies Recipe on Page 47.
Happy Holidays!
I’m thrilled to welcome Guelph author Alison Bruce to the Power of 10 series. Today, Alison shares ten interesting features of her latest release, Deadly Season.
Here’s Alison!
1. The City in Deadly Season is never mentioned by name but it’s based on Guelph Ontario. You can find clues in the books. There are lots of differences, but they are all based on things that might have happened at the time I started the Deadly Legacy.
2. The offices of Carmedy & Garrett Investigations are in the Petrie Building in downtown Guelph. I have it gutted and renovated so that it maintains its historical façade. The only problem is I can’t count. I gave the building an extra floor. I suppose, in another section of the multiverse, it could have an extra floor…right?
3. Carmedy & Garrett Mysteries were set twenty years in the future when I started writing them. Now they are only three years in the future. Why set them in the future at all? I wanted to fairly use the kind of technology we see in shows like Bones and CSI. (Most police officers will tell you that those shows might as well be science fiction.)
4. Back when I started, I anticipated the development of the Smart Phone. I called them eComs and they were a cross between existing technology, projected technology and Star Trek’s Tricorders.
5. My mother inspired the motive for murder in Deadly Legacy.
6. Deadly Season started off as a short story call The Christmas Cat Killer Caper.
7. Kate Garrett and Jake Carmedy came to me in a dream. Their adventures in my dream form the basis of Deadly Games—the next C&G book. (I’m leaving out the teleporting informant and alien waitress that showed up in the dream version.)
8. In Deadly Season Nelly the cadaver dog (more properly known as a Human Remains Detection dog) is named for and looks like my uncle’s golden retriever. Unfortunately, the real Nelly is no longer with us but C&G’s Nelly is alive and well and I hope will return.
9. One of my crises of credibility was whether or not police would use consulting detectives. One of my police sources said no. Most cops don’t trust most private investigators. Another police source said yes. He worked as a consultant since retiring from a career as a homicide detective. Since the precedent for detective working with the police was pretty firmly established in fiction, I knew readers would accept Carmedy & Garrett. However, I used my experts’ advice to inform how police characters would react to them.
10. Kate’s father Joe, who is an important character despite being dead, is based on an old joke my father told me. This guy Joe was so well known that he was invited to the Vatican. In a news report the co-anchor asked about him. The news anchor replied: “I don’t know about the guy in the robes, the man next to him is Joe.”
Blurb
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?
Buy Links
Amazon (Canada) | Amazon (US) | Kobo | Chapters/Indigo | Smashwords | Google Play
Bio
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
Where to find Alison…
Author/Business Website | FB Author Page | FB Personal Page | Author Blog | Twitter | Pinterest
It’s my ninth Wednesday on tour with Goddess Fish.
Stop by and visit for a while. Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway and qualify to win a $25 Amazon gift card.
Today’s stop – Dena Garson’s blog
Today, I’m live on Stephen Campbell’s Crime Fiction Podcast.
We’re chatting about my writing journey, food, NaNoWriMo, fantasy hen lit, cozy mysteries, and A Season for Killing Blondes.
You can listen here.
I’m visiting with Sharon Bell Buchbinder and chatting about my writing journey and A Season for Killing Blondes.
If you have a few minutes, drop by her blog.
It’s my eighth Wednesday on tour with Goddess Fish.
Stop by and visit for a while. Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway and qualify to win a $25 Amazon gift card.
Today’s stop – Rachel Brimble’s blog
On May 27, 2012, Discovery’s Animal Planet channel aired Mermaids: The Body Found. The documentary featured video of a mermaid sighting in the Greenland Sea and an exclusive interview with former NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) scientist Dr. Paul Robertson.
The show followed a scientific team’s investigative efforts to uncover the source behind mysterious underwater recordings. It opened with video footage of a mermaid perched on a rock. Later in the program, a webbed hand touches the observation window of a submersible craft manned by a team of deep sea divers. As the creature swims away, the divers catch glimpses of an alien-like face.
The program attracted the network’s biggest audience in its history: 1.9 million viewers.
A sequel broadcast, Mermaids: The New Evidence, aired May 26, 2013 and reached a record 3.6 million viewers. Its popularity drove the network to the number one slot in the key demographic among 25-to-54-year-olds. After the broadcast, over 1.5 million streams of mermaid-related video surfaced online.
But not all is as it seems.
Both documentaries are hoaxes. In the closing credits, disclaimers flash briefly claiming the programs are hoaxes. Actors played the part of scientists and all video was digitally manufactured. NOAA released the following statement on their website: “Mermaids: The New Evidence is just entertainment. No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.”
While some viewers were amused, many felt the network should have admitted the programs were speculative science fiction from the start. When confronted, Executive Producer Charlie Foley countered: “We wanted people to approach the story with a sense of possibility and a sense of wonder. Hopefully, that’s what Mermaids allowed viewers to do…allowed them to suspend their disbelief.”
Whenever I’m feeling a bit stressed or overwhelmed with circumstances beyond my control, I recall the following Zen parable.
You are at the grand opening of a new shopping mall on the edge of town. You’ve been driving around looking for a parking space for ten minutes. At last, right in front of you, a car pulls out of a spot. You hit your turn signal and wait as the car backs out. Suddenly, from the other direction, comes a Jeep that pulls into the space. Not only that, but when you honk, the driver gets out, smirks, and gives you the finger.
Are you angry?
Now change the scene ever so slightly. Instead of a brash Jeep driver, a cow walks into the space from the other direction and settles down in the middle of it. When you honk, she looks up and moos but doesn’t budge.
Are you angry?
Source: The Cow in the Parking Lot: A Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger by Leonard Scheff and Susan Edmiston (Amazon link)
Joanne Guidoccio 