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Showing posts with the label suspense

Answers to All Life's Questions

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  Just kidding, but here are the answers to the newsletter quiz from last week.  __7__What holiday song says to “put on your yarmulke”? __1__Which song describes water “like a stone”? _10___Which song do we associate with Charlie Brown? _5___Song to avoid to play Whamageddon. _8___In which song will we get pumpkin pie later? _2___Which song mentions rosy cheeks? _9___Song that mentions the hautbois (oboe) _4___Christmas wishes on steroids. _3___It should be tragic, but we laugh anyway. _6___Most popular Christmas carol in the U.S.   1.   “In the Bleak Midwinter” 2.   “Sleigh Ride” 3.   “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” 4.   “Santa Baby” 5.   “Last Christmas” 6.   “Silent Night” 7.   “The Hannukah Song” 8.   “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” 9.   “Il est né, le divin Enfant” 10. “Christmas Time Is Here”   Aunt Marge is getting good reviews from the pre-sales set, which makes my Christmas season a little brighter. One of my beta readers told

Here's Aunt Marge! Well, Almost

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 Aunt Marge has been one of my longest thought-to-production books ever. Life kept interrupting, for one thing, a broken leg and a local situation that makes me leave my writer hat off for days while I work to protect the community I love. Add to that a complicated plot. As my editor said, there's a lot going on in this book, and I had to be sure it all made sense and led to a believable ending. As the story begins, Gwen finds herself in crisis. She's overdosed on prescription painkillers, partly because she fears her husband Jeff is cheating. When her aunt offers to take her to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to recuperate, it seems perfect. She'll get back her strength and kick the drug habit. And with her gone, Jeff will realize what he's missing.  The problem is that Marge's place, called Giiwe , is full of secrets. Marge shares nothing of herself, and her ward/farmhand Charlie seems nice until Gwen learns about his violent past. When she finds out the wo

Book Clubs Take Note: Discussion Guide: Sister Saint, Sister Sinner

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  When I sent Sister Saint, Sister Sinner to my editor, she was (as usual) helpful about pointing out areas that needed more development, parts that repeated information already given, and places where the logic  temporarily failed. At the end, she made a comment that stuck with me: "People are going to be talking about the things you deal with in this book." To me, that meant the story was destined for book clubs. Having visited a few in my years of writing, I knew that they often begin with a list of discussion topics. Now, they often don't stay focused on them, and that's okay. Sometimes it's the wine. Sometimes it's a natural progression. But discussion leaders like having questions that can get the conversation back on track when it strays too far from the story. Every person who reads a book gets something out of it that no one else does. I had the experience once of visiting a book group where one reader didn't like the book and kept bringing up her