Who’s Afraid of Free Kidnapping Stories?

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I’ll have more in-depth blog content coming to you soon, but today I wanted to pop back in again to share some coolness. And by coolness, I mean free reads, just in time for the weekend.   Kidnapped! Thrillers and Mysteries Where Kidnappers Abound features twenty-two stories about kidnappers, their victims, and the heroes who set out to find them. These tales of justice—and vengeance—include series books and standalones, romantic suspense and psychological thrillers and everything in between. My book Prodigal falls in the “in between.”  💀 Get a free novella length excerpt of Book One in the Dead Hollow series Read more…


Free Creepy Reads, Because It’s Too Hot to Sleep

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So, hey, it’s been a while, huh? I’ve been… contemplating. (I thought you might appreciate the Sydney-esque hair; I know I would.) And I’ve still got a bunch of contemplating to do about how I’m moving forward in various places. Gee, that’s not vague! 😜 But I wanted to pop my toes back in here at the Blog to start building the habit again, and specifically to share something you might enjoy. This month, contemplate trying something new with sixty-nine authors giving away free Creepy Reads. Mwah-ha-hah! These are mysteries and thrillers that are great to curl up with (if Read more…


How to Be an International Person of Mystery, Without Leaving Your Couch

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Getting tired of the same old NCIS-Boca Raton or Law & Order ASPCA? You can check out my Stories I Love posts for recommendations, or read on… The hubs and I have been incredibly fortunate during the pandemic in many ways, but we haven’t seen our families—or much of anyone or anything else—in over a year. I’m sure many of you can relate. On top of that, we’re both the kind of people who need periodic exposure to new things to maintain our sanity. So how have we kept our household from turning into a lurid headline or a Stephen Read more…


An Impromptu List for a Much-Needed Reading Retreat

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How are y’all doing out there in the big wide world? I hope you’re not still slamming ibuprofren after digging out from Winter Storm Gail. If—like me—you were wondering about the whole winter storm-naming thing, Wikipedia says it has happened intermittently in the U.S. since the 1700s, but really kicked in with the Weather Channel in the 2010s. This Mental Floss piece explores, Why Is It Controversial to Name Winter Storms? Webcams showed that, in solidarity, Hawaii Island had at least a dusting of snow on Mauna Kea last night. Meanwhile, we had four inches of rain in Lower Puna. Well, Read more…


This Christmas, Don’t Buy Your Books at Amazon

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I’d intended to share this soapbox on Black Friday, but we spent the Thanksgiving holiday eating cans of soup and ramen, not Tofurkey and trimmings and leftovers, as we completely rearranged our house. It’s a small house, but there are a lot of books! And bookcases. We moved Every. Piece. Of. Furniture. And reversed our offices. Not only were my floor-scrubbing hands cramped into contorted claws incapable of holding a mouse, I didn’t have a place to plug in my computer. I’m happy to say I do now, though many less crucial items are still floating in search of a home. Read more…