Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers

MONEY MATTERS WITH SHEILA--SUPERMARKET PRICING

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Price check, aisle 2!

We all know that food is more expensive at convenience stores than in supermarkets, but did you know the same item might have multiple prices in a supermarket, depending on where it’s shelved?

The trend in supermarkets these days is to shelve the same item in several areas. For example, cheese is found both in the deli section and the dairy section. You can find nuts in the gourmet food section, the produce section, and the baking aisle. If you suddenly decide you’d like salsa with your chips but don’t want to walk all the way back to the condiments aisle, it’s convenient to be able to reach for a jar next to those chips. This added convenience can be costly, though. That salsa might be more expensive by the chips than the jar in the condiments section. Next time you go shopping, check the prices. You might find it worth your wallet to trek back a few aisles.

COOKING WITH CLORIS--LEA WAIT'S MUSSELS STEAMED IN WINE & HERBS

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Lea Wait is a Maine author who writes the Agatha-finalist Shadows Antique Print Mysteries staring antique print dealer and college professor Maggie Summer. Lea also writes historical novels for ages 8-14 set in nineteenth century Maine. For more about Lea and her books, visit her website and the Maine Crime Writers blog she writes with nine other Maine mystery authors.

Mussels Steamed in Wine & Herbs

(as seen in Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding)

In Lea Wait’s Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding, her latest Shadows Antique Print Mystery, antique print dealer Maggie Summer heads for Cape Cod to help her friend Gussie with pre-wedding planning and jitters …. and although finding a body on the beach and having to prepare for a hurricane do complicate their task, Maggie and Gussie find time to share several meals of scrumptious fresh seafood while counting down to Gussie’s big day. One of their favorites is Mussels Steamed in Wine & Herbs. Easy to prepare, easier to eat, and delicious.

You’ll need 1-2 dozen mussels per person, depending on whether the mussels will be an appetizer or main course. This recipe will assume you’re using 4 dozen fresh mussels, and that you’ve scrubbed & debearded them (taken off the long “beards” that attach them to rocks) and removed any mussels that are open (open = dead) before starting.

Finely chop 8 large shallots, 2 large onions, and 8 large cloves of garlic, and sauté them in 3 tablespoons of salted (preferably sea-salted) butter in a large Dutch oven or the heavy pot you use to cook spaghetti.

When the vegetables are soft, add the mussels, 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, and 3 cups of a dry white wine like Chardonnay. Cover the pot and bring the wine to a boil. Steam until the mussels open – about 3 minutes.

Serve mussels in individual bowls or in one communal bowl and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Be sure to have crusty French bread available to soak in the broth. Accompany with a glass of white wine.

Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding

Antique print dealer Maggie Summer is happy to help her best friend Gussie with pre-wedding preparations on Cape Cod ... until she finds a body on the beach, and the close-knit New England community no longer seems so friendly. Why does the dead man's daughter say he died two years ago .. in Colorado? Who was supplying drugs to teenagers in town? Already nervous about a critical discussion she needs to have with the man in her life, Maggie immerses herself in the murder investigation and wedding plans ... and then there's another murder ... and a hurricane ... and Maggie herself becomes a target. Maybe this time around, Maggie's gotten herself in a little too deep.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR AND PAINTER JERRIE ALEXANDER

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Jerrie Alexander writes alpha males and kick-ass women with a hit of humor. Her latest romantic suspense is The Last Execution. But there’s another side of Jerrie, and today she’s here to tell us about it. Learn more about her and her books at her website. – AP

Most people wouldn't guess I'm a crafter, but they'd be wrong. I have my own work room where I sew, paint, make stuffed animals, and share my love of making things with my granddaughter. Shoot, back when they were popular, I made beautiful cigar box purses.

Writing romantic suspense and researching profiles of past killers has given me nightmares more than once. When I need a break, mainly for mental health, I either bake or paint. Out of respect for my ever expanding waistline, I decided to tell you about my painting. Lord knows, if I get to swapping recipes, I'll be testing them out shortly.

Does anybody remember Bob Ross? A lovely soul whose program on PBS always captivated me. Sadly, no matter how hard I tried, my talent paled in comparison.

Undaunted, I signed up for painting lessons. My first assignment was a butterfly. It wasn't bad. Not good but passable. Then came the sunflower. I looked for it but I must have hidden that horrible thing or perhaps thrown it away. The one thing I learned during that time was I love to paint flowers.

The instructor taught the "One Stroke" method, and soon I could actually recognize what I was painting on a canvas. Are they good enough to sell? My stars and garters...never. But that's okay, I couldn't part with them anyway.

When I'm working on an arrangement, my self-imposed pressures and worries fade into the background.

A bonus? My granddaughter will pull up a chair and join me. In fact, she's bought her own paint brushes. They live in a jar next to mine in the craft room.

I've included a couple of examples. A few are first drafts and the framed final picture. One is a yellow rose that I have practiced until the world looks level! I haven't mastered that particular bloom yet.

Whether I'm sewing, painting, or decorating a cake, I enjoy taking a break. Regardless of the finished product, it's rewarding. Then I'm ready to tackle my imaginary psycho who is lurking inside the pages of my next book.

I love hearing about other people's craft addictions. So I hope people will share their favorite hobby or pastime with me today.

The Last Execution

To survive, she must put the past behind her. To love, she must learn to trust.

Homicide detective Leigh McBride's first assignment with the FBI brings her face-to-face with a past she's tried hard to forget. And when her temporary partner, a cynical ex-marine, lights a fire in her she thought long-extinguished, her darkest secret is threatened.

Scarred both physically and emotionally, Special Agent J. T. Noble is a man of few words. He prefers to keep people at a distance—until he meets Leigh. He's attracted to her strength and drawn in by her secrecy. But in their line of work, secrets can be deadly.

When the killer they are hunting aims his vigilante justice at Leigh's past assailant, the fine line between right and wrong blurs. To heal the past—and find their future together—Leigh and J. T. must learn that only through trust and forgiveness can love grow.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR AMANDA BALL/LEANN COSTON

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:24:00 +0000

Amanda Ball is a self-described musician, author, and filmmaker. Her mother calls her a professional juggler. Amanda grabs one project, works on it, then tosses it back into the air and grabs another project. When not actively engaged in creative endeavors, she enjoys hot cars, cowboys, bass players, cooking, crocheting, photography, travel and things with motors. Her latest book is Famous...or not, written under her LeAnn Coston pen name. Learn more about Amanda at her Amanda Ball and LeAnn Coston websites and her blog. – AP

Living a creative life

I was listening to a speech once, when the speaker said: without art, life is nothing.

I hadn't thought of it that way. But, what would life be without the beauty of music, the entertainment of movies, the diversion of a book, without the expression of poetry, without the visual aesthetic of art?

What would life be with just work and the mechanics of life? A life without beauty would be no life indeed.

But, what is it to be the one chosen to bring the arts to life? When one is given a gift of talent, and uses that gift to connect to other people--in any way--that is an amazing achievement.

I live my life in pursuit of creativity. It started off in music. As soon as I could talk, I told people I wanted to be a "country western singer." It branched out from there, into learning many instruments, learning to sing, and it grew from there: songwriting, music business, publishing, producing, arranging, etc.

When I started college, I wanted to write. I tried and tried and tried. It took me ten years to figure out "how to pull a book out of a human," but when I was twenty-nine, I completed my first manuscript. When I was thirty-five, I was offered my first publishing contract.

Then, when I was thirty-six, out of the blue and with no warning, I was sitting with a dear friend in a bar, eating a blue cheese burger, and I announced that I had decided that I wanted to direct movies. I remember it vividly. It was in January, and the Sundance film festival was going on, and I wanted to be there so bad, I could taste it. The friend, Don, knows me pretty well. I expected him to laugh, thinking I was telling a joke. He didn't laugh. He seemed intrigued. He made some innocuous comment. I (thinking I was making a joke), popped off and said, "You wanna make movies with me?"

I got to the word 'movies', and didn't even finish the sentence, before he was nodding and said yes.

From that moment forward, it was full steam ahead. Any form of creativity, any time, anywhere.

I try to treat these gifts as reverent. To be one of the few, who has been chosen to bring art to the world...it's special.

I wish for you all joy, as you share your gifts and talents with the world.

Famous...or not

So, imagine this:

You’re sitting in your backyard, in middle-America, and you hear a noise. You look up. The Sexiest Man in the Universe hops over your privacy fence and runs across your yard. After a few seconds, about seven or eight paparazzi hop the fence and follow him. Now, that’s something you just don’t see everyday in Oklahoma.

As the commotion continues and dogs start barking, you can hear the chase going all through your neighbors’ yards. Finally, it quiets down again, and you look back at the magazine you were reading--the celebrity magazine showing the cover picture of the Sexiest Man in the Universe.

After a bit, you hear a noise, and Mr. Sexiest Man hops the fence--again! You realize he’s probably only eluding paparazzi, but part of you hopes he came around to see you just one more time. You nod at the open door to the lawn mower shed. He ducks inside. The paparazzi hop the fence again, but you tell them their prey has eluded them. With disgust, they walk down your driveway and leave.

So, with wry amusement, you walk across your own backyard to your lawnmower shed, where the Sexiest Man in the Universe happens to be hiding.

Even if this were the movies, meet-cutes don’t get any better than this.

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TRAVEL WITH SERENA--VACATIONS ON A BUDGET

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Vacations are expensive, but we all need to get away every so often to refresh and rejuvenate. One way to cut down on the cost of a trip is to book your stay at a vacation home or apartment rental instead of a hotel. There are options for all budgets. You can book anything from a spare bedroom to a multi-million dollar villa. Although, if you’re looking for a multi-million dollar villa, you’re probably not worrying about your budget! You can find listings for rentals online. Two to check out are airbnb.com and homeaway.com.

MONEY MATTERS WITH SHEILA--WEDDING RECEPTION DISASTERS

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Here at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers we’re all about DIY and saving money. However, sometimes it’s best to hire experts. Such is the case with wedding receptions. Today we welcome back guest blogger Zain with tips to help avoid wedding reception disasters. Zain writes for Feast Your Eyes! Inc. They provide services such as catering weddings in Toronto as well as event design.

Catering Secrets: Avoiding A Wedding Reception Disaster

Weddings can be wonderful yet expensive occasions. They are most wonderful if planned and done effectively, including the reception and catering. Couples often easily use a good quarter of their wedding budget on food and alcohol for the reception. Since the average wedding budget is around $20,000, that amounts to at least $5,000. If you want to have a successful catered event for your wedding, making all the time and money put into it worthwhile, there are some common mistakes and mishaps you want to AVOID making that can cause a wedding reception disaster.

Mistake one, the DIY disaster. Unless you're a professional in such services and just have to be hands-on, it's best you avoid taking the catering into your own hands. There are many levels in the planning and execution of a wedding reception and its catering. Beyond the food itself, you have the decorations, storage, the serving, and the actual timing of it all, including the food preparation. So it's best to leave it to professionals and not let your inexperience lead to a major headache.

Another no-no for wedding catering is the overly elaborate menu. Some actually believe that having a big menu will make the event grander, but having an extensive menu can lead to a waste of food. So it's best to keep it simple. A little variety is good but not too much.

Nothing can leave a bad taste in the mouths of guests like less than tasty food. Be sure to have a taste testing and know what's in store from your caterer. The last thing you need is food that is way too dull in taste or way too salty. Guests may not remember the color of the decorations and clothing from the ceremony, but food is likely to stick with them, being either really good or bad. Also, be sure to give clear instructions to the caterers and lay down the terms of the service so all parties have a sure knowledge of what to expect. This can spare you from poor service and disputes.

Another possible disaster that can be catastrophic in terms of implications (including crowd control) is not having enough food. This is why careful planning is critical and you must work with experienced chefs that can calculate and accommodate needs based on the number of guests. You may want to have a backup plan just in case expected numbers happen to be exceeded.

For a successfully catered event, make sure you do your homework. Look closely at catering companies and cross examine them, knowing what to expect and knowing what you want. Keep communications clear and remember to have a taste test if possible, not doing so could be a disastrous mistake. Your wedding is probably one of, if not the biggest, day of your life, and it's something you may have dreamed of for years. If you want it to go smoothly and happily, be sure to avoid the mistakes we went over and do all necessary research.

COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR KATE WYLAND

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

photo credit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0

Kate Wyland is a life-long horse nut who started riding at three years old. After a varied equestrian career, she now has three semi-retired horses and can’t imagine life without them. A few years ago, she exchanged her tech writing “bug” hat for a fiction writing Stetson. Suspense, romance, horses and sometimes the paranormal are the themes she likes to explore in her books. And she delights in sharing her love of animals and country living. Today she shares a recipe for paella. Learn more about Kate and her books at her website and blog.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I spent a delightful week at Eaton Ranch, a dude ranch outside Sheridan, Wyoming. The people, the scenery, the horses, the accommodations were wonderful. Neither of us wanted to leave. At the time, I was working on a romantic suspense novel set in Arizona, but when I came home I found I really wanted to stay in Wyoming longer. So I set aside that book and started a new story, set on a dude ranch.

One incident during our stay provided a spark for my tale. The ranch cook had to leave due to a family emergency and several people who didn’t normally work in the kitchen filled in. As a result, some of our meals were quite creative. But nobody cared because we were all having so much fun. I figured the need for a cook would be a good way for someone on the run to end up at a dude ranch. And thus Wyoming Escape was born.

Mikela Richards, a chef and a city girl, is hiding out on a Wyoming Dude Ranch, working as a cook. To her surprise, she finds she enjoys the experience—when she isn’t looking over her shoulder for the dirty cop who is after her. She encounters the nephew of the ranch owner, and the attraction is instant and totally wrong. The last thing she needs is to be distracted by a handsome Marine, who makes her want to hide in his arms.

Shawn Saunders recognizes the fear in Mikela’s eyes. He’s seen the same look many times during his tours in Afghanistan. He’s home to heal both physical and emotional wounds and knows he has no business getting involved with a woman with problems. But his protective instincts and his fascination with Mikela swamp his common sense, and he campaigns to penetrate her defenses.

Celia, Shawn’s mother, curious about the woman who has entranced him, invites Mikela to dinner.

Excerpt from Wyoming Escape:

“Want to supervise while I make dinner?” Celia asked. “Unless, of course, you’re tired of cooking and would rather talk about anything else.”

“Cooking is my life. I definitely want to see what you’re brewing up.”

“Paella. I decided to try something a little sophisticated. Something other than meat and potatoes.” She sent a wry glance Shawn’s way.

“Okay, okay,” he said, backing away with his palms up. “I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll be in the den watching the baseball game. Call me when, or if, you want me to join you.”

Celia led the way into a bright, west-facing kitchen. Blue and yellow plaid wallpaper peeked out from over the stove and between the white cabinets. Not modern or fancy, the room had a warm, homey feel.

“Have a seat.” Celia motioned toward the stools in front of the bar that set off the dining area. “Help yourself to some wine and olives. I'll start sautéing the veggies now. The chicken and chorizo are already browned.” She nodded at a large bowl on the counter.

Mikela watched the older woman's efficient movements with pleasure. She always enjoyed seeing a competent chef who liked what they did. When the onions were soft and starting to caramelize, Celia added tomatoes, letting them brown for a few minutes. Next came rice, which she stir-fried for a brief time to coat with oil. As she started to pour in chicken broth, Mikela spoke up.

“Did you know if you put the saffron in the liquid and let it soak for a minute or two, you'll spread the flavor and color better? Just a suggestion, in case you're interested.”

“Thank you. Great idea.” Matching actions to words, Celia crumbled a generous pinch of saffron threads into the broth. After a couple of minutes, she poured in the liquid and started the rice simmering. “Now I can sit and gab for a bit.”

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Paella

(serves 2-4)

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs
2 chicken legs
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons smoky paprika
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Spanish chorizo sausage, thickly sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Spanish onion, chopped
Bunch flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped, reserve some for garnish
1 (16-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and crushed
1 cup short grain Spanish rice, preferably Valencia or bomba
1 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
3 cups chicken broth
4 jumbo shrimp
6 littleneck clams, scrubbed
1 cup sweet peas, frozen and thawed
Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, for garnish
Lemon wedges, for serving

Add the crushed saffron threads to the chicken broth and set aside.

Mix together the paprika, oregano and a little salt and pepper. Rub the spice mixture all over the pieces of chicken; marinate for 30-60 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a paella pan or wide shallow skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken on all sides. Add the chorizo and continue to cook until it is browned too. Remove the chicken and sausage to a platter lined with paper towels.

Return the pan to the stove and lower the heat to medium. Saute the garlic, onion, and parsley for 2-3 minutes until the onions soften and start to carmelize. Add the tomatoes and let them brown slightly. Fold in the rice, stir-frying to coat the grains. Pour in the chicken broth with saffron and simmer for 10 minutes, gently moving the pan around so the rice cooks evenly and absorbs the liquid. Do not cover or stir.

Add the shrimp, clams, the reserved chicken, and chorizo. Simmer, without stirring, until the rice is al dente, about 10 minutes. Scatter the peas on top and continue to cook for 5 minutes, until the paella looks fluffy and moist. Turn heat to high for 1-2 minutes to create the socarrat, a toasted rice bottom. Cover and allow to rest, off the heat for 5 minutes, and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges.

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--COILED MAGAZINE TRIVET

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I showed you how to make a decorative bowl from magazine pages. I had so much fun making that project that I thought I’d do another. Follow these simple directions to make a trivet from those magazines you’d otherwise toss in recycling.

Materials:

magazine with colorful pages, scissors, low-temp glue gun, felt square slightly smaller than diameter of finished trivet, tacky glue

1. Tear pages from the magazine. Cut each page in half, lengthwise.

2. Fold each half page in half lengthwise. Fold the cut edge under 3/8” and continue folding the strip. (Note: this fold method is a slightly different from the one for the bowl in order to create wider strips.)

3. Apply dab of glue to one end of one strip and form into a tight coil. Glue the end in place.

4. Continue adding strips to enlarge the coil until it measures 2” in diameter. This is the center of the trivet. Adhere strips with a dab of glue as you add to the coil and glue the end of each strip to the coil.

5. Make 1/2” diameter coils from individual strips of paper. Glue 14 smaller coils around the outer edge of the large coil.

6. Make 1” diameter coils from two strips of paper. Glue 14 of these around the outer edge of the trivet. This will make a 5” diameter trivet. If you’d like a larger trivet, continue adding rows of coiled magazine pages until you’ve reached the desired size.

7. Cut a circle from felt to fit the bottom of the trivet. Glue to bottom with tacky glue.

BOOKS 4 REALITY TV FANS

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Sat, 11 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Do you love to read? Do you enjoy watching reality TV shows, or any kind of television show? Then you won't want to miss the Books For Reality TV Fans list of 15 novels that explore the world of television behind the scenes. These books represent a variety of genres including mystery, suspense, romance, young adult, and middle grade books, and they explore dance shows, a soap opera, a morning show, dating shows, a food show, adventure shows, and lots more.

The list is hosted by Sink or Swim author Stacy Juba on her One Stop Reading Blog and you can find it here.

Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series by Lois Winston, is included on the list.

Overdue bills and constant mother vs. mother-in-law battles at home are bad enough. But crafts editor Anastasia Pollack's stress level is maxed out when she and her fellow American Woman editors get roped into unpaid gigs for a revamped morning TV show. Before the glue is dry on Anastasia's mop dolls, morning TV turns crime drama when the studio is trashed and the producer is murdered. Former co-hosts Vince and Monica—sleazy D-list celebrities—stand out among a lengthy lineup of suspects, all furious over the show's new format. And Anastasia has no clue her snooping has landed her directly in the killer's unforgiving spotlight.

The full list of authors is:

Stacy Juba

Gemma Halliday

Amanda Brice

Leslie Langtry

Chanta Rand

Karl Fields

Christi Barth

Kimberly Kinkaid

Lois Winston

Elaine Raco Chase

Liz Talley

We may also be expanding the list of books and authors in the future. In the meantime, with summer reruns just around the corner, we hope you'll check out our books for some fun entertainment. Stacy will be featuring spotlights of each book, as well as hosting interviews with contestants from hit shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, Top Chef, Bachelor Pad, So You Think You Can Dance, and lots more. Some of the authors will also be chatting about books and reality shows on various blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Do you know a reader who loves reality TV? Do you know someone who needs to get AWAY from the television and pick up a book? Then please help us to spread the word.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR KAYE GEORGE

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Kaye George, the author of four mystery series, has been nominated for Agatha awards twice. She writes short stories, mysteries, and a bit of horror. She also reviews for "Suspense Magazine", writes for several newsletters and blogs, and gives workshops on short story writing and promotion. Learn more about her and her books at her website and blog. – AP

What is accessible?

What do I mean by that? I picked up that word from a fellow musician. When our string quartet would attempt to play something that we had a tough time with, she would say that the piece was not accessible. I guess that means it’s too hard. Very accessible pieces are very easy.

How does that translate to literature? Some writing is accessible for the reader and some isn’t. I’m sure you’ve read things that you had to slog through, maybe for a class, or maybe because you’ve heard it’s a worthwhile work of literature and you should read it. Life’s too short, now that I’m out of school, for that sort of thing!

On the other hand, I don’t like music or reading that is TOO easy. Our church choir recently performed two pieces, Mozart’s “Te Deum” and Puccini’s “Credo”. Our choir had to work hard on both of them and I thought it was great fun. I get tired of singing things that take no thought at all. I also like reading books that teach me something. If there’s a word I don’t know, I like it best when I pick up the meaning from the context. Then I feel I’ve learned a new word on my own. I’m not above looking up rare, obscure words, but I don’t like the text to be full of them. I can’t get anything out of reading a bunch of words I don’t know and can’t derive!

Do you think this book title is accessible: Eine Kleine Wassermusick? OK, I thought it was really, really cool, but was told that it wasn’t. This book started life as Eine Kleine Wassermusick. The series features a sleuth who is a classical musician, as I am. To keep to the theme, I came up with that title as a cross between the names of two pieces of classical music, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Mozart and “Watermusic” by Handel. The German means “A Little Night Music.”

No one liked the title. It was inaccessible.

So I changed it to Song of Death. My publisher wanted to change that name, so I cast around for something they would like. They vetoed every title I thought of that contained the word “death” so I twigged to the fact that many of their mysteries contained the word “murder” in the title instead. My clever daughter came up with Eine Kleine Murder. They say each generation gets smarter than their parents. Thank goodness.

People who know a little about music, and who know Mozart’s piece (or least the name of it) like the title a lot. I wonder, how does this title strike other people? If they don’t understand it, I hope they’re curious enough to check out the story and see if they’d like to read it. It IS a standard murder mystery, just enhanced by a few musical references that I hope enrich the work.

Eine Kleine Murder

Aspiring conductor Cressa Carraway arrives at her grandmother’s cabin at a rural Illinois lake resort, hoping to find some peace and quiet so she can finish composing the symphony she needs to earn her master’s degree in composition. Instead, she finds her grandmother’s corpse in the lake. The authorities dismiss the death as an accidental drowning, but when Gram’s best friend drowns in the exact same spot, Cressa just knows something is off-key in this idyllic setting. Convinced that her grandmother’s death was anything but an accident, she fights her instinct to flee and starts looking into things herself. There are lots of people and facts to consider, from the self-important property manager and his brow-beaten wife, to their salacious son, to the elderly widow who may be lacing her home-baked cookies with a dash of poison. As the body count rises, Cressa doesn’t know which will be finished first—her symphony or her life.

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FASHION WITH TESSA--GUEST AUTHOR KAY KENDALL

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Along with having written a mystery set during the Vietnam War, author Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive and a woman with a penchant for fashion, something she shares with us today. Learn more about Kay at her website.

I adore fashion. I can’t help it. It’s genetic. Both my grandmothers and my mother enjoyed clothes, jewelry, and dressing up. At the age of ten I had a weekly hair appointment at a salon. Shopping trips to the big city of Wichita from my hometown of 12,000 were a monthly highlight. In early years Mother and I even donned gloves for the 25-mile trip. When my Texas grandmother took me to the original Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, I almost swooned.

Flash forward to the eighties. Shoulder pads make the scene. Love at first sight! They helped balance my proportions, counteracting my hips. My mother, however, distained shoulder pads. “They’re from the forties, and I can’t get excited about styles I wore before.”

I didn’t understand. How could she be so stuffy?

Flash forward to this new millennium. Boho chic arrives. But it’s all sixties fashion to me. Retro hippie would be an even better name.

The first time I saw bellbottom trousers in an issue of Vogue several years back, I groaned. Oh, that will never catch on again, I mused to myself, throwing the magazine aside in disgust. Then came the beads, the peasant blouses and all the other hippie accoutrements. The only thing I’ve not seen in redux-land is a version of my old macramé purse. (Note from Anastasia: be on the lookout for a macramé comeback.)

Soon celebrities in the under thirty-five age group staked out hippie chic as their own look. Try an online search of images for Nicole Richie, Sienna Miller, and fashion stylist and designer Rachel Zoe. Every image of them is heavily influenced by the sixties. Nicole even wears macramé occasionally. (Another note from Anastasia: See?)

At first, like my mother twenty-five years ago, I spurned the return of styles I’d worn before. But boho chic gained strength and crept into more and more clothes.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Stairway Press of Seattle just published my debut mystery set in the sixties. Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery features a young woman who gets swept along by the tides of history during that turbulent time. The choice of cover was tricky. The design had to evoke the Vietnam War era without turning off potential readers. Real photos from the period are too grungy, but countless current pictures are for sale of young women dressed like hippies. We picked one of those, and the result has drawn raves.

To get in the right mood to discuss my book at signings, I always wear blouses just like I wore back then and throw on some beads and ethnic-y earrings to complete the effect. Lucky for me, these days there’s no dearth of such clothes and jewelry to choose from.

Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery

Austin Starr, homesick Texas bride of a Vietnam War activist, must prove her husband didn’t murder a fellow draft resister in Canada, the black-sheep son of a U.S. Senator. When the Mounties are convinced David Starr is guilty and jail him, Austin must find the real killer or risk losing everything.

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HEALTHY LIVING WITH JANICE--GRAYCE WALTERS ON PET ACUPUNCTURE

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Normally the Healthy Living segment of our blog is devoted to issues related to humans. Today we have something a bit different, a visit from Grayce Walters to discuss acupuncture for pets. Grayce is the brainchild of aspiring author Jacki Delecki who is neither an animal acupuncturist nor a veterinarian but has a vivid imagination. Learn more about Jacki at her website.

Animal Acupuncture

By Grayce Walters

I’m very glad to have the opportunity to discuss animal acupuncture with you. And hopefully I can answer any questions you may have. I’m a veterinarian and practice animal acupuncture in Seattle. In the state of Washington only a licensed veterinarian can practice animal acupuncture. State requirements for animal acupuncture vary from state to state so it behooves you to research the training of the person you’re considering for your pet.

Because I live in an urban area, I treat mainly of dogs and cats. Animal acupuncture can be very helpful for large animals especially horses who by their level of activity often sustain injuries. I’ve experience in treating horses. I’ve also treated various large animals at Seattle’s zoo with good results.

What are indications for seeking acupuncture for your pet?

The most frequent reason for pet owners to seek acupuncture is relief of pain. There are many reasons for pain. Your pet should be evaluated by your veterinarian to determine the cause of the pain before you seek acupuncture treatment. If your pet is suffering from arthritis, arthritic joints, acute pain following a surgery, pain from disease such as cancer or leukemia, acupuncture can help relieve the pain and the subsequent stress associated with pain.

The treatment involves placement of filiform needles at sites along the meridians, the path or channel as it is called in Chinese medicine in which the qi/chi, the life energy flows. The needles may be placed in various parts of the animal’s body.

Acupuncture has been studied and practiced for over 2000 years in China. The Chinese are responsible for bringing acupuncture forward into the modern world. There is also Korean and Japanese acupuncture. The three variations use different meridian points and different techniques for needle placement.

As with most American practitioners, my practice is based on the Chinese method of acupuncture. I studied in China after finishing my veterinarian education.

Will your pet be upset or stressed by the placement of the needles thus negating the benefits of the treatment?

There is mild pain/discomfort with the insertion of the needle, like the bite of a mosquito. The amount of stress your animal will experience with acupuncture is related to many factors. First, there is the level of pain that your pet is having and how defensive their pain makes them. Next there can be additional stress by having to go into an office setting. The last factor to consider is how your pet reacts to new experiences and new people.

I’ve found it most beneficial to make home visits for treatment of very stressed pets. A safe environment is less upsetting to the pet and its owner. The skill and patience of the practitioner is the critical part of the equation for the treatment to be successful.

The practitioner needs to have an understanding of animal behavior and pain mechanisms to make an animal comfortable and trusting. The intangible part of the practitioner’s skill is the ability to empathize and communicate with animals. It’s a unique gift that can be enhanced but requires a certain intuitive ability mixed with a deep need to heal.

In my own practice, I believe that I must be in a quiet state to enable me to communicate and calm animals. I meditate and practice yoga to keep my qi/chi in balance. Animals pick up on the stress of their owners and the people around them. I find it very important to be centered before I treat my patients.

My patients usually become relaxed and often sleep through their acupuncture treatment as soon as I place the first needle. You must keep in mind that every pet and every practitioner is different.

I’d look for a change in attitude by your pet toward the practitioner over several visits to judge whether your pet’s acupuncturist is the right match for your pet and for you.

In An Inner Fire, Grayce Walters, veterinarian and animal acupuncturist, possesses a powerful gift--the ability to communicate with animals. Sensing fear and agitation in a fire investigator’s poodle, Grayce discovers clues to arson, murder, and drug smuggling on Seattle’s Waterfront.

COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR SUSAN OLEKSIW

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Susan Oleksiw writes two mystery series, the Mellingham series featuring Chief of Police Joe Silva, and the Anita Ray series, featuring Indian-American photographer Anita Ray, who lives in India at a tourist hotel. Susan is also known for her reviews and articles on crime fiction, and was an editor for the Oxford to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999). Her first book in the mystery field is A Reader’s Guide to the Classic British Mystery (1988). One of the reasons she likes crime fiction is the way it allows her to explore contemporary behavior and problems, and the many different kinds of lives we live today. Learn more about Susan and her books at her website.

Last Call for Justice: A Mellingham Mystery grew out of a question a reader once asked me. Why don’t we know more about Chief Joe Silva’s family? I thought that was a fair question, and decided to write a book focusing on Joe and his large Portuguese family. I grew up in an area with a large Portuguese population, and thought this would be fun. I love the large Portuguese gatherings, the complicated families, and the food.

I had some of this in the back of my mind as I began to write, but mostly I focused on the murder—what would the crime be and who would be part of it? But as I got deeper into writing, the personalities of Joe’s siblings took over. Then the way families get together and share with each other began to dominate. Before I knew it, I had a crime set at a family reunion where every relative contributed a favorite dish. Joe’s father, a man now in his nineties, watches the platters come to the table, picking out the ones he wants. He especially notices paella with chicken and shrimp, spinach with raisins and pine nuts, stuffed onions, and cod and potato salad.

Last Call for Justice takes us deep into Joe’s family and background. The middle of seven children, Joe is sometimes called by his family “the one who got away.” He’s worried about the consequences from his father’s bringing together everyone, including the two youngest siblings who disappeared years ago after one was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. It is this lingering accusation that the elderly Pae Silva wants to put to rest. He hasn’t much time left on this earth, and he wants to see his children at peace.

Portuguese cuisine is known for its many fish dishes, and the cod and potato salad is a favorite with a lot of people. It’s simple and easy to make, and is a good accompaniment for a number of other dishes.

Cod and Potato Salad

(This recipe is easily adjusted)

1 lb small red potatoes

½ lb boneless cod

1 onion diced

2 celery stalks, cut lengthwise and diced

EVOO

White wine vinegar

Nutmeg

Salt & pepper

Place cod in saucepan, cover with water, and simmer till tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and cool. Shred into smallish pieces.

Cover potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Boil until tender but not so long that skins pull away. Drain and cool, and cut into one-half to one inch pieces.

Mix together cod, potatoes, celery, and onion. Dress with oil and vinegar. Season with nutmeg, and salt and pepper.

Serve with fish, or with a green salad.

Last Call for Justice

Chief Joe Silva plans a long weekend visit with his family, taking his partner, Gwen, and her daughter, Jennie, along. Joe's father, in his nineties and ailing, has insisted on bringing everyone together for one last family reunion. He even managed to persuade the two youngest, who went west and started new lives. The patriarch has plans to heal an old wound but the family ends up facing a new crime, and Joe works feverishly to catch the killer before even more damage is done.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--DRYER SHEET SACHETS

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Most people toss used dryer sheets, but here at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers we like to turn trash into treasures. Used dryer sheets make great sachets. They’re just the right size for tucking into lingerie drawers.

Dryer sheet sachets

Materials:

Recycled fabric softener sheets, pinking shears, fabric glue, 1/4 cup potpourri, 1/4 yd. 1/8” satin ribbon

1. Trim short sides of dryer sheet with pinking shears.

2. Apply thin line of fabric glue along upper half of long sides of dryer sheet. Fold dryer sheet in half to form pouch. Allow glue to dry thoroughly.

3. Turn pouch inside-out so seams are on the inside.

4. Fill pouch with potpourri.

5. Tie pouch closed with ribbon.

BOOK LOVERS' BUFFET BOUQUET OF BOOKS SALE

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Introducing the Book Lovers’ Buffet.
Load up, you won’t gain a pound!

We have a special treat for all of our readers. A group of authors, many of them bestselling and award-winning authors, have gotten together to offer the Book Lovers’ Buffet, a special “Bouquet of Books” sale running from May 1st through May 3rd. During these three days, more than 175 ebooks are reduced in price to just .99 cents. Categories include contemporary romance, young adult, mystery & suspense, historical, paranormal, and more.

One of the authors represented in the sale is our very own Lois Winston (writing as Emma Carlyle,) who is featuring her award-winning Hooking Mr. Right, a contemporary romance (with recipes) about a guy, a girl, and a matchmaking cat.

PLUS, visit the Book Lovers’ Buffet website for a chance to win gift cards to your choice of online retailers. $400 in gift cards are up for grabs! A total of twenty-two gift cards will be given away-- one $100, two $50, four $25, five $10, and ten $5 cards.

So click on over to the Book Lovers’ Buffet and fill up your Kindle or Nook full of great summer reading before the sale ends.

HEALTHY LIVING WITH JANICE--DIET GUIDE

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Many people try to lose weight. Some succeed; many don't. E.S. Abramson, author of the highly acclaimed From Fat to Fabulous: A Diet Guide for Restaurant Lovers, which has been seen on ABC, NBC, and PBS, lost a lot of weight and has kept it off in a way that might surprise you. E.S. also writes the award-winning Thursday’s Child series as Elaine Abramson. To learn more about her and her books, visit her website. -- AP

Dieting is Fun

“There is no love more sincere than the love of food.” -- George Bernard Shaw.

I have a body by disaster and hair by wash and beware. Now that my physical characteristics are out of the way, let me say that after 40 years of trying just about every known diet that doctors, nutritionists, celebrities, and dietitians dreamt up, none of them have worked for me. I would take off 20, 40, or 50 pounds one year and the following year I would weigh far more than the day I began the diet. There were a number of reasons those diets didn’t work for me. (1) They were time consuming. It seemed to take forever to measure, weigh, and prepare the foods recommended. (2) Their instructions were hard to follow. (3) They required tons of high-impact exercise. (4) They were boring. (5) They were expensive. (6) They required me join a diet group or purchase specific prepared meals. (7) Most important of all, they were not fun, and they did not work.

The news media reports on a daily basis about obesity, weight loss programs, weight loss successes, and politicians who are trying to end obesity not because of the health problems it causes but based on the burden it costs taxpayers.

In less than one week, the Today Show has had boxer Lila Ali, who never eats pork and keeps her refrigerator stocked with chocolate bars; Dr. Oz’s lose-ten-pounds-in-thirty-days diet by limiting your calorie intake; Snookie Polizzi, a reality star who counted calories and lost forty-two pounds; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tried to legislate the end to sugary drinks over sixteen ounces; the Mayo Clinic’s money as a motivator to lose weight program; and Today Show weatherman Al Roker, who repeatedly gained and lost weight until he underwent bypass surgery and worked out with a personal trainer.

Mr. Roker says, “Diets never work.” In addition to this, celebrities hawk every diet and exercise plan under the sun. Nielson Company’s TV ratings reported that NBC’s The Biggest Loser did not draw as many viewers as thirty-six other prime-time broadcast programs which rated much higher. I don’t know about other viewers, but I find it boring to watch contestants count calories, exercise until sweat pours off their bodies, constantly weigh in, and be booted off the program when they are unable to lose the weight required. Where is the fun in any of these diets?

I needed to be extremely motivated to begin a traditional diet and stick to it, but motivation always seemed hard to come by. My enthusiasm quickly died when I discovered that each diet came with a “yoyo syndrome” attached to it. If I ate one thing that was not on the diet’s approved list or if my writing or art got in the way and I didn’t have time to do the strenuous exercises required, I found myself right back where I started from. I spent my life fighting the battle of the bulge and watching my scale groan with every pound I gained. On traditional diets, all I ended up with was frustration and anger because I was fighting a battle I could not win.

One of the reasons for not being able to lose weight is eating sugar, and one of the less obvious sources of sugar is your medicine. While doing research for the second edition of From Fat to Fabulous: Another Diet Guide for Restaurant Lovers, I read books on diet and nutrition, calorie and carbohydrate counters, and books on pills and vitamin supplements. I could not find any mention of sugar being contained in drugs in any of those sources.

Actress Julie Andrews portrayed a fictional character in the movie Mary Poppins. When she sang about a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down, she was telling it like it is. What I’ve said is not intended as medical advice nor is it intended to make you give up the medicine you are taking. It is strictly to inform you that sugar is found in some of the most unlikely places. In the 1970’s I worked in the weighing room of Barre National, the firm that manufactured Revco’s generic drugs. I weighed the sugar that went into the pills they manufactured. Because so-called traditional diets do not take the sugar in medicine into account, it seemed like nothing I did took the pounds and inches off and kept them off. Because I no longer have access to the USP-NF, a book that gives the exact measurements of all the ingredients that go into making each drug, I cannot tell you the amount of sugar used. But I noticed that if I ate bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, or dessert after I took my medicine for arthritis, thyroid, allergy, or osteoporosis, I weighed more, so I limit those foods in my diet.

My entry into creating and writing my restaurant lovers’ diet came the day I stood in my kitchen and screamed because the pain in my knees was so bad I could not stand long enough to prepare a meal. I had gained so much weight that my knees caved in under me. My husband, being the wonderful caring soul that he is, put the food back in the refrigerator and took me out to dinner. Before I could scream my head off the next night, he took me out to dinner again. Night after night we left the kitchen for one restaurant after another. After a while, just about every restaurant in town knew us and greeted us on a first name basis.

WOW! You’re probably saying to yourself, this lady has it made. You’re right; I do. At the end of three months I noticed that my clothes were falling off me. I also began to notice less pain in my knees. Best of all, for the first time in my life I was enjoying my meals and losing weight and proportions at the same time. I do not count calories, carbs, trans fats, or any of the other things dieters do to lose weight. As for the sugar in my medicine, on my restaurant lovers’ diet I rarely have to consider it. The only physical exercise I get is walking the dog and riding a stationary bicycle. The strenuous stuff I leave to others.

Most people have the mistaken perception that eating in restaurants is fattening. My answer is that it is not fattening if you eat the right combinations of foods. The other mistaken perception is that it is expensive. In From Fat to Fabulous: A Diet Guide for Restaurant Lovers I give a list of ways to cut costs. My husband and I have discovered that with all the waste in preparing food at home, it costs us practically the same amount to eat out. Best of all, it is fun to choose a new restaurant and to select from multiple choices on the menu.

With the odds stacked against me, I lost 50 pounds in one year on my restaurant lovers’ diet. During my second year on the diet, I lost an additional 35 pounds and have gone from a size 22 to a size 12. I have a sluggish thyroid, do not have a spleen, and take medication that causes weight gain, had a slipped disk, and have bad knees which makes any form of exercise extremely difficult.

It has been four years since I have set foot in a kitchen to prepare a meal. My only cooking skills are microwaving restaurant leftovers and boiling water for a cup of tea. The day my microwave goes on the fritz or my refrigerator does not keep my leftovers frozen is going to be a bad day at black rock in our house.

On my restaurant lovers’ diet I am having the time of my life. No mess, no fuss, and nothing but fun. For me, it is happy eating and weight loss at the same time. Recently I have taken up a new hobby. I shop for new clothes every time I get one size smaller. I am no longer the woman who only collected jewelry because one size fits all. The charity shops love my restaurant lovers’ diet, too, because every couple of months I fill their shelves and clothes racks with the clothes that have become too big on me.

For most of our married life, the Jack Spratt nursery rhyme described my husband and me. He was thin, and I was fat. He could eat four times what I ate and never gain an ounce. All I had to do was look at food and I packed on the pounds. Around the time I began my restaurant lovers’ diet, for the first time in his life my husband’s clothes were tight on him. With the exception of breakfast, where he finds it impossible to give up hot cereal, he’s on my restaurant lovers’ diet, too. In addition to losing inches, he says my diet gives him more energy.

With my weight loss, my husband, who is proud of what I have accomplished with my fun, enjoyable, no work, no mess, no fuss, never boring diet, tells everyone, “I’ve lost a whole other wife.”

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COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR ILENE SCHNEIDER'S MERINGUE COOKIES

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Rabbi Ilene Schneider, Ed.D., is currently Coordinator of Jewish Hospice for Samaritan Hospice, Marlton, NJ, She is the author of the Rabbi Aviva Cohen mysteries, Chanukah Guilt and Unleavened Dead, and is working on the third, Yom Killer. She is also the author of Talk Dirty Yiddish. Learn more about Ilene at her website/blog.

For someone who eats out most of the time, lives alone in a townhouse with a small kitchen equipped with a hot-air popcorn popper and a microwave (so she can melt butter to pour over the popcorn, thereby defeating the purpose of a hot-air popper), and doesn’t entertain much, Rabbi Aviva Cohen, the amateur sleuth protagonist of the cozy mysteries Chanukah Guilt and Unleavened Dead, seems to do a lot of cooking and baking.

In Chanukah Guilt, she helps out her niece, who lives with her partner and son in a mini-mansion large enough to have dozens of family and friends for a potluck, buffet-style Thanksgiving feast, by making a cranberry-orange relish and baking desserts: brownies, meringue cookies, a berry crumble, and chocolate chip cookies. (The last is actually in lieu of payment to her next door neighbor, who shoveled out her driveway after a late fall snow storm.)

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In Unleavened Dead, Aviva helps out her niece and partner, now with 2 children, as they plan a huge sit down family Seder, by making two different types of kugel (a matzah “pudding”), and, again, the cranberry-orange relish and meringue cookies. Nothing she makes is particularly difficult, but they do taste good. (Oh, and the niece’s partner is the prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of her new boss who had just demoted her shortly before his demise.)

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Excerpt from Unleavened Dead:

While I melted margarine (parve, of course, so it could be served with either a dairy or a meat meal) in the microwave, I squeezed out the excess water from the softened boards of matzah, crumbled them up and added them to the bowl with the beaten eggs, chopped onions, and salt. I coated some aluminum lasagna pans (the perfect size for kugel) with the melted margarine and added the rest to the mixture, combining it all well. Then I divided it into the pans and stuck them into a pre-heated oven. As I said, easy. After Steve, Ben, and I ate lunch – and, I hoped, talked – I would make a second double batch and then start on the sweet kugel. Instead of onions, I would add chopped up apples and raisins to the matzah and eggs. Also easy. It’s not as popular as the onion kugel, so I would make only one double batch instead of two. By then, the egg whites would be room temperature, and I could make the meringue cookies. If I timed it right, I would have time to catch a movie after dropping everything off at Trudy and Sherry’s. If, that is, I didn’t feel too guilty about enjoying myself while they were worrying about a murder charge.

Aviva’s recipes are all ones that I make. The absolute favorite – to the extent that I have to hide them or they get eaten before the meal – are the meringue cookies:

Ingredients:

6 oz. package chocolate chips

3 egg whites

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp cream tartar (optional)

1 cup sugar

Make sure eggs are room temperature. Combine egg whites and vanilla. Beat stiff but not dry. Gradually add sugar and cream of tartar, and beat until very stiff and shiny. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at low oven (200-225) until dry to touch. (Makes about 3 dozen.)

Hints (all learned through painful experience):

· Don’t try to make these if it’s humid.

· Make sure the eggs aren’t too fresh.

· Separate the eggs and then let the whites get to room temperature.

· Make sure no yolk or water gets into the whites. (When I separate the eggs, I use 2 bowls; after I separate each white into the 1^st bowl, I pour it into the 2^nd bowl; in that way, if I do get yolk into one of the whites, the whole bowl isn’t contaminated.)

· Use parchment paper instead of greasing the cookie sheet, so the bottoms of the cookies stay white and don’t turn brown.

· Don’t use more than 3 eggs at a time. (If I need more than 3 dozen cookies – which I do for 2 nights of Seders – I let the 2^nd, or sometimes, 3^rd, batch of eggs whites get to room temperature while the previous batch is in the oven.)

I am not one of those cooks who refuses to share recipes or deliberately omits an ingredient or a step. If anyone would like any of my other recipes, email me at rabbi.author@yahoo.com. B’tayavon! (Hebrew for bon appetite.)

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--CROSS STITCHED ROSE SACHET BAG

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Mother’s Day is coming up. Stuck for a gift? Why not cross stitch this rose motif on one or more sachet bags?

Cross Stitched Rose Sachet Bag

Materials: Charles Craft white Royal Classic Sachet Bag, DMC floss as listed in the Color Key, DMC #24 tapestry needle, scissors, rose potpourri

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR DIANNE VENETTA

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Our guest author today is Dianne Venetta who, when not whacking away at her keyboard crafting her next novel, can be found chasing grasshoppers and plucking hornworms in her organic garden and drawing wild analogies between kids and plants and men. Learn more about Dianne and her books at her website. -- AP

Tennessee is an interesting place. Not only a great vacation spot for hiking enthusiasts, but the rivers and streams are a huge lure for fisherman, the whitewater rapids a strong draw for the kayaker and canoe lover. It’s also a great setting for a novel! But did you know it’s said the word Tennessee comes from the word “Tana-see?” That’s the Native American word for “the meeting place.” Whether or not this is true, it’s a fact that many Cherokee people inhabited the area before Europeans came through.

One of those famous Cherokee people was Sequoyah. Although exposed to the concept of writing early in his life, Sequoyah never learned the English alphabet. Unlike the white soldiers in the war of 1812, he and the other Cherokees were not able to write letters home, read military orders, or record events as they occurred. After the war, he began in earnest to create a writing system for the Cherokees. In 1821, after 12 years working on the new language, he finally reduced the thousands of Cherokee thoughts to 85 symbols representing sounds. He made a game of this new writing system and within a few months of introducing his alphabet, thousands of Cherokees became literate.

Today, Tennessee is host to the world’s largest freshwater aquarium, located in Chattanooga. It also boasts the largest underground lake, located in Sweetwater, TN. Speaking of “large,” Reelfoot Lake in northwestern Tennessee was created by the largest earthquake, the New Madrid Earthquake, which occurred in the winter of 1811-12.

But I like that it’s the birthplace of country music, the Krystal burger, miniature golf, the typewriter and a host of other inventions. It’s also one of my favorite summer destinations which is how Ladd Springs came to be. I drew my inspiration from the canopied trails, the cool water rivers and waterfalls, but most of all, from family and friends. We have some crazy feuds going on out there in this world and I just had to put pen to paper and start stirring the pot!

Ladd Springs is a work of fiction, but it was sparked by some interesting characters I’ve observed in my travels. Add a little embellishment from me, and you end up with a story full of mystery, drama, and of course, romance. I hope you enjoy!

Ladd Springs

A deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the Tennessee forest bring Delaney Wilkins and Nick Harris together in a dramatic fight for the rights to Ladd Springs.

Delaney Wilkins finds herself at odds with hotel developer Nick Harris over a deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the Tennessee forest. Both are after title to Ladd Springs, a mecca of natural springs, streams and trails in the eastern Tennessee mountains, a tract of land worth millions. But Ernie Ladd, current owner of the property and uncle to Delaney, is adamantly opposed to them both.

Felicity Wilkins, Delaney’s daughter, deserves to inherit her family’s legacy, but neighbor Clem Sweeney is working against her, ingratiating himself with Ernie Ladd. Clem is also harboring a secret that will make him a very wealthy man—unless the others stop him before he can bring it to fruition.

Complicating matters is Annie Owens. Ex-girlfriend to Jeremiah Ladd, Ernie’s estranged son living in Atlanta, she declares her daughter Casey is Jeremiah’s, making Casey every bit as entitled to the property as Felicity—only Annie hasn’t proven this claim. Yet.

All are fighting to get the property, but only one will walk away with the gold. Which will it be? Find out in the first installment of Ladd Springs...

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TRAVELS WITH SERENA--GUEST AUTHOR ADAM SHEPARD

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

During his 29th year, spending just $19,420.68, less than it would have cost him to stay at home, Adam Shepard visited seventeen countries on four continents and lived some amazing adventures. He writes about this year in his new book, One Year Lived. The following is a shortened excerpt from one of Adam's adventures. Learn more about Adam at his website.

Imagine what it might be like to reach through the computer screen to confront a person on the other side.

Years ago, I read some articles and a couple of books on outsourcing, and it changed the structure of my life. The Internet has brought virtual assistance to the commoner on a digital silver platter. The little guy—you with the lawn care business or you trying to sell homemade reversible purses—can now research affordably, manufacture affordably, and market affordably.

If you can somewhat coherently list instructions in an e-mail, assignments will be completed for you overnight, finished by the time you sit down at the table for your bagel in the morning. Globalization allows for a collaborative effort to be affordable and efficient for everyone.

So, a couple of years before my world adventure began, I had plopped down on my sofa and flipped my laptop open. A few clicks and I began my search.

A Rafael Apolinario III’s credentials spanned my screen. I settled on him due to his glowing enthusiasm.

Not only is my boy Raf logging hours for half the cost of America’s burger-flipping minimum wage, he’s doing some pretty advanced computer work for me. I can send him a list of one thousand colleges and universities and say, “Raf, I need the names and e-mail addresses of the vice provosts at these universities. You think you can do that in forty hours?”

He says, “Yes, of course, Sir Adam, but I will try hard to do it in thirty!”

I asked him once whether he knew how to put together a video from a file of pictures, and he wrote, “Not today, Sir Adam. But I can learn by tomorrow!”

I send him money; he sends me quality work. It’s a very simple relationship.

From the outback, Ivana wanted to go to a beach. One with powdery sand and few people. One where we could lounge by the shore and eat filet mignon and drink a bottle of chardonnay. One where she could swim without concern for sanitation.

I e-mailed Raf and he replied almost instantly. “Adam…you are welcome anytime! I am excited to finally meet you personally. I live just an hour and a half ride from Boracay, the most beautiful beach in the world.”

He was exaggerating, kind of. Just this year, TripAdvisor touted Boracay as the second-best beach in the world, just after Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos.

“Adam, sir!” Raf hollered. “You made it!” Around five feet tall, he weighed in at 115 pounds. I was almost literally two of him. He sported a Fisher Price My First Mustache and had curled the top of his hair into a mini-mohawk, the style of the decade among Filipino men.

I learned that he was two years from thirty, though he looked to be between fifteen and seventeen years old. I’d never known his age.

The tide shifted when I met Raf. I was no longer in charge. Raf, the Raf who always apologized for simple, meaningless errors and always asked me twice whether I found his work sufficient, morphed into a man in control. He showed Ivana and me to the cool spots on the beach, he took us to buy fresh spices and produce, he gave us a tour of the creaky but clean office he worked out of, he introduced us to his family, and he helped us to avoid getting swindled. “No, man, don’t buy that one,” he advised when we passed by souvenir shops.

He cooked. Sauteed prawns and pork adobo. He combined shrimp, spinach, string beans, tomatoes, onions, peppers, fish sauce, and a tamarind base to make a tangy traditional Filipino soup. I bought ingredients, he cooked them.

And then we went wakeboarding. Raf spit out Tagalog, the native language, all over that island until we arrived at the only place with the equipment to offer wakeboarding.

I forget where we settled. It wasn’t in my favor but far better than a white man would have been able to negotiate on his own in Boracay. I really didn’t have a choice anyway. This man owned the only wakeboarding equipment on the island. I spent pocket change to fight bulls in Nicaragua, and I was ready to go to the ATM in order to wakeboard, with Boracay’s lounging green hills and rough cliffs as a backdrop. Boats were zipping this way and that under the sun’s full gleam. A few white tufts littered a mostly cloudless sky. It’s irresponsible to spare expense for these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

A half hour later, I was sitting next to this dude, this guy I’d known for two years, but really only a few hours.

“Did you get that one?” I asked, surfacing from a spill after one of my jumps. I shook my head to fling water from my shaggy hair.

“Hm. Yes, man. But I tell you it might be a better picture if you can get off the water a little bit.”

Meeting Raf in such a beautiful atmosphere was an interesting blend of business and pleasure. We have nothing in common, and there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. He was nice; I was nice. We spoke very little about current political happenings and a lot about Manny’s fight.

Raf lives a world away from me, literally and metaphorically. The people of his country are almost as poor as the people of Honduras. Raf lives in a cramped one-bedroom apartment and cooks his meals—mostly rice and bits of fish. He deposits most of his earnings into his nineteen-year-old brother’s college education fund or into a savings account for the business he wants to open one day. He walks around town, whether his destination lies one block or a couple dozen away.

And in between home-cooked meals and time on the boat, it felt good to be able to step out of the virtual world, establish a real connection, look him in the eye, shake his hand, and thank him personally.

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HEALTHY LIVING WITH JANICE—GUEST AUTHOR L.B. JORAMO

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Have you ever felt the need for change? L.B. Joramo did, and she’s here to tell us about it today. Learn more about her at her website.

I worked in the health and fitness business for sixteen years before I packed it all in and went back to school for my Master’s in US Military History; my area of concentration is the American Revolution. I had been planning to quit for several years, since my ultimate goal was to actually make a living at my writing, and my early “retirement” couldn’t have come at a better time. Before I quit my business, I partly tore my rotator cuff again and strained my groin. I could barely walk, let alone lift anything with my left arm. Obviously, I was doing something wrong, but what it was, I could have cared less, since I didn’t have to work out for my job anymore. I was elated!

For the next three years I became more and more sedentary. Hey, I was a part-time Master’s student, hence a lot of sitting while I read, and was actively pursuing getting published with my writing—even more sitting. And with my injuries, I didn’t mind sitting more. I really didn’t mind, but my body did. I started to gain weight, but what disturbed me the most was my mood. I was sad more often than I ever had been and agitated. I just thought it was because I was having such a struggle with getting published, but it was more, much more, than that.

You see, I know the science behind why our bodies do what they do. I knew better than to sit around with two injuries. The quickest way to heal is movement--gentle, consistent movement. The best way to lose a few pounds is movement. I’m sorry diet industry, but it’s been proven over and over again that diets don’t work. Activity does. Besides, what the diet industry really doesn’t want mainstream Americans to know is:

1.) being overweight does not mean you are unhealthy—the stats show that a person who eats more healthy meals and consistently moves, yet is overweight, will live longer and have less diseases than a thin person who does not eat the same kind of healthy meals or move regularly. And,

2.) most people are overweight by their standards, which might not be accurate or even scientific. All my male clients were 20, 30, sometimes even 40 pounds overweight, but none of those pounds were fat. All of my guy clients were fine with that. With my female clients it was more difficult to talk about the scale, because many women valued their sense of self with the number on that scale. And that broke my heart.

However, many of my women would open up to the idea that muscle did weigh more than fat. We would do a science experiment, where I would cube an inch of butter and an inch of steak, and the steak would sometimes weigh three times more than the butter, especially lean steak—in other words, pure muscle. The only way to get that muscle was to move.

I’m a realist, as well as a very sedentary person now. I do not, nor have I ever, thought you had to work yourself until you’re purple in the face to gain muscle. And don’t get me wrong, I do love a challenging exercise class, where I end up dripping sweat. But that’s me. Everyone has different emotional needs, so why not have different physical needs too? Some people move all the time, yet never work up a sweat, and they have great muscles and cardio health to prove it. Some people, like me, will want to burst with energy and lift weights and or do power yoga until sweat streams off us. Both these kinds of examples are proof of movement and people being active, and they are both right for those particular people.

We’ve been studying exercise for a long time, and the one thing that has been proven over and over again to work for people is doing what they like consistently. That means, when I was a trainer, I would have to think outside the box for training my clients. One of my clients actually liked cleaning, and I helped her set up her own organization of cleaners to help people who are diagnosed with a fatal disease. She cleans all day long, happy as a Jay bird, gets fit, and does it all for a great cause.

Another client of mine was a preacher’s wife, and for the longest time I couldn’t find anything that she loved so much that she would want to do it every day. Until I found strip aerobics for her. Yep, my client, the preacher’s wife, knows how to have a good time, and her husband has no complaints either.

The point is that exercise should be some activity that is fun and something you look forward to doing almost every day. My problem, before I quit, was that I had forgotten that, and was just working out because it was my job. As a consequence, I started to listen less and less to my body as I was moving, and that’s how you get a couple killer injuries.

Listen to your bodies, move as often as you can—during commercial breaks, get up and dance for me, lend a hand to your neighbor when they’re sick, show your kids how terrible you are at the hula-hoop, but the most important rule of exercise is to have FUN! Find something you find completely exhilarating and do it as often as you can!

Our bodies will adjust and want something else to do soon enough, so then it’s your job to find that something else that is incredibly fun for you to do. It’s a journey, like so many other things, and I guarantee you will not only discover so much about your body, but yourself too. I’ve been privileged to watch my clients change, adjust, and grow, and now it’s my turn to do the same. I hope you’ll join me! Let me know what you like to do for exercise, activity, or movement, whatever word resonates with you?

The Immortal American

As black clouds gather for America in 1775 Violet Buccleuch transforms from simple colonial farmer to become the Immortal American.

While Boston roars with protests, Violet Buccleuch fights to survive. The lone provider for her mother and sister, Violet knows that soon enough she must surrender to the only option a woman of 1775 has: marriage.

For two years she's delayed a wedding to Mathew Adams, her fiancé. He’s loved her since they were children, and Violet knows he will be a good husband. But he’s gone and committed the most dangerous mistake a man can make: He’s introduced her to his friend, Jacque Beaumont, a Frenchman and a spy, a dark, dangerous man Violet can’t stop herself from wanting.

Then Violet’s life is shattered--brutality, death, and the threat of debtor’s prison surround her. Both Jacque and Mathew come to her aid--one man rescues her farm, the other rescues her heart. As the Battle of Concord rages at her door, Violet is entangled between her loyalty to Mathew, even as she's drawn further into Jacque's shadowy, mysterious world – perhaps a world from which there's no return.

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COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR JUDY ALTER

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Judy Alter is the author of Kelly O’Connell Mysteries—Skeleton in a Dead Space, No Neighborhood for Old Women, and Trouble in a Big Box. With Murder at the Blue Plate Café, she launches her second series: Blue Plate Café Mysteries. Learn more about Judy and her books at her website. -- AP

I’m going to begin with a confession: I don’t have a craft, unless you count the craft of writing. Heaven knows, I’ve tried. There was my macramé phase—how long ago was that? Thankfully no souvenirs survive from that period. And then there was pottery—I still serve from some bowls that I threw. They’re thick and crude but I’m not ashamed to admit their origin. And then there was knitting. My grandmother taught me to knit as a young child, and there was a period—high school?—when I knit sweaters for myself. But I gave it up until the grandchildren came along and I decided I should knit something for each, so the youngest five have blankets or sweaters from Juju, although the loving hands that made them are evident in their flaws.

But always there was cooking. My mom taught me to cook when I was quite young. She patiently tolerated a messy kitchen and frequent mistakes, like the time I put nine teaspoons of baking soda in a cake. That’s what the recipe called for—I just didn’t know any better. Cooking has been my avocation all my life.

To me, there are two kinds of cooking: daily food and gourmet. For years, I fed four children and often had fifteen or twenty around my Sunday evening dinner table. I called those years of single parenthood “the casserole years.” You don’t cook gourmet in those circumstances, though once I went too far with experimentation, causing my brother to ask, “Sis? Is the budget the problem?” But to this day I enjoy cooking “gourmet” meals for small groups of friends. Usually I try a recipe I haven’t tried before—that’s part of the fun.

The idea of writing a culinary mystery danced in my head for several years, and I read a lot of those on the market, back to the early The Cooking School Murders by Virginia Rich. Diane Mott Davidson and Cleo Coyle were my heroes, though their recipes, I thought, put mine to shame.

Then I invented the Blue Plate Café, named after the Blue Willow china my mom served on and I use today. Actually the café is a modification of my memories of a small café in East Texas where my children and I used to eat frequently when visiting friends at a nearby ranch. And when I created Kate Chambers, I found I had re-invented myself.

Kate, a paralegal in Dallas, inherits her grandmother’s café in the small town of Wheeler. She abandons her career and returns to Wheeler, where she grew up, to run the café. Every day she cooks daily food—pot roast, chicken-fried steak, chopped steak, fried catfish, and, don’t forget the sticky buns, but she adds her own touch with homemade tuna, chicken and potato salads. In her off time, she delights in cooking gourmet meals, everything from chicken piccata to beef Wellington and inventing a few dishes as she goes along. Here’s her recipe for sticky buns, for which the Blue Plate Café is famous:

Sticky Buns

Ingredients:

2 pkg. granular yeast

½ c. warm water

Pinch of sugar

12-oz. can evaporated milk, plus enough water to make 4 cups

1 scant c. vegetable oil

1 c. sugar

1 c. flour

1 tsp. salt (or less)

1 heaping tsp. baking powder

1 level tsp. baking soda

cinnamon

brown sugar

butter

Karo white syrup

pecans

Dissolve yeast in water (add just a pinch of sugar to help the yeast work) and let it rise about five minutes. Mix milk and water, oil, and sugar. Add dissolved yeast. Stir in enough flour to make a thin batter, the consistency of cake batter. Let this rise in a warm place until bubbles appear on the surface (probably 1 hour—check it at 30 minutes).

Mix together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Sift flour mixture into first mixture. Keep adding flour until it is too stiff to stir with a spoon.

Roll the dough out to a flat rectangle. Sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar and dab with butter. Roll up into a tube and slice into pieces of about 2 inches.

Thoroughly grease the bottom of an 8”x8” pan, then cover it with Karo white syrup and pecan pieces. Place rounds of dough, cut side down, on the Karo/pecan mixture. Bake these at 350^o until brown and center rolls appear cooked. Be sure to turn out of the pan immediately, while still warm. Cold cooked syrup turns to concrete. Rinse the pan immediately with very hot water.

Murder at the Blue Plate Café

When twin sisters Kate and Donna inherit their grandmother’s restaurant, the Blue Plate Cafe, in Wheeler, Texas, there’s immediate conflict. Donna wants to sell and use her money to establish a B&B; Kate wants to keep the café. Thirty-two-year-old Kate leaves a Dallas career as a paralegal and a married lover to move back to Wheeler and run the café, while Donna plans her B&B and complicates her life by having an affair with her sole investor.

Kate soon learns that Wheeler is not the idyllic small town she thought it was fourteen years ago. The mayor, a woman, is power-mad and listens to no one, and the chief of police, newly come from Dallas, doesn’t understand small-town ways. Kate is suspicious of Gram’s sudden death, “keeling over in the mashed potatoes,” as Donna described it, and she learns that’s not at all what happened. When the mayor of Wheeler becomes seriously ill after eating food from the café, delivered by Donna’s husband, Kate is even more suspicious.

Then Donna’s investor is shot, and Donna is arrested. Kate must defend her sister and solve the murders to keep her business open, but even Kate begins to wonder about the sister she has a love-hate relationship with. Gram guides Kate through it all, though Kate’s never quite sure she’s hearing Gram—and sometimes Gram’s guidance is really off the wall.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--EARTH DAY MAGAZINE BOWL

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Earth Day Magazine Bowl

Happy Earth Day! For those of you who are regular followers of Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers, you know that we stress the three R’s – Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle. So in celebration of Earth Day, today I’m featuring a super simple craft that repurposes magazines into a bowl.

Materials:

magazine with colorful pages, scissors, low-temp glue gun, 5” x 5” piece of felt, tacky glue

1. Tear pages from the magazine. Cut each page in half, lengthwise.

2. Fold each half page in half lengthwise, then in half again, and repeating twice more until the strip is approximately 1/4” wide.

3. Apply dab of glue to one end of one strip and form into a tight coil. Glue the end in place.

4. Continue adding strips to enlarge the coil until it measures 4” in diameter. This is the base of your bowl. Adhere strips with a dab of glue as you add to the coil and glue the end of each strip to the coil.

5. Make small coils from individual strips of paper. These will be approximately 1” in diameter. Glue 15 smaller coils vertically around the perimeter of the large coil.

6. Glue a second rows of vertical coils staggered on top of the first row, then a third row.

7. Cut a 4-1/4” circle from felt. Glue to bottom of bowl with tacky glue.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR LYNN CAHOON

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Lynn Cahoon is a contemporary romance author with a love of hot, sexy men, real and imagined. Her heroines all have one thing in common, their strong need for independence. Or at least that’s what they think they want. Learn more about Lynn and her books at her website. -- AP

Temporary Roommates is a novella set in the Central West End of St. Louis, next to Forest Park, where the 1905 World’s Fair was held, and, down the street from the hospital where I spent the majority of 2007.

The writer handbooks all tell you to write about something you know, so when I stared out the window after being told I had breast cancer, instead of focusing on the fear of what might be, I spun a story about a nurse who needed a place to live.

As the treatments continued, I had a lot of time to think about this story. As the months passed through spring and into summer, I, like my heroine yearned to be outside. Maybe not running like Annie enjoys, but at least walking, hearing the birds and feeling the sun on my face.

I’ve been cancer free now for five years and although I still haven’t taken up running, I’m a lot like my spunky nurse heroine, always trying to find my way in the world without help. But I’ve found that taking care of each other is a calling. So I wanted to share my top five gifts for any friend undergoing cancer treatments.

1-Offer to help. No, scratch that, don’t just offer, show up to clean their house, or drive them to chemo, or even sit and talk on the porch.

2- Ease the boredom. I tell everyone I know the best part of cancer was time to read. If your friend isn’t a reader, crosswords are great, too. Just something to pass the time while waiting for the next appointment.

3- Food. As time passed, the chemo made food less appetizing. So I ate a lot of mashed potatoes and ice cream. Find out what your friend loves, then stock their fridge.

4- Be an exercise buddy. Studies have shown some advantages for people who exercise through the months of treatment. Added strength, energy, and maybe even just a healthy dose of the feel good stuff that floods your brain after working out. (Be sure to clear plans with your friend’s medical professionals.)

5-Offer to take your friend to their appointments. I found myself wondering about the future way too often when I was alone. Having someone there kept me in the moment and focused on getting better.

Annie Baxter, my heroine in Temporary Roommates is given doggie duty, escorting a puppy through the halls to meet patients. I tend to agree with my character, there’s nothing quite so healing as a big wet puppy kiss.

Blurb: Annie Baxter has her dream job. Now, all she needs is a cheap apartment close to the hospital. Troy Saunders knows his life as an intern is all about the long hours. He doesn’t have time to play doctor to some Nurse Barbie. So when his sister finds a great apartment walking distance to work and next to the best running paths in the city, he’s sold. Two leasing agents, two prospective renters, one apartment. Can they co-exist without fireworks?

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ANASTASIA INTERVIEWS "ASK MARTHA" ADVICE COLUMNIST

noreply@blogger.com (ANASTASIA POLLACK) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Prize-winning mystery writer William S. Shepard writes the Diplomatic Mystery series, mirroring his own career in the Foreign Service. He is also the author of two collections of short stories that feature amateur sleuth Crusher Davis, a former football player who now writes the “Ask Martha” advice column for a local newspaper. Read more about William and his books at his website.

When I first heard about “Ask Martha,” I thought it would be cool to interview her, but as you can see, the interview didn’t go exactly as planned—AP

Anastasia: Excuse me, but I thought that this was the desk of the columnist who writes “Ask Martha.”

Martha: It is. I guess that I didn’t fit your mental image. Most readers don’t know that I am 6 foot six, 265 pounds, and decidedly male!

Anastasia: Why are you writing the “Ask Martha” column for the Chronicle? I mean, when I started to research this column for American Woman magazine about “Up and Coming Women Reporters and Editors,” you were not exactly what I had in mind. What’s your real name, by the way?

Martha: Locally I’m known as “Crusher” Davis. I got that name from my football playing days.

Anastasia: What on earth are you doing writing an advice column?

Martha: It’s a job. Matter of fact, it was the only job at the Chronicle when I started some six months ago. Since then, the Business Editor slot opened up, and my Editor, James Carstairs, picked me for that job. But the advice column is something that I really enjoy. Since I was a kid, people have confided in me. They still do. That’s the quality that Carstairs was looking for when he interviewed me for the job. But he did say that he wondered if I’d be accepted writing the advice column under my own name. So we kind of together came up with the idea that I’d write under the “Ask Martha” pen name.

I should have mentioned that the original “Ask Martha” really was named Martha, and she wrote the column for years and years. When she left for Arizona, the job was open. People kind of assume that she may be still on the job. But I hope not. I think that I give better advice! Anyway, it’s a good use of my Journalism major.

Anastasia: Just how do you keep your cover? I should think that your readers would easily figure out who really writes the “Ask Martha” column.

Martha: It’s all done by the column. People read it and send email replies and comments. And in a small town, people do tell you the darndest things. So mostly, Martha never interviews people. Advice columnists don’t, as a rule, as you know. When I have to do an interview, it can be in my Business Editor guise. But often, what I hear from readers in answer to the questions that I ask them is helpful in solving our local mysteries.

Anastasia: Doesn’t all this annoy the police?

Martha: Not in the least. As a matter of fact, Inspector Samuels of the Centerville Police says I’m a great help. He is understaffed, to put it mildly. What the town can allocate for the police budget is simply inadequate. He even had to let a patrolman go, for lack of funds. Samuels just doesn’t have time to thoroughly analyze every case. So he shares some of the puzzling ones with me. When he does, I take it from there. It’s all OK, and Samuels gets the credit, which he deserves.

Anastasia: As you may have heard, I’m an amateur sleuth myself. Since we’re in the same detecting business, so to speak, we have that in common. Tell me about some of your cases.

Martha: Crime with a small town focus, about sums it up. I haven’t had any murder cases, or aggravated violence, and hope that I never do. But theft, shoplifting, arson, embezzlement, and stolen identity, those are actual crimes that I’ve solved.

Anastasia: Have they been written down, for crime readers to enjoy?

Martha: Why yes, and to my surprise, my efforts have gathered something of a readership. That’s quite interesting, considering I share the billing in two collections of short mysteries, “Coffee Break Mysteries” and “More Coffee Break Mysteries: The Sherlock Holmes Edition,” with other sleuths, including Holmes himself!

Anastasia: This has been most interesting, even if you don’t quite fit the topic I had in mind.

Martha: But the character does. If I can be a believable Martha, think of how a real one would prosper writing an advice column, and solving the odd crime or two as she does!

Anastasia: Agreed. Thank you so much for your time. I’ll keep your real identity a secret ... between us girls?

Coffee Break Mysteries is a collection of twenty short mysteries, from shoplifting to murder. Each mystery is set forth for the reader to solve, with clues and several suspects. The reader solves the mystery, then turns to the next page for the solution.

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More Coffee Break Mysteries: The Sherlock Holmes Edition is a collection of twenty short mysteries, ranging from blackmail to murder. Each mystery is set forth for the reader to solve, with clues and suspects. The reader solves the mystery, then turns to the next page for the solution.

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