Monday, February 25, 2019

Dead of Winter: Sherry Knowlton


I'd like to welcome Sherry Knowlton today. She writes in one of my favorites genres, mystery and suspense with a bit of romance. 

Thanks, Susan, for inviting me onto your blog today. 

My Alexa Williams series is mystery/suspense with a nice dollop of romance.  My stories are set in the present day but are somewhat unique in that they contain a parallel historical story that intersects with the contemporary mystery at some point in the book.  So, it’s particularly important that each story contains a few key elements that help ground it in the correct era.

In the newest book, Dead of Winter, I looked to drone technology to provide that sense of early 21st century setting.  The heroine, Alexa, and her friends discover a disturbing image on the video footage they’ve just filmed with their drone.  That discovery leads Alexa into big trouble. In contrast, the parallel story is set in pre-Civil war days and follows a young slave in his escape from a Virginia plantation. The most cutting edge technology in that story is a horse and wagon.

Of course, there are many things an author can use to ground a story in an era or a region. For example, I used style of dress, slang and music to help bring the hippie era to life in Dead of Summer. Speech patterns and entirely different set of slang helped me set the stage for the Depression era subplot in my first book, Dead of Autumn.

In some ways, I find it easier to capture bygone eras by emphasizing a few of that time’s most distinctive characteristics than I do to depict the current day. Perhaps it’s because we are so immersed in our everyday environments that we must be especially keen observers to predict the items that will make future readers think, “Oh, this book is set in the early 21st century.”

But, my books also use issues that are ripped from today’s headlines as the background or key components of the plot.  So, those issues provide much of the contemporary flavor.  I guess you’ll need to read of one the books to discover whether I’ve been successful in nailing the proper sense of time and place. Dead of Winter is the newest with a release date of February 19th.


Dead of Winter
“With riveting suspense and vivid details, Dead of Winter by Sherry Knowlton brings the towns and forests of Southcentral Pennsylvania to vivid life as cultures and beliefs clash in a searing tale of murder, love, and communal fear.  From flying drones to police investigations and legal wrangling, Dead of Winter will keep you guessing and glued raptly to your reading chair.” 

-          Gayle Lynds, New York Times best-selling author of The Assassins


A lighthearted trip to test a new drone turns deadly for attorney Alexa Williams
and two close friends when they find a stranger’s bullet-riddled body in a remote field in
rural Pennsylvania. Next to the dead man is a note that declares: Allahu Akbar.
When a second man is executed near Harpers Ferry, Alexa’s old flame, Reese, becomes a suspect, leading her to question just how much he changed while working in Africa. Fear of Islamic terrorism spreads like wildfire through Alexa’s small town after a third murder. After police arrest the oldest son of her Syrian refugee clients, the family becomes the focus of mounting anti-Muslim rage, and a dangerous militia group turns its sights on Alexa.
One dark night in the dead of winter, Alexa discovers who is behind the murders and must race to stop an attack that could kill hundreds. If she fails, she could lose everyone she loves.

Buy links:
·         Available at most online retailers and bookstores.
About Sherry: Sherry Knowlton is the author of the Alexa Williams series of suspense novels: Dead of Autumn, Dead of Summer, Dead of Spring and the most recent release, Dead of Winter.  Passionate
about books at an early age, she was that kid who would sneak a flashlight to bed at night so she could read beneath the covers. All the local librarians knew her by name. When not writing the next Alexa Williams thriller, Knowlton works on her health care consulting business or travels around the world. She and her husband live in the mountains of South Central Pennsylvania. 




Connect with Sherry at:

Do you think drones can help solve crimes or perhaps discover crimes? Is that title hitting right in the cold spot for this time of year? 

Thanks, Sherry, for visiting today.



Monday, February 18, 2019

Corruption by Nick Wilford

Hi Susan! Thanks for hosting me as part of my tour. Today, we're going to go live to one of Harmonia's top investigative TV shows for an interview with the youngest member of the science team.
*
I’m Mark Tangleford from Harmonia Happenings, and today we’ve got something exciting for you – an insight into the hitherto secretive world of the Whitopolis science labs through the eyes of its youngest member, Dr Daniel Carrickson.
Let’s introduce you to our viewers. Can you tell our viewers a bit about yourself and how you got started in the exciting world of science?
(Clears throat nervously) Well, sure, Mark. Um, let me see. I guess I was always fascinated by science, all the wonderful things around us that make our lives better. Most people take them for granted, like the food transmission units – they just produce a delicious plate of food out of nothing, and it wasn’t always like that. When I was eight I tried to take ours apart at home to see how it worked. My parents had to spend five hundred dollars on repairs, so they weren’t too happy, but when I was leaving school my dad – who works as a government adviser – heard about an opening for a trainee scientist and put my name forward.
Yes, under the old system it seemed to be very much about having connections if you wanted to get anywhere in government. Now it seems they’re trying to make things a lot more open. Can you tell me about how things have changed?
Yeah, well, I’d only been in about my job for about a year you see when Wellesbury Noon overthrew the Reformers. So I wasn’t too set in my ways, unlike some of my older team members who, um, weren’t particularly happy about it! I don’t want to say anything bad, so I’ll leave it there. But yeah, it does seem more open, transparent you could say. We get groups of visitors who come round to see how everything’s done. It doesn’t seem like we keep secrets any more, whereas before people didn’t even know where the labs were. It was like a fortress.
Now tell me what’s coming up in the world of science. I hear you’re going to be part of a very special mission to Loretania.
That’s right, we’re preparing mass quantities of the disease antidote to help all the people over there who are suffering so much. That’s another thing I’m glad is out in the open. Of course, all of us who were behind the scenes, you could say, knew about what things were like there, but it was kept hidden from the population. It was the biggest secret of all. So yes, I’m really excited about that. It’s going to make a real difference and I hope it leads to some sort of interaction between the two countries.
Thank you for talking with us today, Daniel. I’ll let you get back to your important work now.
Thank you. It was a pleasure!
Title: Corruption
Author: Nick Wilford
Genre: YA dystopian Series: Black & White Series #: 2 of 3
Release date: 11th February 2019
Publisher: Superstar Peanut Publishing
Blurb:
Wellesbury Noon and Ezmerelda Dontible have found themselves in a position where they can make their native land somewhere that lives up to its name: Harmonia. However, they’re setting their sights further afield for their number one task: eradicating the disease that has plagued the neighbouring country of Loretania for generations and allowed the privileged Harmonians to live in a sterile environment.

After dispatching a team of scientists to Loretania, armed with cratefuls of an antidote and vaccine and headed up by their friend, Dr George Tindleson, Welles, Ez, and Welles’s brother Mal – who grew up in that benighted nation – start to worry when they hear nothing back, despite what they had agreed. Commandeering a fishing boat to follow the science team over the sea, they soon find that, while the disease may be on the way out, a new kind of infection has set in – the corruption they thought they had stamped out in Harmonia.

Can they get to the root of the problem and eliminate it before even more damage is done to an innocent people?

*** Warning – this book contains themes that some sensitive readers may find upsetting. ***
Purchase Links:
Meet the author:
Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those early morning times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction, with a little freelance editing and formatting thrown in. When not working he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also the editor of Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology for Andrew. Visit him at his blog or connect with him on Twitter, GoodreadsFacebook, or Amazon.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

IWSG: February 2019

The year is already zipping along. The first Wednesday of the month mean IWSG, the monthly bloghop and brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. Please share your questions, failures, victories, and inspirations with the group. Find the entire list here.

The optional question for hop participants this month: Besides writing, what other creative outlets do you have?

Not as many as I used to. LOL. Time being a factor. I love cross-stitch and have done some pretty nice projects with it, if I do say so myself. I also love to crochet and I love to bake and try new recipes. I don't do much of the latter anymore. With my kids all grown up, baking is a very bad idea for my husband and me. It's only us to eat those goodies. I have no one to crochet a blanket for either though my granddaughter is getting one as soon as she's old enough to pick her colors.

Hope you all didn't suffer too much in the recent deep freeze. It was really miserable. I'm dreading the electric bill which will probably be posted today or tomorrow. Could be a record for us. It's warmer than average now, but who knows what is on the horizon.

"A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm." English proverb

I've been reading a lot of statistics about publishing and how writers are faring in this ever more competitive field. Lots of numbers show that authors are making a lot less in the past year than they made a few years ago. Over-saturation of the market is one of factors most often cited. At a recent one-day workshop I attended, the presenter shared that 730 new romance novels are published every day. Wow! Romance readers are voracious, but those numbers are still unnerving. How does one get found by new readers?

Working on a new book and trying to keep my 1,000 words per day going like I have for the last four books I wrote. It took me a lot of years to figure out a process that works for me.

I'm enjoying the new FOX show, The Passage. It's a lot like the books, and the differences are working. It's getting the creep factor right. Another show I'm looking forward to in 2019 is the return to The 100, a CW show that gets better every year. Also, I heard this season of SYFY's Killjoys will be its last. This is a fun show if you haven't tried it before. In case you believe I only watch science fiction and fantasy show, I am really enjoying the new CBS show, FBI.

Saw on the news today that Pennsylvania's new budget is once again not increasing the funding to public libraries. What are they thinking. It's one of those things I'm glad to pay taxes to support. Hope your home states or countries do better than mine. On the other hand, my local county has found more monies for libraries. I can't express how important libraries are and how much I love my local one.

Stay warm, friends, and keep on reading and writing. Do you have many creative outlets? Do you love your local library? Did the polar vortex get you? Any TV keeping your warm this winter?