Winter is the Season with the strongest ties to Home and Hearth. Spring and Autumn may pull us to work in our yards and Summer is for Adventure and Travel but Winter, with its long nights and bleak weather, is the time when people sub-consciously pull closer to the places that comfort and protect them and settle in for the Season. While the winds blast across the open ground and temperatures plummet, we can feel safe as long...
There’s a reason some people love this time of year; the same reason other folks hate it: family. Tradition dictates we spend part of our winter holidays with individuals tied to us by DNA or marriage and who you are determines whether you like or loathe the custom. My husband says, there’s a reason family push our buttons faster than anyone else; they installed most of them. Still, they are the people who define...
Another Christmas is looming fast and I see the hordes of last-minute shoppers whenever I drive by the stores – a vision that triggers my agoraphobia. Still, I understand the shoppers’ need to seek out each perfect present. Those presents are for loved ones and each year we want to give them something they want or they need. So, wish lists can really aid a holiday shopper. Still, sometimes it’s ...
People have certain expectations about the genres they favor and mystery fans expect stories driven by a puzzle. As interesting or well-developed as some of the characters in these stories are, they still exist to serve the central plot and very few of them are driven by ideals. Holiday stories, on the other hand, focus much more on character and these usually have an underlying moral code. That’s what make...
They say publishers love novels that turn into a series. The characters in these collections of stories develop their own fan base assuring the publisher of a a steady and increasing audience to gobble up each new adventure as soon as it hits the stands. Still, it’s tricky to write that kind of series because each book has to serve two plots. Each book has a primary, short plot: it finds and resolves a conf...