By Guest Blogger Hank Phillippi Ryan

What if you could never be wrong? Never be late? Never call someone by the wrong name? Never make a mathematical error? Never choose the wrong word? And what if you could never wear the wrong outfit or have a bad hair day--and if you did, your fashion mistakes and hair disasters would be seen by millions of people?

That's the TV-centered life of an investigative reporter--the life I've lived for the past 30 years. It's a high-pressure,…

FAERIE TALE (Suspense/Fantasy-Hasting Family-Pennsylvania-Cont) – VG

Feist, Raymond, E. –Standalone

Doubleday, 1988, US Hardcover – ISBN: 9780385236232



First Sentence: Barney Doyle sat at his cluttered workbench, attempting to fix Olaf Andersen’s ancient power mower for the fourth time in seven…

Ye gods, but it took me ages to get to sleep last night. My night-time routine (mental note: I really have to get a night-time routine sometime ...) must be truly shot to pieces. Also I was horrendously thirsty, but couldn't be arsed to get up for a drink. Must have been all that Lucozade having its evil revenge at last. Still, at least I'm back on the water today, so things are returning to normal. Hurrah.



We are still glued to Springwatch (…

Ok, well now that I've got your attention, I guess I have to explain the title of today's blog post. Yesterday, I visited the Chapters in Langley, BC. As we pulled into the parking lot, my first reaction was: "Wow! They even have people outside waiting to greet me...and they're handing out invitations to my signing." As we got closer, I saw it was a couple of protesters. So much for my special welcome...darn! :)



Upon entering the store, however, I was met with a great…

Okay, I know I’m not telling anyone here anything new. But this post was prompted by what happened last night vs. a (rediculous) thread I read a while back (not here) questioning the need to research.

For me, research is an on-going process. I may only need the information for a sentence or two, but it has to be right, right? Some things I know I’ll need to check ahead of time before…

My new suspense novel, Honeymoon for Three, is coming out at the end of June. Here is a synopsis:

It is 1964, 10 years after Gary Blanchard’s high school adventures in The Hayloft. He and his love, Penny, are going on the trip of their lives, and, oh yes, they’re getting married along the way. What they don’t know is that they’re being stalked by Alfred, a high school classmate of Penny…

VOLK’S GAME (Suspense-Volk-Russia-Cont) - VG

Ghelfi, Brent – 1^st book

Henry Holt and Company, 2007, US Hardcover – ISBN: 9780805082548



First Sentence: “What do you know about art, Volk?”



Alexei Volkovoy, “Volk,” must balance between to masters; Maxim, a Russia mafia kingpin,…

Lord, what a dopey day today. I seem to have had about a zillion hours sleep (which I suspect I needed) and only managed to drag myself out of bed this morning after 10am. Getting up is such an effort, you know ... But at least I managed to have a bath and get dressed by early afternoon, thus showing a great improvement on yesterday "getting dressed time" of gone 3pm. Somebody pass the smelling salts ...



Hey, and I managed to eat breakfast too - hurrah! A normal one. Though I…

My apologies to the 24 (!) -- as of today, June 9th -- people who put in friend requests to me. You are not being snubbed! I've been caught up in many other things and only now getting back to this woefully neglected Crimespace page.

Please come visit my author website -- www.susannealleyn.com -- for some new links and so on. I'll be adding a newsletter feature soon and I hope you'll sign up. (No fear, I'm a rotten…

... I think. Hurrah. But am about as lively as a squeezed-out sponge. Still didn't feel able to go to bed last night, though I managed to get 4 hours' sleep on the sofa early morning, so that was a relief. How I wish we'd bought a three-seater sofa though ... but where would we put it in our flat?? The plus side was that I caught up on the late-night wedding stories and, yes, Peter and Carlton did get married, and their costumes did turn up. Phew. As did Peter's estranged father, who was…

Posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Lately I have been in a food mode. Not cooking--who has time for that? Well, my retired spouse does, but somehow his leisure time has not translated into gourmet anything. It's meatloaf, spaghetti, tuna fish, repeat ad infinitum.

What I have been doing is reading about food. I didn't plan it, but before I knew it, I was listening to an audiobook about food, and reading both a nonfiction food book and a mystery in the culinary genre. Not a…

posted by Doranna Durgin

So I'm back from another agility trial weekend, this one a three-day event. It's Monday morning as I write this and I'm facing the week pre-exhausted. In fact, it's safe to say I'm already distinctly behind the curve.

Maybe it's not surprising that those close to me express mixed feelings about my canine performance activities. I train almost daily, whether in "formal" sessions or just small exercises for the dogs throughout the day. I participate in…