Here is a  round up of the highlights of 2013, videos and photo slide show to come in following blogs.

My thanks to all my readers, my publishers, to the libraries and organisations who have hosted my talks, to the audiences who came to listen to me, to the press, radio presenters and their listeners, bloggers and their readers and to my family, friends and everyone who has supported me throughout 2013 and an special thanks to the hunky DI Andy Horton!

Wishing you all a very…

This week, my featured author said, “We're going on a cruise.”

I was excited. A cruise. The Bahamas, Hawaii, Fiji. Warm sunshine, sandy beaches...

“No, we're going to travel the Bosporus,” she said.

“But I want to go to Tahiti. Come on, you'll love it.”

However, as with some of the more insistent authors I interview, in the end, I don't get a say in…

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but that new novel is so delightful.  Or perhaps, the dreariness of that tome is accentuated by the glimmering sunlight on the winter wonderland of snow outside.  Chances are, the book in somewhere in between.

But whether you think the book shines or whether you can only get through the first ten pages before putting it aside forever, the best gift you can give the author is an honest review.

Of course, all of us who write would…

Muse on Rodeo will explore the world or L.A. crime, mystery, noir and pulp in our next series and are honored to announce and welcome bestselling author Miles Corwinas our guest.

‘Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.’ – Dalai Lama

HOW TO SAY NO – TO NO ME IS TO LOVE ME

Recently, I tuned into an excellent podcast produced by Amy Porterfield called, “How to Set Goals and Create a Plan for the New Year.”

In the podcast, she…

Presto Variations, a new book -- the third in the Ray Tate/Djuna Brown series -- will be released next week by Dundurn. Three strong reviews so far off the ARCs: Good Reads, The Globe and Mail, and the Winnipeg Free Press.

And Glass Pieces, the sequel to The Finger's Twist, the Charlie Tate/Elodie Gray series, is at the formatter's and will go up as an indie ebook in January.

Three completed novels, The Beautiful Policeman, Flowers, and A Murder in Rome, should follow during…

In 1870, much of the American "Wild West” remained unsettled. Seeking a better life, pioneers traveled west in horse-drawn wagons, but they faced many hardships.



Some were ambushed and killed by robbers or Indians. Towns were few and far between. The treeless windswept Kansas prairie was particularly harsh: extreme summer heat, frigid winters, disease and grasshopper…

I've been spending the week working on projects I have unfortunately allowed to go by the wayside, but as a result, I had a brainstorm this morning resulting in something, I hope, will prove to be much better. So in the next few days I'll be researching one idea while continuing on the others. No wonder it takes me so long to complete books.

Best of the year list. At Murder beach Mystery Reviews.  http://billsmedia.blogspot.com

Severn House Publishershas bought World English language rights to the eleventh in the mystery crime series featuring the flawed and rugged DI Andy Horton.

Shroud of Evil will be published in the UK and Commonwealth in April 2014 in…

Decided what to write for the Debut Dagger. Two or three years ago I started a fantasy novel and abandoned it. I revisited it a few times but could never get beyond about chapter 4.

I realised it was the characters I couldn't let go of, whereas the story itself was - poor :D

Then some real-life events and a bit of brainstorming suggested a story that these characters seemed to fit a lot better than they did a fantasy, so I decided to write it. 1800 words in so far and I still…

“Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.”

And I don't even have a DVD collection. I have VCR tapes. I also have movies I download. Yes, folks, I admit, I download movies from the Internet. Illegal, you say? Let's not get into that particular issue. And let's totally stay away from my downloading television shows, about…

Just started a short story to send off for hopeful inclusion in an anthology. They sent the last one back so the hopeful isn't very hopeful. I think the reason was probably that I had (IMO) great characters, interesting dialog and background and NO PLOT AT ALL....

When I thought about it later, it seemed to me that nothing much actually happened. So I think I would have sent it back too :D That's what you get for writing something at the last minute in a big rush.

Coffee is…

A visit to the newly refurbished Sandhurst Library in Bracknell Forest on 4 December was the perfect way to finish a busy year of talks and public appearances in 2013. Not only were the audience lovely and packed with some die hard DI Andy Horton fans but after my talk about murder, crime and bodies there was a gorgeous English tea complete with cucumber sandwiches, scones with jam and cream,…

I have a  new story up at Spinetingler that might interest some here.  It concerns a writer and how he handles rejection.

The English language is simple.  OK, it's really not that simple, what with all its irregular verbs and myriad words borrowed from other languages.  But at least in English, we don't have to deal with fancy forms of letters.  The good old Microsoft Word keyboard just isn't set up for those either.

I first encountered this issue in my writing life in Grand Jeté  (yes, Jeté. not Jete).  The word is French and that little reverse accent is called an acute.  Other writers have…

Great news for my fellow CrimeSpace readers: StoneThread Publishing is offering all of its titles in any e-book format (Kindle/Nook/Kobo/Apple, pdf, etc.) for 50% off between now and December 24th. In addition, StoneThread is offering a FREE fiction sampler.

Of course, I hope you'll take a look at my thriller, 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy. Among the StoneThread titles I've read and recommend are The Grave on Peckerwood Hill…

(This was written a few months back. I've since moved on and hope I can avoid this kind of experience in the future)

I know. Everybody has bad days but don't you feel some people have more than their fair share? You may even think this about yourself.

As writers, bad days can turn into opportunities for story content. So, feel free to use any of my experiences in one of your…

According to recent statistics, men have all but stopped reading fiction. Do they watch great television? Yes. Do they read non-fiction? Some. But the novel – that great interior journey – seems to have been lost to them.

It wasn’t always this way.

The path from boyhood to manhood used to go something like this: Boys got dirty, played with plastic guns, disturbed…