Poison: by Jordyn Redwood

Poison: By Jordyn Redwood

What would you do if you survived the murder of your family--a murder perpetrated by your step-father?

Under the delusions of a figure named Lucent, Keelyn Blake's step-father, John Samuals, killed most of her family. Several years later, Keelyn's  life is settled. She's engaged to marry Lee Watson, a member of the SWAT team who tried to save her family. She has a budding career with her understanding of body language. Life has balanced.


Then Lucent appears--in the flesh.  Her sister Raven disappears. And those associated with the Samuals' murders begin to die from mysterious and painful causes.

Author Jordyn Redwood

No one understands motive or method to the killings--all that is known is that Keelyn Blake and Sophia, Raven's toddler daughter, are next.

This is the second in the Bloodline trilogy--and my advice is to not read it if you have something pressing to do. From the moment the story opens, Redwood keeps the momentum going and the plot twisting as one complication leads to the next.As a consequence, your life will come to a standstill until you have finished this novel.


Redwood is a superb storyteller, and you Poison will not disappoint. In my opinion, she rivals the top CBA suspense writers--such as Bradilyn Collins. Without reservation, I recommend this book.

The Hidden Son By Dianna Benson

 Book Look by Carol McClain

The Hidden Son

When U.S. DEA Agent Lelisa Desmond refuses to follow an order to bury evidence in a case, her superior hires a hit man to kill her deep in the ocean in Cayman. Someone close to her is mistakenly murdered in her place. Lelisa sets off to bring down her superior, a man in a high position, with power friends, who will stop at nothing to silence her forever in order to hide his son’s crimes.

 

About Dianna:

Dianna Torscher Benson is a 2011 Genesis Winner. In 2012, she signed a nine-book publishing contract. Her first book releases March 2013.

Website: www.diannatbenson.com

What is the theme of The Hidden Son? How do you hope to inspire your readers with it?

In The Hidden Son, and in all my books, I want readers to be inspired by how my characters don’t try the impossible: “Get over” the difficult stuff in life and move on. Instead, they accept the pain difficult events in their lives cause and they move forward with a renewed sense of understanding in themselves, in life and in God.  

The Hidden Son is available at:

1) Barnes and Noble

2) Ellechor Publishing

3) Google Books 

4) Amazon.com

5) Books-A-Million

6) Christianbook.com

7) Indie Bound

8) http://buy.christianbookstoday.org/product.asp?itemid=50

Nothing Good Is Free by Matthew Horn

 Book Look by Carol McClain

Synopsis

After the death of his mentor and vigilante, Jim, Jeff decides to wear the suit and fill Jim’s shoes. He vows to walk a straighter line, fighting injustice. However, Jeff quickly begins to see how Jim’s fight changed over the years. Jeff is fighting to keep his job and his girlfriend, while at the same time staying one step ahead of both the police and the mob. Jeff searches for pieces of Jim’s history, trying to piece together Jim’s life and understand what caused him to falter. Jeff risks his own life to discover what happened to his mentor before he loses his job, his love, or his own life.

Matthew R. Horn, Author
www.matthewrhorn.com

About the Author:
Growing up in north-central Indiana, Matthew learned the value of a good imagination at an early age. Bob Kane and Bill Finger's Batman, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, and Ian Fleming's James Bond were constant visitors to Matthew's imaginative world.

At the age of 14 Matthew began taking writing classes from none other than his own mother. Having a Master's in English, she wanted her children to be able to communicate properly with the written word. Of course, Matthew hated this. However, nearly twenty years later the lessons learned combined with the imagination born from sheer boredom have cultivated a desire to share his imaginings.

To better tell his adventure stories, Matthew began taking lessons in Martial Arts in 2011. Having achieved a Red Belt in Tae Kwan Do and having broken his nose during a sparring session, Matthew has a unique ability to combine his imagination with real-life experiences to tell stories in a way that are creative and adventurous, yet gritty and realistic.

In September of 2011 Brighton Publishing made Matthew's second book, The Good Fight, his first published novel. The sequel, Nothing Good is Free is now out in eBook and will be released by Brighton in paperback in March 2013. The final installment, The Price We Pay is currently being written and will hopefully be released during the summer of 2014.

You can also follow Matthew on both Facebook and Twitter.

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How Do I Decide: Self-Publshing vs. Traditional Publishing

 Book Look by Carol McClain



How Do I Decide? by Rachelle Gardner

You've finished your book--a work so great even your mother loves it. It's spell-checked and grammar-checked and polished so highly you need sunglasses to read it. The time has arrived to publish it.

In today's society, authors have two viable options: self-publishing and traditional. But how do you decide? That's the question literary agent Rachelle Gardner asks. And you would think that being a literary agent, she'd pan self-publishing and praise traditional. That is not the case.

This book lays out the benefits and drawbacks of each route. The chapters end with a check sheet that lets you evaluate the course of action best for you. It's informative, detailed, chocked full of resources.

Excellently written and well researched from her years as a literary agent, this is a must have.

So that book that's ready to meet the world--it no longer needs to languish as you pursue the correct path to publication. For $3.99 on Amazon, you can't go wrong.

About Rachelle:


Rachelle is a popular literary agent with Books and Such Literary agency. Her popular blog has taught many aspiring authors the ins and outs of the publishing business. Her passion to see author's succeed in this business is seen in every aspect of her life, including this book.

112 Christian Authors and Publishing Professionals...

About the Book

In all authors' lives there comes a time when discouragement swamps them. Lately, I've been roaming that desert. C.J. Darlington sent me her book, 112 Christian Authors and Publishing Professionals Share Their Best Advice for Novelists. 

In this work acclaimed authors such as Francine Rivers and Jerry Jenkins, agents like Steve Laube and Rachelle Gardner, editors like Sue Brower and Shanon Marchese give advice to those anywhere on the road to publishing.

I found encouragement, direction and solid advice. For $2.99 cents, this is a wonderful addition to your Kindle or Nook library. As a bonus, the work includes links to the contributors.

About the author:

C.J. won the 2008 Jerry B. Jenkins Chrisitan Writers Guild Operation First Novel contest with her first novel, Thicker Than Blood.  With her sister, in 2006 she started the Christian entertainment website TitleTrakk.com and has been promoting Christian fiction ever since. Learn more at www.cjdarlington.com

It Really Is a Wonderful Life by Linda Rondeau

Book Look by Carol McClain

Hands down this romantic comedy is one of Linda Rondeau's best book. Dorie Fitzgerald returns to Midville, defeated, discouraged and alone. She joins a theater group and meets two men--a handsome doctor and an equally attractive, albeit geeky, actor. Let the fun and the resolutions begin.

Set with the backdrop of the well loved movie, It's A Wonderful Life, Rondeau weaves a spiritual thread and a warmhearted story. I recommend this book. 


 

It Really Is a Wonderful Life

An Iraq War widow relocates to an Adirondack town to be near her parents. Hoping to fit in, she joins a theater group in production for the play, It's a Wonderful Life, where she finds unexpected romance. But Dorie must first redefine her relationship with the Lord. 

About Linda Rondeau

  Award-winning author, Linda Wood Rondeau, resides in Florida with her husband of 35 years. Here, like her heroine Dorie Fitzgerald, she is learning the importance of surrendering each new day to the Lord.

All books have elements of biography. How is this book autobiographical?

I met my husband of 35 years doing community theater. While we dated, my husband was a Scoutmaster. He asked me on a date for an awards banquet in which he'd be honored. I fell in love with him that night!

Who is your favorite character and why? Have you become this character? 

 In many ways, Dorie is me at that age. I was a single mother for a number of years during my children's early childhood. Like Dorie, I realized my faith was patterned after others' expectations, rather than a true personal relationship with God. When I learned to surrender my life as it was, God then began the process of changing it.

Sometimes the setting plays a pivotal role. How does the setting inform the plot? 

The Adirondacks and small town atmosphere is a perfect backdrop for character development. I patterned Midville after Malone, New York where my husband and I lived for nearly 30 years. North Country winters can be brutal. In It Really Is a Wonderful Life, Dorie, a southern girl, must adapt to the onset of a fickle winter, the uncertainty of the weather mirrors the uncertainties she battles in her soul.

Links to purchase: http://www.amazon.com/Really-Wonderful-Life-Linda-Rondeau/dp/1938499433/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355716193&sr=1-1&keywords=it+really+is+a+wonderful+life

Fixing Problems by Cara Lynn James

Fixing Problems




Some of the most important work we do as writers is editing or book doctoring. Our manuscript might not exactly be ‘ailing’—then again it might be—but maybe it doesn’t quite belong in the healthy category yet. Before we send off our story we’ll need to fix mistakes and weaknesses in craft. But first we have to spot them. They’re likely to pop up in three areas: characterization, story and plot.


Characterization
Problem #1: Underdeveloped characters that produce insufficient depth, dimension, believability or interest.

The Fix: Here are some areas to check out and revise—The character must have a clear yearning, a traumatic past, a heroic strength and a weakness, many unique personality traits, habits, likes, dislikes, talents, hobbies, attitudes, quirks, strong emotions, motives, fears and secrets, and one or more contradictions. These are all the things you put into character sheets.

Problem #2: Passive characters who are watchers, not actors, who are on the defensive, or who are not effected by the conflicts—that is, they could walk away from the situation without batting an eyelash. I’m talking about characters that are acted upon.

The Fix: The protagonist should be striving to meet an external story goal, resolving the problem and relieving the inner suffering. Our beloved characters are suffering, aren’t they? Remember, we need to torture them no matter how loving we are in real life. We don’t want to bore our readers to death by treating our characters with sugarcoated kindness. We want to keep our readers and boring them isn’t the way to do it. It’s hard for some of us to be mean to the people we love, but we must at least until the end of the story.

It’s okay if some of your characters are in defensive positions, but your protagonist should be on the offensive—strong and active. Formulate your story so the protagonist’s goals are most important, not the antagonist’s goals. Sometimes a plot can be set up incorrectly and that puts the protagonist on the defensive. Not good.

Problem #3: Insufficient relationship chemistry, contrast or conflict between the characters.

The Fix: Increase and strengthen the relationship between the characters and heighten the emotions and the potential for conflict. Make your characters essential to each other, and make their goals at cross-purposes. To avoid a lack of chemistry develop the characters and think in terms of opposites and differences. If they’re too compatible you won’t have much of a story and your reader will yawn. A bored reader will not buy your next book. A very important point.

Problem #4: Awkward shifts from one POV to another POV.

The Fix: Use only one POV per scene so you won’t confuse your reader. For smooth transitions between scenes start with the new character’s name or use a key word or phrase such as “Later that afternoon.” Don’t head hop because it’s confusing and we don’t know whom the scene is about or who to root for.


Dialogue
Problem #1: Too much dialogue for too long; i.e. ‘talking heads.’

The Fix: Very simple to correct dialogue. No speeches or sermons, please. Just break it up with a response from another character so that it becomes a conversation. Don’t overload dialogue with too much information. You can fix your ‘talking heads’ by adding setting, sensory experience or some other characterization.

Problem #2: The speakers all sound alike and are flat.

The Fix: You can use slang, regional figures of speech, words that reflect the character’s ethnicity, race, religion, personality etc. Develop a word list of favorite phrases that fit the character. (I’ve never done this, but I’m going to. Anything to stay organized.)

Problem #3: Dialogue lacks tension, fails to move the plot.

The Fix: Revise based on your character’s scene goal or emotional need. Through dialogue show your POV character striving to reach their goal and running into obstacles. You must have some sort of opposition. If you don’t have this then you could add an antagonist who challenges the POV character through dialogue.

Problem #4: Attributions—who is speaking—take characters out of the story.

The Fix: Don’t use words such as snarled, chided, chortled etc. Replace them with he said/she said. Or replace he said/she said with an action sentence that makes clear who is speaking.

Problem #5: Avoid over-the-top writing of dialect, slang, jargon, clichés, or foreign terms.

What are some other problems that need fixing?

The Fix: A few dropped ‘g’s’ such as ‘walkin’ will do the trick. Avoid trying to phonetically spell dialects. Readers might throw your book across the room out of frustration and you wouldn’t want that.

Cara Lynn James writes historical romances set during the Gilded Age. Her fourth book, A Path toward Love, will be released August 14^th. Her previous novels are Love on a Dime, Love on Assignment and Love by the Book.

 

Cara and her family have resided in northwest Florida for the past ten years. She’s also lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, California, Virginia and Vermont. In her younger years she served in the military as a Naval officer along with her husband who’s a retired Navy pilot. Now Cara writes full time -- when she’s not playing with her five year old grandson or Sparky, the family Papillon.