More Books I Recommend

 How did it get to be October already? The months seem to fly, don't they? Well, having just finished the third quarter of the year, it's a great time to share the mystery/crime books I enjoyed most during the last three months. 

They all happened to have been published this year. While none of them are perfect reads (what books are?), I did enjoy them and do recommend them.

So without further ado ...

 

The Women in White by Sarah Pekkanen

This is a dual-timeline story. The earlier timeline occurs in 1964 at a fictional college (that I understand was based on a real one). This college has a famous professor who is conducting parapsychology research. He finds four women with ESP and runs experiments on them. The professor is sadistic and treats the women poorly, but they all have reason to put up with it. (Being a woman in 1964 wasn't easy.) Then, one day, the four women disappear. 

The second timeline is set in the current day, when a young woman is hired as the caregiver of a recently widowed elderly woman, Betty, who was one of the four test subjects. Betty lives in a house that could have been plucked right out of the 1960s (think no modern conveniences). She doesn't know what she's missing, however, because she's rarely left her home in the last sixty years. Why? And what happened to the other three women? The newly hired caregiver is determined to find out. 

I found this to be an intriguing page-turner. The insights into ESP research was fascinating (and disturbing). The author did a good job of showing how the women became found family for each other and how they coped as the professor used their friendships to manipulate them. I wish the author had shown more of a range in the personalities of the men in the story (though I understand that the story dictated otherwise) and that she'd let the reader know more about what happened to the professor in the end. Nonetheless, this is a strong book. If you like psychological thrillers, I think you'll like this book.

 

A Cute Little Murder by Molly Harper

And now for something a little lighter. This book opens with prologue set fifteen years ago, as two teenage girls who run a true-crime podcast (based on crimes in their small town) are in the midst of busting their principal for a number of felonies. They're their high school's version of Veronica Mars, and the author really succeeded in capturing the vibe.

Then we fast-forward to present day. One girl has grown into a big-league true-crime podcaster. The other has become a forensic accountant. They aren't in touch (it turns out they weren't such good friends after all), until the podcaster needs the accountant's help solving a 1920s cold case in a soon-to-close hotel on a small island in the Great Lakes. As you can imagine, the original case might be old, but that doesn't mean there isn't someone who wants to stop the current investigation.

I found this to be a well-plotted story with fun twists, amusing characters, interesting sleuthing, enjoyable romance, and a good voice. The pacing was a little slow at times in the middle, and the main character (the accountant) reminded herself way too often that she was doing this for the money, but it still was a good read. I wish this were the beginning of a series, but it appears it's a standalone. 

 

The Primrose Murder Society by Stacy Hackney

After her husband goes on the lam for white-collar crime and the government takes her house and money, Lila and her precocious, Murder She Wrote-obsessed daughter, Bea, age ten, need a safe place to land. They find The Primrose, an upscale fifty-five-plus building. They're allowed to move in temporarily, rent-free, because they promise to clean out the apartment of a recently deceased hoarder. 

Then a rich man in the building dies, and he's left $2 million to whoever solves the cold case of his granddaughter's death in that very building. What's a woman in need of cash to do but to take on the case, especially when her daughter keeps pushing her to do it? Heck, Bea would handle the investigation herself if Lila would stop reining her in.

The novel is filled with a strong mother/daughter relationship, fun (if sometimes annoying) secondary characters (the neighbors--including a retired police detective who thinks he wasn't good at his job), a well-plotted mystery, and a bunch of amusing moments with witty dialogue. It's a solid series starter. As one reviewer said, it's a "delightful story about perseverance, overcoming odds, found family, friendship, and believing in oneself." It's this author's first mystery, and she did a good job. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, coming next spring.

 ************

And now for a little BSP: 

Three weeks ago I wrote about the new anthology Hooked on Urban Legends--and Murder!, which I edited with Donna Andrews and Marcia Talley. This fun anthology has seventeen stories involving ghosts, monsters, human bad guys, and, of course, crime. (You can read that blog post here.) On Tuesday, October 20th, at least a dozen of the authors with stories in the book will appear on a zoom where they'll talk about their stories and share tips for writing short stories. 

The authors scheduled to appear are: Donna Andrews, Ellen Byerrum, Barb Goffman (yes, that's me), Kathryn Holland, Smita Harish Jain, Meghan Lewis, Jane Limprecht, Alan Orloff, Pat Remick, Daphne Silver, Robin Templeton, and Marcia Talley. We're still hoping a few more might be able to attend.

The event will begin at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on 10/20. You can register to attend by clicking here. We hope to see you there.

Mixing Urban Legends and Crime Stories

Coming up with anthology themes isn't always so easy. Ideally a good theme is at least a little different from what's already been done (unless readers are clamoring for more of a theme you've already used--hey, it happens). In our field, a theme also needs to work well with crimes/mysteries, of course. And most important, (at least for me), the theme should be fun. Something that will excite writers and readers.

When Donna Andrews, Marcia Talley, and I came up with what ended up being the theme of our newest anthology, we knew we'd hit the trifecta. Crime stories with graveyards, ghosts, and monsters--mixed in with human baddies? Yes, please! The result became Hooked on Urban Legends--and Murder! It was released last week by Wildside Press.

Urban legends easily lend themselves to being used by crime writers because so many urban legends involve creepy things. The Hook legend is a perfect example. You remember the tale, right? A guy and girl go parking, and while they're steaming up the car windows, a news alert comes on the radio. A deranged man with a stainless steel hook for a hand has escaped from the asylum for the criminally insane that is right in their town. The couple break apart. The guy floors it and drives the girl home. Because he's a gentleman, he gets out of the car, walks around to her side to open her door for her, only to find ... a bloody stainless steel hook hanging on the car door handle!

That classic story has crime built in. But not all of them do. The legend of the Phantom Hitchhiker is a good example. One variation is that a guy is driving down a dark foggy road at night when he spots a teenage girl walking. Knowing it's not safe for her to be out on a night like that, he offers to drive her home. She accepts. The next day, he realizes she left her jacket in his car, so he drives back to the girl's house to return the jacket. But when an old woman answers the door, her eyes widen. It turns out her daughter was wearing a jacket just like that on another foggy night thirty years ago--when the girl died in a car crash on the same road the driver found her on.

These types of spooky tales--stories people swear happened to a friend of a friend of a friend--are perfect starting points for coming up with crime stories. When we put out our call for stories, we told the authors they could riff off actual urban legends or come up with their own. In the end, we have an anthology with a good mix of each. 

All the authors' names are listed on the back cover, but in case you can't read them clearly, they are: Donna Andrews, Ellen Byerrum, Ginny Fite, Barb Goffman (yes, me), Shari Held, Kathryn Holland, Smita Harish Jain, Meghan Lewis, Jane Limprecht, Alan Orloff, Pat Remick, KM Rockwood, Daphne Silver, Shannon Taft, Marcia Talley, Robin Templeton, and fellow SleuthSayer Joseph S. Walker. 

The back cover

My story in the book is "Into the Woods." I riffed off the Bigfoot legend, though my fabled creature is a foxsquatch--an eight-foot-tall vulpine creature that supposedly lives in the woods. Women and girls are his favorite meals, which is why this town forbids females from ever going into the forest. But one day, two rogue librarians sneak into the woods ...

Four of the authors with stories in the book have crafted essays that Art Taylor is running on his First Two Pages blog. Two weeks ago, he ran an essay by Pat Remick about the opening to her story "Screaming Jenny," based on a real urban legend set in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Last week, he ran an essay by Shannon Taft about the beginning of her story "The Cave Man," which is a legend she built from scratch. Another essay should be running today and the last one, next Tuesday. You can find them on Art's blog here: https://arttaylorwriter.com/the-first-two-pages/.

The book is available in ebook and trade paperback formats from lots of online bookstores, including indie bookshop.org. 

Donna, Marcia, and I are going to be hosting a Zoom one weekday evening in October with as many of the anthology authors as can make it. The authors will talk about their stories and maybe offer tips for writing short stories too. The event is still in the planning stages. I'll share more details when I post again in three weeks. 

In the meanwhile, enjoy Spooky Season--and make sure to always check your backseat before getting into a car. You never know when a deranged killer will be hiding back there ... waiting for you. 

You Don’t Need to Commit Murder to Have a Fabulous Author Website!

Last fall I realized my website was nearly a year out of date. How did this happen? Well, after many years of using a software program that I found easy to use, my website company had discontinued it, and I'd had to "upgrade." The new program, I was assured, would be simple to use. Ha! It was so not simple (at least for me) that I let my website languish. Eventually, I reached out to a member of my local Sisters in Crime chapter who I'd heard created websites. I told her I needed a system that was intuitive for me so I could easily update my site as needed after she moved everything over to my new host and improved the design. She delivered. That helpful person is Elise Kress, and she's here today to offer her insights to you.

— Barb Goffman 

"Every author should have a website."

 

— Juliet Grames, International bestselling author, Editorial Director at Soho Press

 

  

by Elise Kress

Is your website a sleuth or a victim?

 

The Sleuth:

Your website is out there working hard every day, helping readers find you and discover your books, and showcasing your style.

 

The Victim:

Call the coroner! Your website has been lying suspiciously still for years and needs immediate attention.

 

The good news is: whether your website resembles the meticulous Hercule Poirot or the messy Columbo, you can use these five easy steps to brush it up.

   

1. Buy your given name as a domain name.

Your domain name is your home; your unique address on the web. It’s what you type into the search bar to land on your website and how people search for and find you. (i.e.,  agathachristie.com)

 

If you haven’t yet bought your given name as a domain name, please stop reading and do it right now.

 

Be sure to buy your domain from a well-known and trusted company like GoDaddy or Namecheap. The cost is between $10 - $20 per year.

 

Or, you can buy your domain through your website host/builder. Squarespace, Wix and Showit all allow you to purchase your domain through their platform. You can then link your domain easily to your website on those sites.

 

I recommend that you put your domain name on auto-renew so that when your breakout novel comes out you, won’t lose your domain if it’s renewal time and your mind is on other tasks.

 

.Com is still the most popular suffix, but there are a lot of others. You’ll find this out when you purchase your domain because you’ll get a list of related domains that you can buy. It’s not necessary to own every iteration of your name. Choose one that’s easy to remember, repeat and type. You’ll be typing it a lot, and hopefully others will be too.

 

I do recommend buying any pen names you use; any name that is specifically and directly related to you.

 

Is your name already taken? You can add a descriptive word like colindexterauthor.com or colindexterbooks.com. Also, the .net suffix is widely used.

 

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) allows over 1,000 suffixes. So if you crave a domain name with a suffix of .ninja or .noir, go for it! Just keep in mind that you will be repeating that name over and over again.

 

Should you buy the domain name of your famous recurring character? Perhaps. Domains don’t cost much and that keeps your character’s name out of the hands of scammers who might try to sell it back to you when you’re on the best sellers list.

 

Don’t have a website yet? BUY YOUR GIVEN NAME DOMAIN RIGHT NOW. You can own a domain without having a website. When you launch yours, it’s easy to attach the domain you bought.

Image by rawpixel.com 

Please do not buy your domain from an unknown source. I worked with a client who got her domain through a small web site design company. They set up everything for her. Then when she wanted to move to a different designer, they refused to release her domain for over eight months, while trying to sell her more products. Avoid this by getting your domain through recognized sources. Unfortunately, unscrupulous people abound. That’s good for our stories, but not for our websites!

  

2. Make it easy for visitors to stay in touch

 

You might use a pop-up window, a contact button or a form, maybe all of the above. You need visitors to stay in touch. They are your self-selected audience. Add several ways to sign up for news from you. 

 

When someone gives you their information, they’re telling you they like your work. These are the people who will come to your events, buy your books, and tell their friends. Repetition in this case works well. Don’t be afraid to give people different ways to stay in touch, even on your home page. Maybe they don’t like pop up windows. Maybe they never click on your contact button. Give them various chances to be your supporter.

 

Once people start sending you their email addresses, you’ll need a place to store them and a program to send out news. That’s where an email marketing program comes in. Programs like Mailchimp, Kit (formerly Convertkit) and MailerLite will work with your website to automate mass mailings. Squarespace and Wix now offer integrated email marketing if you have your website on their platform. They may not have every feature that the dedicated programs have, but they’re easy to use and set up.

 

You can use your email list for newsletters, blogs, and announcements. If you happen to have a good-sized list, you’ll be happy, and your agent and publisher will be charmed.

 

Do you have another company that you use for email marketing? Please let me know in the comments!

   

3. Make it easy for visitors to buy your books

Okay. You have your expressive website. It evokes tension and talent. You have a great headline and a killer review. You’ve got a dynamite photo of yourself smiling slyly, holding your latest book with an enticing description. Your visitor is enchanted. They’re ready to buy. But how?

 

Be sure to put a button or link near the top of your home page to take your visitor directly to your preferred bookseller. Do not make them guess or hunt for it.

 

Of course you’re not limited to one bookseller button/link. Somewhere on your site you’ll want to give visitors a selection of retailers that carry your book. Maybe the button/link on your home page takes the visitor to a list of your preferred sellers. You want to make it as easy as possible for the visitor to do what you want--join your email list and buy your book.

 

*Note: Be sure that links to any other websites, such as booksellers, open in new tabs so the viewer can’t close your site without realizing it.

  

4. Make sure your website looks great on a phone

 

If Columbo’d had a cell phone, he’d be texting “one more thing” every minute! The average person spends four hours on their phone every day.

 

What does your site look like on a phone? On a tablet?

 

Take time periodically to check that your website looks just as dazzling on other devices as it does on your desktop. Some website builders allow you to edit your mobile site separately from your desktop view. Given how much we are glued to our phones these days, that’s a big plus. Squarespace, Wix and Showit all allow separate editing functions for your mobile site.

 

Here is a short check list for you when you check your website on a phone:

• Does the site title and main image resize appropriately?
• Is the navigation easy to find?
• Do all the buttons/links work?
• Is it easy to find where to buy your books?
• Do all the pages look good?

Your readers and future readers will thank you.

 

5. Update your website every three months

 

DON’T PANIC! You don’t need to redo your entire website design every three months. Updates can be as simple as a new photo, a new article, a new event or a new blog post. But if your languishing website hasn’t been updated in years, readers will stop checking in. Add something new a few times a year to reassure your readers that you are active and flourishing.

  

One simple thing to keep up-to-date is your website copyright. Update it annually or include the current year in a date range (i.e., © 2022-2026). Nothing says I haven’t been tending my website like a 2011 copyright.

 

BONUS TIP: Refrain from posting the cute photo that your friend took that is just a little bit out of focus. Everything on your website speaks to who you are as an author. Make sure your photos are high resolution that draw the viewer’s eye.

 

Do you have a favorite tip for brushing up your website? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

 

Elise Kress is a website designer, specializing in authors’ sites. She plays Celtic music and is working on her first mystery novel. www.ekwebdesign.net

 

The Gingerbread Man

In June, Level Short released Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales, an anthology I edited with Michael Bracken. The stories range from light-hearted to noir. Fellow SleuthSayers, Joe Walker, Barb Goffman, and Michael Bracken, share insights about their amazing stories in previous posts and are worth checking out.

Deb Goldstein, Tom Milani, and Andrew Welsh- Huggins discuss the first two pages of their fabulous contributions at Art Taylor’s First Two Pages, also great reads.

Today, I am delighted to talk about my story, “The Gingerbread Man.”

THE GINGERBREAD MAN

Imagine The Princess Bride meets The Sopranos inside a bowling alley in the 1960’s—that’s my Hollywood-style pitch for this story. It is inspired by the fairy tale and the lost world of action bowling.

The story opens with Jack O’Conner and his grandson. Jack tells him a bedtime story, his version of the fairy tale, “The Gingerbread Man.”

Jack flashes back to the 1960’s in New York City, the center of “action bowling,” games that involve small-time gangsters who make high-stakes bets on players. 

Jack “Crazy-like-a-Fox” O’Connor was one of those bowlers. He’s leveraged by the police to become an informant to keep his wayward brother out of jail. His task, to find action bowler Francesco “The Gingerbread Man” Romano, the getaway driver for the Barnyard Gang that is linked to a series of convenience store robberies. 

Action bowlers had monikers, a clue about how they “ticked.” I used these nicknames as a vehicle to retell this iconic fairy tale.

Jack’s version of “The Gingerbread Man” takes readers into the unique world of action bowling. It’s filled with quirky characters and a twist that I hope readers will enjoy. 

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

• “Hansel and Gretel” by Joseph S. Walker
• “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” by John M. Floyd
• “Rapunzel” by Adam Meyer
• “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Laura Oles
•  “Three Billy Goats Gruff” by Michael Bracken
•  “Beauty and the Beast” by James A. Hearn
•  “The Bremen Musicians” by Debra H. Goldstein
•  “Jack and the Beanstalk” by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
•  “Cinderella” by Donna Andrews
•  “The Frog Prince” by Josh Pachter
•  “Little Red Riding Hood” by Barb Goffman
•  “The Briar Patch” by Tom Milani
•  “King o’ the Cats” by David Dean
•  “The Gingerbread Man” by Stacy Woodson

If you want to learn more about action bowling, check out PIN ACTION by Gianmarc Manzione. It’s a fun read and offers insights into the history and unique subculture of action bowling.

***

My latest story, "She Loves You," appears in Black Cat Weekly, Issue 255. "She Loves You" follows a lovesick country music singer who receives an unsolicited reading from a geriatric psychic and gets more than he bargained for in this twisted tale about loyalty, trust, and inevitable consequences.

Coming Up with a Story Idea to Fit a Prompt

I enjoy coming up with short story ideas from prompts, such as an anthology's theme. A theme can get my brain cells firing as I try to think of a story idea that will not only work plotwise but will also be different from the other submissions, be fun to write and read, and have some emotional oomph or insight.

It's not often easy.  

I experienced the struggle once again when I tried to come up with a story idea for What the World Needs Now: Mystery Stories Inspired by the Music of Burt Bacharach. This anthology, edited by Martin Edwards, was released last week. When invited to submit, I went through the list of songs (so many songs--Bacharach was incredibly prolific, writing songs for decades that were recorded by others as well as himself in multiple genres). I picked a song that I love, one that was sparking ideas. And I set about to plot out the story. I usually try to have at least a page of notes about what would happen, including what the end would be. Things could--and often do--change during the writing process, but I like knowing I have a workable idea.

Alas, in this case, my story idea ended up being serviceable. It would work, but it wasn't wonderful, and it wasn't fun. It was, in the end, rather blah. And that is not what you want an author to think about their own idea.

I returned to the song list, but by that point, none of them were sparking any good ideas. I had begun psyching myself out. So I decided to approach the problem differently. Rather than try to be inspired by a song, I looked through my story-idea file to see if I already had any that would work with one of Bacharach's songs. (I often get ideas for stories that I don't have time to write, so I take detailed notes and put them in a file for a day I do have time.) 

 

 

That's when I came across notes for a story about a chat bench. I had read a news article about how, in 2019, a British police officer was concerned about online scammers targeting senior citizens. He came up with the idea of a chat bench--a place where lonely people in need of companionship could safely meet others in real life. It sounds wonderful. But when I read about the growing popularity of these benches, my devious side reared its head. What's to keep a scammer from targeting people in person? 

I had a lot of story ideas in the file to choose from, but this was the one I found most exciting at that moment. This would be a story that would be fun to write, and I hoped readers would find it fun to read. Then I went through the list of Bacharach songs still available and found one that could work with my chat bench idea: "All Kinds of People." I asked Martin if I could switch songs, he kindly agreed, and here we are.

So the moral of this tale about coming up with a good story idea is this: if an anthology prompt doesn't give you a great story idea, see if you already have an idea that could fit the prompt. This is why you should never dismiss your ideas. Write them down. Save them. Sometime down the road, they might come in handy. 

 

My Current Life in Haiku

 

Productivity

A revered memory from

My younger days, sigh

 

They Must Suffer!

I had every intention to run a column today about my favorite books that I've read in the second quarter of this year. What they are. Why I loved 'em. But sometimes life gets in the way--or rather, the lack of sleep does. 

Last night, I didn't sleep one wink, and my two remaining brain cells are rebelling. Could I pick some great books to mention? Sure. Could I say why they're fab? Not in any coherent fashion. So instead, I am rerunning a column from 2018 about the importance of being mean to your characters. I hope it helps.

But first, my favorite book of the second quarter? The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer. It's part fantasy, part mystery, part romance, part adventure, and it is all wonderful. I don't have it in me to go into detail right now about why it's wonderful, but if you love books, I feel confident you'll agree with me. So, check it out. Trust me.

And now ...

They Must Suffer!

Authors in the mystery community are generally known for being nice folks. Helpful, welcoming, even pleasant. But when it comes to their work, successful writers are mean. They have to be.

An author who likes her characters too much might be inclined to make things easy for them. The sleuth quickly finds the killer. She's never in any real danger. In fact, there's no murder at all in the story or book. Just an attempted murder, but the sleuth's best friend pulls through just fine.

These scenarios may be all well and good in Happily Ever After Land. But in Crime Land, they result in a book without tension that's probably going to be way too short. That's why editors often tell mystery authors to make their characters suffer.

Yet that can be easier said than done. If you're basing a character on someone you don't like, then you might have a grand time writing every punch, broken bone, and funeral. But not every character can be based on an enemy. And sometimes characters seem to plead from the page, "Don't do that to me."

It's happened to me. I once started writing a certain story. I had a great first page, and then I got stuck. No matter how I tried to write the next several sentences, they didn't work. So I walked away from the computer. Sometimes I find a break can help a writing logjam. But not this time. In the end, I found I simply couldn't write the story I'd planned because, you see, that plan had included the death of a cat. And I just couldn't do it.

Don't do it!

The publication I was aiming the story for would have been fine with a story that included a dead animal. But I wasn't fine with it. And I knew my regular readers wouldn't like it either. Sure animals die in real life, and sometimes they die in fiction too. But those deaths should be key to the story. The Yearling wouldn't work if the deer didn't die. And Old Yeller needed the dog to die too.

But not all stories need animal jeopardy. And that's the key question: is it necessary? In the story I was writing about the cat it wasn't, and I knew it in my gut, even if I didn't know it in my head at first. That's why I couldn't bring myself to write the story as planned. Instead, with the help of a friend, I found another way to make the story work, one without any harm to animals.

It's not the first time something like that has happened to me. I once wrote a story called "Suffer the Little Children" (published in my collection, Don't Get Mad, Get Even). This is the first story of mine involving a female sheriff name Ellen Wescott. She's smart and honest and way different than I'd planned. Originally she was supposed to be a corrupt man. But as I was thinking through the plot during my planning stage, I heard that male sheriff say in my head, "Don't make me do that. I don't want to do that." Spooky, right?

Sometimes characters
just have to be nice

While part of me immediately responded, "too bad,"--he had to suffer--another part of me knew that when characters talk back like that, it's because my subconscious knows what I'm planning isn't going to work. Either it won't work for the readers, as with the cat I couldn't kill. Or it won't work for the plot, as was the case with this sheriff story. So my corrupt male sheriff became an honorable female sheriff, and large parts of the plot changed. My female sheriff faced obstacles, but she was a good person. That was a compromise my gut could live with.

Readers, I'd love to hear about stories and books you've enjoyed that involved a plot event you didn't love, yet you accepted it because you knew it was important to the story. And writers, I'd love to hear about times you couldn't bring yourself to write something. What was it? And why?

And They Lived Happily Never After

When I was little, before I learned how to read, my dad used to read fables and fairy tales to me before I went to sleep. We had a big book, and each night I would pick a story. Some of them scared the crap out of me (I'm looking at you, "Jack and the Beanstalk"--grinding bones into bread; no wonder I grew up to write crime stories). I wasn't scared just because of the stories themselves but because my dad was good at voices. I loved them.

These days, I think when people think of fairy tales, they picture the Disney version. A poor child with a wicked stepmother wakes up to find that mice cleaned the house for her, then birds tie ribbons in her hair before a fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage and she's whisked off to a ball and, eventually, the good guys live happily ever after. It's wonderfully fantastic--unless you have musophobia, ornithophobia, or curcurbitophobia. What's curcurbitophobia? Fear of pumpkins. You've now learned your new word of the day. You're welcome.

But the earlier tales by the brothers Grimm and others were far darker. And not animated! Cinderella's stepsisters chopped off their heels and toes to shove their bloody feet into the glass slipper, then birds plucked out their eyes at the royal wedding. Hansel and Gretel escaped cannibalism by fooling the witch with poor eyesight and then pushing her into the hot oven. Rapunzel's prince fell from the tower into a thorn bush, ending up blind. (Too bad there were no eye surgeons in these tales. Those docs would have made a mint.)

It's these darker versions that I expect inspired many of the stories in a new anthology releasing today, Wish Upon A Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales. The book was edited by fellow SleuthSayers Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson. Its description says in part that the authors "reimagine familiar classics where the line between good and evil isn't always clear, dreams don't come true, and there are no happily-ever-afters." 

That is true (sort of) for my story in this book, "Little Red Riding Hood." My tale involves a blind date, a hopeful woman, and one very charming man. Lest you think this suave guy should be in a Cinderella-inspired story (and we have one of them, written by Donna Andrews), don't forget that even wolves can clean up well. My story has some fun Easter eggs I worked in that I hope readers will find and enjoy.

Wish Upon A Crime is available in trade paperback and ebook from the usual online sources, including Bookshop.org. Author Tara Laskowski (who doesn't have a story in the anthology), has called it "Gritty and tense [...] The crime authors here blend a modern, stark reality with the magic lore of old, and as a result bring a new meaning to the word 'grim.'"

The end. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Things I Heard at Malice Domestic

This year's Malice Domestic mystery convention was held a few weeks ago, and it was a good time, as always. I usually jot down interesting quotes I hear during panels, then share them here. This year is no exception. 

Thanks to Rob Lopresti for first putting this idea in my head years ago when he shared quotes from, I think, Bouchercon. And thanks to this year's Malice panelists for their words of wisdom. 

And away we go!

 

"When I read suspense and thrillers, I think: At least my life isn't that messed up." - Jennifer van der Kleut 

"It's not necessarily the terrible thing happening--it's the threat of the terrible thing happening that propels the story forward." - LynDee Walker

"Good things can come out of rejection." - Kate Hohl 

"The most important thing you can do to be asked to submit again to an editor is be willing to be edited." - Josh Pachter 

"Learn to use Microsoft Word and learn to use track changes. Your editor will love you." - Carla Coupe

"Work with your editor. Your editor is trying to make your work the best it can be." - Michael Bracken

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, a eunuch." - Smita Harish Jain

"After you castrate a few people, you get a reputation." - also Smita Harish Jain 

"I don't want to kill people in a real small town because I thought people might take offense to that." - Annie McEwen

"When reading suspense, I think most people like to be mostly right but a little bit wrong. The thrill of not knowing what's going to happen is what pulls us along to keep turning the pages." - LynDee Walker 

"You don't wait for your muse. You say: Muse, c'mon, sit down." - Korina Moss 

"I do not like unreliable narrators. I just want to punch them." - Jule Selbo

"A short story is not a novel. It's not a love note. It's not a poem. They have their own rhythm." - Smita Harish Jain