My thoughts on the mystery genre

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was an interesting one.

I've been reading murder mysteries more often recently, although I tend to be quite selective as to which authors I read - I love Agatha Christie and Richard Osman, but some other authors just don't work for me. That said, I only really have one criterion for mysteries, and it's one that I first noticed while watching an episode of Jonathan Creek, a show which is a bit dated now but was famous for its convoluted methods of killing.

It's quite simple. I never make any effort to try and guess who the killer is - I know this is part of the fun for many people, but I'm happy to just watch and enjoy the journey. So if I manage to figure it out before the big reveal, then the writer clearly isn't trying hard enough. I want to be surprised, and if I'm not surprised, it's a failure for me.

I'm not sure why I have this criterion specifically for mysteries, since for other genres I'm perfectly fine with knowing the ending beforehand. But when it's a murder mystery, I don't want to know and I won't try to guess, so there's no excuse for not surprising me.

So what are your thoughts on the mystery genre?

What I do when I'm bored

 I'm quite looking forward to reading everyone else's responses to this topic from Long and Short Reviews. It would be very interesting if people were saying they went hang-gliding when they were bored. Sadly I can't claim to do anything quite that exciting.

It's rare that I am genuinely bored as I have a great capacity for daydreaming, so I can sit for ages staring out of the window, deep in my own thoughts. If I do get bored it's most likely because I've got so much time on my hands that even daydreaming has lost its charm. This usually means that I'm stuck somewhere like a hospital waiting room or a coach coming back from London, both of which take hours.

If I know I'm going to be somewhere a long time I take my Kindle with me so I can read. I also do prep work for whatever I'm currently writing and save it to my phone. I've managed to kill a lot of time that way, although I would just like to point out to whoever services coaches that they really need to get a better quality reading light. I could barely see my Kindle the last time I came home on a coach.

Maybe that's one of the reasons they all have charging ports in the back of the seats now. Can't see to read? Here, try surfing. There's even free Wi-Fi!

So what do you do when you're bored?

A genre I want to read more of

 Having had a quick break from Long and Short Reviews topics thanks to being on holiday, this one was an easy one. I've been trying to catch up on my reading and there is one genre I've definitely neglected.

Historical. Both fiction and non-fiction.

I have a lot of historical writers on my "following" list on Amazon and haven't seen any new ones from them lately, so I'll have to go searching for some new ones. My favourite period is the Wars or the Roses and Henry VIII, but I'm looking to branch out, maybe into the Georges - I've read further back into the early Henry periods, but not much further forward.

I also love American history, but most of my reading has been on the presidents and those close to them, so I need to look around for some interesting figures. I have a biography of J Edgar Hoover on my to-read list and I'm sure there are others I can find.

So which genre do you want to read more of?

Books with fantastic endings

After a quick break I'm back on the Long and Short Reviews topics, and this one intrigued me. I can think of plenty of books with endings I liked, but not many of them were fantastic.

I ended up with just one. "The Beguiled".

"The Beguiled" is a book which suffered a lot when the film was made, as not only did it seem to be written from bullet points while missing all the character development, but the trailer gave away the ending. Which is a shame, because I genuinely didn't see it coming.

Spoiler alert for those of you who haven't read the book or seen the trailer...

The women and girls are housing an injured soldier in a school, and gradually coming to realise that he's doing them more harm than good by manipulating them all. So how can they get rid of him?

Well, one of the girls happens to know where some poisonous mushrooms grow...

So which books did you think had fantastic endings?

Soak Up The Sun now released!

 Book 6 in the Rock My World series is finally out!

A weekend of summer fun leads to a passionate escape in the sun.

When Tamarie Morgan goes to PeakFest with her friends, her primary concern is avoiding her friend Veca’s creepy boyfriend, Sy, who drunkenly assaulted her two months previously and has refused to leave her alone ever since. However, when Tamarie is checking out the stalls and connects with Kaleb McAdams, the drummer for headline act Puppetmaster, a heated encounter backstage leads to Kaleb inviting her to ditch the festival with him. Kaleb wants her to be his plus-one at lead singer Cassian’s wedding—and when Veca and Sy break up the following day and start packing to leave, Tamarie and her friend Dannika decide to take Kaleb up on his offer.

Tamarie is initially impressed by the glitz and glamour of being a rockstar girlfriend, even for a short period of time, but is abruptly brought back down to earth when the press get a compromising photograph of her and her reputation is called into question. She soon realises that for her Kaleb is more than a brief fling, but when the other band members’ plus-ones tell her being a rockstar girlfriend has an expiry date, Tamarie finds herself wondering if they’re right. Will Kaleb still want her after the wedding is over, and can she deal with all that being a rockstar girlfriend involves?

Amazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/53ruyun3

Amazon US: https://tinyurl.com/mwpb5zbr

Totally Bound: https://www.totallybound.com/book/soak-up-the-sun

And all week books 1-5 are 99c at First For Romance: https://www.firstforromance.com/series/rock-my-world

Plus Totally Bound are running a giveaway! Enter now to win a selection of print books, a $10 gift card and books 1 to 5 in the series.

https://offers.bookbooster.io/soak-up-the-sun/c24511/

Good luck!

Funniest advice I've ever received

 When this topic from Long and Short Reviews came up I had, in fact, just been discussing this with my husband, as there was one piece of advice I was given as a teen which immediately leapt to mind. I don't know if I found it funny at the time, but it does make me laugh now.

It was, essentially, "You don't have the face to seduce a man, so win him with chocolate." A version of the way to a man's heart being through his stomach, I suppose. And I do have a face like a bag of spanners, so they probably had a point.

I did try this out a few times and I can't really argue its effectiveness. I managed to get the sixth form heart-throb to sit next to me all morning after I tried the old "The vending machine gave me two bars of chocolate by mistake, do you want the other one?" And when my husband and I first started dating, I would leave a Mars bar in his coat pocket so that he could find it while walking home at night.

According to him he didn't remember me doing that, but he did remember I always had a stock of Wispas when he came over.

So what funny advice have you received?

Would I stay in a haunted house? Why or why not?

 I had to laugh when this topic from Long and Short Reviews came up. Why? Because never mind if I would - I already have.

I had already attended a few paranormal investigations while I was writing "I Heard Your Voice", so when I saw that Mosborough Hall in Derbyshire were doing a deal on their haunted suite, my husband and I decided to give it a go. I can't remember what type of ghost they were supposed to have, but my husband is a huge sceptic, so I figured he would be the best person to have around in case a white lady appeared in the middle of the night.

I'm sorry to say that no ghosts turned up. We didn't even have any mysterious knocking on the pipes. The receptionist didn't look too surprised when I mentioned our complete failure, although she may have simply been relieved we weren't demanding our money back for the lack of paranormal activity. It was a perfectly nice hotel - just completely free of ghosts.

So would you stay in a haunted house?

A sport I want to try

 I deliberately didn't read this topic from Long and Short Reviews out to my husband, because he would have collapsed laughing. I am definitely not the sporty type. I have, however, certain sports I've enjoyed in the past - dangerous ones.

Back in my student days I was a static-line skydiver. Not a very highly-trained one as I quit before I got too far, but I loved every second of those jumps. There's something beautiful about hanging in mid-air and seeing the chute open above you.

I also did a bungee jump at Battersea Bridge once, which probably would have been scarier if I had been able to see where I was falling - short-sightedness for the win there.

I would definitely do both of those again, but as for new sports, I would love to try wingwalking (which is prohibitively expensive and would also require me to lose weight) and, more groundedly, tennis. I never got to do it at school and so never had the chance to get into it. Instead I was stuck doing swimming every semester, and I'm fairly sure my PE teacher thought terrible things about me given that I managed to skip nearly every week because of an ear infection or my period.

So which sports would you like to try?

Do you enjoy shopping? Why or why not?

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews essentially has two answers for me.

Online? Yes.

In person? Less so.

I got into the habit of doing most of my shopping online to avoid Christmas crowds, since there are few things I hate more than being stuck in a mile-long queue in Primark. However, since then I've found online shopping to be preferable in most instances. Apart from avoiding the queues, you also have the advantage of being able to look for exactly what you want without having to lug yourself round from place to place (as was proven when my husband was looking for an electronic item and nowhere had it, but insisted on still displaying it in the window "so people can see what we've got." Um, you haven't got it, that's the point.)

The only snag is the shipping cost, but as long as it's not ridiculous I can deal with it.

So how do you feel about shopping?

A skill I wish more people had and why

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews hit home, because there is one thing that has always annoyed me and probably always will. And I really do wish more people had this ability.

The ability to follow directions.

Specifically, people who ask for directions in the street and then don't follow them. 

I had a woman once ask me how to get to a building which was clearly visible across the street; I pointed it out and directed her to the crossing, and she walked six feet and asked someone else - who shrugged and told her he had no idea where it was. Well, I tried.

I also had quite a lot of people at a previous temp job who couldn't understand that they needed to turn right when coming out of a lift. Invariably they would turn left and then be surprised they were in the wrong place. I never did manage to figure that one out.

So what skill do you wish more people had?

Books that are tearjerkers

 Okay, so this one from Long and Short Reviews was a tough one. I'll be the first person to admit that I don't cry over books. I don't generally read the sort of books one might cry over - fair play to Nicholas Sparks, but give me a happy ending any day. So I was struggling to think of any book I might consider a tearjerker.

Then I remembered "The Time Traveller's Wife".

I admit I only read it because of all the press attention it got, so I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it more than I thought I would. Of course, we all know - and I think the book and film have been out long enough for it not to be a spoiler - that Henry dies near the end, so that part was obviously going to be a downer, but I wasn't particularly expecting it to affect me.

However.

As the scene is presented, Henry tells Clare on New Year's Eve that he's about to make the final time-jump that will kill him. Henry has no control over when or where he will jump, so there is nothing either of them can do but sit and wait for it to happen. And I was immediately reminded of my father's last days in hospice, when my family and I were sitting watching his chest rise and fall and knowing that at any moment there would be no more breaths. There is something devastating about knowing that the person in front of you is about to die and there is literally nothing you can do but watch.

Which is probably why I never read the book or saw the film more than once.

So which books do you think of as tearjerkers?

ROMANCE GRAB BAG GIVEAWAY

 ROMANCE GRAB BAG GIVEAWAY

June 1st - 30th

Fill your eReader with a surprise!

https://ellenmint.blog/romance-mystery-bag-giveaway/ 

Is your eReader full of tumbleweeds? Do you need something to read but have no idea where to start? Let my mystery box pick for you!

Fifty-One authors teamed up to bring you THIRTY-NINE mystery bags of romance. Alpha heroes, untouchable bosses, sexy vampires, kilted pirates, and more wait to sweep you away. There will be numerous winners!

You get to pick between the three categories that interest you most: Contemporary, Historical, Paranormal

Enter whichever genre is your catnip, or go for all three if you love everything romance.

Do you want a sneak peek hint of which books are available in the bundle? Visit the giveaway page to check them out and enter.

The giveaway is sponsored by these wonderful authors:

Ellen Mint • Tember Sapphire • Cynthia Terelst • V.J. Allison • Jane Maguire • Amber Daulton • Seelie Kay • Jennifer Wilck • Courtney McCaskill • Charlie Lane • Kathleen Ayers • Tanith Davenport • S J Coles • Ella Cooper• Rosanna Leo • Maggie Sims • Sheri-Lynn Marean • Tina Gallagher • K.E. Turner • Will Forrest • M.C. Roth • Maren Jenner • Cass Scotka • Tracy Sumner • Robin Jeffrey • LS Phoenix • Catherine Peace • E. Rose Lynn • Collette Cameron • TJ Finn • Megan Slayer • Kristian Parker • Erin Zarro • Merry Farmer • Amy Craig • Celia Breslin • Aubrey Wynne • Zoe Dawson • Karenna Colcroft • Michelle McCraw • C. J. Burright

Museums or galleries I've visited or want to visit

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was interesting. It's been a while since I've been to any museums or galleries, I have to admit. However, there are a few I think are worthy of mention.

I've visited the Bronte Parsonage twice and would definitely recommend it if you're in the area and have an interest in the Brontes. They have a remarkable collection of Bronteana and the parsonage itself is a beautiful building. Similarly, I visited the Anne Frank House when I was in Amsterdam and found it to be a humbling experience - just seeing how enclosed their hiding place was is really quite eye-opening (although please don't go there with my ex, who stood around saying "Can we go now? This is boring.")

As for where I want to visit, I plan to go to the Richard II Museum soon (I'm a Ricardian all the way) and would love to see all of Vermeer's paintings, if not for the fact that they're all over the place.

I'm interested to see what everyone else will mention!

How I feel about staycations

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was an interesting one. I had originally thought staycations simply meant spending a holiday taking a break at home, but I've since been advised that - in UK terms at least - this also means holidaying within the UK. In that case, I'm on safe ground, because there are so many beautiful places to visit in the UK, and I love to take short breaks around the country.

Living in Yorkshire, I'm within easy reach of places such as Scarborough and Whitby, where I've stayed many times. I also spent the weekend in Chapel St Leonards last year (in search of bee-eaters which were allegedly breeding locally, not that we saw any) and have a break scheduled later in the year to Great Yarmouth, which I'm very much looking forward to as I've never been there. 

Beautiful scenery, beautiful coastline and new wildlife, as well as history galore - what's not to love?

While I'm here, I just have to mention that to go along with my new release "Get Out Of Here" the previous four books in the Rock My World series are now on sale for £0.99:

They're available at https://www.firstforromance.com/series/rock-my-world - please feel free to check them out :)

So how do you feel about staycations?

 

RELEASE DAY - Get Out Of Here

 New release out today!

The fifth book in the Rock My World series - "Get Out Of Here".

She ran away from her life – straight into his arms.

Photography graduate Starla Brower has always regretted not running away from her abusive home when she had the chance, as her older sisters did—especially her sister Electra, who fled with band Torque Converter six months ago. So when she decides to hitchhike away, she’s shocked to find Electra has arranged for the band to pick her up. And when lead singer Valen Lesellane rescues her from a gang of thugs by announcing she’s his fiancée, Starla goes along with it. Why not?

The band’s manager, Mike, is furious at this turn of events and the press attention it receives, but Starla finds Valen’s impulsiveness to be infectious and his touch to be irresistible. Before long she has regained contact with her other sisters and finds herself finally able to be happy, both with Valen and with her family.

But with her parents pursuing her and Mike fiercely against her relationship with Valen, can their unexpected engagement last beyond the bus tour?

Amazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/4nb2yyx6
Amazon US: https://tinyurl.com/4x5h5pdb
Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/ml6gvA

Villains I'd root for instead of the protagonist

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was a tough one. I can think of plenty of villains I liked purely because of who played them in the film, but I still wouldn't say I would root for them over the protagonist. Even if they were played by Alan Rickman, who was always amazing at playing villains.

Then I thought of "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen.

The heroine Fanny Price, a painfully good and moralistic girl, is pursued by rakish Henry Crawford while being secretly in love with her equally prim and proper cousin Edmund. We'll bypass the whole cousin-marriage thing for a moment since apparently that was fine at the time. Henry Crawford is charming, entertaining and - most importantly - is very much in love with Fanny Price, despite having misbehaved with women in the past. Edmund, on the other hand, is hopelessly in love with Henry's sister and completely unaware of Fanny's feelings, while also disapproving of basically everything interesting in life. I find it impossible to prefer Edmund over Henry.

Of course, Fanny is an insufferable character, so she probably deserves to end up with her equally annoying cousin. But if I had been her, I would have run off with Henry Crawford any day of the week. 

So which villains would you root for?

Songs that confused me when I was a kid

 When this topic from Long and Short Reviews came up, one particular song immediately came to mind. It wasn't so much a matter of mishearing the lyrics or being confused by the meaning, although I'm sure there were plenty of songs back then that I completely misunderstood. 

No - in this instance, it was the video.

The song was "Twisting By The Pool" by Dire Straits. I didn't know what "twisting" was, so that part went completely over my head. However, when I saw the video on Top of the Pops, I was absolutely terrified. Why? Because the video consisted mainly of synchronised swimmers, upside down, gleefully kicking their legs in the air.

I had never seen synchronised swimming before, so I assumed that if they were upside down in the water and kicking their legs, they had obviously fallen in backwards and were drowning.

I had nightmares about that for a week until I told my dad about it. To be fair to him, he didn't laugh - not in front of me anyway, although he may well have enjoyed telling this to my mum afterwards.

I'm interested to see which songs everyone else will come up with!

A moment I wish I could relive

 When this topic from Long and Short Reviews came up, I immediately thought of three possibilities.

My wedding day was the top one. Everything about it was perfect - not just the groom, although he was definitely the best thing about it.

Then when I graduated from university the first time, which was a blast, although I did regret not having a mortarboard as part of the outfit. 

However, the one I'd like to particularly mention here, given I'm a writer, is the day my debut novel was accepted for publication.

After doing a lot of edits based on the Romantic Novelists' Association's New Writer's Scheme feedback, I had submitted it to seven publishers and received a few rejections, some nicer than others. As my husband and I were about to go out to dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, I happened to check my phone and saw I had an email from Totally Bound, so I opened it.

I can't remember what I said when I saw it had a contract attached, but I think it was something like "Shit!" Possibly not the most relevant thing to say when getting good news of that quality, but I was completely floored. It's a very strange feeling when you've wanted something your whole life and suddenly there it is in front of you.

And then we went out, and we may have had champagne with the meal. Or possibly cava. Let's not overdo it.

So which moment would you relive?

A book trope I wish wouldn't happen in real life

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews immediately jumped out at me, because there's one trope I absolutely hate and which came up again recently when I was reading "Valley of the Dolls".

I don't know if it has an official name, but I've always referred to it as "How dare you be a virgin!"

This one I've seen far too many times in books. Woman has her first time with the hero without mentioning she's a virgin, hero immediately realises this (women always have intact hymens in these things) and throws a fit. She's a virgin? How could she not tell him? Now she's going to have Expectations! Meanwhile the poor woman is lying there having her first time, which is presumably painful enough what with being intact, utterly ruined by this idiot ranting and raving.

Unfortunately I went through a similar experience as a teenager, as I had a boyfriend who was the game-playing sort and who also lived in a horrible part of town where there were lots of teen pregnancies. He informed me that he had had to tell all his friends about my innocence because the concept of a seventeen-year-old virgin was so bizarre that he needed to get their advice. (Seventeen, eh? How shocking.) I honestly don't know if he really hadn't ever met one before or if he was just trying to mess with my head - it was hard to say with him - but given I had friends who were the same age as me and also virgins, I was well aware he was being an idiot.

So which trope do you wish wouldn't happen in real life?

Non-fiction books I've read lately

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was an easy one, as there's only one non-fiction book I've read in the last few months - everything else has been fiction, and I've got a TBR stack a mile high. However, when this one came out I put everything else aside so I could dig into it.

It was "The Princes in the Tower" by Philippa Langley.

I've been a Ricardian for years and have always been fascinated by the case of the Princes in the Tower, so I was very interested to see what new evidence Philippa Langley had found. It turns out, of course, that the answer was one that I'd often considered was plausible myself - that Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, who challenged Henry VII for the throne, were actually Edward V and Prince Richard, having been hidden away in foreign countries for years. 

Whether this will be laid down as official history at any point is open to question. History tends to be written by the winners, and there are enough powerful Tudor historians who would immediately dismiss any evidence that Richard III didn't kill the princes. However, I personally found Langley's evidence convincing, so we'll see.

So which non-fiction books have you read recently?

Pets I used to have - and COVER REVEAL

 Much as I like this topic from Long and Short Reviews, I'm a bit limited when it comes to photos. I had a lot of fish as a child, mostly shubunkins - I had one named Flipper who lived for five years. However, the only previous pet I have photos of is my dearly-departed cat Tigger.

Tigger had two goals in life - to eat, and to sit in boxes. Since my husband loves to buy trainers, there was rarely a time that Tigger didn't have a box to sit in. As for eating, dinner was always a struggle since he would fight you for every mouthful. It did, however, make getting him to do things (like stay in the kitchen when I was leaving for work, for instance - he liked to run outside and go under my car) much easier, since all I had to do was put some treats down and he'd be on them straight away.

And while I'm here, I have a new cover to reveal...

She ran away from her life – straight into his arms.

Photography graduate Starla Brower has always regretted not running away from her abusive home when she had the chance, as her older sisters did—especially her sister Electra, who fled with band Torque Converter six months ago. So when she decides to hitchhike away, she’s shocked to find Electra has arranged for the band to pick her up. And when lead singer Valen Lesellane rescues her from a gang of thugs by announcing she’s his fiancée, Starla goes along with it. Why not?

The band’s manager, Mike, is furious at this turn of events and the press attention it receives, but Starla finds Valen’s impulsiveness to be infectious and his touch to be irresistible. Before long she has regained contact with her other sisters and finds herself finally able to be happy, both with Valen and with her family.

But with her parents pursuing her and Mike fiercely against her relationship with Valen, can their unexpected engagement last beyond the bus tour?

It's on pre-order now from Totally Bound, and I hope everyone enjoys it!

Languages I'm learning or want to learn

 I liked this topic from Long and Short Reviews. There was a time when I was learning every language I could. I've always been good at languages, and my degrees are in linguistics, so I love to pull a new language apart and see what makes it work. However, I admit right now I'm not learning any.

In the past I've learned French, Italian, German and Spanish in the traditional way, and also attempted Polish, Portuguese, Dutch and Norwegian by way of Duolingo and Babbel. I may return to Norwegian and Portuguese at some point - Polish gave me a headache with all the inflections, but Norwegian and Portuguese were fun. Which led to one very interesting moment a few years ago.

I was getting a tattoo done - my very first specially-designed back piece, done by a Brazilian tattoo artist who was sharing a studio with a Brazilian-Japanese artist. I was on that table for about six hours, including the time my tattooist stopped for his lunch break, and the whole time he and his coworker were talking about me in a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. I wasn't fluent enough to pick it all up, but I definitely caught a few off-colour remarks about my body, along with "Are you sure she can't understand us?"

Sadly I also wasn't fluent enough to answer them back in either language, otherwise I would have done. And at least it was a decent tattoo.

So which languages are you learning?

A celebrity I'd like to meet

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews made me smile, partly because this was a question that used to come up whenever my last workplace would ask people to be interviewed for promotion purposes, and for some reason people would always say the Dalai Lama. I have no idea what I would have said at the time, but it wouldn't have been him.

I can think of two celebrities I'd like to meet. One is Craig Charles, primarily famous for "Red Dwarf". I was a huge Red Dwarf fan as a teenager and had a massive crush on Craig, which has long since disappeared, but I'd still be curious to meet him simply because I wanted to for such a long time. Among other things he inspired my first novel, which fortunately was lost when my old computer was sold, because it was absolutely terrible.

The other celebrity I'd like to meet would be Justin Hawkins of my favourite band The Darkness. Having seen him on stage many times I know he's got a sense of humour and loves his fans, so it would definitely be good experience.

So which celebrity would you like to meet?

Hobbies I used to enjoy

 It's the first Long and Short Reviews topic of 2024, and I struggled a bit to think of a hobby I don't still have. In the end, I could only come up with one... singing.

I used to be a trained classical singer - I took lessons every week, never doing any exams (I'm terrible at music theory) but performing musical theatre, classical, some pop and a little operetta. I performed in a few Gilbert and Sullivan shows, always in small roles, but they were so much fun to do I never cared that I wasn't a soloist.

When my singing teacher retired, I auditioned at a different music school. They were happy to take me on, but they couldn't offer any times I could actually do, and I didn't like the tutor enough to shift things around. He informed me during my audition that I had no business singing "I'll Give My Life For You" because I didn't have children. Well, pal, I've done Sweeney Todd as well but I've never baked a man in a pie.

So which hobbies did you enjoy?