Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Limited Time Offer: Get 25 Years E-book on Smashwords for Just $1.99

Published on June 30, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today and General News. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’m excited to announce that my mystery novel Twenty-Five Years Ago Today (the inspiration for the recurring 25 Years Ago Today feature on this blog) is now available in multiple e-book formats through Smashwords. If you own an e-reader and haven’t heard about Smashwords yet, this is a wonderful site to purchase very reasonably priced e-books. You can even find many books for free.

As a special offer for my blog readers and social networking friends, you can use this coupon code to buy the e-book for $1.99 through July 7: just type in PF84F when ordering the book on Smashwords. Over the next few weeks, the e-book version of Twenty-Five Years Ago Today will start to pop up on many other online retailer sites as well, through various distribution channels including Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, and Apple. It is already in the Amazon Kindle Store.

I think the e-book trend is quite exciting for both readers and authors, but my favorite way to read a book is still the old-fashioned way. Don’t forget that Twenty-Five Years Ago Today is also available in trade paperback through many booksellers including Amazon, Barnes&Noble.com, and Mainly Murder Press. Still though, it is exciting to have my novel become available for the Kindle, iPad, B&N Nook, Sony Reader and so many other electronic formats. With the birth of e-readers, I truly feel as if we are witnessing a historical time in book publishing and I’ll blog more about my feelings on this subject in the near future.

In the meantime, I hope you get a chance to read Twenty-Five Years Ago Today in one format or another. Lynn Cunningham of Fresh Fiction recently reviewed the book and wrote: “This was a very intriguing and captivating book. I found myself carrying it with me whenever I thought I may have a few minutes to read while waiting on something. On top of that, this book stayed in my head even when I was not reading it. I loved the characters that Ms. Juba has so clearly laid out for her readers. The subplots of the book were also quite fascinating. Kris Langley is a character that you will remember long after you have completed reading this book.”

Below is the Smashwords information for Twenty-Five Years Ago Today. The e-book also contains bonus discussion questions for book clubs, and a sneak peek preview of my upcoming reality TV show-themed mystery novel Sink or Swim. Don’t forget the coupon code! Also check out the You Tube book trailer.

Twenty-Five Years Ago Today by Stacy Juba. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
For 25 years, Diana Ferguson’s killer has gotten away with murder. When editorial assistant Kris Langley investigates the cold case of the artistic young cocktail waitress who was obsessed with Greek mythology, she must fight to stay off the obituary page herself. Finding out the truth about that long ago night may shatter Kris’s present, costing her love, her career, and ultimately her life.

25 Years Ago Today: Popular Mystery and Romantic Comedy Author Lynne Murray

Published on June 27, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 11 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome my guest Lynne Murray, who is visiting today as a stop on her blog tour to promote her fantastic new romantic comedy, Bride of the Living Dead. Lynne has had six mysteries published. Larger Than Death, the first book featuring Josephine Fuller, sleuth of size who doesn’t apologize, won the Distinguished Achievement Award from NAAFA (the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance).

Lynne has written three e-books of encouragement for writers, as well as essays, interviews and reviews on subjects that rouse her passions. Many of those can be found under “Rants and Raves” on her web site. Lynne lives in San Francisco, and when not writing, she enjoys reading, watching DVD film directors’ commentaries, and spoiling her cats, all of whom are rescued or formerly feral felines.

Lynne, thanks for joining us. I love the concept of your latest title, Bride of the Living Dead, and I really enjoyed the Josephine Fuller mystery that I just finished, At Large. Tell us, what were you doing 25 years ago?

LYNNE: Twenty-five years ago this month, I was writing my first mystery novel. I had finished an earlier novel, a Sensitive Novel of Disillusioned Youth. One word describes it—unreadable.

Daily notes on my personal calendar bring back memories from 25 years ago, a year when way too many bad things happened—a life-threatening illness, a devastating burglary and vandalism in the apartment across the hall. My 1985 calendar records neutral and good days, but often the little squares note things like: “Bad, bad, bad day.”

Silver threads of hope weaving through the days were notes like “wrote 2 pages” or “put 6 pages on D-writer at work.” The “D-writer” was a Displaywriter, a word processing machine the size of a big, microwave oven. Starting the Displaywriter took two eight-inch disk drives, like a toaster set on end. The left drive loaded the software, the right the data.

Three days a week, 10 hours a day I typed documents for the law firm. When work was slow, I pulled out a “borrowed” eight-inch diskette from my backpack and wrote my novel.

On December 29, 1985, I went to work an hour early and stayed late. My note: “Finished TI (my novel) for contest. Done at 9:00 pm exactly. Sent by Express Mail at Airport Mail Facility.” Termination Interview didn’t win the Scribner’s contest, but a few months later an agent accepted it and sold it to St. Martin’s Press.

My first novel was published in 1988—a much better year!

Thank goodness things got better for Lynne! Read more about her work on her web sites and blog.
http://www.lmurray.com
http://www.pearlsong.com/brideofthelivingdead.htm
http://www.brideofthedead.blogspot.com

Check out Bride of the Living Dead on Amazon. Here is a description:

Indie film critic, Daria MacClellan, wants to marry the man she loves, but she’s slipping on rose petals as if they were banana peels on her way to the altar. Big, beautiful and rebellious, Daria, who is most comfortable in a monster movie poster T-shirt and blue jeans, finds that her wedding is hijacked by family drama. How did she sign on for a formal wedding planned by Sky, her perfectionist, anorexic, older sister? Daria adores her fiancé and she loves horror films, but her wedding seems to be spiraling downward in that direction. Will a picture perfect pink wedding turn her into the Bride of the Living Dead?

Also check out Lynne’s mysteries on Amazon.

25 Years Ago Today: Historical Fiction, Young Adult and Suspense Author Beth Kanell

Published on June 24, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome Beth Kanell, author of historical fiction, suspense, and young adult novels. I recently finished Beth’s compelling young adult book The Darkness Under the Water, about a teenage girl and her Abenaki family living in the 1920s who get caught up in a government eugenics project set to rid Vermont of “weak links” in the genetic code. I was so mesmerized by her vivid writing and unique storyline, based on a true period in American history, that I had to invite her to my blog.

Beth believes that our stories matter – and her novels dig for the haunting dangers and rewards of the past, especially for teens in Vermont. Beth lives and writes in Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. The fire scene in The Darkness Under the Water is all too real to her, and she never plays with matches. The Darkness Under the Water will be followed by The Long Shadow, and I’m sure her readers will be looking forward to another novel by this talented author.

Beth, you have an especially poignant 25 years ago moment to share with us. Please tell us about it.

BETH: Summer 1984: I think of it as my last innocent summer, while the pieces of my life looked like ordinary photographs in a family album. The kids and I packed happily for two weeks in a rustic cottage on a mud-bottomed pond, so secluded that the frogs sang around the clock and crayfish squirmed fearlessly around our feet as we waded between lily pads.

In the evenings we all read stories: picture books for the toddler, “chapter books” for the one going into first grade, a stack of novels by my own bed. Supper could be as simple as scrambled eggs, but mostly it was something grilled over a woodfire. And going home at last to our nearby house, ah, that too was languid and lovely and rich with love.

I can’t enjoy the aroma of a woodfire now, the way I did during that tender summer. The mountain of maple logs that I cut and split in the fall, stacked so neatly in the cellar for the long snowy winter ahead: They blazed first, and longest, when the house burned down on the coldest night at the end of 1984. I’ll never forget the scent of that fire: the scent of lives changed forever.

It was 25 years ago. The past vanished in smoke and ash. Let me tell you the long sweet worth of life that remained, after the old life burned.

Read more about Beth’s work on her web site and blog. Check out The Darkness Under the Water on Amazon.

25 Years Ago Today: Novelist and Short Story Author Stephen D. Rogers

Published on June 21, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 11 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome Stephen D. Rogers, one of the most prolific writers that I’ve ever met. His name has been familiar to me for quite awhile, due to our mutual affiliation with Mystery Writers of America, however, I recently had the pleasure of getting to know Stephen much better as we both have books published by Mainly Murder Press.


Stephen’s new release Shot To Death contains 31 stories of murder and mayhem, set in New England. He is also the author of more than 600 shorter pieces.

Stephen, what were you doing 25 years ago?

STEPHEN: Twenty-five years ago I was writing, but then when wasn’t I?

Twenty-five years ago, I was working at a direct mail company, standing at a burster-decollator eight to sixteen hours a day, scribbling story ideas on scrap paper while waiting for enough sheets to come out of the machine and collect for me to jog.

(“To jog” means to hold a stack of loose papers on a vibrating board until the sheets line up. This is done so that the sheets don’t jam the inserters, the machines that are the next stop on the junk-mail assembly line.)

Not only did this job allow me to stockpile hundreds of creative ideas, it taught me two key concepts that were applicable to writing. First, the job taught me that submissions were a numbers game. Second, the job taught me that rejections weren’t personal. According to management, the companies that produced and paid for these mailings were thrilled with a three-percent return.

The other ninety-seven percent that never replied? That was just the cost of doing business.

Find out more about Shot To Death and Stephen’s other projects on his web site.

Check out Shot To Death on Amazon and at Mainly Murder Press.

25 Years Ago Today: Friendship Pins, the Silly Bandz of the 1980s

Published on June 16, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Twenty-five years ago, friendship pins adorned kids’ tennis shoes across America. When I was in elementary school back in the mid-1980s, I proudly displayed the safety pins, decorated with small colorful beads, attached to my shoe laces.

Today the hot trend is Silly Bandz, a brand of silicone rubber bands with shapes including animals, objects, and letters. They are distributed by BCP Imports and are generally worn as bracelets by middle school, high school, and elementary students.

If you know a school-age child, chances are they can eagerly tell you all about how Silly Bandz bracelets look like regular bracelets on the wrist, however when taken off, they revert to the original shape. The bracelets are often worn many at a time and are traded. Silly Bandz have even inspired controversy as schools in several states have banned the stretchy, bright bracelets for being a distraction.

I don’t recall friendship pins ever being banned, but I do remember that the pins made school more fun. Kids traded those also or simply shared them with friends as gifts. I remember being the proud recipient of pins given by my friend Joanne. If no one awarded you a friendship pin, though, you created one for yourself…and kept that part quiet. Not being particularly crafty, I just waited for the pins to come to me and I don’t think I gave any to my friends. (Sorry, guys.) I wasn’t that into following fads and felt like the only girl in the world who thought Cabbage Patch Kids were ugly.

I had no clue where everyone was getting the beads to design the pins, but I must admit, I secretly treasured the pins that came my way. The beads even had a color code. My memory is fuzzy on this, but according to an article on a really interesting web site, LikeTotally80s.com, red beads meant strong, vigorous, or sweetheart, while yellow symbolized intelligence and good friends. I don’t remember what colors mine were, but they did make my sneakers look cool.

I’m betting that 25 years from now, today’s kids won’t recall whether they wore stretchy giraffes, sea horses, hearts, or cowboy hats on their arms, but they’ll reflect on the good old days of Silly Bandz with fondness. I wonder what the trend will be then?

If you have any thoughts on Silly Bandz, friendship pins, or other fashion trends, please share them in the comments.

25 Years Ago Today: Novelist and Short Story Writer Maria Savva

Published on June 14, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome my guest Maria Savva, who has written some truly fascinating works of literary and contemporary fiction. Maria lives in London and is a qualified solicitor, as well as a writer.

Her published novels are Coincidences and A Time to Tell, and she has also published the short story collections Pieces of a Rainbow, and Love and Loyalty (and Other Tales.)

A Time to Tell is a family saga spanning 50 years and three generations of one family. Pieces of a Rainbow is a collection of 7 short stories, each one based on a different color of the rainbow. Love and Loyalty (and Other Tales) is a collection of 15 short stories about life, love, loss, deceit and loneliness among other things. Maria is currently at work on her third and fourth novels and a third collection of short stories.

You can see Maria’s writing talent in her below memory of the absurdity of youth: The Red Man. Maria, tell us about your memory from 25 years ago.

MARIA: In the mid ‘80s, me and my friends would often congregate on a bench for lunch, outside our school. For a brief period of time, perhaps a few weeks, a young man used to walk past us every day. One of my friends pointed him out, and then we always looked out for him.

There was nothing particularly different about this man, as far as I remember, except that he always appeared a bit awkward as he walked past us unruly teens each day. He had red hair, and a flushed face (probably because we were always whispering or giggling when we saw him), so we quickly nicknamed him ‘The Red Man’.

I still laugh when I remember how silly we were, and I feel a bit sorry for the poor ‘Red Man’. I don’t think we ever actually spoke with him; maybe we said ‘hello’ when he walked past, or asked him inane questions that went unanswered. What I do remember was that one day, my friend decided to bring a camera so that we could play a prank on him, to make him think we thought he was famous and wanted a photo of him. We hid behind a car when we saw him approaching, then my friend jumped up and took a picture. He appeared startled.

My friend said she would pin it up on her bedroom wall, (I think she secretly fancied him.) I wonder whether my friend still has that photo, and I wonder what ever happened to The Red Man…

Please visit Maria’s web site for more information on her writing.

Also be sure to check out her books in my Amazon store.

25 Years Ago Today: Mystery and Suspense Author Darcia Helle

Published on June 7, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I’d like to welcome my good friend, talented mystery/suspense author Darcia Helle. It’s hard to believe that Darcia and I just met a few months ago, through the web site LibraryThing, as she’s one of those rare people it feels as if you’ve known forever. Darcia has five novels published and is at work on number six, and I can tell you that her books are quite addicting. You can’t read just one!

Darcia grew up in Massachusetts, then moved to the Tampa Bay area of Florida in 2002. She is married, has two sons and an adorable new granddaughter. She also has two very spoiled dogs and two equally spoiled cats.

Darcia’s character Nick Donovan, from her novel Miami Snow, has joined us today to answer the question. Nick, what were you doing 25 years ago?

NICK: Twenty-five years ago today, I was sitting in my backyard sandbox with Sara from next door. She was a year older and far more worldly than I. She had these long blonde ringlets that fascinated me. I’d yank them down and they’d spring right back up, sort of like the slinky toys we played with.

Back then, I didn’t know much about the difference between boys and girls. She didn’t like to play with my army men and I thought her Barbie dolls were stupid. But we both loved the sandbox. We’d spend hours together, building castles and roads for the Matchbox cars. I had no doubt that we would grow up and get married, because that’s what boys and girls did.

One day, we kissed in that sandbox. She giggled and ran home. The next day, she decided to play with Jason, the eight-year-old down the street. I kept waiting for her in the sandbox but she never came. The following week, I saw her riding bikes with Jason up and down the sidewalk. She’d gotten rid of her training wheels and was keeping up with him as they pedaled faster than lightning.

That was the moment I realized that I’d lost Sara to Jason. Bored with the sandbox, she’d traded up for the guy with the bike. If I’d paid better attention to that lesson, my adult years might have been spared a lot of grief.

Poor Nick! I hope he is doing better now. To learn more about Darcia and her fantastic list of books, visit her web site and her blog.

Check out Miami Snow on Amazon or browse all her books in my Amazon bookstore.

The characters await you!

Talented Authors Share Special 25 Years Ago Today Moments

Published on June 2, 2010 in 25 Years Ago Today and Amazon Bookstore. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Coming from a newspaper reporter background, I was trained to write “advance” stories and “follow-up” pieces. As a result, I plan to write a monthly blog entry that touches on the highlights from the previous month and that looks ahead at coming attractions.

Kris Langley as seen in the Twenty-Five Years Ago Today Book Trailer. Click on the picture to view You Tube trailer.

In May, my Twenty-Five Years Ago Today heroine Kris Langley was “interviewed” on author Darcia Helle’s blog “A Word Please.” Read Kris’s interview and learn more about what makes this inquisitive obit writer tick.

Eric Soares as seen in the Twenty-Five Years Ago Today Book Trailer.

Also in May, Saturday Evening Romance featured a steamy scene between Kris and Eric from Twenty-Five Years Ago Today.

May also marked the beginning of my regular guest blog feature, with authors answering the question “What were you (or your character) doing 25 years ago?

In case you missed the posts, mystery/romance author P.Q. Glisson recalled working as a bank teller and starting a family. Child Finder Trilogy author Mike Angley shared a special vignette about his meeting with General Jimmy Doolittle.

Susan Whitfield, author of the Logan Hunter Mystery series, reminisced about teaching high school English while her son was a shortstop on her head coach husband’s high school baseball team.

Lastly, Beth Solheim revealed how her fictional character, Sadie Witt, owner of the Witt’s End Resort, greeted yet another guest to Cabin 14. A dead guest, that is, who unsuspectingly witnessed the 1975 disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

If you’d like to read any of these stories, please click on the author’s name. In June, we’ll read several more 25 Years Ago Today moments. We’ll meet mystery/suspense author Darcía Helle’s Miami Snow character Nick Donovan; literary and contemporary fiction author Maria Savva will tell us about the mysterious Red Man from her childhood; and novelist and short story author Stephen D. Rogers will share what working for a direct mail company taught him about writing.

Beth Kanell, author of the young adult book The Darkness Under the Water, will share a powerful memory about a life-changing year in Vermont, and Lynne Murray, author of the romantic comedy Bride of the Living Dead and the Josephine Fuller mystery series, will tell us about writing her very first mystery novel. Stop by in June and see what these talented authors were doing 25 years ago. You can also browse all of their books on Amazon.

Also, don’t miss the very special giveaway of my patriotic children’s picture book The Flag Keeper. In celebration of Flag Day and the Fourth of July, I’ll be giving away an unlimited number of fully illustrated PDF copies of this special manuscript from June 10-July 4. My very talented father, Larry Drumtra, did the illustrations. Stay tuned for more details!

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