A to Z: C is for Covers

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

Before going indie, since my novels were published by a small press, my opinion about the covers was solicited and if I objected strongly I had a good shot at persuading John (the head honcho) to make changes or go a different way, but in the end, he was the publisher, and the decision lay with him. 

I feel lucky that I ended up with covers I quite like for The Menopausal Superhero series: 

Still, one of the things I was really looking forward to about going indie was having full control over the covers. It was both exciting, and a little daunting. I don't consider myself much of a graphic artist, but I do have opinions. So, I wasn't going to try to do my own covers. At my skill level, that would have been a great way to end up with something amateurish and off-putting. 

Instead, I hired an artist. I met Hannah (or Spoon, as most people call her) of Spoonwood Visuals at a convention. She had the table across from mine, so I had a lot of time to look at her art and chit-chat with her, and I really liked both what I saw and what I heard. I bought a journal book from her with this art on it: 

 

I really liked how she used color, and I've got a thing for Luna moths :-) So, I asked if she ever did book covers and it turned out she does! So, over the past few months, we've talked themes and ideas and she did the covers for all three Gen X romances: 

 

 

She really did a great job turning my vague concepts into vibrant covers that really represent the books. And check out her artistry on the wraps: 

 

 I love how the heart on the back of Not Too Late comes across and becomes the letter L on the cassette tape on the front. And those Trapper-Keeper-esque details really ground it in the 80s nostalgia that is so much a part of this story!

 

 

Acid Reign is a completely different look with that collage-art style that mirrors so many punk album covers of the 80s and 90s, when Abby Storm, my main character, was rocking the world. The big lipstick kiss on the back is perfect! 

 

 

That cutie on the cover, knocking over the microphone and leaving muddy pawprints everywhere is Roscoe. He's the real hero of Ready or Not and I love the way he's running off the cover, so his head is on the back, disrupting the back-of-book blurb text. 

Working directly with an artist was WONDERFUL and I'm so pleased with what Hannah created for my books. 10 out of 10, would totally recommend the experience! 

 

 

Celebrating My Releases: Not Always a Party, an IWSG post

(Reminder: this site is now ONLY my blog. If you're looking for my book links or contact options, events, or any other aspects of my writer life, please visit http://dangerouswhenbored.com )

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.  The awesome co-hosts for the March 4 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, and Natalie Aguirre!

March 4 question - What elements do you include in your book launch? Or what do you have in mind for your future book launch? Or what advice do you have to offer to others planning to launch a book?

___________________________________

There's been quite a variety of types of book launches in my writing life so far. Some were polished, some fell apart, and some just kind of happened when I wasn't looking. 

When my first book, Going Through the Change, was published the first time in 2015, I arranged for a book launch party at a local indie book store and it was FABULOUS! Lots of family came in from out of town, everyone local in my writing life showed up, and I really felt like a feted celebrity. 

A favorite photo from that day: Me, my daughter and my dad showing our genetics. 

 

I tried something similar for my second book in the series, Change of Life, with a party at my local library through the Friends group. People were super supportive, but my publisher let me down by missing their deadlines and I didn't have any books to sell at my launch party! (sad trombone noise)

So, by the time, the third book, Face the Change, was due out, I was wary…and it was a good thing! Because they missed that deadline, too, and the book was delayed. So, I never really had any formal book launch for that book. I was disheartened. 

It was three more years before the next releases in that series came out.  Rough years with a hassle getting my rights back from the publisher (which was folding), signed on and re-released with the new publisher, and dealing with all my feelings about all of that. (I wrote more about that here if you're interested)

My only launch activities for the re-releases, the novellas (Friend or Foe and The Good Will Tour), the shorts (Through Thick and Thin), the fourth novel (Be the Change), the omnibus of shorts (Agents of Change), and the final novel in the series (Change for the Better) were virtual. 

 

 I *wanted* to have a big event to celebrate finishing the series, but the timing lined up poorly with other parts of life. There was a *lot* going on in summer 2025 and I couldn't find the time and energy to put together any kind of celebration, even though finishing my series was a major landmark in my writing life. 

Some of my short story publications have come with online launch parties--things like zoom parties or Facebook parties. They're kind of fun, and they have the advantage of letting you get people together who aren't geographically convenient to one another. 

As I move into my indie phase, I've taken a different tactic when it comes to my book birthdays. I've been seeking early ARC readers and putting my titles up on NetGalley to try to build a little buzz and have some reviews there on day one. I'm still seeking author events, but I'm more interested in multi-author events and I'm not concerned about whether they line up with release day. I'm planning for the long haul and I know that a book can take off on day one, or on day one hundred and one or day one thousand and one, or never at all--and that a lot of that is outside my control. 

Still, I remember that first launch party with a happy glowing feeling in my heart, so maybe I should think about getting something set up again. We'll see what the future holds.  

 

 

Bringing my Heroes Home

 It's official, y'all. With the release of the fifth and final novel, the menopausal superhero series is now complete!

 

This has been the work of a little more than ten years, and there's a lovely symmetry in that the first book came out in 2015, and the final in 2025. 

Origin story: This series started because I watched an X-men movie with my husband, and we were talking, as we often do, while we walked the dog afterwards. I was joking that the underlying message of X-men stories is always that hormones cause superpowers, and if that was the case, menopausal women should have the corner on that market!

image source

 

 He laughed and told me to write it down. So I did. 

And to my surprise, it was more than just a little joke--it was the opportunity to create a group of female characters finding community, purpose, and love while they deal with the changes wrought in the life by changes in their bodies. Metaphorical AF, right? 

The journey: Writing them was cathartic, joyful, and sometimes heartbreaking, bringing together my personal struggles and fears surrounding aging, friendship, and what perimenopause was doing to my body, my brain, and my life alongside my lifetime love of superhero stories. 

 

The shirt says "what doesn't kill you, mutates and tries again" 

I LOVE how I ended the series, and can't wait to share this with readers. 

The whole series is available direct from the publisher as an ebook bundle: 

buy here

 

You can also get it a book at a time from the Big River site, or request it from your favorite bookseller in paperback or hardback. 

The series in order:

 

 

Going Through the Change, where it all begins. Meet Helen, Jessica, Patricia, and Linda/Leonel and laugh and cry with them as they struggle with the sudden development of unusual abilities amid their busy lives, and find each other along the way. 

Part of what I wanted to explore is what a heroic life might look like for a woman with a grown-up life: a career, children, a household, a partner. Responsibilities. This book was the start of all of that.  

 

 

  

 

Friend or Foe, a novella, serves as a bridge story between the first and second novels, and a peek inside the mind of the mad scientist who caused all this trouble in the first place, Dr. Cindy Liu. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Change of Life, the second novel in the series, all the characters are dealing with the aftermath of the events of book one: the affects on their relationships, families, jobs, and psyches. The plot centers around Patricia, the Lizard Woman of Springfield, and her quest for answers and vengeance. 

This book introduces Daniel Price, one of my favorite creepy villains. He's been body hopping for a hundred years in a a quest to extend his own life, with no regard to who gets hurt (or killed) along the way.  

 

 

  

 

 In Face the Change, our heroes come together to work for the Unusual Cases Unit of the mysterious Department run by the Director and learn about hero life in the spotlight. As they fight The Six, a mysterious group of psychic villains, they deepen their personal connections, finding strength in each other.  

An unexpected romance came into play in this one. I LOVE it when my characters surprise me. 

 

 

 

The Good Will Tour is another novella, which works pretty well as a stand alone if you want to try the series at low investment.  Jessica "Flygirl" Roark and Leonel (formerly Linda) "Fuerte" Álvarez set out to build community good will with a celebrity visit to the local hospital and end up needing to save the day when a desperate earthquake causing woman shows up demanding experimental treatment for her wife. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.   

 

 

 

Just when our heroes thought they had things figured out, a mysterious power spike challenges their control of their abilities in Be the Change. 

I had a wonderful time expanding on Patricia's backstory in this one, introducing her mother, stepfather, and some information on her siblings and half-siblings. And Daniel Price is back because he was too good not to bring back. 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's the new girl in town: the series ender: Change for the Better. Readers will probably have noticed that Jessica "Flygirl" Roark has been…odd. Things escalate in this book and the menopausal superheroes have to scramble to save one of their own, while they face down enemies within and the return of Daniel Price and the shadowy mystery man, Bertrand Dietrich.  

I'm really proud of that final fight scene and that last chapter will hit you right in the feels. 

 

 

 

 

Through Thick & Thin is a collection of side-stories for the menopausal superheroes. It’s confession time in "Coming Out as Leonel." Join Patricia, the Lizard Woman, as she unravels the puzzle of Dr. Cindy Liu's disappearance in "The Right Thing," and then see her softer side (and her "better half," Suzie) in "Underestimated." Get ready for a wedding, and a heroic rescue, in "Flygirl's Second Chance."

These can be read separately of the novels, but I think you'll enjoy them more if you've already read at least books one and two. They're also all included in Agents of Change. 

 

 

 

 This anthology collects the novels and short stories into a single volume. 

• Friend or Foe
• The Good Will Tour
• "Coming out as Leonel" 
• "The Right Thing" 
• "Underestimated"
• "Flygirl's Second Chance"  

(this might be my favorite cover in the series, combining the silhouettes we used for the novels with the stripes or rays we used in the short work) 

 

 

 

I have some readings from all this work available on YouTube or in the Menopausal Superheroes slideshow on the "Read My Work" link in this website.  

And if that's not enough Menopausal Superheroes for you, you can also read another short story, "Intervention", exploring the background of Patricia and Cindy Liu in Theme-Thology: Mad Science or read a couple of free holiday stories I created for my newsletter subscribers: O Scaly Night (Patricia's version of Santa Claus is…violent) and (Flygirl's son gets to see her in action) Max's Mommy. 

If you find me or my publisher, Falstaff Books, at a convention or other in-person event, you can also get the very cool omnibus edition (second volume coming soon), and I hope to be able to share links for audiobooks in the near future.  

I'm working on a book tour this fall and winter to celebrate the completion of this series, so you may have a chance to come see me in your neck of the woods!  

Thanks to all of you who came along with me on this journey. Writing is great, but we need readers to make it worthwhile and I am so pleased that so many of you have connected to my characters and found escape and expression with me in these stories. 

May you find strength when you need it, joy in friendship, and love in one form or another.  

Foundational Books, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the June 4 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, and Jean Davis!

This month's question:

June 4 question - What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

__________________________________________

 

There's something special about books you read in childhood and young adulthood, isn't there? The root they take in your heart and mind is deeper and stronger than things you read in other phases of life (at least that's how it's gone for me). 

 

I've written about this before, in particular about revisiting those books as an adult--it can be fraught, because sometimes those works don't hit the same way when you read them with more experience under your belt, and you see unsavory things that sailed past you as a child. 

 

So a few books that have stayed important to me: 

 

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I first read this when I was 12 or so years old, and it was a revelation. After years and years of "good" and "nice" girls, here was an unreliable, weird, and dangerous young woman narrator. Witchy and wild, and judgmental about the people in the town. 

As the story evolved and I learned more about her family history and her past actions, my heart started beating faster. It felt *transgressive*, like I was getting away with reading something subversive, and that has stayed a part of me every since, both in what I like to read and what I write. 

I still read at least part of this book nearly every October, and it still works for me every single time. If pressed to choose a "favorite book of all time," this is often my choice. 

I did also like fine, upstanding characters…not just the misfits and miscreants. In elementary school, (maybe 3rd or 4th grade?) I plowed through TONS of Nancy Drew books. Some of them had been my mother's and my grandmother's. Others came from the library (the bookmobile ladies would hide them under the seat for me so they'd still be available when they got to my stop). 

So, I saw a few different versions of Nancy--her looks and details changed across her reboots. One version of her had an eidetic memory, which I found almost as fascinating as ESP and really hoped I would develop. 

Nancy was independent and smart and kind, and her father trusted her to take care of herself, even in risky situations. She had wonderful and supportive friends, too. I LOVED that, and I'm still attracted to stories that give the characters agency and skill. 

I haven't read a Nancy Drew since childhood, but she still gets a piece of my heart. 

Another foundational mythology for me was Grimm's Fairy Tales. I had a lot of versions of these--the ones my German great-grandmother would tell me from memory, good old Disneyfications, and various tellings and retellings from illustrated volumes. 

I especially loved all the ones about clever girls escaping harm and rescuing those around them. "The Feather Bird," "The Old Woman in the Wood," "The Twelve Brothers," "The Robber Bridgeroom," and of course, "Hansel and Gretel" (honestly, Gretel's name should go first).  

Childhood can be a time of feeling helpless and small, even when you have a relatively safe, secure, and loving family. So, these stories of girls who were underestimated proving that they do indeed have what it takes? Yeah. That still works for me.

So, if you find me and my work subversive, feminist, and a little feral? Well, it's not my fault. Blame Merricat, Nancy, and Gretel. They helped make me who I am. 

I still LOVE reading, but now I'm a writer and a well-educated critically-thinking adult…so I analyze while I read in a different way than I did when I was only looking to lose myself in a story. That said, I feel like I'm developing a whole new set of foundational books as a writer. They feed and inspire me in entirely different ways. I may have to follow up with a post about those--the books that are making me now. 

How about you? What books made you who you are? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

 

The Hardest Format, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What has been the hardest format to write in for you?
 ______________________

I've tried on a lot of different literary forms over the years. They're all difficult at first, because they're new. And each project is it's own critter, so even if it's a form I've written before, it's still a new challenge.

I began, in childhood as a poet, in formal and free-verse styles. I stopped pursuing poetry seriously (i.e. with an eye to publication) in my thirties, but I still write it for myself and sometimes share it. I might still someday produce a collection if I ever have enough that fit together that way. (My published poetry is all under my maiden name--Samantha Dunaway).

I really got into personal essays in my later twenties, writing a few that made it into magazines and newspapers. I was especially proud of a few that made it into We Alaskans. That led directly into some newspaper work as a book columnist for the Bering Strait (now defunct) and the Nome Nugget and attracted me to blogging where I could "sound off" more freely in this not-journalism-but-not-fiction area. 

I played with short stories off and on along the way but didn't really start to feel like I understood and made good use of the form until 2014 or so. Now I LOVE writing short stories, especially for anthologies, for the opportunity to try on different styles and genres without the long-term commitment that a novel entails. At this point, I've had 25 or so short stories published of 73 that I currently have in my pieces list on Duotrope. I'm in the middle of writing two new ones right now.

(SIDEBAR: Duotrope has been really useful to me for tracking submissions and helping me find places to submit my work. I pay $5 a month and consider it well worth it. It's great for folks like me who struggle to organize this stuff, and it's searchable, so I can make sure I didn't send that same story to that venue a year ago and just forgot.)

After my second child was born (2007) and I needed something to help pull me out of Post-partum depression, I joined a group of novel writers and started trying to write a novel. I started and abandoned three before I finished one. That one remains unpublished and is shelved for now, but I've since written an entire five novel series (The Menopausal Superheroes I'm always talking about) and seen it accepted for publication by two different publishers. So excited to bring that one to a close this summer! I've got several other partially completed novels I plan to finish up soon.

Novels are BIG, and it took me a while to develop a process and be able to track work that large and keep it consistent over a longer creation period. But discovering Scrivener software helped me a lot. It's so easy to re-arrange work and use color coding and image labels to help track things like POV or then-and-now timelines.

I've also written a couple of novellas along the way. I quite enjoy this form--longer than a short story, but not as involved as a novel, bridging what I love about short stories and what I love about novels. In fact, the project I'm working on now is a trilogy of romance novellas and I'm loving working on them. 

So that's a long-winded answer to a relatively simple question. The short version: short stories took me the longest to feel competent at, so I guess they've been the hardest for me. 

But I LOVE to try new things. Maybe screenplays will be next. I've got some friends who do some writing for indie films and that could be amazing to try my hand at.

So, how about you? Have you tried a variety of formats? What proved most challenging for you?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Free to Write Anything, so What's Next?, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles!

__________________________________________

 

I turned in the final novel in the Menopausal Superheroes series in 2024, for publication in 2025!

 

image source

Of course, I'm completely jazzed about that and I can't wait for readers to finish this journey with me (balloons, confetti, shouting in the streets!). 

 

Going Through the Change came out in 2015, so that means I'm starting 2025 with no writing deadlines to meet for the first time in ten years.

 

Okay, I'll still have editing deadlines to meet, but so far as the new projects I take on and the new words I create? They could be …anything! Which is wonderful and a little terrifying. 

 

See before I landed that first book contract, my big struggle as a writer was discipline--staying focused on a single project and seeing it to fruition without wandering off to explore the new shiny idea poking at my subconscious. But I respond very well to external deadlines. That little bit of external pressure calms the brain weasels. They take "no" for an answer when that "no" came from someone else, like John, my publisher. 

 

I mean, he does look kind of intimidating, doesn't he?

 

 

So, I worried that, once I didn't have a deadline hanging over my head, I'd founder. 

But, guess what? I haven't!

Since I turned in that novel, I've written a novella and a half of an intended set of three novellas that I plan to publish as my first all-indie project. In fact, I've been energized with that "new project energy" and creating at a faster pace than I have in years (ask John about all that deadline renegotiation we've gone through over the past couple of years). 

 

These are a whole new genre for me. My published work so far is the Menopausal Superheroes series, and a lot of dark-leaning short fiction. In fact, my author banner for events currently says: Samantha Bryant, Half-Hero, Half-Horror. 

 

Me selling my books at Splatterflix at the Carolina Theatre in Durham

 

These new novellas, though? Romance! 

A friend of mine from Women's Fiction Writers Association, Stella Fosse, wrote a how-to book about writing and publishing romances featuring older characters. I read and blurbed it for her--the connections to my own work with Menopausal Superheroes seemed obvious!

While I was reading, I had an idea…actually I had three ideas. And now, I'm off exploring an new-to-me genre and having a great time. My working titles: Not Too Late, a second chance Gen-X romance about a woman returning to her hometown and reconnecting with a boy she knew in high school; Acid Reign, a one-night-stand turns to love about an 80s punk star finding love with a local politician; and Skinny Jeans for Fat Girls, the idea for which is still just a nugget, so we'll see. But all three will feature women in their 50s finding love.

 

So that's what next for me! After that? Well, I've got several back burner projects I'd like to get back to, and a collection of short stories I never finished putting together, so there's a world of possibility out there. 

How about you? What's on the horizon for you in 2025? What are you excited about? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

 

 

Soundtrack for my Stories, an open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

If your book had a soundtrack what would be on it? 
 ______________________

screenshot of my YouTube playlist

I haven't generally chosen a soundtrack to go with my work, but that's changing with my latest projects. My works-in-progress right now are a trio of GenX themed romance novellas, with characters in their 50s falling in love.  

For the first one, working title Not Too Late, I've been using song titles from 80s songs as my chapter titles. And it's a lot of fun shopping for just the right song to fit the emotions or plot points of each one. 

I've got a full draft now, so here's a playlist of all the songs I chose to represent Mandy and Chris, my lovebirds:

 

For the second novella, working title Acid Reign, my main character is a member of an imaginary all-girl punk band that had its heyday in the 80s. I haven't decided yet if I'll continue that idea and use song titles from 70s and 80s punk bands or if it might be better to use song titles from my imaginary band. I guess real ones are easier to actually listen to, but I have made up some fun songs for my imaginary band. "Not Your Lolita," "Nice Girls Don't", and "MTV Can Bite Me" for example. 

I think I'll finish writing it and then decide. 

Do you like having soundtracks for your writing or reading? What' s a good one you've seen/heard? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Best reads of 2024: An Open Book Blog Hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's the best book you've read this year (besides your own)? 
 ______________________

I try to read about a book a week every year. At this writing, late November, I have read 64 books (see below for the entire list). I'm pretty good at choosing books that I will enjoy--after 50ish years as a reader, I know what I like. So, most of these are books I very honestly gave 4 or 5 stars to. 

I'm always a mood reader, with the exception of promises made to book clubs or folks I promised to review, and my taste ran dark this year. I went on a T. Kingfisher binge and read 12 of her books this year. I revisited some established horror favorites like Grady Hendrix, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Gabino Iglesias. 

I read a lauded and admired fantasy with dragons, and the final installment of a series I have loved. I picked up a couple of books by friends and a few things I can't even remember how I learned about them. 

So, it's been a great reading year. 

Picking a favorite…

I'm not good at that. So, I guess I'll tell you what my favorite one is today. But you should know that if you ask me tomorrow, I might give a different answer. 

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. 

It's a fairy tale, in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, but isn't a straight-up retelling of any particular fairy tale. It's also a story about escaping bad situation, perseverance and resilience, and found family. Grimm fairy tales were some of my first loves in the world of story, and I love the way Kingfisher pulled out all I loved about those stories and made something new from it. Bonus points for a having one of the heroines be a "woman of a certain age." 

How about you? What did you read that was wonderful this year? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Ghost Story Time! An IWSG bloghop post

    

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

October 2 question - Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

__________________________________________

I adore ghost stories. I could probably list a top 10 and still have dozens of favorites left to list. But the one that lives in my heart is Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp. 

image source

I first read this one when I was pretty young, an older child or younger teenager, so that's part of it--books that you read at that age imprint on your soul differently because you don't have wider experience and so many things get to the first one of their kind in your life. 

I've read it many times since, and it still delights me every time. 

It's got everything: an atmospheric old house, mysterious family history, an evil child, and even romance. Honestly, this book explains a lot about me. To this day, I am suspicious of gazing balls in gardens. This is probably why one of my upcoming projects is a Gothic romance, too. 

How about you? Do you love to read spooky stories? Tell me about them and add to my spooky season TBR! 

Under appreciated novels, an open book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's your favorite under appreciated novel? 

 ______________________

Oh my, that's a tough one. I mean, when I LOVE a book, it's strange to me to realize that other people haven't even heard of it, but that's often how it goes. There are SO MANY books, and even among friends who read as much as I do and more, we only have some crossover. 

Under appreciated is also hard to gauge. It's not like I'm checking their Rotten Tomatoes rating or something, right? 

Still, a novel did come to mind when I read the question: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. 

It's not as obscure as other novels I could have chosen, but anytime I bring up Shirley Jackson, people say, "Oh yeah. She wrote The Lottery, right?" or maybe, "Is that the Haunting of Hill House lady?" Both of those are true, and both of those works are also genius (though I think Castle is better). It's this one that wanders the backrooms of my mind, and pops out to jump scare me from time to time. 

Like a lot of Shirley Jackson, there's not anything supernatural going on. Her horror is only rarely about ghost or monsters. Mostly, it's in what people do to one another. Some call her more specific genre "domestic horror" and I think that fits well. Other than Hill House, her stories mostly take place in mundane settings:  small towns, gardens, post offices, grocery stores, homes. 

What I love about Castle is Merricat, the main character and somewhat unreliable narrator. She's intense and scary in that way that very young people can be, and as the fuller history is revealed her complicated relationship with her sister Constance becomes fascinating. 

So, that's my pick for today. How about you? Do you have a favorite novel that no one else seems to love the same way you do? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Every Novel is a Puzzle

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

 ______________________

Now this was fun! Are you a puzzle fan? Well, here's the first of the novels in the Menopausal Superhero series made into a jigsaw puzzle! (If you need some hints, the title is Going Through the Change, and my name is Samantha Bryant--those bits will get you a goodly portion of the puzzle). And like any jigsaw puzzle aficionado will tell you--establish the edges first. It helps. 

I enjoyed this quite a bit, and it's a nice analogy for writing as well. Writing a new book does feel like solving a puzzle. I get it in pieces and as I work the overall vision becomes clearer and hangs together better until: voilá! 

Hope you enjoy it! And be sure to check out the other puzzles in this week's blog hop at the link below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Picking favorites: an open book blog hop post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's your favorite book (not your own)? Has it changed in the last few years?  

______________________

Oooh, boy. I hate trying to pick a favorite. In almost any category! I'm too changeable in my tastes--and what feels like a favorite today may not please me that much tomorrow. So, anytime I answer "What's your favorite?" I feel like it needs a caveat of "This is my favorite, today." You may get an entirely different answer if you check back tomorrow. 

When it comes to books though, the first one to spring to mind when someone asks this one is usually We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. 

book cover variations

Like many of my lasting favorites, I found this book when I was young, around age twelve or thirteen. My middle school librarian suggested it to me when I showed an appetite for the eerie and strange in my reading. There's something about loves I discovered at that age that imprints them deeply, at a soul level, and they became a part of me in a way that other things I've loved have not. 

I've read this one several times since that first time, and it delights me every time, sending shivers down my spine in whole new ways. 

If you've not read Shirley Jackson's work before, she is best known for this book and another work of psychological horror: The Haunting of Hill House (another favorite for me). Jackson had a way of making ordinary, domestic moments into something tense and fraught with possibilities. A lot of the time, the narrators are not completely reliable and the reader doesn't know what it is true and what is interpretation. 

Merricat, the main character and narrator of Castle fascinated me because she was such an atypical girl-in-a-book. She didn't care about the same things as other female characters I'd been presented with. She felt more real to me, edgy and judgmental, and fierce. 

One of my own works-in-progress (back burnered until I meet my current deadline on the final Menopausal Superhero novel) is a Gothic romance/family drama (working title: The Architect and the Heir) and I think my taste for that kind of story can be traced back to Shirley Jackson and Daphne DuMaurier, both of whom I read around the same time. 

I've loved a lot of books since. I still read as voraciously as my life allows, somewhere between fifty and one hundred books a year. But there's something special about this one. 

How about you? What's one of the books of your heart? I'd love to hear about in the comments. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The moral of the story, an Open Book blog hop post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Does every book have to have a moral? 

______________________

The short answer: no. 

Really, "every" and "have to" aren't words I like to see paired with works of art. Art is about self-expression, and sometimes the creator might have a point to make or an axe to grind, but sometimes they might just have a cool idea they want to explore. 

image source

If we want to expand the idea of "moral" from life lesson to something more like having a point or a purpose, I can see that more easily, but I can still think of works I've read that I can't identify any grand purpose for. 

"To entertain" probably isn't a moral. But it's the purpose of many books. 

Sometimes having an obvious moral actually makes the book heavy-handed and pedantic and then I don't want to read it. 

I do like seeing writers take on meatier topics and exploring moral questions…but I'm a big girl now, and don't need anyone to try and tell me what to think. 

How about you? Do you like a moral message in the stories you create or enjoy? 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter