I’m visiting with Joan Hall today, talking about the mysterious Brown Mountain lights and how they relate to my new book, The Light: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 4. Hope you’ll stop by to say hi, and learn a bit more about this unexplained mystery. And before you leave, please remember to share far and wide if possible. Thanks. And thanks again to Joan for letting me visit today! 🙂 ❤
#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our #Quiz, and the Names of Our Winners!
Our 2nd #FirstLineFriday quiz of 2020 has now come to a close. Happily, we have four winners for this one. It could have gone either way, because it’s a pretty well known book. I honestly thought the opening line might be a dead-giveaway even for those who hadn’t read it, but it turned out to be just tricky enough. Not so easy that I had a million guesses rolling in, but not so hard that we ended up with no winners. Just right! 🙂
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.” is the opening line of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
This week’s winners are Jeanne Owens, Patt Kline, Darlene Foster, and Ashlynn Waterstone. Congratulations and thanks for playing!
And here is what Amazon has to say about the entire collected set of novels, which, btw, I just ordered for myself. (I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read these, and me an enormous fan of weird British humor, a la Monty Python, etc. )
BLURB:
In one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchhiker series.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read)
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The moment before annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.
Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription thrusts him back to reality. So to speak.
Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?
Includes the bonus story “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe”
“With droll wit, a keen eye for detail and heavy doses of insight . . . Adams makes us laugh until we cry.”—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”—The Atlantic
Buy The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy HERE
And there you have it for this week! Hope you enjoyed playing along, and that some of you will be inspired to check this infamous series of books out.
Stay tuned for more #FirstLineFriday next week! See you then! 🙂
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#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads
And once again, folks, it’s Friday. Time for another interesting, intriguing, mysterious, humorous, or otherwise engaging first line for you to consider. Today’s is just weird enough that I suspect a lot of folks will recognize it, though I have to admit I haven’t read this one. Yet. It’s been on my list for a long time, though. Maybe today’s contest will be the push I need to get busy and check it out.
As always, the rules are simple:
- Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at noon, with the title and author of the correct book.
- Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
- Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
- Submissions end at noon, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
- Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
- Winners who live elsewhere may request a PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.
And now, the moment you’ve been waiting all week for! (You have been waiting for this, right?) Well, here it is. Today’s opening line:
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses.
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New Release: The Light by Marcia Meara #WakeRobinRidge
I have the extreme pleasure of being a guest on Mae Clair’s lovely blog, From the Pen of Mae Clair, today, and boy, has Mae done a bang-up job on this one! Please stop by and say hello, and while you’re there, learn the truth about wake-robins. (Hint, no they aren’t birds!) And check out the lovely slideshow, too. Spring is in the air! What a great start to the day. Thanks so much, Mae, and thanks to you guys for sharing this one far and wide. Hugs to ALL! 🙂 ❤
I’m thoroughly jazzed (chuffed if you’re on the other side of the pond) to have my good friend, Marcia Meara, here today with her new release The Light. She’s sharing a super cool post about wake-robins which figure into the series title, Wake Robin Ridge.
Confession time: this yankee thought wake robins were birds. Duh! Fortunately, Marcia is here today to set me straight and educate me about The Wake-Robins of Wake-Robin Ridge.
Thank you so much for letting me visit with you and your followers today, Mae. I’m pretty excited about the release of my latest novel, The Light: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 4, and hope folks will be curious to learn more about this book and the preceding three:
Wake-Robin Ridge
A Boy Named Rabbit
Harbinger
Happy New Year to You All!
Many readers have asked me how I came up with the name of my first novel, and…
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Eventide, from the Hode’s Hill Series
If you thought the excerpt Mae Clair shared from Eventide on Monday was something, check out her guest post today on Craig Boyack’s Entertaining Stories. Holy Moly! (Be sure to pass it along, once you finish gasping!) 😀
Mae Clair is one of my favorite people. She’s a partner over at Story Empire and one hell of an author. She’s here today to tell us about Eventide, which wraps up her Hode’s Hill Series.
I would appreciate it, and I know Mae would, if you would use those sharing buttons at the end of her guest post.
Hi, Craig. Thanks for hosting me today with my new supernatural suspense/mystery release. Eventide is the last book in my Hode’s Hill mystery series. As in the first two novels, Cusp of Night and End of Day, I’ve chosen to use dual timelines with dual mysteries that converge at the end.
It’s challenging writing a book with more than one timeline. In essence, the author has to plot two separate stories, balancing two separate sets of characters, then…
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An Update on #ShareAReviewDay
I know I said I was going to be resuming #ShareAReviewDay starting tomorrow, 1/7, but I was a bit over-optimistic. I’m still trying to catch up with a ton of stuff, while trying to pace myself by not over-doing. And my local presentations are starting up again this coming Saturday, so I’m not totally organized yet.
Okay, who am I kidding? I’m never totally organized! But I’m usually closer to it than I am right now. With that thought in mind, I’m going to resume #ShareAReviewDay Tuesdays (one of my favorite regular features) on Tuesday, 1/21, and I’ve already got one review set up for that morning. I like to do two per Tuesday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and it’s always on a first-come, first served basis.
If one of your books has gotten a new review you’d like to share, or you have an older review you’d like to get in front of some new readers, please check the instructions in the header above under “General Blog Rules and Various Feature Instructions.” All you have to do is email me the things listed there, and I’ll set you up in the next available slot. (The first one to reach out to me gets the afternoon slot for 1/21!)
Be forewarned: When I don’t get enough reviews from you guys, I start sharing my own. 😀
I hope to hear from a few of you in the next week or two, so I can start scheduling you. Let’s let everyone see what readers are saying about your books!
Now, back to your previously scheduled programming.
😀
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#NewRelease – #Eventide by Mae Clair
So happy to welcome Mae Clair to The Write Stuff today with news of the release of her latest novel, Eventide. I’ve already got this one on my Kindle and after enjoying Books 1 and 2 so much, I can’t wait to read it. And just look at this fabulous cover!
So without further ado, let’s get right to it. Take it away, Mae!
~~~~~~
Hi, Marcia. Many thanks for having me as a guest today! I’m delighted to be here today promoting my upcoming release, Eventide, the final book in my Hode’s Hill series of novels. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Eventide is an archaic way of saying “evening” or “twilight.” All three books in the series play off this theme:
Cusp of Night
End of Day
Eventide
Each refers to that moment when daylight fades and twilight encroaches. I’ve always considered these “betwixt times,” never fully anchored in one period, but gradually transitioning into the next. From the time I was a child, I was fascinated by the idea. I’ve also always loved the word eventide, but when it came to choosing titles for my Hode’s Hill series, I initially headed down a different path.
The original title for Cusp of Night was The Blue Lady of Hode’s Hill after one of the characters in the book. I had planned to use color in all three titles, but my publisher wanted something short and mysterious. I must have gone through three dozen suggestions before I came up with Cusp of Night. It was the last on a long list I sent to my publisher—tossed on as an afterthought—but the one they ended up choosing. After that, the two successive titles were easy, and the theme was born.
I think it works well for books that are part mystery and part supernatural suspense. There’s even a little bit of cozy in each given the sleuthing my female characters undertake.
In this short excerpt Madison Hewitt is digging for information about an old home she purchased. She talking to a co-worker, Karen, who seems to know something about the home’s previous owner.
~~~~~
Madison sighed. “The house is really old, and I’m trying to find out whatever I can about the place. If you know something—”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” After several unusual experiences, she needed Karen to be forthcoming. “It’s just…an odd place. You mentioned rumors. Said there were things that happened there.”
“Yeah.” Karen’s hands stilled. She stared at the letters in front of her as if debating something. After a moment, she closed her eyes, drew a breath, then shifted her attention to Madison.“You remember I told you I had a cleaning business? Vera Halsey was one of my clients.”
“The woman who owned the house?” Madison had never made direct contact with her during the sale. “I understand she passed away in a nursing home.”
“That’s what I heard, too. But she stopped my services months before she got sick. She was only in her early sixties, but something happened, and she started wasting away.”
Madison had always assumed she was up in years, eighty or more. “That’s horrible.”
“Strange is how I see it.” Karen smoothed an envelope between her fingers. “Everything about her was odd. The house, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wish I could explain it better. I had two people working for me. Both said they’d quit before going back again. I was the one who ended up cleaning for Vera. After a while, I got used to”—she looked away—“things.”
Madison’s pulse ticked higher. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to scare you.”
Madison held her gaze.
“Okay.” Karen leaned forward and lowered her voice as if sharing a secret. “It was just a sense of something always there…like being watched. The girls I had working for me said they heard people arguing when no one was around.”
Madison’s fingers tightened on her coffee cup. “Did you?”
“Once. Maybe twice. There were other things, too. Doors that shut on their own, cold spots, rancid odors. Sometimes I’d see someone from the corner of my eye and turn, but no one was there. Occasionally, some of my supplies would go missing only to show up in another room. The last week I was there, I swear someone tried to shove me down the steps.”
~~~~~
Sound a little creepy? There’s much more to the history of this house. You can discover the complete story by reading Eventide and discovering the secrets that lie within. Thank you in advance for your consideration! 🙂
BLURB:
The darkness is coming . . .
The old house near Hode’s Hill, Pennsylvania is a place for Madison Hewitt to start over—to put the trauma of her husband’s murder, and her subsequent breakdown, behind her. She isn’t bothered by a burial plot on the property, or the mysterious, sealed cistern in the basement. Not at first. Even the presence of cold spots and strange odors could be fabrications of her still troubled mind. But how to explain her slashed tires, or the ominous messages that grow ever more threatening?
Convinced the answer lies in the past, Madison delves into the history of the home’s original owners, only to discover the origin of a powerful evil. An entity that may be connected to a series of gruesome attacks that have left police baffled. No matter where she turns—past or present—terror lingers just a step away, spurred on by a twisted obsession that can only be satisfied through death…
Order Eventide HERE
Connect with Mae Clair at BOOKBUB and the following haunts:
Amazon| BookBub| Newsletter Sign-Up
Website | Blog| Twitter| Goodreads| All Social Media
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A Hero’s Journey Begins
Kids these days… what do they have to say to writers, readers, and citizens of the World?
Once upon a time, just about eighteen years ago, a child was born, the first and only of close friends, and while I am in fact neither his aunt nor godmother, I have been referred to as both. In the boy’s fourth grade year I was referred to as Mrs. Avery as I was his teacher in a class I remember well, a class that loved to learn and that delighted in the fairy tales read to them.
Now the boy is a young man in his last year of high school. Writing the essay that I share here (in italics) was a part of his preparations for going out into the world.
Everyone has topics that they can completely immerse themselves in. For some it’s sports; for others, acting and singing.
I used the timeless-placeless introduction that I did because I feel like this young man’s essay might connect…
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#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Names of Our Winners!
Woohooo! So happy to have #FirstLineFriday back, and this week, I’m also happy to announce we have some winners! Four, to be exact, which is great since I consider this opening line to be pretty tricky. Everyone should be familiar with the title of this one, since it has been around a long time, and was published in 1951, nearly 70 years ago!
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” is the opening line of J. D. Salinger’s award-winning novel, Catcher in the Rye.
The book was included in Time Magazine’s 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th Century! I read Catcher in the Rye in high school, in 1961 or 1962, so nearly sixty years ago. I suppose that’s why I didn’t recognize that very unique (and unbelievably LONG) opening line, either. I’m planning to read it again, because any book that’s still being acclaimed after all these years is worth a second look, even if Salinger ended up as one of the most famous hermits of his generation.
There is a certain amount of controversy about this book, given today’s vastly different cultural climate, but this isn’t the place to discuss that, thanks. Our contest is about testing our knowledge of book trivia, seeing the vast differences in ways to open a novel, and studying what makes opening lines effective.
Congratulations to this week’s winners, Olga Nunez, Teri Polen, Flossie Benton Rogers, and Darlene Foster. Way to go, Ladies! Be on the lookout for your gift from Amazon or for Olga a PDF file of your choice.
BLURB:
Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger’s New Yorker stories–particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme With Love and Squalor–will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children. The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield.
Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.
There are many voices in this novel: children’s voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden’s voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.
Buy Catcher in the Rye HERE
Thanks so much for playing, and I’m already looking forward to next week’s #FirstLineFriday quiz. Stay tuned!
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#FirstLineFriday #Giveaway #FreeDownloads
It’s been a long time, but finally, our #FirstLineFriday quiz is back! I’m going to be very, very interested in seeing who gets this one, as I’m pretty sure every one of you has heard of this book, though many may not have actually read it. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
As always, the rules are simple:
- Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at noon, with the title and author of the correct book.
- Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
- Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
- Submissions end at noon, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
- Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
- Winners who live elsewhere may request a PDF or Mobi file of the same books, since Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.
Now, without further ado, here is your first #FirstLineFriday quiz of 2020:
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Remember, email answers only. I’ll be on the alert for your guesses. Good luck, everybody!
The Write Stuff 