Yes, I have been busy writing a murder mystery series. So far there are four books written and the fifth is my current work-in-progress. The first in the series is available now on ‘pre-sale’ on Smashwords (see link below). They all feature a bright, enthusiastic and competent Madeleine Brooks, senior Probation Officer then new estate agent, but one who brings with her an incisive intelligence and a lifetime of experience working with difficult people.

In the first book, Death in Cold Waters, Maddie is troubled. Her career as a senior Probation Officer is in jeopardy with a new and micro-managing boss. Her long marriage has challenges. And one of her more interesting clients has been re-arrested. She has serious doubts about why. But a child has been murdered and her client looks good for being the perpetrator. That’s the book which is now available – on ‘pre-sale’ (which means it’s at a discount and is available) at Smashwords and on ‘pre-order’ on Amazon (which means you can order it but it won’t be delivered to your Kindle until June 14^th, release day).

The second and subsequent books have Maddie recently relocated from suburbia to a small village in the Oxfordshire countryside. I have always adored murder mysteries located in English villages. And I lived in such a village (close by two other villages somewhat similar to where Maddie lives) for five years – good experience for Maddie’s adventures.

Here is a small story about the numbering and timing of the stories. I have just finished writing Death in Cold Waters, the first in the series. However, I had already written three others which, chronologically, occur later than Cold Waters. The 1^st book takes place while Maddie is still a Probation Officer, and provides several reasons why she escapes to her village location as an estate agent for the rest of the series. My good friend and author of thrillers and short story books, Thomas Ryan, suggested I should re-number the books in the series so this book can be the first. I had thought of it as s ‘prequel’ to the series. He pointed out that a prequel is often of a shorter length, such as a novella, and perhaps not always a well thought out and full story, which certainly this one aims to be.

So – I now have new covers changing the number in the series for Death at Cherry Tree Manor ( now Book 2) and Death at Valley View Cottage, (Book 3). They are due out in July and August, 2020.

If you’re interested in getting a copy of Death in Cold Waters for the discount at Smashwords, here’s the url. Although it will be $3.99 after June 14^th, the pre-sale price is half that at $1.99.

As a reader of my blog, though, I have set it up that you can get it for only 99¢ by signing up for updates of times when books are available for a decent discount !

www.smashwords.com/books/view/1023887

Enjoy!

I find it difficult to categorise my books. I have written, but not yet published, a series of murder mysteries – categorising those stories is easy. But what about the books I have already published? I’ve been told they are ‘psychological thrillers’ but my idea of a thriller has all sorts of thrills and spills and a car chase or two. Not mine. And I always feel the term ‘psychological thriller’ has overtones of horror. I want my readers to turn the pages but not feel like the world is going to crash every time they come to a new chapter. Thriller? I don’t think so. Yet every author has to put a genre down and every time, I sweat.

Take ‘Bye Baby Bunting’, as it’s the latest. On Amazon.com, I’m ranking best in ‘Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Suspense > Psychological’. Yet I feel it’s mostly a women’s fiction type of story, all about motherhood, yes to crime (she kidnaps her birth child) with a bit of romance thrown in. The deeper issues include both the social questions around how pregnant and unmarried women were treated in the 1960s and a massive issue of what is right and what is wrong – something all my characters have to grapple with, including one of the main characters, a police detective. So, I guess, it can be read on several levels which means lots of readers love the book and a few just don’t ‘get’ it.

My book ‘Thursday’s Child’ has caused me a few beads of sweat too in trying to categorise it. It ranks best in ‘Literature & Fiction > Women’s Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Detective’ (or ‘Crime’ instead of ‘Detective’) on both Amazon.com and .co.uk. Yes, I do think it’s Women’s Fiction although I have had nice emails from men saying how they liked the story. ‘Mystery, Thriller & Suspense’ seems a goodly wide category that probably includes the storyline of ‘Thursday’s Child’ as I’ve thought of it as a suspense book but also a mystery. So, okay. Maybe this one fits the spot Amazon has assigned it. In Canada, its highest ranking is in ‘Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > International Mystery & Crime’. Not women’s fiction at all, but yes to the rest. And it very much is an international crime book with parts of the story in New Zealand, Canada, Italy, France, Cyprus, Scotland and more…it was great fun to write!

In the end, I write about people, often ordinary people who find themselves in unusual or even crazy circumstances which causes them to react. Therefore, ‘psychological’ seems a good adjective (of course, I’ve been a psychologist for decades…) but ‘thrillers’? I really don’t think so.

Why isn’t there a category called ‘psychological fiction’? That’s probably the genre I write in, Mr Amazon.

What do you think?

Alessandra Solis is the author of an amazingly different weight-loss book, ‘EAT HOT…LOOK HOT’. She recently posed a question to her email list, “Should men tell their wives/girlfriends that they notice they are losing weight?”

What’s for dinner? Something hot I hope!

Some time ago she contacted me and asked what I would advise. To continue the story, I think I’ll just include her recent email here….

Alessandra wrote:

Do you remember that I left you with a cliff hanger last time?

I consulted Dr Tannis Laidlaw, with a PhD in Psychiatry, and a fellow author who likes to weave psychological veritas into her novels, which are mostly psychological thrillers.  Her latest release is Thursday’s Child, a psychological suspense mystery. And here’s her response:

Have a great day!

What fun to be quoted like that!

And do I eat hot (let’s forget about the looking hot bit)? Yup, I do. Anyone for scrambled eggs with cumin? Or chicken salad with jalapeno?

Just around the corner is the blueberry patch…

Blueberry season in Northwest Ontario is usually the last week in July and the first week in August, centred around the August Long Weekend (the first Monday in August). So we decided last week to check how the little green berries were ripening.

‘Our patch’ is at the back of Thunder Bay. No, not the city which was called Thunder Bay decades after my ancestors named that particular piece of water off the Winnipeg River with that particular moniker. In fact, the ‘thunder’ refers to the thunderous sound a train makes as it travels though the local tunnel there and reverberates around granite cliffs rising straight from the water’s edge.

Above the tracks is a long sloping hillside of base-rock granite which is a pinkish colour, decorated with silvery lichen and mossy patches of every hue. Areas of thin soil collect the water allowing shallow-rooted pine trees to take root and grow. At their base and sometimes in the shade, are low-bush wild blueberry bushes. We share the berries with the local black bears.

We clambered into our 15’ motorboat tied up at our dock in front of our little cottage, fired up the engine and chugged around the corner, past another couple of cottages to Thunder Bay. In 1908 when my grandfather first heard wilderness land could be had for the asking, he took a steam boat from Kenora to an area where the Canadian National Railway was being constructed. The boat tied up at Thunder Bay.  Pop (as did some of his fellow teachers) signed up for the free land, making sure he had a nice stretch of foreshore and started the family tradition of summers at the lake. In 2018 over one hundred years later, we will have generations three through five gather for all or part of the northern Canadian summer from New Zealand, southern Texas, British Columbia, Alberta and Bali, Indonesia as well as almost-local Winnipegers.

At the edge of that sloping rock, we hopped out, tied up the boat and set off across the tracks to the blueberry patch. To our complete surprise, the blubes were already abundant, over a fortnight early, due probably to long stretches of very hot weather coupled with a damp spring. We quickly filled a recycled one litre yogurt container with blubes and picked a decent lot of wild raspberries as well. Riches!

Day before yesterday we set off again, this time late in the day to take advantage of the shade the pines could offer. The temperature was about 30 degrees C (about 86 F)at 6 in the evening with a small breeze, so good picking weather. We filled our yogurt pots to the brim and set off back to the shore for a dip and wiener roast.

What could be more perfect? A swim in the fresh waters of the lake, pickles and tomato sauce and olives and … yes, everything we could think of to eat along with those wieners and a glass of wine, then fresh-picked organic wild blubes for dessert. The sun was still high in the sky and nobody else was around.

Nobody….

Have you read an author from Down Under lately? Here’s your chance!

Mark April 22 – 26^th on your calendar! All authors are from New Zealand or Australia.

Even better, all books are on special (or free!) for these five days (including my suspense mystery Thursday’s Child and my book of short short stories, Warring Warren and other short short stories – both are free!).

Enjoy!

Check them out for yourself here!

https://reshwity.wixsite.com/nzauthorlist/anzac-sale

I have exciting news! In fact, I have two bits of exciting news.

The first is that I am now represented by a wonderful agent, Vicki Marsdon, who has joined together with Nadine Rubin Nathan to form a new literary agency based primarily in Auckland, New Zealand, called High Spot Literary. I was a client of Vicki’s for several years when she was with Word|Link, an American literary agency and at that time she became not only agent but friend. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Hard on the heels of signing with High Spot Literary, my award winning suspense novel Bye Baby Bunting (see the previous post) was put under contract. It is to be published by Junction Publishing, a boutique publishing house based in both the UK and NZ, with an amazing group of authors in their ‘stable’. The two principles are not only both successful authors themselves but are personable and knowledgeable. Again, I couldn’t be more pleased!

So there you have it – an agent and a publishing contract both within the last month! It feels wonderful to have these two organisations with such competent people as Vicki, Netta and Marcus on my side and fighting my battles. I’m no longer sailing on my own.

That’s why I’m looking so pleased!

A BRAG medallion?

Yes, that’s it under the title, and a BRAG award really is something to brag about. BRAG stands for Book Readers Appreciation Group (https://www.bragmedallion.com/award-winning-books/) and they critique books submitted to them for quality. Somewhere between only 10% and 20% of books put forward to them actually qualify for the award which means I am utterly delighted that Bye Baby Bunting made the grade.

Essentially, the BRAG people want to let other readers know if a book is professionally written and produced, a huge help when a book is indie published. They are not only concerned that the book is well-plotted, but whether, amongst other areas of concern, it has compelling characters, realistic dialogue, good writing style and a story arc with a satisfactory ending. The book also must be clean of typos and spelling mistakes, uses good grammar (copy editing) and boasts an appropriate title and cover. In other words, BRAG gives an independent quality control tick.

Like me, I bet you read reviews before ordering an ebook (or a print book online). The problem is that none of us can tell whether a review is independently produced or not. More than a few indie writers lean on friends, rellies and (sadly) paid professionals to give them that favoured 5 star rating. That means reviews are suspect at least.

What do we do, we readers who don’t want to waste our money or our time with a book that fails in some of these vital areas? One answer is to consult the BRAG website – a BRAG awarded book means a book meets professional standards.

In BRAG parlance, I am a “BRAG Medallion Honoree” (American spelling, of course).   I couldn’t be more pleased!

‘Your mother died of Alzheimer’s?’ my friend the biochemist asked. ‘How is it affecting you?’

Well, the impact of my mother’s Alzheimer’s affects all her children. We find out something new about Alzheimer’s and we email each other all over the world. Even my adopted sister whose biological father also had Alzheimer’s is, of course, in the loop.

‘Reading. Yes. But are you doing anything about it?’ my friend asked.

Lots.

First, the basics where no controversy exists (the controversial stuff is coming…) – all authorities agree that three mighty things can help:

1. Participation in vigorous activities (some of us call it exercise)
2. Keeping up mental stimulation (like learning French or doing those huge Su Doku puzzles)
3. Eating wholesome food (and that includes green veggies).

My friend was almost yawning. ‘Those three are recommendations for good health anyway,’ she said. ‘Is there anything you do specifically designed to be anti-Alzheimer’s?’

Well, yeah. All that reading has influenced what I put into my mouth.

First, as many of you know, I have cut way down on how many carbohydrates I consume. Mostly my carbs come from fresh vegetables and a little fruit, some home-made yogurt and a tiny bit of dark chocolate. Anything good for the heart is also good for the brain. So I eat natural saturated and monosaturated fats and very few carbs. Okay, this is one of the controversial aspects of my anti-Alzheimer’s programme. But there is scientific evidence out there. A diet high in carbs promotes bad cholesterol; a diet low in carbs but full of good fats is heart friendly. Thus, brain friendly. (By the way, a relevant question: Do you know what the brain is made up of? Answer: a high proportion of cholesterol. True.)

I also make sure I eat a couple of teaspoons of the mild spice turmeric every day. Turmeric contains curcumin which is a powerful anti-inflammatory. Many scientific studies into Alzheimer’s disease postulate that inflammation is very likely involved in the devastating presence of plaques and tangles in the brain, the signature of Alzheimer’s disease (see my little painting of what they sort-of look like under the microscope) and the cause of loss of memory and deterioration of the very essence of the personality.

I also make sure I eat a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil and extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) daily too. I mix them into my breakfast ‘cereal’. EVOO has some recent good evidence that it facilitates brain health and coconut oil has a mass of anecdotal evidence with a score of studies on-going right now. It’s a food that maybe can do some good, so I eat it. But I’m watching the science carefully, like lots of people.

I also take some supplements, all of which come from scientific studies. I take some co-enzyme Q10 (did you know the discoverer of Q10 got the Nobel Prize?); a multi-B vitamin supplement; folate (folic acid is given to every pregnant mother to protect her unborn baby from brain disorders; it’s also found in green leafy vegetables, so I supplement it) and Omega-3 fish oil (again, what’s good for the heart is good for the brain).

Taking supplements is easy. Eating coconut oil and EVOO is easy too. Even cutting the carbs and increasing the veggies is not too difficult (and I love both being slimmer than I was and never being overly hungry between meals). What’s the difficult part of my regime? Combating a natural tendency to be lazy and making sure I get enough exercise – both physically and mentally. And as I get older, it will become more and more important.

What I figure is, the time to get used to this aspect of healthy living is right now.

More, of course, on the whole diet theory in Full Stop: Eat until you’re Full and Stop gaining weight. Now available on Amazon (US):  http://amzn.to/1bfYvj8 and UK: http://amzn.to/1cXhZeV