Holiday Gifts for Book Lovers

Kerry Hammond is here today to suggest some great gift ideas for the bibliophile on your list.

I love the holidays, but they can be stressful. Trying to choose the right gifts for everyone on your list can be a daunting task. I love everything book related, especially mysteries, and am always on the lookout for new and exciting gift items. I thought I would share a few with you, just in case you may need some inspiration.

I am an old school bibliophile, and I prefer to read books in print form. I use a Kindle sparingly, and usually as a backup. Therefore, I absolutely love libraries. I find the old card catalog concept nostalgic and can still remember the librarian stamping the due date on the card when I checked out a book. If those things give you a warm fuzzy (pun intended since some of the gift items are also warm and fuzzy) you may have someone on your list who could use either these library catalog socks, or scarf. The scarf was out of stock at the time I wrote this blog, but you can enter your email address and be notified when it’s available again. Out of Print also has cute tote bags, mugs, and notepads with the same design.

Bas Bleu catalog is a great go-to place for book lovers. One of my favorite catalog items is the Nancy Drew book cover jigsaw puzzle. This 1,000 piece puzzle will provide hours of entertainment for the lucky recipient.

Ok, so I see I have a scarf theme, but I can’t help it. They’re great cold weather gifts, and many of them are unisex. This Sherlock Holmes scarf and writing glove set is a bit on the feminine side, though. I actually own both the scarf and the gloves and can attest that they’re well-made and wonderful. If you check out the store on Etsy, you will see that they offer a wide variety of authors to choose from.

And for the mystery lover who has everything, perhaps one of these cute little meerkats will work. You can choose Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. These are available through Acorn Catalog, which has some of the greatest gifts out there. They have a lot of British items that I love too.

Happy holidays. I hope you find the perfect gifts for all of the book lovers on your list this year.

Q&A With Lena Diaz

Kerry Hammond is back to follow-up her Exit Strategy book review with a Q&A with the author, Lena Diaz.

Exit Strategy by Lena Diaz is the first book in the EXIT Inc. Thriller series. It was released on June 30, 2015, in Mass Market Paperback and Mystery Playground reviewed the book. I caught up with Lena Diaz to ask her a few questions about her book and her writing.

Your chase scenes are very detailed, and some of your characters get into some interesting situations. How do you research for this? Did you wander in the Carolina mountains for inspiration?

Nearly every summer that I can remember as a child was spent in my home state of Kentucky visiting relatives. Those relatives lived in rural parts of that beautiful state, surrounded by hills, woods, and rolling farmland. My cousins and siblings and I would spend hours wandering those woods with my grandma’s gorgeous collies. It was incredible and inspires a lot of the outdoor scenes in my books. I have vacationed in the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains several times, which included white water rafting, so I have that to draw upon too. Of course, Google Earth is also my friend, so I spent many fun hours of research traveling back roads and speeding down zip lines in the virtual world to come up with ideas for the outdoor chase scenes.

Do you know how everything will turn out before you get to the end of the novel, or do surprises pop up as you go?

No matter how hard I try to plan a book (I’m a plotter for sure), it NEVER turns out the way I expect. In general, I know what’s going to happen. But the details always change. And that’s good. It’s those unexpected surprises that pop into your head while working on a scene that often become the most fun and interesting parts of the story.

If you had to cast Mason or Sabrina for a movie, do you know who you would pick to play them?

Yes! As part of giving information to the HarperCollins art department to help them design the cover, I told them that Mason should look like Joe Manganiello (minus the mustache he sometimes has) and Sabrina should look like Zooey Deschanel! In all honesty, I can’t say that either character really looks like those particular actors on the cover. However, I’m extremely pleased with the couple that they chose. They look perfect together and the hair length, color, etc. is all spot on.

What does your typical day of writing look like?

I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a “typical” writing day. It really depends on what’s going on--whether I have edits to do, revisions, a new book to start, how close to deadline I am, and whether I’m in the middle of other non-writing types of business such as website updates or designing promotional giveaways. Plus, writing is my second full-time job, so how much time I have to write varies wildly depending on the projects going on at work. During the week, I try to write every chance I get. So if things are going well and I can spend time writing (and not editing etc.), I write during my lunch break and then for a couple of hours at night after getting home and having dinner. If a deadline is coming up, I may get up at 4am to write before the day job and stay up until midnight or 1am. Weekends are all about writing. I generally spend Friday nights really late writing, until I basically fall asleep. Then I’m up before dawn writing until early the next morning. Sunday I write sunup until about 10 and then I go to bed. In other words--I write every chance I get. Every once in a while, when the house gets so dirty that I can’t stand it, I clean. And when I run out of clothes, I do laundry! Or try to bribe my husband to wash the clothes!

You’ve written quite a few series. Do you have a favorite?

Oh, this is such a hard question. The Deadly Games series--which currently consists of four books--is close to my heart because it was so organic. It didn’t start as a series and morphed into one. Mainly I love it because of the Buchanan brothers and their dad, Alex. They’re all such good, wonderful men and I love the interplay between them and how fiercely they protect one another--and the women they fall in love with. BUT--my EXIT Inc. series (which starts with EXIT Strategy)--is near and dear to me too, since it’s my newest series, and the first one I really planned as a series. I’ve learned so much about series arcs while writing these books and I just adore the heroes of each story. I guess I can’t settle on one series! I love them all.

Who are your favorite authors to read?

There are so many! I love the masters, which to me are Kathleen Woodiwiss, Julie Garwood, Linda Howard, Julia Quinn, and Sherilyn Kenyon. You can’t go wrong with their books. And there are dozens of other auto-buy authors out there for me, too many to name. I will give a special shout-out to Vanessa Kelly, who writes incredibly smart heroines and unique stories as part of her historical romances. Just love her. And Carey Baldwin is my favorite “thriller with romantic elements” writer. Of course, for thrillers in general, I have to bow down to the king, Jeffery Deaver. I love his Lincoln Rhyme books! They’re so clever and twisty and unexpected. If I could write half as well as him, I’d consider myself a success.

Dexter is Dead: An Evening With Author Jeff Lindsay

Kerry Hammond is here today to talk about her evening at the Tattered Cover bookstore with author Jeff Lindsay, creator of the Dexter book series.

Here at Mystery Playground we are sensitive to spoilers. We don’t want a book review to give away any plot twist or surprise for the reader. But when I tell you that Dexter is dead, I need include no spoiler alert. Dexter is Dead is the latest and last book in the Dexter series written by New York Times bestselling author Jeff Lindsay, a series that contains eight books and is the basis for an eight season Showtime hit. The book was released in hardcover on July 7 of this year and readers will bid a fond farewell to America’s favorite fictional serial killer.

Jeff Lindsay came to Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore to discuss his Dexter Morgan series with fans, and this fan was in attendance. It was the first time I had ever been to an event featuring this author, so it was interesting to hear a little bit of personal and professional background. Some readers may be surprised that Lindsay is a family man, with three daughters and a wife, who happens to be Ernest Hemingway’s niece. Lindsay has been an actor, a comedian (which may account for the dark humor in the Dexter books) and, of course, a writer. As a writer, he’s written plays, jokes, and an article about fatherhood, which included his experience at bra shopping with his daughters.
 

It’s always surprising to hear a successful author talk about how many rejections they received when they were attempting to get their first book published. I think it’s safe to say that the person who refused to represent Jeff in the attempted publication of his first book has been kicking himself ever since. Lindsay admits to his inner doubts with both his success and his writing skills. He told of his fear that his first book wasn't any good. Once that was published he continued to doubt his skill, but added to that his fear of trying to write a second book that measured up to the first. His wife was one of his champions, and it really sounds like his family helps ground him and keep him going so that he continues to write and entertain his readers.

I have attended quite a few author signings, but never before have I heard an author speak and imagined the character. It wasn’t one thing in particular, it was a combination of the author’s wording, tone, and humor. But I heard the character come through when he spoke. It’s not to say that Jeff Lindsay is a sociopath or a serial killer, I'm actually almost positive that he is not. I know that sometimes an author uses a few of their own traits when creating a character, but I think the trait that comes through in Dexter is Lindsay’s “voice.” I think this is one of things that has made Dexter so entertaining and popular. 

I’ll end with two fun facts that you may not know about Jeff. One I learned online and one he admitted to during his Tattered Cover appearance. First, his real name is actually Jeff Freundlich. Second, he wanted to name his first Dexter novel "Pinocchio Bleeds," after his young daughter suggested it. The publisher was not at all keen on the title, and instead we got Darkly Dreaming Dexter. And a star was born.

Book Review: Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford

Kerry Hammond is here today to talk about a book of short stories featuring two great series characters created by author Charles Todd.

Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford, written by Charles Todd, is currently available on Kindle, and will be released in Paperback on September 8, 2015. I received the Kindle edition from Witness Impulse, an imprint of Harper Collins. I have written several Mystery Playground reviews for both the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford mystery series. When I heard that a collection of short stories was coming out, I was eager to get my hands on it. Not only to get my Ian and Bess fix, but I find that short stories featuring a series character are able to offer an added look into that character that you don’t always get from a full-length novel.

The book contains two tales that feature Inspector Ian Rutledge: “The Kidnapping” and “Cold Comfort.” In “The Kidnapping,” a man comes to Scotland Yard to report that his twelve-year-old daughter was taken by force right in front of him, on the street outside their home. Rutledge is on duty at the time and begins his investigation, piecing together the events of the evening to figure out who has kidnaped the child, and why.

In “Cold Comfort” Rutledge is back in the war and is leading a team who are attempting to dig a tunnel toward the German line, hoping to blast through before the Germans. A badly placed fuse is the first in a series of events that lead Rutledge to believe that one of his Private’s is in danger, and that another of the men is trying to kill him. Both Rutledge stories are true to form and highlight Rutledge’s intelligence, as well as his determination to see justice done.

Also included are two tales featuring WWI nurse Bess Crawford: “The Girl on the Beach” and “The Maharani’s Pearls.” In the first, Bess finds a body on the beach, and much to the investigating Inspector’s surprise, he deduces quite a bit about the girls fate from a scrap of newspaper, a found earring, and the condition of the body.  

“The Maharani’s Pearls” was a hands down favorite for me because it featured Bess as a young girl and was set in India where her father was stationed throughout her childhood. To get a further glimpse into Bess’s character by seeing her as a girl was wonderful, and even as a young girl, she was calm and intelligent in a crisis. The story also featured my favorite recurring character from the series, her Dad’s right-hand man, Simon.

As a bonus, my Kindle edition of Tales included an excerpt from Pattern of Lies, the Bess Crawford book due out August 18, 2015. This book will be reviewed on Mystery Playground as well, so stay tuned. Spoiler alert, I really enjoyed it.

The book was provided to Mystery Playground by the publisher. The review is fair and independent.