A True Event Can Make Riveting Fiction Glen David Gold’s novel Carter Beats the Devil (2001) opens with President Warren G. Harding gamely getting up on stage in a San Francisco theater to participate in a conjuring trick. Hours later, he’s dead. Were the two events connected? Suddenly the conjurer—the real-life Joseph Carter, a household name in […]
Category Archives: Blog Article
DVD Review: The Americans Season 6
DVD Review: The Americans Season 6 (Warning: Oblique spoilers for previous seasons of The Americans follow.) The Americans is a high-concept television series in which the initial premise could have led to any point on the spectrum of quality. In lesser hands, the tale of two Russian spies living undercover as subversives in the United States could […]
10 Thrillers That NEED a TV Series Adaptation
10 Thrillers That NEED a TV Series Adaptation Like a lot of people these days, I’m addicted to book-to-television thrillers. Every time I learn that another novel I love has been green-lighted for a series, I devour every detail about its production until it’s finally on-screen. With the recent success of shows like Big Little […]
Gone! Top 10 Nail-Biting Thrillers Featuring the Search for a Missing Child
GONE! TOP 10 NAIL-BITING THRILLERS FEATURING THE SEARCH FOR A MISSING CHILD A missing child is every parent’s nightmare. A tidal wave of emotion descends and often the situation can very quickly turn negative with the finger of blame being readily pointed, often specifically at the child’s mother. The missing child may be an overused […]
Top 10 Scary Families in Fiction
In my new novel, The Hiding Place, Joe Thorne’s eight-year-old sister returns after disappearing for forty-eight hours. But something about her isn’t the same. What happened to Annie Thorne? And why is Joe scared to death of his own little sister? Here are my top 10 of other scary families in fiction! Top 10 […]
Read an Excerpt from What Doesn’t Kill Her by Christina Dodd
“What’s your new book about?” An author can write 100,000 words, create an insightful tale of terror, humor, adventure, romance, and mystery, yet when someone—in this case, a writer-friend—asks, “What’s your new book about?” all the insightful words dry up. All that’s left is babble. I told my friend What Doesn’t Kill Her is a thriller. […]
Ten Books Featuring Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships
Ten Books Featuring Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships Of all human relationships, the mother-daughter one is perhaps the most complicated and unique. Mothers tend to view their daughters through a prism of shared history. Yet, as they grow, daughters become their own person with a locked vault of secrets that are completely inaccessible to their mothers, […]
The Mysterious Robert E. Clarke
The Mysterious Robert E. Clarke Every family has a mystery. Mine concerned the identity of my great-grandfather, Robert E. Clarke. In his teens, my father’s father was legally adopted by his mother’s second husband, a man he always called “Mr. Tuttle.” My grandfather grew up knowing nothing of his natural father; he was only five […]
Top Ten Holiday Mysteries and Films…
Top Ten Holiday Mysteries Having to work on a holiday has been known to put me in a horrible mood, yet Poirot, Holmes, and Inspector Alleyn seem to delight in having their holidays marred by the odd murder or theft. Here’s a list of the top ten novels and stories set during the holiday season […]
Twelve Must Read Thrillers
Twelve Must Read Thrillers (Author Louise Jensen has compiled a list of the twelve must read thrillers published this century. Some can be dystopian, some can have a trace of romance, a few will provide twists and surprise endings, and all are destined to be classics.) Someone like me – M. R. Carey The story […]
The Strand Magazine Giveaway
The Strand Magazine is hosting a giveaway! Want to celebrate the holidays with the Strand Magazine? Then get ready for The Strand Magazine Giveaway! Enter now for a chance to win a coffee mug featuring all of your favorite authors! We’re celebrating 20 years of The Strand Magazine, and we want to share this anniversary […]
20 Years of The Strand Magazine
20 Years of The Strand Magazine When the first issue of The Strand was released in fall of 1998, none of us had any idea we would still be doing this twenty years later. As with any new venture, nothing had prepared me or the team I’d assembled for the difficulties we encountered in getting […]
