Looking for a good historical mystery to settle into? You might want to check out the finalists and winner of the Left Coast Crime Convention's Lefty Award for best historical mystery. The Leftys are nominated by and voted on by conference attendees—that is, by mystery readers and writers.  First, here are the finalists and a little about them: A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder (5th in the Countess of Harleigh mystery series) by Dianne Freeman : "The Agatha Award-winning Countess of Harleigh Mysteries are a witty romp through the high society of Victorian England with a touch of romance, an appealing and independent female lead, and rich historical detail. In this charming fifth installment, Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, finds her wedding day overshadowed by murder . . ." In Place of Fear  (standalone) by Catriona McPherson : "Edinburgh 1948. It’s the first day of the new National Health Service and wee Nelly Crowther fae Freer Street, w...

Okay, the only secret I'm talking about here is in the title of the eighth book in my Silver Rush series, THE SECRET IN THE WALL. So please feel free to share the news! First, it has been showing up on a number of awards lists (all of which warm the cockles of my little writerly heart): Winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Traditional Novel (awards will be presented on June 24, at the WWA convention in Rapid City, South Dakota) Finalist for the Foreword INDIES Award for Mystery (winners will be announced online June 15) Nominee for Left Coast Crime's Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery (attendees vote at the conference, and winners are announced at the banquet on March 18) Second, you certainly have a chance to win (and keep!) a copy of SECRET by entering a Goodreads giveaway contest (sponsored by my publisher, Poisoned Pen Press / Sourcebooks), which runs through March 25. Just go here , click on the "Enter Giveaway" button, and fil...

With "pet peeves" being our theme of the month here at the Blood Red Pencil, I had soooo many to choose from! But in the end, I went with a simple peeve that grates on my mind like nails on an old-fashioned chalkboard: The misuse and confusion of it's  (with an apostrophe) and its (no apostrophe).  Honestly (if I can vent for just a second)...  It isn't that hard! Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Here's the skinny on  it's and its , short and sweet: It's  is the contraction of "it is" or "it has." (To rephrase the sentence above:  It's  not that hard!)  Its  is the possessive form for the pronoun "it." ( Its  grammatical companions include hers, his, theirs.) Most (but not all) of the mix up I see comes from using it's in the possessive sense. And I see this everywhere—not just in books, but on websites, in advertisements, and in menus (especially in menus!). I don't really have much more to say about th...

The Blood-Red Pencil Editors are also published authors. Check out some of our latest and most popular releases! Genres include Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, Romance, Memoir, and books to help you with your writing craft.   Linda Lane Tormented Tango Family must be protected at all costs. Even if it means killing them. Former prosecutor Aidan Wolf runs a small legal aid office. Defense lawyer Jenna Jacobs rarely loses a case, but she lost Aidan Wolf. District Attorney Wilson Howell, wife Becca, and their two teenagers live in what he believes is near-perfect bliss. And then…  Buy Here Linda Lane The Accounting What if the person who should love you the most hurts you the worst?  A powerful story of families that you won’t soon forget. Woven through its pages, The Accounting shares within its carefully crafted plot and well-defined characters events that will forever change the lives of four Kohler households. Family dynamics expose their weaknesses and reveal their ...

My idea of an ideal Mother's Day is settling into my "reading chair" with a cuppa coffee, something to nibble (chocolate?), and a BIG stack of books that I've yet to read! For those who might feel likewise, or have young'uns to read to, we offer up some lists of books that have a Mother's Day theme. From Pixabay Let's start with books for the grownups... The Cozy Mystery List has a Mother’s Day Mystery Book List https://cozy-mystery.com/mothers-day-mystery-book-list.html Janet Rudolph's Mystery Fanfare chimes in with Mother's Day Crime Fiction and Mysteries   The Washington Post provides For Mother’s Day: 11 books for moms who — more than ever — need an escape From Good Housekeeping we get 26 Gripping Books for Moms Who Love to Read Goodreads always comes through. There's 305 books (a mix of toddler to adult) on this Mother's Day Books list Goodreads also has a shelf of Mothers in Literature   And how about a list of books featured on the...

Alrighty, folks, we're winding down on Women's History Month (which includes International Women's Day), but that doesn't mean we have to stop reading relevant books on March 31st! So, roll up your reading sleeves, and let's march forward with some reading lists for your consideration: CNN recommends 20 books that are essential reading for Women's History Month   Princeton University Press (ahem, yes, THAT Princeton) offers an impressive nonfiction reading list for consideration Popsugar pops out The 11 Most Popular Books to Read During Women's History Month Here's a GoodReads post on  64 Top Nonfiction Books to Read for Women's History Month  (which includes an almost equal number of comments with more suggestions and some interesting perspectives on the list) Buzzfeed waxes enthusiastic about 9 Fantastic Books That You Must Read for Women's History Month Orion goes poetic with 17 Poetry Collections to read during Women's History Month   Mov...

On February 15, 2022, the eighth book in my Silver Rush historical mystery series, THE SECRET IN THE WALL , officially descends upon the world. Here's a little teaser for you: Former saloon owner Inez Stannert is trying her best to keep her colorful Leadville, Colorado, life behind her and to provide a respectable home and upbringing for her teenage ward, Antonia. Now the owner of a small music shop in San Francisco, Inez can’t seem to steer clear of mayhem as murder victims literally come out of the woodwork. She’ll have to figure out how to lose the bones and keep the gold. Now, a confession: When I turned in my draft to the editor in late 2020, the pub date seemed soooo far away. Plenty of time to re-group and prepare, I thought. But 2021 disappeared in a haze. Maybe because the year didn't turn out at all like I thought it would (I'm sure I'm not alone in that). Maybe because other projects consumed me. Whatever the reason, 2022 arrived awfully fast and (yikes!) I r...

Looking to fine-tune your writing? Need a little extra inspiration to jumpstart your initial draft or your final edit? Well, we’ve got lists (and in some cases, lists of lists) of books for your consideration. So, in no particular order, let's jump in! Reedsy offers this recently updated post: The 40 Best Books on Writing: A Reading List for Authors The Write Life provides a list of 34 of the Best Books On Writing Penguin Random House steps up with their take on The Best Books on Writing This list is a few years old, but still quite interesting: New York Magazine’s The Best Books on Writing, According to Novelists, Poets, and Writing Professors Listopia on Goodreads has no less than 722 books (!!) in the list Best Books on Writing (Books on writing, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and more) For those writing, or thinking of writing, children’s books, you might glance over this post on Michael Mahin’s blog, titled What Are the Best Books on Writing for Children?   What do YOU have o...

Dani Last month, we started our new Ask Us Anything About #Writing feature with Amy Shamroe , a novelist-in-the-making.  Our Blogging Team continues to answer her questions with this important one!  Amy Is it better to just get scenes/plot points down and come back and fill in details or to spend time on everything you write in the moment? (i.e., get it all down NaNoWriMo style and go back and bulk it out or maybe spend two days on two pages getting it all down)... Shonell The better way is the way that gets your story finished. I like developing outlines that are a bit in-depth with notes about what happens in particular scenes, things characters say and do, etc. Doing this gives me visuals to jump into when I begin writing the story in earnest. Elle For a beginning writer, I would highly suggest learning to plot to start with - simply because this will save you time in the long run. Experienced writers who write to a "formula" (eg., genre conventio...

Poetry for me started with Mother Goose, many many decades ago. I still have a fondness for the old nursery rhymes, but of course, there's much more to this particular genre. To help you (and me) celebrate/appreciate Poetry Month, I wrangled together the “list of lists" below. So, hickory, dickory, dock , let's hop to it! (Or should that be hickety, dickety, dock ?) Hickety Dickety Dock 2, by William Wallace Denslow Public Domain   Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, turned to experts for A Real Poet’s Poet: 11 Favorite Poets on What They’re Reading for Poetry Month Bustle offers 14 collections in Here’s Your National Poetry Month Required Reading List New York Public Library’s “Poetry Committee” chimes in with It’s Poetry Month: Here Are NYPL’s Best Poetry Books of 2020 Because I’m a fan of haiku (a little volume of Little Enough is sitting by my desk), here is Read Poetry’s 10 Vivid Haikus to Leave You Breathless   Moving beyond Mother Goose, this Scholastic post lists ...

Dani: Dear readers, today we welcome Amy Shamroe to the Blood-Red Pencil. Amy, tell us a bit about your writing project. Amy I have worked in books pretty much my entire adult life (bookseller and book festival organizer). As one might imagine, I have been a voracious reader since I could first read, too.   Despite that, when I was sitting in my living room working on designing an ad for work and an idea of a book popped in my head - not just a book, but a series - I was both excited and scared. Like many I have daydreamed here and there and toyed with ideas, but suddenly I could see my main character and her love interest detective. Her character and personality were so clear, I swear I could hear her voice. And so was the time period - the 1920s. Living through a pandemic now certainly certainly makes that time period so relatable. But it also has so much to work with - the losses from the war combined with the wealth and excess of the new decade. The changes in everything f...

To wrap up a month of memoirs, autobiographies, and life-writing/journaling, here is a “list of lists” for your reading pleasure. Let’s start with memoirs. From LitHub in 2019 The 10 Best Memoirs of the Decade Another from 2019, The New York Times with The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years Reedsy opts for a longer stretch of time and fewer books: 30 Best Memoirs of the Last Century Like your memoir reading short and sweet? Bookriot offers 18 Essay-length Short Memoirs to Read Online on Your Lunch Break Now, diaries and journals. CDN offers Must-read Diaries and Journals that Are Totally Worth Your Time Pan Macmillian came up with its own list of History’s Greatest Diaries   And while not a list of books per se, the site Develop Good Habits has a post on 9 Famous People Who Kept Journals Image by  annazuc  from  Pixabay Finally, Library of Congress (LOC) has some fascinating collections of narratives/interviews available to read/watch online, including  Born i...

February is Black History month, and, whoops, we are already well into the month (which is short to begin with). So let’s get busy and list some lists and read some books! From NetGalley’s “We Are Bookish” site: #ReadingBlackout: 29 Books to Read This Black History Month  (Side note: I’m particularly happy to see Attica Locke—an incredible mystery/thriller writer—included in this list) Audible provides Mysteries & Thrillers for Black History Month  (Of course, you can always look for these titles in their paper or ebook formats, as well) Epic Reads has 44 YA Books You Need to Read—Especially During Black History Month   For more books than you’ll ever have time for, Goodread's Listopia has 2,155 titles shelved on  Black History Month Books If you need a list that’s a bit more manageable in size, Listopia’s 2021 Black History Month Recommendations  has 22 titles recommended by The Connecticut Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA-CT)  ...