Blog Archives

Welcome Back … Roxanne St. Claire!

I am so, so, so thrilled that our long-time MSW gal Roxanne St. Claire is back as a special guest! Please welcome her back and read on … because she’s giving away books, too! ~Allison

Hello old friends and new ones! So great to be back at Murder She Writes, but I admit I barely recognize the place. What an incredible transformation this blog has experienced!! Congrats to the new team who’ve continued a long tradition of keeping a group blog lively and informative. And special thanks to Allison for inviting me back to my old stomping grounds.

Speaking of changes, it’s been well over a year since I was a regular at MSW and much has changed for me, too. For one thing, no one dies in my books anymore. (Well, not by anyone else’s hand, at least.) Writing contemporary romance has been a terrific move for me professionally (the first one hit the New York Times list!) and has been a lovely palate cleanser for me creatively.

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Tagged with: Barefoot in the Sun, change, contemporary romance, Guest Bloggers, romance, romantic suspense, Roxanne St. Claire, sliderpost
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Life, Love, & All That Jazz

Murder HE Writes: Daniel Palmer

Welcome my buddy, Daniel Palmer, to Murder HE Writes today! Daniel is multi-talented–not only is he a up-and-coming thriller master, he’s an uber-talented musician. He wows us at Thrillerfest with his singing and musical ability — harmonica, guitar, voice, probably more we haven’t seen. He knows how to write, and he knows how to have fun, which are two important traits 🙂 … Let’s give him a big Murder She Writes welcome! ~Allison

Putting It All On the Line

By Daniel Palmer

If you read any reviews of my third thriller novel, STOLEN, people tend to sum up the book’s big idea with a simple question. How far would you go to save the love of your life? I agree this question captures the story’s essence. The book begins with a devoted husband, John Bodine, confronting a terrible circumstance. His wife, Ruby Dawes, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of skin cancer and he doesn’t have medical insurance to cover the cost of her life-saving treatment. After exhausting all legal means, John uses his computer smarts to steal another’s identity with the intent of committing medical fraud. Unbeknownst to John, the identity he’s stolen belongs to a psychopathic killer with a twisted mind for playing very twisted games. John and Ruby are soon roped into his demented world and things deteriorate rapidly from there.

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Tagged with: Allison Brennan, Daniel Palmer, imagination, reviews, sliderpost, Stolen, taking risks, writing
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Writing Life

MSW Guest Blogger Melinda Leigh: My New Favorite Recipe

Kendra’s note: Melinda is my Montlake Publishing sister and writes awesome romantic suspense. Even though we live on opposite coasts, we talk almost daily about writing squees and woes, the perils of raising teenagers, and the amount of taxation in New Jersey. Her latest novel, MIDNIGHT SACRIFICE, came out Tuesday.

Why is this my new favorite dinner? Because it’s fabulous? Yes, but also because I didn’t have to cook it. Our household has seen a role reversal of sorts brought about by my second (third?) career. A few weeks ago, my kids came running into my office after school.

“Did you see the underwater Harlem Shake?” My daughter thrust her phone under my nose for direct viewing.

No longer able to see anything unless it’s at least an arm’s length away, I pulled back and squinted. “What’s a Harlem Shake?”

Appalled stares.

There are worse things that not keeping up with the latest YouTube craze, right? But it gets worse. I had no idea a new Star Trek movie was coming out. I admit this bothered me. How could I not know? A second chance to watch Chris Pines as Captain Kirk is something I should have been eagerly anticipating all winter. Then again, when was the last time I went to a movie? The Hunger Games? Yikes.

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Tagged with: Melinda Leigh, recipes, sliderpost, slow cooker
Posted in Food & Dining, Guest Bloggers, Kendra Elliot

Murder He Writes: Andrew Gross

Please welcome Andrew Gross to the launch of our bi-weekly feature Murder HE Writes!

The interesting thing about thriller writers—and, at heart, it’s what makes the genre so relevant today—is that we don’t start out as MFA candidates, but come from varied and vital careers: police detectives, trial lawyers, doctors, CIA agents, and Wall Street traders.

And I apprenticed for the my own career writing about crime and destroying people’s lives by spending twenty years in the women’s apparel business!

I actually had a pretty good career arc going—managing apparel firms like Leslie Fay (let’s see how old you are!) then branching into turnarounds in the ski and tennis business (Head, Le Coq Sportif) until one of those turnarounds didn’t quite turn around (and didn’t quite spectacularly) suddenly hastening my writing career! I begged my wife for a year—a year to write this idea for a political thriller that had been noodling around in my head, and turned into HYDRA—after three years! Three years without income coming in; three years drifting further and further away from anything revenue generating… And the truth is, when HYDRA got twenty-two rejections from publishers fourteen years ago, I had no Plan B and no idea what my next step in life was.

Then I took a call from out of the blue, and the woman on the other end asked, “Can you take a call from James Patterson?”

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Tagged with: Andrew Gross, co-author, co-writing, James Patterson, No Way Out, pacing, sliderpost, thrillers, writer's life, writing, writing tips
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Writing & Publishing Tips

Pardon me if my glitter is showing!

Please welcome guest blogger Wendy Roberts!

Everything I know about writing I learned from parenting. Right now my four kids are 13, 15, 17 and 19. When I started writing, I’d just found out I was pregnant with my fourth and I was still nursing my third. In 1999 I had four children under six years of age. It was either take up murdering people on paper, or commit hari-kari using a dull crayon.

Parenting teaches you a lot. When they’re babies you’re sleep deprived and pray for the day they’re potty trained. When they’re teens, you’re sleep deprived waiting for them to come home and praying all evening they’re keeping their pants on.

These are the 5 main things I’ve learned about parenting teens and writing:

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Tagged with: family, Ghost Duster Series, kids, sliderpost, teenagers, wendy roberts, writing
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Writing Life

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Bio:

Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-four romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children.

Maximum Exposure
February 4, 2014

Two years before the events in Notorious, Max travels to Colorado Springs to investigate the disappearance of a college student. Frustrated over the lack of interest from both friends of the victim and campus authorities, Max tags along with the leader of search and rescue and his dog through the beautiful and deadly Rocky Mountains in the hopes of finding answers. Every answer she finds leads to more questions--questions neither the police nor the college want Max asking.
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Welcome Back … Roxanne St. Claire!

Murder HE Writes: Daniel Palmer

MSW Guest Blogger Melinda Leigh: My New Favorite Recipe

Murder He Writes: Andrew Gross

Pardon me if my glitter is showing!

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