Checkmate: Chess and the Mystery Writer
By MSW Guest Blogger Scott Graham Who, what, when, where, why and how? The go-to questions of a journalist—and the questions I asked and wrote up for two and a half
It’s Tuesday, which means we’re touring Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. I plan on blogging about our trip next week! I would have loved to have done a
I turned in Compulsion ten days ago, book 2 in the Max Revere series, and am awaiting notes from my editor which will come in the next week or two. One of the problems
I’m a big fan of action adventure movies. I love everything about them. The story, the choreography, the bigness of the production. THE AVENGERS was one of my
Starting in the Middle of a Series
I love reading a series. It’s the same reason I prefer television to movies. I like revisiting my favorite characters, finding out what they’re doing, how
Writers: Nature or Nurture? By MSW Guest Blogger Grant Blackwood Blackwood … Brennan … we met at a book signing. At many book signings. And share much in c
BREAKING! Cold Snap a finalist in the Thriller Awards!
A second post today! Surprise! But I couldn’t contain my excitement. COLD SNAP is a finalist in the 2014 Thriller Awards for Best Paperback Original. I am totall
Today is the day I’ve been waiting for since last March, when I first turned in the revised manuscript for NOTORIOUS. Today is the day I’ve been waiting fo
I have a confession. Whenever a new show is a huge hit out of the gate, I don’t watch it. I don’t know why, I think I get overwhelmed by the hype. I figure
I read this article in the Wall Street Journal and it really hit home. I posted it on Facebook, but found that I had more to say about the subject. On Saturday, my dau
I’ve never done Comic Con–the Sci-Fi and fantasy fan convention–although there are times when I wish I had.
Seriously, I have no excuse for sitting it out. These events happen all over the country–all over the world, in fact–all year long.
It’s like Halloween, for adults. Okay, make that adults who are kids at heart.
Nothing wrong with that.
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I’m heading to Vegas later today for a girls weekend get-away! But before I head out, I have to wrap up my revisions on DOUBLE DARE, book two in The Chronicles of Katrina. And isn’t that a lovely cover? (TY Victoria Colotta!) DOUBLE DARE (Sept 24) picks up right where THE DARE (out now) leaves off and I have to say, I think I smiled and laughed and yeah, did a lot of squirming in my chair, as I wrote this story, then any other story I have ever written. And I’ve written a few. ^_~.
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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.
I’m guilty of indulging in all of the above. And if I’m going to be honest, I enjoyed all three. ^_~ Some more than others.
I’m a child of the 70’s and while many of my contemporaries at the time were experimenting heavily with LSD, I was quite content to smoke the occasional joint. I dabbled in a few other things, but never did the hard stuff for two reasons, the first being; I was a big fat chicken. Being under the influence of something so potent scared me. Secondly, my fear of liking it too much was a concern. I knew as a teenager I had an addictive personality, I wasn’t about to become addicted to something that would control me.
Rock and roll was as much a part of my daily life as sitting down to dinner with my family every night. If the radio wasn’t blaring, Led Zepplin, Bad Company, Clapton or Peter Frampton, I was playing it on my record player or better yet singing along with my favorite bands in concert. Heart, Zep, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, I rocked out to them all in concert as a teenager and some again as an adult.
My iPod playlist is top heavy with classic rock. I come by it honestly. As an impressionable teen, my heart beat to the same angst of those ballads. Love found. Love blossoms. Love grows. Love is snatched away by a scheming opportunist or tragically torn from our arms by the grim reaper. Oh, how I could relate to it all!
I found my true love my freshman year of high school. Our love blossomed and grew throughout high school and after, only to be torn asunder by scheming bitches and smarmy opportunists. Oh, the heartache of it all. But wait! We are reunited! Once more, so happy and in love, only to–what? Be torn apart again! this time because I wanted freedom and he wanted to tighten my leash! Nevah! But oh how lonely I was without him. Wait! You don’t want me back? Hah, of course you do, you just don’t know it. Take that! See? I told you, you wanted me back! And there we were, once again united, the couple everyone knew would live happily ever after. But alas, as much as I do love you, there is someone else now… (I married that guy).
My life then was a rock and roll ballad. Is it any wonder I write rock and roll ballad love stories? I not only write the angst, I write the angst to the angsty music. Rarely do I write without my earbuds in and my iPod cranking out one woeful ballad after another. The more heartbreaking the better. There’s some good contemporary angst on the airwaves too. My new obsession is love songs about lovers who are so totally wrong for each other, and who know they are totally wrong for each other but because their lethal attraction defies logic, they dive head first into a relationship knowing it’s going to end badly. Maybe I’m watching too much reality television, but I really love this stuff!
I’m currently allowing two unnamed characters in my head, two people who are so not mean to be but who cannot resist the other, feed me lines while giving me glimpses of themselves, not as individuals, but who they are when they’re together. It’s decidedly dark and stormy, and someone is going to get hurt. I just don’t know who, how or when. I can’t wait to write this story. But if it weren’t for the sex, drugs and rock and roll of my teenage years, I’d be writing Gidget Got Married stories.
Who knew sex, drugs and rock and roll all those years ago would still be serving me so well all these years later?
What about you? What influenced you in your teens that still influences you today?
Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-two 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.
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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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