Saturday Spotlight ~ Where does the book you're reading take place?

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new.  It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related.  Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places. 

 Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.

  Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.

This week my spotlight is shining on my......

Where does the book I'm reading, Pretty Little Things by Jilliane Hoffman, take place

 Coral Springs, Florida


Coral Springs, Florida is located in Broward County, approximately 20 miles northwest of Ft. Lauderdale and 10 miles southwest of Boca Raton.


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Coral Springs was just named the BEST PLACE TO LIVE IN FLORIDA by Money Magazine.
Maybe it was the covered bridge.

Or perhaps the Sportsplex, which has an ice rink so state-of-the art that the Florida Panthers train there.
But Coral Springs, which not so long ago was a partially drained swampland, has charmed itself onto a top spot: Money Magazine's No. 1 Place to Live in Florida.
``We're always looking for family-friendly places,'' said Money reporter Beth Braverman. ``It's not just about work. People need to be able to get out and do something.''
Money analyzed data from 800 U.S. cities with populations between 50,000 to 300,000 and ranked them on housing affordability, economy, quality of schools, arts and leisure, diversity and government.
Nationwide, Coral Springs ranked 44th, behind such golden spots as Eden Prairie, Minn., and Amherst, N.Y., and just ahead of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Founded in 1963 on the fringe of the Everglades, the city now boasts a population of 126,000.
The covered bridge was built in 1964 to celebrate the first home sales. Today middle-schoolers gather at the ice rink at the Sportsplex for their first date and families flock to ``The Walk'' for a cup of frozen yogurt.
``The city has basically everything you need,'' said Cathie D'Amron, a resident for 25 years. ``Restaurants, shopping, parks. A lot of things for kids.''

DIVERSE ACTIVITIES

That range of activities is one of the things Coral Springs Mayor Scott Brook loves about his city.
``I can go coach my son's soccer team and then go out to eat sushi nearby,'' Brook said. ``We've got amazing programs and facilities.''
Besides its recreational activities, Coral Springs rated high on Money's list for safety, air quality, education and diversity.
This is the third time Coral Springs made the list and the second time it's been ranked the best city in Florida.
Fluttering not far behind was the Butterfly Capital of the World, Coconut Creek, which took the No. 2 Florida spot.
Money rated Coconut Creek No. 48 in its top 100 for its dedication to preserving and promoting green living.
``People really want to be able to enjoy nature, and that's something that boosts the quality of life there,'' Braverman said.
The city is lush with trees and more than 150 butterfly gardens that dot everything from roadways to developments. Coconut Creek was designated Florida's first Community Wildlife Habitat by the National Widlife Federation. It's home to the world's largest butterfly aviary, and its residents get free trees on Arbor Day if they complete a lesson in tree care.
``The environment defines us to a great degree,'' said Coconut Creek City Manager Dave Rivera. ``We've got greenways everywhere that give people a break from the cement roadways with pockets of nature.''

`CLOSE COMMUNITY'

Like Coral Springs, Coconut Creek received high marks for its recreation and leisure choices and air quality. Plus, Rivera said, most of the city's 50,000 residents live in a 12-square mile area, which makes for a tight bond.
``We are a very close community. We've got families and senior citizens and all of them seem to work together,'' Rivera said. ``They appreciate what the city provides. We don't need to go looking for awards like other cities, but this award shows them we're on the right track and will continue our growth.''

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/27/1747707/gems-in-our-midst.html#ixzz0vBJHGzzk

Fun things to do in Coral Springs

Butterfly World
Seminole Casino Coconut CreekTradewinds Park
Coral Springs Aquatic Complex
Laser Fun Zone
Coral Springs Museum of Art

Saturday Spotlight ~ Favorite Culinary Cozy Series

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new.  It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related.  Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places. 

 Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.

  Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.

This week my spotlight is shining on my......

Favorite Culinary Cozy Series

The Gourmet Girls series by Susan Conant & Jessica Conant-Park

I am so not just saying that this is my favorite culinary cozy series because I'm good friends with Jessica. I fell in love with this series as soon as I started reading the first book Steamed (A Gourmet Girl Mystery). I love that it takes place in the Boston/Brookline area, places I'm very familiar with. I can picture myself walking down the same streets and going to the same places as Chloe, Josh and the rest of the group. It makes me feel as if I am a part of the story, and there is nothing better than that. Well the only thing better than that is a great series - and the Gourmet Girls series is just that.

My meeting with Jessica almost didn't happen. My good friend Melanie and I had heard that Jessica, along with her mother Susan and author Hank Phillipi Ryan were having an author signing up in New Hampshire and decided to make a day of it (we both live in MA).  We planned on meeting there, having lunch and then go to the signing and meet these wonderful women. Maybe have our pictures taken with them and having our books signed.  Early in the morning of the signing, I got a phone call from my mother that my grandfather had just passed away. I was devastated.  She knew of my plans that day and encouraged me to still go the signing as there was nothing I could do at home until I had to pick them up at the airport.  So off I went, and I am SO glad that I did. Melanie and I had a great time hanging out with these wonderful ladies. And amazing friendships were born!  Now we e-mail all day and chat on the phone at least a few times a week. Jessica has been an extremely good friend to me and her mom Susan is a hoot.  Recently they were gracious enough to invite me to join them for Jessica's sons birthday dinner. Not only did they make me feel welcome at their family dinner but I also managed to keep them quite entertained with my "screw" stories! (Oh, and not to let your mind wander, I work for a nut, bolt & screw company).  I'm looking forward to our next dinner - which better be SOON!

Now, on to the important stuff -- ABOUT THE BOOKS!

  The series is set in the Boston restaurant scene and follows Chloe Carter, a twenty-something half-hearted social work student who would much rather be frequenting local restaurants or browsing gourmet food shops than studying somatoform disorders and marching at the State House. Chloe’s love life and academic life are a constant challenge, but she does hook up with a hot young chef, Josh, and gets an inside look at the tumultuous and chaotic world of professional restaurants. The books are a blend of cozy mystery, chick lit, humor (well, at least, Jessica think so… I suppose it depends on how weird your sense of humor is), romance, and food, and there are tons of recipes at the end of the book so that you can cook up some of the delicacies that you’ve read about. 


Praise for the Gourmet Girl Series



"Recipes, some by pro chefs, round out this delectable chick lit cozy, which ends on an emotional cliffhanger for Chloe.  - Publishers Weekly, Feb. 2009 , about Fed Up

"Humorous and suspenseful, this romantic mystery will be a delight to many readers." -Romance Junkies about Turn Up The Heat

“I thoroughly enjoyed this novel . . . I read the first page, and loved it, and then the second... and before I knew it I'd devoured the whole book. This would be the perfect summer read, and was interesting, witty and unpredictable (with mouthwatering descriptions of food and even recipes for said food at the back of the book). I'll definitely look out for the next delicious novel by this mother-daughter writing team.”
— Trashionista about Simmer Down

"This scrumptious cozy, the first of a new series, has it all—charming characters, snappy dialogue and mouth-watering recipes." - Publisher's Weekly, about Steamed

"This witty novel has both a slew of suspects and sizzling romance. A delightful debut." -Romantic Times about Steamed

What Jessica has to say about herself

I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and spent most of my elementary school years explaining my unusual lunches to friends. While other children dined on peanut butter and fluff, I wolfed down spinach pie and oversize olives from the local Greek market, leftover pasta topped with my mother’s homemade pesto, or slices of steak au poivre in crusty French bread. There, admittedly, times I tried to swap with a friend for a “normal” tuna fish sandwich, but I usually adored the yummy packets of food that appeared in my lunch bag.

We were a food-oriented family. We traveled to France a number of times and fell in love with the phenomenal cuisine. My mother slaved over Julia Child’s recipes and taught herself to make even the most complicated dishes. The highlight of trips to visit relatives in Kansas was always the chance to taste the best BBQ the state had to offer. We ate one meal and discussed where the next would be.

I went to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although I loved the school and made lifelong friends, the food was a major disappointment. Campus dining hit me hard. Where was the selection of aged cheeses? Where were the beautifully roasted chickens with baby vegetables? What was a “potato bar”? And what sort of human being would pollute a baked potato with orange cheese sauce and ground beef scum? Just before every trip back home to safety of my parents’ house and fully stocked kitchen, I would make a desperate call home to tell Mom and Dad. “That smoked salmon I love so much!” I’d plead. “And let’s have bouillabaisse one night! With lobster and clams and mussels and shrimp and scallops!” I would greedily demand. “And goat cheese salad with mixed baby greens!” My father would inform that if I insisted on such high-priced ingredients, he and my mother would have to choose between paying my college tuition and feeding me because they couldn’t afford to do both.

I graduated from college with an “Individually Designed, Interdepartmental Major” that I called “Psychology of Women: Social Science and Literary Perspectives,” a major that allowed me to take all the classes I found interesting and to avoid the others. After graduation, with a lot of psychology and English credits, I spent a few years living in my own apartment, cooking what I wanted, and working as a day-care teacher. I then went to graduate school, got my master’s degree in social work, and worked for a number of years with young children and families in early intervention programs.

I met my husband-to-be, Bill Park, while he was the executive chef at a now-defunct Boston restaurant called Cosmopolitan. The second I learned that he was a chef, I had a transcendent revelation: Why hadn’t I been staking out restaurants my entire dating life? I should have been hanging around outside fine dining establishments at closing time and accosting unsuspecting chefs! The day after I met Bill, he took me to the restaurant, gave me a tour of the professional kitchen, and showed me his menu. The menu looked phenomenal. But could he really cook? A few days later he made dinner for me, and, yes, not only could he cook, but he was incredibly talented. And I was in love!

In addition to regularly eating more upscale food than I ever had before, I was introduced to a whole new side of the restaurant world. Bill was full of information and stories about the chaos, competition, harshness, and beauty of the professional culinary world. I couldn’t believe some of the tales I was hearing. Although I’d eaten in plenty of restaurants, I’d had no idea of what was going on behind the scenes. Now I knew.

We eventually got married and had a beautiful son, Nicholas. Bill was working long, long hours at various Boston restaurants, and I was at home with our beautiful, happy baby. Everyone had tried to warn me about tired I would be as a new mother, but it wasn’t until most of my cognitive functions ceased to exist that I realized how right everyone had been. I put ice cream in the cupboard and sugar in the freezer, my hair sat in a knot on top of my head, and I had trouble remembering how to tie my shoes. The exhaustion had an upside: I was so punch-drunk that my sense of humor was in overdrive, and everything hit me as funny. Since I was spending so much time alone with Nicholas, I began talking to him about more than just Peter Rabbit and the Very Hungry Caterpillar; I narrated daily events, entertaining stories of my husband’s culinary adventures, and made-believe tales.

My mother was a well-established author, and after I’d shared the millionth wild culinary story with her, she suggested that we collaborate on a book. Write a book? Me? Huh. The prospect of writing a book felt oddly perfect. An avid reader, I especially loved chick lit and cozy mysteries. The idea for the Gourmet Girl series began to grow. I knew right away that I wanted our book to mix chick lit, mystery, food, and humor: Shopaholic meets Rachel Ray meets Janet Evanovich.

We brainstormed mystery ideas, and my mother put together a twenty-five-page outline. When I had written three chapters, we submitted them, together with our outline, and my mother’s publisher, Berkley, offered us a three-book contract. The day I heard the news, I was stunned and thrilled. Then I panicked. I had to write a book! Actually, three books! With incredible help and guidance from my mother and recipes from my husband, I finished the first book. And the second and the third.

What Susan has to say about herself



I was born in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts. The best friends of my childhood were pointers named Stuffy and Nonny. I had imaginary companions as well: a cat named Thirsty Melirsty Medrinkable, a family of dogs, and parents called Mommy and Daddy Suh. Thirsty and the dog family slowly faded away. The Suhs, however, perished suddenly; they ate fish guts and died. My career as a mystery writer thus began in early childhood: I invented animals, and I killed off fictional human beings.

Now, many decades later, I live just outside Boston. My husband is a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Cambridge. Our daughter, Jessica, who is also my coauthor, lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their young son. My husband and I have an Alaskan malamute, Django (pronounced "Jango") and two Chartreux cats, Kansas City (K.C.) and Shadow Celeste. The malamutes in my Holly Winter books are composites, but the cats in Scratch the Surface, Edith and Brigitte, are portraits of my own Chartreux.

Click HERE to check out their blog

Follow Jessica on Twitter

Friend Jessica on Facebook

And before I let you go ~ Susan is also the author of both the Dog Lover & Cat Lover's series. 

Jessica has a fantastic new Young Adult book out - Relatively Famous.  Click on Jessica's name to the left and check our her blog, read about this great book, and to find out how you can order your copy TODAY!

Saturday Spotlight ~ Favorite FEMALE Mystery Author

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new.  It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related.  Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places. 

 Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.

  Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.

This week my spotlight is shining on my ......

Chelsea Cain

Gretchen Lowell, AKA The Beauty Killer, is the best serial killer in the whole world. Why? Because she’s so pretty. And she really cares about what she does. A lot of murderers today just shoot people in the head, but Gretchen takes the time to make her murders special. Did you know she’s killed more people than any other serial killer in America? It’s true!  

 No one knows where Gretchen was born. She claims to be 34, but we think she looks much younger. She first came to national attention in the early nineties, when Det. Archie Sheridan of the Portland Police Department connected several unexplained murders and the hunt for the so-called “Beauty Killer” began.She has alternately claimed to been a psychiatrist and an ER nurse. Neither claim has ever been corroborated, though she certainly seems to have had some medical training.

How Chelsea got started ~ 

I always knew I would grow up to write gory thrillers.

That’s a lie.

The truth is that I wanted to grow up to be a firedog. There was a vintage fire truck at the park we used to go to when I was a kid and I just really liked the idea of riding on the back of it, ears perked, black and white fur tickled by the wind. My parents were hippies, so didn’t want to limit my potential by telling me that I couldn’t grow up to be a Dalmatian.

I never did get a job as a firedog, so in that sense I’ll always be a failure.
My mother wanted me to grow up to be a potter. We had a clay spinning wheel for a while in the backroom of an apartment we rented, and I have to admit I was pretty good at creating lopsided earthenware pen vases, if you like that sort of thing.

But in retrospect I always had a fascination with the macabre.

It started with the pet cemetery. A kitten of mine was hit by a car and I buried her in an elaborate ceremony under the Rhododendron bush in our front yard in Bellingham, Washington. Then, walking home from school a few months later, I came across a dead bird. I picked it up, put it in my lunchbox, carried it home and buried it under the Rhododendron. I found eight more dead birds that week. They all went into the cemetery. Who knows what kind of bird epidemic was sweeping through my town. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t catch bird flu.

Eventually kids in the neighborhood started hearing about the cemetery and would appear at my door cradling their dead pets. By the end of that year I had buried fifteen birds, three cats, a hamster, a rabbit, a chicken, and about a dozen gold fish. Each corpse was laid in a shoebox, cushioned with toilet paper, and presented with a piece of costume jewelry from a collection that someone had given me. I would then bury the box and say a few words to whoever was present. I had a special vintage ladies hat I would wear for the occasion. It was black, with white silk flowers piled on it, and a torn black net veil.
 I was not an ordinary child.

At the time I was very interested in the Green River Killer. He was our local serial murderer. They found his first victims in 1982. I was ten years old. He went on to kill dozens of women, mostly prostitutes, many of them teenagers. It was the first time that I was aware that there was that sort of danger in the world—That you could go out one day, and they might find you the next day, dead, naked in a river. His main killing ground was about an hour and half from the town I grew up in. But I still thought about him when I was walking my dog alone at night. I followed the stories in the newspaper and I knew that there was a task force assigned to catch him. I liked that idea—a team of professionals who were working really hard to keep me safe from the bogeyman.

I still wasn’t thinking about writing gory thrillers. Though I will admit that, in seventh grade, I got 40 pages into a novel about a female PI. I typed the entire thing in a cursive font. I thought it looked fancy.
Journalism. That was my college goal at the University of California, at Irvine. I didn’t know anyone who wrote books, and after the firedog disappointment, I wanted to be realistic about my professional aspirations.
I even went to graduate school in journalism at the University of Iowa where I wrote a column for The Daily Iowan, dyed my hair dark red and stared reading Sylvia Plath. Literary towns will do that to you.
But there was one thing about journalism that I didn’t like at all: talking to strangers. Writing books, on the other hand, requires talking to far fewer people. And Iowa City, home of the lauded Iowa Writers Workshop, was full of people writing books.

So I wrote a few too.

That’s a lie.

I moved from Iowa to Portland to New York and back to Portland with brief stays in Florida and Pennsylvania, and in the process wrote a dozen books over the next ten years.

But I only published a few.

The rest were really, really bad.

Don’t worry. I had a real job. I was a creative director for a PR firm. (My hair was very blond at this point.)  Then I fell in love with the clerk at my local video store, and in the throes of an identity crisis (I had dyed my hair red again), I retired from PR at the grizzled age of 31. I married the video store clerk and a year later, pregnant with my daughter, I was up late at night and I came across an episode of Larry King Live about the Green River Killer.

They had caught him in 2001, nearly twenty years after his first victims were discovered, and he had a name: Gary Ridgway. I hadn’t thought about the Green River Killer or that case in years, but there, live on TV, were the cops from the task force I remembered as a kid. I recognized them from the newspapers photographs that were burned into my mind. They had spent their careers looking for this guy. And they had caught him.

Finally.

I was safe.

And I thought to myself: gory thriller!

That would be fun to write.

(You find that you have lot of time on your hands when you suddenly are not drinking because you are pregnant.)

So I wrote HEARTSICK. Having begun a book while pregnant and finished it with a baby in the house, I can tell you it is a feat that cannot be adequately praised.
But I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself writing thrillers. It does bring together many of my interests: forensic pathology, medicine, damaged heroes, dead pets, Nancy Drew, TV cops shows, my home of Portland, Oregon, and having an excuse to be alone in a room for long periods. Sometimes I think being a thriller writer might be as fun as being a firedog.

But I guess I’ll never know for sure.

About Chelsea

CHELSEA CAIN was born in 1972, lived the first few years of her life on a hippie commune in Iowa, and grew up in Bellingham, Washington.

Her first novel featuring Detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer Gretchen Lowell, HEARTSICK, was a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and has been translated into over 20 languages.  SWEETHEART and EVIL AT HEART, the second and third in the series, respectively, are also NYT bestsellers.
Chelsea is a former columnist for The Oregonian, and a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review.

She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.

 

Find Chelsea here ~ 

Website

Facebook 

You Tube

Twitter

Who are YOU shining your spotlight on this week?

Saturday Spotlight ~ Favorite MALE Mystery Author

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new.  It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related.  Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places. 

 Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.

  Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.

This week my spotlight is shining on my ......

FAVORITE MALE MYSTERY AUTHOR

Brian Freeman

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Brian Freeman's Jonathan Stride series. 

Get to Know Brian

Brian Freeman is an international bestselling author of psychological suspense novels featuring Lieutenant Jonathan Stride. His books have been sold in 46 countries and 18 languages and have appeared as Main Selections in the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club.

“Who is Brian Freeman?” says bestselling author Michael Connelly. “This guy can tell a story.”

Nelson DeMille echoes that sentiment, saying, “Brian Freeman is a first-rate storyteller.”

Brian’s debut thriller, IMMORAL, won the Macavity Award and was a nominee for the Edgar®, Dagger, Anthony, and Barry awards for best first novel. IMMORAL was chosen as International Book of the Month by book clubs around the world, a distinction shared by bestselling authors such as Harlan Coben and Karin Slaughter. He published his second novel STRIPPED to widespread critical acclaim in 2006. STRIPPED hit the Globe and Mail bestseller list in Canada and was named one of the top 10 mysteries of the year by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The novel was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award.

The Library Journal review of his third novel, STALKED, noted that “Freeman just keeps outdoing himself with each book.” The Chicago Tribune called STALKED “a perfect blend of psychological suspense and crime fiction.” His fourth book, IN THE DARK (called THE WATCHER in the UK), was released in 2009. Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review, calling it Brian’s best book yet, “harrowing and heartrending.”

Brian's latest thriller, THE BURYING PLACE, was just released. Upon its release in the UK in 2009, the reviewer at the Daily Mail in London called it her discovery of the year, saying: "Fleshed-out characters, high tension and terrifying twists put Freeman up there with Harlan Coben in the psychological crime stratosphere."

The drama in Brian's books is driven by the emotions and secrets of the characters. "My goal is to write books with haunting characters and a lightning-fast pace," he says. "My stories are about the hidden intimate motives that draw people across some terrible lines. The twists and turns keep you turning the pages, and each piece in the puzzle gives you new insight into the heroes, victims, and villains."

"I don't like books where the characters are all good or all bad," he adds. "I want them to live in the real world, where morality means tough choices and a lot of shades of gray. I hope that's why readers relate so intensely to the people in my books."

For Brian, launching a worldwide publishing career at age 41 was the culmination of thirty years of fascination with writing suspense fiction. “I started my first ‘novel’ in sixth grade,” he recalls wryly. “It was about the death of a chess grandmaster. This was in the Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky days. I called it Checkmate. Who knows, I may yet go back to that one.”

He credits two unusual sources for his career: his grandmother and his eighth grade composition teacher. “My grandmother really spurred the family obsession with crime fiction. She used to tell us, ‘I’m reading this great new book. It’s got lots of bodies in it!’” His middle-school teacher spotted his obsession with writing and encouraged him to follow it. “She pretty much scrapped the lesson plans for me and simply told me to sit in a corner and write. The next summer, I finished my first full-length novel.”

Freeman rattles off a list of novels he wrote at various points in his life as he honed his craft: a thriller about the kidnapping of a U.S. president; a surreal erotic fantasy about a classical composer (“perfect for an idealistic college kid,” he says), and then three mysteries ranging from racial violence in Minnesota to sexual obsessions in a revival Shaker community to sins and crimes among the super-rich of Newport, Rhode Island.

“I recall James Michener saying that you should only get published after you’ve written a million words,” Freeman says. “By the time I wrote IMMORAL, I must have been just about there.”

Brian on Brian: What is Psychological Suspense?

What can you expect from Brian's books? Here's how he describes them in his own words:

I've never been a fan of putting novels in boxes.

To me, each novel should stand on its own based on its plot and characters, because the styles of all good authors are necessarily different. You may find echoes from author to author, or even book to book, but each novel (even among a series from the same writer) should rise or fall on its unique merits.

Here's an example. The Chicago Tribune review of STALKED said that my books should be on the to-read list for anyone who enjoys books by Harlan Coben and David Baldacci. I'm not complaining! That's high praise to be put in the company of two very successful writers. But my style really isn't much like either Coben's or Baldacci's. Yes, my books are fast-paced, with lots of twists and turns, like their novels, but I don't do suburban suspense like Harlan or political thrillers like David.
On the other hand, I know it's a useful shortcut for readers. If you like Coben, or Baldacci, or Connelly, or Cornwell, will you like my books? I think you will. But the reading experience will be as different as it is for each of those authors.

If I have to build a box, I want it to be my own box. So when readers ask me to give my books a label, here's what I say: If I had to carve out my specific niche in the big, wide genre of mysteries and thrillers, I'd call my novels psychological suspense.

The drama isn't about how the crime was committed (as in a literary game of Clue) or even really about how the crime is solved (such as in the forensic novels of Patricia Cornwell or Kathy Reichs or the police procedurals of Michael Connelly). Instead, the focus is really on why a crime took place to begin with. What was it about the backgrounds of the characters that drew them across a terrible line?

The result is that, chapter by chapter, the story peels back the emotions, secrets, and sexuality of the characters. Yes, there are police investigating crimes, but their voices are not the only ones in the novel. We are also pulled inside the heads of other characters, and we get to know them as complex, multi-dimensional individuals, not all good, not all bad. The suspense and drama are driven by their actions and motives. As a result, the ending should not only be shocking and unexpected; it also should feel like the last piece in the emotional puzzle and the right psychological resolution.

I actually have a specific goal for people reading my books. I want you to read them twice. The pace should be so fast that you have to keep turning the pages to get to the breathtaking climax and find out what happens and why. But when you're done, I want you to feel compelled to go back and read parts of the novel again, to pick up the nuances of the characters you may have missed the first time. The beauty of psychological suspense is that, once you know the secrets, the drama of the interactions changes and becomes something completely different. Suddenly, you know the back story; you know what's in the back of the characters' minds. It gives you a whole new perspective on the novel.

That's my box.

Visit Brian on his Facebook page, at his BLOG or his website

  Now tell me.....who's YOUR favorite mystery MALE author.

DISCLAIMER:

(Stolen from the lovely Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books – thank you!)

The Spotlight isn't just for you to throw your link in there and not visit any other blogs.  It's all about networking and finding new blogs that are of interest.  So, in the spirit of the Spotlight, try to make some time to visit other blogs and don't post your link if you are not planning on visiting other blogs during the week.  This is a weekly event, so if you don't have time this week, that's fine!  Hopefully we'll see you next week!

If you sign MckLinky, make sure to leave a link to YOUR Spotlight post; please share the love and POST ABOUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON YOUR BLOG!  How else will anyone else find out about it and come join the fun?

 Please use the following format when entering your link


Blog Name (Favorite Male Mystery Author)
Example ~ Lori's Reading Corner (Brian Freeman)

Saturday Spotlight

Welcome to my new meme….Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new.  It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related.  Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places. 

 Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.

  Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.

 For our first week I thought we should spotlight OURSELVES!!!  I think it will be great way to introduce ourselves to each other and find out a little bit about each other, what we like to read, and how we got started blogging.

 So, about me.......I’m 39 years old and I live in Massachusetts. I work for my family’s business. I’ve got 3 beautiful nieces and a Maltese puppy named Sadie.  I've always been an avid reader. For as long as I can remember I've never been without a book in my hands, in my handbag, on my bedside table or in my car.  I love to read.  It's what I do for fun, to relax, to escape.  

 I love to read mysteries/thrillers, romantic suspense, contemporary fiction, cozies, woman's fiction, and legal thrillers. I used to be a big romance reader as well, but that fell by the way side.

Four years ago I found a great site - Paperback Swap.  For anyone looking to get rid of old books and find new ones, this is the place for you!  You offer up a book for trade. When someone requests your book, you mail it to them (via media mail which is the cheapest way to mail).  Once the receiver gets your book, you earn a credit. With that credit you can than order one of the millions of books that have been posted by other members. That’s it – easy peasy. Not only will you find books you want, but a whole new world of other genres will be opened up for you. I never knew what a cozy was, and now I’m hooked!  During my time on PBS I made some amazing friends.  Friends who were always looking to me for some great book recommendations.  They even started calling  me “The Book Pimp” and urged me to start a book blog.  Who me? Sure….. Will what I have to say actually persuade someone to read this book? Does anyone actually care about what I have to say about the books I read?   I guess some people do and I thank those of you who follow me and who have visited my site regularly.  Lori’s Reading Corner started off as a little place for me to share with my FRIENDS the books I’ve read and it’s gotten bigger than I could have ever expected or hoped for.  



So thank you to those that urged me to write this blog, the friends that continue to encourage me, the authors, publishers, publicists and others who think enough of me to send me your books to read, review and “pimp.”  I appreciate all of you!

Now…..tell me about you. How did you get started in the blogging world?

DISCLAIMER:

(Stolen from the lovely Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books – thank you!)

The Spotlight isn't just for you to throw your link in there and not visit any other blogs.  It's all about networking and finding new blogs that are of interest.  So, in the spirit of the Spotlight, try to make some time to visit other blogs and don't post your link if you are not planning on visiting other blogs during the week.  This is a weekly event, so if you don't have time this week, that's fine!  Hopefully we'll see you next week!

If you sign MckLinky, make sure to leave a link to YOUR Spotlight post & please share the love and POST ABOUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON YOUR BLOG!  How else will anyone else find out about it and come join the fun?