STORM WARNING

 

For Floridians we’re only week one into the hurricane season, and Tropical Storm Andrea made landfall yesterday.  As a trivia buff [I play on a trivia team every week], I did a search of the use of hurricanes/tropical storms in fiction, film and TV, and not surprisingly there are a fair number.

Think about it. A powerful storm that can be forecasted with an increasing sense of tension, dread and even doom.  The slow but inevitable pace as it approaches the shore where it can impact on thousands of people.  Actions taken, crises met, lives changed: such rich fodder for a writer.  

William Shakespeare certainly makes use of one as a plot element in The Tempest, said to be based on a real hurricane.  Joseph Conrad in Typhoon employs a cyclone for characterization with the ship captain insisting on sailing into the storm.  A hurricane kills key characters in Porgy & Bess, changing the direction of the story.  Another storm leads to a rescue mission in Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger.  Clive Cussler frequently uses storms in his books; in Cyclops, a storm strands the protagonists on an island used by Soviets as an electronic surveillance post. Oh my, can we say tension?

Not only can the storm can even be personalized by the name the author gives it, the name can also play to the venue.  The comic name ‘Flozell’ is given to a storm appearing in the show ’Family Guy’.  Of course, there is “The Perfect Storm”, the nameless horror that took the crew of the Andrea Gail.

A hurricane can be used to stage a crime, impede the hunt for a criminal, cover an alien invasion or be the black moment when all appears lost for the courageous heroine.  

What are some of your favorite books or shows featuring a storm? [and I do believe some should be by NYUS authors... :)]

Carol Stephenson
Escape to Compelling, Heart-Racing Stories
HER DARK PROTECTOR, 2013 EPIC finalist
Website; Facebook; Twitter

P.S.  On a serious, pragmatic note, here are a few tips for hurricane season.

1) Backup your work, whether using Dropbox or some other alternative storage.  When Hurricane Wilma struck, I sent a flash drive with my works-in-progress to my sister.

2) Check on your stockpiles. Now’s the time to make a list and start buying over a period of time.  Batteries, flashlights, water, food staples, waterproofed matches, butane lighters.  I maintain tubs of supplies in my hurricane closet. In the event part of the house is damaged, by spreading my supplies throughout the house, I hope some will be undamaged.   Once hurricane season ends in November, if there’s something I can’t use, I donate it to the food drives.

3) Construction garbage bags. Even the lower category hurricanes will make a mess of the yard. It’s amazing how your neighbor’s messy tree ends up dumping its branches on your yard.

4) Have an emergency plan with your family. If separated, where should you go or send a message? Power lines will go down; cell phone towers will become inoperable.  How are you going to find each other or send word that you’re safe?

5) On my ‘to acquire list’ this year from my tornado alley friends, a helmet. While I plan to place a mattress in my safe closet, I think wearing a helmet is one smart idea.

6) If you have a generator, test drive it ahead of time. It’s a machine. It can decide not to work at the worst time. Speaking of generators, please don’t use it in the garage and/or inside the house.  They make extension cords. The risk of someone stealing the generator isn’t worth you’re losing your life due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

7) My most cherished hurricane supply: a battery-operated TV. Being able to watch the storm bands and knowing they would soon pass kept my sanity during Hurricanes Francis, Jeanne, and Wilma as I listened to the wind howl and things go creak and bump.

 

 

 

 

If the pen is mightier than the sword...

www.zenithgallery.com/

... what happens when the pen is the sword?

I have no insights today, only questions.

We have a common bond on this blog. We're all suspense writers of one form or another, and if you're like me, you've done research that's taken you dark places. But speaking for myself, while some of the research gave me nightmares, I've always had a clear understanding that I write fiction. I create events and people that aren't real.

While the news has been non-stop lately with horrible acts of terror and victimization, two conversations this week have resonated in unexpected ways. Two writing friends shared events that were keeping them awake at night. Men they knew, people they'd gone to lunch with, worked with, thought they knew, had snapped and lashed out. The men killed others, including their wives, and then took their own lives. In both situations, my friends were shaken—hadn't seen the potential for violence, any evidence of mental illness—and were grieving.

I write about law enforcement professionals and amateur sleuths who put themselves in harm's way to bring villains to justice. I've read your books and know your characters take similar paths. But this intrusion of real life into the fictional world has made me wonder. We complain about violent video games and their impact on the kids who play them. Are we writing novels that desensitize people to violence or murder?

What do you think? Does the experience in reading a novel evoke different emotions than the hands-on, visceral experience of a video game? Do we need to dial down the violence? Or does horror rule?

Location, Location, Location

When my first romantic suspense novel, The Paris Secret, was on submission to publishers, I was stunned when an editor rejected it because of the Parisian setting. This editor said that foreign settings didn’t work for her readers. Really? I’m a reader and I certainly enjoy books set in foreign countries. And I know I’m not the only one. Can you say Stieg Larsson? Reading about far off places I’ve never been brings those places alive for me. They take me on journeys I might not otherwise take and all from the comfort of my own home. Here are some of my favorite mystery/suspense/thrillers set in foreign countries.

Murder in the Marais By Cara Black – This is the first book in Cara Black’s wonderful series set in Paris and featuring half French half American private investigator, Aimee Leduc. In this first book, Aimee encounters neo-Nazis; corrupt government officials and fierce anti-Semitism.

Garnethill By Denise Mina - Set in a Glasgow suburb of the same name, Garnethill features troubled Maureen O’Donnell, a woman just released from a stint in a Glasgow psychiatric institute who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a social worker.

Labyrinth By Kate Mosse – If you’ve read my book, The Paris Secret, you can probably tell I’m a big fan of ‘timeslip’ novels. Set in the Languedoc region of France, Labyrinth features two heroines born centuries apart and connected through time by a quest for the Holy Grail.

Haunted Ground By Erin Hart – The first book to feature American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archeologist Cormac Maguire. The two meet when the perfectly preserved head of a young woman is found in a bog west of Ireland.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death By MC Beaton – This is the first book that introduced the world to the unforgettable Agatha Raisin, a London publicist who takes early retirement and moves to a village in the Cotswold’s. When she cheats by entering a store bought quiche in a local competition, a judge ends up poisoned and Agatha is the prime suspect.

Vodka Neat By Anna Blundy - features Faith Zanetti, the new Moscow correspondent for a leading newspaper--chosen for the job because she married a Russian when she was a teenager. But the minute she steps on Russian soil, she is instantly arrested in connection with the murders, fifteen years before, of a couple from a neighboring apartment.

What about you guys? Do you like reading books set in foreign cities?

Angela : )

I Need A Hero

People often ask me why it is that I love writing suspense novels. My every day response is that I like action and adventure. I get a thrill out of the roller coaster ride of emotions that comes from not knowing if the characters, or the world for that matter, will survive.

But lately I’ve been giving that answer some thought. I’ve been looking all around me at what’s happening in the world and it occurred to me that the reason I write suspense is quite different.

I write suspense novels because I need a hero. I need to know that amidst all the turmoil and evil someone can rise up who will stand for what is right and who will ultimately triumph.

Whether that hero is your strong silent alpha male or a kick-ass heroine, I thrive on forcing them to face not only physical peril, but emotional challenges in order to be able to achieve that triumph over evil and the happily-ever-after that we all love so much.

What about you? What is it that you like so much about suspense novels?

Caridad Pineiro's next romantic suspense release is THE FIFTH KINGDOM,
available in July from Carina Press. Here's a short excerpt for you!

Prologue

The force of the blow rattled her teeth and snapped her head back.

Dr. Miranda Adams reluctantly brought her head forward once more, tonguing the inside of her cheek to gauge the damage as the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

She had been stupid to think she could lose her pursuers in the Sunday crowds in Chapultepec Park. Even more brainless to think that a floppy straw sombrero and big sunglasses would let her blend into the throng of locals.

Her disguise had only screamed turista even louder.

For the last two days she had been paying the price for that stupidity, she thought, her brain slightly muzzy from the last blow. Her body aching from the combination of physical beatings and confinement to the hard wooden chair.

“Where is the tomb and what is in it?” her inquisitor asked in Spanish, fists clenched at his sides, but ready to lash out at her if she should fail to answer yet again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, just as she had been saying for the last forty-eight hours, not that he believed her.

Not that he should.

She knew full well what he was talking about–the tomb of Montezuma, one of the last emperors of the Aztecs.

She knew full well where it was and the secrets it hid, not that she would tell him. She had discovered only days earlier that he was the head of the local Primera Mexica cell and with a group that dangerous, she could not trust him. As long as she kept the secret, she would live. The moment she told them...

“You leave me little choice,” Javier Ramirez replied. He inclined his head in the direction of the far side of the basement where they were holding her captive. A plain wooden table sat close to the cinder block wall and beside it was a small cart where she could discern a car battery, jumper cables and a bucket.

Fear crawled along her nerve endings as one of the men approached, untied her from the chair and then dragged her to the table.

She fought him, digging her heels into the soft dirt of the basement floor, using her greater height to try and escape from his grasp by jerking her body to and fro, but he was short, thickly muscled and stable on his feet. He didn’t even wobble as she struggled in vain against the hold he had on her.

Apparently tired of her resistance, he enveloped her in his stocky arms, nearly stealing her breath with the pressure of his grip. He hauled her the last few feet to the table and unceremoniously tossed her onto the top of the rough wooden surface. A moment later he was tying her arms and legs to the four table legs.

Her inquisitor approached, but as he did so, Javier gestured to her with his hand and another assistant quickly removed her boots and socks and pulled out a large knife.

She bit back any show of fear, but jumped a little when the man slipped the knife beneath the front hem of her cotton blouse. The metal was cold beside her skin. With one quick swipe he sliced open the front of her shirt. She had no doubt what they planned for her, but she once again reminded herself that they needed her alive in order to find the tomb.

Her captor must have seen the determination in her eyes.

Javier picked up the ends of the jumper cables and inched closer until she could smell the cheap cologne that failed to hide the rank odor of his body.

“Do not fool yourself, Dr. Adams. Sometimes life is severely overrated as you’ll soon discover.”

When he pulled away, someone tossed the water that had been in the bucket over her body. The welcome respite that the chill wetness brought from the Mexican summer heat was short-lived. Her assailant touched both ends of the jumper cables together and sparks flew into the air.

She sucked in a breath, girding herself for the first sharp blast, but nothing could have prepared her for the jolt. Her body jerked spasmodically, every nerve ending springing to painful life.

After Javier broke the contact of the jumper cables against her body, she sagged onto the tabletop, her muscles twitching while she sought to recover.

“Where is the tomb, Dr. Adams?” Javier asked once more and brought the jumper cables near, touching them together to send another shower of sparks through the air.

Miranda thought of the tomb and of the sun stone within it. Thought of how long she had searched for the burial place of Montezuma and what she had sacrificed for its discovery.

Her career.

Her husband and daughter.

The happy life she had once had.

Because of that she was certain of one thing–it would take a lot more than this to make her reveal the secret for which she had already paid so dearly.

“Sorry, amigo. I seem to be having a little problem with my memory lately.”

The shock this time was not as unexpected, but he kept the cables against her wet skin longer.

Much longer.

Javier kept her jumping and dancing at the end of the cables like some grotesque marionette until her body and brain overloaded, shutting down her senses in self-defense.

She sagged against the table, no longer feeling any pain. No longer aware of what was being done to her. The only thought remaining in her brain...

You cannot tell them the secret of the tomb.

It was the only thing of value she had left in her life.