Featured Book: Dear Crossing

Dear Crossing
by Marjorie Swift Doering

Ray Schiller’s personal demons are sucking him down like quicksand. Moving his family from Chicago to Widmer, Minnesota in an effort to leave a tragic past behind has only added to his problems. Now, with his marriage on the verge of disintegration, the grisly murder of a prominent Minneapolis businessman’s wife at the couple’s lakeside summer home, forces Ray to follow the trail of evidence to the Twin Cities. Working with homicide detective Dick Waverly, they begin to look into the widower’s carefully guarded personal life. The executive’s plan to take over his father-in-law’s corporation depends on keeping them in the dark.

The case is turned on its head when ambition, power, love and hate result in lethal consequences. With the case turned on its head, Ray is forced to return to Widmer where an unthinkable incident makes him the subject of a harrowing Internal Affairs investigation. Pushed to the brink personally and professionally, Ray realizes the “devil” is in the details.

Dear Crossing is available from Amazon.

The Gem of Inspiration

In 1919, Everett H. Thayer was a traveling salesman. He sold kitchen wares and cutlery, in the rural and remote areas of Southern Missouri and Northwest Arkansas.

One day, he stopped along a remote dirt road to relieve himself. He saw an interesting rock there along the edge of a field. He was an amateur rock collector, and often showed the stones he collected on his journeys to his neighbor, a Professor Weinrich, who was retired professor of geology. Everett picked up the rock, which he took to be a moderately-sized piece of quartz, and placed it in a box with some others in the back of his truck, thinking no more about it until returning home. Continue reading “The Gem of Inspiration”

Sneak Peek: The Lady Astronomer

Today we have a sneak peek from author Katy O’Dowd’s new steampunk novel, The Lady Astronomer.

Lucretia’s life as an astronomer is quickly turned on its head by her eldest brother when he is commanded by the king to build the grandest telescope in the land.

Her nights spent on rooftops gazing at the stars are replaced by adventure as the family move to be nearer the king. In a race to build the Forty-foot telescope on time, misfortunes take their toll. The lady astronomer finds court life to be more dangerous than she could have ever imagined. Can she find the strength inside to overcome the obstacles threatening her destiny? Only the stars will tell.

The Lady Astronomer is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from The Lady Astronomer: Continue reading “Sneak Peek: The Lady Astronomer”

Researching Your Novel…Can You Go Too Far?

“So are you up for a little adventure?” my fellow indie writer asked, blue eyes bright with anticipation.

A little adventure. Sure. I’d recently quit my nine-to-five job and was living the vida loca, writing full-time from home, and figured I could use an adventure. Shake up the old synapses, give me some good material for the further escapades of one of the protagonists in a popular action-adventure series I write. What the heck, I thought. Couldn’t hurt.

I was wrong. Continue reading “Researching Your Novel…Can You Go Too Far?”