The benefits of listening to audio books
Posted: July 10, 2019 Filed under: Audio Books, Books, Children's Books, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Reading | Tags: Audio Books, Children's Stories, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read 33 Comments
I love listening to audio books. There is no better way, in my experience, to appreciate a good book than listening to it being read aloud by a skilled reader. I listen to approximately four audio books in a six week period, many of which are classic books.
My love of listening to stories started when I was a little girl, although audio books were few and far between then. I remember listening repeatedly to a cassette with four stories about a family’s adventures in the wild west of America which I was given as a birthday present. My father also bought me a couple of LP’s, including Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty, and I listened to these often.
During our music appreciation lessons at school, our teacher played us the audio books of Peter and the Wolf, a symphonic fairy tale for children, which comprises of a narrator telling a story while an orchestra illustrates it. The intention of this composition is to introduce children to the individual instruments of the orchestra and it did its job well for me, as listening to this story is one of my remembered highlights of my childhood and I have never forgotten the names of the various instruments and the sounds they made. If you are interested in listening to this brilliant story, you can find it here:
I also remember listening to the Sparky books at school. This series comprises of Sparky’s magic piano, Sparky’s magic echo, Sparky’s magic baton and Sparky and the talking train. The magic of these stories is still readily available to me if I sit and conjure up my memories of listening to them as a child. The audio versions of these stories made a huge impact on me as I don’t remember any story that I read myself as vividly.
When my boys were small I searched for, and purchased, all of the Sparky stories and Peter and the wolf as audio books for them. We used to listen to them in the car when we traveled, together with an array of nursery rhyme CD’s. My boys grew to love music and both of them learned to play instruments. Michael still plays the drums and intends to learn the guitar as well.
Audio books are a wonderful way of teaching children to appreciate literature and also grammar. They enable children to learn and understand complex language above their own reading levels and illustrate the benefits in story telling of punctuation, enunciation and emphasis.
Audio books make literature more accessible to children who struggle with reading, giving them an opportunity to enjoy the text without struggle to decipher difficult text. It teaches children new words and phrases, thereby expanding their vocabularies. In addition, in a modern world of shortening concentration spans in children due to television and computer games, audio books teach children to sit and listen.
I used audio books extensively as a tool to help Michael learn to enjoy books and develop a love of reading. When Michael was four years old, I discovered Naxos Audio Books and I bought a significant number of these for Michael. We listened to non-fiction books, including Famous Heroes of the American West, The Vikings and Great Scientists and Their Discoveries, fairy tales, including Grimms’ Fairy Tales and fiction, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, New Treasure Seekers, The Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and It, The Children of the New Forest and The Coral Island. Amazingly, Michael loved The Children of the New Forest and The Coral Island and listened to them repeatedly during his bouts of illness.
I received Michael’s school report for the first half of the year recently and the teacher remarked on his excellent vocabulary and above average comprehension skills. I attribute his strength in these areas to all the audio books we listened to and all the reading aloud I did to him and his brother.
Did your children listen to audio books? If yes, did you experience these benefits? Let me know in the comments.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. I have two short stories in the horror/supernatural genre included in Dark Visions, a collection of 34 short stories by 27 different authors and edited by award winning author, Dan Alatorre and three short stories included in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories edited by award winning author, Stephen Bentley. These short stories are published under Robbie Cheadle.
I have recently published a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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Interview with hardboiled crime fiction author Jim Nesbitt
Posted: July 8, 2019 Filed under: Books, Crime, Fiction, Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, Writing | Tags: Author Interview, Crime Fiction, Ed Earl Burch, Hard-boiled fiction, Jim Nesbitt, The Best Lousy Choice, Writing to be Read 3 Comments
My guest today has a background in hard hitting journalism and he writes hard-boiled crime fiction in the tradition of Dashiel Hammet, and other famed crime writers. I’m pleased to be interviewing him because he represents a great literary tradition in genre. Please help me welcome, crime fiction novelist Jim Nesbitt.
Kaye: Your writing is classified as hard-boiled fiction, but you have your own style. Can you tell me a little about your style of hard-boiled fiction?
Jim: I’ve always thought of hard-boiled crime fiction as a distinctly American art form. Rooted in realism, cynicism, violence, corruption and a dark view of the American dream, it’s also a tremendously flexible genre. It’s best practitioners — from the founding fathers, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, through Ross Macdonald, James Ellroy and the late and vastly underappreciated James Crumley — use it as a vehicle to comment on contemporary American life and politics, music, culture, the warped psychology of the hardened criminal and the suburban housewife, the tortured dance between men and women and anything else that strikes their fancy. When I decided to try my hand at fiction, I knew it would be hard-boiled crime fiction because it matches my outlook on life and my experience as a journalist as well as the freedom I saw in the books of the very best writers, not that I’m close to being in their class.
As for my style, it’s the result of years of working as a journalist who came up through the ranks at a time when long-format stories that used the narrative style and tradecraft of fiction were the rage, what I learned from reading Hammett, Chandler, Crumley, Ellroy, James Lee Burke and others and the genetics of coming from a long line of hillbilly storytellers. Every writer hopes to develop a unique voice, free from template and artifice. Few do. I write the way I talk — which is a curious mixture of film noir patter and cowboyspeak, with a little Tex-Mex thrown in. No surprise there since I spent quite a few years knocking around the West and the border between Texas and Mexico, used to own horses and am steeped in the dark movies of the 40s and 50s.
I’m also a strong believer in driving a story through snappy and hard-bitten dialogue, sharply defined characters with depth and lots of backstory and such a keen sense of place that it becomes a character unto itself. I spent a lot of time knocking around the West and the West Texas border country and my books are shot through with scenes based on what I saw out there. More than one reviewer has said my books have the soul of a classic Western, with hard-boiled and noirish trappings, and I tend to agree with them. Although they’re set in the late-80s and early 90s, they’re as much contemporary Westerns as they are hard-boiled crime novels.
Kaye: Tell me a little about your main character. Who is Ed Earl Burch?
Jim: Ed Earl’s a bit of an Everyman, a guy who has been knocked around by life. He’s a defrocked Dallas vice and homicide detective, tossed off the force for being a little too willing to beat the hell out of or shoot suspects and for being a terminal smartass who doesn’t know when to shut up. The brass also blames him for the death of his partner, which trebles the guilt he already feels.
Losing his badge robs Ed Earl of his sense of purpose and higher calling and takes away a job he’s really good at — chasing down killers. He’s a manhunter at heart, but without his badge, he retreats into a corner defined by the path from his apartment, to his ratty office and his favorite saloon, chasing down financial fugitives from the savings-and-loan bust of the mid-80s and taking on divorce cases he loathes because he’s in hock to his eyeballs.
What he isn’t is super-smart, like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. He’s tough and shrewd, but dogged more than brilliant. He’s no square-jawed Jack Reacher or other action hero one step removed from a comic book or graphic novel. He’s bearded, balding and has a belly. He’s got wrecked knees, a wounded liver and an empty bank account. He’s an anti-hero who sometimes forgets to live by his personal code — and a bit of a burnout.
In THE BEST LOUSY CHOICE, he starts out as an emotional wreck, plagued by nightmares from his last misadventure captured in THE LAST SECOND CHANCE, where he was almost killed by a psychotic drug lord who believed in Aztec heart sacrifice and had Ed Earl trussed up on a stone altar to carve out his heart. He’s self-medicating with bourbon and Percodan, but finds out that when he’s working, he steadies up and the old cop reflexes return. When he gets asked to look into a suspicious barn fire that killed a prominent West Texas rancher, he leaps at the chance to be a manhunter again, unburdened by the rules and laws he had to live by as a cop. He pays a terrible price both physically and emotionally to do a job he was born to do — as he does in my other books.
Kaye: You were a journalist chasing all kinds of stories. How much of your true life experiences have found their way into your stories?
Jim: I kind of tipped my hand with my answer to your first question. The scenes in my books are based on what I saw and experienced as a journalist knocking around this great country, particularly the South, the West and West Texas. Chances are, if I’m writing about it, I’ve been there. I fell in love with the stark, harsh and beautiful land of what they call the Trans-Pecos and I used that to create a keen sense of place in all my books. It’s the perfect setting for bloody tales of revenge and redemption. During my years as a journalist, I also met cops, prosecutors, crooks and a few killers so they went into the creative pot. So did my marital misadventures, my taste for bourbon, my love of great saloons and my preference for Colt 1911 semi-automatics.
Kaye: You were a journalist for a good part of your life, and now you are an author, so it seems as if writing is a way of life for you. When did you first know that you wanted to become an author?
Jim: I come from a long line of hillbilly storytellers and remember listening to the stories my uncles, aunts, parents and grandparents told about family, friends and life experiences. As a kid, I always had my nose in a book and started writing my own little stories. When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher, Mary Bailey, took my aside and told me I was a writer. She even called my dad in to tell him the same thing and to encourage me to be a writer. That impressed dad and me, although I took a long intermediate step as a journalist before trying my hand at novels. Call it an apprenticeship that lasted decades.
Kaye: What is the biggest challenge for you in writing crime fiction?
Jim: I still have a demanding day job, so finding the time to write is my biggest challenge. I’m also an older writer and don’t have quite as much energy as I did twenty or twenty-five years ago — can’t stay up until the small hours writing a novel, then turn around and put in a ten to twelve hour day at the office. Have to pace myself and carve out big blocks of time during the weekends to write Ed Earl books.
Kaye: What’s something most readers would never guess about you?
Jim: That I’m an introvert at heart and inherently shy. I’m a big guy with presence and a bit of a showboat in a crowd, but that covers up my introverted innards.
Kaye: Besides writing, what are your favorite things to do?
Jim: Taking long trips on back roads to nowhere with my wife in our 1972 Cutlass Supreme ragtop and smoking a cigar and sipping bourbon while reading a good book.
Kaye: Which author, dead or alive, would you love to have lunch with? Why?
Jim: The late, great James Crumley. I learned a lot about writing through reading his books — DANCING BEAR, BORDERSNAKES, THE WRONG CASE. He taught me to let it rip with frank descriptions of violence, sex, drugs and other forms of wretched excess. His characters, particularly Milo Milodragovitch, are deeply flawed anti-heroes, just like Ed Earl. He was also a man with a taste for deep whiskeys and red meat, so I think a liquid lunch with a porterhouse side dish would be a helluva lot of fun and would teach me a thing or two about writing.
Kaye: How do you build suspense in your stories?
Jim: I really don’t worry too much about building suspense. I think that’s a natural byproduct of driving the story at a relentless pace through dialogue, character and lots of action. I want the reader to think: How is Ed Earl gonna get out of this mess? Who is this new bad hombre and what kind of pain is he going to rain down on ol’ Ed Earl?
Kaye: You’re working on the next Ed Earl Burch novel, The Best Lousy Choice. What can you tell me about that story?
Jim: Dallas private eye Ed Earl Burch is an emotional wreck, living on the edge of madness, hosing down the nightmares of his last case with bourbon and Percodan, dreading the next onslaught of demons that haunt his days and nights, including a one-eyed dead man who still wants to carve out his heart and eat it.
Burch is also a walking contradiction. Steady and relentless when working a case. Tormented and unbalanced when idle. He’s deeply in debt to a shyster lawyer who forces him to take the type of case he loathes — divorce work, peephole creeping to get dirt on a wayward husband.
Work with no honor. Work that reminds him of how far he’s fallen since he lost the gold shield of a Dallas homicide detective. Work in the stark, harsh badlands of West Texas, the border country where he almost got killed and his nightmares began.
What he longs for is the clarity and sense of purpose he had when he carried that gold shield and chased killers for a living. The adrenaline spike of the showdown. Smoke ‘em or cuff ‘em. Justice served — by his .45 or a judge and jury.
When a rich rancher and war hero is killed in a suspicious barn fire, the rancher’s outlaw cousin hires Burch to investigate a death the county sheriff is reluctant to touch.
Seems a lot of folks had reason for wanting the rancher dead — the local narco who has the sheriff on his payroll; some ruthless Houston developers who want the rancher’s land; maybe his own daughter. Maybe the outlaw cousin who hired Burch.
Thrilled to be a manhunter again, Burch ignores these red flags, forgetting something he once knew by heart.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And it might just get you killed.
But it’s the best lousy choice Ed Earl Burch is ever going to get.
I want to thank Jim for being my guest here and sharing with us. He has shed some light on what hard-boiled fiction is all about and obviously loves his craft. You can learn more about Jim Nesbitt and his books at the links below.
https://jimnesbittbooks.com Website
https://www.amazon.com/author/jimnesbitt Amazon author page
https://www.facebook.com/edearlburchbooks Facebook author page
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14971688.Jim_Nesbitt Goodreads author page
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-best-lousy-choice/id1468993353 Apple Books E-Book
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-best-lousy-choice Kobo E-Book
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1132276790?ean=2940161430828 Barnes & Noble Nook E-Book
https://spottedmule.wordpress.com/ Blog
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https://twitter.com/EdEarlBurch?lang=en Twitter author page
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“Rose City”: Noir crime fiction at its finest
Posted: July 5, 2019 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Crime, Fiction, Noir | Tags: Book Review, Michael Poole, Noir, Noir crime fiction, Rose City, Writing to be Read 2 Comments
Rose City, by Michael Pool takes readers on a stroll down the darker side of small town social structures in a journey well deserving of noir acclaim. This skillfully crafted story will keep the pages turning, as the greed and corruption of Teller County unnfolds before the readers eyes. Rose City is everything a noir novel should be. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear the name Michael Poole in noir circles more and more often once the word gets out about his superb noir style and talent.
Cole Quick escaped Teller County once and he thought it was for good. Now he’s returning, following the death of his father, and is quickly reminded of all the reasons he fled this place. When he learns of the gruesome death of his childhood friend, Jimmy, it begins to look like things haven’t really changed much at all. But, there’s more going on in Teller County than what it appears on the surface. Cole takes a walk in the underbelly of Teller County’s drug trade, and finds himself in the middle of Teller County’s social elite. There are dark things happening, corruption, power and greed are behind the heineous events that occurred in Cole’s absence, events that may include Jimmy’s murder and more. The harder he’s pushed, the more determined Cole becomes to expose those running the show in Teller County for who and what they are, and thwart their corrupt game of greed and power… or die trying.
Cole Quick is a perfectly flawed noir hero, and Rose City is a perfectly dark noir tale. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Interview with Pulp & Crime Fiction Author Quintin Peterson
Posted: July 2, 2019 Filed under: Author Profile, Books, Crime, Fiction, Interview, Mystery, Noir, Pulp Fiction, Stories, Writing | Tags: Author Interview, Crime Fiction, Luther Kane, mystery, Norman Blalock, Pulp Fiction, Quintin Peterson, Writing to be Read 8 Comments
I have the pleasure of conversing with a pleasant guest today, whose love of life shines in his eyes and his smile, author Quintin Peterson. A talented author, whose work keeps classic craft alive in modern times. He writes pulp and crime fiction in many variations, throwing new twists on the classic styles. I can’t wait for you to meet him. So, without further adeau, let’s find out what Quintin Peterson has to share.
Kaye: Tell me about your author’s journey. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you make that dream a reality?
Quintin: I began entertaining my friends and family by telling them amazing stories long before I started writing them. I obtained my first copyright when I was 13. While in high school, I was awarded a National Council of Teachers of English Writing Award, the University of Wisconsin’s Science Fiction Writing Award, and the Wisconsin Junior Academy’s Writing Achievement Award. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, I wrote and performed in two stage plays and received a Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation grant for my play project, Change. I also received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship, for playwriting.
Kaye: What is your favorite thing about writing crime fiction?
Quintin: I gave up creative writing and pursued a 30-year career in law enforcement. I rarely found justice during all the years I worked as a police officer for the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C. I suppose it is the reason why writing crime fiction is my dominant obsession: I find justice in my stories.
Kaye: You’ve had both short fiction and novel length works published? Which do you prefer writing? Why?
Quintin: It’s a toss-up, really. I like writing short stories for magazines and anthologies because of the word count limits, but I also like not being constrained by a word count limit for longer fiction.
Kaye: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing short fiction?
Quintin: The most challenging thing about writing short fiction is doing more with less. Writing short fiction for magazines and anthologies also afford me opportunities to experiment with genre-blending. For example, I’ve sold a cop/ghost story, a horror/mystery/noir thriller, science fiction/noir mysteries, and an Arthurian police story.
Kaye: What is the most challenging thing about writing novel length works?
Quintin: The most challenging thing about writing novel length fiction is avoiding the pitfall of being too wordy and doing less with more.
Kaye: Pulp fiction, maybe even more than other genres, must have well developed, larger than life characters. How do your characters develop for you?
Quintin: I create backstories for my characters so that I know them in order to make them seem real, and then pit them against each other in what I endeavor to make compelling stories.
Kaye: Which of your main characters is your favorite? Why?
Quintin: I have two favorite characters: Norman Blalock and Luther Kane, who are cousins and appear in each other’s stories. I like Blalock because people underestimate him. I like Kane because he is a man of action.
Kaye: Your story “Broken Doll” just came out in Awesome Tales #10. That story is a part of your Private Eye Luther Kane Mystery Series. Would you tell me a little about who Luther Kane is and what makes him a great pulp hero?
Quintin: Luther Kane is a former DC police officer, as well as a former soldier and soldier of fortune who is maimed by a landmine. The loss of his legs does not prevent him from operating upon the same principles he adhered to when he was whole. He rises from his own ashes and walks again on state-of-the-art bionic legs, a miracle of modern science. At the suggestion of his physical therapist Claire Bradley, who taught him to walk again, he takes over his late father’s business, the Intrepid Detective Agency, located atop the other family business he inherited, the Last Stop Liquor Store.
Kaye: The Voynich Gambit is book two in your Norman Blalock Mystery Series and it won the Literary Titan Book Award. Tell me a little about that series. Who is Norman Blalock, and what makes him a great pulp hero?
Quintin: In these old-fashioned heist stories, Norman Blalock is a disgraced Howard University history professor who has been working as a special police officer for the Folger Shakespeare Library for decades. No one at the library knows his background and only see him as “an old black security guard.” The first Norman Blalock Mystery is Guarding Shakespeare, followed by The Voynich Gambit. The upcoming third installment is The Shakespeare Redemption. (By the way: I worked at the Folger Shakespeare Library for almost seven years, beginning the same year I retired from the police department, and penned the first two installments while I was employed there.)
Kaye: Who is your favorite villain? Why?
Quintin: Kavitha Netram, the femme fatale Norman Blalock matches wits with in both Guarding Shakespeare and The Voynich Gambit. She returns in The Shakespeare Redemption. She is smart, sexy, and ruthless.
Kaye: What are you working on now? What can readers expect in the future from Quintin Peterson?
Quintin: Right now, I am working on The Shakespeare Redemption. I will continue to write more installments of the Norman Blalock and the Private Eye Luther Kane mysteries, as well as other noir stories. I also plan to write more science fiction and horror thrillers.
Thanks for having me, Kaye. It’s been a pleasure.
I want to thank Quintin Peterson for sharing with me. It’s been enlightening for me and I hope it has for all of you readers, too. You can find out more about Quintin and his books at the links below. (Be sure to visit his Amazon page. You’ll find a large selection of books and short fiction in a wide range of variations upon the genre. Pulp and crime fiction fans may call it a gold mine. Those unfamiliar with the genre should check it out. It’s a fun genre. )
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Quintin-Peterson/e/B002BMCR2E?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1561789921&sr=8-1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quintin.peterson.56
Twitter: https://twitter.com/luther_kane
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quintin-peterson-263b4b8/
Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/26191433-quintin-peterson
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Writing for a YA Audience: Author Photo Shoot
Posted: June 19, 2019 Filed under: Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Writing for a YA Audience, Young Adult | Tags: Fantasy, Fanya in the Underworld, Jordan Elizabeth, Writing for a YA Audience, YA, Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction Leave a comment
I’ve done a few photo shoots for my author pictures, and they are always so much fun. I get to feel like a model. For FANYA IN THE UNDERWORLD, we decided to do things a little differently. Aaron Siddall illustrated the book and I wrote it; we both brainstormed the concepts. Because this was a joint collaboration, we decided to have a joint photo.
A good friend of ours, Monica Reid Keba, met with us at the Utica Train Station, known as Union Station. The building is beautiful, with marble pillars and chandeliers. Stepping inside is a little like going back in time. Many of the fixtures are original from the construction in 1914. I have a special fondness for the waiting room benches. Not only do they incorporate the heating system, but they are gorgeous to look at. The station was designed by Allen Stem and Alfred Fellheimer. In case you aren’t familiar with those names, they are the architects who designed New York City’s Grand Central Station.
Aaron Siddall and I posed on the benches, beneath the chandeliers, and outside. The autumn day was crisp, with a light drizzle in the air. I hiked up my skirt and scaled the side of an old trolley car. We also explored the park next door. The train station is located in the historic Bagg’s Square neighborhood. The quaint park, surrounded by a stone fence, is home to the site of a log cabin known as Bagg’s Tavern. This log cabin saw esteemed guests such as George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant.
If you are ever in the area and love visiting historic sites, check out the train station and Bagg’s Tavern. Your eyes won’t be disappointed by the sites.
Jordan Elizabeth is a young adult fantasy author. She is most likely gazing at something in awe, something she will soon include in one of her novels. You can connect with Jordan – and point her in the direction of some paranormal activity – via her website, JordanElizabethBooks.com.
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Chatting with the Pros: Interview with suspense thriller novelist John Nicholl
Posted: June 17, 2019 Filed under: Author Profile, Books, Chatting with the Pros, Fiction, Interview, Suspense, Thriller | Tags: Author Interview, Chatting with the Pros, John Nicholl, Suspense, The Girl In Red, Thriller, Writing to be Read 2 Comments
It’s my pleasure to have as my guest today on “Chatting with the Pros” bestselling suspense thriller author John Nicholl. His works draw from his own true life experiences as a law enforcement officer and child welfare social worker in Wales. John has written seven thrillers and every one of them has seen the bestseller list. Please help me welcome him now. Maybe we can learn some of his secrets to becoming a bestselling author.
Kaye: Would you share the story of your own publishing journey?
John: I self-published initially. When that went better than expected, I partnered with a literary agent and signed a publishing deal. Further books followed from there.
Kaye: What do you think is the single most important element in a story?
John: The hook is crucial. I try to capture the reader’s attention from the very first page.
Kaye: What time of day do you prefer to do your writing? Why?
John: I write in the morning. It’s when I’m at my most creative.
Kaye: What is the biggest challenge in writing psychological thrillers for you?
John: My books sometimes engender memories that were, perhaps, best left in the past.
Kaye: What elements of storytelling do you feel are specific to the thriller genre? Are there particular elements that are specific to psychological thrillers?
John: Psychological thrillers explore the extremes of human behaviour.
Kaye: Anonymity is described as intense and terrifying; White is the Coldest Color as violent and brutal; Portraits of the Dead as disturbing and compelling; The Girl in Red as haunting and unsettling. Where do you get ideas for your stories?
John: I began my working life as a young police officer, and subsequently trained as a social worker. I worked in child protection for about twenty years after qualifying. My writing draws heavily on those experiences.
Kaye: Thrillers are action-packed and filled with conflict and tension. What techniques do you use to keep the story moving, the readers on the edges of their seats, and the pages turning?
John: I try to keep the stories as fast paced as possible, without too much padding. Quality is more important than length!
Kaye: How do you decide the titles for your books? Where does the title come in the process for you?
John: Inspiration comes from different places. The title of White is the Coldest Colour, for example, came to me when listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale on Radio 2.
Kaye: Is there anything unique or unusual about your writing process?
John: The words come into my head as if channelled from somewhere else entirely.
Kaye: Your latest release was The Girl in Red, which came out in March. Would you like to tell me a little about this book?
John: The Girl in Red is a dark tale of domestic violence, and the extreme lengths that one woman goes to, to escape her tormentor.
Kaye: Every one of your books has been an Amazon bestseller. What’s your secret?
John: I’ve had a lot of luck. And the book blogging community has been wonderfully supportive. I’ll always be grateful for that.
Kaye: Are there any particular thriller authors that you fashioned your writing style after as you approached writing in the thriller genre?
John: I mostly read historical biography and stories of real-life experiences that are out of the ordinary· Castaway by Lucy Irvine is a particular favourite. I’ve read it three times over the years.
Kaye: What are you working on now? What’s next for John Nicholl?
John: My next thriller, The Girl in White, will be published by Bloodhound Books this year. The release date has just been bumped up to September 4. It’s the story of a secret, quasi-religious cult hidden deep in the beautiful West Wales countryside. Hopefully, readers will like it. I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
I want to thank John for joining me here and sharing with us today. You can learn more about John and his bestselling thriller novels on his website, on his Amazon Author page. or on his Goodreads Author page. Join me on the third Monday in July, when we’ll be celebrating crime fiction and my “Chatting with the Pros” author guest will be Jenifer Ruff.
You can catch the monthly segment “Chatting with the Pros” on the third Monday of every month in 2019, or you can be sure not to any of the great content on Writing to be Read by signing up by email or following on WordPress.
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“Only Wrong Once”: A medical thriller that could be fact instead of fiction
Posted: June 14, 2019 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Medical Thriller, Thriller | Tags: Book Review, Jenifer Ruff, Medical Thriller, Only Wrong Once, Thriller, Writing to be Read 4 Comments
Only Wrong Once, by Jennifer Ruff is a fast paced medical thriller that deals with international bio-terrorism on a personal level, bringing it all home in a big way. Maybe the reason this tale hits a nerve is that there are similar stories in the news every day, and Only Wrong Once made me wonder about the stories we don’t hear about.
Quinn Traynor is a U.S. intelligence agent out to save the world from terrorism, but his next case will hit closer to home than most of the terrorist attacks he’s worked to thwart. When a plot to strike terror into Americans in pandemic proportions with a bio-terrorism attack, the clock is ticking to find and stop the terrorists before they can carry out their deadly plan. Time is running out for the terrorists, too, maybe faster than anyone thinks, and if they succeed, time may be running out for the entire nation. Quinn and his team work against all odds to stop the bio-terrorism weapon from being released on the country, but can they succeed in time to make a difference?
Only Wrong Once will be released next month in the medical thriller box set, Do No Harm. It is available for preorder now.
The ticking clock lends Only Wrong Once just the right amount of urgency to keep the pages turning. It is well-crafted and keeps readers sitting on the edge of their seats. The plot is downright scary, because it could happen. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Author Update: The Making of a Memoir On Hold Indefinitely
Posted: June 12, 2019 Filed under: Book Covers, Books, Editing, Fiction, His Name Was Michael, Memoir, Nonfiction, Paranormal, Publishing, Self-Publishing, Speculative Fiction, Stories, Western, WordCrafter, WordCrafter Press, Writing | Tags: Anthologies, Ask the Authors Anthology, Delilah, Delilah: The Homecoming, His Name Was Michael, Losing Michael: Teen Suicide and a Mother's Grief, Whispers of the Past, WordCrafter, WordCrafter Press, Writing to be Read 4 Comments
I’m sorry to say that the obstacles and road blocks I mentioned in my April post have brought my memoir writing process to a screeching halt before it had truly begun, and thus, this bi-monthly blog series must come to a halt, as well, until I can find answers to the problems related to writing about real people and organizations which is necessary to telling my son Michael’s story, as well as my own. Losing Michael: Teen Suicide and a Mother’s Grief has been shelved, at least for a while due to legalities. This book project is based from my personal experience and is dear to my heart, and it great saddness that I make this decision, but I’m not ready to face the trials that forging ahead with it would require.
On the other hand, there are exciting things on the horizon. My efforts for the near future will turn to working on the issue of re-issuing Delilah, which Dusty Saddle Publishing has so graciously offered to do. Once this is completed, I plan to pick up where I left off on the drafting of the second book, Delilah: The Homecoming. I just got Delilah back on track in this story with considerable revisions and I’m a little sad to have to delay the completion of this book, but also confident that the story will be better for it.
I will be getting the WordCrafter website up and running and ready for launch. Get ready folks, because WordCrafter Writer & Author Services is coming soon. Services will include Editing and Copywriting services, online courses, and WordCrafter Press.
I’ll also be compiling and publishing the two great anthologies to be released by WordCrafter Press. The Ask the Authors anthology will feature the collaborative interviews from the 2018 “Ask the Authors” blog series right here on Writing to be Read. This book will be filled with writing tips and advice from authors who are out there doing it, a valuable writing reference for authors in all stages of the publishing journey.
The other anthology, Whispers in the Dark, will be a short story collection harvested from the WordCrafter Paranormal Short Story Contest held at the beginning of 2019. It will feature several of the submissions from the contest, including the winning entry, “A Peaceful Life I’ve Never Had”, by Jeff Bowles. These anthologies are still in the preliminary stages, but I plan to have them both out by the end of the year. I have cover ideas for each one, but only Whispers has a final version at this time. I plan to release it in October.
To keep up on the latest with my writing endeavors and with Wordcrafter, sign up for my monthly newsletter in the pop-up. When you do, you’ll recieve a free e-copy of my paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets.
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“The Gamma Sequence”: Non-stop Action and Suspense
Posted: June 7, 2019 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, Medical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller | Tags: Children's Books, Classic Literature, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Writing to be Read 8 Comments
The Gamma Sequence, by Dan Alatorre is a non-stop action, futuristic medical thriller. The suspense begins to build on the very first page and keeps on ratcheting up the tension from there, with twists and turns that will keep readers on their toes.
Hamilton DeShear is a private detective and former cop, who isn’t looking for a mystery to solve. But when the mysterious Lanaya Kim arrives on the scene claiming to need his help, how can he refuse? There’s no turning back once his apartment goes up in flames and the game turns personal. Soon enough people are shooting at them, the stakes are raised and it will take all of DeShear’s skill and expertise to keep them alive. Genetic research is the name of the game, but not everyone is playing by the same rules. Things aren’t always what they seem, and this certainly appears to be the case here. There’s a killer on the loose, who is targeting the scientists who worked on a secretive project which Lanaya was involved with, but can DeShear unravel the mystery and figure out what is going on before he and Lanaya are taken out of the game?
The Gamma Sequence will be available next month as a part of the Do No Harm medical thriller box set. You can preorder now.
Nail biting suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The Gamma Sequence does everything a good thriller should. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Should children read abridged classics?
Posted: June 5, 2019 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Classics, Growing Bookworms, Reading | Tags: Children's Books, Classic Literature, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read 50 Comments
There are many wonderful classic books available to people who are interested in reading them. I have recently re-read War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, both by H.G. Wells and also Dracula by Bram Stoker. I read these books in my early teens and, while I did enjoy them, I don’t remember appreciating any of the subtleties of the development of the characters in these books or the psychological and philosophical aspects either. This is because I did not have the life experience at that time to appreciate these concepts and their incredible appropriateness and cleverness.
I have never restricted or limited my children’s reading choices. This is because I believe that children can only experience and visualise the written world in the context of their own life experiences. If a child has never attended a funeral, they cannot visualise the white and haggard faces of the surviving family, smell the heavy and potent aroma of the funeral flowers or understand extreme expressions of grief such as throwing oneself onto a coffin as it is slowly lowered into the ground, in the same way someone who as actually witnessed such events could. They can read and appreciate the words but their ability to picture the detail is limited to their own visual experiences. This is not the case with television which supplies a ready-made visual to put the image into your mind regardless of your own experience. It is for this reason that I think that abridged classics are appropriate, and even ideal, for children.
Abridged classics expose children to the joys of great literature and enable them to appreciate their stories without struggling to understand words and concepts that are beyond their current reading and life abilities. In other words, abridged classics stimulate an interest in the storyline and characters while not burdening the child with all the deep emotion and psychology that is present in many classic books. If the child is excited by the story, there is a high chance he will revisit the book as an adult and read the full, unabridged version with greater understanding and appreciation.
If you are interested in purchasing the Classic Starts books, you can find them on Amazon US here: Classic Starts series
I bought all the Classic Starts books as well as a set of abridged Shakespearean plays and Chaucer’s stories for my son. My older son was mesmerised by certain stories such as The Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Garden and The Red Badge of Courage. I well remember him recalling these books with such fondness that a few years later, when he was about 13 years old, he read the unabridged versions of these books with great enthusiasm. He also went on to read a significant number of other classic books and represent South Africa as part of the St John’s College Prep team at the Kids Lit Quiz in New Zealand in 2016. I remember Gregory laughing aloud over the abridged versions of Canterbury Tales and The Taming of the Shrew. I do think these cultural experiences of English help set him up with a love of reading for life.
Reading abridged classics also allows children to access books that have been written in old English and are difficult for modern children [and adults] to read for that reason. These books allow us all access to humorous, dramatically and other situations from the past and allow us to learn more about our own history and path of evolution and change.
I believe there is a lot of benefit to be had from reading abridged classics to your child and letting them read them on their own. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with five published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. I have two short stories in the horror/supernatural genre included in Dark Visions, a collection of 34 short stories by 27 different authors and edited by award winning author, Dan Alatorre. These short stories are published under Robbie Cheadle.
I have recently published a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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