FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR AND #FOODIE MARY MARTINEZ

Mary Martinez loves to travel, loves music, loves her garden--as long as she doesn't have to weed it--but she especially loves her family. Mary writes mostly romantic suspense, but has been known to branch out into romance, women's fiction and most recently middle grade/young adult. Oh, and did I mention I love to cook? Learn more about Mary and her books at her website. 

Hi everyone! First I’d like to thank Lois Winston for inviting me to be a guest blogger. I am going to discuss one of my favorite things. No, not writing. Though next to family, that is my favorite thing.

I’m talking cooking. I love to cook. It gets out my frustrations at the end of the day. I have a dreaded day job because I’m not lucky enough to be able to write full time and make a living. Therefore, I write when I can.

We have to eat. Unfortunately I could use a little less calories around my bottom half. That’s neither here nor there. Anyway, I have been known to come home after a long, stressful day at work and cook for an hour and a half or more. Eating about 7 pm or sometimes later. My kids think I’m nuts. You’d be amazed how you can really work off that frustration from work. When I have had a particularly bad day, I like nothing more than to chop, dice, cube, anything I can use a knife forcefully. As I chop I pretend it is someone from work that pissed me off… I think you get my drift.

Ultimately I’m a FOODIE. I love to eat. Good food and wine is the best at the end of the day, or the beginning, or hey, the middle.

I had plans to do a cookbook, called The After Work Cook, but the formatting was so frustrating and time consuming I decided to do a virtual cook book instead. I have a YouTube channel and it’s my play list. My husband starts the video off, and then I video the rest as I go. I will admit, what you see is what you get. I’m a total dork. Hey, I have fun, isn’t that what matters?

There is no rhyme or reason as to when I upload a video or blog the recipe on my cooking blog. It’s whenever the mood strikes. And sometimes I have some videos that I save for whenever. You can find me on The After Work Blog. You can find my playlist on my YouTube.

I’m going to share my Bodacious Bison Burger recipe today.

Bison Burgers
1 lb. Ground Bison
1/8 cp. Chopped shallot 
1/8 cp. Chopped mushroom
1/8 cp. Chopped Jalapeno 
2 - 3 cloves garlic chopped
1 sliced tomato
1/4 lb. sliced white cheddar cheese
lettuce
Salt, pepper, and crushed pepper to taste

Mix the ground bison together with some of the chopped garlic and spices to taste. Make in to 6 thin patties. In three of the patties make a little 'bowl' to put in the chopped filling--shallots, mushrooms, garlic, and jalapenos. Once filled place another patty on top of each. You can then grill on a BBQ or on the stove in a frying pan. Brown bottom half of the bun, place the burger on it, top with cheese and melt*, while melting the cheese brown the top of the bun. Garnish with a tomato and lettuce and serve with chips or homemade fries.

*If you're grilling you can melt the cheese on the burgers a few minutes before removing them from the grill. Enjoy!

Here is the video for the burgers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99PpzFt6fsQ

Classic Murder: Mr. Romance

Adam enjoys a lifestyle most men only dream of. Then one day he wakes up to find the morning headlines blaring, "Another victim falls prey to Mr. Romance. Who is next?" He suddenly realizes his way of life is not only frivolous, but deadly.

Dubbed Mr. Romance by New York society for his romantic adventures, Adam Fernando Russo loves women. But lately he realizes how lonely it is coming home to an empty house. Can he settle for only one woman? After he makes a list of qualities worthy enough to merit giving up his desirable existence, suddenly recipients of his coveted attention mysteriously fall prey to a murderer. The murders seem unrelated with one exception--all the victims have recently returned from a fabulous weekend rendezvous with Mr. Romance.

Adam’s assistant, Katie Sinclair, knows Adam is innocent with airtight alibis. The police are at a loss so Adam and Katie work together to discover the link between the murders. As luck would have it, their plan to prove the murderer is copying classic Cary Grant movies goes astray just as Adam realizes his perfect woman has been by his side all along.

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SLEUTHING WOMEN BLOG TOUR

Today marks the start of the Sleuthing Women blog tour. Come hop around the blogosphere with the ten authors of Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries as we talk about our books, our characters, and our lives. Hear from some of our characters as well. There will be prizes! Five lucky readers will be chosen at random to win an ebook copy of Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries.

Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries is a collection of full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by ten critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novel in the set is the first book in an established multi-book series—a total of over 3,000 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, and cozy mysteries, with a combined total of over 1700 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4 stars.

Tour Schedule

May 9 – Judy Alter at Lisa Ks Book Reviews

May 9 – Lois Winston at 3 Partners inShopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too!

May 10 – RP Dahlke at Leigh Anderson Romance

May 11 – review at Back Porchervations

May 11 – Camille Minichino at A Holland Reads

May 12 – Mary Kennedy at fundinmental

May 13 – Susan Santangelo at Cassidy Salem Reads & Writes

May 14 – Maggie Toussaint at Laura’s interests

May 15 – Heather Haven at Queen of All She Reads

May 16 – review at Jersey Girl Book Reviews

May 17 – Jonnie Jacobs at Teresa TrentAuthor Site

May 18 – Vinnie Hansen at Island Confidential

May 19 – Lois Winston at Ashleyz Wonderland

May 20 – spotlight at Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book 

May 21 – review at StoreyBook Reviews

May 22 – review at Brooke Blogs

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR F.M. MEREDITH

Wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother F. M. Meredith, who is also known as Marilyn Meredith, is nearing a staggering 40 published books. Though the Rocky Bluff she writes about is fictional, she lived for over twenty-years in a similar small beach town. Many of her family and friends are in law enforcement, giving her plenty of resources when researching her books. Learn more about F.M. at her website and blog. Today she joins us with some very important advice about social media in general and Facebook in particular. 

Big Mistakes People Make Using Facebook

Facebook is great! I post on it first thing in the morning and often several times during the day.

I have lots of friends and love reading what they are doing, how they think, and seeing photos of them, their children and grandchildren and their activities. However, I also see things they should never put on Facebook.

Never, never complain about your job or your co-workers and most especially not your boss. Even if your boss or none of your co-workers are your friends on Facebook, a comment you or someone else makes on the post could be sent to someone you didn’t want to see what you said. I’ve known people who’ve lost their job because of this.

The same goes for telling about your heavy drinking or picking up someone of the opposite sex, or revealing too much about your love life.  Jobs have been lost over this—the boss finds out you aren’t the person he/she thought you were.

Don’t complain about your spouse or make fun of him or her publicly unless it’s kind-hearted jesting. Even if your spouse doesn’t do Facebook, someone will be sure to tell him or her about the unflattering or demeaning remarks. Unless you want to get rid of your spouse, don’t do this.

Authors, try your best not to misspell or use bad grammar in your posts or when you’re blogging. I’ve been guilty of it—I know that even when you proofread, mistakes are overlooked. If you find something has slipped by you, fix it, or if you can’t fix it, acknowledge it.

Also for authors, don’t bad-mouth your industry professionals publicly. They all know each other and you might not have such an easy time finding a new one if you become known as a troublesome writer.

Don’t write nasty stuff about people who don’t believe the same way you do, whether it’s politics or religion. You can’t convince anyone to change to your way of thinking by a post you write on Facebook, and chances are you may alienate half your friends.

Since I put all these negative things down, here are a few things I think you should do:

Write positive posts when possible. If you’re going through hard times or going to have an operation or are sick, it’s fine to ask for prayers. I do it a lot for people, usually for relatives —though there are times it may be better not to identify the person by name.

It’s fine to tell what you’re doing, where you’re going, what’s happening while you’re there—and yes, include photos. (Anastasia stepping in here: It’s never a good idea to post where you are when you’re away from home. People have come home from vacation or a night out to find their house has been robbed because they let the world know they weren’t home.) Personally, I love to know what people are cooking or ordering in restaurants. Tell me about your kids accomplishments and the new babies that are born.

I write a lot about what I plan to do for the day because it helps me to actually do it.

Writers, I do want to hear about your new book, great reviews you’ve received, places you’re going to be for book signings and other appearances.

What kind of posts do you not like to see on Facebook?  What do you like?

Contest: Once again, the person who comments on the most blogs during this tour, can have a character named after them in the next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery. Tomorrow you can find me here:

http://seritastevens.org/?cat=1

A Crushing Death

A pile of rocks is found on a dead body beneath the condemned pier, a teacher is accused of molesting a student, the new police chief is threatened by someone she once arrested for violent attacks on women, and Detective Milligan’s teenage daughter has a problem.

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#FASHION--GUEST AUTHOR ANDREA R. COOPER ON #GEM STONES

Andrea R. Cooper grew up creating stories and never stopped. Now she’s married with three kids and hundreds of make-believe characters. Learn more about Andrea and her books at her webiste and blog. 

Costume Jewelry or Not

I love gemstones. When I was a kid, my mom bought me a birthstone ring. For hours on boring car rides or sitting in church during long-winded sermons, I would watch the light catch the garnet.

When my grandmother passed, I inherited a few of her of her pieces of jewelry. One was a dark purple gemstone necklace. Everyone said it was fake, but I wanted to make sure. I took it to the jeweler and found the gem was a blood-red garnet. Not worth a ton, but more than just a piece of glass. I was so excited that it was also my birthstone, almost like it was meant to be mine from my grandmother.

And in case you missed it, a woman on Hard Core Pawn brought in her grandmother’s gems for appraisal. She was hoping for fifty or a hundred dollars to help pay for the funeral. All but one of the stones was worth anything. All but one were glass. But the last one was a Burmese Ruby and they offered her $10,000. The price per carat of this beauty is $15,000—so worth a lot more than they offered her. This story ended happily because the woman took a chance to find out if her grandmother’s stones were worth anything and received more than enough to cover the funeral expenses.

A Burmese Ruby is pictured above.

Most people think of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires as the most expensive gems, but I pulled the top ten most expensive gemstones in the world. And while a diamond is in the list, it’s unique.

10. Tanzanite – Only found in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

Cost: $600-1000 per carat.

9. Taaffeite – Few gems ever found so far.

Cost: $1,500-2,500 per carat.

8. Black Opal – Black in opal is rare

Cost: $2,300 per carat.

7. Benitoite – another rare stone and not usually more than a carat.

Cost: $3,000-4,000 per carat.

6. Red Beryl – also called scarlet emerald because it’s made of beryl as are emeralds, but the color is rare and expensive.

Cost: $10,000 per carat (when cut)

5. Alexandrite – a color-changing gem

Cost: $12,000 per carat

4.  Jadeite –  not to be confused with jade.

Cost: $20,000 per carat

3. Musgravite

Cost: $35,000 per carat.

2. Painite

Cost: $50,000-60,000 per carat.

1.Pink Star Diamond – Of course, a diamond had to make the list, right? The Pink Star diamond was found in South Africa and was 59.6 carats. It sold for $83,187,381— which I’m pretty sure is the most anyone’s ever paid for a diamond or any other rock that I know of.

Cost: $1,395,761 per carat.

So next time you think a piece of jewelry is fake or glass, it might not be. The only way to tell, unless you’ve bought it yourself, is to get an expert to examine it.

Bibliography:

https://www.truefacet.com/guide/top-10-rarest-gemstones/

https://youtu.be/22gTk3KtnDY

Stolen Hearts

Secrets can’t be hidden forever.

Trained to be a thief from a young age, Crystal is driven to do whatever it takes to find evidence against the man who had her parents murdered. She's given up her name, love and even her face in pursuit of justice. When Crystal is forced on a blind date with the cop who is investigating her, she finds herself playing a dangerous game of hearts that could land her in a prison cell.

Kade is in search of a new life, after losing his partner. He's taken a new job, in a new city, and met a new girl. In order to keep his fresh start, he will have to catch an elusive thief targeting one of the largest corporations in the country. Desperate to forget the failures of his past, Kade has no intention of failing.

When Crystal steals Kade’s heart, will this thief pay for her crimes?

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FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR RABBI ILENE SCHNEIDER

Rabbi Ilene Schneider is one of the first women rabbis ordained in the U.S. and also the author of the award-winning Rabbi Aviva Cohen Mysteries. Now she’s finally decided what she wants to be when she grows up, recently retiring from her day job to devote herself to writing. Learn more about Ilene and her books at her website. Today Ilene joins us to talk about failure.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who thought she could sing, despite all evidence to the contrary. Instead, she was the student whom the music teacher told to “mouth the words” in school assemblies.

She also thought she could play a musical instrument. After all, her grandfather had been a professional saxophone player in Paul Whiteman’s society dance band in the early 1920s, and her father had been in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, as was her cousin. Then she was introduced to the recorder in fourth grade. All she could produce were squeaks.

Fast-forward about forty-five years. The little girl’s sons turned out to have some musical talent. The older played guitar and did ear-splitting renditions of punk rock. The younger one played violin at age five, switched to piano, and then switched again to guitar. He could play by ear, had perfect pitch, and composed as well as played. His singer/songwriter type songs are similar to Leonard Cohen’s: wonderful melodies combined with incomprehensible, metaphysical lyrics.

When the younger boy was still taking piano lessons, he never practiced. “Just imagine,” his teacher would sigh, “how accomplished he could be if he practiced.”

“I have a great idea,” said the little girl, now a woman who should have known better. “I’ll teach by example. I’ll take piano lessons, and when my son sees me practice, he’ll do the same.”

Big mistake. Yes, I was that little girl who was supposedly a mature, intelligent woman who had rid herself of self-delusional behaviors. I somehow managed to forget that I cannot translate the sounds in my head to my vocal cords or an instrument. I have no sense of rhythm. I have no idea if a note is too high or too low, too sharp or too flat. My fine motor skills aren’t great – I stopped trying to make my own clothes when I realized I couldn’t follow the lines when cutting a pattern – and I can’t coordinate my two hands to do different things simultaneously. My small hands can barely stretch to an octave, and I had to hit the notes using my long nails.

I think the first song we learned was “Jingle Bells.” It sounded like a dirge.

And my son was right: practicing, especially scales, is BORING.

Scheduling time for lessons became difficult, so I stopped taking lessons. The teacher, an older European woman who was classically trained, celebrated by retiring.

Maybe it’s not my most humiliating failure, or my most serious, but it haunts me still.

Unleavened Dead

Two members of Rabbi Aviva Cohen’s congregation are found dead, victims, they say, of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. But Aviva has info that leads her to doubt it was an accident. Then, police suspect Aviva’s niece’s partner in a hit-and-run death. Aviva is sure the woman is innocent, even though her SUV has a body-sized dent on the hood. As she looks into the two disparate cases, Aviva discovers they may be connected, and her amateur sleuthing takes a sinister turn that involves sexual abuse of teenage girls, money laundering, stolen identities, and an FBI investigation. Once again, her curiosity has put her life in jeopardy.

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FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS WITH AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON

Every so often we like to change things up a bit on the blog to keep it fresh and interesting. Today we kick off with a new feature: Favorites, Failures & Frustrations. For FF&F we’ll feature guest bloggers who will pick one of the three topics to discuss.

For Favorites they’ll talk about something they love and why they love it. This could be a favorite person in their lives, a favorite book, a favorite place they’ve lived, a favorite pastime, etc.

For Failures our guests will discuss things they’ve tried and failed at and what they’ve learned from the experience.

And finally, in Frustrations you’ll read about those things that set our nerves on edge or drive us crazy—everything from the writer dealing with a sagging middle in her latest novel to the dieter trying to shrink an expanding middle.

Our inaugural segment begins with Anastasia’s author Lois Winston sharing one of her favorite pastimes.

My Favorite Pastime

I love Broadway theater, both musicals and plays, but especially musicals. I would have loved a career on the stage. Unfortunately, I can’t sing, I can’t dance, and I can’t act. Those facts were made abundantly clear to me the one and only time I ever tried out for a school production. Talk about a humiliating moment!

But I digress. This post is about my favorite pastime, not one of my great failures in life.

Growing up outside of Manhattan, I was exposed to theater in my early teens. Back then you could buy what were called Student Rush tickets. My best friend and I would take the bus into Manhattan and for little more than the cost of going to the movies, we saw live theater productions with some of the most famous stars of Broadway.

The first show we ever saw was Promises, Promises with Jerry Orbach. You might remember him as the father who kept Baby in the corner in Dirty Dancing or as Detective Lennie Brisco in the original Law & Order series.

Times have changed, though, and going to a Broadway show has gone from a typical monthly date night for my husband and me to a splurge we treat ourselves to only a few times a year. The reason? A ticket to a Broadway show now costs about ten times what a movie ticket costs—and we all know movie tickets are no longer cheap! What did you pay to see the new Star Wars movie a few months ago? Yowza! I’m a Netflix gal and hadn’t been to the movies in ages. Talk about sticker shock!

Sometimes my husband and I are lucky enough to score half-price tickets (more on that in a moment), as was the case a few weeks ago when we saw Bright Star, the new musical written by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell, wife of Paul Simon.

If you’ve ever been to New York, you probably know about the TKTS booth in Times Square. Get on line (a very, very long line), wait a few hours, and you can buy half-price tickets to that day’s shows if there are any tickets available. Often if a show is in previews, you can see it at half-price before it becomes a hit, and tickets are impossible to get at any price.

But here’s a little secret that few people outside the New York metro area know. It’s called Playbill.com, and you can buy half-price tickets to many shows days or weeks ahead of time and without waiting on that long line in Times Square.

So if you’re planning a trip to New York in the future, treat yourself to a show without spending an arm and a leg through the normal channels that also add another 25-30% service charge on top of those already expensive tickets. And to save even more money, print out the offer and bring it to the box office instead of ordering by phone or online.

Some of my all-time favorite shows (in no particular order):

Wicked

Something Rotten

The Producers

Ragtime

Chicago
Les Miserable
Peter Pan
South Pacific
The King and I
Miss Saigon
Showboat

and now...
Bright Star

What about you? Do you have a favorite show you’ve seen on Broadway or at a regional theater?

~~~

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Visit Lois/Emma at her website. Sign up for her newsletter  here.

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--SLEUTHING WOMEN...AND AT LEAST ONE OF THEM CRAFTS!

Anastasia here again! Remember a couple of weeks ago I told you about Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries? At the time the boxed set was available for pre-order. It's now on sale everywhere. Just to refresh your memory, this all came about as a result of an idea author Lois Winston had awhile back. And if you love mysteries, you’re going to love this! 

Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries is a collection of full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by ten critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novel in the set is the first book in an established multi-book series—a total of over 3,000 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, and cozy mysteries, with a combined total of over 1700 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4 stars. 

Titles include:

Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery by Lois Winston—Working mom Anastasia is clueless about her husband’s gambling addiction until he permanently cashes in his chips and her comfortable middle-class life craps out. He leaves her with staggering debt, his communist mother, and a loan shark demanding $50,000. Then she’s accused of murder…

Murder Among Neighbors, a Kate Austen Suburban Mystery by Jonnie Jacobs — When Kate Austen’s socialite neighbor, Pepper Livingston, is murdered, Kate becomes involved in a sea of steamy secrets that bring her face to face with shocking truths—and handsome detective Michael Stone.

Skeleton in a Dead Space, a Kelly O’Connell Mystery by Judy Alter—Real estate isn’t a dangerous profession until Kelly O’Connell stumbles over a skeleton and runs into serial killers and cold-blooded murderers in a home being renovated in Fort Worth. Kelly barges through life trying to keep from angering her policeman boyfriend Mike and protect her two young daughters.

In for a Penny, a Cleopatra Jones Mystery by Maggie Toussaint—Accountant Cleo faces an unwanted hazard when her golf ball lands on a dead banker. The cops think her BFF shot him, so Cleo sets out to prove them wrong. She ventures into the dating world, wrangles her teens, adopts the victim’s dog, and tries to rein in her mom…until the killer puts a target on Cleo’s back.

The Hydrogen Murder, a Periodic Table Mystery by Camille Minichino—A retired physicist returns to her hometown of Revere, Massachusetts and moves into an apartment above her friends' funeral home. When she signs on to help the Police Department with a science-related homicide, she doesn't realize she may have hundreds of cases ahead of her.

Retirement Can Be Murder, A Baby Boomer Mystery by Susan Santangelo—Carol Andrews dreads her husband Jim’s upcoming retirement more than a root canal without Novocain. She can’t imagine anything worse than having an at-home husband with time on his hands and nothing to fill it—until Jim is suspected of murdering his retirement coach.

Dead Air, A Talk Radio Mystery by Mary Kennedy—Psychologist Maggie Walsh moves from NY to Florida to become the host of WYME's On the Couch with Maggie Walsh. When her guest, New Age prophet Guru Sanjay Gingii, turns up dead, her new roommate Lark becomes the prime suspect. Maggie must prove Lark innocent while dealing with a killer who needs more than just therapy.

A Dead Red Cadillac, A Dead Red Mystery by RP Dahlke—When her vintage Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask aero-ag pilot Lalla Bains why an elderly widowed piano teacher is found strapped in the driver’s seat. Lalla confronts suspects, informants, cross-dressers, drug-running crop dusters, and a crazy Chihuahua on her quest to find the killer.

Murder is a Family Business, an Alvarez Family Murder Mystery by Heather Haven—Just because a man cheats on his wife and makes Danny DeVito look tall, dark and handsome, is that any reason to kill him? The reluctant and quirky PI, Lee Alvarez, has her work cut out for her when the man is murdered on her watch. Of all the nerve.

Murder, Honey, a Carol Sabala Mystery by Vinnie Hansen—When the head chef collapses into baker Carol Sabala’s cookie dough, she is thrust into her first murder investigation. Suspects abound at Archibald’s, the swanky Santa Cruz restaurant where Carol works. The head chef cut a swath of people who wanted him dead from ex-lovers to bitter rivals to greedy relatives.

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