Location, Location, Location!

by Jennie Bentley

As you read this, I’m on my way to sunny Saint Augustine, one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Saint Augustine is the oldest town in the US, founded in August 1565, forty-two years before Jamestown and fifty-five years before the pilgrims settled on Plymouth Rock. There’s so much history there—from the first free community of ex-slaves in the country, Fort Mose, and the Castillo de San Marco, to the Fountain of Youth and the Spanish Quarter. And that’s without even mentioning the ghosts. Or the beaches. Or the birds and dolphins and manatees. Or alligators.

I’ve always thought it would make a great setting for a series of books. I even went so far as to pitch a ghost story/mystery idea to my agent once. She picked another idea she wanted me to work on instead, but I haven’t forgotten about it. While I’m waiting for the time to be right, I’m enjoying Nancy Haddock’s vampire series, set in Saint Augustine. If you haven’t yet tried La Vida Vampire and the sequel, Last Vampire Standing, get thee to a bookshop. I intend to get Nancy to autograph me a copy while I’m on vacation, since she lives there.

Setting has always been a very important part of a book to me, both books I like to read and books I write. My favorite books aren’t set just anywhere, they’re set somewhere specific. If the locale changed, the book wouldn’t be the same. That’s the way it ought to be, I think. The setting becomes almost like a character, playing its own part in the story.

I’m partial to ‘real’ settings, with ‘real’ history attached to them. In the first book I wrote, A Cutthroat Business, the setting is East Nashville. I live here, and I wanted to write about what I know. I changed some of the street names, since I don’t want anyone to come knocking on my door to complain, but I know exactly where things are. Savannah’s apartment is on the corner of Fifth and Main, and I know what she’s looking at when she looks out her window in the morning. The decrepit house in the book—the one where the body is found—is based on this one, called the Ambrose House, in Historic East End. (I’ve been looking at for long enough to know what it looked like before someone sunk a million dollars into fixing it up. It's an events venue, and if it weren't so danged expensive, I might just have my release party there...)

Waterfield, Maine, on the other hand—the setting for the DIY-books—is a fictional place. It’s located about 45 minutes up the road from Portland, on the coast, but it doesn’t exist. It’s more a conglomerate of every small town I’ve ever seen, with the landscape I grew up with. Dark pine trees and white birches, a craggy coast dotted with rocky islands, and a Main Street made up of turn-of-the-last-century Victorian commercial buildings. Waterfield’s history is the history of downeast Maine, and if Waterfield was located somewhere else, the series would be different.

While I enjoy reading about ‘real’ settings, though, some of the best locales out there are the fantasy kind. And I mean that literally. The Harry Potter books, with their alternate universe, away from prying muggle eyes. Tamora Pierce’s Pebbled Sea and the countries surrounding it, steeped in ambient magic. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, taking place on planets like Barrayar and Komarr and Beta Colony and Jackson’s Whole. Or if sci-fi doesn’t count—the earth is mentioned once or twice, so it’s not technically fantasy, I guess—Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. (Flat, carried on the backs of four elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle, inhabited by dwarves and trolls, vampires and werewolves. And people. Strange people.)

So what about you? Do you care about setting? If you write, do you make setting an integral part of your work, or could your book be set anywhere and not really miss much by it? (That’s just fine, and works well for some types of books.) As a reader, does it matter to you where the book is set, or is one place pretty much like another? Do you have a favorite locale? Or a favorite author you think nails the setting for his/her books?

I’ll only be around in the morning today, so play nicely amongst yourselves, please, but I’ll check back over the weekend, in case there are any questions I have to answer.

Till next time!

Free at last, Lord, I’m free at last...

by Jennie Bentley

It’s been ten years since I had my last steady job. The kind with set hours and a weekly or biweekly paycheck. That all changed exactly ten years ago today, when my first child was born. (Happy Birthday, Finn!) I worked at the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau at the time, and I was at my desk right up until 5 o’clock on April 2nd, 1999. Two hours later, while I was getting ready to go out to dinner with my husband—April 2nd happens to be our wedding anniversary, as well—my water broke. Instead of going to dinner, we went to the hospital. And that was the end of my life as I knew it. I went from one kind of indentured servitude to another.

This isn’t going to be about the joy of having children, though. Even if I adore my kids—most of the time—and wouldn’t trade them for anything. Except maybe a million dollar advance on my next book.

I didn’t rejoin the work force after I gave birth, but stayed home with the little tyke, and four years later, with his brother as well. I’m still there. At home. Both kids are in elementary school now, and somewhere along the way, I got my real estate license. I bought and sold—and renovated—a few houses over the next few years, and then, of course, came the book contract. Three books in a series of home renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. Book 1, Fatal Fixer-Upper, came out last November. Book 2, Spackled and Spooked, will hit stores in August. And book 3, as yet untitled, is scheduled for release in just over a year, May 2010. I sent the manuscript to my editor last week. She’ll have revisions, and there’ll be copy edits and line edits and all sorts of things to deal with, but as of right now, I’m free as a bird.

No job.

No contract.

No demands.

No requirements to produce this, that, or the other.

I can write whatever I damn well please, with no concerns about whether my editor will approve of it or not. Because I don’t have an editor anymore.

Gulp.

It’s a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s scary. Will they offer another contract? Did the first book do well enough that they’ll want to take a chance on more? (I think so, but after the bad news from the publishing industry lately, who knows?) Will they wait to see how book 2 does before they decide? Will I have to wait six months for them to come through? Or will I go back to being a contract-less writer? Free as a bird, but with no commitment as to work or income?

On the other hand, the sky’s the limit. I can write what I want. Any kind of book in any genre. Hell, I don’t have to write anything at all if I don’t want to!

It’s a beautiful, scary, wonderful, worrisome kind of feeling. And a whole lot of fun, as I try to decide what I want to work on next. There’s a whole world out there full of stories begging to be told. And a whole head-full back here, of characters clamoring for their chance to be heard.

So what about you? If you were going to scrap what you’re working on right now and start something new, what would you write about? More of the same, or something different? A new story with a new character, or one with someone you already know and like? Same genre or different? Any brilliant story ideas bouncing around in your brain that you’d like to share?

I’ll be back here on Monday, by the way. Wilfred the Author has jetted off to beautiful Hawaii with his lovely wife, and he has asked me to fill in.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! (cue evil laughter)

He already wrote A Reason for Dying—after Monday, he’ll have A Reason for Dying... of embarrassment!

That’s all I can say for now, but you’ll want to be here on Monday, I promise. You’ll kick yourself if you miss the denouement. See you then!

A few good men

by Jennie Bentley.

Last week sometime, I got suckered into responding to a discussion on Facebook about fictional—fictitious?—romantic heroes, and I thought it might make for an interesting blog topic.

The question that started the discussion was really simple—What makes for a good romantic hero these days? Does the tall, dark, and handsome George Clooney-type still work, or have the Brad Pitts taken over?—but the issue, of course, is a lot more complicated than that.

I don’t write romance novels, per se. I tried once, and discovered that while I could do it, I didn’t want to. That’s not to say I have anything against romance. Everything I write has romance in it, and I always enjoy reading books more when there’s a relationship developing along with the mystery. I’m sure the same holds for many of us. We may write thrillers or mysteries, or science fiction or fantasy, but relationships are a part of life, and chances are our protagonists have them too. Some of the most memorable love stories out there are found in books other than romance novels. Julia Spencer-Fleming comes to mind. So does Dorothy L. Sayers. And Deborah Crombie. So the question of what makes for a good romantic counterpart is something that should be of interest to all of us.

First off, I have to confess that I don’t particularly swoon over either Clooney or Pitt. Or Hugh Jackman or McDreamy or McSteamy or whoever the latest Hollywood heartthrob is. I prefer my crushes fictional, thank you very much. And I’ve certainly had plenty of those up through the years, from Rhett Butler and Sir Percy Blakeney to Janet Evanovich’s Ranger and Elizabeth Peters’s John Tregarth. And for that matter J.D. Robb’s Roarke and Stephenie Meyer’s Edward Cullen. And that last one is in spite of avoiding crushes on the undead as a general rule. I don’t really like vamps.

Lots of variety there, physically speaking. They’re not all traditionally handsome, either. But then, the question isn’t really about the physical, is it? Any type of man (or woman) can be sexy and attractive. Doesn’t matter whether the hero has smoldering dark eyes or dreamy blue ones; whether his hair is the color of sunlight or a curtain of black silk. Or for that matter as red as the setting sun. (Jamie Fraser, anyone?) Whether he’s tall or short, stocky or lean, muscular or a bit of a weenie. Fashions change, and so do people’s perception of beauty. All that matters is that the protagonist finds the love interest attractive, and if he/she is the love interest, then we have to assume that it’s so, don’t we?

For the record, I’m a sucker for the hero with a secret, past or present, that he has to keep hidden. I particularly like the scenario where he plays the part of an ineffectual fop but turns out to be the big hero in the end. (Yes, that’s why Sir Percy’s on the list.) He doesn’t have to be on the side of the angels, either; I’ll take a not-quite-rehabilitated but dashing thief over a plodding policeman pretty much any day. Not that a policeman can’t make a fine hero in his own right. And he doesn’t have to be an alpha he-man type, either; brain over brawn is just fine with me. The one thing I insist on, is that he be charming. I’m a sucker for charm in real life, and it sure helps if a fictional character has it, as well.

So what about you? What do you think makes a perfect love interest? Do you have any fictional crushes you want to share? Who’s the love interest in your WIP, and why did you make him/her that way?

Hook, Line, and Sinker

by Jennie Bentley

As you read this, I’m on my way to Birmingham, Alabama, for Murder in the Magic City, a choice little conference sponsored by their local chapter of Sisters in Crime. I met the arranger during Killer Nashville last year, and was asked if I’d like to participate, and of course I said yes. I’ve been hearing about Murder in the Magic City for years, so the invitation was a real thrill.

It’s a short conference, just the one day, so I’m only doing one panel, followed by a signing session. I’ll be sharing my panel with Maggie Toussaint, Elizabeth Zelvin, and moderator Mary Jane Maffini, with whom I also share a publisher and an editor.

Our panel is quite simply called What. There’s also a panel called Who, one called When & Where, and one called Why. When & Where would be the historical mysteries panel, I think, and the one with the exotic locations, while the Who panel is likely for romantic suspense and that sort of thing. Not sure about Why.

The What panel, and I quote, is about …well, what your books are about. All of you have something distinctive, a hook if you will, or a topic that you delve into in your writing. Organization, home renovations, horse rescue, addiction... How did you all decide to write about what you write about? What's your research process? Is a hook necessary in today's writing market?

Since it’s been on my mind, I figured I’d talk about hooks a little. They are, after all, a huge part of mystery writing today. The traditional mystery, the cozy, the type of book that used to be synonymous with Dame Agatha Christie and Dame Ngaio Marsh—synonymous with mysteries in general—has evolved into something more like a cutesy hobby mystery of the kind that I, and so many others, write.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with me and my books, my gimmick is home renovation. That’s the framework into which the story is set. The story, at its heart—and don’t tell my editor I said this—is a love story. (She thinks it’s a mystery. It’s not.) There’s a mystery there, sure. It frames the romance. Layers, if you will. But if every book is about people, and I believe they are, or at least that they should be, then my book is a romance. At its core, that’s what it’s about. The mystery is background for the love story. The home renovation is background for the mystery.

But I digress.

I started writing about renovating because I was asked to. Berkley Prime Crime wanted a series about a do-it-yourself home renovator, and I had the necessary background for the job. As an aside, let me just say that doing it that way helps with the research. Sure, you can decide to write about something you don’t know the first thing about, and learn as you go, but it’s easier if you already have the appropriate background. It cuts down on the time you have to spend researching, and gives you more time to actually write. And when you have deadlines to meet, that’s an important consideration.

As for how Berkley knew about me and my background, it was because I wrote another book. It featured a Realtor, and there was some home renovation going on in that book, as well. That wasn’t the gimmick of the book—it didn’t really have a gimmick—but there was enough home renovation woven through the story to make someone sit up and take notice.

Now, I should mention that that book never sold, and although I can’t say for sure why, I can tell you that as far as my Berkley editor goes, she read it and liked it, but told me it doesn’t fit their focus on ‘crafts and activities.’ Whether that means that it’s necessary to have a hook in order to succeed in today’s market, I’m not entirely sure.

If you want to write cozies for Berkley Prime Crime, then yes. To write a Prime Crime series, you gotta—as the girls in ‘Gypsy’ said—have a gimmick. If you don’t have a gimmick, then forget it. Or send your book to another publisher, or another imprint. There are lots of them out there, and they don’t all publish books with hooks.

So for what it’s worth, that’s what I’ll be saying this weekend. Now it’s your turn. Do you think it’s necessary to have a hook to succeed in today’s market? Is there a hook in your work in progress? Or if you’re not a writer, in the book you’re reading? If so, do you like that fact? Did you plan it, if you wrote it? And if there isn’t, do you wish there was? Do you think there should be?

Since I’m in the car, and can’t check back, play nicely amongst yourselves.

Oh, and just in case some of you missed it, and because I really like it a lot, here's a peek at the cover for DIY#2, Spackled and Spooked, coming on August 4th, 2009! Pretty, innit?

Writing a Good Book from the Bible

by She Who Shall Not Be Named AKA Jennie Bentley

OK, so this blog kind of snuck up on me, between the holidays, the packing and moving, the renovating yet another house, the kids being home from school, and everything else that's going on in my life at the moment. In short, I dropped the ball, and didn't have anything ready. My apologies. Since I don't want to leave y'all high and dry, without some of my scintillating prose to read, I figured I'd recycle this blog post, which I wrote at my agent's request a month or two ago, for the Fine Print Literary Management's blog. If any of you caught it there, I'm sorry, but it's the best I can do on New Year's Day!

Here goes: the ins and outs of writing bible-based books!

The first time I heard the term ‘bible-based mystery,’ I wondered how anyone could take the epic tragedy of Cain and Abel and turn it into a whodunit, when the whole world knows that Cain had motive, means and opportunity, and did indeed whack his brother over the head with the proverbial blunt instrument. Little did I know—then—that a bible-based mystery has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible or anyone in it.

That all changed when I was asked if I’d be interested in writing a series of mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime, about a home renovator in New England.

The catch?

It was a bible-based series, a work for hire: based on a concept dreamed up by someone else, in this case my editor. I’d do the work and get the advance and the royalties, but the pseudonym would get the credit, and the publisher would get the copyright.

I admit it: I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. As they say in the Bible—the real Bible—I counted the cost. There are drawbacks to writing someone else’s vision, and not getting to retain copyright to the work is the least of it. Spending months, maybe years, writing books with characters and a setting someone else has invented, isn’t all fun and games.

I guess I don’t have to spell out what I chose. After all, I’m sitting here writing this. In the end, I decided a three-book contract with one of the biggest publishers in the world, along with seeing my words in print, outweighed the negatives.

That doesn’t mean writing the first book was easy.

Usually, I’m a pantser. One of those people who go along for the ride, just seeing where the story takes them. I don’t like to outline. If I already know everything that’s going to happen, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to write the book.

That was a luxury I didn’t have this time. What I did have, was a ‘bible’: a two page outline provided by my editor. She’s the one who named the characters—most of them, anyway; I changed a few names here and there when they cut too close to the bone—and she also chose the background or gimmick for the series, in this case home renovation. I chose where to drop the fictional town where the action takes place, and how to arrange the story and animate the characters behind the names. And of course I wrote the 90,000 words between the front and back covers. Every one of them. Including the tips for the Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation projects.

So would I do it again?

Sure. It’s been a good experience, by and large.

I’ve had the fun of creating a series, once I figured out how to make the characters and setting ‘mine.’ I’ve had the pleasure of seeing my work in print, even if it isn’t my name on the cover. I’ve gotten some excellent reviews and I’ve had a lot of nice things said about me. I’ve been named an IMBA bestseller. I’ve received a few bona fide fan letters from people who’ve read and enjoyed my work, and I’ve been compared to my favorite author. I’ve had to learn to answer when someone calls me Jennie.

In the end, it’s not much different from writing any other book. You pour your heart and soul into it just as if the idea was yours to begin with. You spend the same time and effort you would on any other book. The only difference is that you know, from the moment you start writing it, that this is the manuscript that’ll get published, and you won’t have to worry about anything but creating the best story you can. And that’s worth quite a lot right there!

* * *

So there you have it. The pros and cons of writing a bible-based mystery series. Ask me questions if you're curious, OK? And if you don't have any, just have a wonderful weekend, and a fabulous 2009!

A New Chapter

By Jennie Bentley

No, not that kind of chapter, although I’ve written a few of those, too, lately. This is a different kind of chapter, though. A life chapter, you might say.

As some of you may know, when I’m not writing books, the real me is a Realtor® and home renovator in Nashville, Tennessee. That was how I came to write the DIY-books: someone at Berkley found out about my background and asked me if I’d be interested in writing a series about a home renovator for them. For the past year and a half, I’ve juggled real estate and writing, occasionally tearing my hair out when it all threatened to be too much.

Well, no more.

As some of you have probably also gathered, the real estate industry has taken a beating lately. Sales are down, foreclosures and short-sales are up, it’s getting increasingly difficult to get a loan... Not impossible—someone with good credit and enough income shouldn’t have any problems—but the guidelines and requirements are a lot more stringent than they were a couple of years ago, when anyone who could sign their name could get a mortgage. Which was how we got in the current predicament in the first place.

But I digress. The Nashville real estate industry hasn’t suffered as much as some. Our sales are down compared to last year, but speaking from a purely personal standpoint, DH has had his best year ever. I, on the other hand, haven’t sold a single house.

Which is why, when our boss informed us, sometime during the early part of November, that he was closing the agency we were working for, we considered whether it made sense for me to just retire my real estate license and become my husband’s assistant.

Galling, I know. But there are lots of fees and things involved with being a Realtor®. There are association fees, to the tune of many hundreds of dollars a year. There’s insurance, which costs a few hundred, at least. There are monthly fees to the agency, for things like office space and technical support. There are fees to the multiple listings service, for being able to share listings with other Realtors®. There are fees to the showing centers, to pay the people who keep track of the appointments. There are fees for the online flier-sites, so we can create our own professional looking brochures. There are continuing education classes to pay for, there’s renewing the license every two years, there are industry conferences and luncheons to attend, there’s dropping money left and right on online and print advertising to try to drum up some business, there’s paying for the website...

Bottom line, we started thinking that if I wasn’t going to use the oh, so costly real estate license to actually make money, maybe it’d be better if I just didn’t have the cost of maintaining it.

So that’s how I came to retire this past week. When DH took his license to a new company, where they adore and worship him, I took mine home and put it in a drawer.

It’s a weird kind of feeling. I’m not a Realtor® anymore. Realtor® is no longer a label I can use to introduce myself. I’m still a real estate professional—heck, I still do exactly the same work I did last week, last month, and last year!—but the title is gone. Now I’m—gulp—an unlicensed assistant to my husband. Sort of like being an unpublished writer. Or a writer between contracts.

On the upside, I have a new title. Since all my income comes from writing now, I can introduce myself as a writer. And that’s pretty cool, too.

Hello, World! I’m Jennie Bentley. Writer.

D-DAY!!!!

By Jennie Bentley

OK, so I’m gonna take the easy way out this week. It’s been kind of crazy around here, between the book release on Tuesday, the couple of guest blogs I’ve been doing—there’s one on Fresh Fiction today, if anyone wants to stop by and say hello—getting going on book 3, and all the other stuff that’s been going on. When you’re reading this, I’m either on my way to, in the middle of, on my way home from, or sitting in front of the TV watching, my first TV interview. It’s airing/aired on Nashville’s Channel 4 at 12:30 Central time today, and as I’m writing this, I’m terribly nervous, although I’m trying not to think about it.

So “Fatal Fixer-Upper” hit the stores on Tuesday morning, and DH and I hit the stores on Tuesday morning, too, to make sure it was there. Here are a couple of pictures:

Me with the display at Barnes & Noble—someone really needs to invent a way to remove double chins from pictures, the same way you can remove red-eye—me with the marvellous Erika, and me with the shelf at Borders. The whole idea behind picking a pseudonym in the B’s was to get high up on the shelves, so people wouldn’t have to stoop to find the book, but I guess there are so many of us with the same idea that “Fatal Fixer-Upper” still ended up on the bottom. The books were there, though, which is the important thing.

I have two new reviews this week: this one in the Nashville Scene, calling my book “harmless fun” with “prose that is nothing if not accessible,” which I take to mean so simple a first-grader can read it, and this one in the Cozy Library, that’s so beautiful and complimentary it brought tears to my eyes.

Ahem.

My editor at Berkley sent me the back cover copy for DIY#2, which will be coming out in August. This is it:

Avery Baker was once a New York designer, but inheriting her aunt’s old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path in home renovation. Finding a property’s hidden potential has rewards and challenges—especially when a mystery surfaces behind the walls...

Home renovation is never easy, especially when the home's inhabitants are dead. Avery’s hunky boyfriend and business partner, Derek Ellis, wants to flip a seriously stigmatized ranch house where murder occurred two decades ago. It’s a good thing Avery has more faith in her boyfriend than in ghosts.

Their renovations are quickly interrupted when a presence is felt--and it’s not happy with the new alterations. Could it really be that the property is possessed? If they’re going to flip this house, all the outdated fixtures—including the supernatural squatters—must be disposed of, or else this project will haunt them forever…

I’m pretty happy with it. Now all we have to do is find a good title, since the book can’t go to print being called DIY#2. I came up with “Haunted House Homicide” (shades of Scooby-Doo). My agent likes “Bones in the Basement” (shades of Nancy Drew). Berkley suggested “A Skeleton in the Crawlspace” (gives away too much of the story, I think) or “Spooked and Spackled.” I love the last one, but I’m open to suggestions. If you have any, feel free to share.

Meanwhile, I’m starting DIY#3, which actually does have a title. “Home for the Homicide,” courtesy of my ITW debut buddy, the brilliant Kelli Stanley. It’s December in Waterfield, and Avery and Derek are turning an old carriage house into a romantic retreat for two, before Kate’s and Wayne’s wedding on New Year’s Eve. But then Kate’s ex shows up, and ends up dead. I haven’t figured out who killed him yet, or why, but I’m working on it. I have four months—three and three weeks now—to get it done and turned in to my editor. No problem...

So that’s what’s been going on with me this week. What about you?

People Are Talking...

by Jennie Bentley

With a month to go until FATAL FIXER-UPPER hits stores everywhere—OK, a month and a day, but what’s 24 hours among friends?—word has started to get around.

Yesterday, for instance, I went to my local Barnes and Noble and bought their entire stock of Romantic Times Book Review magazines. (It’s not as bad as it sounds. They only had two, and I’m not sure what to do with the second. If it comes to that, I’m not entirely sure what to do with the first.)

The reason, of course, is that there’s a review in there. A review of my book. A—no kidding—4 ½ star review. Which is as good as it gets, from Romantic Times. (All right, so one of the stars could have been gold, but still, 4 ½ stars for a debut book is pretty darned impressive. Or so I’ve been told.) I counted (pitiful, I know) and of the seven 4 ½ star reviews of mysteries and thrillers in the November issue, the other six went to—wait for it—Michael Connolly, Jeffery Deaver, Reginald Hill, David Morrell, M.J. Rose and J.D. Robb. Some pretty exalted company there.

You can read the whole thing HERE, if you want. Don’t feel you have to, though. And just FYI, 4 ½ stars translates to FANTASTIC – Keeper, in their ratings guide. Yay, me!

So I’m pretty psyched right now. And what made it even sweeter, was that it came on the heels of another review, one that was 180 degrees the opposite. That one was from one of the Big Four—Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal—and boy, did the anonymous reviewer hate my book. Enough that the attack felt almost personal. Kind of along the lines of, “whose high school boyfriend did I steal to receive this kind of treatment?”

In the interest of total disclosure, you can read it on this page, down toward the bottom, among the mass market paperback reviews. If you don’t care to—and I don’t blame you; I wish I hadn’t—let me just share that my favorite sentence was, in describing my protagonist, “she’s about as bright as her boyfriend’s crowbar.”

Ouch.

Funny thing is, they both read the same book. But where one thought the “first-rate” mystery was “unusually strong,” the other thought it had “no substance.” And where one mentioned the “bang-up, frightening surprise ending”, the other saw “predictable anticlimactic peril.” Where one thought the heroine was intelligent, the other thought she was dumb as a post. I could go on, but what would be the point?

So who’s right?

Hell, I don’t know. I’d like to think that one of them ‘got’ the book, and the other didn’t. Of course, I’m not exactly unbiased...

Do I care, though?

No, not really. I’d hate to think that someone would chose not to read the book based on the crappy review, when they might actually like it if they just gave it a try. On the other hand, I think I’d hate even more for someone to buy the book as a result of the glowing review, and then be disappointed. If you start at the bottom, there’s no way to go but up, but once you’ve disappointed someone, it’s awfully hard to get that trust back.

Anyway, that’s the view from Jennie’s Planet. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts, on reviews, trust, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

Great Beginnings

by Jennie Bentley

Since no one else seems compelled to write anything today, I'll step up.

Please join me over on the Good Girls Kill For Money Club to read my (if I do say so myself) quite brilliant post about the above - that's right, beginnings - and try to win an advanced reader copy of my masterpiece, Fatal Fixer-Upper, scheduled for release on November 4th.

C'mon; you know you want one!

Picture Day

by Jennie Bentley.

All right, so I’m cheating a little. When Joyce contacted me yesterday to ask if I’d be willing to blog for her today, I don’t think her intention was for me to post a picture and leave it at that.

Still, I’m neck-deep in revisions for DIY#2, which is due to my editor at Berkley Prime Crime next week, plus I got home from Norway to find that my book at long last has a cover, and the opportunity is just too good to pass up. And this way, I can keep that post I have in reserve – the one I didn’t get to use last time, because I was tagged for the chain blog thing – for another time.

So whaddaya think? Gorgeous, isn’t it? The fact that the cat doesn’t have a shadow is a little disconcerting – makes it look like a ghost cat, when it’s really just your garden variety Maine Coon – but you probably wouldn’t have noticed that if I hadn’t pointed it out, right? And the red paint paw-prints are nice, too. Even the wrench looks vaguely sinister...

And just in case the cover itself isn’t exciting enough for you, there’s the fact that the book is now available for preorder on Amazon.com. That’s how I found the cover, in fact. Googled myself. Pitiful.

If you order it now, they’ll send it to you when they get it. At only $6.99 – 336 pages, folks! – it’s a steal at twice the price, and it’s available for Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25, so if you buy four copies, Amazon will send them to you for free. Your friends will thank you. So will I. And because it’s a mass-market paperback, it slides easily into the standard Christmas stocking. With a release date of November 4th, it’ll be delivered just in time for the holidays, too! In fact, if you buy one for every person on your Christmas list, from Aunt Annie to Uncle Zeke, you’ll have finished your Christmas shopping six months early and you won’t have to worry about it again.

OK, that’s enough BSP for a while. My job here is done. Unless someone tags me before then, I’ll be back on my regularly scheduled day, which seems to be July 4th. Huh... We can make it another picture day if you want. I’m sure you’re all dying to see photographs from my vacation.

Till next time!