Guest Blogger: Author, Kate Carlisle: My Prized Possession

Kate Carlisle is the author of the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert (and lover of all things edible) Brooklyn Wainwright. The fourth Bibliophile Mystery, Murder Under Cover, is a May 2011 release. Brooklyn’s best friend Robin returns to San Francisco from a trip to India with a new man – and an exceedingly rare copy of the Kama Sutra for Brooklyn to restore. When the new boyfriend is murdered in Robin’s bed, only Brooklyn and the handsome British security expert Derek Stone stand between her and life in prison. Visit Kate online at www.katecarlisle.com and www.facebook.com/KateCarlisleBooks.

One of the great icebreaker questions of the ages is, “If your house was on fire, what one thing would you save?” I live in California, where wildfires are a way of life, so that situation is never out of the realm of possibility.

However, a somber emotional twist was added to the question recently. I don’t live too far from the beach. In March, after the tsunami devastated Japan and caused damage in Hawaii, it was headed our way. In Japan, they had no warning. The earthquake hit - a 9.0 magnitude earthquake! – and the tsunami followed immediately afterward. My heart goes out to the people of Japan, who will continue to struggle with the aftermath for years to come.

(If, as you’re reading this, you feel the impulse to make a donation to help the people of Japan, I hope you will. Here’s an article with some ways you can donate: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/21/how-to-help-japan-earthquake-relief_n_834484.html)


Here in California, we had hours to brace ourselves for potential disaster. Hours to ask ourselves the question: “If your house is threatened by a tsunami, what one thing would you take to higher ground?”




This is the picture I took of tsunami watchers near my house.

For me, it would have to be something that’s irreplaceable. Anything which has a duplicate that I can purchase with insurance money is out of the running. I watch Antiques Roadshow often, and the experts tell people an insurance value on a treasured family heirloom. Sorry, but no amount of money would soothe my sadness if I lost my great-great-grandmother’s wedding quilt (for example… I don’t actually have my great-great-grandmother’s wedding quilt.)



It probably won’t surprise you that my prized possession is a book. I write the Bibliophile Mysteries featuring rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright because bookbinding has long been a passion of mine, and I treasure antique books, not just for the stories they tell, but for the intricate illustrations, the gilding on the edges of the page, the aged leather bindings. As a book collector, if a tsunami threatened, I would save my leather bound copy of Walt Whitman poems. Or maybe I would grab the book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. Or my adorable 1922 edition of Toto The Bustling Beaver. Well, you can see this is a problem.



Brooklyn Wainwright falls in love with a new rare book in each of her adventures. In MURDER UNDER COVER, the fourth book in the Bibliophile Mysteries series, she’s gotten her hands on a rare, beautifully illustrated copy of the Kama Sutra. If a tsunami were headed toward San Francisco, Brooklyn would do almost anything to save that precious book. And in fact, although there’s no tsunami in MURDER UNDER COVER, Brooklyn does have to take some pretty drastic measures to keep her prized possession safe.

Assuming that every living creature in your house was safe, and that size and weight were irrelevant, what one thing would you take to higher ground in the event of a tsunami?

To read a free excerpt of MURDER UNDER COVER, go to: http://katecarlisle.com/murder-under-cover.php.



A note from Yvonne: Thank you so much to Kate for joining us at Socrates' Book Review Blog. This was an interesting post and I'm looking forward to reading this cozy series. For those of you out there looking for a good cozy series, this looks like a great one to sink your teeth into.

Teaser Tuesdays - May 3rd

If you'd like to play along on Teaser Tuesdays, just click the button above.


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading...



Ellie, thinking a man would rather die than be with her, had developed an abandonment complex which she often enacted on her daughter.

Executive Sick Days by Maria E. Schneider

Genre:
Cozy Mystery

Publisher:
Bear Mountain Books

Format:
EBook

Release Date:
February 2011


Sedona O’Hala is once again working for Steve Huntington. This time the case takes her to Crestwood Hospital where someone is padding the medical bills and making a fortune as they do it. The only way for Sedona to get an inside look at what’s going on at the hospital is to get a volunteer position. However, being a volunteer isn’t as easy as Sedona thinks. Besides cleaning bedpans and feeding patients, she also has to fight off deadly rattlesnakes, a lunch thief and a nurse she dubbed “Attila” whose goal seems to be to make Sedona’s life a misery.

Things aren’t all bad for Sedona as her on again/off again boyfriend Mark (Steve’s brother) is working alongside her. He’s still as sexy as ever. Mix it all up with some O’Hala family drama and you get a humorous look at hospital life.

This book has all the ingredients necessary to give readers many enjoyable hours of reading. It’s set to the backdrop of Christmas and will give you those warm fuzzy feelings that come with reading a Christmas theme book.

I love books set in a hospital atmosphere and add my favorite cozy mystery genre to it and I’m as happy as can be. All three books in this series are fun, fast-paced books. You don’t have to read all three, but I think you’ll want to. You definitely don’t want to miss out on the antics Sedona gets herself into.



For reading challenges:

Crusin’ Thru the Cozies
2011 Cozy Mystery Reading Challenge

Inspiration, You Reap What You Sow by Author Maria E. Schneider

Who in their right mind empties bedpans to gain book material??? I mean, if you were going to be a writer and do research, wouldn't you do something cool like ride the rapids through the Grand Canyon, swim with dolphins in Hawaii, or I dunno, interview Steven Spielberg in his East Hampton home so you could oogle all the incredible rooms???

Turns out that when I was thirteen years old, Mom did not pick any of those cool things for me to do during the summer. Nope, she thought it would be a great "experience" for me to volunteer at the hospital on the days she happened to be working. I doubt that thirteen-year-olds are allowed to volunteer at hospitals anymore (and no, I don't think the rules changed because of anything *I* did as a volunteer!) At the time, I was not concerned in the least about writing novels. I was supposed to be learning about a potential career. Probably because my mother worked there, I was allowed to do a few tasks that student nurses did: Stay in the background while a doctor talked to a patient or two (no exams were done, just the routine rounds) empty bed pans (oh, the benefits of being on the inside track!) and work in x-ray. If you've read Executive Sick Days, you might see a connection here.

When writing Sick Days, I almost created a hospital setting similar to the old hospital where Mom worked before I volunteered. It was a spooky old building and the possibilities were endless. It still had laundry chutes, which, let's face it--would be a great place to find dead bodies or Sedona might need a laundry chute to make a quick get-away...only...yeah, let's think about what goes down laundry chutes. And what might not have stayed in the bedpans and might be on the sheets. No, I was not going to go back to the old hospital and research *that* too closely. We writers have our limits. I'll do a lot for my fans, but if even the stunt-double turns it down, I just make the stuff up.

I learned a great deal of respect for my mother working that summer at the hospital. Unlike her, I didn't save any lives, but on the bright side, I didn't cause any injuries either. It was not me who stole lunches, although if you ate the hospital food back then, you might have been tempted to steal a lunch or three from the employee fridge. The moral of the story, if there is one, is to avoid hospitals if you can; I've heard that people sometimes really do die there.

If anyone has a inside track to that interview with Spielberg, let me know. Sedona would enjoy working in a setting like that. Unless, of course, dead bodies, bad guys and and crooks are going to show up. If that's the case, let's stick with the trip to Hawaii. That's some research I could really get into.

Sunday Salon - April Showers, Bring May Flowers...I hope!

If you'd like to participate with The Sunday Salon, just click the button above.

This has certainly been a weird time for the weather for most of us. I've been much more fortunate than others, but I hope things begin to look up for all of us.

My April reading has been decent...

Here are the books I finished in April, just click on the titles to see my reviews:

Audios

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Books

Mayan Intrigue by Linda Weaver Clarke
Miss Hildreth Wore Brown by Olivia de Belle Byrd (and interview too!)
Haunting Jordan by P.J. Alderman
A Red Hot Mess by Kimberly Van Meter
Driftwood Cottage by Sherryl Woods
Unsavory Delicacies by Russell Brooks
The Shepherd by Ethan Cross (Blog tour and review on May 9th!)
Opal Fire by Barbara Annino (Author interview and review on May 6th!)

That's a total of 10 books and a little higher than my norm. I was hoping to complete one more book, but I didn't finish it until today so I count that towards May's books.

I didn't do very well with my goals in the Spring Serenity Read-A-Thon.

These were my goals...

1) Finish reading Opal Fire by Barbara Annino - Done
2) Finish the audio book Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs - Done
3) Start the 2nd Knitting Club book - Didn't start yet.
4) Read Executive Sick Days by Maria E. Schneider - Done
5) Read Montezuma Intrigue by Linda Weaver Clarke - Didn't start yet
6) Start Midnight Cove by Sherryl Woods - Started, but didn't get very far.

I guess I completed 50% of it and, although the day isn't over, I don't think I'm going to get much further but we'll see.

I have a few blog tours coming this week...check my sidebar for the dates. I'll be posting a review of Executive Sick Days by Maria Schneider later today and I'll have a guest blog post from her as well.

Once again, I'm stressing myself out over the number of reviews I've accept. I have 22. Yikes! I'm going to have to take a breather from them and catch up with what I have to read. I really need to mix in more books to read for my own enjoyment, too.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday and a great week!


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