"Forever Festive" Got It's 1st Review... A 5 Star One

Sorry, no Sound Sample this weekend. Very busy week averting a strike at work, assembling a new bed, and having family over this weekend. But I thought I'd share this bit of news...

5.0 out of 5 stars First Rate Christmas Mystery with Intriguing Characters

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2021Verified Purchase

I enjoy reading Christmas mysteries, and while Forever Festive would have been a good read any time it was perfect for reading Christmas week. Rafael, who is a classic sort of 1940's detective except for an unusual twist, and Clara his British sweetheart have series of challenges to overcome before they can settle down to enjoy the holiday with Rafael's family. Can they find and save they imperiled young woman? What secrets are hidden under the surface of the town Rafael grew up in? And is there truly magic in Christmas Eve? The great thing is the prose is pure pleasure as you wind your way through this intriguing plot.

Remember: "Forever Festive" like all its predecessors is available for Kindle, Aubible, and Trade Paperback at the following links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KCC5HZV

AmazonUK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09KCC5HZV

AmazonCA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09KCC5HZV

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1112190

Barnes and Noble: Forever Festive by Helen Krummenacker | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Kobo: Forever Festive eBook by Helen Krummenacker - 9781005778637 | Rakuten Kobo United States

Apple Books: ‎https://books.apple.com/us/book/forever-festive/id1592528404

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Forever-Festive-Audiobook/B09PX5RZ6D?asin=B09PX5RZ6D

Itunes: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/forevers-too-long-the-forever-detective-book-1-unabridged/id1518693545

A woman's place is as the author

Even though my books are genre novels, not feminist writings, and even though the main character is male, being a feminist has had a lot of influence on them. 

One reviewer mentioned for Forever's Too Long, "I especially appreciated the way that the female characters (both heroes and villains) were fully formed, intelligent, and autonomous - delightfully atypical of the genre." I've kept that going with women who have their own sense of purpose, their own careers (including uncommon ones), references to problems both historical and ongoing, etc. That won't go away. 

And there won't be any nonsense of having strong women just so the man can prove himself even stronger by conquering them/putting them in their place. Rafael won't slap a woman to cure her hysterics. He's not weak enough to need that. 

No, my hero gets to have real, meaningful, supportive friendships. He experiences fear and disappointment, wistfulness and hope, affection and joy. He sees beauty as well as darkness in the world. He has time for introspection as well as action. You wouldn't think it would take feminism to write a well-rounded male character, but a lot of male writers are steered by growing up with toxic masculinity. 

But he is emotionally vulnerable-- that's another side to feminism. Allowing men to have a full range of emotions, not just anger, resentment, and pride (wait, wrath, envy and pride are almost half the deadly sins right there). Why do men hate men so much? 

Finally, feminism has been intersectional for most of its history. Seneca Falls meetings dealt with abolitionism and feminism both. Abolition took priority for feminists in terms of action, because of the severity, but once the Civil War was won, women's suffrage was the next big thing for many activists. Social work began because of women with education and influence becoming involved with immigrant and impoverished communities and seeing a need for political policies and trained workers to pave paths to a better life for the marginalized. 

So, my women's history course dealt with a lot of racial concerns, too. I've researched it and read widely outside of feminist writing on race, but there are a lot of connections.

Two More 5 Star Reviews for "Forever's Too Long" and a Release Date

The first new review comes from here in the United States:

5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent fantasy detective story
November 6, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition

An excellent post-war detective story with a fantasy twist. I would highly 

recommendthis book to anyone who either likes fantasy novels or detective 

novels.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RSGKTDF

And as if that wasn't exciting enough, a 2nd review appeared 

over on Amazon Canada site:

5.0 out of 5 starsWell-crafted and hard to put down

November 12, 2019
Format: Paperback

Relatable characters, evocative scenery, and engaging dialogue make this

 book a lot of fun to read. I especially appreciated the way that the female

 characters (both heroes and villains) were fully formed, intelligent, and 

autonomous - delightfully atypical of the genre. I am eagerly anticipating

 the sequel.

Link: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07RSGKTDF

All this wonderful feedback is so exciting and I'm very grateful to all who are helping spread the word about this series. 

And to top it all off, the 2nd book in the series is just weeks away from being released:

Life isn’t easy, but it’s easier than adjusting to being dead. Rafael Jones is still learning about  his new diet, powers, and limitations when he’s asked to certify that a house isn’t haunted. But when it turns out to have the ghost of a murdered flapper, his new mission is to locate the missing gangster who killed her, the magic mirror that helped the killer disappear, protect his client, and stop a new string of murders. 

Magic and mystery collide in the summer of 1947, and our detective is digging up answers to questions going back as far as the end of WWI.

"FOREVER HAUNTED" WILL BE AVAILABLE DECEMBER 1ST, 2019 FOR KINDLE, NOOK, KOBO, SMASHWORDS, SONY AND IN TRADE PAPERBACK TO ALL AMAZON AND BARNES AND NOBLE WEBSITES

What you write, vs. what you mean to write.

I didn't write a horror book. At least, I didn't think I did. I wrote a detective novel... with elements of supernatural danger.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RSGKTDF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

But... while there was some scary scenes, the overall tone, I felt, was too optimistic to be horror. It was an adventure tale. A friend said she couldn't read scary tales when I was writing it. At first I told her she'd need to skip a chapter and I'd give her a synopsis. Maybe two. Then she said Harry Dresden books were too scary for her. I told her to forget it. And I didn't hold back when it came to the creep factor if I had a good idea to build the tension somewhere.

But it was not a horror story. I'd written horror before, short stories. Those were grim. Forever's Too Long wasn't grim. It was full of friendship and love, music and kindness. Levity was sprinkled throughout.

A coworker refused to read it on the grounds of she didn't read scary stuff.

I rethought how I'd been looking at it. It was an adventure, yes, and a tale of friendship and love, but couldn't you say the same about Dracula, which authentically was about Johnathan struggling to get to Mina, Mina resisting the call of the vampires, and friends coming together to fight the undead monster who had killed an innocent among them. You couldn't call one of the classics of horror not horror just because it had a happy ending. And the creepy stuff was creepy enough I couldn't push it on someone who couldn't stand anything mildly scary.

So, I sent a copy to a friend who reviews horror. I'll see whether she thinks it's horror or not.

***

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Vampyre-Blogs-Coming-Home-Para-Earth-ebook/dp/B01MDO8SLO/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

When Allan got the idea for The Vampyre Blogs: Coming Home, he wanted to write the story of a man who was changed by an encounter with a creature from a parallel Earth. In the Para-Earth series, infinite, or nearly so,  timelines exist and in some Earth exists, but evolution happened differently. In this case a kind of intelligent slime-mold formed a symbiotic relationship with the man blown into it's universe. And although he gets home, he finds that as a result of the bonding he is to all intent a living vampire, with a very prolonged life. Yet over a century later, he must deal with a monster from that same universe which found its way into his world. I'm a co-author on that series, because, although Allan does the majority of the actual writing, I've done such extensive work with him on the science aspects, creature development, and character interactions, he sees me as co-creator.

Allan wanted to introduce him to the audience through the eyes of two teen girls, one who had known him since her earliest days, and another meeting him for the first time. A lot of the story revolves around them.

Over a year after it was released, a friend pointed out to him that he'd written a young adult novel. He re-read it and yes... the teens were really the ones with the most important story arcs, as they underwent more personal growth in that frame.

Okay, so he'd written a young adult novel and it was obvious once someone else said it.