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It was wonderful to be asked to write a guest post for Noelle’s lovely blog but what was I to write about? I had a think and my mind wandered to the three men in my life. These men have made me laugh and even made me cry on occasion for the last thirty odd years and I haven’t even been married to any of them. Stand up James Herriot, Tom Sharpe and Bill Bryson. My relationship with Herriot began many years ago. It started in the school library. The humour section beckoned whilst I was trying to read up on a particularly boring biology test which was booked for the following day. No matter how much I read the text book in front of me nothing was going in and staying there and I had reached the end of my academic capacity for the day. As the library emptied I glanced over to the shelf and sticking out was Herriot’s If Only They Could Talk beckoning seductively in my general direction and telling me to ditch the biology and learn from the master. What’s a girl to do? Over the next few years I absorbed every book he wrote and I can still quote passages from them. I also know that if a cow looks as if it is wearing spectacles then it probably has a copper deficiency. As yet I haven’t had a use for it but never say never… Tom Sharpe was an accidental encounter in a second hand book shop in a small Suffolk town. Never mind meeting over the tomatoes in the supermarket; that was old hat by then. This was the real thing. His rough edged coverings, his enticing artwork. This was a well-thumbed book which had been loved and now needed some appreciation. I was that woman. He made me laugh, he made me wince, he made me realise humour writing was a well-oiled machine of phrases crafted to build an image just enough to allow the reader to take it one step further in their imagination. From Riotous Assembly to Ancestral Vices I wanted to have written those books. Not for the sales but just for the accomplishment and creativity. Bill Bryson took me by surprise one day whilst on a packed train to London. I rather wish he hadn’t as I laughed out loud at his nickname and description of his Dover landlady (whose name I don’t feel inclined to repeat here as it is rather rude…) in front of several startled passengers and that was before he started putting warnings on his books. Thank heavens I wasn’t in First Class otherwise they would have chucked me off at Hatfield Peverel and I might still have been there. A least I would have had something to read. His perception of the flaws of the human race and his ability to laugh at himself held an appeal which I still find entertaining as I re-read his books to this day. These days he has taken to writing books which explore various topics such as his excellent A Short History Of Nearly Everything and At Home to name just two but it is his travel memoirs such as Notes From A Small Island, Neither Here, Nor There: Travels In Europe and The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America which have made me snort tea through my nose and have kept me going back for more. Of course, the relationship soured somewhat when I realised he had totally bypassed East Anglia on his travels as if we weren’t worth a mention and then had the audacity to move here. Well, honestly! Bodicia can be found on her website where she writes book reviews, articles and entertains guests. You can also find her on Twitter and Goodreads. Huge thanks to Bodicia for this post! You can find her at A Woman’s Wisdom. Do check out her Tales of the Manor, an outgoing humor series on her blog. You’ll love her wit! 0 0

A Good Mystery Is Like A Turducken 0 0

This is a post from several years ago when I did Renaissance artists for my A-Z challenge. Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431 – September 13, 1506) was an Italian painter and a student of Roman archeology.  He was the first to experiment with perspective, in which objects become smaller as their distance from the observer increases, and foreshortening, whereby an object’s dimensions along the receding line of sight are shorter than dimensions across the line of sight. He is also one of my favorite artists of the period because he drew figures with accurate anatomical features. This is a little longer than my other blogs because I find this artist so fascinating. Mantegna was born close to Padua, part of the Republic of Venice.  At eleven, he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, a painter interested in the ancient art and architecture of Rome and Greece.  Mantegna was said to be a favorite pupil, and during this time Squarcione and his pupils, including Mantegna, began the series of frescoes in the church of Sant’ Agostino degli Eremitani, almost entirely lost in the 1944 allied bombings  of Padua.  One of these, St. James Being Led to his Execution, is clearly Mantegna’s but only old photographs exist today. It is notable for his worms-eye view of the scene and is a good example of the artist’s understanding of perspective. At the ripe age of seventeen, Mantegna left Squarcione’s studio for the Venetian art firm of Jacopo Bellini, claiming Squarcione exploited him. Mantegna’s early style is best represented by the Agony in the Garden, painted in 1455. Note the angels in the upper left, with the disciples sleeping in the foreground. In the background, Judas comes with soldiers to arrest Christ. Jerusalem is depicted as a walled city, with monuments more suitable to Rome (an equestrian statue, a column with relief sculpture), undoubtedly from the influence of Squarcione. In Verona around 1459, he painted an altarpiece for the church of San Zeno Maggiore, depicting a Madonna and angels, with four saints on each side. Note the use of classical details and perspective in all of the panels. In 1460 Mantegna was appointed court artist for the Marquis of Mantua; he was paid a salary of 75 lire month, a huge sum which marked the high regard in which his art was held. His Mantuan masterpiece was painted in what is now known as the Wedding Chamber of the Marquis’ castle: a series of frescoes including various portraits of the Gonzaga family, of which the Marquis was a member. It was finished around 1474. After the Marquis died and Francesco II of Gonzaga was elected, Mantegna’s artistic commissions resumed. During this period he painted St. Sebastian, one of three he painted.  The saint is tied to a classical arch and seen from an unusually low perspective, to create the dominance of his figure. The head and eyes are turned toward heaven and at his feet are two people intended to create a contrast between the man of faith and one attracted by earthly pleasures. Pope Innocent VIII commissioned him in 1488 to paint frescos in the Belvedere Chapel in Rome, now destroyed, after which Mantegna returned to Mantua.  There he finished nine tempera pictures of the Triumphs of Caesar, which he had probably begun before leaving for Rome.  These are gorgeous depictions of the splendor of Caesar and are considered Mantegna’s finest work. Note the elephants in one of the processional scenes and then Caesar, a stony-faced figure high on his chariot, which is the last in the series. Caesar’s features were copied from Roman busts and coins, his body stiff as a sculpture, while the people around him are more alive. During this later period, Mantegna also painted the Lamentation of the Dead Christ, which portrays the body of Christ supine on a marble slab.  This painting is often used to demonstrate Mantegna’s extreme and talented use of perspective.  In this painting, there are rich contrasts of light and dark, with the realism and tragedy of the scene enhanced by the perspective.  An analysis of the painting has shown that the size of the figure’s feet has been reduced since in their exact size, they would have blocked some of the body from that angle.  Note Mantegna’s obvious knowledge of anatomy, particularly in the thorax, hand, and feet. This is one of my favorite paintings of his. Mantegna died in Mantua in 1506. In 1516, a monument was erected in his honor by his sons in a chapel of the church of San Andrea in that city.                                   Bust of  Andrea Mantegna made by himself or Gian Marco Cavalli If you like these Renaissance diversions I will find more to re-post! 0 0

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, where my family moved when I was five, my brother Jay and I first attended Sacred Heart School, a parochial school run by the Sisters of Divine Providence. The school buildings have been sold and re-purposed, but I recall them as vividly as yesterday – a  long asphalt driveway that ran up a hill between a large, dark brown clapboard, two story building and a white building of the same size, curving around into a parking lot behind the brown building. The brown building held the classrooms, while the white building was the nuns’ home and had the chapel where Mass was held on First Fridays. Mom was Catholic and Dad was not, but since my mother grew up being taught by nuns in a Catholic school and had what she described as a truly good education, she was resolved we would be taught by nuns, too. My brother got to go to the new school in Kingston when he entered, which is where Sacred Heart School is still located today. My memories of my classes there are a bit fragmented, since I only attended through the second grade, but they were run with military precision by the nuns. In those days the Sisters of Divine Providence wore long black habits with veils, and wide, round, stiffly starched collars and forehead pieces to which veils were attached. A large wooden rosary served as a belt. I don’t think I was the best of students. I remember climbing on the rocks surrounding the parking lot, pretending to be a circus performer and falling during one of my aerial feats. The nun who tended to my bleeding knee clucked about being more careful and not daydreaming. The nun whom no students wanted to encounter was Sister Mary Paraclete, the Mother Superior. With bushy grey eyebrows (that is all you could see of hair), a gray thin mustache, and a stern look, you knew you were in trouble if you were called to see her. I liked to talk during class, and one day, despite a stern warning from my second grade teacher, I kept chatting with the girl in the next desk and was caught. It was decided my punishment would be to sit in the kindergarten class for half a day and read to them. Sitting in the tiny kindergarten desks and having all of the little kids staring at you (of course it was explained to them why we were there) was a terrible punishment and shut me up for the remainder of the year. I had to see Sister Mary Paraclete when our banishment from our class was over, and I remember being so frightened of her that I was nearly sick. There were some little girls that were her favorites, however, and one day one of them was marched around in a tiny nun’s habit. I always wondered if that girl became a nun. In any event, at the end of second grade, my parents told me that they were going to send me to public school the next year. I think it had to do with finances, and they figured that Jay would really need the nuns. So the following fall, I found myself sitting in a third grade classroom at in Burton, one of the two school buildings that made up Cornish-Burton Elementary. They were old even then. To be continued… 0 0

Cozie mysteries are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are minimized and the crime and its solution take place in a small, socially intimate community. The detectives can be professional but most frequently are amateurs and can be male or female. The Miss Marple mysteries of Agatha Christie, the Mr. and Mrs. North series by Frances and Richard Lockridge, and three different mystery series by Rita Mae Brown represent some of the best of the cozie genre. Time for them to move over and make room for another writer who should also become a Queen of the Cozies: Trisha Sugarek. Ms. Sugarek, author of the blog Writer at Play, has been writing for four decades. She began her career acting, directing and writing stage plays, but this multi-talented author has also penned two novels, two books of poetry, and a group of children’s books. She began writing The World of Murder series in 2013, and this reviewer popped into the series with book four, The Angel of Murder, published this year. New York Police Department Detectives Jack O’Roarke, a big, tough Irishman, and Stella Garcia, whose sweet quiet demeanor is his perfect foil, have evolved through the series. This time they have a serial killer on their hands. The bodies of little girls, dressed for a Catholic First Communion and wearing a gold cross on a chain around their neck, are turning up in all five boroughs of New York City and there are no suspects. The story opens with the unexplainable disappearance of a girl from Garcia’s son’s school, and she and O’Roarke have the unenviable job of interviewing all the parents. To complicate their investigation, a private detective has been hired by one of the families to find one of the missing girls. In spite of all their effort, O’Roarke and Garcia hit dead end after dead end. Who is this monster and how does he manage to walk off with these girls without being seen? When will he strike again? The author writes in a spare style but draws the characters with precision. She keeps the reader engaged and moves the plot along a breakneck speed with action and good dialogue. I intend to go back and read the three previous books, but it’s not necessary to enjoy this one. You can visit Trsha at her website, Writer at Play: http://www.writeratplay.com/ 0 0

  I was tagged for a WiP game by a sister blogger with a fantastic book, Luccia Gray. Check out her blog, Rereading Jayne Eyre (http://lucciagray.com/all-about-jane-eyre/) and her book, All Hallows at Eyre Hall. She’s currently finishing the next book of her trilogy, Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall. The rule: Post the first sentence of the first three chapters of your current WiP. My current WiP is the next book in the Rhe Brewster mystery series, Death in a Dacron Sail. I’m currently doing the line edits, so what you read is what you will get with this book. Chapter 1 The lobster boat rocked violently against the pier as I backed down the ladder and extended my foot onto its heaving deck. Chapter 2 The midnight shift in the ER at Sturdevant was normally quiet, but it was a Friday night and a full moon, which meant a lot of loonies would be out. Chapter 3 Bob Morgan proved as pesky as ever, and I had three messages, all from him, on my cell phone when I finished my shift at the hospital around 8 PM. I hope you’ve read the first book in my series, Death in a Red Canvas Chair. Death in a Dacron Sail will be out late this fall. Look for it! I’m currently working on Death by Pumpkin. Think on that… I’m nominating my four of my favorite authors to carry on this WiP hop: R.M Byrd (http://byrdwords.wordpress.com/), Terry Tyler (http://terrytyler59.blogspot.com/) , Stepheny Houghtlin (http://stephenyhoughtlin.com/author/stephenyhoughtlin/), and Trisha Sugarek (http://www.writeratplay.com/ . Do check them out!   0 0

I’m a member of Rosie Amber’s book review team, and this week I reviewed Cleaver Square. Here is my review: Cleaver Square by Daniel and Sean Campbell is a British police procedural in the genre of the books by P.D. James and her character, Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. I was not disappointed in the story line, which kept me reading eagerly to the end, and with few exceptions, the main characters were interesting and well-drawn. Brothers Daniel and Sean have been writing together since 2012. Their first collaboration was Dead on Demand, which they wrote in 90 days, on a bet. In this book, DCI David Morton comes to life again, as he investigates the death of a child whose body is found frozen in a marshy area in London. The child appears to have no name until the very expensive watch found on the body leads Morton and his team to the foster system. There they find another child who is the real owner of the watch – or is he? Early in the investigation, Morton is the victim of identity fraud, leaving his and his wife’s bank accounts and retirement funds drained. Despite this rather huge distraction, Morton is determined to find the identity of the dead child, assisted by his team: the dedicated Bertram Ayala, a smartly dressed Detective Inspector, and his second in command, Detective Inspector Tina Vaughn, a young Welsh woman who more than admires her boss. The authors keep the pressure on Morton via his superiors and do a good job of interweaving the investigations of Morton and the members of his team with the story of the two boys. Only two things were somewhat distracting in this entertaining read: a little too much time spent on the procedures required legally for the case to move forward, which slowed the action, and the fact that Morton’s relationships with the two main female characters – Sarah, his wife, and Tina Vaughn – did not completely resonate with this reviewer. Perhaps the first book establishes the nature of these relationships more clearly. Notwithstanding these points, I recommend this book to mystery readers, especially those who like British mysteries, and look forward to reading more of DCI Morton’s adventures. Four of five stars 0 0

  My friend, Elizabeth Hein, invited me to participate in a Meet the Main Character blog hob. Took me a bit, but I am honored that she chose me to participate. I encourage you to visit her blog site: http://scribblinginthestorageroom.wordpress.com Elizabeth is not only a sister blogger, but a member of a critique group we’ve both enjoyed for nearly five years. She is a very talented writer, authentic and creative and has taught me so much!. Her new book, Climbing the Eiffel Tower, comes out in October, and I plan to promote it here on saylingaway. It’s five star. Here are her questions, pertaining to my book Death in a Red Canvas Chair. What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or historical? My protagonist is Rhe (rhymes with the cheese brie) Brewster. She is a fictional 36 year old wife, mother, and emergency room nurse. When and where is the story set? The story is set in Pequod, Maine, a coastal town with small liberal arts college, Pequod College. What should we know about her? Rhe has a natural nose for investigation and a yen for adrenaline. She is a take charge character, as suits her profession, but she tends to leap before she looks. She is loyal to her friends and a good mother. 4. The very things about her character that make her interesting also create conflict at home with her husband. When she decides to help her brother-in-law Sam, Pequod’s Chief of Police, discover who murdered a young girl she herself found on her son’s soccer field, her husband Will objects. He only agrees when Sam hires Rhe as a consultant and pays her for her work. Messing up her investigation is Bitsy Wellington, the Dean of Students at Pequod College. Bitsy is an old frenenemy from her childhood, who is also making life at Pequod difficult for Will, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the college. What is the personal goal of the character? To find the murderer, care for son Jack, learn to cook (she’s a known disaster in the kitchen), and try to save her marriage to Will. Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it? Death in a Red Canvas Chair is available on Amazon and Kindle. The next book in the Rhe Brewster murder series, Death in a Dacron Sail, is scheduled to be out this fall. When can we expect the book to be published? See number 6. 8. Tap several more people to highlight their books. Tricia Sugarek, http://www.writeratplay.com/, author of the World of murder series Luccia Gray, http://lucciagray.com/, author of All Hallows at Eyre Hall Terry Tyler, http://terrytyler59.blogspot.com/, author of Kings and Queens. Luccia is fascinated by everything to do with Victorian England (including everything Neo-Victorian). Jane Eyre is her favourite novel. She couldn’t live without it, so she has to reread it every single day. She adores Gothic novelists, especially Wilkie Collins and Mary Shelley; Detective novelists, especially Arthur Conan Doyle; Romantic novelists, especially The Brontë sisters; and social novelists, especially Charles Dickens and George Elliot. She likes to think of herself as their literary descendant or reincarnation. She hopes you’ll enjoy her Literary Blog, Rereading Jane Eyre, where you will find short articles on Victorian Literature and Neo-Victorian Literature in general and especially Jane Eyre. You will also be able to find out more about her debut novel, All Hallows At Eyre Hall, the first novel in the Eyre Hall Trilogy, and preview parts of the second volume, Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall, which she is currently finishing. Terry Tyler has published seven novels ~ ‘Kings and Queens’,’You Wish’, ‘Nobody’s Fault’, ‘The Other Side’, ‘Dream On’,’Full Circle’ and ‘What It Takes’ are ‘exclusively available’ (!) on Amazon Kindle Store. A collection of short stories, ‘Nine Lives’, is also available. She is currently working on the sequel to ‘Kings and Queens’, which is called ‘Last Child’ – aiming for Jan/Feb 2015. Coming in July 2014 – a novella called ‘Round and Round’. She also writes for The UK Arts Directory, about self-publishing. Author, playwright, and poet, Trisha Sugarek has been writing for four decades. In the early days, her writing focused on play scripts.  She has since expanded her body of work to include fiction, books of poetry and Haiku, and a group of children’s books. As an actor and director she enjoyed a thirty year career in theatre. Writing full time now, she remarks, “I’ll step back onto a stage to direct something that is on my bucket list but I’d rather write and let someone else do the directing…” Originally from Seattle, she has worked in theatres from coast to coast. Her plays have been produced across the country and internationally. Trisha makes her home in the beautiful city of Savannah, Georgia with her two golden retrievers Rocky and Gus and her cat, Fiona. She has recently launched a series of murder mysteries, The World of Murder: The Art of Murder, The Dance of Murder, The Act of Murder, and The Angel of Murder.       0 0

This year will always be known to us as the Year of the Weddings. We attended a wedding on Cape Cod in June, which was held on a beach and officiated by a wonderful woman. I swear it was a Wicka ceremony, though. Can’t ever recall being told to whisper wishes for the bride and groom into my cupped hands and then blow them to the couple. Or point to the sky, then the sea, then the land for their blessing. But it was charming and heart-felt, and the officiant did say, “By the power vested in me by the State of Massachusetts…”, so I’m sure they’re married. This weekend my niece will be married to a wonderful young Greek man with a huge family. We will probably meet them all tonight at the rehearsal dinner. Good thing the groom’s parents pays for that. It’s begun well enough, with a call at 2AM from my daughter saying she and her fiancé had missed the plane in LA and hoped to be here by 3:30 this afternoon. Nice to know, since it’s a two hour drive to the dinner and I’d rather not exceed the speed limit. The next wedding is that of a former graduate student. She is now a rising Assistant Professor at The University of Ohio (I’ve been told you need to include the “the”) and is marrying a widower with three children. Instant family. If anyone can make a go of it as a stepmother, she can. I only hope she manages to get the affair organized, since she’s always got more on her plate than she can handle and tends to do things at the last minute. I’m trusting I won’t be helping her with the centerpieces. Finally, in October, my daughter’s wedding. Although the ceremony and reception are going to be at a place that supposedly handles all the details, there are still a million to work out. I’m sure all the MOB’s out there are intimately familiar with this. The invitations are not done yet, although the Save the Date cards went out and there is a wedding web site. How the heck did I get married without a wedding web site, a videographer, buses to take our guests to the site, and favors for each guest? It’s like a Hollywood production…but then, my daughter does live in LA. Stay tuned for more wedding adventures, and I’d love to hear about yours! P.S. Yes, there will be a dog in the processional (not this one, but close). He comes with his own tux! 0 0

Luccia Gray, author of All Hallows at Eyre Hall and mistress of the blog Rewriting Jane Eyre (http://lucciagray.com/) has nominated me for the Liebster Award. The award has German origins – the word “liebster” has several definitions: dearest, sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, welcome – and it follows similar principles as a chain letter, in the sense that it should be passed forward to bloggers whom you’d like to recognize and promote. Thank you, Luccia, for the nomination! In her blog today, Luccia is offering a free copy of her book to anyone who would like to read it. I have, and it was a great read. I hope all the Jane Eyre aficionados out there will go to her blog. Luccia has asked me to answer the following questions: What motivates you to blog? I’ll be perfectly honest and admit I was told, as a writer, I should have a blog. For a year, it went nowhere; I posted only occasionally, had maybe 5 followers, and couldn’t see the purpose of it. Then I enrolled in the A-Z Challenge, had a good time doing my first every-day blogs on odors. Few more followers. I started following a bunch of bloggers and suddenly I discovered I was enjoying reading others’ blogs more than mine. A short story by Kate Loveton and a cup of coffee is a wonderful break; pictures and memoir from Australia by Irene Waters, history and pictures from Luccia Gray; a book review by Rosie Amber. Plus I’ve gotten a lot of support, some reviews of my book, and met an amazing group of women. A post you’d like us to reread. I re-posted it last week. It’s one I wrote on friendship, which my blogging sisters remind me about every day. 3. What do you feel strongly enough to discuss for hours? Politics. But it will never be part of my blog. It’s currently too divisive a topic. Alexander de Toqueville, a French politician and historian best known for his two volumes, Democracy in America, and who traveled widely in our young country after 1831, wrote that politics was the one topic about which each American he met was passionate! Write the first line of a novel: When the Jeep was finally tugged and pushed from the gripping goo of the mud flat, an arm, fingers pointing to the overcast sky, emerged from the muck. And yes, I’ll probably use this! Write the last line of a poem: They arrived, wondering and weary, with dreams in their pockets and the clothes on their back. It would be dedicated to my grandmother, who came through Ellis Island in 1885, and my father’s ancestors, who apparently came to Maine from Ireland during the Potato Famine. Where would you live if you could live anywhere? While I have found many places that stir my soul and fill my heart – Maine, San Francisco, Boston, Prague, London, Hawaii, the Bahamas – I think I’d live right here in Chapel Hill. My roots run deep in the clay soil, and it’s where my family grew up around me. Plus it’s relatively close to both the Crystal Coast and the Appalachian Mountains! Which book(s) would you take with you to a desert island? How big could the suitcase be? It would have to be books that I’ve never grown tired of re-reading: The Ring Trilogy by Tolkien, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, the plays of William Shakespeare, the poems of Robert Frost, and yes, the Bible. It never fails to amaze. What historical person would you like to have lunch with? Since I am an anatomist, hands down, Leonardo da Vinci. Not only an extraordinary mind, a painter extraordinaire, and a mechanical engineer of the future, but the first real anatomist. Although artists earlier than he had dissected human bodies, he was the first to do perfect anatomical drawings of much of what he observed. He also annotated his drawings, did them from several perspectives, and in some was brave enough to discount the anatomical knowledge of Galen (130-200 AD). Galen’s anatomy, incorrect in so many aspects, was still being cited as late as the 18th century by members of the London College of Surgeons. If he had succeeded in publishing an anatomical atlas, he, rather than Vesalius, would be the father of modern anatomy. Which book would you have liked to write? That’s a tough one. I think Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck is not only a powerful writer, but the subject of the book – the Great Depression and the Dustbowl migrants from Oklahoma – has always fascinated me. The characters are magnificent and Steinbeck is unflinching in his depiction of tragedy, but also of the incredible strength of the human spirit. 10.  What is the next book you are planning to read? Good grief, there are so many on my TBR list! Probably The Goldfinch, since I’ve read so many positive and negative comments about it from reviewers. I want to make my own decision.   Here are the fellow bloggers I am nominating in turn, because I am never bored by what they write. Trisha Sugarek, Writer at Play, http://www.writeratplay.com/ Tara Ford, Tara Ford-Author, http://taraford.weebly.com/ Stephenie Forgue Houghtlin, http://stephenyhoughtlin.com/ Irene Waters, Reflections and Nightmares, http://irenewaters19.com/ Bob Byrd, Birdwords’ Blog, http://byrdwords.wordpress.com/ Here are the five questions I would like to them to answer: 1. What is the goal of your blog? 2. Do you have other creative outlets besides writing? 3. How and from where do you get your inspiration to write? 4. If you could be any well-known, published author, who would that be and why? 5. What is the one story, or artistic endeavor, that you yearn to complete but have yet to do so? Thanks again, Luccia! 0 0