Wacky Relatives and Other Wedding Woes (and a new Riga Hayworth Mystery!!)

(photo by sparechangekitchen CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 WANA Commons)

When my husband and I were planning our wedding a few of his, shall we say, less stable family members were being a bit problematic. For the sake of cordial relations with the in-laws I won’t get any more specific than that.

He looked at me one day and said, “ You’re not getting a very good deal out of this marriage in terms of extended family.”

I laughed. “Honey, we’ve got just as many crazies in my family,” I told him. “You just haven’t met them because they’re not speaking to the rest of us anymore.”

I thought of that conversation the other day as I started reading the latest Riga Hayworth mystery. In this fourth book in the series, Riga is getting married. Or at least, she’s trying to. But weird and wacky things keep happening. Like a dead photographer who gets up and walks away.

Then some of her crazier relatives show up and she finds out some things about her family that have her doubting whether she should even get married. Is it fair to her fiancé, Donovan, to bring this baggage into his life? But then again, Donovan has his own baggage.

The bottom line is we all do. Show me someone who has no past trauma, no issues from childhood, no crazy family members that make them cringe in embarrassment, and I will show you a… well, a fictional character, because that’s not reality. Actually it wouldn’t even be a very believable or interesting fictional character.

As a psychotherapist, I was always pleased to see engaged couples giving some thought beforehand to what impact their baggage might have on their relationship. It’s always better to know ahead of time what problems you’re likely to encounter so you can perhaps plan some strategies, or at least not be taken by surprise. Facing those possible demons head on right from the beginning is a lot healthier than denial and defensiveness.

(photo by cellar_door_films CC BY_NC_SA 2.0)

But I also encouraged them to not let that baggage stop them from getting married. One of the many things that a good marriage does for us is provide healing experiences. Knowing someone loves you unconditionally goes a long way toward countering past hurts. And a loving spouse can help us realize that just because our family tree may have a few nuts in it, that doesn’t mean we’re damaged goods.

Riga knows they have their baggage but they also have plenty of good things going for them–genuine caring, good communication (or so she thinks) plus a few metaphysical talents–that are sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse.

It will be interesting to see how their marriage progresses in future books, that is if they can actually manage to get married in this one.

Check out The Infernal Detective below (I love the blurb for this book!) and then let’s chat a bit in the comments. What wacky relative showed up at your wedding? Have you ever felt like you were lugging too much baggage from the past into a relationship, or maybe found the other person’s baggage too hard to cope with?

Or if you don’t feel like getting that heavy (pun fully intended) you can just congratulate Kirsten on her new book. Happy Release Day, Kirsten!!

When Riga Hayworth finds a dead body in her bedroom a week before her wedding, it’s par for the course. When the corpse drives off with her fiancé…

That’s a problem.

Riga knows dead. More intimately than she’d like. So when a murdered photographer gets up and walks away, she believes there’s necromancy afoot. And when she discovers that several of her wedding guests are under the influence of dark magic, she’s certain. But how can she catch a killer and stop a necromancer when even her nearest and dearest are lying to her?

Murder. The undead. Irritating relatives. The Infernal Detective is a fast-paced, paranormal mystery, where nothing is quite as it seems, and magic lies just beyond the veil. Available on AMAZON now!

Oh, I almost forgot. Kirsten also has a really cool trailer for the book. Would you like an invitation to Riga and Donovan’s wedding?

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

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Five Things I’m Glad There Are Five Of (and a Cover Reveal!)

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To celebrate the release of my new book (#5) I’m kicking off a series of posts today about things there are five of. I’m calling it the Tour of Fives. Today’s is a Just for Fun post to go along with the cover reveal for the book.

And you can win something if you stick around to the end. (No, I’m not above bribing people to be my friends. It worked in elementary school so why not?)

So without further ado…

Five Things I’m Glad There Are Five Of (And an awesome cover!)

Fingers: I love my fingers. They are long and slender and quite agile for their age. They do needlework, play the piano (sort of), pet the dog, type (okay, with lots of typos despite the oversized keyboard!), and they squeeze a friend’s hand as needed.

(And no, I am not that mathematically-challenged. I know I have ten of them, but there’s five per hand, so there.)

Toes: I’m not quite as fond of my toes, because they are not long and thin. I’ve got those weird curly-over type toes that aren’t very attractive. Still I’m glad I have them because they keep me upright (most days) and they’re really good for digging into the sand!

These toes are a lot cuter than mine! Trust me, you DON’T want to see my toes. (photo by cellar_door_films, CC 2.0, WANA Commons)

Toes in the sand reminded me of…

Months in the Summer: No, I haven’t lost my mind. I live in Florida and down here we have five months of summer. It starts in early to mid May and lasts until early to mid October.

I can hear the groans from all the cold-weather types up there in Michigan and Maine. But I love hot weather! And our summer is preceded by two to three months of gorgeous spring weather, from late February to early May. Okay, now you’re envying me! Yup! Sunny, 70′s-low 80′s, low humidity.

Senses: Where would we be without them!?!? My favorite sense is touch. When we think of our five senses, it’s often the last to come to mind, maybe because it isn’t as obvious (not like the nose on your face), nor is it as straightforward.

Touch is a complicated sense. It includes pain, pressure and temperature sensors, and they’re located all over our bodies (am I the only one who’s getting a little tingly here?) We also have touch sensors inside our bodies, in our muscles and other tissues.

This is what I love about this sense! Those sensations inside of us tell us (if we’re paying attention) how we’re feeling. And I think I’ll stop right there because I fear another whole blog post is about to evolve here.

Those visceral internal sensations are a true blessing for us writers who want to convey a character’s feelings. “Her throat closed” or “the pressure was building in her chest” are a bit more interesting than just saying she was sad or pissed off.

Which brings us, last but not least, to… Drum roll, please!!!

Books in My Series: Book 5 is on its way! And I’ve been told by advanced readers that this might be the best one yet.

The characters experience LOTS of those visceral feelings (especially fear!) as they are being chased by a ruthless killer. Here’s the awesome cover my cover artist came up with:

Let’s hear it for Martina Dalton of The Authors’ Redroom!! I hope to have this book out by the end of the month, first week of June at the latest.

Here’s what it’s about (and then I’ll tell you about the ‘winning something’ stuff):

When a former client reaches out to psychotherapist Kate Huntington and reveals a foreign diplomat’s dark secret, then dies of ‘natural causes’ just days later, Kate isn’t sure what to think. Was the man delusional or is she now privy to dangerous information?

Soon she discovers her client was totally sane… and he was murdered. Someone is trying to eliminate her, and anyone and everyone she might have told. Forced into hiding, she and her husband, Skip, along with the operatives of his private investigating agency, struggle to stay one step ahead of a ruthless killer. Skip and his P.I. partner are good investigators, but this time they may be in over their heads… and they all could end up drowning in a sea of international intrigue.

I’m so excited about this book that I’m going to give 5 lucky people a chance to win an advance e-book copy. I will randomly pick the winners from the comments below.

What, you thought I was gonna give away money or something? hehe! Maybe next time.

So tell me about something there are five of that you’re particularly grateful for? Or just say something inane so you can try to win a copy.

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by clicking on RSS or filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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A Mother’s Day Tribute to Strong but Conventional Women

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A friend recently wrote a post about Gertrude Atherton, a strong and unconventional female author who scandalized 19th century society. I love such stories of women who defied the constraints of their era to live life to its fullest. But the article got me to thinking about all the strong but conventional women of the past who perhaps don’t get the accolades they deserve.

One such woman was Mary Amelia, who was born in 1898–around the time Ms. Atherton was publishing her most scandalous books.

Mary Amelia was the epitome of a strong woman. Not necessarily in the way we might define a strong woman today. Not kick-ass, go-to-the-gym-several-times-a-week strong. But she was emotionally strong. And she was my grandmother.

My grandmother (in the middle) in the conventional swimming garb of her era. Sexy huh?

She was the eldest child of a well-to-do Maryland family. Her father spoiled his beautiful wife. She loved babies, especially since she didn’t have to take care of them. (My guess is she loved the process of making babies as well, but folks didn’t talk about that back then!) So she kept popping them out, and when they were no longer little and cute, she turned them over to the servants to raise.

Then my great grandfather made a crucial mistake. He believed some guy who swore that the land in Florida he had for sale was prime real estate. Great-granddaddy sold his business, packed up his family and moved to Florida, only to discover that he had bought an alligator-infested swamp. (Yes, I am the progeny of someone who actually bought swampland in Florida! Not one of our family’s prouder moments.)

Great-granddaddy slunk back to Maryland and took a job as a laborer. With no money now for servants, my grandmother was pulled out of school at age 13 to take care of her younger siblings. Because heaven forbid her spoiled mother should have to change a nappie. My grandmother rose to the task (and until the day she died she was the matriarch of the family, even while her mother was still alive).

At 24, she was in danger of being an old maid when young “Buck” Roland (no pun intended; that really was my grandfather’s nickname) swept her off her feet. A few years later, she had her own baby, my mother. Unfortunately her new hubby was what they called back then a ne’er-do-well. He couldn’t seem to hold a job or keep a business going. He was long on promises and short on follow-through.

Now up to this point, my grandmother had played by the rules. She was a conventional woman who tried to avoid those things that “just weren’t done.” But out of necessity she did something that middle-class, married women of her era just didn’t do. She got a job.

With only an eighth-grade education, she became a clerk in the payroll department of a Baltimore chemical company. This was back when credentials were less important than pure smarts and a willingness to work hard. She had so much of both of the latter that she advanced through the years, despite sexism, to the position of payroll supervisor.

In the meantime, her husband was making less and less effort to make a living, and by the time my mother was eleven, he’d given up completely. Women, no matter how good they were at their jobs, didn’t make much money back then. My grandmother realized she couldn’t support three people on her salary.

So she did something that “just wasn’t done.” She looked at my grandfather one day and said, “You’re just another mouth to feed. You need to leave.” And he did.

She never divorced him, however, because that just wasn’t done. And she never took off her wedding ring, even decades after he had died. She went by her married name and considered herself a widow.

My mother, age 14, with her mother.

She raised my mother, as a single parent, in an era that was not at all kind to single moms. And not only did she make sure my mother finished high school, but she pushed her to go to college. Also, somewhere along the way, my grandmother bought her own house. Even though most of her sisters, who were married, were still renting theirs. And in 1959, at the age of 61, she learned to drive, and bought her first and only car.

My grandmother, the proud owner of a spankin’ new 1959 Ford Fairlane. (Yeah, that’s me in the dorky little skirt.)

She used to scare the crap out of my parents. She would get on the Baltimore Beltway, pull all the way over into the fast lane, and then do forty miles an hour. She thought the two lines in the center of the road were for bicycles, and they changed from solid to dotted occasionally just for variety, so that drivers wouldn’t fall asleep staring at them (seriously; I am not making this up!) When my father explained that the dotted line meant that drivers could now safely pass, she just stared at him. She never passed anybody, but plenty of drivers passed her.

We joked about her strange driving habits, but we were actually quite impressed that she had tackled such a foreign activity in her sixties (which would be comparable to one’s eighties today). She lived on her own until the day she died, almost a decade later.

It wasn’t until a few years after that, when I was fully grown, that I realized just how strong my grandmother had been, in her own conventional way.

I’m far from perfect, but I do think that I’ve done her proud in the ‘strong woman’ category. Thanks, Grandma, for being such a great role model!

Have you known any strong and remarkable conventional women? Who has been your most inspiring role model?

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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When Does a Stressor Become a Stressor?

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Here is my long-promised last installment in the stress management series. Finally!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the third main factor in how stressed we feel is our own interpretation of the events in our lives. With a few exceptions, a stressor isn’t a stressor until we view it that way.

This is why something can be soooo stressful to one person and someone else thinks they’re nuts for worrying about it. The interpretation of a stressor is unique to each individual, influenced by personality and past experiences.

This used to be one of my husband’s biggest stressors:

(photo by Dylan Ashe, CC-BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

When we were first married, he was a basketcase whenever we had to fly somewhere. We had to get to the airport extra early, so he could have a couple drinks in the airport bar to brace himself. But once we were on the plane, he wouldn’t drink. This was back in the days when alcohol on the plane was free (Yes, folks, once upon a time, airlines not only fed you for free, they would get you liquored up as well. No extra charge!)

So not only did I think the man was crazy, I was pissed that he was buying overpriced drinks in the airport and then not drinking the free stuff on the plane. One day, I confronted him about this and he explained that he couldn’t drink on the plane because he had to be able to concentrate.

“Concentrate on what?” I asked.

“On willing the plane to stay in the air,” he answered.

At that point, I truly thought I’d married a madman.

I later found out, as a psychology grad student, that this wasn’t an unusual fantasy on the part of folks afraid of flying. It’s their way of taking control of a situation where they feel out of control. (As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, control is often a big factor in stress.)

Fortunately, my husband finally figured out what was going on with his fear of flying. I won’t go into details since it’s not my story to tell. Suffice it to say that he’d had some bad experiences with people being in charge who were quite incompetent. So having someone else in control of his safety made him very nervous.

I, on the other hand, am one of those people who will run you over to get to a window seat. Then I squeal, “Look at the cute little cars and houses down there. It looks like a Christmas garden” as the plane is taking off. (My husband wears earplugs on planes; I can’t imagine why.)

(photo by Peretz Partensky, CC-BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

My attitude is that since I can’t control whether or not the plane stays in the air, I might as well not worry about it and just relax and enjoy the ride.

Now, let’s talk about job stress. My husband handles it very well. Why? Because he doesn’t mind having bosses. He’s an easy-going guy (has to be to put up with me!) and he’s okay with someone telling him what to do as long as they’re not an idiot. And if his boss is an idiot (he’s had a few of them through the years), he just figures out how to work around the idiocy and moves on.

I, however, have no patience whatsoever for idiot bosses, and it seems like I have had way more than my share of them. Of course, the fact that my definition of an idiot boss is any boss who doesn’t leave me completely alone to do my job without any interference could be part of the problem.

Yes, I am cussedly independent! So much so that by the time I was 30, I’d decided that the only way I could function in the world of work was to be self-employed. I went into private practice as a mental health counselor.

(photo by ThisIsRobsLife, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

It was the best decision I ever made. For the first time in my life, I totally loved my job! There were plenty of other stressors involved in being self-employed, but they all paled by comparison to how I had felt when I was being micro-managed by others. So I was a happy camper!

Fast forward 13 years and I was starting to burn out on listening to other people’s descriptions of their stressful lives. I had done a little bit of teaching here and there and had really loved the interaction with students. So I decided to apply for part-time teaching positions at the colleges in my area. My goal was to teach half-time and cut my practice back to half-time so it wouldn’t be so stressful.

After papering the Baltimore-Washington area with my resume, I finally got a call from the psychology department at Towson University. I liked the department chair and the whole atmosphere in the department, and I was reassured that there would be an ongoing need for my services as long as I did a good job.

Imagine my shock when halfway into the first semester I started having anxiety attacks any time I crossed paths with my department chair. Did I mention I liked him? I really did, so why was I so nervous around him? By the end of the semester, I was actually considering quitting teaching, even though I loved everything else about it.

To cut to the chase, I finally figured out that having a boss again, even one I liked, was pushing my control buttons. I wasn’t completely in charge of my own destiny anymore, as I had been for years. Indeed, when you teach college part-time your employment is completely at the whim of your department chair. He or she can choose not to hire you back the following semester and there is absolutely no recourse, because you are a contractual employee. This was the source of my anxiety, and no amount of lecturing myself about how everybody at Towson liked me and said I was doing a good job seemed to help.

After much thought, I hit on a solution, a way to reframe the situation to myself. I reminded myself that there were roughly fifty colleges within commuting distance of my home, and I should think of myself as a self-employed contractor, who was offering my expertise to these schools on a contractual basis. If I didn’t like the set-up at one school or they didn’t hire me back, I would just take my expertise elsewhere.

It worked! I felt so much better. I was able to relax and really enjoy teaching. I taught at Towson for 9 years, until my husband and I both retired and we moved to Florida. It turned out to be my favorite job ever!

Now if you’re thinking, “How silly. All you changed is how you thought about the situation,” you are exactly right. Except about the ‘silly’ part.

That’s the whole point. How we think and feel about a stressor very much affects how much it stresses us!

Back to my husband and his fear of flying for a moment. His fears dissipated dramatically when we started using a certain airline that had two things going for it. One, the crews are trained to be super friendly; the pilot stands at the door and greets the passengers as they board. Two, a friend of ours is a pilot for this particular airline and we know he’s a competent guy.

When my husband felt that those in charge of keeping the plane in the air were real people, friendly and competent like his friend, he was able to relax. Over time, his fear of flying completely disappeared. Today, he prefers flying over driving, whenever possible.

How about you? Any stressors come to mind that might not be so stressful if you were able to shift your interpretation of them?

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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Fun Friday’s Gone Visiting

Closure – Why Do We Need It?

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“Closure” is one of many psychobabble buzz words of recent times. I Googled “why closure is so important” and got almost 6 million results!

Why do we feel the need to have some kind of closure with the past before we can move on?

It sounds like it should be a complex issue, but the answer is really fairly simple. We human beings are programmed to try to understand our environment. We aren’t all that content with the concept of “it is what it is.” We want to know why it is what it is.

We humans have to know what’s behind the door, before we can close it and move on. (photo by Eleassar, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

This trait is extremely important to our survival and our development as a species. Indeed, it is probably the single most important factor in why we are the dominant species on the planet! By figuring out why something happened, we can either make it happen again if it was a good thing, or try to avoid having it happen again if it wasn’t so great. This need to understand the what, how and why is often the stimulant for human ingenuity and invention as well.

When we understand what’s going on we can make adjustments, come up with solutions. When we are left in the dark, we are uneasy.

The topic of closure popped into my head as a good subject to talk about this week because I just read JoAnn Bassett’s latest release, Kaua’i Me a River. This book’s a bit more serious than the others in her Islands of Aloha mystery series (although it still has its humorous moments). It is a very compelling story. I believe it’s my favorite of the series (and I’ve liked them all!)

The main character, Pali Moon, is minding her own business, trying to ignore her thirty-fifth birthday, when she receives a not very informative letter from a lawyer requesting her presence at a meeting to discuss an “urgent family matter.” That letter reopens some old wounds and Pali (pronounced Polly) becomes determined to find out what really happened to her mother, who died when Pali was just five years old. She risks a lot to find out what happened and why… pursuing that need for closure.

We may not always like what we find out, but unanswered questions from our past tend to leave us psychologically incomplete. For better or worse, we humans need to understand the past in order to put it to rest and move on.

Have you had times when a lack of closure has left you feeling incomplete or unable to move on?

While you’re pondering that question, take a look at JoAnn’s new release, Kaua’i Me a River. Also the first book in her series, Maui Widow Waltz, is FREE today through Thursday on Amazon!

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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HAWAII: One Island Chain, Eight Unique and Beautiful Links

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To celebrate the release of the 4th book in her Islands of Aloha mystery series, JoAnn Bassett is going to share some fun stuff about (and great pictures of) Hawaii, the setting of her novels and her home for many years. Each book in her series features a different island, or section of an island.

Take it away, JoAnn!

We all know Hawaii is a unique place. It is the only state that can claim to have no straight line border anywhere along its perimeter–because it is all islands, 137 of them to be exact.

What I think is most fascinating, however, is that within Hawaii the eight major islands are each unique to themselves. We mainlanders tend to think of the Hawaiian Islands as pretty much all the same. But each of the islands has its own distinct style and vibe. Just for fun, let’s look a bit at each of the eight.

O’ahu is often the first island you think of when you think of Hawaii. Made famous by the TV show, Hawaii Five-O, it is the seat of the state government and home to about seventy percent of the state’s population.

The skyline of O’ahu

Honolulu, the state capital, is the largest city in the world – literally. Because of a quirky clause in the Hawaii state constitution, any of the 137 islands that does not belong specifically to another county automatically belongs to Honolulu. As a result, the city of Honolulu is about 1,500 miles long–longer than halfway across the 48 contiguous states!

Maui hosts the most visitors of any of the Hawaiian islands. It’s home to Haleakala, the world’s largest dormant volcano, and the vintage whaling town of Lahaina. So many celebrities own property and visit the island every year that seeing someone “famous” isn’t uncommon. Oprah Winfrey has not one but two homes on Maui. Most visitors stay and play on the West Side, where resorts sit cheek to jowl along the coastline and the economy is nearly one-hundred percent tourism.

Ka’anapali beach on the island of Maui

Maui boasts the world’s most loved beach, Ka’anapali, and many of the destination weddings in Hawaii are performed on this island. My wedding planner protagonist, Pali (pronounced Polly) Moon, is based on Maui. The first two books in the series, Maui Widow Waltz, and Livin’ Lahaina Loca, showcase this popular island.

Hawaii is referred to as the Big Island. Much confusion is sparked by one of the major islands having the same name as the state itself. It’s sort of like New York and New York City. But unlike New York, the Big Island does not host the state’s most famous city.

On the Hilo side, the Big Island is very local, laid-back and tropical. This side is the gateway to Volcanoes National Park, a lush surreal landscape of steaming vent holes bordering a massive moonscape of lava.

A steam vent on the Big Island

On the Kona side, the dry side, large resorts have been built along the Kohala Coast to the delight of sun worshipers and golfers. The Big Island also grows many of the crops the state of Hawaii is known for: coffee, macadamia nuts, and orchids, to name a few.

Lana’i also has a confusing name. The word “lanai” in Hawaiian means a porch or balcony. But the name of the island of Lana’i has three syllables instead of two—lah-na-ee, as opposed to lah-neye. This small island is almost totally owned by one man, Larry Ellison, of Oracle software fame. Although the island used to be covered in pineapple plants, the pineapples are all gone now.

A resort on Lana’i

Due to some unfortunate events at the end of Livin’ Lahaina Loca, Pali finds herself in Witness Protection on Lana’i in the 3rd book of the series, Lana’i of the Tiger.

Kaua’i is the fourth largest of the Hawaiian islands. It is home to the Waialeale Mountain, that averages 488 inches of rain per year and is considered the wettest spot on earth. Called “The Garden Isle,” Kaua’i is green beyond imagining. The sunny south side, anchored by the town of Poipu, is where most visitors stay. Waimea Canyon, sometimes referred to as “the Grand Canyon of the Pacific” is a stunning red, brown, and tan gorge that appears out of place in the lush surroundings.

The North Shore town of Hanalei is where Peter Yarrow of the group Peter, Paul and Mary wrote their famous song about marijuana, Puff the Magic Dragon. That gives you some idea of the vibe of the place. In the 1970′s, a hippie enclave called Taylor Camp was located there.

A valley on the island of Kaua’i.

In my new release, Kaua’i Me a River, Pali spends a lot of time on this island, trying to find out what happened thirty years ago, when her hippie mother died under mysterious circumstances.

Molokai is considered the most “Hawaiian” of the islands that are accessible to the public. It doesn’t have much tourist development and the locals live a quiet laid-back lifestyle. It’s an everybody-knows-everybody kind of place.

The east end of the island is very wet—getting some 240 inches of rain in a year. Most people remember Molokai as home to Kala’aupapa, the place where people suffering from leprosy (now called, Hanson’s Disease) were sent to live in isolation. One of the Catholic Church’s newest saints, Father Damien, died while helping the inhabitants there.

Ni’ihau island is smaller and privately-owned. Only some 200 people reside there. They live in the traditional ways—speaking Hawaiian and without using modern conveniences. Non-residents cannot come on the island, except by invitation or by obtaining one of a very limited number of hunting permits.

Kaho’olawe is the smallest island of the major eight, only 45 square miles. It is a sore subject in Hawaii. Once an inhabited island, for decades it was used for bombing practice by the U.S. military. Groups are trying to restore the island but it will take time and money to erase its sad past.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this armchair tour of Hawaii. If you like all things Hawaiian as I do (or if you just like a good whodunnit), please check out my Islands of Aloha Mystery Series.

Kaua’i Me a River is now available on Amazon. The next book in the series will be set on O’ahu and the last will be on the Big Island. (Also, Monday thru Thursday of next week, Maui Widow Waltz, the first book in the series will be FREE on Amazon. Bookmark it now so you can get it free next week!)

It’s her thirty-fifth birthday, but Maui wedding planner Pali Moon is doing her best to ignore it. Then she receives a letter from a lawyer in Hanalei, Kaua’i, requesting her presence at a meeting to discuss an ‘urgent family matter.’ The letter brings Pali’s Kaua’i past rushing back—her birth at a hippie enclave on the North Shore in the 1970’s; her father deserting the family never to be heard from again; and, worst of all, her mother’s tragic death when Pali was only five. What could a Hanalei lawyer possibly have to say that would be worth dredging all that up again? But curiosity and devotion to her mother’s memory win out and Pali heads to Kaua’i. What she discovers on The Garden Island not only rewrites her history but also alters her future.

Posted by JoAnn Bassett. For several years, JoAnn lived in an oceanfront home on Maui, but her husband wasn’t the island rat that she is, so now they live mostly in Southern Arizona. She travels to Hawaii throughout the year, and enjoys writing about life on “the most idyllic islands in the Pacific.”

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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“BOSTON STRONG”–YES!!

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I had intended to finish my stress management series today, but in light of the events in Boston last week, I’m going to do a variation on that intended post.

(image by LADreamzinc — CC-SA-3.0 license, Wikimedia Commons)

The post I had planned would have talked about how our cognitive and emotional interpretation of an event makes a huge difference in how stressful that event is for us. I will talk more about that topic soon.

One of the biggest factors in that cognitive/emotional interpretation is how much control we feel we have over a particular stressor and its impacts. We human beings hate to not be in control. I would venture to say that feeling out of control is the worst feeling we can experience. It scares the bejeezus out of us!

We will even sometimes blame ourselves for a negative event that wasn’t our fault, just so we can have some feeble sense that we could have controlled the outcome if we’d just realized what was coming. (If I’d gone a different route that day, the car accident wouldn’t have happened.) For even a horrible feeling such as guilt is preferable to facing the reality that the event was truly beyond our control.

Another pitfall when we are running from that reality is to blame others, especially those in authority. Right now the country is united in its grief and sorrow for the victims of the Boston Marathon explosions and their families. But I know the reports will start on the TV news soon… the investigations, the demands that “they” do something to keep this from happening again.

Do what? Stop having marathons? Or football games, or golf tournaments? Cordon off the entire area and not let anyone be nearby, so there is no one on the sidelines cheering the participants on? But what’s to stop some nutcase (and make no mistake about it, these men were nutcases who were using their religion for their own sick purpose) from planting a bomb the night before, or the week before?

Of course, “they” should do what they can–increase security, bring in the bomb-sniffing dogs, etc. But the reality is that some nutcase could, at any moment, disrupt your life or mine and bring tragedy into it because of their own twisted agenda.

So what should we do about that? Exactly what the citizens of Boston are doing! Going about their business, refusing to give in to fear.

We cannot always control what happens to us. We can control how we lead our lives. If we lead with fears about what might happen, then the terrorists and nutcases have already won! If we refuse to give in to that fear and live our lives to their fullest every moment, than we are having the best life we can have in an uncertain world where not everything is controllable.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing that we humans want to be in control. That may be the single most driving force behind our progress as a species. And we have a lot more control over our environments and our destinies than we once did.

The winner of the 13th Boston Marathon in 1910, during a time when people routinely died of pneumonia because antibiotics had not yet been discovered.

But I do wonder sometimes… Has the control that science and technology’s given us over so many once uncontrollable things led us to a false belief that we should somehow be able to control everything?

I doubt that will happen, at least in our lifetimes, and probably never. We really need to come to grips with the reality that we cannot control everything, such as hurricanes and lunatics. But we can control how we respond to the natural disasters and the fanatics who intentionally create unnatural disasters. We can band together as the people of Boston have so heroically exemplified.

And we can yell, “Boston Strong!” from the rooftops. And never let fear win!

Celebration in Boston after the capture of the 2nd suspect (photo by Grk1011 — CC-SA-3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

On a lighter note, if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been around much for the last week, it’s because I was in Maryland painting our summer place up there (with the help of my wonderful brother). I promised pictures so if you hop over to my website, you can see the transformation of my shabby shack into a cute cottage (it looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate syrup on top )

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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How to Become a Necromancer –for Fun and Profit

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Kirsten Weiss has come up with a fun post about raising people from the dead. Okay, now that I’ve written that out I see that it sounds a bit strange, but still…

Kirsten loves to mix mystery with the paranormal in her books. Her next book, coming out in May, revolves around necromancy. Here is the World English Dictionary‘s definition of necromancy:

1. the art or practice of supposedly conjuring up the dead, especially in order to obtain from them knowledge of the future
2. black magic; sorcery

A famous necromancer, Edward Kelly, invoking the spirit of a dead person. Source: Astrology, A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences by Ebenezer Sibly, M.D. F.R.H.S., London, 1806. (copyright expired) fromoldbooks.org

So with tongue firmly planted in her cheek, Kirsten helps you explore whether necromancy is the right career path for you. Take it away, Kirsten!

Is necromancy right for you? Do you see ghosts? Regularly commune with the undead? Have dreams of world domination? Watch the Oprah network? If you answered “yes” to any of the prior questions, then death magic may be a viable career path. Just follow this simple step-by-step guide to becoming a master of necromancy.

easel.ly

Any questions? I’ll be hanging out here today to discuss this career option further, or the realm of the paranormal in general.

And here’s a little teaser blurb for my book:

When Riga Hayworth finds a dead body in her bedroom a week before her wedding, it’s par for the course. When the corpse drives off with her fiancée…

That’s a problem. [tweet this]

Riga knows dead. More intimately than she’d like. So when a murdered photographer gets up and walks away, she’s believes there’s necromancy afoot. And when she discovers that several of her wedding guests are under the influence of dark magic, she’s certain. But how can she catch a killer and stop a necromancer when even her nearest and dearest are lying to her?

Posted by Kirsten Weiss. Kirsten is the author of the Riga Hayworth series of paranormal mystery novels: The Metaphysical Detective, The Alchemical Detective, and The Shamanic Detective.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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Of Brothers, Birthdays & Books!

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This weekend, I’m participating in Stacy Green’s Birthday Blast, and there’s a CONTEST involved, with multiple chances to win an $80 gift card (details below). Yay!

Stacy got a bunch of authors together, and many of us have put one or more of our books on sale as part of this blogfest. My latest release, An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine, is on sale for just $.99 and I’ve also reduced the price on two other books, Family Fallacies and Celebrity Status, to $2.99. This is a limited time offer so grab up your copies soon!

(More great book buys below!)

But first, my post on the subject of birthdays… and big brothers!

My family didn’t make a huge deal over birthdays when my brother and I were growing up. We got a present, usually sitting next to our plate at dinner, and a birthday cake (chocolate icing for me, coconut for him), and that was about it.

Which was kind of a shame IMHO because one’s birthday is a special day that is all yours! You’re the only one being celebrated. Now I’m not faulting my mom. My parents didn’t have a lot of money when we were little shavers and I know she did the best she could. But I think there should be a bit of a hoopla about one’s birthday, especially when you’re a kid.

One of the few times my mother threw a party for us. This was my brother’s 5th birthday. I’m the one in the high chair.

My brother and I are now in our 60′s, so we have mixed emotions about birthdays. On the one hand, we’re damn glad we’re still having them. On the other hand…

Since my brother’s birthday is coming up in just a few days, I decided to dedicate this post to him, and to brothers everywhere.

THINGS MY BIG BROTHER TAUGHT ME FOR WHICH I AM VERY GRATEFUL:

1. How to say ‘brother’ as one of my first words. (No kidding, folks, he actually got in my face and actively taught me to say that word. It came out ‘bludder’ and the family story goes that I licked his face when I said it, as in “Ah, Bludder!” *tongue slurp*)

2. How to ride a scooter. (I’ve long since forgiven him that little mishap involving a huge gash on my forehead that needed several stitches. But I’ve still got the scar… just sayin’.)

3. How to ring the little bell on my bike handlebars with one hand while not losing control of my bike. (I’ve gotten a lot better at multitasking since then.)

4. How to make figure-eights with my bike. (Okay, that one ended badly too; there was a concussion involved.)

5. How to stand up to bullies.

6. How to catch a softball (although I never quite mastered the football lesson) and dance the cha-cha.

7. How to control my temper. (Okay, I’m still working on that one.)

8. What to say to boys so I wouldn’t sound stupid (yeah, still working on that one, too).

9. How to make the guys in my books sound and act realistic. (He beta reads all my books and advises on the ‘guy stuff’ even though he doesn’t particularly like to read.)

10. How to be generous with the people you love (see above and below) and be a fiercely loyal friend.

If you’ve got a brother (or sister) you’d like to brag about, go for it in the comments below. But I won’t be able to respond until next week.

Why? Because my brother is very generously traveling with me today up to Maryland to help me paint the outside of my summer cottage up there. Even though it’s his birthday week!

My brother now, in my summer cottage sunroom.

This is the last project he helped me with… finishing off the sunroom in my Maryland cottage. It turned out great!

Don’t worry. I’m gonna bake him a cake! (And I’ll post before and after pictures of the house next week.)

Happy Birthday, Ralph! I love you, Bludder!

Now the Book Deals and Contest!

The following authors also have birthday-related posts up today, and they are all featuring one of their books!We’ve got something for everyone’s tastes.

You can enter the contest at each blog site (i.e. multiple times) plus there are bonus opportunities to enter! Prize is an $80 gift card!!!

Stacy Green’s post: It’s my birthday, and I’ll cry if I want to!

Stacy’s second novel, TIN GOD is an Amazon Hot New Release at just $3.99 ~ Black market adoption, two dead women, and a demented killer. How far would you go to bring justice?

Melinda VanLone’s post: Birthdays: Looking Back? Or Looking Forward?

Melinda’s debut urban fantasy, Stronger Than Magic, is just $2.99 ~ Tarian Xannon fights demons, like the rest of us. Hers just happen to be real.

Julie Day’s post: An Aspergirl and Birthday Celebrations, or Not

Julie’s Don’t Get Mad, Book 4 of Geraldine’s Gems romance series is just $1.99 ~ Sandra follows her aunt’s advice, “Don’t get mad, get even,” develops a buff body at the gym, falls in love with a new man and learns to stand up to her estranged control-freak husband.

Catie Rhodes’ post: Time’s Ticking Away

Catie is featuring her debut novel, Forever Road, starring Peri Jean who owes a ghost a favor and must solve a murder to pay it off ~ $3.99

Tamara Ward’s post: Birthday Cake Fiasco

Tamara’s new release, Hidden Betrayal, is featured at $3.99.

Gregory Carrico’s post: Missing Child in Gator Infested Swamp. sort of.

Gregory is featuring Children of the Plague ~ Can teenage Lanni save her brother, and what’s left of mankind from plague infected mutants in post-apocalyptic Manhattan? ~ $3.99

Patricia Sands’ post: Look Out! Here Comes Another One!

Patricia is featuring her new release, The Promise of Provence ~ Is home exchange in the south of France a remedy for heartbreak? ~ $3.99

And last but not least, don’t forget that my new novella, An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine, is on sale for just $.99.

I’ve also reduced the price on Family Fallacies and Celebrity Status, to $2.99, for a limited time only.

Here is where you enter the contest!
It starts at 12:01 a.m. April 12 and runs through Sunday, April 14th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address where it says “subscribe to blog via email” in the column on the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

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