Nacreous, Harmony Run Series book 4, by Sarah Elle Emm

I'd like to welcome Sarah Elle Emm to my blog to talk about her forthcoming release Nacreous, book four of the Harmony Run series. Most of you who follow my blog will know that I'm a huge fan of this incredible series.

About Nacreous 

After two members of The Freedom Front are arrested and interrogated by the UZTA’s tyrannical President Nicks, Rain Hawkins and her friends face the alarming reality that their plans to liberate the mixed zones across the United Zones of The Authority might not come to fruition. While the resistance movement is growing outside the walls of the zones, the president’s forces are strengthening and putting citizens everywhere in more peril than ever. When Rain receives warnings that her cousin, Calista, has agreed to support plans to kill the mixed zones, and that her life could be on the line at the upcoming pure zone initiation ceremony, she must decide where her loyalties lie and if all of her allies can be trusted. As The Freedom Front use their abilities to unravel the mystery of the ceremony, The Authority captures some of their friends, forcing TFF to either go into hiding, or plan a rescue mission that could jeopardize everything they’ve been fighting for.

Nacreous is available on paperback and kindle

Author biog

Sarah Elle Emm is the author of the HARMONY RUN SERIES, a young-adult fantasy and dystopian series, released in May 2012 by Winter Goose Publishing. (PRISMATIC, May 2012, OPALESCENT, February 2013, CHATOYANT, September 2014, NACREOUS, August 2015) Her debut fiction novel, MARRYING MISSY, was published by Bird Brain Publishing in October 2011. Sarah is a graduate of The University of Evansville, she has lived and worked in Mexico, Germany, England, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and has traveled extensively beyond. Sarah lives in Naples, Florida with her family. When she’s not walking the plank of her daughters’ imaginary pirate ship or snapping photos of Southwest Florida scenery, she is writing.

The previous books in the Harmony Run series can be found on Sarah's Amazon Author page.

Sarah, in her own words

Hooray, it is finally release day for Nacreous! Thanks for stopping by the fabulous Release Day Blitz, organized by Book R3vi3w Tours. To kick off the blitz, here are a couple of “Fun Facts” about my writing process… I hope you enjoy!

Writing Playlist:

So…Music. Some authors swear by it. They have their playlist set in the background while they pen their latest manuscript. Me? Not exactly. Music is very important to me. I believe in dance parties, and by dance parties I mean cranking up my I-pod to the music fitting my mood, be this salsa, classic rock, blues, country, classical, whatever, and dancing alone in my room or kitchen. (Yes, I said classical and country in the same list). My kids may or may not be in attendance. They like to watch and laugh. Sometimes, they join in. But as far as my writing process goes, the music is sort of my warm up. So I might turn on some music that fits my mood for parts of the story and listen to it in my car or at my desk before I write, but not while I am actually writing. I need it to be quiet in the room, so I can tell the story…(Ahem, hear what my characters are trying to tell me). ;) While I wrote Nacreous, and the other books in the Harmony Run Series, my favorite music warm-up to set the mood was Lorde. Specifically, the songs Team and A World Alone. In fact, if any of the books from my series could be made for film, I would beg producers to include one of those songs in the movies.

My writing process:

I can’t sit down and force myself to write everyday because it begins to feel too mechanical, but I am definitely one of those people who thinks about writing, story ideas, characters, scenarios all of the time, awake or asleep. I love using my dreams in my writing and have written a few of them into scenes in the Harmony Run Series. Back in college, the good ol’ stone ages, I had one of the most terrifying dreams of my life about a man with a triangular-shaped eye chasing me down a corridor, one door after the other, with this woman’s voice echoing all around us, telling him to kill me. When I got to the end of the corridor, I opened the last door, and he was standing there facing me. I woke up sobbing…About a year later, a psychology professor at my university asked some of us to share dreams with him so he could demonstrate dream analysis. I bravely raised my hand, (this was huge for me, since I am very shy in person), and shared my dream in vivid detail. After I finished talking, the entire class got eerily quiet and the professor told me I was dealing with issues beyond his realm of help, and went on to the next student’s dream. That student shared a dream about not being able to make a goal in a soccer match, and the professor dissected his dream in depth for fifteen minutes. Years later, I incorporated that dream, adding on some twists and turns of course, into book one from the Harmony Run Series, Prismatic. 

I also come up with ideas when I'm looking out of the kitchen window, when I'm walking, driving, cooking, gardening, taking my kids to martial arts, helping with their homework, basically, every waking moment. I take heaps of notes. I jot notes down for days. And when i'm ready, I sit down and type everything I can. I woke up the other night, and grabbed the notebook and pen beside my bed and wrote down an idea for another story. So my writing process is sort of a twenty-four hour thing. Oh, and probably the most important part of the process...How could I forget? My dog, Shorty, has to harass me to sit on my lap throughout the day. She eventually gives upland sleeps at my feet or nearby. She spares me the occasional glance or sighs every so often when I talk too much. yes, I like to talk aloud to myself more often than not. If that dog could talk...Well, thankfully that's not an issue. Here's a photo of my writing pal...

Isn’t she cute? I hope you stick around to read about Nacreous. I’m going to look up that old psychology professor to see if he wants to read my latest book… ;)

To connect with Sarah, you can visit her Website, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter. 

I'd like to welcome Joyce T. Strand to my blog to talk about her latest release. In a guest post she writes about writing an historical Mystery and her new book The judge's Story.

Why write a Historical Mystery?
by Joyce T. Strand

Why write an historical mystery? How could a mystery set in the past improve on current-day sleuthing tales?

I first understood that I loved history in high school, when I received the award for outstanding history student. I didn’t know that I excelled at history. Quite frankly, I just enjoyed reading historical novels—along with mysteries and some literary books by John Steinbeck and Dostoyevsky. I recall that when I studied and learned famous dates, I was inclined to imagine the people who made those dates significant and how they must have lived.

So when I considered writing a novel about a judge in the 1930s, the idea enticed me. And reading a Memoir by an actual California Superior Court Judge dated 1941 added to the allure. (For those of you who might be interested: Louis C. Drapeau, Senior; Autobiography of a Country Lawyer; 1941, available at the Museum of Ventura County/Library, 100 E. Main St., Ventura CA 93001).

As a writer of mysteries, however, I wasn’t quite sure how to create a 1930s protagonist, deliver a book with a puzzle, clues, red herrings, and villains—all the characteristics of a mystery—and, still attract 21^st century readers.

That’s when “history” came to my rescue. First, I delved into the 1941 memoir, which was full of descriptions of the actual judge’s cases as a lawyer, people he met and defended, and his beliefs and ethics. So I started to build my fictional Judge’s character based on these insights.

Next I searched for legal trends of the 1930s to buttress the actions of my fictional judge. I was surprised to find that in Ventura County, the Peace Officers recorded in their “Manual” [the Ventura County Peace Officers’ Training School Ventura 1939-1940] a “pronounced change” in the “attitude of the law towards criminals.” The change emphasized reforming a criminal and having the punishment fit the criminal rather than the crime, with the ultimate goal of convincing a young wrongdoer to do what was right. This trend amplified the actions of my Judge and, again, improved both the plot and its credibility.

With the professional part of my Judge’s life underpinned by both the actual judge in his memoir and writings from the peace officers, I next wanted to comprehend how the judge and other characters lived in the 1930s—without the internet, cell phones, and Amazon.com. I turned to reading a year’s worth of the daily newspaper [Oxnard Daily Courier, January 1, 1939 to January 1, 1940). I was rewarded with gobs of interesting details—more than I could possibly use—and also learned that books of the day were serialized in daily papers.

But I wanted more. If possible, I yearned to actually see people from this time period. I have viewed enough Hollywood movies from the 1930s to appreciate their contribution to our culture and issues to our collective psyche. So, yes, I could pull from there. But I also wanted to observe real every-day people.

I am fortunate to have friends who are librarians who tracked down recordings of newsreels and documentaries, which added to my understanding of the time period. One of them sparked a scene at a drive-in movie theater, and another documented the rise and concern for teenage crime. 

I suspect that I could have continued to research the time period for much longer. I was fascinated with the events and learned that some things just didn’t change, such as, the argument over universal healthcare. However, it came time to write the mystery, so I set aside my curiosity and applied what I’d learn to produce The Judge’s Story.

Yes, it was critical to me that the history in the book be accurate. But what was even more imperative was comprehension of how people lived in the 1930s, what events had the most impact, and who were the heroes.  The mystery itself is a huge bonus, but the story was definitely enhanced by applying the trends and character traits of the period in which it takes place.

One final thought: what’s fascinating about studying history isn’t just learning the dates of various battles, elections, or trends, but rather connecting to the people of various time periods and how they lived. To me, that is the most valuable lesson of writing and reading a novel set in historical times—even a mystery.

The Judge’s Story by Joyce T. Strand

About The Judge’s Story

A Superior Court Judge with a passion for social justice as well as the law strives to discover the truth behind the mystery of a robbery-murder in a small California town in 1939.

When the Judge hears testimony against a 14-year-old teenager, he realizes that the boy participated in a robbery-murder. However, the accused did not actually pull the trigger. But unless the boy identifies his partner, the Judge must sentence him as a murderer, which would result in prolonged jail time. The Judge’s investigator, along with the precocious 16-year-old girl who identified the boy as one of the thieves, explore different approaches to uncover the murderer. In the backdrop of escalating war in Europe, the financial scarcities of the Great Depression, and the Judge’s caseload, their attempts to find justice for the accused boy and unmask the killer lure the Judge and his friends into sordid criminal activities.

Inspired by a memoir of a real California Superior Court Judge

Purchase Links for The Judge’s Story

Book and Kindle

Barnes and Noble Nook

About Joyce T. Strand

Joyce T. Strand is the author of who-done-it mysteries.

Her newest novel, THE JUDGE’S STORY, published June 23, 2015, is a historical mystery set in a small California town (Ventura) in 1939 and features a California Superior Court Judge.

Her most recent contemporary novel, HILLTOP SUNSET, is the first of a trio featuring protagonist Brynn Bancroft, a financial guru in transition to winemaker from corporate executive. Brynn Bancroft is a minor character in Strand’s novels ON MESSAGE, OPEN MEETINGS, and FAIR DISCLOSURE—three mysteries solved by Jillian Hillcrest, a publicist whose boss was Chief Financial Officer Brynn Bancroft.

Much like her protagonist Jillian Hillcrest, Strand headed corporate communications at several biotech and high-tech companies in California’s Silicon Valley for more than 25 years. Today, in addition to creating mysteries, Strand writes and publishes a blog, Strand’s Simply Tips, is a writer for a regional wine magazine, and is working on the second Brynn Bancroft mystery, to be published in November 2015.

Strand lives with her two cats and collection of cow statuary in Southern California, and seeks out and attends as many Broadway musicals and other stage plays as she can.

To find out more about Joyce go to her Website or Blog, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads.

Joyce can also be found at Amazon Central and Barnes and Noble.