Guest Author C. Hope Clark Champions the Abused in Her Fiction

October is Domestic Abuse Awareness Month and that is one of the themes for the month on my blog, with the emphasis (as always) on what it means for writers and readers. This is not an easy subject for most writers or readers, but it is one that we need to address as a society now, it seems, as much as ever. It's my pleasure to welcome back C. Hope Clark, author of The Carolina Slade mysteries and friend to writers everywhere with her website fundsforwriters.com, who will tell you about how she handled domestic abuse in her work. ~ Sheila 

Championing the Abused in Mystery Fiction

 By C. Hope Clark

Lowcountry Bribe, the first in The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, is not a cozy. Slade’s world becomes violent, the pace heart-thumping quick. The humor is dry, the air often thick with fear. The threats start with her job, a cherished part of her persona, and she reluctantly agrees to fight the good fight to salvage her career. But then those threats cross into her home life. First her children, then her own safety, and ultimately her life. Then she realizes the threats aren’t just from the obvious culprit. A family member becomes just as bad.

Domestic abuse is real. I experienced a nasty divorce. I left before anything turned physical (and I'm not saying that it would have, but the possibility was there). However, the verbal lashings might as well have left welts. Physical damage consisted of a twenty-five-pound weight loss, gallbladder surgery, two years of PTSD, and three years of anti-depressants. We write what we know, and to increase Slade’s tension and expand her obstacles, I tapped into old feelings, both physical and psychological--the nightmares, the looking over one’s shoulder, the tentative glances in a rearview mirror, the hang-up phone calls.

Some nights, my scenes became too hard to write. My critique group knew that portions of Lowcountry Bribe were autobiographical, but not which parts. So when a scene wasn’t deep enough, they’d ask if it was fact or fiction, then politely ask if the moment hit too close to home.

Many times it did come too close, throwing up a temporary writer’s block.

After years of edits, however, I reached the end. And over the next couple of years, I landed an agent and a publishing contract for the series. As I signed my name on the paper, giving Bell Bridge Books rights for Lowcountry Bribe, trepidation set in on two fronts.  First, had I painted Slade in a realistic light when it came to the threats and abuse? Had I given enough justice to those in real life going through such dark times?  Second, how would I handle it when people started suspecting Slade was me?

Slade endured physical abuse, including a near-rape. Thank God my life was not that severe, but suddenly I worried that I hadn’t the right to depict someone in an abusive relationship when I hadn’t been knocked around.

Then the reviews started coming in. Some immediately recognized the cycle of abuse and the triggers it takes to break free.

It seemed very real to life. For survivors of sexual assault there are some passages that could act as triggers. We get to witness her break out of the repressive shell even today's women are so often locked within, moving from reluctant victim to taking charge, and doing it quickly, albeit not necessarily smoothly, in order to save herself and her children. Well worth the read.

But this one made me cry, telling me that I’d done my job properly:

The entire novel had me hog-tied emotionally as I recognized this character and knew her to be a composite of real women I have known in my forty years as an advocate/counselor and nurse. I recognize these women who daily face their marriage, motherhood, job, regrets, and extenuating circumstances such as abuse, and rape/sexual assault. This book is tough for many to read if you graft Slade into your consciousness and find her as believable as I know her to be. But the truth is, it is one of the most realistic portrayals of millions of women who are living their lives in subjection until suddenly, a trigger is pulled. The trigger may be about the children, one's personal belief system or some traumatic personal event, but into every woman's life comes that moment of truth where she either flails, fails or excels. Slade does the latter. This incredible novel has so many believable and intricate portrayals of true to life characters, each so intimately described that you know them and who they are in your own life. C. Hope Clark has been blessed with firsthand knowledge so profound that she can translate it with purity and honesty that allows the reader to be there and participate. I dare say any victim of domestic violence and rape/sexual assault will find this novel filled with events so real you can taste, smell, and feel the pain of each trauma as it occurs. If Carolina Slade grows in the next books of the series, as realistically as she was born into print the author is going to have an unprecedented series that all women should read: and in particular, victims/survivors. Not every woman is a 'super-shero' but I guarantee you, every woman can relate to Carolina Slade.

Domestic abuse isn’t simple and is frequently hidden behind locked doors. In my writing group, some of the men didn’t understand why Slade didn’t just go to the police from the outset. They thought her behavior unreasonable at times. But the women got it. I’ll ever be happy I wrote this book the way I did.

C. Hope Clark is author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series from Bell Bridge Books. Lowcountry Bribe (2012), Tidewater Murder (2013) and Palmetto Poison (2014). She is also editor of FundsforWriters.com , a newsletter service that reaches 45,000 writers. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com

Please leave a comment. If it doesn't appear right away, please be patient. I moderate all posts to prevent spam. Thanks! ~ Sheila

~~~

Please come back Thursday when author Maggie Toussaint

will continue the theme of fiction's role in raising awareness 

about  domestic violence.

Fifty Textures of Sand - and a Sense of Place with Guest Author Nancy Gadzuk

I'm delighted to introduce my friend and fellow author Nancy Gadzuk, whose first novel, Moon Beach Magic, came out recently under the pen name Natasha Alexander. I'm about half-way through the book, and it's hilarious - reminds me of Carl Hiassen's quirky characters. And although it's not a beach read, the book and this post make me want to take my shoes off and head for the wet sand! Enjoy! ~ Sheila

Fifty Textures of Sand - and a Sense of Place

by Nancy Gadzuk

Exactly ten years ago today I was packing everything I owned into the empty Carlo Rossi wine cartons I’d pick up each day at my local packie (package or liquor store to those of you not from New England) to move south. I couldn’t believe how much cheap wine my suburban Boston neighbors were able to guzzle every day to keep me in empty cartons.

Sun. Sand. Beach. Warm winters. I was ready.

What I noticed first was the quality of the light here on the North Carolina coast. For one thing, there’s simply more light than I’d been accustomed to. Longer days. More days of sunlight. Somehow the light here feels more luminous and alive than it did in New England. When salt water shimmers under that light, I fall in love.

What I noticed next was that people stop. And talk. I meet barrel-chested macho fishermen on the beach who make kissy noises to my dogs. People in the grocery store who grab something from my cart and ask what I use it for. People on the street who want to know if I’ve found my church yet. Wherever I go, people talk like we’re friends. And so I guess we are.

I write about quirky characters stumbling toward self-awareness, decent pasta, and possibly love. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the sand, maybe it’s the coastal lifestyle (whatever that is), but once I began my flat-out, full-time focus on writing fiction, I couldn’t imagine my stories taking place anywhere but in a sleepy southern coastal town.

I hope I’ve conveyed this sense of place in my novel, Moon Beach Magic, which was released earlier this month.  My partner and I like to take road trips, and I think we’ve visited every funky little beach town from North Carolina to the Texas/Mexico border. Moon Beach is an amalgam of the very best of these gems.

Moon Beach Magic is, not surprisingly, a beach read. In addition to that sense of place, I tried to include something for everyone: mob threats, explosions, pastries to die for, a sleazy lawyer, redneck do-gooders, missing deeds, misunderstood artists, magic potions, shapely legs and long red hair, a loaded gun, a junkyard dog, hungry wildlife, and the threat of massive development.

Here’s the back-of-the-book blurb:

As Vince’s world explodes behind him, he flees his dead-end life for a fresh start in sleepy Moon Beach. But when a land-hungry con artist shows up in town, Moon Beach becomes anything but tranquil.

Now Vince and his to die for burnt sugar ricotta pastries, a feisty octogenarian with a major stake in prime coastal real estate, a beautiful young woman with a penchant for scrap metal and forgery, and the local wildlife must all join forces to try to save the beach–and each other–from an environmental disaster.

Greed. Deception. Sleaze. Dynamite. Definitely a recipe for trouble in paradise.

Unless adding a bit of Moon Beach magic to the mix can conjure up a generous helping of just desserts for everyone instead.

In earlier lifetimes, Nancy Gadzuk worked in publishing, taught at various levels from kindergarten through university, designed interactive video, attended theological school, and conducted ethnographic research in urban schools. (Not all at the same time, though.) If she’s not writing, she’s probably walking on the beach or singing.

She writes fiction under the name Natasha Alexander. Her novel, Moon Beach Magic, is available in both print and ebook form from online retailers and in print from selected independent booksellers. Visit her Natasha Alexander persona at Goodreads or her website: www.natasha.edcentric.org

~~~

Please come back on Thursday, when Sparkle Abbey will be guest blogging 

about why writing is hard - like training a puppy!

In the meantime, you can find my Animals in Focus mysteries 

and lots more under the tabs at the top of the page. 

Focus on Character Development: A View from Behind the Lens

This kitten would like
your attention.

Listen up! And help me welcome back Helen Peppe, author and animal photographer extraordinaire. Helen often relates elements of writing craft to her work behind the camera, and today she addresses the topic of character development, and shares more of her outstanding photos. (To see Helen's previous guest blogs for Write Here, Write Now, go to Eye of the Dog or Good Dogs Good Pictures: Photographing Dogs Solo. We met through the Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine MFA program, and Helen although I had already written Drop Dead on Recall, Helen has been a terrific resource for me as I continue to write about Janet MacPhail, the animal-photographer protagonist of my Animals in Focus mystery series - I discuss that in Art into Fiction, with Animals! Welcome Helen! ~ Sheila

Focus on Character Development: A View from Behind the Lens 

by Helen Peppe

This paw does not belong to a troll. 

Once upon a time there was a troll, the most evil troll of them all; he was called the devil. One day he was particularly pleased with himself, for he had invented a mirror which had the strange power of being able to make anything good or beautiful that it reflected appear horrid; and all that was evil and worthless seem attractive and worthwhile.

This is the first paragraph of “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson who embedded moral lessons in fairy tales and other short works, many of which do not end happily ever after. Anderson created his characters using the rules of polarity: good and evil, beautiful and ugly, greedy and generous. He recognized that people universally think in terms of opposites, that it pervades our physical environment: north and south, night and day, dark and light, hot and cold. Anderson kept his characters deceptively basic, a flat land of generic stereotype. There is the wicked witch and the beautiful princess, the conniving hag and unsuspecting king, and their differences create conflict. It’s as simple as yes and no, as right and wrong.

But it isn’t.

....sometimes you don't!

Sometimes you feel like a nut....

"I spy with my beautiful green eye..."

While photographing animals I meet many disarmingly kind mean people. Last month a horse’s owner told me that she’d never seen a sweeter gelding than the one who was my subject. When he bit my thumb hard enough to damage the radial nerve, she claimed he didn’t mean to. I’ve been peed on by male dogs who would never do such a thing and scratched by cats who always keep their claws in. I’ve been stepped on by horses who always respect human space, and I’ve been jumped on by dogs who never jump. I used to think people simply didn’t understand their pets. Now, after photographing and observing so many animals, I think people describe the characters of their pets as one dimensional because it’s difficult not to describe them as fairytale-like. And they don’t have to, unless they want to write and develop them true to life.

I am reminded of the simplification, the boring telling of character each time I donate my time and photography to a rescue organization. The first thing I do when I enter the cat room is read the short bios hanging on the cages or, in the case of a recent shelter, on a bulletin board in an area where the cats roam free. This is my preferred setting because I can sit on the floor and watch for the cats to reveal themselves from the climbing tree condos. I wait for their characters to unfold.

What sort of soul do
you imagine under
those stripes?

Crystal prefers affection on her own terms and seeks a quiet home without children, claimed the human whose job it was to summarize in a playful font the personality of a petite grey tiger. I sat on the floor with my ten year old assistant. After about thirty minutes, Crystal stepped out from behind a crate and wove around my daughter’s legs, purring louder and louder with each back and forth pass. When the pats didn’t come fast enough, she scented my daughter’s knees and, rumbling like an old Chevy without a muffler, thrust her head under what she saw as an available hand, the one that was actively patting Lucy, a recently surrendered female who liked to urinate on the couch. Crystal kept her motor running until the cat room door opened and a volunteer entered. Then she swiftly resumed her hiding place.  Cats, like photographers, watch and listen outside of the fray and wait for the stranger’s character to unfold.

This is a complex character, despite
the moustache.

It’s my job to capture the animal’s character in one image, an image that will pull in a potential adopter. Sometimes I feel my job is unethical because I can make the cat who hissed and smacked its roommate look utterly endearing and innocent. And that cat who was surrendered for using the closet as her litter box? I can make her appear, with one release of the shutter, as if she has impeccable hygiene by photographing her meticulously grooming a toe.

…for he had invented a mirror which had the strange power of being able to make anything good or beautiful that it reflected appear horrid… Hans Christian Anderson could easily have been writing about the power of the camera, which uses a mirror to reflect light that is life. Or, and this is what I believe, the mirror could be a metaphor for ourselves, of looking deeply into identity to our true character. “The Ugly Duckling” teaches us that a character who will engage the reader and turn the act of reading a book into a life changing moment might be beautiful and horrid, worthless and worthwhile. But he will never be one or the other.

Helen Peppe and her photography
assistant (and daughter!) Morgan.

Helen Peppe’s work has appeared in anthologies, print and digital magazines, including The Goodmen Project, Pop Fic Review, Practical Horseman, Equus, The Horse, Dog Fancy, Dog World, and Mused Literary Review. Her writing has won several literary awards, among them first place in the Word Worth Fiction and Essay Contest and The Starving Writer Contest. A chapter of her debut memoir Pigs Can’t Swim, “The American Eagle”, finaled for the 2011 Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction Award. Helen has an M.F.A. in creative writing from Stonecoast, and she teaches writing by illustrating craft through photography. She is working on her second memoir, Naked, Finding my Feet, and her first YA novel about a young girl and her rescue horse: I Name you Rockstar. Helen lives in Maine with her husband, Eric, her children, her dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and her horse. Her web site is www.helenpeppe.com. Pigs Can’t Swim will launch officially in February 2014.

Please leave a comment so Helen knows you were here!

And please come again on Thursday when my guest will be author and poet Linda Rodriguez with the first of her posts here on Native American writers you whose work you may not know, but should. 

A Picture May Prompt a Thousand Words

We've all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's another angle on that old saw: a photo (or other visual image) may also help inspire and expand ideas. I'm teaching a memoir-writing class right now, and each week I have offered my students some new tools to help them access memories and to enter deeper into the events they want (or need) to write about. Last week, I had everyone bring a photo to "explore" through some questions.

 

This exercise will work, too, for writers in other genres. For the poet, digging into an image, whether a personal photo or a found image, can pull up fascinating connections and inspirations. For the fiction writer, images of settings, people, animals, or objects can serve to inspire short stories or scenes in longer works, especially when the narrator or a character answers the questions. An image might even provide the kernel for a longer piece of writing. For nonfiction writers who work outside of memoir, images can inspire deeper explorations.

 

So if you're looking for a way to go deeper, or wider, or to find new ideas, try "interrogating" a photo or painting. Start with these questions:

 

• Where is this?
• When?
• Why were you there?
• Who else was there?
• Did you go there more than once?
• Did something special happen there?
• Is some object in the photo significant to you?
• Is a person or animal in the picture significant to you?

 

Now dig deeper:

• What do you hear?
• What do you smell?
• What did you eat or drink?
• What does it taste like?
• What’s the weather like?
• What time of day is it?
• What are you wearing?
• Who else is there?
• What do you feel with your hands, your feet, your skin….
• What emotions do you feel?

And so on....

Give it a try. Let me know how it goes. Send a picture of youself writing!

Mother's Day Gifts for Everyone!

I plan to spend the weekend reading the page proofs of The Money Bird, my second Animals in Focus Mystery, which will be out in September. It's the sequel to Drop Dead on Recall and features many of the same characters. Fifty-something photographer and animal lover Janet MacPhail is back, if course, with her Australian Shepherd, Jay, and her orange tabby, Leo. Professor and major hunk Tom Saunders and his black Labrador Retriever, Drake, are busy training for a retriever event along with a bunch of other water-loving dogs. Goldie and Mom are back, and Giselle, and the twins.... Well, you'll just have to read the book, I guess!

In the meantime, here are a couple of free short stories featuring Janet and Jay, and quirky Alberta Shofelter. Jay wears his tracking harness and puts his superpowers to work in both stories. Okay, normal canine powers - but he isn't a protagdog for nothing!)

Tracks

 "It all started when Alberta Shofelter asked me to shoot her dog. She offered triple my usual fee plus expenses and said that Jay could come along, so of course I agreed. Then the whole project whirled out of my control, and I found myself headed for an overnight ordeal in a Speedway motel."

 

Click here for the rest of the story.

 

 

"Tracks" appeared originally in Racing Can Be Murder, an anthology published by the Speed City Sisters in Crime (Indianapolis).

Missing Gypsy 

 

 

"Someone is out to get Alberta Shofelter. They’ve egged her new SUV and sprayed 'crazy cat lady' across her garage door. The diminutive calico she took in three weeks ago has been missing since last night, and Alberta is sure “they” have escalated to catnapping. I shove my cell into my pocket and watch Jay try to comfort Alberta. She isn’t quite weeping, but the little noises she makes are heart-rending."

  

"Missing Gypsy first appeared on Victoria Dougherty's "Cold" blog - click here for the rest of the story. 

.
Have a terrific weekend, and come back on Monday to find out how my guest, Gerald Elias, combines music and mystery. You won't be sorry!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Autographed copies of my mysteries, Drop Dead on Recall and The Money Bird (pre-order), as well as Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals are available from Pomegranate Books in Wilmington, NC.

 Click Here to Order.

 

 

 

Writers Write! with Guest author p.m. terrell

I'm delighted to welcome author p.m. terrell today. She is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than 17 books in four genres. She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation and founder of Book ‘Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair, which raises money to increase literacy rates. I had the pleasure of attending Book 'Em NC last February  and had a great time - hard to beat a gathering of authors and readers, all together for a great cause! And not, here's how to write a page turner. Please leave comments, and check out the links at the end to learn more about p.m. terrell's latest work.  ~ Sheila

WRITING A PAGE-TURNER

by p.m. terrell

 

My first fiction was based on a real-life trucking industry kickback scheme in which I turned evidence over to the FBI. Writing a fictionalized version meant my genre had been chosen for me; because there was no mystery as to who the bad guys were, it fell into the suspense category. It was a natural fit because my career prior to writing had been in the computer industry with a specialty in computer crime and computer intelligence. 

But what I have found over the last twelve years of writing full-time is the same principles used to keep readers turning the pages in a suspense/thriller can be applied to any genre. For example, when I wrote my two historical books, Songbirds are Free and River Passage, I wrote them in the same style as my suspense—and they are still my most popular books. 

Here are a few ways to keep readers turning the pages, regardless of the genre you write: 

Begin your book in the middle of the scene. 

In a time in which attention spans are becoming increasingly smaller, it is particularly important to grab the reader’s attention with your very first paragraph. You can’t do that if you begin by building scenes that won’t grip them until much later in the book. You have to demand their attention immediately—and hold it. 

End each chapter with a cliff-hanger. 

A cliff-hanger is anything that causes the reader to want to move to the next chapter to see what happens next. I learned this by analyzing What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, which is not a suspense/thriller—but a book I could not put down until I had finished it. Every chapter ended with the build-up to the next chapter. 

The first half of the book should aim at a pivotal mid-point. 

I often see writers building their scenes to a climax that might occur 70,000 words into the story. But to avoid the middle sag that can develop in a full-length book, I always have two climactic scenes. One is in the middle and serves as an eye-opening pivotal point that causes the reader to sit up straight and realize that everything they’d read to that point was perhaps not what it seemed. From that point onward, it’s a roller coaster ride that never lets up. The end result, in creating that mid-point scene, is a first half that must happen fast in order to get all of the necessary components lined up—and a second half that is breathless. 

The climax should be earth-shattering. 

Because there is a jarring scene in the middle, the stakes are higher for a larger climactic scene at the end of the book in order for the reader to feel completely satisfied. That scene has to change the main character’s life in an earth-shattering way, and must also be strong enough for the reader to continue thinking about it long after they have set down the book.

 

p.m.terrell's latest book, Dylan’s Song, was released earlier this year. For more information about the author and her books, visit www.pmterrell.com and for more information on Book ‘Em, visit www.bookemnc.org.

Guest Author C. Hope Clark on Setting Fiction "Out in the Sticks"

I'm delighted to welcome C. Hope Clark as my guest today. If you have seriously explored resources for writers, you already know about her website FundsforWriters.com, selected by Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers for the last 12 years. Her newsletters reach 35,000 readers. She is also author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, as well as The Shy Writer and The Shy Writer Reborn, how-to guides for the introverted writer in a noisy publishing world. To learn more, visit www.fundsforwriters.com  and  www.chopeclark.com  And if you'd like to know more about the Carolina Low Country setting of Clark's mysteries, check out the links at the end of this post. Frogmore Stew? Really?  ~ Sheila

 

When a Mystery Leaves the City Lights

 

by C. Hope Clark

In the Carolina Slade Mystery Series, Slade investigates agricultural crime. Death, murder, fraud, you name the crime, happens in the country as easily as in the city, only in more unique manners. And yes, there is a federal agency that specializes in agricultural crime.

A bribe in Lowcountry Bribe turns deadly as landowners die shortly after deeding away their farms. Children are kidnapped. Two attempted rapes. Murder by shotgun in a barn. The hog farmer isn’t quite the hayseed he likes people to believe he is. Then in Tidewater Murder, fraud and embezzlement become wound around voodoo, drugs, and modern day slavery leading to bodies in deep, dark, coastal water.

Out in the sticks, as some people call it, people think they can get away with, well, murder. Wide open spaces give ample chance for body disposal, and rural residents often possess talents and wiles a city dweller can’t imagine. Often that naiveté by urban types gives those rural folks greater odds of getting away with that murder.

Who knows what happens in vacant barns, forty miles from town? Or in distant marshes along the edge of property nobody ever sees from an Interstate? Ever wondered what would happen if you broke down on a two-lane road and had to knock on an old farm house? Most people assume a sweet couple comes to the door, offering lemonade to offset the summer heat, when they could be serial killers with a dozen bodies at the bottom of an irrigation pond, or buried two-feet down in mud and feces, half-eaten by hogs.

The American countryside has an ample supply of heroes and villains. A wide porch on a white-washed home doesn’t necessarily interpret into homespun. That genteel man with the farmer’s tan, John Deere hat and boots could make a girl’s heart beat faster as the perfect gent with strong arms and hands, but he might perform all sorts of sick, maniacal deeds deep in the woods.

On the other hand, the rural countryside, in its wide-open, fresh air image, can steal one’s breath. The smell of autumn in a harvested field or fresh-turned soil in the spring. The undulating waves across a soybean field. Cardinals, wrens and larks singing morning songs. The freedom of letting a dog run for miles, and the beauty of a sun-set from that wooden porch swing. Standing on the edge of a lake watching a heron swoop in like some prehistoric bird.

Then there’s the history factor. In Tidewater Murder, we learn about the Gullah culture, and how Gullah predecessors on St. Helena Island were the first slaves freed in the Civil War, allowing them in 1861 to assume control of farmlands, successfully raising rice and indigo. In Charleston, in trying to solve the land control mystery, we learn how General Sherman’s march through the state burned many records, a perpetual reminder of the northern domination of the time.

And who can overlook the food? Every locale has cuisine specialities. Frogmore stew, fried green tomatoes, shrimp, even barbecue assume a role in Slade’s stories. Fresh vegetables and home cooking.

A writer can take any profession, say farming, plop it into almost any setting, say the rural South, define the culture and history, and have a wonderful, colorful, mind-boggling tale. It’s all in the telling. No longer do we need our mysteries only in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. Hollywood, South Carolina may not be the glitter and gold of its sister city in California, but you might find a whole new world well worth the visit, with crimes you never thought possible, performed by mannerly people you swore were pure Americana. Which is why you never see the evil coming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Opening to Tidewater Murder

One of the sharpest rural loan managers we had, Savannah Conroy slung attitude like paint on a canvas, wore sweaters like a Hollywood starlet, and managed an office like Steve Jobs. They’d built the Beaufort office around her to harness that charisma, and then added two more counties to keep her busy.

I glared at the new permanent marker stain on my carpet, as this Beaufort wonder shrieked in my ear. My breakfast, a bowl of instant grits with no butter, sat like a rock in my gut. My empty twenty-two-foot rental truck sat outside my apartment, awaiting boxes I’d packed for a week. Thunder rumbled. It started to rain.

Days didn’t come any more thrilling than this.

I pulled the phone further from my ear. “Savvy,” I said. “Chill. What’s wrong with you?”

“Monroe’s ransacking my files, Slade. He won’t answer my questions when I ask what he’s snooping for.” She exhaled hard. “He’s not listening to me.!”

“Dammit,” I grumbled, sitting on the floor and dabbing at the marker stain with a paper towel. “Maybe you need to ask nice.” 

 

“Bite me,” she replied.

 

The sky roiled with angry, gunmetal gray clouds. Trees arched. Wind whistled as it whipped around the building, warning me Mother Nature ruled my moving day.

 

Want to learn more about the culture of The Carolina Slade Mysteries?

·         The Gullah/Geechee Corridor - http://gullahgeecheecorridor.org/

·         Recipe for Frogmore Stew - http://charlestongateway.com/recipes/frogmore-stew/

·         Recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/fried-green-tomatoes-recipe/index.html

·         Certified SC Grown - http://www.certifiedscgrown.com/

·         Edisto Island Preservation Alliance - http://preserveedisto.org/index.html

·         US Department of Agriculture Inspector General’s Office - http://www.usda.gov/oig/index.htm

 

 

C. Hope Clark is editor of FundsforWriters.com, selected by Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers for the last 12 years. Her newsletters reach 35,000 readers. She is also author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, as well as The Shy Writer and The Shy Writer Reborn, how-to guides for the introverted writer in a noisy publishing world. www.fundsforwriters.com / www.chopeclark.com She’s published by Bell Bridge Books out of Memphis, TN.