Mindful Musings Book Blog

Happy Spooky Book Season, Hungry Readers! Instead of just filling you up with the details of what I've devoured this delicious month, I've decided to give you a menu from which you can make your own selections. I can't tell you what foods you will encounter in each title, but rest assured that in every one of these works of horror, someone is eating...or being eaten. ;) Feel free to add any tasting notes below!   Shelley W. TOP 10 HORROR BOOKS OF 2016*  1.   Children of the Dark , Jonathan Janz  2.   The Consultant , Bentley Little  3.   The Doll-Master , Joyce Carol Oates  4.   The Fireman , Joe Hill  5.   The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft , Aaron J. French  6.   Mr. Splitfoot , Samantha Hunt  7.   My Best Friend's Exorcism , Grady Hendrix  8.   Pressure , Brian Keene  9.   Security , Gina Wolsdorf 10. We Eat Our Own , Kea Wilson TOP 10 HORROR CLASSICS**  1.   Haunting of Hill House , Shirley Jackson  2.   Rosemary's Baby , Ira Levin  3.   The Call of Cthulhu , H.P. Lovec

A retired miner living in the mountains, my character from The Blue Mist , Jim, isn't a connoisseur of fine foods. While there is no focus on food in the actual story—though Jim does toss back some whiskey when things get tough—one can hazard a guess as to what he might have eaten (when cleaning up after the mist didn't put him off his food, that is). The Blue Mist is set in Rocky Mountain National Park, nestled in the Rocky Mountains and adjacent to Estes Park, Colorado. Jim is a holdover from the days of mining, settled in the park to get away from people. Locals don't believe that something is eating campers, no matter how vociferous Jim is, so they view him as a crazy man, referring to him as Prospector Jim. Wanting to avoid having missing persons cases pinned on him as murder (and not being a fan of whispered nastiness and sideways, suspicious glances), he avoids town as much as possible, using his wiles in the woods for the bulk of his food needs, and venturing into

Recovery takes on new meaning in my short novella, The Wedding Toast,  when the Rose Chalet, wine, and weddings are in the picture. Heather Bowman finds herself in romantic San Francisco on an assignment that suddenly involves more than nursing. From the moment Heather sips the first glass of Denafrio estate wine she knows her palate and her life will never be the same again. The electricity of true love is sending currents through the air from the lush vineyards of Napa to the storied California Coast. For Scott Denafrio food wasn’t worth eating unless it was accompanied by a glass of good wine. Lucky for him his family owns a winery in Northern California. What are some of his favorite pairings? Chicken or fish with some of the estate grown white wines, Pinot Grigio or one of their summer blend wines with light notes of citrus flavors and hints of vanilla.  Or better yet, beef tenderloin paired with the headier notes of his very own signature, Midnight Blend. The flavors of Merlots a

I love this idea! What a fun, creative and exciting way to talk about our books and characters! So let’s get going! When I was in the early stages creating my War of Whispers fantasy series, I had to decide how much world building to delve into. Did I want to create a fantasy rich in detail (like GRR Martin) or something like The Hunger Games?  I found (IMHO) a happy median and focused on topics that interested me. I’d much rather watch a cooking show than a political exposé on CNN, so food and dining ousted political/economic backstory. Plus, a meal (or lack thereof) will tell you more about a country or a character’s economic situation than a discourse on finances. The next hurdle was this: what would my heroine, Elabea (pronounced “Ella-bay”) eat in her dystopian, medieval-like world? Since her nation, Allsbruth, is relegated to an agrarian life by their adversaries, the Ebonites, their diet consists of vegetables with meat coming from what they could hunt. In Chapter 1, while debat