August 2020 Newsletter

Hi, folks!   Welcome, new subscribers and thanks to all my loyal readers who have stayed the course since Double Forte' was released way back in in 2004. I value each and every one of you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for continuing to read, share my books with friends and family, and stay in touch. I sincerely hope you have managed to stay safe in this challenging time.   Before I dive into my usual "newsy"  update, I want to mention a special deal.   Have you ever wanted to try audiobooks? During the quarantine lots of folks have had more time at home. Audiobooks provide an amazing source of entertainment that you can enjoy while doing other tasks like household chores, gardening, and of course driving. And heck, right now some wholesome mysteries (or wild sensual adventures, lol) are much more appealing than the troubles we're all facing in real life.   To do my part, I'm offering my audiobooks for FREE (usually $20-30 each!). Audiobooks have never been a big income producer, but this opportunity is a win-win for all. It will help me immensely if you download as many as you can and post a little review if you enjoyed them.   Once in a while, some of the books run out of codes. Just try the next book if that happens. Feel free to go in and get all 28 books if you want. They'll stay in your library forever, so go ahead and get them all and then listen at your leisure over the years to come. Enjoy and tell your friends!   Listen here for a sample from Under the Ice. (click on "sample" under the cover)   And try this one, from Sanctuary.   And to try all books to hear narrators up front, here's the page with all my audiobooks.   It's really easy - you just follow the links you get when you ask for a book.   LAZAR'S FREE AUDIOBOOKS   So, here we are in August, when I had originally thought all this Covid19 stuff would have been resolved. Boy, was I naive. Looks like we're in for the long haul here. Dale and I are still isolating at home, except for trying to catch up on all our doctors, dentist, and eye appointments. It was kind of scary going into these places at first, but I must say most of them have been exemplary in keeping their places clean. And I'm fortunate that my "day job" still lets me work at home . I'm grateful for that. Two of my daughters, however, are on the front line in nursing and mental health care, and we appreciate any prayers to keep them safe.   My little grandsons and I are really enjoying our pool (nothing fancy but it cools you off!) The garden has been thriving in spite of the hottest July since 1921! It was also the wettest July in many years, lol, so you'd think we had some kind of rain forest here, right? No, the rain came in single days, with parching weeks in between. A very odd time. But my tomatoes are coming in really fast now and we've been giving away baskets of zucchini and cucumbers for a month now. If I could just get that little rabbit to go find another garden... he's eaten so many of my bean plants, I had to replant four times. We've finally foiled him with a spray of soap and peppermint oil. ;o)   My 13th Gus LeGarde Mystery, The Return, is coming along and just reached 50,000 words, probably about 75% done. Gus and Sig are in some really hot water now, and need to devote more time to my morning writing to get him out of trouble! I find myself too tempted to roam the gardens, pick veggies, and go for a quick swim these days before I start the day job. But it's all good and the images, scents, and tastes of that garden produce usually ends up in a Gus book in the end, anyway. You know I love sharing this stuff, virtually and with my neighbors.   Please take care and continue to be safe. I want to hear from you if you have the time, so let me know how you're doing when you can.   Happy listening,   Aaron www.lazarbooks.com   If you haven't yet "met" Quinn and Marcella Hollister in the Tall Pines Mystery series, here's your chance to read book 1 for $1.99. ;o) This is a fresh, fun, and quirky mystery set in the beautiful Adirondacks Park. It's a nice change from reality right now. ;o)     For the Birds eBook.   When Marcella Hollister’s prize parakeet gets zapped by a wayward power line in a swimming pool with her mother, the ensuing psychic link helps Marcella chase her mother’s kidnappers through the Adirondack Mountains, where she unearths a fifty-year-old secret about her dear father with shocking links to a hidden treasure. (Book 1 of 4)

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Read an eBook Week - FREE OFFERINGS!

Hello, folks.

Once a year, Twilight Times Books offers a lovely selection of their titles for free. And it all starts today! From March 1-7th you can get the following titles for free. 

Twilight Times Books FREE OFFERINGS

Two of my books are offered here - both favorites of mine since they are set in the sixties and are told from my protagonist's eleven-year-old mind.

Tremolo: cry of the loon  (free all week, click above link)

When eleven-year-old Gus LeGarde sees a girl fleeing an attacker in the dark Maine woods, he and his friends spend the rest of the summer hunting for her on horseback and in their rowboat, only to face the wrath of the nastiest villain ever to haunt the Belgrade Lakes.

• 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Grand Prize Short List
• 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Honorable Mention, Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction
• 2011 Global eBook Award Finalist in Historical Fiction Contemporary
• 2011 Preditors & Editors Readers Choice Award – 2nd place Mystery
• 2008 Yolanda Renée's Top Ten Books
• 2008 MYSHELF Top Ten Reads

Don't Let the Wind Catch You (free March 3rd, click above link)

Don't Let the Wind Catch You is the sequel to Tremolo and takes place in summer 1965.

When twelve-year-old Gus LeGarde and his two best friends, Elsbeth and Siegfried, stumble on a hermit’s cabin in the woods in the summer of 1965, they’re unprepared for Tully, the crotchety old man who sticks his head out the window and threatens to shoot them. But more surprising is Tully’s best friend, a young Indian girl spirit, Penaki, who reveals herself to the children by forming patterns with butterflies, rattling tin cups, drawing on dusty mirrors, and flipping book pages.

Tully’s past is shrouded in mystery, and Gus can’t understand why his mother hates Tully so. Gus is drawn into an intriguing mystery that reveals long-hidden truths about his grandfather, with even deeper ties to the Ambuscade and the history of the Genesee Valley region. Will Gus’s findings rewrite the most brutal chapter in the history of Livingston County?

All week

Book Reviewers Talk about their Craft by Mayra Calvani, Editor
How I Wrote My First Book: the story behind the story by Anne K. Edwards and Lida E. Quillen, Editors
Practical Tips for Online Authors by Lida E. Quillen
Touch of Fate by Christine Amsden
Tremolo: cry of the loon by Aaron Paul Lazar
Who is Margaret? by Celia A. Leaman

Sunday, Mar. 1st -- An Elfy on the Loose by Barb Caffrey
Sunday, Mar. 1st -- Behold the Eyes of Light by Geoff Geauterre. Book I in the Eyes of Light series.
Monday, Mar. 2nd -- Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective by Christine Amsden. Book I in the Cassie Scot series.
Monday, Mar. 2nd -- Death on Delivery by Anne K. Edwards.
Tuesday, Mar. 3rd -- Deeds of a Colored Soldier During the Rebellion by F. W. Abel.
Tuesday, Mar. 3rd -- Don't Let the Wind Catch You by Aaron Paul Lazar.
Wednesday, Mar. 4th -- Jerome and the Seraph by Robina Williams. Book I in the Gaea series.
Wednesday, Mar. 4th -- Laughing All the Way by Darrell Bain.
Thursday, Mar. 5th -- Monkey Trap by Lee Denning. Book I in the Nova Sapiens series.
Thursday, Mar. 5th -- No place for Gods by Gerald Mills. Book I in the James Foster Adventures series.
Friday, Mar. 6th -- Rue the Day by Ralph Freedman.
Friday, Mar. 6th -- Schooled in Magic by Christopher G. Nuttall. Book I in the Schooled in Magic series.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival by Stephanie Osborn. Book I in the Displaced Detective series.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- The Storks of La Caridad by Florence Byham Weinberg.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine Issue Sept/Oct 2005
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine Issue Jan/Feb 2006
Be sure to check out the official web site for Read an E-Book Week. A number of publishers are offering give-aways during the week. For example, Smashwords is offering hundreds of free ebooks.
http://www.ebookweek.com/


Click here to access free offerings:

Twilight Times Books FREE OFFERINGS

Happy reading!

Aaron Lazar
www.lazarbooks.com

Using Exclamation Points in Your Novel!!!!

Aaron Paul Lazar, copyright 2014

One of the first errors I learned about as a novice writer had to do with the use of exclamation points. After penning my first novel, and fortunately, before publication, I was taught by a writing guru that exclamation points don’t belong in one’s narratives. Period.

Here’s an example of very amateurish writing where exclamation points abound. This is not okay! (I just had to put an exclamation point here to make you smile.) It’s actually very similar to several newbie manuscripts I was asked to critique.

She walked into the crystal cave and cried out. In front of her stood a giant elf! He was huge! And his eyes burned with fire!

She turned and ran as fast as her legs would carry her, and almost fell!

All right, now that you are cringing (I hope), I will stop. A few years ago, I actually edited a manuscript where there were multiple examples like this on every, single page, all throughout the book. Yup. But my young authors learned, just like we all did, and they dutifully removed those offensive punctuation marks.

Of course, there’s a difference when you use exclamation points in narrative versus dialogue. Although this example has far too many exclamation points, it’s not quite as awful as adding them in your narrative as I showed above.

Shelby held a silver chain to the light. A heart-shaped crystal dangled below, winking in the winter sunlight. “Look what Uncle Sig bought me!” she said.

Camille jumped up to examine the necklace and Johnny roared into the room, “flying” his rubbery metallic green dragon toward me.

“My dragon flies!” he yelled, zooming it up and down in the air and finally landing it on my shoulder.

“Wow. What’s his name?” I peered down at the realistic reptile who perched on me.

“I dunno,” he said. “How ‘bout…Claws?”

I picked up the squishy critter and looked at him. He did have very distinctive claws and a rubbery mouth that opened when you pressed on the skull. “Claws is a good name, buddy. I like it.”

“Can he come to dinner with us? He’s really hungry!”

Camille fastened the necklace around Shelby’s neck.

I handed Claws back to Johnny. “Sure he can. Do you have to use the bathroom before we go?”

“Yes!” he squealed, holding two hands in front of himself and dancing in place. “I do!”

Okay, so the little boy and his sister in the above segment are really, really excited. And it’s probably okay to sparingly use exclamation points in their dialog. In the highlighted areas above, such as those with the dialog tags “yelled” and “squealed,” they are sufficiently clear to let the reader know the boy is being very loud. I would remove the exclamation marks from those segments, at minimum. Frankly, I think one or two per chapter is more than enough. You can show excitement in many other ways, especially by using action beats.

For example, you might say, “He shrieked and ran in circles, arms flapping like an airborne chicken.” Or something equally as silly. ;o)

Remember, as a general rule, avoid exclamation points in narrative, and use them very sparingly in dialog. You don’t want to get the same highbrow lecture I did when I was a newbie, do you?

Now, how do you handle someone shouting in your novel? How about when it’s an inner thought?

What if your character has just stumbled upon the dead body of the one he loves?

(As you know, all inner thoughts are generally shown in italics, except where you use, “he thought,” etc.)

I have seen at least three methods to show this:

1)    No! No! No!

2)    NO. NO. NO.

3)   “No, no, no!” he thought.

Some folks use upper case to stand in for exclamation points. I’ve used that approach a few times in my own work. What do you think? List your comments below, and if you have any examples you’d like to discuss, feel free to post them in the comments section.

Remember to take pleasure in the little things. And if you love to write, write like the wind!

Aaron Paul Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

What Happens When Two Music Men Get Together in a Mystery?

copyright 2014 Aaron Paul Lazar

Gus LeGarde’s affable, but pushy, minister from his local church is always pressuring him to play piano for extra church services on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes it’s the local prison, sometimes it’s nursing homes, but in Lady Blues: forget-me-not, Reverend Hardina asks Gus to accompany the hymns at the new Bello Mondo Manor, a beautiful new facility for Alzheimer’s patients.

Gus has his plate full on Sundays, literally, as he always prepares an afternoon feast for his extended family and friends, including the dear Reverend Hardina. So when he’s asked to do even more for his church, he hesitates. How can he get it all done?

On this particular Sunday, he agrees, however, and is shocked to find a “jewel” of a chapel at Bello Mondo, featuring real stained glass windows, beautiful woodwork, velvet drapery, and most shocking of all, a pipe organ. He wonders how the place can afford such luxury, and uncovers ties to a big drug company.

Meanwhile, the residents in wheel chairs and bathrobes seem dead to the world in their pews, until they hear the music. They sing their hearts out when Gus plays familiar hymns like “Rock of Ages” and “Morning Has Broken.”

Most interesting is an elderly gentleman dressed in a black suit and red bowtie, who stands and conducts the hymns with his pencil, and whose fingers move in concert with the notes, as if he’s playing piano. Gus learns that this fellow—dubbed “the music man” by Kip’s nurses—has been in homes since he was dropped on their doorstep by the Armed Forces in 1946.

Kip Sterling doesn’t know his own name—but he speaks Gus’s language, spouting jazz terms like “cadence” and “interlude” and “riff.” He’s also obsessed with “his Bella,” but nobody knows who she is.

Because Gus is a music professor (actually based on my own father who was a pianist and professor of music) the Bello Mondo nurses suggest that maybe he can connect with Kip through music. Although Gus’s expertise is in classical works, including his obsessions with Chopin, Khachaturian, and Puccini, he also is passionate about jazz and blues, and strangely enough, plans to write a book on Ella Fitzgerald and her generation. He befriends the old gentleman, and when a new medicine starts to restore Kip’s memories, things heat up.

Music is woven throughout the Lady Blues story, from Gus’s “Opera 101” and “American Composer” classes he teaches at the local university, to his daughter Shelby, whose voice is startlingly beautiful and to whom he’s teaching Ella Fitzgerald’s songs at home, to Bella’s background as a bluesy nightclub singer… it ties the book and the entire series together.

I’ve even put in a plug for my good friend Paul Stuart, who is an award-winning composer in his own right. He’s written operas and symphonies that are played worldwide, and I refer to them within the story.

Side by side, both “music men” piece together the puzzles, which reunite long lost lovers and shed light on a historical mystery dating back to World War II.

You can check out LeGarde Mysteries here at www.lazarbooks.com, and can read them in any order. ;o)

LADY BLUES: forget-me-not

In book 10 of the LeGarde Mystery series, Gus unravels twin mysteries of an abused Korean seamstress and a 1940s jazz ingénue whose pianist lover disappeared overseas on the same night Glen Miller’s plane was lost in English Channel. Gus helps an Alzheimer’s patient reclaim his identity, while dodging a drug company who will silence any witness to keep the truth of their breakthrough Alzheimer's treatment under wraps.