Today's Scheduled Post Has Been Preempted by Some Special Announcements

A to Z Challenge News!

         Be sure to visit the Blogging from A to Z Challenge Blog for announcements relevant to the April event.   The new A to Z Challenge badge for 2013 is being debuted!   What the heck--here it is!

          Still, be sure to go to the A to Z Blog site for additional information.

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Carol Kilgore Has Another Book Coming Soon!

        Most of you have probably visited Under the Tiki Hut--the blog that is.   It's the blog spot of my long time blog friend Carol Kilgore.  After the success of her previous book, IN NAME ONLY, Carol has come up with another spellbinder.

Here's a preview:

A missing belt—her uncle’s prized possession. The lure of buried treasure. And a sexy former SEAL who makes U.S. Coast Guard Commander Taylor Campbell crazy. What more could any woman want. Right?

Taylor is on a quest to unearth her uncle’s buried treasure—a journey so far out of the realm of her real life she can barely fathom it. There’s one other minor glitch. Taylor's certain the buried treasure was all in Uncle Randy's dementia-riddled mind. Now he’s dead.

All the same, Taylor is in Rock Harbor, Texas, to settle her uncle's estate, including following his directions to the treasure—even if doing so means trespassing. When someone tries to kill her, Taylor's quest becomes personal. She tosses Randy's official cause of death—Drowning Due to Accident—out the window and starts looking at his Rock Harbor acquaintances. Could Randy's treasure be real?

Jake Solomon is in Rock Harbor under false pretenses. He loathes the charade, but if he doesn't follow the plan, his dad will make Jake's SEAL training feel like a day on the monkey bars in kindergarten.

The plan is to protect Taylor Campbell from the fate that befell her uncle and the other members of a tight circle of Coast Guardsmen called the Compass Points who served together on Point boats in Vietnam.

Due to the danger involved, Jake’s dad has ordered him not to become involved with Taylor. Disobeying his father was Jake’s first mistake.

Taylor is attracted to Jake as well, but she refuses to wait for Jake to locate the killer when she knows her plan will force her uncle’s murderer into action.

But the killer's actions are just what Jake is afraid of.

About the Author:

Carol Kilgore has always had stories and characters in her head, but she didn’t know she should write them down until about a dozen years ago. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

Her first published short story won the Derringer Award for Best Short-Short Mystery. She continued to write short fiction for a few years and also enjoyed a small success as a freelancer before giving it all up for her true love—novels.

Carol writes a blend of mystery, suspense, and romance she calls Crime Fiction with a Kiss. Always at least one crime; always a love story. Solomon’s Compass is her second published novel.

As the wife of a Coast Guard officer, Carol has lived in locations across the U.S. She and her husband now live in a San Antonio suburb and share their home and patio with two active herding dogs that keep them free from all danger, real or imagined.

You can find Carol here:

website . blog . facebook . twitter . goodreads . amazon


        I should be back on Wednesday with my post about why we like what we like and my review of Marvel's The Avengers.

No Controversy from Carol Kilgore (a guest post)

Photos and maps related to Padre Island. Padre Island National Seashore - sand dunes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

         I'm away from my desk due to an illness in my family.  Thankfully Carol Kilgore is here to fill in for me and perhaps bring a touch of sanity back to my blog page.  You probably need a bit of a breather after my recent rantings.  Carol will brighten your day a bit.

If you've visited my blog, Under the Tiki Hut, you spotted the differences between it and Arlee's Tossing It Out right off. All the same, I love visiting here. Opposites attract.

True to its name, a lot of controversy has been tossed out on this blog recently, but I promised Arlee I wouldn't go down that path. If anyone wants to be a contrarian over my little bit of fluff here, go right ahead. I'll just smile and say something I hope is funny enough to defuse the issue.

If you couldn't tell from the Tiki Hut, I totally hate controversy. I don't like debates, arguments, tension between disagreeing people and groups, or clashes of any sort. I do enjoy discussion among participants with differing viewpoints as long as the discussion doesn't escalate and no one employs bullying tactics.

I inherited my love of harmony from my mother. My dad, however, loved a good argument.

That said, I have no problem heaping trouble, misunderstandings, arguments, and conflict on my characters. But it hasn't always been that way for misunderstandings and arguments.

Hailing from the overall mystery/suspense genre, I learned early how to create suspense, tension, and conflict. But those don't necessarily stem from controversy. I like crawling into the criminal's creepy little mind and learning the why.

My first published short story several years ago was from the POV of the chairman of the largest bank in London … who was kidnapped by a gang of hoodlums. The bank chairman had plenty of problems, and they didn't all come from the thugs. There was much tension, but no real controversy. No debate that a phone call couldn't settle. The story even won an award.

In my recent novel, In Name Only, there are two honest-to-goodness arguments between Gabe Duran and his father, Charlie. Each character believes he is correct, of course, and is the hero of his own story. I tried my best to cut the arguments short, but my critique partners said no way. I was sure I had worked the arguments into great clashes until I got the manuscript back from my editor. She said I made it way too easy on the characters. I needed to flesh it out, make it last longer, make them angrier, dig more deeply into their emotions.

She was right.

As I worked on following my editor's suggestions, I learned that angry exchanges are almost as fun to write as the scenes from the bad guy's head.

But controversy in real life about real things is still not for me. Life's too short to spend it being angry or upset about something you can't control. I'll take Bobby McFerrin's words any day – "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

In Name Only--a synopsis

No home. No family. No place to hide. For Summer Newcombe, that's only the beginning.

The night Summer escapes from a burning Padre Island eatery and discovers the arsonist is stalking her, is the same night she meets Fire Captain Gabriel Duran. As much as she's attracted to Gabe, five years in the Federal Witness Security Program because of her father’s testimony against a mob boss have taught her the importance of being alone and invisible.

No matter how much she yearns for a real home, Summer relinquished that option the night she killed the man who murdered her father. But Gabe breaks down her guard and places both of them in danger. Summer has vowed never to kill again, but she's frantic she'll cost Gabe his life unless she stops running and fights for the future she wants with the man she loves.

Author Bio:

Carol Kilgore is a Texas native who has lived in locations across the U.S. as the wife of a Coast Guard officer. Back under the hot Texas sun in San Antonio, Carol writes a blend of mystery, suspense, and romance she calls Crime Fiction with a Kiss. She and her husband share their home and patio with two active herding dogs, and every so often the dogs let them sit on the sofa.

Learn more about Carol and follow her here:
Blog:   http://www.underthetikihut.blogspot.com

Website:  http://www.carolkilgore.net
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/carolkilgore.author
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/#!/carol_kilgore
Goodreads:   http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6094110.Carol_Kilgore

Amazon Link:    http://www.amazon.com/author/ckilgore

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