Next Meeting: Thursday, 19 February, at 6:30 p.m.
at the Tustin Marketplace Corner Bakery (13652 Jamboree Road, Irvine)
28 Mar meeting notes; 4 Apr reading list
28 MARCH MEETING NOTES
A cozy six people attended: Burt (read three chapters from Jocks), Casey (read a chapter from Francine Stein), Joanne, Lance (read a revised chapter from South), Maddie and Stace.
News & Notes
Burt’s mystery novel Madness of March is now at the number three spot on the Kindle Top 100 Sports Fiction list. Congratulations, Burt!
4 APRIL READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (3/28)
Glenda (3/14)
JoAnne (3/28)
Jo (3/21)
Maddie (3/28)
Shari (3/21)
Rosie (3/21)
Casey (3/28)
Burt (3/28)
Lance (3/28)
Jonathan (2/28)
21 Mar meeting notes; 28 Mar reading list
21 MARCH MEETING NOTES
Eight people attended: Burt, Casey, Jo, Joanne, Lance, Maddie, Rosie (read a chapter from On Thin Ice) and Shari.
News & Notes
Rosie mentioned that James Scott Bell will be the featured afternoon speaker for the Romance Writers of America – Orange County Chapter’s April meeting. The meeting will take place on 13 April at the Brea Community Center between 9AM and 2PM. Admission is $10 for first-time guests. Check the RWA-OC website for more details.
Burt’s mystery novel Madness of March continues to sell on Amazon. After a free promotion, it’s now number twelve on the Kindle Top 100 Sports Fiction list. Congratulations, Burt!
28 MARCH READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (3/14)
Jonathan (2/28)
Glenda (3/14)
JoAnne (3/21)
Jo (3/21)
Maddie (3/21)
Casey (3/21)
Burt (3/21)
Shari (3/21)
Lance (3/21)
Rosie (3/21)
14 Mar meeting notes; 21 Mar reading list
14 MARCH MEETING NOTES
Nine people attended: Burt (read four chapters of Jocks), Casey, Glenda, Joanne, Lance (read two chapters from South), Maddie, Rosie, Shari (read three chapters from Lost in Dance) and Stace.
News & Notes
Glenda read passages from Debra Dean’s novel The Madonnas of Leningrad to illustrate a technique for seamlessly interweaving flashbacks into narrative.
Glenda also mentioned that James Scott Bell is the featured Instructor of the Month on Writer’s Digest. WD is offering a bundle of JSB’s books and an audio download for $29.99.
21 MARCH READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (3/14)
Jonathan (2/28)
Glenda (3/14)
JoAnne (3/14)
Rosie (3/14)
Jo (2/28)
Maddie (3/14)
Casey (3/14)
Burt (3/14)
Shari (3/14)
Lance (3/14)
7 Mar meeting notes; 14 Mar reading list
7 MARCH MEETING NOTES
Seven people attended: Burt, Casey (read a chapter from Francine Stein), Joanne, Lance, Maddie (read two chapters from Hit Me), Rosie and Stace.
News & Notes
Stace says she has noticed more activity — including more authors — on the Google+ social network. Google+ is fully integrated into Google search, meaning content shared through Google+ is easier to find and contributes more to a user’s online discoverability.
Lance has been contributing to the Criminal Element group blog for the past two months. Run by Macmillan, Criminal Element is a publisher-agnostic, magazine-style blog covering all aspects of mysteries, true crime and thrillers, including book previews and reviews, discussions of old and new TV shows and films, true crime stories, and quirky stuff. Its sibling websites Tor.com (for spec fic) and Heroesandheartbreakers.com (for romance) do roughly the same thing for their genres.
14 MARCH READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (3/7)
Jonathan (2/28)
Glenda (2/28)
JoAnne (3/7)
Burt (3/7)
Rosie (3/7)
Shari (2/28)
Jo (2/28)
Lance (3/7)
Maddie (3/7)
Casey (3/7)
Karen (2/7)
14 Feb meeting notes; 21 Feb reading list
14 FEBRUARY MEETING NOTES
Nine people attended: Burt, Casey (read a chapter from Francine Stein), Glenda, Jo, JoAnne, Jonathan, Lance (read two chapters from South), Maddie (read a chapter from Hit Me), and Stace.
News & Notes
Reminder: our craft-related reading selection this winter is James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. Please read the assigned chapters and be ready to discuss the material. Jonathan will lead the final session is on 28 February, covering Chp. 13-14 and Appendix B.
21 FEBRUARY READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (2/14)
Jonathan (2/14)
Glenda (2/14)
JoAnne (2/14)
Burt (2/14)
Jo (2/14)
Rosie (2/7)
Shari (2/7)
Karen (2/7)
Maddie (2/14)
Casey (2/14)
Lance (2/14)
Marcia (11/29)
Richard (1/17)
7 Feb meeting notes; 14 Feb reading list
7 FEBRUARY MEETING NOTES
Nine people attended: Burt, Casey (read a chapter from Francine Stein), Jo, JoAnne, Karen, Lance (read two chapters from South), Maddie, Rosie and Shari (read two chapters from Lost in Dance).
News & Notes
Reminder: our craft-related reading selection this winter is James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. Please read the assigned chapters and be ready to discuss the material. Jonathan will lead the final session is on 28 February, covering Chp. 13-14 and Appendix B.
14 FEBRUARY READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (1/31)
Richard (1/17)
Jonathan (1/31)
Glenda (1/31)
JoAnne (2/7)
Maddie (2/7)
Burt (2/7)
Jo (2/7)
Rosie (2/7)
Shari (2/7)
Casey (2/7)
Lance (2/7)
Karen (2/7)
Marcia (11/29)
31 Jan meeting notes; 7 Feb reading list
31 JANUARY MEETING NOTES
Eight people attended: Burt, Casey, Glenda, Jonathan, Lance (read two chapters from South), Maddie, Rosie and Stace. Casey ably led the discussion of chapters 10-12 of Plot & Structure.
News & Notes
Reminder: our craft-related reading selection this winter is James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. Please read the assigned chapters and be ready to discuss the material. Jonathan will lead the final session is on 28 February, covering Chp. 13-14 and Appendix B.
7 FEBRUARY READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (1/31)
Richard (1/17)
Jonathan (1/31)
Glenda (1/31)
JoAnne (1/24)
Maddie (1/31)
Shari (1/24)
Casey (1/31)
Burt (1/31)
Jo (1/24)
Rosie (1/31)
Lance (1/31)
Marcia (11/29)
10 Jan meeting notes; 17 Jan reading list
10 JANUARY MEETING NOTES
Ten people attended: Burt, Casey, Glenda, JoAnne, Jonathan, Lance (read two chapters from South), Maddie, Rosie (read two chapters from On Thin Ice), Shari (read three chapters from Lost in Dance) and Stace.
News & Notes
Romancing the Pages, the anthology published by RWA-OC which includes a short story by Rosie, is now available in trade paperback and for Nook. Check our Published PFL Authors page for details.
Doha 12, Lance’s international thriller, is now available in trade paperback. Check our Published PFL Authors page for details.
Reminder: our craft-related reading selection this winter is James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. Please read the assigned chapters and be ready to discuss the material. The schedule for the rest of the discussions is as follows:
- 31 Jan – Chp. 10-12 (Casey)
- 28 Feb – Chp. 13-14, Appendix B (Jonathan)
17 JANUARY READING LIST
Please review this list for accuracy. If you discover any mistakes or omissions, please let us know in advance of the meeting.
Stace (1/10)
Marcia (11/29)
Richard (1/3)
Elena (11/29)
Jonathan (1/10)
Glenda (1/10)
JoAnne (1/10)
Maddie (1/10)
Casey (1/10)
Burt (1/10)
Jo (1/3)
Lance (1/10)
Rosie (1/10)
Shari (1/10)
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The London Olympic Stadium is 53 meters high. This blog had about 730 visitors in 2012. If every visitor were a meter, this blog would be 14 times taller than the Olympic Stadium – not too shabby.
Doha 12, Lance Charnes, thriller
Jake Eldar’s and Miriam Schaffer’s names may kill them.
Jake manages a bookstore in Brooklyn. Miriam is a secretary at a Philadelphia law firm. Both grew up in Israel and emigrated to build new lives in America. Neither knows the other exists…until the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad uses their identities in an operation to assassinate a high-ranking Hezbollah commander in Doha, Qatar.
Now Hezbollah plans to kill them both.
Jake, Miriam and ten other innocents in five countries – the Doha 12 – awake to find their identities stolen and their lives caught between Mossad and Hezbollah in an international game of murder and reprisal. Jake stumbles upon Hezbollah’s plot but can’t convince the police it exists. When his wife is murdered in a botched hit meant for him, Jake and Miriam try desperately to outrun and outfight their pursuers while shielding Jake’s young daughter from the killers on their trail.
Hezbollah, however, has a fallback plan: hundreds of people will die if Jake and Miriam survive.
Inspired by actual events, Doha 12 will sweep you from the suburbs of Beirut and Tel Aviv to a pulse-pounding climax in the wintry streets of Manhattan as Jake and Miriam race along the thin, faded gray line between good and bad, hero and villain, truth and lies.
Available for Kindle on Amazon US/AU/BR/CA/DE/FR/IN/IT/JP/UK
ePub available on Nook, Kobo and iTunes
Trade paperback available at Amazon US/CA/DE/FR/IN/IT/JP/UK | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | Indiebound | Powell’s | Vroman’s
Lance Charnes has been an Air Force intelligence officer, information technology manager, computer-game artist, set designer and Jeopardy! contestant, and is now an emergency management specialist. He’s had training in architectural rendering, terrorist incident response and maritime archaeology, but not all at the same time. Lance tweets (@lcharnes) on shipwrecks, scuba diving, archaeology and art crime.
Pure Fiction League 