Reflections - Tension, Humor, & a Feisty Fancy Dresser

Cruel Charade

Babs, the gracious and talented Barbara Mountjoy, led the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters (MVP) when I joined in 2013. Along the way, she submitted several chapters of her Bet story for feedback. I marveled at her flowing text and suspenseful scenes. Curious, I would ask what happened next. Babs didn’t answer. She chuckled softly. And she asked me to lead MVP. Why? She moved to North Carolina, leaving the group and Bet’s mystery unsolved. I’m not sure which of the two horrified and disappointed me most.

Years later, MVP switched to ZOOM meetings. Babs rejoined us. To my delight, she submitted chapters from the Bet story again. At times Babs would shake her head and say, “How did you find so many mistakes? The Erie group didn’t.” I admitted rereading two and three times because my mind often slipped into reader—not proof-reader—mode. The extra perusals entertained and let me find issues for her to consider.

Month by month our group awaited her chapters. We observed the creation of her mystery step by step.

When Wild Rose Press finished the final edits, Babs provided pdf copies in exchange for reviews, which would help her market her book. Babs impressed me with crafty rewrites of sections that had confused our group.

A minor change involved time shifts from story present—the spring and summer of 1966—to story past. Though logical for this mystery, some shifts were so close our group got mixed up even with dates at the top of the page. Modifying the headers a bit—

October 1995

to

October 16, 1995

Nine Months Earlier

—streamlined the flow.

A second clarification fixed a problem only I—okay, clueless—had voiced. Why did Bet suddenly list five things she could see, four she could touch, and so forth down to one she could taste? The behavior jerked me out of a tense scene. Bet should have had other priorities on her mind—hence I freaked out. In the pdf’s prologue, Babs writes that Bet hears a voice inside her head. The voice calms Bet and guides her through the list. Aha! Bet did need to calm herself. Desperately. No spoilers here. Read for yourself.

 

A photo Babs purchased from 

Depositphotos to represent Bet. 

(Used with permission from Babs.)

Another change involved one of my favorite chapters. Bet’s labor starts in a courtroom. After Babs read the chapter at our ZOOM meeting, smiles and dimples glowed over screens. We complimented Babs on tension, Bet’s cute sailor dress, and snappy dialogue until someone ventured, “But how does it fit with the plot?”

Naima waved her hand in dismissal. “I trust Babs. She’s a talented writer. She has a plan to make it connect.”

“That’s what the Erie group asked.” Babs slumped. Her expression turned sheepish. “The incident happened to me. I wanted to include it in a novel sometime.”

So we brainstormed ways to make the chapter fit—Bet’s client could be a red herring, the villain could be stalking Bet in the courtroom, or Babs could be developing the selfish husband’s character. Babs added another scene which connected the chapter with the story. But she’d been right. The court scene was priceless on its own.

In addition to clarifications, Babs added surprises. I’d called the book “the Bet story” for so long, the title Cruel Charade puzzled me at first. I admit, the novel has more than one charade. The villain dons a costume to do the evil deed. Bet’s husband Rich keeps secrets and makes their children keep secrets. The cruelest charade of all is the pain that haunts and torments Bet, making every aspect of life much more difficult.

And Babs surprised me with her last paragraph in the Acknowledgments.

Finally, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! to the Area One Pennwriters critique groups, both Fellowship of the Quill and Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters, who regularly review my work, provide thoughtful commentary and support one another as we all work along the path to our chosen avocation of writing. I couldn’t do this without you.

Observing Babs create Cruel Charade and benefiting from her insightful feedback nurtured every member of the MVP group. We couldn’t do our writing without her.

Babs

Cruel Charade is her twenty-fourth book. With six short stories also published, that makes a total of thirty page turners available from Babs—aka Alana Lorens, Lyndi Alexander, and Barbara Mountjoy—available to get lost in. Happy reading!

My Book Store Review

★★★★★

Alana Lorens drew me into her thrilling mystery through feisty, funny, fancy-dressing Bet. Chronic pain and villains attack. Tension mounts. Humor abounds. My heart pounded until the last sentence. I wish Bet were real. She would make a terrific friend.

 

A trailer for Cruel Charade

 

 Reflections - Sherian

Jane Shasta Daisy

Sherian Biggs

January 10, 1947 - July 24, 2024

Sherian had an independent spirit. Her house was immaculate. Folks could have eaten off her garage floor. And she always had a candy dish—appropriate for the holiday or season—filled with treats for her beloved grandchildren and visitors.

She served as township supervisor for more than two decades and secretary-treasurer for many of those years. Her account books had so few mistakes they were easy for me, a neophyte auditor, to audit. 

Because Spence and I were two of the small number of registered Democrats in the township, she drove to our house in a snowstorm to collect our signatures for her ballot petition. She knocked on the door and said, “You have to promise not to tell Kathy I got stuck in your driveway.” Spence shoveled her car out. He chuckled about promising not to tell Sherian’s sister Kathy, but of course he did—years later at Sherian’s funeral.

And Sherian mentored me on collecting signatures for getting on the ballot. I had better weather. 

I have missed her as a secretary ever since she resigned.

Spence gave me a Jane Shasta Daisy plant for my birthday, the day Sherian died. Since Jane Austen was also buried on a July 24, we’re planting the daisy in the side yard to honor Sherian.