by Karen Shughart | Jun 24, 2022 | Blogs
The setting for the Cozies I write is a village on the south shore of Lake Ontario in New York, and while fictionalized, it closely resembles the village where I live. If you’ve read the books, you might remember that typical of the genre, there’s a close-knit group...
by Karen Shughart | May 16, 2022 | Blogs
Even in fiction, it’s important that some details are correct, especially in a murder mystery when describing an investigation and its resolution when the killer is captured. While the plot, setting, and characters can be a complete figment of the imagination, there’s...
by Karen Shughart | Apr 19, 2022 | Blogs
We just returned from a visit with our son and daughter-in-law, who live in southern California. There was a song in the 1970s entitled It Never Rains in Southern California, and although the lyrics did not particularly inspire joy, the title is apt, it truly hardly...
by Karen Shughart | Mar 22, 2022 | Blogs
The process of writing a novel takes a long time. First, there’s coming up with the idea for the plot, but from creation to completion there are lots of other steps along the way. Some authors set strict parameters, develop an outline, keep a set of note cards and...
by Karen Shughart | Dec 22, 2021 | Blogs
One of my favorite songs of the 60’s and 70s is “Dedicated to the One I Love,” which was performed by multiple groups, my two favorites the ones sung by The Mamas and the Papas and The Shirelles. The last line in the first stanza ends with the words, “And the darkest...
by Karen Shughart | Nov 16, 2021 | Blogs
Sometimes life sends us lemons, lots of them, maybe more than a bumper crop. We can make lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon sorbet… but still, sometimes there are too many bitter lemons to use them all up. Without going into a ton of detail, this past year has been a...
