A Hush at Midnight: Secrets, Scandals and a Recipe for Murder
by Marlene M. Bell
Synopsis (from Amazon):
A manipulator.
A fatal plan for revenge.
Award-winning author of the Annalisse series, Marlene M. Bell, brings distant friends together in the rural South only to have one of them become the victim of a brutal crime of passion.
Once celebrated for her show-stopping pastries and irresistible desserts, former celebrity chef Laura Harris is now making headlines for a far darker reason.
Laura has been accused of murder.
How could this petite chef have brutally smothered the beloved small-town matriarch, World War II ferry pilot veteran, Hattie Stenburg? Hattie wasn’t just a pillar of the community; she was Laura’s confidant and mentor. The shocking twist? Hattie’s will contained recent changes, bypassing next-of kin and leaving her entire fortune and historic estate to Laura.
As Laura scrambles to clear her name, she uncovers sinister secrets lurking beneath the town’s idyllic surface. The real murderer is always one step ahead, leaving taunting clues and threatening Laura to leave Texas—or face deadly consequences. With time not a luxury, Laura must untangle the web of deceit before the killer makes her the next victim.
In A Hush at Midnight, Marlene M. Bell twists an amateur sleuth crime mystery into a race against the clock to solve her mentor’s murder.
How to Write: Outline or Fly by the Seat of Your Pants?
As I worked through my first attempt at publishing a romance novel, I had zero organizational skills—the book’s chapters fell together in a roundabout, rickety way. Far from pretty. My frustration level was high, and several times I nearly gave up on the project. What I understood about being a wordsmith back in 2009 came from watching movies. Many were screenplays based on novels but none portrayed the images and characterization a descriptive novel requires as a backbone. Backdrops and dialog are as important as the characters themselves. Details on the screen were snippets in time, as if taking a brisk walk through each scene and onto the next. To make matters worse, I continued to watch movies and tossed out the idea of reading romances altogether. What a mistake to make! It was a lengthy and difficult way to suffer through the first four drafts that ended up as nine in total before publishing book one, Stolen Obsession. Being a natural visual artist as a young girl hadn’t helped as much as I’d hoped it would. I had to dig deeper to allow my mind to create the visuals painted in my head and match them with prose.
I flew by the seat of my pants because I didn’t know another way. I hadn’t bothered with how-to books on writing. There were and still are many great tutorials for beginning writers that frankly, I ignored. The fear of plagiarizing another author’s published work weighed so heavily on my mind, I stopped myself from picking up novels to read how bestselling authors put their sentences together. It wasn’t like I’d planned to cut and paste their words verbatim; I wanted to stay away from inadvertently picking up their language and style. In practice, if a writer isn’t reading both before and during the writing process, his/her body of work will suffer.
A superb developmental editor who also writes screenplays saw my difficulties immediately and showed me the easiest way to draft, complete the book with ease, and control wandering subplots from confusing the main theme. The day I began to outline using 3×5 cards changed everything. I’m a structured person by nature and this process came easily. Keeping track of each scene on a separate card can direct the story straight ahead to completion.
By the time I had the fifth draft done on my first book, the story had taken on a new life and had become a crossover of two genres. The five or six different subplots I’d managed to acquire during the early years were set aside for next novel series installments. (I’m still using them.) I totally recommend outlining a novel first. Start a new journal with each book and keep the 3x5s with general information with it. For extra details, add those to the journal as well as any new ideas that come to mind. Journal pages can include character names, who they are in the book, and their personality traits. Jot down a list of loglines or taglines for the new title, too. Short summaries come in handy later on—one or two lines that intrigue and explain what the book is about. The outline approach directs the plot away from minor character’s antics who should stay along the sidelines until needed.
Author bio:
Marlene M. Bell has never met a sheep she didn’t like. As a personal touch for her readers, they often find these wooly creatures visiting her international romantic mysteries and children’s books as characters or subject matter. Marlene is an accomplished artist and photographer who takes pride in entertaining fans on multiple levels of her creativity.
Her award-winning Annalisse series boasts Best Mystery honors for all installments including these: IP Best Regional Australia/New Zealand, Global Award Best Mystery, and Chanticleer’s International Mystery and Mayhem shortlist for Copper Waters, the fourth mystery in the series.
Marlene also writes children’s books. Her picture book, Mia and Nattie: One Great Team is based on true events with a bottle lamb. It’s a touching story of compassion and love between a little girl and her lamb, suitable for ages three through seven years.
She shares her life with her husband and a few dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep: a large Maremma guard dog named Tia, and cats, Hollywood, Leo, and Squeaks. The animals and nature are the cornerstone for Marlene’s books.
Website: https://www.marlenembell.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marlenembell
X: https://twitter.com/ewephoric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlenemysteries/
Author Marketing Experts tags for social media:
Twitter: @Bookgal
Instagram: @therealbookgal
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217568383-a-hush-at-midnight
Leave a Reply