STORYWORLD

By now you should be winding down for a relaxing weekend with friends and family. Maybe you're lucky enough to be extending your holiday by going somewhere warm and tropical. A cruise, perhaps or a stay in an exotic resort. Whatever you choose I hope you have time to sit back, relax drink some egg nog and READ a good book!! That's why today's post is longer because I'm recommending some great books I've read this year. I'm also going to mention some amazing poems to listen to as well as music I've been using while working on my latest novel.  THE NIGHT SIDE LAUNCH NEWS I had a lovely launch party with family and friends who've also been loyal fans. If you missed any of my podcast appearances, you can still see them at THE THRILLER ZONE  and the POISONED PEN BOOKSTORE . You can also check out my article in Crimereads  entitled Mystic Threads, Spirit Mediums and Psychics in Crime Fiction. Don't forget to comment or leave a thumbs up!  Also, the best g...

After an exciting week leading up to book launch day for THE NIGHT SIDE, I just wanted to send you a quick update to let you know about a special HOLIDAY LAUNCH GIVEAWAY to celebrate the book's publication. It's easy to enter. Here are the details: go to my website at  https://www.marjoriedeluca.com/  and you'll find the entry form. Fill it in and click SUBMIT, and you'll be entered to win one of the following prizes: - one of TWO signed hardback copies of THE NIGHT SIDE (Canada and US entrants only) - one of TWO Kindle e-books (US entrants only). If you're on Twitter, you can win an extra SURPRISE gift by following me, retweeting and tagging my giveaway post, or if you're on Instagram, look out for my giveaway posts, follow me, Like the post and tag a friend in the Comments. Winners will be notified by the 16th December. I'll arrange something for all you UK readers out there in the near future. Also I had a wonderful time chatting with Barbara Peters at t...

  LAUNCHING A NEW BOOK Being a published fiction writer isn't just about writing what you, your agent and your publisher feel is a good, hopefully great novel.  But first, just to be clear, as most would-be writers know, it takes a whole lot of agony, sweat, persistence and rejection to even write a book, sign with an agent who will then sell your book (best-case scenario) to a publisher, so I have to count myself as fortunate to have even reached that point. Most writers have to be incredibly patient, thick-skinned and absolutely determined to get there. So, once your book is finally revised, edited, proofread etc. etc. there are a few more steps before publication day: an ARC (advance review copy) goes onto NetGalley , a site where professional reviewers, bloggers, librarians, journalists are able to request a copy in exchange for an honest review. Then begins the long wait, during which you find yourself checking the reviews and hoping the response will be positive.  O...

NEW BOOK COMING DECEMBER 2023!! I'm so excited to tell you about my upcoming new novel from Severn House Publishers (a division of Canongate Books). It's called THE NIGHT SIDE and is coming out in hardback and and all major digital platforms on December 5th 2023 . You can pre-order it now at Waterstones , Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon, Apple Books and Kobo. The Trade Paperback will follow in the late spring. Here's a synopsis:    TWENTY YEARS OF SECRETS. ONE DEADLY TRUTH     When Ruby Carlson was eighteen, she ran away from her home in Stoneybrook, Montana, and vowed she'd never return. Never return to life under the control of her manipulative mother, Ida, a self-styled medium and psychic scammer who made a career out of ruining people's lives. Never return to the small town where enemies lurk at every turn. But now, twenty years later, Ruby is back. Her mother is missing, presumed dead, and Ruby reluctantly returns to a home filled with chilling memories ...

EVERGREENS by Liame Brown This fast-paced page-turner by Liame Brown poses the age-old question, Who Wants to Live Forever? The answer, it seems, is not as straightforward as we might think, particularly when the two people in a romantic relationship hold diametrically opposite viewpoints on the issue. The story is told from two points of view and spans a period of sixty-five years. We first meet Sophie and Ben in the year 2070 as elderly Sophie watches a youthful Ben as he lies in his hospital bed, aging in front of her eyes. Rewind back to 2005 when Ben and Sophie meet for the first time as carefree nineteen year old backpackers traveling during their gap year. Ben comes from a troubled, more deprived childhood while Sophie's life has been one of comfort and privilege, which Ben finds somewhat intimidating. So begins their on-again, off-again relationship which takes many twists and turns through the years, the most si...

BOOK DEAL NEWS: I'm delighted to tell you about my latest book deal with Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books This new suspense novel, will be published in early December of this year, and I hope to have a cover reveal and more info by the time my next blog comes out. I'm also excited to tell you that an audio version of my bestselling novel, THE PERFECT FAMILY MAN, will be available on July 18th, 2023 and can be pre-ordered here . SPRING TRAVELS This year I escaped the final chapter of one of our longest winter seasons yet, by traveling south to Arizona. We stayed in the beautiful suburb of Fountain Hills and spent a couple of weeks golfing, swimming and walking. As usual I took a whole lot of pictures to store in my "possible locations for a novel" folder and filled a notebook with observations, descriptions, potential characters,intriguing scenarios and story ideas. It's true that fiction writing is a twenty-four-seven obsession. As a wr...

With International Women's day falling on March 8th, I'm featuring notable books I've read recently, written by women and focusing on women's issues, while fearlessly pushing the boundaries of fiction. ON THE SAVAGE SIDE by Tiffany McDaniel This was an incredibly brutal yet beautiful novel. Not for the faint of heart, it tackles addiction, parental neglect, child abuse, child sexual abuse, prostitution, police brutality, male brutality and the never-ending cycle of poverty and addiction,, and it achieves all this without being gratuitous, sentimental or judgmental. McDaniel gives humanity to the women struggling with the savagery of life in a dying Ohio town. The novel was inspired by the unsolved murders of The Chillicothe Six; six women--mothers, daughters, sisters--who went missing. When the first is found floating dead in the river, and more bodies follow, some disturbing truths about the people in this small Ohio town are revealed. This harrowing and hauntin...

It's always exciting to welcome in a new year even though that means cold, snowy winter weather here. It's even more exciting now that I have new agency representation from Trident Media Group and have completed two new novels. More news to come later about that! For now I've attached reviews of two novels I read recently. Both very different. Hope you enjoy! WARLIGHT by Michael Ondaatje Only Michael Ondaatje could pull off a novel like Warlight. Named after the twilight that shrouded London during World War 2 when all the streetlights were dimmed to avoid lighting the way for German bombers, the story itself seems to flicker in dreamlike fragments as the world awakes from the horrors of war. The world in this novel is post-war London, brilliantly captured in loving detail in Ondaatje's achingly beautiful prose. This is a battle-scarred and battered London where people who have worked covertly in the shadows, find themselves emerging into the changed world of ...