LeseLust & LeseLiebe

Looking at the cover of Strangely Funny you might think that knowing what’s on my character’s plate could make you ill. So, let me assure you that I’m not writing a monster. In A Proper Job for a Lady , Atalanta Wilde is an attractive monster hunter with a keen fashion sense. Above all she is a lady. After all, one doesn’t have to look or smell like a monster to catch one. In truth, Atalanta doesn’t have a lot to eat in the story. She is at the Wilde-Woods Inn because there is danger afoot. She believes a monster from long ago has returned and nobody will be safe until she finishes the work her ancestors began. A nice cup of spiced tea and some of her cousin’s fresh baked bread do restore her spirits after a long dangerous trip.   Cousin Constance also provides her with trail rations before she sets out to find the monster. She doesn’t specify what those rations are, but knowing her cousin, they will be a delightful surprise for Atalanta. Nothing bad comes from the kitchen at Wild...

If cooking on a 19th century woodstove isn’t your cup of tea, how about adding living alone for three years on an almost uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest? In 1898? Eliza Waite, our hearty protagonist, is largely self sufficient, although she rows (yes, rows) four miles across a strait to another island once a month for supplies. Eliza’s a baker, first by avocation, and later by vocation. She measures by teacups and uses what she has on hand to create sweet and savory concoctions. All the 33 authentic pioneer recipes imbedded in the novel were gleaned from 19th century newspapers. Good thing I had friends vet them all; errors in six of the recipes rendered them unpalatable. Here’s what one reader wrote about Eliza’s Johnny Cakes: I grew up with grandparents who called cornbread "Johnny Cake" and who served it with black-eyed peas, sautéed greens, grits and hominy. This was NOT my grandma's Johnny Cake. The recipe went together easily though I questioned the excl...

I immediately connected with heroine Ani FaNelli for the same reason I snort/cry-laugh at certain comedians* – her/their observations are just so true. Ani gets me right away by sharing her contempt for her future wedding china. No bride wants to hear the ugly truth that she is going to end up with six bread plates, four salad plates, and eight dinner plates and then one day will take it upon herself to complete the set, only to discover the pattern will have been discontinued years ago. (Trust me, if not for Replacements.com , I would’ve quit searching Lenox warehouses, smashed one of my perfect little saucers, and used it to cut myself to stop the madness. But back to Ani , who keeps me with her decision to snap out of this dreary future montage by going for a slice of the Patsy’s pizza she’s been fantasizing about since last Thursday – the comfort-food craving certainly exacerbated by the restrictive pre-wedding diet she, like any proper bride-to-be, has been enslaved by. Her fianc...

You might never look at family mealtimes the same way again once you’ve witnessed what goes on at the kitchen table in Where She Went . The ‘heroine’ of the book is news reporter Melanie Black who just happens to wake up dead one morning. Yes, that’s right, she wakes up dead in bed, next to a man she doesn’t recognise and realises no one can see or hear her. Trapped in the house with Peter and his family she has to piece together the story of her own disappearance and death. As you can imagine, career girl Mel is more than a bit annoyed at being bumped off and at being forced to endure the dull day-to-day domestic routine of Peter, his wife and their little boy Adam. Mel couldn’t be more different to obedient Eve and watching the little homemaker behave like the perfect 1950s housewife is a sort of cruel and unusual torture in itself. Some of the key action takes place around the kitchen table where Peter exercises his own type of unpleasant control over his eager-to-please wife. For h...

Kyle Masters, the protagonist in my airliner thriller, Coerced , loves food, but his tastes are simpler. A burger and fries would satisfy him as much as filet wellington with mixed vegetables. Since he has to travel a lot in his occupation as the training manager for his airline, he often eats whatever the airport hotel he’s staying at has to offer. Being divorced and sharing custody of his teenage son, Travis, with his ex-wife, he and Travis usually have dinner at Scrimp’s, the restaurant I created in his hometown, The Woodlands, a suburb of Houston. I described it as having a family atmosphere, which I pictured similar to an Applebee’s or Chili’s, but a locally owned restaurant. A place where one could get a decent steak, a salad, or mac and cheese for their children. Where the wait-staff knows the regulars’ names and their usual drink. The kind of place when you walk in you can smell the meat cooking on the grill, the grease from the fryer, and the aroma of the vegetables being cut....

In the 3070s the world is certainly a much different place. Centuries before a global natural disaster had reduced the population to nearly 10% of its former number. This led to two-thirds of the United States being left uninhabited. In this setting main character Dan Kelley, a young history professor, unintentionally discovers prehistoric cave symbols carved into the back of a uniquely crafted paving stone. The stone was created by a mysterious mason who years earlier buried similar stones mapping a peculiar course across the unpopulated prairie. Following these clues Dan was able to retrace his parents path and uncover details of their disappearance, which had left him orphaned at age four. Does this new discovery offer any insight into his parents’ demise? What do these symbols mean? Does the stone map lead to their interpretation? What is the message? To follow this buried stone path, Dan and his colleagues must venture out into the uninhabited prairie. In order to sustain themselv...

This is an interesting exercise, to write about how food impacted the writing or characters in my international conspiracy thriller, Blood of the Moon . I’ve thought about it a lot since I was graciously invited to contribute to this blog. I’m a good cook and an adventurous foodie. So it puzzled me all the more that in the exquisite mayhem I’ve forced upon characters in Blood of the Moon and my other writing, none of it has been comestible. After due contemplation, I deem this was more than simple oversight. It was error. One of a novelist’s critical tasks is making fictional characters resonate with fleshly readers. Characters are people. Real people eat, or they die. Sometimes they die because they eat. If a picture tells a thousand words so does a person’s favorite dish, or the one he’d rather starve than eat. Whether it’s in survival or pleasure, food is refuge. Without it there’d be neither writers nor readers. Accordingly, it’s due more respect than I’ve afforded it in my work. ...