Category: Diary of all blog posts

Jack Nolan's wife ran off eight month's ago and there's an open missing person's case on her. However, no one on the force seems to be actually looking for her -- although they claim to be. Jack is handsome, a seasoned cop, a little old-fashioned and, unfortunately, a wee-bit jaded by life.

Fiona is a young police officer at the top of her game. She is planning a future with her boyfriend, Gustav. She lived in south Florida and Gus lived in Central Florida. Unfortunately, detectiving was voted more portable, so Fiona just moved her entire life to central Florida to be with Gus, and she is scheduled to begin work on Monday morning with the Cresentville Police Department. Everything is working perfectly -- or so she thought.

Chief Anthony Salvo has asked her to come in on Friday to meet the staff but a murder is reported and she is assigned to the case with what the chief promises is only a temporary partner, Jack Nolan. To say they get off on the wrong foot is an understatement, but Fiona has six brothers and a psyche degree. She is not about to let this ogre get under her skin.

Ride along with Jack & Fiona on their cases as they solve murders, missing person's cases, and iron out a few personal issues as well. A Romantic Suspense with police officers, mystery, a bit of humor, and a ribbon of Catholic sensibility running through it.

❤ Enemies to Partners
❤ Plot Twists & Turns
❤ Murder cases
❤ Missing person cases
❤ Undercover work

John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?

Click here to download a free copy for a limited time.

The Suggested eBook Style Gallery:

The video at the bottom of this post is about using the style gallery inside Microsoft Word to format your eBooks.  Using the style gallery and the proper page breaks will eliminate 99% of all formatting issues.

Below I have a list of suggested eBook styles and why you may want to use them:  If you want to print out a copy of the styles, click here to download from Google Drive.  

Heading 1 - for Chapter numbers and/or names.  The Heading styles work with the Table of Contents feature so all Chapter names or number will need to be marked as “Heading 1”.  These are built in styles, so you will need to right click on Heading 1 and modify it.

Heading 2 – If you will have a sub-heading and want it to appear in the Table of Contents, set up and use a Heading 2.

Normal – This is built into the Microsoft Word system.  This style is for your main font.  Professional size for novels if 11 or 12 pt.  For this style, you will need to modify it.

Normal-no-indent - if you want to leave the first paragraph in a chapter unindented, you will need to create a style for this.  This one will need to be created by you.

Page Title – I always create this one in case I have pages that I want to look consistent with my chapter pages, but I don’t want them to appear in the Table of Contents.  This is for any page that you will have where you don't want it to appear in the Table of Contents.

Italics & Bold – These are also built into Word.  Use the style gallery for italics and Bond.

List Spacing – I always create a List spacing style for my “Other Books by R Shannon” page.  This creates a single spaced indented format so I can fit all of my books on the same page.

Chapter ending symbol – This is a style that centers any scene or chapter ending symbol you may use.

Texting font – I write contemporary stories and when I refer to text messages, I use a different font than my normal so that it is clear to the reader that it is a text message.

~ Meanwhile ~ - If you need to indicate that a new scene is happening at the same time as the last scene, you may also want to create a bold style for the top of the scene entitled “Meanwhile”.

Scene Date & Time – If your story needs to emphasize certain dates and times, you may want to create a title style entitled Scene Date and Time.

The NEWPORT VAMPIRE STORIES SERIES is a contemporary Vampire Story told with a subtle thread of Catholicism running through it.

It is a story about the lengths to which desperation can drive a vampire to possess the one he loves.

For Ciara, who felt unloved and unnoticed in the world all of her life, it's a story of love and being chosen.

For Darius, it is a story of the power, control and manipulation he developed in his quest for blood, love and loyalty.

Ultimately, Darius must learn to give up up control and manipulation in order to find true love.

Each book can be read separately as each story has a beginning, middle and end. But they are best read in order to follow the full character arcs.

NEWPORT VAMPIRE STORIES SERIES is a different Vampire Series.
❤ Secrets, Lies, Deceit & Desperation
❤ True Love, Need, Sacrifice and Acts of Devotion
❤ Vampiric Obsession, Manipulation & Sabotage
❤ Accidental deaths, Secret Burials, Murder & Kidnapping
❤ Vampires born anew
❤ Being chased by the NY mob
❤ Being investigated by a nosy detective
❤ Being scrutinized by nosy family members
❤ Local Scientist with a blood serum Darius wants
❤ Dariana the Witch shows up and throws a wrench into everything . . .

John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?

Click here to download a free copy for a limited time.

While surfing around YouTube, I came upon Corner Bookmarks, which I shared in last week's newsletter.  Then a few videos poped up about paperclip tabs for books.  They seem to all be from the junk journal community, but it gave me the idea to create a batch for reading fiction.

The picture of the bookmarks above or to the left leads to a video on how to make quick and easy corner tabs if you want to use this idea, but use only origami to slip onto the edge of the pages.

When I start a book, I can remember one or two character names, but once there's more than three characters, I start getting them mixed up.  Slipping a tab onto the page where new characters are introduced will make it easy to pinpoint all new characters so I can check back to see who is who.

Like many mystery readers, I also like to try to solve the myster as it plays out, so having another tab to mark each clue as it drops will make my reader investigation easier to do!

There's always one or two beautiful lines of prose in most books that I would like to review when I finish the book and before I put it away and go onto the next one.  Another one would be for a clever turn of phrase used in the book.

How about having a tab entitled "Red Herring"?  Sometimes when I'm reading I suspect that someone is almost too obvious to be the culprit, so I would like to tab this character too.

I even think having a tab for 'new words' that you may want to review at the end of a read to make sure you remember the meaning and add it to your vocabulary would be a great idea.

List of Tab Titles for Fiction

• New Character
• New Clue
• Red Herring
• Plot twist
• Favorite Prose
• Turn of Phrase
• Suspicions Raised
• New Words

How to Make Your Own Book Tags

Download .png file

Download in .svg format

Printing & Using the Book Tabs

1. Click on the image of the Printable Book Tabs above and download the master from Google Drive.  I included the .svg file in case you are lucky enough to have a cutting machine.
2. Print out the tabs on white 8" x 11" card stock.
3. Cut the tabs out and add whatever tab names you would like to use.
4. Add either a piece of magnetic strip or 1 or 2 tiny round magnets to the tab sections, making sure they match and attract.  Reminder:  Magnets have a side where they attract and another side where they may repel.  So before glueing or securing, be sure your magnets attract.
5. That's it.  Once you start a new book, have your easy reading tabs handy for use.

With the holidays coming up, and the inflation still blaring, let's focus on an inexpensive craft for readers and book enthusiasts.

While searching for bookmark ideas, I came across the PrintablesFairy.com website.  which is owned by  Mishell, who is an author and creates amazing papercrafts of all kinds.

She created a collection of Halloween Bookmarks that are created with paper and oragami foldings.  I have included a picture of the package she offers for a most affordable price.  This choice is good for those of you who are readers, like to gift other readers, but aren't the crafting type.  Mishell has done all the work for you.

You can see from the above cat bookmark that these are about as cute as can be.  This is a great craft for using up scrapbooking scraps, to do with kids and grandkids -- and that's also budget friendly at the same time.

Below is a link to the PrintablesFairy.com website that contains the YouTube Video where Mishell makes the Black Cat corner bookmark, along with a supplies list and screen shots from the video.

Here is a link to purchase the pattern instructions in the Halloween Group Sales Package.