Mesdames of Mayhem

“Half the bloggers we approached aren’t interested in your book.” – blog tour host

“Why not?” – baffled author

“Too much sex.”

“Too much? In this day and age of fifty shades of erotica?”

“We were surprised too but there’s nothing we can do.”

Sigh.

It wasn’t as if I planned to write a novel with sex in it, I wasn’t trying to tap into some trending topic ju jour, it just happened.

Yeah, right. You just happened to write a book that you have banned your mother and sister from reading — that book just happened?

I swear it did! Much like a minister without a portfolio, I am a writer without a genre and I never know what book is going to pop up next and a few catalysts intersected and the result was the sex-filled A Glittering Chaos.

Young lady, you’ve got some ’splaining to do… what catalysts?

I had just finished promoting West of Wawa, and everything had gone very well. The book had been extensively featured on the Chatelaine book club but a criticism had been offered, one that stuck like a burr under a saddle; there weren’t any sex scenes and the book club felt that there should have been. That was the first catalyst.

The second was my husband’s and my trip to Las Vegas, which is where my husband bumped into a woman in the elevator who couldn’t speak any English.

When he told me about his encounter, it was as if a lightbulb went off in my head and in a way, the whole novel was just there, and it was a perfect vehicle for me to address Chatelaine’s sex-scene critique! I admit I had been a little upset by Chatelaine’s comment; did they think I couldn’t write sex scenes? Of course I could! I never had, mind you, but I was certain I could, and I was going to show them!

Once the novel was written, to my mind (and my publisher’s mind), the sex wasn’t the main focus of the story. The key theme of the novel was empowerment and self-realization, both of which can come later in life than one expects, if in fact it ever comes at all.

Melusine, protagonist, had no idea that her life was lacking until she went to Las Vegas. Her inability to speak English felled the first domino and from that followed a dramatic unfolding of events; her affair, her husband Hans’s ever-increasing foot fetish, his autoerotic asphyxiation, his preoccupation with his vanished sister, the ‘helpful’ assistance by a psychic and his subsequent crazy spiral into madness.

As Caro Soles pointed out in her post (Mesdames of Mayhem, 3rd December), “novels are all about people, and sex is a part of who we are. What a character does in bed may show something about him or her that no other scene could properly convey” which is exactly why there was sex in A Glittering Chaos – it was in no way gratuitous ornamentation, it was key to Melusine’s emotional development, and it was also key to Hans’s mental breakdown.

I would in no way consider myself the writer of sex novels. My fourth novel will be launched in April of this year, The Witchdoctor’s Bones, and, of the four, the only novel with sex is in A Glittering Chaos – it was simply the novel for it!

Using sex in writing can be very effective without having graphic description of the act; sexual orientation, as well as who’s doing who and why, can a very handy tool in plot development; affairs, relationships, predilections, misunderstandings, reasons for murder and even, plot resolution.

In Thirteen, which is a wonderful anthology of short stories by a collection of brilliant writers, Joan O’Callaghan’s Sugar ’N Spice offers an excellent twist in the tale, proving that a prime suspect couldn’t have been the murderer, by virtue of his sexual orientation.

I use sex similarly in my next novel, The Witchdoctor’s Bones. While there are no sex scenes per se in The Witchdoctor’s Bones, there is a lot of sexual obsession, romance and affairs of the heart, which helped shape the plot and define the characters.

If there’s one rule I employ when writing, it’s this; never sanction anything. I let my brain go anywhere it likes, to the darkest corners of the human psyche, to the most abhorrent of behaviours. I might edit bits out later, but when I am penning that first draft, I let the darkness spread its wings and fly!

Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has been a Canadian citizen since 2003. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.

Her first novel, The Hungry Mirror, won the 2011 IPPY Awards Gold Medal for Women’s Issues Fiction and was long-listed for a ReLit Award. Her second novel, West of Wawa won the 2012 IPPY Silver Medal Winner for Popular Fiction and was one of Chatelaine’s four Editor’s Picks. West of Wawa is available in bookstores and online.

Her third novel, A Glittering Chaos, launched in Spring 2013 to reader and review acclaim, and is about murder, madness, illicit love and poetry.

Her fourth novel, The Witchdoctor’s Bones will be launched Spring 2014. The Witchdoctor’s Bones is a thriller about the darkest secrets of African evil; the novel seamlessly weaves witchcraft and ancient folklore into a plot of loss, passion and intrigue and a holiday becomes a test of moral character.

All books published by Inanna Publications.

Links:
www.lisadenikolitswriter.com (website with reviews, photographs and reader comments)
twitter: @lisadenikolits
FaceBook
http://www.goodreads.com
http://pinterest.com/lisadenikolits/

YouTube readings:
http://bit.ly/1e4g8ZR Melusine is fired
http://bit.ly/1ahnDIU Hans’ Medicine
http://bit.ly/1eFSp0K Hans and Melusine

If there is anything the recent ice storm has taught us, it is how helpless we can be when confronted with the forces of nature. And while there is much to be said for the traditional weaponry when plotting a murder, I find myself drawn to the natural world to do my dirty work.

In my novel, Tooth and Claw, Nola Jensen, an attractive wealthy woman with a past and some strange predilections, travels to New Orleans for a business conference. There her past catches up with her. What should have been a peaceful and enjoyable cruise on the Louisiana bayous turns into her worst nightmare, when she is pushed overboard and into the jaws of a very hungry alligator.

Although I have vacationed in New Orleans, one of my favourite cities, and have in fact, enjoyed a bayou cruise, I was not that familiar with alligators, so some research was necessary. While visiting my friends Janice and Larry Hatt at their West Palm Beach condo, I prevailed upon them to take me to see alligators. We went to a place in the Everglades called Shark Valley. Why it is named Shark Valley is a mystery to me since it is not a valley and there was a noticeable absence of anything resembling sharks. But there were alligators galore, and after, wandering off on a trail during a break in the tour and nearly stepping upon one – fortunately for me fast asleep – I wisely stayed in the tram for the duration of the outing.

Alligators continue to fascinate me, albeit from a safe distance. Genetically, they are linked to dinosaurs and have been around for some 230 million years, without evolving much. And while human beings are not part of their usual diet, they are considered opportunistic feeders, which means they will eat anything that comes their way. In 1995, a nuisance alligator was killed. The ‘gator, estimated to be about 50 years old, had seven dog collars in its stomach, one from a dog that had been missing for 14 years.

The jaws of the American alligator can exert 3000 pounds of pressure per square inch- enough to crunch bones. They generally kill their prey by rolling until the prey drowns. They then stash the kill in a muddy bank or underwater cave until it is putrid enough for the alligator to tear off pieces.

Alligators were hunted almost to extinction for their skin which is made into fashionable leather goods – shoes, handbags and belts, until they were declared an endangered species. However in recent years, their numbers have increased dramatically, and there is now an annual hunt in the bayous. Hunting licences are required for this. The recent series, Swamp People, on the History Channel, documents the hunt.

The supremacy of ‘gators in the Florida Everglades is now threatened by pythons. While not native to this part of the world, the giant snakes have found the Everglades to be an ideal home with no natural predators. The pythons are thought to number in the hundreds of thousands. An urban myth is that people adopted the snakes when babies as pets, but as they got bigger and threatened small children and family dogs and cats, the owners irresponsibly released them into the Everglades. A more plausible theory is that the snakes originally escaped from a breeding facility that was damaged in a hurricane. Winters in Louisiana tend to be about ten degrees colder than Florida which is too cold for the pythons and probably explains why the Louisiana alligators have not been threatened by the snakes.
If history stays the course, the alligators will prevail and continue on for many more millennia.

Joan O’Callaghan is a recipient of the Golden Apple Award from Queen’s University Faculty of Education for Excellence in Teaching; named Professor of the Year by OISE/UT Students Council, as well as Most Engaging English Instructor and Most Inspirational Instructor.

She is the author of three educational books as well as two e-shorts: George and For Elise (Carrick Publishing).

Her short story Stooping to Conquer appeared in the 2012 Anthology EFD1: Starship Goodwords (Carrick Publishing)

Visit Joan at her FaceBook Page
or Tweet with @JoanOcallaghan

We’re incredibly proud of our own Mme Melodie Campbell, Crime Writer and Queen of Literary Comedy. On January 5, 2014, she was featured in the Toronto Sunday Sun! See below for the entire article by Linda White:

Greetings Readers!

What a year this has been for the Merry Mesdames of Mayhem – and we haven’t even celebrated our first anniversary yet!

Early in 2013, I had a little idea of how best to surf the tsunami of change in book publishing. Social media can give authors readers throughout the world, but how can readers find new authors? Several members of my two writing groups already had a strong web presence so if we all banded together, we could reach a truly staggering number of readers. And that’s how Mesdames of Mayhem came to be.

Today, less than a year later, the Mesdames have a vibrant website with a weekly blog on crime fiction. We are on Face Book and Twitter – all thanks to the enthusiasm and hard work of fifteen fabulous dames!

We also brought out our first anthology of crime stories, Thirteen, (Carrick Publishing, 2013) in both print and e-format. Joan O’Callaghan and I dove head first into the mysteries of the cyber launch on September 5th. Twelve straight hours of terrific discussions with friends and fans as far away as Texas rocketed Thirteen to second place on Amazon’s mystery anthology best seller list.

On October 27th, the Mesdames launched the print version of Thirteen, at our favorite bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street. The theme was Halloween and the Mesdames were out in force, if not in costume as witches, pirate queens and even a worm composter. The gothic decorations, flowing wine and the dark and delicious munchies helped make our book sales spectacular!

In November, the Mesdames ran a successful book selling co-venture with the Village Theatre in Waterdown. Murder by the Book is a light-hearted play about dastardly deeds in a writing group. Author, Mat Kelly, kindly inserted our name, Mesdames of Mayhem, into the script.

Thirteen is definitely The Mesdames’ lucky number. And 2013 proved to be a great year for publishing new books, bagging book deals, and winning awards and recognition.

Mme Cathy Astolfo’s standalone novel, Sweet Karoline, was published by Imajin Books in July, 2013. It hit the bestseller list on Amazon Canada in the first week. She also has several short stories in the upcoming publication Uncle Tom’s Gabbin’ and So Am I.

Mme Rosemary Aubert’s chilling novella, Terminal Grill, published by Quattro Books, received great response and acclaim from readers.

Mme Jane Burfield returned to writing with her story Triskaidekaphobia in Thirteen and warmly supported The Mesdames throughout all their ventures.

Mme M. H. Callway signed a contract with Seraphim Editions for her first mystery novel, Windigo Fire. Under different titles, it was short-listed for both the Unhanged Arthur and Debut Dagger awards. She was also co-editor of Thirteen.

Mme Melodie Campbell continues her reign as our very own Queen of Comedy. She published two books in 2013: Rowena and the Dark Lord with Imajin Books and The Goddaughter’s Revenge with Orca Books. Her short story, “Hook, Line and Sinker”, won the $3000 first prize in the contest held by Your McMurry Magazine. And her story, “Life without George” was short-listed for the 2013 Arthur and won second prize in the 2013 Hamilton Arts Awards.

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Mme Donna Carrick continues to build her company, Carrick Publishing, which now carries over sixty titles by diverse and talented authors. In addition to her work as publisher, she is the Mesdames’ webmaster, social media guru and co-editor of Thirteen.

Mme Vicki Delany saw two books published in 2013: A Cold White Sun, the sixth Constable Molly Smith book, by Poisoned Pen Press and Gold Web, the fourth in the Klondike Gold Rush series by Dundurn. Next year will be a big for Vicki. Not only will she be the Canadian Guest of Honour at Bloody Words, Canada’s mystery convention, but she’ll publish two new books: the seventh Molly Smith book, Under Cold Stone, and Juba Good, by Orca Rapid Reads. Recently she signed a three book contract with NAL, Penguin Group, for a cozy mystery series set in a lighthouse library in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Mme Catherine Dunphy created her story for Thirteen while researching and developing her novel set in Africa.

Mme Cheryl Freedman became President of the Board of Directors for Bloody Words. She is heading up the team that will put on the Toronto conference in 2014.

Mme Rosemary McCracken’s second Pat Tierney mystery, Black Water, was published by Imajin Books. Toronto Star mystery critic, Jack Batten, praised its “wonderful pace and invention”. Her short story, “The Pre-paid Funeral” appeared in the anthology, Nefarious North. At Bouchercon this year, she promoted Thirteen – though she had a story in each of the three crime fiction anthologies spotlighted.

Mme Dorothy McIntosh’s archeological mystery, The Book of Stolen Tales, was released by Penguin in Canada, Spain and Croatia. The second book in her acclaimed Mesopotamian trilogy, it was named Best Thriller of 2013 by Quill & Quire.

Mme Lynne Murphy’s manuscript was long-listed for the 2013 Unhanged Arthur award.

Mme Joan O’Callaghan is the Mesdames marketing maven. In addition to co-editing Thirteen, she completed a commissioned non-fiction project as well as her first crime novel. She spearheaded the co-ventures with community theatre and booked several readings for the Mesdames in 2014.

Mme Caro Soles retired from Bloody Words after running Canada’s national mystery conference for fifteen years. She continues her animal rescue work as well as writing, teaching and travelling.

Mme Sylvia Warsh wrote her sinister story in Thirteen while continuing to work on her historical novel and other literary projects.

Wishing a Happy New Year to all our readers and expect even more scintillating news in 2014 from the Mesdames of Mayhem!