Don's Blog

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Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Nashville: The Mood series update

Soon, I'll be providing selected sections of the Nashville: The Mood Series on the blog. These will be small samples intended to convey the flavor of the stories, which now total more than 400,000 words, quite a long fictional series.


Happy Reading!

Nashville: The Mood Part 12 Now Available in an Amazon KIndle Edition

Nashville: The Mood Part 11 is now available in an Amazon Kindle edition. The ongoing study of the psychological underbelly of Nashville, a side most visitors have never seen, continues with another book of episodic tension and simmering suspense.

Nashville: The Mood Part 12 Now Available in a Smashwords e-book Edition

Nashville: The Mood Part 12 is now available in a Smashwords e-book edition. The ongoing study of the psychological underbelly of Nashville, a side most visitors have never seen, continues with another book of episodic tension and simmering suspense.

Smashwords e-books can be ordered through a wide variety of e-bookstores.

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Reasons for Changing Churches (Nashville: The Mood Part 11)

 Someone wrote me recently asking about the section of a recent Nashville: The Mood edition that dealt with why a church member had changed to a different church; the member said the difference in music was the reason, without elaborating.

It is certainly true that I have encountered many who have changed churches, sometimes denominations but often within denominations, and the most frequent reason given is a difference in music; it's somewhat of a common occurrence in Nashville, which has many small churches.

I've always been a bit skeptical. When trying to dig down into the stated reason, the explanations get rather vague, and I always get the feeling that I'm being given a cover story for the real reason(s). But reasonable people can disagree about that, and often people who change churches may not want to give the real reason(s), and don't like even being asked about it.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

When Dorinda Dances by Brett Halliday (A Mike Shayne Mystery)

 In my early to mid-teens, I used to read a fictional detective series about Mike Shayne. He was in Miami for most of the books, which began in 1939, but for the period of 1944-45, at least one full-length book and two novelettes took place in New Orleans.

I always found the plots to be very well worked-out, and they generally kept the reader guessing up to close to the end. Usually, Mike Shayne assembled a group of people and unmasked the killer one way or another.

Is anyone familiar with this series? One of my favorites was When Dorinda Dances, which started out with an opening twist and maintained its mystery all the way through. I believe it was published in the early 1950s.