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Black Friday 2014

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 28, 2014
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Category: Author Events

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It’s that time of year again! Where reckless people trample each other, retail workers are forced to deal with the dregs of society, holidays are cut short, and the entire sales industry cackles madly and strokes a white cat as they watch us pour our hard earned money straight into their pockets!

To that end, my short story collection, The Deadly Seven, is FREE to download on Amazon all day long.

deadly-seven_full-01

 

Grab a copy if you haven’t already.

I’m also collaborating with other authors today, so here are some other novels that are having Black Friday sales. Buy one, buy all! It’s your choice.

Purchasing information and book blurbs below. Enjoy!

NICHOLAS ANDREWS.
BOOK TITLE: SECRETS OF THE STONECHASER
It’s high adventure with the Thrillseekers, as they search for a treasure that could save the world from an ancient threat! For all of Black Friday, Secrets of the Stonechaser: Book 1 of The Law of Eight, will be available on Amazon for only 99 cents. In addition, for today only get Book 2 (Follow the Faery Footpath) at half-price for $2.49! 
 
3.
STACY CLAFLIN
BOOK TITLE: GONE
Macy Mercer only wants a little independence. Eager to prove herself grown up, she goes to a dark, secluded park. She’s supposed to meet the boy of her dreams who she met online. But the cute fifteen year old was a fantasy, his pictures fake. She finds herself face to face with Chester Woodran, a man capable of murder.

Distraught over his own missing daughter, Chester insists that Macy replace his lost girl. He locks Macy up, withholds food, and roughs her up, demanding that she call him dad. Under duress from his constant threats and mind games, her hold on reality starts to slip. Clinging to her memories is the only way of holding onto her true identity, not believing that she is Chester’s daughter. Otherwise she may never see her family again. 

 
 
3. Link –
I will promote a promo post on my blog: http://stacyclaflin.com/blog/
5. Author name: Stacy Claflin
 
Thank you,
Stacy Claflin
SARAH BROWNLEE
BOOK TITLE: HOW THE WOLF LOST HER HEART
 
Two hundred years in the future, the City of London has fallen to thugs and scoundrels. The once thriving metropolis is now a shadow of its former self; decent citizens cower in their homes and the streets are no longer safe. In the city lives Skye Archer, a Morpher with the ability to transform into a wolf (her spirit animal) at will. Morphers are the direct result of an experiment that took place two centuries previously. Though extremely rare, Morphers exist in all countries and from all walks of life.
 
It is on one fateful day that Skye meets Raphael Renzo, the handsome son of Lord Renzo who rules over a fair part of West London and does his best to thwart the villains and cads in the city. Raphael has a secret of his own, one the villains secretly fear and one that both intrigues and disturbs Skye. As time goes on, Skye is unable to prevent the feelings she develops for Raphael, but there is nothing to determine whether it is returned. As she sinks further into the depths of unrequited love, Skye discovers things about herself that she never thought possible, things even more incredible than being able to transform into a wolf. As an impending civil war approaches, Skye must wrestle with the fiery passion she feels for Raphael, while at the same time playing her part in protecting innocent citizens of the city. Intriguing, exciting and compelling, it is a tale of love and war, one where the heart of a city and the heart of a girl are simultaneously pierced by one man
 
JUSTIN BIENVENUE
BOOK TITLE: BLOODY BLOODY MESS IN THE WILD WILD WEST
If you’re like me, you’ve probably stuffed yourself silly with turkey and eaten a whole bunch of food and don’t feel like going out anywhere! Well relax and stay inside and do your cyber shopping on Black Friday. If your up for it take a trip into the Wild West and experience a Western drenched in Horror. A Bloody Bloody Mess is a great treat for Western and Horror fans alike. What happens when a ruthless, no good, down and dirty Mexican outlaw makes his way into a desolate town looking to take over and turn it into a ghost town? The same thing that happens when an up and coming, bright eager young man steps out of his late father’s shadow and brings the town together to stop him. They battle in and all out bloody war. Javier Bones Jones leads his team of the undead against Emerson Shaw and the people of Toomswood, who will prevail?
Don’t be a turkey, eat it and do yourself a favor, entertain yourself and get in on a great deal and pick up a copy of A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West

3.Purchase links:
https://www.createspace.com/4241547

http://jbienvenue.webs.com/          

KEITH OWENS
BOOK TITLE: THE MAYONNAISE MURDERS PART 2
Genre: Science fiction/fantasy/humorous/detective mystery
Author: Keith A. Owens
Author Website: keithaowens.com
Twitter: @MayoMadd
Page Count: 332 pages
Publishing Date: Oct. 15, 2014
ISBN: 1502857014
Discount Price: $5
“The saga continues as a crew of angry mutant chickens collaborate with the critters from Planet 10 and a group of ambitious drug dealers in Denver to inflict the alien drug MayoMadd upon a planet of unsuspecting humans as revenge on behalf of the human/chicken hybrids for an experiment that went horribly wrong. This is a science fiction/fantasy/detective mystery with a lot of humor thrown in for one wild, offbeat ride.”
The Mayonnaise Murders Part 2 is here! I know it’s been almost a year since Part 1, but I wanted to get this just right. I’m really hoping you’ll find it worth the wait. I’m not kidding, I had a ball writing this, so if you have half as much fun reading it as I did writing it then I’ll consider it a win.

Meanwhile, take a ride with Chapter 1 for free here on my website. For your patience.

Oh, and for those of you who have not yet read The Mayonnaise Murders Part 1, it’s on sale for just 99 cents for the next two weeks on Amazon:

Keith A. Owens
V. M. JASKIERNIA
BOOK TITLE: LARKSPUR
2. Larkspur: A Necromancer’s Romance
Pierre Salvador reunites with a childhood friend at his birthday gala, falling in love with the girl he had not seen in several years. But the duc has not been idle in his time away- he has not only become a skilled physician, he practices the art of necrocræft as well- control over life and death. Now the one to bestow this dark magic upon him has a final task for him to complete.

“A simple, beautiful, and slightly twisted love story.”

99¢ Dark Fantasy / Romance

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J7H9JIG

 
 
GERALDINE EVANS
BOOK TITLE: DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN #2 RAFFERTY & LLEWELLYN BRITISH DETECTIVE
MYSTERY SERIES.

A Little Laughter. A Little Mayhem. A Little MURDER…

For those who like cozy mysteries, humorous mysteries and police
procedurals.

When beautiful Barbara Longman is found dead in a meadow, uprooted wild
flowers strewn about her and, in her hand, a single marigold, British
Detective Joe Rafferty at first believes the murder may be the work of
the serial killer over the county border in Suffolk.

But then he meets the victim’s family – and after liaising with the
Suffolk police, he rapidly comes to believe that the mystery killing is
the work of a copycat…one much closer to home; someone among the
descendants of the long-dead family patriarch, Maximillian Shore.

Everyone, it seems, had a motive: Henry the grieving widower; the
victim’s brother-in-law Charles Shore, the ruthless tycoon; Henry’s
first wife, the Bohemian Anne, who has lost the custody of her teenage
son, to the saintly Barbara.

Even the long-dead patriarch, Maximillian Shore, seems, to Rafferty, to
have some involvement in the murder, though how, or why, Rafferty
doesn’t understand until he finally grasps the truth behind the reasons
for the killing. A truth sad and dreadful and which had been evident
from the start, if only he had had the eyes to see.

BLACK FRIDAY BARGAIN @ 99c (Was $1.80). Book #1 in the series (Dead
Before Morning) is FREE in the US and UK.

Amazon.com Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Down-Among-Dead-Men-Detective-ebook/dp/B0042P53NS/ref=asap_B009W1W0N8_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417005876&sr=1-3

https://www.facebook.com/geraldine.evans2

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geraldine-Evans-Crime-Author/134541119922978?ref=hl

Please send all other ads to this email address:
geraldineevans@talktalk.net

JANET MARTINEZ
BOOK TITLES: DROP DEAD KILLERS          TWIN MURDERS
Scott, before are my book covers, links and descriptions. I’ll post on my Facebook author page at  https://www.facebook.com/janetfostermartinez. My email isjan.martinez1953@gmail.com. The discounted price will be $1.99 each.
    Washington, D.C.’s legal community is shaken by a sudden spate of homicides. The ill-fated individuals had a history of behaving badly to everyone around them. But their behavior doesn’t seem to be bad enough to warrant murder.
With Detective David Graham in charge of the case, can he and his partner, Alexis Hamilton, put a stop to the killings? Unknown to him, however, Alexis has an agenda of her own. She’s in love with David and will do whatever it takes to make him return her affection.
     With David following clues to the identity of the killer, will he discover the secrets the people closest to him are trying to hide before it’s too late?
Part of the proceeds from the sales of this book will go to benefit the Memphis Shelby County Humane Society, a no-kill animal shelter located in Cordova, TN.
http://bit.ly/1lZOrjP Barnes & Noble
Teaching can be murder!
    When a private school teacher is found raped and murdered, David Graham is assigned to the investigation, his first major case since being shot by his former partner, Alexis Hamilton. When a second teacher is murdered, David realizes the cases are related and the school is being targeted. With the help of his new partner, he sets out to find the killers and stop the murders.
     Giving the cases his full attention becomes difficult, however, when Alex escapes from the hospital where she’s been confined. She begins stalking David, threatening to harm everyone he cares about. Can he protect his loved ones from Alex and find the killers targeting teachers at the same time?
Part of the proceeds from the sales of this book will go to benefit the Memphis Shelby County Humane Society, a no-kill animal shelter located in Cordova, TN.
STEVE VERNON
BOOK TITLE: 
 
FREE TODAY!
 
What happens when Bigfoot, the Trickster Coyote, the ghost of Sam Steele and the long-lost spirit of The Prophet, brother to the mighty Tecumseh and reincarnated in the form of a giant pink flying Winnebago go toe-to-toe with dark supernatural forces in a cross-Canada battle ranging from Cape Breton to Labrador to Thunder Bay?
 
I’m not saying that it’s going to be pretty…
 
 
So what if #Bigfoot was a #superhero? Free today on #kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NES9WPE @StephenVernon
 
3.       Links where I will be promoting – I’ll do the Twitter thing  https://twitter.com/StephenVernon
I will also promote a bit on my blog http://stevevernonstoryteller.wordpress.com/
I will also promote a bit on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/stevevernon007
And I also intend to promote a bit on several choice Facebook Kindle pages.
 
4.       My e-mail is s.vernon@bellaliant.net
5.       My author name is the same as my real name – STEVE VERNON
SCOTT ZAVODA
BOOK TITLE: ALONE AT MIDNIGHT
Scott Zavoda delivers with hellish vividness and aching emotion. He’s unleashed seven tales that will claw at your soul. Already sold as singles, “Bobby” and “Beneath the Sand”, have garnered rave reviews. They’re included along with five more gripping stories.

Randy Bivins gets a shocking phone call two days before Christmas. The stranger says he stole his Christmas tree. What Randy discovers is maybe a tradition worth dying for. “Oh Christmas Tree”

Now that surfing, dating, and every aspect of a California retirement are off limits, he paints and pretends the beach isn’t so close. But traces of sand are showing up again in this Vietnam Vet’s house and that can only mean one thing. “Beneath the Sand”

Trapped in a morbid, bloody, decaying land, the hot breath of his pursuer lathers his neck. Jimmy wants to believe he doesn’t know where he is, but he can’t. “Castle Point“

Henry Conroy pilots a Navajo across the stormy Midwest with a coffin in the back. He knows the faster he gets there, the sooner that scratching sound will stop. “Fright Flight”

A simple fishing trip turns deadly for Danny and his disabled brother, Bobby. A gut-wrenching tale of two young brothers who will do anything for a day away from their abusive father and the constant bullying at school. But a wheelchair with a history might change everything. “Bobby”

Flowers for Mom and The Calling are two more stories with an evil twist.

Welp, you’ve got plenty of books to choose from! Happy holidays, everybody!
-Kyoko

 

9 Things No One Tells You About Being Over 25

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 24, 2014
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Category: Uncategorized

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Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Supposedly, with age comes wisdom. Here’s some wisdom I’ve learned after being 25 for almost a year. Your mileage may vary.

1. Being constantly tired and/or sleepy. How many hours a night do you sleep? The average is 6-8, and some poor students or overnight workers get 4 or less, but no matter how many hours you’re under or how many naps you take to compensate, you’re always tired. You’re tired at work, you’re tired at home, you’re tired at parties, you’re tired at dates, and for no apparent reason. Tired is no longer a state of your health. It just becomes part of your personality as a twenty-something.

2. You can’t eat the same food you did as a teenager. Granted, you still want to and you still do against your better judgment, but usually one of two things happen: (1) your body no longer digests it properly and you end up with a stomachache, heartburn, or gas (2) it doesn’t taste the same and you no longer like it. For instance, I used to eat Ramen noodles with little salad shrimp in them after school if there weren’t leftovers. I ate one bite of shrimp Ramen earlier this year and threw the entire lot in the garbage while contemplating removing my tongue. Your body chemistry pretty much stops making sense and all kinds of things switch on you without warning.

3. You become horrifically impatient. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, with whom, or why, but it can’t happen fast enough. Old lady driver? You want to run her off the road, cackling all the way. Post office worker? Jump across the counter and punch in the buttons yourself to make them go faster. Fast food drive thru? You could kill the chicken, pluck it, gut it, and cook it faster than these clowns. Everything feels like it’s happening in Zack Snyder slow-mo and you feel like going off on a Jim Carrey ‘Liar Liar’ rant every time someone does something in more time than you feel it requires.

4. The thought of turning thirty makes you have panic attacks. No matter how many years you have between now and then, you’re convinced you will die alone surrounded by cats in your bed and no one will find your body for days and you will have the emptiest funeral ever. No matter what you’ve done, it isn’t enough. You have to accomplish so much more with your life in only a few short years and it feels like you will never get there. Whether it’s having kids, getting promoted, traveling the world, or any of the other thousands of things you want to do before kicking the bucket, you feel that if you don’t get them done, you will have dishonored your entire family. Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow, the whole nine yards.

5. The harder you try to save money, the faster it evaporates out of your wallet. You have bills. Some bills you have every month and every year, others just congeal out of nowhere and steal precious pennies every single day. Blow a tire? That’s $200 minimum, unless you buy a used replacement. Forget to pay a bill on time? Extra $35 late fee. Renew your website’s hosting? That’s $50. Oil change? Anywhere from $18-30. You’re hemorrhaging money and the harder you try to save by staying indoors and eating leftovers, the faster it seems to leak out.

6. Strangers’ children turn you into a crotchedy 60-year old. Not the cute fat-faced babies in strollers who smile at you or the friendly toddlers that say the darndest things. It’s the bratty ones who wail and scream that they want candy in the supermarket, or kick the back of your seat in a movie theater, or snap at their way-too-docile-and-understanding mothers in a snotty voice. At the mere sight of these cretins, you want to whip off your belt like Grandad from The Boondocks and teach them a lesson they will never forget. You get the urge to put the fear of God in bad children when you were previously more patient or sympathetic to them.

7. The holidays no longer excite you. Granted, you’re happy to see your extended family and stuff pounds of delicious food into your face and exchange goodies, but it’s nowhere near the same as when you were a kid or a teenager. Christmas is nice, but no one gets up at the crack of dawn to race over to a tree. You sort of just slouch out of your rooms, make breakfast, and get there when you get there. This is probably a lot more varied because everyone has their holiday traditions, but since your priorities have changed over the years and you can usually afford to buy yourself whatever you want thanks to your job, there isn’t much reason to wake up super early for opening presents unless you have children of your own or if your household has little ones staying overnight.

8. Dating is a chore. Male or female, tall or short, dating is working your last nerve. On the female side of things, you notice your competition way more in your mid-twenties. You get irritated walking around shopping or running errands when you see someone looking exceptionally hot, regardless of if they’re with their boyfriend or girlfriend because they’re still willing to put in the effort and you look plain by comparison. Makeup, getting your hair and nails done, waxing and shaving, finding the right clothes to wear in case you do get asked out are a monotonous, expensive pain-in-the-ass. Half the time you don’t want to be bothered with a date just because there is so much involved in trying to meet a nice person and hook him/her.

As for the male side of things, it’s hard to meet girls who aren’t already taken or who don’t have flashing signs on their foreheads that say ‘This is so not going to work in the long run.’ Your newfound impatience makes it way harder to sift out the good from the bad, all the while the multiple first date costs can rack up in just weeks.

After all, there’s a reason almost 50% of Americans are single these days.

9. If you didn’t already, you now cuss like a sailor. Regardless of if you grew up with bad language in your household, for some reason, everything that doesn’t involve small children or a professional situation at work requires the F-word. You’re not sure how you got to that point, either, but something about being over 25 means you curse often and with relish to every foul word that exits your lips. Bizarrely, half the time you’re not even angry, you just do it out of pure habit. It’s not a bad thing as long as you’re still an intelligent, decent human being, but it is kind of weird that it seemed to come from out of nowhere.

What do you think, my dear twenty-somethings? Anything on this list ring a bell, or am I way off base?

The Slippery Slope (Part 2)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 18, 2014
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Category: Uncategorized

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Featuring Nicole Beharie (Abbie Mills), Tom Mison (Ichabod Crane), and their usual lack of personal space.

Featuring Nicole Beharie (Abbie Mills), Tom Mison (Ichabod Crane), and their usual lack of personal space.

The story of how I got roped into watching ‘Sleepy Hollow’ seems like an old classic. Here I was with my steady lineup of shows and then I heard about a fantasy show with a black female protagonist. Granted, it was on Fox—the Judas of all television channels—but I figured that since I’m in the same business, I should watch the trailer. Needless to say, I was not impressed and thought it was the dumbest premise I’ve ever seen in my life. However, I felt obligated as a fellow woman of color to support a show that featured a black woman as something other than a side chick or a housewife, and gave the pilot a watch.

Since then, I’ve been watching ‘Sleepy Hollow’ with mild interest. Yes, the premise is ridiculous, there is absolutely no logic involved with any of the monster-hunting, and it’s basically like taking one of my books and putting it in a blender with ‘Constantine’ (2005) and ‘Supernatural’, but it’s still harmless entertainment with a twist of diversity.

Fast-forward to a couple weeks ago. If you’re acquainted with the ‘Sleepy Hollow’ fandom, then you know that the episode “Deliverance” is ground zero for one of the biggest fandom freak outs in quite some time. And rightfully so.

If you haven’t been reading Genevieve Valentine’s io9 Sleepy Hollow recaps, please do. She pretty much sums up my feelings about 80% of the time, but I’ll give you a quick rundown of why the episode was a nuclear holocaust: Ichabod Crane’s witch wife, Katrina, has been staying with the bad guys—her son, Jeremy, the Horseman of War—and Abraham—the Headless Horseman of Death, who was her betrothed back in the day before they all time jumped into modern day thanks to the war with the demon Moloch—in order to “spy on them for valuable information” to later share with Crane and Abbie Mills, his partner, police officer, and fellow Witness (and work wife, if we’re being honest.) In the previous episode, Jeremy got his hands on an evil substance that turned into a spider, crawled into Katrina’s mouth, and somehow managed to impregnate her with a baby version of Moloch. Yes, I cannot believe I just typed that sentence with any amount of sanity in my brain. Katrina escapes to Crane and Abbie to figure out how to get rid of the demon baby before Moloch is born and the war begins.

Where do I even begin with why this episode may in fact do this show in for good? I mean, if I can manage to sidestep the utter creepiness of a son inseminating his mother, or the tired-ass plotpoint of “unwanted supernatural pregnancy,” then the clear reason why this episode did not work is centered around Katrina Crane. Her presence in this show went from exasperating to just plain infuriating.

Look, it’s not like Katrina needs to be a gun-toting bad ass like Abbie to be a good character. I can name plenty of Non Action Girl heroines that are effective and three dimensional. The problem is that she doesn’t do anything useful. She’s such a damsel in distress. She went undercover to spy on the bad guys, and yet all she did up until that episode was send Crane a note with a raven. She has not learned a damn thing and she hasn’t done much other than giving Crane vague messages while she was in Purgatory back in season one. Even though her actions technically started the plot of the series, the fact that the writers staunchly refuse to make her an important asset to Team Witness is grating.

For example, even though Jeremy kidnapped her and left Crane to die in a coffin buried underground last season, Katrina is somehow convinced that there is good in Jeremy and he can be saved. She even gets Crane in on her nonsense, insisting that Moloch’s influence is why he turned out evil. We have not seen one single sign that Jeremy is being controlled, but she and Crane insist to Abbie that their faith in him is why he deserves to be saved. Mind you, Crane goes to Jeremy and asks him to get rid of the demon baby and he pretty much laughs in Crane’s face before leaving, but this somehow still doesn’t deter the Cranes. The blind love they have for someone who is trying to literally raise hell on earth just makes me want to pound my head into the wall until I’m unconscious.

Furthermore, it’s clear that the writers just brought Katrina in for the sake of interrupting the dynamic between Crane and Abbie (affectionately called Ichabbie by those who ship them) and it feels unnatural as hell. To their credit, the tension between the two women is not jealousy. It’s just that Abbie has been busting her beautiful ass fighting Moloch and the two horsemen with Crane, but then Crane will drop whatever he’s doing to coo and fuss over his wife, who constantly distracts him from the work he should be doing trying to prevent the Apocalypse. If Katrina were written properly, she would have a vast knowledge of the dark forces of magic, she would be able to combat Jeremy and Abraham’s schemes with spells, or she would be teaching Abbie incantations that could later help her protect herself (as Abbie usually only has a gun and that never works against the monsters in this show.) And yet here we are, with Katrina preggers with a demon baby whining and screaming and protesting that Jeremy is still worth saving despite the fact that he put the demon inside her knowing that its birth would kill her.

Majority of the fanbase was rightfully angry at this episode because it just brought up how unacceptable Katrina’s presence is in this show because she is not helping any facet of the show move forward. She’s a roadblock, plain and simple. She opposes Abbie for paper thin reasons, she has lied to her husband on multiple occasions, and while she protests that she has no feelings for Abraham, she still seems to like the attention he dotes on her. Two episodes later and Katrina is back with Jeremy and Abraham under the pretense that she’s still spying on them, and she made Abbie tell Crane she was going back to them like an irresponsible coward.

Honestly, the way the Cranes have been acting in the last two episodes have killed off a large part of my interest in this show. ‘Sleepy Hollow’ is not smart or controversial or brilliant. It works because Tom Mison (Crane), Nicole Beharie (Abbie), Lyndie Greenwood (Jenny), Orlando Jones(Captain Irving), and John Noble (Jeremy) all have the acting chops to make this farce of a premise seem interesting. Tom and Nicole have bucketloads of chemistry, whether romantic or not, and they are the core of why people watch this show. This season has lost its way by shoving Katrina into the spotlight but not giving her anything to do, shelving the incredibly awesome Orlando “Trollando” Jones, putting Jenny on a bus for several inexplicable episodes, forcing us to spend time with the charm-deficient mercenary and failed attempt at a love interest for Abbie Nick Hawley, and for taking away the meat of the show that everyone was enjoying and replacing it with dry wheat toast.

The worst part is that ‘Sleepy Hollow’ also isn’t the most popular show on the network. It’s doing alright, but if even a portion of the fans jump ship because of the poor writing, then it could be circling the drain by the time the season ends if they don’t get back on track. While I’m not married to this show by any stretch, I do think what it represents is important and that’s why it deserves a shot at longevity. We need diversity in television—not just with black women, but people of color in general rarely get the chance to be a main character in an urban fantasy or supernatural type show. I want this show to do better because it fills a void. Sure, there are novels with women of color in the lead, but it’s highly rare for television and it needs to be a stepping stone to future diversity-oriented shows.

My hope is that the writers have paid attention to the large outcry that “Deliverance” caused and learn from their mistakes. I hope they write Katrina better, whether it’s giving her something to actually do in the show or letting her go to the Dark Side with the baddies. I hope they stop making up lame reasons for Crane and Abbie to fight. I hope they don’t create a stupid love triangle between Hawley and the Mills sisters (which would be a moot point since I genuinely think Abbie is not interested in any romance period, Crane or Hawley or otherwise). Fingers crossed, Sleepyheads. Hang in there.

-Kyoko

The Slippery Slope

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 11, 2014
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Category: Book & Movie Reviews, Uncategorized

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Castle stars Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion. Also, massive amounts of sexual tension.

Castle stars Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion. Also, massive amounts of sexual tension.

It’s not easy being a fangirl and an author.

Not to be melodramatic, mind you, but it has unintended consequences when you’re both an admirer of good storytelling and a storyteller yourself. You know the tricks, the procedures, the tropes, and unfortunately you are almost always the first to recognize when there is a decline in the quality of writing.

If you know anything about me, you know that I am a die-hard fan of ABC’s ‘Castle’. My entire life unknowingly changed when I watched the pilot on my mother’s birthday all the way back in 2009. ‘Castle’ became a singularity. It was my favorite show, the first show I’d truly fallen in love with since the DC animated shows ‘Batman: The Animated Series,’ ‘Batman Beyond,’ and ‘Justice League/Unlimited.’ I immediately glommed onto the sharp writing, the superb acting, the atypical humor for a crime procedural drama, the deeply interwoven storylines, and of course, our delightful cast of actors. At the time, I had happened past Nathan Fillion in ‘Waitress’ and I hadn’t heard of him before, so I looked him up and that’s how I found ‘Castle’ and later ‘Firefly.’

‘Castle’ has been going strong for seven seasons including the one currently airing at the time of this blog post. Seven years.

Unfortunately, this season is the very first one that shows the first sign of the slippery slope into poor quality.

And I don’t know what I’m going to do if my show becomes bad.

The slippery slope is nothing new to me. In my life, I have lost several shows to bad writing: Supernatural, Futurama, The Legend of Korra, Community, and Scrubs. The slippery slope, as defined by me, is not the same as Jumping the Shark. The slippery slope is early signs that your writers and showrunners are running out of ideas and start retreading things they have already explored with the show, whether it’s rehashed plotlines or backwards characterization.

Last night’s Castle, “The Time of Our Lives”, had all the signs of the show starting on that downward curve into bad.

1. It introduced a concept that was too outlandish for the format of the show. ‘Castle’ has had some delightfully weird and quirky themed-episodes from a Star Trek-esque convention murder to Santa Claus murder suspects to even a 70’s themed retro precinct to even a time-traveling killer, but the alternate reality universe where Castle and Beckett never met is just way too silly for the show. By the end, of course, we’re sure that it’s simply a dream that Castle had after hitting his head during a nasty gun fight, but we’re still expected to believe what happened might be real on account of some weird little Incan artifact. That is a lot to expect an audience to absorb in a show that is pretty much grounded in reality with the exception of some fun themed episodes.

2. It didn’t commit fully to the alternate reality concept. Things were different, but not to the point where I felt like this needed to be an episode that made it off the cutting room floor. For example, sure, there were differences: Alexis lived with her Mom, Castle never wrote Heat Wave or created Nikki Heat so he wasn’t as filthy rich, Martha was a famous actress, Esposito never got back with Lanie, Ryan never married Jenny, and Beckett never caught her mother’s killer and became the youngest Captain of the precinct. Still, these are just slight changes. The most major one should have been Beckett never finding her mother’s killer, but it didn’t have the impact on her personality that it should have. The show has always implied that without Castle, Beckett would be that same closed off, eternally angry and unhappy cop that we met back in the pilot. The Beckett we met in the alternate reality was still way too understanding of Castle’s antics. She despised Castle when he first started shadowing her, and even though there was a seven year time difference, she was not hard enough on him. She still let him get away with practically everything when we saw season one Beckett smack him silly for getting out of line or disobeying direct orders. The fact of the matter is that AU!Beckett was simply not different enough to warrant focus on. This could be Stana Katic’s way of playing her as softer, but I bet a quarter it’s the weak writing rather than her performance.

3. This episode is unnecessary because we already know what their lives would be like if they never met. This issue is largely the fault of good writing, not bad, though. This show has explored so many avenues between Beckett and Castle that it goes without saying how the two would be living without each other. Castle starts out the show as an arrogant, cocky, irresponsible but charming author who has glided through life with little care in the world until he became bored with Derrick Storm. Beckett starts out extremely closed off to any of the great mysteries of life. Coming together matures them both and helps them grow into people who are open to change, love, and a desire for justice. We didn’t need to see an alternate reality episode because we know these characters so well that it’s redundant.

4. Lack of creativity. As mentioned above, this episode’s main purpose is redundant, so that means they made this based on the humor factor. Alright, I admit it, there were some scenes that were comedic gold, and most of them came from Jon Huertas (Det. Esposito) completely nailing his lines and facial expressions of total annoyance with Castle. Nathan Fillion also did a great job being his usual goofy self and while panicking about no one in the precinct knowing him and his family being completely different. However, they didn’t take the concept to the extreme and that’s what would have made this episode actually work. We needed to see extreme versions of our beloved characters instead of just those that were tweaked. They weren’t good foils to the originals, so it felt phoned in. We didn’t sign up for phoned in, guys.

5. The wedding was lackluster. I’ve been preparing for the Caskett wedding literally since the end of the pilot episode. We knew without a doubt from the look on Richard Castle’s face when Beckett walked away that he was going to marry that girl. I mean, look at him, he is so smitten with her:

Richard Castle Flowers For Your Grave

And what did I feel during the Caskett wedding last night?

Nothing.

I felt happy that they were finally married, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t rushing to Tumblr to instantly reblog every single photoset of them saying their vows.

Do you know why?

It’s too after-the-fact.

The season six finale had all the right set up for the wedding, but for the sake of cheap drama, they ruined it. That’s six seasons of sexual tension and love culminating into a wedding, and you denied me that just so you could draw it out longer. You can’t do that. You can’t do that because it sucks out all my energy to know that everything would have been perfect, but you wanted to make me wait yet another summer to see my lovely darlings say their vows, and even the vows were phoned in. Hell, Ryan and Esposito—arguably family members—weren’t there and that just hurt worse.

The wedding didn’t work because ‘Castle’ is not just about our lovebirds. ‘Castle’ is about so many things and we feel so much for this entire cast of characters, not just Castle and Beckett. I wanted to see Ryan and Esposito in the background grinning their asses off. I wanted to see Lanie dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief as her best friend got married. I wanted to see the late Captain Montgomery’s family standing beside them and being proud of the woman that Montgomery helped build up. We were denied so much by Caskett deciding to elope, and that’s the biggest sign that we might be heading into dangerous territory, into a dark place that the show cannot come back from.

I’m scared, guys.

I don’t know where I’d be without ‘Castle.’ It’s given me so much inspiration and joy over the years, and I love these characters enough to know that they deserve better. As much as I don’t want the show to end, I think we’re nearing the end of the line here. That’s over 100 episodes now and we’re treading water between this episode’s poor writing and wasted concept, not to mention the groan-inducing season opener that literally made my sister-in-law give up on the show. (In her defense, yes, it was the very first truly bad episode of ‘Castle.’ It was just so poorly done.)

I will not quit ‘Castle.’ I know in my heart that I can’t give up on them like I did Supernatural or The Legend of Korra because it means way more to me than other shows I’ve quit. But I am worried for them. Very worried. It’s still very early in the season to make a full assumption—we’re six episodes in and they always have a season of 23-24 episodes—but there could be a storm on the horizon for my beloved Caskett and it’s not going to be easy to get through it.

Sadly, ‘Castle’ isn’t the only show in danger. If you’re involved online, you might have heard about the utter shitstorm that ‘Sleepy Hollow’ just got itself into thanks to a truly badly written episode revolving around Katrina, Ichabod Crane’s wife. The show is only in season two so it is way too early to say they are also on the slippery slope, but trust me, it’s toeing that line. I discuss their issues next, so here’s Part 2 to the Slippery Slope.

-Kyoko