Bookalicious Travel Addict: angels sing to rest

It's coming up to the anniversary of my Dad's passing on 15th May 2014. The worst day of my life. My Husband and I were in Vancouver at the time about to board a cruise ship to Alaska, and instead we ended up at Vancouver airport, waiting for a flight back to the UK.

What did change for me at that time, was my reading habits. I went completely off reading! Instead of using it as a stress relief, I went the other way. I couldn't concentrate. For about a year I stopped reading and I stopped blogging. I just lost interest, which for those who know me well know that this was just not me. I was always found with a book in my hand somewhere.

A 2009 study at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%. It is supposed to work better than listening to music or drinking tea. It is supposed to be because reading takes you to a different world. One away from the every day stresses and strains of regular life.

Here are some tips from the University of Minnesota, who recommend that you pick up any book or magazine, even a cook book and go somewhere quiet where you won't be disturbed and read for 30 minutes.

The book you choose doesn't have to be on any "best-seller" list. The important thing is that the subject matter has captured your interest and will provide a space for your mind to relax in every day.
Reading only helps reduce your stress if you pick something you enjoy that won't upset you. Reading the news may not be the best choice if it makes you feel angry or helpless. Pick a novel where you can escape into another world. Or read about an activity that you enjoy-- a hobby, travel, cooking.
Take note of how you feel after your reading break. Have you been able to let go of some of your stressors? If you still feel overwhelmed, take our Stress Assessment to explore the source of your anxieties and take charge of your well-being.

My first step back on the reading ladder, was a chance correspondence and meeting with a lovely author in Texas, my second home. Chrinda Jones, Author of crime novels Angels Sing to Rest and Darkness Knows Me. Chrinda had asked that I take part in a blog tour and review one of her books and I obliged. Check out my post here. That was it, I was hooked and back into my reading. Funnily enough since then Chrinda has become a very good friend and we have visited her twice now in Texas. Once to watch her son in his band and the second time in 2016, we stayed in a hotel nearby her house for a few days and her and her husband took us out each day, plus we spent time relaxing at her home and in her pool. I don't think she really knows the impact she had on me from reading and reviewing her book.

As I've said it's coming up to the anniversary of my Dad's passing and a lot has changed in that I am reading more than ever, albeit I'm a slow reader, and I'm immersing myself in a book to relieve the stress.

I'm interested in hearing your opinions of what you do that helps to receive stress. Is it to read or something else.

Please comment on my blog and enter the rafflecopter. The winner will receive an e-book copy of both of Chrinda's books.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TITLE - Angels Sing To Rest

AUTHOR - Chrinda Jones

GENRE - Crime Thriller

Purchase links. click here for Amazon; Click here for Smashwords

PAGES - 206

SYNOPSIS
'Angels Sing to Rest' begins where 'Darkness Knows Me' left off: after the investigation into the death of the Deep Ellum Killer, Levi Devereux.

Detective Sergeant Olivia Gates returns from a two month suspension, to find her team has gained a new member, her ex-husband has been released from prison, and a 10 year old street kid has been murdered on her patch of South Dallas.

Her ex she thinks she can deal with, even when he drags their young son into the mix. The murdered boy with the crushed chest, isn't so easily handled and weighs heavily on her as more street kids are killed with an unimaginable sadistic flare and no discernible motive.

If the continuing body count wasn't stressful enough, Olivia's falling out with long time friend and colleague, Doctor Will Green, threatens any hope Olivia had for more than a friendship with the good doctor.

Drugs, gaming, prostitution and sadistic murders lead Gates and her team on a trek through the seamy underbelly of living rough on the streets of downtown Dallas.

MY REVIEW

Angels Sing To Rest is book 2 in the Will Green and Olivia Gates crime series. You could read it as a standalone however the background to the main two characters and their relationship wouldn't make as much sense as if you'd read the first one. I prefer to read a book series from the start but it wouldn't detract from your enjoyment if you hadn't read book one.

I really enjoyed the storyline to this book, albeit a bit gruesome in places. There are numerous characters in the book and if I hadn't picked it up for a couple of days, I had to go back and re-read a few pages to remind myself who was who. Having said that as I got into the book more, I really immersed myself into the story.

I got really frustrated with the relationship between the two main characters, Will and Olivia. Their on-off friendship had cooled and I wanted to shake them and tell them to work together to solve these horrific crimes. That is when I knew I was engrossed in the book.

The author brought the story together really well, and although I found it a little slow to start with, I enjoyed the book more and more as it went on. I look forward to book 3.

Book 1 - Darkness Knows Me

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Q: When did you realise you wanted to become an author?
A: There was this one particular book, several years back. It was one of many in a long line of “not so good” mysteries and thrillers I read over a period of a year. This particular book, the straw that broke the camel's back mystery, made me say aloud, “I could write something better than this.” I won't reveal the name of this particular book, because that would be bad form and no one wants to be a bad formy kind of person. Let's just suffice it to say that I still have the book around to remind me of what not to do when writing a mystery/thriller.

Q:Who are your writing inspirations?

A: I have always been interested in crime and mystery, something my mother said I inherited from my great-grandmother, who was a hoarder of dime store mysteries and crime novels. If I were made to choose a few of my favorite authors, I would have to say Martha Grimes (an American author who writes the British Inspector Jury series) and Val McDermid (the Scottish author of the Jordan/Hill crime series). Both of these authors write strong stories and well developed characters, something I strive for each time I sit down to write.

Q: Is there a reason why you chose to be a thriller writer and not a writer of say romantic fiction?

A: As I mentioned before, I think the mystery/crime thing might be in my blood. I believe if my great-grandmother hadn't been such a prolific songwriter, she would have turned her talents to writing her beloved mysteries. For me, the science of solving a mystery or crime has always been behind my love for the genres. I don't read romances, but I do enjoy a budding love story, which, by-the-way, my Olivia Gates and Will Green series has in and amongst murders.

Q: Have you secretly based any of you characters on family or friends?
A: No, I haven't based any of my characters on friends or family. I have modeled Olivia Gates, the female protagonist, a bit after myself, mainly my wavy, dark hair and my height.

Q: Where do you prefer to do your writing?
A: I have a home office, which at the moment, is filled with boxes of reference books and the like. The space is more of a place where I “store” the things of my writing, rather than where I actually “do” my writing. I have a wee bit of a neck problem, so sitting in front of a computer can be painful after awhile. So where do I do my actual write? Don't laugh, but I do a great hunk of my writing on my laptop, prone on my bed.

Q: When you were writing book one, were you, in the back of your mind, planning book two?
A: Yes, from the very beginning I planned for Darkness Knows Me, to become a series. Angels Sing to Rest is book two and, Only the Dead Know, is the third of the series, which is a work in progress. Depending on how Only the Dead Know ends, will determine whether or not there will be a fourth instalment to the series.

Q: Have you ever started reading a book yourself and given up on it a few chapters in, or do you persevere to the end?
A: I'm usually one for persevering to at least the halfway mark, but there have been books where getting to that halfway mark was a bit like being flogged with a wet sock for 150 pages. Not one of my more enjoyable experiences.

Q: Tell us one fact about Chrinda Jones that readers don't know.

A: One fact readers wouldn't know about me. Hmm . . . well . . . there was the time, from age four to about age six, when I lived in a one room cabin on a mountain with my parents and sister. When I say one room cabin, I mean one large room, no walls, wood fired cooking stove and an outhouse. Showers were taken at the national park down the mountain from our cabin. Remind me sometime to tell you about the night when an angry female grizzly bear pushed over our outhouse after chasing our dogs back up the mountain to our cabin.

Thank you Chrinda for joining me on my blog. I wish you every success with the book.