Reading and Stress ~ Can reading help? #Giveaway - 2 crime books

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. 

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Book Review & Author Interview ~~ Angels Sing to Rest by Chrinda Jones

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. 

BOOK REVIEW, INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY - Darkness Knows Me - Olivia Gates & Will Green crime series - Chrinda Jones

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Book Title - Darkness Knows Me - Olivia Gates & Will Green Crime Series

Author - Chrinda Jones

Publisher - Wing and a Prayer Publishing

Publication date - 19 December 2013

Pages - 297 pages

Buy Link - Amazon UK // Amazon US // 

Synopsis 

Richard McMann hangs by his arms from the rafters of Red Curtain Club- naked. His ankles are bound together and his throat is cut in what appears to be a gruesome still-life tribute to Christ’s crucifixion. There is no blood in spite of the gaping wound to his throat and his entire body is covered by what looks like a fine white powder. The salt granules scattered on the dance floor beneath his feet and the fact that his body faces due east, make his murder different yet similar to the death days earlier in a club a few blocks away. 

South Dallas police detective, Olivia Gates and British criminal psychologist, Dr. Will Green, engage in a game of wits with a serial killer who haunts the nightclubs of Deep Ellum, leaving behind ritualistic sacrifices of those people he believes deserving of the act. Is he a raging psychopath, killing just to kill, or is there method behind his madness?

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR CHRINDA JONES

Chrinda and I at Billy Bobs HonkyTonk Nightclub in Fort Worth Texas 2013

1. What got you interested in writing a book?

What got me interested in writing a book? I would say it had to be the terrible books I read, one right after the other, about four years ago. I remember getting nearly 75 pages into what was supposed to be a mystery ( I believe in giving a book the chance to redeem itself before I stop reading it) and saying to myself “I could write something better than this.” Unfortunately, my husband heard me and the glove was thrown. It took me about six months after that moment to finally sit down and start the Darkness Knows Me manuscript.

2, What or who are your influences? 

If I were pressed to list influences, I would have to say Scottish author, Val McDermid and American author, Martha Grimes have influenced me the most. They both have a way with characters and story lines that I love and admire. There are others, like Henning Mankel, but McDermid and Grimes standout to me.

3. What do you want your readers to gain from your books?

My novels have a very small thread of faith running through them. The reader discovers Olivia Gates has a faith that guides her life. They also discover that her friend, Will Green, has faith in nothing but Olivia and himself. I hope people who read the continuing story of Olivia and Will, step away at the end of the novels thinking, “I hadn’t thought of God or faith quite like that before.”

4. Where do you do your writing?    

People will think it weird, but I lay prostrate on the floor in my bedroom. A neck injury keeps me from being able to sit in a desk chair for any length of time. It looks quite a mess with all my reference books stacked and sprawled on the floor around my laptop, but it works for me. The only drawback to this arrangement is that my Jack Russell/Pug, Abby, seems to think that because I’m lying on the floor at her level, I’m fair game for fun.

5. In the theme of my blog, if you could go anywhere in the world to write your next book, where would it be?   

It’s interesting that you should ask this particular question. Book 3 of this series takes my characters to Newcastle –Upon –Tyne, in England. I plan to visit the area soon to do research and get a visual and mental picture of Newcastle and the North East. If I could, I would stay until the book was completed, but I don’t think the money will hold out that long. It probably sounds awful, but I’m hoping archives reveal some sort of strange murder or series of murders I can loosely add to the existing story line.

·     Quick fire:

1. Kindle or tree book?

Tree-  I love the way a book feels and smells when I read it. Those physical things contribute to how I enjoy the book.

2. Tea or Coffee?

Tea- I love iced teas. Coffee is just too bitter sometimes, especially the way my family makes it.

3. Cats or dogs?

Dog-  I just find dogs more soothing than cats.

4. Beach or snow holiday

Beach- If there is sand, there is water and I love the water!

MY REVIEW 

This was a great debut thriller from Chrinda Jones. I loved how the characters Olivia and Will worked together and I found similarities to the Wire in the Blood series by Val McDermid. 

The Simmering relationship sometimes overpowered the story line of the serial killer which is the only reason I dropped the book by 1 *, however I thoroughly enjoyed the story nonetheless. The book was full of suspense and intrigue. 

The author had obviously done her research well, which made the book flow well too. 

It was certainly a promising start to what I think will be a great book series and I cant wait to read the authors next novel "Angels sing to rest"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chrinda Jones was born in 1964, in Sacramento,CA. She lived the first 30 years of her life in Oregon and has since lived in several different states across the U.S. She began learning to write in earnest when her four children started leaving the nest. She is the author of the Olivia Gates and Will Green crime series set in Dallas, Texas, of which "Darkness knows Me" is the first installment. A musician and lover of books, she lives in Murphy, Texas with her husband and her Jugg, Abby.

BOOK TRAILER 

COMING WINTER OF 2014 FROM CHRINDA JONES
Angels Sing to Rest (Olivia Gates & Will Green Crime series)

Whilst reading this book I liked to have music on in the background. This book was read whilst listening to Zane Williams. Catch them here




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BLOG TOUR - Darkness Knows Me by Chrinda Jones

Title: Darkness Knows Me  

Author: Chrinda Jones

Release date: April 1st, 2013

Genre: Mystery

Tour: Irresistible Reads Book Tours

Book Description:

Richard McMann hangs by his arms from the rafters of Red Curtain Club- naked. His ankles are bound together and his throat is cut in what appears to be a gruesome still-life tribute to Christ’s crucifixion. There is no blood in spite of the gaping wound to his throat and his entire body is covered by what looks like a fine white powder. The salt granules scattered on the dance floor beneath his feet and the fact that his body faces due east, make his murder different yet similar to the death days earlier in a club a few blocks away.

South Dallas police detective, Olivia Gates and criminal psychologist, Dr. Will Green, engage in a game of wits with a serial killer who haunts the nightclubs of Deep Ellum, leaving behind ritualistic sacrifices of those people he believes deserving of the act. Is he a raging psychopath, killing just to kill, or is there method behind his madness?

Links - 
Amazon US - Click here
Amazon UK - Click here
Goodreads - Click here

EXCERPT

“So, what sedative did he use if it wasn’t Ketamine?”

“They listed the overridin’ chemicals in McMann’s blood as diphenhydramine, heroin, acetaminophen and salicylic acid. Then all the other chemicals, minerals, etc you expect to see in a blood work-up.”

“Cheese Heroin and aspirin,” Olivia said.

“Judging by the size of the dose he took of salicylic acid, the fella had one hell of a head banger before whoever got hold of him, got hold of him. His ears must have been ringin’ like a bicycle bell.” Verna said.

“Big guy, big dose. Makes sense to a person who doesn’t make a habit out of reading dosage labels.” Olivia never heard of this particular type of heroin being used purposefully as a respiratory depressant.

“I had them run a break down on a sample of the Cheese we found in McMann’s mouth. I wanted to know the percentage of heroin used to make it. The test came back at twenty percent. That’s three times higher than the five percent found in the original samples they ran years back when it appeared in the schools.” Verna’s pastry slowly oozed amoretto filling with every piece she tore from it. She licked the filling off the tips of her fingers and said, “Black Tar Heroin is thirty percent Heroin. The drug we found is nearly that level. Considerin’ the effects of an increased amount of acetaminophen and diphenhydramine, we’re lookin’ at more consumer deaths due to respiratory failure.”

Olivia handed Verna a napkin and asked, “Anything else? What about the weapon?”

“Flip through those papers with the blue paper clip until you see the section that talks about the knife wound.” Verna waved her sticky hand in the direction of the open file folder. “I took swabs from the outside edges of McMann’s neck wound and from inside the wound itself and sent it to the lab with the rest of the specimens. The results came back showin’ animal blood mixed with McMann’s blood at the site. Odocoileus virginianus - White Tailed Deer for people who speak English.”

“White tail live mostly in Canada, but there are some as far south as here and Louisiana.”

“How do you know that?” Verna asked.

“I’m the daughter of an avid hunter with no sons. You would be surprised by some of the things I know.” Olivia continued flipping through the pages, skimming the rest of the report. “So, that probably makes our murder weapon a hunting or survival knife like I thought.”

“Ya, I guess it does.”

“Exsanguination makes sense now that we know he’s probably a hunter.” Olivia said.

“But what does exsanguination have to do with his method? Why do somethin’ so freakin nasty?” Verna shuddered.

“I’m almost certain it has to do with the act of sacrifice. If he’s working from the Old Testament version of ritual sacrifice, blood has to be spilled in order for forgiveness to be granted.” Olivia said this with confidence, certain of her assumption, at least where the sacrifices were concerned.

“So, the murders are ritualistic. Girl, that’s just weird.”

About the Author:

Chrinda Jones was born in 1964, in Sacramento,CA. She lived the first 30 years of her life in Oregon and has since lived in several different states across the U.S. She began learning to write in earnest when her four children started leaving the nest. She is the author of the Olivia Gates and Will Green crime series set in Dallas, Texas, of which “Darkness knows Me” is the first installment. A musician and lover of books, she lives in Murphy, Texas with her husband and her Jugg, Abby.

Tour Giveaway:

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