WITH OUR BELLIES FULL AND THE FIRE DYING: A REVIEW BY VERONICA JORGE
February 22, 2025 by Veronica Jorge in category Writing tagged as Debra H Goldstein, new release, Reviewed by Veronica Jorge, Short story collection, With Our Bellies Full and the Fire Dying
WITH OUR BELLIES FULL AND THE FIRE DYING: TALES OF SINNING AND REDEMPTION
DEBRA H. GOLDSTEIN
White City Press, 2025
ISBN 978-1-963479-68-3
Don’t be fooled by the title. This is not a book about morality or religion. Far from it. It’s all about….MURDER.
In this collection of eighteen award-winning short mysteries, everyday people find themselves caught up in events and circumstances that challenge and test them, and reveal the thoughts and intentions of their hearts.
If you’ve read any of Debra H. Goldstein’s other works, and I hope you have, such as, One Taste Too Many, the first in her Sarah Blair Mystery novels, (all of which have been reviewed by me on this blog and which I highly recommend), you will know that Goldstein is masterful at creating interest and intrigue, building suspense, and adding her signature twist at the end of each tale.
As an added treat, her stories also often include delicious recipes you are encouraged to try and add to your own collections.
Debra’s years as a judge and litigator, combined with her skills as a storyteller, make for a perfect combination that, in these mysteries, introduce us to a diverse group of characters with a variety of motives for murder. Yet, where no one is above the law…unless you don’t get caught, or the law covers up for you.
Nothing is ever as it seems.
The murderer is never who you think it is.
And sometimes it might even be the kind little old lady.
A word of caution. While you’re reading, be leery of friends bearing gifts of food.
Happy Reading and eating!
Veronica Jorge
See you next time on March 22, 2025!
More of Debra H. Goldstein’s Books
2025 Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Award
February 17, 2025 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category Contests, From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as #TheBWG, Bethlehem Writers Group, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Award, Short Story Award
With the new year comes another contest for BWG LLC’s latest anthology, Illusive Worlds, forthcoming in 2026.
BWG is seeking never-published stories of 2,500 words or fewer on the theme of Speculative Fiction (broadly interpreted tales of science fiction and fantasy).
The winners receive cash and publication, with the first-place winner being considered for our upcoming anthology, Illusive Worlds: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
The Contest opened January 1, 2025, and the deadline is March 31, 2025. Science fiction and fantasy author Adrian Tchaikovsky will judge the 2025 contest. Click the link below for more information and the entry form.
https://bwgwritersroundtable.com/short-story-award-2
If you have a great story concept for Illusive Worlds, fire up that word processor and get started.
First Place:
$250 and consideration for publication in our upcoming anthology: Illusive Worlds: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy or Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
Second Place:
$100 and publication in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
Third Place:
$50 and publication in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
The 2025 contest judge is science-fiction and fantasy author Adrian Tchaikovsky.
For more information on the 2025 Short Story Award and for information on how to enter, click here. You can also read an interview with Mr. Tchaikovsky here.
Books from Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC
Spotlight on Lynette M. Burrows
February 16, 2025 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Spotlight tagged as Alternative History, Lynette M Burrows, science fiction, Speculative Fiction, The Fellowship Dystopia series
Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, creativity advocate, writing coach, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. Her stories weave her experiences into speculative fiction worlds that capture your attention, characters you root for, and action that keeps you turning pages.
Her Fellowship Dystopia series, My Soul to Keep, and If I Should Die, and a companion novel, Fellowship, tell the story of a world where the isolationists and fundamentalists merged after FDR’s assassination and created an America where even the elite can be judged sinners and hunted by the Angels of Death. They are in online bookstores everywhere. Book three, And When I Wake, is scheduled to be published in 2025.
Lynette lives in the land of OZ and is a certifiable chocoholic and coffee lover. When she’s not blogging or writing or researching her next project, she avoids housework and plays with her two Yorkshire terriers. You can find Lynette online on Facebook, or BlueSky (@lynettemburrows.bsky.social) or on her website.
Lynette’s Books
Hover over the cover for buy links. Click the cover for more information on each book.
Neetu Malik: Featured Author
February 14, 2025 by Neetu Malik in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as Featured Author of the Month, Neetu Malik, Poet's Day, poetry
Neetu Malik’s poetry is an expression of life’s rhythms and the beat of the human spirit. She draws upon diverse multicultural experiences and observations across three continents in which she has lived. She has contributed to The Australia Times Poetry Magazine, October Hill Magazine, Prachya Review, among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetic Bond Anthology V and VI published by Willowdown Books, UK, NY Literary Magazine’s Tears Anthology and Poetic Imagination Anthology (Canada).
Her poem, “Soaring Flames”, was awarded First-Place by the NY Literary Magazine (2017). She has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, 2019 for her poem “Sacred Figs” published by Kallisto Gaia Press in their Ocotillo Review in May, 2018.
Neetu lives in Pennsylvania, USA.
You can find Neetu’s poetry in these volumes.
Hover on the cover for buy links. Click on the cover for more information.
Digging Deep by Dianna Sinovic
February 13, 2025 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as Digging deep, emotions, reader reactions, writing
I can still remember watching Titanic shortly after it came out (late ‘90s). It was the climax, after the iceberg has done its damage and the unsinkable ship is sinking. Rose is lying on the floating debris, and Jack is about to succumb to hypothermia. In the sea of people surrounding me and a friend in the movie theater, we were the only two not sobbing. We looked at each other as the credits rolled, baffled at the teary response we were witnessing.
It was a powerful lesson in storytelling to realize that not everyone reacts to an emotional scene in a way the author (or director) hopes they will.
That varied reaction is one that plays out again and again in discussions with other readers—in my book group, in my movie group, and in my various writers’ groups. We each bring to the books we read and movies we watch a unique set of experiences that influence how we respond to the material.
When the emotional pull is deep, the power of the story can remain long after I finish the book or the movie ends. For me, a book that stayed with me long afterward was Atonement by Ian McEwan. The ending (spoiler alert!), when the reader discovers that Cecilia and Robbie, the young couple they’ve become invested in, actually died because of what another character did that put them in harm’s way, devasted me. I put off starting a new book for days because that story kept haunting me.
Another example is Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, about a teen boy who may or may not have inherited his family’s ability to become a werewolf. By the time the climax arrives, the reader is beginning to think the potential transformation will not happen. (Spoiler alert!) So when it does happen, the reader feels the relief viscerally, just as the main character does. I returned to that scene to reread it again and again, marveling at how it affected me.
Neither of these books may have affected you, but it was alchemy magic for me. Or, not really magic, but the skill of the author to build a story so that the emotional stakes for the protagonist feel so real and true that the reader can’t help but experience it along with that main character.
As a book coach, I can be impressed with and enjoy a story for a number of craft reasons—but the reader in me will fall in love with a book because of how it moves me.
According to Donald Maass inhis superb nonfiction book The Emotional Craft of Fiction, the key to moving the reader is making the emotional stakes clear—letting the reader see/understand why what happens is meaningful to the main character. When the important thing does happen (or doesn’t), we feel the impact deeply and it remains with us. “Focus on the emotional world of your characters,” Maass writes, “and you will not only make a better tale, but you will build a better world for us all.”
Let’s return to the movie Titanic. Rewatching that film recently, more than twenty years after my first viewing, my reaction to the climactic scene in the water was much different. I ran for the tissues. The movie hadn’t changed (Jack still died), but so it had to be me. Those intervening years provided enough love and loss to connect emotionally with the scene that played out.
Books By Bethlehem Writers Group
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