Category Archives: Book Bits

Thoughts about fiction writing and about what’s happening in the lives of fictional characters in Sharon St. George novels.

A Day at the Dojo

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What’s a girl to do when it’s two against one? Or when he has a gun?

These situations bring tension into the life of forensic librarian Aimee Machado, heroine of the Machado Mystery series. It would be easy to give her a black belt in jujitsu and let her wreak havoc on her attackers. But would it be honest? Only if it’s real.

Aimee isn’t Bat Girl or Wonder Woman. She’s just as real as any woman who opens the pages of Due for Discard or Checked Out. Well, she would be just as real, if she weren’t a fictional character.

The point here is that everything that happens in the Machado Mystery series is based in reality. If it happens in the books, it could happen in real life.

Of course, Aimee is a bit of a magnet for trouble. First it was two guys with a tire iron and some bad ideas. That’s when she got serious about her martial arts workouts. When the big, mean dude with a gun came along, she was ready.XG8D0964

If she isn’t dealing with difficult doctors in her job at Timbergate Medical Center, or at home in her cozy studio apartment above her grandparents’ llama barn, Aimee can be found working out at her local dojo.

Remember, women’s self-defense isn’t just something that spices up books and movies. It’s available to all women who want to be the heroines of their own stories. And it’s real.

The American Judo and Jujitsu Federation (AJJF) is a worldwide organization of martial arts schools dedicated to the preservation and promulgation of the Danzan Ryu system of Jujitsu. http://www.ajjf.org/

 

 

Dangerous Fashion

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ear plug gaugesTurns out the fashion trend involving ear plug gauges could be a problem for a bad guy. They come in all sized these days, and the idea is to make a hole in the earlobe, insert the ear plug, usually hollow, and then let the earlobe stretch until a larger size plug can be used.  The problem with this fashion, besides its yuck factor, is that in hand-to-hand combat, it gives the other guy an edge. Just recently, the heroine in CHECKED OUT managed to break away from her attacker after she slipped a finger through his ear lobe hole, conveniently stretched out by the ear gauge. One good yank, and she had a bloody chunk of his ear and his ear gauge in her hand. He took off, howling, but with the DNA from the ear, and a little forensic help, he’s sure to be apprehended.

 

 

Who killed the cowboy?

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First draft of my latest hospital librarian mystery is almost finished, but I can’t keep it under 90,000 words unless I leave out the last two chapters. But then no one would know who killed the rodeo cowboy. Guess I’ll go back and take out the parts people don’t read. But I’m keeping the llamas. And the scary woman doctor who operates on . . . well, that’s TMI.