Mary Castillo – Mystery + romance author and audiobook narrator
Mary Castillo is the author of paranormal Gothic mysteries and romantic comedies and award-winning audiobook narrator and producer.
Slow down this holiday season with a soul-filling, stocking-stuffing afternoon at W.D. Dickinson. A pop-up holiday market rooted in the tactile richness of handmade goods, music and connection with the makers.
• 15 local artists and makers
• High-quality handmade goods
• Learn as you shop with in-booth classes
• Music and lounge areas
Or, you don’t and you’re wondering how my head hasn’t exploded.
Below are my current reads with links if you’re interested in adding them to your TBR (To Be Read) list/pile/queue.
All the feel good coziness you want in a fall themed cozy mystery, plus a one-ghost rating for spookiness.
At first I had a tough time getting behind this 1920s-era amateur sleuth. She’s motivated by financial gain to solve the suicide or murder of a suffragette. The more she understands the plight of the woman on the front lines to secure the 19th Amendment, the more she realizes that without her privilege, she is just as vulnerable as the next woman.
I’m listening to this in bits and bites. It’s hard to listen to one downfall story after the next. But strangely compelling. I’ll keep you posted.
I use affiliate links to Amazon.
I’m putting together a Dori O. Read Along and a Beta Reader & Listener Tribe.
If you’re like to do a read along of the Dori O. series, please sign up here and we’ll coordinate dates and times and places and all that stuff to make it fun!
If you love getting first, never-before-seen copies of my new books and/or audiobooks, please sign up for my Beta Tribe. (We need to come up with a better name but we’ll get to that later!) As a beta reader/listener, you’ll help me out by leaving reviews, taking some cool Facebook and/or Bookstagram pics and sharing with the world why you love the books.
Thanks for making it all happen! Without readers, these books would just linger in the ether. And that’s not very fun!
This is my very first Wonder Con signing and if you’re planning to be there, come say hi!
I’ll be in the Broad Universe Booth #902 signing at 10 a.m. on Saturday March 30th. If you’re not an early riser, I’ll be there all day Saturday and Sunday managing the booth. I can’t wait to chat with you and sign special edition print copies of Lost in Whispers + Girl in the Mist and Lost in Whispers.
Here’s our booth line-up so you can stock up your TBR pile!
NEWSLost in the Light is a finalist in the Mystery category for the 2018 ABR Audiobook Listeners Choice Awards!
This is such an incredible moment. I started from scratch not knowing if I had the chops to narrate an entire audiobook or figure out how to produce it. But thanks to all of the tools provided by ACX, my podcast listeners as well as my background in high school theatre, I pulled it off!
Seriously, to be included in the finalist category is an honor.
Thank you and congratulations to my fellow nominees.
Thanks to Alexandra Amor for interviewing me on her podcast, It’s a Mystery! I share Dori’s origins, my odd approach to writing as well as my obsession with the paranormal. And of course, drink lots of tea.
Check out Alexandra’s website for more great interviews!
I should’ve added, “How to Make Your Goal Without Losing Your Mind.”
So this is by no means the absolute, fool-proof, 100% guaranteed list of how to achieve your NaNoWriMo goals. It is what works for me and I share this with the goal that it might stimulate you to come up with ways that will work for you.
Here we go:
Hey San Diego friends, next week I’ll be at my hometown National City Library where Dori met Meg in LOST IN THE LIGHT!
Books available for purchase and signing. Proceeds benefit the National City Library!
The hardest part of a story to write is the first line. Speaking from my experience as a reader (e.g. what pulls me into a story) and a writer (what has sold my work), a character has to make an entrance. Or, if told in the first person, a statement. I don’t mean just having someone walk through a door, or wake up in bed and most definitely not stare at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink. Characters arrive. They have a presence that makes you turn to the next page and the next until the end when you (hopefully) wish the book hadn’t ended so soon.
When I think of great entrances, I remember the night I watched The Seven Year Itch on the big screen in downtown LA. When Marilyn’s fan cord stuck in the doorway, three hundred of us gasped in the dark. We held our breath at the palpable energy that radiated from her 50 years after she’d shot that scene.
Right now, or rather right before I began this blog, I arrived at the phase of my WIP when it’s time to write the first line. Some lines appear just like that. Some take a few drafts or they hide from me until I realize that the first 20 pages I wrote don’t belong in the book. The only way I know that I have the first line is when (a) it no longer bugs me in the middle of the night, and (b) when it makes me sit up and shout, “Whoa!”
So here I go into territory unknown and still no first line in sight. But I figure it’ll show up sooner or later.
When I logged into my Facebook page last night, Selina McLemore left me a little present that Latina Magazine choose Names I Call My Sister and In Between Men for their Top 10 Summer Reads!
No way! WAY!!!
So back to last night … Just when I was about to shake my groove thing, the Little Dude peed all over the bathroom floor. You know what I did? I let Daddy clean it up while I basked in my glory.
(Singing)
Shake you groove thing, shake your groove thing oh yeah!
Show ’em how you do it now
And now its back to work but with a smile on my face.
Thanks Selina! And MUCHAS GRACIAS Latina Magazine!