I had this long post about half-written whining about how my holidays were going to be all screwed up again this year (if you’ve been around a while, you may recall that my brother’s house burned down last Christmas Eve) because my other brother got a MRSA infection after his most recent knee replacement surgery. Then I got a text saying that he’d be able to leave the hospital tomorrow instead of having to stay there anywhere from two days to four weeks, like we’d thought as recently as yesterday.
So now I’m happy again, and less likely to whine at you about my life, which when you really look at it, is pretty damn awesome. I’ve been happily married for most of sixteen years. And the rest of the time she still puts up with me. I’ve got a great budding career as a writer that is going to let me quit my day job next year and chase a childhood dream. I have a home and two cats that tolerate me. I still have both parents, although who knows for how much longer. And I have great siblings, nieces and nephews.
So I’ve got it pretty good. And I won’t waste any of our time whining about my life when there are people out there who really need your help. So instead of feeling sorry for me, when there’s no decent reason, why don’t you poke around on the internet and do something good for somebody else?
And if you want to do something nice for me, buy a book and enter to win a Kindle Fire!
If you wanna guarantee delivery before Christmas, and you want signed books, Monday is pretty much the last day you have any hope of making that happen. So put in your order now!
I’ll be signing at the Charlotte ComiCon this Sunday, come on out and say hi!
Don’t forget that the Win a Kindle Fire contest ends Monday, so get your entries in!
One of my other sites, Red Dirt Review, has a new print and ebook out – check it out. Red Dirt Review is a literary magazine dedicated to bringing you the best in Southern-themed poetry, short stories and memoirs. And you can earn the same number of Kindle fire entries by buying the print or digital edition of that magazine as any of my other books!
And since ’tis the season, here’s my favorite Christmas song of all time, by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.
So in my initial review, I mentioned that I had a long flight coming up and that would be my test for the Kindle Fire and battery life. Well, I flew from Charlotte to Las Vegas last week and was perfectly content with the battery life on my Fire. I don’t know that it would have lasted the entire flight, but it certainly lasted the part of the flight I was awake for! I watched a couple of episodes of a TV show, and I was right that the smaller size with the stand-style case was a better size than the iPad for watching movies on a plane. For me, the iPhone is too small, but the iPad is too big to stand on its own when the dude in front of me leans the seat back. The Fire was perfect for that.
I turned off the wifi in Vegas, because I wasn’t places where the wifi was free, and I didn’t feel like paying for it, so my battery life was significantly longer for the rest of the trip. I think I charged the device once during the four-day trip, and then again the night before we flew to make sure I had a full charge on the plane.
I’m still carrying my iPad on trips for the time being, because of the larger storage capacity, but you can believe that as soon as someone comes along with a Fire 2 with removable SD card, I’m there. And I’m sure that will happen eventually, just like the camera. But I’m still really happy with my purchase, and don’t forget – I’m giving away two of them!
When John invited me to write a guest post about the genesis of my favorite character in my legal thriller, Irreparable Harm, my initial thought was to write about my protagonist, a tiny but fierce attorney named Sasha McCandless. After all, I like Sasha well enough that I’m writing a series about her! After further reflection, I decided not to write about Sasha after all; before I explain why, here’s a synopsis of the book:
Attorney Sasha McCandless is closing in on the prize after eight long years: she’s months away from being made partner at a prestigious law firm. All she has to do is keep her head down and her billable hours up. Then a plane operated by her client slams into the side of a mountain, killing everyone aboard. Sasha gears up to prepare a defense to the inevitable civil lawsuits.
She soon realizes the crash was no accident: a developer has created an application that can control a commercial plane’s onboard computer from a smartphone. Now it’s for sale to the highest bidder. Sasha joins forces with a federal air marshal who’s investigating the crash. As they race to prevent another disaster, people close to the matter start to die. And she’s next on the list.
Sasha will need to rely on her legal training and her Krav Maga training in equal measure to find and stop a madman before he strikes again.
She sounds pretty awesome, right? And she is. But, I think my favorite character in this first book in the series is Sasha’s boss and mentor, Noah Peterson. Noah is a brilliant lawyer. He’s a senior partner in a major law firm with management responsibility, a solid client list, power, and prestige. He has a beautiful wife and a lovely home. He’s also an alcoholic, workaholic absent husband who has just realized he’s sacrificed his personal life for his professional life.
Noah’s my favorite character because he’s a cautionary tale. I was once on the road to becoming him; but, in 2009, my husband (also an attorney) and I left our large, international law firms in Washington, D.C., and moved to a small town in Pennsylvania. We opened up our very own teeny tiny two-person law office. Now, instead of working seventy-plus hours a week, I can play with our three young children and work on my novels, as well as practice law.
Irreparable Harm isn’t intended to be an indictment of big law firm life or an invitation to examine one’s choices. It’s a legal thriller, meant to provide page-turning entertainment. But, I have heard from multiple readers who’ve said they were more concerned that Sasha avoid Noah’s fate than that she stop the bad guys!
I can’t reveal how things ultimately work out for Noah without giving away some important plot points, but I can say he serves as a reminder to me of why I am where I am, doing what I’m doing, and he seems to resonate with a large cross-section of my readers, too.
Melissa Miller is a practicing attorney who lives in south Central Pennsylvania with her husband and three young children. She is hard at work on the next book in the Sasha McCandless legal thriller series. For more information about Melissa F. Miller and her books, please visit her website at www.melissafmiller.com. To buy Irreparable Harm, please visit one of the following retailers:
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