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This month's featured CSR story was Geron Kee's The House of Storms. Did you catch the feature at the beginning of the month featuring it? There were a lot of positive thoughts urging readers to check it out! If you did, make sure you share your thoughts below in the comments, but first, as always I pumped this month's author with all sorts of questions during an interview, so check that out! Are you a person who makes their bed in the morning, or do you not see much point? I make my bed. Or rather, we do. If you were an animal, what would you be? A porcupine. Even a tiger will not mess with a porcupine. And porcupines know it! What's your favorite room in your house? Do you plot or write there? My home office-library. I write here, and I read here. If you had to only work on one project for the next year... what would it be? That's a tough one. I have a folder of unfinished stories, that were interrupted by one thing or another, and to which I just never got back to. If the contents of the folder could be taken as a single project, I'd like to finish those tales. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Deadlines. I use a lot of my free time to write, and there never seems to be enough of it. I tend to no longer write entries in anything that has a specific date for which the work is required. If you are referring to the mechanical aspects of writing, I feel fairly comfortable with that. Mostly, I just wing it! Were the Hardy Boys a childhood favorite of yours? I found them very quickly after coming to The States at age 9. My dad had a large library in storage at his parent's house, which was reclaimed when we moved here. I think my dad has never parted with a single book in his life. He had most of the Hardy Boys series, and they were the editions published in the forties, before they were abridged in 1959. The Abridged editions are patently inferior to the originals, and I was able to get a really good dose of the best of that series. Your characters use fun time period slang, like “the gas”. Was it easy to sprinkle in time-period specific phrases or did you find modern slang creeping in? If there was any accidental modern slang in the story, no one pointed it out to me. I generally research anything that I am unsure about before adding it to one of my stories. That said, we all have some 'fake' facts in our heads - things we think are true, but aren't. Those sorts of things can get into a tale under the guise of a fact I feel certain of, and then just prove to be wrong later. But, again, no one said anything, so I hope I got it right. Do you have a favorite scene in The House of Storms? Actually...I kind of smile at the scene where the power is out at the hotel, and then comes back on, and Frank and his boyfriend, who are holding each other in their room, and Joe and his boyfriend, who are doing the very same thing in their room next door, turn and spy each other through the open connecting door between rooms. Neither brother knew the other was gay until that point. Great pair of detectives, huh? Was there any red herring or detail readers didn’t pick up in the mystery you wish they would have? I don't think there was any discussion on the clues, so I actually don't know if people missed things or not. There were a few red herrings, but I kept them to a minimum. Hardy Boys stories tended to telegraph a little bit of what was coming, and I did the same, so I am not certain how much of a surprise the ending was to readers. As a boy, my general reaction to having the bad guy revealed at the end of a Hardy Boys story was, "I knew it!", rather than, "Didn't see that coming!" I think most readers simply had their suspicions confirmed at the end of my version, too. Can you sum up The House of Storms in one sentence? If it was as fun for readers to read as it was for me to write, than I consider it a successful tale.

Can you believe it's already December? Nope, your eyes are not deceiving you. Cia has been super busy, but luckily for me, she'd already chosen the December CSR, and now it's my turn to help her out! Hopefully in between all your holiday activities, you'll be able to find time to read this story, set in 1948! The discussion day will finish out the year here in the blogs, and will be on December 31st! If you haven't read anything by Geron Kees yet, now is a great time to start! Hope you enjoy and we look forward to seeing you on New Years Eve to discuss The House of Storms. The House of Storms by Geron Kees Length: 56,882 Description: It's 1948. Teens Frank and Joe Dane, sons of nationally famous private detective Ben Dane, are enjoying their summer vacation. But then their dad asks them to come along on a little trip up the coast, to a tourist town where strange things have been happening...and the boys are off on a mysterious case with two friends in tow. Events take an immediate turn for the worse as it soon becomes obvious that someone is out to stop the investigation...someone willing to use any means at his disposal to win! An homage to the Hardy Boys adventures that some of us read as kids, except that in this one, the boys are...um, well...you'll see. A reader said: Didn't know anything about the Hardy Boys - maybe they never made it across the pond. However, that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this story that moved along at a rapid and, at times, very tense pace but also with an amazing amount of detail. Indeed it is a magical story! ~Ivor Slipper Don't forget this month's Discussion Day will be Monday, December 31st.

So begins the week of Halloween short stories!! We featured several stories this month and welcomed members to decide why they liked them to share with other readers. What drew you in? Title? Description? Type of monster-riffic plot to enjoy? Well... I can't wait to hear it! Share your thoughts and comments below. me Zombie Tired of the same old zombie thing? Looking for different? Well drop in to visit with Stephen and family. Nice twist on this well-worn genre. Great job, tim! ~ MichaelS36 June 30, 2018 Shepherd's Crook I have been waiting for this story to be posted in full in order to read it, and as the number of reviews grew I figured it must be a good one! You write very realistic dialogue, K.C., which I admire. So easy to be taken out of the story when the dialogue is stilted. There were a number of surprises in here, definitely an original tale. They kept me turning the pages...or scrolling down in this case. Engaging characters throughout though I would have liked a little more insight into the foundation of Amanda's cruelty and lack of remorse. Pure mental illness or were there other factors? Well done K.C. And I look forward to your next. ~ Percy September 30, 2012 Z is For Zombie It may say "Z is For Zombie," in the title, but don't let that fool you into thinking this is just another Walking Dead clone. It's not. Geron creates a world that feels alive in the post-apocalyptic sense of what happened during the Changes. It follows a brief period in the lives of a group of survivors who after two years, are more family than just a collection of people. And they are all under the age of 18. Five stars for this terrific tale. ~ Brayon September 29, 2018 Purpose "To borrow a famous quote, this story is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" with deadly and frightening consequences. The two main characters are bonded by forces outside themselves and it takes luck, persistence and danger to tease out the meaning of it all. It is wrapped in a love story between two men. So those who are repelled by homoerotic love should be warned, but love scenes are not explicit. Their journey to self-awareness and knowledge of the forces that bind them is tense and dramatic. I heartily recommend this story for everyone with a sense of danger and adventure." ~ Daddydavek August 8, 2017 Don't forget to share your thoughts about these stories in the comments below. And on Wednesday, we have even more coming with the Halloween Hunt short stories! And Thursday's the Anthology Haunted look back.

Wow, it's October 2019, and I've been doing the CSR blog every month for 7 years this year.... 7 is one of those spoooooky numbers. Or is it lucky? Guess it depends on who you ask... or if you're in Vegas? When the holiday season comes around, I like to change this up, or really, any season where I can theme the stories or give readers a chance to try something a little different. I've been doing interviews, a LOT of interviews, over the years as well. Well, this month it's going to be a little different. I've picked several stories, and I'd love for readers who enjoy the CSR to tell me which story they'd pick to read/comment on this month and why it grabbed their attention. Just a sentence, or two, or four if you really want to go on and on. You can do that as soon as you read this blog. Especially if you've read all these stories and know you love one of them, or you like one type of paranormal plot-type, or if you check out all the stories and try reading the first chapter and one sucks you in, or... I don't know. You tell me and your fellow readers! These comments will be featured on the Discussion day, and then everyone can still share their comments on the story plot/characters below the blog feature. And since it's the month for all things spooky and fun, I've chosen the theme of Spirits and Spare Parts (Zombies, of course!) with 4 stories of varying lengths. (Is that one aspect that matters to you?) How many people like the CSR blog as it is? How many people have the 7 year itch and want a change and have an idea for me? You can share them below too! I'd love to keep featuring stories on the site and authors, but we want to keep this activity interactive and what people want to see/read/take part in!