The Big Picture - A Camera, A Young Woman, An Uncompromising Ethic, was the first novel I knew I would publish independently.

I wanted to explore a number issues and without the constrains of genre I had no idea where they would take me. I was excited.

I wanted to examine the creative process - and how the art and the artist are influenced by the marketplace.

I wanted to delve into the intensity of family dynamics - how wonderful it is when it works and how damaging it can be when it doesn't.

I wanted complex characters and authentic relationships.

As a journalist, I'd covered stories that couldn't be reported. I knew what was going on but I couldn't get someone to go on (or off) the record to admit it. It's frustrating, but what could you do?

Well, you can use it in fiction. The plot of The Big Picture is comprised of some of those unsubstantiated stories and also my investigation into the influence on our lives of drug money.

To get at my protagonist's inner journey I went deep inside myself, rooted around, and came forth with not so much the truth about a life I've experienced, but one I'd hoped (still hope) to live.

Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe said, "One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised." I wanted Freyja, my heroine, to be that person. I wanted to see where her blunt refusal to compromise and her intolerant attitude toward those who do would lead her.

Here's what I came up with:

Young, talented, ambitious, Freyja Brynjarrson’s a photographer struggling to crash the art establishment, the challenges presented by her family, and still keep true to her uncompromising ethic.

Fate places her on the front line of a political demonstration where soldiers open fire on civilians. She photographs death for the first time and likes it.

Because of the sensitive nature of her pictures the current government, facing an imminent election, tries to suppress them. But someone far more unscrupulous than government spin-doctors also wants those images destroyed.

Gunnar Brynjarrson, Freyja’s eldest brother is the head of an illegal narcotics empire. He’s concerned about the opposition party’s platform to decriminalize drugs. His sister’s photographs could influence the outcome of a close election and put his business in jeopardy.

As events unfold, Freyja slowly becomes aware of the far-reaching impact the billions of narco dollars have on the government, the economy, friends, family and even herself. Something insidious has infected society and like a super bug it’s resilient, opportunistic and appears as a mutation in the most unexpected places.

Freyja refuses to compromise and is intolerant and unforgiving of those who succumb to this evil or are complicit in their acceptance of it. If she stays at home she’s afraid she’ll be infected and never attain success on her own terms.

She takes an assignment with an international agency photographing the chaos and casualties of Mexico’s drug war. Freyja soon discovers she’s shot only one frame of ‘the big picture’.

The Big Picture focuses on dramatic action, zooms in on political intrigue, and takes a candid snap shot of modern romance. The plot also reveals how narco dollars, overtly and covertly, influence every level of our lives; the wars we fight, the governments we elect, the impact on healthcare, and most importantly and tragically, our personal relationships.

When The Big Picture was finished I set about self-publishing. I used Kindle Direct for the e-book and Createspace for the paperback, both Amazon platforms.

I know a little about publishing having been (and still am) a community newspaper publisher for nearly four decades. Mind you, with the speed technology is evolving past experience doesn't count for much, if anything. In any case, I didn't find the process that difficult. The most difficult part was, and still is, making sure my original manuscript is error free.

I loved this book. I did everything I could to promote it - used social media, sent out advance copies, ran giveaways, sent forth positive thoughts.

I allowed myself to hope. It was a mistake. The Big Picture was self-published without acclaim, reviews or sales. I was disappointed. I felt bad, not so much for myself as for the book. I felt I had let everyone down - meaning my characters.

I regrouped and focused on why I write - because I love to, to learn new things, and to pass my view of the world on to others. Two out of three - not too bad.

Upon reflection I realized The Big Picture had done no worse than the first three books I had published with a publisher. I enjoyed the independence of self-publishing - and the responsibility. So when it became time to renew the contracts with my publisher I said I would if they would publish all the books as paperbacks. We compromised - they published Not Wonder More - Mad Maggie and the Mystery of the Ancients and I yanked the other two books, Spirit Bear and Eagleridge Bluffs.

I subsequently self-published and released Spirit Bear as

 Saving Spirit Bear - What Price Success, and Eagleridge Bluffs as Loving the Terrorists - Beyond Eagleridge Bluffs. My re-released books have fared no worse than the one remaining on the publisher's list, all have done terrible.

Next month I'll retain the rights of my last book under contract and I plan to re-release it as a self-published book as well.

The next time I'll talk about , Forest - Love, Loss, Legend, how came out of the residuals of the previous book - war, drugs, and murder combined with my love of the wilderness - it's splendor and it's mystery.

@lynnebarron06 //

This is the third installment in the Idyllwild series and if I thought the first two were great this one is just mind-blowing extraordinary! 

Georgie Buchanan is intent on finding a secret when she meets Henry, Earl of Hastings. She is most definitely not his type (or so he thinks) but she is so elusive and sensual in her own way that he falls head over heals for her. She does her best to stop herself from developing feelings for the charming earl but nothing she does seems to help and she ends up falling for him as well.   

For all the outstanding lover and demimonde man Henry boasted to be, he was just a sweet, ingenuous boy that had lots to learn and Georgie was more than willing to be the teacher that procured the lessons. She indulged him when it served her purposes and loved him as far as her mind allowed her. But her true goal was not to secure a husband or even fall in love, oh no! Her true goal was to uncover a secret that had affected her since the day she was born and once she had exposed it for all the world to see, she thought she would liberate herself from a burden she’d been carrying all her life.

The story in itself was raw and honest. There were plenty of moments of pure, intense, and palpable human emotions just jumping out of the page. I wanted to scream and cry at the though of what Georgie (and countless other women) had to go through to be accepted and recognized in a society full of hypocrites. Henry was a caring man that wanted nothing more than have Georgie with him yet he was unable to see her as her own person with her own needs. On the other hand, there were moments I wanted to scream at Georgie for being so cruel with Henry, for breaking such a devoted, warm-hearted man; although in all honesty cruel might not be the right term because Georgie was just being Georgie and she was not being cruel, she was just opening his eyes to the reality of a world he had never set a foot in, either by choice or by lack of necessity.

The whole story was just perfect. It was a roller coaster of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. By the end of the book I had called Henry a sweet man, a rake, a cad, and I think I finally settled on sweet man again. Georgie was just spectacular; I don’t think I’ve ever read a more complex heroine with that many moral flaws (given the times) with such a peculiar way of seeing life. In my mind, it’s like each ruined the other by opening their hearts to something new and unexpected and I didn’t understand it until I got to turn the last page. They ruined each other in the most perfect of ways; they ruined each other by falling in love.

~ 5 glowing stars.

** I was gifted a copy of this story in exchange for an honest review **

2 stars - 1 for some scenes, 1 for N'awlins


Dang, what the hell happened here?

I read my share of Mercy Celeste's work, and I already know that her writing and her characters are somewhat... unusual? I like that about her. Most of her stories really work for me, even with a lot of purple and cheese and sugar.

But this one?! Boy, did I really just read that?!

But first, the good part. New Orleans is a great place and a wonderful setting for stories with a little "bite", some sultry love and dirty little (and huge) secrets. I've never been to Oregon, so I can't say the same about that place, but New Orleans - when described good - really does it for me. And it worked fine here.

I also liked to read about Darcy in the beginning. Marcy Celeste knows how to write jaded, complex characters and Darcy wasn't an exception. Life is seldomly black and white, and it reflects beautifully in his musings about his private life, his professional decisions and his regrets. I liked that.

And I was happy with some of the sexy scenes.

Unfortunately that also brings me to one of the two things that absolutely ruined this story for me. Darcy never consciously even LOOKED at another man, yet he let's Caleb fuck him BARE WITHOUT LUBE after knowing him for two days?! Really? There are so manny things wrong with that, I can't even... NO! What really killed it for me though, was the situation after their break-up. You KNOW you've been with other people, and you didn't get tested afterwards. I don't give a flying fuck how careful you think you've been, you don't go bareback after something like this! It enrages me to no end how actions like these are described here, and without even a hint of doubt, of danger, of fear afterwards. Wihtout even thinking twice about it. You say you were careful, and I have no reason to trust you other than I want to, so let's do it. What the hell?! Nail -> coffin for the story.

The other problem I had was the dialogue. I love the accent, even though I don't understand everything when it's spoken. But it sounds beautiful to me, and I like to read it, too. Nevertheless, the sentences should make some lick of sense in relation to each other. But half of the time I felt like people just threw words and phrases at each other without listening, without any kind of logic to it. I was more confused and skipped huge parts of it in the end. Especially this whole drama with the two ex-lovers. And babys, and families, and death, and moving, and murder and the mob and god knows what. Usually, I love Mercy Celestes own brand of crazy in her stories and the history of her MCs, but this time I was just annoyed. I didn't feel a thing for these guys even though their stories should have broken my heart. Not cool.

I'm very disappointed, the sex-thing pissed me off something fierce and I was generally hoping for a lot more when I picked this up. Just no.

I am a psychiatrist, and when I read the plot of this book I could not resist. A book set in Vienna about the early times of psychiatry, and a woman, the daughter of a psychiatrist, trying to develop her own ideas and become independent from her father’s overbearing influence. I had to read it.

The book is fascinating and very well-written. I suspect that somebody without my background might enjoy the story more for what it is, and not try and overanalyse it or overdiagnose it. Arnold Rosenblit’s theories are suspiciously reminiscent of Sigmund Freud’s. And of course, he also had a daughter, Anna, who dedicated her life to study and develop child-psychology. I’ve read some of Freud’s works, but I haven’t read that much about his life, although from what I’ve seen, his relationship with his daughter was much more congenial than the one Arnold (a man difficult to like, although the description of his relationship with his wife is quite touching) had with Marta, the daughter of the title.

The book is written in the third person and mostly narrated through Marta’s point of view, although there are chapters from her friend Elise’s perspective, her father, and Leopold, a physician and long-time friend of the family.

Marta is a very complex character, and one I found difficult to simply empathise with and not to try and diagnose. Her mother was locked up in a psychiatric asylum when she was very young and she became the subject of her father’s observation. The father tried to keep her as isolated as possible from his other daughters, but the oldest daughter looked after her, even if minimally, and they were all in the same house. (It made me think of the scenario of the film Peeping Tom, although Arnold does not seem to have been openly and intentionally cruel.) She appears naïve and inexperienced, at least in how to behave socially and in her role and feelings as a woman, but she is a doctor, a psychiatrist, attends and organises her father’s talks and lectures, and teaches outside, therefore she’s exposed to society and has always been. This is not somebody who has truly grown up in isolation, although she has missed a guiding female figure in her life and the close emotional attachment.

She has her own psychological theories and ideas, but finds it difficult to make her father listen to her. She has very low self-esteem, self-harms and has been doing so for a long time, and when she enters a relationship with a man, she’s completely clueless as to standards of behaviour or how to interpret this man’s attentions (a much older man than her, but somebody with influence and who promises to help her). Although she was not brought up by her mother, I wondered how realistic some of her behaviours would be for a woman of her social class at that period. However, the novel does paint the fine society of the time as a close set-up with a very dark undercurrent, with drugs and alcohol being consumed abundantly, and adventurous sexual behaviours being fairly common, and perhaps Marta is reflexion of such contradictions. On the surface, very controlled (the ego), but with strong and dark passions underneath (the unconscious).

Eloise, the friend she casually meets (or so it seems at the time), is a formidable character, determined, strong-willed, and resourceful, prepared to fight the good fight for women in a society of men. It’s very easy to root for her.

There is a classical villain, that you might suspect or not from early on, but who eventually is exposed as being a psychopathic criminal. The difficulty I had with this character was that I never found him attractive enough or clever enough to justify the amount of power he had over everybody. He is narcissistic and manipulative but even he at some point acknowledges that he uses people but has no great contributions or ideas of his own. It is perhaps because we’re privy to Marta’s thoughts and we see behaviours most people wouldn’t see that we don’t fall for him, but later on he’s revealed to have behaved similarly with quite a few people, especially women, and for me, it was difficult to understand why they would all fall for him. Marta is a damaged individual and he takes advantage of it, but what about the other women? And the rest of society? Leaving that aside (it might be a personal thing with me), he’s definitely somebody you’ll love to hate. (I’m trying not to spoil the plot for readers, although the description of the books gives quite a few clues).

The ending, despite terrible things happening and much heartache, is a joy. Considering what has gone on before, everything turns very quickly, and it’s difficult to imagine that in real life psychological healing would be quite so complete and perhaps so smooth. But it is a fairy tale ending, and although a dark tale, one of sisterhood triumphant.

A word of warning, the book can prove a tough read, as some pretty dark things take place, and there are some cringe-inducing moments. It is not an easy read, but it will challenge you and make you think. And that’s not a bad thing.

I was offered a copy by the author in exchange for an honest review.