22/11/63 or 11/22/63?

I keep getting the title wrong. I know what it stands for (the day JFK was assassinated) and my non-USA-formatted mind keeps referring to it as 22/11/63, not 11/22/63. Either way, you know the book I mean. Stephen King's time travel epic. About JFK. The very thick one, the one that makes you wish you'd bought it on Kindle so that your wrists don't get sore from holding it up. Yeah, that one.

It took me a few days to get into 22/11/63... er... 11/22/63. As a JFK conspiracy theory nut, I loved the premise: oh, to go back in time and see what's what! As a scientist, though, I was cautious: would preventing the assassination be ultimately better for the world? As a reader, I wanted to be swept by the pace of the novel, only to be left drifting to admire the world in 1958, with its cigarette smoke haze and its root beer that tasted food-additive free.

Don't get me wrong: it was a great journey. Today's world is too rushed, too global, too connected, too commercial, so I revelled in the slower pace of half a century ago. It's just that the pace was more literary-novel than thriller. I can live with that.

The book introduces several intriguing ideas, so if you're a time travel fan, read it. If you're a history fan, read it. If you're not a horror book reader, read it.

A Mind For Murder

On May 13th this year, I had the privilege of attending A MIND FOR MURDER, a morning filled with talk about crime fiction. Read more here.

The Hunger Games - the books and the movie

Not sure whether I can say anything that's not been said before. But I want to say it anyway. Unstructured ramblings to follow. (Warning: Spoilers.)

Overall, I loved the books as much as I hated the premise. Never had I imagined I'd be reading and enjoying books in which children kill one another. Fortunately, Suzanne Collins writes beautiful prose, and she writes with heart. It still amazes me that I could admire a heroine as prickly and self-centered as Katniss.

What message did other readers get from the trilogy? For me, it clearly says war is wrong, war is a pointless waste of life, war kills children on both sides of the barricade. It clearly says all politicians are evil. And it clearly says don't drop roses onto a battle zone (this is a dig from me: story goes that during the Warsaw Uprising in WW2, British aeroplanes dropped flowers onto the city... the city wanted food).

Anyway, Book 1 was my favourite and it's joining my list up there with ROOM and THE HELP. I thought the movie did it justice, even if we couldn't hear her thoughts during the Games. Of Book 2, ironically, I enjoyed the Games the most. And Book 3 made me cry.

Interview with Vanda Symon

My interview with Vanda Symon will appear in this Saturday's Dominion Post (12 May 2012). Buy the paper and turn to p34-35 of YOUR WEEKEND!

Vanda Symon's THE FACELESS

New Zealand crime fiction author, Vanda Symon, has just had a new release, THE FACELESS. Vanda is one of my favourite people, and I'm doubly thrilled the book was launched by Penguin's commissioning editor Katie Haworth. I had the privilege of meeting Katie at the 2011 RWNZ Annual Conference, and I'll never forget the image she put in my head... of herself and her assistant reading through piles of submissions that reach metres into the air.

THE FACELESS is Vanda's first stand-alone thriller. I love that it's set in Auckland. I love that it deals with the delicate issue of sex workers, a topic I myself write about. I love that it makes the reader think of all the lonely, faceless people lost in the sea of human beings.

To win a signed copy of Vanda's book, please click here.

The Moon She Rocks You

Today in our virtual studio we have Gurutej Khalsa, a founding practitioner of Kundalini and one of a handful of Kundalini Yoga Masters in the world. She has taught people for over 40 years to connect to their higher consciousness through healing, meditation, yoga, and chanting. Her book, The Moon She Rocks You, shares interesting and potentially life changing information.

Q: Welcome, Gurutej. Your book's got an attention-grabbing title. What does it mean?

A: Have you noticed that some days you feel strong and powerful and can take on the entire universe and other days you want to find a bathroom to hide in and cry? Why is that? This book will give you many tools, techniques and tips to restore your balance so you can easily access the gifts of each Moon Center. This is not a shield to hide behind, but information to make you more aware, informed, and complete with support tools that will make you more powerful as a woman.

Women are ruled by the moon. Like the moon, women are a mystery. We have a dark unseen side and another that’s fully lit. We change cycles every 2.5 days. We have tides like the ocean, and we call our menstrual cycle, our moon cycle. The Moon Centers show us various points in our body that correspond to certain feelings and moods we may experience during the 28-day lunar cycle.

The cycle of the moon plays with these points of your body. What I would like to accomplish in this book is to explain these points; show where they reside in a woman’s body and reveal what the locations mean for each of these Moon Centers. But this book is about knowing what and where the Moon Centers are in your body and revealing how their cycles can be used to your advantage. This book will give you a preview of some tools and tips you can utilize to help balance these Centers and to activate them.


With The Moon She Rocks You, you can use a chart of the body and check it each day to see where you think you are in this cycle. You will also get in-depth information on the negative, positive, and neutral aspects of each Moon Center and how these play out with ways for balancing each of them. With practice you can make great use of the Moon Centers in your life. (http://gurutej.net/store/11-moon-centers)



Q: So what message or advice do you hope to convey?
A: The message is to give women and men tips of how to take the drama and trauma out of their lives. Using these 11 moon centers, I give tips on food, breathing methods, meditations, love tips, and so much more about how each woman can live in a more balanced state and accept the gifts that each Center offers. I want all women to take advantage of the gifts and not be buried by addictive emotions.



Q: I can embrace that! What research did you do to write the book?
A: It’s been 40 years since I originally heard my teacher speak of the phenomena and now I’ve laid it out in this book. I used this information personally and share this teaching all over the world. I have worked with hundreds, no thousands, of men and women on how to use this system to make their lives have less drama and more ease. It is a brilliant and effective system.



Q: Sounds both awesome and hard to top. What's next in line for you?
A: Next I will release a book and a program called The 13th month - Getting 30 Extra Days Each Year. This program and book are geared at two groups. Mothers and people who spend way too much time at their desks or working and want to figure out better ways to live a delicious balanced life having more time to do the things they want. It is a system that works with everything from how you go to sleep and wake up, to little things you do all day long to make more effective choices in everything from food to simple exercise you can do right by or at your desk or in the car for Mom’s.


If you are a woman, knowing about The Moon Centers gives you power over your negative emotions. If you are a man, it gives you the key to understand women of all ages. You learn to listen to the voice of their emotions. Women – we can have control over those crazy emotional times in our lives. For more information, visit - http://gurutej.com/store/11-moon-centers/

New Review for "Dead Red Heart"

Here's a fantastic review of DEAD RED HEART from the latest BLACK STATIC magazine. The editor of the anthology, Russell B Farr: "Their awesome reviewer hase gone through all 33 stories and had something to say about each and every one."

This is what they said about mine:
"‘Just a Matter of Economics’ by Yvonne Eve Walus has an intriguing idea, with vampire hunters calling a ceasefire in the hope that the bloodsuckers will develop a cure for AIDS, the story told from the perspective of a human infiltrating a vampire conference on the disease and becoming besotted with one of the undead."