Red Wolf's Room

  Thanks to Sia for giving me ideas while writing this post.    -- Spoilers -- A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson left me feeling unsettled, much like The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Real-life mystery-thrillers seem to have that effect on me. I think it was worse in this book because when I was halfway through, I had the brilliant idea to look at the sequel excerpt because I wanted to see what the next mystery would be. However, I spoiled myself for one of this book’s culprits. I didn’t expect Book 2 to continue from Book 1. I expected it to start anew like the other books (not just mysteries) I’ve read and later down the line mention Book 1’s culprits. So knowing whom I thought was the only culprit, I reflected on Pip’s investigation thus far and was upset that we had had only one conversation with Mr. Ward and nothing was given away. We also had one or two quick encounters where Pip runs into him and asks him a question or two. It wasn’t hard to re...

  Photo by Bianca Berg on Unsplash The idea for this post came to me when I finished reading Valkyrie by Kate O'Hearn. The protagonist was born with flaxen hair, but later dyes it red. Once I had finished the book and was starting on its review, I received in the mail Book 3 of The Warrior Isles series by R. L. McIntyre, which is another series with a natural redheaded heroine. Then, I remembered that Nancy Drew is a famous red-haired heroine (usually). My heroine of Book 1 of a series I've been working on for years is also redheaded. I wondered, why are so many heroines redheaded? What's the appeal?  Disclaimer : It's important to remember that these are fictional characters we will be looking at and fiction has stereotypes. Real people with red hair are the same as everyone else; some may have hot tempers while others won't, for example. Everyone has their own set of dominants traits and people should not be judged by their hair color.  Asuka Langley action fig...