Long and Short Reviews welcomes Z.A. Maxfield who is celebrating the recent release of Hawaii Five Uh-Oh. Enter the Rafflecopter at the end of the post for a chance to win a box with Hawai’ian Island-related items, valued at $25.00 (US only please).
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for welcoming me to the Long and Short Review blog for a little teaser of the newest “Plummet” story, Hawai’i Five Uh-oh.
My Plummet to Soar books are a series of affiliated books–super loosely based around Plummet To Soar, a fictional self-help book written by Mackenzie Detweiler. (The man from book one, who fell from a tourist helicopter and lived to tell the tale.)
Each of the books features some person touched by reading Plummet to Soar, whose life has changed because they were forced to rethink what they have and what they truly want.
Today, I thought I’d share five things you might not know about my totally eighties life, beginning with:
1. Stevie Nicks. Seriously. Is there a woman my age who doesn’t love Stevie? Who didn’t try to dress like her. Wear their hair like hers. I get now why the raspy, throaty voice gave me shivers to my toes, but even back in the day I would have called it a major girl crush. I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert, and also caught Stevie Nick’s solo tour. A lot of those songs were thoughtful. The lyrics were poetry. The music, compelling. I was in a California Fish Grill restaurant, just this morning, with the radio tuned to some kind of everything eighties station, and they played “Stop Dragging My Heart Around,” Stevie’s duet with Tom Petty. I told my husband I resented the implication that the healthy diners where we live are all our age – between close to and well past retirement, but it is what it is. Outside, there was a meetup of folks with classic cars, and inside, most of the diners were old enough to have purchased those songs as LPs or 45s.
2. MTV. You know what? A lot of people dug watching music videos back in the day. Everyone still makes them. I watched about a month and a half’s worth of MTV on the Z channel in the early eighties, but honestly? I was never a fan. Unlike listening to music in the background, they were designed to totally engage me. As a child of the sixties, I’d been trained to give a television my full attention, but it was obvious early on that music videos were only commercials and there was no there there. I found them insufferably boring. After the first time, I was done. A few good ones stick out in my mind: “Take On Me”, of course. Anything by Michael Jackson, but “Thriller”, especially. “Hot for Teacher”, by Van Halen because I hadn’t planted my feminist flag yet. Now, the only videos I watch have Beyoncé in them… I’d be embarrassed to say how many times I’ve watched “Lemonade,” all the way through.
3. Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. I’ve always struggled with my weight, so these two are a natural. Between sparkly headbands, dolphin shorts, leg warmers, and high-cut leotards, I ate it all up. I worked out to their videos, got the stretchy bands and pulleys, and even purchased one of Jane Fonda’s manual treadmills, which turned out to be awesome, actually, something I used for years, and not only for fitness. Once, when my daughter had an elementary school project on statistics and probability, she devised a test where we elevated the machine and one of her brothers ran on it, while another threw buttered toast on the track, and a third recorded the results as each piece fell off the end: Whether it landed face up, or face down. What a terrific, creative way to use that equipment–and yes, it was a statistical dead heat. #Mythbusted
4. Marriage. A pretty girl named Diana got married to a prince in the eighties and then totally dominated the world of style until she passed, tragically young. I had my collection of Di hats until we moved a couple months ago. I know they’ll come back, so hit the thrift stores. They’re out there somewhere. You’re welcome.
5. Sexism. I worked as a computer programmer, which started out to be a really promising place for women in technology. My friend Joanne wrote one of the very first home computer video games. She was even written up in magazines! But programming and gaming became a boy’s club for the most part and women were getting 2/3 of what men earned. Let’s be honest, I don’t miss that part of the eighties at all.
But you know what? Now is such a good time to be alive. It’s the best time ever to be a writer. All the world’s information, art, literature, and news is yours for the push of a button! Sure, you have to be discerning and it’s easy to get confused by misinformation, but would you really rather live before the information age? I sure wouldn’t!
Tell me about your eighties life (or your twenties, whenever they happened.)
Best wishes for a wonderful, drama-free holiday season!
ZAM
Sarcastic cop Theo Hsu returns home to Hawai‘i after realizing he wants more from his life, and also, less. He hopes to reconnect with his past and make amends with his mother, who remarried a cool, distant man, leaving Theo unsure where he stands.
It doesn’t take him long to figure out where he wants to stand, though: right next to his childhood best friend, tattooed detective Koa Palapiti. Theo would like to upgrade their relationship, but Koa is putting out some seriously mixed signals. It’s a mystery Theo can’t let go, but just as they start to connect, kidnapping, murder, and a deadly game with international stakes get in the way. Koa wants to keep Theo out of it, and if it comes to a choice between him and Koa’s partner, Freddie Ortiz, Theo doesn’t like his chances.
But even if Koa wants to push him out of the investigation, and his life, Theo still has a few tricks up his sleeve. It’ll take all his special gifts, ingenuity, risk-taking, family ties—and even some kinky undercover work—to save the day… and the man he never should’ve let get away.
About the Author: 
Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. Three things reverberate throughout all her stories: Unconditional love, redemption, and the belief that miracles happen when we least expect them.
If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four can find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”
Buy the book at these online venues.
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Sounds like a good read.