Coffee Blog

Java, book reviews, and more—Weekend Coffee Share

Writing Sparkle

Welcome to book review thirteen of fifty-three for this year’s virtual coffee shares. I’ve picked books related to the Brewing Coffee, Twisting Words & Breaking Pencils themes—coffee, books, and puzzles.

Death by Pumpkin Spice

Author Alex Erickson
Published in September 2016
Publisher is Kensington
Available in eBook, Audio, Audio CD, and Mass Market (320 pages)
Private Investigator Mysteries (Books) | Supernatural Mysteries | Amateur Sleuths

Book three of thirteen. 

You can find my full review on Goodreads: my review.

If we were having coffee, I would share a picture of my most recent puzzle. I don’t complete scenery puzzles often, but this one stood out. I love the feel of the image. It makes me nostalgic about the cottage season.

If we were having coffee, I would share that Tuesday is the start of A-to-Z. If you are taking part and visit my posts, please leave me your link so I can visit you too.

If we were having coffee, I would share some interesting information I learned during my editing certificate and ask your opinion. I’m Canadian, and when I published The Ember Files, I wrote it using Canadian English and had it edited that way. During my final editing project for school, the client has a house in Vancouver and California. Her book is about becoming a pilot. So, a question that came up was about Canadian versus American spelling and how to handle that in this manuscript. The professor shared that most publishers default to American spelling because it is commonly understood. This got me thinking about my manuscripts. I think most people are aware of the difference between spelling with words like color versus colour, favor versus favour, and so on. One that surprised me with my manuscript was yogurt, which I spelled yogurt not realizing there is a Canadian spelling: yogourt. I was so thrown off that I had to stop reading and Google it. Having a reader pulled out of the story isn’t ideal, especially because a word looks funny. I’m wondering if this has ever happened to you? What are your thoughts on variations in spelling?

If we were having coffee, I would end by sharing a link to a review of The Funny Side. Literary Titan gave The Funny Side a five-star review. If you are curious about this soon to be released title, please take a second to check out this review. You can like and comment on it: the review.

Well, virtual friend, here is the coffee bean grinder. How was your week?

By Shari Marshall – 2025

16 thoughts on “Java, book reviews, and more—Weekend Coffee Share”

  1. Hi Shari. Yes – I trip over this spelling thing all the time. For me, it’s so common that I rarely think much about it other than to note, ‘there’s another one’.

    US versus Canadian or Australian or British/Scottish/Irish spellings often catch my eye and one side of me wishes that we could all just agree on a standard and call it a day. But that’s unlikely to ever happen and then – the other side of me values such fun little distinctions because on reading them, they remind me that the author is from [wherever] and I just enjoy knowing such things. Standards are helpful but they do tend to wash away some of the tone of someone’s writing and thus we loose a bit of flavour each time we replace two or more spellings with just one.

    One related dynamic is that it almost does not matter because the market of language users are going to do (in mass) whatever they want to do and some spellings might die due to writers deciding to use whichever they feel will cause the least distraction. This alone might push some variants out of existence without any formal fiat from any France-like authority proclaiming it.

    Fun stuff! Hope all’s well in your corner of the world.

    Mine seems to be settling down – well at least it was until my daughter’s car put us on notice that it needs a huge amount of work – work that makes no sense given its age and mileage. So, I have to spend some time trying to buy my med-student a new one (from Calif while she’s in Michigan) so she can focus on sewing people up or whatever the doctor/teachers are throwing at her.

    Sigh . . .

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Language is interesting. Sometimes I also enjoy learning about the origin of a word.

      Sorry to hear about your daughter’s car, Gary. How far into med school is she now? That’s such a fantastic accomplishment.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. She’s halfway through year 3 of 4, but then there will be 3-7 years of residency somewhere. She’ll be a doctor but not board certified in any discipline. It’s a long, stressful path, but she loves it.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Hi Shari,

    Editing-wise, I always let my authors edit in their own English. I had to fight with the editors when I published the first Story Chat book because they wanted to change all the spellings to American English and I wouldn’t let them. In only a few cases have the authors been hard to understand because the vernacular is different. Those differences I usually have them change or explain before we publish online.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Did your editor give you a reason for wanting to change all your spellings to American?

      Explanation for less commonly used words or different vernacular is helpful. Happy Saturday, Marsha.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It was Amazon, and I worked with three different editors through a master planner, and there was no reason, but every time I told them to leave the spelling alone, it came back Americanized except the last time. They were really awful to work with. They messed up entirely on the Kindle version and loaded a photo version of the entire document that couldn’t be enlarged or changed in any way. We had to redo it ourselves after the fact. By we, I mean Gloria, one of the amazing authors in the program.

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  3. That’s a beautiful puzzle. I’d let the authors edit in their own English. I think it’s their unique voice and their story to tell. Thank you for your weekend coffee share.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. In some ways I like the British spellings, which I assume is the Canadian as well, better than the American. I think “flavour” looks right and “flavor” wrong, but always have to write “flavor”. The one I have the hardest time with is “grey” – I can’t make myself write “gray”! I think it is that I read The Hobbit at 10 and The Lord of the Rings at 14 – it is Gandalf the Grey, not Gandalf the Gray!!! lol. I think if there is a Canadian spelling that you weren’t aware of and used the American version, you don’t have to worry that it will stop a reader. If it didn’t bother Canadian you and your editor missed it as well, not a problem. I think the problem would be if you kept changing the spelling of one word, going back and forth from “color” to “colour”. Even if you wrote “the color grey” I wouldn’t pause, though I might for “the colour gray”! I have seen “yogurt” spelled both ways and wouldn’t flinch at either no matter the context.

    Hope you are havign a good weekend and that you have a wonderful week ahead!

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    1. Once a spelling variation has been decided on, consistency is key. Grey and gray aren’t variations that were stressed in school like color and colour. It wasn’t until I started editing and paying attention to words that I realized why grey was spelled differently sometimes. I have a character in The Ember Files whose last name is Greyson, and the question about whether to change it to Grayson came up during the editing stage. I think in terms of names, the rules should matter.

      Happy Saturday, Trent.

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      1. Yes, consistency is key. As to names, I think that as long as it is consistent through the story, the rules matter even less – even simple names often have multiple spellings and very often seem to follow no rule whatsoever!

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    1. Thank you. It was nice change from the puzzle images I normally put together.

      I agree about it being interesting that one word can have so many spelling variations.

      Happy Sunday.

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