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Patti O'Shea <pattioshea>


I"m published with Love Spell and with Tor"s Paranormal Romance line. My first book was RAVYN"S FLIGHT in 2002, a futuristic romance set about 40 years ahead. Next was THE POWER OF TWO, THROUGH A CRIMSON VEIL, ETERNAL NIGHTS, and a novella in the SHARDS OF CRIMSON anthology.

In August, IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR will be released and I"m hugely excited about this book. It"s a paranormal romance with lots of action and adventure. The blurb I use is:

When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor.

Fun story to write and I hope readers share my enjoyment.

I still have my evil day job (EDJ) which keeps me from writing as much as I"d like. My other interests (in that non-existent spare time) include scrapbooking, reading and traveling.

Music
Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Robert Haig Coxon, DEVO, The Fixx, The Boomtown Rats, The Police, INXS, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Chris LeDoux
Films
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Ref, American Dreamer, The Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Speed, Sliding Doors, The Lost Boys, Underworld, Night of the Comet
Sports
Baseball!!! The Minnesota Twins, my beloved Chicago Cubs, and the Atlanta Braves.
Traveled To
Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fanning Island, Yukon Territory, Hawaii, Alaska, Germany, Austria, and most of the United States.
Gender  
Female
Last Active
16 hours
Share the Luv
2
HometownCountry
MinneapolisUnited States
Patti O'Shea's URL
http://www.bebo.com/pattioshea
Member Since
April 2007

   

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Blogs

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End
Today's review is <strong>Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End</strong> starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley. I know the DVD just came out this week and I should probably be careful, but there are a few points I'd like to discuss, so <strong>there will be spoilers!</strong> Stop reading here if you want to be surprised.

I wanted to love this movie--I really did. I loved the first one (Curse of the Black Pearl) so much and everyone had been assuring me that World's End was better than Dead Man's Chest, that I expected to enjoy this one even if it wasn't quite as good as the first. I've been waiting for World's End for weeks and made sure I had my last movie in on the right day at NetFlix in order to get this one for the weekend. I <em>did</em> like this movie, but I didn't love it.

Basic plot synopsis is that Jack (Depp) is in Davy Jones' locker and a rescue is launched to bring him back. Each of the major participants has his or her own reason for going, part of a larger agenda that plays out in the film. Rescuing Jack, though, is just the beginning because there's still the evil Lord Beckett to deal with. Because Beckett has the chest containing Davy Jones' heart, he controls Jones and his ship and he's ruthless about using them.

I thought the start of the movie was very slow. It begins with a scene of people marching to the gallows, hanged without trial because the evil Lord Beckett has suspended all rights and basically taken over. There are two things I didn't get about the scene. The first was the part where the prisoners start singing, led by a little boy on the gallows who's holding a piece of eight. When the British soldier reports this to Beckett, he says, "At last." Or words similar to that. Um, why did he want them to sing? It made no sense to me since it had absolutely no bearing on anything in the movie as far as I could see.

My second question about the opening scene is why have it at all? It served no real purpose in the movie at all except to show that Lord Beckett is evil, something that we could have figured out on our own from other scenes if we needed to know it at all. After all, we already love Jack, Will and Elizabeth and we're going to be rooting for them no matter what anyway. This opening scene just seemed completely unnecessary on every level.

You know, I just had a flash of insight come in. I'm looking at this movie as a writer, picking apart scenes, goals, motivations, etc. I don't think I can help myself because when I write or critique for my writing buddies, I'm always analyzing things like this. When it comes to scenes, each one should serve multiple purposes and the opening of POTC3 didn't IMO.

The movie continues to drag as Elizabeth and Barbossa go to Singapore. Things briefly pick up during the fight scene, and I totally loved the monkey and the parrot and their actions, but overall, was finding my attention wandering. I thought it was because I was waiting for Johnny Depp to come on screen.

When Jack finally does appear, it's in the midst of a hallucination where there are many Captain Jack Sparrows aboard the Pearl. This was another scene that dragged on far too long and something much shorter would have sufficed. Again, I found myself asking what's the point of this?

Other problems I had involve characterization. Will Turner was the biggest issue for me. In the first movie, Will possesses honor to an extreme degree. As he works with Jack to rescue Elizabeth, he learns that the real world, particularly the pirate world, doesn't have that same kind of code. At the end of Curse of the Black Pearl, he frees Jack to his own detriment because it's the honorable thing to do. That's a far cry from the Will we see in World's End. This Will is as conniving and duplicitous as any pirate. What happened to his sense of honor? I don't remember anything from Dead Man's Chest that would make me believe such a drastic cha
0 Comments 151 days ago
My Fabulous RT Review!
I received a great review from Romantic Times BOOK Reviews for In the Midnight Hour!

"O'Shea ratchets up the paranormal thrills with this inventive and clever new tale. In book after book, she's has been proving why she's destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre. Rich with action, drama and passion, this is pure paranormal pleasure!"

How cool is this???

My favorite parts are where Midnight Hour was called "inventive and clever" and the line where it says that I'm "destined to be a significant player in the paranormal genre."

The only downside is that something was revealed in the review that I wish wasn't. I knew it would happen and that it will probably occur in most of the reviews the book gets because the event happens in the first three chapters. Reviewers generally consider anything in that area as fair game to be mentioned.

When I was writing this book, I didn't give my writing buddy any warning about what I had planned, and her reaction when she read the scene that revealed the information was priceless. I was hoping all the readers would be able to have that kind of delighted surprise, but I knew the odds were against it. Ah, well.

In other news, revisions went well yesterday and I made really good progress. Of course, I still have a couple of the bigger changes left to handle, but I'm cruising through the littler ones. Yea!

I talked to a woman at work about my poor flowers being sheared off and she thought it might be a cut worm. She recommended some powder stuff that won't hurt the plants or any animals, yet keeps the bugs away. I now have a bag of it and my dad volunteered to put it on for me this morning. Hopefully, the protection will save the rest of my flowers.
0 Comments 317 days ago
Blog Titles Are Hard
Revision work started out a little slow yesterday. I struggled with out to fix one of the problems, but once I got through that, I was able to power through a lot of chapters. Today, though, I hit the scenes requiring the most work, so it's going to be a long day.

Yesterday evening, I walked down to the tree ring to check on my flowers and something had ruined three more of my starfighter lilies! They appeared as if they'd been bitten through and a fourth had the leaf edges chewed off the top. Do rabbits do this? We have a lot of them around this area. I talked to my dad and I'm hoping he's going to put up some kind of wire fence to protect my beautiful flowers. If it's insects that did it, though, I guess I'm SOL. :-( I was not happy to see the destruction.

I managed to have an all day baseball extravaganza while I revised. I love having a game on, with the sound muted, while I'm writing. I was able to go from a noon game, to a 3pm game, to a 6pm game. I wish every day I write was like that. :-)

I also had a new character come in yesterday while I was revising. She did interfere with my revising, so I wasn't thrilled. I also wasn't thrilled because this puts me at like five projects now that I might/will tackle when I finish revisions and work on getting proposals together. I'm not sure if I'll do this new character's story, although it is intriguing. It's just a pretty bleak world she lives in and I was hearing her story in first person. Ugh! I hate first person.
0 Comments 319 days ago
 

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Important Links
http://osheamidnight.bebo.com - In the Midnight Hour
http://eternalnights.bebo.com - Eternal Nights
http://crimsonveil.bebo.com - Through a Crimson Veil
http://osheatpot.bebo.com - The Power of Two
http://ravynsflight.bebo.com - Ravyn's Flight
http://shardscrimson.bebo.com - Shards of Crims...
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Comments

Audrey M.
I know. I'm looking forward to the next in the Light Warriors series. Thanks for the add, Patti.
16 weeks ago
Gerri Bowen
Good wishes for the coming year, Patti!!! :D
18 weeks ago
Lynda S
Happy New Year, Patti!
18 weeks ago
Gerri Bowen
Happy Birthday, Patti!!! :D
19 weeks ago
Sandie Hudson
Patti
Happy Birthdays for the 26th, hope you have a lovely Christmas.
Hugs
Sandie
19 weeks ago
Kimberly Killion
Patti,
Thanks for the friendship. I'm just getting started on bebo and I do appreciate the add. :)
~Kimberly
www.kimberlykillion.com
22 weeks ago
Dan Mason
Thanks for the add my friend!
24 weeks ago
Sandie Hudson
Hi Patti

Thanks for the add and friendship. :)

Hugs
Sandie
25 weeks ago
Adelle Laudan
Wavin' hi to Patti. Have a great weekend:)
29 weeks ago
Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
Hi pal! Stopping by to say hello, and to wish you a happy writing week!
:D
Linda
38 weeks ago
Marta M
Thanks for the add! AKA "Little Sunshine" on MySpace.
47 weeks ago
Conrad V. Sucatre
Glad to see you here at Bebo too, Patti, and thanks for adding me.
48 weeks ago
Romance Author
Hey Patti!!!

I hope you're having a rockin' week, girlie!

Hugs and luv,

Meagan
49 weeks ago
Rene Lyons
Thanks for the add. :)
49 weeks ago
Deborah Macgillivray
Stopping by to say Hi Do!!:D
52 weeks ago
Dorothy McFalls
Thank you for adding me! I'm a big fan :D

Dorothy

http://www.dorothymcfalls.com
52 weeks ago
KMont-Author
Thanks for letting me add you, Patti! Have enjoyed your books immensely. Have a great day!
53 weeks ago
Rachel S
Thanks for the add!!!:D
54 weeks ago
Bonnie Ferguson
Thanks for adding me!!! Have a great weekend :)
55 weeks ago
Ingela F. Hyatt
Oh Patti,

LOVE your skin...very nice and it matches your book nicely...

Thanks for posting your comment on my bebo page. I'm glad authors and readers are benefiting from this real cool communtity. That's why I shared it on the RWA Loops because I thought it was such a neat way to promote ourselves and our books.

Have a great day!

Ingela
56 weeks ago
 
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