I just watched the end of a TV murder mystery series. I won’t name it. I enjoyed most of it, but the final episode made me so cross.

The situation was that the heroine of the story had been kidnapped by the murderer.  She was a cook, so he ordered her to cook him a steak. He was a hunter and this was something he’d killed.

So she cooks him the steak and he sits down to eat it and when his back is turned she biffs him over the head with the cast iron frying pan, knocking him out. So far so good. A bit convenient for him not to see she was standing beside him with a hit cast iron pan in her hand, but okay.

But what does she do then? Tie him up? Use his cellphone to call the police?
Drive off in the car he made her drive when he kidnapped her at gunpoint?
No, she runs off outside into the wilderness. The murderer’s wilderness, where he has his hunting lodge and really knows the terrain.

And of course, the murderer wakes up and heads off after her to hunt her down.
So she’s running and running and he’s right behind her, calling out to her.
So she hides behind a big rock and when he comes past she biffs him again, and down he goes.

And then what does she do? Hit him again, only harder?
No, she keeps running.
And the murderer gets up and keeps hunting her.

So then the police chief, who’d been searching for her, appears from another direction with his gun.
And what does he do? Does he ambush the (twice knocked down) murderer? Shoot him?
No, he takes her hand and leads her  away. In the same direction that she’d been running.

The murderer follows and then (of course) he shoots the cop, who falls down, injured.
The murderer comes closer and closer and the women he kidnapped picks up the cop’s revolver and kills him.

All very dramatic, no doubt, but IMO it was stupid! And unrealistic. And annoying!
Both the kidnapped woman and the cop had been savvy and intelligent in the previous 9 episodes, but the scriptwriters made the end a cliché by having the woman be stupid and mindlessly flee and keep fleeing, instead of being clever and tying the murderer up the first time she biffed him.
Mind you it was a bit stupid of him t(and convenient) o sit down to his steak while she was standing right behind him with a hot cast iron pan.

They used the same cliché when her friend, who’d also been investigating the murder and also been kidnapped earlier escaped by stabbing him with a knife. Instead of trying to immobilize him, she also ran off into the wilderness.

So while I enjoyed the first nine episodes, the final one was a disappointment — and annoying. I’m sick of the clichés about women on the screen — how 99% of women characters respond to the sight of a dead body by screaming mindlessly until someone comes. Whereas men characters usually just frown and look manly. Or possibly gasp.

Does this kind of thing annoy you?

Firstly, thank you to all those who bought Christmas Cinderella, and special thanks if you left a review or a rating.

Reviews and ratings are how new readers find my books, so they’re much appreciated.

In other news, the paperbacks of Christmas Cinderella have arrived, and I have a new method of selling them that should be cheaper.

I was so upset by the difficulties the some people had in buying the paperbacks of A Bride for Marcus, and I’m sure this new system will make things easier, as well as cheaper. At the moment it’s only available to people in the USA, the UK, and Australia, but it’s supposed to be coming to Canada and NZ next year.

You just click on the link, select your country and follow the prompts.

Christmas Cinderella:
https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084? params=2q3xICZtEdw9IXoNE3GYJw5CUoHn3cqo1pemMPpddAc

A Bride for Marcus:
https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?

If you try this method, I’d love to know how you found it.

I’m about to update my website, so I’ll be putting these links, and a link to each of my other self-published paperbacks on the website shortly..

This morning around 2 am, my Milly dog had a seizure. Up to that point she was absolutely fine — ate as normal, just as lively and happy as usual, and went to sleep on the bed, curled up against my back as usual.

Then at quarter to 2, she jumped off the bed, flopped down on the floor and made some dreadful gasping sounds.  So I turned on the light and there she was, just lying there. Her eyes were open, but I couldn’t see her breathing or feel a pulse. And I didn’t want it to be true

It took hours for me to be sure she was dead — I just wasn’t sure . . .
I did a lot of googling. Google says she wasn’t in pain — apparently when they’ve had a seizure they don’t feel pain. I hope that’s true.
She was 11 and a half.

So now my little mate has gone. She was a happy little soul and quite fit and full of bounce right to the end. So it was probably a good way to go. But the house feels very empty and I’m very sad.

Below is my first photo of her, taken when I’d just brought her home from the dog rescue place. Vale Milly.