What Carole Thayne Warburton Did Right--Humor

Authors try to capture their readers' emotions. Before reading Sun Tunnels and Secrets (provided by the publisher), I concentrated on creating grief, fear, and joy in my stories, but now I realized humor is not only an effective, writing garnish, but it's also a powerful "tunnel" to emotion. Who hasn't laughed so hard they cried? Or cried so hard they laughed? My point is, humor has the power to connect stories to their audiences, and Sun Tunnels and Secrets is filled with that power.

Case in point, Warburton's protagonists are more than people, their characters. By "characters," I mean they're the slightly "off," yet truly lovable people whose unconventional antics make life a bit more enjoyable. We all know them. They're kind of like the nosy yet too daring Sadie Hoffmiller in Josi Kilpack's culinary mysteries.

Sun Tunnels and Secrets incorporates other humorous elements as well. In fact, it reminds me of a zany cross between the movies, Driving Miss Daisy and Pure Luck; it's filled with laugh-out-loud humor (one sister refuses to die in Tremonton, Utah, because she can't stand the thought of a certain mortician laying her out),wild coincidences that somehow make sense (finding a naked, dead man out in the middle of nowhere who just happens to be able to help solve a long, lost family secret), and age-old insights that can only be taught with gentle wit (I'll let you pick these out for yourself.).