Join TV personality Judge Glenda Hatchett, author of the self-help book, Dare to Take Charge: How to Live Your Life on Purpose (Center Street), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in September and October ‘10 on her first ever virtual book tour.
For nearly ten years, Judge Glenda Hatchett has delighted TV audiences with a brand of justice that turns the everyday into something eminently watchable.
Her message can be distilled into the following two words: Dare Yourself. Whatever obstacles or fears one faces, Judge Hatchett’s prescription implores readers to write their own story in this life. With care and conviction, Judge Hatchett uses real life stories from the courtroom and her personal life to counsel readers. Shows them how to find their true purpose and gifts, to be real about their reality and its potential outside of challenging circumstances, and to always be true to themselves.
Interactive as well as inspirational, DARE TO TAKE CHARGE challenges the reader to ask self-reflective questions that lead to moments of self-discovery and a defined pathway to healing. Daring her audience to study the positive with the same interest and intensity that they study the negative, Judge Hatchett uncovers the potential for grace and success in lives that are now punctuated with despair and unfaithfulness.
After graduating from Emory University School of Law and completing a coveted clerkship in the U.S. Federal Courts, Glenda Hatchett accepted a position at Delta Air Lines, as the company’s highest-ranking African-American woman. She served in dual roles as a senior attorney for Delta, litigating cases in federal courts throughout the country, and Manager of Public Relations, supervising global crisis management, and media relations for all of Europe, Asia and the United States. In fact, her outstanding contributions were recognized by Ebony Magazine, which named Glenda Hatchett one of the “100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America.” She made the difficult decision to leave Delta Air Lines in order to accept an appointment as Chief Presiding Judge of the Fulton County, Georgia Juvenile Court.
Upon accepting the position, Glenda Hatchett became Georgia’s first African-American Chief Presiding Judge of a state court and the department head of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country. Glenda Hatchett is a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and has been recognized as a distinguished alumni and awarded an honorary degree by the college. She also attended Emory University School of Law and because of her commitment to excellence and service within the community, Glenda was awarded the Emory Medal, the highest award given to an alum by the university. Currently, Glenda Hatchett presides over the syndicated show, “Judge Hatchett” currently in its 8th season (Sony Pictures Television), and is author of the national best-seller, “Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say” (HarperCollins). She has previously served on the Board of Directors of Gap, Inc. the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), and The Service Master Company.
Presently, Glenda Hatchett is a board member of the Atlanta Falcons Football Organization and serves on the Board of Advisors for Play Pumps International. She also serves on the Boys and Girls Clubs of America National Board of Governors and she resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her two sons.
To find out where she’ll be appearing on virtual tour, visit her official tour page at Pump Up Your Book here. Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in virtual book tours and online book promotioin. Visit their website at www.pumpupyourbook.com.
A Day in the Life is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of authors, industry professionals, editors, agents and publishers. Today’s guest is Kerri Nelson, author of the romantic suspense novel, Cross Check My Heart.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A Day in the Life of Kerri Nelson
by Kerri Nelson
I write my books in daycare. That’s right. I write heart racing suspense, sweat inducing love scenes, and life changing romance while tending to the daily chaos of three young children. So, the best way to share a day in the life with me is to share a copy of my normal daily “to do” list with you.
Here goes…
Feed the Baby
Burp the Baby
Change the Baby
Soothe the Baby
Attempt to Potty Train the Toddler
Change the Toddler
Feed the Toddler
Argue with the Toddler (”not everything is YOURS!”)
Attempt to check e-mail (toddler unplugs computer)
Wake 9 year old (requires repeated efforts)
Check Blood Sugar of my 9 year old (she has juvenile diabetes)
Feed the 9 year old
Give the 9 year old insulin
Argue with 9 year old about cleaning of disaster area room (futile effort)
Take 9 year old to school
Check e-mail and try to write a few measly words
Repeat steps 1 through 8
Get Baby & Toddler down for nap
Write 1,000 words (I’m on a roll now)
Answer phone call from mother (clock is ticking—writing time disappearing)
Attempt to take a shower in relative peace (good luck on this one)
Load 2 little ones in car and proceed to school to check 9 year old’s blood sugar for lunchtime & give insulin
Return home to chorus of crying from extreme hunger (the children–not me–although I’m on a postpartum diet and always hungry)
Repeat Steps 1 through 8
Play with children (dream up new story ideas)
Try to get some writing/work done (fail miserably)
Pick up 9 year old from school
Yell at 9 year old and toddler in the back seat to STOP all that Yelling (they wake the baby anyway)!
Clean up house & get dishes/bottles & laundry done (done? yeah, right…in my dreams)
Phone call from hubby (he’ll be late from work again–who can blame him?)
Repeat steps 1 through 13
Act as an “unreasonable parent” when I dare suggest that 9 year old do homework and clean room instead of talk to friends on the phone (Listen to the “But Mom!” Chorus)
One more attempt at writing (get distracted by e-mail and Twitter)
Hubby cooks gourmet dinner for me so that I can write (the best part of my day)
Gobble up my one good meal of the day while juggling baby/toddler
Get Toddler ready for bed (a 1 hour process of bathing, reading books, etc…)
Catch a brief glimpse of the man I married as he hands the Baby off to me and then goes to bed
Collapse in bed after the umpteenth feeding, burping, changing of baby
Hear crying and jolt out of bed (it could be any of the kids–your guess is as good as mine)
He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.
Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.
A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house.
In New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner’s most compelling work of suspense to date, the lives of these three women unfold and connect in unexpected ways, as sins from the past emerge—and stunning secrets reveal just how tightly blood ties can bind. Sometimes the most devastating crimes are the ones closest to home.
This is the exciting premise of Lisa Gardner’s latest spine tingling suspense, Live to Tell (Bantam).
Here’s an excerpt:
Thursday night, Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was out on a date. It wasn’t the worst date she’d ever been on. It wasn’t the best date she’d ever been on. It was, however, the only date she’d been on in quite some time, so unless Chip the accountant turned out to be a total loser, she planned on taking him home for a rigorous session of balance-the-ledger.
So far, they’d made it through half a loaf of bread soaked in olive oil, and half a cow seared medium rare. Chip had managed not to talk about the prime rib bleeding all over her plate or her need to sop up juices with yet another slice of bread. Most men were taken aback by her appetite. They needed to joke uncomfortably about her ability to tuck away plate after plate of food. Then they felt the need to joke even more uncomfortably that, of course, none of it showed on her girlish figure.
Yeah, yeah, she had the appetite of a sumo wrestler but the build of a cover girl. She was nearly forty, for God’s sake, and well aware by now of her freakish metabolism. She certainly didn’t need any soft- middled desk jockey pointing it out. Food was her passion. Mostly because her job with Boston PD’s homicide unit didn’t leave much time for sex.
She polished off the prime rib, went to work on the twice- baked potato. Chip was a forensic accountant. They’d been set up by the wife of a friend of a guy in the unit. Yep, it made that much sense to D.D. as well. But here she was, sitting in a coveted booth at the Hilltop Steakhouse, and really, Chip was all right. Little doughy in the mid¬dle, little bald on top, but funny. D.D. liked funny. When he smiled, the corners of his deep brown eyes crinkled and that was good enough for her.
She was having meat and potatoes for dinner and, if all went as planned, Chip for dessert.
So, of course, her pager went off.
She scowled, shoved it to the back of her waistband, as if that would make a difference.
“What’s that?” Chip asked, catching the chime.
“Birth control,” she muttered.
Chip blushed to the roots of his receding brown hair, then in the next minute grinned with such self-deprecating power she nearly went weak in the knees.
Better be good, D.D. thought. Better be a fucking massacre, or I’ll be damned if I’m giving up my night.
But then she read the call and was sorry she’d ever thought such a thing.
Chip the funny accountant got a kiss on the cheek.
Then Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren hit the road.
■■■
D.D. had been a Boston PD detective for nearly twelve years now. She’d started out investigating traffic fatalities and drug-related homi¬cides before graduating to such major media events as the discovery of six mummified corpses in an underground chamber; then, more recently, the disappearance of a beautiful young schoolteacher from South Boston. Her bosses liked to put her in front of the camera. Nothing like a pretty blonde detective to mix things up.
She didn’t mind. D.D. thrived on stress. Enjoyed a good pressure-cooker case even more than an all-you-can-eat buffet. Only drawback was the toll on her personal life. As a sergeant in the homicide unit, was the leader of a three-person squad. It wasn’t uncommon for them to spend all day tracking down leads, interviewing informants, or revisiting crime scenes. Then they spent most of the night writing up the resulting interviews, affidavits, and/or warrant requests. Each squad also had to take turns being “on deck,” meaning they caught the next case called in, keeping them stuck in a permanent vortex of top- priority active cases, still- unsolved old cases, and at least one or two fresh call- outs per week.
Didn’t sleep much. Or date much. Or really do anything much. Which had been fine until last year, when she’d turned thirty-eight and watched her ex- lover get married and start a family. Sud¬denly, the tough, brash sergeant who considered herself wed to her job found herself studying Good Housekeeping magazine and, even worse, Modern Bride. One day, she picked up Parenting. There was noth¬ing more depressing than a nearly forty-year-old single, childless homicide detective reading Parenting magazine alone in her North End condo.
Especially when she realized some of the articles on dealing with toddlers applied to managing her squad as well.
She recycled the magazines, then vowed to go on a date. Which had led to Chip—poor, almost- got-his-brains-screwed-out Chip—and now had her on her way to Dorchester. Wasn’t even her squad’s turn on deck, but the notification had been “red ball,” meaning something big and bad enough had happened to warrant all hands on deck.
D.D. turned off I-93, then made her way through the maze of streets to the largely working-class neighborhood. Among local offi¬cers, Dorchester was known for its drugs, shootings, and raucous neighborhood parties that led to more drugs and shootings. BPD’s local field district, C-11, had set up a noise reduction hotline as well as a designated “Party Car” to patrol on weekends. Five hundred phone tips and numerous preventive arrests later, Dorchester was finally seeing a decline in homicides, rapes, and aggravated assaults. On the other hand, burglaries were way up. Go figure.
Under the guidance of her vehicle’s navigational system, D.D. ended up on a fairly nice street, double lanes dotted with modest stamps of green lawn and flanked with a long row of tightly nestled three-story homes, many sporting large front porches and an occa¬sional turret.
Most of these dwellings had been carved into multiple-living units over the years, with as many as six to eight in a single house. It was still a nice-looking area, the lawns neatly mowed, the front-porch banis¬ters freshly painted. The softer side of Dorchester, she decided, more and more curious.
D.D. spotted a pileup of Crown Vics, and slowed to park. It was eight- thirty on a Thursday night, August sun just starting to fade on the horizon. She could make out the white ME’s vehicle straight ahead, as well as the traveling crime lab. The vans were bookended by the usual cluster of media trucks and neighborhood gawkers.
When D.D. had first read the location of the call, she’d assumed drugs. Probably a gangland shooting. A bad one, given that the deputy superintendent wanted all eighteen detectives in attendance, so most likely involving collateral damage. Maybe a grandmother caught sit¬ting on her front porch, maybe kids playing on the sidewalk. These things happened, and no, they didn’t get any easier to take. But you handled it, because this was Boston, and that’s what a Boston detec¬tive did.
Now, however, as D.D. climbed out of her car, clipped her creden¬tials to the waistband of her skinny black jeans, and retrieved a plain white shirt to button up over her date cleavage, she was thinking, Not drugs. She was thinking this was something worse. She slung a light jacket over her sidearm, and headed up the sidewalk toward the lion’s den.
D.D. pushed her way through the first wave of jostling adults and curious children. She did her best to keep focused, but still caught phrases such as “shots fired…” “heard squealing like a stuck pig . . .” “Why, I just saw her unloading groceries not four hours before . . .”
“Excuse me, excuse me, pardon me. Police sergeant. Buddy, out of the way.” She broke through, ducking under the yellow tape rop¬ing off portions of the sidewalk, and finally arrived at the epicenter of crime- scene chaos.
The house before her was a gray-painted triple-decker boasting a broad- columned front porch and large American flag. Both front doors were wide open, enabling better traffic flow of investigative person¬nel, as well as the ME’s metal gurney.
D.D. noted delicate lace curtains framed in bay windows on either side of the front door. In addition to the American flag, the porch con¬tained four cheerful pots of red geraniums, half a dozen blue folding chairs, and a hanging piece of slate that had been painted with more red geraniums and the bright yellow declaration: Welcome. Yep, definitely something worse than gun-toting, tennis-shoe-tossing drug dealers.
D.D. sighed, put on her game face, and approached the uniformed officer stationed at the base of the front steps. She rattled off her name and badge number. In turn, the officer dutifully recorded the info in the murder book, then jerked his head down to the bin at his feet.
D.D. obediently fished out booties and a hair covering. So it was that kind of crime scene.
She climbed the steps slowly, keeping to one side. They appeared recently stained, a light Cape Cod gray that suited the rest of the house. The porch was homey, well kept. Clean enough that she sus¬pected it had been recently broom swept. Perhaps after unloading groceries, a household member had tidied up?
It would’ve been better if the porch had been dirty, covered in dust. That might have yielded shoe treads. That might have helped catch whoever did the bad thing D.D. was about to find inside.
She took another breath right outside the door, inhaled the scent of sawdust and drying blood. She heard a reporter calling for a state¬ment. She heard the snap of a camera, the roar of a media chopper, and white noise all around. Gawkers behind, detectives ahead, re¬porters above.
Chaos: loud, smelly, overwhelming. Her job now was to make it right. She got to it.
Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels. Her Detective D. D. Warren novels include The Neighbor, Hide, andAlone. Her FBI Profiler novels include Say Goodbye, Gone, The Killing Hour, The Next Accident, andThe Third Victim. She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next D. D. Warren novel, Save Me, which Bantam will publish in 2011.
The Story Behind the Book is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we find out either the inspiration behind authors’ books or how they got published. Today’s guest is Kerri Nelson, author of the romantic suspense novel, Cross Check My Heart.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Men on Ice
No, I’m not referring to a mob book about freezing your victim in a block of ice. Although, now that I think of it…that would be a cool story (no pun intended).
Seriously, I’m talking about Men on Ice as in hockey players! When asked about the inspiration for writing my book entitled “Cross Check My Heart”—the inspiration was simply–men on ice!
As a southern girl, we don’t have a ton of exposure to hockey down here and it wasn’t until my twenties that I saw my first game. The feel of the arena with the loud music, the frantic cheering, the aggressive players with their bulky frames and padding, the fast paced rhythm of the game…it was all addictive.
I became a regular attendee and a true fan of the CHL (minor league) team the Columbus Cottonmouths. Yes, their mascot was a snake and there was a ton of hissing that took place at the games. It was very fitting with the mood of hockey which can be quite brutal.
When you think about it…hockey is a lot like love. It can be smooth and fast and beautiful and at a moment’s notice it can turn harsh and rough and dangerous.
That’s pretty much what happens in this story of two strangers who start out on different journeys but soon find that what they thought they wanted in life—wasn’t what they really needed. Their journey quickly turns violent and scary and rises to a fever pitch that will leave you cheering for more. Again, not unlike the game of hockey.
Since that time, quite a few years ago, I’m still a fan of the sport though I don’t get to go to games as much as I’d like to with three children in the picture and a relocation from an area with a local team. Though my passion for the macho men who carry the big sticks continues.
Add to my love of hockey that the 2010 Winter Olympics were fast approaching and it wasn’t difficult to come up with the concept for this book. It is the story of professional hockey player, Danny Cipriani and sports therapist Jana Dean. One man on a quest for the gold in his future. One woman on the run from her past.
Stir in a dash of my love for mystery and suspense and my law enforcement background (which are all key elements in the story) and what I ended up with was a fast paced, thrill ride into the life of this incredible couple.
Since the book’s release in February of this year, I’ve had many fan letters from the ladies who have fallen in love with Danny. I even had one friend request, “can you find me a Danny of my very own?”
I hope you enjoy the story just as much whether your fan of the sport of hockey or just a fan of romantic suspense…this story delivers.
So, my love for hockey players is not mine alone but shared by many women alike. If we could all just have our hot men served up on ice.
Kerri Nelson has always been passionate about reading books but when she wrote her first poem in the second grade, she discovered her love of writing. At the age of sixteen, she became a columnist for her local newspaper as the high school correspondent for the weekly “Panther Tales” column. She won the Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year Award for her efforts.
After an education and career in the legal field, Kerri began to pen romantic suspense novels with a legal or law enforcement theme. She is a true southern belle and comes complete with her dashing southern gentleman husband and three adorable children. When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll find her baking homemade goodies for her family, feeding her addiction to blogging online or designing custom made book video advertisements (novel trailers).
Kerri is an active member of Romance Writers of America as well as numerous Chapters including Hearts Through History Romance Writers, Futuristic Fantasy & Paranormal, and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers.
Kerri is a multi-published author of romance in every genre from romantic suspense and paranormal to young adult and inspirational novels. In 2009, Kerri wrote and sold twelve books to multiple publishers using her Book Factory method. Her next paranormal romantic suspense Courting Demons will be released from Dorchester Publishing in 2011.
Title: Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey Author: Diana M. Raab Paperback: 206 pages Genre: Memoir; Self-Help Publisher: Loving Healing Press Language: English ISBN-1615990100 ISBN-978-1615990108
About the Book:
Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journeyis a compassionate and wry self-help memoir written by an award-winning author, nurse and poet, who at the age of forty-seven found her life shattered first by a DCIS (early breast cancer) diagnosis and five years later by another, seemingly unrelated and incurable cancer—multiple myeloma.
Review:
Before I begin my review, I’d like to share a passage from Diana M. Raab’s new book, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey:
“It seems as if the past couple of weeks have been surreal. A thick cloud suspends over me. How did I get here? I was diligent about my annual mammograms and check-ups. On the first day of my menstrual cycle, I religiously did self-breast exams in the shower. There is no cancer in my family. Why am I lying here all mutilated?”
Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey is Diana M. Raab’s second foray into the world of writing but her first journey into the world of healing. By combining the two, she has written a memoir that not only pulls on the heartstrings but helps to show us the power of the written word in our everyday lives and how we can utilize that to heal. Keeping that in mind, I began to read Diana’s story.
At the age of forty-seven, Diana (who incidentally had no cancer in her family) was diagnosed with breast cancer. Enduring a mastectomy and the pain and embarrassment associated with it, Diana never really fully healed mentally. She found herself depressed (she had every reason to feel this way) after the operation which left her feeling less of a woman. Five years later, she was diagnosed again with an incurable cancer this time – multiple myeloma.
This is Diana’s story. What is unique about her story is that over the course of her journey dealing with cancer, she decided to take up journaling to talk about her experiences and in so doing discovered something so powerful that pills couldn’t even touch – the power of healing through words – intimate words, gut-wrenching soul-searching words that enabled her to talk about her feelings and emotions that were always bottled up inside of her, thus inhibiting her ability to full heal until they all spilled out onto paper.
Thus, Diana decided she not only was going to tell her story but by incorporating an interactive question and answer section to the back of every chapter, it would enable those who had cancer themselves to put their own words on paper and discover what a healing process it was. By doing this, they would find it would alleviate some of the stress which is so detrimental in the healing process.
Healing With Words: A Writers Cancer Journey takes us down Diana’s path of fears and frustrations. You’ll definitely need something to wipe your eyes as this is a story that will touch you deeply, no matter if you have cancer or not. Diana’s words are powerful, yet sensitive to the plight of a woman’s journey who is given the diagnosis of cancer and should not only be read by victims of the disease, but loved ones as well.
Join Steff Deschenes, author of the self-help book, The Ice Cream Theory (Booksurge), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in September and October ‘10 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
Despite a failed attempt at majoring in ice cream in college, Steff Deschenes is a self-taught ice-cream making guru. She has researched her craft all over the world, and believes that the ice cream found at home is the best there is. After publishing The Ice Cream Theory, she began exploring food on more universal level, as a result she now photo blogs daily herself at dinner and the challenges of being a vegetarian in a predominantly seafood-oriented state. Steff also writes two articles a week entitled “Maybe It’s Me” (personal essays and reflection on life and the living of it) and “Fact Is Better” (real life conversations she couldn’t make up if she tried); all of which can be found at www.steffdeschenes.com. You can also visit her at www.theicecreamtheory.com.
Here’s what The Ice Cream Theory is all about:
The Ice Cream Theory is ice-cream guru Steff Deschenes’s charming exploration of the parallels between human personalities and ice-cream flavors, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the variety inherent in a well-lived life.
The Theory was hatched when Deschenes was trying to make sense of her first heartbreak. In the midst of that grief, she realized that, in the same way humans have ice-cream preferences, humans have people preferences. Like ice cream flavors, social preferences shift based on age, experience, even mood. There are exotic flavors that one craves when feeling daring, comforting flavors to fall back on, flavors long-enjoyed that eventually wear out their welcome, and those unique flavors that require an acquired taste. Like people, no ice cream flavor is perfect every single time . . . and it is in this realization that the crux of Deschenes’s theory lies.
Deschenes neatly brings together anecdotes from her own adventures with broader-reaching social commentary to help others recognize the wisdom and joy inherent in a beloved dessert.
With its cheeky self-help slant, The Ice Cream Theory is an endearing and light-hearted addition to any bookshelf. It’s a must read for anyone bruised by life’s tough lessons and in need of a cheerful pick me up!
If you’d like to follow along with Steff Deschenes as she tours the blogosphere in September and October 2010, visit her official tour page at Pump Up Your Book. Lots of fun in store including giveaways. Find out things about Steff you never knew before on her The Ice Cream Theory Virtual Book Tour ‘10!
The Story Behind the Book is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we find out either the inspiration behind authors’ books or how they got published. Today’s guest is James Hayman, author of the thriller, The Chill of Night.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
The initial inspiration for the story in my new Mike McCabe suspense thriller, The Chill of Night, grew, as it does in so many books, out of a simple “what-if.” Actually, for The Chill there were two “what-ifs.”
“What if,” I asked myself in the first instance, “what if someone had witnessed a horrendous murder but when they tried to tell the police what they had seen, the cops didn’t believe them?”
Following the logic train that led out of that question resulted in the development of one of the key elements of the plot as well as to one of my favorite characters, a young schizophrenic woman named Abby Quinn.
When the story opens Abby is twenty-five years old.
As the book progresses we learn she grew up on Harts Island, Maine, a small fictional island in Casco Bay, about a mile off the coast of Portland. She led a fairly normal childhood. Her father, Earl Quinn, was a lobsterman on the island and, as a teenager, Abby sometimes worked on his boat. He died in 2002. Abby’s mother, Grace, was an alcoholic who had a series of odd jobs but could never keep anything permanent. Her mother’s brother, Willis, lived with the family for a time. “Crazy Willis,” people called him because he heard voices and suffered from frequent hallucinations. He saw little black bats attacking him from the air and was forever trying to swat them away. Willis hung himself inside Grace’s closet when Abby was eight and Abby discovered the body.
After elementary school on the island, Abby took the ferry across to Portland to attend middle school and high school there. She was a good student and played on the Portland High School varsity field hockey and lacrosse teams. When she was eighteen she enrolled in the University of Southern Maine to study Accounting.
Unfortunately, that’s when she started hallucinating and hearing Voices that weren’t there. The Voices twice convinced Abby to attempt suicide by jumping off the rocks on the island into the ocean. She was committed to a psychiatric hospital near Portland where her psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Wolfe, diagnosed her as a schizophrenic.
Under Wolfe’s care she slowly begins putting her life back together. She takes anti-psychotic medication which keep the hallucinations and voices quiet and which allow her to begin living a fairly normal life. But then one freezing night in January, she sees a monster she thinks of as Death stab another young woman to death.
When she reports the murder, the cops on the island assume Abby is “off her meds” and hallucinating again. But when McCabe finds the victim’s frozen corpse, he realizes Abby really did see what she said she saw and that he must find her before the killer does.
Early readers of The Chill of Night, including several psychiatrists, have told me the book does “an amazing job,” of getting into the head of a young female schizophrenic and telling much of the story from her point of view.
For that I credit two extraordinary memoirs written by female schizophrenics which I read as part of my research process. The first is called The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett. The second is The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks. I strongly recommend both to anyone interested in learning about this terrible disease.
I wrote at the beginning of this piece that there were two “what-ifs” that inspired The Chill of Night. That’s true. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything about the second one because, if I did, it would give too much away and ruin the story.
Like McCabe, I’m a native New Yorker. He was born in the Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn. We both grew up in the city. He dropped out of NYU Film School and joined the NYPD, rising through the ranks to become the top homicide cop at the Midtown North Precinct. I graduated from Brown and joined a major New York ad agency, rising through the ranks to become creative director on accounts like the US Army, Procter & Gamble, and Lincoln/Mercury.
We both married beautiful brunettes. McCabe’s wife, Sandy dumped him to marry a rich investment banker who had “no interest in raising other people’s children.” My wife, Jeanne, though often given good reason to leave me in the lurch, has stuck it out through thick and thin and is still my wife. She is also my best friend, my most attentive reader and a perceptive critic.
Both McCabe and I eventually left New York for Portland, Maine. I arrived in August 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in search of the right place to begin a new career as a fiction writer. He came to town a year later, to escape a dark secret in his past and to find a safe place to raise his teenage daughter, Casey.
There are other similarities between us. We both love good Scotch whiskey, old movie trivia and the New York Giants. And we both live with and love women who are talented artists.
There are also quite a few differences. McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks. McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.
We have a special guest today! Tina Martin, author ofSecrets on Lake Drive(Xpress Yourself Publishing), is here to talk about writing a great romance novel (her specialty!). Visit Tina on the web at www.tinamartinbooks.com.
How to Write a Great Romance Novel
By Tina Martin
To write a great romance novel, you need great characters. Well-developed characters that the readers can visualize and empathize with will create a story that is believable and enjoyable.
Also, the writer must do a good job of creating moments of chemistry between characters which is very important in romances. Actually, this is true even for dating and relationships. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people in the dating crowd say, “There was no chemistry between us.” If the spark is missing on the first date, then most likely, there won’t be a second. The same is true with writing a great romance novel. There has to be noticeable moments of personal interest and chemistry – a long, silent stare, an innocent kiss or a hug. Even tension can create an atmosphere of chemistry and romance. Consider a piece from my novel, Secrets On Lake Drive:
I was ready to pull away from our hug, but Sean held on to me, and for that moment, I felt like I was his.
“We’ve been spending so much time angry at each other that we haven’t had a chance to get to know one another,” he said when he let me go and started staring at me with his darling green eyes. “I really need to get to know the woman that my son is so crazy over.”
He held my hands and we just stood there on the balcony, staring at each other. Actually, he was staring at me and I had no idea why. The awkward silence was killing me and he seemed to have lost himself in my eyes. Then, out of the blue, he smiled. I smiled, too. It was the first time I’d seen him so sincere.
Sean’s stare was obviously more than just a simple stare. This scene occurred a few days after an argument between the main characters, and Sean’s stare in essence was telling Monica that he was sorry. She could see this in his eyes as they held hands while standing on a balcony; smelling the fresh, Lake Michigan breeze that enhanced their moment.
The last thing I would say about writing a great romance is, make your characters human and imperfect. So often, writers get caught up into writing fiction, they make their characters extremely perfect, especially in physical appearance. It’s okay to give your character flaws. Think about it this way – if you met the person of your dreams, will that small scar next to their nose turn you off, or would you grow to appreciate it?
Thank you for having me as a guest blogger today. I hope my tips will help romance authors everywhere craft great, believable stories!
A Day in the Life is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of authors, industry professionals, editors, agents and publishers. Today’s guest is Maya Jax, author of the chick lit novel, Escapades of Romantically Challenged Me.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A Day in the Life of Maya Jax
by Maya Jax
During the week, I wake up at 6am, eat three bowls of Cheerios, shower to my morning Broadway musical mix and squeeze two or three of hours of writing in before and after my ‘day job’, then on some weekends, I head to LA to pitch yet another screenplay.
I always schedule pitches in the morning, because if I had to survive a whole day with the anticipation, I wouldn’t be able to function by the time I actually sat down in front of the studio rep. And before leaving the hotel, I spend a little extra time getting ready. If I’m going down in flames, I at least want to know that I looked decent in the process.
A pitch fest is kind of like corralling cattle before slaughter. We’re fenced off into little groups and shoved into a series of waiting areas, moving forward once the group ahead is finished. By the time you get to the front, you can see all the young studio reps sitting at tables in an arena like space, waiting in exhausted boredom.
The bell rings signaling my turn. I sit down at the table, introduce myself and for five minutes try to convince them that Hollywood would be a much better place if they would just let me in. As I speak, I try not to be distracted by their facial expressions. Some are engaged (which makes the pitch a fun process), others look like they’ve fallen asleep with their eyes open. Moving from one rep to the next, I do as many pitches as my body can handle before my fatigue and wavering self-confidence start to show.
When it’s over, I drag myself back to my hotel room, call my mom and ask her to talk about anything but Hollywood. Then I spend a few hours in my room absorbing the quiet and regrouping, until dinner when meet I friend to celebrate my day.
You rarely hear stories of people selling a script through pitch fests, but the experience is invaluable, so I continue to put myself through them. And they’ve made for some great material for my book!
Pamela Samuels Young is a practicing attorney and author of legal thrillers, “Murder on the Down Low”, and the Essence bestsellers, “Every Reasonable Doubt” and “In Firm Pursuit”. A desire to see female attorneys and African-American attorneys as main characters in today’s legal fiction prompted her to begin writing despite a busy legal career. Pamela is on the Board of Directors of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America and is a graduate of the University of Southern California, Northwestern University, and the University of California Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. A former journalist, Pamela is a legal columnist for Global Woman magazine and served as legal consultant to the Showtime television series, Soul Food.
Pamela is married and lives in the Los Angeles area. She is a frequent speaker on the topics of writing and self-empowerment and loves visiting book club meetings.
Thank you for this interview, Pamela. Your book, Buying Time, has to be one of the most fantastic legal thrillers out there. Did you choose to write this type of book because you are a lawyer by trade?
Yes. When I finished law school several years ago, I developed a passion for reading legal thrillers. Unfortunately, I never saw women or people of color depicted as attorneys in any of the books I read. I would close the novels feeling satisfied with the story, but disappointed about the lack of diversity of the characters. One day, I decided that I was going to write the kind of characters that Iwanted to see. In the process, I discovered my passion! At the time, I was an associate at a large corporate law firm in Los Angeles. Despite the demands of my law practice, I somehow managed to climb out of bed at four in the morning to squeeze in a couple of hours of writing before work. I wrote all weekend, in hotels, in airports, whenever and wherever I could find the time. I never really had a true passion until I discovered mystery writing.
Are there any aspects of your book that mirrors your own life as a lawyer?
Buying Time is my first stand-alone book and the characters are pretty much a figment of my imagination. But in my first three series books – Every Reasonable Doubt, In Firm Pursuit, and Murder on the Down Low—the main character is Vernetta Henderson, an African-American female lawyer who works in a large corporate law firm, just like I did. Vernetta is married to an electrician. I’m married to a plumber. Vernetta is pretty ambitious and sometimes conflicted about the demands of her legal career versus her family life. I’ve struggled with these issues, too. So yes, I have to admit in my Vernetta Henderson mystery series, the character’s dilemmas mirror my own life challenges in many ways.
I’m very into book covers and feel it is the reader’s first impression. Did you have any input on the design? Would you care to share what the cover is trying to tell the reader about the book?
When I was a Harlequin author, I didn’t have much say regarding the cover design, which always bothered me. And that’s generally the way it works. But since I published Buying Time myself, I had total control over what the cover would look like. I found the most talented cover designer, Keith Sanders of Marion Designs in the Atlanta area. I gave him a brief description of the book and he nailed it. What I wanted to convey was a troubled lawyer on the run. I wanted the reader to see something dark and troubling about the man depicted on the cover, such that they would be intrigued enough to pick up the book and read a few lines. Hopefully, after that, they’re hooked.
What did you find was the hardest part about writing your book?
The hardest part about writing Buying Timewas creating three separate story lines and weaving them all together. There was Waverly and his unethical dealings, Erickson and his quest for power and Angela and her troubled relationship. I thought they were all compelling stories lines. Mysteries with a single story line tend to bore me. It took lots of rewriting to bring them together in a way that was seamless for the reader.
I have heard that when you start writing a book, you spend a good portion of your awake time writing it. How do you combine writing and working full time?
It’s very difficult. Despite the demands of my law practice, I somehow manage to climb out of bed as early as four or five in the morning to squeeze in a couple of hours of writing before work. I take “writing weekends” and hide away in a hotel room not far from my home. And when I have vacation time from work, I’ll go away for an entire week and spend all day writing. That’s really the only way to get it done. I never really had a true passion until I discovered mystery writing. I currently work as Managing Counsel for Labor and Employment Law at Toyota, yet I’ve still managed to publish a book a year for the last four years. I long for the day when my only job is to write legal thrillers. I’m a former television news writer who spent years writing under daily deadline pressures. So fortunately for me, the act of writing is not something I agonize over. As a result of my journalism background, I’m also a pretty fast writer.
Can you give us an example of your daily routine when you’re in the middle of writing your book?
First, I don’t write every day. My work schedule is just too unpredictable. But whenever I have free time, I write! I will spend anywhere from a few weeks to as long as three months outlining a book before I sit down to begin writing. I also mull over my story quite a bit. I’m thinking about it in the shower, while I’m standing in line at the grocery store, and during my 45-minute commute to work. Even during the outlining stage, I can almost see each chapter as if it were a scene in a movie. Only after I have a completed outline do I start writing. And when I write, I go from page one to the last page without doing much editing or rewriting along the way. For me, it’s psychologically motivating to complete that first draft, even if it’s so bad I’d never dare show it to anyone. Once I have a first draft, then the real writing starts. I revise, and revise and revise some more. That process can last six months or more. Without any major life interruptions, I can complete a book in about a year.
Finally, would you care to share an excerpt?
I’d love to! Here’s the first chapter of Buying Time.
Thank you for your interview, Pamela. We wish you much success!
The First Page is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest features. Here we get a glimpse into an author’s work and what better place to begin than the first page? Authors share their first pages and answer a few questions about why they started their books off the way they did. Today we welcome Kerri Nelson, author of the romantic suspense novel, Cross Check My Heart.
…………………………………………………….
Cross Check My Heart by Kerri Nelson The First Page
London, Kentucky
As head-on collisions go, this one had been minor. The car had come to rest against the base of a large tree, but the rain-soaked floor of the forest had slowed the impact.
The tires spun deeper in the mud as Jana punched her foot down on the gas pedal. Try as she might, the car was not budging an inch. She tried turning the wheel sharply and then applied the gas again.
She could hear the whirring of the engine as it strained to comply with her demands, but it seemed a useless effort.
She knew that she had to hurry. The van that had forced her off the road would be back. As soon as they determined that she’d survived the accident, she’d be on the run once again.
She squinted at the dark forest that surrounded her here, in the woods of rural Kentucky. She’d never escape on foot. Her only hope was to get this car unstuck and back on the road before they found her.
Jana took a deep breath and then put the car in drive, inching it forward as far as she could go without hitting the tree. Then she put it in reverse, cut the wheel to the left and gently pressed down on the accelerator. The car lurched backwards.
She felt tears of relief spring to her eyes but she shook them away. It wasn’t time to celebrate just yet.
She slipped the gear back into drive and rotated the wheel in the opposite direction, easing the car forward and then back towards the highway.
As she reached the edge of the clearing, she stopped to look up and down the dark, silent highway, in search of any tell-tale vehicle lights.
Thank you for visiting us today, Kerri. Can you tell us what your book is about?
Jana is on the run from something ominous in her past. She escapes to Illinois and job with the US Olympic hockey team where she meets veteran hockey player Danny Cipriani. But Danny has secrets of his own.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
My book is a romantic suspense and I began my book with a thriller type scene that will hopefully hook the reader into turning the page!
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
My first page never changed in this particular book. I had a clear vision of how I wanted to start the book and that remained true throughout the editing process. However, there have been books that I’ve gone back and revised the opening on. It is crucial to have an opening that entices the reader. You certainly don’t want to lose them early on.
Was there ever a time after the book went to print you wished you had changed something on the first page?
Yes. I write Young Adult romance under a different pen name (K.G. Summers) and I started one of my books book out with dialogue. It is something that I never recommend doing and I’d go back and change it now if I could.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
The first page is very important when you are trying to hook the reader into delving further into your book. I’ve picked up a lot of books where the first page bored me to tears. I don’t continue reading. Life is just too short.
Even more important, in my opinion, is the first line. I recently won 2 first line contests for other books. That first line hook has to be spot on!
An assassin born of death and violation is the most dangerous of all. Cold Lonely Courage tells her story. The action begins during the German Blitzkrieg attack on France in the opening days of World War II. The heroine, Madeleine Toche races to the front to find her brother dying after his unit is destroyed as the Germans advance. Crushed, Madeleine returns his body to her parents. In the months that follow, Madeleine is raped by a Nazi officer. Seeking revenge she kills him and flees to England to volunteer for duty with Britain’s shadowy Special Operations Executive. Trained as an assassin she clandestinely returns to France with Captain Jack Teach a veteran of the SOE ‘Dirty Tricks Department’. They find themselves in love but are torn apart by duty and the insurmountable odds of survival. Madeleine fights on terrorizing the murderous Nazi elite always only one step ahead of capture and torture.
This is the premise of Soren Paul Petrek’s new historical fiction novel, Cold Lonely Courage. We had the chance to interview Soren recently to find out more about his new book. Enjoy!
Q: Thank you for this interview, Soren. Can you tell us what your latest book, Cold Lonely Courage, is all about?
Soren: The action begins during the German Blitzkrieg attack on France in the opening days of World War Two. The heroine, Madeleine Toche races to the front to find her brother dying after his unit is destroyed as the Germans advance. Crushed, Madleine returns his body to her parents.
In the months that follow, Madeleine is raped by a Nazi officer. Seeking revenge she kills him and flees to England to volunteer for duty with Britain’s shadowy Special Operations Executive. Trained as an assassin she clandestinely returns to France with Captain Jack Teach a veteran of the SOE ‘Dirty Tricks Department’. They find themselves in love but are torn apart by duty and the insurmountable odds of survival. Madeleine fights on terrorizing the Nazi elite always only one step ahead of capture and torture.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting characters?
Soren: Madeleine is a young woman with no previous military experience. She has great capacity for patience and learns to act with cold indifference and violence when killing her intended targets. She is pursued throughout the novel by Horst Stenger and Willi Petersen. Two German military police officers and veterans of the First World War. Stenger and Petersen have no love for the Nazis but see Madeleine as a source of danger to anyone who gets in her way. The men are duty bound to find her and stop her. Stenger sees himself first as a police officer and protector of common people.
Q: Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?
Soren: My characters are loosely based on figures from World War Two, members of the resistance and then some fictionalized ‘real life’ characters. Aside from their very basic characteristics, their personalities and actions come from my imagination.
Q: Are you consciously aware of the plot before you begin a novel, or do you discover it as you write?
Soren: I discover the plot as I write, although I have a very basic idea of where the story is going. Things change and I adapt as they do in the course of getting the story down on paper.
Q: Your book is set in France. Can you tell us why you chose this country in particular?
Soren: I have always been fascinated with the stories of the French Resistance from the first war movies I watched as a kid until later when I was able to tour the trenches of World War One and the battlefields of Normandy.
Q: Does the setting play a major part in the development of your story?
Soren: The setting is essential as it provides the backdrop and circumstances in which the Resistance operated and the German’s pursued them. I tracked the major events prior to the Normandy invasion as a guide to my protagonist’s actions. I was able to use real events, often quite tragic, that occurred during the period of the invasion.
Q: Open the book to page 69. What is happening?
Soren: Stenger and Petersen are engaged in investigating a crime scene when a particularly cruel Nazi Major, Von Schmelling is harassing them. Stenger offers to settle the matter with a quick gun duel. Von Schmelling wisely leaves the scene and the investigation to Stenger.
Q: Can you give us one of your best excerpts?
Soren: More than three years later, Madeleine pushed her bicycle slowly down an alley towards the front entrance of a police station. She was acting on very recent intelligence and swift action was required. She didn’t like having to expose herself to enemy eyes, but the situation dictated it. She wore no disguise. She needed to appear as normal as possible and for the men to focus on her body, not her face. She could not disguise her beauty, and tried to utilize it to her advantage. There were too few clothes to choose from and the ones she’d chosen were worn and threadbare. Although the garments were loose, her looks captured the attention of the police officers loitering around the entrance. She hoped that the last thing the men would look at was her face. She made sure that the clothing didn’t obscure her curves completely, positioning her body to ensure that they did not. She leaned the bicycle against a lamppost and collected a few loaves of bread and a wheel of cheese from the basket behind the seat. The loaves were irregular in shape but were mostly baguettes, partially wrapped in paper with the top halves sticking out. She moved uncertainly, seemingly confused and frightened trying to appear subservient and nonthreatening. The men showed no concern for security, despite the fact that two of their more important masters were inside the station on an inspection. “Bonjour, mademoiselle, you are new. Where is Marc today?” The closest of the officers called to her as she moved towards the door. “My uncle is ill today and cannot make his rounds,” She answered, making only brief eye contact with the policeman and smiling demurely, shrinking slightly into herself. This is a shy one, the man thought. With looks like that perhaps she will not always be so. He admired her openly, and inwardly bemoaned his own lack of success with women. Half of them seemed to be afraid of him because of his position as a police officer working with the enemy, the Vichy government. It wasn’t his fault France had fallen so quickly. In his mind, one did the best they could under the circumstances and followed orders. His situation had been vastly improved by his cooperation. He was better off now than before the war. His food and clothing were more than adequate. He was thriving under the occupation. He felt that reporting illegal activity was his duty. After all, he was a police officer and the Resistance were terrorists and subversives. They made life harder for everyone else. The war couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t seem like the Germans were going to leave France. He sighed inwardly as he looked at her. In passing he thought about searching the bundle of bread and the small package the girl carried, but she seemed so young and insecure, she’d probably collapse in fright if he did so. “Let me get the door for you. I hope Marc remains ill for a while so that we may enjoy your company again.” The man smiled and looked over at his fellow officers who were only interested in Madeleine’s feminine charms. They made no move to search her deliveries. “Thank you monsieur, I will be sure to tell my uncle of your kindness,” She almost whispered as she slid past him and into the hallway of the police station. As she entered she saw two leather overcoats hanging in the hallway. They bore the insignia of the Gestapo. The intelligence had been correct. A routine visit by the hated German secret police was underway. As soon as she was out of sight of the men at the front of the building, the transformation in her demeanor was instant. She seemed to grow and harden, her limpidness replaced with iron. She moved swiftly towards the back of the building where the small kitchen was located. She walked past two offices along the corridor and heard voices coming from the one closest to the kitchen. They were distinctly German. As she unloaded the bread onto a table she listened to see if a third voice came from the room. She moved slowly and with patience, knowing that for what she intended to do, patience and nerve beat bravado and recklessness every time. The men in the room were smoking, and thus would have at least one of their hands occupied. She could detect different odors of tobacco. One of them had a pipe. Their conversation was languid and unhurried. There was no excitement in their voices. Given the time of day, it was likely that these officers had eaten a good meal. Their movements would be slow. Madeleine worked with her hands as she kept an eye on the front. She was aware of everything around her. Her senses heightened and became acute. She selected one of the thicker baguettes and tore open one end, revealing a small metal cylinder. She raised her skirt and took out a pistol that was bound to the inside of her thigh, a location few men felt comfortable searching under fairly routine circumstances. She quickly screwed the cylinder into the end and tucked the gun under the bread paper and carried it over to the office door behind which she heard the steady cadence of the men’s conversation. She paused briefly, then gently pushed the door open and walked into the room holding the silenced weapon along her side so that it wouldn’t instantly be noticed. The officer seated at the desk turned only after she was fully into the room. Without hesitation she shot him squarely in the forehead. The other officer seated in front of the desk didn’t have time to register surprise. She turned and put a bullet through his throat and face in instant succession. Turning back to the first officer she shot him a second time so there would be no mistake. Aside from the smell of gunpowder in the room, there had been little sound. Both men remained slumped in their chairs, surprise etched on their faces. Madeleine moved swiftly out of the room and closed the door behind her. With practiced efficiency she unscrewed the silencer and tucked it away inside her sweater. She placed the gun in her pocket. She moved back to the kitchen, opened a window and dropped a short distance to the pavement below. It was a market day, and although many things were scarce, the street was getting crowded. She was well into the crowd and away before she heard the first shriek of a police whistle.
Q: Thank you so much for this interview, Soren. We wish you much success!
A Day in the Life is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we get a glimpse into our favorite author’s day-to-day life! Today’s guest is Dr. Harry Saranchak, author of the mystery novel, Betrayals of Hippocrates: Crimes Against Innocence.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A Day in the Life of Dr. Harry Saranchak by Dr. Harry Saranchak
Is it really okay to have pizza and wine for breakfast my wife asked?
Since we have been collaborating on so many projects lately, I may need to acquire some of her habits. Okay, she really does not drink wine for breakfast, but she does eat the pizza.
As I sit looking out over the deck and begin to wonder about impoverished countries, and how they have little or nothing for food, I begin to ask myself, “ Whoreallybenefits from poverty?” “ Ifpoverty still exists, then who votes for it to continue?”
As a retired surgeon and author,I have spent a lot of time asking these types of questions and find them inspirations for my novels.
I love to travel and meet new friends through out the world.
Each day I give thanks for what I have, and ask for impoverished countries to work diligently to irradicate disease and human suffering.
The reader will note that Betrayals of Hippocrates: Crimes Against Innocence, is a can’t put down medical thriller.
As I have devoured my slice ofpepperoni, mushroom, broccoli pizza , this novel will work it’s voodoo on the taste buds of it’s reader.
The Story Behind the Book is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we find out either the inspiration behind authors’ books or how they got published. Today’s guest is Dr. Harry Saranchak, author of the mystery novel, Betrayals of Hippocrates.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Betrayals of Hippocrates: Crimes Against Innocence was inspired by my search for the truth behind death and disease. Many patients suffer a long and painful death due to incurable diseases. They would give up their home, the car, and all of the money in bank, for more time on this earth. More time leading a life that has quality to it. My wife who is also in the healthcare profession, and a collaborator, has been privy to the same desires of terminal patients. Therefore, you the reader are in this book. We all need to hope for a cure.
We all look to the healthcare profession to keep us alive and kickin’, as the saying goes.
In walks Dr. Vincent Edison Longfellow. His reputation as a prominent doctor allowed him “ the right” to tamper with the souls of impoverished children, for the need of a cure.
When you hold a copy of Betrayals of Hippocrates: Crimes Against Innocence in your hands, and open to the first page of text, I am right there with you, “ Dr. Vincent Edison Longfellow on trial for premeditated serial murder, sat stone- faced on the witness stand.
As the fictional account unfolds, most people find they can’t put the book down, one begins to ask questions about life and death, good and evil, injustice and life. Okay, there is romance and voodoo too, just to make it more of a medical thriller.
Dr. Harry J. Saranchak earned a B.A. degree cum laude from Georgetown and followed it with an M.D. from University of Connecticut School of Medicine. For 30 years he was a vascular and general surgeon in three Connecticut hospitals, and for 25 of those he was also educator and mentor to medical students, residents and colleagues—while receiving eight Golden Scalpel awards for teaching excellence. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Saranchak co-authored seven medical journal articles from 1974 to 1984. After retiring from his private practice at Grove Hill Medical Center in New Britain, CT, he wrote Betrayals of Hippocrates: Crimes Against Innocence.
We have a special guest today. Sally Koslow, author of of the women’s fiction novel, With Friends Like These(Ballantine Books), is here to talk about friends. Visit Sally at http://www.sallykoslow.com/.
…………………………………………….
When North Starts Looking Like South
by Sally Koslow
If we’re lucky, we find caring friends who’ll value us as much as we value them. They’ll make us balloon animals if life throws a suckerpunch and don’t secretly rejoice when we gain a chin and a second mortgage. Nor do they send us internet chain letters with apocalyptic threats should we fail to forward the news flash to 17 pals in the next hour. It’s when such sterling friends disappoint us that north starts looking like south.
This is the theme—disappointment among friends—that I explore in my new novel, With Friends like These.
We know not every friend is destined to be a perennial, the James Taylor or Carole King of our emotional road show. What brings a friendship to the Do Not Resuscitate point? The result depends on how bad we feel we’ve been had, whether and to what degree the evil one serves up remorse and plain old manners.
Here’s what got me going on writing With Friends like These. A buddy tried to snatch an apartment I found and bid on. Afterward we didn’t speak for many months. This wasn’t exactly Draconian punishment, but I missed her enough so that once she sang her sorries, we moved on. I had a harder time trying to get past a very close (or so I thought) chum who “by mistake” copied me on an email whining about how she didn’t want to go to my last book party. I was hurt at this and other passive-aggressive gestures I began to realize I could not overlook.
The slow erode of this friendship — which I thought would be a lifer — is more painful than the bruise caused by the savage apartment-hunter, because with my party-dissing friend I’d believed there was an unbreakable mutual regard. Realizing that you’re not appreciated at a molecular level moves a relationship into the land of phony baloney, a place reached by sailing on the ship of fools — and truly, who’s got the time? Do. Not. Resuscitate.
An early reviewer of With Friends like These called its story line — about four once-close women — “achingly real.” The characters don’t set out to hurt one another, but reality gets in the way, and sooner than you can say steak tartare, four friendships turn raw.
The gaping hole in our lives left by the missing friendship can hurt like a phantom limb. Which is why With Friends like These is also a story of forgiveness. Because is any aspect of friendship more important and profound than forgiveness? I don’t think so. If you can’t be a person who learns to forgive, you can’t be a good friend.
A Day in the Life is Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we get a glimpse into our favorite author’s day-to-day life! Today’s guest is Kim Baccellia, author of the paranormal YA fiction novel, Crossed Out (Lachesis Publishing).
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A Day in the Life of…Kim Baccelli by Kim Baccellia
When I wrote Earrings of Ixtumea, I was a full time public school teacher. I wrote whenever I had the time. The Burger King next to my elementary school was one of my favorite spots to write. Then I had my son and still I found time to write. I also was taking writing classes at UCI extension, which I met Lou Nelson who helped me with the whole writing process.
Getting up early as a teacher helped me get into the habit of writing early. I get up around 6 in the morning and after I check my emails, I set my timer to write. I try to get in 50 minutes of just writing. That means no social networking—which believe me is hard!
My writing can be anything from going over a revision to meeting my goal of 500 words a day on a newer project.
Then it’s off to the gym and then maybe a stop at Starbucks for a drink—my favorite is mocha soy iced drink without whip cream or a yummy multi grained bagel.
Back home to try to get some more writing in.
During the summer I’m more flexible. I try to spend another two hours just writing. Because son is older, I’m able to get in more writing time. One author friend, a mother of twins, told me to seize every moment you get. I try to take her advice. No excuses allowed here!
The school year is a little tougher. After exercising, I usually have like an hour or so to write. Around eight in the morning I get my son up and ready for school. Since I’m homeschooling, this means working with him. This year he’s starting fourth grade. I seriously feel that being both an author and reviewer has helped him with his own reading.
One of son’s subjects is writer’s workshop—which he loves. Son has a clip board with a story map of his latest story. Then we go over it—kind of like editing—before he types up that page that later will be published at our local Staples.
When school is over, that’s the time for me to get more writing in. I also go over more emails and squeeze in some social networking time. Plus I belong to two on-line critique groups so I try to do that too.
After dinner, I try to write some more. But I’m not a night owl. If I have a big deadline, then I’ll stay up and just write.
Oh, I also review for YA Books Central meaning I read tons of upcoming YA books. I love this as it helps me see what’s being picked up and the current trends.
My writing goal is usually 500-1000 words a day. I don’t write on Sundays. When I first started writing, I would spend tons of time revising chapters. Big mistake. Now I just write the whole story. Then the fun begins with revising. It seems with each revision I chip away at my story to find the hidden diamond inside.
We have a special guest today! Dr. Harry Saranchak, author of Betrayals of Hippocrates, is here to talk about writing a great thriller novel (his specialty!). Visit Harry on the web at www.harryjsaranchak.com.
How to Write a Great Mystery
by Dr. Harry Saranchak
I would say the first step to writing a good mystery novel is to attend a writer’s conference. Here you will find a ton of support, knowledge, and opportunity. It can be helpful to go with an open mind.
The next step might be to go to a book store, or an online book outlet and let the section on writing, plot development, character development etc.allow it to speak to you.
As you discover what experience you want to write about, or what dilemma you want to expand, the “how to books” will serve to give your imagination structure?
Of course watch any old TV mystery like Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Marcus Welby etc. The black and white version is awesome if you can get them.
Every person you meet, every event in your life is filled with the makings of a good mystery novel. Use your imagination and ask what if?…………
The waitress poured sleeping pills or arsenic into the patrons BLOODY MARY?
The doctor injected tree frog serum into the organs of sick. powerless, children…………
What if you had to pay for prescription medications out pocket because doctors ordered too many at one time, you now have a supply in the medicine cabinet of outdated pills, and you seek revenge on ………..
Of course this is the realm of the imagination and should never be carried out in your life, ( unless you enjoy writing a sequel from death row) but it is fun to fantasize.
Now that your novelist juices are flowing, just write.
No need to pay attention to grammar, spelling, etc. just write, explore, discover the mystery within.
We have a special guest today. Kerri Nelson, author of of the romantic suspense novel, Cross Check My Heart (Eternal Press), is here to talk about writing a great romantic suspense novel. Visit Kerri at www.kerrinelson.com.
…………………………………………….
Writing a Great Romantic Suspense Novel
By Kerri Nelson
When I’m not writing romantic suspense (or reading it), you’ll find me baking delicious sweet treats for my hubby, three kids, other family members, neighbors, or just about anyone who wants them. When it comes to baked goods…my specialties are peach cobbler and bread pudding. But when it comes to writing, my specialty is romantic suspense. So, in order to tell you how to write a great romantic suspense…I’ll give it to you in recipe form.
Here goes….
My Recipe for Writing the Great Romantic Suspense
Ingredients (these basic ingredients are required—may substitute or double as needed):
1 Damsel in Distress
1 Hauntingly Handsome Hero
1 Vicious Villain
1 History of Mystery
1 or 2 Major Obstacles
1 Sexual Scenario
1 Black Moment
1 Turning Point
1 Rejoice Worthy Revelation
1 Happy Ending
Directions:
Take 1 Damsel in Distress with a history of mystery and mix slowly with 1 Hauntingly Handsome Hero. Add 1 Vicious Villain (measure carefully to avoid bitter taste). Toss in 1 or 2 Major Obstacles that will leave you hungry for more!
Sneak in at least 1 Sexual Scenario to spice things up a bit (repeat as needed). Use caution when adding your Black Moment, as it may ruin your dish if not served up properly. Sift in 1 major Turning Point and then top with a generous portion of Rejoice Worthy Revelation. Enjoy your Happy Ending.
Bake 3 to 6 months.
Yields:
1 Highly Entertaining Romantic Suspense Novel which feeds your reader’s soul, teases their imagination, leaves them begging for another taste and brings you many sales and awards!
I’ve written romantic suspense in every sub-genre imaginable. In everything from paranormal to inspirational, I’ve found that this recipe works every time. Any way you slice it, remember that the success of your story will depend on intriguing characters and a solid, fresh concept filled plot.
In THE PERFECT FAMILY, seventeen-year old Jamie Davidson doesn’t think being gay should be such a big deal…until he comes out to his parents and friends. Even as Jamie celebrates no longer needing to hide his true self and looks forward to the excitement of openly dating another boy, the entire Davidson family is thrown into turmoil.
Jamie’s father Mike can’t reconcile his religious beliefs with his son’s sexuality. His brother Brian is harassed by his jock buddies and angry at Jamie for complicating all their lives. Maggie, his mother, fears being able to protect her son while struggling to save her crumbling marriage. And Jamie feels guilty for the unhappiness his disclosure has caused.
What happens in their small town community, in the high school, in two churches–one supportive and one not—as well as among friends and relatives is vividly portrayed. Finally, every member of their “perfect family” must search their hearts and souls to reconnect with each other in this honest, heartwarming, and hopeful look at the redemptive power of love and family.
This is the powerful premise of multi-published author Kathryn Shay’s The Perfect Family, a gripping novel to be released on September 14. What happens to a family who has been given life-changing news such as when one of them announces to everyone that they are gay? Is it not such a big deal considering being gay isn’t exactly something new and that being gay is considered perfectly normal?
But…what if it happens to YOUR family. How would you cope? Would you accept it or would you fight it?
We interviewed Kathryn Shay to find out she tackled such a delicate subject. Enjoy!
Thank you for this interview, Kathryn. Can we begin by having you tell us what your new book, The Perfect Family, is all about?
Kathryn: The book follows the story of the Davidsons: they’re an average American family with a good life and they consider themselves lucky to have each other. Then their seventeen year old son tells them he’s gay and their world shifts. They have no idea what they will go through after Jamie’s disclosure: Jamie’s father Mike can’t reconcile his religious beliefs with his son’s sexuality. His brother Brian is harassed by his jock buddies and angry at Jamie for complicating all their lives. Maggie, his mother, fears being able to protect her son while struggling to save her crumbling marriage. And Jamie feels guilty for the unhappiness his disclosure has caused. The book is full of both struggle and love, ending on a redeeming note.
Your book touches on such a delicate subject. Can you tell us why you decided to write about a family who is torn because the son tells them he’s gay?
Kathryn: When my own son came out gay, I decided I wanted to tell this kind of story. The book is fiction, but touches on some of the things my own family went through. I wished then I’d had a book like this to help me understand the family’s struggle when a teen comes out is okay, but he deserves love and support from them, too.
Kathryn Shay and son Ben Schaefer
Can you tell us more in depth about the character of Jamie Davidson who plays the son?
Kathryn: I love Jamie. He’s a talented actor and singer and enjoys indie music, reading and writing poetry. (I wrote several poems by him in the book.) He’s considerate and friendly, fun loving and interesting. In some ways, I patterned him after my own son, Ben, and we’re giving away copies of a CD Ben did in high school. Many of the songs are about loving a boy. It’s available free when you order from the Bold Strokes website at http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/products.php?product=Perfect-Family%2C-The-%252d-by-Kathryn-Shay and also from my website, www.kathrynshay.com depending on availability.
How about the mother? Where does she stand on the fact her son is gay? Does she have a hard time accepting it?
Kathryn: Maggie struggles, too. Having come from a dysfunctional family whose oldest child was disowned, she’s vowed to create and sustain a perfect family of her own. Because there’s tension and strife among them all now, she’s devastated by what’s happening to them. But never does she waver in the support she gives her son.
Can you give us an excerpt of one of the most “tender” parts of the story?
When Maggie passed Jamie’s room, she heard sobs coming from inside. Somebody was crying. Hard. She knocked on his door. “Jamie, are you in there?”
No answer.
“Jamie, it’s Mom. Are you all right?”
A muffled, “Yeah.”
“I need to see for myself. Can I come in?”
“No.”
She gripped the doorknob. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”
A longer pause. “All right.”
The room was dark for mid-afternoon because Jamie had drawn the blinds, casting the room in shadows. His computer hummed eerily in the half light, flashing a screen saver of one of his favorite rock stars. Some of his treasured pictures, those he’d matted and framed, lay on the floor. The wood was broken. Shards of glass dug into the carpet. Scanning the room, she recalled a time when she’d baby proofed it. She wished she could baby proof the world for him, but she’d come to realize she could no longer protect Jamie.
He was stretched out on the bed, propped up on pillows.
“What’s going on, honey?”
No response.
Maggie picked up a shattered frame. The picture had been torn by the glass–one of Jamie and Julianne at the Valentine’s Dance they attended together last winter. She’d thought how masculine Jamie looked in the tux, a compliment to Julianne’s feminine frills.
“Did something happen with Julianne?” He’d mentioned she’d been acting weird and now the destroyed pictures of her.
And Jamie burst into tears.
Side-stepping the mess, she sat on the bed and dragged him up. For longer than she thought possible, he cried in her arms. Not sniffles. Not a burst of emotion. But deep, wrenching sobs from his gut. She wondered how much more of this he could take. For a stark moment, she thought again about the statistics on suicide among gay teens.
“Shh, shh,” she said, rubbing a hand over his back. “It can’t be that bad.”
“It is.”
“All right, then, we’ll work through it together.” When he drew back again, she nodded to the floor. “Julianne let you down?”
He slouched onto the bed. “Uh-huh.”
She took his hands. “What happened?”
Her son didn’t look at her when he spoke. Instead he stared at the Van Gogh poster on the wall across the room. “Before it got around I was gay, I told her about me. She seemed okay with it. Said she’d pray for me.” His hand tightened on hers. “It sucked but she’s entitled to her beliefs.”
Maggie waited when he paused.
“She belongs to that fundamentalist church on Parson Road. They’re really conservative. They believe all that stuff about women being subservient to men. Their service is a practically a gospel rally.”
“Yes, I know.”
He closed his eyes. Finally, he asked, “Can you rub my back?”
“Sure. Scoot over.”
He yanked off a shirt that said Carpe Diem and lay down on his stomach. She stretched out beside him and began the ritual that he always asked for when he was upset. “Tell me the rest, Jame.”
When she began to knead his shoulders, he continued. “Luke and I went to get our tickets to the prom. It was like he wanted to thumb his nose at the school, or…I don’t know. Anyway, we’re going to the Junior Prom together so I thought, Why hide it? What can they do?”
Maggie panicked. They were going to the prom together? Oh, dear Lord. Would they be safe? As far as Maggie knew, no one had openly taken a person of the same sex to a Sherwood High prom. Though kids often went in groups of girls or guys, an honest-to-goodness boy/boy date hadn’t yet happened. Jamie’s foray into that uncharted territory would be trailblazing and possibly dangerous. Her mother’s heart beat faster at what he might endure. On the heels of that, though, she felt pride in his courage to be who he was, especially after the knocks he’d taken lately.
“How does Julianne fit into this?”
“She was selling the tickets. She looked like she was gonna barf when we told her we were going as a couple.”
“Oh, buddy.”
“She sounded worse than Dad.”
Maggie rubbed his neck, where the muscles were knotted. “About the Bible and homosexuality?”
“Yeah.” He buried his face in the pillow. She had to strain to hear what he said. “She doesn’t think we can be friends anymore, which I knew she might do, but still…” He trailed off.
“Jame.”
Turning slightly on his side, he raised his head to see her. His young face was ravaged. “What did I do to deserve this, Mom? I’m just trying to be honest about who I am.”
“There is nothing wrong with being yourself. I told you that when you first came out. Julianne and anyone else who makes you feel bad about being gay are the ones who are wrong.”
“Even Dad and Bri?”
“Even them.”
“I’m so mad at all of them.”
“That’s okay, too.”
He lay back down. “Thanks for not saying this will all work out.”
“It might not, honey.”
Neither of them voiced who it might not work out with–Julianne or Mike and Brian. Maggie couldn’t bring herself to entertain the thought that it might be her other son and husband.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen, Jame. But you can count on this. I’ll be here no matter what happens.”
This is such a powerful book and can be used as a tool for change. What do you hope readers will take from the book?
Kathryn: I hope readers will understand that a child being himself is vital to his growth and development and he has a right to be who he is. I hope they’ll see that even when a family is loving and giving and supportive, they’ll struggle over issues and come out on the other side.
Finally, I like to ask authors this question…what is your passion? What is it that you’re more passionate about than anything else?
Kathryn: My own family—a husband and two wonderful kids. They mean more to me than anything else in the world. Second, I believe we were meant to help those less fortunate than we are, through a service profession, volunteer work, or just random acts of kindness and compassion.
Thanks for coming, Kathryn! Do you have any final words?
Kathryn: Just one note about my work: I’m putting my entire single title romance backlist up on Kindle and Smashwords at the beginning of September, so if anyone wants to read more of my work, they’ll be available.
Finally, thank you so much to those of you at Literally Speaking for inviting me here. Feel free to post questions and comments. I’ll come back and check, but not until four today since I’m volunteering this week at a camp for kids with cancer.
If you would like to leave comments for Kathryn, please do so below and she will be more than happy to answer them. If you’d like to pick up your copy of The Perfect Family, visit Amazon. If you’d like to visit Kathryn’s website, click here.
Enjoy the book trailer of The Perfect Family, coming to bookstores on September 14, 2010.
5 Things You Should Know is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest feature. Here we find out five things about books, writing, publishing, the sky’s the limit… right out of the author’s mouth. Today’s guest is Maya Jax, author of the chick lit novel, Escapades of Romantically Challenged Me.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
5 Things You Should Know About Maya Jax
by Maya Jax
1. After reading Escapades of Romantically Challenged Me, most people ask if I’ve dressed as a superhero to get an agent’s attention (like the main character, Lelaina, does in chapter one). I haven’t. I’m just not that brave (or crazy!). I have dressed as a superhero on other occasions, but usually for socially acceptable things like Halloween.
2. My bio doesn’t lie — I really did want to be a spy. A paint-balling incident helped change my mind. I was in this perfectly protected position as a sniper, and had taken out most of the other team, when someone snuck up behind me and shot me in the back. The reality hit hard that this is how life would be in the field, and thus my dreams of becoming James Bond were partially kiboshed by a ping pong-sized welt on my back.
3. My life inspired a few of Lelaina’s misadventures. The scene where she accidentally eats hand cream is one.
4. Like Lelaina, I’ve worked some painful jobs, including one stint as a polar bear mascot.
5. I once lived in a refurbished cookie factory. You may be picturing Willy Wonka, but it was more like Nightmare on Elm Street meets Joe’s Apartment. You couldn’t eat, sleep or bathe without spending quality time with armies of cockroaches. I constantly felt like I was on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown!
Loving spy and mystery novels, Maya Jax entertained the idea of being a secret agent and started working at an embassy overseas while doing her master’s in international relations. During this time, she finished her first screenplay, an action/thriller about spies and nuclear weapons. She pitched it to a friend in Hollywood, who told her she had talent, but to never – ever – show anyone the script again. Realizing her love for writing was stronger than her desire to spy and fight crime, she attempted a second screenplay focusing on what she knew best — trying to make it as a writer. The screenplay turned into a manuscript and the result was chick lit novel Escapades of Romantically ChallengedMe. You can read more about Maya at www.mayajax.com.
Welcome to Literarily Speaking! I am a book blogger, book reviewer, author and CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book. Literarily Speaking is a smorgasbord of anything literary. I talk about books as well as host author interviews, guest posts and reviews. While my time is very limited running a business, I have little time to review so most of my reviews are from books I request although that might change. I am open to guest posts as long as the post pertains to anything literary - whether it be the publishing or the promoting process. If you want to be featured here with a guest post, email me at thewriterslife (at) gmail.com.
Celebrate Pump Up Your Book’s 5th Anniversary!
Details coming soon!
Nice Things People Say
"My paperback sales went up overnight. THANKS TO YOU!!! My sales were zero before I started my tour."
-- Lilian Duval, author of YOU NEVER KNOW
“Dorothy is an inspiring leader who gets results, whether managing a team or working independently.”
— Gary Jamieson
“The hardest working woman I know who puts her heart and soul into everything she does.”
-- Jaime McDougall, author of ECHO FALLS
"The woman to know for an author from the leading blog tour company Pump It Books."
-- Bri Clark, author of GLAZIER
"Love the different authors Dorothy and her Virtual tours always introduce me to! She's a gem to work with.”
-- Rashmi CallmeaBookworm
"Dorothy is simply amazing. She goes the extra mile to help authors get noticed and has an incredible personality to match. ”
--April Schiff Pohren
"I have enjoyed working with Dorothy on several blog tours. And look forward to participating in more of her tours in the future.”
-- Romancingthe Book
"Dorothy is a phenominal woman and an incredible resource for authors. She is also a pleasure to work with; a veritable writer's dream."
Chad Coenson, Author
"Dorothy's expertise comes from a place where all successful and fundamentally sound American enterprises spring: research and fairness. ”
-- J.W. Nicklaus, Author
"Dorothy is a dedicated professional & a delight to work with. She is also straight-forward and direct, but also flexible and compassionate. ”"
-- Janie Hickok, blogger
"Dorothy I just googled my name my book publicity is all over the Internet. You are amazing!!!"
Here comes the judge!
Interactive as well as inspirational, DARE TO TAKE CHARGE challenges the reader to ask self-reflective questions that lead to moments of self-discovery and a defined pathway to healing. Daring her audience to study the positive with the same interest and intensity that they study the negative, Judge Hatchett uncovers the potential for grace and success in lives that are now punctuated with despair and unfaithfulness.
Recent Comments