Featured Author: Timothe Davis

CLP Blog Tours brings Timothe Davis here today to talk about his novel, Sometimes Ya Gotta Laugh, a romantic comedy.

About the book:

When friendships are threatened, how far will you go to protect it?

Jordan Spencer is thirty-six and hasn't had a relationship that's lasted more than six months. He's cool with that, though. He's got space issues. And what difference does it make anyway? He has his two best friends Gabby and Chris for happy hours, clubs, and weekend hangouts. But Gabby is falling for a guy that Jordan doesn't like and Chris-the-sex-machine is having a phallic crisis.

Jordan thought that their friendship would last forever. But with each day, they drift further apart. Without Gabby and Chris at his side, Jordan finds himself facing his own emotional loneliness. Should he fight for the friends who have become his family? Or has the season of their friendship passed?

Jordan Spencer will learn that in a world full of swingers, lies, and drag queens, even the best of friends occasionally lie to each other. Sometimes they cry for each other. But in the end, sometimes you just gotta laugh …

Interview with Timothe Davis

How long have you been writing, and how did you start?

Wow! I don't know when I started. I've always loved words, and I've always loved writing. I can remember  being eight years old and wanting to write comic books. I didn't want to be a police officer or a fireman; I wanted to write "Batman" comics.

What’s the story behind the title Sometimes Ya Gotta Laugh?

Growing up, I had more than my fair share of family dysfunction. But we managed through armed with a bit of humor. I recalled my mother saying on more than one occasion, "Sometimes ya gotta laugh, if just to keep from crying." The words have always resonated and they seemed to sum up the roller coaster ride of the book!

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

Tough question - I enjoyed writing all the characters (the good and the bad ones) primarily because they are all distinctly different. So every time I stepped into a character, I got to be someone different. But perhaps my favorites were Gabby and Gary. Gabby is a main character; Gary is what I call a major-minor character. Gabby is female; Gary is a drag queen. (I'm neither. I kinda hope that's obvious! LOL) The challenge is making these characters authentic and not stock. I enjoyed that challenge and would find myself asking, "Is this what the character would naturally do?" Honestly, I ask that question every time a character makes a decision. Hopefully, at some point, you become the character. Then the question is, "Is this what I would do?"
 
Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
 
Every character has bits and piece of people I know, I've met, I've seen, I've heard about. I think that's what makes the characters relatable. I want the reader to think "I know somebody just like that!" Or "That reminds me of my friends."

Are you like any of your characters?

Ask any of my friends and they'd say Jordan. I'm the spitting... or is it splitting ... image of him. We are both sarcastic, and introverted, and we weigh words carefully. We also can tend to keep people at arm's length emotionally.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

*Spoiler Alert* There's a scene about halfway through the book where Gary, Gabby, and Jordan are all in Gabby's living room. Jordan has his arms around Gabby and she is recounting her life with her ex, Brad. Gary is angry, but Jordan is trying to suppress his anger and just listen. Then Gabby begins to cry, not the type of crying where silent tears run down your face, but the sobs that make your entire body heave. All the while, Jordan is trying to soothe her. It's a raw scene, and I like how it displays the strength of the friendship these people have.

What song would you pick to go with your book?

"Nature Boy" and probably the Natalie Cole version. It's an old song in which a young boy admonishes, "the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and to be loved in return." And that's what the book is about - about loving and accepting ourselves and our friends (and family) with all their glorious flaws and their beautiful strengths.

You get to decide who would read your audiobook. Who would you choose?

I'd have to have a CAST of people reading. Not just one person. I'd want different people to play each character. There are some "great voices" in Hollywood. But there is so much dialogue in the book, I'd want each character to have their own individual voice. Had you asked me, "who do you want to play the characters in a movie?" I'd could come up with a few names ...

Would you rather work in a library or a bookstore?

I'd rather work in a bookstore. Libraries require quietness while bookstores are more vibrant!

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then to learn that prisoner was you."

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
 
Spain! Every year I mull combining vacation time with some leave and living there for 2 months. Madrid and Barcelona are beautiful. And I began the book on my visit to Barcelona.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on my second novel. This one's entitled The Miseducation of the Zombie. And while Zombies tend to make people think of horror, this is really a tongue-in-cheek story on diversity and acceptance.

Excerpt from Sometimes Ya Gotta Laugh

The knot in Gabby's stomach constricted and released, emotional pain manifesting itself as physical pain. But she resolved not to cry.  At least, not again. What she would do is filter the emotion into work. As a teenager, when life wasn't good, she threw herself into her studies. As an adult, she threw herself into her work. That pattern hadn't led to many successes in the field of love but had brought her plenty of success on the job.
       
On the front seat beside her sat development plans for mid-level managers at the company, she planned on working on those this weekend. On the back seat sat a few groceries from Whole Food – a salmon feta burger, a bottle of Dr. Loosens Reisling, some pita chips, and few chocolate chip cookies. 

As soon as she got home, she would change into something more comfortable, pour herself a glass of wine, have one of the salmon sandwiches, turn on the laptop, and dive into work.
        
At some point she had to talk to Jordan. She had thought about calling every day this week; Jordan was a good listener. But she didn't want to burden him. Besides what would she say?
            
Sunday she'd go for a long run. Or better yet, she'd curl up with half a pint of Haagen Daz, her chocolate chip cookies, and some movie on Lifetime.
           
She parked her car in front of her townhouse and stepped out. The day was warm. Maybe she'd change into shorts and go jog now.
           
“Gabrielle?” A voice behind her startled her. She froze, hoping the voice was a figment of her imagination. But it called out to her again. “Gabrielle.” She refused to turn around until it called her a third time. “Gabrielle.”
           
She had been too swallowed in her thoughts to notice Brad’s car parked on the street. Had she seen it, she would've kept driving, avoiding him and the resurgence of raw emotion she was struggling to keep submerged deep beneath the surface. But now he was standing almost within reach of her, arms extended in a gesture that was half helpless and half come-to-me. His dirty blond hair was tousled as if he had been running his hands through it, he was wearing his white physician's coat.
           
How many cards, emails, and voicemails had she gotten from him this week?
           
How many peers had she lied to about the reason she kept receiving flowers at work?
           
How many times had one of her coworkers said, “He must really love you,” and she had agreed?
           
He took a step closer, she took a step back.
           
“Gabrielle,” his shoulders sagged. “I am so sorry.” She suppressed a desire to clamp her hands over her ears. Instead, she put out a hand to stop him from coming closer. When she did, a work file slipped out her hands and the papers scattered to the ground. “What can I say?” Brad asked as he bent down to help pick up the papers. “Anything?” He took another step forward as he handed them back.
           
She took the file without touching him. 
           
“I was cruel ... I know,” he continued. “I was an ass. I deserve you never speaking to me again. But believe me, I am so sorry. I was so … I guess I felt betrayed and I overreacted. But there is no excuse. None.”
           
He took a step closer. Gabby willed the tears back.
           
“Can I come in? Can we talk?”
           
Afraid her voice would crack, Gabby said nothing. 
“You are right, I'm going to therapy.” He pulled out the card of the therapist she had called. “I went on Monday. That's one of the reasons I've been trying to call you. I wanted to let you know. I've got to learn to get control of my … my moods. For you ...”
           
Gabby shivered, although the sun shone brightly.
           
“Another chance, please. I'm begging you. Gabrielle, I'm sorry. I love you. It’s … it’s my family. There are things I’ve never told you. But … you know the problems families can have.”
           
Family was the one thing Gabby had held withheld from Brad. But she knew all too well the stress family could cause.
           
“Neither one of us is close to our family. We need each other. I need you. A second chance. That’s all I’m asking.” His eyes welled with tears and he reached out to her.
           
Everybody deserved a second chance. Everybody did. He was going to therapy now. So Gabby walked past him, up the stairs, through the front door, and let him in.
           
Brad followed her inside, humbly shut the door behind them, and begged forgiveness until she finally said, “It’s alright.”  
           
She couldn't sleep that night, though. And she couldn't make love. Every moan and every orgasm had been faked for Brad's benefit. Hours later, as she stared at the ceiling and he slept peacefully beside her, she wondered if she should have been so forgiving. Once granted, Brad had moved around her place like they had never had an argument. She, though, had had a knot in the pit of her stomach all evening.
           
Quietly she slid out the bed. “Where ya going, babe?” Brad murmured. He touched her and his skin was hot on hers.
           
“To get a drink of water,” she replied before she kissed him on the forehead. She padded down the steps, poured herself a glass of wine, and laid across the couch.
           
Brad came downstairs around three am and woke her up. He asked her to come back to bed. She did. But she couldn't get back to sleep once she got there.

About the author:

Timothe Davis is a music-loving, martini-drinking, night owl. He spends his days confined within the walls of corporate America but (not so) secretly harbors dreams of writing best-sellers and getting books adapted to movies. Thank God he's wise enough to have a 401K plan.

You can find him wandering around his loft most times of the night. His friends say his sarcasm belies a warm heart and he's tried MATCH.com not once but twice.

Sometimes Ya Gotta Laugh is his first novel. It's a fictional story of love, friendship, acceptance, and the journey we take to make ourselves better each day. He hopes that those who purchase it will enjoy reading it as much as he enjoyed writing it.

Connect with the author:
Website | Facebook | Twitter |

Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million

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Featured Author: Traci Andrighetti

Great Escapes Book Tours brings Traci Andrighetti here today with her brand new cozy mystery, Limoncello Yellow, published by Gemma Halliday Publishing. Traci answers some of my burning questions, and she treats us to an excerpt from the book.

About the book:

Francesca "Franki" Amato is a tough-talking rookie cop in Austin, Texas—until an unfortunate 911 call involving her boyfriend, Vince, and a German female wrestler convinces her once and for all that she just isn't cut out for a life on the police force. So Franki makes the snap decision to move to New Orleans to work at her friend Veronica's detective agency, Private Chicks, Inc. But Franki's hopes for a more stable life are soon dashed when Private Chicks is hired by the prime suspect in a murder case to find out what really happened to a beautiful young boutique manager who was found strangled to death with a cheap yellow scarf. When she's not investigating, Franki is hoping to seduce handsome bank executive Bradley Hartmann, but most of her time is spent dodging date offers from a string of "good Italian boys"—make that not-so-good aging Italian men—that her meddlesome Sicilian grandma has recruited as marriage candidates. As Mardi Gras approaches and the mystery of the murdered shop girl gets more complicated, Franki must decipher the odd ramblings of a voodoo priestess to solve both the murder and the mystery of her own love life.

Interview with Traci Andrighetti

Traci, how long have you been writing, and how did you start?

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been writing for years, but I haven’t—-not unless you count the boring academic papers and the thesis and dissertation I wrote in graduate school. The truth is that I wrote a Nancy Drew–style mystery with my cousin when I was twelve (which, thankfully, has been lost), and then I wrote Limoncello Yellow last year under the expert guidance of internationally bestselling author Kristin Harmel.

How did you come up with the title of your book?

Well, I wanted colorful titles with an Italian word in them. So I made a list of the types of Italian words Americans know, and I came up with types of pasta and alcohol. LOL! And I really wanted my first title to include the word “yellow,” because the Italian word for “yellow (giallo)” also means “mystery novels” in Italy (because the colors of the first mystery novels were yellow, so they became known as “gialli,” or “yellows”). Anyway, once I had “yellow” in mind, the drink “Limoncello” was a no-brainer.

How would you describe your book in five words?

An outrageous romp through NOLA!

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

My favorite character to write is definitely the aging ex-stripper Glenda O’Brien. The thing I like most about Glenda is that she says and does whatever she wants. Plus, she always brings a smile to my face because she was inspired by a real-life “adventure” I had one day on Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I asked to use the bathroom at Big Daddy’s strip club (something I don’t recommend for the faint at heart).

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?

Yes! Veronica Maggio was inspired by my dear friend Marissa Maggio, and David Savoie was inspired by David Turet, who was one of my students at the University of Texas where I used to teach Italian. The speech of the Sicilian grandmother was inspired by the great aunt of an old friend of mine.

Who are your favorite authors?

Actually, most of my favorite authors are Italian. I have a nerdy Italian book blog called italicissima, so spend a lot of my time reading contemporary Italian literature rather than American. Crazy, I know.

How long is your to-be-read pile?
I’m too afraid to look. I mean, I know how tall the tower of books in my bedroom is, but I’ve been afraid to count how many unread books are on my Kindle.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?

My favorite place to write is at The Flight Path Coffee Shop in Austin, Texas, on a Saturday morning. When I’m there with a double soy latte in hand, I feel like I can write anything.

Your last meal would be…

...an entire jar of Nutella, my one true addiction. “Nutella” is Italian for “Nirvana” (not really)!

Would you rather work in a library or bookstore?

Oh, for sure in a library! At a bookstore, you really only find the classics and whatever is current. Libraries are full of those hidden gems that have either been forgotten or that never really got discovered. For example, I recently stumbled upon the Outdoor Girls series (1913 to 1933) at the University of Texas library. They were the original Hardy Boys, only they were girls!

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

I don’t have a favorite quote, but my favorite saying is without a doubt, “When life gives you lemons, make Limoncello.”

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Well, if I have the money and the time, I travel. But if I’m at home, I love to watch old movies from the 1950s and 1960s. And trashy reality TV, of course!

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I would live in one of the fabulous apartments above the Piazza Navona in Rome (but only if the apartment walls have been soundproofed to reduce the noise from the crowds below). That’s my version of paradiso.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing Prosecco Pink, the second novel in the Franki Amato Mystery series. Be sure to read the book blurb on my blog!

Excerpt from Limoncello Yellow

I parked in front of my new home. Before I could get out of the car, Veronica was already walking out her front door, smiling and waving with Hercules in tow in a turquoise fuzzy sweater that matched hers perfectly. Despite her Sicilian father, Veronica looked Swedish like her ex-ballerina mother, with long blonde hair, cornflower blue eyes, and pale skin. 
      
"Franki!" Veronica yelled.

I bent over—at the waist—to hug her. I'd forgotten how tiny she was, and I wondered for at least the hundredth time how her internal organs could function in such a small frame.
She looked up at me and smiled. "How does it feel to be in New Orleans?"

I glanced over at the cemetery and then back at her. "At the moment, it feels fairly morbid."

"Oh, come on! You don't still have that weird cemetery issue, do you?"

"Yes, Veronica. And I can't believe you didn't tell me that there's one right across the street! You know, lots of people would find it disturbing to go to sleep at night with a cemetery basically in their front yard, especially a New Orleans cemetery."

Veronica shook her head in mock disgust as she grabbed a box from my back seat.

"Thank God there's a bar right next to it," I continued. "In case I need to drink myself to death from despair."

She smiled. "Well, if you do drink yourself to death, I wouldn't have to carry you very far for your burial."

I quickly made the customary scongiuri gesture that my nonna had taught me to do to ward off the threat of death, which Veronica had just so carelessly cast upon me. It looks like the University of Texas's hook 'em horns sign with the index and pinky fingers pointed up like horns, only you point the horns downward.

Veronica rolled her eyes. "Do you still do that silly scongiuri thing too? God, Franki, you make me so glad my nonna stayed in Sicily. You're so superstitious!"

"I do it just in case," I snapped. "I mean, you never know..."

Veronica walked up to my new front door, which was right next to hers, and pulled a key from the front right pocket of her AG jeans. "Glenda—our landlady—told me to let you in. She'll come downstairs to meet you in a few minutes."

With the box balanced on her left hip, Veronica unlocked my front door with her right hand. She gave the door a shove with her shoulder, and it swung open. She turned to me and bowed. "Welcome to your humble abode."

I excitedly entered the apartment with Napoleon at my heels. As I surveyed the living room, a number of adjectives came to mind, but humble was not one of them. The room could only be described as the home decor equivalent of Amsterdam's Red Light District. The walls were covered in fuzzy, blood-red wallpaper with shiny gold fleurs-de-lis, and hanging from the ceiling was a baroque red-and-black crystal chandelier. The couch was a rococo chaise lounge in velvet zebra print, and next to it was a lilac velour armchair with gold fringe that matched the drapery to perfection. On the opposite wall there was a mahogany wood fireplace with a hearth covered in white candles of various sizes and shapes. In front of the fireplace, a bearskin rug replete with a bear head covered the hardwood floors. The only thing that was missing was the red fluorescent light in the living room window announcing my availability for prospective clients.

I realized that my mouth was hanging open. "Wow. So…this Glenda…is she a prostitute?" I joked.

"Former stripper, actually," Veronica replied. "And she's really touchy about the difference, so don't use the word prostitute in front of her."

I gaped at my best friend. "You're serious?"

Veronica just blinked innocently, as if renting me an apartment from a former stripper across from a cemetery were perfectly normal. "You know, I was reading that the brothel look is really in right now. I believe it's called 'bordello chic.'" She began to pace back and forth as she tried to reconcile her unusually conflicted sense of fashion. "But now that I think about it, Lenny Kravitz redecorated his house here in New Orleans, and designers call his style 'bordello modern.'"

"Something tells me that Lenny didn't decorate this place. And I wouldn't exactly call this 'bordello modern.' It's more like 'bordello seventies.'"

"Well, at least you won't have to add any touches of color," Veronica said.

About the author:

Traci Andrighetti is the author of the Franki Amato mystery series. In her previous life, she was an award-winning literary translator and a Lecturer of Italian at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics. But then she got wise and ditched that academic stuff for a life of crime—writing, that is.

If she's not hard at work on her next novel, Traci is probably watching her favorite Italian soap opera, eating Tex Mex or sampling fruity cocktails, and maybe all at the same time. She lives in Austin with her husband, young son (who desperately wants to be in one of her books) and three treat-addicted dogs.



Connect with the author:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads| Twitter 

Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Kobo 

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Featured Author: Marilynn Larew

Marilynn Larew is on tour with Great Escapes Book Tours, and she's here today to talk about her thriller, The Spider Catchers, a novel about sex, money, and terrorism, published by The Artemis Hunter Press.

About the book:

What do the violent takeover of Fez brothels and a new stream of terrorist funding have to do with the disappearance of Alicia Harmon from the Fez office of Femme Aid Maroc? When CIA analyst Lee Carruthers tries to find out, she is swept into a tangled web of dirty money and human trafficking, and people will kill to find out what Alicia knew. If only Lee knew. She’s working blind, and in this case, ignorance is death. Her search takes her through the slums of the Fez medina to the high-rises of the new city and finally to a terrorist camp in the Algerian desert.

Interview with Marilynn Larew

Marilynn, how long have you been writing, and when did you start?

I’ve always been a reader, of course, and I wrote various things – essays, an honors thesis, and a PhD dissertation, but I first wrote fiction when the children were small, and we had very little money. I wrote a short story and submitted it to the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine because I wanted a new dress. I even knew what the dress would look like. The editors decided that the story did not meet their requirements, and I’m grateful it wasn’t published. It was pretty bad.

My next attempt at fiction was after I finished my dissertation. Most students who go through the PhD mill plan to write a book exposing how terrible the experience was. I wrote a novel about a hard-boiled female private detective. I almost sold that one, but the editor who liked it quit, and the woman who replaced her didn’t, so that took care of that.

When I was working in historical preservation, I wrote two books about the history of Bel Air, Maryland, but I didn’t try fiction again until I retired, and then I set out to write the novel I’d always wanted to write.

It’s taken a while. The Spider Catchers has gone through many forms as I haltingly found my way. It was my learning piece. I’m determined that Dead in Dubai will not take so long.

How did you create the plot for this The Spider Catchers?

My plotting of The Spider Catchers is less a process than an Awful Warning to aspiring novelists. I’m a pantser, that is I write by the seat of my pants. I find plotting beyond creating the central characters and making a few sketchy notes very frustrating, so I started writing with the beginning and the end. The middle was a mystery. As I said before, The Spider Catchers was my learning piece. I ripped it up and rethought it many times. So for the final draft, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. For Dead in Dubai, I tried once again to plot, but after I went so far I had to start writing. I know more about this plot than I did the other. I’m sketching out from the beginning and backwards from the end in the hope when they meet in the middle it will work. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to fix it. I do not recommend this way of plotting a book, but it’s the only way I can do it.

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

I most enjoyed creating Lee Carruthers. It was fun to make her smart and sassy, capable in many ways that analysts are not. I enjoyed making her tough but tender enough to be recognizable as a woman. She has family issues, more of which will emerge in the next two books, and, because of them, she’s a loner, but she has friends in Fez to help her in her quest. As a matter of fact, I enjoy giving her all of the experiences I’ve never had, except in a Walter Mitty sort of way. Nobody who ever worked for the CIA would recognize my CIA, but it was fun putting it together. I know the Agency has a unit that follows money, but I had to make it smaller for the purposes of the novel, because it had to be something that Lee could deal with personally and not just a faceless bureaucracy. You notice I’ve said several times that it was fun to do something, and it was fun, despite the hard work that it took.

Are you like any of your characters?

I’ve made Lee more like myself that I intended. I looked the way I’ve described her when I was younger. The smart mouth is part of my arsenal too, I’m afraid. My daughter says she can hear me speaking, and a friend said that Lee sounds pretty much like me, sarcastic and a bit world-weary. I’ve never thought of myself as world-weary, but maybe he’s right. If you live in this world long enough and pay attention, you get weary. Maybe things I didn’t know about myself crept out from my id and landed in the book. It’s always a danger that you will show more of yourself than you intended whenever you write.

That's very true. What is your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite scene in the book is the suicide bombing sequence, possibly because it was the most difficult to write. I’m a military historian, and I’ve studied terrorism for years, but I had never really considered the effect all of that explosive had on people. In this scene I had to imagine the effects of a suicide bomb on the people and the structures in the blast zone. I had to imagine bits of metal flying through the air and crashing into human flesh. The concussion throws people around like rag dolls and damages or destroys the buildings in its path, and the flying metal shreds the people. You don’t see that on TV. The aftermath of a bombing is people screaming and moaning, dead and injured and stunned by their experience. After imagining that, I’ll never think of war or terrorism in quite the same way again.

Who are your favorite authors?

Who my favorite author is depends on who’s work I’m reading at the moment. In the past, I’ve enjoyed Jane Austen, and hope I have absorbed some of her insight into character and human folly. I’ve enjoyed Rudyard Kipling’s take on India and hope I’ve learned from him how to describe the exotic and the familiar within it. I read a lot of mysteries. Those from the beginning in the 19th century through the early scientific authors like Sherlock Holmes on to the Golden age of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, to the present.

Present-day works have a faster pace, and the authors write more openly about difficult topics – rape, incest, human trafficking, terrorism. I’m guilty of writing about the last two myself.  It’s hard to say who my favorite author is today. Ever since I studied the Vietnamese war, I’ve been interested in that great folly, World War I, and the authors I most enjoy reading today have protagonists either working in World War I or in its terrible aftermath: Jacquelyn Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, Charles Todd’s Inspector Ian Rutledge, Todd’s nurse, Bess Crawford, and Kerry Greenwood’s Melbourne flapper detective, Phryne Fisher, who was also shaped by her experience driving an ambulance during the war and her experiences in Paris afterwards. She’s a true child of the 20s – drinking, dancing, and loving as if there were no tomorrow, because she understands that often there is no tomorrow.

How long is your to-be-read pile?

My to-be-read pile comes in two stacks. The history I study: Vietnamese, Chinese, military history, the history of intelligence organizations, and of terrorism is in one stack. My mystery to-be-read pile is large and fortunately mostly in my Kindle. I have blessed Kindle every day since I got it for relieving the weight on my bookshelves. My bookshelves are full of series I like, and I often reread those books just to have a visit with the characters I like. Since a lot of the authors I like best are dead, I’m always on the lookout for fresh meat to feed my reading habit.

Do you have a routine for writing?

My routine for writing is simple. I don’t require any music or scented candles or any other aides to concentration. I just sit down in the morning, do my email, and write for about two hours. In the afternoon I write for another two hours, and after dinner I write for yet another two hours, although sometimes I sneak in some TV in the evening. That’s the plan. Sometimes life intervenes, and I have to go do other things, and sometimes I just can’t stand it any longer, so I go and read something, or even do some housework. But the next day it’s back to the keyboard.

What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?

I usually have two books going, one nonfiction and one fiction. I’m currently reading Patricia M. Pelley’s Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past, in paper. It’s a superb study of how Vietnamese historians reconstructed the Vietnamese memory of the past in ways that would serve the new socialist government. On Kindle I’m reading Ruth Ann Hixon’s Lost Memories, an absorbing police procedural about a young woman who witnessed a murder. She has lost her memory, and with each thing she remembers, her peril grows.

What would your dream office look like?

My dream office would have a secretary in it. I write my books on yellow pads and then dictate into the computer. If I had a secretary, she could type the material from the yellow pads, and I’d have much less trouble with typos. If I have to spend more money, I’d have a fireplace with gas logs and a comfortable wing chair to sit in to write, an oriental rug, and bookshelves on all the walls to allow me to have all my books in the same place.

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

“Life isn’t about how you survived the storm. It’s about how you danced in the rain!”
I don’t know who wrote it, perhaps that old favorite Anonymous.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I’d love to live in Istanbul. I don’t know why, but the first time I went there, it just felt right, as if it could be home. Hong Kong runs it a close second. That’s a city that never sleeps, exciting, and vital. When I first went there. I didn’t feel like an alien among the Chinese residents, I felt as if I belonged. London and Paris, they’re just places to visit. Istanbul could be home. So could Hong Kong.

When you working on now?

I’m working on the second novel in the Lee Carruthers series, Death in Dubai, which takes place not surprisingly, in fantastic Dubai. That’s a town that never sleeps, either, and it’s the center of Arab money laundering. It lies just across the straits from Iran, and it makes a pretty penny smuggling contraband. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that Lee resigns from the Agency at the end of The Spider Catchers. She’s wondering if there’s life after the CIA, when Cynthia Branson hires her to find out what happened to her husband, George. Finding George may not be as simple as Lee thinks it will be, and there may be terrorists left over from The Spider Catchers out for revenge, or it might be that everybody just wants the mysterious key that George sent his wife from Istanbul.

Excerpt from The Spider Catchers

I draped the strap of my laptop over the handle of my suitcase and climbed the worn stone staircase to the flat, my backpack heavy on my shoulder. Five centuries does a number on steps, even stone ones. I leaned the suitcase against the wall to unlock the Chubb lock on the thick oak door. A tall thin figure stood silhouetted against the French windows. A man. In my flat? Which one of the men who wanted me dead was he? I threw my pack at him and cannoned onto him, landing on his chest with my knees on his arms. I pushed hard on his windpipe with my right arm. He bucked and turned his head so that I could see his face.

“Well, if it isn’t my esteemed mentor, Sidney Worthington,” I said with relief. “What brings you to Paris?”

“Carruthers, get off of me! Are you trying to kill me?”

I leaned back and helped him to his feet.

“Would have if I’d been armed,” I said. “How did you get in? Paul didn’t say there was anybody here.”

Sidney sat down on the sofa and rubbed his throat.

“I didn’t stop in the café downstairs.

I put my hands on my hips. “There is no way you picked that lock.”

“The Agency has a key.”

I turned my back on him. “Why am I not surprised?”

The Central Intelligence Agency owns the fifteenth century building where I live and work when I’m not out saving the world.

I turned back. “To return to my question,” I pressed. “What brings you here? You’ve never visited me before. You don’t visit your people. You summon them.”

“I’m on my way to a money-laundering conference in Brussels.”

Sidney is the head of the CIA unit that tracks the vast spider web of dirty money, the billions and billions of dollars that are the profits from crime. Money laundering
is big business because crime is big business. From my office in Paris, I pursue the toxic spiders and seize their money. Arms merchants selling death, drug smugglers selling oblivion, slavers selling women and children. We unravel the international web of shady men and shifting entities that keep it all moving. Usually it just goes to
enrich the usual suspects. These days it can also go to fund terrorism.

“Then you should be in Brussels.” I went to get my suitcase and laptop from the hall where I had left them. “This is Paris.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“I was a smart-ass when you hired me, Sidney. You didn’t visit me for the sake of my beautiful green eyes. What do you want?”

“A cup of coffee would be nice,” he said, crossing and recrossing his legs. He’s uncertain about whatever it is, I thought. All he has to do is fold his arms across his chest. He folded his arms across his chest.

“So would an answer,” I said.

He ran his hands through his short gray hair. “I need you to go to Fez. You’ve got a reservation on the two o’clock Air France flight to Casablanca.”

“Wrong answer, Sidney. I just got off the red-eye from Baghdad. Usually you let me do my laundry before you dispatch me to save the world again.” I crossed to the window and looked out. There wasn’t any sun in the street. My street never got any sun. “Why?”

“Alicia Harmon, the woman who runs the Femme Aid office in Fez, has vanished, and she’s got to be found. You know the place and the people better than anyone.”

Femme Aid is part of a network of similar offices the Agency set up around the world to monitor human trafficking. It’s a cover, but it actually does provide help for women in distress.

“Nobody’s seen her since the twenty-first of August,” Sidney said.

“My God, Sidney, that’s two weeks! Why didn’t the station in Rabat do something?”

“They did. They couldn’t find a trace.”

“And I will? Why didn’t you send somebody sooner? I’m not the only person on the payroll.”

Sidney joined me at the window. “I needed you to finish the Baghdad job.”

I turned on him. “Yeah, right. That was real important. I found one and a half billion dollars, a fraction of what the contractors have stolen. The Swiss banks have had to jack their buildings up several feet to accommodate all the new dollars in their basements. It was all computer work; I could just as easily have done it from here.”

“I needed you there to put the fear of God into them.”

I snorted. “Sidney, they fear neither God nor man. There are too many of them. There are more contractors in Baghdad than there are flies.”

“Look, Lee, you set up that office.”

I would not take the dirty black suits out of my suitcase and put the clean ones in without a fight. I was too tired.

“So what? Why does it have to be me? This is a job for Clandestine.”

“You know Fez and the people. Anybody else would have to waste time reading in, and that would take time, Lee. Time we may not have.”

“Sidney, if you’d sent somebody else in the beginning, you would have had more time.”

“That’s not the point. I didn’t. In her last—” He didn’t like the way that sounded. “In her most recent report, she wrote that she had found a link to terrorist money.”

“Terrorist money!”

“Something she stumbled over, I suppose. I wrote asking her what she was talking about, but she disappeared before she answered me. I need you to go and find out if she really learned anything about terrorist funding.”

“Who is she?” I asked. “I never heard of her.”

“She’s a contract employee about five years younger than you are,” he explained. “She came on board right after she graduated from Wellesley. I picked her up at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. She’s descended from generations of slave traders and generations of abolitionists, and she’s passionate about slavery. That’s why I hired her. But she hasn’t got any street-smarts.”

“She’s not supposed to, Sidney. She’s an analyst.”

I moved to the sofa. Rather than take the wing chair facing me, he joined me there, and we sat stiffly side by side. He twisted a gold button on his Yale blazer and looked uncomfortable.

“You’re an analyst, and you’ve got streets-smarts.”

“I’ve developed some. That’s why I’m still alive.”

About the author:

Marilynn Larew was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and after a living in a number of places, including the Philippines and Japan, she finally settled in southern Pennsylvania, where she and her husband live in an 150 year old farmhouse. She has taught courses about the Vietnamese War and terrorism at the University of Maryland and traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. She likes to write about places she has been or places she would like to go. She has published non-fiction about local history, Vietnamese history, and terrorism. This is her first novel.



Connect with the author:
Website| Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads 

Buy the book:
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Featured Author: Mollie Cox Bryan

Great Escapes Book Tours brings Mollie Cox Bryan here today to talk about her brand new novel, Death of an Irish Diva--the third book in the Cumberland Creek mystery series, published by Kensington.

About the book:

Vera's dance studio may have suffered when Emily waltzed into town, but the croppers know she's not a vengeful murderer. Lucky for her, co-scrapbooker Annie is a freelance reporter eager to vindicate her friend. What she discovers is a puzzling labyrinth of secrets that only add question marks to Emily's murder. Just when it seems they've run out of clues, an antique scrapbook turns up and points the croppers in the right direction - and brings them face to face with a killer more twisted than a Celtic knot...

Other books in the series:

  Scrapbook of Secrets (A Cumberland Creek Mystery)
Scrapped (Cumberland Creek #2)

Interview with Mollie Cox Bryan

Mollie, how long have you been writing, and how did you start?

I’ve been telling stories since before I could hold a pencil. I wrote my first novel when I was twelve. I wrote my first FINISHED novel when I was a senior in high school.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I am also a freelance writer and editor. I juggle my novel writing around those assignments.

How do you get to know your characters?

My characters just sort of come to me. When I started writing this book, I settled on three main characters, but there were definitely more. Some of them are working their way in as guest characters later on in the series.

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

I enjoy Beatrice immensely because she tells it like it is. She’s at the age where she has earned it. The other thing I like about her is the way she bridges “old world” Appalachia and the new one.

Are you like any of your characters?

I think there’s a bit of me in each of the characters. With Annie, I was a stay-at-home mom and freelancer for years (and kind of still am) and I definitely am an outsider, like she is. With Vera, I think we are similar in the way of our compassion and our love of dance. With Beatrice...um...let’s just say sometime my honesty gets me into trouble,

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck in a bookstore?

Beatrice. She’s my 80-something-year-old quantum physicist and loves poetry, mostly Walt Whitman. She’s recently taken a liking to mysteries and is a big MC Beaton fan. 


Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

Without giving too much away, the scene I enjoyed the most is toward the end, and I call it the “showdown.” It takes place on the street in the middle of the night, and involves the whole neighborhood.

Who are your favorite authors?

This changes for me from time to time. But right now, my favorite mystery authors are Louise Penny and Elizabeth Peters, but I’m also a fan of MC Beaton, just like Beatrice. I also love Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, and Isabel Allende.

How long is your to-be-read pile?

Too long! This has always been the case for me. But the more I get to know other fiction writers, the more my pile grows. I want to read their books, of course, but also the books that they love. And I try not to read fiction, particularly mysteries when I’m in first draft writing mode. So it tends to pile up.

You get to decide who would read your audiobook. Who would you choose?

Dame Judi Dench. I love her voice, and I think it would be a real kick to hear someone with a British accent read my Southern story.

What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?

Right now I’m reading Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck, non-fiction, and it’s fascinating.


Do you have a routine for writing? 

I used to run every morning then sit down and write. I try to do that now, but with my freelancing schedule, it’s a bit more difficult. If I have a tight deadline, I have to get that first.

But I do try to exercise in the morning, whether it’s running or going to the gym for a Zumba class. I find it really helps get my creative juices flowing—that along with several cups of coffee! Then, ideally I’ll sit down and write a couple of hours. Sometimes, I wake up very early in the morning—around 4 a.m. and I sit down and write then before the day really starts.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?

I write in my “home office,” which is a sun porch. Very nice during certain seasons. I have a couple of good space heaters for the winter, and I’m usually fairly comfortable.

Where’s home for you?

I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, but I live in Virginia, so it’s home now.

What are you working on now?

Right now, I am working on a few things. My next book A Crafty Christmas (Cumberland Creek #4) is in the final production stages, so I just sent back edits to my publisher for it. Also, I’ve started writing book #5 in the series.

About the author:

After years of working as an editor and writer for nonprofits and corporations in the DC area, Mollie gave it all up for the “glamorous” life of a stay-at-home mom and part-time freelance writer. When she moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, she heard stories about the famous Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant and its owner, Mildred Rowe. Intrigued, she investigated and found most of the stories were true. Two cookbooks later, Mollie turned her writing skills to penning mysteries. One of her goals as a writer, as a person, is to explore many venues, genres, and to continue to learn and grow.

She grew up in Western Pennsylvania in a rural area (Raccoon Township) just outside of mill town Aliquippa, known for its football greats. She danced, did gymnastics, and wrote all the way through her youth. She started many novels—but finished her first one when she was a senior in high school. It was called Circles and featured a ballerina involved with a gang.

Today, she is the mom to two daughters who both dance and write. For Mollie, writing is like dancing, breathing, and love. She doesn’t go a day without it.

Connect with Mollie:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Pinterest

Buy the book:
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Featured Author: Jennifer Vessells

Jennifer Vessells birthed two babies last year--one in human form and one in book form. Chick Lit Blog Tours brings her here to talk about the one in book form--her debut novel, Life in Plan B.

About the book:

When twenty-eight year old Haley Simpson, a sales associate for her best friend’s clothing boutique in Columbus, Ohio, begins a secret affair with the boutique’s potential New York City business partner, she digs a cavernous hole of deception that not only threatens to end her blossoming career, but to destroy a life-long friendship. 

Jennifer Vessells's debut novel, Life in Plan B, encompasses everything classic chick lit should: the dynamics of friendship, the nuances of high-reaching career aspirations, and the struggles – both usual and unique – presented by romantic and familial relationships. An entertaining story at every turn, Life in Plan B is identifiable for readers of any age. In short, Ms. Vessells hits her debut novel out of the park!

Interview with Jennifer Vessells

Jennifer, this is your first novel. How long have you been writing, and how did you start?
 
Although it’s hard to believe, I have been writing now for almost two years! The start of it came rather suddenly. I quit my job as a litigation attorney in April 2012 after almost three years of practice. I was very unhappy with what I was doing and knew I needed a change. The idea of authorship started to work its way into the forefront of my mind and eventually lodged itself into my brain, nagging at me until I decided it was the right path to pursue. Quitting a stable job and stopping a promising career as an attorney was scary at first, but with the support of my husband, it’s been a very enjoyable ride! I have never regretted my leap into authorship.

Do you outline, write by the seat of your pants, or let your characters tell you what to write?

With my first novel (and only published novel thus far), Life in Plan B, I wrote by the seat of my pants. I knew generally where the story was going, but always found myself in strange and exciting places at the end of the day. It was fun to wake up and not know where I was going until I got there. Conversely, the novel I’m currently working on (title yet to be released), requires extensive outlining. I’ve known about the novel’s twists and turns from the very beginning, and want to make sure to fit all of the details of the story in the right places. It’s a slower beginning process, but once outlined, I have a feeling the actual writing will be much quicker.

Are you like any of your characters? 

I find pieces of myself in most of the characters, honestly. I write my characters based on people I know or character traits with which I’m familiar - it makes them more real and easier to describe. I’m like Haley in that I have constant feelings of self-doubt. I would say her soul-searching is more extreme than what I’ve experienced, but I can certainly relate to the overall struggles she has with her general self-worth. I’d say that I’m also like Alex in that I’m fiercely loyal to my friends and also maybe a little too honest at times. My husband occasionally suggests that I purchase a filter for my mouth - something for which I think Alex could also find great use.

If you could be one of your characters, which one would you choose?

I think I’d choose Lindsay. Although she faces struggles I never hope to face myself, she seems to be the most grounded of all of the characters. She has a great job, is in a loving, loyal relationship, and is a loyal, even-keeled friend.

What are your favorite books or favorite authors a) as a child; b) as a teenager; c) as an adult?

A) I loved Brian Jacques’ Redwall series as a child.  I read them as soon as I was able, and reread them still to this day.

B) As a teenager, I’m ashamed to admit that I spent most of my time avoiding books (assigned by my English teachers, of course) and perusing Cliff Notes. We shall call this stage in my life the “dark period.”

C) As an adult, it’s too hard to pinpoint a favorite book or author. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I love the Harry Potter series - so much so that I’ve not only read the books a million times, but display them on the mantle above our entryway fireplace. My husband can only roll his eyes at me and pretend he doesn’t love it when we undertake Harry Potter movie marathons.

How do you handle criticism of your work?

From peers who offer to edit and comment on my writing, I take criticism rather well. I remind myself that their suggestions for improvement often do exactly that - improve my writing!

I think it’s harder to take criticism from anonymous reviewers, especially when the criticism is more name-calling than critical. For example, it’s harder for me to stomach “this book was the worst thing I’ve ever read” than it is “I wish she hadn’t written about how green Haley’s eyes were as often as she did - it was annoying.” The first is hard to hear because you don’t have any explanation as to why the reviewer felt that way, whereas the second at least pinpoints what annoyed them!

Where’s home for you?

Columbus, Ohio - more specifically, Victorian Village. This is where Haley lives in Life in Plan B.  I moved here to attend law school and have lived here ever since - a little over seven years now.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Pre-baby (my daughter was born 12/20/2013), I enjoyed soccer, happy hour, football games, and pretty much any other social event out there. Now, I’m just trying to keep my head above water while caring for a newborn!

Congratulations! That's fantastic. Besides taking care of a new baby girl, what are you working on now?

I’m working on a women’s fiction novel based in Durango, Colorado. I don’t want to share too much, but I will say that it involves death, horse racing, romance, and mystery. I’m hoping to announce the title this spring.

About the author:

After practicing law for nearly three years, Jennifer Vessells decided to leave the practice to pursue her dream of being a novelist. After an intensive year and a half of writing, Ms. Vessells is proud to finally present her debut novel to the world - a story that's been marinating since her early college days.

Passionate about women's fiction and children's chapter books, Ms. Vessells plans to enjoy a long writing career. Keep your eye out for more exciting publications from this author in the future!


Connect with Jennifer:
Webpage | Facebook | Twitter 

Buy the Book:
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Featured Author: Kasper Beaumont

Kasper Beaumont is the indie author of an epic fantasy adventure series, Hunters of Reloria. She currently has two novels out, Elven Jewel and Hunters’ Quest, and she's hard at work writing the third book in the trilogy. She's here to talk about her books, writing, and a little bit about herself today.

About the books:

 
Elven Jewel:
The peaceful continent of Reloria is threatened by cruel invaders from the wastelands of Vergash. Halflings Randir and Fendi leave their peaceful farm village with their bond-fairies and race against time to stop the invaders. They join forces with dwarves, elves, men and a mysterious dragon, on a quest to rescue the stolen Elven Jewel. Book one of the trilogy.


Hunters’ Quest: 
Scaly Vergai invaders have captured the Elven Jewel from Reloria. Halfling friends, Randir and Fendi, their
bond-fairies, men, dwarves, an elf and a dragon are a group of brave hunters on a quest to recover the stolen Elven Jewel. They must search for a mage who can make a portal to Vergash to rescue the princess and restore the protective forcefield.

Interview with Kasper Beaumont:

Kasper, tell us the story behind the title of your books.

Elven Jewel is the title of my first book, and it is the crystal which is used to create the Shield of Reloria, which is an invisible forcefield. Naturally, the Vergai invaders are on a mission to steal the jewel.

Hunters’ Quest is the title of the 2nd book in the trilogy. A band of heroes called the Hunters of Reloria set out on a quest to recover the jewel.

Dragon’s Revenge is the final in the trilogy. Those Vergai should have known better than to anger a dragon!

What’s your favorite line from a book?

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.  The more I write, the more true I find this to be.

One of your characters has just found out you’re about to kill him off. He/she decides
to beat you to the punch. How would he kill you?

Well, if it were the dragon, I’d be hiding far, far away from his deadly breath, to be sure.

If you could be one of your characters, which one would you choose?

I think I’d choose Sienna. She's a brave huntress, who is an awesome halfling fighter, seems totally fearless and has a handsome little bond-fairy who can heal her. She’s had a hard life to be sure, but her great attitude and sense of adventure are admirable.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

Most days I would say it is the attack at Stonefield Inn. Of course if I’m in a romantic mood, I do love the picnic at Goblin Falls too.

You can be any fictional character for one day. Who would you be?

I reckon I’d be the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist or maybe Ginger Meggs or Huckleberry Finn.

Are you happy with your decision to self-publish?

Yes, although I still live in hope that Peter Jackson is going to knock on my door and offer me a 3 movie deal.

Don't we all!

I honestly haven’t tried contacting many publishers, because they seem to be looking for works with guaranteed sales these days, so I thought I’d give it a go myself. I tried about three publishers with my first novel before I had it properly edited, and I didn’t hear back. I’ve learnt to accept people's help and advice and try and write the best novels I can. 

Can you tell us a little about your road to publication?

Firstly, I sent my books to a local review company called Writers’ Web. Then I published on Amazon and then Smashwords. I have printed paperback copies of my first book and am in the process of getting the second book printed. 

I think I’ve been very lucky to find people who can help me and teach me the trade, such as my editors and a local artist I discovered.

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

Seriously, I could quote about 100 favourite lines from the Star Wars movies, but I’ll settle for this wise gem from Yoda, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

What three books have you read recently and would recommend?

Fairies of Feyllan by Cat Spydell - a fantasy.
African Hearts by Laura O’Connell - a romance.
Fake Profile by Khyiah Angel - a great book for teens on the hazards of social media.

All three are indie books by up-and-coming new writers. I like to support and review new authors.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing the third novel in my trilogy, Dragon’s Revenge and am doing some epic battle scenes as well as a nice romance. It’s so much fun, and I can’t wait to share it with all of you.
 
Come back when it's done and tell us more about it!

Thanks so much for the interview. I really enjoyed doing it and hope it helps people to understand me a little more and want to read my books.

Book trailer for Elven Jewel

Excerpt from Elven Jewel:

An excerpt from chapter 5 of Elven Jewel and the first time we see the beast...

The characters are 2 elves: Princess Shari-Rose and her guardian Daeron; the dwarven brothers Baja and Raja; and four brave halflings: Old Fandri; his son Fendi; friend Randir and a huntress named Sienna. They have been tracked to an inn by their adversary, the Vergai invaders. 

They followed the sounds of struggling around the corner of the inn and saw an incredible sight. A sopping wet Princess, wearing only a towel, was being held by the arms and legs by four of the scaly Vergai. Another of the creatures was trying to muffle her screams with his clawed hand, which she was biting on as hard as she could and causing him to growl in frustration.



All around them was a battle. Sienna held a green-stained dagger in one hand and was struggling with three of the creatures, two of which had arrows protruding from their torsos. Green blood was drying around the arrow shafts. The huntress stabbed at the invaders and aimed at the thinnest area of their thick hide on the sides of their neck.  Her bond fairy was a short distance away and was so intent in watching the fight that she did not see a Vergai’s rough hand closing around her from behind. The Vergai clapped his hands together and both fairy and halfling collapsed to the ground unconscious.



Fendi had grabbed a long dagger from the inn and Old Fandri drew his broad sword. Fendi was momentarily stunned by being in such close proximity to the large and fearsome Vergai. He exchanged a wide-eyed glance with his father, who gave a short nod. Together they charged towards the Vergai with a roar. Old Fandri stepped ahead to engage a Vergai with his sword and didn’t see one of the creatures whip around and strike Fendi solidly with his long thick tail. The young halfing gave a grunt and fell to the ground.



The final four Vergai were moving to surround Raja, who was flailing about a two-headed axe, as though he was berserk. Baja gave a yell and rushed to his aid. Baja threw a small axe, which felled one of the creatures, and then the dwarf got out a large wooden club and proceeded to bash all the Vergai on their knee caps. The two dwarfs were much shorter than the Vergai (who were about human height), but they made up for it in their fighting prowess. The Vergai all stood well back from the half-crazed little men.



Old Fandri had entered the fight over by the Princess. One of the Vergai had let go of her arms and had rushed at him with a chained morning star, spinning around dangerously.  Fandri was forced back towards the wall of the tavern and stumbled to the ground. The Vergai was just about to land a killing blow with his rotating spike, when a long sword covered in green blood, appeared through his chest. Daeron had come to Fandri’s rescue.



The powerfully-built elf looked dizzy on his feet and still had a bandage wrapped around his head from Lakehaven. He extricated his narrow sword from the Vergai and threw him to the ground. Then he held his hand down to help up the old halfling. “Thanks,” panted Fandri. “I’m getting too old for this.” He looked around and saw that the Vergai were taking advantage of the chaos and half-carrying, half-dragging the screaming Princess off into the night.



Fandri looked at the other fighters and realised that the Vergai were gaining the upper hand. Fendi, Sienna and Baja had been knocked out cold and Raja was the only one still fighting, but was totally surrounded by several big fighters. Old Fandri was just thinking that all was lost when a powerful screech filled the night. There was suddenly a flapping of great wings and a mighty burst of flame lit up the sky. The Vergai around Raja screamed and ran off after the Princess.



The sky went dark again, after that brief burst of light. All that Fandri could see was a huge dark shape, blotting out the stars. It screeched again and gave a huge burst of flame, which whooshed right over the top of the fleeing Vergai. Their thick scaly hides appeared to deflect the flames, but they screamed and howled and ran in all directions.  The winged beast flew to where the other Vergai were running with Shari-Rose and it picked them off her, one by one and threw them far into the distance, where they land with dull thuds.



Then the beast tenderly picked up Shari-Rose in its great talons and very carefully carried her back to the halflings and dwarves. Her wet towel flopped to the ground by Old Fandri’s feet. She looked like a child compared to the enormous creature carrying her carefully in one sharp claw.



By the light from the half-shuttered inn windows, Fandri, Daeron and Raja could see that the beast was a great, grey dragon. Its body was four times as tall as a man and had a thick, scaly hide. Its wing span must have been about 40 foot or more and the flap of the huge wings brought large gusts of air swirling all around them. Emerald jewels gleamed from under the wings, as though they were embedded in the scales. The dragon’s head had many horns and a large mouth with sharp teeth. Its muzzle was long, with wide nostrils, issuing trails of smoke. 

The dragon’s large, yellow eyes looked at each of the fighters below intelligently and then it placed the Princess gently on the ground. Shari-Rose stared up at the great beast which had rescued her and was utterly speechless. She didn’t even have breath to scream in terror. The dragon flapped its gigantic wings and rose up into the sky. It circled the inn once and then flew off in the direction of the Vergai.



Excerpt from Elven Jewel by Kasper Beaumont. © 2013

About the author: 

Kasper J. Beaumont was born and raised in Australia and lives a quiet life with the family in a seaside town. Kasper has combined a love of fantasy and a penchant for travel in this trilogy. Kasper started to write on the urging of friends and family and enjoys watching readers become immersed in the magical world of Reloria.

Connect with Kasper:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |  

Buy the books:
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Smashwords  

Featured Author: Colleen Helme

Colleen Helme and her cozy mystery book, Trapped By Revenge, are on tour with Great Escapes Book Tours and she's here today for an interview. Don't miss the Rafflecopter giveaway after the interview. One person will receive all five books in the Shelby Nichols Adventure series.

About the book:

With summer over Shelby is looking forward to having some time to herself while the kids are back in school. A phone call from Uncle Joey ruins her plans, but she manages to take it in stride. After lunch with her friend, she promises to meet with the private investigator who was spying on Uncle Joey, but this simple task turns into a disaster. Not only does she find the P.I. dead, but a slip of paper with her name on it under his lifeless hand, implicates her for his murder. Desperate to prove her innocence and find the person who killed him, Shelby begins a frantic search. She enlists the aid of the local mob boss, Uncle Joey, his hit-man, Ramos, and her police detective friend, Dimples, but soon finds that nothing can save her from becoming entangled in a sinister plot. With her life on the line and no way out, she finds herself trapped by revenge, and realizes it will take all her skills to escape. Now she must choose where her loyalties lie, and hope she doesn’t trade something bad, for something even worse.

Interview with Colleen Helme

How long have you been writing, and how did you start?

I have been writing seriously for about ten years. I began writing my first book, Flame of Destiny just for fun and enjoyed it so much that I decided to learn all I could about the craft of novel-writing. My sweet husband found a novel-writing class at the community college and signed me up. That great class helped me understand the important aspects of writing, such as; point of view, showing rather than telling, character motivation, writing scenes, the importance of a universal question, and much more! From there I took off and never looked back.

How would you describe Trapped by Revenge in five words?

Suspenseful, intriguing, humorous, fun, page-turner.

What’s your favorite line from a book?

It comes from my first Shelby Nichols Adventure, Carrots: “What people think determines basically who they are. Putting a voice to thoughts doesn't change that. But there are times when we say things that aren't true. Not because we want to lie, but because the truth can cause more harm than good. There are times when a satisfying lie is better than the awful truth.”

Tell us a book you’re an evangelist for.

All of mine!!!

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

Shelby Nichols! I feel like she is my alter-ego in some ways! She gets to do all the crazy things I wouldn’t dare, but then she also gets in a lot of trouble for it.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?

I put my best friend, Holly, in all my books as Shelby’s best friend, and she’s pretty much true to character.

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck in a bookstore?

Definitely Ramos. 


Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

My favorite scene is hard to pick, but I think it would have to be when Shelby is out golfing with Ramos, Uncle Joey and one of the judges. She is just about ready to take her first swing, and hears what all of them are thinking about her...“What a wiggle” Nice butt” and “Babe.” It freezes her in place and she can’t seem to move. Then Ramos comes over and offers his help while he imagines standing behind her and guiding her through a swing or two. It rattles her so much, she drops her golf club.

You get to decide who would read your audiobook. Who would you choose?

I am so lucky because I already have a contract with Wendy Tremont King to narrate Trapped By Revenge! She is an amazing producer and is narrating all of my Shelby Nichols Adventures. Carrots and Fast Money are already available on Audible and iTunes with the rest coming soon! Here’s a link to a sample of what Shelby sounds like on Audible.

I also have an interview with Wendy on my website.

What book are you currently reading? 

Deadly Heat, the latest Richard Castle novel – I love the TV show Castle and have read all the books! So clever to have real books on the market – I would like to know who really writes them!


You won the lottery. What’s the first thing you would buy?

I’d pay off my house and then buy a new car!

You’re given the day off, and you can do anything but write. What would you do?

That’s easy. I’d want to go on a bike ride, and then take a hike in the mountains. After that I’d soak in a nice, hot, bubble bath and read!

What are you working on now?

It’s an urban fantasy that’s been brewing in the back of my mind for a couple of years. Once I’m done with that, I’m on to my next Shelby Nichols Adventure!

About the author:

A long career as a wife and mother while juggling several part-time jobs gave Colleen the ambition to dream of being a published author, where she could put her imagination to good use. Now instead of making up stories to tell her children, she writes books they love to read. Hopefully you will too. She is the author of three romantic fantasy novels, Songbird, Flame of Destiny and The Relic. Her Shelby Nichols Adventures include Carrots, Fast Money, Lie or Die, Secrets That Kill, Trapped by Revenge, and more to come.

Connect with Colleen:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Shelby Nichols Consulting

Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble 
Shelby Nichols Adventure Series:
Carrots | Fast Money | Lie or Die | Secrets That Kill 
Romantic Fantasy:
Songbird | Flame of Destiny | The Relic

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