Featured Author: E.M. Tippetts

I'm happy to welcome E.M. Tippetts, another sister in crime, to A Blue Million Books. You're in for a triple treat today, as she's here with an excerpt from her novel, Nobody's Damsel, and also for a chat, and a guest post.

About the book:

Chloe has just completed her masters degree in forensic science and taken her first job in a crime lab, where she is stalked by the paparazzi. Not because of who she is, but because of whom she's married to: Jason Vanderholt, the hottest actor in Hollywood. When her first case is an abduction of a child, she has to cope with her memories of being a crime victim herself at a young age, while thousands of her husband's screaming fans cheer for her marriage to fail and spread rumors he's hooked up with his latest costar. Jason and Chloe must balance their celebrity marriage with two demanding careers in order to keep the happily ever after they promised each other at their wedding. The odds are entirely against them.

Interview with E.M. Tippetts:

Emily, how did you come up with the title Nobody's Damsel?

Nobody’s Damsel is the sequel to Someone Else’s Fairytale (though you don’t need to read Book 1 to understand Book 2). I wanted to keep with the fairytale theme, but also convey that my main character finds happily ever after a hard sell.

Each of my titles has a hidden meaning too. Someone Else’s Fairytale is about the fairytale of someone in the cast, and while Nobody’s Damsel can convey that my main character doesn’t need to be rescued by a handsome prince, the true meaning of the title is conveyed towards the end of the book.

How did you create the plot for this book?
 
Someone Else’s Fairytale is a romance, and thus doesn’t lend itself to sequels. I’d have to either put the main couple through real turmoil (which would get old after a few books), or, as many other authors do, use an ensemble cast and have each one step up in turn to fall in love. Since this pairing of a forensic scientist and a Hollywood actor is the main draw to the series, that’s not a feasible solution.

So I had to craft a plot that would enable me to expand this franchise into a series, and that’s why Damsel uses the bones of a police procedural for its plot structure. Criminal cases are the sort of thing that repeat over and over with infinite variations. Later books will also use Jason’s job, making films and television. This way we can all spend more time with Chloe and Jason and have a reason for being there, in their world, following another story.

That's great. I love sequels. How do you come up with your cover art? Are you happy with it?

I hired a cover designer for Fairytale, initially, and intended to use her for all my books, but when I showed her my own mock up version of a cover for Fairytale, she told me I simply had to use it. Since I’m not a designer (I know how to use Photoshop because I’m a digital scrapbooker), I had to show the cover to a lot of people and get a lot of positive feedback before I decided to use it. I then designed the cover of Nobody’s Damsel so that it would look similar.

All the rest of my covers, I use a designer for. It’s important to know what you don’t know, and I don’t know cover design. I merely got lucky when I created a book cover that people loved. I don’t have the skills to do it again on purpose.

As for what I think of the cover, I sort of cringe every time I see it and hope against hope that I’m the only one. The cover artist, I have to say, is a dorky writer who eats far too much chocolate, but will insist that such a thing isn’t possible.

Sounds like my kind of girl! Names. Sometimes it's so hard to come up with just the right one. How do you name your characters?

Baby name websites! That and using Google for last names – I type in the name and see if I get hits. If I get none, it’s clearly a very stupid idea for a name. If any living human ever had it, they erased all evidence of the fact.

I also make sure that each character’s name starts with a different first letter unless I want the reader to associate two characters with each other. Married couple minor characters may both have the same first initial, for example.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?

There are a lot of personal touches in my books. While the main characters have bits and pieces of real people in them, I always switch it up so that the character isn’t based on any one person.

But there are minor characters and objects taken straight from reality. Boots, the cat owned by Chloe’s in-laws was a real cat who passed away not long before the book went to press. I was talking to his owner who was very upset, so I offered to put him in the book so he could live on.

The car that Kyra, one of the minor characters, drives is a real car previously owned by my best friend (and the dedicatee of Someone Else’s Fairytale). She had to sell that car and again, I offered to immortalize it in the book so that she didn’t have to really say goodbye.

And then there are a lot of in-jokes between me and my best friend about where events are located, but I can’t reveal them without giving away information about my friend, who isn’t a public figure and deserves her privacy.

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck on a deserted island?

None of them! After what I put them through? Are you kidding? They’d torture me, no doubt. Though I always go for a happy ending, the road to the ride off into the sunset is always a rough one.

How do you handle criticism of your work?

There are two kinds of criticism I face, criticism from other writers and criticism from fans. For writerly criticism I draw on my experience at the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, which uses the following critique style:

- The whole group (there were 17 of us) reads your story
- We all meet together and each person gets 3 minutes to critique your story and say what’s wrong with it
- At the end, you may ask for clarification of points and say thank you. You cannot argue.

This, I think is the only way to deal with criticism. Allow it to happen, take it on board when it makes sense to you, and never, ever argue. After I attended Clarion West, I joined a writers group that used the same critique style and met with them once a month for ten years, so I’m quite used to this form of criticism.

Criticism from fans is more new to me, but here I have a different approach. I don’t believe bad reviews exist, really. There are two kinds of reviews, ones from your target audience and ones from outside your target audience, which will always sound negative. There’s little point arguing with or stressing over what these people say. Rather, you let their reviews help deter other people like them from picking up your book.

That's a good philosophy. What about routines? Do you have one for writing? Do you work better at night, in the afternoon, or in the morning?

I don’t have the luxury of a routine, and I think that makes me lucky. In order to write at all, I need to be able to write anywhere, with any space of time I can find. I do a lot of writing on the couch while my boys play with Legos on the floor, and a lot of writing while sitting on my bed after dinner, but I can also write while on travel, while stuck in a train station, while my children play at the park. Maybe someday, when my kids are older, I’ll have routines, but right now I can’t afford them.

You are quite prolific. Do you ever get writer’s block? What do you do when it happens?

Writer’s block, for me, is a symptom that something in the story isn’t working, so that’s when I get analytical. I’ll draw out the plot in my mind, examine the characters, and look at the sequence of scenes. I appreciate writer’s block because it makes the book better in the end, even if it’s not fun to endure. If I can’t diagnose the problem, I’ll use my husband as a sounding board, and if this fails, I seek help from other writers and listen to their diagnoses.

Having said that, I don’t produce perfect novels, so a lot of imperfections do not cause writer’s block for me. It’s the big issues that derail the plot or damage character chemistry that pull me up short. I actually hope to get more and more writer’s block as I go on, because I’d take that to mean I’m even more aware of all the ways my writing is lacking.

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

I love to listen to music and watch movies and television. I don’t own a television or radio and rarely go to the movies, so these are all a treat for me. This just shows how much time I spend on writing. It’s a full time job on top of being a stay-at-home mother (which is also a full time job). People are often amazed at how many hours a week I spend writing, plotting, breaking scenes, and editing, but I don’t see why it should be surprising. If you want to do good work, you’ve got to put in the hours. Most jobs don’t require 40+ hours a week because bosses are mean. To get things done requires a real time investment.

I agree. You live in London. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

With my family. I plan to enjoy every moment I can of my children growing up because these are days that will never come again. Wherever they are is where I want to be, and once they’re grown, I look forward to having it be just my husband and I again. He’s been my best friend for over a decade and has always supported my writing. I in turn support him by moving wherever we need to for his job. Anywhere can be home, as long as it’s with the people I love.

You are so right about enjoying every moment. Though I enjoy both my sons as a grown up and an almost grown up, those early days are precious ones. What are you working on now besides raising your children?

I am working on the sequel to my YA book, Castles on the Sand. This sequel is new adult, rather than YA, and the challenge is that the viewpoint character has schizophrenia. My experience with how mental illness is portrayed in the arts isn’t positive. Too often the mentally ill person is caricature, dangerous or evil, or the subject of comedy. This story is about one man trying to hold it together and get over the girlfriend he dumped years ago, if only she’d stop hanging around. It’s hard to love your best friend when you feel thoroughly unlovable.

Wow. Sounds great. Puleeease come back and tell us about it when it's out.

More books by E.M. Tippetts:

Excerpt from Nobody's Damsel:

When I hauled the glass door of the convenience store open, the first thing I saw was the current issue of Entertainment Weekly with a picture of Jason and Gigi Malone on the cover. Gigi had her blue eyes wide and innocent and bit her lip for effect. She wore a business suit, while Jason stood behind her in a gray t-shirt that stretched over the contours of his biceps. His blue eyes were slightly narrowed and gazed out with smoldering intensity. His dark hair was longer than he wore it now, and with one hand he’d reached around Gigi and was unbuttoning the top button of her blouse. A swirling tattoo snaked up his arm. They’d added the tattoo digitally when someone at the studio decided it would give him greater sex appeal.

Even in a picture, his gaze brought me up short. I looked back at the white car and saw another vehicle pull into the station and park next to it. Two cars at this place at this hour? I ducked inside, only to see what was on the rest of the magazine rack.

Photo after photo of my scowling face burned into my retinas. “Trouble in Paradise?” said one headline. “Jason Vanderholt’s Leading Lady No More!” “Yes, Jason, You Can Do Better!” “How Did She Ever Turn Jason V.’s Head?” “Still Working the Backup Plan?” That last one was under a picture of me wearing my backpack, on my way home from classes.

It was official: according to the media, Jason and I were through.

The door chimed behind me and I made myself walk. A picture of me reading the headlines would just be too perfect, so I ducked down an aisle devoted to a hundred different flavors of beef jerky and headed for the glass fronted refrigerator in the back while I tried to collect my thoughts. I had to get home and get ready for work in a couple of hours. Calling someone seemed like an overreaction. This was my life now. I was famous by association, and I couldn’t hide from that forever. What I needed to do was just walk out, head back to the house, and ignore that stupid car.

But a glance out of the corner of my eye let me know that the person who’d followed me in was a burly, sullen looking man who stood just inside the door, his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t seem like a photographer, and I wished he did. That carriage and the way he looked the room over screamed out that he was casing the store. The last thing I needed right now was to be caught up in a holdup. When I looked over at the person working the register, I saw it was a young woman, likely not even out of her teens. She read a magazine, completely oblivious to the threatening figure in the doorway.

In a play for time, I grabbed a bottle of water, its smooth plastic cool against the palm of my hand, and headed up to the counter, only to remember that I didn’t have my wallet on me, just a credit card, and on that credit card was my married name, Chloe Vanderholt. People seemed to think it was an odd decision for me to take Jason’s last name (and yes, he used his real name for his career), but my maiden name, Winters, belonged to my absent, married-to-another-woman father and the half brother who once tried to kill me. Much as I hated the harassment that came with being a Vanderholt, I was happy to be a Vanderholt. I just wished I had a secret identity I could whip out in a situation like this.

I glanced back and saw the guy was on his way over to join me at the counter. With my thumb, I turned my engagement ring around so that the seven carat stone rested against my palm. It was a stupid thing to wear on a run, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it at my sister-in-law’s house. It was worth nearly as much as said house.

The guy was right behind me, now, out of my line of sight. I fumbled my credit card out onto the counter and the girl picked it up, swiped it, glanced at the back, then froze. Her hazel eyes registered shock as she looked up at me.

I took a deep breath. I could handle this.

“Are you related?”

“To?” I played dumb.

“Jason Vanderholt.” She said it like I must be a total idiot not to know his name. I wondered if she were from out of town because it was well known around Albuquerque that the Vanderholts were local. Jason visited all the time. That was how he and I were able to have a relationship while I was an undergrad at the University of New Mexico.

“Vanderholt’s my husband’s name.”

“So are you related to him by marriage?”

I shrugged as if I didn’t know or much care. “Maybe.” I scrawled my signature on the receipt and slid it across the counter.
The man behind me shifted his weight and cleared his throat. I sensed, before I saw, him start to sidle around me and I backed away from the counter, turned, and made a break for outside.

“Chloe,” he said.

I skidded to a stop and my hands hit the glass of the door, hard.

The girl behind the counter screamed.

The guy began to laugh and readjusted his baseball cap, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Jason," I said, "what are you doing here?”

Guest post by E.M. Tippetts

Writers: Otters vs. Seals

I was at a writers convention in Albuquerque when one of the panelists (on a panel I’ve long since forgotten the name of) explained the difference between otters and seals. Seals, she claimed, were easy to train. The did a trick, you gave them a reward, and they knew they’d get the reward every time they did a trick. Otters, on the other hand, were hard to train. When they do a trick and get a reward, they immediately do a different trick, believing that they need to continue to impress if they want to keep getting rewards. Readers, this author claimed, liked seals. Writers tend to be otters.

Now, I don’t claim to know anything about training otters or seals, but the author had a point. How often do we see what looks like the same book written and rewritten sailing up the bestseller lists? How many authors can we think of who seem to always have the same story out with different names and maybe a different setting? And how many of us authors would rather drive nails through our toes than repeat the stories we’ve already told? How often do we look at a new book as an opportunity to try something new and grow artistically? And does this really mean that the only people who can sell a lot of books are the ones with no real range? I don’t claim to have definitive answers here, but I do have thoughts.

My first thought is that telling the same story and delivering the same feel aren’t equal. Readers want the same feeling they got from your last book, and telling the same story might achieve this or it might not. Rather than just retell the same story, I think we as writers should dig deeper into what it was about the story that the readers liked. Was it the strong main character? Then keep your main characters strong. Was it the dreamy love interest? Then keep going the dreamy route. We can deliver a comparable experience without just rehashing old material. Whenever we do something new, we shouldn’t take a flying leap into the abyss of the unknown, but rather take a few tried and true building blocks for a starting point.

My second thought is that readers aren’t really clueless about re-reading the same stories. They don’t particularly like it either, but if they’re going to spend good money on a book, they tend to be conservative. If you seem like you’ve gone off and done something weird, they won’t buy. It’s one thing to stretch yourself creatively, and quite another to never learn anything from what you write. Writers who are scattershot and have wildly different sales rates for their books aren’t learning what works. It’s too cynical to say that readers aren’t adventurous. They, like the rest of us, have limited time and money, and most read for pleasure. They won’t pick up an odd looking or sounding book anymore than they’d plan a holiday in a place they know absolutely nothing about.

My third thought is that this comes down to branding, as everything seems to these days. It’s not about doing the same tricks, it’s about getting across a coherent look and feel to your writing. Can we convey to the reader what sort of stories we like to tell? Is it warm and fuzzy happy ending romance or blisteringly suspenseful mystery or laid back and hilarious women’s fiction? I’m going to assert that if we can get our branding right, we writers will have more, not less freedom in what we write. Someone who picks up a book of ours with a certain expectation and has that expectation satisfied will pick up another book and another. They won’t mind that we switched up the plot or used a very different main character provided we didn’t muck with our brand. If our books are warm and fuzzy, they don’t have to all be set in the same place. If they’re suspenseful, there’s little point in always having the same crime. If they’re funny, we need to know if it’s our style writing or our character that gets the laughs and keep whichever it is.

As you can probably guess, I’ve been working hard on my brand, and not because I’m turning into a seal. I’ll always be an otter, but I want people to be able to tell me apart from all the other otters out there. That, I think, is the crux of the issue. We as writers need to be memorable by choosing what impression we want to make, and then making that impression consistently. Having said that, I’m not sure I accomplish this at all! But I hope I understand the theory, at the very least.

About the author:

Emily Mah Tippetts writes romance as E.M. Tippetts and science fiction and fantasy as Emily Mah. She is a former attorney with degrees in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and business law from UCLA.

Originally from New Mexico, she now lives in London with her family. When she isn't chasing her small children or writing, she designs jewelry.

For more information or to sign up for updates on future book releases, visit: 
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon




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Featured Book: The Judas Kiss

Today Tess Tremaine talks with homicide detective Benjamin Elijah Stanford, from Angella Graff's urban fantasy, The Judas Kiss. And keep scrolling and reading--you'll find an excerpt from the book and a chance to enter a giveaway.

About the book:

Judas’ Kiss haunts him 2 millenia into his unending existence. Torn between petty gods and their hunger for power, a faithless police officer slips further into machinations that have already cost the life of someone he loved. Mark’s story finally begins to unfold in the newest volume of Angella Graff’s well received series: The Judas Curse.

Just as Detective Ben Stanford is ready to put the past at rest, he’s pulled down once again into the chaos of gods, theology, and mystery. Told that his sister is alive and the two immortals, Mark and Judas, have been kidnapped by the treacherous goddess, Nike, Ben must find a way to rescue the pair before she can harness their powers.

While Mark waits alone, forced to write out the story of how their powers came to be, and Judas lay tortured by the angry Goddess, a reluctant Ben must enlist the help of an unwilling being from the ancient Norse Pantheon.
Time is ticking, and the hard-headed detective must use everything he learned in the past to prevent another disaster, which could potentially wipe-out the human race.

About the character:

Benjamin Stanford is a homicide detective for the San Francisco PD. Growing up with an alcoholic mother, Ben took care and raised his younger sister, Abigail. A hard-nosed Atheist, Ben will do anything to rationalize what he sees, and has no problem taking even his most loved ones to task when he feels he doesn’t have any other choice.

Tess Talks to Benjamin:

Ben, how did you first meet Angella?

As far as I know, she dreamed me up out of nowhere. Originally I was supposed to be some beer-guzzling frat-bro, and the twin brother of Abby, best friends with Judas and Mark.  Apparently her book took a really bizarre turn somewhere and here I am. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.

Want to dish about her?

God yes, please. What a sadist. I’m not even kidding. She’s written me with this hideous backstory, the kid who had to be the parent to his own mother and baby sister? Then killing everyone and just sort of knocking me around until I don’t know up from down.  She’s not my favorite person, let me tell you. And she’s extremely unfocused. 9uipl[mnk  I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, trying to write a detective, but it’s a load of crap.  That’s all I’m saying.

That's just crazy. I'm so sorry for you. My author, Amy Metz is very nice. She let me meet a handsome man and fall in love. Sorry. I don't mean to rub it in. Although...she did put me through some pretty scary times. Hmmm...sorry, this isn't about me, is it? Did you ever think that your life would end up being in a book?

Absolutely not. What a joke. Of course when things started getting crazy and Greek gods started popping out of the freaking walls, I guess it just makes sense, doesn’t it?

Well, when you put it that way, yes...But Angella must have given you some nice parts in the book. Tell us about your favorite scene.

Any scene where I’m not being pummeled, physically or mentally. I was pretty impressed with reading Mark’s back story, and I had no idea how much he really went through. It changed my perspective on a lot of things.

I'm guessing you had a hard time convincing Angella to write particular scenes for you. What do you wish she would have written into the story?

As much as I begged for some time off, she just wouldn’t relent. All I wanted was a little time to heal, but she only gave me a short while.

That's just awful. What do you like to do you get a few minutes away from Angella?

I love to watch TV. Old 1970’s action flicks are some of my favorites. The more guns and bigger the explosions, the better. 

Oh, you men and your guns and explosions. If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?

Well I’d probably keep my sister alive, to tell the truth. Actually all of it, just re-write all of it and leave me alone, you sadist!

Well, we certainly get how you feel about Angella. What do you think of your fellow characters? Tell the truth, now.

Oh, I have no problems telling the truth. Mark is a smarmy ass. He’s cocky and weird, and I can’t make heads nor tales of that guy. Jude, that guy is just a hot mess. He doesn’t make sense when he talks, he stares off into space, I just...I try and steer clear of that guy. Stella, well I love her, I really do, and that’s saying a lot for me because I do not love easily. She’s smart and strong, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone, and that’s important in a woman. As for the others, I could take them or leave them.

Do have any secret aspirations that Angella doesn’t know about?

I feel like I shouldn’t say here, she does not need that much control!

Understood. If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?

I would probably drink. A lot. Drink, sleep, eat something really bad for me, watch TV until my eyes burn, and absolutely refuse to answer any calls.



What are you most afraid of?

All of this being real. Obviously these gods or whatever, they’re something, but the thought of them being right, I think, is the scariest thing in the world to me.

What aspect of Angella’s writing style do you like best?

She has a great grip on dialogue, and when she works hard, her descriptive scenes are pretty awesome. I think she’d do a great job writing a historical novel, maybe about Mark, let me rest in peace for a while.

If your story were a movie, who would play you?

I’m sure Angella would pick one of her snarky British actors she’s so in love with, but I think I’d like to see a real down to earth guy tackle my role. Maybe Mark Ruffalo?

Will you encourage Angella to write a sequel?

Please no. No. Get a new hobby. How about just kill us all and just be done with it!

Darlin', you really need to come to Goose Pimple Junction. You are way too stressed. 

Excerpt from The Judas Kiss

I had one chance, and that was to beg Yosef to take me in. When my grandfather couldn’t find me, he’d eventually leave Alexandria and I would be free. I couldn’t live in the Senate and debate with those horrible old men about things I didn’t know or didn’t care about. I wanted to be free to learn everything, to take my place in my life with the people I chose, and I couldn’t have it any other way. Any other way, and I would die.

It wasn’t long before my grandfather retired for the night; he was very old and when he slept, he didn’t hear me creep out the front door and hurry down the street. It was late, the moon was shining full overhead, and I navigated my way through the streets with ease.
I knew the house of Yosef would be asleep, but I was counting on Yosef to be working fierce into the deep, early morning hours. I could hear the rough scraping sounds as he rubbed down wood as I turned the corner. Bypassing the front door, I crept to the side and around to the back where he was.

He was working by moonlight, the full moon providing him with exactly what he needed, and as I stepped up to the table, he startled. “What are you doing here?” he hissed when he realized it was me. “Makabi, do you realize how late it is?”

“My mother died,” I said miserably, and for the first time since she’d gone, I cried. I was just a small boy right in that moment, letting my sack slide down my leg and I crumpled to the ground.

Yosef came around the table and picked me up, holding me tight as I sobbed, feeling her loss, grieving for the loss of her life, and the loss of the future that I had so desperately wanted. “Hush now,” he said, rocking me slightly.

It only took a few moments for the sobs to subside and I wiped at my face with a dirty palm. “My grandfather wants me to go to Rome.”

“I see,” he said slowly.

“I don’t want to go,” I continued. “I want you to take me in. Please.”

“I can’t,” he said, letting his hand rest on my shoulder. “You’re young and I know you are happy here, but you’re a Roman citizen, Makabi. I can’t take you in.”

“I’m just a kid,” I cried, and then fell again into sobs so fierce that as Yosef sat there and rubbed my back, I fell asleep.

I woke the next morning lying on the floor next to Yehuda. Although the twins were mirror images of each other, I’d learned to recognize the subtle differences between them. Yeshua also carried a light but etched scar on his right temple, the product of an accident when he was very young.

I scrubbed at my face, yawning and blinking against the sun’s first rays pouring in through the open door. As I stirred, Yehuda did as well, and he looked as surprised to see me as I was to find myself on their floor.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I um,” I said and looked around. My bag was lying in the corner of the room neatly, and I’d been tucked in by a rather rough covering made from material I didn’t recognize. “My mother died,” I finally said.

Yehuda’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”

“My grandfather wants me to go to Rome. I came to beg your father to take me in.”

This obviously worried Yehuda, and he crossed his arms as he stood up, stretching his back just a little. “Keeping you from your grandfather could put my parents in danger,” he warned.

“I’ll hide. They’ll never know, and if they find me, I’ll take the blame,” I begged.

“We’ll let you stay here, but if anyone comes looking for you, I’m afraid we’re going to have to turn you over,” came the soft voice of Maryam from the doorway.

My eyes widened as I looked at her, and fought the urge to rush and hug her. My mother was gone now, and Maryam had always been so kind. “Thank you,” I whispered, trying my best not to cry.

“You boys need to eat,” she said, nudging the sleeping form of her younger son Yaakov. The twins’ smaller sisters were already awake, playing loudly outside as Yosef helped prepare a breakfast of dried fish and bread.

I offered them coins to help pay for food, but Yosef and Maryam refused to take money from me, claiming that they had no need of coins from a boy when they could feed me just fine. I didn’t argue, and simply followed the routine of the home, getting straight to work as I had done before my mother fell so ill.

The hard labor of etching and carving, polishing and hammering took my mind off of my dead mother, and my possible fate if my grandfather found me and took me to Rome. As the day passed, every footfall I assumed was that of a Roman soldier coming to take me away from this family and force me back to a place I didn’t want to be. But every footfall turned out to be nothing, and by the time the sun set and we sat around preparing to sleep, I felt more and more at ease that maybe the old man had forgotten me.

The truth was, until I was nearly a man, I thought my grandfather had just never bothered to look very hard. It was only when I was viewing some scrolls from Rome that I found out the old man had died that night, and no one had bothered to look for the young child that escaped the house. The servants had been reassigned, the house sold, and my name had been forgotten. My father never inquired about me, and my brothers had gone on to train and die in the service of the Caesar.

I’d been with the family of Yosef for almost half a year when it happened. It was the middle of the night, and we were sleeping soundly until I woke at the sounds of hushed, frantic voices.

“You think they mean to come for him?” came the fierce whisper of Maryam. She and Yosef were in another room, but through the silence of the night, their voices carried.

“I can only suspect yes,” Yosef replied in the same hushed manner.

Yehuda, who lay beside me, shifted, and in the dark, I could just make out one of his eyes open. “What’s going on?” he whispered almost inaudibly.

“I don’t know,” I hissed back. “I think your parents are arguing.”

We both rolled over onto our stomachs to listen. Our whispers had caused us to miss some of the conversation, but my stomach sank when I heard, “We have no other choice but to go.” That was Yosef, and he sounded absolute. “We need to leave now, Maryam, if we want to make it before they can reach the city and find where we’ve gone. They found him as an infant, they’ll find him again.”

“They must be talking about the men from the East coming for your brother,” I whispered.
The noise of footsteps caused Yehuda and I to throw ourselves back down and we both quickly tried to even our breaths, pretending to be asleep. Sounds of shuffling items filled the room, and after a few minutes, we were shaken awake.

“What’s going on?” Yehuda asked, attempting to sound like he’d been fast asleep.

“I have no time to explain. I need you to get your brothers up, and we need to pack the home,” Yosef said, not bothering to cover his voice much. “We have to leave.”

“Where are we going?” Yeshua asked, now awake and attentive.

“Back home. To Galilee,” Yosef said, his voice heavy and deep with regret.

I wasn’t sure what that meant for me as I sat there while the sons of Yosef began to scramble to put their most valuable things in sacks. After a few moments, Yosef fixed me with a firm eye. “Are you not intending to help, Makabi?”

“I wasn’t sure...” I said, trailing off. “What does this mean for me?”

“You asked me to take you in as one of my own, and I’ve done so. If we leave, you will come with us. Now get to work,” he snapped, but the edge was absent from his voice.

Flooded with pride and relief, I jumped up and began to grab and pack everything that Yosef pointed to. I wasn’t sure how we were going to carry it all, or how we were going to get to Galilee from Alexandria, but I was ready to go. Armed with packs of items from the home, and my small meager belongings, we started out on the road.

About the author:

Angella Graff was born and raised in the desert city of Tucson, Arizona. She married and became a mother very young, and after getting started with her family, began her University studies where she found her passion for creative writing, history and theology.
She now resides in Tucson with her husband Joshua, three children, Christian, Isabella, and Adia, and their three cats, Archive (Ivy), Lasciel, and Fix. She prefers to spend her days writing, gardening, and reading non-fiction theology theory books. Angella is also an avid, if not fanatic fan of Doctor Who and BBC Sherlock, which tend to dominate her dry, sarcastic humor, a lot of which is apparent in her writing.

Currently Angella is working on an Urban Fantasy series called The Judas Curse, involving extensive research into Mythos, Christianity and history. The first book of The Judas Curse, The Awakening, was released November 2012.

To learn more about the author, visit the Author Showcase and In A Nutshell Interview.


Connect with Angella:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon page

Buy the book:
Amazon  | Createspace

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Fearured Author: Billie Thomas

Another of the fantastic four authors from Cozy Mystery Book Tours is here today. Don't miss the details of how to enter at the bottom of this post. In April, the main character in Murder on the First Day of Christmas, Chloe Carstairs, was here, and I'm delighted to have her author, Billie Thomas, here today. I love Billie's book as well as her sense of humor. Meet Billie Thomas and her debut novel...

About the book:

Finding a severed hand at a client’s house might throw lesser decorators off their games. But Chloe Carstairs and her mother, Amanda, won’t let a little thing like murder keep them from decking the halls. With a body under the partridge’s pear tree and a dead Santa in a sleigh, they have to crack the case before the killer strikes again – this time much too close to home.

Filled with laugh-out-loud humor, romance and a delightfully difficult mother-daughter relationship, this new series from Billie Thomas offers a fast-paced caper as these two southern ladies try to keep their very merry Christmas from turning into the Noel from hell.

Interview with Billie Thomas:

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

I’ve been a writer since before I could hold a pencil. In school, I would actually write the books I did book reports on. (I can’t believe my teachers let me do that.) It always came so naturally to me that it was – and still is – a joy.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I’m an Associate Creative Director at an advertising agency, which means I get to make a living writing. I come up with ideas for television commercials, radio spots, print ads, and websites. If you’ve had a craving for a Little Debbie snack cake or a burning desire to bundle your services with AT&T, you might have me to thank.

That's so cool! You're like a real live Peggy Olsen. Okay, Mad Lady, give me a tweet about your book. (140 characters or less.)

He was making a list. Checking it twice. Till someone put Santa permanently on ice. http://tinyurl.com/cqa323b

What books have you read more than once or want to read again?

If books were boys, I’d be considered a stage-five clinger. I latch onto one and won’t let go. I read the same books over and over, loving the way my interpretation changes – or doesn’t change – with whatever’s going on in my life at the moment. Some of the ones I go back to time and again are The Shining, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, A Confederacy of Dunces, all the Harry Potter books, all the Sue Grafton and Lee Harris’s books...man, I really do have a problem.

Not a problem--just a passion! What do you do to market your book? 


I let my main character Chloe Carstairs do most of my marketing. Chloe has her own website, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter accounts. She’s got her own distinct voice and personality, so I let her live in the spotlight. I prefer to stay under the paparazzi’s radar.

Something tells me you have just a distinct voice and fun personality as Chloe. She's obviously one of your imaginary friends. Do you have others?

I have my muse. Or maybe I should say she has me. I call her Stella because of her fondness for Belgian beer. We brainstorm ideas together – whether it’s for a book, an ad campaign or a problem I’m wrestling with in real life. When I’m writing, I make a concerted effort not to control the narrative. To jump in with how I think the story should go or what I need my character to do. I find if I let Stella take the lead while I daydream and free-write in my journal I catch her flights of fancy like butterflies in a net, which helps me make intuitive leaps in my writing – and, often, in my life – that surprise and delight me.

I love that. Does Stella have a sister you could send my way? Are any of your characters inspired by real people? Who?

Several of my characters are inspired by real people in my life. The mother-daughter relationship is like a greatest-hits version of the one I had with my own mother. When my mom died unexpectedly of an aneurism at the end of 2011, I was so glad I had this book and that it was the first in a series. Working on it makes me feel close to her.

Are you and Chloe alike?

Chloe and I are more than I’d like to admit, especially since I’m older than her. It doesn’t bode well for her that I’m still trying to solve the mystery of my own love life.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

I love the scene in which Chloe questions Lance, the smarmy Pilates instructor about his affair with one of the women she considers a suspect. Here’s an excerpt:

     Lance Martin was strutting in from the pool like an over-tanned god in his tiny Stars-and-Stripes Speedo. Apparently, he was the only one who hadn’t noticed that the unheated water had him flying at half-mast. Ignoring two girls giggling by the smoothie machine, I approached him, my eyes fixed squarely on his.

     “Hey, Chloe-Jo. Whattaya know?” He gave a satisfied nod, as if he had known this moment would come and I was right on schedule.

     “Not much. Just wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions.”

     He smiled indulgently. Questions. Yeah, that’s what they all say.

     “It’s about Nancy Browley. One of your clients?”

     He nodded, fixing me with an intense look that probably made dozens of bored housewives slide the passenger seat of their SUV’s into the recline position. “I hear you,” the look said, “and I think what you’re saying is important.”

     Trying not to be completely grossed out as Lance toweled off his sinewy muscles in a suggestive manner, I pushed on. “It’s just that some people are saying you and she have more than a client-trainer relationship.”

     His intense gaze never wavered as he nodded thoughtfully.

     “I mean, I don’t care if it’s true. I’m certainly not some big stickler for the rules. I was just wondering if, you know, it was.” He was really weirding me out with that stare.

     “Was what?” he asked finally.

     “Was true.”

     “What’s true?”

     “That you and Nancy have a relationship.”

     “Nancy who?”

     I managed to hide my frustration, but really. That Speedo must’ve been tighter than it looked.

     “Nancy Browley. Are you guys...um...dating?”

     He smiled broadly, his towel now covered in the bronzer that enhanced his golden tan. God, I hate being single.

That is a great scene. What do you like to do when you’re not writing or interviewing smarmy Pilates instructors?


I love cooking, hiking with my Rhodesian Ridgeback, Kamali, and traveling. Every chance I get, I take off for somewhere exotic: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Peru, and Costa Rico just to name a few.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on the second in the Chloe Carstairs Mysteries series, Murder in a Two-Seater. After helping transform an old – and supposedly haunted – castle into a bed-and-breakfast, Chloe and Amanda find themselves embroiled in another investigation when the wife of their client winds up dead in a classic car.

I'm looking forward to reading it and having you back here to talk about it!

Hey, y'all, I told you Billie has a great sense of humor, and here's evidence in her tweets. They're always entertaining. Check it:

Recent Chloe Carstairs tweets:

• When I said add a splash of color, I meant throw pillows. Not blood splatter.

• Shift into neutral this season. Soothing earth tones make yellow crime scene tape pop.

• A cold draft, shadowy corners and creaky floorboards transform any room into a panic room!

• Color on the ceiling draws the eye upward. As will that body hanging from the rafters.

• A real wood fire adds instant ambiance. And quickly burns the will you’re left out of.

• Opt for heavy fabrics in light colors so your wingback chair won’t feel as cold and stiff as the body slumped in it.
  
  

About the author:

Billie Thomas works at an advertising agency, which might explain why she's constantly thinking up ways to kill people without getting caught. She lives in Birmingham, has a really cute boyfriend and an even cuter dog. She is a founding member of the writing collective, IndieVisible. Murder on the First Day of Christmas is her first novel. Other publications include Bar Code: Your Personal Pocket Decoder to the Modern Dating Scene.




Connect with Billie Thomas and her protagonist Chloe Carstairs:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Links to books
Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

The Fantastic 4 Cozy Mystery Book Tour Giveaway

There will be four prize packages:

Prize 1 (US/Canada only)
* a Kindle Touch
* a $15 Amazon.com giftcard

Prize 2 (International)
* a Kindle copy of Topped Chef and Bowled Over
* a $15 Book Depository giftcard

Prize 3 (International)
* a Kindle copy of Murder on the First Day of Christmas & Game Drive
* a $15 Amazon.com giftcard

Prize 4 (US/Canada)
* your choice of a cozy mystery paperback (up to $25 in value)

To enter:
1. Fill in the form here.
2. There is no requirement to follow any of the blogs participating, but we hope you will support these amazing blogs by following them. They do a great job, many of whom host for us every month.
3. Giveaway ends on May 15, 2013 at midnight and the winners will be contacted via email.

Featured Author: Peter J. Ochs II

About the book:

An MIT astrophysicist is called upon to continue the investigation of a lost civilization on the Arabian Peninsula after the unfortunate and untimely death of the expedition’s lead archeologist. Just why an astronomer is called upon a situation where he is evidently “a fish out of water” is not exactly clear, but his involvement is not accidental and his role becomes pivotal as the story develops.

The research revolves around the location of a cluster of lost cities in the southern Arabian Peninsula that was believed to have been settled over 3000 years ago by a group of people migrating from the Mediterranean with ties to Ancient Greece. This group appears to have been guided to the site by an enigmatic figure who continues to crop up throughout the history of the settlement even though the recorded evidence suggests that the settlement was active for over 800 years. Some time in its ninth century of existence, the civilization and its intriguing father-figure vanished abruptly somewhere about the time of the well known and chronicled collapse of a great earthen dam.

As sites are revealed and artifacts are recovered, the astronomer is drawn into a complex  scenario where his very actions will trigger the story’s climatic events and reveal the identity of the settlement’s mentor.

Interview with Peter Ochs

Peter, what made you decide to become a writer?

I had done some sporadic writing since my college years writing an occasional article or essay and an attempt at a screenplay, but I began in earnest in 1996 when I got the opportunity to write my first book, the Maverick guide to Oman which was eventually published in 1998. Having lived in Oman for several years, I saw the need for a guidebook in a newly developing market in the Middle East. I approached several publishers and eventually got the contract with Pelican Publishing of Gretna, Louisiana. Pelican specialized in guidebooks to off-the-beaten-track destinations, and this fit the bill perfectly.

What do you like best about writing?

What I like about writing is the freedom of expression of putting your feelings down.

What’s your least favorite thing?

What I dislike is rewriting. It is a lot harder to rewrite a book than it is to write it.

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

Without giving too much away, my original idea for the book, Eyes of the Sage, was based on an idea for an illustration of someone I admired (I was a struggling artist before I became a struggling writer). That illustration developed into the mosaic that is found in the book. There are other lingual turns of phrase that evoke the central character who is called “Al Ayn,” which is the Arabic word for “eye.”

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I am a Certified Interpretive Guide working in Yellowstone National Park.

Cool. How would you describe your book in a tweet? (140 characters or less.)

To paraphrase Umberto Eco from The Name of the Rose: To describe the book properly would take as long as the book itself, contrary to usage.

How did you create the plot for this book?

The early development of the plot arose out of the idea that this story, or plotline would be the basis for a role playing game involving player/characters to solve mazes and puzzles that were built into the story with emphasis on the puzzle solving. After successfully completing all the puzzles, the player/characters would be rewarded with a huge pyro-technic finale, which eventually made its way into the plot of the finished book. I actually made a “playable” version of the story done on a tabletop like an average RPG game with maps, cards and puzzle pieces.

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

A lot of the writing flowed naturally, so I would say it was mostly “seat of my pants” style however, as the characters took shape, sometimes they would dictate what I would write. This is especially true of the four main characters, Hatcher, Faridah, Stink and James. And once again, it flowed quite naturally as their personas took shape.

Love the name Stink. He'd fit right in with my Goose Pimple Junction characters. Cover art: Tell us about yours and how it came about.

As mentioned above, I was a graphic artist (and a book designer) for many years before I got into tourism.  So I prepared most of the graphic elements, including the cover, myself. In the book, which is profusely illustrated, you will see a hodge-podge of media as I used whatever I felt appropriate at the time: watercolor, colored pencils, pen and ink, computer graphics and my own photography. Some of the photos went through severe alterations in photoshop and as such do not exist in reality. (Others, including most of the pictures in Chapter 24, occur as they do in nature and only required minimal color correction. And the pièce de résistance, a 60 x 60 mosaic of the title character was generated on the computer, and as you may expect was the most time consuming.

As for the layout, I was very grateful to my publisher, Virtual Bookworm, to allow me to design the book, cover to cover, an advantage of using a POD publisher. This included layout, style, typefaces, chapter headings, initial caps, and so on. In the end, I am pleased to say that this is totally my baby.

What books have you read more than once or want to read again?

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
A Prayer for Own Meany by John Irving
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchins
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
Any book by Rudyard Kipling
Any book by Stephen Jay Gould
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer

That's quite a list! What’s your favorite line from a book?

"It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps find some “Symmes Hole” by which to get at the inside at last...If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travelers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve...Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi, or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a worn out China or Japan, but leads on direct a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too." -Henry David Thoreau, Walden
   
Tell us a book you’re an evangelist for.

With no pun intended, God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens.

Have you ever bought any books just for the cover? 

Rarely

What do you do to market your book?

Working through VBW, going around to local libraries and book stores.

How do you get to know your characters?

They evolve internally.  Some have facets taken from real people.

When you start a new book, do you know what the entire cast will be?

No. My book went through several cast changes, meaning some minor characters were added or deleted. Only one character went through a major change, when Rashid became Faridah and that allowed me to develop a romantic angle.

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

Probably Al Ayn, because it was so much fun to drop hints about who he really was.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?

Without being too specific, yes.

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

Al Ayn, obviously.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.

Once again, without being too specific, there are several “Ah-ha!” moments where the reader discovers something that the characters, in the scheme of things, don’t yet know.  It’s fun to write like that and it makes the reader feel like he is privy to something special.

Where’s home for you?

Alexandria, VA

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

"I have a serious rule when it comes to drinking. Never, never drink unless you are alone or with somebody." (attributed to W.C. Fields)

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

Play Griddlers or any such grid puzzle, hiking and camping.

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

Switzerland, or anywhere there are mountains to climb.

If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Agra, India, to see the Taj Mahal.

What are you working on now?  

Selling my current book before I start another.

About the author: 

Peter J. Ochs II first went to the Sultanate of Oman in 1991 to work in the Reports Section of the Information Centre for the Ministry of Water Resources. As an art director, he assembled scientific texts and graphics into publication form, working with a team of expatriate and Omani Graphic designers. During that time, he had an opportunity to explore the country, both through his job and through weekend wadi bashing. (For those of you not familiar with this common expatriate activity, the act of wadi bashing consists of finding a wadi--which is the Arabic term for river, or river bed, since many do not have continuous flowing water--where you can have a picnic or camp.)

After two years, having amassed a great deal of information about this little known Arabic country, he decided to publicize Oman through writing, photography and artwork. In 1995 he prepared an exhibition of photographs and illustrations which was shown throughout New England at schools, libraries and cultural fairs, and more recently in 1998 at the National Council on US-Arab Relation’s presentation ceremony of the International Peace Award given to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Sultan of Oman.

In 1996, Peachey (as he is known by friends and colleagues) returned to Oman to write the first English language travel guide to be published in the United States, the Maverick Guide to Oman, published by Pelican Publishing of Gretna, LA. 

From 1998, he was living in Oman working in inbound tourism.  He managed a small company specializing in cultural/adventure tours. Here he designed itineraries, scheduled and conducted adventure/cultural tours, organized fam-trips, created brochures, posters, banners and other marketing material and promoted same, and trained incoming staff as tour guides. He also gave public lectures and slide shows to various cultural and social groups on inbound tourism in Oman using his photographs and illustrations. He has also written magazine articles for travel publications and was a regular contributor to the "Day Out" column in Oman Today. After the 9/11 tragedy, he returned home to the US.
Mr. Ochs is married and has children spread all over the map from the US to Singapore.  He and his wife Letchmi and their kids love to travel together and will go wadi bashing at the slightest provocation.

In 2009, Mr. Ochs obtained CIG status (Certified Interpretive Guide) from the National Association of Interpretation and has since served as historic yellow bus driver/guide at Yellowstone National Park.

Website | Blog | Facebook |Amazon

Featured Author: Elizabeth Delisi

Elizabeth Delisi just released her novel, The Midnight Zone, and she's here to talk about it and writing in general. She's also treating us to an excerpt from the book.

About the book:

When Cassie buys an antique compact, little does she know it can foretell the future--her future. Marjorie, a Florida girl unwillingly transplanted to Vermont, learns there's more to fear from the alien snowfall than just the cold. Neil Dallas's jagged descent from rock and roll singer to drug-addicted has-been is unstoppable . . . or is it?

Travel deep into unknown territory, where life and death are not as they seem; where you have to be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. These stories will take you beyond the realm of the solid and real, into the deepest, darkest corner of your imagination. Don't forget to bring your flashlight . . .

Interview with Elizabeth

Elizabeth how did you come up with the title The Midnight Zone? 



The stories in the collection have a “Twilight Zone” quality to them, so I wanted to evoke that kind of spooky mystery and chose “The Midnight Zone.”

Do you have another job outside of writing?



I also teach writing courses online at Writer’s Digest University.

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


Definitely, I’m an outliner. I feel lost without some idea of where the story is going. An outline is like a backup, there if you need it.

What books have you read more than once or want to read again?



Two favorite books I’ve read more than a dozen times are Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, and The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas.

What’s your favorite line from a book?



“The birds had awakened her early. She was not yet used to their flutterings and twitterings, Spring having arrived and unpacked before February’s lease was up.” From The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas.

When you start a new book, do you know what the entire cast will be?



I know the major characters, at least. Sometimes a minor character makes a surprise appearance.

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


Probably Lottie Baldwin from Fatal Fortune. She’s brave and brash and isn’t afraid to be different.

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck on a deserted island? 



Probably Harlan Erikson from Fatal Fortune. He’d figure out how to get us rescued!

What song would you pick to go with your book?

The Twilight Zone theme, definitely.

How do you handle criticism of your work?

I cry, I pout, I eat lots of chocolate. After a while, I get over it and move on. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.


Tell us one weird thing, one nice thing, and one fact about where you live.

Weird: “The Old Man in the Mountain,” the symbol of New Hampshire, fell down and was destroyed not long before we moved here.
Nice: New Hampshire has gorgeous fall foliage.
Fact: New Hampshire has a higher percentage of wooded land than any other state.

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

Read, knit, watch movies, play on my Kindle.

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

On our little piece of land in the White Mountains, where we intend to build and live someday.

If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Egypt, definitely, to see all the temples, tombs, and museums.

What are you working on now?

The sequel to Fatal Fortune, called Perilous Prediction.

Excerpt from Mirror, Mirror in The Midnight Zone

Cassie opened her compact and peered into the round mirror. Her nose looked a little shiny. As she reached for the powder puff, a movement in the mirror caught her eye. She saw the waiter bringing a drink to the woman at the table in back of her. Served in a pineapple, it had two gaudy red paper parasols and a large pink straw sticking out of the top. Cassie watched, amused, the puff arrested in its journey to her nose.

Suddenly, the waiter tripped. The pineapple slid down the length of the steeply-tilting tray to land, upside-down, in the woman’s lap.

“Oh!” Cassie gasped.

“What?” Laura asked.

“Did you see the waiter spill a drink all over that poor woman?”

Laura twisted in her chair. “No. Where?”

“Right behind me.” Cassie turned around. The table was empty. “I guess she already left. Maybe she went to the ladies’ room to clean up.”

“I didn’t see any woman at that table,” Laura said. “Are you sure?”

“I saw it in my mirror.” Cassie held up her compact.

“Ooh, let me see!” Laura reached for it. “This is lovely! Where did you get it?”

“I found it last week in an antique store on the Cape,” Cassie said. “It was a funny little shop, full of all sorts of peculiar things. I liked the compact so much that I went back the next day to look for another one; but I couldn’t find the place again.” She shrugged.

Laura rubbed her fingers over the engraved gold case, then opened it. “Here’s your problem. This old mirror is so cloudy, it’s no wonder you’re seeing things.” She snapped it shut and handed it back.

“Here comes our lunch.” Laura pointed to a waiter carrying a full tray. Diverted, Cassie forgot all about what she’d seen in the mirror.

An hour later, the two friends finished their meal. On her way out, absorbed in paying the check, Cassie didn’t notice a waiter spilling an entire pineapple full of liquor on a woman who had just been seated.

About the author:

Elizabeth is a multi-published, award-winning author of romance, mystery and suspense. Her time-travel romance set in ancient Egypt, Lady of the Two Lands, won a Bloody Dagger Award and was a Golden Rose Award nominee. Her romantic suspense novel, Since All is Passing, was an EPPIE Award finalist and Bloody Dagger Award finalist. Her paranormal mystery, Fatal Fortune, was a Word Museum Reviewer’s Choice Masterpiece. Elizabeth is also an instructor for Writer’s Digest University. She is currently at work on Deadly Destiny and Perilous Prediction, the sequels to Fatal Fortune, and Knit A Spell, a paranormal romance. Elizabeth lives in New Hampshire with her husband and feisty parakeet. She invites her readers to check out her website.


Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter | Publisher | Amazon

Featured Author: Froukje Matthews

About the book:

This book covers ten topics that have come up time and again in her life as a Montessori teacher. These are issues every new parent without exception has struggled with and it is her desire to pass on what she have learned as a parent, a teacher and a ‘parent coach’.
Topics like sharing and discipline, tantrums and manners. It is not possible to talk about changing a child’s behaviour without talking about the role of parents in the context of a child’s life. However, parents too are learning new skills at the same time as they are supposed to teach their child what it is like to be human. That is no mean feat.
We act with good intentions, we do our best and yet the outcome is not as desired. Why is that so? This book will attempt to demonstrate how better results can be achieved by explaining what it looks like from the child’s point of view.

Read an excerpt of the book.

Interview with Froukje Matthews

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

I have always been writing in the same way that an artist always draws or a musician is drawn to making music and a dancer must move…

I always recorded what I saw, experienced, felt using pencil and paper.

What do you like best about writing?

Using language as a tool to get across ideas, concepts, that is what I like.

What’s your least favorite thing?

The task of proof reading I like least of all.

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

I didn’t, my illustrator did. He thought my title too boring!

Tell us about the artist.

The illustrator is my youngest son, a musician and an artist and a father. He was the  reason that I eventually got ‘my act together’ because he asked me the same questions as other new parents when he became a dad.

Do you have another job outside of writing?

I run Montessori Playgroups and Pre-school classes.

How would you describe your book in a tweet? (140 characters or less.)

My book is meant as ‘a snack for thoughts’ to be read over a cup of coffee and only a chapter at the time.

What books have you read more than once or want to read again?

Inspirational books I can read and re-read as well as books on human development on every level.

What’s your favorite line from a book?

"I’m on your side Charlie Brown." – Peanuts.

What do you do to market your book?

I have only just started to advertise locally, plan a celebratory evening, drop cards with the website to all relevant places that have anything to do with parents and children, go online, contact magazines and radio programs that feature anything to do with books, parents or children.

What song would you pick to go with your book?

Puff the Magic Dragon. That songs sums up early childhood for me...

Who are your favorite authors?

In the English language: Joseph Campbell, Dava Sobel, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens to name a few...

What are your favorite books or favorite authors

a) as a child: In the English language: Winnie the Pooh, Paddington 
b) as a teenager: Agatha Christie and Krishnamurti
c) as an adult: Joseph Campbell, Eckhart Tolle, Monica Dickens, Bill Bryson, and many many more...

Which author would you most like to invite to dinner, and what would you fix him?

I'd like to invite Chris Stewart Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain because I think he has so many yarns...and I don’t think he is a picky eater as long as it’s fresh!

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

Soft cover: Our woman in Kabul by Iris Makler.

Do you have a routine for writing?

I write best in the morning.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?

I write best in between doing household tasks; I really don’t like sitting still for a long time.

Where’s home for you?

Australia.

Tell us one weird thing, one nice thing, and one fact about where you live.

One weird thing: When I just moved here I had a recurring dream that turned out to be part of this region’s history. The dream was like a snapshot of what had occurred here.
One nice thing: The sky is more often than not blue and the air is always filled with the sound of birds.
One fact: This seaside town used to be a whaler’s station.

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

"There’s more to life than meets the eye." – anonymous.

What three books have you read recently and would recommend?

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry, and French Children Don’t Throw Food by Pamela Druckermann.

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

Reading, working in the garden, going for a walk and sitting on a terrace with a friend and have a cup of coffee.

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

France or Spain.

If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Brazil, China, and again France and Spain.

What are you working on now?

A second volume of ten topics parents of young children are confronted with.

The Terrible Ten

1.    Name one thing you couldn’t live without.

       Books.

2.    If you could only keep one book, what would it be?

        Emmanuel’s book.

3.    Your last meal would be…
      
        fresh garden salad.

4.    Would you rather work in a library or a bookstore?

        Bookstore.

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

        A flute.

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

        Sit on a terrace and watch the world go by.

7.    You’re driven to a private plane and told it will take you anywhere your want to go.
        Where would it be?

          Spain.

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

         A musician.

9.    Where would your dream office be?

         A shack on the river.

10.    If you could do only one, would you rather read or write?

          Write.

About the author:

Froukje Matthews studied for and trained as a primary school teacher in her native Holland, obtained Montessori teaching qualifications (3-6 and 6-9 cycles) in Australia, as well as a post-grad Diploma in Early Childhood Education from the QUT (Brisbane, Queensland). She taught Kumon Math to all ages, worked as and ESL teacher in Spain, and has run her own Montessori Playgroup and preschool for over twenty years. She speaks five languages and has lived in a number of countries.

She closely identifies with little children who learn their language from scratch and wants to help parents to become aware of what the learning journey is like for children under the age six. She is a grandmother, married to an artist and has three adult children.

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