Friday, April 13, 2018

The Origins of Snickety Dickety Doo l Danica-Lea Larcombe @danicalea

12:00 AM 0 Comments

The Origins of Snickety Dickety Doo

I was on holiday on my own in Broome, Western Australia.  I had left an old life overseas and I was excited about starting a brand new chapter.  Sitting at a cafĂ© overlooking the beach one day I suddenly got inspired to write. This was not going to be a book like my previous travel narratives taken from travel diaries.  I had to use my imagination which was an exciting thought.

Three separate concepts were brought into the book series.  The first was my family and my experiences growing up as a child in New Zealand.  The second was a selection of planet character drawings I had done many years before and not known what to do with.  The third was the extensive amount of travelling I had done to many different countries.

How was I to merge these together?  First I had to find three children that would represent the ‘cast’, then I had to morph the planet characters into bubbles that would transport the children.  The rest was purely up to my imagination as to where the bubbles would take the children and what adventures they would have, and that was the most satisfying part for me.

You can probably tell that I grew up with Enid Blyton’s Faraway books, just by reading that there is a secret box and a secret password ‘Snickety Dickety Doo’.  They also have to be quite secretive about their adventures, especially to their parents, and they must learn how to get along with their siblings in order to manage different cultures and escape from perilous incidents.

Unintentionally the children learn about different cultures, currencies, customs and landscapes while they are also learning about the different astrological planets.  Each planet has its own character in relation to astrology.

About the Author

Danica-Lea Larcombe has a B.Sc (Environmental Health), a Grad.Dip in Education and has taken courses in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Photography. She is currently undertaking a thesis in Biodiversity and Human Health, and lives with her Japanese Spitz Bella.
                                                                                       

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK


About the Book:

Title: SNICKETY DICKETY DOO
Author: Danica-Lea Larcombe
Publisher: Blurb
Pages: 90
Genre: Children’s Fiction

BOOK BLURB:
George, Fiona and Marni find a tin of bubbles, not just any ordinary bubbles but planets. The planets shrink the children and take them to faraway lands. The children have many exciting adventures and try not to let their secret be discovered.  They learn about different cultures, currencies and languages, and are inspired at school.

In Series Two, George, Marni and Fiona continue their adventures around the world in the planet bubbles. They narrowly escape being killed by some monks in Turkey, find a little companion in Paris and visit royalty in Monaco.

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Continue reading...
# BACK STORIES
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels:

Thursday, April 12, 2018

If I Build It, Will They Come? l Dorothy Thompson #bookmarketing #bookpromo #sellyourbook

10:45 AM 0 Comments

 

Book Marketing: If I Build It, Will They Come?

Authors are always looking for that golden key to book sales during their book marketing campaigns. What’s discouraging it that what might work for one book might not work for another to a degree and that leaves you wringing your hands and trying to figure out just what will work. Authors are a business. They are out there to sell a product – their book. With all the work that goes into their product – said book – it’s a lot of pressure on the author to find that golden key.

The question that was presented to me was, “If I build it, will they come?” This question is referring to authors wanting to believe that once their product is out there, it will make some money for them. Most are pretty smart in realizing they won’t get rich, but at least a few sales to make their efforts worthwhile would be pretty nice. A few more than a few and that’s only icing on the cake.

I happened to be in Google looking for something completely different and I came upon this video with Jenna McCarthy. It seems to me I used to know Jenna years ago when I was in a chick lit yahoo e-group. If this is the same Jenna, I knew this was going to be a great video because I was always in awe of her books back then.

One of the things mentioned in this video is the age old question, “If I build it, will they come?” Authors are instructed to set up social media and blogs and do whatever they can on their part to get the word out about their books, but is it ever enough?

So the video is titled The Hard Truth About Self-Promotion as an Author. I’m sharing this as an ongoing video series that I’m hoping will help authors learn the business of book promotion. Quite interesting and worth a peek!



Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion. Visit us at www.pumpupyourbook and let us take you to the virtual level!
Continue reading...
# BOOK MARKETING
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels:

Monday, April 9, 2018

Book Teaser Spotlight: Sugar and Spice and All Those Lies by Evy Journey #bookteasers @eholychair

12:00 AM 0 Comments


SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THOSE LIES by Evy Journey, Women’s Fiction/Crime, 200 pp., $9.00 (Paperback) $2.99 (Kindle edition)


Title: SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THOSE LIES
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Sojourney Books
Pages: 200
Genre: Women’s Fiction/Crime
Cooking a wonderful meal is an art. An act of love. An act of grace. A gift that affirms and gives life—not only does it nurture those who partake of the meal; it also feeds the soul of the creator. These are lessons Gina learns from her mother, daughter of an unfortunate French chef.
Gina is a young woman born to poor parents, a nobody keen to taste life outside the world she was born into. A world that exposes her to fascinating people gripped by dark motives. Her passion for cooking is all she has to help her navigate it.

She gets lucky when she’s chosen to cook at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area where customers belong to a privileged class with money to spare for a dinner of inventive dishes costing hundreds of dollars. In this heady, scintillating atmosphere, she meets new friends and new challenges—pastry chef Marcia, filthy rich client Leon, and Brent, a brooding homicide detective. This new world, it turns out, is also one of unexpected danger.

Can the lessons Gina learned from her mother about cooking and life help her survive and thrive in this other world of privilege, pleasure, and menace?

Order Your Copy!

https://www.amazon.com/Mistress-Suffragette-Diana-Forbes-ebook/dp/B06XG3G2TF


Prologue
I’m alive. I’m dead. I’m in-between. In that limbo where my vital signs hover just above death. I rise above my body and look down on it, lying on a gurney. Hospital staff are rushing me along the brightly-lit hallway to the operating room. One of them holds an oxygen mask on my face. Another, a bag of intravenous fluid connected to my veins by a tube.
I’m not ready to die yet. These good people anxious to rescue me don’t know that my resolve is the only thing that is keeping me alive. No, I’m not ready to die—I’ve only just begun to live. I have yet to prove to myself, to the world, that I have what it takes to prevail.
My family—now on their way to the hospital—doesn’t know yet exactly what happened to me. And except for one detective, neither do the police. I see him now by the foot of the gurney, keeping pace with the nurses. He’s scowling, his lips pressed into a grim line.
A tall, taut, and solitary man, he has deep-set gray eyes clouded by too many images of violent death and a lower lip that hangs perpetually open in disgust or despair. So much darkness he has already seen in his thirty odd years in this world. He needs to piece together the facts that constitute the attempt on my life, events that may have led to it, and various fragments of my past to understand what brought me to this point.
The first time I met him, I fell in love with him. There was something primal about him, some paternal, animalistic instinct to save hurt or fallen victims. Like me, maybe. It gave him power and it made him irresistible to me.
But fate is fickle. It teases. It entices. One day, something quite ordinary happens to you. Yet, you sense that that ordinary something can change your life. Not necessarily for something better, but for something new. Fate is dangling before you the promise of a world that, before then, was totally out of your reach. How can you not seize it?
Now, of course, I see the end of that promise. And it’s not where I want to be.
It’s tragic, don’t you think, that the end of that promise should be right here on a gurney, with me fighting for my life? It certainly is not what I hoped for.
How could it end this way? I embraced life, took chances, but half-dead on this gurney, I wonder: Am I paying with my life? But, like I said. I’m not ready to die yet.

Evy Journey, SPR (Self Publishing Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse who, wishes she lives in Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. Armed with a Ph.D., she used to research and help develop mental health programs.
She’s a writer because beautiful prose seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her despite such preoccupations having gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by invoking the spirit of Jane Austen to spin tales of love, loss, and finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue.

Her latest book is Sugar and Spice and All Those Lies.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

 

http://www.pumpupyourbook.com

Visit us at Pump Up Your Book!



 


Continue reading...
# Book Teasers # Book Video Teasers
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels: ,

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Does the Universe Give Pop Quizzes? l Tamara Dorris @tamaradorris

12:00 AM 0 Comments

Does the Universe Give Pop Quizzes?

Sometimes I hear people say things like, “I guess the universe is testing me,” or “Why does the universe keep testing me like that?” (Add your own dramatic experience for impact). But, as my angel friend named Morty once told me, there are no pop quizzes in Heaven. So unless you’re still in high school or standing in a long line at the DMV, chances are you won’t be tested anytime soon. The truth is that the universe has other, more pressing matters to tend to, such as holding itself together by keeping the electrons and protons of several hundreds of billions of galaxies in working order. A fairly tall task I’d say. So do you really think the universe might put the Milky Way on hold for a few minutes to say, test you on your faith? Yeah, me neither.

When things don’t go our way it’s always the result of our previous thinking. End of story. Sure, it may be something mean we said or did, but even those things started with thought. It would be impossible to have a kind thought and then kick the dog; thoughts precede everything. We have to remember that any thought we have that isn’t joy-filled is fair game for the boomerang effect. The boomerang effect simply says that we never, ever, ever get away with thinking something about ourselves or someone else that won’t come back at us like a boomerang. When we entertain serious self-doubt, fear, hate, anger, or sadness that boomerang may smack us in the head like a Frisbee at the dog park.

It’s also important to note that time is not always linear in how things come back to be with us. The universe doesn’t seem to be on the same schedule as say, your local post office or the UPS guy. You may think something snarky on Monday and get boomeranged back in the head two weeks later. And then there you are, rubbing your little wounded forehead at the scene of your fender bender asking, “Why does the universe keep testing me like this?” Other times, things come seemingly out of the blue, just like a boomerang in slow-mo, but trust me, just because you don’t remember tossing it out there doesn’t mean you didn’t. Boomerangs are smart like that.

Sometimes at workshops people will tell me how excited they are that the universe “rewarded” them, and I usually let it slide. After all, it’s never a bad idea to wink up at the sky and give the Big Guy a little credit now and then (can you imagine how heavy Jupiter must get?). But in truth, the same thing applies: you experienced some really great thoughts –that were accompanied by some really joyful feelings—and now they’re coming back to be with you. Only on these occasions, it’s as if the boomerang sailed softly into your hands and you started doing the victory dance for catching it with such grace and ease.

I know some of you came to this post with your pencils sharpened and your thinking caps screwed on tightly expecting some sort of exam, and since I hate to disappoint, I thought I’d prepare a short T/F test that the universe might give you, just to make you happy.


  1.  If I yell at my neighbor for parking in my space it’s not going to     matter?                              T  F
  2. If I hold the door open for that little old man I’m boomeranging in the right way?                                  T  F
  3. If I say, think, or do something really unkind, it will never catch up with me?                                    T  F
  4. The universe plays favorites and I always get ripped off?  
                                           T F
  1. If I respond rather than react I’ll get hit in the head a heck of a lot less?                                   T F

Well? How’d you do? Here’s the deal: the quality of your thoughts and emotions are clear indicators of the quality of your life. The things you thought yesterday have resulted in the life you are living today and the things you are thinking today are laying the foundation for what you’ll be living tomorrow. No one ever said it was easy. Sh**happens. People get sick, fired, lose their homes, and even say mean things about you in line at the drive-thru.

The key, I really believe, is to respond as elegantly as we are able with as little ruckus and fuss and drama as possible. Once we pick ourselves up from a rough patch, and then manage to maintain a mostly positive and joyful mind-set, we’ll begin to understand that we ourselves are the true test-givers, and that it’s perfectly fine to sneak a peek at the answers since the only grade book there is belongs to us. No studying necessary, just plenty of practicing.  

Thanks for reading!

About the Author

Tamara Lee Dorris, MA, is the author of 19 books, a long-time coach, consultant, and adjunct college professor. She’s spent the past few decades studying and sharing ways that people can live more fulfilling, fun, and effective lives. She’s also an avid yogi, podcaster, and wine-lover, committed to inspiring as many people as she can. Tamara holds degrees in psychology and communications, is a certified hypnotherapist and EFT practitioner, too. 

Website & Social Links

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK



About the Book:

Title: IMAGINE THAT: PLAYING WITH THE POWER OF IMAGINATION
Author: Tamara Dorris
Publisher: Createspace
Pages: 190
Genre: Self-Help/Spiritual

BOOK BLURB:
From rock-solid science to centuries-old scripture, we’ve been told our thoughts and emotions matter, and may even be indicators of our future. In this book, Tamara Dorris shows you that the real key to navigating your way to a new reality rests in your almost-dormant imagination. She points out that we’re all using our imaginations anyway, but most of us are using them to conjure up the worst instead of designing the best.

With wit, humor, and sass Tamara shares how anyone can learn to use their imagination in a more productive, profitable, and effective way.

The second half of the book is a 33-Day Challenge, including daily lessons and journaling exercises to help solidify and apply the age-old, as well as scientifically new ideas presented in the first section of the book. Be prepared to have your mind a little bit blown, your “mean monkey” a little bit riled up, and start intentionally creating your life with excitement and intention!

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon


Continue reading...
# THE WRITER'S LIFE # WRITING
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels: ,

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Researching the White Witch l Larry D. Thompson @ldtauthor

12:00 AM 0 Comments

Researching The White Witch

My son, Kel, who lives in South Florida, returned from a business trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica, talking about the legend of the WHITE WITCH. His story interested me enough that a few months later we both went to Jamaica to learn more about Annie Palmer, the White Witch,  and, also, about the Maroons. Kel had not stumbled across the Maroon story while he was there, but I did a little research about the area and learned about them. That trip let me to combine the Maroons with the White Witch to create what is certainly my best thriller to date (bear in mind that I’ll probably say the same thing about my next thriller; such is the nature of a novelist.).

We stayed at the Ritz, which was built on what was once part of the Rose Hall Plantation. We golfed at the hotel course, aptly named “The White Witch.” We toured the Rose Hall Great House where Annie Palmer lived two hundred years before and where she tortured and murdered three husbands and many more slave lovers. We learned that even today the staff in the mansion insists on leaving before dark every evening; for they fear that the White Witch may be out roaming the grounds of her old plantation. However, let me hasten to add that Annie Palmer is only a supporting character in this drama. After all, she died two hundred years ago. Still her legend is strong enough that in my story when a series of murders occur in the Montego Bay area, some with snake knives said to have belonged to the White Witch, it’s only a small leap for the locals to believe, true or not, that the White Witch must be responsible. 

The real story and the conflict that created it is up in the mountains above Montego Bay, a small village called Accompong, the ancestral home of the Maroons (short for Cimarron, or “wild and untamed.). The original Maroons started escaping from their Spanish captors in the early fifteen hundreds, following game trails up into the mountains where they formed villages and lived off the land. When the Spaniards tried to re-capture them, they fought back and soon were going down from the mountains in the dead of night to attack the Spaniards as they slept. They fought for about a hundred years before the British drove the Spaniards to Cuba. The British could not understand how a band of ex-slaves could so consistently beat back the Spaniards until they tried to capture the Maroons. After another hundred or so years, they asked for a cease fire and signed a treaty with Cudjoe, the leader of the Maroons, giving them dominion over the rainforest up in the mountains, provided they would allow the British to raise sugar cane and bananas along the coast. That treaty exists to this day. Only, an American corporation was threatening  to mine bauxite in the Maroons’ rainforest when Kel and I were there. To get to the bottom of the conflict, we drove up a pothole filled road to Accompong and asked for an audience with the Colonel of the Maroons. Surprisingly, he talked to us. Only later did we learn that they did not like strangers in their village, particularly white men. Still, what we didn’t know didn’t hurt us. But it did give me the idea for the story which is really about the Maroons willingness to fight once again for their rain forest. Of course, the White Witch does make cameo appearances throughout the tale, but usually only in the imagination of some other character. 

It was fascinating research that led to a very good thriller. And if you want to see the Maroon/British treaty that Cudjoe signed (with his X because he could neither read nor write), just go on line. The treaty is still there and is validity is still being debated by scholars. 

About the Author

After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, Larry spent the first half of his professional life as a trial lawyer. He tried well over 300 cases and won more than 95% of them. Although he had not taken a writing class since freshman English (back when they wrote on stone tablets), he figured that he had read enough novels and knew enough about trials, lawyers, judges, and courtrooms that he could do it. Besides, his late, older brother, Thomas Thompson, was one of the best true crime writers to ever set a pen to paper; so, just maybe, there was something in the Thompson gene pool that would be guide him into this new career.  He started writing his first novel about a dozen years ago and published it a couple of years thereafter. He has now written five highly acclaimed legal thrillers. White Witch is number six with many more to come.
Larry is married to his wife, Vicki. He has three children scattered from Colorado to Austin to Boca Raton, and four grandchildren. He has been trying to retire from the law practice to devote full time to writing. Hopefully, that will occur by the end of 2018. He still lives in Houston, but spends his summers in Vail CO, high on a mountain where he is inspired by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
His latest book is the captivating thriller, WHITE WITCH.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK


About the Book:

Title: WHITE WITCH
Author: Larry D. Thompson
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 291
Genre: Thriller

BOOK BLURB:
Jamaica is a place where the surreal is simply everyday reality. When a ruthless American aluminum company plans to strip mine the Jamaican rainforest, they send former Navy SEAL Will Taylor to Montego Bay to deal with local resistance on their behalf. But he’s unaware that the British had signed a treaty deeding the rainforest to the Jamaican Maroons, descendants of escaped slaves, over 300 years ago. The Maroons fought and died for their land then, and are more than willing to do so now, whether it’s the British or the Americans who threaten them this time around.

Upon Will’s arrival, a series of inexplicable murders begin, some carried out with deadly snake daggers that were owned and used by Annie Palmer, a voodoo priestess better known as the White Witch. She was killed 200 years prior, but is said to still haunt the island at night, and the local Jamaicans are certain she’s responsible for the gruesome murders, her form of retaliation against the new turmoil taking place in the rainforest.

And Will has been forced directly into the middle of it. After a few close calls, he’s finally convinced to leave his company and join forces with the Maroons, headed by Vertise Broderick, a Maroon who resigned from her position at the New York Times to return to Jamaica to stop the mining. Together they hire a Jamaican attorney to prove that the Maroon/British treaty is still valid to stop the mining, and they take it upon themselves to solve the White Witch murders, because the legend of the White Witch can’t possibly be true…

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon


Continue reading...
# RESEARCH # WRITING
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels: ,

Adventure Awaits! l Helen Hipp @rosiethepinkhippo

12:00 AM 1 Comments

Adventure Awaits!

Rosie and Friends continues to take this author to wonderful places but where will her stories take you?
Helen Hipp’s adventure books continue to take her on journey’s that provide many opportunities to meet large numbers of wonderful people, which she refers to as her “Safari Family”.  Helen cannot imagine anything more rewarding, especially when she thinks of her adventures to schools, one of which was in Cambodia! 

About the Rosie the Hippo Series
 
The Rosie Adventure series are unique books, inspired by a once-in-a-lifetime trip led by the author's father to Africa with her 14-year old son Ray, who has special needs. Helen Hipp has created a very effective way to teach children the value of seeing things as they appear compared to how they really are. 

The Adventure series led by Rosie the pink Hippo provide children with the opportunity to identify, understand and feel supported by the characters handling similar fears, interests and concerns.
According to Positively Different Author Helen C. Hipp, the second book in the series, Rosie and Friends: One-Of-A-Kindness, will highlight TLC (Tender Loving Crocodile) as one of the lead characters who encourages friends to show kindness, and to share their one-of-a-kindness. 

Summary of Rosie and Friends: One-Of-A-Kindness review written by Tara Robertson

It was a really fun experience to read the book aloud with my child, hopefully reading through our commentary can help you see why this book is a great one for our kids in teaching them kindness.

What my 6-year-old had to say about Rosie and Friends One-Of-A-Kindness.

Q: On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate this book (with 1 being “didn’t like,” and 10 being “it was one of my favorites.”
Child: The book made me feel happy. I would give it a 100.

Q: Should we get our own copy?
Child: If I had money, I would buy the book.

Q: How did you feel when the other rhinos laughed at Hornsby?
Child: It made me sad for Hornsby.

Q: What did you learn?
Child: To be so nice and listen. It’s good to have kind hearts too.

Q: What made you happy?
Child: Hornsby got friends which made him feel better. They liked what he looked like and what was in his heart.

Q: Who is your favorite character?
Child: My favorite characters are Hornsby, Rosie, and the Crocodile. They were so nice so I liked all 3 of them and they made me feel good.

Q: What did Hornsby learn?
Child: Hornsby learned to protect himself and to be self-kind and be nice to a lot of people.

Q: Did Hornsby remind you of anyone?
Child: All of my friends are kind to me. Rosie was so kind. The crocodile showed the nice book and the monkey was helping too. All of my friends love me like that.

Q: If the crocodile’s strength is to be kind, what do you think yours is?
Child: My strength is to be nice.

Reading this book together was an adventure that has brought us to a happy place and is definitely something we will do again!

All books are available for purchase in hard, soft, versions on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

About the Author


Approaching life with excitement and energy, Helen works hard to help people achieve exuberance! Born in Yonkers, N.Y., in 1959, Helen is the middle child of five. Her father, whose work demanded strong problem-solving skills and mother whose interest in art, provided Helen with endless opportunities to look at things from different perspectives.

Today, Helen continues to take advantage of an imaginative mindset that creates opportunities out of obstacles. A concept she fostered in her children, one of whom has special needs. As Helen explored career opportunities, she connected her personal experiences (parenting a child with special needs) with her beliefs, professional skills, and aspirations.

Helen received her M.A. in counseling and began her career as a psychotherapist to help people find answers for their life problems. Her work eventually evolved into a coaching practice, WithinU Life Coaching, focusing on helping individuals with special needs reveal their innate ability to solve difficult situations. Inspiration and fun, is Helen’s motivation and her life’s fuel.

Helen explains her enthusiasm as, “each day is an opportunity, waiting to be shaped and here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping.”

Helen has authored articles for Family Works and Washington Family Magazine and written multiple self-help articles published by ezine.com where she is viewed as an expert in her field. 

In addition to her work, Helen has written two children’s books creating a very effective way to motivate kids of all ages to meet their challenges with self-acceptance, confidence and understanding.
Her debut children’s book, A Different Kind of Safari, released in 2013 addresses the many questions life asks by offering up lighthearted, ever-changing perspectives that transform personal challenges into opportunities. Once again, the engaging safari family led by Rosie the Pink Hippo inspire, and help you see your life differently in her new book, Rosie and Friends Positively Different. With a cast characters experiencing real-life issues, her books provide children with the opportunity to identify, understand and feel supported by the characters handling of similar fears, interests, and concerns.

Rosie and Friends Helping Children to Understand That Their Uniqueness Is Not a Weakness.

Helen’s latest book is Rosie and Friends: One-Of-A-Kind.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK


About the Book:

Title: ROSIE AND FRIENDS: ONE-OF-A-KINDNESS
Author: Helen Hipp
Publisher: A Different Kind of Safari, LLC
Pages: 40
Genre: Children

BOOK BLURB:

Embark on a new safari with Hornsby the rhino as he comes face-to-face with losing his sense of belonging. No longer accepted by his herd, Hornsby searches for companionship. With the help of his new buddies, Hornsby learns that his life is one of a kind, and that spreading his kindness is a good way to make new friends!

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon



Continue reading...
# Book Spotlights
Blogging Authors at 1 comment: quickedit
Labels:

Monday, April 2, 2018

First person novels often beg the question--did the author actually live through that? l Lara Reznik @eipress

12:00 AM 0 Comments

First person novels often beg the question--did the author actually live through that?


Numerous readers are convinced that my new multicultural suspense novel, Bagels & Salsa, as well as my earlier psychological suspense book, The Girl From Long Guyland, are autobiographical. I take it as a compliment that I was able to successfully create a fictive world with a plot and cast of characters that are composites of people I’ve known throughout my lifetime.

Bagels & Salsa, is about Laila Levin, a Jewish sociologist from Manhattan, who takes a romantic gamble and follows Eduardo Quintana, a dashing Latino doctor to rural New Mexico. Their love is tested by his controlling mother who rejects Laila from the get-go, a drop-dead-gorgeous ex-girlfriend, a deranged ex-student of Laila’s who stalks her cross the country, and major cultural differences.

The story is set in the summer of 1977 as the Son of Sam is terrorizing NYC.

Okay, I admit, I’m a Jewish girl from Long Island who married a Hispanic man from rural New Mexico. The setting takes place in New York and New Mexico, two places I’ve lived. Like most authors, I write about what I know.
But I still haven’t answered the question. How much of the story is autobiographical?  Read on.
First of all, there are memoirs and then there are novels. Celebrities write memoirs because people are fascinated by the details of their lives. If you had a very unusual or dysfunctional childhood it makes for great reading like in the Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Frankly, my real life is not all that interesting so I’ve chosen to write fiction.
Like many literary authors, I often start with an event or circumstance from my life that I believe is unique and then say, “what if.” In the case of Bagels & Salsa, I asked the question, “What if a Son of Sam copycat had stalked me across the country?” And, “What if my future mother-in-law had cooked up a plan to send me packing and reunite her son with his high school sweetheart?” While neither of these things happened, they certainly made for a more fun read than the details of my real life.
Bottom line, the characters are based on real people but they’ve been fictionalized to make them more dramatic and interesting. The setting is real and hopefully the plot takes on a life of its own.
        About the Author


Lara Reznik is a native New Yorker who studied at the University of New Mexico and the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. Bagels & Salsa is her third novel.
Writing books since she was six years old, Reznik retired from an executive position in information technology after the success of her first novel, The Girl From Long Guyland, published in 2012. In 2015, Reznik published her second book, The M&M Boys.
Reznik currently lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two miniature Aussies.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK


About the Book:

Title: BAGELS & SALSA
Author: Lara REznik
Publisher: Enchanted Indie Press
Pages: 296
Genre: Suspense/Romance/Humor

BOOK BLURB:
Author Lara Reznik blends suspense, romance, and humor in her latest novel, BAGELS & SALSA (http://www.larareznik.com/bagels-and-salsa). Loosely based on Reznik’s life, the story of Laila and Eduardo highlights the turmoil that surfaces when a Jewish sociologist from New York and a Hispanic doctor from rural New Mexico fall hard and fast for each other. Their blossoming relationship develops against the backdrop of terror the Son of Sam created in New York City during the summer of 1977.
Early reviews of BAGELS & SALSA praise the story’s dynamic plot and colorful characters:
“The author tells a simple love story, but she structures the novel to provide a panoramic view of her characters” (Kirkus Reviews).
“Another lovely read from Lara Reznik! . . . As with all her novels there are also plenty of fun subplot twists and turns. I wanted more.”  (Barbara Gaines, Former Executive Producer of The Late Show with David Letterman).
BAGELS & SALSA opens at a high school assembly hall in a rough part of the Bronx where Laila Levin is giving her first postdoctorate presentation on the US teen pregnancy epidemic. Her fear of public speaking and a chance encounter with the Son of Sam unravel her as several loud bangs crack through the air. Laila falls on the stage and injures her right shoulder. Fortunately, Dr. Eduardo Quintana jumps into action.
What begins as a playful flirtation while Laila recovers in the hospital propels into a more serious relationship with the handsome doctor. Their mutual passion is so intense that it stuns them both. The unlikely pair share strong family values and an interest in teen pregnancy prevention. After a brief courtship, Eduardo persuades Laila to accompany him to his family’s ranch near Española, New Mexico, where he plans to open a family practice. The rural town has one of the highest pregnancy rates in North America: the perfect place for Laila’s research.          
Once in New Mexico, Laila is blatantly rejected by Sylvia, Eduardo’s controlling mother. Sylvia wants Eduardo to marry Violet, his high school sweetheart, who has recently returned to New Mexico after a failed flight attendant career and a walk on the dark side of Hollywood. Violet’s mother and Sylvia cook up a plan to send Laila packing and reunite their children. The Quintanas hold a large pig roast and invite a menagerie of tattooed cousins, rodeo stars, and mariachis. And the drop-dead gorgeous Violet makes a grand entrance.
In the midst of the pandemonium that results, a shocking family secret is revealed, and Laila and Eduardo’s love for each other is severely tested. Can their relationship survive the fierce clash of cultures, the murderous intentions of a Son of Sam copycat who has stalked Laila from New York City, and their own uncertainties about the upheavals that their union will cause in their lives?
Reznik’s first goal in writing BAGELS & SALSA is to entertain readers. However, she says, “On a more thematic level, I’d like readers to think about the importance of embracing religious, ethnic, and cultural differences, which have been at the core of so much conflict in the world.”

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Continue reading...
# THE WRITER'S LIFE # WRITING
Blogging Authors at No comments: quickedit
Labels: ,

Follow Us @soratemplates