Tim Forbes - It's Game Time Somewhere - Guest Post & Giveaway

Unfortunately, there were no entries, so this is no giveaway winner.

About the Book

Tim Forbes was like many Americans: painfully unsatisfied in his corporate job but making too much money to walk away. But then, one momentous day, he and his wife struck the Deal, leading to a career in the one field he loved more than anything: sports.

Years later, having carved out his place in the sports business, he was surprised when a friend asked, "Do you still love sports?"...And stunned when he didn't know how to reply. Of course he still loved sports! Didn't he? Was it possible that walking away from a perk-filled Corporate American life had all been for nothing?

His year-long quest to find that answer started with a single game. But what he discovered there soon led to an unlikely coast-to-coast “sports walkabout” involving 100 more games and 50 different sports—from major-market events to the smallest of the small. Poignant, irreverent, and ultimately inspiring, It’s Game Time Somewhere chronicles one man’s search for the love of the game.

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Video Book Trailer



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Guest Post

Cards on the table – yours truly is not quite right.

How else could you explain the fact that I spent a year of my life attending and writing about 100 uniquely different sporting events involving 50 separate sports? But that’s what I did, and literally thousands of readers helped me keep score. And when it was done, we all knew more about sports in America than it was thought to be humanly possible. Or at least I did, anyway.

“But why?” you ask. Well here’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

As Bill Cosby once said, I started out as a child. A child inexorably drawn to sports – the organized kind and especially the disorganized kind favored by my circle of friends. Consequently I grew up chasing a ball. It didn’t matter what size or shape, I chased them all. I was fortunate enough to have come of age in a time when kids themselves scheduled their own games and “officiated” them via the kid’s code of sports ethics – an arcane collection of arguments, declarations, and insults that inevitably led to the Do Over. Or somebody taking their ball and going home.

On those occasions when a quorum wasn’t available for even the most streamlined of games, I played them solo. Some might call it “practicing”, but I knew it as “having fun”. And as is the case with many things one repeats endlessly, I managed to develop some level of skill. So it came to be that I went to college on a basketball scholarship.

Annoyingly enough, they don’t let you just major in Basketball – well, not in 1977 anyway, and not in any conference that, like mine, did not start with the word “Big”. So I chose to pursue a degree in Psychology. Don’t ask me why. And when my undergraduate days ended, I decided to obtain an MBA, because, well…because.

The ironic thing was that neither Psychology nor Business Administration would have even been in the race had Sports Management been an academic option. Ubiquitous now, at the time that I entered college there was no such degree program. And so, a career match made in heaven went by the boards…for the time being, anyway.

In my mid-30’s, having acquired over a decade of experience in Corporate America, I became vaguely aware of the fact that people were getting paid to work in sports! Having thus discovered the existence of what was rightfully MY chosen field of work, I spent the next several years alternating between a state of agitation over having been born a decade too early, and thoughtful rumination on how I could still pull off a second half rally and transition to my natural calling.

At the age of 40, the confluence of a certain set of circumstances, not the least of which is the most understanding wife in the cosmos, enabled me to take the plunge. I enrolled in an accredited four semester program that rewarded me upon completion with an Associate’s Degree in Professional Golf Management. I was on my way – a little late out of the gate, but with a full head of steam and ready to use my transferrable skills to claw my way to the top of the sports business.

Nearly a decade later, having come to know quite well the good, the bad and the ugly about pursuing a second career within the sports industry, I was innocently confronted one day with the following question: ”After working in the industry for ten years, do you still love sports?”

Hmmmm…great question. One I honestly didn’t have an answer for. As you can imagine though, it became critically important for me to find one. And thus began germinating the idea of a “sports walkabout” – an effort to reconnect with my ball-chasing, sports-loving roots.

I went to a game. And then another. And another. Big games, little games. Tournaments, matches, meets and bouts. Men’s games, women’s games. Professional. Amateur. High School. College. Games that I was intimately familiar with. Games that I didn’t have the faintest idea as to their rules.

To those that virtually accompanied me I offered to share everything that I found – both positive and…not so positive. I promised to keep it light-hearted, and they in turn agreed to laugh, learn and share the link with others. This blog, this portrait of Americans at play, became a love letter to sports, warts and all. My friends at Google Analytics tell me that it has been read by thousands of people all over the world.

I hope it brings a smile of pleasure and recognition to your face as well. Because it’s always game time somewhere.

To read more of my stories, please visit:
http://itsgametimesomewhere.com/the-igts-tour/the-stories/

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Video Interview


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It's Game Time Somewhere can be purchased at:
Barnes and Noble, MyBookOrders.com

Price: $15.95
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781938008122
Publisher: Bascom Hill
Release: February 12, 2013


About the Author

Alternately blessed and cursed by the notion that everyone should do what they love for a living, Tim Forbes creates and writes about the games that people play.

Tim grew up in the farmlands of northern Connecticut, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College—where he played Division III basketball in front of literally tens of people. He received an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an Associate’s Degree at the Professional Golfers Career College in Temecula, CA. Yes, in that order.

After 15 years spent meandering about in Corporate America, Tim went on to work for three professional golf tours: the Symetra Futures Tour, the LPGA Tour, and the PGA Tour. He also served as general manager for golf clubs in Nashville, Tennessee and Orlando, Florida. In 2009, he founded Outside the Mode, a sports marketing and production company based in his adopted home of Los Angeles.

Tim lives in Redondo Beach, California with a perennially underachieving fish named Halo, a cat, and a wife he fondly calls Bird..

Connect with Tim:
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About the Giveaway

Leave a comment with your email address to win an ebook of It's Game Time Somewhere. 
Ends 3/01/13.

Sarah Pleydell - Cologne: A Novel - Guest Post

About the Book

London, 1960: Renate von Hasselmann, a nineteen-year-old German au pair, arrives at Victoria Station prepared to meet her new charges, Caroline and Maggie Whitaker. Yet she is ill-prepared for their parents: the mother, Helen, knows more about Nazi Germany than Renate does, and the father, Jack, disarms Renate with his quicksilver charm.

In Sarah Pleydell's debut novel, childhood and history collide, blurring the distinctions between victim and victor, ruin and redemption. With delicate humor, Pleydell presents a portrait of a family on the cusp of great social change, while reminding us that the traumas of war revisit the children of the peace.

Guest Post

After living for twenty years in the United States, I developed an overwhelming nostalgia for England, the country of my birth, a longing for the consolation of native not adoptive soil. I loved the United States but felt in my bones that these were not my lands, mountains, rivers or streams. I think this is true for many expatriates. As I journalled and reflected, I realized that Kew Gardens, the affluent London suburb where I grew up, presented the perfect setting for a novel. It had a beguiling beauty and melancholia than was distinctively British but also fertile soil for more universal themes.

As I wrote the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew became a central motif; it represented (as Christmas does for so many) the idealized childhood that every child yearns for but especially those -- and certainly for the two sisters in my book-- whose domestic world has been invaded by personal and historical trauma. It was the sanctuary where Caroline and Maggie Whitaker went every afternoon with their au pair, Renate, to play, to fantasize and to escape. They climbed the steps of the tropical hot house imagining themselves big birds flying away to a locale outside time and history. But then had to come back down to earth and endure yet more conflict and discord.

Returning to the landscape of my own childhood was challenging, as I found myself reliving not only sensory details but also the sensate experiences they evoked, replete with both kinds of “feeling”: I felt them on my skin and I knew them as emotions. As the book addresses child abuse this was both difficult and cathartic.

The novel covers nine months in the Whitaker girls’ lives, so I had to track the changes in setting over four seasons. On the one hand, I derived great joy from recalling the flowers --rhododendrons, marigolds, wallflowers and exquisite roses—the butterflies, moths and bees, and, on the other, the dreariness, the damp, the pervasive grey of the British weather. The book’s terrain had grown to include streets, houses, shops and even the British seaside.

I realized that not only were these details—the sights, sounds and scents of London – essential for me as the British writer, but they were also the lures that would make this foreign environ tangible to the American reader. In addition, therefore, I added signature British tastes –the sweet and starchy puddings, the kippers, kidneys and tripe. Every sense would come alive, every sense would draw the reader in and every feeling could be tasted.



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Price: $14.95 paperback, $6.47-$12.95 ebook
ISBN: 9780984990856
Pages: 252
Release: September 18, 2012
Buy Links: Kindle, Nook, Fuze Publishing (paperback), Fuze Publishing (ebook)


About the Author

A graduate of Oxford and London Universities, Sarah Pleydell is an award-winning writer, performer and playwright who teaches English and writing at the University of Maryland. For the past twenty years, she has been a master teaching artist and arts integration specialist, working with institutions that include The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Luce Institute. In 2000, she won the American Association for Theatre Educators’ award for best book of the year with co-author Victoria Brown. Most recently she wrote the script and played the role of Isadora in Revolutionary: The Life and Times of Isadora Duncan with Word Dance Theater.

Based on her childhood in London, "Cologne" (Fuze Publishing) has been twenty years in the making. It has benefited from fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and input many generous and gifted writers.

Connect with Sarah:
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Fuze Publishing Web Site
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Brady Christianson - The Devil's Garden - Guest Post & Giveaway

About the Book

A Marine’s past is never far behind him, but sometimes it’s a lot closer than he thinks . . .

After years of enjoying the soft, quiet, civilian, family life, former Recon Marine Brandon Colson still has a large price on his head…only his family doesn’t know it. That is, until a heavily armed squad of terrorists breaks into his house and tries to kill him and his family.

After swiftly dispatching the would-be assassins, Colson realizes the ghosts from his past have somehow managed to come back to haunt him. His worst nightmare has come true. His identity—a secret until now—has been mysteriously compromised. Something he did years ago, while on a recon mission during his tour of service, has kept anger burning in the hearts of powerful Arab adversaries. And the men who attacked his house are simply an omen of what is to come.

With his family in hiding, Colson and local detective Sam Collier set out to locate and neutralize the remainder of the terrorist cell. It’s a race against time, and the plot they uncover along the way defies all expectation.

Their fates in the balance until the last second, the two men must fight for their lives as they navigate a trail littered with bloodshed and revenge that leads straight to hell on earth: The Devil’s Garden.

Guest Post

The fog of war is a place where confusion rules, innocence dies and demons are born. Sometimes these demons come back to haunt a man and other times they simply come back to kill him. Few men would welcome the fight, which is to say, a proud and terrible few. The Devil’s Garden twists a Recon Marine’s worst nightmare into a deadly reality.

There is a saying in Recon: There is no life after Force. The lack of adrenaline and ensuing boredom will kill a warrior’s spirit. However, former Recon Marine Brandon Colson has a different kind of death to fear. After years spent in remote deserts and jungles on the other side of the planet dreaming of a quiet, civilian, family life, he finally has it. The problem is he has a large price on his head that even his family doesn’t know about: He is wanted by terrorists he worked to bring down. With revenge in their hearts and murder on their minds, Colson’s enemies plan to revisit his sins upon him, his wife and his children. When a heavily armed squad of assassins arrives at his home in the middle of the night, he quickly dispatches the men, but knows the identity he buried deep in his past is no longer a secret. With his family in hiding, he makes it his personal mission to eliminate the threat to his family and reclaim the life he’s made.

The Devil’s Garden captures the irreconcilable thoughts and trepidation of a military man turned family man who must now fight to protect his family. As Colson’s crucial mission leads him to the Devil’s Garden of Florida, a forgotten wasteland of swamps, collapsed shacks, and lost souls, he finds that the midnight attack on his home was simply an omen of what is to come. With his fate in the balance until the last second, Colson must navigate a trail littered with bloodshed and revenge.

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The Devil's Garden can be purchased at:
Amazon
MyBookOrders.com

Price: $14.95 paperback
ISBN: 9781938690167
Pages: 391
Publisher: Two Harbors Press
Release: November 11, 2012


About the Author

Brady Christianson is a former United States Marine Corps Recon Marine whose military service and Christian faith has shaped his writing.

Connect with Brady:
Web Site
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About the Giveaway

Leave a comment with your email address to enter to win a PDF ebook of The Devil's Garden.

Ends 12/31/2012

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John Catenacci - Dianna's Way - Author Interview & Guest Post

About the Book

Dianna is a young woman in her late 20’s when she meets John, a man in his late 40's. They fall in love and marry. A central feature of their life plan is to have one child to fulfill her fervent lifelong dream of being a mother.

Not to be.

Not long into their marriage, Dianna discovers she has an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Hand in hand, they begin a 17 year spiritual journey into the nature of love and healing. Along the way, she discovers and fulfills her life purpose and, in the process, takes John by the hand, gently helping him to reveal, then fulfill, his own.

In the beginning, John, being much older, thought he would be her teacher but gradually discovers in the most important dimensions of life quite the opposite is true. With Dianna’s guidance, he ultimately discovers we are all teachers, we are all students and we are all one.

Theirs is a story of courage, determination and a lightness of being, as they descend into the deepest valleys of crushing disappointment, pain and suffering only to rise again to ever higher peaks of appreciation, gratitude and love. Throughout it all, their journey is laced with light and laughter.

Even today, after her passing, they continue their relationship, piercing the Illusion that veils this reality, exploring its limits while continuing a spiritual journey without end.

Author Interview

Open your book to a random page and tell us what’s happening.
In my reality, nothing in life is random — or accidental. When I was about to write this response, I happened to look out the window and saw three – three – hummingbirds dancing around a honeysuckle – have never seen this before – like Dianna saying “talk about the hummingbird chapter.”

While I was writing the book, it occurred to me to use a hummingbird as one metaphor for how Dianna lived her life – flitting from person to person, embracing their love whole heartedly while impregnating each one with a simple grace, unflagging humor and ineffable love in return, all in one magical spontaneous exchange.

The look of triumph on her face, her excitement and joy, when the first hummingbird showed up in our yard was unforgettable. She had worked so hard for several years, planting for them, and finally there it was, this little Ruby Throated blur. In that moment I saw, once again, her determination, patience, faith, appreciation and gratitude all in one tiny vignette during one day of our lives.

Do you plan any subsequent books?
An already almost fully formed book is in my mind now. Better writers than I have said don’t talk about a book idea or the energy for writing it will bleed away, leaving it stillborn.

John's wife, Dianna

Tell us what you’re reading at the moment and what you think of it.
The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo and The Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware because I am old enough now where I should pay attention to these things — probably before tomorrow — and A Broken Sausage Grinder by Hank Thomas, a friend of mine and The Almost Archer Sisters by Lisa Gabriele, a relative and friend of mine. I often read several books at a time, switching back and forth depending on my mood. All are interesting in different ways and for different reasons.

There is so very much talent in the world isn’t there?

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Price: $16.95 paperback
ISBN: 9780985247904
Pages: 365
Release: December 14, 2012


About the Author

After spending his youth doing cement construction work while getting his education, John Catenacci earned a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He went on to work on the Apollo 11 Project as a member of the USAF in California, then as an engineer for the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, MI, doing both process research as well as designing and building chemical plants.

Mid-career he became interested in group dynamics, leading to another 20-year career in team building that took him across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Saudi Arabia.

With a sprinkling of published short stories and articles in small magazines along the way, his abiding passion has always been writing, something now coming to fruition in this, his first book.

Connect with John:
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Dr. Gerry Steiner - Gotta Call BS on That One - Guest Post & Giveaway

About the Book

Was missile defense started to save the free world or start a new empire? Do religions help us understand God or help keep God a mystery? Do schools prepare us for life or delay our lives? Does Congress help protect us or help exploit us? Has there ever been any BS involved in any of the above? Have we embraced or challenged the BS.? Could we make a difference? Would we want to make a difference?

Whether reading a newspaper, watching TV, or listening to a song, we are probably observing and absorbing a certain amount of BS. Do we recognize it, realize it, reject it or absorb it. This book provides a beginning to considering these questions. It can provide a basis for understanding, a basis for action, a cause of laughter, a foundation for tears, or some combination. This book often states the obvious, but it’s the obvious that often we collectively don’t seem to own up to. Much of the strife of life, the inequities of the world, even the causes of wars and disasters of the economy might be rooted in our collective self-deception.

The adventure starts with a reflection on a fairy tale from our childhood and one from Washington. It then joins a pair – a professor and his young assistant on an American adventure. They look at such topics as social interaction, sports professional and local, and our individual fitness. Business and education provide many examples and insights. Next, religion and science provide contrasts and similarities.

Government, politics, the legal system, and military service complete this brief trip. In each area, the presence and effects of BS are noted. The final section is devoted to the three greatest downfalls of society in the last century. They are identified and their drastic effects on our society are briefly examined.

Guest Post

Have you ever wanted to stand up during a speech, lecture, sermon, advertisement and just yell. You weren’t being directly harmed or attacked. Nothing was physically being stolen from you. No one was demanding your mind or your money. Just the same, you felt violated in a very real sense. BS steals from us all. Pretending to accept the false makes it harder to trust the authentic.

It seems very important that we know what is real and what is BS. It is also important that those that generate BS, (we all do some) realize that they’re not fooling anyone. It would really mess things up if all BS were challenged and rejected, but it might be useful if it were identified and acknowledged. As I started to collect my thoughts, I was almost overwhelmed by the examples and challenges that life presents us. Almost every area of our experience is affected. In the book I have not put much emphasis on politics. As we proceed in this election year I am sure that we will have ample opportunity to find “sterling” examples. (Sterling BS is sort of an oxymoron!)

As we proceed we’ll need active participation to make this the best experience. Maybe we can have some awards on the blog for different classes of BS. Your suggestions are encouraged. As with any blog, it is your participation and our interaction that will provide the richness.

I have spent much of my life being frustrated by the BS and by the frequent pretense that the BS is reality. Through the book and this blog I want to challenge this. I believe most of us recognize BS when we stop and think about it. I’ve often felt that putting up with BS is societies definition of maturity and wisdom. I don’t think most of us really feel that way. This is an effort to observe, laugh and possibly change.

Throughout the book you will see a wagging finger beside the text. There was a small group of us at work that would silently use this finger wagging as means to silently, but visibly, point out BS when we see or hear it. It would be great to establish this as a nationally recognized and accepted symbology, It might even become an effective way of communicating our knowledge and feelings to those that provide the BS.

Maybe we can also create a list of BS. Postulates. The first might be: “If you wonder if it’s BS, it almost certainly is!”

Please enjoy. Laugh at the BS, act but don’t get mad!

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Gotta Call BS on That One can be purchased at:
MyBookOrders.com
Kindle
Nook

Click here to read an excerpt.

Price: $13.99 paperback, $6.99 ebook
ISBN: 9781937928919
Pages: 178
Release: August 5, 2012


About the Author

Gerry Steiner has enjoyed a life that is varied in location, vocation, and activities. He started in the land of tradition and history, Hampton, Va., the oldest continuous English speaking settlement in the United States. After high school and eighteen years surrounded by history. Gerry was ready to venture away from Virginia. After considering Cornell, he caught a train to California and went to Caltech. He left Caltech after a couple years to work in seismic oil exploration. His Uncle invited Mr. Steiner to visit Asia. Gerry picked the Navy as the best way to get there. This kept him busy for ten years. A year of Navy school as an electronics technician started the process. Fortunate circumstances led him to his wife and “stability?” for the next 40 years. Gerry then finished his BS and an MS in oceanography before sailing for Vietnam, There gunfire support and chasing aircraft carriers kept him in touch with the real world. Receiving fuel and supplies at sea gave him an appreciation for close quarters’ steerage. A pleasant break provided a week in Olongapo followed by a week in Hong Kong. His wife, Marilyn joined him.

After the Navy and back in Seattle he continued his work in sonar research at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. He started work on a PhD in electrical engineering. He made sonar measurements from an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean north of Barrow, Alaska. Two visits by polar bears approaching to 20 ft. added to the excitement Dr. Steiner moved to Ridgecrest, CA where he held a position at China Lake Naval Weapons Center. Several years in automatic target recognition included radar field measurements from Pt. Loma, San Diego. Next he started the Airborne RF Targeting Branch. Gerry also completed his doctorate in electrical engineering.

From China Lake Dr. Steiner ventured off to Denver, Colorado to join Martin Marietta. The initial year in Denver was focused on space based radar plans. A movie and a president changed his focus. The movie was Star Wars, the president was Reagan, the focus became the Strategic Defense Initiative. He spent the next decade on issues related to SDI. After the space based interceptor there was a space based laser concept. His efforts contained analysis, management, design, and testing. A couple years were spent developing a new rocket to provide a re-useable single stage to orbit vehicle. Only physics stood in the way.

Gerry’s wife was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and given six months to live. They had great times that were ended. Dr. Steiner moved to Maui five years ago. He has written this book to share his observations on how the world works and how it could work better.

Connect with Gerry:
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Natalie Wexler - The Mother Daughter Show - Guest Post

About the Book

At Barton Friends a D.C. prep school so elite its parent body includes the President and First Lady - three mothers have thrown themselves into organizing the annual musical revue. Will its Machiavellian intrigue somehow enable them to reconnect with their graduating daughters, who are fast spinning out of control? By turns hilarious and poignant, The Mother Daughter Show will appeal to anyone who's ever had a daughter - and anyone who's ever been one.

Guest Post

I’ve written one novel set in the 1790s and another set in 2009—in Washington, D.C., where I’ve lived for the past 25 years. Not surprisingly, the process of creating a setting in each of these instances was quite different.

For A More Obedient Wife—my historical novel—I immersed myself as best I could in the world of the 1790s, always conscious that my grasp of it would be imperfect. I had letters to and from my main characters (who were based on real, though minor, historical figures) to help me imagine myself back in their world, and I immersed myself in primary and secondary sources about the period.

For each of the cities in which the book was set—New York, Philadelphia, Bethlehem, PA, and Edenton, NC—I acquired maps dating from the late 18th century, and as I wrote I would often refer to them, working in the names of actual streets and tracing a character’s path through town. I also went to each city and tried to imagine it as it would have looked 200 years before. This worked particularly well in Bethlehem and Edenton, both of which are highly conscious of their history and have done a great job of preserving their old buildings.

The book is in the form of diary entries, and on the wall above my desk I taped a calendar from the 1790s, so that instead of dating an entry as merely “December 12, 1793,” I could specify that it was “Thursday, December 12, 1793.” This may seem trivial, but every little detail helped me conjure up the world of the past.

When it came to writing The Mother Daughter Show, all I had to do was look around me—to some extent, that is. The story was inspired by real events at a real place—my daughter’s school, Sidwell Friends. But make no mistake: it’s fiction! And it’s satire. I never intended to paint an accurate portrait of either the school or of Washington, but rather a version of both that suited my purposes. Certain things are left out, and others are exaggerated.

I did, however, throw in a few real place names, and there are some asides that may resonate with the experience of those who live here (I’m thinking in particular about one character’s rant about tourists clogging up the subway system!).

So you might conclude that it was easier to write the contemporary novel, given my familiarity with the setting. Well, yes and no. I think that in some ways having to do the work of creating an unfamiliar place in my head, and then capturing it on paper, propelled me into a fictional world and allowed me to invent more freely. With The Mother Daughter Show, I had to work a little harder to achieve the freedom from real life that makes a novel take off.



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The Mother Daughter Show can be purchased at:
Amazon
Fuze Publishing
Kindle
Nook

Price: $19.95 paperback, $9.99 ebook
ISBN: 9780984141296
Pages: 274
Release: December 2011


About the Author

Natalie Wexler is the author of The Mother Daughter Show (Fuze Publishing 2011) and an award-winning historical novel, A More Obedient Wife. She is a journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, the American Scholar, the Gettysburg Review, and other publications, and she is a reviewer for the Washington Independent Review of Books. She has also worked as a temporary secretary, a newspaper reporter, a Supreme Court law clerk, a legal historian, and (briefly) an actual lawyer. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband.

Connect with Natalie:
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Fuze Publishing Web Site
Fuze Publishing Blog
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Fuze Publishing Twitter
Tribute Books Blog Tour Site

Janiera Eldridge - Soul Sisters - Guest Post

Guest Post

Soul Sisters Roam All Around The World

From the moment I started writing Soul Sisters, I knew that it would have to take place all across the world. The story starts in San Diego where twin sisters Ani and Dana live. I made the sisters live there because it is such a beautiful city. I haven’t been there personally but know people who have and they say it is so beautiful. It’s a city that was so perfect for these beautiful twin sisters to live in because it is just as beautiful as they are.

I also wrote about the sisters and their friends traveling to different locations like Switzerland, London and Dana is originally from Harlem New York. These are all locations I’ve never been to but have dreamed about. The power of the internet makes it so easy to learn more about anywhere in the world you want. I researched each location and decided to take the most beautiful settings from each location and put them into my book. One of my favorite countries to learn about was Spain, the architecture is so beautiful. Spain was important to learn about when the sisters go to request help from Diego they stay in his mini castle.

It was important for me to really think about if I was the reader what would I want to know about the setting? I’m big on food so almost every new location has a scene describing the sights and smells of that locations foods. People want to feel completely immersed in a book and like they’re going someplace maybe they’ve never been. Spain means many romantic things for Diego and Ani, it’s the place where they first met and had a beautiful time together. I wrote about the fun things they did there to pull readers into their intimate and beautiful world.

Setting is so important to every book and writing descriptions was one of my favorite things about writing Soul Sisters. I hope readers will feel like they’ve been to may new places after reading my book.


About the Book

Soul Sisters is an urban fantasy novel about African-American twin sisters Ani and Dana who have a rather unique secret: one sister is human while the other is a vampire. While the sisters have lived peacefully with each other for many years one fateful night will change both their lives forever. When a drunken man tries to attack Dana (the human sister) Ani (the vampire sister) protects her sister with all of her ferocious power.

However, when the vampire’s leader Donovan finds out about the public display he calls for the sisters to be assassinated for disobedience. Ani and Dana now are in for the fight of their lives to protect each other as well as the lives of their dedicated friends who have joined them on their mission for survival. If Dana and Ani can make it through this time of uncertainty, Ani can take her new place as vampire queen.

Soul Sisters is expected to be a trilogy; The book also features a multicultural cast of characters that brings a new edge of chic to the vampire world.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: May 23, 2012
Formats/Prices: $10 paperback, $2.99 ebook
Buy Links: CreateSpace, Kindle




About the Author

 Janiera enjoys feeding her  book addiction when she not writing. She is also a book blogger at Beauty and Books where she mixes being a book nerd with keeping things chic. When not reading or writing she is freelance writing in the entertainment industry. Soul Sisters is her debut novel.

Links to connect with Janiera:
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Hillary E. Peak - Wings of Hope - Author Interview & Guest Post

About the Book

The letter said he was dying, that’s all Jules Weinstein knows when she leaves her life in San Francisco and moves to New York City to be with her father. She goes for the remarkable opportunity to really know her father. She never dreamed he had liberated a concentration camp, dealt cards to Bugsy Siegel or saved the life of a Black Panther. Wings of Hope is a road trip through the memories of a man making peace with his life. Little does she know that by getting to know her father, she will find herself. While her father struggles with whether his life was meaningful, Jules discovers that her father’s last gift to her is the ability to reach for her dreams. Her journey teacher her that “the goodbye” is sometimes the most heartbreakingly beautiful part of life.

Author Interview

1. Why did you choose this setting?
This story is a tribute to my father. He grew up in New York City, so I picked that as my main location. I chose to have my main character from San Francisco because I love that city. They travel to Switzerland and France because my father actually went to medical school there.

2. How is it a fundamental part of your overall theme?
This is a book of both looking back and learning to move forward. It is in visiting these places with her father that Jules learns who is he and why. It is going to Paris where she begins to find her true self and take steps to becoming who she really wants to be.

3. How challenging was it to write about?
I've been to all the places, so it wasn't too difficult. I did do some quick research to make it feel authentic.

4. How did you develop your setting as you wrote your book?
This sounds silly, but I close my eyes and try to imagine it. Then, I work on writing it down so that someone else could see it too.

5. How do you transport them there through your writing?
It is actually really hard for me. I have to keep going back and making my descriptions more real and vivid. It takes me multiple re-writes to get my readers there.

6. How do you introduce them to an area they may not be familiar with?
I try to place myself there for the first time, remembering how I saw it and what was exciting and interesting to me about the location.

7. How do you go about making the setting come alive for the reader?
For me that is in researching the place, learning the history, adding details about it. Also, I have a much keener ability to describe what I eat and drink. I also remember a lot more about what I eat and drink. So in each location, there is a lot of descriptions of the food and the drinks. I think this helps the place become more alive for the reader.

Guest Post

Formulation of Setting

For me, a place is more than sights and sounds, it is tastes and feelings. I generally use places that I have been. Mentally, I return to those places to formulate my setting. I think of my visit or visits. What did I like? What did I not like? How did I feel? In answering these questions, I begin to put together a place for my readers to travel to. For example, Paris was wonderful bread, the best French fries I've ever eaten, tough steak, creamy desserts, tables that were so close you might as well have been dining with the people next to you and watching the fashions go by on the Champs Elysee. New York is delis, take out Chinese, bagels and constant noise.

I'm not great at long descriptions, but I do remember these details, which is what makes a place feel authentic in my writing. Then I start researching. One of the most interesting things I found out about Lausanne Switzerland is that there used to be pirates there! I try to integrate places of interest, things a reader would see if they were actually in the location. I even research restaurants and menus to give as much authenticity to the places as I possibly can.

It is my hope that the reader feels connected to the story through the tastes, sights and sounds of my settings.

***

Wings of Hope can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes&Noble.com
Kindle
Smashwords

Price: $9.99 paperback, $2.99 ebook
ISBN: 9781466312197
Pages: 226
Release: December 2011


About the Author

Hillary Peak is a recovering idealist. She became a lawyer to change the world and is still somewhat shocked that didn't occur. Now, her goal is to retire from practicing law and write novels that people love. She is currently a practicing attorney in the District of Columbia. She lives with her family in Alexandria, VA.

Connect with Hillary:
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Goodreads
Tribute Books Blog Tour Site

Mark Saunders - Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak - Guest Post

My thanks to Mark Saunders for stopping by City Girl Who Loves to Read for a guest post during the blog tour for his book, Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak.

Guest Post
It doesn’t matter if it’s about a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land, or landing a strange fish, all such stories are largely about setting. Shortly after the story opens, if not at its very beginning, the central character is thrown into an unfamiliar milieu and events—good and bad—take place. The story is off and running.

In my case, my wife, Arlene, and I, facing the loss of both of our high-tech jobs in Portland, Oregon, while in our late 50s, elected to drop out, sell almost everything, and move to the middle of Mexico, where we didn’t know a soul and could barely speak the language. In other words, we dramatically changed our setting and by doing so dramatically changed our lives. I wrote about our two-year experience in the humorous memoir Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak.

After a six-day road trip we landed in San Miguel de Allende and discovered we were living in a cash-based society where nobody ever had change. In a culture where mañana did not always mean tomorrow but could mean anything from later to not now to fat chance you’ll ever see me again. In a country where the most common unit of measurement was not the kilo or the kilometer, as guidebooks would have you believe, but something known as más o menos, simply translated as “more or less.”

We lived in La Lejona, a mostly Mexican middle class neighborhood with wide, cobbled or unpaved streets, dust everywhere except during the rainy season, and an impressive backdrop of cacti and mountains. La Lejona is the kind of Mexican neighborhood where foreigners pat themselves on the back for living among the locals while Mexicans pat themselves on the back for living among foreigners.

La Lejona is Spanish for “far away” and, as I understand it, was the name of the original hacienda in the area, which still exists tucked up against the hillside along a ravine. But far away is a relative term, and our neighborhood was less than a thirty-minute, mostly flat trip, into the popular historic Centro on foot, a fifteen-minute bus ride, ten minutes by car or taxi.

Setting is key in my memoir. For instance, one chapter (“Yes, We Have No Chihuahuas”) covers the many different classes of dogs in town, from rooftop dogs to unseen dogs behind locked garage doors to tiny dogs carried in beaded handbags. In another chapter (“How Are Things in Doctor Mora?”) I talk about why the town is called The City of Fallen Women, which has nothing to do with the male-to-female ratio or seduction and everything to do with the simple yet painful act of falling down and twisting an ankle and the embarrassment of doing it in public. Still another chapter, one I refer to as my Moby Dick chapter (“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Firecracker”), includes a detailed litany of the on-going fiestas that take place in San Miguel.

In short, because we lived in a Spanish-speaking country but could only speak “muy poco” Spanish, almost every chapter stated or implied the impact of this setting in our lives. We were, after all, clueless expats.

About the Book
Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak

Book Details:
Price: $14.95 paperback, $9.99 ebook
Format: Paperback, ebook
Publisher: Fuze Publishing
Published: November 2011
Pages: 298
ISBN: 9780984141289
Genre: Memoir, Humor
Buy Links: Amazon, Fuze Publishing, Kindle, Nook

Blurb:
Ay, chihuahua! Ay, caramba! Oy vey!

In early December 2005, Mark Saunders and his wife, along with their dog and cat, packed up their 21st century jalopy, a black Audi Quattro with a luggage carrier on top, and left Portland, Oregon, for San Miguel de Allende, three thousand miles away in the middle of Mexico, where they knew no one and could barely speak the language.

Things fell apart almost from the beginning. The house they rented was as cold as a restaurant’s freezer. Their furniture took longer than expected to arrive. They couldn’t even get copies of their house keys made. They unintentionally filled their house with smoke and just as unintentionally knocked out the power to their entire neighborhood. In other words, they were clueless. This is their story.

About the Author
Mark Saunders

An award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and cartoonist, Mark Saunders tried standup comedy to get over shyness and failed spectacularly at it — the standup part, not the shyness. He once owned a Yugo and still can’t remember why. Nearly 30 of his plays have been staged, from California to New York - with several stops in-between - and two plays have been published.

With three scripts optioned, his screenplays, all comedies, have attracted awards but seem to be allergic to money. Back in his drawing days, more than 500 of his cartoons appeared nationally in publications as diverse as Writer’s Digest, The Twilight Zone Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post.

As a freelancer, he also wrote gags for the popular comic strip “Frank and Ernest,” as well as jokes for professional comedians, including Jay Leno. Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak is his first book.

Connect with Mark:
Web Site

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Nobody Know the Spanish I Speak Blog Tour Site

Tour Participants:

March 1
The Book Connection

March 2
Crazed Mind

March 5
I Am A Reader, Not A Writer

March 6
Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews

March 7
Book Dilettante

March 8
CMash Loves to Read

March 9
Book Sake

March 15
Mom in Love with Fiction

March 17
Literary R&R

March 19
The Character Connection

March 20
The Plot Thickens

March 21
City Girl Who Likes to Read

March 22
Fighter Writer

March 26
Celtic Lady's Reviews

Dorothy James - A Place to Die - Guest Post

My thanks to Dorothy James for stopping by City Girl Who Loves to Read for a guest post during the blog tour for her book, A Place to Die.

Guest Post

Setting My Mystery Novel

It is not by chance that my mystery novel is called A Place to Die. Place is very important to me. Plot, characters, setting—all ingredients of a novel, and if you equate “setting” with “background,” you might regard it as being of secondary importance: You tell a story, you create characters and you set them against a certain background. But in my novel and in my thinking, the place is important. It is not just background, it is a fundamental part of the novel’s theme.

Here we have a very specific setting: A retirement home in Vienna. This does not of course dictate the story, the plot, but it determines quite a lot about the characters. I started with the idea of putting a murder mystery in a retirement home because, influenced by the traditional country-house murder mystery, I thought, what better place for such a mystery than a retirement home where you can readily establish a group of characters, close the door on them, as it were, and have a detective gradually track down which of them “did it.” And then, because I was living in Vienna at the time, and knew the city and its history very well. It was the natural place for me to draw a set of characters and use their own past histories in the plot.

The setting is foreign to the American reader, and one might think it difficult to create the impression that all the characters are speaking German when one is writing in English. Of course, I did not want to write some sort of phony German-English, as in a comic show. I did not find it difficult however to observe the standard politenesses of the German language, and a certain formality of language in characters of a certain age. I think there is a difference in the book between the language in which the American visitors to the residence think and talk among themselves, and the language in which the older members of the residence address each other. I did not struggle mightily with this. I felt firmly rooted in the atmosphere of the House in the Vienna Woods, and the language flowed naturally out of that.

Certain aspects of the setting of the retirement home itself are to some extent culture-specific, for example, the café where residents and visitors take coffee and cake and even schnapps in the afternoon, but the basic situation of older people coming to terms with institutional living and with aging itself—this certainly crosses national boundaries. I did not try to make this setting and this situation palatable to the reader—I set out to convey it as it is, with its comic sides as well its heartaches.

Place in this novel is paramount. The plot, the characters, the ideas—they belong in this place.

About the Book
A Place to Die

Book Details:
Price: $34.99 hardcover, $23.99 paperback, $3.03-$9.99 ebook
Format: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Published: April 2010
Pages: 436
ISBN: 9781450082709, 9781450082693
Genre: Murder Mystery
Buy Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
Kindle, Nook, iBookstore

Blurb:
Eleanor and Franz Fabian arrive from New York to spend Christmas with Franzs mother in her sedate retirement home in the Vienna Woods. Their expectations are low: at best, boredom, at worst, run-of-the-mill family friction. But when the wealthy, charming Herr Graf is found dead in his apartment with an ugly head wound, the Fabians are thrust into a homicide investigation.

Some residents and staff have surprising connections to the dead man, but who would have wanted to kill him? Inspector Buchner tracks down the murderer against a backdrop of Viennese history from the Nazi years to the present day. Witty, suspenseful, lyrical, this is a literary whodunit that will keep you guessing till the last page.

About the Author
Dorothy James

Dorothy James was born in Wales and grew up in the South Wales Valleys. Writer, editor, and translator, she has published short stories as well as books and articles on German and Austrian literature. She has taught at universities in the U.S., England, and Germany, makes her home now in Brooklyn and often spends time in Vienna and Berlin.

She wrote A Place to Die in her attic apartment on the edge of the Vienna Woods. She has traveled far from Wales, but has not lost the Welsh love of playing with language; she writes poems for pleasure as does Chief Inspector Büchner, the whimsical Viennese detective who unravels the first mystery in this new series of novels.

Connect with Dorothy:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter
Blog

About the Tour

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A Place to Die Blog Tour Site

Tour Participants:

February 6 (guest post)
Proud Book Nerd

February 6 (guest post)
Bibliophilic Book Blog

February 6 (author interview)
You Gotta Read

February 7 (guest post)
vvb32 reads

February 8 (guest post or author interview)
The Character Connection

February 8 (author interview)
I Am a Reader, Not a Writer

February 9 (review)
Kritters Ramblings

February 10 (review)
A Lovely Shore Breeze

February 10 (guest post or author interview)
The Plot Thickens

February 13 (guest post)
Book Dilettante

February 13 (review)
Books and Needlepoint

February 13 (review)
Tic Toc

February 14 (review)
Reviews by Molly

February 15 (guest post or author interview)
City Girl Who Loves to Read

February 15 (review)
The Book Connection

February 16 (review)
Book Dragon's Lair

February 16 (guest post)
Books-n-Kisses

February 17 (review)
Simple Wyrdings

February 18 (review)
Lesa's Book Critiques

February 21 (review)
Words by Webb

February 22 (guest post)
Mama Knows Books

February 23 (guest post)
Fighter Writer

February 24 (review)
Minding Spot

Tom Mach - Stories to Enjoy - Guest Post

Guest Post

"How to Form Different Settings Successfully in Writing a Compilation of Short Stories"
by Tom Mach

In writing a novel, an author has time to create and embellish a setting for his characters. She can return to that same setting in another chapter and expand on that setting so well that it becomes one of her characters. Not so with a short story where the author is involved in one particular setting and has to make both the scene and the back-story and the plot and the characters come alive rather quickly.

Each of my sixteen short stories in Stories to Enjoy requires a different setting. In “Burning Faith” a landscaper is on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. In “The Hen Party” three amateur painters are in an artist’s residence in Kansas City. In “Priscilla’s New Word” a grade school child is in a classroom and having a difficult time reading the blackboard. All of these settings are described enough such that the reader can easily fill in her imagination the details of these settings.

For instance, in “Breakfast, Over Easy” a man named Chuck seated at a table at the California Broadway Diner in San Diego. While the diner itself is not described, there are enough elements in the story to enable the reader to “see” this diner. Chuck is seated so that he can see people come into or leaving the diner. There is a large clock on the diner wall that tells Chuck that Larry, a friend he was expecting, is late. Then more description….

Where the hell was Larry today? I tossed my paper on the table and managed to spill the coffee I had left in my cup. I ignored everyone’s fixed gaze at my clumsiness. I wiped the mess I made on the table with as many napkins as my hand could hold.

Notice that it isn’t necessary for me to describe the wallpaper or the size of the table or the number of people in the diner. Those details would only distract the reader from the core of the story itself. In “Doll House” when Leland enters a bar named Johnnie’s he’s met by a brown-and-white English Foxhound who jumps up at him, snapping and growling. Why did I bother describing the dog? Because Leland learns it’s the owner’s robot dog—and that information gives the reader an important clue as to what happens when he goes home to his girlfriend. (Sorry, can’t give you more than that—you’ll have to read the story yourself.) But the point is that while I do describe the bar somewhat—the large crowd, the barstools, the bartender serving drinks—the bar itself is not important to the story. We’ve all been to bars and have a good idea as to what one looks like.

If the setting was an integral part of the story itself, then yes, there would be more description. In “Frozen History”, another story in Stories to Enjoy, Dante is sitting in his apartment balcony overlooking Manhattan. Here I describe three F-15 fighter jets streaking across the blue sky, the shrill blast of an emergency siren, the approach of a helicopter about to land on the roof of Century Bank, and the red, white, and blue lights flashing from a Pepsi sign. All of this is important because in a few minutes incoming missiles from Iran will freeze, as will all of this activity I’ve just described.

Book Summary

This unique collection of 16 short stories written by prize-winner Tom Mach includes stories such as "Real Characters," which is about a writer who gets his wish--that his characters come alive.... "Breakfast, Over Easy" makes you wonder about loyalty in the face of temptation.... "When Kansas Women Were Not Free" takes you to a time when women were less free than former males slaves.... "Son" make you think differently about compassion. One novelist describes STORIES TO ENJOY as "memorable and intriguing, with O. Henry twists that are sure to surprise and entertain."

Excerpt

The professor focused his entire attention on what Ford’s Theater looked like back in April of 1865. He imagined himself to be John Wilkes Booth’s friend and stagehand—Edman Spangler. After a long while he felt himself growing exceedingly tired, and when he opened his eyes he found himself in the real Ford’s Theater. There was no one in the presidential box and Wilson, who now believed he was indeed Mr. Spangler, ran his hand over the balustrade.

“Spangler,” a voice called out to him from below, “are you still working on removing the partition of the box to make room for the President and General Grant?”

It was John Wilkes Booth himself speaking to him!

Bio

Tom Mach wrote two successful historical novels, Sissy! and All Parts Together, both of which have won rave reviews and were listed among the 150 best Kansas books in 2011.Sissy! won the J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award while All Parts Together was a viable entrant for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Award. He also wrote a collection of short stories entitled Stories To Enjoy which received positive reviews. Tom’s other novels include: An Innocent Murdered, Advent, and Homer the Roamer.

His poetry collection, The Uni Verse, won the Nelson Poetry Book Award. In addition to several awards for his poetry, Writer’s Digest awarded him ninth place in a field of 3,000 entrants. His website is: www.TomMach.com He also has a popular blog for writers of both prose and verse at http://tommach.tumblr.com

Links

http://twitter.com/kansasauthor

http://www.facebook.com/kansasauthor

http://www.linkedin.com/in/tommach

http://tommach.tumblr.com

Giveaway

PLEASE MENTION THE PRIZE THAT THE AUTHOR WILL BE GIVING AWAY (a $25 Amazon gift card to one randomly drawn commenter) and encourage your readers to follow the tour and comment; the more they comment, the better their chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2011/11/vbt-stories-to-enjoy-by-tom-mach.html