Sunday, April 14, 2013

Promo Op for Authors!

Our readers want YOU!

     Do you have a new book coming out that you'd like to tell us about or perhaps one that was just released? Stop by for a week and get to know those who stop in to peek at the schedule to see who's visiting with us next - it could be YOU!
     We'd love to host you for a week so that our readers can learn more about you and the books you write! We host a variety of genres because our readers love them all. Our schedule is open - please click the 'Send Email' button up there on the right and let us know the week that will work best for you.
      Contests are another favorite here! Readers love a chance to win.
      Readers, we need YOUR help to get the word out to authors, too. The social buttons are listed below for you to click and share on FB, Twitter, Google+ and more. Be a part of our street team and let's get some great authors in here for you to chat with!

Who's up next??

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Interview with the lovely romance author, Charmaine Gordon!


     Welcome to our Haven! This week we have an author who has become a great friend and that is so precious. Charmaine, welcome! It's a pleasure to have you with us. Our readers are thrilled to meet new authors. Tell us a bit about your amazing background!
 
Charmaine: Thank you so much for having me as your guest. Your site is very nice here! A bit about me...I have years of experience as an actor on daytime drama. Stage, spokesperson and commercials plus writing sketches for Air Force shows helped prepare me for the wonders of a writing career. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time when immersed in the written words of others, that I was like a sponge, soaking up how to construct a scene, write dialogue, and paint the setting.
      My writing effort came later when I wrote a two page story, sent it to son, Paul who commented, "Cool. Can you write ten pages?" Seemed impossible but the story poured from my fingers and seventy thousand words later, I typed The End.
      I kissed my acting career goodbye, leaving on a high note with the lead in an Off Broadway play, "The Fourth Commandment" author Rich Knipe. It was great fun and time to move on. Movies like "Working Girl", "Road to Wellsville" and having the pleasure of Anthony Hopkins company at lunch, working with Mike Nichols in "Regarding Henry" and singing outside with Harrison Ford, crying with Gene Wilder over loss on another set, When "Harry Met Sally" with the whole gang singing It Had to Be You. Lots of fond memories. My first job as stand-in leg model for Geraldine Ferraro in a Diet Pepsi commercial with Secret Service men guarding her and her daughters. A sweet time.
 
RH: Wow! That is a wonderful background. Your stories reflect your talent! Readers, here's an excerpt from one of her books and be sure to check out her newest release, The Catch!
 
Here’s a blurb from one of my faves, Reconstructing Charlie.

     Charlie Costigan has a secret. Home life gone from bad to the worse when she protects her mother from another vicious attack by her drunken father. Midnight. Clothes thrown into an old suitcase, she races for the bus with a letter to an unknown aunt and uncle. 'This is my daughter. Embrace her as if she were your own.'
     Determined, Charlie begins again. Alone with her secret. 
     After I wrote The End, two secondary characters came to perch on my shoulders and complain. “How about us? Tell our story. “ I caved and began the process all over again with Sin of Omission. “A lie by any other name is still a lie” to paraphrase Shakespeare.
     My favorite scene from this book is where Shelley Jackson finally tells the truth in the presence of her lover, Jimmy Costigan and her best friend, Charlie, Jimmy’s sister.
     “Charlie, you accepted me as a friend and roommate but how would you feel if I were to marry your brother and bring color into the lily white home of your Aunt and Uncle. I’ve been there. So pristine and perfect. I envied your life and all the love they have for you.” She took another deep breath and reached for the twins in Jimmy’s arms. He relinquished them so readily it made her pause and when he again refused to meet her eyes, her mind moved on. Maybe their father didn’t want them after all. “That’s about all except to say I’m sorry. I’ve committed a sin of omission by not coming clean. If you can find it in your hearts to forgive me, we can work it out. Ball’s in your court.”

Monday, April 1, 2013

You'll LOVE this week's author, Suzanna Williams, YA Ficiton

Suzanna Williams
YA Fiction

     Welcome to our interview with Suzanna. Be sure you click over to her website to watch her videos and book trailer. She's quite creative in what she's done to promo her book. I think you'll agree once you've hopped over there to watch them. There's a contest at the end and a few commenters will end up as lucky winners!
 
RH: Suzanna, we loved visiting your website! Which got us thinking about all you do. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Suzanna: I am the world’s worst person at sport. You know that kid who was always picked last for teams at school? That was me. I can’t run, jump, throw or catch and I’m not even competitive … which are not good traits for most sports.
      Maybe my lack of athletic achievement is the reason I make my characters so good. Paige has a black belt in karate and does gymnastics and Lee, my hero, is into parkour (which is a kind of urban gymnastics - the art of moving from one place to another taking the shortest route).
 
RH:  For an evening out, would it be dinner or a movie? What would the dinner be? What might the movie be?

Suzanna: Let’s do dinner and a movie. When I’m eating out, I like to order something I wouldn’t cook at home, probably something Indian, Italian, Chinese, definitely an international dish – my home cooking tends to centre round very English roasts and stews.
      And the movie? Action adventure please. I used to pitch ShockWaves as Die Hard for Kids and I went to see A Good Day to Die Hard last week. That was fun. 
 
RH: Do you have to split your writing time between a day job?

Suzanna: I am a serial collector of random, badly paying jobs. Presently, I only teach piano and work in a supermarket because I gave up my registrar job last year … not enough people getting married anymore.
     Although it would be nice to just be able to write, working lets me ‘people watch’ and provides lots of ideas for my characters so it’s not all bad. 
 
 
RH: What do you do to relax when you aren’t writing?

Suzanna:  I’m a serial collector of hobbies too. I play the piano, read lots, love walking in the mountains and at the moment I’m knitting a baby shawl because I’m almost a granny. I have a ‘nearly’ grandson due at the end of April.
 
RH: Congratulations on the new baby! How exciting! You'll have to take a break from writing for that! As authors, we’ve sometimes been accused of being several people. How many personalities live in your mind? 
 
Suzanna: That would depend on the book I’m working on. I have two main characters talking to me from my present work in progress. In fact, I have the complete story written from both perspectives, although the finished book will only be told from one. After you’ve lived with your characters for a while, you actually do get to know their reactions to the situations they find themselves in.
      I think my family has gotten used to me having conversations with myself now.
 
RH: Can you tell the readers something about your next book? 
 
Suzanna: I’d love to. It’s called Ninety-Five percent Human and it’s about a boy living on a farm in a sleepy Welsh village who saves a girl from committing suicide in the river only to discover she’s a human/alien hybrid and her survival has triggered the invasion of Earth. Phew! I knew I could do the log-line in one sentence.
     I know it sounds very sci-fi, and although we do get some spaceships at the end, it’s more about relationships and what it means to be human than ‘little green men.’ 
 
RH:  What type of reader will Ninety-five percent Human appeal to? 
 
Suzanna: All my books fall into the Young Adult category. There’s action and adventure and a touch of romance. They’re aimed at readers who might like Marie Lu’s ‘Legend’ or ‘Robert Muchamores ‘Cherub’ series or, dare I say, ‘The Hunger Games,’ which had a lot of adult readers too.       Legend’s one of my favourite books at the moment. Here I am reading it. I like to get into the atmosphere of a book.
 
 
RH: What research do you do when writing?

Suzanna: I love stories that make the reader believe could happen to them. So I write about normal places I know and invent radical situations in them. Hence ShockWaves is set in Shrewsbury, my nearest town but my characters have to fight against an ex-IRA terrorist and have a telepathic connection and Ninety-five percent Human finds an alien in a Welsh farming community.
      I like to visit locations as research for my novels so I traveled on a ferry before I wrote the scene. Who’d have thought you’d smell the non-slip rubbery decking? Or the corridors between the cabins would be so narrow? Or the lifeboats inflate?????
    Shhhh....but the ferry gets blown up in the story. Imagine Lee and Paige in the dark, soaking wet and being winched onto a rescue helicopter as the ship sinks beneath the waves.
 

RH:  That was the scene on your book cover. Did you really get actors to do that? 
 

Suzanna: Umm … No … It was my son and his girlfriend standing on a gate ... But don’t tell anyone … It was actually quite dangerous  ... They fell on the photographer twice! 

RH:  That must have been a fun photo shoot! Suzanna, you're hilarious. Thank you so much for stopping by our blog this week to spend time with our readers! You're also doing a contest and all they have to do is leave a comment for you, their email addy and e-format they need if they win!
 
THANK YOU ALL FOR STOPPING IN!


*includes buy links and connections with her*
 
CONTEST: Leave a question or comment about Suzanna's videos, promo, covers or characters. She'll need your email to contact you in case you're a winner and the e-format you need. Thanks for chatting with Suzanna.