Monthly Archives: December 2013

Spotlight on Secrets and Lies by Christine Amsden

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About the book, Secrets and Lies

Secrets and Lies

Cassie Scot,still stinging from her parents’ betrayal, wants out of the magical world. But it isn’t letting her go. Her family is falling apart and despite everything, it looks like she may be the only one who can save them.

To complicate matters, Cassie owes Evan her life, making it difficult for her to deny him anything he really wants. And he wants her. Sparks fly when they team up to find two girls missing from summer camp, but long-buried secrets may ruin their hopes for happiness. Book 2 in the Cassie Scot Mystery series.

Buy a copy here:

Amazon

About the author, Christine Amsden

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that effects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.

In addition to writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing at Savvy Authors. She also does some freelance editing work.

Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children.

Connect with Christine

Website: Into the Dreaming
Facebook: Christine Amsden, Author
Twitter: @ChristineAmsden

Read an Excerpt from Secrets and Lies

I faced my former father for the first time since he had announced his intention to disown me. He looked just as he always had, with straight dark hair, brown eyes, a long, angular face, and a wide, curving mouth – curving downward into a frown, that is.

If Victor was the last person I had expected to see in the diner that morning, then my former father was the last person I wanted to see. Even now, with Victor explaining my part in his unusual scheme for revenge, I didn’t want my former father nearby. I didn’t want his help. I only hoped Nicolas and Juliana hadn’t broken their promise and told him about the life debt, or I would never hear the end of it.

The air crackled with visible tension. Sparks of shimmering red fire danced around my father’s head. Behind the counter, Mrs. Meyers twisted her hands together anxiously, as if afraid her diner might burn down. Her fears were not unjustified.

I stepped boldly between them, facing my father. “What are you doing here?“

“We need to talk,“ he said.

“I have nothing to say to you. You disowned me, remember?“

The color seemed to drain from his face as he stared past me, at his oldest enemy.

Victor raised his water glass in a mock toast. “I’ve known for some time. If it makes you feel any worse, so does everyone else in town who hasn’t been asleep for a week. Or at least, they guess.“

“I don’t care what you think you know. Stay away from my daughter.“With that, he grabbed my arm with a hand hot enough to leave a reddened imprint on my skin, and dragged me through the kitchen to the employee room at the back. Only then did he release my injured forearm.”

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Secrets and Lies

First Chapter Review: My Year as a Clown by Robert Steven Williams

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About the book, My Year as a Clown by Robert Steven Williams

My Year as a Clown

Silver Medal Winner for Popular Fiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

With My Year as a Clown, Williams introduces us to Chuck Morgan, a new kind of male hero—imperfect and uncertain—fumbling his way forward in the aftermath of the abrupt collapse his 20-year marriage.

Initially, Chuck worries he’ll never have a relationship again, that he could stand in the lobby of a brothel with a hundred dollar bill plastered to his forehead and still not get lucky. But as his emotionally raw, 365-day odyssey unfolds, Chuck gradually relearns to live on his own, navigating the minefield of issues faced by the suddenly single—new routines, awkward dates, and even more awkward sex.

Edited by Joy Johannessen (Alice Sebold, Michael Cunningham, Amy Bloom), My Year As a Clown will attract fans of the new breed of novelists that includes Nick Hornby, Jonathan Tropper and Tom Perrotta. Like others in that distinguished group, Robert Steven Williams delivers a painfully honest glimpses into the modern male psyche while writing about both sexes with equal ease and grace in a way that’s both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

Buy a copy from Amazon.

Click through to read an excerpt via the Issuu Reader

http://issuu.com/robertstevenwilliams/docs/my_year_as_a_clown_excerpt_long?e=7017472/1188935

My Thoughts on the First Chapter:

Robert Steven Williams is a fantastic writer. That was my first thought as I zipped through, not just the first chapter of My Year as a Clown, but the first FOUR. He’s a fantastic writer and this is a fast read. I said to myself. Hey, I’m a writer, too, and an improvisational actor. When I talk to myself, it’s not crazy, really.

But back to chapter one. This book opens with Chuck racing in his un-air conditioned car to meet his wife, an archaeologist, at the airport. He’s running late, and doesn’t want her to wait, but when he gets there, she rebuffs him. Within 24 hours, nee, within, ten, their marriage is essentially over.

That should make Chuck seem pathetic, and it is, in a way, but he’s written to be very real, if a tad more self-aware than most of the men I know, and what follows is the day-by-day chronicle of his life over the next year.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I started reading. I knew the ‘clown’ part in the title wasn’t literal, and I vaguely remember an explicit language warning when I signed up to help promote this title, but unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last ever, there’s really nothing offensive in this book. Is there cursing, well, yes, but not for the shock value. Just because…don’t faint or anything…people curse from time to time. (I’m told in the South and parts of the Midwest that word should be written as ‘cuss’ but as ‘cuss’ is obviously an elision of ‘curse’ I’m using the word my Jersey-Girl-turned-California-Girl-turned-Texas-resident is most comfortable with.)

But back to my review. I was instantly engaged with Chuck’s story because author Williams writes in a very accessible, almost breezy (except that’s a bit girly for this material) style. We see everything from Chuck’s eyes, from his interaction with the cats and the neighbors, to his reaction when a rabbi refers to a singer as being “hot” and then reminds him that “we’re not Catholic.”

This isn’t really a ha-ha comedy, but the voice Williams uses in this book is decidedly wry, and I found myself clicking on the ‘purchase’ button to buy the whole copy. (Hey, they Kindle version is only $0.99 at Amazon, at least today.)

Goes well with: Cold beer and pepperoni pizza.

Connect with author Robert Steven Williams

Goodreads: Robert Steven Williams
Twitter: @RSWwriter
Facebook: Robert Steven Williams

This spotlight is part of a blog tour. You can see the entire tour page at the Pump Up Your Book tour page.

Mini-Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

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I have a love-hate relationship with Neil Gaiman’s work. I loved both of his episodes of Doctor Who, but his books are more hit or miss.

American Gods, for example, is a novel I failed to get into. Something about it was just too uncomfortable for me to read. Stardust and Neverwhere, on the other hand, both entranced me from the first few words, and remain favorites years after my first encounters with them.

Still, with so many of my friends talking about his latest offering, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I had to read it. Since my library (which I don’t like to visit in person, because it smells like unloved old people and I find the silence oppressive) now has eBooks available, I picked this as my first digital check-out.

I was not disappointed. While rather dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is engaging, interesting, and quite gripping. We want the little boy to figure everything out, but we also want him to be okay. It’s a book of magic and mystery and moonlight, and is a great fairy-tale for adults who still retain enough childhood to believe in the possibility of dark creatures and fantastic happenings.

Goes well with Snickerdoodles and chai tea lattes.

Review: The Blind Masseuse, by Alden Jones

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About the book, The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia

The Blind Masseuse

The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia is both an eloquent memoir of the author’s journeys through Central America, Southeast Asia and Egypt and a thought-provoking exploration of the role travelers play as outsiders in cultures they inhabit temporarily.

What, asks Jones, distinguishes between a traveler and a tourist? Is it acceptable to “consume” another culture as a means of entertainment? Especially if doing so helps support an oppressive government?

Woven into a suspenseful narrative about the author’s own coming of age amid a defining wanderlust and a gender-neutral approach to romance, The Blind Masseuse gives an addictive, transporting look at the many aspects of life, civilization and travel that are neither black nor white.

Buy a copy from Amazon.

About the author, Alden Jones

Alden Jones

Alden Jones is an award-winning writer and faculty member at Emerson College’s department of Writing, Literature and Publishing. Since 1995 she’s combined teaching and writing with extensive travel to destinations such as Cuba and Costa Rica, where she lived for extended periods, and France, Italy, Japan, Cambodia, Burma and Egypt.

Her awards include the latest New American Fiction Prize for her forthcoming short story collection Unaccompanied Minors. Her short stories and travel essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner and The Best American Travel Writing.

Connect with Alden

Twitter: @jones_alden
Goodreads: Alden Jones

My Thoughts:

Whenever I read travel memoirs, it’s with mixed feelings. Part of me is excited to live vicariously through the author’s experience. Another part of me is envious of that experience. Reading The Blind Masseuse, both of those parts were actively engaged.

Alden Jones writes a vivid story. You could feel the heat, and taste the lard, in Costa Rica, feel the motion of a cruise ship full of students, and taste the cold Coke in Nicaragua (not necessarily in that order).

Likewise, her personal journey from blissful single life toward a more committed one, and eventual marriage, were written with candor and enough detail for the reader to feel like Alden was a good friend, without that story competing with the travelogue.

At one point in The Blind Masseuse Jones mentions that it was Spaulding Gray’s monologue Swimming to Cambodia that sparked her interest in Cambodia in the first place. I, too, am a big fan of that monologue, and Gray’s search for the perfect moment. (To this day, I have his line, “He won’t drown; he’s from South Africa!” in my head whenever I hear about water accidents.) That commonality really helped me connect to the author, and to her story.

I also really responded to the author’s distinction between travelers and tourists. As someone who began as a tourist and would like to be a traveler, I really appreciated the nuances she demonstrated, though I had to chuckle when she found herself in a decidedly “touristy” role.

If you want a travel memoir that just tells you where to go and what to see, this book is probably not for you. If, on the other hand, you want to feel as if you’re traveling with Alden Jones, you will love The Blind Masseuse.

Goes well with An ice cold coke and a bean and cheese burrito.