Toward the Double Rainbow (a Hawaii Travel Tale)

Gabriella West’s personal account of a 2005 trip to Hawaii with her girlfriend reads like pages from her diary. Rather than focusing solely on the places and attractions of a vacation like Hawaii, like any explicit travel log or guide book would do, West focuses on how these places make the couple feel. She gives us the emotional connection we often seek while on vacation, whether that be with our lover or with the place itself. The two go for a massage and each have a very different encounter. Her girlfriend is spoken to by a ghost in the guest house they are staying in. They run into two strangers, a couple they’d seen on the plane over, and Gabriella surprisingly admits to them that they’ve been fighting a lot. “That happens here,” one of the men tells her, “It’s a place where feelings emerge, where you have to be real.”

And isn’t it that way with any vacation you share with your significant other? You want it to be a trip that only movies are made of, with fond hand-holding walks on the beach and romantic evenings. You want to reconnect. But you usually end up complaining about the food or fighting about who’s going to drive and who wants to do what. I’ve been there! And that’s why I related to this story so much. Too many times I’ve put the blame on the other person as to why the vacation was ruined, but I still managed to walk away with some great memories and photos to prove it. It wasn’t the trip or the person who made it a learning experience; it was the place and just being there.

Gabriella has the perfect epiphany in the end that really sums up the way trips like this really are for couples: “It seems like we are always surrounded by people who tel us in subtle ways how they see us or who we are. Traveling, we seek acceptance in the eyes of strangers and sometimes we find it. In my experience, though, it’s places and not people who bring out the best in us. A place can be spacious and holding, embracing even, while a person can be judging, rejecting, classifying and labeling. I see that judging person in myself…”

The Doge’s Daughter
.99 cents Amazon Kindle
ASIN: B005MJG4JA
95 KB

After reading Gabriella West’s short story, The Doge’s Daughter, the reader may need a cold shower or a cigarette. Venice, 1600s. West has given us a periodic piece that, though boldly sad, rings true for the way innocent boys with falsetto voices were treated during this time. Just read Anne Rice’s Cry to Heaven for a more heavier look at the world of the castrati.

Young Piero is swept away from his poor family, chosen for the royal court choir. Soon, he is also chosen by the Doge’s young daughter who is about to be married off to a prince. And while the prince is away, his wife will play and she wants Piero to be her lover. Both explore new and exciting realms of their sexuality, as Piero becomes comfortable in matters of his own heart.

West has true talent for creating strong characters, giving them life on the page just as disturbing and true as our own situations that we find ourselves in sometimes. This rings very true in one brief encounter that Piero has with a male visitor to the castle as they discuss their tastes for male or female lovers, ultimately leading to a “satisfying” conclusion for Piero.

A touch of history, a naughty erotic relationship between three partners, and an exploration of a boy and girl gracing into adulthood and love, West treats her adult readers to a hot and worthy read!

The Truth About Jack and Ray
.99 cents Smashwords
ISBN: 0011343060
24 Pages
The Truth About Jack and Ray is a melodramatic memory story. Jack sees a well-established artist named Ray mentioned in a magazine and recognizes a piece of his work on display. Suddenly, Jack remembers a part of his life 40 years earlier when he knew Ray as a struggling artist.

Jack himself was trying to be a writer at the time and moved in with starving artists Ray and Dick. A blustering relationship forms between Jack and Ray with both physical and emotion consequences which play out through the story.

Jack doesn’t “get” Ray’s abstract work, but Ray doesn’t read any of Jack’s work either. Despite Ray’s sporadic physical abuse, Jack still longs for Ray’s attention. Ray’s cockiness and selfish focus on his own work intensifies when Dick sells a piece for $5,000. When Ray’s pieces finally begin to sell, Jack accompanies him on a trip to New York where he begins to accept just how alone in the world he is and how unhealthy his relationship to Ray really is.

Despite the alluring black and white image that represents the cover of this work, the erotica here is extremely light. Ray and Jack’s lovemaking is only briefly mentioned, and even then it is often just suggested. Instead, West gives us a dark glimpse inside the mind of Jack as he processes this memory.  We also pay Ray’s head a visit though it is a tough place to be despite even Jack’s own desire to be in there.

I told the author this piece reminded me of the song “The One That Got Away” by Katy Perry. Like hearing the song, while reading this story I related to it so much in that I remember passages in my own life where I cared deeply about someone but that feeling was not reciprocated. Or the need to be around other artistic people fueled my heart despite their lack of interest in anyone’s work other than their own.

This is, at times, a haunting piece about recollections of the past and the decisions we do and don’t regret.

ABOUT:

Jon Marshall is a Brisbane dermatologist who lasers bananas as well as he does skin and has a penchant for making even simple situations more complicated. From Ash–his running buddy–to Katie–his coffee friend–to Lily–his daughter known affectionately as the Bean–Jon tries to keep the women in his life in neat compartments but ultimately finds that poetry readings, errant cats, and the Lemonheads all make life what it is–messy and blurry and vibrant.

As he copes with the loss of his wife, attempts to avoid the dating scene, and puts off registering an obnoxious computer program, Jon is going to learn that the most important woman in his life will always be his daughter, and fatherhood is going to make him grow up–if not old.

REVIEW:

Perfect Skin is a slice-of-life contemporary novel about Jon, a dermatologist, who suddenly finds himself raising a baby girl all by himself after his wife dies during child birth.

Unlike the age spots and skin cancer that Jon can meticulously remove with laser precision at work, its the blunders in real life that he embraces and accepts.

We see Jon’s daily routines for what they are and for how they are different (or not) every day in some way – checking his email, running, walking the dog, hanging out with his coworkers, dating, and the interaction with his baby girl.

Ultimately it is the baby, nicknamed Bean, that comes first as it should be. Jon has plenty of pictures of her to prove it!  But it is the life happening in between the bouts of parenthood that give this book color.

Jon finds a running partner in his new neighbor next door, Ash. He goes out for coffee with Katie. He hangs out with his male coworker friends for “book club” night, though no book discussion ever really happens. He finds himself caught up in each of their daily lives, but always returns his focus to Bean.

The reader shares in the everyday habits and routines that make up Jon’s life, right down to that “Weasel” of a computer program that greets him every morning when he goes to check email.  But it is these mundane details of every day that also make up our own lives, and like Jon, we just have to laugh at ourselves and make the best of it…and take lots of pictures.

Though the book lacked a certain element of drama and conflict for me, I still enjoyed slowing down a bit to savor a nice light-hearted comical read. This was Earls’ first book I had read and I look forward to more.

Tell us a little about your book.

Small time drug deals, touring with the Grateful dead, and a passion for growing pot filled my world before I met Greg. But the first time I got off a flight, strolled over to the baggage claim in my carefully chosen new outfit and picked up two brand new flowered suitcases filled with eighty pounds of Mexican swag pot, I felt like I had found my true calling in life. The adrenaline rush of getting away with something big along with the money I would make was a new kind of high I’d never before experienced. I was instantly addicted. Making money organizing drug runs around the country was intense. Greg and I were a money making duo like none other. Life with Greg was exciting for a while but it wasn’t long before it became a cat and mouse game – then a complete nightmare.

What inspired you to write this book?

After years of debauchery, addiction, bad choices, and confusion I found recovery and began a life consistent with someone who would be considered a productive member of society. This was painfully weird for me at first and still is a bit awkward. In pursuit of a legal means to support my son, I went back to school and attained a few degrees. Soon it was time to get a job. One of my first interviews was with Sovereign Bank. They showed me the cube in which I would be working. It was a solitary dark space with high confining walls around it. I cried all the way home.

I did find work in a reputable investment company in a cube that was a little less dark with walls a little less high. It was, however, positioned down a back cold alleyway filled with stale air. Despite this I commence to assimilate into the corporate environment working my tale off learning as much as I could as fast as I could, accomplishing a lot. My boss was a tall well connected man. Before long his deep rooted low opinion of woman was unmistakable. This wore on my spirit. I thought to myself, no matter how much money I make for this company, and I had made a lot, I’m never going to get anywhere under this man. So I began to write my story, something I have wanted to do for a long time.

What are you doing to market your book?

I’m learning constantly about different ways to market and promote SICK. I’m building out my online platform through my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/JenSmithSICK my blog http://jensmithsick.com/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/JenSmithSICK. I do guest blog posts and I’m active in author communities. My favorite is Indies Unlimited http://www.indiesunlimited.com/. I’m active in Kindle Boards, Goodreads, and Whattpad, and I’m looking at doing a promotional frenzy via the KDP Kindle Select program, coupled with some advertising. I’m also busy writing the second book to the SICK series.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

I’ve had several say they “couldn’t put it down.” This has given me the motivation to keep going with this project. I’ve had a few great reviews and have had several more reviewers who have promised to read the book. SICK is full of insanity and causes deep emotional reactions from readers, this is not for everyone. I’m still learning about my target audience.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

When it came time to write about the abuse I started having nightmares and had to take a break from writing but overall the process has been healing.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

I have learned a ton but still have a long way to go. Getting involved in author communities has definitely been the most beneficial experience so far. Get involved, learn social networking, read other Indie authors, write reviews, and be a part of the awesome author communities out there. Best of luck to you.

Tell us a little about your book.

The novel opens in June 2026, in an alternate future in which the Soviet Union has won the Cold War and occupies most of the former United States, now known as the Soviet States of America. Two MIT professors have discovered a subatomic particle that can accelerate matter to speeds faster than light, thereby opening wormholes in time. Working with fellow resistance leaders, they try to figure out where it all went wrong, and devise a plan to go back to the early 1960s to change decisions made in what the reader is told was JFK’s first term. But, of course, as in all thrillers, the plan goes kaplooey, not everyone is who they claim to be, several characters’ loyalties lie elsewhere, and the time-traveling revolutionaries have to make up their Plan B, and then C and D, on the fly. It all comes to a head in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

What are you doing to market your book?

For the first year not much at all. Now I’ve started to circulate the book to potential reviewers and websites like this one, but most of the readership so far seems to be coming from ebook readers who just stumble upon my book in the Kindle store.

How have sales been? Where have you had the most success?

Slow. Based upon e-mail feedback I’ve received, its niche so far is among readers who like historical novels and alternative history novels, and to some degree among older readers who remember the assassination.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

[Laughing] For the most part by remaining silent. I love personal feedback, either positive or negative about my own writing. I wish more readers would write. I often contact authors after reading their book, and I think that in every case they have personally responded. I certainly am never overly critical of anyone else, but I will sometimes mention issues that occurred to me as I read their work. I think most writers appreciate that.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

First and foremost is that despite the premise of my book, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am probably one of seven people in the United States who actually believes the Warren Commission version of the Kennedy assassination, or at least believes that they got it mostly right. So, writing this version was kind of fun, but also a bit of a personal challenge.

Have you published anything else?

It’s been an odd journey for me. My first book was Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax, a non-fiction, true crime analyses of the so-called Lindbergh kidnapping case. It got written more by accident. In 1990 I had stumbled across an old article about the case. Of course, reading about the child’s disappearance, and the subsequent investigation and trial, some fifty plus years after the fact, gave me the advantage as a modern criminal defense lawyer of being privy to forensics, motivations and knowledge of intra-familial crimes that law enforcement officials did not have in 1932. Over the years the case had been looked at by journalists or others who had never tried a criminal case to verdict, and therefore lacked that perspective. What started out as a hobby ended up evolving into the book, which I co-authored with a police criminal investigator. And I’ve been rewarded with the number of contemporary investigators, victims rights advocates, etc., who have contacted me since its publication and said how obvious the solution to this perplexing crime had been. Obvious today, perhaps, but unthinkable in 1932. I had an agent, and Crime was published traditionally. It had a bit of literary and commercial success, and I started thinking hey, maybe I could write after all.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

Don’t have an ego! If there is a criticism that you receive, don’t become defensive. Think about it and try to figure out how you can improve, or at least address the criticism. And for God’s sake, get an editor. Don’t assume that your agent or publisher will help you – or for that matter be especially good at it. It does not have to be a professional editor (they can be expensive and I really don’t know how good they are anyway) but with the advent of Kindle and e-publishing I am seeing a lot of books with awful and multiple mistakes – missing grammar, missing quotation marks, missing words, misspelled words that spell check often won’t catch (“than” for “that,” etc) so get someone else to comb through it, again and again and again. And then again. Every book, no matter where published, has two or three typographical errors per book – but I am seeing strong e-book sellers with one or two per page!

The book is a unique compilation of examples of pop culture, history, social media, business, sports, and education all explained through an economic lens. It uses current market trends and examples that can be applicable and enjoyable for anyone. It is written in a narrative non-fiction format so it flows easily and does not read similarly to a textbook. Economics is part of daily life, and this book challenges readers to question how and why people make decisions by adding a simple twist on normalcy.

What inspired you to write this book?

I love economics, and I majored in it during my undergraduate work at Indiana University. As a student, many of the examples in my textbooks were irrelevant and made the subject one that many students did not enjoy. I wanted to change the negative connotations associated with the topic. I wanted to make it something that people understood and relished learning about.

What are you doing to market your book?

To market my book, I have been asking hundreds of bloggers to put the book on their website with a review. I have also been marketing it on GoodReads.com, Amazon.com, and I created a website for it as well.

How have sales been? Where have you had the most success?

Sales have started off quite slow, but they are picking up as the book gets reviewed more. I have had the most success through word of mouth. My book was also featured in my local newspaper and I had a lot of great publicity from that. It was important to get the word out and that helped tremendously.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

I have gotten fairly good reactions thus far. Most people seem to enjoy it, and the rating on Amazon is quite high so far. I am happy about this because you never know how someone will react to your writing. It is a great feeling to know that people are learning from what I wrote. It has been an excellent experience.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

Like all writers, I get writer’s block where I just cannot think of the next words to fit the page. When this happens, I know that it is time for me to take a break and indulge in some of my other favorite hobbies. It helps if I go for a run, hang out with my friends and family, or go to a sporting event. It helps me to come back to my writing and make it better. It’s always good to take breaks and brainstorm off the paper.

What are the future plans for you and this book?

The only future plans I have for the book are to sell, sell, and sell some more. I would like this book to become introduced into school systems, and I am working on that process currently. It is definitely not a textbook, but I think it could help people, students, and readers learn more about the subject.

What is your next project?

My next project is actually a compilation of stories about people that I meet on airplanes. Everyone that I know has had at least one unique experience with this. I figured it would be funny, enjoyable, and also relevant to write a book with this information.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

Never give up.
Challenge yourself.
Edit, edit, edit, and edit again.
Reach out to other authors and ask questions. People are willing to help.
Write about a subject you enjoy and that you are passionate about.

Author Dave Becker

Plymouth Rock is bleeding. Day has turned to night. Hundred-pound hailstones level buildings. The small town of Clement seems cursed, and the residents know who’s to blame: the new kid, Tony Marino.

After losing his family and his home, 14-year-old Tony is forced to move from Florida to Massachusetts to attend Kalos Academy, an unconventional school for gifted children. Strange things begin to happen the day he arrives, and soon stories of plagues, monsters, and mystical objects surround him. Refusing to believe superstitions, Tony struggles to explain the occurrences logically, until he comes face to face with a satanic cult determined to bring about the end of the world.

What inspired you to write this book?

The biggest inspiration for The Faustian Host was the approach of 2012 and all the excitement surrounding the possible end of the world. I wanted to create a unique spin on the idea, and give a group of kids the chance to stand up against it. The actual writing of the book began with a single image: a trail of blood trickling out of Plymouth Rock. From there I just let my imagination run wild.

What are you doing to market your book?

Currently over 60 reviewers are reading The Faustian Host, and the book has been featured on a number of book blogs and websites. I produced ten paperback versions of the book which are being made available to winners in exculsive giveaways. I’m also active on Goodreads and Facebook.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

Reactions to The Faustian Host have been positive so far. The book has a four-star rating on Amazon and Goodreads.

What are the future plans for you and this book?

This is just the beginning of the Apocalypse Signs series. The second book is scheduled to be out next summer.

What is your next project?

In November I’m releasing an adult, psychological thriller entitled Mindfront.

After uncovering a universal code in the brain waves of all living things that could revolutionize psychology, Martin Keller wakes one morning to find himself covered in blood, surrounded by his butchered family. Convinced he’s being framed by a diabolical organization set on stealing or sabotaging his work, he dodges a multi-agency manhunt that pursues him from the seediest corners of DC to the highest offices of government. Struggling to stay alive and find his family’s killer, Marty soon finds himself lost in a maze of conspiracies and paranoia, and eventually begins to doubt his own sanity. How can he find the truth when he doesn’t know what’s real?

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

Discover the story that only you can tell, and then tell it the best you possibly can.

Tell us a little about your book.

Guilty Pleasures is about couples who fulfill their wildest fantasies without thinking about the consequences. For example, Hasan Walker is a married man who falls in love with an exotic dancer. He starts a blown out affair while his wife has an affair of her own with her female boss.

What inspired you to write this book?

The line in Jay Z’s song  “like your favorite color Giuseppe’s your guilty pleasure is me.”
I wanted to play with addictions of lust.

What are you doing to market your book?

I’m using social networks like facebook, twitter, and Tumblr. I also attend book club meetings, interviews with blog talk radio. I’m planning my first book tour right now.

How have sales been? Where have you had the most success?

Sales have been cool. I’ve had the most success with Amazon Kindle.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

I’m getting so much love and feedback. I’m told they are in love with the characters and how face paced the novel is.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

My biggest challenge is still with getting the word out there. Its like a slow leak. I’m still working on it.

What are the future plans for you and this book?

Like I mentioned, I’m planning on going on a book tour to see and grab more readers down south and attend some book expos.

Author Niyah Moore

I’m working on Chocolate Flava with Zane releasing summer of 2013 and a few more projects that I don’t want to jinx. I’m going to show everyone that I’m not just an erotic writer, I have many dimensions.

Have you published anything else?

Bittersweet Exes was my first novel in 2008 and I’m working on re releasing that. I’m in Mocha Chocolate series, The Heat of the Night, anthologies. I’m also in Souls of my Young Sisters.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

Follow your dreams if your passionate about writing. I write every single day because I love it. Don’t do it for the fame, do it because you love it.

Tell us a little about your book.

It’s a humorous mystery novel in which wealthy patriarch James Boyle is murdered in a bizarre fashion, and his relatives gather for the reading of his will. One by one, they start to die. A pair of amateur detectives, namely long-lost Boyle relative Bradley Smith, and a friend of his, reporter Eric Maxwell, take it upon themselves to solve the puzzle.

What inspired you to write this book?

An overdose of true crime books inspired me, and I developed an interest in narcissistic personality disorder and sociopaths. I went out and dug through some of the psychological research about the subject and decided to write a novel containing what I hope is an accurate description of the disorder.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

I’m getting pretty positive responses so far. Most people seem to like it.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

Everything has to fit together perfectly. I’ve got scenes with a dozen characters all interacting at once, and they require a lot of coordination and thinking about probable outcomes. In a way, it’s like watching subatomic particles bouncing off each other according to their own internal logic. Mysteries also have to be clever enough to fool the other characters—and the reader—long enough to sustain suspense until the end. You also have to come up with good explanations for why the characters are deceived for so long.

What is your next project?

Though fiction comes naturally to me, and I really enjoy producing it, eventually I’d like to tackle some nonfiction. I love well-written essays, and I read a lot of history. My next book requires historical research, since it’s going to be set in the 1820s.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

You need to learn how to be meticulous and detail-oriented, and this will be tough if it’s not a natural part of your personality. Target each one of your writing weaknesses, and rewrite your book focusing on improving those particular areas. Be willing to rethink your writing. If a book/chapter/passage/sentence doesn’t work, rethink it until it does. Can you blend, reposition, cut, summarize, or change narrators to make your writing work? Being flexible and thinking outside your mental box are absolute gold in writing. Many authors are wedded to their rough drafts. Edit the heck out of your work. Have your computer read your story aloud to you, because it makes your mistakes much more obvious.

I really really wanted to like this book, and I was totally enthralled by the first half of it. I love a good mystery where the lead character is not a police investigator or FBI detective. Here, we have Elle Bramasol who is a true crime writer who is elicited by a big Hollywood director named Eliot Kingman to write his story after he ends up in prison for the murder of one of his researchers. Elle is given access to a centuries old document in Kingman’s possession which turns out to be the diary of a vampire named Verland. And it is Verland’s story that Kingman really wants Bramasol to tell.

Despite the “not so new” elements of this story, like I said, I was totally intrigued. It’s hard enough to try to reinvent a vampire story these days. Much of the book is the diary entries themselves, so while you are given a detailed perspective of Verland’s life, it had a real close feel to Seth Grahame-Smith’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” to me. Unfortunately, the diary is what killed it for me, no pun intended. I found myself caring less about Verland’s war time efforts in Germany and wanting to get back to Elle and Kingman and their real purpose.

For me, the book also brought back elements of a classic fav of mine – Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs where we have a somewhat fragile heroine playing quid pro quo with a pompous genius behind bars in order to learn about a dangerous killer on the loose. Unfortunately, by the time we actually meet Verland he just isn’t as dynamic as any reader will expect and hope him to be.

While Kingman is the human bringing up references to immortality because he longs to be a vampire, he is stagnant as a character being behind bars. The book is thrown off balance when the attention is given to Kingman’s research assistants instead who also have an odd obsession with death. By the end, Bramasol gets her story handed to her without really having to work for it, and in turn the reader is spoon fed a drama built around a vampire diary which turns out to be more developed than the story itself.

Tell us a little about your book.

The Angry Woman Suite, a Kirkus Critics’ Pick, is modern historical suspense (most of the action takes place in the 1930s and 1950s) with elements of coming-of-age, and of course a love story at its core, about a celebrity double murder at the turn of the 20th century, in Pennsylvania, and the attendant fallout on three generations of two families.

The title refers to a suite of ten portraits that figure predominantly in the plot. Declared “labyrinthine” by a Montreal Books Examiner reviewer, The Angry Woman Suite is full of twists and turns you don’t see coming until you’re well out of one and already into the next.

What inspired you to write this book?

Two things: I was writing character sketches for a class—in this particular instance, what I call the “crazy shooter” character who goes bonkers and shoots up a grocery store, yet everyone who’s ever known him swears he was the salt of the earth. Now, there’s no crazy shooter in The Angry Woman Suite, but the first character I created—Francis—was good and bad, sweet and mean, and so on. In short, a paradox like the crazy shooter character, and I wanted to explore that. Everything followed paradox, including going to Chadds Ford for a wedding and visiting the Brandywine Battle museum (the battle serves as metaphor for one of The Angry Woman Suite’s themes of independence). While at that battlefield, I imagined a woman looking back at her life, at her fight for autonomy—and that, between paradox and autonomy, is when I knew I had my book.

What are you doing to market your book?

Kirkus Reviews was my first big toehold. I’d had an agent, but she quit the book business. So I told myself I’d get a review from Kirkus, and if it was halfway decent, I’d consider it a “sign” to go indie (either way, trad or indie, you have to do your own book promoting). Well, the Kirkus review of The Angry Woman Suite was wonderful and amazing and every other superlative you can think of—and here we are. I’m also doing lots of guest blogging (in addition to www.leefullbright.com ); giveaways (especially at Goodreads), and interviews at review sites. I’m entered in competitions, and heavy into what I call “review.begging,” which sounds rather pathetic, but is paying off. In addition, Kirkus Reviews recently ran an ad in their newsletter (good); and I’ve also got an ad at Goodreads (good for a while), and Facebook (save your money).

How have sales been? Where have you had the most success?

The Angry Woman Suite is just out (3/10/12), so considering we’re in an introductory phase, I’d say sales are fine for where we are right now.

How are readers/reviewers reacting to your book?

This is the best part! Readers and bloggers tell me they’re loving The Angry Woman Suite! Ditto for Kirkus Reviews, of course (I am currently pending Publishers Weekly and Midwest Book Review) . . . many of the blogger reviews are still out, so I’ll hopefully be having more fun in another month or so when they hit. Right now, though, there’s a common thread to the reviews that are in: the words engrossing, superb, and fantastic.

What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this book and how did you overcome it?

Two of the three narrators who propel The Angry Woman Suite forward are male (and I’m not), so my biggest challenge was writing from the points of view of men! I ran almost every line of male dialogue past the men in my life. Two minutes into the first read, they all nailed me on the word fabulous.

What are the future plans for you and this book?

To keep introducing The Angry Woman Suite around, until September or so.

What is your next project?

I’m a third of the way into a first (untitled and on-hiatus) draft of a whodunit-and-why novel about a rape and murder on the banks of the San Diego River, loosely based on the San Diego Chelsea King case a few years back—only my story will be set mid-century. I plan on picking this project back up in September.

Have you published anything else?

I have one completely unpublishable novel in a drawer, but The Angry Woman Suite is my first published novel.

Any advice for other writers/indie authors out there?

Write the story you love, even if it’s painful. The love will show. So will the pain. An epic story has both.

Work on your story everyday, but always wrap a writing session at the top of your game—you’ll start the next day’s session rested and healthy and still at the top of your game. Neurotic artists are so yesterday.

Many writers are interior people and promoting our own work sounds about as appealing an idea as snow-shoeing without, well, snowshoes. BUT I’m here to tell you: it’s not that bad (I thought it would be, too). It’s a keyboard mostly, not a face-time Broadway audition. Keep stuff in perspective and keep moving forward. Have some fun.