I am delighted to welcome Judith Harch today! 🙂

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’ve been a freelance writer for 37 years. FALLING OFF THE FAMILY TREE is my first venture into fiction. It is a multi-generational family saga about two American immigrant families whose lives become intertwined. A dark secret binds the families and affects each member. Most of my work has been as a journalist. But I’ve done some unusual writing as well, such as scriptwriting for 30-second commercial spots. That certainly taught me to write tight (FYI- about 75 words can be spoken in a 30-second spot!). I co-authored a book for Alzheimer caregivers, which forced me to overcome my fear of public speaking. Several of my essays have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

My ideas come from observing how people interact. I am an incurable people watcher. Reading newspaper articles also generates great ideas for storylines and characters for me.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Yes, one of my closest friends is the basis for one of my main characters in my novel. Interestingly, she doesn’t see herself in that character. Also, I had a much-loved literature professor in college. She and I became good friends after I graduated. Her spirit is the basis for one of my main character’s love of literature and desire to teach.

How do you pick your characters names?

As I was writing the story, the names of new characters would often just pop into my head. However, when outlining the book, I tried making the main characters’ names relevant to the story in some way. In FALLING OFF THE FAMILY TREE, my character’s name Rory, whose full name is Aurora, is highly significant to the plotline.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I would love to say that I write every day, but I don’t. I need blocks of time with no interference to transport me into the world I’ve created in the story. Having experience as an editor, I find it impossible to write without revising as I go. It does slow down the writing process, but I have to be true to myself. I stopped trying to write any other way.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

Anne Tyler, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Berg for great family stories. Lisa Gardner and Greg Iles when I’m in the mood for a dark mystery. One of my favorite author books on writing is by Stephen King, titled On Writing. I also enjoy Jeffrey Archer’s books since family relationships are very important to his stories.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Anne Tyler. Her books, deceptively, seem so uncomplicated, but they carry the essence of how complex family relationships can be. Her stories are often about the mundane day-to-day life we lead. I would ask her how she gets into the heads of her characters so well.

Were you a big reader as a child?

I loved Nancy Drew books as a child. My most treasured possession was my library card. I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, where my story takes place. On my way to the library, I often passed the tiny row house Walt Whitman lived in for many years. (It still stands and is open to the public.) My old library building is now the Walt Whitman Center For Culture and Democracy. Life often comes full circle. That is one example of how I drew from my own life experience when one of my characters makes those same trips to that library.

When did you start to write?

I didn’t know I could write until I took a creative writing class at college. I attended college while my children were growing up. My professor loved my work and encouraged me to continue writing. Eventually, I took many writing courses with him and began my career as a newspaper journalist while still in college. As I mentioned, I adored my literature professor. When she became terminally ill, I promised her I would write a novel someday.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

Jodi Picoult often writes endings that are tragic. I understand why, but I become so attached to her characters that I am very sad when someone central to the story dies. For me, her saddest ending was in her book, My Sister’s Keeper. I won’t spoil the ending for anyone reading that book, but I wish no one had to die. I will say, though, that Jodi’s writing gave me “permission” to have beloved characters die in a story. That’s real life.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

I wish I could take my mind to the dark places that mystery writers go, and then write a great mystery. I never say never, though. I never expected to write a family saga. Perhaps a mystery lurks in my mind and will find the light of day.

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

I would take Rory, my protagonist from FALLING OFF THE FAMILY TREE to a small, quiet cafe where we could hold a private conversation. I’d tell her that one can overcome disappointment with a parent by becoming everything she wishes that parent had been.

What are you working on right now?

I am working on a sequel to FALLING OFF THE FAMILY TREE. The story spans the first seventy years of the 20^th century. There is much left to tell in a sequel about what happens to my characters after 1970.

Do you have a new release due?

No, I don’t. I’m struggling with the ending to my sequel. I always knew how my first novel would end. This is maddening!

How can readers keep in touch with you?

They can reach me at jharch@comcast.net. I would love to hear from them. Also, I have a blog: judithharchwrites.wordpress.com. It’s called Writing About Life – With Dessert. (Baking is my other passion.) I must admit that I am remiss on keeping the blog current. My apologies, but some good dessert recipes are included if anyone is interested.

Is there anything else you would like us to know?

How very difficult, but how wonderfully rewarding writing a novel can be. What I’ve learned from the difficulty is that I don’t think I could ever write a negative review of another writer’s book. Their very heart went into that book. It is their baby. The wonderfulness is the great sense of accomplishment I felt when my story entered the real world for others to read – and hopefully – enjoy.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Judith 🙂

Publisher: BookBaby; 1 edition (15th October 2012)

Sean Kinnarney, headstrong son of Irish immigrants and Ana Lapinski, beautiful, self-absorbed daughter of Polish immigrants, ignite a far-reaching fire when their worlds collide. Sean’s recklessness and Ana’s sense of entitlement create a family secret that comes home to roost in the following generation. Sean’s trail of sins and Ana’s deceit and thirst for revenge lead to disaster for each of them.

It is 1936. Emotionally deserted by distraught parents after the death of his baby sister, Sean refuses to abandon his father’s forsaken American dream. Left to his own devices, the young man travels a road strewn with bad choices and risky behavior. Trapped into marriage and unexpected parenthood at a young age, Sean begins down a path of destruction – first stop – Ana Lapinski.

Ana Lapinski is born with the gift of beauty. Her old-world parents are incapable of reigning in their willful, wild child. Time and again, Ana effectively abuses her God-given gift as a means to whatever end she desires – with one exception – Sean Kinnarney.

FALLING OFF THE FAMILY TREE is a three-generation saga told against the backdrop of the first 70 years of the 20th century. The story moves from southern New Jersey to the wealthy suburban enclaves of the Main Line outside Philadelphia. It ends in tragedy on the Chesapeake Bay.

Buy your copy HERE

Judith Harch Amazon Author Page

I am delighted to welcome Liza Perrat today 🙂

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’m an Australian author who has been living in rural France for over 20 years. I’ve written a French historical trilogy –– The Bone Angel –– three standalone stories exploring the tragedies and triumphs of a French village family of midwife-healers during the French Revolution (Spirit of Lost Angels), WW2 Nazi-occupied France (Wolfsangel) and the 1348 Black Plague (Blood Rose Angel). My 4^th novel, recently published, The Silent Kookaburra, is a psychological suspense story set in 1970s Australia.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

Anywhere and everywhere!

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Not really. Some of them have certain traits from people I know, but I never base an entire character on someone I know.

How do you pick your characters names?

I try and choose names that are suitable to the type of character, the historical era, the story. When I have used French names, I try and find names that English-speaking readers can pronounce easily.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

Basically it’s like building a house: slog and labour through the heavy work of first draft foundations. Build up the walls to get the whole structure in shape. Then remove all the debris (cut and edit). Finally, furnish and decorate it: playing around with every word, sentence and paragraph to make it sound and look “nice”.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

Wally Lamb, Maggie O’Farrell, Patrick Gale, Sarah Waters, Anne Tyler

Were you a big reader as a child?

Yes, I devoured books, especially everything written by Enid Blyton.

When did you start to write?

In the year 2000. I started with an online Creative Writing course, then eventually moved on to novels after writing short stories.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith. I think it’s brilliant!

How can readers keep in touch with you?

Via my email or Facebook or Twitter.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Liza! 🙂

All eleven-year-old Tanya Randall wants is a happy family. But Mum does nothing besides housework, Dad’s always down the pub and Nanna Purvis moans at everyone except her dog. Then Shelley arrives –– the miracle baby who fuses the Randall family in love for their little gumnut blossom.

Tanya’s life gets even better when she meets an uncle she didn’t know she had. He tells her she’s beautiful and could be a model. Her family refuses to talk about him. But that’s okay, it’s their little secret.

Then one blistering summer day tragedy strikes, and the surrounding mystery and suspicion tear apart this fragile family web.

Embracing the social changes of 1970s Australia, against a backdrop of native fauna and flora, The Silent Kookaburra is a haunting exploration of the blessings, curses and tyranny of memory.

Unsettling psychological suspense blending the intensity of Wally Lamb with the atmosphere of Peter James, this story will get under your skin.

Buy your copy HERE

BIO: Liza Perrat

Liza grew up in Australia, working as a general nurse and midwife. She has now been living in France for over twenty years, where she works as a part-time medical translator and a novelist. She is the author of the historical The Bone Angel series. The first, Spirit of Lost Angels is set in 18^th century revolutionary France. The second, Wolfsangel is set during the WW2 Nazi Occupation and the French Resistance, and the third novel – Blood Rose Angel –– is set during the 14^th century Black Plague years.

Her latest novel, The Silent Kookaburra, is a psychological suspense, set in 1970s Australia.

Liza is a co-founder and member of the writers’ collective Triskele Books.

Liza reviews books for Bookmuse.

Contact Details:

Website

Blog

Twitter

Facebook

Triskele Books

Sign up for new book releases and receive a FREE copy of Ill-Fated Rose, short story that inspired The Bone Angel French historical series.

EXTRACT: The Silent Kookaburra

Chapter 1

2016

Knuckles blanch, distend as my hand curves around the yellowed newspaper pages and my gaze hooks onto the headlines.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY. January 26th, 1973. 165-year anniversary of convict ships arriving in Sydney.

Happy? What a cruel joke for that summer. The bleakest, most grievous, of my life.

I can’t believe my grandmother kept such a reminder of the tragedy which flayed the core of our lives; of that harrowing time my cursed memory refuses to entirely banish.

Shaky hands disturb dust motes, billowing as I place the heat-brittled newspaper back into Nanna Purvis’s box.

I try not to look at the headline but my gaze keeps flickering back, bold letters more callous as I remember all I’d yearned for back then, at eleven years old, was the simplest of things: a happy family. How elusive that happiness had proved.

I won’t think about it anymore. I mustn’t, can’t! But as much as I wrench away my mind, it strains back to my childhood.

Of course fragments of those years have always been clear, though much of my past is an uncharted desert –– vast, arid, untamed.

Psychology studies taught me this is how the memory magician works: vivid recall of unimportant details while the consequential parts –– those protective breaches of conscious recollection –– are mined with filmy chasms.

I swipe the sweat from my brow, push the window further open.

Outside, the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean is still a pale glow but already it has baked the ground a crusty brown. Shelley’s gum tree is alive with cackling kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets shrieking and swinging like crazy acrobats, eucalyptus leaves twisted edge-on to avoid the withering rays.

But back in my childhood bedroom, behind Gumtree Cottage’s convict-built walls, the air is even hotter, and foetid with weeks of closure following my parents’ deaths.

Disheartened by the stack of cardboard boxes still to sift through, uneasy about what other memories their contents might unearth, I rest back on a jumble of moth-frayed cushions.

I close my eyes to try and escape the torment, but there is no reprieve. And, along with my grandmother’s newspaper clipping, I swear I hear, in the rise and dump of its swell, the sea pulling me back to that blistering summer of over forty years ago.

Review Quotes : The Silent Kookaburra

Compelling psychological drama that delves into the dark heart of family secrets. Chris Curran, author of Amazon bestseller, Mindsight.

A tight and tense family drama which engages the reader’s attention from start to finish, and which bears all the hallmarks of this talented author’s fine attention to detail and natural story telling ability. Jaffareadstoo, book blogger.

A real page-turner with fabulously engaging characters and a gripping plot, the outcome of which I did not guess before the final revelation. Claire Whatley, reader.

An amazing domestic thriller with a gripping storyline, vivid dialogue, a palpable sense of place and time, and a compelling cast of characters that I can’t get out of my head. Carol Cooper, Contemporary Women’s Fiction author.

I have to say this was one of the most compelling reads I have read. Carol Ravensdale, reader.

Liza Perrat brings her sureness of touch, vivid characterisation and ability to convey a strong sense of time and place to this story set in 1970s Australia. Vanessa Couchman, author of The House at Zaronza.

It’s a delight to watch an author grow into her talent. I admire Perrat’s historical fiction, but here she really comes into her own. In moving closer to the present and to her own Australian background, she produces a riveting tale of human frailty and deceit that kept me enthralled even as I dreaded what might happen next. C.P. Lesley, author of the Legends of the Five Directions series.

… nothing better than a good twist or two in a plot, but this was a first for me – one final hammer dropping on the very last page that made my jaw drop! Cindy Taylor, BookBlogger.

The mystery keeps you turning the pages; the description transports you to another place, another time; and the characters by turns amuse, infuriate, entertain and conjure a sense of poignancy and regret. Tricia Gilbey, writer and reader.

… as well-written psychological thrillers often do, it makes you question everything you think you know, culminating in a true twist of an ending that both shocks and makes you ask “Why didn’t I figure this out sooner?” Courtney J. Hall, historical fiction, romance and contemporary author.

I am very happy to be today’s stop on Susanna Beard’s #daretoremember blog tour! 🙂

Publisher: Legend Press (1st February 2017)

My review…

Dare To Remember isn’t exactly the kind of psychological crime drama I am used to reading. It isn’t what I would call a fast-paced, full of action read, but it is totally gripping all the same.

Lisa is trying her best to shut herself off from the world. She is suffering from survivor guilt after a horrific attack left her best friend dead and herself scared for life, in more ways than one. She doesn’t feel like she deserves to be happy. She moves away, renting a quiet little cottage and tries to distance herself from friends and family, although she does her best to convince her mother she is doing ok. She can’t cope, because she can’t remember what really happened that night. She sees a psychotherapist with the aim of trying to free her repressed memories, but she is scared of what she might learn.

I immediately liked Lisa and felt totally sorry for the life she feels she must lead, almost as a punishment for living. It seems such a waste when people feel like this having been given a second chance at life, but none of us know how we would react in these situations. It must be hard to be happy when you feel you don’t deserve to be. I really, really wanted Lisa to be happy again.

I loved the relationship Lisa developed with her elderly neighbour next door and the comfort Riley, the dog, gave to her. I think the old man was my favourite character. I was also pleased when Lisa made a friend of Jessica, who I didn’t warm to the same, but I sympathised with her situation. It was good to see Lisa making friends and focusing a bit more on the world around her. I loved the descriptions of her little cottage and it’s location. I can see why this appealed to Lisa and having a fabulous lake on your doorstep is always a plus.

I enjoyed the build up to what it was about that night she couldn’t remember and although I didn’t find the truth as shocking as I expected, it is heart-breaking.

A brilliantly written, character driven, thought provoking read which I highly recommend.

Many thanks to Lucy, at Legend Press, for my Kindle copy and for inviting me to be a part of the blog tour.

Description…

Reeling from a brutal attack that leaves her best friend dead and her badly injured, Lisa Fulbrook flees to the countryside to recuperate. With only vague memories of the event, she isolates herself from her friends and family, content to spend her days wandering the hills with her dog, Riley.

However, Lisa is soon plagued, not only by vivid flashbacks, but questions, too: how did their assailant know them? Why were they attacked? And what really happened that night?

As she desperately tries to piece together the memories, Lisa realises that there’s another truth still hidden to her, a truth she can’t escape from. A truth that may have been right in front of her all along.

A clever, sophisticated, psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, S.J. Watson, B A Paris and Sophie Hannah

Buy your copy HERE

Susanna Beard

Don’t forget to catch up with, and follow, the rest of Susanna’s blog tour…..

Enjoy!

I am thrilled to be today’s stop on Sue Shepherd’s Love Them and Leave Them blog tour! 🙂 Many thanks to Emma Mitchell for the opportunity to join in and to Sue Shepherd for my kindle copy of this lovely book.

Publisher: Corazon Books (27th September 2016)

Love Them and Leave Them is very cleverly written!

Have you ever sat and wondered how different your life might be if you’d changed one decision, even a small one? I’m sure you must have at some point. I know I have!

In Love Them and Leave Them we get to know Jessica/Jessie as she leads two very different lives. Lives which take very different paths based on a split decision her Dad makes one night, whilst driving in the rain.

Jessica has always wanted to be a barrister. She starts work for a reputable law firm and wins her first case. She has a very close relationship with her parents and younger brother, who are very proud of her achievements. She has been with her loving boyfriend, Nick, for some time and she’s keen for them to buy their own house together. She has it all really, but Nick seems to be holding back for some reason and she can’t figure out why. They argue one night and she goes out with her friend feeling upset and annoyed and makes the biggest mistake of her life. What she didn’t know at the time was that this mistake would lead to her whole life falling apart around her.

Jessie misses her Dad. He was killed in a car crash, in the rain, whilst swerving out of the way of a rabbit in the road. Their lives have never been the same since. Jessie had always dreamed of being a barrister, but put off going to University, given the circumstances, and currently works in Luigi’s Italian restaurant. She doesn’t love it, but she gets on well with her colleagues, especially her best friend, Coco. She is very close to her mother and younger brother. They are always there for each other. Jessie has been seeing Chris for almost a year, although he makes no attempt to commit to her. She doesn’t even know when she’s likely to see him, he just turns up to collect her from work, when he requires her company. She know it’s not ideal, but she can’t help being drawn to him. He has a way about him that’s hard for her to resist. Hard for her best friend to resist also, it seems! Jessie suffers the ultimate betrayal when she finds out Coco and Chris have been sleeping together. She has no choice but to quit her job and try to delete the both of them from her life. Easier said than done though. In the meantime, Jessie meets Nick, her knight in shining armour who rescues her from a man shouting and screaming at her for driving too slow. She never likes driving in the rain since her Dad died. Nick soon puts the man in his place and Jessie is immediately drawn to him and a friendship soon blossoms.

I loved how the same characters are involved in both versions of Jessica’s life, but in very different ways. It goes to show that people who are meant to be a part of your life, will be at some point, no matter what happens. Also, some things are inevitable, no matter what.

There are many twists and turns in this story, but all are easy to follow and despite Jessica having two different lives, the story flows beautifully. The characters are (mostly) very likeable. I cared about them, I felt their pain and I hoped for their happiness. I highly recommend.

This is the first book I’ve read by Sue Shepherd, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Many thanks to Sue Shepherd for my kindle copy.

Buy your copy HERE

Description:

Love Them and Leave Them: Sometimes you have to leave the one you love … sometimes you’re the one who’s left behind. The new heartwarming and heartbreaking romantic comedy from the No.1 bestselling author of Doesn’t Everyone Have a Secret?

“… a lovely novel that may get you thinking ‘what if’ … in your own life.” Rachel’s Random Reads.

On his way home, Ed makes a split-second decision that changes the lives of all those who love him.

Six years on, Ed’s daughter, Jessie, is stuck in a job with no prospects, her dreams never fulfilled. It will take more than her unreliable boyfriend, Chris, and temperamental best friend, Coco, to give her the confidence to get her life back on track.

But what if Ed had made another decision? It could all have been so different …

Six years on, Ed’s daughter, Jessica, has a successful career, loving boyfriend, Nick, and a keen eye on her dream home. But when new clients, a temperamental Coco, and her unreliable boyfriend, Chris, walk into her life, Jessica’s perfect world soon starts to unravel.

Love Them and Leave Them is a story of love, families, friendship and a world of possibilities. Whichever decision Ed makes, the same people are destined to come into his daughter’s life, sometimes in delightfully different ways. And before they can look forward to the future, they will all have to deal with the mistakes of the past.

Fancy winning yourself one of two EBook copies of Love Them and Leave Them? Of course you do! Enter here…..

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About Sue Shepherd…..

Sue Shepherd writes contemporary romance and enjoys creating novels with heart, laughs and naughtiness. She doesn’t pull any punches when choosing her subjects, but manages to handle her characters’ challenging situations with sensitivity and humour. Her debut novel, Doesn’t Everyone Have a Secret? was published by Corazon Books in March 2015. It reached the top 10 UK Kindle chart, and also topped the romantic comedy, contemporary romance and humour charts. It became available in paperback on Amazon in November 2015.

Sue’s second novel, Love Them and Leave Them, was published in September 2016.

Sue lives on the picturesque Isle of Wight with her husband, two sons and a standard poodle. Her passions in life are: her family, writing, the sea-side and all the beautiful purple things her sons have bought her over the years. Ask Sue to plan too far in advance and you’ll give her the heebie-jeebies and she’d prefer you not to mention Christmas until at least November!

I’m so jealous that you live on the Isle Of Wight, Sue! Love it there. We spent an amazing two weeks there in August last year. I wish it was closer so we could visit more often.

Make sure you catch up with, and follow, the rest of the blog tour…..

Enjoy!

I am delighted to welcome Aaron Lawler today…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

Aaron J. Lawler has taught for fifteen years and has published peer-reviewed studies in humanities, technology, game theory and education. His mother taught him to tell stories, his father taught him to think independently, his wife pushed him to try. Aaron is a classically trained painter and holds advanced degrees in the humanities, education, and technology. He is in love with his wife, his two kids, and his two dogs; and always will be.

Aaron Lawler: “I am a traveller in both the world and in the library. Writing allows me to design the journey, where I will go, what I will do, and who I will meet. Adventures in Europe, Canada, the States and Mexico opened me to new ideas. Philosophical jaunts changed who I am and the way I think. But writing allows me to wayfind. I can engineer a compass for my own path, following my own direction. The mindscape is an amazing place for a daytrip.”

So here is what is on the book jacket: After witnessing the murder of Professor Oliver Crowley, who has invented a way of bringing thoughts into physical reality, Fitz Faraday and his friends must exonerate the town bully, who is being framed for the murder. Using Professor Crowley’s inventions, Fitz soon learns he can bend the field of Id, a sea of golden dreams and wishes. Fitz finds himself drawn inside a new world he never knew existed. He hopes he will be able to use that world to help his friends and even his enemies. To do so, he must master Crowley’s technique of “Thought becomes light and light becomes physical.”

Hook: Fitz Faraday punched Freud right in the face, and told the world he was his generation’s Tom Sawyer. You see, you cannot tell if this true or not, because Fitz Faraday treats the Id like a Wunderkind prodigy bending spoons. With the quirky fun of the Back to the Future trilogy, Shapers of the Id is a modern day coming of age, inspired by the wit and antics of Mark Twain.

Pitch: The newly orphaned teen, not only struggles with bending reality but also coping with his mother’s passing and living with his grandmother, his cuckoo aunt and his snivelling, little cousin. From childish escapades at the beginning of this bildungsroman, Fitz falls in love with the new girl in town, witnesses his mentor’s murder, defends his bully against false charges, and confronts his mentor’s true murderer. His hero’s journey prepares him for bringing the boon of Id-shaping to the Dreamtime. And that is how Fitz Faraday disproves Freud. The Marvelous Paracosm of Fitz Faraday is a fantasy/sci-fi, coming of age series, modernizing the yarns spun by Mark Twain. Its first instalment, And the Shapers of the Id, is a story complete unto itself and rounds out at about 90,000 words.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

A combination of things really… I was interestd in creating a way to explore magical realism and fantasy in a contemporary setting so that it felt real or possible. But I did’t want the magic to replace the realism, just live beside it, so that I could invest in my characters. I also wanted to create a place that felt like now but wasn’t quite right – I intentionally left out cell phones and the internet to create a timelessness. Lastly, as a teacher I wanted to craft a book that met literacy standards like Common Core but was just a really good story, so this became an homage to Mark Twain.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Fitz Faraday – the titular character from my debut novel – is so interesting to me because he does not serve some adolescent cliché or nostalgia. As a high school teacher for eleven years and a community college professor for four, I have worked with teens and truly gotten to know them on personal and meaningful levels. So in large part their stories – some tragic, some heroic – are woven into each of the characters. No one character is based on no one person, but my years as a teacher gave me a repertoire to work with and flesh out truly three-dimensional “people” in my novel.

I often find that in novels, particularly speculative fiction novels, adult writers create adolescents for disingenuous reasons. What I mean here, is that adults see adolescents as two-dimensional personifications of a talent, a trait, or an emotion. These characters are typified by being sporty, or artsy, or social. Or they are characterized as being full of angst and rebellion.

Fitz has no special gifts. He has no talents or interests. He is really just an average, everyday adolescent. He is not defined by his angst or his gifts. Sometimes he is full of angst and sometimes he is whimsical. Sometimes he is brooding and has good reason to be so, and other times he is a romantic. He is not defined by some manipulated ideas by a narrator with a purpose, but is rather defined by his circumstance and events. When he begins to discover a phenomenal ability, he is still him. He is still just trying to be a good friend, do the right thing, and win the girl. Aren’t these the things that we all worry about, no matter what our circumstances may be? So that is why I like Fitz, because even though he stumbles into this godly power, he handles it the way I think we would all handle it – we would look for help from our closest friends, and we would second guess what we should and shouldn’t do!

How do you pick your characters names?

This is actually an incredibly lengthy process for me. Each character name is rooted in symbols and motifs which carry on in the character’s personality.

Fitz Faraday is named after Michael Faraday, an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, and Fritz Heider, an Austrian psychologist who worked in Gestalt psychology or gestaltism. I actually changed Fritz to Fitz after becoming a big fan of indie pop and neo soul group, Fitz and the Tantrums. Fitz’s supernatural abilities are related to electromagnetism and gestalt psychology.

Josey Campbell is named after Joseph Campbell, a mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology/religion. Josey’s parents are scholars, studying cultures and anthropology. She relies heavily on their ideas when trying to make sense of Fitz’s powers.

Hollis Scout’s real name is Holluschickie Scout and is named after the works of Rudyard Kipling and Kipling’s friend Lord Baden Powell. Holluschickie is a word which means “bachelor seal”; a young male seal which is prevented from mating by its herd’s older males, and shows up in Kipling’s a White Seal (part of the Jungle Book stories). Baden Powell was the founder of the Boy Scouts. Hollis is a wildchild and the son of the town drunkard.

The other characters in the novel have the same kinds of mythos built on real people or fictional characters. Each one is a clue to how they function in the story or their personality traits.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I am a classically trained painter, and one point in my life thought I would become a professional illustrator. Trying my hand at the trade, I found myself stifled. With endless parallel and extradimensional planetary worlds orbiting about in my imagination, I always thought the vehicle to sharing these would be through illustration. But I found that I much prefer the written word when it comes to world-building and character crafting. Painting slows my process down too much. My mind wants to invent, sprout up new places and sights and sounds with ludicrous speed. And the brush, the canvas, the whole process limits me too much.

I have found that I prefer to paint watercolor landscapes and mixed media portraits as a form of relaxation – something that actually lets my mind quiet down. Whereas writing is the opposite. Writing for me is painterly process but at superspeed. I can craft entire gardens, or ocean floors, or mystical forests with rich and lurid detail in mere moments and then continue my Aslan-like painting process by filling the world with the sons and daughters of my visualization.

My wife once compared my writing process to the Robin Williams’ movie “What Dreams May Come.” In the movie, the visuals are liquid paintings that shift and grow from scene to scene, always lavishly textured, and in a perpetual motion. This is how I write, filling the page with the symbols – in this case words – which represent full, technicolor splashes of life. Painting does not allow me to communicate this way, it is so arduous and would require hundreds of canvases to create the world I want to bring to life.

It is a double-edged sword in some ways. Because I want to create a specific visual in the mind of others – I want to seed them with my thought in the pristine, perfect way I have shaped it. But writing forces me to let go of this. I find myself relaxed at the release of control, at first it was painstaking to simply be – to simply flow. But now, I visualize the image, craft the words with poetry and rhythm instead of color and brush, and that is how I manifest my ideas.

The Marvelous Paracosm of Fitz Faraday and the Shapers of the Id actually pays homage to this process. Although my first novel, this not my first writing (I have even published nonfiction articles with the International Journal of Art and Art History and the Erudite Journal of Educational Research). Yet this novel is so personal because Fitz creates his world the same way I created the world for Fitz and even Fitz himself. There is a meta-element to this novel in that it in many ways explains how I created the “paracosm” – a word here, meaning parallel world sideways from our own.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

So when I originally started this list I thought I would break it up into sections: contemporary fiction, literary fiction and nonfiction. And then it just became a list of my favorite books in each of these categories. I decided I was going to narrow it down to best answer the question (“biggest” instead of “all of your” literary influences). My favorite contemporary works are Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which is just so lush and whimsical and philosophical; and Michael Crichton’s Prey which not only moves at the pace of an action movie but changed my entire perception of reality in terms of holism, emergence, and interconnectedness. My favorite literary works include Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and TH White’s The Once and Future King. My list goes on from there, but these four books have such texture, such opulent and sumptuous pages, they create a space for magical realism to inhabit. I love magical realism as a foundation, and think that all speculative fiction would be enriched by its principles: the mundane being supernatural and the miraculous being natural.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Hands down, Phillip Pullman. I love his worlds, his characters, and his plots. He just creates this rich tapestry where you become completely immersed. And I would simply ask, “How? How did you create this world for His Dark Materials?”

I would also love to speak with Neil Gaiman. His works have been a huge influence on my own writing style and patterns. Specifically the way he treats dialogue and unfolds action. And I would ask him, “Is there a point where you find you are going too dark and you bring it back to the light? How do you know when? And why?”

Were you a big reader as a child?

Yes, and I always have been! I always say: Read. Read everything! Read good books, read bad poetry, read news articles, read the back of cereal boxes. Inspiration is not some mystical force, its a natural way the mind works. We are hard wired to solve problems, that is how we have survived as long as we have. To solve problems you need information. The more information you have, the more inspiration you have!

When did you start to write?

From the very beginning of it all – My mother told me stories and read me stories when I was very young. She helped me write down the stories I would create – crazy worlds where spacemen kept pet chinchillas, or a group of boys (very similar to the kids in Sandlot) navigated an underground world after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, and dragons had birthday parties (both actual stories I wrote as a child!). My father taught me to challenge everything. Every idea that every grown-up or peer said, I was taught to critically analyze. And he taught me to learn about everything – science, history, culture, people, politics, economics.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

I love the Harry Potter novels – I do, they are exquisite works with fantastic world building and great characterization. And with any phenomena like those works, there is an incredible amount of pressure on the author to wrap things up in a genuine way. With that said there are a few things I was not thrilled about when it came to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I always find the scene where Harry goes into the dreamlike afterlife to be contrived. I almost think it might have been better – more nobler for sure – to simply have Harry sacrifice himself and die, as opposed to being given the choice to return to the world. It seemed less climactic. I also was not a big fan of the epilogue. It seemed to “happily ever after” which the previous novels did not go for – for me, these were sort of cheap tricks to wrap everything up and make everyone happy. But then again, JK Rowling is who she is with her multimillion dollar franchise and I have one small book published by one small publishing house 

Is there a book you wish you had written?

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games – but not because I love these books. On the contrary, I am actually not a huge fan. I love the premise: the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation; a modernization of the Theseus and the Minotaur myth; and the strong female lead. All of this is the makings of a great novel. I know it is heresy to say, but I really struggled getting through these novels. They are clever in idea, but for me, they just did not move in the right way. I found the characters to be a bit two-dimensional and predictable. And I found the reactions of the world to be unrealistic in terms of the horror they were facing. I know she was going for a commentary on the social normalizing of tragedy, and that part I had less of a problem with – it was the way the rebellion starts and formulates I found disjointed from actual history. But just like JK Rowling – I think I am out of turn here, making such condemning reviews 

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

This is too hard to answer! There are so many great characters that I am just dying to meet! If I am being honest, I have imagined this too many times. For my own characters, for instance, and this may sound a bit strange, but I talk to my them. Donatello (not the TMNT!) is rumoured to have yelled at his statue, Lo Zuccone (“Pumpkinhead”) and said, “I know you are alive, get down from that pedestal!” Perhaps an urban legend, but the truth is when you create something from nothing it can take on a life of its own. There are times I will finish writing and am not sure where the surge of creative energy came from. So when I get stuck or write myself into a corner, I shout at my characters, “What do you want?” “Where are we going next?” “How did we get here?” Then, having that dialog is useful – it gives me something to work with. It is far less existential or schizophrenic than it sounds, and probably more like pretend or Calvin and Hobbes.

When I was a child, I would have loved have spoken with Watterson’s Calvin or Peter Parker (Spiderman). But I would also love to hang out with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and Wart (King Arthur) from TH White’s Once and Future King.

Today, I think I would look for a little more wisdom – some sage advice. Gandalf, Merlin or Dumbledore would be too good to be true. Where? In a bookstore with old classic books, and great big leather chairs, and the smell of suede. We would share steaming cups of tea – maybe green tea or jasmine. And we would discuss the biggest ideas humankind has ever dreamt and we would solve the world problems. Ah, I am but a romantic!

What are you working on right now?

The Marvelous Paracosm of Fitz Faraday and the Shapers of Id was written with series potential in mind (Even the title was structured that way so that it would always be The Marvelous Paracosm of Fitz Faraday and the…). So my plan is to put Fitz in new challenges and new landscapes, refining his abilities to turn thoughts into reality. But I also want to chart the progress of his internal growth as well as his supernatural growth. The debut novel was as much a discussion of morality and truth as it was “what would it be like to have superpowers?” Both are fun to write about, but for vastly different reasons.

I also plan to incorporate a more diverse pantheon. The first novel offered a perspective of small town America which was populated by predominantly white, working class or middle class people. I would like to broaden the scope and add characters who bring different perspectives to Fitz’s world. For instance I am working on a character that has background in Eastern philosophy, who will bring some ancient ideas into what Fitz is doing. The groundwork for this was laid out with Josey’s parents (they are academics) but I think I can dig this even further with a character that has a far more personal connection. She is also a female character, adding another powerful woman to the cast (Josey is of course a pretty substantial character already!).

As for the plot, it is going to be a journey – a quest of sorts – but one that is both real and paralleled by the unreal. The trick will be making sense of both, as I plan to pull from my magical realism background and make the everyday parts of life seem magical, whereas the supernatural parts of the novel seem normal.

Do you have a new release due?

I am currently working on some vignettes – shorts set in Fitz Faraday’s world. They will star different characters, but will serve as the bridge between the first novel and the sequel. My hope is to have the first one of these vignettes wrapped up in March.

Also, as a big thank you to my supporters I recently launched the Fitz Faraday Fanart Fray (4FContest): a chance for you to create an original piece of art—drawn, painted, digital, or in any other two-dimensional format—that depicts two or more characters in a scene from the story! #MPoFF #4FContest

Submit your original artwork inspired by the book “The Marvelous Paracosm of Fitz Faraday and the Shapers of the Id” for a chance to have your artwork showcased in the special edition of the novel! Here is your chance to become a published illustrator (looks great in your portfolio!)! More information can be found here: http://writeraaronjlawler.strikingly.com/blog/fanart-contest-launched

How can readers keep in touch with you?

You can find more information about my novel or myself at: writeraaronjlawler.strikingly.com, my blog: writeraaronjlawler.strikingly.com/#aaron-s-blog, my Facebook site: facebook.com/writeraaronjlawler/, or my Twitter account: twitter.com/WriterAJL.

Is there anything else you would like us to know?

Below you will find a list of dates and events in my book tour. And also, don’t forget about my fanart contest! Winners will get their artwork published in special editions of my novel!

January 7th: Book Tour Launch

11am – 12pm Author Talk; 12pm – 2pm Signing

Barnes & Noble, 47 Chicago Ave #132, Naperville, IL 60540

Thank you for the incredibly successful launch! (review found here)

January 22nd: Facebook Live!

6pm – 7pm, Meet the Author and Q&A

https://www.facebook.com/writeraaronjlawler/

Thank you for another fantastic event (recording found here)

February 18th: Book Signing and Reading

1pm – 3pm, Book Signing and discounted books with a cup of coffee

The Village Grind Coffee & Tea Co

19 Main St, Oswego, IL 60543

*February (TBD): Writer Event

11am – 12pm Author Talk; 12pm – 2pm Signing

Barnes & Noble at Concordia University

7400 Augusta St, River Forest, IL 60305

*February (TBD): Twitter Live! /Podcast Debut

5pm – 6pm, Meet the Author and Q&A

https://twitter.com/WriterAJL

March 4th: Alumni Book Signing and Q&A

11am – 12pm Author Talk; 12pm – 1pm Signing

North Central College, 100 E Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL 60540

March 15th: Local Author Night

7pm – 9pm, Book Readings and Signing

The Book Cellar Inc., 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago IL

March 24th: Facebook Live! and Twitter Live!

6pm – 7:30pm, Meet the Author and Q&A

https://www.facebook.com/writeraaronjlawler/

https://twitter.com/WriterAJL

March 29th: Local Author Event

6:30pm – 7:30pm, Book Readings and Signing

Sugar Grove Library and Modest Coffee

125 S. Municipal Drive, Sugar Grove IL

Save the date for future upcoming events!

*October (TBD): Oswego Literary Fest

Oswego Library

TBD, Signature Speech from Authors

32 West Jefferson St, Oswego, IL 60543

*November (TBD): Lisle Lit Fest

Lisle Library

TBD, Author Panel and Discussion

777 Front St, Lisle, IL 60532

*dates and events remain in planning phases, confirmations TBD

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Aaron 🙂

Publisher: Black Rose Writing; First Printing edition (9th November 2016)

Fitz Faraday, his best friend Hollis, who comes from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks, and his hoped-to-be-girlfriend Josey, the new girl in town, are taken through harrowing events and thrilling misadventures, as they learn about life, love, death, the inner workings of the psyche, and the flimsiness of reality. After witnessing the murder of Professor Oliver Crowley, who has invented a way of bringing thoughts into physical reality, Fitz and his friends must exonerate the town bully, who is being framed for the murder. Using Professor Crowley’s inventions, Fitz soon learns he can bend the field of Id, a sea of golden dreams and wishes. Fitz finds himself drawn inside a new world he never knew existed. He hopes he will be able to use that world to help his friends and even his enemies. To do so, he must master Crowley’s technique of “Thought becomes light and light becomes physical.”

Buy your copy HERE

Enjoy!

I am delighted to be today’s stop on Faith Hogan’s Secrets We Keep blog tour! 🙂

I have a lovely Q&A with the author herself for you to enjoy…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’d be delighted Kerry, I’m Faith Hogan and I live in the west of Ireland with a golf-mad husband, four lovely kids and a somewhat domineering cat. I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember, my house was full with them until I discovered eBooks. I write women’s fiction – I’m fascinated by people and that’s what I write about, how we handle the curve balls life throws at us. My stories are based in Ireland and they are about family, betrayal, love, loss and the triumph of human nature over any obstacle. The books are published by Aria Fiction (Head of Zeus). My Husbands’ Wives (Debut Novel) came out in May last year and on February 1st this year, Secret’s We Keep has been released.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

This is a cliché, but ideas are everywhere, this is both a blessing and a curse. Any writer will tell you, there’s nothing worse than being stuck in the middle or the final third of a novel (the slowest bit to write) only to have a tantalizing shiny new idea for the next book dangle constantly before you. Argh!

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

No. Unfortunately, many of the people I know are too normal for books. I think characters need to be a little more of everything. It’s a fine line between the subtlety of realism and the ability of a character to weasel their way into your affections!

How do you pick your characters names?

Grave yards are great for this, some of the best names are in graveyards – I’m not sure what this say’s about me! I also keep a telephone book in my office – it’s not a new one, I’m sure the day is coming when the telephone book will be a thing of the past, so I’m really minding the one I have

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

First off, I try to eliminate ideas. Literally, from when I’ve finished the first draft of a book, my mind is working out the next book. But it will only be a theme, perhaps a place – for Secret’s We Keep it was all about an old neglected Bath House in a little seaside village near where I live. Once I’ve done a lot of sitting and staring into space, then I’ll start to write. I’ll write the first draft one word at a time and very quickly, if I can get near my office, I’ll have a hundred thousand down. Then it’s back over it again. At the first draft stage, I’ll hand it over to my first reader – my sister. While she’s reading I’ll come up with more ideas, little threads that fill out the plot and the characters and pull things together even more. When I have gone through the book six or seven times, between changes big and small, spell check and a read through, I’m either in love with it and ready to send it off, or it has to be gone through again. My agent will then read through and she will often suggest changes. Then it goes to the publisher for a structural edit and then… what is it they say, the best writing is always re-writing!

Do you have a favourite author?

How much time have you got? My tastes have changed over the years, but the oldies are still the goodies, on the other hand there are some great writers emerging and thanks to new kids on the block like Aria many of the new writers coming up are well worth checking out.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Has Keanu Reeves written anything at all???

Seriously, I loved Johnathon Swift – so much so that he features in my next book coming out later in 2017. On a very different note, I adored PD James – I’d have loved to visit the Savoy for afternoon tea with her.

Today, well spending time with other contemporary writers is a bit of a treat and so, I don’t suppose it matters too much which one you pick, so long as they have a penchant for cake and coffee!

Were you a big reader as a child?

Like most other children, I was mad about anything Enid Blyton wrote, then I graduated on to Agatha Christie. I spent a lot of time reading as a child and it has been a great source of enjoyment for me though out my life, there’s no better way to escape than through the pages of a good book.

When did you start to write?

Again, like most writers, I’ve always written. Everything from poetry to radio plays. I think writing is something that you just do. For me, it’s something I can’t not do – so while there’s a responsibility to produce now, it’s still something I enjoy and I couldn’t imagine life without it.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

I adore the Simon Seraillier books by Susan Hill, but I must say, I was a tad disappointed on reading the first one – I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that one of the characters would have gone on to solve a lot more crimes. At the time, when I read it, I felt that only Susan Hill could get away with it – certainly a young debut author would be told to go and re-write it. I didn’t start the series on book 1, but I suspect if I had… Let’s just say, I’m glad I didn’t because they’re a cracking read!

What are you working on right now?

I’m finishing off my third book for Aria. It’s women’s fiction (of course) it’s a story about three women, each coming into a new stage in their lives and they make this pan out as best they can. It’s set in Dublin and it’s due with my agent last week – but it’s been Christmas, so you know… ho hum!

Do you have a new release due?

‘Secret’s We Keep,’ came out on February 1^st, so I’m really excited about that. I so enjoyed writing it and I couldn’t wait for it to come out. Now it’s all about letting readers make it their own – I only hope they get as much out of the reading of it as I did in the writing.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

Twitter (her favourite) https://twitter.com/GerHogan

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/faithhoganauthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faithhoganauthor/?hl=en

Web Page. http://faithhogan.com/

That’s basically where I’m to be found when I’m not tap tapping on the next book! I love to hear from readers, especially if they’ve enjoyed the book. Last time round, with My Husband’s Wives people contacted me from all over the world, from Australia to Canada, Hong Kong to Illinois – it was lovely, wakening up to such warm messages from around the world! It’s positively one of the best things about being a writer!

Thanks so much for having me on your blog, Kerry – I really enjoyed popping in to Chat About Books!

Faith x

Thank you so much for answering my questions, Faith and for inviting me to join in with your fabulous blog tour 🙂

Publisher: Aria (1st February 2017)

Two distant relatives, drawn together in companionship are forced to confront their pasts and learn that some people are good at keeping secrets and some secrets are never meant to be kept.

A bittersweet story of love, loss and life. Perfect for the fans of Patricia Scanlan and Adele Parks.

The beautiful old Bath House in Ballytokeep has lain empty and abandoned for decades. For devoted pensioners Archie and Iris, it holds too many conflicting memories of their adolescent dalliances and tragic consequences – sometimes it’s better to leave the past where it belongs.

For highflying, top London divorce lawyer Kate Hunt, it’s a fresh start – maybe even her future. On a winter visit to see her estranged Aunt Iris she falls in love with the Bath House. Inspired, she moves to Ballytokeep leaving her past heartache 600 miles away – but can you ever escape your past or your destiny?

Buy your copy HERE

Reviews

Enjoy!

I am delighted to be today’s stop on Hayley Mitchell’s Because I Was Lonely blog tour! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend you add it to your reading list.

Publisher: RedDoor Publishing (2nd March 2017)

My review

The first three pages of this novel are terrifying! I think my heart practically stopped at one point. It certainly grabbed my attention from the get go and I found myself fully immersed in this story from start to end.

The story is told from multiple viewpoints, but mostly from Rachel’s and Adam’s.

Rachel is a stay-at-home mother of two children, Maisie and Jamie. She thoroughly enjoyed motherhood when Maisie was born, but has found things more difficult since having Jamie. She is suffering from postnatal depression at the same time as grieving for her mother, who passed away whilst she was pregnant. This is a very raw and honest account of what must an horrendous thing to go through. Rachel is married to David and David doesn’t seem to know what to do with Rachel other than take her to the doctors, who just seem to keep fobbing them off. His answer to the problem is to stay later at work or stop at the pub for a pint to delay going home. He also sleeps in his study as Rachel doesn’t sleep well and he only seems to aggravate her with his presence. It isn’t long before David’s head is turned by a young barmaid at the pub.

Adam is a stay-at-home Dad. He has been for four years, since his parents died in a car crash. He was the one driving the car and he’s never forgiven himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. He has older children and is married to Julia. Julia is very ambitious and works away during the week. She has also struggled to cope with Adam’s mental health issues. He suffers from severe anxiety and has developed OCD. This puts serious limitations on his life and as a result he spends a lot of time confined to their house. Facebook becomes his lifeline and he takes some comfort in, what he considers, harmless flirting with women he chats to on there. When he comes across Rachel’s profile he sends her a friend request. He always had a thing for Rachel at college and has always regretted not taking things further at the time. They were good friends, but it never went beyond that.

Once Rachel and Adam start chatting via Facebook messenger, things soon start to be become flirty. Rachel is flattered by the attention, given that David pays her very little, and Adam is swept along with the fantasy of the Rachel he used to know, his biggest regret. Their conversations become quite steamy! They are extremely risky conversations for two married people to be having and they almost become an addiction for them both. They seem to help each other through their monotonous days. Are they worth risking everything for though?

David and Julia have their suspicions, but neither can access the Facebook accounts to confirm their suspicions. They are both aware that they could have done more to support their spouses and hope to make up for it in future, but is it too late?

Because I Was Lonely is an excellent debut novel, brilliantly written with very real characters with very real lives and problems. I can’t say I particularly liked any of the characters (and I certainly don’t condone any kind of infidelity), but they had my sympathy (all for different reasons) and I was fascinated by their stories.

A story of love, loss, loneliness and wonder about if the grass might just be greener…..

I’d love to know what happened next!

Many thanks to the author and Anna, at RedDoor Publishing, for my advance paperback copy of Because I Was Lonely. I will be more than happy to recommend!

Many thanks also, for allowing me to a part of this fabulous blog tour 🙂

Description

Meet Rachel. She is caught in a spiral of endless crying, dirty nappies, and sleepless nights. She fears for her sanity and the safety of her children.

She’s lonely.

Meet Adam. Suffering from the pain and trauma of a terrible accident that he blames himself for, he stays at home, unable to bring himself to leave the house.

He’s lonely.

So when Rachel and Adam rekindle their long lost friendship online, what starts as a little harmless flirtation, soon becomes an unhealthy obsession, and slowly the threads of their lives unravel before them.

Four lonely people . Two unhappy marriages . One dangerous, but inevitable climax.

Buy your copy HERE

Contact

@HayleyMitchellc

https://www.facebook.com/Becauseiwaslonely/

@RedDoorBooks

https://www.facebook.com/RedDoorPublishing/?fref=ts

Make sure you catch up with and follow the rest of the awesome bloggers taking part in the Because I Was Lonely blog tour…..

Enjoy!

I was thrilled to be nominated for this Blogger Recognition Award by two fabulous book bloggers, Joanne at Portobello Book Blog and Jill at Jill’s Book Café . Thanks ladies 🙂 If you don’t follow them already, you really should.

Here are the award rules:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
*5. Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
*6. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How Chat About Books started:

I have rated and reviewed books on Goodreads and Amazon for a long time, but never even gave blogging a thought. Then I met Mel Sherratt at the Stoke-on-Trent Hot Air Literary Festival in 2014. Since then we stayed in touch and she encouraged me to join Netgalley. Starting a book blog seemed like a natural progression so I took the plunge in October 2015 and I have loved every minute of it! The book blogging community is amazingly supportive and I have made friends with lots of lovely people including other bloggers, authors and publishers. I have also been introduced to many wonderful books which I might not have come across otherwise. If you’re thinking of started a book blog, go for it, you’ll love it!

Two pieces of advice to new bloggers:

1 – Your blog is yours, so write your reviews your way. There is no right or wrong (although spoilers are generally frowned upon). We are all very different and I think it’s important to be yourself.

2 – Enjoy it and try not to put yourself under too much pressure with lots of review deadlines. I’m not very good at following this advice myself! We tend to want to read everything. I have very little self-control when it comes to adding books to my review list and I’m pretty sure I aren’t the only one 😉

I follow lots of wonderful book bloggers so choosing 15 is going to be a challenge. My apologies if you’re not on the list. I do honestly enjoy all of your posts. Anyway, here are my nominations:

Jill at https://jillsbookcafe.wordpress.com/

Joanne at https://portobellobookblog.com/

Steph at https://steflozbookblog.wordpress.com/

Sarah at https://bytheletterbookreviews.com/

Joanne at https://mychestnutreadingtree.wordpress.com/

Kate at https://bibliophilebookclub.com/

Laura at http://www.novelkicks.co.uk/

Wendy at https://littlebooknesslane.wordpress.com/

Lorraine at https://thebookreviewcafe.com/

Noelle at https://crimebookjunkie.co.uk/

Emma at https://emmathelittlebookworm.wordpress.com/

Linda at https://lindasbookbag.com/

Anne at http://beinganne.com/

Adele at https://kraftireader.wordpress.com/

Kaisha at https://thewritinggarnet.wordpress.com/

Today I am over the moon to be sharing the last date of Mel Sherratt’s awesome blog tour with StefLoz Book Reviews and CrimeBookJunkie 🙂 Make sure you check out their posts too!

Publisher: Bookouture (31st January 2017)

My Review

Wow, this is another emotional roller-coaster of a read. Mel Sherratt never fails to keep you on the edge of your seat! Having read, and loved, The Girls Next Door: A gripping, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller (Detective Eden Berrisford crime thriller series Book 1) I couldn’t wait to read book 2. I was quite confident that I would love it and I wasn’t wrong! I’m over the moon to be a part of the blog tour for this brilliant book.

If you haven’t read book 1 as yet, then I would recommend you do so, before reading Don’t Look Behind You, as certain aspects of the story follow on from Book 1.

I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Detective Eden Berrisford again. She is a brilliant and very likeable character. She’s highly professional and loyal to her colleagues, always determined to keep the residents of Stockleigh as safe as she possible can. She’s also a mother, a sister, an aunt and her family mean the world to her. I hope (and I’m sure there are) people like her on our local police force.

Eden and her team have quite a challenge on their hands when three women are brutally attacked within a few days of each other. Are these attacks linked or just random? As the team try to piece together the facts before anyone else gets hurt, Carla is trying to piece her life together and move on from her abusive husband, which will prove more difficult now that he has been released from prison. She knows he will come back for her, but she’s determined not to let him get the better of her again.

Will Eden catch this savage attacker before he gets the chance to hurt anyone else and will Carla ever be able to move on with her life without constantly looking over her shoulder.

Don’t Look Behind You is a fast-paced police procedural, with short chapters adding to the intensity of the story. It deals with the sensitive subject of domestic abuse, and assault, in fairly graphic detail at times, so it’s not entirely an easy read. It’s heart-breaking to think that there are many people out there suffering abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust with their lives. As well as people trying to re-build their lives after being attacked in or around their homes, where they should be able to feel safe.

I liked how we got more of an insight into Eden’s personal life and the reasons that Danny left without any explanation. He’s put her, and their daughter, in a potentially dangerous situation and I’m pretty sure we haven’t heard the end of this aspect of her story.

A brilliantly written, character driven, tense and sometimes heart-breaking story. The last few chapters, in particular, had me holding my breath.

I have to say though, as much as I can’t wait to read Mel’s books, at the same time I never want them to end!

I can’t wait for book 3!

Many thanks to Mel Sherratt and Bookouture for my advance copy of Don’t Look Behind You.

#TeamSherratt

Don’t Look Behind You

She got into bed but sleep didn’t come easily. Every creak in the house made her alert. She was waiting for him to come and get her.

The small city of Stockleigh is in shock as three women are brutally attacked within days of each other. Are they random acts of violence or is there a link between the victims? For Detective Eden Berrisford, it’s her most chilling case yet.

The investigation leads Eden to cross paths with Carla, a woman trying to rebuild her life after her marriage to a cruel and abusive man ended in unimaginable tragedy. Her husband Ryan was imprisoned for his crimes but, now he’s out and coming for her.

As Eden starts to close in on the attacker, she also puts herself in grave danger. Can she stop him before he strikes again? And can Carla, terrified for her life, save herself – before the past wreaks a terrible revenge?

An absolutely gripping and chilling police procedural which will hook fans of Angela Marsons and Rachel Abbott.

Buy your copy HERE

Mel Sherratt – Bio

Mel Sherratt writes gritty crime dramas, psychological suspense and fiction with a punch – or grit-lit, as she calls it. Shortlisted for the CWA (Crime Writer’s Association) Dagger in the Library Award 2014, she finds inspiration from authors such as Martina Cole, Lynda la Plante and Elizabeth Haynes. Since 2012, all nine of her crime novels have been bestsellers. Four of her books are published by Amazon Publishing’s crime and thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer and she has a new series out with Bookouture.

Mel lives in Stoke-on-Trent, with her husband and terrier, Dexter, named after the TV serial killer, and makes liberal use of her hometown as a backdrop for some of her books.

Don’t Look Behind You ~ Amazon Links

UK: http://amzn.to/2fZ5tXB

US: http://amzn.to/2gGLY7h

Contact Mel:

http://www.melsherratt.co.uk or Twitter at @writermels

Mel Sherratt Amazon Author Page

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