WELCOME ELAINE DRENNON LITTLE

ELAINE DRENNON LITTLE

Adopted at birth, Elaine lived her first twenty years on her parents’ agricultural farm in rural southern Georgia.  She was a public school music teacher for twenty-seven years, and continued to dabble with sideline interests in spite of her paid profession.  Playing in her first band at age fourteen, she seemed to almost always be involved in at least one band or another.  Elaine’s writing began in high school, publishing in local newspapers, then educational journals, then later in online fiction journals.  In 2008 she enrolled in the MFA program at Spalding University in Louisville, where upon graduation finished her second novel manuscript. Recently retiring after eleven years as a high school chorus and drama director, Elaine now lives in north Georgia with her husband, an ever-growing library of used books, and many adopted animals.
Connect with Elaine at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Southern Place is a moving book that is expertly written! Mary Jane Hatcher–everyone calls her Mojo–is beat up bad. She’s in the ICU of Phoebe Putney, the largest hospital in South Georgia, barely able to talk. How Mojo goes from being that skinny little girl in Nolan, a small forgotten town along the Flint River, to the young woman now fighting for her life, is where this story begins and ends.

Mojo, her mama Delores and her Uncle Calvin Mullinax, like most folks in Nolan, have just tried to make the best of it. Of course, people aren’t always what they seem, and Phil Foster–the handsome, spoiled son of the richest man in the county–is no exception.

As the story of the Mullinax family unfolds, Mojo discovers a family’s legacy can be many things: a piece of earth, a familiar dwelling, a shared bond. And although she doesn’t know why she feels such a bond with Phil Foster, it is there all the same, family or not. And she likes to think we all have us a fresh start. Like her mama always said, the past is all just water under the bridge. Mojo, after going to hell and back, finally comes to understand what that means.

Review by Guest Blogger, Crystal from Bring On Lemons

I knew her name was Mary Jane Mullinax and folks called her MoJo, but there had to be more to the story than that. Sherriff Purvis of Dumas County Georgia described Mo Jo and her family as good folds, quiet-like and said there was no one to call. Her mama had died years before and she had never known her daddy. As a reader, I immediately felt I didn’t want to leave her side until she was out of the ICU and on the road to recovery.

 

Little did I know that A Southern Place would take me back in time to the days when Mo Jo’s grandparents were working the land and the rich Georgia soil. Wherever this story was going, I was going with it. I wanted to know everything about this young girl, her parents, her grandparents, and especially her uncle Calvin (Cal for short). Cal had been important in Mo Jo’s upbringing and I was intrigued by a man who would selflessly sacrifice everything for the sake of his family. Cal had died years before Mo Jo found herself alone and near death in the ICU, but something tells me Mo Jo had the same love for her family that her uncle had. She managed to take quite a beating and somehow protect her unborn child and that just seems like the same sort of family value that Cal showed when he selflessly put everyone else before himself.

 

Mo Jo and her family hadn’t come from the best of backgrounds, but they were proud. As the story advanced in years, it became clear that the Mullinax family was deeply attached to the land; they worked the land and believed that hard work would win in the end. I found myself cheering them on and as things fell apart I slumped in my chair feeling the same defeat they must have felt as they took out another mortgage and sold off some of their precious land.

 

Little’s descriptions and understanding of everything from farming to history really made A Southern Place come to life for me. This may be Little’s first published novel, but I certainly hope it won’t be her last. She has a way of bringing her characters to life and her depictions of the south have me longing for a visit. I am curious about peanut plantations as well as intrigued by the author herself – a piano teacher with thirty years’ experience turned author, now that’s something I didn’t see coming! Thank you Elaine Drennon Little for this exceptional book and I do hope to read more from you in the future!

 

Want to find out more about taking life’s lemons and turning them into lemonade or read more of Crystal’s book reviews? Follow Crystal’s lemon blog by clicking here:http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

BOOK DETAILS:

Publisher: WiDo Publishing
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Number of pages: 294 pages
ISBN-10: 1937178390
ISBN-13: 978-1937178390

PURCHASE LINKS:

           

THANKS TO CRYSTAL AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT-OPEN TO US and CANADA RESIDENTS  EBOOK-OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS SEPTEMBER 6th AT 6PM EST

WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN BY RAFFLECOPTER AND NOTIFIED
VIA EMAIL AND WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND
OR ANOTHER NAME WILL BE CHOSEN

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

DISCLAIMER

I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.

ADDENDUM

I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

 

WELCOME ERIC TRANT

ERIC TRANT

Eric Trant is a fantasy-thriller author who lives in North Dallas with his wife and family. His work blends believable stories into a mixture of realism and supernatural elements, while always keeping the reader engaged with deeply-drawn characters, stunning visuals and constant motion. His goal is to create stories which linger with the reader long after the book is read. Wink is Eric’s second novel.
Connect with Eric at these sites:

GUEST POST

WELCOME DESTINY ALLISON

 

DESTINY ALLISON

Destiny Allison is an award winning sculptor, businesswoman, and community builder, although writing was her first love. As her passion for the written word evolves, Allison is writing what she loves. Pipe Dreams is her fiction debut and other fictional works are soon to follow.

Last year, she published Shaping Destiny: A quest for meaning in art and life and it recently took first place honors in the non-fiction/memoir category in the 2013 LuckyCinda Publishing Global Book Contest. In it, Allison reveals the truth that life is art and it is a book Allison felt she had to write. She lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband and dogs, alternately missing and celebrating her three grown sons.
Connect with Destiny at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

Beneath the park bench, a young girl cries for help, her voice a cold hand on Vanessa’s throat.  “Please,” the girl whispers, a  tear trickling down her battered face. Vanessa glances at the empty square. A piece of trash tumbles. A bird settles in a tree. Then there is silence — no voice, no wind, no movement. It’s as if the world is waiting. The naked girl is desperate, but compassion for the Fallen is never forgiven.

Vanessa’s hesitation is her undoing. Unbeknownst to her, Lewis is still haunted by her thick, auburn hair, serious eyes, and mocking laughter. She is the symbol of all he hates and her interaction with the girl is just what he needs to gain control of the virus. Originally developed to save mankind from itself, the virus can be used to create a slave race. When it is released, Lewis will have his revenge.

As his plan unfolds, Vanessa is forced to flee.  Escaping through the sewer, she finds love, heartbreak, and the red beam of a gun sight dancing on the slick, black wall.  In the deep dark of the foul pipe, she also discovers she has been betrayed. That’s when she learns Texas is real.

Pipe Dreams is a dystopian novel set in the near future. If gene splicing could merge Margaret Atwood and Suzanne Collins, the resulting author might write this book.

READ AN EXCERPT

BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Destiny/Allison (June 2, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0615823742
ISBN-13: 978-0615823744

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO RENEE AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT-OPEN TO U.S. and CANADA RESIDENTS or EBOOK-OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT- RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS JULY 30th AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

WELCOME DONALD DEMPSEY

DONALD DEMPSEY with son, GAVIN

Don Dempsey experienced childhood abuse and neglect first hand, but went on to have a fulfilling family life as an adult and to own his own business. “If you’re lucky, you make it to adulthood in one piece,” says Don. “But there’s no guarantee the rest of your life is going to be any better. Abused kids are often plagued by fear and insecurity. They battle depression and have trouble with relationships. In the worst cases, abused children perpetuate the cycle.” But Don is living proof that you can overcome a childhood of abuse and neglect. “You start by letting go of as much of the guilt (yes, abused kids feel guilty) and as many of the bad memories as possible. At the same time, you hold on to the things that helped you survive. For me, it was the belief that you can make life better by working at it and earning it. It helps to have a sense of humor, too.”
Connect with Don at these sites:

GUEST POST

Overcoming a Difficult Childhood

I can only speak from personal experience when it comes to overcoming a troubled childhood, and I do so cautiously.  I’ve heard every cliché over the years, but the fact is no two people really wear the same scar.  Siblings who suffer the exact trauma often emerge very differently from the turmoil.  One might be able to go on and build a normal life.  Another might become mired in the pain, making one mistake after another, until it feels like there is no escape.

For me, it was suppressed rage, a determination to outwork my perceived destiny, a sarcastic wit, and fear.  I was terrified I would wind up like my mother.  Even worse, that I would be a man like one of the disgusting string of bums and predators she allowed in and out of our lives.  For most of my early years, I lived in one of two perpetual states:  I was either afraid, or I was angry.  I believe I was around forty years old before I actually began to find peace, to come to some sort of agreement with the tortured child within me.

I’ve learned something from watching the struggles of my brothers.  I’ve learned even more from some of the haunting messages I’ve received from readers.  How does a girl who was brutally raped again and again by her own father survive and mature into a loving mother and devoted wife?  She never speaks of her pain, choosing to choke down her shame and guilt and hide behind a picturesque smile.  While her abused brother chooses to drown himself in alcohol and drugs, never getting free, tormented and abused forever.

I’m sad to say I don’t have an answer.  I believe I did things the hard way.  I’m good with who I am today –  stubborn, flawed, but as open minded and considerate of others as I can constantly remind myself to be.  Religion remains an abstract concept.  I don’t particularly like to be referred to as “lucky,” but I do consider myself blessed.  I still often wake up in the dead of night and roam my den, looking at the pictures of my children covering the walls, amazed at my good fortune and wondering how I managed to deserve the life I have.

Hesitantly and humbly, I offer a few suggestions to overcoming the demons of a difficult childhood.  Accepting the problem is a great place to start, understanding that the guilt and pain are the byproduct of trauma you didn’t deserve.  Unaddressed, the problem will often lead to substance abuse and anger issues.  Many find ways to cope with or squash their pain, concentrating on their work, or raising their own children.  I’m one of those people.  Most of us who manage this type of self-therapy still have our issues, but we find ways to dull the pain.  We do whatever we have to.

But if you’re one of those who can’t find the balance required to move forward, please understand that life is too precious a gift to waste.  Seek help.  Accept help.  No matter how overwhelming and hopeless it appears, please try.  Take small steps.  Start with talking to a professional or maybe a loved one you can trust.  Break down and tackle issues separately instead of trying to take them on all at once.  Try to shed the guilt and push forward.  Try to understand you deserve peace and healing.  Do anything it takes to end the cycle of abuse and not pass it on to those you care about and love.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the tradition of Frank McCourt and Angela’s Ashes, Don Dempsey uses Betty’s Child to tell the story of life with a cruel and neglectful mother, his mother’s abusive boyfriends, a dangerous local thug who wants twelve-year-old Donny to burglarize homes and deal drugs, and hypocritical church leaders who want to save young Donny’s soul but ignore threats to his physical well-being. In a world where it’s “fight or flight” at every turn, Donny uses his street smarts and sense of humor to guide him. He usually makes the right choice, but whenever he makes a wrong move, he pays the price. Some of his experiences will make you recoil in horror, but you’ll want to keep reading because Dempsey manages to maintain a sense of humor while sharing the gritty details of his story. In the end, Donny does everything he can to take care of himself and his younger brothers, but with each new development, the present becomes more fraught with peril—and the future more uncertain.

“Heartrending and humorous. In scene after vivid scene, Dempsey presents his inspiring true story with accomplished style. Dempsey’s discipline as a writer lends the real-life tale the feel of a fictional page-turner.” Kirkus Reviews

BOOK DETAILS:

Publisher: Dream of Things (March 26, 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00BOL69ZO
Print Length: 438 pages

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO CRYSTAL AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT-OPEN TO U.S. and CANADA RESIDENTS or EBOOK-OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS JULY 26th AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

 

WELCOME TRISHA SLAY

TRISHA SLAY

Trisha Slay is a writer with a passion for storytelling. She has studied at the Institute of Children’s Literature as well as furthering her skills through online workshops. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and the Atlanta Writer’s Club. She enjoys participating in writing groups and spends a great deal of time improving her craft. Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away is her first novel.

Tricia hopes Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away would be compared to Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. She has said that “If those two books had a Star Wars-obsessed little sister, I’d like to think she would be my novel.”

Tricia lives between the Atlanta metro area and the North Georgia Mountains, but hails originally from Ohio…by the way of the San Francisco Bay area. When she is not working on her next book (tentatively titled Sometimes We Strike Back), her interests include: 70s pop culture; unsolved mysteries; Star Wars (original trilogy); historic movie theaters; haunted history; reading (especially YA novels); nutrition/weight watchers/healthy vegetarian cuisine; hiking (exploring the National Forest trails with her guy); yoga/meditation; miscellaneous crafting projects (that rarely turn out as envisioned); and writing letters she never intends to mail.
Connect with Trisha at these sites:

GUEST POST

ABOUT THE BOOK

It’s a terrible thing to live under a question mark….

When Erika’s best friend, teen beauty queen Cassandra Abbott, disappears during the early hours of Memorial Day 1977, Erika isn’t exactly surprised. After all, they’ve been plotting and planning Cassie’s escape for months. But then Cassie’s departure unleashes a whirlwind of questions, suspicions and accusations that Erika never expected.

She’s lying to the police. She’s being bullied by older students. Worst of all, she’s starting to doubt she ever REALLY knew Cassie Abbott at all.

Under the weight of scrutiny and confusion, Erika struggles just to breathe…until a strange new movie transforms her summer with A New Hope.

For Erika, Star Wars changes EVERYTHING. So she volunteers to do chores for a local theater owner to gain unlimited access to a galaxy far, far away from her current reality.

At the Bixby Theater-a beautiful but crumbling movie palace from a more civilized era-Erika discovers new friendships, feels the crush of first love and starts an exciting new romance with Super 8 film making…but she can’t hide in a darkened movie theater forever.

As the summer wears on, tensions escalate over the unsolved mystery surrounding Cassie’s disappearance. Someone seems to think Erika knows too many of Cassie’s secrets. Eventually, Erika must step out of the shadows and, armed only with her Super 8 camera and the lessons she’s learned from Star Wars, fight to save herself and the theater that has become her second home.

Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away is a quirky, contemporary, coming-of-age novel set during the earliest days of the Star Wars fan phenomenon.

BOOK DETAILS:

Print Length: 316 pages
Publisher: Deeds Publishing (May 1, 2013)
Language: English
ASIN: B00CXAE60K

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO CRYSTAL AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT-OPEN TO US/CANADA RESIDENTS or EBOOK-OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS JULY 23rd AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

Today is old friends day.  You have met Jodi, from WOW! many times, and with her today is Lisa de Nikolits, who visited back in March of last year and is back to tell us of her newest book.   So I ask in helping me give these ladies a warm Welcome Back to CMash Reads!!  Friends……Ms. Lisa de Nikolits!

LISA de NIKOLITS

Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has been a Canadian citizen since 2003. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.

Her first novel, The Hungry Mirror, won the 2011 IPPY Awards Gold Medal for Women’s Issues Fiction and was long-listed for a ReLit Award. Her second novel, West of Wawa won the 2012 IPPY Silver Medal Winner for Popular Fiction and was one ofChatelaine’s four Editor’s Picks. Lisa has also written poetry, short stories, magazine articles and children’s books. She also spent many years as the art director for fashion magazines around the world.

Connect with Lisa at these sites:

Q&A with Lisa

  -Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Yes and no! In general, whenever my writing has drawn too closely from my own experiences, my editors have deemed the prose banal or the character vacuous! So I might take a kernel of my experience and develop things from there. For example, I art direct magazines in my day job and I took a lot of the scenarios and things I heard or saw while at work for my novel The Hungry Mirror, but I created fictitious characters and their fictitious responses to those events and I created a story and plot that didn’t exist in real life.

I don’t tend to draw from current events – well, that’s to say I haven’t done so to this point! I am very open to stories; I welcome them to come to me from any and all avenues. I do view everything in my life as having potential for a story’s beginning; I test things almost subconsciously and see if anything worthy can come of it.

If we look at A Glittering Chaos, it all started because my husband bumped into a German woman in the elevator in Las Vegas and she couldn’t speak English. He came back and told me and I thought ‘wow, imagine being in Vegas and not be able to speak English…’ And it all burgeoned from there: the imagine if… I tried to imagine the worst possible consequence and work backwards from there.

  -Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I go back and forth! If we look at A Glittering Chaos, I started off with my husband’s chance encounter with the German woman and I wondered what the worst possible consequence could be, as a result of her not being able to speak English. Obviously it would be that she was murdered but I liked her (and by ‘her’ I mean my character, as I never met the elevator woman) and so I didn’t want to kill her or have her die.

So… she comes out of it alive but what has she lost? And what has she gained? And how is her life different and what did she learn and how did she grow?

Those are the most important questions I ask myself when crafting a story and I go back and forth with what happens and how it happens.

I was fortunate to receive some excellent feedback from an editor who said I had way too much in the book and he outlined what he thought would make for a good novel. I had my doubts, I didn’t think there was enough there but I went on trust and it worked out just fine.

I tend to overplot, overplan and work in too many things. I’ve had to learn the hard way (i.e. rewriting and rewriting and more rewriting) to take it out.

  -Your routine when writing?  Any idiosyncrasies?
I like to wear a hat. The hat changes! That’s my only idiosyncrasy.

I have quite a taxing day job and I work a lot of long hours there, so I don’t have a routine per se.

I try to write for an hour or so every night (and the timing on that varies) and I get up early on the weekends and try to do as much as I can. My writing motto is ‘Do One Thing A Day’– whether it’s write a blog post or do a bit for my novel or read something on the style of writing, I try to do just one thing a day. That way I feel as if at least I am doing what I can, I am taking a step forward every day, even a small step.

  -Is writing your full time job?  If not, may I ask what you do by day?
I’d love writing to be my full time job! That said, not many novelists can support themselves in this way; I recently read that there are twenty novelists in Canada who do this for their day job.

I am a magazine art director and I’ve worked all around the world on different magazines. I was Senior Art Director for marie claire South African, Art Director of Vogue Living Australia and am currently the art director of Canadian Health and Lifestyle magazine and Cosmetics magazine.

I’ve chatted to a lot of fellow writers and I feel that I am very fortunate in having such a different day job to my writing because I’m not burnt out when I get home; I’m not tired of words. My writing is an escape into a completely different world and it feels fresh and exciting at the end of a long day.

I would hate to design pages all day and then have to come home and design more pages – and for me, that’s what it would be like to write by day and then try to write by night too.

A lot of writers who write by day have told me that they struggle to get motivated to write when they get home and so I think I’m very lucky to have such a different job – each fuels off the energy generated by the other – I think I’m a better art director too, because I write! And not to mention the wealth of stories that I come across in my day job!

  -Who are some of your favorite authors?
I’d like to answer this question as being “which authors would you like to write like?”

Anakana Schofield (Malarky), Lisa Moore (February), Harry Crews (Body and Feast of Snakes), John Steinbeck (Cannery Row and East of Eden), Edeet Ravel (Wall of Light and Ten Thousand Lovers), Liz Worth (Eleven Eleven, PostApoc), Gordon (Cosmo), Stuart Ross (Farmer Gloomy’s New Hybrid).

  -What are you reading now?
Because one review recently likened my book to Madame Bovary (the review is posted on my website), I reread that very recently and highly recommend it. I read the latest Lee Childs (A Wanted Man), Denise Mina (Gods and Beasts), Girlfriend In A Coma (Douglas Coupland), I read the latest novel by Rosemary McCracken (Black Water) and thoroughly enjoyed it and I read the vivid and poetic PostApoc by Liz Worth which haunted me for days. I’ve got Drunk Mom (Jowita Bydlowska) lined up, along with Dirty Bird (Keir Lowther). As you can see, I like to mix it up!

I am very much looking forward to the follow-up book by D.J. McIntosh, author of The Witch of Babylon (Penguin). Her second novel, The Book Of Stolen Tales is due to launch soon and I can’t wait! It’s great when you find authors you love to follow.

I read a lot of poetry because I think that’s the best writing; it’s so succinct and so powerful. I tweet a quote every day from a poem that inspires my writing.

I loved Probably Inevitable by Matthew Tierney and I am currently enjoying Exaltation in Cadmium Red by Sonia di Placido and Come Late to the Love of Birds by Sandra Kasturi.

  -Are you working on your next novel?  Can you tell us a little about it?
I am! I have another novel due out next year; The Witchdoctor’s Bones. This novel has a bunch of tourists travelling through Namibia; it’s all very Agatha  Christie-like! This novel is due to be launched in 2014.

I am also working on another novel: Between The Cracks She Fell and I am at about 40 000 words. I aim to have the first draft of this novel completed by year end. This one’s about a young woman who loses her job and her home and takes up residence in an abandoned old school. It’s being a lot of fun to write!

Fun questions:
  -Your novel will be a movie.  Who would you cast?
I have it all worked out, with pictures too!

Melusine (protagonist): Jean Tripplehorn
Kateri (long lost sister): Michelle Pfeiffer
Juditha Estima (psychic): Jennifer Connelly
Hans Meier (husband): William Hurt (about ten or fifteen years ago)
Jonas Meier (young Josh Hartnett)
Gunther (Harvey Keitel)

  -Would you rather read or watch TV/movie?
I have a mini routine for this! I like to watch a TV or a movie on Friday nights – Friday night is TV night! I don’t watch a lot of TV in general; I watch CSI Las Vegas, Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family. My husband and I sometimes watch all four on a Friday night! I write most nights and therefore don’t have much time for TV, and I try to read a bit every night too. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a movie or TV on a Sunday night too but only if I’ve done enough writing (and reading). Fortunately my husband is very understanding of my commitment to writing and he happily watches a lot of sport by himself or plays his lap steel or works on his photographs.

  -Favorite food?
Pancakes! And chocolate (any kind except for dark chocolate). I have a very sweet tooth and could happily eat cake for breakfast, pancakes for lunch and chocolate for supper!

  -Favorite beverage?
I’d like to answer this with beverages plural! I love Tim Horton’s coffee. When they first introduced their new Extra Large size I was appalled, I thought who on earth could consume that much coffee (or tea)? It looks close to a liter of liquid! Now I’m ashamed to say that I can easily drink two of them in a day! I love Oolong tea and I drink a lot of that. I love a white wine spritzer with soda water at the end of the day and I love Black Velvet Toasted Caramel Flavoured Whisky. Again you can see the sweet tooth coming into play! And I love Crystal Lite Tangerine Grapefruit.

Thank you very much for having me as a guest on your blog and I most sincerely hope your readers will give A Glittering Chaos a try!

ABOUT THE BOOK

A terrific, smart, funny and incredibly wise story about marriage, secrets and lies and unusual sexual proclivities.

A German woman in her early-forties insists on accompanying her husband to Las Vegas, where he has a business conference. Unknown to her the conference is a pretext; he’s there to find a psychic who will help him contact his sister who vanished at fourteen.

A key theme is how one person’s psychiatric problems can move like a destructive whirlwind through other people’s lives and within the confines of a curious and shifting family dynamic.

Melusine (protagonist) is a passionate and creative woman with a high tolerance for the eccentric expressions of human frailty. From suppressed wife and librarian to nude model; to writer of an erotic Sapphic novella; and finally to pastry chef and adoptive mother of a baby boy, she has a good sense of self-discovery-she embraces her erotic desires with self-love after she realises, with surprise, that she even has an erotic self.

A Glittering Chaos is a novel about empowerment and new beginnings at every stage of life, with a diverse cast of unconventional characters of all ages and sexual orientations who find themselves in intriguingly unusual situations.

BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Inanna Publishing (May 30, 2013)
ISBN-10: 192670892X
ISBN-13: 978-1926708928

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO JODI AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT-OPEN TO U.S. and CANADA RESIDENTS
or EBOOK-OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS JUNE 25th AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

We have met some incredible female authors through WOW!.  And Jodi is back today to introduce us to another awesome writer.  Welcome Ms. Sharon Simons!!

SHARON SIMONS

Sharon had a dream to become a mother which she was determined to follow. Her path was difficult but ultimately successful. Born in New Jersey and living in Delaware, she is married to her soul mate Rick and the very proud Mom to her two sons Dylan and Hunter.

Sharon struggled to become a Mom, dealing with the uncertain world of infertility including three In Vitro Fertilizations, Tubal Pregnancy, and the Loss of a Pregnancy with twin boys at 19 weeks. That loss only made her more determined to become a Mom. Thankfully that dream became a reality through the use of International Adoption.

Sharon Simons took her experiences and created Mom at Last, a community of women who struggled through their journey towards becoming a Mom, at Last! She also also written Mom at Last: How I Never Gave Up On Becoming a Mother, to inspire other women who are having a difficult time becoming a Mother. In addition to creating the Mom at Last Community & writing her Memoir, Sharon Simons has created theAdoptionApp, a Domestic and International Adoption Process Mobile App for iPhone and Android, and TheAdoptionKit, an Adoption Survival Kit to help you through the Adoption Process.

Connect with Sharon at these sites:

GUEST POST

My Proudest Moment

It took me quite a while to become one, through many trials, tribulations, and heartaches, but motherhood happened. My husband and I adopted two beautiful little boys. My proudest moment. I decided to share my story to give “mom’s to be” hope and strength to persevere.

The “Mom at Last” website is both a celebration of the various journeys leading to and through motherhood. I want to help other women with their struggles to understand that many women share the same struggles, emotion, pain and joy through the formation of a community and documentation of individual stories — as well as a resource for those starting on their path.

Through most of my life career came first, being a mom on the back burner, but eventually the urge grew to be irresistible. My husband and I met later in life when he was unable to conceive naturally. After agreeing to have children we went through the “in vitro” process several times, only to be met with tragedy. Our first attempt resulted in a twin pregnancy with two boys. The pregnancy went well for 19 weeks when I unexpectedly contracted amniocentesis. I became extremely ill with sepsis and lost both boys. After recovering as best I could both physically and emotionally, we decided to try again. Much to our surprise our next attempt also seemed successful, with a positive pregnancy test one week after embryo implantation. Unfortunately, to our chagrin the pregnancy was ectopic and had to be terminated. We again had to deal with pain and loss. After a short break, despite the cost and uncertainty we went ahead with our third try. Unfortunately, the third time was not a charm, no luck.

We then faced a major decision, a turning point in our journey. We decided to adopt. With time in short supply considering my husband’s age and the restrictions many country’s have regarding adoption, I plunged headfirst into the process. Fortunately my adoption process went quickly. I contacted the agency right before Memorial Day 2007 and was on my first trip to Russia July 4th, 2007 to meet the boys. I pushed full steam ahead with all the paperwork and was given a court date of Labor Day 2007.  My husband and I made our second trip to Russia and thankfully the judge approved us and we were awarded our children.  We are now the proud parents of the most beautiful and brightest boys in the world.

Along the journey I did not understand why we had so many disappointments.  I do now…if I did not follow my exact path I would not have my wonderful boys.

Adoption was my destination. These boys were not born to me physically but they were born in my heart.  They are my everything!!

ABOUT THE BOOK

From Amazon:
Her biological clock ticking louder each day, Sharon Simon felt her heart sink as yet another “Mr. Wonderful” turned out to be a frog—not the prince she was waiting for. But when the right man did come along, their journey toward parenthood seemed more like a machete trail through a jungle than the smooth path of her dreams. Enduring multiple failed IVFs and the loss of their unborn twins, Sharon and her husband decided to adopt—taking a whirlwind trip to Russia and navigating the rough waters of international adoption red tape. Their journey ended, or rather began, when two baby boys were placed in their arms for the long trip home.
Part love story, part adoption memoir, and all heart, Mom at Last is the story of one woman’s fierce determination to become a mother. Full of setbacks and emotionally devastating pitfalls, ultimately the journey leads her to true love and pure joy. Mom at Last will inspire women who find themselves on that sometimes difficult journey to motherhood, giving hope that motherhood is possible and encouraging women to never give up on their dreams. While every journey to motherhood is different, Mom at Last lets women know they are not alone in the struggle toward motherhood.

WATCH THE VIDEO

BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 250 pages
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing (August 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1614484422
ISBN-13: 978-1614484424

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO JODI AT WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
PRINT OPEN TO U.S. and CANADA RESIDENTS or EBOOK OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS JUNE 7th AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

Renee, from WOW!, is visiting for the first time and is here to introduce us to another talented female author.  So I ask that you help me in giving them a warm welcome to CMash Reads.  Welcome Ms Jennifer Richardson!

JENNIFER RICHARDSON

Jennifer Richardson is a writer whose first book, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage, is out now. In addition to her initial experience with multiple sclerosis, Americashire chronicles the three years Jennifer spent living in a Cotswold village populated by fumbling aristocrats, gentlemen farmers, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed. She currently lives in Santa Monica, California along with her British husband and her royal wedding tea towel collection.

Connect with Jennifer at GoodReads, Pinterest and these sites:

GUEST POST

Life with My So-Called Chronic Disease

In my kingdom of the sick, the emperor has no clothes

With one obvious exception, the word chronic never refers to anything good. Someone is a chronic liar or a country is in a chronic state of civil war. Or someone has a chronic disease. Like me.

Four months into my multiple sclerosis diagnosis—and four years since the first symptoms that caused a neurologist to warn me that such a diagnosis might be coming—it still feels weird to acknowledge the fact that I am sick. I don’t feel sick. Unlike those diagnosed with other chronic diseases, like, say, rheumatoid arthritis or Chron’s disease, I endure no pain from my illness. My symptoms—some mild slurring, followed by numbness on half my face—have only impacted four weeks of the last four years and, while annoying, were neither debilitating nor readily detectable to anybody I was interacting with.

In fact, the entire infrastructure of the disease has been far more annoying and debilitating than any of the symptoms. Navigating the various doctors’ offices, insurance companies, drug companies, and pharmacies that comprise the US healthcare system experience for someone like me—that is, someone who is lucky enough to have good health insurance—is not an activity fit for someone who has just been diagnosed with a disease. You are flighty and distracted and can’t remember to ask your doctor important questions, but that is the exact moment when the execution of your own healthcare requires you to have the steely nerves of a crane operator combined with the determination of a blood hound. Even when you’ve charted a course through that labyrinth, any sense of victory is diminished by a nagging concern over what it would be like without your prized health insurance and the eight months still to go until the pre-existing conditions clause of Obama Care kicks in. (To put a number on that anxiety, consider that the latest MS treatment, a pill that has more or less been around for twenty years to treat psoriasis, was recently released at a wholesale price of $54,900 per patient per year.)

Faced with this you naturally wonder, as do people who should know better, like your husband and your shrink, if you should even bother taking medication for your mostly invisible disease. Surely you are about to wake from the absurdist dream you’ve been having where you, a needle phobic, are now supposed to shoot up a medicine every Thursday that makes you feel like you have the flu for sixteen hours in order to treat a disease that is currently presenting zero symptoms. But then the second opinion neurologist, the one who is a foremost expert in the field, tells you in her calm Texas drawl that, yes, you have to take the preventative medicine; that first neurologist you saw wasn’t just making that up. Your disease may feel like a fraud now, but MS has the astonishing potential to morph from an annoyance to, say, paralysis, an outcome you don’t want to dice with much.

In her recent book, In the Kingdom of the Sick, Laurie Edwards writes about her experience growing up of frequent doctor appointments to treat what was eventually diagnosed as a chronic and very rare lung disease. She notes that she never perceived her experience then in terms of a chronic illness. Rather she experienced each incident separately, in a reactionary mode, and only as an adult did she make the emotional adjustment to acknowledge the long-term nature of what she was dealing with. This, she says, “is the most daunting aspect of any chronic illness, whether you are the patient grappling with a diagnosis or a healthy person who hopes it never happens to you: It isn’t going to go away.”

And she is right, especially the part about the healthy people. This explains why most my friends never ask me much about my MS. I am a living, breathing incarnation of what they hope never happens to them, and they’d understandably rather not talk about it. Frankly, it is a preferable state of affairs to those who do ask me about it because, invariably, these types want to know if I am going to change my lifestyle. This, of course, is just a polite way of asking me if I am going to drink less wine. I am not, both because I like wine and because drinking wine does not cause MS (I asked my neurologist). But as I once was, these people are desperate to believe that there is something I (read: they) can do to control bad things, like MS, from happening. Deep down there is some little part of them desperate to believe that there must be a reason (read: something bad I did) I got MS.

I am neither surprised nor angered by this reaction, but that is probably because MS has not yet, and hopefully never will, made me very sick. Just the other day I heard a reasonably intelligent person imply that the rise in women’s cancers is due to women letting themselves get burnt out. On behalf of the three women in my life who have recently lost both their breasts to cancer, I wanted to ring this woman’s neck, or at least buy her a copy of Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor. Thirty-five years have passed since Sontag pointed out the lunacy of using romanticized language to create an acceptable way to blame the victims of disease and, yet, it is still fairly commonplace to hear people imply stress or bottled emotions or some other similarly nebulous thing is to blame.

I, however, am not blameless when it comes to hiding behind language to deal with my disease. In my book, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage, I write about renaming the permanent lesions on my brain—the main physiological manifestation of my MS:

In the absence of any answers from science I turned to the transformative power of language. Lesions were for lepers or people with venereal disease. They simply would not do. Therefore, I decided I had les ions, pronounced lā-ē-uh, with a trademark French grunt on the last syllable. It still sounded vaguely scientific, yet at the same time foreign and alluring. And best of all, it made me feel, just for a moment, like I was in control.

Despite my wariness over the use of flowery language when it comes to illness, I am giving myself a pass on this one. I liken it to the same rule of the universe that makes it OK for me, but nobody else—especially my husband—to make fun of my immediate family. After all, MS is my disease, and I can call it anything I want.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When an American woman and her British husband decide to buy a two-hundred-year-old cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds, they’re hoping for an escape from their London lives. Instead, their decision about whether or not to have a child plays out against a backdrop of village fêtes, rural rambles, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed.

Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage begins with the simultaneous purchase of a Cotswold cottage and Richardson’s ill-advised decision to tell her grandchild-hungry parents that she is going to try to have a baby. As she transitions from urban to rural life, she is forced to confront both her ambivalence about the idea of motherhood and the reality of living with a spouse who sees the world as a glass half-full. Part memoir, part travelogue – and including field guides to narrative-related Cotswold walks – Americashire is a candid, compelling, and humorous tale of marriage, illness, and difficult life decisions.

BOOK DETAILS:

Perfect Paperback: 164 pages
Publisher: She Writes Press (April 23, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1938314301
ISBN-13: 978-1938314308

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO AUTHOR, JENNIFER RICHARDSON
and RENEE FROM WOW!,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
OPEN TO U.S. and CANADA RESIDENTS–PRINT
or EBOOK–OPEN TO ALL

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS MAY 23rd AT 6PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM