Forever (Hachette Book Group), GCP/Forever, Giveaway, Guest Author, Showcase

Guest Author SHANNON RICHARD showcase & giveaway ENDED

CMash October 7, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME SHANNON RICHARD

SHANNON RICHARD

Grace King knows two things for certain: she loves working at her grandmother’s café and she loves the hunky town sheriff. She always has. As she bakes him sweet treats, Grace fantasizes about helping him work up an appetite all night long. But whenever she thinks she’s finally getting somewhere, he whips out some excuse to escape. Growing up, he never looked twice at her. Now Grace won’t rest until she has Jax’s undivided attention.

Jaxson Anderson can’t deny that his best friend’s kid sister is the sexiest woman in Mirabelle, Florida. Unwilling to burden Grace with his painful past, Jax keeps the sassy blonde at arm’s length. Yet one heated kiss crumbles all of his carefully built defenses. But when a town secret surfaces, threatening to destroy everything they have believed in, can the man who defended Grace from bullies as a child protect her now?
Connect with Shannon at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

Shannon Richard grew up in the Panhandle of Florida as the baby sister of two overly protective, but loving brothers. She was raised by a more than somewhat eccentric mother, a self-proclaimed vocabularist who showed her how to get lost in a book, and a father who passed on his love for coffee and really loud music. She graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor’s in English Literature, and still lives in Tallahassee where she battles everyday life with writing, reading, and a rant every once in a while. Okay, so the rants might happen on a regular basis. She’s still waiting for her Southern, scruffy, Mr. Darcy and in the meantime writes love stories to indulge her overactive imagination. Oh, and she’s a pretty big fan of the whimsy.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Romance – Contemporary
Print Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Forever
Publication: Date: October 1, 2013
ASIN: B00BAXFZTC

PURCHASE LINKS:

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I HAVE ONE (1) EBOOK COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
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Guest Author CHERYL RAINFIELD showcase & giveaway

CMash October 6, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME CHERYL RAINFIELD

CHERYL RAINFIELD

“I write the books I needed as a teen and couldn’t find.” – Cheryl Rainfield

Cheryl Rainfield is the author of the award-winning SCARS, a novel about Kendra, a queer teen sexual abuse survivor who uses self-harm to cope; STAINED (Oct 1) about Sarah, a teen with a port-wine stain and body image issues who is abducted and must rescue herself; the award-winning HUNTED, a novel about a teen telepath in a world where any paranormal power is illegal; and PARALLEL VISIONS, about a teen who sees visions of the future–but only when she has an asthma attack. She’s also the author of two hi-lo books for reluctant readers: The Last Dragon and Walking Both Sides. Cheryl Rainfield is an incest and ritual abuse survivor, a feminist, queer, and an avid reader and writer. She lives in Toronto with her little dog Petal.

Cheryl Rainfield has been said to write with “great empathy and compassion” (VOYA) and to write stories that “can, perhaps, save a life.” (CM Magazine) SLJ said of her work: “[readers] will be on the edge of their seats.”
Connect with Cheryl at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this heart-wrenching and suspenseful teen thriller, sixteen-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for “normal.” Born with a port-wine stain covering half her face, all her life she’s been plagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust. But when she’s abducted on the way home from school, Sarah is forced to uncover the courage she never knew she had, become a hero rather than a victim, and learn to look beyond her face to find the beauty and strength she has inside. It’s that—or succumb to a killer.

BOOK DETAILS:

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: 10/1/2013
Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780547942087

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO AUTHOR CHERYL RAINFIELD & JKS COMMUNICATIONS,
I HAVE ONE (1) SET OF 3 PREVIOUS TITLES TO GIVE AWAY.
OPEN TO ALL-EBOOKS

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS OCTOBER 20th AT 6PM EST

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WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN BY RAFFLECOPTER AND NOTIFIED
VIA EMAIL AND WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND
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ADDENDUM

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Guest Author JESSICA LEMMON showcase & giveaway ENDED

CMash October 5, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME JESSICA LEMMON

JESSICA LEMMON

Jessica Lemmon has always been a dreamer. At some point, she decided head-in-the-clouds thinking was childish, went out, and got herself a job . . . and then she got another one because that one was lousy. And when that one stopped being fulfilling, she went out and got another . . . and another. Soon it became apparent she’d only be truly happy doing what she loved. And since “eating potato chips” isn’t a viable career, she opted to become a writer. With fire in her heart, she dusted off a book she’d started years prior, finished it, and submitted it. It may have been the worst book ever, but it didn’t stop her from writing another one. Now she has several books finished, several more started, and even more marinating in her brain (which currently resides in the clouds, thankyouverymuch), and she couldn’t be happier. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want. (While eating potato chips.)
Connect with Jessica at these sites:

Sadie Howard would never admit there’s such a thing as love at first sight, but she can’t deny the connection between her and sexy Adonis Aiden Downey. She also can’t deny she loves to kiss him-his mouth might be his most precious asset. Despite every promise to herself not to get involved any deeper than a first date, she can’t keep from seeing more of Aiden . . . in more ways than one.

Aiden Downey had no idea the hot blonde from the club would trigger his protective, gentle nature, but the moment she drops her guard and he sees the real Sadie Howard, he’s a goner. When a family crisis puts the brakes on their budding romance, can Aiden find a way to hold on to her? Or will he lose the best thing in his life just as quickly as he found her?

BOOK DETAILS:

Print Length: 89 pages
Publisher: Forever Yours
Publication Date: September 3, 2013
Sold by: Hachette Book Group
ASIN: B00DLC88C6

PURCHASE LINKS:

ONCE BURNED Sadie Howard never dates a guy more than once-but Fate has other plans for her when it comes to Aiden Downey, the one that got away. Aiden loved her, left her, and broke her heart. Yet suddenly she’s bumping into him at every turn, driven to distraction by his wicked grin and rock-hard body. Now she can’t resist finishing what they started-as long as she doesn’t let herself fall in love . . .

TWICE AS TEMPTING
Aiden Downey threw away the best thing he ever had when he let Sadie go, and now he’s determined to win back the woman he’s always wanted. Sadie agrees to let him into her life-and her bed-as long as there are no strings attached. But Aiden’s not about to make the same mistake again. Can he convince her to take a second chance on a once-in-a-lifetime love?

BOOK DETAILS:

Print Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: October 1, 2013
Sold by: Hachette Book Group
ASIN: B00AG0VMYM

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO JULIE AT GCP/FOREVER,
I HAVE ONE (1) EBOOK COPY TO GIVE AWAY.
VIA NETGALLEY-MUST HAVE ACCOUNT

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS OCTOBER 19th 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

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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.

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Guest Author KENNETH JOHN ATCHITY

CMash October 4, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME KENNETH JOHN ATCHITY

KENNETH JOHN ATCHITY

The author of The Messiah Matrix, Kenneth John Atchity, at the age of ten began instructions in the Latin language from a multi-lingual Jesuit mentor and went on to continue his study of Latin, and to begin Homeric Greek, and French at the Jesuit high school, Rockhurst, in Kansas City, Missouri. He won an Ignatian Scholarship to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he graduated as an English/Classics major and won the University Honor Program’s prestigious Virgilian Academy Silver Medal for his nationally-tested knowledge of Virgil’s Aeneid.

At Georgetown, he added to his four years of high school Homeric Greek with studies of Attic and Koinaic Greek as well as further studies in Homer and four more years of Latin. He spent his junior year summer at King’s College, Cambridge.

Atchity received his Ph.D. from Yale in Comparative Literature, after adding Italian to his seven languages, focused on the study of Dante under Harvard’s Dante della Terza and Yale’s Thomas Bergin. His dissertation, Homer’s Iliad: The Shield of Memory, was awarded the Porter Prize, Yale Graduate School’s highest academic honor. His mentors at Yale included Thomas Bergin, Thomas Greene, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Richard Ellinger, Eric Segal, and Lowry Nelson, Jr.

He was professor of literature and classics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, 1970-87, served as chairman of the comparative literature department, and as Fulbright Professor to the University of Bologna. His academic career included books on Homer and Italian literature, and dozens of academic articles and reviews. During his years at Occidental, Atchity was a frequent columnist for The Los Angeles Times Book Review, where he reviewed the novels of Umberto Eco, Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and many others.

In a second career Atchity represented writers of both fiction and nonfiction, accounting for numerous bestsellers and movies for both television and big screen. In the tradition of Dominick Dunne, Sidney Sheldon, and Steven Cannell he has drawn on his professional experience with storytelling to write The Messiah Matrix.
Connect with Ken at these sites:

Q&A with Ken Atchity

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
As all novelists do, I draw from both. Oddly enough my novel unwittingly predicted the pope’s resignation and the election of an Argentine Jesuit. But it also reflects my adolescent experiences growing up Catholic and wondering if God would really send someone to hell for eating meat on Friday or stealing $5.00 worth of peas instead of $4.99 worth.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I do both. I start wherever the sharpest image begins and work backwards or forwards accordingly. That’s the beauty of this computer age—you can go either way. Write the scene you feel like writing today, and put it wherever it’s supposed to go later.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
Although I’m a morning person, I write any time of day I can steal an hour or two from my editing, managing, coaching and producing. On an ideal day, I write from five to seven a.m. Over the years I’ve taught myself to write anywhere, and particularly love writing on the plane. I use a stopwatch to make sure I get my two hours in every day.

Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
I’ve never written full time. I write when I have something to say or have a story to tell, which has, I admit, gotten to be more and more often. My day job is coaching other storytellers on how to get their stories to their maximum audiences in today’s challenging and changing world—and editing, managing, representing, and producing stories.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Aside from my own clients, my favorite authors go back to Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Sterne, Wallace Stevens, Thomas Hardy, Melville, Garcia-Marquez, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

What are you reading now?
Preparatory to writing The Hong Kong Reversion, I’m rereading Ian Fleming’s wonderful James Bond books as well as James Patterson, and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. I read all day, for joy, for research, and because my dayjob is helping storytellers find their audiences.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I’m currently working on AFI, Inc., the first in a series of memoirs, prior to completing The Hong Kong Reversion, a thriller set in Hong Kong.

Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
I’d die to have Claire Danes as Emily Scelba.

Would you rather read or watch TV/movie?
Yes.

Favorite food?
My grandmother’s Syrian beans.

Favorite beverage?
Vodka martini.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity is a fast-paced contemporary thriller in which a young Jesuit priest becomes romantically entwined with a vivacious archaeologist as they pursue the hidden history that links Jesus Christ with Augustus Caesar. A year before it occurred, the novel predicted the resignation of the pope and the election of an Argentine Jesuit to succeed him. In a story that will leave readers breathless and hungry for more, Atchity weaves a compelling tale about the foundations of today’s Roman Catholic Church lying deep in the religious rituals of the ancient Roman Empire.

From the first page to the last The Messiah Matrix takes the reader on a riveting adventure from the ancient city of Caesarea in Israel to Rome’s labyrinthine catacombs and beyond, and provides gripping evidence for all those who have ever wondered about the historical existence of the Christian Savior. The Messiah Matrix is a tour de force of modern drama and intrigue, classical scholarship, and early church history that will change the way you understand the birth of Christianity.

The Messiah Matrix may prove to be one of the most controversial novels ever written. Graeco-Roman scholar, professor, and producer Dr. Atchity is perhaps the only author alive today capable of creating this ground-breaking work.

READ AN EXCERPT

Prologue

The three-wheeled truck, having weathered World War II and every day after, carried its battle scars proudly as it hovered on the curb of Via del Plebiscito. Its V-shaped bumper was as jagged as a saw. Behind the wheel its latest owner, Zbysek Bailin, waited patiently, as though he were long accustomed to assassination on a rainy Wednesday evening.

A red umbrella rounded the corner from the Piazza del Gesù. Zbysek took in a breath and turned the ignition key. The engine coughed to an idle, purred raggedly awaiting further command from its driver. The silver-haired man ambled toward the intersection of Via degli Astalli that flanked the rear of the massive church. Purposely leaving his headlight off, Zbysek shifted into gear and bounced into the street. His foot pressed on the reluctant accelerator, the ancient vehicle climbing all too slowly up to speed.

The man had reached the intersection, and as he passed beneath the streetlight Zbysek thought he might well be deaf—he was so lost in thought he didn’t seem to hear the rumbling truck, even as it barreled toward him at full speed.

Clutching tight to the shaky steering wheel, Zbysek was hunched forward in the cab, eyes intent on his target. All he could see was the man’s bent back, crawling up Via Astalli like a praying mantis.

In seconds the truck had jumped the curb and was upon him.

The man swung around with his books and umbrella, a look of sudden shock on his face—the smile erased. His coat fell open.

For the first time, Zbysek saw his victim clearly in the light of the street lamp—the crisp white collar and the purple piping on his black vest.

His target was a monsignor!

Zbysek hauled at the wheel—but it was too late. His head struck the roof as the vehicle jerked over the body and slammed straight into the lamppost, thrusting Zbysek into the windshield and cracking his head on the glass. He climbed clumsily out of the cab and fell to his knees beside his victim. “Forgive me, father,” Zbysek finally choked out.

The old man’s face was twisted with pain. His narrowed eyes were glistening, blood trickling from his lips. He reached his hand toward his Angel of Death. He seemed to want to speak. Zbysek lowered his head to hear. The monsignor’s final whispered words confused and frightened him, and he leapt for the three-wheeler and fled from the scene.

I/1

Unholy Thursday

Father Ryan McKeown’s mood was less than reverential as he headed for the confessional where he was to perform his priestly duties. The lines of penitents in Gesù were short today. Perhaps because there’d been no major holidays recently or any coming soon, the “occasions of sin” were easier to avoid. Just as Ryan was about to step into the polished mahogany cubicle, a bedraggled man burst into the nave. The man headed for the first confessional, and knelt briefly. Moments later he unceremoniously leapt to his feet to join a short line at the next confessional booth, causing bowed heads to look up in curiosity. Ryan was bemused. Could a man’s sins be so grave he feels the need to come clean of them to several confessors?

Ryan settled himself behind the ivory baffle and listened, in turn, to an old man cursing God because his arthritis no longer allowed him to play bocce; to a teenager who abused himself fourteen times in the past seven days, using the image of his teacher, a nun, as inspiration—Father Ryan, doing his best to repress a smile, told him to say the rosary and promise never to sin again; and to a seminarian barely out of high school who asked if having concerns about his faith meant he should quit the seminary.

“Doubts are not in themselves a sin,” he told the young man. “Thomas, though he doubted, went on to become a great apostle and martyr. Not to mention Mother Teresa, whose troublesome doubts dogged at her heels even more persistently than Calcutta’s poor. I can tell you, it’s what you do with doubt that matters.” He questioned whether his comments had been of any service, or whether he should have simply referred the seminarian to a therapist. He’d often wondered where he’d be today if he himself hadn’t rejected psychotherapy as an option.

He was removing his stole to leave when a tardy penitent thumped down on the kneeler and activated the tiny red light. Ryan slid open the grate. In the obscure light he could see only enough to determine that his supplicant was a male. “Yes, my son?”

“Are you Father Ryan?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Ryan answered, before he could consider how the penitent could know his name.

“Thank God I’ve found you.”

Ryan realized he was speaking with the lost soul who’d been playing musical confessionals. “How long has it been since your last confession?”

“I killed a priest.” Ignoring the sacramental protocol, the man blurted it out in a coarse accent that Ryan had never heard before. Then, remembering the ritual formalities, the man added, “I don’t remember my last Confession. Many years ago, in Tirana.”

So the accent was Albanian. “What do you mean you killed a priest?”

“I hit him with my truck. He was a monsignor. I tried to help him. His eyes…oh my God! I got scared and drove away.”

Ryan’s heart went out to the man on the other side of the grate. The anguish in the man’s voice was dreadful. “An accident, no matter how grievous, is not a sin,” he said. “You simply have to—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” the immigrant interrupted. “I was paid to run him down.”

Ryan fell silent. What fate had led this man to his confessional today among so many hundreds in the Holy City?

“They didn’t tell me he was a monsignor.” Now the man was choking, the guttural sound poignantly wretched. “Oh, my God, I am damned to hell for all eternity.”

“Why would you accept payment for such an act?”

“I was desperate—I am desperate. My family has no money, my children need doctors—” The man’s explanations gave way to wrenching sobs. Then he regained control. “He looked at me. He told me words I didn’t understand. But I will hear them for the rest of my life.”

Reflexively Ryan slipped into his persona as an investigative scholar. “What were his words, my son?”

The poor man’s scream echoed in the hollowness of the empty church. “No!”

“It’s all right to tell me,” Ryan said. “You’re protected by the Seal of the Confessional, Holy Mother Church’s—”

“You don’t understand! It was Holy Mother Church…that paid me!”

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Romantic Thriller
Published by: Story Merchant Books
Publication Date: January 2013
Number of Pages: 353
ISBN: 978-095721-890-1

PURCHASE LINKS:

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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.

Forever (Hachette Book Group), GCP/Forever, Giveaway, Guest Author, Showcase

GCP Presents: JILL SHALVIS showcase & giveaway ENDED

CMash October 2, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME BACK JILL SHALVIS

JILL SHALVIS

New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
Connect with Jill at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

After dropping out of pastry school and messing up her big break on a reality cooking show, Leah Sullivan needs to accomplish something in her life. But when she returns home to Lucky Harbor, she finds herself distracted by her best friend, Jack Harper. In an effort to cheer up Jack’s ailing mother, Dee, Leah tells a little fib – that she and Jack are more than just friends. Soon pretending to be hot-and-heavy with this hunky firefighter feels too real to handle . . .

No-strings attachments suit Jack just fine – perfect for keeping the risk of heartbreak away. But as Jack and Leah break every one of their “just friends” rules, he longs to turn their pretend relationship into something permanent. Do best friends know too much about each other to risk falling in love? Or will Jack and Leah discover something new about each other in a little town called Lucky Harbor?

Read an excerpt

It wasn’t all that difficult to find Leah, once Jack set his mind to it. Since the beginning of time, when she’d been troubled, she’d been drawn to two things.

Him.

And the ocean.

She hadn’t come to him. That was new. There’d been a time when she’d have come to him no matter what was troubling her.

Except, of course, at the moment he was the source of her trouble, even though it was of her own making. The last time that had been the case, she’d left Lucky Harbor.

But he knew she couldn’t leave now. She was here for her grandma, and though Leah had plenty of faults, her grandma meant too much to her. Unlike himself… He tried not to resent that, but there was no getting around the fact – he did resent it. He was pissed off that she had no idea what she meant to him, back then.

Or now.

His heart squeezed a little, making room for a few other emotions besides his temper. Empathy. Maybe even reluctant affection. He could’ve gotten into the water with her, but it was after midnight and Christ, he was tired.

Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

His mom had always said so, and in this case, he was willing to bet it was true. So he sat on the sand, positioned halfway between her car and the water, giving her no easy escape. And waited.

And brooded. Because he was having lots of odd and unexpected urges as it pertained to Leah, and he didn’t know what to do about them. Once upon a time, she’d been the only highlight in his day, the only one to make him smile. She was still that person, but there was something new between them, and he wasn’t sure if it was good. In fact, he was pretty sure he should be running like hell.

Finally, she swam in, and then she was standing up in the water, and he nearly swallowed his tongue. It’d been a damn long time since he’d seen her in a bathing suit. Maybe since high school, when she’d been a head taller than all the other girls and skinny as hell.

She was still tall but she’d filled out in all the right places and then some. She wore a black bikini, nothing but a few straps low on her hips and two triangles over her breasts, and as a wave knocked her around a little, everything jiggled enticingly.

And suddenly he went from slightly chilled to very overheated. Good Christ, she was … beautiful. It should’ve assuaged his simmering temper just looking at her, but instead it stoked it, making him tense as hell.

Leah, on the other hand, was looking pretty carefree as she lifted her arms and shoved back her hair.

At the sight, his brain utterly clicked off.

She saw him then. He could tell because, from one blink of an eye to the next, she froze every single muscle. It’d have been fascinating to watch, except for the fact that she was freezing up over him. She’d never reacted this way before. He didn’t like it. And besides, he was the wronged party here. He was the one who got to be pissy.

“You’re still here,” she said flatly. “You scared me.”

“You need to be more aware of your surroundings.”

Dripping water everywhere, she crossed her arms over herself. “It’s Lucky Harbor.”

He rose to his feet. “Bad shit can happen anywhere.”

She met his gaze for one brief beat and then looked away. “What are you doing here, Jack?”

“I figured as your ‘almost fiancé,’ I should see how you’re doing.”

She winced but didn’t respond.

“What the hell is this all about, Leah?”

“You know it’s about your mom’s cancer,” she said, hugging herself a little tighter.

She always got defensive when she screwed up, and since she’d screwed up a lot, she had a lot of practice.

“My mom has enough going on,” he said. “She doesn’t need to be lied to.”

“Maybe not. But she does need to be happy to heal. And this made her happy. All week she’s been glowing.”

He knew it was true, and a stab of guilt hit him that he hadn’t been able to make her happy without help.

Leah didn’t say anything more but she didn’t have to. Yeah, she’d gotten them into this mess, but he knew damn well it’d been out of the goodness of her heart. Jack knew that she thought she owed him for all those years ago, when he’d done his best to protect her, the chivalry having been deeply ingrained by his dad.

But they were even.

In the dark, Leah shivered, and that chivalry had him torn between enjoying the sight of her cold and wanting to wrap her up in his arms. “Where’s your towel?”

“In the car.”

He pulled off his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head.

“I’ll get it wet,” she said.

“It’ll dry.”

“I’m—”

“Just wear the damn sweatshirt, Leah.”

There was an awkward silence while they stared at each other as behind her the water pounded the shore.

“I realize that this is really hard for you,” she finally said, pulling on his sweatshirt. “Having everyone think you like me that way. You’ll just have to pretend.”

He narrowed his eyes. Had that been sarcasm? Or…

Hurt? “There was a time when I wouldn’t have had to pretend anything,” he said. “But you flaked out, remember? You pretended, and then you left.”

She grimaced, swallowed hard, and looked away. “We were just kids.”

Was that how it played in her head? Seriously? “Does it make you feel better?” he asked quietly. “To downplay what we were to each other?”

She closed her eyes. “We were friends, Jack. Friends who’d made a quick, knee-jerk, stupid decision to become naked friends and sleep together.”

“Yeah. And then one of the friends didn’t show,” he said, much more mildly than he felt.

“It was a bad idea. I was leaving.”

“Which you forgot to mention.”

She dropped her head back and stared up at the sky. “I couldn’t stay, Jack.”

He took in her expression, filled with memories, and nodded. “I know. But you should have told me you were going.”

“You had another girl in your bed by the following weekend.”

Had he? Hell, probably. But she wouldn’t have meant anything to him. Not like Leah had. His chest tightened at the memory of the hole she’d left in his life. He didn’t want to go through that again. “I missed you.”

She said nothing, and he shook his head. Fuck it. He started to walk away, and then she spoke.

“Brandi Metcalf.”

He stopped. “What?”

“Brandi Metcalf was the one in your bed by the next weekend.” She turned her head and glared at him. “Pretty blonde Brandi with the perfect boobs.” She emphasized this by cupping her hands out in front of her own breasts. “So don’t even try to tell me you missed me.”

He shook his head. Apparently he wasn’t the only pissed-off one tonight. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s have it.”

“Let’s have what?”
“Well, I know why I’m pissed. Why the hell are you pissed?”

“It’s not like it’s going to be a walk in the park for me either,” she said, giving him a little shot to the chest. “Pretending to like you.”

“Me?” he asked, flabbergasted. “What the hell is there not to like about me?”

The sound she made assured him that she had volumes on the subject. “Don’t get me started.”

“I want to know,” he said.

“Fine. You watch that stupid ice fishing show like it’s a religion, you’re a horrible backseat driver, you drink out of the milk carton – and fyi, so does Ben – you don’t put the cap on your toothpaste, or put the lid down on the toilet, and you shush me when you’re watching sports.”

He stared at her. “That’s quite a list of shortcomings,” he eventually said. “Is that all?”

“No.” She shoved her wet hair from her face, though she managed to keep her regal stance, nose firmly in the air at nose-bleed heights. “I held back because I didn’t want to be overly rude.”

He laughed softly. “Don’t hold back, Leah. Let’s hear all of it.”

“Well, your truck has more sporting goods than a store, you never say you’re sorry, and your girlfriends look like super models. I mean what is that? There’s nothing wrong with real boobs, you know!”

He took it all in and had to admit that he couldn’t say she was wrong, about any of it. “And yet you call me The Picker.”

She ignored this. “And your mom told me that you need knee surgery again. You’re just too stubborn to get it done. So you can add ornery to the list.”

He blew out a slow breath. “It’s not ice fishing,” he said. “It’s crabbing. And sometimes I lose the cap on the toothpaste, or my dog eats it. And I don’t need knee surgery, I’m fine.”

Leah snorted. “You’re always ‘fine’. Your knee could be falling off and you’d say you were fine.”

“I fail to see the problem.”

She snorted again, and he was starting to feel greatly insulted. “You’re not exactly a walk in the park, Leah.”

“No?”

“No. You’re flighty, you live for your every whim, you downplay any real emotion you feel.”

She hugged herself tight. “Good thing this is all pretend then, isn’t it,” she said softly.

“Yeah.”

She was freezing. And hauntingly gorgeous, so damn gorgeous standing there wet and silvery by the moon’s glow, like a goddess. It’s Leah, he had to keep reminding himself. Leah, who’d once beaten him in a marshmallow eating contest only to puke all over him. Leah, whose dark green eyes had a way of telling the world to bite her. Leah, who’d run off on him and left him heartbroken. He took a step into her – for what exactly, he had no idea– and she poked a finger into his chest.

“God,” she said. “You’re so …” Words apparently failed her, but she let out a sound that managed to perfectly convey how annoying he was.

“Ditto,” he said, and then grabbed the finger drilling a hole between his pecs and tugged her hard enough that she lost her balance and fell against him.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, entangling a hand in her wet hair.

She went still as stone and stared into his eyes. And then lowered her gaze to his mouth.

Yeah, they were in sync there. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Hers caught audibly in her throat, a good sign he decided. Maybe she wouldn’t knee him in the balls. Testing the waters, he grazed her jawline with his teeth.

She shivered.

Then he slid his mouth to the very corner of hers and was rewarded by the clutch of her hands on his shirt. Having her hold on to him like this, like he was her only anchor, sent a bolt of lust straight through him. “Leah,” he murmured, hearing the surprise in his own voice, feeling the heat course through him as he finally, God finally, covered her mouth with his.

Her lips parted for him eagerly, and he groaned, drowning in the erotic collision of her hot tongue and chilled, wet body.

Serious trouble. He was in serious trouble.

Because he had a taste of her now, a damn good taste, and it was better than he could have imagined, making him want the rest of her. With his fingers still in her hair, he pulled her in tighter, slanting his mouth across hers for more. She moved with him, into him, making the connection all the sweeter.

No. Sweet wasn’t the right word.

Hot. She was so hot she was turning him inside out. And then she made another of those soft, surrendering sighs deep in her throat, the sound slaying him. She still had a death grip on his shirt and had managed to catch a few chest hairs while she was at it. He didn’t care. Sliding a hand beneath his sweatshirt, he cupped her ass over her wet bikini bottoms, rocking into her.

She had to feel what this was doing to him. And given that she was breathing like she was running out of air, and still holding onto him tight enough to bruise, she also had to know where this was going.

Jack kissed Leah some more, sinking deeper into her taste, her softness, her scent, all while wondering how the hell she could drive him crazy and made him ache at the same time. It was a feat that totally wrecked his equilibrium. Maybe it was just the kiss. Because holy shit, the kiss. He still had a handful of her sweet ass, and he squeezed, wanting more. But they were outside and the night’s temp was quickly dropping. She was wet, trembling with the chill, and there was absolutely nowhere to go with this. Not here, not now. He’d had no business kissing her like he had an end game, and knowing it, he regretfully pulled back.

She blinked as if waking up from a dream. “What—” She cleared her throat. “What was that?”

“Insanity. It’s going around.”

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: September 24, 2013
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2110-4

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO JESSICA AT FOREVER/GCP,
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Giveaway, Guest Author, Showcase

Guest Author KEN GOLDSTEIN showcase & giveaway ENDED

CMash September 30, 2013 1 Comment

WELCOME KEN GOLDSTEIN

KEN GOLDSTEIN

Ken Goldstein advises start-ups and established corporations in technology, entertainment, media, and e-commerce. He served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of SHOP.COM, a market leader in online consumer commerce acquired by Market America. He previously served as executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online, and as vice president of entertainment at Broderbund Software. Earlier in his career, he developed computer games for Philips Interactive Media and Cinemaware Corporation, and also worked as a television executive. He is active in children’s welfare issues and has served on the boards of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Los Angeles, Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services, and Full Circle Programs, and is currently actively in local government. He speaks and teaches frequently on topics of management, leadership, and creative destruction. He and his wife Shelley, who teaches English as a Second Language, make their home in Southern California. He received his BA in Theater Studies and Philosophy from Yale. THIS IS RAGE is his first novel.
Connect with Ken at these sites:

Q&A with Ken Goldstein

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
My first novel, This is Rage, is purely a work of fiction, but it is both intensely personal and drawn from current events. The entire plot is made up, as are all the characters, but the events are extracted from my experiences on the front lines of managing teams through creative and technical innovation and some awfully nasty conflict. I use references to existing companies in the competitive arena today, but only to set a tone of realism, which I then take license to stretch to the absurd. It’s meant to be plausible, but exceedingly outrageous, a form of grounded satire which is essentially the way I talk. Creative destruction is a force I know well and acknowledge as tangible, essential, but unruly. And then the question becomes, could it happen? My answer is – well, you know, I’ve seen stranger.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I started with a premise – what if the unlikely collision of a failed radio talk show host and a voracious venture capitalist resulted in extraordinary impact on the economy at large? I thought I knew how I wanted it to end, but then character development took over and pushed me to a different place. Dialogue comes easier for me than expository, and plot is more fun for me than inner monologue, so I am always challenged balancing what I want to write with what I need to write. About half way through the first draft I got a bit stuck holding story and character development in balance, and a wonderful friend referred me back to Anne Lamott’s inspirational Bird by Bird. Anne joyfully reminded me it was okay to keep writing only as far as the headlights illuminated. That was a lifesaver, albeit the cause of tossing out and replacing about 50,000 words, a lot of rough months.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I wish I had a routine. I am working on that. As a former CEO and now board member I am very structured about my calendar, but just because I block several hours of writing time doesn’t mean any decent words emerge. I am now doing my calendar backwards, when I do write, I enter the block of what I did on the calendar as if I planned to do it, so reading forward, it looks like I blocked out all the time perfectly. Yeah, sure. A bit of self-delusion isn’t all that bad, is it?

Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
Writing is now what I consider my main job, but it’s not my only job. I tried that for a year and I just couldn’t make all the time work hard enough, although our dog did get to listen to a lot of dialogue read aloud. I love to be with people, and I love business, so I stay attached by teaching an executive coaching workshop, sitting on a few company boards, and consulting for several start-ups. I’d say I have one and a half full time jobs, and writing is about half of that, so ¾ of one full-time job, fully mathematically sound.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Tom Wolfe has been a voice for me since I was in junior high school, the whole New Journalism thing resonated with me out of the gate. I think Michael Lewis is consistently brilliant and engaging. Hunter S. Thompson will always be an influence. I mentioned Anne Lamott and I adore her style. I came up through the theater so I’m penetrated by Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and most of the crumpled notes scribbled by Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. I’m also a philosophy geek to the core so there are regular revisits with Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. There are a few top executives turned business writers I admire like Andy Grove, whose concepts I include in the workshop I teach. And when I am most lost, I often wander back to Mark Twain.

What are you reading now?
I am re-reading Bonfire of the Vanities because it’s just so well-written and resonant for me. I am just about finished with Mark Leibovich’s This Town, and about half way through Kurt Andersen’s True Believers. Also the Wall Street Journal, six days a week, 52 weeks a year, source material for several lifetime.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
“Working on” is too strong a description. I have agreed with my publisher on my next two titles, if all goes according to plan the next book will be non-fiction, and the next novel behind that based on a screenplay I wrote in my 20s that has a remote setting and an interesting main character who is unconventionally heroic, deeply flawed, and in big trouble.

Do you have an excerpt I can publish on the site?
See below.

Your novel will be a movie.
Who would you cast?I don’t want to say because what if it happens and I say the wrong people, don’t want to upset anyone who might want to get onboard.

Notes: hand written or keyboard?
Handwritten notes are everywhere, on post-its, in notebooks, I keep lists of lists and then stick them in steno pads. But composition is always at the keyboard so I can generously DELETE!

Favorite meal?
Anything, anywhere, as long as I am sitting across from my incredible wife.

Favorite food?
Pizza, the geek inside lives on. No question. And no meat!

Favorite beverage?
Red wine. But I repeat myself. If it’s wine, it ought to be red, no?

ABOUT THE BOOK

This is the story of Investors, Bankers, and Operators in Silicon Valley and the variation on real they’re creating for our consumption.

This is the story of a disgraced shock jock turned Internet radio phenomenon and how he becomes the catalyst he never imagined being.

This is the story of two entrepreneurs-turned kidnappers-turned anti-heroes.

This is business in the Twenty-first Century.

This is the unpredictability of the human element.

This is rage.

Read an excerpt

From Chapter 1.7 – The House Checks and Raises

Steyer’s temper had been worsening as the clock ticked. It was only a few hours to the 6:00 p.m. ultimatum, and he had no idea what might happen next. He had been told by Hussaini, Henderson, and every subject matter expert he trusted that the board made the correct decision not to negotiate, that Ben and Jerry would inevitably break down with no other alternatives. As soon as they showed weakness, the FBI would pounce. Of course all that was before Balthazer had made the location public, welcoming the media circus that arrived on cue.

Steyer was in his understated but refined garden office suite at SugarSpring Ventures, two blocks off University Avenue in Palo Alto, about half an hour from EnvisionInk’s offices in Santa Clara. Most of the Silicon Valley Investor Class made camp in a renowned axis of low rise clusters along Sand Hill Road in adjacent Menlo Park, but Steyer always wanted SugarSpring to be a little different, physically annexed to Stanford’s academia, a less traceable place for entrepreneurs to be seen coming and going with their endless pitches. Sitting across his new world composite desk when the Balthazer advisory notice came from Hussaini was Atom Heart Entertainment CEO Sol Seidelmeyer. Steyer had not planned on Seidelmeyer’s visit, he just happened to drop by a few minutes after the studio’s Falcon 2000 landed in San Jose and a town car delivered him unannounced to SugarSpring’s beveled glass door. Steyer knew that to turn him away upon his unscheduled visit would not have made for a more productive dialogue—full service private jets these days, with operating costs above $5,000 per hour, had to be justified, even by CEOs—but he needed to consider what lines he might be crossing having Seidelmeyer on his sofa when the call came from Hussaini.

“We share this mishegas, put him on speakerphone,” said Seidelmeyer, gazing around Steyer’s unadorned working space, likely looking for anything that might be useful. “I promise to stay quiet.”

Steyer looked past his own bruises at Seidelmeyer’s primal, piercing eyes. What else could he do? He took the call with Hussaini live, but did not announce Seidelmeyer’s presence.

“So a fully masked worker bee blurts out the location on internet radio, just like that?” continued Steyer into the polycom. “Aren’t there laws that stop that sort of thing?”

“You know the internet as well as I do, Mr. Steyer,” said the special agent, his tone of displeasure professionally ambiguous. “You’re aware we can’t enforce laws if people are anonymous. That caller is long gone from Best Buy, which is as far as we could trace the IP.”

“What about the moron host, Balthazer, where was he?” asked Steyer.

“As far as we can tell, at a McDonald’s in Stockton,” answered Hussaini. “We haven’t completely tied down that piece, but we’re working on it. We do know he was fired from his last radio job in Fresno over a month ago. He burned his landlord for the rent, has a hearing pending with the FCC, and drives an Infiniti M. But he hasn’t really broken any law, certainly no federal statute that would let us bring him in. According to our lawyers, he’s safely within his First Amendment rights, particularly as a journalist.”

“A journalist, are you kidding me, where’d he study, the WikiLeaks School of Ethics?” blurted Steyer.

“Talk show hosts have the same halo,” qualified Hussaini. “As long as he doesn’t incite violent action, he is within legal bounds.”

“Outstanding,” proclaimed Steyer. “When they bring out Choy and Finkelman sideways on a stretcher, you can tell their moms all about the First Amendment. What happens now?”

“It’s their move, they set the deadline. If we don’t hear from them by 6:00 p.m., the Director should give us the order to move in. We are readying for position on that. We have a well-trained team on the ground and will do what we can to keep civilian impact at a minimum, including your guys. My crew is tight and will be ready to do what they’re good at. If we go in, it will be quick. Hopefully Ben and Jerry will negotiate and we’ll talk them out, but that’s their call. If they want to negotiate, they’ll let someone know.”

“Keep us apprised,” said Steyer as he clicked off the polycom. He probably had not noticed that he had said “us” instead of “me,” but then, Hussaini likely presumed others were listening in, though not corporate competitors bound by SEC regulations. Steyer shook his head in derision after another unneeded jolt, looking to the sun-worn Seidelmeyer for anything encouraging.

“You got a tough situation on your hands,” offered Seidelmeyer. “I’m not sure what I would do if I were you.”

“After this deal, you are me,” said Steyer. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“We don’t have a deal,” replied Seidelmeyer. “Last I looked we were about $6 billion apart, which I know in your world is not big money. Heck, you got almost half that on the lift this morning. My offer is still above market. The stock’s adjusted to a price the Street can swallow. I’m doing better than that, the deal should be easy for you. If you want to tell me the gap is closed, we can talk about what happens next.”

“Sol, don’t try to use this string of events to tell me you’re not paying the expected premium. That’s unbecoming, even for you.”

“I’m a showman, what do I know about asking for the wrong thing?” quipped Seidelmeyer. “You have a point of view and I have a point of view. The difference is, you have a problem and I really don’t.”

“Sol, you do have a problem. You’re old, and your company is old. Without EnvisionInk, you have no growth story. Your board tosses you out, sells to someone else and blames you for blowing the deal. Your legacy will be that of a failed Neanderthal. No one will remember what you did to put that company on the map, all those movie openings, all those shows and networks, all those dividends. All they will remember is that you were brushed aside, bitter and dusty, because you missed the shift to digital. No one remembers obsolete.”

“You’re a putz,” said Seidelmeyer. “You may have more money in the steel vault than me, but you haven’t created anything lasting. Dollars come, dollars go, who remembers, who cares? My company touches lives and we make a fine profit.”

“Sol, we can agree to disagree, or we can piss on each other, which isn’t going to win you another Academy Award. You want an Act Three, we’re your Act Three. You become chairman of a goliath industrial, my partners get liquidity and I go away, everyone’s happy. You want to retire as a goat, walk out the door and leave me to figure this out on my own. Right now I can’t even think about price. If I don’t get those kids back alive, we have nothing.”

“Funny, the Street doesn’t see it that way,” said Seidelmeyer, regaining an even tone. “The kids are tied to a bomb, you leaked our deal, and the Street is sending up balloons.”

“That’s because they’re confident we will get them back, and get a deal. That’s what we hinted. For big institutional holders to dump volume with Choy and Finkelman an unknown, and a clear path to a combination viable, that leaves money on the table, so arbitrage is indulging us. But we only have a few hours.”

“Those bumpkin punks are bluffing,” said Seidelmeyer. “The special agent has a mirror on the crown moldings behind their cards. They don’t even know what game they’re playing. This is ours to lose. You hold tight, they’ll cave. I’ve played at this table before.”

“You’ve had top executives kidnapped?” asked Steyer.

“I’ve been held hostage by the likes of you, not a lot different. We just have to figure how to get out.”

BOOK DETAILS:

Paperback: 530 pages
Publisher: Story Plant, The
Publicatiom Date: October 8, 2013
ISBN-10: 1611880718
ISBN-13: 978-1611880717

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO MARIA AT MARIAN BROWN PR,
I HAVE THREE (3) COPIES TO GIVE AWAY.
OPEN TO U.S. RESIDENTS

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW

GIVEAWAY ENDS OCTOBER 14th AT 6PM EST

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Guest Author, Partners In Crime Tours, Showcase

Guest Author PATRICIA HALE

CMash September 27, 2013 2 Comments

WELCOME PATRICIA HALE

NAME

Patricia Hale is a graduate of the MFA program at Goddard College in Vermont. She is a member of Sister’s in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, NH Writer’s Project and Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s Alliance. Her essays and articles have appeared in New England literary magazines and the anthology, My Heart’s First Steps. When not writing, she enjoys hiking with her dogs and kayaking on the lakes near her home. Patricia lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two German shepherds.
Connect with Patricia at these sites:

ABOUT THE BOOK

Everybody thought brilliant Cecily would leave dead-end Miller’s Falls for something better. But a two-decades-old tragedy locks her in place. Few understand the fierce bond that Cecily and Amelia share with Hilary, who was assaulted one summer as the two other girls watched helplessly. It’s a bond of love and guilt…and a desire for vengeance that cuts clear to the bone.

So Assistant DA Cecily Minos waits, eager to see the guy in her courtroom. When Amelia meets a man who has the tattoo the girls remember seeing that day, they think they’ve finally caught a break. But the police refuse to reopen the case, and it’s up to Cecily and Amelia to pursue their suspect.

Their investigation soon uncovers secrets best left buried. But the law is slow, and they’ve waited long enough for revenge…

READ AN EXCERPT

My lungs were tight as fists and the voice inside my head said run, but my legs couldn’t be trusted. Standing up wouldn’t have gotten me out of there, it would only have drawn attention to the pee that was warm in my shorts and it might have gotten Hilary killed if he was serious about running that blade across her neck.

All of a sudden the man stood and keeping his back to us, lowered the kerchief and put a cigarette in his mouth. Hilary never moved though I saw her blink. She was looking at something far away like she was somewhere else entirely and I hoped that that was true so she wouldn’t have to know what happened. He pulled his baseball hat low over his face the same way it’d been when we first climbed into the railcar and without ever looking at us he jumped to the ground and walked away.

“Stay here,” I’d told Amelia, though I knew she wasn’t going anywhere. And I ran. I ran faster than I’d ever run not even caring about the pee burning the inside of my legs. I’d taken the woods instead of the path, running in the opposite direction from the way he’d gone. My legs were scraped and bleeding by the time I’d reached the road and the stitch in my side had made it almost impossible to breath, but I just kept thinking of Hilary laying there and I couldn’t stop until I was pulling open my own back door. I ran into the kitchen and through the house until I found my mother kneeling beside her bed, rosary beads draped around her prayerful hands like a spider web. I stood in the doorway and looked at her, imagined wrapping my arms around her neck and her drawing me in, holding me. I imagined feeling safe. She glanced at me standing there then dismissed me with a nod of her head, knee deep in Jesus. I turned and ran for the telephone.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Published by: Carina Press
Publication Date: July 15, 2013
Number of Pages: 280
ISBN: 978-14268-9584-5

PURCHASE LINKS:

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Giveaway, Guest Author, Showcase

Guest Author ERIC JAMES FULLILOVE showcase & giveaway ENDED

CMash September 26, 2013 Leave a Comment

WELCOME ERIC JAMES FULLILOVE

ERIC JAMES FULLILOVE

Eric James Fullilove is the global Chief Financial Officer for World Vision International. Originally from Newark, New Jersey USA, Fullilove now splits his time between Los Angeles and London and travels extensively for his job; he has visited 59 of the 100 countries in which World Vision is active. Fullilove is of African American origin and his grandmother, Maggie Shaw Fullilove, was one of the first African American women to become a published author in the US in 1918; his father was a prominent physician and his mother a prominent civic leader. This is Fullilove’s sixth novel; other works include Blowback which was published by HarperCollins. Narcolepsy by Eric James Fullilove (paperback published by CreateSpace RRP £6.39 ebook published by KDP RRP £3.22) is available online from Amazon from 23rd September.
Connect with Eric at these sites:

GUEST POST

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
I draw from both current events and personal experiences. Since I travel extensively, I use the knowledge I have of locations to inform my writing. Narcolepsy is very much a current events driven book as it is focused on the on-going European/Euro financial crisis.

-Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I know the beginning and I know the end when I start. The fun part is the middle, and in the middle it’s pretty much where the story takes me. I may start with an outline, but stories have a rhythm. I write to the rhythm of the story, meaning, the way the characters interact, the focus on the characters, the pace of the plot, all these things have a rhythm that the flow of the story dictates. As long as the rhythm feels right, the story is generally okay.

-Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I write pretty rapidly, but I tend to do it in chunks. It is often helpful to me to check into a hotel room for a weekend and simply focus on writing. Since I’m paying for the space and every meal is expensive, it helps to force me to focus, but at the same time, the amenities, particularly the exercise room and the pool, help me relax between sessions and think about the plot.

-Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
It is not my full time job. I am the global CFO of World Vision International, the nearly $3 billion Christian, child focused, humanitarian relief organization that works in 100 countries around the world. Our programs help 100 million people every year, which sounds like a large number but is only 5% of the 2 billion or so that live in extreme poverty. I travel extensively for my job, and am based in both London and Los Angeles, where I have a significant number of staff and my wife.

-Who are some of your favorite authors?
Lee Child, John Sandford, David Baldacci, Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais, J.D. Robb (pen name for Nora Roberts) Stephen Hunter, Linwood Barclay, George Pelecanos, Elmore Leonard, Tananarive Due, Barry Eisler, and Paolo Bacigalupi, David Brin, and Ben Bova are some of my favorite authors, to name a few.

Lee Child’s character, Jack Reacher, is my favorite recurring character in a series. I was hopeful when Tom Cruise played him in the film, even though purists were upset that Cruise looks nothing like the physically imposing Reacher, because I was hoping with Cruise starring more films would be made. But while I write novels that are easily converted to movies, most books have a difficult time making the transition to the big screen.

-What are you reading now?
Steve Alten’s “The Omega Project”

-Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I am moving my novel “Credible Threat” through the publishing process. Credible Threat is about a presidential assassination threat that claims to have roots going back to the Kennedy and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, which initially raise questions about the “credibility” of the threat.

The assassin claims to have been a kid during the Kennedy assassination, and the real story is that in the 1960’s he was a prodigy with a gun. His father had something on Jack Ruby, whom the conspirators needed to kill the patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald. So they take the kid to coerce the father, and stick the kid on the grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza, which at least one writer believes is an impossible shot with a rifle at a moving target.

And then…the assassination goes awry, as Kennedy is supposed to be killed when the motorcade first turns into the square headed towards the Texas Book Depository. As the motorcade turns onto Elm, the plotters realize that the assassination is slipping away, and the only option they have is the kid with the impossible shot…on the grassy knoll…

Fun questions:
-Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.

-Would you rather read or watch TV/movie?
Read.

-Favorite food?
The well executed hamburger

-Favorite beverage?
Generally, Diet Coke, particularly when returning from the developing world.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Narcolepsy is the fast-paced thriller from established author Eric James Fullilove. Fullilove delves into a financial underworld where those who are really in charge of the banks are not their CEOs. Narcolepsy unravels expeditiously over four days; it is a surging thriller which charts the dark and duplicitous events which will lead to a new world order where corruption will be commonplace. The sequel to the book is due out at the end of 2013 and will pick up where Narcolepsy left off.

BOOK DETAILS:

PB Published by: Createspace
EBook Published by: KDP RRP
On sale at Amazon: Sept. 23, 2013

PURCHASE LINKS:

THANKS TO KATY AT AUTHORIGHT,
I HAVE TWO (2) EBOOKS (KINDLE FORMAT) TO GIVE AWAY.

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