Scavenger Hunt Blog Tour, Giveaway & Guest Post with Mitchell Maxwell author of Little Did I Know

Mitchell Maxwell,  a Tony Award winning producer, director and 35-year veteran of the entertainment industry has a new novel that was just published called Little Did I Know.

Maxwell is the visionary producer behind the rollicking Broadway revival of Damn Yankees featuring the legendary Jerry Lewis – which was nominated for multiple Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical – and the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Dinner with Friends. He has produced the Broadway musicals Play On! Bells are Ringing (Tony-nominated for Best Revival of a Musical), Blues in the Night (Tony Nominated as Best Musical), Brooklyn, and the percussive theatrical wonder, Stomp!

Guest Post by Mitchell Maxwell:

Years ago I did a musical on London's West End where it became a big smash hit.  After we danced and celebrated and the thanked the theater gods toasting each one with a fresh pint we came to the sober realization that we had a show that was the buzz of Piccadilly and beyond.  Within days we had offers to take the show on tour in the UK, remount it in NY were offered a lucrative guaranteed tour of Japan.  Has I had come to learn "hits are fun".  

So, we loved the British company and decided to keep them for the remount in NY and then bring them to Japan.  Saving money and keeping the family together. Unfortunately the unions would not allow the entire company to make the journey so we were forced to choose who we might replace and went about the process with a sense of joy mixed with melancholy.  We all agreed on one actor that "had to stay" even if we had to throw down the gaulet to the gods of the union.  So on the day of auditions whenever an actress walked in to sing for this "taken" role her chances were slim and none. 

 And then I learned something that stays with me every time a performer walks in and has the guts and resolve and courage to audition.  You just never know where you will find magic or goose bumps or electricity in a performer so strong it can light a city.  

This young woman stepped center stage, gave her name, which was barely noted and said she was going to sing a song from BALLROOM.  Out of professional respect we listened and then within a moment, a heartbeat, a breath taken away we all knew at once that something special had happened and our plan had changed.  Talent is a gift, professionalism is a craft but when God gives the ability to stop the world and have it pay attention and you are lucky enough to be in the room . . .well remember it is better than a real job--sort of like a snow flake --never to replicated, unique with its own power to be remembered.  

I have auditioned hundreds of actors and so many of them are good.  They are pleasant and special in the own way.  But when a rocket ship walks in and fires up I have learned to get on and enjoy the ride.  That's how you discover art, your own gifts and your own insights.  The journey is fluid, the play is the thing and goose bumps is the goal. 

 I have met hundreds of actors --I remember talent most, then character and how when we shook hands did our eyes meet and register a connection.  The good ones come back and it is fun to be there when they do. 

Excerpt:

He lit a killer joint and passed it around the group as if it were a peace pipe, a pact to hold on to the dreams that pulsed through our veins.

            Elliot, another friend, pressed the point. “Sammy, it’s the bicentennial. Add something to the party.” He grinned as if he had said something profound.

            “I have,” I said, smiling with drunken mischievousness.

            “Well?” Elliot continued, shouting as much as gobs of bourbon and fatigue would allow. “What are you gonna do? Win a theater in a poker game? Make out with some heiress? We are done here in two months!”

            I held a finger to my lips and gave a long, slurred, “Shush. Believing is part of figuring it all out. It’s part of the plan. If you don’t sign up for the plan, there is no plan.”

Make sure to visit Girls Just Reading, Here to read the next portion of the excerpt...

Before Stomp! thundered onto the off-Broadway stage of the Orpheum Theater, before Jerry Lewis thrilled an entire legion of new fans in Broadway’s smash revival of Damn Yankees, before David Mamet’s Oleanna challenged a nation’s mores, before Paul Rudnick spoke to a generation ravished by AIDS with humor and compassion in Jeffrey and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, or Dinner with Friends won the Pulitzer Prize, there was Mitchell Maxwell – a young man who dreamed of becoming a Broadway producer.

Mitchell Maxwell helped bring these original and groundbreaking productions to life through a combination of audacious vision, bold creativity and the ability to spot potential that others missed. By embracing his dream, Maxwell actually lived it as he worked his way up from summer stock neophyte to Tony Award-winning producer.  He has recreated those heady, by-gone days in his new book LITTLE DID I KNOW (Prospecta Press; October 5, 2011; $25.00) written in classic roman á clef style.  This is a daring coming-of-age tale filled with romance, laughter, heartbreak and applause about a young entrepreneur who sets the stage for fledgling artists while living a life so many aspire to but never realize.

Set in Plymouth, MA in the late-to-the-party seventies, a young man dreams of refurbishing a dilapidated historic theater in order to produce vibrant musicals in the great tradition of summer stock. Newly graduated from college, he fills his cast and crew with beloved classmates, undeniable new talents and memorable personalities. Yet, while the productions drive his dreams of becoming a Broadway producer, a local woman drives his passions; their romance is fateful, star-crossed, and ultimately more than either of them expected. Told with compassion and the kind of detail only a Broadway veteran like Mitchell Maxwell can provide, LITTLE DID I KNOW is a novel about being in the spotlight and embracing destiny in a single season.

Maxwell is the president, CCO and director of MCrew Media LLC, who has produced seven Broadway shows, more than 30 off-Broadway and regional productions, four national tours, three West End productions and six major motion pictures, including the Drama Desk winnerMarvin’s Room, and the Tony- and Olivier-nominated international hit Blues in the Night. His productions have been nominated for – and won – every major theatrical award including the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Obie, Olivier and Ovation awards.

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

Thanks to Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, I have one copy of LITTLE DID I KNOW by Mitchell Maxwell  to giveaway. 

For 1 Entry: All you have to do is leave a comment here. Make sure to include your email address (no email, no entry)

For a 2nd Entry (Separate Comment):  Follow my blog, you can follow through Google Friend Connect to the left in my side column. If you already do, thank you, and please  make sure to let me know in your comment so I can pass the entry on to you as well. Make sure to include your email address (no email, no entry).

For a 3rd Entry (Separate Comment): Spread the word about this giveaway and Retweet, retweet button below my name at the end of this post. Make sure to include your email address (no email, no entry).

*Open to US & Canada only.

Enter by October 28 , 2011

Guest Post with Kimberley Freeman author of Wildflower Hill

I'm pleased to welcome Kimberley Freeman, author of Wildflower Hill to Redlady's Reading Room. I posted a review and giveaway of Wildflower Hill, earlier this month. I enjoyed reading Wildflower Hill which is a wonderful family saga that is beautifully written revealing family secrets that lead to an amazing journey of self discovery and a testament to the power of love.

Kimberley Freeman shares her thoughts on writing Wildflower Hill:

Writing Wildflower Hill was a huge challenge for me, because part of it is set in the 1930s in Tasmania, which isn’t a place and time a great deal is written about. In many ways, it would have been much easier to set a book during the Regency period in England, because we’re all so familiar with what it looks like, what people wore, and so on. But I wasn’t even sure if the places I was writing about had electricity and gas. I wrote the whole story assuming they did not, but then a chance sighting of a 1930s photograph in a Hamilton pub (in Tasmania) had me rewriting the whole thing (there were visible power lines). In fact, the whole book was researched backwards for reasons beyond my control. 

I’d been to Tasmania a few times, and had planned a long trip to the area the book is set in for Easter of 2009. This was timed so I would be researching that part of the story directly before writing it; but then two days before we were due to leave (I was taking the whole family) my then 2-year-old daughter came down with a violent gastro bug. It was round the clock vomiting and diarrhoea for the poor thing, and it became apparent we couldn’t travel. She ended up being seriously ill for nearly a week, but when she was well again and I could turn my mind once more to the book, I realized I had done NO research and my deadline wasn’t going anywhere. We couldn’t re-book until July. The book was due in August. 

So I wrote anyway. I put square brackets in every time I hit a place where I’d need a detail, and I just kept going, writing furiously, to get a first draft completed before the trip. A blog entry from about two weeks after the aborted trip reads: “Some of the writing is horrendous, I must confess, but just yesterday as I was telling my mum about the story, I got a real sense of what the book is all about… Put simply, it’s a story about a girl who thought her grandmother was a nice old lady, and discovers–when she inherits her grandmother’s old house in Tasmania–that Gran was a lot more complex than originally thought.” The story gathered momentum and I finished the first draft in a white heat: “Some people compare writing a novel to giving birth. I usually roll my eyes when this happens, especially when men say it, because unless you’re squeezing a hardcover out your left nostril the comparison is flawed. But this close to the end of the process, there is the same kind of awful momentum, the same irresistible compulsion to get something outside yourself that has been growing within for a long time. I have lost the world; there is only the story. My family talk to me and all I hear  is ‘blah blah blah’ like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons. My brain is finding the ends of threads and pulling them together, tying them, untying them, retying them different ways. I shouldn’t be allowed to drive.” 

Then I printed it out and took it to Tassie with me. We stayed on a working sheep farm in the midlands, and it was the middle of winter so utterly freezing. But beautiful and still and quiet. I duly wrote down bird and tree names, wove in descriptions of frost or the way the clouds made shadows on the rolling hills, and secured a key detail (about eucalypts!) that made a special thread of the book sing. I can’t imagine having written the book any other way now. I can procrastinate a lot in research, so doing it backwards worked beautifully (on this occasion anyway).

About Kimberley Freeman from her website:

Kimberley was born in London and her family moved back to Australia when she was three years old. She grew up in Queensland where she currently lives.

Kimberley has written for as long as she can remember and she is proud to write in many genres. She is an award-winning writer in children’s, historical and speculative fiction under her birth name Kim Wilkins. She adopted the pen name Kimberley Freeman for her commercial women’s fiction novels Duet and Gold Dust to honour her maternal grandmother and to try and capture the spirit of the page-turning novels she has always loved to read. Kim has an Honours degree, a Masters degree and a PhD from The University of Queensland where she is also a lecturer. She lives in Brisbane with her young family.

Check out my review of Wildflower Hill and to enter for a chance to win a copy of the book, HERE or click on the link on the left sidebar. Giveaway ends tomorrow, September 24th. 

Guest Post with Darien Gee Author of Friendship Bread

I am pleased to welcome Darien Gee, author of Friendship Bread to Redlady's Reading Room. I will be posting a review of Friendship Bread next week.

About the book from Friendship Bread Kitchen:

An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.

One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.

When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.

In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.

About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.

Darien Gee on the Bread That Inspired a Novel

If you’re never heard of Amish Friendship Bread, your life is about to change forever. Mine certainly was.

Amish Friendship Bread is similar to a quick bread except it’s made with a sourdough starter. If you’ve ever seen (or smelled) a bag of fermenting batter, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it’s something you won’t likely forget.

Amish Friendship Bread is similar to a chain letter in that after ten days you’re asked to divide the starter into four portions, keep one for yourself and give the other three portions away to lucky (and unsuspecting) friends or neighbors so that they can do the same. After five rounds, there will be 1,024 bags of starter floating out there. After ten rounds: 1,048,576.

That’s a lot of starter to emerge from one bag of the stuff.

I’m often asked if Amish Friendship Bread is really Amish. I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else does, either. There’s no documented evidence of its origins, and I know some people’s suspicions are raised when they see instant pudding listed among the ingredients. But what I do believe is that the inspiration behind the bread is undoubtedly Amish in nature. It’s about friendship and community, about sharing what you have with others and expressing gratitude for the good things in your life.

Friendship Bread was inspired by my own experience with the bread, when my daughter brought it home along with a bag of starter she’d received from a friend. I was eating the last few crumbs when I started to think about a woman who receives the starter and just doesn’t want to do it. I saw a sadness hanging over this character and I knew I wanted to find out more. I started writing and the story quickly took shape—more importantly, it soon became clear that the book wasn’t about any one person, but an entire community ready for change and connection.

Friendship Bread is about what can happen when one person is willing to reach out and help another. It may seem like an overly simple solution, but maybe it’s not as insignificant as we think. Maybe there’s more power in it than we realize, and all it takes is one person who’s willing to give it a try.

.

 

 

Darien Gee is the author of Friendship Bread: A Novel (Ballantine Books).

Visit her at Friendship Bread Kitchen , www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com.

 

Darien Gee lives with her husband and three children in Hawaii. She is the
bestselling author of three previous novels (Good Things, Sweet Life and Table
Manners) written under the name Mia King.

 

To read her early work written as Mia King, visit her at www.miaking.com

 

 

 

 

Guest Post with Ellen Horan Author of 31 Bond Street

I am honored to welcome Ellen Horan, author of 31 Bond Street to Redlady's Reading Room today. I will be posting a review of 31 Bond Street tomorrow and this is a must read, gripping historical mystery that will hold your attention from start to finish.

About the Book from Harper Collins:

Who killed Dr. Harvey Burdell in his opulent Manhattan town house?

At once a gripping mystery and a richly detailed excavation of a lost age, 31 Bond Street is a spellbinding tale of murder, sex, greed, and politics in 1857 New York. Author Ellen Horan interweaves fact and fiction—reimagining the sensational nineteenth-century crime that rocked the city a few short years before the Civil War ripped through the fabric of the nation, while transporting readers back to a time that eerily echoes our own.

Today, Ellen Horan will share what helped the characters from 31 Bond Street come alive after she had done all the research......

Taking Your Character for a Walk by Ellen Horan

My novel 31 Bond Street is based on an actual murder and trial that occurred in 1857 in
New York City. I discovered the case from a newspaper clipping that I found in a print
shop. After researching the trial, I decided to write a fictionalized version of this case. I
had already met my characters from the actual newspapers: there was the murdered man,
a dentist,  Dr. Burdell, who lived in a genteel neighborhood; he was killed at home by
someone who entered his office, stabbed him and nearly decapitated him, and left without
a trace. It turns out that he was something of a cad and an unscrupulous businessman, but I didn’t have to worry too much about at first, because, as the book opens, he is already dead.

 Then there was Emma Cunningham, a young widow who lived upstairs in his house. She
was an attractive housemistress hired to manage his servants. She was something of an
enigma because she admitted to a romantic relationship with Dr. Burdell and therefore
quickly became a suspect. Her lawyer advised her not to talk, which only intensified the
mystery surrounding her.

Her defense lawyer, who takes on this murder case, was a prominent lawyer named
Henry Clinton. He wrote about his strategies in a book called “Extraordinary Cases,”
which I used for research.

So I had plenty of facts—and I already had characters, with quite a bit of tension between
them. But the problem arose of how to flesh them out. Fiction has its own demands, and
often the facts can’t do the job.

One trick I discovered when I was stumped by a scene – particularly one where I needed
to move the timeline along but the character wouldn’t budge, was to take my character
for a walk. Literally—I would go outside, (to the streets of New York City, where I live)
and start walking. When you are in a city, it is fascinating to watch others walking. They
are walking quickly to get somewhere, usually to work, or hurrying to meet someone, and
you will see how people are set in their ‘inner’ heads. Their closest concerns and thoughts
are just under the surface. Sometimes they seem to be concentrating on a conversation going on within. Each person has a unique ‘inner voice’ – even when alone, they are
talking to themselves all the time.

When I took my characters for a walk, their voices would talk to me from the inside,
which helped me to understand inner motives and point of view. What would Emma
Cunnigham be thinking or worrying about as she hurried about the city, shopping, and
doing household errands? Would she be concerned about the difficult servants, or about
her teenaged daughters? Having been recently widowed, would she be worrying about
how to keep a roof over her head?

As for the defense lawyer, Henry Clinton, what would be going through his head as he
pondered taking on a sensationalist but thankless case, against the wishes of his law
partner? He had a nemesis in the District Attorney and perhaps he wanted to cross swords with him to even out past scores. Was he worried what his beautiful wife, Elisabeth would think? Was he worried that he might lose her respect if he risked everything on this case and failed?

So, taking my characters for a walk is how they became more alive to me. One day,
taking a break from the computer, I went for a walk and reached the corner of Broadway
and 10th St. just a block from my apartment. A sentence popped into my head: “New
York was a walking town, and walking allowed him time to think.” I placed that line
on p. 62. In fact, Dr. Burdell’s service was at Grace Church, which, today, is still at that
spot. I assigned that line to Henry Clinton who was leaving the murdered man’s funeral.
He is heading home to consult his wife about taking on the defense of Emma Cunnngham
– to make a decision that will test them both, and change their lives forever.

(An essay “The Story Behind the Book” can be found in the PS Section at the back of the
paperback and on my website, www.31BondStreet.com)

Check out the book trailer:

About the Author Ellen Horan:

Ellen Horan has worked as a studio artist and as a photo editor for magazines and books in New York City. She currently lives in downtown Manhattan, the setting of her first novel, 31 Bond Street.

Find out more about Ellen and 31 Bond Street at her website. Add Ellen as a friend on Facebook.

Guest Post with Denise Burroughs author of the cookbook Let's Eat!

Yesterday, I reviewed the cookbook Let's Eat by Denise Burroughs *(read my review here). The author, Denise Burroughs has written a guest post sharing her thoughts on a family tradition that she has carried on in her family.  Here's Denise's guest post:

My family has always inspired me not only in cooking, but in life.  As a child of a large Italian family with a strong family heritage, we had many traditions and values.   One of those many traditions that I carried on to my family was eating dinner together.  It’s a time free from the electronics like laptops, cell phones and television that consume our lives. It’s a time to share and spend quality time with your family. 

I know we all have busy lives, but it’s important to me for my family to have this time together to stay connected.  Yes, just cooking a meal for your family can sometimes be a chore.  That’s one reason why I included meals that were easy to make for the typical busy women (or man) in my cookbook.  This allows us to spend more time with our families, which is one of the most important things.

I have this same tradition in my family that I've carried on. I grew up with our family always having dinner together even on late nights when my mother worked. My family always takes time to stay connected by having a meal together every night.  There are some family friendly and easy to prepare recipes in Denise Burrough's cookbook  Let's Eat!. I made a  Beef & Noodles recipe that my family enjoyed that was made in the crockpot and  I shared the recipe in my review.

About Denise Burroughs:

She was raised in the sun, she came from a large Italian family with very strong ties to their heritage.  She was born in Rome, NY and moved to Miami, Florida in December of 1969 with her mother.  Raised in South Florida, she attended school until 1983.  Having two daughters from her first marriage, she remarried in 1995 and in 2004 moved to Tallahassee, Florida where she currently resides.

She’s the owner of a paint and body shop and a member of NAPEW (National Association of Professional & Executive Women 2007-2008). A love for cooking and a desire to share wonderful family traditions was put to paper to create Let’s Eat.  There have been so many people who have inspired her in her life, but no one inspired her more than her mother.  Many of the recipes in this book have been served many times over and enjoyed by family and friends.  She is happy to share them all with you and hopes you enjoy every bite as they were all made with lots of love.

You can visit Denise at www.deniseburroughs.com.

Guest Post & Giveaway with Karen White for her new release Falling Home



I am a fan of Karen White's writing and loved her novel On Folly Beach that I read and reviewed this summer (read my review here). I'm excited to tell you about Karen White's newest release, Falling Home. 

FALLING HOME was originally published in 2002, and is being released again on November 2, 2010 in response to the many readers who reached out after unsuccessfully searching for the out-of-print novel. It has been extensively revised for this new publication. “Readers told me they loved the story and characters, so it was hard to see what I might change,” says Karen regarding the revisions. “Then it clicked. I didn’t want to change the story. I wanted to change some of the writing—to take the experience and education of having written nine other novels and to work at creating a better book.”

Karen brings her readers to small-town Georgia where "everybody is somebody" and attempts to answer the question, "Can you really ever go home again?"

Cassie Madison, estranged from her sister, returns home to be with her dying father, intending to leave the sleepy Georgia town immediately after his funeral. Unexpectedly, she inherits the family home. Now she has to stay in Walton until it sells...which happens to be just long enough for her to learn how the power of family, memories and a former love can lead to the most amazing discoveries
 

Karen White has graciously written a guest post to share with you her thoughts about the Life of a Writer. I think that you'll enjoy Karen's honesty and sense of humor as well.

The Glamorous < cough > Life of a Writer

People are surprised when I tell them that my life isn’t glamorous. Sure, my thirteenth novel is about to hit bookstores, and I’m having a big launch party to celebrate before heading out on a three-week media/booksigning tour where I get to wear cool outfits and heels. But at the moment, I’m dressed like a homeless woman because I’m in the midst of deadline dementia (I have a book due in two weeks), I’ve had eyes rolled at me by 16-year-old son at least twice in the last hour, I’m sitting on a bed covered with three loads of unfolded laundry, and I’m thinking I need to take the dog to the vet tomorrow because he’s chewing on his leg which means his seasonal allergies are back.

See what I mean?

Sure, I get lots of fan mail—my favorite part of this job—but all I have to do is glance up at the sticky kitchen counters, the shoes, text books, and sports apparatus scattered liberally around the house like pepper on scrambled eggs, and I’m back to the reality of my non-glamorous life.

I don’t want to burst anybody’s fantasy bubble, but I feel a dire need to set the record straight. I’ve written the first two books in a mystery series set in Charleston, what readers fondly call “the Tradd Street series.” Unfortunately, books #3 and #4 in the series are coming out two years apart because I simply couldn’t fathom keeping up with writing two books a year and having a life, glamorous or otherwise. When I mentioned this at a book club, the readers—and I love them all!—were up in arms that they would have to wait so long between installments. I told them if I could get the two teenagers, husband, guinea pig, and dog to move in with them for a year, I might be able to write a bit faster. Oddly enough, I didn’t have any takers.

Yesterday, as I was cleaning dog vomit from the back seat of my car, I found myself wondering why I make my life so crazy. Why do I have to write? Couldn’t I just keep to a leisurely schedule of a book every five years or so? The answer is easy: no. Writing isn’t just something I do—it’s who I am. When I get a story snagged in my brain, I’m compelled to write it—even if it means carting my laptop to the carpool line, the horse barn, the football field or the laundry room to get it written.

In my November book, Falling Home, the protagonist, Cassie Madison, finds out almost too late the importance of family, home and belonging, and of being around people who have known you forever and love you anyway.

I don’t want to be like Cassie at the beginning of the book before her eyes are opened; I never want to take for granted my children or husband, or any of the people who are important to me. I want to spend time with them now instead of putting it off to some later time when I think I’ll have more time. Even if it means getting less sleep than I should, and sometimes greeting my son when he comes home from school at 3:30 in the afternoon while still wearing the pajamas I wore when he left at 7:00 that morning. I manage to prioritize and get the important things done—and if I don’t always look glamorous while doing it, so be it.

My life might not be glamorous, but it’s mine, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Besides, my children won’t be teenagers forever, and before long I’ll have a quiet, orderly life and house, and they’ll be calling me and telling me how wonderful I am and asking for my advice about life. And if that doesn’t happen, then I’ll just have to write them into my books so I can bend them to my will. Hey, I’m the writer and in my world, fantasies happen.

Thanks to Karen White for her honesty and humor and sharing what Life as a Writer is all about in her life. It's hard work and as readers we need to be patient and supportive of our favorite authors works. I loved the book club story and how an author deals with daily stresses just like anyone else! Check out more information at Karen White's website, here.

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

I am excited to tell you that you have the opportunity to win your own copy of FALLING HOME! I have one copy to give away to a lucky winner.

All you have to do is leave a comment, make sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you are a winner. Otherwise, I won't be able to include your name in the drawing. Open to US & Canada only. Books will ship directly to the winners. Enter by November 14, 2010.
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Q&A with Joanne Rendell author of Out of the Shadows & GIVEAWAY

I'm thrilled to welcome Joanne Rendell today to talk about her newest novel Out of the Shadows. I've been honored to read and review all of Joanne's novels and knew that I had to share her newest novel with everyone. You can read my reviews for Joanne's other novels by clicking on these links for The Professors' Wives Club and Crossing Washington Square .

Here is a description for Out of the Shadows:

Clara Fitzgerald’s recent losses have set her adrift, personally and professionally. Her mother has passed away, and her career seems stalled while her fiancé's scientific research is poised to take off in an exciting new direction. As great as the potential is for his future, Clara can't help - or ignore - that her emotional connection to him has slowly been slipping away.

But when Clara stumbles on an old copy of Frankenstein and remembers her mother’s claim that they are related to the nineteenth-century author, Mary Shelley, everything changes. With her sister in tow and the help of Kay, a retired Shelley scholar, Clara embarks on a search for the author's long lost journals and letters. As a bond among the three women grows, and as the profound connection between the past and present deepens, Clara comes closer to realizing where her heart truly belongs.

I am looking forward to reading Out of the Shadows, especially with the main character having the same name as my grandmother Clara who recently passed away as well as an amazing older women with great character. I've discussed this with Joanne by email and this novel already has drawn me in from the description. I have not read Frankenstein or much about Mary Shelley and the connections in the description of Out of the Shadows have made me interested in reading this classic novel and adding it to my reading list.

Joanne has kindly answered some questions about Out of the Shadows and a bit about herself as well , to  share with you today:

Why did you decide to write a book about Mary Shelley?



I’ve always loved Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a wonderful gothic novel, but it’s very thoughtful, daring, and extremely prescient too – even now, two hundred years after it was written. In the novel, Shelley dared to ask “what if?” She looked around at the emerging technologies of her time and she considered their darker sides and how they could turn monstrous (and even make monsters!). I still find it amazing that she wrote such a daring and thoughtful, poignant and provocative novel when she was just nineteen. Not only that, she was living in early nineteenth century Europe when young girls weren’t supposed to think about monsters and science, let alone write about them!

Anyway, I knew I wanted to write a book with Mary Shelley as a primary focus and as I began to undertake biographical research, I fell in love with Shelley more and more. She was fiery and smart, outspoken and thoughtful, a non-conformist and a caring mother. I kept reminding myself, though, that I wasn’t going to write a Shelley biography. Out of the Shadows explores the echoes and links between the past, our current moment, and our possible future. I wanted the book to be both about Mary Shelley, but also about how her amazing imagination and insights still resonate today. I wanted Mary Shelley’s story to sit side by side with the story of a modern woman who, although living in a very different world to Shelley, still faces some of the same challenges, fears, and possibilities.

How did you research OUT OF THE SHADOWS and how was it different from your other two novels?

For a long time, I lost myself in some wonderful biographies of Mary Shelley. I fell in love with Shelley in the process! She was such a fiery and smart woman: outspoken and thoughtful, a non-conformist and a caring mother. She was fun to spend a lot of time with. I also had to read a lot about aging genetics and biomedical research in order to write the character Anthony, Clara’s fiancé, who is an ambitious geneticist and Principle Investigator in a university lab. My books always require a certain amount of research because I like to include literary themes. In The Professors’ Wives’ Club it was Edgar Allen Poe. In Crossing Washington Square it was Sylvia Plath. For Out of the Shadows, however, I spent a good five or six months researching before even writing a word.

In Out of the Shadows, you alternate between the Mary and Clara’s stories. Why did you decide to narrate the book like this?

In many ways, Clara and Mary’s stories are so different. Mary is a young girl growing up in early nineteenth-century London, while Clara is a thirty-something professor who lives in modern day New York City. But there are many similarities and echoes too. Mary and Clara are both on the cusp of finding themselves. They are searching for a way out of the shadows of those around them. For Mary, it is the shadow of her mother’s death, her father’s protection, and the life that doesn’t yet fulfill her. For Clara, she must find a way to live for herself, to pursue her own dreams, and not just follow her fiancé’s career.



If you had to pick a favorite character from Out of the Shadows, which would you pick and why?


Mary Shelley was my favorite character, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned already. But Kay, the elderly Shelley scholar who Clara befriends in the story, was a close second. When I wrote Kay’s character, I was thinking of an amazing older woman I knew when I still lived in the UK who was also called Kay. She was the grandmother of my then-boyfriend and she was such a smart, funny, and interesting woman. She’d traveled all over the world, lost her husband when she was just a young mother, and had a successful career as a university professor. She had so many funny and interesting stories to tell. The Kay character in Out of the Shadows is a similar kind of woman: feisty, smart, a long-term widow. She also finds peace with her life and her aging and her mortality. She offers a great counterpoint to Clara’s fiancé, Anthony, who is striving to extend life and stave off death through his scientific research (rather like Victor Frankenstein, of course).



What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I have a seven year old son who I’m homeschooling – although “homeschool” is somewhat a misnomer as we spend a relatively small amount of time schooling at “home.” We live in New York City so are lucky enough to have an amazing array of fun and educational places on our doorstep. Benny and I, together with his homeschooled friends, are always out on trips to the Metropolitan Museum, the Natural History Museum, aquariums, zoos, galleries, libraries, and parks. When we’re not out and about, Benny and I love to read – either together or separately. Benny is now a voracious reader and I’m so thankful he loves books as much as I do.

About the Author, Joanne Rendell (From Joanne Rendell's Website):

Joanne grew up in England yet when Joanne was young she had a crush on the Big Apple. When she was ten years old, in fact, she wrote a series of stories about a couple of kids who find a magic footpath in New York’s Central Park. After leaving school, Joanne went to the University of Leeds in Yorkshire where she completed a degree in English Literature and Philosophy. The student life was too much fun for Joanne, so she went on to do a Masters at King’s College London and then a PhD in English Literature at the University of Sheffield. She met a professor from the U.S. named Brad Lewis.

Joanne and Brad started to write papers together, organize conference panels, email furiously, and eventually they fell hopelessly in love. After Joanne was done with her PhD, she upped sticks and moved to New York to be with Brad, who teaches at NYU. Not long after they got married, and not too much longer after that, their son Benny arrived on the scene.

Over the past seven years, Joanne has juggled life as a homeschooling mum with writing novels. She hasn’t left academia completely behind. She and Brad are faculty in residence in one of NYU dorms and they run events, book groups, and programs for the students who live in their building. Also, Joanne’s novels are all set at Manhattan U – a university in downtown New York which looks, she does admit, a little like NYU.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Joanne has graciously offered to give away

2 copies of her novel Out of the Shadows!

All you have to do is leave a comment, make sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you are a winner. Otherwise, I won't be able to include your name in the drawing. Open to US &amp; Canada only. Books will ship directly to the winners from the author.

Enter by September 26, 2010

Guest Post & Giveaway with Margaret Dilloway for How to Be an American Housewife

Yesterday, I reviewed How to Be an American Housewife a captivating debut novel by Margaret Dilloway. This novel highlights the conflicts between cultures and how to adapt to them, the challenges between Japanese mothers and their American born daughters and coming to terms with hidden secrets and family discoveries. Personally, I loved this novel, the main characters were full of strength and character and I enjoyed the focus on the mother daughter relationship. That is something that most women can relate to and for me I could especially relate to the experience of having a foreign born mother. As I shared in my review (you can read it HERE), my mother was German born and raised and came to America after marrying my father who was stationed there in the Air Force. She barely spoke English and had to learn our culture and ways and adjust to a new family of different background while leaving behind her family of origin. Mothers who come from different cultures have their own experiences and beliefs to share with their daughters and families. I didn't appreciate everything when I was younger, especially when my mom served soft boiled eggs in egg cups for breakfast. Later, I learned to appreciate more of  the cultural differences, but I still don't care for soft boiled eggs. Although, I do love German Goulash and German potato salad.

I'm thrilled to welcome Margaret Dilloway, author of How to Be an American Housewife to share a wonderful guest post with everyone today. Margaret will share her thoughts about parenting.

Parenting

My mom taught me not to use processed foods. She was proud of making things from scratch and always had to serve a vegetable and grain with the family dinner; she taught me not to serve two starches together. Everything from a birthday cake to mashed potatoes had to be homemade. I am not quite so strict, especially since boxed foods have improved so much, but I definitely hear her saying in my head, “Mash your own potatoes! It won’t take much more time.”


She was also very conscious of waste, and taught me how to save rainwater for later use (not that there’s much in San Diego), how to hang laundry, how to compost. It made me aware of conservation as a thing to do because it’s responsible and frugal.


In terms of interaction with children, I am really not much like my mother, and that is a fairly deliberate choice. I heard on the radio the other day that in Japanese culture, the mother will criticize the child because success is expected and shortcomings must be overcome. I remember the criticisms stinging more than helping, though, so if I have to correct my child, I tend to explain why more than my mother did and be gentler with my words.


                                                    ~Margaret Dilloway

Thanks to Margaret Dilloway for sharing her thoughts on parenting and how we can learn from our parents but we can also deliberately choose to be different than our parents. Visit Margaret's Blog, American Housewife, HERE.

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

I am excited to tell you that you have the opportunity to win your own copy of  How to Be an American Housewife! Thanks to the publisher, Penguin and TLC Book Tours, they have offered to send a copy of the book to One lucky winner!

 

All you have to do is leave a comment, make sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you are a winner. Otherwise, I won't be able to include your name in the drawing. Open to US & Canada only, No PO Boxes. Books will ship directly to the winners from the publisher.

Enter by August 14, 2010.

Guest Post with Connie May Fowler to celebrate the publication of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

I am excited to welcome Connie May Fowler  to celebrate the publication  of her newest book How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly with  us today. Make sure to check out my review of this fabulous book that I posted yesterday. This is the first of Connie's books that I've read and considering I read it in a 24 hour period and enjoyed it so much, I will definitely be reading more of Connie's Books.                                           

~Here's Connie's Guest Post~

Bonnie has asked been terribly gracious and has invited me to write a guest post to celebrate the publication of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. She says, “write something about Self-discovery, friendship, book clubs, or her writing.”


Wow! That’s a tall order but I am going to do my best . . .


I think that every single one of my books is, at their core, about self-discovery. That is certainly true in the case of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. Our heroine is trapped in a horrible marriage and her only way out is to go on a journey of self-discovery during which she learns to, above all else, value herself.


Also, Clarissa is very isolated. She lives in the country—hasn’t been there very long—and has had few opportunities to make friends. Her husband has pretty much made sure she doesn’t get out of the house often. This isolation is a symptom of many abusive relationships. The abuser effectively keeps the abused away from other people and when others do come on the scene, the abuser disparages them. You can see Iggy do this repeatedly; it takes great courage and strength for Clarissa to finally say, Enough is enough!


Speaking of isolation, we writers are engaged in a very solitary craft. We spend hours alone, spinning tales we hope readers will love. And that is why I celebrate the healthy and growing book club movement. Despite all the dazzling technology that dominates our lives these days, books are still sold one at a time, person to person to person. And book clubs are an integral part of that process.


How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is a wild ride of a book! Of my seven titles, it is my favorite. The ghost family’s journey that unfolds in tandem to Clarissa’s makes me, as a writer, very, very happy. I hope it gives you many enjoyable reading hours, too.


Happy reading!


~~Connie May Fowler, http://www.conniemayfowler.com/

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Wonderful Guest Post Connie! I like reading about self discovery in characters as so many of us can relate to that process in life. I've not been in Clarissa's situation personally but have learned the importance of standing up for myself and it's not always easy. I found that you gave such strength and insight to Clarissa along the way  that it was amazing to see her character develop and grow. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us today!

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You can find more information about Connie May Fowler and her books at her website,here