Falling Down, The Blog

Patry Francis, Today is Your Lucky Day!

Patry Francis, you should know, today is one lucky day.

Sixty-three years ago, my parents met on a double date in San Angelo, Texas.  They fell in love and had four children under the age of six,  In 1950, my mom was diagnosed with Tuberculosis.   At the time there was no cure, so besides being quarantined away from her babies for a year, she faced a terminal prognosis.  Through a fluke of good fortune, my dad's commanding officer had heard about new drug trials being held in a Denver hospital and pulled strings to include my mom in the trials of what became the miracle cure.  Five years after she was cured, she had me on this very day.  I was the sixth.  She went on to have four more children, but I like to think I was both my parent's favorite.  (Of course, my sibings disagree, having come to strikingly identical conclusions themselves.) 

Most important is -- and Patry, on this you must agree -- today is the release of your first novel, after years of writing, years of rejections, years of slogging through waitressing and wondering if your day would ever come.  Not only is it here, but you may be the first author in history to have over 300 authors promoting your book on line  on its publication day.  I believe in grace, and I think it's fed by the kindness of strangers and of friends and family alike.   I am hoping your cancer, like my mom's TB, will someday be a story you and your kids will talk about in a tone of complete wonderment, both because it was so difficult and equally so life-affirming.  In the meantime, you must enjoy each and every one of what we in my family call cancer percs.  This is a term we employed frequently when our brother Tom was diagnosed, and later my sister Dede and Carolyn went through breast cancer treatments.  It is official Irish Catholic for dispensing all guilt and entitling you to a huge boatload of indulgence. 

Okay, now, I turn to you, my readers, and ask: wouldn't you like a book so readable it made one writer say:

"I absolutely LOVED The Liar's Diary. It had me walking into walls because I couldn't stop reading. I even brought it into the car and read at stop lights."
— Tish Cohen, Author of Town House and The Invisible Rules of the Zoe Lama

Praised by Tess Garritson and Jacquelyn Mitchard, and beaucoup (boo-coo) other noted authors, THE LIAR'S DIARY is a mystery/thriller with a great cover and premise.

Synopsis

What would you do if your best friend was murdered—and your teenaged son was accused of the crime? How far would you go to protect him? How many lies would you tell? Would you dare to admit the darkest truths—even to yourself?

Jeanne Cross is an ordinary suburban wife and mother with a seemingly "perfect" life when Ali Mather arrives on the scene, breaking all the rules and breaking hearts. Almost against her will, Jeanne is drawn to this powerfully seductive woman, a fascination that soon begins to infect Jeanne's husband as well as their teenaged son, Jamie.

Though their friendship seems unlikely and even dangerous to their mutual acquaintances, Ali and Jeanne are connected by deep emotional needs, vulnerabilities and long-held secrets that Ali has been privately recording in her diary.

The diary also holds the key to something darker. Though she can't prove it, Ali is convinced someone has been entering her house when she is not at home-and not with the usual intentions. What this burglar wants is nothing less than a piece of Ali's soul.

When Ali is found murdered, there are many suspects; but the evidence against Jamie Cross is overwhelming. Jeanne's personal probing leads her to the question none of us would ever want to face. What comes first: our loyalty to family—or the truth?"

"The new questions and revelations just keep coming. But the final mystery is a twist you'll never see coming and one that is ultmately satisfying...Readers will be heartily rewarded."
— Ladies' Home Journal

Those of you who still need convincing, watch the trailer before going to Amazon or your favorite bookstore to make this the first of Patry's lucky days! 

Blogging irregularly, if ever, and still going strong, one thousand and one glitches later

Colleen Thompson's sixth novel is called THE SALT MAIDEN.  I would normally post her cover were it not for my own personal brain injury having to do with a collision of tsunamic proportions: my family, the holidays and certain character traits that make it impossible for me to refuse any of God's earthly delights and subsequent monkeys-at-typewriters pressing of buttons intended for teetotalers and dieters and other more virtuous souls.

What I can tell you is that the snow gods were extremely generous.  Here's the view outside my bedroom window at my parents' house.

Sounds really delightful.   Looks really wholesome.  Which it was for several hours a day until the darkness fell at the sort of hour that inspired Druids to set candles on trees and light them.

Okay, back to Colleen, who lives in Houston and shares a great blog with Joni Rodgers, who is in the Girlfriend's Cyber Circuit too and whose novel THE SECRET SISTERS knocked my socks off.  (Check out their recent posts on hate mail from people who think their books are dirty and the true-life legendary story behind Lady Godiva.)

Okay, again, back to Colleen.  Here's the story line, stolen from the press release: and OMG I think I just figured out how to fix my cover shot problem.  BRB.

Ooh, here's the photo of the cover too!  I am healed!  All I had to do was uninstall the Kodak software that somehow dominatrixed my freakin' picture files and I AM WOMAN!  Hear me ROAR!  HEAR IT LOUD, I purged and I'm proud!

Here's Colleen's storyline:

"Some novels begin with a character, others start with a what-if question or a situation, but my sixth romantic thriller, The Salt Maiden (Leisure, Dec. 2007) was inspired by a place I visited a few years back, a sunburned, sand-scoured desert community in the dead center of the least populated county in the U.S. With water too briny for human consumption and land too to support any but the hardiest of desert plants, it’s an eerily daunting landscape, one that made me wonder, What on earth would bring a person out here?

Apparently my subconscious took it as a challenge, and came up with a Houston veterinarian, Dana Vanover, in search of her troubled missing sister, the birth mother of a child in desperate need of a bone-marrow transplant. In spite of her ambivalence about her sister, Dana braves heat, rattlesnakes, and hostile locals — as well as her attraction to the handsome sheriff who wants her gone."

Here's our interview:

1.    If I had to offer two bumper sticker explanations for my novel, they’d be “Appearances are deceiving” and “Mean people suck.”  Tell me what your slogans would be, and why.

I'd answer that with a question: "How far would you go?" because THE SALT MAIDEN explores to what lengths someone would journey when the stakes are at their highest.

2.    Your two favorite movies over the past twelve months and why?

I'm not much of a movie-goer, but I recently saw and enjoyed GONE BABY GONE and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I loved both for the richness of their characters, particularly secondary characters that seemed to naturally spring from their environments.

3.    What was the one thing you learned in getting your book published that you were really surprised to find out?

THE SALT MAIDEN is my thirteenth novel (sixth romantic thriller; the rest were  historicals written under my Gwyneth Atlee pseudonym), but the business continues to teach me new lessons all the time. With this book, I've been pleased and impressed that an editor's enthusiasm and in-house support can make such a difference. That and a great cover!

4.    If you had to pick one and only one condition (beyond computer or pen and paper) that would allow you to write would it be: a. solitude   b. caffiene   c.  sleep   d. food   e.  sex  or f.   ______.

Hmmm. I'm thinking choice F should be "all of the above," but if I had to choose just one, I think sleep might be it. I'm useless when I'm zonked.

  Do you have a favorite genre?  If so, who are your three favorite writers? If not, who are your three favorite writers and how have they influenced your work?   I adore many types of books, as long as they're well-written, but suspense would be my first choice. Some favorite authors include Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, and Linda Howard.