Interview with Ryan David Jahn author of B&N.com August featured read The Dispatcher

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Interview with Ryan David JahnThe Dispatcher
Debbie - Ryan first off thank you so much for agreeing to participate in B&N.com’s General Fiction forum as we feature your latest novel The Dispatcher as our featured read. I have to be honest and say that this was a most gripping read and not an easy one to take, but one that I am really glad that I read.
Where did you get the premise for The Dispatcher?
Ryan - In 2009, after working in TV for five years, I found myself unemployed and in need of steady income. The LAPD was looking for police dispatchers. I mailed in an application and, a week later, received a postcard with the location, date and time of an aptitude test on it, and, of course, drove down to take it. When I arrived, about twenty minutes early, there was a line around the block. I don’t know how many applications the LAPD received, but about five hundred people showed up for the test. As I stood in line I started thinking about the job of a dispatcher, and imagined receiving a phone call from my wife. In the brief mental movie, our apartment was being burgled while I was at work, and she called 911. I happened to answer the call, and was aware of all the sounds in the apartment, of the fear in her voice, and of the fact that I was miles away and unable to do anything. The story of The Dispatcher is very different, but it began with that brief fantasy and the emotions it evoked.
Is there a certain audience you write for or do you write to please yourself?
I primarily write to please myself. That is, if I don’t like the story and the characters I have no reason to finish a piece of work. That said, if I only wrote for myself there would be no reason to edit, and I spend a lot of time editing—both for story and character, and for flow. I want the reading experience to be a smooth one. So, I’d say I write the first draft for myself and subsequent drafts for an audience, but an audience that likes the same things I like.
According to your bio you left school at 16 and after several odd jobs you joined the service. Does your past feature into your wanting to write fiction and does it make it’s way into your writing?
I’ve been writing since I was twelve, so I think I was born with whatever it is in me that made me want to be a writer. But my past does make its way into my fiction. Usually, in small moments of reality—Kat’s first memory in Good Neighbors, in which she is lying in bed watching dust motes dance in a beam of light, is in fact my first memory; Ian Hunt flicking a wad of belly button lint at his daughter is something I saw a friend do, and it stuck with me, as it just seemed so human; and I’ve had a few characters with military backgrounds.
Are you a reader and if so who are some of your favorite authors or genres?
Right now I’m on a bit of a biography kick, but some of my favorite crime/thriller/suspense books are Savage Night by Jim Thompson, Cujo by Stephen King (which is not among his best work, but I read it when I was twelve and it really made in impact), Black Friday by David Goodis, and Donald Westlake’s Parker novels.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a violent father-son story called The Algebra of Blood. I’m always afraid to say too much, as talking about a work tends to make it shrivel, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m very excited about it, though.
Do you write full time?
For now, I am lucky enough to do so, yes.
On your website the event on July 20^th in the UK shows up. How was that? Are the UK audiences different in any way from the US ones?
Harrogate was great fun. I always like crime/thriller conventions. They’re the one place I’m likely to be recognized, for one, and I get to see many of my writer friends who I normally only exchange emails with. The primary difference between US and UK audiences for me is that  more people in UK audiences tend to have read my stuff. I have four books out there, while I only have two out here. But both tend to be very enthusiastic and friendly. I think those who write crime fiction have a relationship with their readers that other types of writers don’t—science fiction excepted—as crime writers tend also to be fans.
Okay now for something personal. What would your perfect vacation be?
A week in bed with the woman I love.
Ryan thanks again and I can’t wait for the discussion to start Monday August 7, 2012
Fans of B&N.com and Ryan’s please check here for updates, reading schedule and other relevant information about the August featured novel. Buy the book here it’s available in both paper and digital forms, visit the author’s website here 



My review of The Dispatcher
The DispatcherRyan David JahnThe Penguin GroupISBN13:9780143120704351 pages

Ian Hunt is a shell of the man he once was his life changed for the worse seven years ago when his daughter Maggie was kidnapped from her bedroom, she was seven years old and the fallout didn’t stop with the kidnapping. Working as a police dispatcher Ian receives a call that will once again change his life. What would you do if you got a call from your dead daughter, Ian will have to answer that question and face the consequences that go with it.Maggie Hunt has lived the last seven years of her life in a Nightmare World, the people who took her keep her locked away, scared and often in harms way until one day they leave the door unlocked and she escapes, makes a crucial 911 call before she is recaptured and the nightmare starts all over again. But now she has something that she hasn’t had in a long time, she has hope. Hope that her daddy will rescue her, hope that he will not rest until she is in the loving arms of the family that she was ripped away from.What would you do?
Mr. Jahn gives us a thriller that’s as good as I’ve ever read, a plot of a world that no parent, in fact no one wants to get up close and personal with. His dialogue will take us into the seedier side of life and death with no holds barred, where his narrative is brutally beautiful and his scenes come alive to his readers. His characters will shine from his slightly noir-ish Ian to his sadistic villains and to the magic of Maggie and all the others as well as he clearly and succinctly lets us into their hearts and their minds. He takes us on a journey where the outcome is always just out of our reach, but reach we must.If you like the writing of Michael Connelly, Andrew Gross or Nelson DeMill, you will love Ryan David Jahn, if you need that edge of your seat, nail biting drama where the bloodier and guttier the better you’ll love this novel. And then just keep asking yourself, What would you do?Buy the book here visit the author's website here.

New Release Feature You Don't Want To Know and Q&A w/Lisa Jackson

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Q&Aw/Lisa Jackson New Release Feature
You Don’t Want To Know
Please welcome back Lisa Jackson, she was just with us a bit over amonth ago when she released Afraid  to Die and she’s back this time withher Hardcover release of You Don’t Want To Know.
1.        Debbie Tell us a bit about this novel
Lisa - YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW has becomemy favorite novel to date.  For years, SHIVER was my fave, but it’sfinally been eclipsed by this one.  Set on a solitary island in thePacific Northwest, YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW is the story of Ava Church, aonce-strong woman who has been mentally crippled over the loss of herson.  Is she paranoid?  Being haunted?  The victim of aconspiracy?  Hallucinating? Being gas-lighted?  Or just unable toface the truth that her precious two-year old boy is lost to her forever? She keeps seeing him, through the mist and rain, on the end of a pier and theimages are so vivid she thinks she may be losing her mind.  Trapped in abeautiful home which is now her prison, she is slowly unraveling and doesn’tthink she can trust anyone of her family—not her husband, her cousins, or herbest friend.  A stranger on the island and rumors of sightings of a serialkiller who escaped a now-abandoned mental hospital add to her confusion. It’s her quest to peel off all the layers of secrecy and find out what happenedto her boy and in so doing, maybe, just maybe she’ll find her own sanity again.
2.    Is this a stand-a-lone or is it part of a series
YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW is a stand-a-lone.  (So far, but who knowsin the future?  I  keep dreaming up books as sequels with charactersI already know and love!
3.    So Lisa the first thing I have to say is, I guess the bribe I sent youdidn’t work and all the pleading I did with all my local friends because I seethe release event will be in Las Vegas, so as I dry my eyes tell us what thegrand prize winner will get in Vegas
After three months of voting, the town that got the mostvotes in the “Straight to the Heart of Your Town” contest was Las Vegas, sowe’ll be throwing a VIP party there on August 7^th. All of the peoplewho voted for Las Vegas are invited, and we’ll be giving out free books to gowith the delicious food and drinks. It’s going to be a blast. On August 6^th at 6:30, I’ll also bedoing an event that’s open to the public at the B&N in Las Vegas (8915 WCharleston).
4.    Do you usually tour when you have a new release come out and how do youhandle it when you have two releases so close together like you do this summer
I haven’t done an official “tour”for the last few books, but this year I’m attending many conferences and eventsduring the summer when both AFRAID TO DIE and YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW arereleased.  It’s exciting, exhilarating and exhausting!
5.    What are you working on now
I’ve got a couple of projectsgoing.  My sister, author Nancy Bush and I are co-writing the third bookin the “Colony Series.”  SOMETHING WICKED will be out next June, and I, bymyself am working on READY TO DIE, the 4^th book in the GrizzlyFalls, Montana series.  I think for the first time in 5 books, it’s notChristmas there!
6.    You mention two organizations on your website that are important to youand they are also closely related by supporting families that have lost achild. 
Yes, the M. I. S. S.  Foundation and Molly Bears.  My familyhas suffered the tragedy of infant loss so I know first hand how important thesekinds of organizations are.
7.    Tell us a bit about these organizations and without being invasive whatthey mean to you and how to contact them if anyone would want to eithercontribute or ask for assistance. 
They are both listed on my website, lisajackson.com under Lisa’sCauses.  The MISS foundation offers support for those families who havelost a child or suffered infant loss and that website is www.missfoundation.org . Molly Bears is also for families who haveexperienced infant loss.  This organization, run entirely by volunteersand with donations, makes custom “Molly” or Teddy bears to the exact weight ofthe lost infant.   Families experiencing this kind of grief can placethemselves on a waiting list for a bear, which is (so far) free, though theorganization is in desperate need of donations to keep running.  I have aMolly Bear, a picture of which is located on my website www.lisajackson.com under Lisa’s causes, where you can also link to www.mollybears.com .
8.    Now we would never want you to give up writing, but when you were youngwhat did you want to be when you grew up. 
A writer, of course and then, maybe a veterinarian until I realized howmany bloody, injured animals I would have to care for.  (Okay I did thinkI could be a bareback rider or horse whisperer, but I was very poor at any ofthese things.)  Oh, yeah, I can’t sing either, so that was out.  LadyGaga is soooo relieved.
9.    Okay one more question to let us know you a bit better: What would yourdream vacation be. 
Yikes, that’s tough.  I suppose either a week or two in a Welshcastle or an Italian villa?  In the winter, of course.  I live in thePacific Northwest and summers here are spectacular---winters, not so much!
Thanks Lisa, have fun in Vegas, and good luck with the new novel.
My Review of You Don't Want To Know
You Don’t Want To Know
Lisa Jackson
Kensington
ISBN13:9780758258571
416 pages

Two years ago Ava Garrison’s son Noah disappeared never tobe found, since then her life has been a nightmare, a medicated blur filledwith despair and misery. Recently released from a mental hospital she’sreturned to Church Island and her family mansion of Neptune’s Gate, surroundedby her husband, employees other family and friends she’s never felt so aloneand through it all she’s never given up hope of finding her son. She misses thetake charge woman she once was but a series of episodes requiring her rescue bysexy new ranch hand Austin Dern only seems to confirm her instability, stillshe can’t get over feeling that something is off, that someone is against her.But who. And is there anyone on the Island she can trust.
Austin Dern has his own agenda for taking the job as ranch hand at Neptune’sGate and the last thing he needs is a sexy off her rocker Ava Garrisoninterrupting his thoughts and getting in his way. But the more he gets to knowher the more he thinks that beneath the fragile mask is a tiger and he’d reallylove to see that tiger roar, but she’s married and he’s got his own job to doon the island, and besides she’s crazy. Or is she.
Lisa Jackson has hit another one out of the park, a grandslam of a who done it, a psychological thriller that kept me awake at night, onthe edge of my seat during the day and my heart pounding through the wholenovel. Her storyline is as intense as it gets filled with tragedy, betrayal,murder and loss. Her characters are enigmatic, engaging, demented andunforgettable and Ava is a heroine I will likely never forget. I felt the seaspray, saw the fog, tasted the seafood and experienced the joy and the horrorthanks to her signature scene painting narrative and the pages flew by thanksto her easy reading dialogue. This is a definite must for your beach bag, onyour commuter train or sitting on your sofa if you like a racing pulse withyour read this is your cup of tea.
Ms. Jackson thank you for the most fear filled ride yet this summer, I can’twait to see what comes out of your imagination next.Buy the Book here visit the author's website here
Want to learn more about the fabulous Ms. Jackson, click here and see what Jeremy Cesarec blogged about her on the Nook Blog at B&N http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/The-NOOK-Blog/I-m-Not-Weird-and-Neither-is-My-Family-An-Essay-by-Lisa-Jackson/bc-p/1370110#M9756














Photos by Kimberly Butler Photography

Review of Renegade's Heart by Claire Delacroix

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Renegade’s Heart
Claire Delaxroix
Deborah Cooke Publisher
ISBN13: 9780987839930
280 pages
Claire Delacroix aka Deborah Cooke has been entertaining readers for many years with her bold heroines and lusty heroes from medieval times, and just when you thought the only way to experience the era with her was through her previous series she comes out with a brand new companion series staring the characters we’ve loved from Kinfairlie and Ravensmuir and the previously released and just recently re-released Jewels of Kinfairlie series.
This first installment stars Isabella Lammergeier sister to Alexander (The Snow White Bride) and Murdoch Seton. These characters will endear you to them within the first few pages, Murdoch with his arrogant yet honorable air and Isabella with her curiosity. Now if you don’t read historical novels everyday it may take you a page or two to get into the dialogue swing of things but once you do you’ll find a richly flowing narrative that will bring the action right to you. The plot involves a lot more fantasy then the last one’s did so you’ll see a fair amount of fairies flying about and raising havoc. The romance is sweet, it’s sensuous and it’s just a little racy too and I love how Claire describes it to us in her typical perfect time period fashion.
Bring on round three and thank you so much Claire for giving your fans what we so appreciate.
It’s a bitter homecoming for Murdoch Seton, after 3yrs held captive in the fairy realm he returns to find his father has died, his brother is laird and the coffers at the keep are empty. The relic that cost so much of the treasury has disappeared and with it the wealth and health of the estate. Murdoch is sent on a quest to find the treasure and to punish the villain who stole it. His crusade takes him to Kinfairlie where he’s met with falsehoods and deceits by it’s Laird and a fair maiden who intrigues him. It’s also become clear to Murdoch that the Elphine Queen who tricked him isn’t done with him by far, in fact she’s got permanent designs on him.
Isabella is shocked by her reaction to the renegade Murdoch, his mere touch causes shivers that are not from the cold, his heart seems true and his undertaking noble, but can he be trusted with her heart, and her innocence, and will she discover the secret to saving him from the fae Queen before he’s lost to her forever.
Together they search for the lost relic and what they find will change them, the question is will they survive the fae, and her kin.
Buy the book here visit the author's website here






















Photo credit:
Michelle Rowen

Guest blog post by Heidi Jon Schmidt author of The Harbormaster's Daughter

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Today's Guest blog post is from author Heidi Jon Schmidt featuring her new release novel The Harbormaster's Daughter

Here are what people are saying about her new release

Publishers Weekly

Schmidt (The House on Oyster Creek) returns to Cape Cod to examine the turbulent times of Franco, the bitter 47-year-old assistant harbormaster who is part of the insular Portuguese community that exists in constant tension with the wealthy summer tourists. A brief affair with a tourist named Sabine results in an unexpected pregnancy and trouble for Franco. But things get worse when, four years later, Sabine is murdered, making Franco, a married man, the primary suspect. Their three-year-old daughter, Vita, who knows nothing of her real father, goes to live with Sabine’s friend in a small town, where she grows up and is sheltered from the news of her mother’s real killer being found. But when the killer commits suicide in jail, she’s forced to confront both her past and her present, finding support with a local gang of misfits in a local theater company. Schmidt paints a colorful picture of the Massachusetts Cape and its people. She understands the struggles of adolescence and compounds them skillfully with the stifling nature of smalltown life. However, the central relationship—between Vita and Franco—isn’t given much attention, resulting in a story that feels at times without a center. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Aug.)
Schmidt delivers a thoughtful, realistically complicated
exploration of love, marriage, friendship, and community
in The House on Oyster Creek while perfectly capturing the
spare beauty of Cape Cod in her subtly nuanced, beautifully
crafted prose."
--Chicago Tribune, Printers Row
"...Schmidt conveys the unassailable bond of tradition in a
tightly knit community along with the ins and outs of oyster
culture. Her writing is nuanced and oh so clever as it relays
her characters' persistence in the face of life's obstacles.
Superior literary fiction."
--Library Journal
Enjoy the Blog Post
I  was reading Heidi's bio and one of her thoughts about writing interested me so I asked her this question: what does it mean to you as an author to set your stories in a place you know so intimately and what leads you to your stories 
And so from that question came her blog postEnjoy
Diary of a Nosy NeighborWe had a wave of arsons in our little town a few years ago.  The first fires were small, one in a dumpster and one in the dry grass beside the highway.  Then someone's shed burned down, then a garage and then, on Halloween night, one of the oldest houses in town. My daughter was 10--she went as a flower fairy that year, in a costume I'd put together out of some green tulle over a thrift shop dress, with a cap that looked like a stem growing out of her head.  The excitement of Halloween is so much about being out after dark, knocking on stranger's doors, Jack-o-lanterns flickering ghoulishly....and all while you're  holding your mom's hand.  When the sirens sounded that cozy scariness was interrupted by cold fear.  Mothers picked up little dancers and goblins while the men in the neighborhood jumped into their trucks to head for the fire station. This town was built in the eighteenth century: wood frame houses crowded along streets just wide enough for horse carriages. Strike a match and you can wipe out a block before the fire trucks are out of the garage. 
That night the arsonist didn't have to use a match: the house he targeted was under renovation, and he climbed in a first floor window, found a blowtorch, lit it and walked away, probably along the beach, where, in the dark of an October evening he was unlikely to be seen. The fire was knocked down before it could spread.  Ten days later, another house went up in flames--while the firemen worked to squelch it a grand piano fell through the weakened ceiling and very nearly killed a man.  
Who was doing this?  Why?  We speculated endlessly, on the steps of the Post Office, in line at the coffee shop.  Suspicion fell on a former firefighter, a troubled teenager, then on a homeless man who'd been found sleeping in the firehouse.  But they all seemed to have alibis (Never mind the police, four women at the grocery checkout could figure this out based on where they bumped into who the day before.)   
The State Fire Marshall, called in to help with the investigation, held a meeting for townspeople, partly to reassure us, partly to ask for our help.  Arson is the most difficult crime to solve, and in a tourist town like ours, where half the houses are unoccupied in the off season, it's all too easy for a criminal to make his way from yard to yard without being noticed. 
"What we need," the Marshall told us, "is a nosy neighbor." Representatives from his office, in plain clothes, had gone through one neighborhood after another without so much as a single woman sticking her head out an upper window to interrogate them.  What was wrong with us, he wanted to know, minding our own business this way?  We needed to become a lot nosier, as fast as we possibly could.
This was it.  Clearly my moment in the sun had arrived.  I am one of the nosiest people I know.  There is no little crevice of human existence that I don't want to peer into, preferably with a flashlight, a magnifying glass, and a notebook. And a small town, blessed with one main street (the better to see everyone you know as you head out to return a library book), and a stiff breeze (the better for your neighbor's divorce decree to blow out of his garbage and into your tomato bushes). 
I went forth from that meeting charged with a mission. While I usually prefer the dignified term "curiosity,"  'nosiness' does spell it out.  If your Cyrano-like proboscis has ever been caught in a slamming door, it may be that you share this calling.  We're needed, we snoops!  And I was glad to have someone beside me recognize this.  I've always thought nosiness got a bad rap, mostly because it has become associated with scornfulness and sanctimony over the years.  But the fact that I'm dying to see in your windows does not mean I want to denigrate you.  It means I want to learn from you, to understand how it is that different people, all of them wishing for more or less the same things (health, love, safety, recognition for the good we do, forgiveness...the list goes on and on), take such disparate paths to their goals.
 How is it that we are all as different and as alike as snowflakes?  I can read Freud and Tolstoy and Austen and Wilde for some answers to this question, but nothing will ever compare to that original text, the contents of my neighbor's trash.  This has gotten me into trouble at times. I once complimented a painting newly hung over an acquaintance's couch; it was absolutely beautiful, but  I'd only seen it because he forgot to close his curtains one night.  In fact I wouldn't have known where he lived if he'd remembered to close his blinds, and now, when I walk past his house (as I do every time I head to the library) I add another little piece to the puzzle that this very nice man represents to me.  He keeps his garden tidy, and grows an impressive variety of peppers-- is this because he grew up in a spicy culture, Mexican maybe?  Or is he, like my husband, of such absolutely British descent that he never saw a garlic until he had come of age and has therefore a deep desire to Know the Peppers, in all their spectacular variety?
He would probably tell me it's because he likes peppers.  Fair enough. 'Knock on any door,' a brilliant novelist, also a friend of mine, used to say-- meaning that behind every door there is plenty of beauty and of affliction, that we aren't alone in our peculiarities.  Fiction does that for us--knocks on a random door and reveals that we're in good company, whether we're exulting or grieving or just snooping through other people's lives.  My last two books--The House on Oyster Creek and The Harbormaster's Daughter, have been set in a fishing, touristing town not unlike the one I live in, and I know they are better for the kaleidoscope of thoughts and images and understandings I've gained from thirty years of the ordinary daily world here.  The Harbormaster's Daughter imagines the growth of a girl whose mother  was murdered much as  a local woman was ten years ago.  The book is full of my sense of this place and its people, and though many, many others know the outline of the story, no one else would imagine or write it the same way.  My nosiness-- my fascination, which originates in my own peculiarities-- makes it what it is.
That arsonist was never arrested.  One week there were no sirens, then the next, and the next, and after a while we forgot to be afraid.  People theorized that he had been a summer visitor, renting an unheated cottage.  When the air got cold enough he had to move and we got to breathe easy again.  I wonder where he is now--does he still set fires or was that part of some madness that took hold of him that year and has let go now?  Maybe he just came to some understanding and stopped--I wonder what that understanding might be.  Maybe he has a little family and feels terribly guilty, is making up for the arsons by joining his local volunteer fire department. 
Or maybe there's a much darker answer.  How I wish I knew. And how I wish my nosiness had been vindicated and I had spied the firebug out my window. I'd have run out to ask him what he was doing.  I mean--I assume it was a him, but I'm not going to know.   I do believe that whether you call it curiosity or nosiness, our persistent interest in each other is ultimately a great thing-- that the first step to closing the gap between disparate people, and groups of people, is seeing, questioning, and thinking about those variations.  Beneath the differences are much deeper layers of similarity.  I'm never sure whether 'minding one's own business' isn't really a way of making sure one's assumptions go unchallenged,  of failing to appreciate other lives and ways of life.  
In my capacities as a nosy neighbor, and as a novelist, I will continue my investigations into this and many other questions, and keep you updated on my progress.
copyright Heidi Jon Schmidt  2012
Be sure and visit Heidi's website here buy the book here
Thank you Heidi for a look into your lovely town and into your personal and writing life.
here are Heidi's other titles 

New Release Feature Hemingway's Girl plus Q&A w/author Erika Robuck

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Q&A with Erika Robuck
New Release Feature 9-4-2012
Erika thank you for visiting with me and the members of theB&N General Fiction Forum
Debbie - Firsttell us a little about your new novel Hemingway’sGirl.Erika - Hemingway’s Girl is the story of ahalf-Cuban young woman living in Key West in 1935 who secures a job as ahousekeeper for Ernest Hemingway and his family, and becomes more involved inhis personal life than she could have anticipated. As the writer’s secondmarriage begins to crumble, she finds herself torn between the larger than lifewriter and a WWI veteran and boxer building the Overseas Highway.
This is your second novel, tell us how you felt when yousold your first book.I actuallyself-published my first novel, Receive MeFalling. During the querying process for that novel, many of my friends inbook clubs wanted to read it. I decided to self-publish, knowing I couldcontinue to query agents since I owned the rights to the book. Thirty bookclubs later, that novel is still going strong. When I did get anagent and a publisher for Hemingway’sGirl, however, I was overwhelmed with joy. I still get a thrill when I seeemail messages from my agent and editor. Traditional publishing was always mygoal, and I’m honored and grateful to be where I am today.
Tell us about how you came to be an author, did you always wantto write, how did it happen?I’ve written as longas I can remember. I started with plays, poetry, and songs. In middle and highschool I wrote two terrible novels and even more terrible diaries. I minored inliterature in college and taught elementary school until I had my first son adecade ago. While staying home with my son I was finally able to use my freetime (naptimes and bedtimes) to work on novels. I’ve been committed to the formever since.
So far both your books are historical in nature, are youplanning to always write historical novels?I have always beendrawn to the past in art, architecture, music, and literature, and I anticipatethat I will always write historical fiction. I’ve been thinking about a memoir,but even that will utilize the history of Ireland. I’ve always felt a deepconnection to the past, and find it both relevant to the present and importantfor inspiring empathy in readers.
Are you a reader, fiction or non-fiction, who are some ofyour favorite authors?I love to readanything and everything, but especially historical novels. The research phaseof writing is one of my favorites because I get to immerse myself in nonfictionlike biographies, autobiographies, letters, and other writings on or from thepast. A. S. Byatt, ToniMorrison, Tracy Chevalier, Ian McEwan, Susan Vreeland, and Margaret Atwood aresome of my favorite contemporary writers. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, andthe Brontes haunt me.
Do you belong to a writers group?I do, and I don’tknow how I would exist without them. First, I have two critique partners onopposite ends of the globe. Kelly McMullen lives on the west coast and writesnarrative nonfiction and poetry in the style of Kerouac and DiPrima. In Prague,Jennifer Lyn King writes multi-period upmarket fiction. I exchange work withthese women once a month and conference afterward by phone or Skype. I amdeeply connected to them, and my work is better because of our exchanges.I also belong to awriter “support” group of sorts called Book Pregnant. We are authors publishingin 2012 and 2013 who share the joys and heartbreaks of the journey, offeradvice to each other, or just give a listening ear when one of us needs it. Iam grateful for the camaraderie. 
Tell us about a normal day in the life of Erika Robuck.This question made mesmile. It’s hard to describe a normal day with three sons ranging from agesfour to ten, a husband, a dog, piano lessons, hockey practice, soccer practice,and on and on. Generally, morningshave various boys in school and others out, and trips to the park, library,grandparents’ houses, and the Annapolis city dock. Afternoons mean naptimes,coffee, and work time for me. Evenings hold homework, sports, music, dinner,and chaos. The night waits,smiling, with decaf, darkness, classical music, and time to shape words andworlds.
You have many events planned for your release and yourlaunch as well as others are at Barnes & Noble Bookstores-I hope you meetmany fans who read about you here and good luck with the novel.Thank you so much. Itwas my pleasure!Here’s the launchinformation
Friday September 7^th 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
2516 Solomon’s Island Road
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-573-1115For a complete listof Erika’s events and signings click here buy the book here
My review of Hemingway's Girl
Hemingway’s Girl
Erika Robuck
NAL
ISBN13:9780451237880Erika Robuck gave me a fly on the wall look not only intothe great novelist Ernest Hemingway’s  personal life in Key West, but the relationships he made andbroke, the ruined economy of post WWI Key West and the multi-cultural  residents who populated the area. Withsimple easy to read dialogue she painted a real picture of the area, the timeand it’s people that was both informative and imaginative. Her protagonistMariella Bennet was a fascinating specimen of fortitude, attitude and humilityand she will long be remembered in this reader’s mind and along with hermultitude of wonderful eclectic characters made this novel a definite keeper asshe educated and entertained me. It’s a hard to put down read so make sure yourchores are finished before you pick this one up. Know that this journey wasmore than worth it’s time and I’m anxious for the next place this incrediblestoryteller wants to take me.
It’s 1961 Key West Florida and after a day of deep seafishing with her son Mariella learns of Papa Hemingway’s death. The news sendsher back in time to 1930s Key West where the living was anything but easy,where left over depression still lingered in the Keys, in the shanty homes andthe gaunt hopeless faces of it’s residents, to the year she met Papa, whereonly months before her own father had died. She was almost 20 the first timeshe met him, bigger than life and full of himself and he left an impressionthat never would or could die. She remembers that tumultuous year of her lifeand the role Hemingway and others played in it, she remembers falling in love,she remembers joy and sadness. She remembers the best and worst of times, sheremembers just what Papa meant to her and she to him.



















Photo by Catherine Pelura of KC Photography

Review of The Goddess Legacy by Aimée Carter

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The Goddess Legacy
Aimée Carter
Harlequin Teen
ISBN13: 9780373210756
395 pages
Aimée Carter’s Goddess Tests novels now have a companion book in The Goddess Legacy. Inside she gives me five original novellas about her fabulous characters from the Goddess Tests novels. Meet Hera/Calliope, Ava/Aphrodite, Persephone, James/Hermes, Henry/Hades and see Kate Winters star of her Goddess Tests novels as a little girl too. She takes me deep inside her world building focusing on the original six over throwers of the Titans giving me documented myth and her own take on the legends, she goes beyond the stories of her series to the beginning giving me a glimpse of how it all came to be. It was such an engaging book that I read it in one sitting, she had me so engrossed in all her mini stories I couldn’t put it down and when I finished it all I wanted was to go back to the beginning and read them again while at the same time lusting for the one to come.In the beginning they were six, the children of Cronus, King of the Titans, they were tired of being pawns in their father’s rule so they overthrew him and imprisoned. They became known as the Greek Gods, they were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter and Hestia. But their rule was not without dissension as they fought among themselves for supremacy often inflicting cruelties that rivaled the reign they overthrew. But there were also among them stand outs, real heroes and heroines who deserved our fealty, who fought through the darkness and gave us light. And after eons of being revered and feared by humans they were also dying and now are on a quest to discover why. Will they persevere or will they fade into nothingness like so many before them.
Buy the Book here  visit the author's website here














onyonet photo studios

New Release Feature You Don't Want To Know and Q&A w/Lisa Jackson

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Q&Aw/Lisa Jackson New Release Feature
You Don’t Want To Know
Please welcome back Lisa Jackson, she was just with us a bit over amonth ago when she released Afraid  to Die and she’s back this time withher Hardcover release of You Don’t Want To Know.
1.        Debbie Tell us a bit about this novel
Lisa - YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW has becomemy favorite novel to date.  For years, SHIVER was my fave, but it’sfinally been eclipsed by this one.  Set on a solitary island in thePacific Northwest, YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW is the story of Ava Church, aonce-strong woman who has been mentally crippled over the loss of herson.  Is she paranoid?  Being haunted?  The victim of aconspiracy?  Hallucinating? Being gas-lighted?  Or just unable toface the truth that her precious two-year old boy is lost to her forever? She keeps seeing him, through the mist and rain, on the end of a pier and theimages are so vivid she thinks she may be losing her mind.  Trapped in abeautiful home which is now her prison, she is slowly unraveling and doesn’tthink she can trust anyone of her family—not her husband, her cousins, or herbest friend.  A stranger on the island and rumors of sightings of a serialkiller who escaped a now-abandoned mental hospital add to her confusion. It’s her quest to peel off all the layers of secrecy and find out what happenedto her boy and in so doing, maybe, just maybe she’ll find her own sanity again.
2.    Is this a stand-a-lone or is it part of a series
YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW is a stand-a-lone.  (So far, but who knowsin the future?  I  keep dreaming up books as sequels with charactersI already know and love!
3.    So Lisa the first thing I have to say is, I guess the bribe I sent youdidn’t work and all the pleading I did with all my local friends because I seethe release event will be in Las Vegas, so as I dry my eyes tell us what thegrand prize winner will get in Vegas
After three months of voting, the town that got the mostvotes in the “Straight to the Heart of Your Town” contest was Las Vegas, sowe’ll be throwing a VIP party there on August 7^th. All of the peoplewho voted for Las Vegas are invited, and we’ll be giving out free books to gowith the delicious food and drinks. It’s going to be a blast. On August 6^th at 6:30, I’ll also bedoing an event that’s open to the public at the B&N in Las Vegas (8915 WCharleston).
4.    Do you usually tour when you have a new release come out and how do youhandle it when you have two releases so close together like you do this summer
I haven’t done an official “tour”for the last few books, but this year I’m attending many conferences and eventsduring the summer when both AFRAID TO DIE and YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW arereleased.  It’s exciting, exhilarating and exhausting!
5.    What are you working on now
I’ve got a couple of projectsgoing.  My sister, author Nancy Bush and I are co-writing the third bookin the “Colony Series.”  SOMETHING WICKED will be out next June, and I, bymyself am working on READY TO DIE, the 4^th book in the GrizzlyFalls, Montana series.  I think for the first time in 5 books, it’s notChristmas there!
6.    You mention two organizations on your website that are important to youand they are also closely related by supporting families that have lost achild. 
Yes, the M. I. S. S.  Foundation and Molly Bears.  My familyhas suffered the tragedy of infant loss so I know first hand how important thesekinds of organizations are.
7.    Tell us a bit about these organizations and without being invasive whatthey mean to you and how to contact them if anyone would want to eithercontribute or ask for assistance. 
They are both listed on my website, lisajackson.com under Lisa’sCauses.  The MISS foundation offers support for those families who havelost a child or suffered infant loss and that website is www.missfoundation.org . Molly Bears is also for families who haveexperienced infant loss.  This organization, run entirely by volunteersand with donations, makes custom “Molly” or Teddy bears to the exact weight ofthe lost infant.   Families experiencing this kind of grief can placethemselves on a waiting list for a bear, which is (so far) free, though theorganization is in desperate need of donations to keep running.  I have aMolly Bear, a picture of which is located on my website www.lisajackson.com under Lisa’s causes, where you can also link to www.mollybears.com .
8.    Now we would never want you to give up writing, but when you were youngwhat did you want to be when you grew up. 
A writer, of course and then, maybe a veterinarian until I realized howmany bloody, injured animals I would have to care for.  (Okay I did thinkI could be a bareback rider or horse whisperer, but I was very poor at any ofthese things.)  Oh, yeah, I can’t sing either, so that was out.  LadyGaga is soooo relieved.
9.    Okay one more question to let us know you a bit better: What would yourdream vacation be. 
Yikes, that’s tough.  I suppose either a week or two in a Welshcastle or an Italian villa?  In the winter, of course.  I live in thePacific Northwest and summers here are spectacular---winters, not so much!
Thanks Lisa, have fun in Vegas, and good luck with the new novel.
My Review of You Don't Want To Know
You Don’t Want To Know
Lisa Jackson
Kensington
ISBN13:9780758258571
416 pages

Two years ago Ava Garrison’s son Noah disappeared never tobe found, since then her life has been a nightmare, a medicated blur filledwith despair and misery. Recently released from a mental hospital she’sreturned to Church Island and her family mansion of Neptune’s Gate, surroundedby her husband, employees other family and friends she’s never felt so aloneand through it all she’s never given up hope of finding her son. She misses thetake charge woman she once was but a series of episodes requiring her rescue bysexy new ranch hand Austin Dern only seems to confirm her instability, stillshe can’t get over feeling that something is off, that someone is against her.But who. And is there anyone on the Island she can trust.
Austin Dern has his own agenda for taking the job as ranch hand at Neptune’sGate and the last thing he needs is a sexy off her rocker Ava Garrisoninterrupting his thoughts and getting in his way. But the more he gets to knowher the more he thinks that beneath the fragile mask is a tiger and he’d reallylove to see that tiger roar, but she’s married and he’s got his own job to doon the island, and besides she’s crazy. Or is she.
Lisa Jackson has hit another one out of the park, a grandslam of a who done it, a psychological thriller that kept me awake at night, onthe edge of my seat during the day and my heart pounding through the wholenovel. Her storyline is as intense as it gets filled with tragedy, betrayal,murder and loss. Her characters are enigmatic, engaging, demented andunforgettable and Ava is a heroine I will likely never forget. I felt the seaspray, saw the fog, tasted the seafood and experienced the joy and the horrorthanks to her signature scene painting narrative and the pages flew by thanksto her easy reading dialogue. This is a definite must for your beach bag, onyour commuter train or sitting on your sofa if you like a racing pulse withyour read this is your cup of tea.
Ms. Jackson thank you for the most fear filled ride yet this summer, I can’twait to see what comes out of your imagination next.Buy the Book here visit the author's website here
Want to learn more about the fabulous Ms. Jackson, click here and see what Jeremy Cesarec blogged about her on the Nook Blog at B&N http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/The-NOOK-Blog/I-m-Not-Weird-and-Neither-is-My-Family-An-Essay-by-Lisa-Jackson/bc-p/1370110#M9756














Photos by Kimberly Butler Photography

Review of Renegade's Heart by Claire Delacroix

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Renegade’s Heart
Claire Delaxroix
Deborah Cooke Publisher
ISBN13: 9780987839930
280 pages
Claire Delacroix aka Deborah Cooke has been entertaining readers for many years with her bold heroines and lusty heroes from medieval times, and just when you thought the only way to experience the era with her was through her previous series she comes out with a brand new companion series staring the characters we’ve loved from Kinfairlie and Ravensmuir and the previously released and just recently re-released Jewels of Kinfairlie series.
This first installment stars Isabella Lammergeier sister to Alexander (The Snow White Bride) and Murdoch Seton. These characters will endear you to them within the first few pages, Murdoch with his arrogant yet honorable air and Isabella with her curiosity. Now if you don’t read historical novels everyday it may take you a page or two to get into the dialogue swing of things but once you do you’ll find a richly flowing narrative that will bring the action right to you. The plot involves a lot more fantasy then the last one’s did so you’ll see a fair amount of fairies flying about and raising havoc. The romance is sweet, it’s sensuous and it’s just a little racy too and I love how Claire describes it to us in her typical perfect time period fashion.
Bring on round three and thank you so much Claire for giving your fans what we so appreciate.
It’s a bitter homecoming for Murdoch Seton, after 3yrs held captive in the fairy realm he returns to find his father has died, his brother is laird and the coffers at the keep are empty. The relic that cost so much of the treasury has disappeared and with it the wealth and health of the estate. Murdoch is sent on a quest to find the treasure and to punish the villain who stole it. His crusade takes him to Kinfairlie where he’s met with falsehoods and deceits by it’s Laird and a fair maiden who intrigues him. It’s also become clear to Murdoch that the Elphine Queen who tricked him isn’t done with him by far, in fact she’s got permanent designs on him.
Isabella is shocked by her reaction to the renegade Murdoch, his mere touch causes shivers that are not from the cold, his heart seems true and his undertaking noble, but can he be trusted with her heart, and her innocence, and will she discover the secret to saving him from the fae Queen before he’s lost to her forever.
Together they search for the lost relic and what they find will change them, the question is will they survive the fae, and her kin.
Buy the book here visit the author's website here






















Photo credit:
Michelle Rowen

Guest blog post by Heidi Jon Schmidt author of The Harbormaster's Daughter

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Today's Guest blog post is from author Heidi Jon Schmidt featuring her new release novel The Harbormaster's Daughter

Here are what people are saying about her new release

Publishers Weekly

Schmidt (The House on Oyster Creek) returns to Cape Cod to examine the turbulent times of Franco, the bitter 47-year-old assistant harbormaster who is part of the insular Portuguese community that exists in constant tension with the wealthy summer tourists. A brief affair with a tourist named Sabine results in an unexpected pregnancy and trouble for Franco. But things get worse when, four years later, Sabine is murdered, making Franco, a married man, the primary suspect. Their three-year-old daughter, Vita, who knows nothing of her real father, goes to live with Sabine’s friend in a small town, where she grows up and is sheltered from the news of her mother’s real killer being found. But when the killer commits suicide in jail, she’s forced to confront both her past and her present, finding support with a local gang of misfits in a local theater company. Schmidt paints a colorful picture of the Massachusetts Cape and its people. She understands the struggles of adolescence and compounds them skillfully with the stifling nature of smalltown life. However, the central relationship—between Vita and Franco—isn’t given much attention, resulting in a story that feels at times without a center. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Aug.)
Schmidt delivers a thoughtful, realistically complicated
exploration of love, marriage, friendship, and community
in The House on Oyster Creek while perfectly capturing the
spare beauty of Cape Cod in her subtly nuanced, beautifully
crafted prose."
--Chicago Tribune, Printers Row
"...Schmidt conveys the unassailable bond of tradition in a
tightly knit community along with the ins and outs of oyster
culture. Her writing is nuanced and oh so clever as it relays
her characters' persistence in the face of life's obstacles.
Superior literary fiction."
--Library Journal
Enjoy the Blog Post
I  was reading Heidi's bio and one of her thoughts about writing interested me so I asked her this question: what does it mean to you as an author to set your stories in a place you know so intimately and what leads you to your stories 
And so from that question came her blog postEnjoy
Diary of a Nosy NeighborWe had a wave of arsons in our little town a few years ago.  The first fires were small, one in a dumpster and one in the dry grass beside the highway.  Then someone's shed burned down, then a garage and then, on Halloween night, one of the oldest houses in town. My daughter was 10--she went as a flower fairy that year, in a costume I'd put together out of some green tulle over a thrift shop dress, with a cap that looked like a stem growing out of her head.  The excitement of Halloween is so much about being out after dark, knocking on stranger's doors, Jack-o-lanterns flickering ghoulishly....and all while you're  holding your mom's hand.  When the sirens sounded that cozy scariness was interrupted by cold fear.  Mothers picked up little dancers and goblins while the men in the neighborhood jumped into their trucks to head for the fire station. This town was built in the eighteenth century: wood frame houses crowded along streets just wide enough for horse carriages. Strike a match and you can wipe out a block before the fire trucks are out of the garage. 
That night the arsonist didn't have to use a match: the house he targeted was under renovation, and he climbed in a first floor window, found a blowtorch, lit it and walked away, probably along the beach, where, in the dark of an October evening he was unlikely to be seen. The fire was knocked down before it could spread.  Ten days later, another house went up in flames--while the firemen worked to squelch it a grand piano fell through the weakened ceiling and very nearly killed a man.  
Who was doing this?  Why?  We speculated endlessly, on the steps of the Post Office, in line at the coffee shop.  Suspicion fell on a former firefighter, a troubled teenager, then on a homeless man who'd been found sleeping in the firehouse.  But they all seemed to have alibis (Never mind the police, four women at the grocery checkout could figure this out based on where they bumped into who the day before.)   
The State Fire Marshall, called in to help with the investigation, held a meeting for townspeople, partly to reassure us, partly to ask for our help.  Arson is the most difficult crime to solve, and in a tourist town like ours, where half the houses are unoccupied in the off season, it's all too easy for a criminal to make his way from yard to yard without being noticed. 
"What we need," the Marshall told us, "is a nosy neighbor." Representatives from his office, in plain clothes, had gone through one neighborhood after another without so much as a single woman sticking her head out an upper window to interrogate them.  What was wrong with us, he wanted to know, minding our own business this way?  We needed to become a lot nosier, as fast as we possibly could.
This was it.  Clearly my moment in the sun had arrived.  I am one of the nosiest people I know.  There is no little crevice of human existence that I don't want to peer into, preferably with a flashlight, a magnifying glass, and a notebook. And a small town, blessed with one main street (the better to see everyone you know as you head out to return a library book), and a stiff breeze (the better for your neighbor's divorce decree to blow out of his garbage and into your tomato bushes). 
I went forth from that meeting charged with a mission. While I usually prefer the dignified term "curiosity,"  'nosiness' does spell it out.  If your Cyrano-like proboscis has ever been caught in a slamming door, it may be that you share this calling.  We're needed, we snoops!  And I was glad to have someone beside me recognize this.  I've always thought nosiness got a bad rap, mostly because it has become associated with scornfulness and sanctimony over the years.  But the fact that I'm dying to see in your windows does not mean I want to denigrate you.  It means I want to learn from you, to understand how it is that different people, all of them wishing for more or less the same things (health, love, safety, recognition for the good we do, forgiveness...the list goes on and on), take such disparate paths to their goals.
 How is it that we are all as different and as alike as snowflakes?  I can read Freud and Tolstoy and Austen and Wilde for some answers to this question, but nothing will ever compare to that original text, the contents of my neighbor's trash.  This has gotten me into trouble at times. I once complimented a painting newly hung over an acquaintance's couch; it was absolutely beautiful, but  I'd only seen it because he forgot to close his curtains one night.  In fact I wouldn't have known where he lived if he'd remembered to close his blinds, and now, when I walk past his house (as I do every time I head to the library) I add another little piece to the puzzle that this very nice man represents to me.  He keeps his garden tidy, and grows an impressive variety of peppers-- is this because he grew up in a spicy culture, Mexican maybe?  Or is he, like my husband, of such absolutely British descent that he never saw a garlic until he had come of age and has therefore a deep desire to Know the Peppers, in all their spectacular variety?
He would probably tell me it's because he likes peppers.  Fair enough. 'Knock on any door,' a brilliant novelist, also a friend of mine, used to say-- meaning that behind every door there is plenty of beauty and of affliction, that we aren't alone in our peculiarities.  Fiction does that for us--knocks on a random door and reveals that we're in good company, whether we're exulting or grieving or just snooping through other people's lives.  My last two books--The House on Oyster Creek and The Harbormaster's Daughter, have been set in a fishing, touristing town not unlike the one I live in, and I know they are better for the kaleidoscope of thoughts and images and understandings I've gained from thirty years of the ordinary daily world here.  The Harbormaster's Daughter imagines the growth of a girl whose mother  was murdered much as  a local woman was ten years ago.  The book is full of my sense of this place and its people, and though many, many others know the outline of the story, no one else would imagine or write it the same way.  My nosiness-- my fascination, which originates in my own peculiarities-- makes it what it is.
That arsonist was never arrested.  One week there were no sirens, then the next, and the next, and after a while we forgot to be afraid.  People theorized that he had been a summer visitor, renting an unheated cottage.  When the air got cold enough he had to move and we got to breathe easy again.  I wonder where he is now--does he still set fires or was that part of some madness that took hold of him that year and has let go now?  Maybe he just came to some understanding and stopped--I wonder what that understanding might be.  Maybe he has a little family and feels terribly guilty, is making up for the arsons by joining his local volunteer fire department. 
Or maybe there's a much darker answer.  How I wish I knew. And how I wish my nosiness had been vindicated and I had spied the firebug out my window. I'd have run out to ask him what he was doing.  I mean--I assume it was a him, but I'm not going to know.   I do believe that whether you call it curiosity or nosiness, our persistent interest in each other is ultimately a great thing-- that the first step to closing the gap between disparate people, and groups of people, is seeing, questioning, and thinking about those variations.  Beneath the differences are much deeper layers of similarity.  I'm never sure whether 'minding one's own business' isn't really a way of making sure one's assumptions go unchallenged,  of failing to appreciate other lives and ways of life.  
In my capacities as a nosy neighbor, and as a novelist, I will continue my investigations into this and many other questions, and keep you updated on my progress.
copyright Heidi Jon Schmidt  2012
Be sure and visit Heidi's website here buy the book here
Thank you Heidi for a look into your lovely town and into your personal and writing life.
here are Heidi's other titles 

New Release Feature Hemingway's Girl plus Q&A w/author Erika Robuck

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Q&A with Erika Robuck
New Release Feature 9-4-2012
Erika thank you for visiting with me and the members of theB&N General Fiction Forum
Debbie - Firsttell us a little about your new novel Hemingway’sGirl.Erika - Hemingway’s Girl is the story of ahalf-Cuban young woman living in Key West in 1935 who secures a job as ahousekeeper for Ernest Hemingway and his family, and becomes more involved inhis personal life than she could have anticipated. As the writer’s secondmarriage begins to crumble, she finds herself torn between the larger than lifewriter and a WWI veteran and boxer building the Overseas Highway.
This is your second novel, tell us how you felt when yousold your first book.I actuallyself-published my first novel, Receive MeFalling. During the querying process for that novel, many of my friends inbook clubs wanted to read it. I decided to self-publish, knowing I couldcontinue to query agents since I owned the rights to the book. Thirty bookclubs later, that novel is still going strong. When I did get anagent and a publisher for Hemingway’sGirl, however, I was overwhelmed with joy. I still get a thrill when I seeemail messages from my agent and editor. Traditional publishing was always mygoal, and I’m honored and grateful to be where I am today.
Tell us about how you came to be an author, did you always wantto write, how did it happen?I’ve written as longas I can remember. I started with plays, poetry, and songs. In middle and highschool I wrote two terrible novels and even more terrible diaries. I minored inliterature in college and taught elementary school until I had my first son adecade ago. While staying home with my son I was finally able to use my freetime (naptimes and bedtimes) to work on novels. I’ve been committed to the formever since.
So far both your books are historical in nature, are youplanning to always write historical novels?I have always beendrawn to the past in art, architecture, music, and literature, and I anticipatethat I will always write historical fiction. I’ve been thinking about a memoir,but even that will utilize the history of Ireland. I’ve always felt a deepconnection to the past, and find it both relevant to the present and importantfor inspiring empathy in readers.
Are you a reader, fiction or non-fiction, who are some ofyour favorite authors?I love to readanything and everything, but especially historical novels. The research phaseof writing is one of my favorites because I get to immerse myself in nonfictionlike biographies, autobiographies, letters, and other writings on or from thepast. A. S. Byatt, ToniMorrison, Tracy Chevalier, Ian McEwan, Susan Vreeland, and Margaret Atwood aresome of my favorite contemporary writers. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, andthe Brontes haunt me.
Do you belong to a writers group?I do, and I don’tknow how I would exist without them. First, I have two critique partners onopposite ends of the globe. Kelly McMullen lives on the west coast and writesnarrative nonfiction and poetry in the style of Kerouac and DiPrima. In Prague,Jennifer Lyn King writes multi-period upmarket fiction. I exchange work withthese women once a month and conference afterward by phone or Skype. I amdeeply connected to them, and my work is better because of our exchanges.I also belong to awriter “support” group of sorts called Book Pregnant. We are authors publishingin 2012 and 2013 who share the joys and heartbreaks of the journey, offeradvice to each other, or just give a listening ear when one of us needs it. Iam grateful for the camaraderie. 
Tell us about a normal day in the life of Erika Robuck.This question made mesmile. It’s hard to describe a normal day with three sons ranging from agesfour to ten, a husband, a dog, piano lessons, hockey practice, soccer practice,and on and on. Generally, morningshave various boys in school and others out, and trips to the park, library,grandparents’ houses, and the Annapolis city dock. Afternoons mean naptimes,coffee, and work time for me. Evenings hold homework, sports, music, dinner,and chaos. The night waits,smiling, with decaf, darkness, classical music, and time to shape words andworlds.
You have many events planned for your release and yourlaunch as well as others are at Barnes & Noble Bookstores-I hope you meetmany fans who read about you here and good luck with the novel.Thank you so much. Itwas my pleasure!Here’s the launchinformation
Friday September 7^th 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
2516 Solomon’s Island Road
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-573-1115For a complete listof Erika’s events and signings click here buy the book here
My review of Hemingway's Girl
Hemingway’s Girl
Erika Robuck
NAL
ISBN13:9780451237880Erika Robuck gave me a fly on the wall look not only intothe great novelist Ernest Hemingway’s  personal life in Key West, but the relationships he made andbroke, the ruined economy of post WWI Key West and the multi-cultural  residents who populated the area. Withsimple easy to read dialogue she painted a real picture of the area, the timeand it’s people that was both informative and imaginative. Her protagonistMariella Bennet was a fascinating specimen of fortitude, attitude and humilityand she will long be remembered in this reader’s mind and along with hermultitude of wonderful eclectic characters made this novel a definite keeper asshe educated and entertained me. It’s a hard to put down read so make sure yourchores are finished before you pick this one up. Know that this journey wasmore than worth it’s time and I’m anxious for the next place this incrediblestoryteller wants to take me.
It’s 1961 Key West Florida and after a day of deep seafishing with her son Mariella learns of Papa Hemingway’s death. The news sendsher back in time to 1930s Key West where the living was anything but easy,where left over depression still lingered in the Keys, in the shanty homes andthe gaunt hopeless faces of it’s residents, to the year she met Papa, whereonly months before her own father had died. She was almost 20 the first timeshe met him, bigger than life and full of himself and he left an impressionthat never would or could die. She remembers that tumultuous year of her lifeand the role Hemingway and others played in it, she remembers falling in love,she remembers joy and sadness. She remembers the best and worst of times, sheremembers just what Papa meant to her and she to him.



















Photo by Catherine Pelura of KC Photography