Blog Archives
Promo Day 2019
ASJ Publishing will be taking pitches during the Promo Day 2019 event on Saturday 11th May.
More details can be found on Promo Day website.
VBT – All She Never Wanted
All She Never Wanted
By
Carolyn LaRoche
Author Bio:
Carolyn LaRoche grew up in snow country but fled the cold and ice several years ago. She now lives near the beach with her husband, their two boys and one sweet kitty. When she is not at the baseball field cheering on big hits and home runs, she is busy teaching science to unwilling teenagers.
Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCarolynLaRoche
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7734909.Carolyn_LaRoche
Twitter: @CarolynLaRoche
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Carolyn-LaRoche/e/B005OKHIDI
Blurb:
One moment changed everything…
Evie Ward had everything she’d ever dreamed of. An action-packed job where no two shifts were ever the same, the best friend a girl could ever want, and a fairy tale wedding just days away. Her life was absolutely perfect. Until one bullet—one horrible choice—left her with a broken heart and shattered dreams. Fleeing the city she loved and a lifetime of memories, Evie took a job in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the hopes that the ocean air and fresh beaches could somehow restore her soul. Falling in love again wasn’t part of the plan.
Landon Reed was on top of the world. The money, the women, the status—he had it all until one bad decision nearly cost him his life. His father gave him three months to get his act together or be cut off from the family fortune and business. No house, no job and no money. His will and his patience are tested further when his father hires a nurse to whip him into shape. She may be little but she’s mean and it looks like Landon has finally met his match.
With her shattered heart and his broken spirit, the road to recovery will be long. Can they help each other heal or will their fractured pasts be too much to overcome?
Buy Links:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1181246769
Excerpt:
“Good morning, Landon!” Amelia hummed a little tune quietly as she set up the bedside table. “It’s a beautiful day, today. Perhaps you’d like to go down to the beach after your physical therapy appointment?”
I pulled the covers over my head. “I changed my mind. I’m not going to any appointment.”
“Come on, Landon. You can’t spend the rest of your life sitting here in this room.”
“Yes, I can.”
“You are going to physical therapy.” The covers disappeared from my face as I looked up into the smiling grey eyes of Amelia. “Rise and shine!”
“I’m not getting up.” I buried my head under my pillow.
Amelia walked toward the door. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with him.”
“Good morning, Mr. Reed. Do you plan to stay in bed all day?” A different voice, one thick with the distinctive accent of New York City replaced Amelia’s soft southern sound.
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, it’s all the same to me if you want to rot away in that bed. I get paid either way.” I heard soft footsteps cross the room toward the little sitting area.
Rolling over on my side, I shifted the pillow enough to peek out. From my vantage point, all I could see was a pair of canvas shoes. The television turned on. I heard her flip through channels, finally settling on that home improvement show with the twin brothers. Every woman I knew loved them.
“Nobody watches those stupid shows anymore.”
Either she didn’t hear me or she was ignoring me.
“Those shows are ridiculous.” I made sure to project my voice from under the pillow.
“No more ridiculous than a grown man hiding under a pillow and acting like a two-year-old.”
I threw the covers off and shot up to a sitting position, ignoring the burning pain in my leg. “What the fuck is your prob…” Holy shit. The woman sitting on the couch looking at the television and completely ignoring me wasn’t hideous or horrible. In fact, she was fucking hot. “Who the hell are you?” I knew exactly who she was.
She looked over at me, boredom in her expression, before returning her attention to the television. “The nurse your father hired. Who do you think I am?”
“I don’t need a nurse.”
“I agree.” She flipped the channel to a news program and grimaced. “The way you’re acting, you need a nanny.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned so I could swing my legs over the side of the bed, my knee making my movements jerky not angry and pronounced like I’d intended.
“It means, you can’t even dress yourself so how can anyone expect you to do anything?”
I followed her glance down to my lap. “See something you like?
“Nope. I’m a nurse. I’ve seen worse. Of course, I’ve seen better too. Much better.” She clicked to another station. I could have sworn I saw her lip twitch as I growled over her insult.
“Just get out. I don’t need you. Tell my father to go to hell.”
She tossed the remote control on the coffee table and checked her watch. “You have ten minutes to get ready for physical therapy or I’m taking you the way you are.”
I pulled the sheet onto my lap and crossed my arms over my bare chest. “I already told Amelia, I’m not going.”
“You are going to get dressed.” She stood and looked me in the eye. “You’re down to nine minutes.”
“And just how do you expect me to get down all of those stairs?”
“The same way you got up them. Walter showed me the elevator.”
Damn it. I was hoping she hadn’t found that yet. “Are you planning to watch?”
“Watch what? There’s nothing to see.” She dropped her gaze to my lap and gave me a little smile that was way more taunting than friendly.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” I whipped the sheet back and reached for my wheelchair. Instead of turning away, she stayed right where she was with that little smile dancing around on her lips. With about as much grace as a bull in a china shop, I managed to get from the bed to the chair while she just stood there and watched.
“I thought you were supposed to be here to help me.”
“You didn’t say you needed my assistance.”
“Really? I had to ask? Isn’t that what you are here for?”
“Let’s get something straight, Mr. Reed.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “I’m a trauma trained RN. I am not your maid or your gopher or any other thing. It is my job to get you back on your feet both literally and figuratively. I’ll handle your medical care and your personal care as needed but I am not at your beck and call.”
“Just get out of my way so I can get dressed.” I pushed past her to the large walk-in closet and started grabbing clothes. Dragging a pair of sweats, some boxer briefs and a t-shirt into the bathroom, I struggled my way into them. The doctors had promised me that things would get easier once the pain wasn’t so excruciating but my knee just refused to bend like it used to.
When I was done, I ran a comb through my wild hair, mostly so I won’t have to see the look on Amelia’s face when we leave the house.
“Come on, we’re going to be late!” The nurse called.
“I’m coming already!” I whipped open the bathroom door and scowled at her. “You never told me your name.”
She shrugged. “You never asked.”
She was fucking infuriating—despite the way her long brown hair tumbled in sexy waves over her shoulder from the pony tail it was secured in.
“Fine. What is your name?”
“Evie.”
“What’s your real name?”
“That is my real name.” She stepped behind me and turned the wheel chair toward the door. She stopped and grabbed a pair of tennis shoes from the floor, placing them in my lap.
“I meant, is Evie short for something?”
“Yes.” She pushed the chair down the hall toward the door at the end and pressed the button for the small service elevator—the number one reason I had chosen the beach house as my home base after the accident.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?” The elevator opened and Evie pushed me inside.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“It’s none of your business. You can call me Evie or nurse. That’s all you need to know about me.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you can be a real bitch?”
“Honey, I grew up in New York. They teach a class on that in high school.”
The door opened at the ground level. Evie pushed me out of the elevator and down the ramp Walter had constructed to get me in and out of the house.
“I’m going out on a limb here but I bet you aced that class.”
“You’re smarter than you look, Mr. Reed.”
Facebook Page COTC
Hey folks!
Just a quick one today. We finally got a new page up on Facebook for Creatives On The Couch 🙂
Do us a favor and stop by and like our new page and share with your mates 😉
Book Signing – Robert P. Mitchell
BOOK SIGNING
Robert P. Mitchell, author of Tales Of A Tenacious Tenor, will be having a book signing at the Monroe County Library, (Hughes Library), Stroudsburg, PA on Saturday April 18th, 2015. From 10:00AM til 3:00PM
Bob’s amazing story of how movie idol Mario Lanza inspired him to sing, and the road he traveled to realize that dream.
From Central Pennsylvania to the opera stages of New York, Bob overcame many obstacles to realize his dream.
It’s an inspiring story for all dreamers and doers, those who have the courage to follow their inner voice, and make their singing voice as rich as it can be.
If you are in the area, don’t miss it!
Interview With…. Isobel Blackthorn
Hi Readers and Booklovers! Today I am talking with Isobel Blackthorn. Isobel was born in London and moved to Aussie when she was 6. Isobel and her family spent around six years in and around Adelaide before they returned to London. Since then, she has travelled a fair bit between the UK and Aussie, and has had the opportunity to live in Spain and the Canary Islands.
Welcome Isobel. Please tell our readers about yourself.
I was born in 1962 in London. My family moved to Australia when I was six. We were ten pound Poms and we lived in and around Adelaide for about six years, before returning to London. I’ve been back and forth between the two countries and I’ve also lived in Spain and Lanzarote, Canary Islands. I’ve been a teacher, market trader, alternative life-styler and PA to a literary agent. I also have a fascination for the occult. I received my PhD in Western Esotericism from the University of Western Sydney in 2006. It was after that, when my twin daughters left home, that I dedicated my life to my real passion, creative writing. My short story collection, All Because of You, came out in 2012 and since then I’ve had short stories and some non-fiction pieces published in journals in Australia and the USA.
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
I’m an early riser. Up before dawn, sometime around five, and I do my best writing in those still hours before my day takes over. Writing is a huge passion and after waiting for three decades of my adult life to get to this stage so I’m on fire. When you get to my age, there’s a sense of urgency. I can’t waste time dreaming or fiddling about with inconsequential things when I have big goals still to achieve before I slip the coil.
If you could hang out with one famous person for one day, who would it be and why?
At the moment I would love to hang out with Umberto Eco. I have so many questions for him. I’d love for him to show me around his extensive book collection and we could drink fine Italian wine and talk all day about medieval history and figures like Cagliostro, and esoteric sects like the Freemasons. There are many authors I would like to meet, and sadly some have passed from this life, like Doris Lessing, and my favourite Scottish author, Iain Banks. But with Umberto Eco I would have a unique chance to talk about both creativity and a shared special interest. I’m in awe of prolific writers, writers who can sustain a story for 500+ pages. I’ve just finished reading The Prague Cemetery, my third Eco to date, and I’m left with the feeling that something is missing in my life that can only be filled with another Eco.
What’s the story behind your latest book?
Asylum is my first novel and it has its basis in truth. Like the protagonist Yvette Grimm, I was an English-born visa overstayer and I really did invest my hopes in a palm reader’s prophecy that I would meet the father of my children before I was thirty. What a nut! That was the starting point for the story but I needed to make Yvette very different from me so I made her an artist. I can only paint walls.
Yvette’s quest takes her to Perth, and into a world of actors, artists, dilettantes and no-hopers. She’s estranged from Australia and offers a unique migrant’s perspective on what it’s like to find yourself an alien in this land. Asylum is basically a story of alienation. It’s also a black comedy about one woman’s struggle to make good the wreckage of her life, and heal her wounded heart.
What are you working on next?
I’m working on two other projects. I’m venturing into horror, with more than a toe hanging outside that bed sheet. I don’t think I’m capable of straight ahead horror. Something always bends me back into satire. I’m inspired by the British film, “Sightseers,” directed by Ben Wheatley. How dead pan and matter-of-fact the killing was in that film.
The other project is satirical too. It’s about a young woman trying to prise from her mother the details of her father’s disappearance. The occult in all its dimensions features heavily in the story. It’ll be huge when it’s done; my homage to Umberto Eco.
Do you have any special/extraordinary talents?
This question makes me feel boring. People tell me I have a talent for inspiring others, and it is true that I’m able to create grand schemes in my mind, which is good for writing, but I’ve fallen foul of this so-called talent many times. Beware of castles in the air. And I can’t recall the number of times I’ve conjured a vast vision of possibility for a friend, unaware that she or he is sitting there waiting without much patience for me to finish, having lost interest hours before.
Who are your favorite authors?
I adore Doris Lessing, Alice Munro, Fay Weldon, Iain Banks, Peter Carey, Chris Womersley, and of course Umberto Eco. And so many many more.
What do you like to do with your free time?
Free time? I have to remember to make that happen. Even when I’m reading, it isn’t really leisure time, because I have a sharp eye on everything the author is doing.
I love hanging out with my girlfriends for lunch or coffee. I adore long bus journeys and visiting my two daughters who are living in Melbourne. I can’t see enough of them. Writing is a solitary life. A writer makes enormous sacrifices for the demands of her craft. I try to strike a balance by spending time in my garden, growing my own vegetables, and hanging out with my cat, Psyche, the gentlest, sweetest cat ever born.
Tell us about your plans for upcoming books.
My second novel, The Drago Tree, is due to be released in September 2015, by Odyssey Books. Signing that publishing contract felt like stepping into another world. The novel is set in Lanzarote, a tiny island off the coast of southern Morocco, with stunning landscapes of calderas, lava flows and vast swathes of volcanic ash. The Drago Tree a romantic tale of geologist Ann Salter’s attempt to escape her life back in England, and find a new direction. Only she’s haunted by memories of her estranged sister Penny. I was going through a hard time when I wrote the story and would escape for hours of every day into a world of tourism websites, history and geology websites, Youtube footage, photos and best of all, google maps, whose little man toured the island the year before. One time on street view I actually clicked my way down the length of the whole island.
Where can people find you on the web?
I have a blog containing all my latest news along with all sorts of information about projects I’ve been involved in, and my previous publications.
https://isobelblackthorn.wordpress.com/asylum/
I can also be found on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Lovesick.Isobel.Blackthorn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IBlackthorn
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5768657.Isobel_Blackthorn
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Isobel-Blackthorn/e/B005JGLS74
Any final thoughts?
I’ve really enjoyed this interview. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Thanks Isobel for being here today 🙂
Interview with Madison Brightwell
Hey readers. Today’s interview is with author, actress and voice-over artist, Madison Brightwell.
Madison is originally from England, and she moved to California in 1997 and now lives in Redondo Beach.
Madison works as a psychotherapist specializing in the fields of addiction, chronic pain and trauma. (www.newhealingjourneys.com) and she is also a certified hypnotherapist.
She has also been a creative artist all her life, and she loves to act, sing, dance – and of course, write! 🙂
Onto the interview 🙂
Madison, What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
I’m very goal-oriented and I always seem to have something I wish to achieve or some project that I’m working on and inspired by. Usually the first thing I think when I wake up is a combination of, “I must do…” something or other, and “I want a cup of tea.” I’m English and the thought of tea can get me out of bed when all else fails!
If you could hang out with one famous person from history for one day, who would it be and why?
Great question! I’ve always loved Buster Keaton and in fact I wrote and performed in a solo show about him back in the 80’s. I have seen all of his movies and I had the pleasure of seeing his wife Eleanor Keaton on stage giving a talk about him in London. I think he was a genius performer and an interesting person. I would have loved to hand out on the movie set of one of his great films such as the General or Steamboat Bill and watch him work. He used to do all of his own stunts and some of them were pretty extraordinary, such as the time he had the whole side of a building fall on him.
What’s the story behind your latest book?
Of my four novels, all of which were written in the 1990’s when I was living in England, the most recent one is Russian Doll. What is amazing to me about that book – and about all of my novels in fact – is that many of the themes covered in the novel were things that are much more a part of my daily life today. The novel depicts a romance between an older successful art dealer and a young girl who works as a psychic for the police and who has a traumatic past that comes to light gradually through the book. Without giving away too much, the girl is not all she seems. She has gone into a sort of denial or dissociation for the traumatic things that happened to her and she is trying to escape from her past and change her identity. They say that life imitates art sometimes. When I wrote that book I had a layman’s interest in psychology only, and I worked mainly as an actress. Now, almost two decades later, I am actually working as a psychologist and a licensed mental health therapist here in California. In my work I am faced every day with the kids of issues that this character is facing. It seems almost premonitory that I wrote that novel when I had no idea at that time that the themes depicted would be so much a part of my life many years later.
All of my other three novels – particularly the other two psychological crime thrillers – are also somewhat predictive in this way. For example, they all four have something in them that deals with the issue of prescription drugs having unwarranted and unexpected side effects. I now work with a medical doctor who is very against the misuse of prescription medications that is so prevalent in this country at the moment (as am I) and in fact he made a documentary called “American Addict” that directly addresses this issue. I find it extraordinary that I was writing about these things 20 years ago (in the case of my first book, Most Diminutive of Birds, which I started writing in 1986) and now they are very topical and pressing issues that I deal with every day in my work.
What are you working on next?
I am in the middle of my doctoral program and due to graduate later this year so for the next few months at least I will probably be focusing mainly on my doctoral project and possibly on an accompanying self-help book in the health field. Both of these will probably relate to the issues of addiction, chronic pain and trauma, that are the major focus of my work as a therapist.
After that, I am looking forward to getting on with my next novel project. I already have the title, location and theme of the book and I am excited to begin working on it! It is called “Lunada Bay” and it will be my first novel set in Southern California where I now reside, in a little beach community near my home. As I have worked in the field of addiction for a few years now and that is an area full of dramatic potential, the novel I’m sure will focus on addiction or an addiction facility in some way, and it will probably be another psychological crime thriller, since that is my preferred genre.
Do you have any special/extraordinary talents?
Yes, lots! As well as writing, I like to do just about anything creative. I love to act, sing, dance and do improv; I can do a variety of different accents; I can type at about 110 wpm; I love Lumosity games online and am currently ranked in the 93rd percentile for Speed games; I play several musical instruments including the harp; I’m a great whistler!
Who are your favorite authors and singers?
In terms of contemporary novels I am a huge fan of Ruth Rendell (who is also called Barbara Vine for some of her books). She is an English author who specializes in psychological crime thrillers and many of her books have been turned into television series in England as she is very popular. I was very flattered to be compared with her once, when somebody read my first novel.
For more literary works, I love the novels of Thomas Hardy, The Bronte sisters and Jack London. I visited the home of the Brontes in Yorkshire and they occupy a special place in my heart as I am also from Yorkshire.
As for singers, I’m a big fan of swing and jazz ballads from the 1930s and 40s, so I guess my favorite would have to be Ella Fitzgerald. I also love Sting, as he hails from the North of England too, and I like the political nature of his music now.
What do you like to do with your free time?
I love swing and ballroom dancing; I love hiking and there are many wonderful scenic spots near where I live so I’m very lucky; I have three cats and sometimes it’s fun just to hang out with them; I enjoy gardening and I have a rooftop deck where I grow herbs and vegetables in pots; I love acting and singing and I occasionally perform in plays or musicals; I love movies and I’d love to see one of my novels make it to the big screen one day.
Where can fans find you on the web?
madisoncbrightwell.com
facebook.com/madisoncbrightwell
Amazon – All of my books are now available as audiobooks, read by the author. As an actress and VoiceOver artist, I have been narrating other people’s audiobooks for many years, so I thought I would be the perfect person to read my own. I also had fun recently making four little book trailers for the novels and they can all be found on YouTube.
Thanks Madison for being my guest today.
Interview with Danielle Maistry
Hey readers. Today’s interview is with debut author, Danielle Maistry.
Danielle was born in South Africa and moved to Melbourne, Australia in 2002. She is currently finishing her Bachelor of Psychological Sciences, and aims to Master in Clinical Neuro-psychology, if her love for animals doesn’t come in the way!
Danielle’s passion for writing stems from her enjoyment of escaping into different worlds; through her writing, she hopes she can give the reader an opportunity to enter these worlds, and be apart of the compelling and exciting action she loves!
On to the interview 🙂
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
Knowing that I’m blessed to still have the gift of life! There’s so much to do and so many new opportunities to explore and learn something new.
When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?
I like to watch movies and TV shows, listen to music, read a book or just sit down and talk to a friend 🙂
When did you first start writing?
That’s a big question… Grade 6; my first book was about me being in a forest and meeting talking animals (as every kid would imagine!) Then soon after, I wrote the beginnings of a short story which, years later, ended up turning into my first published novel.
What’s the story behind your latest book?
In 2007, the end of Grade 6, I went to Tasmania with my family for a holiday. One of the places we went to was Port Arthur, an old convict penitentiary. Upon arrival, we were given playing cards which were assigned to a real convict. There was an area where we went to see which convict our card was assigned to. Mine was 3 of hearts, assigned to a young convict boy named Walter Paisley. After reading up on him on the internet for my own curiosity, the resource I read said that he seemed to have lived a life which was deemed a ‘failure’. I felt bad for the poor boy! So that was when the curiosity of his life and his time in prison, as well as the entire Port Arthur convict history, began to brew in my mind.
What motivated you to become an author?
I love writing; it started off by me imagining random stories I could think about to distract me from the real world, which soon turned into me putting my imagination down on paper
What are you working on next?
Another Historical novel hopefully! Two are on the back-burner at the moment; deciding whether to continue on with the one based in Ancient Rome, one or the one based in Medieval England.
Who are your favorite authors?
Stephen R. Lawhead (The Pendragon Cycle is amazing), J. R. R. Tolkien (Gotta love Lord of the Rings!)… And I love any good crime novel 🙂
Thanks for being my guest today Danielle.
Danielle’s debut novel is coming later in 2015 from ASJ Publishing.
GoodReads Giveaway – Rise of The Darkness
Giveaway starts in few days
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Rise Of The Darkness
by C.A. Milson
Giveaway ends March 01, 2015.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
C.A. Milson 