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Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton

Mina is a single mom working at a car insurance call center. Peter is a widowed father of twin girls, who crashes his car into a tree stump trying to avoid a cat. When Peter calls the insurance center for help, Mina answers the phone. From that simple phone call, two complete strangers who live miles and miles apart begin a friendly relationship, each wondering if it is possible they found love.
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton is a charming love story. I enjoyed reading about not only Mina and Peter’s relationship, but the lives the supporting characters lead. Peter’s twin daughters struggle with growing apart, while Mina’s daughter can’t come out of her shell. There is also a little mystery played out with Mina’s troublesome younger sister that kept my interest. Overall, I thought the over the phone love story was too drawn out, that it took too long for the characters to meet face to face. The sub plots almost held me over, but the last few chapters I found myself frustrated that Mina and Peter had yet to meet. I still enjoyed the read, and I would love to see sequel on how the merging families have turned out.
Rating: 4/5

Author Profile: Marla Martenson

Name: Marla Martenson
Website: http://www.marlamartenson.com/
Bio: Marla Martenson was born in Tacoma, Washington, the “City of Destiny.” She has a natural flair for acting and a deep interest in reading and writing poetry and short stories. At the age of sixteen, Marla was living in Iran with her family, learning to speak French and Persian, when the revolution forced their return to Washington State. After a year of college there, the pursuit of an acting career drew her to Hollywood and a stint in television commercials and print modeling.

Restless and eager for new challenges, in the early nineties it was on to Chicago, where she discovered that she could use her personal dating experiences to help others. She subsequently turned this talent into a career as a matchmaker back in Los Angeles, where, since 2001, her skills have led many couples to matrimony. Marla’s work inspires people and gives them hope that they can find their soul mates. She found and married her own, musician and composer Adolfo Jon Alexi, in Mexico City in 2002. A world traveler and culture nut, Marla describes herself as having a French flair, a Persian heart, Italian fire, and Mexican taste buds!

Currently, Marla writes for such online publications as www.naomishow.com, (www.abfabwomen.com) and Examiner (www.examiner.com). She was named the “Over 40 Female of the Week” in February, 2010, for Over40Females.com. She is also a correspondent for World Wide Good News.

Currently: Marla and Adolfo reside in blissful harmony in Los Angeles, where she continues to bring her considerable matchmaking expertise to bear on the single population of star-studded Southern California while her talented husband serenades them with his own songs and music.

Titles: Excuse Me, Your Soul Mate Is Waiting, Good Date, Bad Date, and Diary of a Beverly Hills Matchmaker.

Bio Retrieved from Marlamartenson.com

GIVEAWAY: A Desirable Residence by Madeleine Wickham

The asking price for this house includes a stunning renovation of hearts and dreams….Liz and Jonathan Chambers were stuck with two mortgages, mounting debts, and a miserable adolescent daughter. Then realtor Marcus Witherstone came into their lives—and it seemed he would solve all their problems. He knew the perfect tenants from London who would rent their old house: a glamorous PR girl, Ginny, and her almost-famous husband, Piers.

But soon Liz is lost in blissful dreams of Marcus, Jonathan is left to run their business, and neither of them has time to notice that their teenage daughter is developing an unhealthy passion for the tenants, Piers and Ginny. Everyone is tangled up with everyone else, and in the most awkward possible way. As events close in, they all begin to realize that some deceptions are just a bit too close to home.
A Desirable Residence is sure to continue the phenomenal success of the Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham franchise.

I have 3 copies of A Desirable Residence to give away! To enter, comment on this post, RT on Twitter, or comment on Facebook. The winner will be chosen Saturday, August 14th. Please note: US residents only!

Chick Lit Plus Awards

Chick Lit Plus is going to be hosting its first award season this August! Readers will have the chance to vote for their favorites in a slew of categories, and of course- win fabulous prizes for participating! The first step is deciding on exactly what those categories should be. Listed below is some preliminary categories that have been chosen by myself, authors, and some readers, but I want to hear more voices! Let me know what categories you think should be included in the awards. Feel free to comment on Facebook, Twitter, or this post, or email me your suggestions at Samantha@chicklitplus.com. I am really looking forward to hearing from you!

*Best Series
*Best Laugh Out Loud
*Best Scandal
*Best from a Debut Author
* Character with the Best Job
*Best Romance
*Best from a Celebrity Author
*Best Sequel
*Best Cover

The Starlet by Mary McNamara

In Mary McNamara’s debut novel, Oscar Season, readers were introduced to Juliette Greyson. Juliette was the head of PR at the Pinnacle Hotel in Los Angeles, dealing with the rich and famous on a daily basis. After the murder of her cheating ex-husband, Juliette flees to Florence for a break from the LA lifestyle, and that is were The Starlet picks up.
Juliette saves troubled actress Mercy Talbot (think Lindsay Lohan) from diving into a fountain and whisks her away to her Italian estate she shares with cousin Gabriel. Upon arrival to Cerreta, Gabriel is outraged Juliette would bring a drug riddled celebrity on the premises. Gabriel and Juliette are both recovering addicts, and Gabriel does not have the patience to deal with Mercy and her Hollywood ways. The story begins to change when Juliette realizes that someone else may be supplying Mercy with the drugs, that someone being Mercy’s own overbearing mother. After the mysterious death of Mercy’s former co-star, the plot intensifies when another death on set occurs. Juliette is determined to find the culprit, and help save Mercy from succumbing to death from addiction at such a young age.
Even though I had not read Oscar Season previously, The Starlet easily stood its ground alone. The tantalizing pull of celebrities and their over-the-top lifestyles mixed in with drugs, sex, and murder makes this mystery irresistible to put down. I loved Italy as the setting, the beautiful images along with the serene atmosphere of Cerreta made the whole drug/murder scandal that much more scandalous. The love stories that were threaded throughout seemed to get a little confusing, but I guess that is life of the rich and famous. I definitely recommend The Starlet and look forward to reading more novels from Mary McNamara.
Rating: 4/5

Interview with Lisa Unger

Q: Where do the inspirations for your stories come from?

The germ could be anything really — a song, a line of poetry, something I see on the news. If it connects with something going on within me, I generally start hearing voices. Every novel begins with a character voice, someone I connect with who has a story to tell. When I can’t stop hearing that voice, I know I’ll be writing a book about that person. BEAUTIFUL LIES started with Ridley. BLACK OUT started with Annie. DIE FOR YOU began with Isabel. And with FRAGILE, it was Maggie’s voice I heard first.

Q: I chose the same path you did: going to college to get a degree for a “real job” assuming my hopes of being a writer would never happen. What changed your mind and gave you the courage to send in your manuscript to agents?

If you are not born with it, and no one gives it to you, I think it takes a while to find the courage and confidence to really follow your dreams.

I had a moment where I realized everything about my life was wrong. I was in the wrong job. I was with the wrong person. I had let the only dream I ever had for my life lay fallow. I realized that if I didn’t get serious about writing, start writing every day, that I was going to have to look back and say, “You know what? You never even tried.” And I couldn’t live with that. I figured I could live with spectacular failure. But not the idea that I just let it go without trying. It took me about a year and a half from that point to finish my first novel. It sounds like a short journey. But it wasn’t. I began that novel when I was 19. I finished it when I was 29.

On my way to Boca Raton for a company sales conference, I took a little detour to Key West to spend time with a friend who’d recently moved there. While I was down there, spending an evening at Sloppy Joe’s on Duval Street, I met my husband. (I may be the only person who has ever met her husband at Sloppy Joe’s … usually the relationships that start there are more, shall we say, short term.) After a SHAZAM! love-at-first-sight moment and whirlwind romance, we sold our homes, quit our huge corporate jobs, left all our family and friends and moved to Florida. (Why Florida? I don’t know … ocean, palm trees, new beginnings … it seemed like the right place somehow and it has been.) I felt like the planets had aligned and it was my time to go for broke. Before we left, I sent my manuscript to my five top choice agents and said good-bye to New York City.

Q: Have you ever been hit with an idea for a story or character at an odd time or place?

In a sense, I’m always working. Sometimes it seems like the actual writing is the last 5% of the process. My subconscious is always churning with whatever I’m currently working on. Often I dream about what I’m writing. Sometimes I go to bed struggling with something in my narrative only to wake up with the answer. I always have my notebook with me, because inspiration and ideas, observations come all the time. The magic isn’t always there; sometimes the craft is sheer perspiration. But when the magic comes, I want to be ready.

Q: Were there any surprises you’ve encountered since becoming a full time writer?

Because I worked in publishing for so many years, there weren’t that many surprises for me. I think many authors see that first book contract as a an end, as the accomplishment of a goal. And, of course, it is that in some ways. But I always saw it as the beginning of my career. And I knew from my years in publishing that it’s a lot harder to succeed as an author than it is to get published in the first place. So I knew I was going to have roll up my sleeves and work hard, do a lot of things myself early on, and check my ego at the door. I think I was better prepared for the dizzying highs and crushing lows than most.

Q: Your latest novel, Fragile, focuses on a small town dealing with the disappearance of a teenage girl. Where did the idea stem from for this story?

When I was a teenager, a girl I knew was abducted and murdered. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we were friends. But we were acquaintances, played together in the same school orchestra. And her horrible, tragic death was a terrifying and hugely traumatic moment in a quiet, suburban town where nothing like that had ever happened before. This event changed me. It changed the way I saw the world. And I carried it with me in ways I wasn’t aware of until I was metabolizing it on the page — more than twenty-five years later.

This story has tried to make its way out in other partials that I have discarded or abandoned. The voices that had tried to tell it before were never strong enough to center a novel around. It is notable that the voices who finally were able to tell the tale are much older, people with a lot of distance from the fictional event. In other words, it’s almost as if we all — the characters and the author — needed to grow up a little to have access to the heart of the story, to really understand it.

But all that said, FRAGILE is not about the actual abduction and murder. My memories of what actually occurred, the police investigation, the trial and conviction are vague at best. And I did nothing to rectify that fact. I did not track down key players, conduct interviews, find news accounts. I didn’t want it to be that kind of book. I had a fear of exploiting someone who had met a tragic end, of causing pain to people who surely didn’t deserve any more.

Q: You used to live in New York before moving to Florida. What made you move away from the big city?

When I left New York City for Florida, I was at a critical level of burnout. As a New Yorker, especially after a number of years, one starts to lose sight of how truly special, how textured and unique it is. The day-to-day can be brutal: the odors, the noise, the homeless, the trains, the expense. Once I had some distance though, New York City started to leak into my work and I found myself rediscovering many of the things I had always treasured about it. It came very naturally as the setting for Beautiful Lies. It is the place I know best. I know it as one can only know a place she has loved desperately and hated passionately and then come to miss terribly once she has left it behind.
Now we have a place in New York, as well. So we divide our time between the city and our more peaceful life in Florida. It’s the perfect combination, allowing me to have everything I love about NY, but allowing me a place where our life is more quiet and centered.

Q: I read that you moved around a lot when you were younger, living in the Netherlands and England. Did you enjoy moving frequently?

I was born in Connecticut but we moved often. By the time my family settled for once and all in New Jersey, I had already lived in Holland and in England (not to mention Brooklyn and other brief New Jersey stays) for most of my childhood. I don’t recall ever minding moving about; even then I had a sense that it was cool and unusual. But I think it was one of many things that kept me feeling separate from the things and people around me, this sense of myself as transient and on the outside, looking in. I don’t recall ever exactly fitting in anywhere. Writers are first and foremost observers … and one can’t truly observe unless she stands apart. So, in that sense, it was a formative experience that I wouldn’t trade.

Q: What are you currently reading?

I just finished TETHERED by Amy McKinnon. It was really fabulous — gripping and gorgeously written. And I’m about to get started on an early read of Amanda Eyre Ward’s CLOSE YOUR EYES. Can’t wait!

Q: What is your best advice for aspiring writers?

Write every day. And strive every day to be a better writer than you were yesterday. Don’t think about publishing. Just think about being the best you can be. And read everything you can get your hands on. If you do these things, and if you have talent, you will get where you want to go.

Q: Where would be your dream vacation?

We travel quite a bit, so generally if I have a dream for a vacation, we go! But there is one trip that I have always wanted to take and just haven’t found the room in my life and schedule as writer and mom. I have always wanted to take The Orient Express from Singapore to Bangkok. I do want to wait until my daughter is a little older so that she can enjoy it, too.

Georgia’s Kitchen Giant Giveaway!

When you order Georgia’s Kitchen the week of the book’s release and email your receipt to jennynelsonauthor@gmail.com, you’ll be entered to win this fantastic giveaway. (Any bookstore, online store, will do!) Send in your receipt and you could win a basket full of books, magazines and foodie goodies, including:

Author Profile: Rosy Thornton

Author Name: Rosy Thornton

Website: http://rosythornton.com/
Bio: Rosy is an author of contemporary fiction, published by Headline Review. Her novels could perhaps be described as romantic comedy with a touch of satire – or possibly social satire with a hint of romance. In real life she lectures in Law at the University of Cambridge, where she is a Fellow of Emmanuel College. She shares her home with her partner, two daughters and two lunatic spaniels.
Titles: Hearts and Minds, More Than Love Letters, Crossed Wires, and The Tapestry of Love.

Anyone For Seconds? by Fiona Cassidy

Frankie McCormick decides to swear off men after her husband, Tony, leaves her and takes off to the States with his new younger girlfriend. Left behind to raise their two children, Ben and Carly, Frankie can’t help but to be wary of any man. But when Owen Byrne enters the picture, the strong façade quickly weakens. Taken by his good looks and charming personality, Frankie can only find one fault with Owen- his despicable teenage daughter Angelica. Angelica hates Frankie and does not want to lose her father to a new family, and does everything in her power to break the couple up. When tragedy hits the families and visitors from the past re-enter, Frankie and Owen’s relationship is put to the test. They must decide if the love they feel for one another is strong enough to endure the hardships and obstacles.
I found Anyone For Seconds? by Fiona Cassidy a heartwarming story about love and families. The relationship between the main characters has a very real feeling to it, not just all mushy and filled with scandal. The issues that are being dealt with I feel are not written about enough, and I commend Cassidy for tackling not only the issue of broken homes, but giving the children of those homes a voice. There were a few areas that seemed a little slow-going, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I would definitely recommend this book, and anxiously await to read Fiona Cassidy’s second novel, Anyone For Me?