Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature that shines the light on Indie and Debut authors. This week I have the pleasure introducing readers to:

THERESA RIZZO

~Author of He Belongs to Me~

Living and melding your life with another person’s is hard—then when you add in the complications of old emotional baggage on either, or both sides, it can really be really challenging and one has to keep a sense of humor and perspective to survive those early years where a couple is feeling their way around, trying to create their own rhythm—hmmm no sexual puns intended.

But now that you went there . . . sex does serve to complicate things. Just sayin’.

Anyhow, sex aside, trying to live with another person and be a good, roommate, companion, confidant, support, lover, etc. takes work, as Catherine and Thomas found out. And there are bound to be a bunch of missteps—like Catherine making Thomas enough breakfast for four men, and the eggs that could be used as hockey pucks that Thomas gamely tried to choke them down, while trying not to look at his watch ‘cause he never ate breakfast and taking the time to do so is going to get him stuck in traffic and make him late for work.

Catherine tries again and again to connect with Thomas, without actually coming out and telling him what she’s doing or why. She reads magazines about how to please your man and follows that advice, but it doesn't work out so well for her.

Even couples from functional families (is there really such a thing?) have their initial missteps and awkwardness in learning the marriage ropes. We all do silly things when first married in effort to be the perfect spouse.

What silly newlywed thing did you do in an effort to please your new spouse? What awkward/funny incident will you never live down?

Theresa Rizzo is an award-winning author who writes emotional stories that explore the complexity of relationships and families through real-life trials. 

Born and raised in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she currently lives outside of Boulder, Colorado with her husband of thirty years. She’s raised four wonderful children who are now scattered across the country.

Find Theresa On the Web: Website  Facebook Twitter Goodreads

Thoughts

Summer Girls is an easy light beach read wrapping around the lives of three friends, Kate, Dani and Vanessa. Totally different styles and life situations encapsulates the women, but their easy friendships help them deal with life's storms- or rather the storm that sort of ripped them apart eight years prior. Most of the story which takes place in the present- is a flashback to the past leading up to the secrets each woman is carrying over an event that devastated them.

While this is a lovely summer beach read, the book itself touches on some heavy hitting issues including: death, substance abuse, and depression. I loved the feel of Donohue's story however I failed to really connect with story, the biggest reason being the writing style in third person- third person and I have issues. The plot was overall predictable with a less than thrilling end, but the characters were well drawn out and in some spots emotionally moving.

Recommended to readers who love light, contemporary fiction.

Meg Donohue is the author of How to Eat a Cupcake. She has an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and a BA in comparative literature from Dartmouth College. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she now lives in San Francisco with her husband, their two young daughters, and their dog.

Find out more about Meg at her website, connect with her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.

Best Idea for a fun date

by Kerry Taylor-2013

So cute and fun!!! Check out more styles at the Shabby Apple Site.

SPRING’S SURPRISE EXCERPT

by Cynthia Gail

My husband and I live in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee with our eighteen-year-old son and three dogs. When I’m not working or writing, I can be found with family and friends. I love to bake in the winter, grill in the summer, and on occasion, I sneak away from everyone and curl up with a good book. I hope you enjoy my stories. Each one touches on modern day issues, fears, and challenges that women face every day. And each one illustrates that love is within reach if you let down those walls and allow your heart to open. Our lives and experiences are so much more meaningful when we have someone to share them with. Find out more about me at: http://www.cynthiagail.com/

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature that shines the light on Indie and Debut authors. This week I have the pleasure introducing readers to:

DEVON TREVARROW FLAHERTY

~Author of Benevolent~

My first novel was floundering. It’s an old, worn-out story. I wrote what I knew while balancing (other) work and family life. Then—holding a limp book—I discovered that although I could write, I needed work in the plotting department. I fantasized chucking the manuscript out of a moving train. I started writing another book (or ten). And then I had a brilliant idea for a sub-plot. I threw myself into it. It seemed to write itself, at times. 

After a few months, I was left holding a completely revitalized coming-of-age magical realism novel. Whah? And it wasn't half-bad, either.

I say all this to convince myself that my reviewers are right: Benevolent is an addictive, charming, and magical book about people that you find yourself loving. I also say this to bring up an old piece of writerly advice. There is more than one path to a place. Plenty of people, I am sure, write their first book about what they know, heave a big sigh, and retire the manuscript to a dusty shelf. Your first novel is, after all, your first novel. It’s practice. It’s a new process. And let’s face it: “what you know” might be a tad boring. And myopic.

But I am a lover and a fighter. When I see a dead novel—one that I have worked on for how-long-I-don’t-want-to-tell-you—I want to give it CPR, a chance to live, a kick in the balls. I want to give it the hardest try I have first, at editing, at re-writing, at creation, before I drop it. Sure, I have plenty of other ideas that might be better, but I've never yet invested this much in a writing and so I have a distinct interest in seeing it work. That, and I believe you should also practice editing, and killing darlings, and re-thinking a thing, and applying craft.

Novels don’t fall from heaven. They’re fought for.

IF FORM IS NOT SHOWING PLEASE ENTER HERE

Gaby LeFevre is a suburban, Midwestern firecracker, growing up in the 80's and 90's and saving the world one homeless person, centenarian, and orphan at a time. With her crew of twin sister, Annie, smitten Mikhail, and frenemy Mel, she’s a pamphlet-wielding humanitarian, tackling a broken world full of heroes and heroines, villains and magical seeds, and Northwyth stories.

Beginning with a roadkill-burying nine-year-old and a gas-leak explosion, Benevolent follows Gaby from her formative years; through her awakening during a soup-kitchen stampede; through high school drama; a college career filled with an epic term paper, a building fire, and a protest-gone-bad; to Israel, a land full of romance and mysticism. It all ends back in metro-Detroit with a cataclysmic clash to resolve all good intentions.

Thanks Devon for being on the spotlight today! Find out more about this author at:

WEB~FACEBOOK~GOODREADS

by M. Lathan-2013

I’ve been writing most of my life. Most of what I’ve written, I would never show to another human, but all of those stories have one thing in common – how the story developed. It always starts with a character. Sometimes he or she is based on someone I know or an aspect of myself, but I usually find inspiration in odd ways.

By large majority, I get story ideas “In the moment”. It’s usually a combination of where I am and how I feel. The older the setting, the better the story idea it produces. Old, noisy houses are the best as well as old classrooms. I got the idea for Hidden in Bio Lab in college at LSU. All of sudden, instead of taking notes, I was writing about a girl getting ready to go to lab, but she didn’t want to go. Then I asked, why doesn’t she want to? You’ll have to read it to find out why.

Music also inspires me. I listen to music all day, all types, all artists. Sometimes when I’m in my room, bobbing my head along, a verse will strike me and I will form those words into a person. For example, one of the characters from Hidden, Remi Vaughn, comes from a song. I was cleaning and Florence and The Machine, No Light came on. I literally saw her. I named her Remi because of her hair. Remi is a type of hair extension, by the way.

After I have a character in mind, I daydream about their life, who their friends and family members are, where they live and go to school, until a grand problem hits me. With this method, I kiss a lot of metaphorical frogs, but I enjoy it.

When I know about the character’s life and the grand problem that needs to be solved (or left unsolved), I move on to the obstacles they will face. Almost always, the obstacles I dream up are either too dramatic or not dramatic enough. It takes me a little time to find the balance here, a lot of deletes and re-writes, but when I do, I’m always satisfied. This idea that started from a moment or a song now lives and breathes, and that is the most exciting thing in the world to me.

 M. Lathan lives in San Antonio with her husband and mini-schnauzer. She enjoys writing and has a B.S. in Psych and a Masters in Counseling. Her passion is a blend of her two interests – creating new worlds and stocking them with crazy people. She enjoys reading anything with interesting characters and writing in front of a window while asking rhetorical questions … like her idol Carrie Bradshaw. 

Paperback, 336 Pages

Adult-Crime Mystery
Review Copy/ Tlc Tour

Warning: Mild Langauge, violence, prostitution

3/5- Stars

In the comfortable suburb where Heloise Lewis lives, she’s just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capitol, she’s the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.

But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she’s the woman of your dreams—if you can afford her hourly fee.

But now, after a decade, her secret life is under siege. Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions. Her longtime protector is hinting at new dangers. Her employees can’t be trusted. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide. Or is it? And then she learns that her son’s father, a killer and former pimp, might be released from prison. With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life—again. Disappearing will be the easy part. The trick will be living long enough to start a new life.

Thoughts

When She was Good was a very interesting story and one that was thought provoking diving into. Not so much was this book about the act of prostitution but more so the business of running prostitution and the crappy childhood of main character Heloise aka single soccer mom, aka suburban madam.

While the book was defiantly intriguing it was more a tale of a woman with a broken childhood turned prostitute, turned business woman, than the mystery I was expecting. The plot driven by a good madam verses mean pimp had a twist of suspense but mostly fell into a tad one sided dialog on the issue of legalizing prostitution or at least built up to that point in the end. Obviously main character Heloise represented a scenario where she could run a profitable business in the sex service industry, while her previous pimp was the typical power, money hungry man who exploits and hurts his girls. The book while highlighting the good and the bad failed to represent the moral magnitude of the problem itself. Im sure Lippman wanted to give her readers a good "who done it" vibe but I couldn't shake the feeling while reading that Heliose was made out to be a character whom we sympathized with and than emotionally manipulated to justify the prostitution in the story. No matter what even if prostitution were made legal with legit business owners there will always be women who are degraded, trafficked and under age girls who are and will be exploited. A madam in the end is just a pimp with lipstick and for every one that is good, you have thirty who are bad.

~Thanks to TLC book tours and William Morrow for review copy.

Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her hometown in 1989 to work as a journalist. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left the Baltimore Sun to focus on fiction. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Knowand Another Thing to Fall, she has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.

To learn more about Laura’s work, visit her website or connect with her on Facebook.

Its time for Shelf Cravings!! A random dish on all things book. 

New releases, coming soon, just discovered and deals for my Kindle. This week Im excited for:

~COMING SOON~

The Returned by Jason Mott
August 27, 2013 by Harlequin

"Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were." Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time…. Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.

All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
August 20, 2013 by Bloomsbury

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

Letters to Nowwhere by Julie Cross
August 1, 2013- Indie

Seventeen year old Karen Campbell has just lost both her parents in a tragic car accident. Grief stricken and alone, her gymnastics coach opens his home to Karen, providing her a place to live while she continues to train, working toward a spot on the world championship team.

Coach Bentley’s only child, seventeen year old Jordan is good-looking and charming enough to scare away a girl like Karen—someone who has spent ten times more hours on balance beams and uneven bars than talking or even thinking about boys. But the two teens share a special connection almost immediately. It turns out Jordan has a tragic past of his own, grief buried for years.

As Karen’s gymnastics career soars, her nightmares and visions of the horrible accident grow in strength. She can only avoid facing her grief for so long before it begins to surface and ultimately spin out of control in a very dangerous way. Can discovering love and lust (simultaneously) help with the grieving process or will it only provide a temporary distraction while waiting for reality to hit full force.

Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick
April 30, 2013 by Scholastic Press

When eighteen-year-old Becky Randle’s mother dies, she’s summoned from her Missouri trailer park to meet Tom Kelly, the world’s top designer. He makes her an impossible offer: He’ll create three dresses to transform Becky from a nothing special girl into the most beautiful woman who ever lived.

Becky thinks Tom is a lunatic, or that he’s producing a hidden camera show called World’s Most Gullible Poor People. But she accepts, and she’s remade as Rebecca. When Becky looks in the mirror, she sees herself – an awkward mess of split ends and cankles. But when anyone else looks at Becky, they see pure five-alarm hotness.

Soon Rebecca is on the cover of Vogue, the new Hollywood darling, and dating celebrities. Then Becky meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne, and everything starts to crumble. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But to love her back, Gregory would have to look past the blinding Rebecca to see the real girl inside. And Becky knows there’s not enough magic in the world.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
April 30, 2013 by A.A Knopf

Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is on the verge of disappearing. Having abandoned her desire to be an artist, she has become the "woman upstairs," a reliable friend and tidy neighbour always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks a new pupil, Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents--dashing Skandar, a half-Muslim Professor of Ethical History born in Beirut, and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist--have come to America for Skandar to teach at Harvard.

But one afternoon, Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who punch, push and call him a "terrorist," and Nora is quickly drawn deep into the complex world of the Shahid family. Soon she finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries--until Sirena's own ambition leads to a shattering betrayal.

Hello readers, welcome to The Georgia Corbins Blog Tour! Please enjoy this fun guest post from author Kara Leigh Miller and an exciting giveaway at the end.

The Music Behind The Georgia Corbins

by Kara Leigh Miller

Today, I'm counting down the top 5 songs that influenced me during the writing of The Georgia Corbins. I'll even tell you what scene they came from!

5. Watermelon Crawl by Tracy Byrd – The group dance at prom. This is just a really fun, upbeat song that got me in the mood to dance. When writing this scene, I was actually torn between this song and Boot Scootin' Boogie by Brooks and Dunn. Either one was perfect in my mind. So, I solved the problem the old fashioned way. I told my daughter to pick one of these songs, and then we played Rock-Paper-Scissors.

4. 5-1-5-0 by Dierks Bentley – The field parties. Every time I would picture my characters at the field, getting drunk, partying, acting like teenagers, I'd hear this song.

**FUN FACT** 5-0 is slang for police and 5-1 is a penal code number for a mentally unstable person on the loose.

3. Georgia Peaches by Lauren Alaina – This was my theme song for the entire book and for Ali. If you haven't heard this song, I highly recommend you go to YouTube and look it up. It really captured the personality of all my characters, and the south in general.

2. The One That Got Away by Jake Owen – When Ali finally makes her choice and the brother she didn't choose (sorry, I'm not giving that away) was forced to watch her with the one she did choose. I'll admit, I cried a lot during the writing of those scenes.

1. You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This by Toby Keith – Ali and Levi's slow dance at prom. I still swoon when I think of this scene. It's my all-time favorite. This song was absolutely perfect. It's like every lyric was written specifically for Ali and Levi during this scene.

I should add that country music as a whole played a large part in this novel. I was obsessed with Country Music Television and it was always on while I was writing.

So, what's your favorite type of music? Is there a particular song that makes you think of your favorite scene in a book?

Born and raised in the small town of Mexico, New York, Kara was an only child who was forced to find ways to entertain herself. Playing make believe with her Barbie dolls and stuffed animals was her first real taste of storytelling before she became old enough to develop a love affair with the written word. In early 2010, Kara picked up her very first erotic romance novel, and she was instantly hooked. She loves to write contemporary romance, erotica, and young adult romance. Currently she has several full-length novels in the works, a series of novellas, and a handful of short stories. Kara is an active member of the CNY Creative Writers Café and the CNY Romance Writers. Today, Kara resides in New Haven, New York with her husband, five kids, and three cats. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s thinking about reading and writing. And when she’s not doing that, she’s spending time with her family and friends.