Tag Archives: Book Tour

Book Tour, Day 3: Book Spotlight on Let Them Read Books

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Today, something a little different on the book tour for A Jane Austen Daydream. On Let Them Read Books, I was asked to say something about Jane Austen’s father. An interesting question because there is the real reverend, and then the fictional one in the book.

Here is how I begin my discussion:

George Austen was born in 1731. He met his wife Cassandra at Oxford. They would go on to have six sons and two daughters; the youngest, they named Jane.

If A Jane Austen Daydream was a typical historical fiction, I would point to research and letters to find Jane Austen’s father. I would paint his characters with his sermons, lessons, and what he wrote to his children, basically anything that I could find… but A Jane Austen Daydream is not a normal historical fiction.

You can read more about Jane’s pop and learn more about my novel here.

A Jane Austen Daydream is Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

 

Book Tour, Day 2: “Highly Recommended” Book Review and Spotlight

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Hi everyone and welcome to day 2 of the book tour for the fifth anniversary edition of A Jane Austen Daydream. There are two different sites to check out today!

First, A Jane Austen Daydream was reviewed by Kate Braithwaite, author of The Road to Newgate. Here is my favorite paragraph from her fun review:

Serious bravery is required to take on Jane Austen and mess with her in fiction. Janeites know their stuff. Even non-Janeites (like me) know quite a bit. I’ve read all the books. Some of them several times. And I’ve a sketchy knowledge about Jane Austen’s life, at least in terms of her death and love life. But I’m confident that fans of Austen who open this book in the right spirit – ready to be entertained and enjoy a Jane that might not quite match up to their own preconceptions – will thoroughly enjoy their trip to a well-written, witty Regency England, full of references to those six wonderful books. Highly recommended.

You can read the rest of her review here.

Also, A Jane Austen Daydream is being spotlighted on Before the Second Sleep. In the spotlight, I write a bit about my writing process on this novel. Here is an excerpt:

…I needed to write a book that felt like an Austen novel, but at the same time, new. Two, I needed to tell a story in the voice of Austen, but yet, I wanted it to be a “friendly” voice for the casual reader. So, everything had to be a recognizable (plot and characters) … and surprising and different and witty and charming and emotional and passionate and unpredictable. Whew!

You can read more from me and discover more about the book here.

A Jane Austen Daydream is Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

 

 

Book Tour, Day 1: Book Spotlight on The Writing Desk

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Today begins the Book Tour for the fifth anniversary edition of A Jane Austen Daydream!

Tony Riches is a historical fiction author and oversees The Writing Desk. (You should check out some of his writing!)

On the site he shares some information on my novel and I share some of my thoughts on how A Jane Austen Daydream is not your typical historical fiction novel. A lot of sharing going around. Here is an excerpt from my talk:

It is not a normal historical fiction, it could almost be considered experimental literary fiction because of some of the twists I put in it (which I won’t discuss here, more fun to discover them for yourself). This is my daydream for Jane. It is her, living in one of her tales (a new one, with new surprises).

You can read the rest of the discussion, as well as learn about my novel and this edition, at The Writing Desk here. I hope you will check it out!

A Jane Austen Daydream is Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

A Writing Interview with Jacquie Biggar’s Blog (Book Tour Last Day)

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QueenSo right now I feel like that moment in a song by Queen, where everyone is supposed to hold hands and sing together. It is the end of the online book tour! Six blogposts and four interviews later and here we are. It’s that moment. Cue the drums.

Next week life returns to normal, and you’ll see that on the blog. After a breather, I want to catch you up on what I’ve been doing with my writing the last five months, I have a few writing posts lined up, and I even want to say something about the new season of Game of Thrones, because… Well… who doesn’t? Seriously, it is all over the place.

Anyway… This last interview is with Jacquie Biggar and a lot of the questions are related to my own experiences as a writer. For example in this question I take on the controversial topic of publishing today and what is the best option:

Self-publishing may be the way of the future, but I still think the market is too congested to easily find a market that way (unless you are super lucky). Usually, I tell the writers I work with to think of it as a last resort, try some other safer routes first. The dream approach is still agents and bigger publishers, and I don’t think that is going to change in the next decade.

Personally, I have had a lot of luck with independent publishers. There is a lot of passion there and I think it is because each publisher is putting their own money behind your project. It’s that personal touch. If a writer can’t find that dream agent or publisher, I would recommend talking to indie presses before self-publishing. There is still a possibility for success via that route.

You can read the interview here.

Permanent Spring ShowersI’ll be putting up links to all of the articles I wrote and interviews on the page for Permanent Spring Showers. You can also find them by scrolling below.

This is also one of the last days to grab an eBook copy of the novel for only $1.99. You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here. Now, I’m going to go lie down… I’m a little tired…

An interview with Books Direct about new novel Permanent Spring Showers (Book Tour Day 9)

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Even Superman writes!Just two days left on the book tour, which also means the book giveaway is coming to an end. You can enter on any of the sites I have been on over the last two weeks. Today, I’m on Book Direct with a new interview.

What is really cool is that Lynda Dickson who runs the site is actually reading the book right now and gave this update before my interview:

I have started reading this book and am enjoying it immensely. It’s like nothing I have read before. The plot and structure are extremely original and the writing is superb.

That quote kind of made me feel like the guy I put up in the corner of this post.

We cover a lot of the writing and inspiration behind the novel in the interview. It is chock full of my experiences and advice since I began this mad little writing adventure.  One example is this answer I gave around my hopes for the work:

There are a lot of layers to Permanent Spring Showers and none of the answers are very clear since it only covers three months in the characters’ lives. It really, in a way, is a book made for book clubs and the classrooms and discussions over coffee. What does it mean to be a good person? What is a good decision? Does great art truly justify everything? What is love? Is anyone truly happy?

Heck, I love books like this, works that dare readers to come to their own decisions, not having them dished out in a nice clean spoonful. What can I say? The book makes me happy. Hopefully, it will inspire its readers as well.

You can read the entire interview, enter the giveaway, check out other reviews, and take a gander at an excerpt here.

This was the ninth appearance on the book tour and the third interview (the other two can be found here and here). I have also written six guest posts on the book. They are on a range of topics from how it feels to write an anti-romance (here), eccentric characters (here), then about passion and sex in the book (here), the importance of springtime (here), and even some advice for new writers (here).Permanent Spring Showers

Hey! Did you know there is a sale on the book right now!?! Just for the tour, the eBook of Permanent Spring Showers is on sale! Just $1.99, it can’t get cheaper than that! So there is no better time to grab a copy. You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.

“Creating an Anti-Romance” A Guest Post on Unabridged Andra (Book Tour Day 6)

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Broken HeartHappy Memorial Day everyone!

Today, the book tour kicks into its second half. There is a chance this guest post might be a little controversial, especially for those with a love for my last novel A Jane Austen Daydream (and if you haven’t read it yet, why? It is wonderful). It’s called “Creating an Anti-Romance: The Fun of Betrayals and Sex in Permanent Spring Showers.”

Here is an excerpt from the beginning:

For over a year I was the Jane Austen guy.

Before Permanent Spring Showers, I wrote the novel A Jane Austen Daydream, a fun re-imagining of her life; turning it, in a way, into one of her own tales. The reaction to the novel was really great and it spread quickly through the different Austen circles. It was even reviewed by the Jane Austen Centre in Bath!

Yet, whenever I was interviewed about the book (as well as in the many reviews) my gender would always come up. I was definitely in a world not used to a guy intruding upon. I was like the dude who was invited by mistake to the bridal shower. Chick lit (which is a term I never liked), romance, historical romance, etc., my book appeared on each of the sites around the women’s fiction genres. I’m not complaining about the attention! Not at all! Like I said the reaction to the book was always awesome. It is just that I became in many eyes a romance writer, and that was it.

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of genres. I think when an author latches on to a genre it can limit them. And when I set out to write A Jane Austen Daydream, my goal was not to write a romance novel. I had a great idea and twist (I’m all about surprises in my stories), and that book had a doozy. That is why I wrote it, and in the end it worked.

But then what?

 You can read the rest of the guest post here.

This is the sixth entry in the tour and the fifth guest post. The others are about eccentric characters (here), passion (here), spring (here), and my advice to writers (here). I also gave an interview (here)

Permanent Spring Showers

Just for the tour, the eBook of Permanent Spring Showers is on sale! It is on sale for only $1.99. So there is no better time to grab a copy! Perfect for the long drives on this holiday! You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.

Relax and enjoy a good book. You earned it. 

“The Beauty of Eccentrics” A Guest Post on The Crafty Cauldron (Book Tour Day 5)

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Hey, Harry is reading!Okay, if the website The Craft Cauldron is not somehow related to Harry Potter and the Leaky Cauldron, I’m going to be disappointed. Back during the heyday of Pottermania I was a regular visitor to The Leaky Cauldron for all my Harry Potter news. I was even a devout follower of Pottercast (totally miss that podcast)… Okay, where was I?

It’s day five of my book tour for my new novel Permanent Spring Showers! Today I am on The Crafty Cauldron (which may or may not be Potter-related). One of the things that I think really make my book standout is the characters. Yeah, I’m pretty proud of them. They are unpredictable, strange, and wonderful, .

This guest post is entitled, “The Beauty of Eccentrics: The Characters in Permanent Spring Showers“. Here is an excerpt from the beginning:

To begin with, I’ve been known to hear voices.

I blame old time radio shows for this. When I was a young teenager, I was strangely addicted to them. The repeats used to play on this AM station in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Who knows? I may have been the only person in the whole listening area sitting by the radio with a ready tape deck, but I collected as many as I could. Jack Benny, Sherlock Holmes, Charlie McCarthy (a ventriloquist on the radio? How does that work?), I soon had a collection of shows filling up three tape cases.

I admit this is not something I readily told my friends then (like all awkward teenagers I did want to seem cool), but listening to those shows were almost more than just entertainment for me. In many ways they were each little lessons on finding original voices.

When I finally began to dare to dream of being a novelist, I know this time snuck its way into my own writing style. See, dialogue is always key for me in creation (sometimes it will be the foundation for an outline at the start of the writing process); and my characters, much like the ones on the old shows, speak to me.

You can read the entire post here, as well as enter for the giveaway and check out an excerpt from the novel.

This is the fifth entry in the tour. Yesterday, I gave an interview (here). This is the fourth guest post. The others are about passion (here), spring (here), and my advice to writers (here). Permanent Spring Showers

Just for the tour, the eBook of Permanent Spring Showers is on sale! It is on sale for only $1.99. So there is no better time to grab a copy! You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.

An interview with Lisa Haselton about my new novel Permanent Spring Showers (Book Tour Day 4)

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SaxophoneToday,. as part of the book tour around my new novel Permanent Spring Showers, I am in being interviewed on Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews.

We discuss the book, the arts and writing; heck, I even talk about my love of jazz music. This was my answer to “As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

One of my fantasies was to be a jazz artist. I dreamed of being the next Coltrane or Parker (I played alto and soprano saxophone). I even got into college on a jazz scholarship. But there was a moment when I realized it wasn’t in me. I was just repeating myself and I was not getting a thrill out of my solos anymore. Basically, I had nothing to say anymore with the instrument, but I did have a lot to say with the pen.

You can read the rest of the interview on her site here.

This is the fourth entry in the tour. I have already had three guest posts on the work for you to check out. There is the one about passion (here), spring (here), and my advice to writers (here). I hope you are enjoying the tour!Permanent Spring Showers

Just for the tour, the eBook of Permanent Spring Showers is on sale! It is on sale for only $1.99. So there is no better time to grab a copy! You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.

“Artists, Sex, and Inspiration” A Guest Post on Queen of All She Reads (Book Tour Day 3)

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KissDay 3 of 10! This is my third guest post on the book tour for my new novel Permanent Spring Showers.  I have already had two different guest posts for the tour (you can find links here and here). I’ve spoken about writing and spring, now for something a little… different.

Today, I am on Queen of All She Reads discussing the arts and… well… sex. The post is entitled “Artists, Sex, and Inspiration: The Importance of Passion in Permanent Spring Showers.” Here is an excerpt from the beginning:

Vince is a charismatic young painter. He can lose days lost in inspiration. His hands are usually covered in paint or clay, and his clothes may be stained with work and sweat. And yet, even then he still looks good, because of the charisma and passion and inspiration propelling him forward. Vince has an energy most of us can only dream of.

Vince lives each day to the fullest. Carpe diem has nothing on Vince. Life is almost as much a work of art as the creations that drive him. A day with Vince is a day lost in ideas, theories, deep conversations, and art. It could almost be considered a mini-vacation from the stress of everyday life.

Vince is sexy, with his intense eyes and unwavering convection on everything. Many women in the new novel Permanent Spring Showers are fascinated with him (as well as one of the men). Some act on it, some regret that they acted on it, and others won’t even admit to dreaming about him. Still it is there.

You can read the rest of the post here.

There is also a brief excerpt from my new novel, as well as a giveaway that will be Permanent Spring Showersrunning throughout the tour to win a copy of the book. Wait! Hold the phone… or iPhone… or browser…

The eBook of Permanent Spring Showers will be on sale during the tour! It is on sale for only $1.99. So there is no better time to grab a copy! You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.

 

“The Power of Springtime” a Guest Post on Andi’s Book Reviews (Book Tour Day 2)

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"Morning on the Seine in the Rain" by MonetGet on the bus! It’s day 2 of my book tour!

Yesterday, it was a guest post at the Long and Short Review with some writing advice for newbies (You can check it out here). Today, it is something a little different.

On Andi’s Book Reviews, I take on one of the silent characters in my novel Permanent Spring Showers. Oh, the season might be silent, but it plays an important part in the work and the inspiration behind it. Here is the beginning of my post “The Power of Springtime: Setting the Stage for Permanent Spring Showers”:

When you grow up in Michigan, you feel the seasons.

I know, everyone in different states will argue with me on this one, but we hit all the hallmarks in our mitten of a state, each time, each year. Snow in winter, check. Leaves in autumn, check. Summer at the beach, check.

It’s all here!

And when you grow up in such a setting, chances are your emotions will start to attach something to each of them. In autumn, I am reflective. It is a time for remembering. In summer, a little hyper and full of excitement. I’m usually more daring during those three months. And in winter, I always feel more peaceful, quiet like a light snowstorm. But, in spring, I get edgy.

Spring in Michigan is unpredictable.

You can’t help but feel that in the very air you breath. It’s almost as if the world can shift on a dime. It’s moody. It’s a time of change, of rebirth (but into what?). And when I set out to find a time period for the story that became Permanent Spring Showers, I couldn’t think of a better season. Because like the season, my story is passionate, unstable, dramatic, comedic, and never the same from chapter to chapter.

You can read the entire post here.

There is also a brief excerpt from my new novel, as well as a giveaway that will be Permanent Spring Showersrunning throughout the tour to win a copy of the book. But this is really cool…

The eBook of Permanent Spring Showers will be on sale during the tour! It is on sale for only $1.99. So there is no better time to grab a copy! You can find it on amazon for Kindle here and for the NOOK here.