Tracy Krauss! John 316 marketing network summer tour

Tracy Krauss is an author, artist, playwright, director, worship leader, and teacher. Originally from a small prairie town, she received her Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Saskatchewan.  She has lived in many places in northern Canada with her husband, a pastor, and their children. They currently live in Tumbler Ridge, BC.

Back Cover

What’s a girl to do? Joleen Allen is on the hunt. For a man, that is. Unfortunately, every time the mother of five meets a prospect, he falls for one of her daughters instead!

Meanwhile, her ex-husband, Harold, is back in the picture after a stint in prison, and he’s looking for revenge. He’ll do anything to see Joleen’s reputation and her relationship with their children ruined. Harold has devised an elaborate plan to slander Joleen and ruin her financially, and will stop at nothing – even murder – to see it through.

At forty-four, Joleen has seen a thing or two. She became a mother at sixteen, and her five highly independent children are now grown. Jasmine is a successful ad executive, but has a drinking problem. Jill is a tough cop, while middle child Jennifer surprises them all with her tenacity. Jinger is a self-centered glamour girl, and the baby of the family, Jade, is utterly spoiled.

All the interesting men they meet get tossed around by this pack of barracudas. Adding to the mix are some drug deals, a kidnapping, insurance fraud, and secrets from the past, making life very complicated, indeed.

With grit, humor, action, intrigue and romance, My Mother the Man-Eater is a redemptive story about a woman whose search for meaning in life sends her straight into . . . the arms of God.

Inspiration and why I love it

My Mother The Man-Eater was a lot of fun to write. Believe it or not, it was originally inspired while I was playing the Sims! (Who says gaming isn’t a productive use of your time?) I had created all these characters, but there suddenly came a point where I said, “I’ve got to stop playing and write this down!” As soon as I started writing, I realized the potential for a redemptive element. I immediately thought of the prophet Hosea and God’s instructions to marry a prostitute. God uses unlikely people for His purposes all the time. This was the premise for my heroine’s character – a promiscuous woman whom God could use despite herself.

I love the quirky characters, the complexity of the relationships in the story, and the way so many elements weave together. I like complexity - and surprises – when reading or watching movies etc. and this seems to come out in my writing as well.

Contact and purchase info:

Blog: www.tracykraussexpressionexpress.com

Website: www.tracykrauss.com

FB fanpage: http://tinyurl.com/Tracy-Krauss-Author-Fanpage

Twitter: www.twitter.com/TracyKrausswrtr

Amazon: www.kraussamazon.com

Marva Dasef, mystery writer!

Marva is offering a prize drawing for one person who comments on each blog on the tour:
http://mgddasef.blogspot.com/p/mad-release-schedule-and-prizes.html

Marva Dasef is a writer living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a fat white cat. Retired from thirty-five years in the software industry, she has now turned her energies to writing fiction and finds it a much more satisfying occupation. Marva has published more than forty stories in a number of on-line and print magazines, with several included in Best of anthologies. She has several already published books and a few more scheduled for 2011 and 2012 from her super duper publisher, MuseItUp.

Follow the tour!

What do I love about this book?

Its setting (eastern Oregon high desert) and its theme of the consequences of prejudice of a type that most readers might not even be aware. Drop in a nice romance, and I hope it's a book that will appeal to a wide audience.

What did I learn in the process of publishing it?

I learned that there are fabulous small publishers available for writers. MuseItUp has been a revelation and a joy to work with. From Lea Schizas, the publisher, my editors, Anne Duguid and Penny Ehrenkranz, and the cover artist, Suzannah Safi--what a class act from beginning to end!

MISSING, ASSUMED DEAD

Prejudice, murder, insanity, suicide: Every small town has its secrets.

Back Cover Copy:

When Kameron McBride receives notice she’s the last living relative of a missing man she’s never even heard of, the last thing she wants to do is head to some half-baked Oregon town to settle his affairs. But since she’s the only one available, she grudgingly agrees.

Excerpt:

Kam gasped and jumped down the embankment toward the creek, stumbling through the underbrush. She heard the pickup tires screech and glanced back. Scruffy had gotten out and headed down the slope behind her. She moved faster, gripping her hair spray. A strap broke on her sandal, and she kicked it off. Ignoring the brambles poking into her legs through her jeans, she moved as fast as she could, the terrain preventing her from flat out running.

She heard the crashing of bushes behind her and put on more steam. She knew the pickup would have reached her car by now, but she’d be coming up on the passenger door, slightly downhill from the driver’s side. She switched the hair spray to her left hand and pawed into her purse for the keys. Finding them, she dropped the bag on the ground to free her hands and kept moving.

When she reached the Chrysler, the driver had already skidded down the embankment and was standing on the driver’s side. Thin compared to the other man, but his arms were solid muscle under the tats. She rushed to the passenger side, jerked open the heavy door, dived in, slammed the door and hit the lock button on the key fob.

The driver pounded the window with his fist. The scruffy one had caught up and pulled on the passenger side door handle. Kam hit the panic button on the fob. The deep and seriously loud Chrysler horn went off with honking bursts. Both men jumped back from the car.

The driver yelled, “I’ll fetch the rifle.” He scrambled to climb up the embankment.

Kam’s heart almost stopped. Even the shatterproof windows wouldn’t stand up against a hunting rifle. She looked around the car wildly, her breath coming in sharp rasps, and then launched herself over the console and into the rear. Sweat ran from her armpits, soaking her blouse. She ran her shaking hands across the top of the seat back hunting for the latch. She hoped the Chrysler had fold down back seats.

If she could just reach the tire iron, she’d have a weapon. If this stupid car even had one that is.

She felt the latch pin, grasped it and pulled it up. It clicked. She grasped the seat back in both hands and pulled it down. On her belly, she crawled halfway into the trunk searching for the spare tire well.

by Marva Dasef

Web: http://marvadasef.com

Blog: http://mgddasef.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/MarvaDasef

Twitter Handle: @Gurina

MuseItUp Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/Missing-Dasef

MuseItUp Author page: http://tinyurl.com/MIU-MarvaDasef

Book Trailer:

Endorsements:

This action-packed mystery is rich with colorful characters, a tight plot, and a warm romance. Recommended! ‹L.J. Sellers, author of the Detective Jackson mysteries>

A town with too many secrets makes Kam a target for a killer. Filled with wonderful characters, twists and surprises, here's a novel I couldn't put down until the end. <Lorrie Unites-Struiff, author of Gypsy Crystal>

LeAnne Hardy and Glastonbury Tor

Meet LeAnne Hardy, author of Glastonbury Tor. I feel like I've met a sister after learning some of her history and a fellow Mary Stewart fan. I first met LeAnne when she was on my group site, theBarnDoor.net on July 6. Read her touching story behind the picture, left. She'll also be on ReflectionsInHindsight on August 23, talking about her great wealth of stories.

LeAnne says:

I fell in love with King Arthur my freshman year in high school by way of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s romantic poetry (Idylls of the King) and Lerner and Loewe’s delightful Broadway score (Camelot—give me Julie Andrews over Vanessa Redgrave any day!) Someone loaned me a copy of Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, and I was hooked for life on the Matter of Britain, that cycle of stories passed down from the Middle Ages about ancient British Kings, fighting to save civilization after they had been abandoned by Rome.

I am a librarian by training. My husband and I have served for many years in several countries as missionaries in theological education. Once when we needed to be in Oxford, England, for a week of meetings, he suggested we take a few days of vacation and explore some of the Arthurian sites.

We drove out to the coast of Cornwall where the winds sweep over the cliffs at Tintagel and the waves crash on the rocks below. It is Arthur’s birthplace if you believe Tennyson. Of course, if you believe the archeologists, there was no castle in that location until long after Arthur’s time. I prefer Tennyson.

We drove back toward England and Somerset—the “Summer Country,” so low it was under water during winter rains until monks at Glastonbury Abbey began the work of digging drainage ditches. Today’s towns were all once islands that rose just a few feet above the surrounding bogs in the Vale of Avalon, where the Lady of the Lake took King Arthur in a barge to be healed of his wounds. From there he will return in England’s time of greatest need (if you believe the stories.)

Glastonbury sits on three hills rising above the Somerset Levels—Wyrral Hill, where Joseph of Arimathea and his party are said to have rested, “weary all”, after fleeing the first century persecution of Christians in Jerusalem; Chalice Hill, above the spring that runs red with iron where folk say Joseph dipped the Holy Grail he had brought; and the Tor, whose conical shape seen from the Mendip Hills that rim the vale was once believed to cover the entrance to the ancient Celtic underworld.

But amidst the tangle of ancient tales that undergirds every inch of this town, it was the violent dissolution of the abbey under King Henry VIII that most caught my imagination. I was beginning to think like a writer (although I would never have publically claimed that title) when I stood in the museum, reading the placards about how the abbot defied the king and suffered for it. I thought, Now THAT would make a good story.

I had started writing in my spare time when Ben Bradley, a hockey player who wanted to learn to jump and spin, popped into my mind. His story later became Crossovers, but that day when I stood in the abbey museum Ben’s story was locked in a computer file lest someone discover that I had the audacity to try to write a novel for young people. I was reading a book about writing and publishing fiction, and trying to do the exercises on my own. I had even started a second manuscript, but I knew I couldn’t begin yet another project. So I typed the opening paragraphs to capture my idea, filed them under “future projects”, and went back to plugging away at learning my craft.

I finally broke into publishing when we moved back to the US for a few years for my husband to work as a consultant for theological schools in various parts of the world. The Wooden Ox was published first (about an American family kidnapped by rebels during the Mozambican Civil War.) It was followed by Between Two Worlds (about a girl raised in Brazil and stuck in the States the year of her important fifteenth birthday) and a picture book set in Africa, So That’s What God is Like. Contracts signed, I began looking at my “future projects” file. Those opening paragraphs leapt out at me. I wanted to read that book! The trouble was, I had to write it first.

I’m not a fast writer. Glastonbury Tor was several years in the making. Meanwhile Donna Fletcher Crowe came out with her book Glastonbury, and I nearly cried thinking my story had already been told.  But a place that rich in legend has many stories to tell even about the Dissolution and early Reformation.  I traveled back to Somerset to spend a couple weeks with new friends who loaned me a bike, a map and a pair of Wellington boots and sent me out to explore my setting.

I was back in Africa writing for children affected by HIV&AIDS when Glastonbury Tor was nominated as a Christy Award finalist. These last few years I have been busy with short stories and a novel about HIV in South Africa, but I think Glastonbury has more stories to tell. Someday I will hope to tell them. 

Meet Bernard Boulton on the John 316 Summer Tour!

Bernard Boulton has been a reader since at the age of five when his cousin Yvette placed a book in his hand and introduced him to the wonderful world of books. Throughout his life he has read fiction and non fiction books that has gripped his imagination and made him believe in greater things.

Bernard’s reading sparked a desire in him to one day produce his own story. As he got older the spark became a vision and the vision is about to be manifested through his first novel.

Bernard attended the Cleveland Ohio Public School System graduating from East High in June 1985. He attended Cuyahoga Community College, Warren Bible Institute, Moody Bible Institute and he graduated from Christian Life School of Theology  where he received an Associate degree in Theology.

Bernard gave his life to Jesus at the age of eight and entered the preaching ministry at the age of seventeen. He is a widely traveled preacher with a relevant word and he has  ministered in the Word through out the United States and Haiti. He has pastored churches in the states of West Virginia, Texas and Virginia. He is the pastor of the New Mine Creek Church in south Virginia.
 
Bernard’s hobbies include reading, traveling and supporting his hometown team the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Bernard, why did you write your novel?

I wrote Do You Wanna Be Made Whole because I wanted to tell a story about men from the perspective of a man. I wanted to reveal a man's process for dealing with tragedy, heartbreak and the consequences of poor choices. I love this novel because it is my production. Born out of my imagination.

Where can readers find the book?

The book can be purchased at my website, Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and it is available as a e-book on my website and at Smashword.

How can we get in touch with you?

I can be contacted at BERNARDBOULTON@YAHOO.COM, Facebook, Twitter (IDEALWRITER).

Visit my blog at WWW.BERNARDBOULTON.BLOGSPOT.COM.

An excerpt from my book is at http://www.bernardboulton.com/books/dywbmw_excerpt.html

Enjoy the book trailer here if you can't see it below. It's gorgeous, worth your three minutes.

Bernard Boulton, Pastor of New Mine Creek Church http://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/NEWMINECREEK

Author of DO YOU WANNA BE MADE WHOLE? and JAKE AND ERIC in HOME AGAIN, STORIES OF RESTORED RELATIONSHIPS.

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/BERNARD.BOULTON

HTTP://TWITTER.COM/IDEALWRITER