Guest Posts

For your Friday enjoyment I have Therese, author of India’s Summer here at the blog with a guest post!  This book sounds like a fun and great read for the summer months and today you have a chance to win yourself a copy while enjoying this wonderful guest post from Therese…

I find it difficult to believe that India is a fictional character she has become such a part of my life. Once I had the outline for the plot, I created a Facebook page for her and within a few weeks she had more “friends” than I did. I had mixed feelings about this, but then she was single, young, beautiful and funny, so I had to get over myself.

I lived vicariously through her, upgrading her status regularly; how it was going with Adam, the gorgeous hot perfectly sculpted actor she was dating. I posted photographs of them running along the beach or at a party at Chateau Marmont. My friends would ask, “How’s India?” more often than they’d say, “How’s the writing going?”

India’s quest is driven by my belief in the importance of listening to the inner voice that tells us when it is time to make a shift; time to fight through our fears and take a leap. India has spent sixteen years teaching grade school in London. She is desperate to reinvent herself but has no sense of direction. When she takes a literal leap across twenty feet of burning coals, it becomes a metaphor for her life.

Ten years ago, on the last day of our family summer vacation, I walked alone along the ocean’s edge in Malibu. I waded ankle deep into the water and began to cry my heart out. I knew I didn’t want to go back to England. This was where I belonged. We flew back to London the next day, and within six months we had emigrated. It happened that fast.

I began sending long e-mails to my friends back in England, and soon I had a wealth of true stories larger than life. I also had two culture-shocked teenagers, and writing kept me relatively sane. Many of the women in India’s Summer are struggling parents trying to do the best they can for their kids.

Living life in the fast lane in Los Angeles, I learned quickly that nobody “has it all.” Behind the veneer of opulence and privilege is a world much like anywhere else. Many of our friends live their lives in the glare of the media. The reality is very different from how it is portrayed in the press. I wanted to write about my town in a way that shone a light on some of the universal issues that affect us all. I wanted to debunk the myth that this is simply Tinsel Town. Writing this has been a labor of love for me.

About India’s Summer

INDIA’S SUMMER by Thérèse is the story of India Butler, single and about to turn forty, who travels from London to LA to reinvent herself. In a world illuminated by the flashbulbs of the paparazzi, she discovers the true meaning of “having it all’ while spending the summer with her sister Annabelle, a famous Hollywood actress, and her brother -in -law, a legendary rock musician.

They welcome India into their opulent, fast-paced lifestyle, whisking her from fabulous fundraisers to parties each more opulent than the last. This does nothing for India’s confidence and she maintains a wry detachment until she begins dating Adam, a gorgeous A- list actor. In an attempt to appear more successful she lies to him about her career.

Disaster strikes and India is drawn behind the veneer of Hollywood glitz and glamor and into Hollywood’s private lives. As her illusions about the perfection of their LA lifestyle fade away, India has an epiphany about her own real talents. .
India is in her element until her new life in LA unravels.

Excerpts from India’s Summer
Buy at: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, B&N, Kindle and Nook

About Therese

Thérèse taught English and Drama at a grade school in England, before launching her highly successful promotions company in London. She produced many events for an eclectic range of clients; from receptions at St. James’s Palace for Prince Charles to fundraising telethons with David Bowie. For many years she managed her husband’s career and in 2004 was given the title ‘Lady’ when her husband received a Knighthood from the queen.

Moving to Los Angeles ten years ago gave her the opportunity to devote more time to her writing. Having two teenage children gave her plenty of fodder for her first novel; How To Stay Upwardly Mobile When You’re Spinning Out of Control.

She hopes one day to wake up French, (not English) and be living in an apartment (with blue shutters) overlooking the fountain of L’Eglise San Sulpice, Paris.

Therese’s website
Therese on Facebook
Therese on Twitter

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US only)

I have one copy of India’s Summer by Therese up for giveaway to my US readers. To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do be sure to let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• For 3 entries, blog or tweet this giveaway.

This giveaway is open to US residents only (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, August 18/12.  Good luck!

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I’m really pleased to welcome Robin Nolet, author of Framed, to Peeking Between the Pages today.  I read and reviewed her first novel The Shell Keeper (my review) a while back and I really enjoyed it. Robin also wrote a guest post for me at the time on her inspiration for her first book The Shell Keeper if you’d like to check that out as well. Rumor has it she is writing a sequel to it and while I can’t wait till it is published I’m happy she wrote another one in the meantime.  Framed sounds fantastic and as soon as things settle down at home I plan on delving in and reading.  Robin is a fantastic writer with a great knack for storytelling so I hope people give her novels a try.  In my opinion you won’t be sorry.  For now we’ll learn about the book and enjoy the guest post that Robin prepared for us where she discusses her inspiration for Framed…

I grew up with books. Summertime found me curled up with my latest literary love on the back porch swing or the crook of a large branch of the silver maple out front. I clearly remember my thirteenth summer when I was physically living in suburban Illinois but mentally inhabiting the Smokey Mountains alongside Catherine Marshall’s remarkable Christy. That may have been the year a little part of me started to feel the writer’s itch.

Fast forward to my adult years, when raising three extremely energetic boys left me with little free time to read but badly in need of some sort of escape! That’s when I discovered mysteries. I love all kinds, from the classic Agatha Christie to Robert Parker’s wise cracking tough but tender Spencer. I’ve devoured enough installments of Sue Grafton’s books to make alphabet soup! The most challenging mysteries came from the pen of P.D. James. That gal knows how to plot! But I also enjoyed the fun escape of the cozy-style mystery-though I hate that term, since murder is hardly something to cozy up to!

I’ve heard that the term comes from the tea cozy, a snug wrap of sorts designed to insulate a teapot. I suppose it implies you should be drinking a proper cup of tea while reading such a book, but since these are often devoured on beaches or at pools, in airplanes, or late at night after the kids are in bed, you might prefer anything from iced tea to a nice Pinot. I know I would!

In my mind, the genre’s traits include a non-professional sleuth; no private eyes or CIA operatives here. Our hero…or more often heroine is more likely to be carpooling kids or sorting mail in a post office or perhaps even a young woman whose aunt is a ghost! From Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldie Schultz culinary mysteries to Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy mysteries to Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity series, there is quite a variety of heroines and locales.

In general, the crime is a little less graphic than Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta investigates. And the sex, while certainly implied, is nothing as graphic as some of the Harlequin romances! It’s the everyman-or woman-aspect of these mysteries that makes them so appealing. It could be your neighbor, your relative or even YOU that stumbled across that dead body or accidentally picked up that bloody knife. It could be YOU trying to prove your innocence before the law arrives to take you away…or the real murderer decides you’re too much trouble alive!

Of course, authors often weave aspects of their own lives into their writing, but finding my protagonist and crafting my plot took some thought. I didn’t have any ghostly relatives hanging around-not even a legend of a ghost! I could cook up a culinary murder…but then my relatives might hesitate to come for Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t deal in a profession that sees a lot of violent crime. Unfortunately.

However, I do have a background in construction and real estate and if ever there was an environment ripe with emotions that was it–a tale with deadly intentions wasn’t all that hard to imagine! Add in soccer moms (and dads), single parents, attractive sub-contractors, best friends, secret affairs, the PTA, a puppy with a sixth sense and a heroine with a tendency to daydream and Framed was born.

Of course, I had way too much fun writing this book…and I may have made my family a little nervous reading up on the finer points of murder, but in the end I think it’s a book anyone would love to tuck in their beach bag or pull out after the kids are in bed. My heroine, Kay Conroy, turns out to be a decent sleuth. However she couldn’t have done it without the help of her best friend and Supermom, Maddey.

Friendship–that’s one of the other things that cozy style mysteries are so well known for. Kay wouldn’t have gotten near so far without Maddey’s tenacious friendship, not to mention a very handy gym membership, to spur her on. Likewise, a love interest might come in handy when your life’s on the line. And yes, I do admit that a certain landscaper was modeled after actor Sam Shepard. He fits the laid back, effortless masculinity of Sam Barnett to a tee!

Ultimately, I think it’s the relationships that make the book. When you reach the last page and close the cover I hope you’ll miss the world that Kay, her friends and family inhabit. I hope you’ll come back for the next Kay Conroy mystery–beverage optional!

About Framed

When housing contractor Kay Conroy finds her son’s soccer coach dead on his kitchen floor, her well known dislike for the man soon turns into a motive for murder.

Now, anxious to aim the finger of guilt elsewhere, the quick-witted but daydreaming single mom must squeeze her own investigation in between car-pooling her son and overseeing the construction of a home for a local socialite. The evidence she discovers puts her at the top of the suspect list even though she knows she’s being framed. Meanwhile, there’s an attractive landscaper she’d like to know better and an amorous CEO she’d like to lose.

With the aide of her salty-tongued best friend and the sixth sense of her puppy, Kay digs for dirt. What she finds are broken hearts and bottom lines…not to mention danger!

Framed is a fun read with entertaining characters and a mystery that will keep readers guessing to the end. Plus it has a wonderful friendship between the protagonist (Kay) and her best friend (Maddey).

Framed is the first novel in the Kay Conroy Mystery Series.

Buy at: Amazon.com, as well as for your Kindle and Nook

About Robin Nolet

Robin, a refugee from the humidity of the midwest, lives in Colorado where she writes with the assistance of her faithful Golden Retriever, Maddie, and a large supply of Twizzlers. Robin’s writer’s resume includes honors from the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (Colorado Gold Contest), Pikes Peak Writers (Paul Gillette Memorial Contest), and the Denver Women’s Press Club. Being the gabby and opinionated sort(but in a good way!), she has written hundreds of humor/commentary columns for local newspapers, and a regularly featured blog/column for the Denver Post HUB section. In addition, for many years, she helped with the intake and judging of manuscripts for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Colorado Gold contest.

Robin’s blog
Follow Robin on Twitter

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada)

I have one copy of Framed by Robin Nolet (eBook or Paperback – your choice) up for grabs to my readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do please let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• For 3 entries, blog or tweet this giveaway and spread the word.

This giveaway is open to US & Canadian residents only (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, July 14/12.  Good luck!

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I’m really pleased to welcome Lloyd Lofthouse, author of The Concubine Saga to Peeking Between the Pages today.  I have been a long time fan of Lloyd’s and have read both of his books: My Splendid Concubine (my review) and Our Hart, Elegy for a Concubine (my review) and loved both of them immensely!  Lloyd is a wonderful author who’s writing and stories never fail to capture and hold my interest.  The Concubine Saga is a combination of both of these books in one convenient book which is awesome because I guarantee once you’ve read the first one you’ll want to move on to the second one right away!  Lloyd is on tour all of June with Premier Virtual Author Book Tours so be sure to check out the other tour stops for reviews, guest posts, and giveaways. Today Lloyd joins us to talk about his fascination with China and how a trip he and his wife Anchee took opened up a whole new world in his writing…

During the decade that I researched and wrote “The Concubine Saga”, it never occurred to me to ask why I desired to bring back to life the love story that Sir Robert Hart wanted to conceal from the world.

However, this may be easily explained. As a child, I had a passion for reading historical fiction and nonfiction. In fact, at the time I also produced my own crude historical-fiction comic books to mirror the history that I was learning.

Fast forward several decades to 1999 when I met my wife and was introduced to the real China.

Anchee was born in China about the time of the Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1961), which failed due to droughts, famine and poor planning resulting in the deaths of millions of rural Chinese from starvation. As a teen, she experienced the chaos of Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976). Then in the 1980s, she came to the United States and several years later graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. By the time we met, she was already a US citizen.

Before 1999, the extent of my knowledge of China was about zero, which is equal to what most Americans know of The Middle Kingdome even today. Those sketchy opinions of China came from the American media and politicians running for election—what I learned from those sources was exaggerated and mostly wrong.

While we were dating, Anchee introduced me to Robert Hart (1835 – 1911). She said I might be interested in an Irishman that went to China in 1854, bought a concubine, fell in love with her and left China in 1908 as the most powerful and influential Westerner to have ever lived and worked there.

Our first trip together to China was in 1999. By 2008, I had traveled to China several times and hiked the Great Wall, visited the Ming Tombs, seen the terra cotta warriors near Xian (China’s ancient capital), cruised along the Li River in Southeast China, visited the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, Prince Gong’s (Kung) Palace, and spent days walking the streets of Shanghai in addition to other cities.

You may visit my Website and see many of those places. The following link will take you to a menu that will lead you to my photos.

http://www.mysplendidconcubine.com/2008ChinaTrip.htm

While reading Robert Hart’s journals and letters, which were published by the Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, I discovered that today’s China exists because of what the British, French, Germans, Russians, Portuguese, Japanese and Americans did to it in the 19th and early 20th century.

I discovered that the British and French fought two wars (1839 to 1842 and then 1856 to 1860) with China to force the Emperor to allow them to sell opium legally to his people. Most of that opium came from British India making the British Empire the greatest drug cartel in history. However, the UK was not alone. Merchants from just about every nation in the West sold opium to the Chinese.

To learn more, I researched “God’s Chinese Son” by Jonathan D. Spence; “The Devil Solider” by Caleb Carr; “Dragon Lady” by Sterling Seagrave; “The Manchu Way” by Mark C. Elliot; “My Country and My People” by Lin Yutang—in addition to many other books and hundreds of pages from articles.

In fact, I learned from Caro Cipolla’s “Guns, Sales, and Empires” that while Buddha traveled to China on white elephants, Jesus Christ arrived on cannon balls. Due to the treaties China was forced to sign ending the Opium Wars, Christian missionaries were free to travel anywhere in China to spread the Gospel and convert the heathens—at least those that were not lost to the opium.

Letting those missionaries in led to the Taping Rebellion (1850 – 1864), the bloodiest rebellion in human history. The leader of the Tapings was a failed Confucian scholar that converted to Christianity and then claimed to be the younger son of Jesus Christ.

In fact, Robert Hart played a crucial role to end the Taping Rebellion. In addition, East Asian scholars see Sir. Robert Hart as the godfather of China’s modernism.

Due to my early interest in history and writing, it was only natural that I wanted to write “The Concubine Saga”, which focuses on the passionate, bitter-sweet love story between Robert Hart and Ayaou so readers may see for themselves what happens when two dissimilar cultures collide.

In “Entering China’s Service”, Harvard scholars said, “Hart’s years of liaison with Ayaou gave him his fill of romance, including both its satisfaction and its limitations.”

About The Concubine Saga

No Westerner has ever achieved Robert Hart’s status and level of power in China. Driven by a passion for his adopted country, Hart became the “godfather of China’s modernism”, inspector general of China’s Customs Service, and the builder of China’s railroads, postal and telegraph systems and schools.

However, his first real love is Ayaou, a young concubine. Sterling Seagrave, in Dragon Lady, calls her Hart’s sleep-in dictionary and says she was wise beyond her years.

Soon after arriving in China in 1854, Hart falls in love with Ayaou, but his feelings for her sister go against the teachings of his Christian upbringing and almost break him emotionally. To survive he must learn how to live and think like the Chinese. He also finds himself thrust into the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion, the bloodiest rebellion in human history, where he makes enemies of men such as the American soldier of fortune known as the Devil Soldier.

During his early years in China, Robert experiences a range of emotion from bliss to despair. Like Damascus steel, he learns to be both hard and flexible, which forges his character into the great man he becomes.

In time, an ancient empire will rely on him to survive, and he will become the only foreigner the Emperor of China trusts.

Full of humanity, passion, and moral honesty, The Concubine Saga is the deeply intimate story of Hart’s loyalty and love for his adopted land and the woman who captured his heart.

“My Splendid Concubine” was the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

In the sequel, “Our Hart, Elegy for a Concubine”, he was the only foreigner the Emperor of China trusted.

Both novels have come together as one in “The Concubine Saga”.

Tour Stops with Premier Virtual Author Book Tours
Buy at Amazon.com
Also available on Kindle

About Lloyd Lofthouse

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of My Splendid Concubine and Our Hart [combined in this single volume], which earned honorable mentions in general fiction at the 2008 London Book Festival, 2009 San Francisco Book Festival, 2009 Hollywood Book Festival, 2009 Los Angeles Book Festival, 2009 Nashville Book Festival and was a finalist in historical fiction for the National Best Books 2010 Awards. Lloyd Lofthouse grew up in Southern California, served in the Vietnam War as a U.S. Marine and lives near San Francisco with his wife and family with a second home in Shanghai, China.

Lloyd’s website
Lloyd’s blog
Lloyd on Facebook

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US & Canada)

I have one copy of  either a paperback or Kindle copy (your choice) of The Concubine Saga by Lloyd Lofthouse to share with my readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do, thank you, and please let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• For 3 entries, blog or tweet this giveaway and spread the word.

This giveaway is open to US & Canadian residents only (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, June 30/12.  Good luck!

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