Author Archives: Joanne Guidoccio

From Pastries to Publishing

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Welcome to my Second Acts Series!

Today, we have Soul Mate author Sally Brandle sharing her inspiring journey from pastry chef to author and her upcoming novel, Torn by Vengeance.
(Available for pre-order)

Here’s Sally!

Bakery in Carcassone, Italy featuring Italian brioche

Pastry enabler appears in the description tag on several of my social media accounts. My mom taught me to bake simple scratch breads, cookies, and basic pastries. Being comfortable in front of an oven, I enjoyed the privilege of developing the training program for a family-owned commercial French pastry manufacturing company. European style doughs including buttery puff pastry, Danish, brioche, croissant, pie, and cinnamon rolls-in the unbaked form-became my canvas.

My college degree in teaching special education/behavior disorders trained me to embrace different learning styles in order to create a viable curriculum. Holding pastry classes allowed my creative side and teaching background to merge. I enjoyed business travel to seven states, including Montana where my first series takes place. Bakers, chefs, caterers, and restaurant owners shared techniques of shaping, cutting, and filling—I’ll divulge a few baking tips in my third book, The Targeted Pawn.

Guest Instructor at a Local Technical College

After nine years of standing for four or five hours to train, the damage from previous car accidents caught up with me. I hung up the professional apron and brought my antique rolling pin home, but I’m not a watch TV and eat bon bons type. I’d written a romantic suspense story on a dare and decided to pursue writing as a second act. Six books and a boatload of classes later, I’d contracted to a publisher The Hitman’s Mistake, the first story in my Love Thrives in Emma Springs series. Holding a book you’ve created is akin to holding a perfect brioche torte rustica—thought, patience, and many layers enhance the creation. In the publishing realm, rumor has it that after a million written words you’re getting the hang of it!

All books in this series contain a beloved equine element—long-eared Red, tiny Whinny, and rescued Pal. Whatever breed, my advice is the old adage, ‘don’t put the cart before the horse.’ Write whenever you get the chance, but I’d recommend incorporating finances into planning a second act as an author. I’m fortunate to be partnered with a supportive man who worked over forty years for a company now providing us with a pension. The lucky few who create best sellers straight away gain attention and my admiration, but I’m pragmatic. It’s tough to earn a living as an author, and after you’ve done five rounds of changes with your talented editor, you have a different appreciation for the book on your Kindle costing a few dollars.

Successful second acts are commonplace, especially in fiction. In The Hitman’s Mistake, Miranda gets another chance at a loving family after being ripped out of her inconspicuous life. In Torn by Vengeance, Corrin’s hero convinces her to shed distrust and work together to fight for love. I’m presently working on The Targeted Pawn, where Elon pushes through insecurity to defy convention and prove herself by welding her way into a tough rancher’s heart. These women need practice to succeed. In moving to any second act, you need confidence in your skills. Here’s John Wooden’s 4 Laws of Learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition. If you have pastry baking questions, contact me through my website and I’ll be happy to help.

Happy trails.

Blurb

Look over your shoulder. He’s watching.

Corrin Patten is solidly on a path to make partner in a prestigious Seattle law firm when an ominous threat from her past turns deadly. She can handle circumstances necessitating a temporary move to the backwater town of Emma Springs, but its charming physician is another matter, as she’s issued a permanent moratorium on men.

Dr. Kyle Werner revels in trust from patients he regularly treats in a community he’s never wished to leave. Yet, Emma Springs lacks one thing, a woman to share his perfectly bucolic life. He’s read about pheromone attraction, but never experienced desire until meeting Corrin. They make an unbeatable team, but convincing her that his interest is sincere while they dissect layers of deceit requires the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Can they defeat the wealthy stalker bent on mistaken revenge against Corrin and destruction of the peaceful Montana setting?

If you thrive on tenacious heroines, sizzling attraction, and a shadowy villain with a grudge, you’ll love this prescription for thrills.

buynow

Interview and Reviews from…

USA Today | Haynet | Night Owl Reviews| Tome Tender Reviews

Where to find Sally…

Website | Facebook | Amazon | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads

With Lance on his 28th birthday



Spotlight on Dear You

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author Derra Sabo. Today, Derra shares her latest release, Dear You.

Dear You is a lovely invitation into Derra Nicole Sabo’s world.

A wonderful opportunity borne out of a complex and challenging experience, to recall the good times with loved ones, the chance to express the rarely spoken profound specifics of what binds friends and family together.

Derra Sabo shares a bit of her world with you in this delightful memoir filled with “letters” to family and friends. Overcoming challenges by simply living life; Derra shares her experiences here in hopes of helping the reader gain an appreciation for life as it happens.

This is a heart-warming collection of letters to loved ones that explores the wonder, frailty and extraordinary qualities of friendship, family, love and life.

Goodreads | Amazon

As someone with anxiety, writing is my way of speaking. When my verbal skills fail, my pen excels. I have always had something to say to the world and to the humans residing in it, I just could never get my mind and mouth to be on the same level. So, I picked up a pen and haven’t looked back. I have a message for you. A message for my family, my friends and to all the beating hearts. Dear You is a letter personally written, from me to you.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads

Derra Sabo will be awarding a $25 Starbucks gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Enter here.

Follow Derra on the rest of her Silver Dagger tour. You can find out more here.


Warming Up to Watercress Soup

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2006, I make every effort to incorporate thyroid-nourishing foods into my diet.

I enjoy eating most of the iodine-rich foods, but I struggle with watercress. Its pungency doesn't sit well with my fussy taste buds.

While stocking up on spinach and parsley last week, I noticed the watercress. On a whim, I picked up one of the bunches and some sweet potatoes. I experimented and came up with the following recipe.

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of butter
2 sweet potatoes, chopped
4 cups of chicken/vegetable stock
1.5 cups of watercress
1/4 cup of parsley
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Hemp hearts (optional)

Directions

1. Heat the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions and garlic until soft.

2. Add the sweet potatoes and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

3. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are tender.

4. Add the watercress and parsley. Stir and let the mixture simmer for about one minute or until the greens have wilted.

5. Remove from heat and purée the soup in batches using a hand or immersion blender.

6. Add the lemon juice and salt and pepper (to taste).

7. Sprinkle hemp hearts into the individual bowls.

Makes 4 servings, about one cup each.

Buon appetito!

How to Clearly See…

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

In A Different Kind of Reunion, Private Investigator Jim Nelson doesn’t mince words when he learns about the psychic’s involvement in the murder investigation:

“Let’s face some facts here. Most psychics need to make a living. I don’t doubt this lady has some intuitive ability—as many women do—but I don’t think it’s enough to catch a murderer.”

Jim is in good company.

According to a recent survey by YouGov.com, 24% of respondents believe there are actually individuals who possess the ability to see the future. There is a gender split here as well; 28% of women think this power exists, while only 19% of men think the same.

Continue reading on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog.


Life is Good

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

During my cancer journey, I noticed one of the patients at the Juravinski Cancer Centre wearing a T-shirt with a grinning stick figure and the message: Life is Good. I asked about the T-shirt and learned that it was part of an apparel line launched by two enterprising young men in Massachusetts. Many cancer warriors throughout Canada and the United States wear these T-shirts during their treatments.

Here’s the inspiring story of Life is Good…

The story of Life is Good begins not with the company’s founding but in the childhood of Bert and John Jacobs. The youngest of six children, the two brothers grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Life in the Jacobs household was, by many people’s standards, hard. The second floor of their small home had no heat. Their dad had a temper. And they couldn’t always afford basic necessities. Their mom, Joan, joked that she bought them food they didn’t like so that it would last longer.

Despite all of this, Joan was a resilient and cheerful woman who focused on the positive. Every night at the dinner table, she asked all six children to share one good thing that happened to them that day. As the kids talked about finding a Rolling Stones CD at the dump, hearing a funny joke, or learning something cool in school, the energy of the room transformed. Everyone started laughing and smiling. Joan’s optimism lifted them up. “I like running out of money,” she would tell them, “because then I don’t have to worry about what I need to buy.” From her, the boys learned that joy comes form our mindset, not just your circumstances.

In 1989, when they were in their twenties, Bert and John started a business designing printed T-shirts, which they sold on the streets of Boston. They also traveled up and down the East Coast, selling the shirts door-to-door on college campuses, each time making barely enough money to fund the next road trip. They slept in their van, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and showered when they could.

On the road, they spent a lot of time talking. During one trip, they discussed the way the media inundates the culture with stories of murder, rape, war, and suffering day after day. Though bad things happen and it’s important to know about them, they agreed, the world is also full of good news. They thought of Joan and her ability to turn a light on in a dark room. They decided they wanted to promote her values in their work, to create a symbol that would serve as an antidote to the cynicism they saw in the culture–a superhero whose power was optimism.

John sketched a grinning stick figure on a T-shirt. He called the character Jake. When they got back to Boston, they threw a party and pinned the new T-shirt on a wall. Their friends loved it. One of them wrote on the wall next to the T-shirt, “This guy’s got life figured out,” with an arrow pointing to Jake.

Original Drawing of “Jake” from April 1994

The brothers distilled that phrase to three words: “Life is good.” Then, they printed the image of Jake and the phrase on forty-eight T-shirts. When they set up their stand on a sidewalk in Cambridge, they sold all of the shirts in less than an hour–a first for them. That was in 1994. At the time, they had $78 to their name. Today, they run a $100 million lifestyle brand.

As their business grew, they started receiving letters and emails from people who had faced and were facing difficult life circumstances, including cancer, the loss of a loved one, homelessness, and natural disasters. These people wrote about how moved they were by the Life is Good message, and how they had emerged from their adversity with a deeper appreciation of and gratitude for life.

In 2010, the company launched a non-profit arm called Life is Good Kids Foundation, devoted to children who are living with illnesses, violence, abuse, poverty, and other adversities.The primary program of the foundation is called Playmakers, an initiative that offers training and enrichment workshops to childcare providers like teacher, social workers, and hospital workers. Since its founding, the foundation has trained over 6,000 Playmakers who are working to improve the lives of over 120,000 kids each day. Each year, Life is Good donates 10 percent of its net profits to help kids in need.

Life is Good Website

Source: The Power of Meaning by Emily Esfahani Smith


Spotlight on The Geisha Who Ran Away Series

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author India Millar. Today, India shares the three novels in her delightful series about a runaway geisha.



Terue. The girl who was plucked from obscurity to become the most sought after geisha in Edo’s Floating World. The geisha who was so beautiful and talented that one of the richest nobles in Japan desired her as his wife.

But Terue wanted more from life, and was willing to risk everything to get it. Pregnant with her lover’s child and knowing that the disgrace would mean certain death for both her and her unborn child, Terue makes the devastating choice to flee Japan on the day her daughter – Kazhua, The Geisha with the Green Eyes – was born and changes both their destinies forever.

Goodreads | Amazon

In Japan, it is widely believed that everyone’s life is bound by the red thread of their fate. The thread connects to all those we come in contact with throughout our lives. Thus, each path in life is predestined.

Terue knows this. Just as she knows that one day her red thread will guide her to Kazhua, the daughter she was forced to abandon on the day of her birth in Edo’s Floating World. But before she can find Kazhua, fate has much in store for Terue.

Following her new husband, Lord Kyle, from the Highlands of Scotland to fight in the Crimea, Terue serves as a nurse, witnessing the horrors of the battlefield.

Injured, kidnapped, and assumed dead, Terue must face the possibility that she might never see her beloved daughter or husband again…

Goodreads | Amazon

The war in the Crimea is over. Delighted to be reunited with her husband, Lord Kyle, Terue thinks she will soon be home again in her beloved Scottish Highlands.

But fate is not finished with her yet.

Terue learns that her daughter is a geisha in Edo. Overjoyed at the chance to be reunited with her child again, she and her husband set out to find Kazhua, returning to where Terue’s life began in the Floating World.

But old dangers and new foes abound.

Forced to live in hiding, finding Kazhua without revealing Terue’s true identity proves more difficult than they expected. Terue is so close to finding her daughter, she can feel the red thread that binds them together pulling taught. But reaching out to Kazhua could put all their lives at risk.

Goodreads | Amazon

I started my career in the heavy industry of British Gas and ended it in the rarefied atmosphere of the British Library. Now, I share a blissful early retirement on the wonderful Costa Blanca, living in a male dominated household with my long suffering husband, a cat and a dog.


Website | Facebook | BookBub | Amazon | Goodreads

India Millar will be awarding a $10 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow India on the rest of her Silver Dagger tour. You can find out more here.

Enjoying Sweet & Savory Asparagus Soup

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that asparagus possessed medicinal qualities, curing everything from toothaches to rheumatism.

While none of these claims have been proven, asparagus contains many essential nutrients, among them potassium, folate, and Vitamins B6 and C.

Last week, I decided to create an asparagus soup that would satisfy my sweet and savory taste buds.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups of asparagus, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 sweet potato, chopped
3 cups of chicken/vegetable broth
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Hemp hearts (optional)

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions, garlic, and celery until the onions are translucent.

2. Add the asparagus , sweet potato, and broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

3. Simmer for about fifteen minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

4. Purée the soup in batches using a hand or immersion blender.

5. Add the lemon juice and salt and pepper (to taste).

6. Sprinkle hemp hearts into the individual bowls.

Makes 4 servings, about one cup each.

Buon appetito!

Celebrating Our Canadian Flag

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Raised for the first time on February 15, 1965, our national flag is 54 years old.

On July 1st of this year, Canada will celebrate its 152nd birthday.

A discrepancy that can be explained by our history…

For almost 100 years after Confederation, Canada flew the Red Ensign, a design based on the flag used by British naval vessels and Canada’s Coat of Arms.

In the early 1960s, Canadians started to voice their concerns about a flag that didn’t recognize our sovereignty. Aware of the public discontent, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson decided to make the creation of a new Canadian flag a priority.

At the time, I was in elementary school. My teacher—and many other teachers across the country— assigned a “Flag Design” project. While there were several artists in the class (not me), I don’t recall any exceptional sketches. I’ve often wondered if any student sketches were part of the thousands of submissions made to Ottawa.

A fifteen-member bipartisan committee was created to pick the most appropriate design. The submitted designs featured union jacks, Fleur-de-lis, maple leaves, and beavers (the most common element). Almost all of these submissions were eliminated, leaving three possibilities.

Here are the two semi-finals:

The winning design (our present flag) came from Dr. George Stanley, a professor at Royal Military College in Kingston.

10 More Interesting Facts…

1. King George V proclaimed red and white as Canada’s official colors in 1921.

2. The flag is twice as long as it is wide. The white square and its maple leaf make up half of the surface of the flag, equal to the two red bars combined.

3. The French nickname for the flag is L’Unifolié, which means one-leafed.

4. In 1982, Canadian mountaineer Laurie Skreslet brought the flag with him to Mount Everest.

5. In 1984, the flag was launched into space by Marc Garneau, the first Canadian astronaut on the NASA space shuttle Challenger.

6. In 1996, February 15 was declared National Flag of Canada Day.

7. The flag at the Peace Tower (Ottawa) flies 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s changed daily, usually early in the morning and by a designated employee who has received training on how to perform the task. Flags on the East and West Block are changed weekly. Once a flag is taken down, it is sent to the Ministry of Public Works and Government Services. Canadians can request these flags by emailing minister@pwgsc.gc.ca or faxing (819) 953-1908.

8. Anyone who wishes to receive a flag that has flown on the Peace Tower will be placed on a 10-year waiting list. The wait is five years for a flag that has flown on the East or West Block.

9. The role of flag-bearer for Canadian teams attending international sporting events is a special honor reserved for outstanding athletes like Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who proudly represented Canada at the PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2018.

10. The largest Canadian flag ever made was unveiled at a football game in Hamilton between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts in 2009. The flag was 38 meters by 76 meters and required at least 80 pairs of hands to carry it on the field. The flag cost $15,000.

Happy National Flag of Canada Day!


The Power of Thinking

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

A fan of Jen Sincero’s books, I look forward to each new release. Here’s a short reflection from her latest, You Are A Badass Everyday.

True power comes from thinking what you want to think, regardless of how things appear or what other people say or how impossible your ideas may seem. Your thoughts are what lead the charge through all the obstacles, doubts, and dark nights of the soul that are standing between where you find yourself now and where you’re headed.

Think courageously, think largely, think audaciously, think magically.