Spotlight on Guinevere: Bright Shadow

I’m happy to welcome poet, screenwriter, playwright, and novelist Sarah Provost. Today, Sarah shares her new release, Guinevere: Bright Shadow.

Blurb

“You may think you know my story. My name has been bandied in ballads and jests, for good and (mostly) for ill. High Queen, priestess, adulterer… but first and always a woman. Courage and honor shaped me; ecstasy transported me; grief, betrayal and terror tempered me.

“My loyalty to the Goddess was supreme. But as the new religion took hold, the pagan way was threatened with extinction. There were those on both sides who would use me as a pawn in that battle, even if it meant taking my life.

“Yes, I bear my portion of blame. I loved Arthur, and I loved Lancelot, will I or no. But that was only one element in the impending chaos. Britain was divided, my love was divided, and such divisions cannot endure. I did everything in my power – and learned new powers – to prevent an all-out war. But would it be enough?”

Excerpt

I was torn from my peaceful sleep by a sense of foreboding so dire, so overwhelming, that I could not stop screaming, even when Catlin and Wynyth and others burst in. “What, lamb, what is it?” Catlin folded an arm around me and smoothed back my tangled hair. “Shh, shh. What, my dove?”

“I don’t know I don’t know!” I babbled. “A snake. A sword. We are lost!”

She pressed my head to her shoulder and rocked me like a babe. “Only a dream it was. That’s all, only a dream…”

At last I calmed. The sky was greying quickly, so I was about to start the day, but Catlin insisted I take a while to gather myself. She went off to bring me a cup of wine. I was lying on my pallet, drained, when I heard her returning. Her footsteps stopped. She gasped. And the cup hit the stone floor.

She stood like a statue in the passageway, staring out the casement. Far to the east, we could see a great cloud forming, but from the ground, not the sky. Faintly, a whisper, a murmur, a rumbling was carried to us on the morning breeze. It was the sound of men and horses screaming, of clash of arms, of pain and fury and destruction, all gentled by distance. Then the sun sent a finger of light over the horizon, and the great cloud turned red.

Author Bio and Links

Sarah Provost is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and novelist, currently living and working in upstate New York. A collection of poems, Inland, Thinking of Waves, was published by the Cleveland State University Press. Her stage plays have been produced off-Broadway, in London, Los Angeles, and states beginning with K. No screenplays have been produced, but she made a decent living writing for Paramount, Disney, HBO and others until Hollywood broke her heart. After a period of recuperation and relocation to a place with much worse weather, she began writing Guinevere: Bright Shadow, her first novel. A second novel, The Real Girl, is in progress.

Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Between the Lines | Amazon Buy Link

Giveaway

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Sarah Provost on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

Commit to Growth

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.

I highly recommend reading When You’re Ready, This is How You Feel by Brianna Wiest. Here’s an inspiring and thought-provoking excerpt:

The truth about forward movement is that it’s more about present stillness tan anything else.

Can you sit with yourself?

Can you be present?

Can you allow yourself to metabolize the feelings that keep coming up?

Are you willing to change your mind?

Are you willing to change your life?

While there are many parts of life that are out of your control, the parts that are within it are often a reflection of you.

When you commit to working on yourself, that effort radiates out and touches everything and everyone around you. So, commit to growth. Commit to becoming better. Decide that you’re ready to expand your heart past its current perimeters.

There is so much more waiting for you, but you have to be open to it first.

Source: When You’re Ready, This is How You Feel, pp.113-114

Book Blast: Any Fin for Love

I’m happy to welcome back multi-published author Petie McCarty. Today, Petie shares her new release, Any Fin for Love.

Blurb

She could almost hear the fish laughing at her . . .

Cody Ryan’s father never missed fishing the annual Loon Lake tournament until his unexpected passing. So this year, Cody packs up her how-to fishing videos and her dad’s old johnboat and gives him one final entry.

Gage Connor needs some R&R away from his coast guard deployment catching drug smugglers along the Louisiana coast, so he borrows a bass boat from his buddy and heads to Loon, Alabama to do some fishing.

When Gage and Cody meet at Loon Lake, their attraction is immediate and intense—until the two discover there is only one boat slip left on the lake and they both need it, and there’s only one vacant hotel room left in Loon and they both want it. Thus, their competition begins. Both vow to keep their distance from the other to fight the temptation, but fate has other plans. The tournament pairing party picks the two-man teams and chooses Gage as Cody’s partner.

For two days.
Alone on a boat.
Working as a team.

Good things come to those who bait . . .

Excerpt

Billy then addressed the audience. “There is a three-rod limit. Y’all will have to make do. Absolutely no live bait. The first flight of ten boats goes off at 7:00 a.m., so don’t be late. There will be ten minutes between flights. If both contestants on a team have boats, flip a coin to see whose boat you use the first day, and then use the other boat the second day.”

“What?” Gage thundered, suddenly coming to life.

Cody wanted a hole to open in the stage and swallow her up. She knew whoever got stuck with her as a partner would be mad about her johnboat. She just didn’t think the stickee would be Gage.

Billy smirked at Gage. “That’s right. You flip a coin to see which day you fish from her johnboat.”

“No way,” Gage bellyached.

A rumble of laughter swept through the tent, and Cody fought back tears. She swallowed three times to get the lump back down her throat until she caught sight of Lila’s ear-to-ear grin, and then her blood simmered to a boil.

“That’s the way it is,” Billy said, clearly as pleased as his daughter. He turned back to the crowd. “If there’s only one teammate with a boat . . .” His sideways smirk at Cody had her hands balling into fists. “Then you use the same boat both days.”

Great. Now Zeke and Alvin were grinning ear-to-ear, and Gage looked ready to explode. Big surprise there. The man had finally shown his true colors.

Billy hadn’t finished. “We start at seven both days. Y’all will have exactly eight hours to fish. I repeat, the first flight of ten boats leaves promptly at seven. The weigh-in each day will commence at three o’clock, and you’ll be given your weigh-in bags just before your flight in the morning. If your flight leaves at 7:10 a.m., then you must be back to weigh-in at 3:10 p.m. You will be docked one pound of fish for each minute you are late for your weigh-in. If you are more than fifteen minutes late, you will be disqualified.” He glanced around the tent to be sure all entrants paid attention. “Each boat must have a live well, and no more than five fish can be held in the live well at one time.”

He hesitated and then looked as though a light bulb flicked on. He spun around to face Cody. “Do you even have a live well?”

Every face in the tent focused on Cody.

“Yes, I do,” she said indignantly. “I wouldn’t have entered your tournament if I didn’t. I read the rules.”

“What is it? An Igloo cooler with an aquarium pump?” he taunted.

She gulped. “Yes.”

A rumble of laughter shot through the crowd.

Eyes narrowed, hands fisted at her sides, Cody stared them all down. She spotted the two rows of females smiling in the back, all giving her the universal thumbs up sign, and her chin notched up higher.

Billy couldn’t resist a final jab. “Well, Mr. Connor, it looks like you’ll spend one day in a johnboat.”

Buy Links

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon AU

Author Bio and Links

Petie spent a large part of her career working at Walt Disney World—”The Most Magical Place on Earth”—where she enjoyed working in the land of fairy tales by day and creating her own romantic fairy tales by night, including her new series, The Cinderella Romances. She eventually said good-bye to her “day” job to write her stories full-time. These days Petie spends her time writing sequels to her regency time-travel series, Lords in Time, and her cozy-mystery-with-romantic-suspense series, the Mystery Angel Romances.

Petie shares her home on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with her horticulturist husband and an opinionated Nanday conure named Sassy who made a cameo appearance in No Angels for Christmas.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon

Giveaway

Petie McCarty will be awarding an Autographed paperback copy of Cinderella Busted (US only) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Petie on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

Honoring Barbara Walters

An Emmy-winning journalist and celebrity interviewer, Barbara Walters was one of the most recognizable news anchors in the world. In a career that spanned over six decades, Ms. Walters appeared on numerous television programs including Today, ABC Evening News, 20/20, and The View. She scored many interview coups, among them Margaret Thatcher, the Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Katharine Hepburn, and Indira Gandhi.

Barbara Walters died yesterday (December 30, 2022) at the age of 93.

My favorite quotations from Barbara Walters:

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose.

To excel is to reach your own highest dream. But you must also help others, where and when you can, to reach theirs. Personal gain is empty if you do not feel you have positively touched another’s life.

To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna—or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

Don’t worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our President knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days to your own surprise, your bliss will find you. But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead.

A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better.

Don’t confuse being stimulating with being blunt.

The hardest thing you will ever do is trust yourself.

You’ll have some failure. And you’ll be able to go on, add a new chapter, and have a more interesting time.

Work harder than everybody. You’re not going to get it by whining, and you’re not going to get it by shouting, and you’re not going to get it by quitting.

Blurb Blitz: Bloodstains and Candy Canes

I’m happy to welcome Wild Rose Press author Marla White. Today, Marla shares her new release, Bloodstains and Candy Canes.

Blurb

Attending a swanky cookie exchange is the last thing on veterinarian Dr. Mandy Brown’s holiday to-do list, but she agrees to help a friend out. The party comes to a screeching halt after a body turns up on the kitchen floor, a carving knife jutting out of his back.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Mandy comes face-to-face with Officer Dylan Shaw, a man she thought she was dating until he ghosted her. Tensions escalate as motives for murder come out of the pantry as fast as guests scarf down the pot-spiked brownies, making everything all the merrier.

Although the case seems open and shut, Mandy doesn’t believe the evidence. Can she and Dylan put their differences aside and find the real killer, or risk one of the bakers getting away with murder?

Excerpt

“Call him.”

Dolores is right. Shaw once told me 911 calls are automatically routed to the Highway Patrol where they get sorted to the appropriate agency. If you know the local police number, you’ll get a faster response by calling them directly. But I also know the last person I want to see right now is Officer Dylan Shaw.

“Who cares?” I ask. “The dead guy isn’t going anywhere.”

Dee narrows her eyes and gives me an icy gaze. “No, but the killer is. The police need to get this place locked down fast if they’re going to have a shot at finding them.”

Well poop, I hadn’t thought of that. My head is too far up my own butt to think past my broken heart. “Fine, I’ll call him.”

She nods, pulling the sobbing Bethany under one arm and uses the other to guide, coerce and otherwise wrangle Agnes, the guests, and caterers alike back to the veranda. Very few people have the strength to refuse Dolores’ will of iron.

When everyone is gone, I slip into the den and grab my phone. Stomach lurching with dread, I hit the button for Shaw and wait the tension-filled five seconds as it rings once before he answers. “Hey Mandy, what’s up?”

His cheerful tone surprises me until irritation sweeps away the pleasure his voice brings. Does he not realize I’m mad at him for ghosting me? “This isn’t a social call, Shaw.”

Buy/Read Links

Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | Books2Read | BookBub

Author Bio and Links

Marla White is a story analysis instructor at UCLA and writing coach who lives in Los Angeles. She graduated from the University of Kentucky where she took her first horseback riding lesson. After dabbling in hunters, barrel racing, and weekly trail rides, she fell hopelessly in love with the sport of eventing. She conquered Novice level before taking a break to pursue novel writing but hopes to return to the saddle some day soon. When she’s not writing, she’s out in the garden, hiking, putting together impossibly difficult puzzles, or (of course!) baking.

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok

Giveaway

Marla White will be awarding a $15 Amazon/Barnes & to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Find out more here.

Follow Marla on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

Writing Takes Time

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.

In A Year of Writing Dangerously, author and teacher Barbara Abercrombie shares anecdotes, insights, and solutions. Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt:

No one has to be patient anymore. We can publish books right from our computers. We can get messages anywhere, anytime. We can have whole libraries of books instantly zapped to whatever our latest gadget is, or a complete film festival delivered at the click of a button. We can plug ourselves directly into our music without bothering with CDs. We never, ever have to be bored, subjected to silence, or deal with our inner life.

But no matter how fast the world zips along, no matter how much fun there is to be had, the fact remains that writing takes time. To write takes dreaming and remembering and thinking and imagining—and very often what feels like wasting time. It takes silence and solitude. It takes being okay with making a huge mess and not knowing what you’re doing. Then it takes rewriting and struggling to find your story and the truth of the story, and then the meaning of the story. It takes being comfortable with your own doubts and fears and questions. And there’s just no fast and easy way around it.

Source: A Year of Writing Dangerously p.12