Category: Guest Posts/Interviews-2011

Today I am honored to have Lilian Duval guest posting today at Cindy’s Love of Books.

Lilian Duval is the author of You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, An Accidental Lottery Winner.

About The Book:
What happens when an ordinary person becomes extraordinary?

Tobias starts out in life much the same as any of us—not rich, not poor, with imperfect parents and unlimited ambition. When he’s twenty years old, his future is altered in irreparable ways after a tragic car accident pushes him down a new path. The once-promising anthropology major is forced to abandon his dreams in order to care for his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother.

In his late thirties, Tobias works in a bookstore, trying desperately to make ends meet to support his family. His daily grind only reinforces the sadness that broken dreams and bad luck bring in their wake.
How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I won the lottery?”

When Tobias finds he has won the Mega Millions lottery, his unimaginable bad luck seems to have changed into unimaginable good luck … or has it?

Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge the limits of luck, life, and what we value most.
Find out more about the complications of Tobias’s friendship and rivalry with his best friend, Martin; the effects of all this bad luck and good luck on his marriage; and the struggles of his brother, Simeon, once a talented cartoonist, in … You Never Know.

About the Author:

Lilian Duval lives with her husband George, a native of Singapore, in a small house in New Jersey overlooking a large county park. They have two sons and a daughter, all independent and ambitious, and several cats. She’s an amateur classical guitarist and enjoys attending concerts and plays in New York City.

But writing has always been her calling. In her own words, “The most enjoyable activity I can imagine is to invent some characters, make them a little larger than life, set them bickering and thrashing against each other and their fates, and enact a fictional resolution that makes more sense than the chaos and unpredictability of our complicated lives.”
Lilian’s latest book is You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner.

You can visit Lilian’s website at www.lilianduval.com. Connect with her on Twitter at @lilianduval and Facebook at Lilian Duval.

How to Get Even With Horrible People While Writing Fiction
By Lilian Duval

1. Oh, I know, this sounds so mean. But, really, anything that makes you write is good, right?
2. Think of someone annoying who just gets under your skin, but for one reason or another, you simply cannot stop him or her from bugging you.
3. Insert that person into the chapter or story that you’re writing. Be sure to rename him or her first!
4. I’ll give you an example. A former classical guitar teacher of mine was always bragging that he didn’t own a TV. The implication was that anyone who did own one, such as me, and who watched any TV, such as me, was inferior, worthless, and stupid.
5. Within the confines of the teacher/student relationship, I could not shut him up. But boy oh boy did I ever get even with him in my novel You Never Know! He has been immortalized as an unbearable irritating customer in a bookstore. In one paragraph I settled my score with this showoff. And I got an interesting peripheral character out of him, too!

Happy writing from Lilian Duval

I want to thank Lilian for taking the time out of her busy schedule to do this guest post for. The book sounds really good. Also thank you to Dorothy at Pump Up Your Book for arranging this.

About the Book:
In Death with Dignity, Robert Orfali makes a compelling case for legalized physician-assisted dying. Using the latest data from Oregon and the Netherlands, he puts a fresh new slant on perennial debate topics such as “slippery slopes,” “the integrity of medicine,” and “sanctity of life.” His engaging writing style brings clarity to these issues. The content is thought-provoking; the arguments are well-researched, air-tight, and original.

This extraordinary book provides an in-depth look at how we die in America today. It examines the shortcomings of our end-of-life system. You’ll learn about terminal torture in hospital ICUs and about the alternatives: hospice and palliative care. With laser-sharp focus, Orfali scrutinizes the good, the bad, and the ugly. He provides an insightful critique of the practice of palliative sedation. The book makes a strong case that assisted dying complements hospice. By providing both, Oregon now has the best palliative-care system in America. Reading this book, above all, may help you or someone you care about navigate this strange landscape we call “end of life.” It can be your gentle and informed guide to “a good death” in the age of hospice and high-tech medical intervention.

About the Author:

Robert Orfali, the guru of client/server systems in the early days of Silicon Valley, co-authored three best-selling books that demystified the complexity of these mission-critical systems and made them understandable to a whole new generation of programmers. The books sold over a million copies. In this book, Death With Dignity: The Case for Legalizing Physician-Assisted Dying and Euthanasia, Robert uses his analytical skills to deconstruct the most complex system he has yet encountered: our modern end-of-life system. He wrote this book after helping his soulmate and coauthor, Jeri, navigate her death from ovarian cancer in 2009. The deep emotions Robert felt allowed him to look at how we die from a different perspective, another angle. Robert also wrote Grieving a Soulmate.

Q:  Most people don’t want to die and don’t plan for it. Most people won’t even have entertained the idea of a DNR (do not resuscitate) order in case their heart stops beating.  It is a natural instinct for people to want to fight harder to live, and physicians have taken the oath to save lives. When medical care offers all these life-prolonging treatments, at what point would someone introduce a conversation with their doctor that they want to die?

RO: You are so right. Most of us prefer to avoid the topic of death. We live in a death-denying culture. However, denial can have some serious ramifications. Closing our eyes and letting the system follow its course could easily land us intubated in an ICU at the end of our lives. To prevent this outcome, we need to protect ourselves and understand our choices. And, we need to think about it while we still can. Typically, it means having several conversations about death and dying. This is especially important for the chronically ill. It could make the difference between having a relatively “good death” and a very “bad death.” The sad fact is that dying in the age of chronic disease is an extremely complicated process that involves a lot of anguish, pain, and suffering akin to torture. The lucky few will go suddenly. But the remaining 80% will not leave life the way they would have liked to: “at home and without needless suffering.”

Ironically, some politicians called these conversations death panels, and they campaigned against having them funded by Medicare. It seems that they do not want us to have any control over how we die.  It seems that even discussing the topic is taboo. Most doctors would also prefer not to discuss the topic. Why? It’s very emotional and complicated. To do it justice would require hours of discussions with the patient. Doctors are trained to heal, not to discuss death. They are taught to fight the disease with everything in their arsenal; there is no surrender. So they would rather initiate another treatment than deal with the existential issues of dying. Continuing the treatments also protects doctors against malpractice lawsuits.

Even though insurance does not pay for these consultations, we must have these discussions to understand what our options are. In my book, I tell you about three death-related conversations you must initiate over a period of time: How do I protect myself? When do I stop fighting? Where will I die?  In states where physician-assisted dying is legal, you can have one more conversation: How will I die?

The first conversation is straightforward and practical: it’s about writing an advance directive and choosing your health-care proxy. The next two are blurrier; in the book I use my wife Jeri’s conversations to demonstrate the issues.  The bottom line is that we have two health-care systems in America today: modern medicine and hospice. (Palliative care is mostly associated with hospice, but it also has pockets within the medical system.) In the age of slow dying and chronic illnesses, we need both systems. The ICU works well for us, most of the time. It does what it was designed to do: it is a superb illness-fighting machine. Hospice is also a superb system; it provides outstanding end-of-life care for the dying (except for terminal sedation and hence the need for assisted dying, as allowed in Oregon). So, we are lucky to have two systems that work: each one superb in the function it was designed to perform. In the book I make the case that assisted dying complements hospice.  By providing both, Oregon has the best palliative care system in America.  
 
So what’s the problem? The problem is that we live in a death-denying culture that makes it very hard to transition from one system to the next when the right time arrives. We, and our doctors, have a very hard time accepting death. Consequently, most of us won’t make the transition in time. We will end up dying in the ICU—a modern torture chamber for the dying. As Dr. George Lundberg describes it: “A sophisticated hospital is the last place you want to be when terminally ill. Once you’re in the hospital setting, you’re trapped. The staff owns you, and they will do those terrible things they have been trained to do to prolong life, no matter how artificially or hopelessly.”

Ironically, moving to hospice sooner may prolong our lives. In a recent study, the mean survival was 29 days longer for hospice patients than similar patients who did not choose hospice. In another study, patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile, and in less pain as the end neared, but they also lived nearly three months longer.

The ICU was never designed to help us die; it was designed to fight disease to the end. We want our illness-fighting machine to continue doing what it does best. Instead of changing the ICU, we must change our death-denying attitude. We need to better understand the end-of-life hospice option so that we can die in peace. In other words, we must have the second and third conversations that help us make the transition to hospice care at the right time (i.e., before we end up in the ICU end-of-life torture chamber).

Sadly, the fourth conversation—how will I die?— was not an option for Jeri. Physician-assisted dying was not legal in Hawaii at the time she died. In the book, I cover this missing but very important conversation.  Let me explain what makes it so important.  In Oregon and the Netherlands requesting assisted dying initiates a final and explicit conversation about how the patient would like to die. It allows patients, doctors, palliative care specialists, and family members to conduct an open discussion.  It’s a therapeutic narrative that attempts to restore some order and coherence in the face of the forthcoming onslaught that is death. It openly deals with questions that are seldom discussed in our death-denying culture. For the first time, it provides an official venue where a terminally-ill patient can ask questions such as: How much will I suffer? How will my pain be treated? How much of myself will I lose along the way? What help do I need? What help is available? How will I die? There are many more such questions. Of course, physician-assisted dying must be legalized for such an open conversation to take place.

Sorry for my long-winded answer, but our end-of-life system is very complicated terrain.  Most of us will die in small steps. We’ll find ourselves navigating through a labyrinth of confusing end-of-life choices.  My book is about how to navigate the maze.  It can serve as a gentle and informed guide to “a good death” in the age of hospice and high-tech medical intervention. To help get the word out, I made the e-book available for only $0.99, which is as close to free as Amazon allows. Reading about death won’t kill you.  However, not understanding your choices at the end can have some very serious ramifications.  In this case, it really pays to be an informed consumer.

I have been lucky enough to read both of Kristine’s latest books.

Wickedly Charming came out in April of 2011 and Utterly Charming just came out this month. I also found out that Sourcebooks is going to reissue two of her books coming out next year in 2012. Both were fantastic books that I loved reading and if you like reading a little romance with a modern day twist on classic fairy tales then this is the author and books for you.

So without further hesitation here is my interview with Kristine Grayson.

Cindy:  What is your favorite fairy tale and why?

KG: My favorite fairy tale is the Little Mermaid.  I love the story in the original—with the sad ending and all. I have no idea why. I have always loved the story, however, and might use it someday for one of my tales.

Cindy: The Little Mermaid is one of my favorites too. Who is your favorite Prince Charming and why?

KG: I should say that it’s Sleeping Beauty’s Prince Charming, since this interview celebrates the release of Utterly Charming, which features this particular Prince Charming. But honestly, my favorite is Cinderella’s Prince Charming. Even in the fairy tale, the man is a romantic. He searches for the woman he loves and he doesn’t care who she is or how she was raised. He doesn’t secretly discover that she was a princess or something like that. He just loves her for who she is.  I made him the hero of Wickedly Charming, and a book lover, because I think that simply adds to the romance.

Cindy: For me when I think about Prince Charming the first one that always comes to mind its Cinderella’s Prince Charming and for the reason’s you have mentioned. Why did you decide to give the classic fairy tale a modern twist?

KG: Sadly, when I write, I don’t decide anything. The stories just happen. I think I’ve always had a twisted view of fairy tales. I wanted to know why instead of the lessons being imparted. So it’s a reflection of my contrary nature, I guess.

Cindy: Are you working on anything new?

KG: I just finished the next in the Charming series. This one, Charming Blue, features Bluebeard as my hero—yes, that Bluebeard (you see him in cameo in Wickedly Charming)—and it’s set in Los Angeles. It’s…not what you’d expect, which I guess is par for the course for me.

Cindy: Will you be writing any more fairy tale books?

KG: Oh, yes. You can’t stop this imagination. Not only am I doing the Charming series for Sourcebooks, but sometime in 2012, WMG Publishing will publish the first in the Once Upon A Crime mysteries, set in the same fairy tale universe, only with mysteries as the focus instead of a romance.  Plus I’ve already done one story about Grace and Imperia, the daughters of Prince Charming and Cinderella, and I plan to do more.

Thanks for asking!

Oh Kristine I can’t wait to read your other books. They sound really good and I am so happy that Sourcebooks is going to be reissuing yout Charming series. I absolutely love them.

About the author:
Kristine Grayson has written seven paranormal romances. Her first, Utterly Charming, received the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. She also writes science fiction and fantasy under her real name, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and mystery as Kris Nelscott. She’s married to her very own Prince Charming, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and lives with him on the beautiful Oregon Coast.

You can check out the Kristine Grayson’s blog.

Thanks so much to Sourcebooks for arranging this interview and making it possible and thanks so much to Kristine for taking the time out of her busy schedule to do this interview for me. I love when I get the chance to interview authors of books I love so much.

You might remember that I recenly reviewed Sleeper’s Run and I really enjoyed it. After I sent my review link to the rep she contacted me with the opportunity to do a Q&A with Henry and I jumped at the chance to do it.

So please let me welcome Henry to Cindy’s Love of Books.

About the author:

Henry Mosquera is a writer and artist born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. He attended the University of Miami, Florida, where he obtained a double major in Graphic Design and Film. He enjoys researching his novels, including gaining first-hand knowledge of some of his characters’ skills. Henry currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, dog and cat. Sleeper’s Run is his first novel. www.sleepers-run.com

To start off, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?  How did
you become interested in writing suspense novels?

Henry: Of course. I’m a writer and artist born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. I
studied film and graphic design at University of Miami. I’m married and
currently work as a freelance graphic artist in Los Angeles.
I became interested in writing thrillers because I like to tell stories, no
matter the medium. It could be through film, books, graphic novels, video
games; I just enjoy creating. I love the genre and I had been playing with a
few ideas in my mind, which I thought would make for a great novel. So, I
rolled up my sleeves and almost four years later I find myself as an author.

Can you tell us a little about your novel, Sleeper’s Run?

Henry: “Sleeper’s Run” is about Eric Caine, a self-destructive War on Terror
veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A chance encounter
helps him straighten out his life and find a new job that takes him back to
Venezuela, the country of his childhood (Eric is half-American and half-Venezuelan). Once there, he gets tangled up in an international conspiracy that threatens the very future of the government. Eric has to outwit a team of assassins while trying to uncover the truth in a world in which nothing is what it seems.

What inspired you to write Sleeper’s Run?  How much research was involved
in the writing?

Henry: The book was inspired by a combination of things: a few ideas I had to write
a thriller, the current political situation in Venezuela, and a interest in
history and global matters.

Research was extensive as the novel is based on non-fiction sources; even the
more farfetched elements. Books, articles and documentaries became the basis
of the research. I also used my knowledge of certain topics like martial
arts, traveling, the military, etc. Not satisfied with that, I went the extra
yard and took urban survival classes, flying lessons, weapons training and a
few other helpful skills. Whenever possible I picked the brains of people
who either teach or experience things related to the story. It was a fun,
educational and eye-opening process.

Can you share with us any projects that you are currently working on or
plans for the future? What can fans expect next from you?

Henry: Currently, I’m devoted to promoting “Sleeper’s Run.” I do have a few novels
I’m working on in different genres, but they are taking a backseat for the
moment. My plan is to keep creating; you give me a medium and I’ll give you
a story. I have so many things I’d like to do, but they all depend on the
opportunities I encounter in the future.

What are your favorite authors? Novels?

Henry: My favorite authors right now: Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Carlos Ruiz Zafón,
Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré.

A few of my favorite novels: Shogun, Treasure Island, The Brief Wondrous
life of Oscar Wao, The Day of the Jackal, Six Days of the Condor, The Spy
Who Came in From the Cold, The Queen of the South, the Captain Alatriste
saga, The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, Dracula, The Alchemist,
World War Z and Memoirs of a Geisha.

Today I am lucky to have one copy of Sleeper’s Run to give to one lucky reader of mine.

So for some reason the form isn’t working so if you would like to enter this contest please leave me with a comment about why you would love to read this book with your email address.

Contest runs from today, October 20th to Thursday October 27th.

Good luck everyone.

Hi Barbara,
In your novel, the topic of Secret Lives is a big novel about big issues—aging and death, the way our society treats its senior citizens, women’s friendships, the powers of love, the theory and practice of magic, the rebirth of the Goddess and Her ancient religion. It’s about the untidy mysteries of human life. How did you come up with the idea to write about these specific topics?

I have been writing about feminist spirituality and pagan issues for more than 20 years. I first wrote Secret Lives in 1990 on an IBM Selectric typewriter, then rewrote it (using WordPerfect 5.1) when I got my first computer, then wrote it again (Word XP) and did a lot of serious editing along the way. As I lived my pagan life, worshipping the Goddess, creating and leading rituals, teaching a class called Practicing the Presence of the Goddess, and writing six nonfiction books about feminist spirituality, I just kept adding what I was seeing in real life to the book.

If I remember correctly, I took a class at Long Beach WomanSpirit in the early ’90s on a new popular topic—the crone, who is the honored elder woman. There were women in their thirties in the class who insisted they were crones because “crone is a state of mind.” This is nonsense, so I started doing research on elderly women and how society treats them. This was about the time Jessica Tandy won her Oscar at age 89 and Golden Girls was popular on TV. Elderly women got little respect back in those days.

As I wrote, the characters in the book came to life in my imagination. I watched them and listened to them. For a few months in about 1990, I also had a part-time job as a companion to a woman sinking into Alzheimer’s. She was 82 and about 2 ½ mentally at the time. We made a good team—she was talking to invisible people, and I was watching invisible people.

But I was not just the secretary to the characters in the novel. I did a lot of library research on, for example, Ozark customs and dialect so I could write one character accurately. And as the author I am in charge of the craft of writing. I’m in charge of details like spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, verb tense, etc. I also wrote new chapters from time to time. For example, a few people told me one character was boring, so I gave her a mid-life crisis. Other readers told me the women were casting their magical circles wrong, so I wrote a chapter in which three Gardnerian college students come along to correct the women who were old enough to be their grandmothers. You don’t want to mess around with grandmothers who can do magic. I read and hear in the news about land developers forcing people to move out of their homes, so I wrote a chapter about a very old woman who is moved by her businessman son into the retirement residence I invented in Long Beach. She wants to die. The women in the circle befriend her. Later, the retirement residence is sold because it’s not profitable enough, so the elderly residents take action. In 1989, gerontology was just beginning to be important, so I wrote about a physician who has no appreciation for his elderly patients. Again, you don’t mess with old people who can do magic. 

I also took many ideas and themes from history. One is shown in the prologue, set in what Professor Marija Gimbutas called Old Europe (near the Black Sea). Old Europe was an egalitarian, Goddess-worshipping society that was invaded by horsemen from the Caucasus Mountains (today’s Afghanistan and its neighbors) who brought their storm, thunder, sky, and solar gods with them. Another historical issue is the Inquisition and the 16^th-century religious wars which focused on heretics and women. I brought a ghostly inquisitor to confront the women in the book. Another issue is aging and menopause. The women in the book confront these issues, and in one chapter there’s a sex scene between a man and a women in their eighties. Such a thing is still hardly thought of, much less discussed.

You can find more information in the FREE READER’S GUIDE on my website, http://www.barbaraardinger.com/ . The reader’s guide like the commentary track on a DVD. It gives a lot of historical information.

Many thanks!

About the book:

Secret Lives is a big novel about big issues—aging and death, the way our society treats its senior citizens, women’s friendships, the powers of love, the theory and practice of magic, the rebirth of the Goddess and Her ancient religion. It’s about the untidy mysteries of human life. As the baby boom generation ages, the issues in Secret Lives become more significant to readers and also more recognizable. Issues that used to matter only to their parents are now starting to pop up in the boomers’ own lives. This novel will thus appeal not only to the large audience that reads pagan fiction, but also to mainstream readers who love a good, complicated story and may have heard about pagans and gods and goddesses. As they read, they will learn a great deal.

Each chapter is a standalone story, although there are two arcs that comprise two stories and three stories. The bulleted notes that follow the barebones outlines and show how the stories are braided together and explain many of the allusions. An event may be foreshadowed in early chapters, for example, be the major plot of another chapter, and be resolved or echoed in later chapters. Likewise, people who appear as minor characters in some chapters become major actors in other chapters.

You can read more about Secret Lives at http://www.barbaraardingercom/ .

About The Author:

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Secret Lives, a novel about crones and other magical folks, and Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives, a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books include Goddess Meditations, Finding New Goddesses (a parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Quicksilver Moon (a realistic novel … except for the vampire). Her day job is freelance editing for people who have good ideas but don’t want to embarrass themselves in print. To date, she has edited more than 250 books, both fiction and nonfiction, on a wide range of topics. Barbara lives in southern California.

Today I am honored to have the author of Sleeper’s Run, Henry Mosquera stop by to do a guest post for me. It was so nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to do this for me and my readers here on Cindy’s Love of Books.

Please check back on Friday, October 14th for my review of Sleeper’s Run.

When people ask me about my “book’s hero,” I quickly correct them and say
that in my novel there are no heroes, or villains for that matter.
“Sleeper’s Run” is not about good vs. evil. I wanted to create a story that
reflected the world as it is, not as we wished it were. Unlike what the
media would like us think; life is far more complicated than a news bite.
Truth is relative and popularity seldom qualifies an opinion. The characters in “Sleeper’s Run” are people; they have their alliances, ideas,
idiosyncrasies, personal baggage and all the accoutrements proper of a
person.

One of the earliest comments of my first editor was that Eric didn’t seem
too heroic and Nathan wasn’t antagonistic enough. Earlier drafts of
Sleeper’s had no clear opponent, other than a system of international
politics and corruption. According to the editor, this concept was too
esoteric for a thriller and I should go back and study the rules of the
genre. Sure, I compromised at certain points; after all, I wanted to be a
publishable, commercially viable author. But the whole “good guys vs. bad
guys” angle seems too shallow and insincere to me. As much as I like
cartoons, I have no interest in writing one.

I could do stories with Eric Caine until my fingers fall off; I love the
character. Yet to me, he is a man. He had done things that were heroic and
others that were questionable at best. Nathan Blake and the rest of the cast are the same way. I leave it to the reader to bestow the qualifiers as they see fit.

Eric is a character born out of contradictions; he’s physically tough, but
mentally brilliant; educated and privileged, yet very hands-on and
laborious. These are but a few of the traits that comprise him. Thrillers
have great laconic characters: tough, blue collar, disenfranchised loners,
who are amazingly capable in their respective fields, but hapless in the
larger society. I’m a sucker for this type of protagonist, but I wanted Eric to be a departure from this concept. He wants to be part of society and thrive in it. Eric doesn’t want to be alone and has more skills than those he learned in the military. He is highly educated, well-traveled, eloquent and funny. The Air Force was part of his life, not the sum of his existence. Originally, he wasn’t going to have a connection with the armed forces, but the story makes it clear that it was going to take a certain type of background in order to confront the plot’s challenges.

Eric’s similarities to the genre’s main characters might appeal to the
lovers of this kind of thriller, but it’s the differences that make him
stand out and appeal to those who might have never given this type of book a second glance. Perhaps that is one of “Sleeper’s Run” main strengths; a book that is so familiar but takes the reader to uncharted territory. Keep on running!

Thanks once again Henry for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this guest post for. This book sounds really good and I can’t wait to read it.

Today I am truly honored to have MacKenzie Cadenhead stop by to do a guest post for me.

I was give then chance to have MacKenzie do a guest post for me and I have to admit the first thing that popped into my head was “Why did you write Sally’s Bones and why should you read it?” because I absolutely loved it and this is what MacKenzie had to say: