Cool Book Of The Day

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Women of all ages; helping professionals; and anyone interested in stories about relationships, dysfunctional families, and how an individual’s upbringing can inform who they become.

Q: What is the book about?
A: A story about how a person can connect to others in a meaningful and satisfying way, despite a tortured past and a tangled family history. In this tale, Amber Cushing, abused by her mother’s boyfriend, strives to overcome this history; propelled along on a path characterized by a whirlwind of wrong choices, she continues seeking answers and solutions, struggling to find love and acceptance.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Some of the issues presented in this book came about because of my career as a social worker, helping abused children and young people overcome their tragic histories.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: I injected my own personal experiences into the story, transforming what might ordinarily be a simple chronicle of abuse into a tale of hope and redemption.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Some of the peripheral characters in this tale are repeated in some of my other books, such as Miles to Go. My first published novel, An Accidental Life, introduces the character of Savannah Chacon, a former teen parent, who has transcended that history to become a promising college student; incidentally, she shares the boarding house where Amber Cushing lands, like a wounded bird.

Below are links to my home page and a couple of blogs; a link to Author’s Den, which features books and a blog; the link to My Space; and finally, a link to my GoodReads Author profile.

http://laurelrainsnowcreations.com/default.aspx

http://laurelrainsnowcreations.blogspot.com/

http://www.zimbio.com/member/laurelrainsnow

http://www.authorsden.com/laurelrainsnow

http://www.myspace.com/laurelrainsnow

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1185466.Laurel_Rain_Snow

And here is a link to an interview for COOL BOOK OF THE DAY.

http://www.coolbookoftheday.com/miles-to-go/

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: I wrote this book about my beloved sister because she is a unique woman and led such a fascinating life; I wrote it to appeal to adults and the mainstream market. It’s an epic love story/mystery/thriller that ––judging by reviews on Amazon.com––is appealing to men as well as women and more mature teens … people from all walks of life.

Q: What the book is about?
A: This story is part fiction (faction?), but based on the life of my beautiful older sister and her seven marriages. This is from the publisher’s description: ” … sixty-four years–1933 to 1997–of happiness and tragedy. Always searching for her first love and her childhood, the enchanting child/woman captivates many men along the way, each wealthier than the one before … each sending her scurrying back to her childhood home, 1106 Grand Boulevard, a trail of broken hearts in her wake.”

“1106 Grand Boulevard” is the story of passions that last a lifetime; of family love and betrayal; of spousal abuse and sadistic child abuse; a story of Billie Jean’s desperate search for happiness, self-worth, and maturity … a story of people needing people and people using people.”

Q: Why I am the best person to write this book?
A: Since I’ve always been a writer and am the sister of the main character in the book, I’m the only one who could do justice to her complex character … her exciting life.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?:
A: In most love stories the heroine is married only once; how unrealistic is that in today’s world? As award-winning author Frank Nappi said in his review: “The resiliency of Dravis’s heroine, Billie Jean, is indeed refreshing, wonderfully antithetical to the all too common saccharine, off-putting portrayal of many of fiction’s leading ladies.” Nappi is the author of the new sensational novel, The Legend of Mickey Tussler and Echoes from the Infantry.

Q: Is there anything else to know about this book?
A: The title of 1106 Grand Boulevard is the actual Ohio hometown address of the author and the main characters in the book. The cover photo is a picture of her late father, John D. Barger, at age 90, while the home viewed through the car window is 1106. Dravis took the photo when her father drove her and the book’s heroine past the home while they were visiting from California in the 1980s.

For more about 1106 Grand Boulevard and Dravis’s other novels, go to:
http://bettydravisauthor.googlepages.com/
http://tinyurl.com/2b3rko

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Women who like intelligent chick lit, and anyone interested in spirituality.

Q: What is the book about?
A: “If the spirit of a loving wife can’t nudge her husband in the right direction, who can?” So thinks 30-something Judith McBride, a Jewish control freak with an unlikely last name. When she dies in a medical mishap, she calls on her supernatural status to “rescue” her widowed spouse from the sexy clutches of their gold-digging, thrill-seeking blonde accountant, with surprising results.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I don’t believe that question is as germane to fiction as it is to nonfiction. After all, isn’t each novelist the best person to write his/her particular story? In my case, I can say that I am the perfect person to write a novel set in the afterlife and narrated by the spirit of a dead woman because I began with no preconceived notions. Jewish dogma contains very little about the afterlife because the religion’s focus is on what we do in our earthly lives. With Remote Control, I had the opportunity to create my idea of “heaven” and “hell” that simultaneously respects readers of any religion or no religion. Spirituality and religion are not necessarily the same thing.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Remote Control is one of maybe a handful of published novels dealing with our spiritual life. Probably the best-known are literary novels Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Remote Control is in a category by itself because its thought-provoking issues are told in a humorous voice. The comic aspect of the story isn’t intended to satirize the concept of life after death; it simply addresses it in a more contemporary context.

Another distinguishing feature of Remote Control is the game I like to play with my readers. Both Remote Control and my historical novel Far Above Rubies have real, famous, historical figures included in the text but not mentioned by name. It’s fun to see if readers pick up on the clues written into the story. I also provide a discussion guide at the end of Remote Control to guide readers in their search. The book has one “puzzle” that I hadn’t planned on: a typographical error in a proper name that by its very existence contradicts the sentence’s meaning. It’s not nearly as complicated as it sounds, and it’s quite funny, once you find it.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Although I categorize Remote Control as chick lit, don’t assume it’s all trash and no treasure. I like to call it “lit for the thinking chick” because behind the wise-cracking protagonist and often comedic situations lie evocative questions about life, death, mourning, and our very selves that every one of us eventually face. Humor and enlightenment aren’t mutually exclusive.

Remote Control is available through all the normal channels of book acquisition, and can be special ordered from any bookstore. To see if your local library has it, check their website or ask a librarian. Book clubs who order 5 or more books directly from publisher Echelon Press receive a 25% discount. I am happy to participate in book club discussions, whether by phone or in person. For more information, visit www.cynthiapolansky.com.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Adults – Women and others interested in relationships.

Q: What is the book about?
A: An exploration of the enduring friendship between women who meet in college, participate in radical
politics, and then spend the next thirty years adjusting to life in the real world.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Because I lived it. The story is loosely based on my time in Sacramento in the 70s, followed by years of “normal” life, with all that brought, including single parenthood and love issues. Also, I spent many years working in the child welfare system as a social worker, with some of these experiences featured in this book.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: It captures the radical politics of the seventies from the perspective of women, featuring the normal parenting issues against this backdrop of politics…And reveals how these experiences can help individuals transform themselves into fully functioning human beings.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: There are a few secrets within…like the artist who lived on a commune and lost her child to the child welfare system…And how, eventually, they were reunited.

http://laurelrainsnowcreations.com/default.aspx

http://laurelrainsnowcreations.blogspot.com/

http://www.zimbio.com/member/laurelrainsnow

http://www.myspace.com/laurelrainsnow