Keep Moving Forward

 

ASTONISHMENT best describes my feeling as I prepared to write a new author interview and saw the last time I posted here! How could it have been January 2022?!! A lot of water has gone under the bridge since December 2021, but even more has flooded that bridge threatening to destroy it. It hasn't been an easy 9 months, but I've kept moving forward, although sometimes just barely moving. My eyes have always looked forward to better times, and here's hoping those are closer.

I'm going to push the author interview to the next post and provide you with an update on my writing. I have kept writing, but the progress slower considerably in the first half of this year. Still, there was progress. And that's what matters.

Although technically published in December 2021, I've never shared this book series here until now. You will notice that neither has it made it to the sidebar yet. Need a little more time for that. And I will add the entire series.

Grandma's Tales 3 and Grandpa's Tales 3 added two more delightful and entertaining tales to this series: Vampires in the Backyard and A Fish Tale.

As always, these stories are crafted with repeating phrases giving children the experience of reading the story on their own. These experiences also help readers become confident in reading out loud.

 

 

 

Vampires in the Backyard will push young (& older) readers to explore their own imaginations using the extended metaphor that builds this story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Fish Tale is the retelling of a story told to me by a earnest young man who believed it because he lived it!

I'm so excited to finally announce the upcoming publication of my newest series The Feathers of the Phoenix! Book 1, The Atlantean Horse is set for release on September 23, 2022. 

 

Steeped in Ancient Mystery and Prophecy. 

Hunted by 4 Deadly Biblical Horsemen.

Rosa and Jerome embark upon a perilous quest to find and retrieve the First of Five Phoenix Feathers.

When found Atlantis will rise again so it's people can return home. But many dangers await these two and, unknown at the start, a very personal connection. 

Currently, the eBook is available for pre-order at these sites:

Apple:  https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6443251464
Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-atlantean-horse
Tolino:  https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1064679403
Vivlio:  https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9781804401309_9781804401309_10020

The paperback will be available for pre-order in a few days as well as more eBook sellers. 

For the latest information on my writing, please click on the FOLLOW button at the top of the page.

Great Summer Reads, Day 15, with Cheryl Carpinello

Carpinello's Writing Pages Presents the Final Day of the Great Summer Reads with, guess who? Me!! Remember, I'm the bookends of this event,  and I return now with more Arthurian Legend.

So, Enjoy Day 15!

I’m a retired high school English teacher. A devourer of books growing up, my profession introduced me to writings and authors from times long past. Through my studies and teaching, I fell in love with the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Now, I hope to inspire young readers and those Young-at-Heart to read more through my Tales and Legends for Reluctant Readers set in these worlds—Ancient Egypt, Medieval Wales, and coming soon, a hair-raising adventure through ancient worlds in search of 5 rare Phoenix Feathers.

All of my books come with Free study guides and/or extensive Back-of-the-Book materials.

My husband and I love to travel. In 2008, we spent three weeks in Egypt traveling by local train from one end of the country to the other; in 2014, we spent three weeks in the UK driving over 1700 miles through England, Wales, and Scotland; and in 2016, we spent a week in Iceland. We’ve also traveled to Mexico, Jamaica, and Aruba. Our next big adventure will be to Greece and Italy.

When I’m not writing or traveling, our 4 grandkids keep us busy.

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Three Friends

Three Quests

Three Mysterious Predictions

Gavin, Philip, and Bryan bravely vow to clear their friend of murder by taking the Knight’s Oath and embarking on individual quests to save The Wild Man. In the end, each one faces their fears and even death in their determination not to fail.

And one will have to disclose the biggest secret of all.

Join Gavin, Phillip, and Bryan on their quests and share the adventures that await them in the land of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

    

~ Universal Amazon Link ~

Top Ten List:

Favorites

1. Things I like to do when not writing:

I enjoy traveling—I will travel anywhere, any time; reading; spending time with my family; and working in the yard. I’m definitely not a housekeeper.

2. How I relax:

Sitting on the beach in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico!

3. My favorite color:

Blue’s always been my favorite color. It’s the color of my eyes, of the sky, and of the ocean.

4. My favorite drink:

Just can’t pass up a good margarita!

5. My favorite snack:

I devour nachos and Auntie Anne’s pretzels!

6. My your favorite movies:

Star Wars, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and The Mummy. I’ve watched each of these so many times that I’ve lost track, and my husband shakes his head when he sees one on and says, “Really?” I just smile.

7. I am a night owl:

I don’t usually go to sleep until midnight, and now that I’m retired, I’m comfortable not seeing the sun come up in the morning:)

8. My favorite food:

That would be a smothered shredded beef burrito followed by coconut ice cream.

9. My favorite concerts:

Elton John, Sting, Paul McCartney, and Mumford & Sons.

10. If I could live anywhere, it would be in Colorado.

We have the best weather—All four seasons. I live next to the foothills, and a drive up in the Rockies is a cure for any ailment. I can see the world famous Red Rock Amphitheater from my couch, and if the wind is just right, we can hear the concerts. My immediate family is all here, except for one sister who lives in Texas, poor soul. In addition to being a retired teacher, I’m also a retired airline employee. So, when I need a change, it’s so easy just to hop a plane and go to the beach.

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Great Summer Reads 2020, Day 1, with Cheryl Carpinello

From June 1st through June 19th, Carpinello's Writing Pages will be participating in Loving the Books' Great Summer Reads (GSR) 2020. GSR will introduce and maybe even re-introduce you to 15 great books and authors as well as give you opportunities to enter Giveways each day. I am please to say that I will be providing the bookends for the Great Summer Reads.

Before we get started, Carpinello's Writing Pages wants to remind you, as in the 2019 GSR, that not all the books you will see will be suitable for children, middle grader, and/or YA readers. We all need help in this world, and Carpinello's Writing Pages loves helping out other authors.

So ENJOY and Here We Go!

I’m a retired high school English teacher. A devourer of books growing up, my profession introduced me to writings and authors from times long past. Through my studies and teaching, I fell in love with the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Now, I hope to inspire young readers and those Young-at-Heart to read more through my Tales and Legends for Reluctant Readers set in these worlds—Ancient Egypt, Medieval Wales, and coming soon, a hair-raising adventure through ancient worlds in search of 5 rare Phoenix Feathers.

All of my books come with Free study guides and/or extensive Back-of-the-Book materials.

My husband and I love to travel. In 2008, we spent three weeks in Egypt traveling by local train from one end of the country to the other; in 2014, we spent three weeks in the UK driving over 1700 miles through England, Wales, and Scotland; and in 2016, we spent a week in Iceland. We’ve also traveled to Mexico, Jamaica, and Aruba. Our next big adventure will be to Greece and Italy.

When I’m not writing or traveling, our 4 grandkids keep us busy.

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Their friendship put him in harm's way. Will it be enough to save him? 

Across the dark water to the land of ancient Gaul, renegades take Cedwyn and the littl'uns farther from home and rescue.

Led by her heart rather than her head and without any thought for her safety, fifteen-year-old Guinevere sets out alone to save Cedwyn. And if she fails…?

Eleven-year-old Cedwyn's trust in Guinevere is absolute. But will his sacrifice to save her and protect the littl'uns end with the loss of his own life? 

~ Universal Amazon Link ~  

Click on the covers below to find these books on your local Amazon page

                                        

Top Ten List:

A bit about me

Serious

· Retired HS English teacher

· Write Tales & Legends

· Love the Ancient & Medieval Worlds

· Sharing the Ancient & Medievals with kids

· For Adults: Read my books? I don’t tell if you don’t

Fun

· Love margaritas and smothered burritos

· Las Vegas: one of my favorite cities

· A night owl

· Lover of music—I’m a binge listener!

· Most recent concert:  Mumford & Sons and Elton John

· Will travel to almost anywhere, anytime

· Top trips: Egypt, England/Wales, & Iceland

· Top 5 concerts: Elton John, Mumford & Sons, Sting, Paul McCartney, & Celine Dion

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Meet Inspirational Fiction Author E.C. Jackson

E. C. Jackson began her writing career with the full-length play Pajama Party. For three and a half years she published the Confidence in Life newsletter for Alpha Production Ministries, in addition to writing tracts and devotionals. 

Teaching a women’s Bible study at her church for eleven years naturally led to her current endeavor of writing inspirational romance novels and teen and young adult fiction. Her mission: spiritual maturity in the body of Christ through fiction.

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Most sleepovers are simple. Food, fun, and pillow fights. But sixteen-year-old Karen Duncan has bigger plans for her slumber party. Family troubles have changed her over the past year, and she’s no longer the petty, selfish girl she used to be. Now she’s ready to shake things up with her friends. The guest list comes as a surprise to some and a slap in the face to others. This popular girl has invited some not-so-popular guests. Even more shocking, she’s left out some of the girls she’s hung out with since middle school.

Diane and Evette are outsiders, nervous about being stuck in a house with the same girls who tease them at school. Kathy, Lisa, and Joann come to the party with the confidence of the in-crowd, but they’re masking inner-turmoil that is bound to surface. Sandy and Angela are usually the voices of reason…usually. And then there’s Linda, the friend that got away. She may not ever forgive the girls who abandoned her years ago. Karen hopes to change her mind.

Her agenda is ambitious, and it could spell disaster. But Karen is convinced God will use this party to spark a new beginning for everyone involved. This companion book to A Living Hope gives us the inspired story Sadie Cummings wrote for the girls of Shiatown.

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Snippet:

“Are all of the girls you invited coming over? What’s the itinerary for tonight?”

Karen beamed. “Nothing’s written in concrete, but, I bought a noisy interaction game for us to play. We’ll use the karaoke machine too. This will be a spontaneous night for us. My thoughts are to just let things happen.”

“Then our thoughts are far apart. Your friends are a tad dramatic. Reign them in so I won’t have to.”

“Mom, you just destroyed my happy list. I want spontaneity to rule tonight.”

“If it does I’m sending everyone home early.

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Meet YA Author Rossandra White

Carpinello's Writing Pages welcomes YA author Rossandra White. I found Rossandra's story about how she started writing extremely interesting, and I'm sure you will also.

Here's a bit about Rossandra:

Rossandra White, a fourth generation South African, spent the first twenty-three years of her life in Zambia, where she had a baboon for a pet and learned to tell a log from a crocodile. As well as Monkey's Wedding, she is the author of the memoir, Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go, And Then There's The Dog, published by She Writes Press. She lives in Laguna Beach with her two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, with whom she fights for space in her bed. When she’s not writing, she's at the gym or hiking the hills behind her home in Laguna Beach.

Why did you pick to write books for YA?

Twenty-two years ago, I felt compelled to write a book. Not something I’d always wanted to do. Maybe it was just time to finally get down all those stories I’d heard over the years about my ancestors who had been in South Africa since the 1800s. And then there were my own experiences growing up in a small Zambian copper mining town, as well as those two years we lived on a Zimbabwe sisal plantation. This was when Britain ruled, when the bush was full of animals.

There were all those road trips my family took to the Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya. The time an elephant chased our car for two miles, forcing my dad to reverse down an excuse for a dirt road before the elephant gave up. The time we spent in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro with a crazy Belgian who kept wild animals for filmmakers’ use, as well as that episode in Kenya when rebels attacked the cattle ranch where we were staying with a family my dad befriended along the way. I had a lot to write about. What I didn’t know was that I had intuitively chose writing, “to take fuller possession of the reality of my life,” to paraphrase Ted Hughes.

What types of books do you like to read?

Literary fiction.

When you are not writing, what do you like to do?

Read, hike, travel, the occasional movie, dinner with friends.

Tell us about Monkey’s Wedding and how the story came to be.

It came about as I was revising an awful 500-page memoir of flashbacks I wrote about my life in Africa. I found myself wanting to give voice to a black African point of view. With this in mind, I created these two adolescents, Elizabeth and Tururu, a boy who worked for the family, and began with an incident that happened to me in Zimbabwe as a six-year-old when I was poisoned by rebels.

Here's a Peek at Monkey's Wedding:

Adolescents Elizabeth and Tururu—she’s white, he’s black—share an uneasy friendship on a remote sisal plantation in 1953's Zimbabwe. Resentment to white rule erupts throwing them into the crossfire of political change and ancient ritual.

To make matters worse, a clash between Tururu’s witchdoctor grandmother and her apprentice unleash ancient fire spirits that will make the British overlords look like saints. Will their friendship survive?

The novel’s dual viewpoints afford an intimate glimpse into the two faces of a country at a crucial time in its history.





Have you written other books? If so, tell us a bit about them.

My memoir, Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go And Then There’s The Dog, was the first of my books to be published. It was written after Monkey’s Wedding.

What’s next for your writing? Are you working on a new story?

I’m revising Mine Dances, a coming-of-age story. It’s the sequel to Monkey’s Wedding with the same characters.

What advice do you have for other authors?

Get your butt in that chair every day, and get used to staring at a blank page, consider time spent with the blank page well worth it; it’s an investment, it tells control central you’re serious about this writing thing.

Copy a passage from a writer you admire, one that really rings your bell and reword it, improve upon it. Builds writing muscle.

Anything else you want readers to know?

On my website, I have a more detailed description of how Monkey's Wedding came to be.

Where can readers find you and your books?



My website
Facebook

Amazon:~
Monkey’s Wedding
Loveyoubye

B&N:~
Monkey’s Wedding
Loveyoubye

Drops of Sunshine Blog Tour

With a job as a camp counselor, sixteen-year-old Nina heads to the wilderness for summer break. With her year all she wants is an escape. But some special kids can hear her thoughts and she can't hide her head in the sand like she planned. Can Nina come to terms with all her swirling emotions? Sometimes all it takes is a drop of sunshine!

Tricia Copeland grew up in Georgia and now lives in Colorado with her husband, three kids, and multiple four legged and finned friends. Drops of Sunshine is her first young adult and paranormal work. First published in Spellbound, a YA paranormal novella collection, it has already received great reviews. Tricia’s clean new adult Being Me series includes the titles Is This Me?, If I Could Fly, and Think You Know Me. The series finale is due out September 2016. If not on the trail, you can find Tricia at triciacopeland.com or on many social media channels.

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