Molly Harper

Please help me welcome Emelle Gamble to the blog. 

1.Emelle, What do you think makes a book a page turner?

Suspense. When I, as a reader, don’t know for sure what’s going to happen next I simply can’t put a book down. I think this is the single necessary ingredient for any good book…make the reader wonder what’s going to happen, let them experience a story that, even though it is a specific genre like romance or a mystery, which surprises them because the characters are unique and not someone they’ve met before. In my book SECRET SISTER, numerous reviewers and readers said this was the most fun part, they just didn’t know what was going to happen next. This made me very happy.

2.How many WIP do you have going at the same time?

Right now I’m sitting on a big weird book I don’t know what to do with and I’m writing a new one and thinking all the time about another one, which would be the first in a series of three books.  This is the usual for me, but I hate it. I wish I could just think about one book at a time. I think I’d be more focused, although way less fun at critique group. My partners are used to me talking about five things at once, bless them.

3.Where do you get your inspiration?

I get inspired from every single word every single person I know, observe or watch on TV says. I am not kidding. Writers are the ultimate observers, but like a kingfisher we’re waiting to stab our beak into a new idea swimming by. So be very, very careful around  writers. We’re thieves…and we’ll put you in a book before you can cry out, “My jewels!"

4.Which genre appeals the most to you?  

Women’s fiction and mystery are tied. I love them both.

The least?

I can’t read horror. I used to. But the real world is so scary, I just don’t want to read about more fear or suffering.

5.What's the hardest part of writing?

Not falling into the easy way out of a scene. When you’re tired and its late, sometimes its tempting to do the obvious instead of the real with a character. Because the real needs solid motivation, inevitability, uniqueness. In MOLLY HARPER, I deal with the issue of adoption, and how an adoptee feels about finding their birth mother. I really wanted to get this right for this character, and I fought a long time to get to know the women in this novel. I was not sure until the book was  done if I’d given readers an honest scene, not just a sitcom replay. Which is why I rewrite about 10 times before I’m through.

The easiest?

Getting a new idea and before word one is written down talking about it, especially to other writers. We all get giddy and excited and make suggestions and see little snippets of scenes in our heads. It’s all wonderful and fun. But then you put your fanny in the chair, in a quiet room with a blank screen.  It is no longer easy…

Thank you very much for hosting me on your blog, Elaine. I’d love to hear from your readers what they find hardest and easiest about their careers. Because then I’ll steal it and use it in a book. HA!

 Spoken like a true author! Help her out, readers. Tell her about your own career. Right now, why not a blurb and an excerpt?

Blurb:

Movie star Molly Harper has it all, beauty, success in her field, and a loving family and marriage to actor Ben Delmonico. Norma Wintz, Molly’s mother, has it all, a lovely life style and two children who adore her, and a respite from the battle against cancer she’s been fighting. Anne Sullivan, at age fifty, is optimistic that her move to sunny Santa Barbara, California, will allow her to be closer to her youngest son and his family, and help her start her life anew after the death of her beloved husband.

But all three of these women, despite their considerable blessings, are plunged into turmoil when the most intimate of secrets that ties their lives together is revealed. At this same time, Molly Harper is confronted with the news that her marriage to actor Ben Delmonico is over. As she navigates this heartbreak and tries to keep the personal details of the drama off the front pages of the newspapers, Molly must also find a way to once and forever negotiate a way forward with her ex- lover and best friend, the volatile and compelling Cruz Morales.

How each of these characters handles the resulting upheaval in their own life, and in their relationships with one another, forms the compelling story of family, secrets and trust in the romantic women’s fiction novel, Molly Harper.

EXCERPT:

Anne Sullivan looked down at her watch.

One twenty-one p.m. Norma Wintz was twenty minutes late.

Anne leaned back against the banquette and avoided making eye contact with the hovering waitress. She folded her hands together and wondered if her face looked tight as cellophane stretched over a bowl of tuna salad. That’s how it felt.

I shouldn’t have come. She glanced around the unfamiliar restaurant. It was all glass and mirrors; chock full of shockingly glamorous Californians surely leading shockingly exciting lives. People who wouldn’t understand why a widow from Potomac, Maryland was breaking into sobs and intruding on their lunch experience.

Which is probably what I’m going to do once Norma arrives, she thought. She had tried to prepare herself for meeting the woman, face-to-face, who had adopted her baby thirty-five years ago, but Anne wasn’t sure she was going to be able to handle it as she hoped.

Calmly. Dispassionately. In control.

Anne’s chest suddenly ached, as if all the emotion she’d suppressed for decades gathered into a knot under her ribs.

I should call the number for Norma Wintz and tell her not to come. Which was a great idea, except she’d left her cell phone in the car. And if she went to her car to get it, she might not have the emotional courage to come back.

To say nothing of the fact that if she walked the two long blocks to where she was parked, there was a good chance she would miss Norma Wintz altogether, and the woman would probably think she was a crack pot.

Anne took another peek at her watch.

One twenty-two.

That’s impossible. It felt as if an hour had passed since she’d last looked at the time.

“Excuse me, are you Mrs. Sullivan?” A waiter, his eyes jade green against his tan skin, smiled at Anne. His name tag read ‘Taj’.

“Yes, I’m Anne Sullivan

“There’s a call for you.” Taj held out a phone.

Anne pressed it against her head. “This is Anne Sullivan.”

Taj clasped his hands behind his back and smiled at her as if she was a small child on the first day of school.

“Hello, this is Norma Wintz calling,” a voice said in Anne’s ear. “I’m on my way but there was an accident and traffic is wretched. I got no answer on the number you gave me, but I wanted to let you know I wasn’t standing you up.”

“Oh, that’s no problem.” Anne nodded at Taj and repositioned the phone an inch higher on her ear. “I don’t have other plans for this afternoon.”

“Fine. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” The phone went dead.

“Okay. Thank you!” Anne met the waiter’s eyes and wondered how Taj had known to bring it to her.

Norma Wintz must have described me to him. But what could she have said, since we’ve never met?  Look for a woman who seems the sort to give up her first-born child for adoption?

Author Bio and Links

Emelle Gamble was a writer at an early age, bursting with the requisite childhood stories of introspection. These evolved into bad teen poetry and worse short stories. She took her first stab at full length fiction in an adult education writing class when her kids were in bed.  As M.L. Gamble, she published several romantic suspense novels with Harlequin. She has contracted with Soul Mate Publishing for Secret Sister, published in the summer of 2013, and Dating Cary Grant, a March 2014 release.

Once and Forever, an anthology which includes the novella Duets, came out on November 1st. Molly Harper, a full length novel starring the characters from Duets 3 years later was released by Posh Publishing in January.

Emelle lives in suburban Washington D.C. with her husband, ‘Phil-the-fist’, her hero of thirty years, and two orange cats, Lucy and Bella. These girls, like all good villains, have their reasons for misbehaving. Her daughter, Olivia, and son, Allen, are happily launched on their own and contributing great things to society, their mother’s fondest wish.

Review Quotes:

Praise for Secret Sister

“Along with being a very unique and captivating plot, SECRET SISTER offers a shocking turn of the paranormal kind. So if you are the type of person that wants ordinary romance in a book, you won't find that here. This is a story of friendship, family, and most of all, true love and what those things can mean. I cannot recommend SECRET SISTER strongly enough… “ Fresh Fiction, Fresh Reviews

"If you're looking for a typical women's fiction/romance, don't look here... this story has a twist of the paranormal that will have you willingly stretching your belief in order to enjoy the plot. Emelle Gamble has created a story that will tear your heart out."  Long and Short Reviews

Links:

Email: emellegamble@aol.com

Website:  www.EmelleGamble.com 

FaceBook:  Author Emelle Gamble

Twitter: @EmelleGamble

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7123746.Emelle_Gamble      

Secret Sister by Emelle Gamble is now available on Amazon!  http://amzn.to/17J2Bn6

Once and Forever  an anthology with Emelle Gamble’s novella, Duets, is now available on Amazon!    http://amzn.to/1h9fZWv

 Emelle will be awarding a $50 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour and the Reviews Only Tour A digital copy of Molly Harper will be awarded to 3 randomly drawn commenters also during this tour and the Reviews Only Tour.  You can find her schedule at
http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/02/virtual-nbtm-book-tour-molly-harper-by.html