The Story That Made Us Stronger

                                    The Story That Made Us Stronger

by Iris March

 

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GENRE:   Women's Fiction/ Cancer journey

 

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BLURB:

 

An abandoned building. A motivated runner. A Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer survivor.

Connor Jackson has been training for a half marathon for the past six weeks. Katie Brandt has been training to beat cancer for the past 50. When Connor discovers an intriguing secret in a tiny, abandoned building on his running route, Katie finds that the mystery is what she needs to help her get through her three-week stem cell replacement procedure. Together, Conner and Katie must find the strength to achieve their personal goals and, in the meantime, expose the many past lives that the tiny building led.

 

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EXCERPT

 

The Runner

Connor Jackson

 

I’d run past it probably a thousand times. 

 

An especially windy thunderstorm had covered my regular paved running trail with slippery leaves, twigs, and a few larger limbs on a late August afternoon. As I was running the trail, avoiding the more slippery sections, a door that I’d never noticed before was ever-so-slightly crooked, leaving it ajar. Mind you, I was running when I caught this dark shadow next to the door in the corner of my eye, and I almost tripped. Instead of hitting the ground, I sidestepped and took that moment to stop, pretend to tie my shoe and adjust my socks, and push my sweaty brown hair out of my eyes. I refused to be one of those guys with a man bun, but maybe I just needed to get a new haircut.

 

As I was messing with my shoes, I looked up at the building. It was small, probably only ten feet long by ten feet wide, a red-brick structure with a huge pole an inch away from it that was taller and thicker than any nearby telephone poles. At the tip of the pole was a piece of metal, strapped on and reaching even farther into the sky. There was a rusted chain-link fence around the building, with a few small trees and weeds within it. You could tell at one point that green plastic had been wrapped around the links, but it was long gone. The building was about fifty feet away from the trail, with plenty of trees between it and me, including a huge tulip poplar that I often noticed while running, and a bunch of maples. Breaking up the brick on the west side of the building, facing up the trail, was a wooden door with no window, adorned only by a worn doorknob. And now the hinges seemed to have broken a bit, the wood warped and pulling away from the frame about half an inch.

 

I was kneeling and staring for too long. A woman wearing blue sunglasses and walking a dog that looked like Lassie gave me a bit of a sideways look. I adjusted my shorts and stood up to continue running, with a lot more on my mind. 

A Word With the Author

1.Did you always want to be an author?

I have always been a reader and I always been a bit in awe of authors. I never understood where they came up with ideas and how they could write such a long story, so so many words. When I was struggling with the worry I had surrounding my sister’s cancer treatments and the burden on her family, I needed something more than journaling. I distinctly remember standing up at my desk, looking out the window, and craning my neck to see the little brick building on my running route that I always wondered about. In that moment, I was inspired. I sat down and wrote the first scene of Connor running past the building and knew that he was my sister’s fictional nurse and they would figure out the mystery together even if I didn’t know the answer myself yet. 

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

This is actually my second book. My first is a cozy mystery, The Broken Bridge – A Succulent Sleuth Cozy Mystery - set at a garden center with a hiking trail running behind it. There’s another trail, another mystery, and another cat. That book was a lot easier for me to figure out the plot and I knew the ending before I even started writing it.

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

I used to claim that F. Scott Fitzgerald was my favorite author. It was the English major in me that needed to be a bit literary. But then I reread Gatsby as an adult and didn’t love it as much as the first four times I read it (ha!). I love cozy mysteries and am a big fan of Sara Rosett and Lucinda Harrison. 

 

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

The very best part of being an author is someone you don’t know telling you they love your book. Yes, I want my mom and my sisters and aunts and my friends to like it but their praise has a lot to do with the accomplishment of writing the book as a whole. When someone I don’t even know takes the time to seek me out and tell me they love the story, that means a lot. That’s the best. The worst part is being stuck at a scene that you don’t think is going in the right direction. 

 

5.What are you working on now?

I’m working on a short story for an anthology – a collection of cozy mystery short stories that all have a bookish theme. It’s the second in the Succulent Sleuth Cozy Mystery series and is set at a plant swap event at the library.  

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Iris March grew up the oldest of three sisters whose names all began with the same letter. Her sisters are still her best friends. March works in the sustainability field and also writes cozy mysteries in the Succulent Sleuth Series. She lives in Ohio with her husband, young son,

and three cats.

 

Author website https://irismarchbooks.com/

 

Insta https://www.instagram.com/searchingformysteries/

 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076150266393

 

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22404252.Iris_March

 

Amazon (will be in KU): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B9PQWVN5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

Physical book will also be on Barnes and Noble 

 

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

 

Iris March will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway