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
