My Interview with Kimberly Kaye of 96 Kix, The People’s Station

Hello World, four women

If you missed my interview with Kimberly Kaye of 96 Kix, The People’s Station, here is your chance…We discussed my new novel (those are the four main characters as I see them in my head) and my blog! Below is an interview clip in case you missed the interview….Less than 7  minutes…

 

Any thoughts?

Tiffany L. Warren Presents “The Replacement Wife,” the BOOK not the stage play…

Hello World,

As a lifelong bibliophile, one of my greatest joys to discover a new book to love 🙂 My friend and fellow author Tiffany L. Warren has a written a brand new book  “The Replacement Wife” released today, that you are sure to love….Tiffany, who has written 15 novels including two young adult series (So For Real and The Fab Life) under pen name Nikki Carter, is also a playwright! “The Replacement Wife,” a stage play which debuted in 2012, featured vocal powerhouse Shirley Murdock and Tommy Ford from “Martin.” Below is a description of the book and my interview with Tiffany about “The Replacement Wife”  the book….

Five years after his beloved wife’s death, wealthy Quentin Chambers still hasn’t returned to the church or his music ministry. Even his home is now devoid of music, and without his attention, Quentin’s five children are getting out of control–until his mother steps in and hires him a live-in nanny. Montana is pretty, compassionate, church-going, and even has a beautiful singing voice. The children take to her right away, and soon enough Quentin finds his heart opening to faith–and love–once more. But not everyone loves Montana. . .

A “friend” of Quentin’s first wife, Chloe has been scheming to become the next Mrs. Chambers since the funeral. Chloe is convinced she’s just one seduction away from a marriage proposal. Now she’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of Montana–including blackmail, theft–and digging up a troublemaking man from Montana’s past. But Chloe forgets she’s got secrets of her own, and the tables may turn with a twist she never sees coming. . .

1.What inspired you to write “The Replacement Wife?”

It’s actually a faith-based take on “The Sound of Music.” I’ve loved that movie since I was a little girl! I wanted to write a romance with a widower, and this seemed like the perfect backdrop. A man who has abandoned his music ministry after losing his wife to cancer. There is a lot of room for reconciliation and redemption, the themes for all of my books.

2.What do you want readers to learn from this story?

That even the strongest Christians can be impacted by grief and even blame God their situation. I kept thinking about the Bible story of Job when he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”. What does that mean? Job believed that God was the cause of his affliction, but yet in order to recover he had no choice except to trust God. That was so profound to me.

3.Who is your favorite character in this book, and why?

Montana. She is a very trusting person. She looks for the good in everyone.

4.This novel is set in Atlanta. Why Atlanta, and how did you conduct research about Atlanta in writing this book?

I chose Atlanta because I’ve spent enough time there to be able to describe it properly. I only write places that I am familiar with, because I don’t have the resources to travel to locations and write. One day, I will write a book set on the Amalfi Coast (Italy)!

5.How long did it take you to write this book?

About five months.

6.Was this book easier or harder to write than your other books and why?

Each book presents its own challenges. This one challenged me because I personally have never experienced the type of grief that comes with losing a spouse or a close family member. I had to research the grief process.

7.Are you coming to Atlanta to promote the book? Where? When?

I will be in Atlanta, May 17-18. Locations haven’t been determined yet, but check my website at www.tiffanylwarren.com for details.

To read an excerpt of “The Replacement Wife,” go here

Any thoughts?

P.S. I will forever be indebted to Tiffany as I got a book deal through her 2010 Faith & Fiction Retreat held in Atlanta…Yes, Tiffany is a novelist, playwright, conference planner AND a wife and mother to five children 🙂

This Novel That I’m Writing…

four women

 

(While this post was sponsored by Grammarly, the opinions are my own…I use Grammarly’s plagiarism checker because being sued is not sexy.)

Hello World,

Today as I write this blog post, I am sequestered at home as my beloved A is immobilized due to a snow storm…Yes, that’s right, HOTlanta is not very hot right now…In fact, we are freezing…my space heater is spewing heat behind me so hopefully, I will be warm in a bit…

Anyway, it’s a perfect day to write and think about writing…If you don’t know, I have been working on my first novel…I once heard that “Sex and the City” was a love letter to single women everywhere….And I was single for just about 20 years before marrying a month shy of my 40th birthday last year, I know that single women could use a good, mushy, empathetic, well-written love letter from time to time…So my book is a love letter to all single black women, particularly those of us who call the A our home for better or worse…

Below is a quick synopsis about my novel….

Four friends’ quest for love and marriage in Atlanta, the media proclaimed no-man’s land for black women, threatens to destroy their careers, their reputation, their sanity, and — their friendship.

The book is inspired, in part, by my experiences as a single woman….The summer before my 30th birthday, I embarked on a journey to myself that prepared me to receive romantic love in my life…It was a 10-year journey that was often simultaneously demoralizing and uplifting at the same time…God used all kind of tools to fashion me…some of them included intentional and unintentional mentors, books written decades before I was born, bad-for-me men I found myself attracted to in spite of my values, emotional breakdowns and on and on….The irony of it all is although I would never want to go through all of that again, the collection of those experiences will probably inspire me for the rest of my life…I wonder if 20 years from now, I will have same thoughts about marriage…we shall see…

grammarlyI will admit I am being intentionally vague about this novel that I’m writing, but I feel that writing is like cooking…No need to tell all of the ingredients until it is done…But as I write my book, I will be using Grammarly,an automated online proofreader that finds and explains grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes in all types of writing. The online tool also “improve[s] word choice with context-optimized vocabulary suggestions” and also helps writers “avoid plagiarism by checking [our] texts against over 8 billion web pages.” I think Grammarly’s plagiarism checker is the best feature so I use Grammarly’s plagiarism checker because being sued is not sexy…And my book is about single women who are sexy…Yes, Christians can be sexy too 🙂 LOL….

Any thoughts?