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Maids of Misfortune – Mary Louisa Locke

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Mary Louisa Locke I would like to introduce Author Mary Louisa Locke, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion. Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Mary, please tell us about your book, Maids of Misfortune. Maids of Misfortune is the first in a series of historical mysteries and short stories I have written set in Victorian San Francisco. Maids of Misfortune introduces Annie Fuller, a San Francisco widow who owns a boarding house and supplements her income as Madam Sibyl, a clairvoyant, giving business and domestic advice. As the book opens in the summer of 1879, a creditor threatens to take away her home, and one of Madam Sibyl's clients, Mr. Voss, dies suddenly. Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson, the Voss family lawyer and romantic interest, try to find out the truth about Voss's death in order to save his family and Annie from financial ruin. In order to do so, Annie goes undercover as a domestic servant in the murdered man's house. This is a light, romantic, cozy mystery that takes the protagonists from formal parlors to a Charity Ball and a buggy ride through Golden Gate Park to the sea shore, but it also deals with some…

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Authors' Chat

The Bitti Chai – Jane Gray

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Jane Gray I would like to introduce Author Jane Gray, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion. Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Jane, please tell us about your book, "The Bitti Chai." The Bitti Chai is basically a story about an endless love between two teenagers from very different cultures. It explores family emotions and ties, loyalty and love. It deals with bereavement and the grieving process and how the family pulls together to support and cherish their loved ones. I hope it portrays an accurate and positive image of Romany culture rather than the negative stereotypical image often portrayed by the press and some television programmes. There is an occult element which runs through the story and this is something I have always been fascinated by. Was there any research you did for your story? If so, please explain. The research for my book was limited with regard to the Romany aspect as I was brought up by my Romany grandfather and our culture and family values are central to the background of the book. Being heavily involved with horses myself this aspect of the story was second nature to me. However I have had to carry…

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Authors' Chat

A Field of Poppies – Sharon Sala

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Sharon Sala I would like to introduce Author Sharon Sala, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion, for her book, "A Field of Poppies".Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com When and where do you like to read? I read when I get a chance and anywhere there's a book and a place to sit down. I care for my 92 year old mother full time in my home. She has dementia and no short-term memory left so it's quite a challenge. And I'm still writing full time, so me time is rare. What was the last truly great book you have read? I'll tell you the book that has stayed with me the longest, although it's not the last book I've read. It was called THE LAST CHILD, by John Hart and when I had finished it, I went back and bought and read everything he's written to date. It was THAT compelling. Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you? I don't like self-help anything and I don't want to read someone else's opinion of how life should be lived, sooo having said…

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Authors' Chat

Patches of Grey – Roy Pickering

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Roy Pickering I would like to introduce Author Roy Pickering, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion, for his book, "Patches of Grey".Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Roy, thank you for the pleasure of this interview. First I would like to ask you questions about your interests in reading. What are you currently reading and what do you plan on reading next? Thank you, Stephanie. I've just started Tinkers by Paul Harding. One of my reading goals is to notch as many Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners as possible, so Tinkers will move that along. My progress is being charted at my blog A Line A Day: http://lineaday.blogspot.com/2009/03/pulitzer-prize.html Lately I've been plowing through my To Read List via trips to the library, but I happen to own an autographed copy of Tinkers that was won in a contest. Next up I plan to check out Pym by Mat Johnson, unless another title grabs my attention and jumps ahead of it in the never-ending line. Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? Or one that teaches you something or that distracts you? Out of every 10 books I read I'd say 8 - 9 of them will be in the "teaches…

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Authors' Chat

Second Thoughts – Bill Harper

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Bill Harper I would like to introduce author Bill Harper, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Bill please tell us about your book, Second Thoughts. Thanks to you, STEPHANIE..and your IndiBrag website and to Geri Clouston of B.R.A.G. Medallion for giving me this opportunity to do just that.


 The full title of the book - Second Thoughts: Presidential Regrets with their Supreme Court Nominations gives a pretty good idea of what's between the covers. And, just like all the rest of us, Presidents of the United States do make mistakes and sometimes, just like all the rest of us, they too come to regret some of their actions. 

The difference is, when you and I make a mistake, its effects are fairly marginal. But when the President makes a mistake, it can be monumental. For instance, what do you do when you're Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States, and you appoint and fight for and get a specific Supreme Court nomination? Then, you wake up a few months later to screaming newspaper headlines that your vaunted nominee – to the highest court in the land – has been discovered…

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A Fatal Verdict – Tim Vicary

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Tim Vicary I would like to introduce Tim Vicary, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Please tell us about your book, A Fatal Verdict. A Fatal Verdict is the second in a series of three legal thrillers featuring a British barrister (trial lawyer) Sarah Newby. She’s a tough lady who left school when she became pregnant at fifteen and had a hard fight to get to where she is today. In all three of these books Sarah is confronted with trials in which she cannot be certain whether the clients she represents are guilty or innocent. The reader doesn’t know either, until the last minute. This means that although Sarah fights each case as hard as she can, there are difficult moral and emotional choices to be made, by her and the police and everyone else involved.

 In the first book, A Game of Proof, Sarah’s own son, Simon, is accused of a series of dreadful rapes and murders. This is bad enough for any mother, but Sarah is not just Simon’s mother, she is also a lawyer, an officer of the court. So when she uncovers evidence which seems to prove…

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Authors' Chat

A Cold Snow in Castaway County – John Hickman

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: John Hickman I would like to introduce John Hickman, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com John, please tell us about your book, A Cold Snow in Castaway County. A former police officer and investigator from the Boston PD, Dell Hinton leaves the city after a controversial shooting. He moves to a small community in Maine where an old school friend lives. After building his home along the shore of a lake, Dell is convinced to run for the job of Sheriff in Castaway County. After winning the election, he meets with the prior Sheriff and learns of a cold case that has been haunting that man for ten years. The story line then centers on how Dell must learn the new duties of being a Sheriff and work to solve the cold case. Considering your experience in law enforcement, I’m sure it helped you a great deal in writing your story. Did you have to do any additional research for your book other than what you already know? Well, I was able to incorporate some stories from my career, as well as some of my training throughout the years. But I did…

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Authors' Chat

Riptide – Michael Prescott

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Michael Prescott I would like to introduce Michael Prescott, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Michael, please tell us about your book, Riptide. 

I came up with the idea for Riptide pretty much by accident, when I was writing an e-mail to another author. I was spitballing far-fetched story ideas, and one of them concerned a woman who finds the diary of Jack the Ripper hidden in her cellar and realizes there may be a family connection. After typing a few words about that, I sat back and thought, “Actually, that's not bad.” I strengthened it by adding the idea that the woman's emotionally troubled brother may be re-creating the Ripper's crimes in the present day. I set the story in Venice, California, which of course posed the challenge of trying to explain how a killer from London's East End could wind up on the West Coast of America. The story was a little different from some of the others I've done–a little more high concept. I thought it worked out well, but when I tried to sell it to traditional publishers, I hit a wall. Although I had published twenty previous…

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Authors' Chat

Opening Day – Joe Perrone

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Joe Perrone I would like to introduce author Joe Perrone, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Thank you Joe for the pleasure of this interview. Could you please tell us about you book, Opening Day. Opening Day is the second in the Matt Davis Mystery Series, and is set in Roscoe, NY, a small fishing village where I used to be a fly fishing guide. Matt Davis is a former NYPD homicide detective who has taken early retirement following a near-death experience on the job, and has taken a relatively laid-back position as Chief of Police of a three-man department. While out fishing on the opening day of trout season, he stumbles across the badly deteriorated body of what turns out to be a young woman. The body is unclothed; there is no physical evidence or apparent motive; and the victim's identity is unknown. As the story unfolds, readers are introduced to three different young women at a time prior to the murder, any one of whom might be the victim. Their stories are interwoven with the ongoing events and investigation, until eventually two are eliminated, leaving the remaining woman as the…

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Authors' Chat

Peanut Butter For Cupcakes – Donna Aviles

Stephanie Hopkins
Author Interview: Donna Aviles I would like to introduce Author Donna Aviles, the winner of the B.R.A.G Medallion Read the entire interview at: www.layeredpages.blogspot.com Donna please tell us about your book, Peanut Butter For Cupcakes. Hi Stephanie! Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my book with your readers. Peanut Butter For Cupcakes is the true story of my Grandfather, Oliver Nordmark, and his struggle to raise his six children during The Great Depression after the sudden and tragic death of his wife Estella. May, Bud, Oliver Jr, Margaret, Jim and Benny are all under the age of 10 as the story begins. With their mother gone, they will learn their life lessons from their Dad, who never had a real parent of his own - having been orphaned at age six. 

It is a social history of this very difficult period in America and puts a real face, specifically on the children, of that era. It is also a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit and proof that "boys will be boys" regardless of money, possessions or position - or the lack thereof. Although rightfully sad at times, there are also many lighthearted moments and…

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