Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Elle James | Come with me to the Bayou
Author Guest / May 13, 2013

Traveling to research a trip is such fun. For those of you who don’t get out enough or far enough south, come along with me on this trip to Louisiana I took with my sister last fall. We started from my parents home in a little town called Arkadelphia, Arkansas, early in the morning. The sun was just coming up as we hit the interstate headed toward Texarkana. That was the easy part, then we cut around Shreveport and drove south into bayou country. After a long few hours of traveling we were in bayou country where the roads paralleled cannels and cypress trees towered out of the water. We stopped along the way at a mom-and-pop joint for a yummy taste of Shrimp Okra Gumbo and continued south to our first stop, the farthest point south, Grand Isle, a small patch of islands connected to the mainland by bridges. We were thinking vacation spot and, to some, it is. The beaches were eh, but it seemed the fishing was what people come for. The houses were on stilts, 8-10 feet above the ground (think hurricanes and storm surges). But you won’t find a better sunset than what we found…

Jeff Horton | What Writing Means To Me
Author Guest / May 13, 2013

My name is Jeff Horton, and I am a novelist. I say I am a novelist and not an author because an author can be someone that writes about anything including novels, historical biographies, travel guides, etc., while a novelist is an artist, a painter if you will. Imagination is the paint and the keyboard the paintbrush. I enjoy writing because for me it is pure creativity. From my imagination proceeds people, places, sights, sounds, and events which have never really existed. For me, writing a novel is sort of like watching a movie. I start writing with an idea of what I’m after, but the story truly takes on a life of its own as I write, often taking me in a direction I never could have imagined it going in before. The end result is that I have no idea how the story is going to end myself until I have finished the first draft. Even then, the story can morph as I make my way through a series of inevitable revisions where the rough stone is cut and chipped away at, before being polished into what I consider to be a work of art. When I write,…

Fresh Pick | GATSBY’S GIRL by Caroline Preston
Fresh Pick / May 13, 2013

May 2006 Featuring: F. Scott Fitzgerald; Ginevra King 320 pages ISBN: 0618537252 Hardcover $24.00 FictionBuy at Amazon.com Gatsby’s Girl by Caroline Preston A Novel of First Love… She was two months past her sixteenth birthday, a rich man’s daughter who had been told she was pretty far too often for her own good. He was nineteen years old, a poor boy full of ambition. They met at a country club dance in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January 1916. Ginevra was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first love, but despite their intense epistolary romance, the relationship wouldn’t last. After throwing him over with what he deemed “supreme boredom and indifference,” she married a handsome young aviator from the right background. Caroline Preston deftly evokes the entire arc of Ginevra’s story from her first romantic meeting with Scott to the second act of her sometimes charmed, sometimes troubled life. Ginevra ruminates over what might have been had she picked the writer instead of the aviator. Furtively reading the now famous Fitzgerald’s work, Ginevra sees herself in his characters, and not just as the spoiled debutante he’d known, but also uncannily predicting the woman she has become–cracks and all. An affecting story of two people:…

Alexandrea Weis | What’s the Difference Between a Love Story and a Romance?
Author Guest / May 13, 2013

My first book, TO MY SENSES, has been called a romance by some and more than a romance, a love story if you will, by others. Is there a difference between a romance and a love story? I believe that difference is in the eye of the reader. For some, a romance novel may follow a set of circumstances that promise the inevitable happy ending, but a love story often takes the reader on a much different ride. It engages the reader on a deeper level with emotionally charged characters and poignant, life-altering choices. Romances may bring a comforting conclusion, but a love story does not because, as many of us know from experience, love is never predictable. Some romances may be forgettable, but a great love story will live on in the reader’s memory for many years to come. Why are love stories so engaging? Perhaps it is because of the nature of love itself. Love changes us, and can alter our direction in life, as Nicci Beauvoir was awakened by David Alexander’s love in TO MY SENSES, or Pamela was transformed by Daniel’s love in my novel, BROKEN WINGS. Such great love can act as a sudden wind…