Author Lisa April Smith tours "Exceeding Expectations" and Sequel with Interview!

SUMMARY :

It's 1961 and Palm Beach socialite, irresistible rascal and devoted father Jack Morgan encounters genuine danger while staging his suicide to shield his beloved daughters from scandal and disgrace. Next, meet his daughter Charlotte (Charlie), an over-indulged 23 year-old struggling to cope with the loss of her beloved father, her sister's resulting mental breakdown and the discovery that she's now penniless. Fortunately Raul, an admiring young attorney, offers assistance to the traumatized young woman, who can joke about her inadequacies. As terrified as she is about paying for her sister's costly treatment and her own daily survival, Charlie soon realizes that she must learn what drove her father to kill himself. With Raul's much needed ego-bolstering, she pursues a career that makes practical use of her lanky 5' 11" frame. Despite roadblocks and emotional upheavals, she embarks on an ocean-spanning journey that leads to a family she doesn't know, distressing truths about her father, crimes great and small, a diabolical villain and a fireworks of surprise...


Buy Exceeding Expectations the E-book at Amazon.com  or Barnes&Noble.com                                            


Buy Exceeding Expectations in Paperback at Amazon.com




FIND AN EXCERPT OF CHAPTER ONE ON THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE HERE:

http://www.lisaaprilsmith.com





ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Lisa April Smith lives with her husband, He-who-wishes-to-remain-anonymous, in Eternal Playland, Florida, a delightful spot just off I-95. Ms. Smith describes Eternal Playland as: "a little piece of level heaven with occasional dampness, where the bugs are plentiful but respectful, and even the smallest strip mall contains at least one pizza place and a nail salon."

 Past work experience includes designing software and managing projects for IBM, selling plumbing and heating and antiques, teaching ballroom dancing and modeling. Lately, in addition to writing page-turners, this author enjoys corresponding with fans, spending time with her family, encouraging her fiercely independent orchids and rearranging antiques. (Having run out of space, Ms. Smith no longer permits herself to add to her collection.)




A BOOKISH LIBRARIA HAPPILY BRINGS YOU THIS INTERVIEW OF MS SMITH TODAY!!


So, Lisa, it's so good to have you back with us this summer for an interview about your fantastic "Exceeding Expectations" series.  I need to mention the second book of that series, "Paradise Misplaced," which just topped the whole mystery off.  I loved the story and wish you would keep it going!!  But, I know you're moving on to other exciting things.  Let's talk about you and your plans...

1. Tell us something about yourself, please.  How do most people describe you?

Lisa: Depending on how well they know me and in what context, they would describe me as a diligent (compulsive), disciplined (obsessive), eager to learn (academic geek), motivated (impatient), ordinary woman who adores her family (and can’t stop bragging about them).

 

2. Briefly, where did the idea for your novel germinate?

Lisa: My first three books began with fascinating characters I’ve read about in newspapers. I didn’t use their childhoods, physical appearances or personalities.  I’ve never met any of them. There’s was just something about their stories that sent my imagination into overdrive. I wasn’t going to do something that I’ve seen before. No naïve/good-hearted hookers, like the protagonists in Pretty Woman or Sweet Charity.      

Take Exceeding Expectations as an example. Back a few years, Florida television and newspapers were reporting a story of a local Palm Beach socialite (Stephen Fagan) arrested for kidnapping his daughters eighteen years earlier, when they were 2 and 5 years old. The primary reason that it had taken eighteen years to find Fagan was that he had successfully reinvented himself. As William S. Martin, a handsome widower with two young daughters and no apparent means of support, Fagan had met and married a wealthy Palm Beach widow. After their divorce, another affluent woman agreed to wed and maintain his family’s plush lifestyle.

Neighbors, friends and the teachers at the girls’ tony  private school all described him as “likeable,” “charming” and “devoted father.” Throughout his arrest and subsequent proceedings, his loyal third wife steadfastly stood by him, as did both daughters. Perhaps what most surprised people who followed the case was that the girls’ mother, a research scientist teaching at the University of Virginia, through the media and her attorney, repeatedly begged her daughters to meet with her and they refused. To my knowledge, that continues to this day.

As I was following the case I found myself thinking that there was an even juicier story using a few core facts. A man with an invented name and history, twice married to wealthy widows, living in Palm Beach, playground of the mega-rich and famous, and involved in a crime. Two adoring daughters unaware of their true identities. Over time my imagination happily supplied the rest. A townhouse off Fifth Avenue. A sprawling estate in Virginia. Romantic Paris in the years prior to WWII. A riveting past for Jack Morgan: skilled lover, lack-luster artist and irresistible rascal. A full-blown range of challenges and hard-wrought triumphs for his traumatized daughter Charlotte (Charlie).     

 

Who first told you that you could write well, and how did it affect you?

Lisa:  One of my elementary school teachers. Probably in 5th or 6th grade. I showed her a play I had written and she insisted on my class performing it for the entire school. (A very small school.) How did that affect me? I don’t know. I think I already knew that I wrote well for a kid and not nearly as well as authors of the books I loved. I was more concerned that I was dreadful in geography. Other kids knew that Italy was in Europe and that Europe wasn’t a country. I had no clue. 

 

Which contemporary authors do you most admire?

Lisa: Khaled Hosseini: favorite book, The Kite Runner

  Edward Rutherford: favorite book, Russka

  Sara Gruen: favorite book, Water for Elephants (I adore anything to do with the circus, side-shows and carnivals, but NOT Disneyland. Disneyland is too antiseptic to me).

 

Which are your favorite classical authors?

Lisa: Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, Guy de Maupassant – if you like pithy wry, read his short stories, and Louisa May Alcott. When I was kid I read and loved everything she wrote. I absolutely saw myself in Jo March. I was the independent tomboy who enjoyed staging plays and “scribbling.”   

 

Jump into any book which character would you be?

Lisa:  While I saw myself as Jo March, Little Women, she didn’t have the adventurous life that I dream about. I hope this doesn’t sound too egotistical, but I would like to be Charlie, at the end of Paradise Misplaced. She’s going to travel the world, hobnob with the rich, famous and infamous, be knee-deep in fabulous art, expose theft and fraud, win respect for her expertise, love passionately, be hurt many times and recover, all the while keeping a self-deprecating view of herself.

 

If you could have 5 historical people to dinner, who would they be?  What would you have to eat?

Lisa:  Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth I and Woody Allen. I could rely on Woody to ask far better questions than I could. He and Samuel Clemens would bond immediately. As for food, it would have to catered. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in the kitchen and I’d serve twenty courses, like a Chinese feast, so that the meal would go on for hours.    

 

Read any good books in the past 6 months?

Lisa: One comes to mind immediately - New York: The Novel, by Edward Rutherford

       

Favorite two tv shows:

Lisa:  How about three favorites? “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Fashion Star” and “Alaska: The Last Frontier.” How’s that for an eclectic range? Maybe not. The first two showcase incredibly talented creative people – dancers, choreographers and dress designers. But “Alaska: TLF” is decidedly outside the box. Life in Alaska is a contact sport. The program appeals to both my love of adventure and my admiration for the resourceful, determined, kind, intelligent people. 

 

Favorite movie of all time:

Lisa:  I adore good movies. Some plots and characters stay with me forever. I love almost every Woody Allen film that I’ve seen. “Sweet and Low Down” might be my favorite, or “Radio Days” or “Hanahh and Her Sisters.” Regrettably, I’ve missed a few. He’s done 61 to date. And I also have to include “The Man with Two Brains” a wacky hilarious movie. (After rereading this I know I should’ve chosen a serious movie (“To Kill a Mockingbird” “Gone with the Wind”) or a musical, I adore musicals (“Gigi”, “Chicago”) . . .  I’d better stop. You did ask for only one. 

    

Are you working on a new book?

Lisa:  Positively. Of course, it’s going to be my best to date. It’s an epic novel set in ancient China tentatively titled The Storytellers. 

 

Anything else you would like to add or share with us?

Lisa:  Thank you for asking, Deb. I’d like readers to know that Exceeding Expectations has a sequel, Paradise Misplaced, which also received amazing reviews. 

 

 

Thanks for this witty and thoughtful interview, Lisa.  I have to go back and watch some of those old Woody Allen movies.  They are classics...  I can see that type of quick  humor in your books.

 

 

******************************************************************************

THE DAME'S REVIEW OF "EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS" :

 

Charlie, a girl in her early 20's, is just another over-indulged, wealthy daughter of Palm Beach who's major concerns are horses, parties and gossip. Then, her father commits suicide, her sister has a mental breakdown and her posh step-mother leaves them penniless. The beautiful life comes to a dead halt, and Charlie, who never even learned to wash dishes, has to get a job.

When Charlie sets out to discover why her beloved, pampering father would abandon them, knowingly leaving her sister and her without a means of support, she discovers more than she ever could image about him, herself and her abilities to "exceed expectations." She also discovers that PB society may not always get it right about love and class, when she meets and gets help from the brilliant young lawyer, Andy Garcia clone, Raul. Armed with Raul's encouragement, her own pride and tenacity, Charlie uses her only skill; modelling, to help finance herself and her sister while she travels from Palm Beach to NYC, across the US and to Paris in search of some answers.

I appreciate Lisa Smith as a seasoned author with astute writing skills after having read and reviewed her "Dangerous Lies" last year. She has a brilliance for conveying characters, and the intellectual capacity to place them in historical settings that sparkle with glamorous detail.

In fact, it's the authentic details of the time-periods that make it fun to read Lisa's book as it skips from Charlie's current days of the late 1950's and early '60's to the past Palm Beach and Manhattan, with hints of Sister Parish's posh interior designs, famous museums and artists, the fashions of different eras, vintage cars and high society parties. Her historical and fictitious characters work in sync as they are perfectly set in these time frames, and midst the transitory madness of WWs I and II Paris.

Lisa Smith's writing isn't over-blown with emotion and sappy romance; rather, it is sophisticated and subtle. It's witty, fun and sassy. There's love of family; and, there are affairs of the heart, pain and anxieties that accompany romantic relationships in difficult times, intrigue and madness. I loved this kettle of mystery and suspense that dominates her characters.

I'm a fan of Ms Smith's. I love a good story with interesting characters, a mystery and a romance that's not over-the-top but that rests securely in reality. I like foreign intrigue and the sophistication of art and society. Most of all, I so appreciate an intelligent author of worldly experience! If you do, too, you'll love "Exceeding Expectations." This book has a sequel which I'm dying to read!

5 soaring stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

       

Please follow this link to find my full review of this book last year on A Bookish Libraria: 
http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com/2012/09/paradise-misplaced-by-lisa-april-smith.html

Interview with Lauren Willig! "The Ashford Affair"

SUMMARY :

From Lauren Willig, author of the New York Times bestselling Pink Carnation series, comes a richly detailed historical saga, spanning from WWI England to colonial Kenya to present-day New York, as one woman discovers the truth about her family’s hidden past and her own present.

As a lawyer in a large Manhattan firm, just shy of making partner, Clementine Evans has finally achieved almost everything she’s been working towards—but now she’s not sure it’s enough. Her long hours have led to a broken engagement and, suddenly single at thirty-four, she feels her life crumbling around her.

 

When the family gathers for her grandmother Addie’s ninety-ninth birthday, a relative lets slip hints about a long-buried family secret. Clemmie is stunned. Addie was the woman who seemed to have it all: a perfect marriage, three children, and a successful career in an era when most women didn’t have one. As Clemmie unravels the story, scandalous family secrets that are decades old begin to come back to life, leading her on a journey into the past that could change everything.

Growing up at Ashford Park in the heyday of Edwardian society, Addie has never quite belonged. When her parents passed away, she was taken in by her aristocratic aunt and uncle who raised her in the grand English house, side-by-side with her beautiful and outgoing cousin, Bea. Though they are as different as night and day, Addie and Bea remain closer than sisters through relationships, challenges, and a war that changes the face of Europe irrevocably. But what happens when something finally comes along that can’t be shared? When the love of sisterhood is tested by a bond that’s even stronger?

From the inner circles of British society to the skyscrapers of modern-day Manhattan, the never-told secrets of a woman and a family unfurl in this epic yet intimate story. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
ISBN-13: 9781250014498

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication date: 4/9/2013

Pages: 368

Genre:  Historical Fiction
Author:  Lauren Willig
Website:  Lauren Willig



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

LAUREN WILLIG is also the author of the New York Times bestselling Pink Carnation series and a RITA Award-winner for Best Regency Historical for The Mischief of Mistletoe. She graduated from Yale University, and has a graduate degree in English history from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She lives in New York City, where she now writes full time.
Please click on her website link http://wwwlaurenwillig.com to find out more fascinating information about her fleet of books and her!


A BOOKISH LIBRARIA BRINGS YOU AN INTERVIEW !!!

We are delighted to bring you an interview today with Ms Willig!  She's an absolute favorite of mine in her genre.  Smart and snappy, she brings to life her characters in their every adventure.  I love reading her books and just devour them like chocolates.  Can't wait to share this interview with you....

1)  How would your friends describe you?

 

The word “effervescent” may have been used a time or two.  I tend to bounce a lot when I get excited.  There may also be some enthusiastic gesticulation.  Which can turn dangerous when I’m holding a drink in one hand, particularly if it’s one of those low-rimmed martini glasses.  There’s a reason I’ve learned to only drink clear booze at cocktail parties; it’s much easier on the dry cleaner afterwards.  This is also why I tend to go through my book tours in a haze of eau de coffee….

 

2)  Where did the idea for this novel germinate?

 

 This novel popped up out of the blue and walloped me over the head.  It was the fall of 2010, and I wasn’t meant to be thinking about flappers or disillusioned World War I veterans or Kenyan coffee farms; I was meant to be writing about Napoleonic spies and their dashing deeds.  But a friend of mine, knowing that I like to vacation in the 1920s, gave me a copy of Frances Osborne’s The Bolter, about the dramatic life of Idina Sackville, who racketed back and forth between London and Kenya in the period after World War I, acquiring and discarding husbands along the way.  I was incredibly intrigued not just by her dramatic life (which was pretty dramatic), but also by the author’s comment in the preface that she hadn’t realized that Idina was her own great-grandmother until a chance TV program forced the revelation.

 

At the time, my own grandmother—my last remaining grandparent—was very ill, and it struck me forcibly just how little we know about our families and how much we assume.  What if a modern woman were to discover that nothing about her grandmother and her family was as it seemed?  What would it do to her?

 

Once the idea hit, it wouldn’t let go.  (See “walloped me over the head”, above.)  I put the next book in my Pink Carnation series on hold, read up on Edwardian England, World War I, and 1920s Kenya, and plunged into the novel that would become The Ashford Affair.

 

3)  Who was the first person who encouraged you to write, or told you that you could write well?

 

 I was one of those annoying children who decided, at the ripe old age of six or so, that I was going to be a novelist when I grew up.  At six, grown-up is a relative term: I was determined to have a novel in print by the time I hit double digits (because by the time I was ten, I would obviously be over the hill) and was deeply crushed at the age of nine when Simon & Schuster sent back my first full length manuscript, all three hundred hand written pages, with a form rejection letter.

 

That being said, the first time I recall getting public recognition for my writing was when I was in third grade.  We’d been given the assignment of interviewing our headmistress and then writing a fictionalized account of her day.  Mine was chosen for the school newsletter—which was exciting enough in itself, but the real kicker was when a letter arrived, several weeks later, from a Columbia journalism professor, saying he had photocopied the story and handed it out to his class as an example of the clarity of prose and economy of writing he wished them to achieve.  I still have that letter tucked away somewhere.  It boggles my mind to this day that, back in 1985, my third grade essay was being used as a How To in a Columbia Journalism School class!

 

4)  Who are your favorite classical authors?

 

I was a Renaissance Studies major back in the day (no, seriously, it was a real major, I swear), so I tend to gravitate back to Shakespeare and Donne, particularly certain favorites.  Like everyone else, I adore Much Ado About Nothing, but I also have a strange fascination with Measure for Measure, problem play that it is. 

 

Leaving iambs behind, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Austen, whose sly wit and sharp insights into human nature are a constant inspiration to me.  I also have a weakness for the social satirists of the 1920s and 30s: Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, Angela Thirkell (who I view as a kinder, gentler version of the previous two).  And, of course, no bookshelf would be complete without the madcap antics of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster.

 

5)  Read any good books lately?

 

I’ve been on a gothic kick recently—eking out my beloved collection of Barbara Michaels and Elsie Lee from the 80s, there have been some excellent new variants on the genre that have come out over the past few years.  I particularly love Simone St. James 1920s-set ghost stories, The Haunting of Maddy Clare and An Inquiry into Love and Death, which manage to provide that hair prickling on the back of your neck feeling that the very best ghost stories do, and I’ve just stumbled onto Wendy Webb’s The Fate of Mercy Alban, which contains two of my favorite tropes: an old house and a family secret.

 

I’m constantly on the hunt for new books, so if you ever have any recommendations, please stop by my website or Facebook page and share them with me.  I run a weekly feature on my website, Weekly Reading Round-Up, where everyone discusses what they’ve been reading that week.  I’ve found several of my new favorites that way—including the three books mentioned above!

 

 

You, yourself are a character and so extraordinary, Lauren, as we might have expected from the wonderful humor in your books!  Thank you for stopping by to share with us.  I'm looking forward to reading "The Ashford Affair!"

 

 

 

MORE INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT LAUREN:

 

 

Although she may not have realized it at the time, Lauren Willig had her life pretty clearly mapped out when she was a mere nine-year-old. That's when she completed her first "novel" -- 300 handwritten pages of a Nancy Drew-inspired mystery titled The Night the Clock Struck Death featuring not one, but two teenage sleuths. (Twin detectives, if you please!) She sent it off to Simon & Schuster -- who promptly sent it back. "I was utterly crushed for at least a week," the young author admits.

 

Crushed, perhaps, but apparently the pull of becoming a writer was considerably stronger than the sting of rejection. Several years later, while she was in grad school, Willig began work on another novel -- although she wasn't sure which novel it would be. "There were three contenders: one, the Pink Carnation; another, a mystery novel set at Yale; and the third, a historical novel set around a group of Luddites in 1812. The Yalie mystery novel nearly won out... but the image of a masked spy on a rope tipped the balance the other way, and The Pink Carnation was born."

A witty melding of espionage thriller, swashbuckler, and the kind of classic "bodice-ripping" romance novels she first discovered at the tender age of six, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation was published in 2005. The premise is irresistible: A modern grad student researching her dissertation in London stumbles on the identity of a mysterious English spy from the Napoleonic Wars. With its clever book-within-a-book format, Willig's novel was an instant sensation. Almost immediately, she penned the sequel, The Masque of the Black Tulip. Willig was off and running with a hot and sexy – not to mention bestselling -- series.

Although the Pink Carnation books build on one another, each story focuses on a different pair of lovers and can be read as a stand-alone. Willig tries to weave in any information from previous installments that might be key to understanding the characters or plot. All her books have become Romantic Times Top Picks. In 2006 Lauren was nominated for a Quill Award.

Also Good To Know:

Even before she committed her stories to paper, Willig was amusing herself with her very own fiction in the privacy of her head. "I remember lying in bed, staring up at the underside of my canopy, composing complicated narratives complete with dialogue, generally based on whatever movie I had just seen," she told The Readers Place.com. "Star Wars spawned weeks' worth of bedtime dramas in which I starred as Princess Lea's best friend. Who would, of course, wind up with Luke Skywalker as co-ruler of the Universe -- you know what they say, if you're going to dream, dream big."

 

According to Willig's official biography, she is a Native New Yorker. However, she admits that this isn't entirely true being that she was actually born in Philadelphia -- a fact that her "real" Native New Yorker siblings aren't quick to let Lauren forget.  Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Willig: "Like my modern heroine, Eloise, I spent a year in England doing research for my dissertation (mine is about Royalist conspiracies during the English Civil Wars in the 1640s), and living in a little basement flat in Bayswater. Unlike Eloise, on my very first week in London, I ate a bad kebab, and got so sick that I wound up briefly back in the States, on the same medicine they give people who have anthrax poisoning. Not exactly an auspicious beginning...."  "I still don't have a driver's license. Having grown up in Manhattan, there was never any need of it -- other than as a means of getting into bars, and learning to drive seemed a bit extreme just to get a drink. Of course, that was before I moved to Cambridge for grad school and realized that in other parts of the world, you can't just walk into the middle of the street, stick your arm up into the air, and, lo!, immediate transportation appears. Since I really don't want to have to learn how to drive, I've decided the only remedy is just to live in Manhattan for the rest of my life."  "Many years ago, at my Yale college interview, the interviewer took one look at my resume, and announced, ‘You can't be a writer.' Getting a little panicky -- since no one takes kindly to having their life's dream flung in their face -- I blurted out, ‘Why not?' ‘Writers,' he said firmly, ‘are introverts. You,' he indicated the long list of clubs on my resume, Drama Club, Choral Club, Forensics, interschool plays and public speaking competitions, ‘are not.'"

"It is true; I've never been able to resist a stage. There are embarassing videos (which may have to be confiscated and burnt at some point) from various family weddings, where I, as a wee child, coopted the microphone to serenade the wedding guests with off-key renderings of "Memory" (from Cats). It's a wonder I lived past the age of ten without being murdered by a bride wielding a sharpened cake knife. Point me to a podium, and I can talk indefinitely (and usually do, as anyone who was with me in the Yale Political Union can verify). I simpered through Gilbert & Sullivan Society productions, taught drama to small tots through Yale Drama Hands-On Theatre Workshop, and was chairman of a debating society in college. And those were only the official performances. Recently, I appeared in a toga and bare feet (well, really a chiton, but why be picky?) in front of a hundred-odd people at the law school to argue a mock Athenian trial. And, yes, those pictures will also be confiscated and burnt -- as soon as I find out where my camera-happy friends hid them."

"I've always had trouble with the ‘writer as introvert' trope. I argued then, and still believe now, that the performative arts and creative writing have a great deal in common. After all, music, drama, public speaking, writing... all involve words! My interviewer wasn't too impressed by that argument, but there is a bit more to it than that. Singing and public speaking create an enhanced awareness for the rhythm of language. As for drama, how better to get inside one's characters' heads than to walk in their footsteps? Frequently, while writing, I'll tumble out of my chair (literally -- my chair isn't all that sturdy) and act out bits of a scene for a more concrete grasp of a character's movements. Most of all, acting, singing, and writing all involve the desire to get out there and share a story, a desire that can't be balked by the threat of rotton tomatoes, or even bad reviews."

 

 

Readers can find a copy of the book here:  Barnes & Noble  or Amazon

 

 

Don't forget to read more about her books and her on http://www.laurenwillig.com

 

 

Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

"A White Wind Blew" by James Markert~Fascinating Novel on Tuberculosis Epidemic, Post WWI & Prohibition...

SUMMARY:

"A compelling and thought-provoking novel that will move and inspire readers of all kinds." -John Burnham Schwartz, author of Reservation Road

When the body fails, you've got two choices.
Send a doctor in, or send a prayer up.
And if neither works?

You'll find Dr. Wolfgang Pike at his piano.

Music has always been Wolfgang's refuge. It's betraying him now, as he struggles to compose a requiem for his late wife, but surely the right ending will come to him. Certainly it'll come more quickly than a cure for his patients up at Waverly Hills, the tuberculosis hospital, where nearly a body an hour leaves in a coffin. Wolfgang can't seem to save anyone these days, least of all himself.

Sometimes we just need to know we're not the only ones in the fight. A former concert pianist checks in, triggering something deep inside Wolfgang, and spreading from patient to patient. Soon Wolfgang finds himself in the center of an orchestra that won't give up, with music that won't stop.

A White Wind Blew delivers a sweeping crescendo of hope in a time of despair, raising compelling questions about faith and confession, music and medicine,and the undying force of love.


PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Sourcebooks, Inc.
Pages:  400
Includes Book Group Questions/Guide
Genre:  Historical Fiction/Fact-based
Author:  James Markert
Purchase this book:  Via Amazon or Barnes & Noble


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

James Markert grew up in Louisville, KY, in the shadows of Waverly Hills, and was drawn in at an early age by Waverly's popularity as one of the most haunted places on earth.  After visiting the building for the first time, he was quickly moved by the history of the massive gothic structure.  It was there that the story of Father Wolfgang Pike began to form.  James has a history degree from the University of Louisville, and is a USPTA tennis professional.  His comedy screenplay, 2nd Serve, was produced by Sundance award-winner Gill Holland and was due to premiere in fall 2012.


THE BOOKISH DAME INTERVIEWS JAMES MARKERT!

Welcome, Mr. Markert!  I've been dying to interview you for my blog.  I thought your book was fascinating, and want to ask several questions so we can get to know you better.  Thanks for taking time to spend with us today.  Here we go!

1)       Tell us something about yourself, please.  How do most people describe you?

I’m 39, married with two children.  I live in Louisville, KY.  I’ve been a tennis pro for nearly 20 years, but I’m transitioning into a full-time writer.  I’m also a screenwriter, and my first movie, a romantic comedy called 2^nd Serve, starring Josh Hopkins from Cougar Town, will be released at the end of the summer.  Most people describe me as funny, but in grade school my nickname was “Charming.”

2)      Where is your favorite place to write?  Any special gimmicks, writing tools or keepsakes that you keep near you when you write…I hear authors can be superstitious!

Now that I’ve totally converted to a laptop, I can move around the house.  I can write a screenplay from anywhere, but when working on a novel I’m best in the dining room.  Hmm, no keepsakes or gimmicks, but I do have to have music playing all the time when I write.

3)      Who first told you you could write well, and how did it affect you?

I’ve had several people tell me I write well, especially early on, but they were mostly relatives.  So that doesn’t count, and they probably all weren’t telling the truth.  But the person who said it and it had the biggest affect was my agent before he signed me.  It gave me the confidence I needed to help make a career of this.

4)      Which contemporary authors do you most admire?

Stephen King was the author who got me loving to read in high school, and then wanting to write.  I admire George R.R. Martin for creating such a vast, detailed, amazing world like Westeros.  My other favorite authors are Ken Follett, Pat Conroy, John Irving, Carlos Ruiz Zafron, Dennis Lehane, and Greg Iles.

5)      Which are your favorite classical authors?

I’ve certainly read some classics, but I’m much more of a contemporary reader.  But I always loved reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Edger Allen Poe for sure. Arthur Conan Doyle. Charles Dickens.

6)      Jump into any book~which character would you be?

As long as I could get back out of the book, I’d jump into Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and I’d be Tom Builder.  It would be cool to build a medieval cathedral.

7)      If you could have 5 historical people to dinner, who would they be?  What would you have to eat?

Julius Caesar.  Abraham Lincoln.  Cleopatra.  Teddy Roosevelt.  Helen of Troy.  I’d probably have to have cornbeef and cabbage and some Guinness.

8)      Ocean or Lake?

Lake. No sharks. But, then again, the Lochness monster…so I’ll take a POOL.

9)      Favorite two tv shows:

Game of Thrones and Justified

10)   Favorite movie of all time:

Shawshank Redemption

11)   Are you working on a new book?

Yes, I’m 360 pages into my next book, The Strange Case of Isaac Crawley, and it will be similar in tone and scope to A White Wind Blew.  It takes place in the late 1800s and instead of music and a tuberculosis sanatorium it involves the theatre scene and a lunatic asylum, as well as a love story, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and a slew of sculptures.  Quite a cast of characters I promise. I’m also working on a historical fiction series about ghosts, the arts, and art history.  The first book is The Book of Jonah (I’ve already written draft one, Jonah is a painter who died in 1939).  The second book is the Book of Julia (she makes mosaics in Pompeii, and died when Mount Vesuvius erupted).  It’ll be a long series, and all the books will be linked.

12)   Anything else I forgot to ask you?

Nope, this about covered it, unless you want to know my favorite band...and that would be U2 or Pearl Jam.

Absolutely "charming" answers.  I think I'm in love with you as well as your up-coming book ideas.  I can't wait to read them!  "The Strange Case of Isaac Crawley" sounds great.  Looking forward to all of them. 

SOMETHING ABOUT WAVERLY HILLS~THE SANITORIUM :

In the early 1900's, Louisville led the country with the highest rate of tuberculosis (known as the "white plague").  The Waverly Hills Sanatorium opened in 1910 as a tuberculosis hospital, where the only cure was rest and fresh air.  It is estimated that 60,000 people died inside Waverly's walls.  The hospital closed in June 1961.  The building has over 100,000 fans on Facebook, and has been popularized on national television on VH1, Syfy, Travel Channel, ABC Family and more.  It is thought to be haunted. 


THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

I postponed reading this book because I worried it might read like a bit of a text book.  I was so mistaken!  Like rich dark chocolate tempered with sea salt, "A White Wind Blew" is bittersweet and addictive.  I kept coming back to the story, reluctant to leave it even when I knew I should be sleeping.

James Markert is a little known author at this time, so it was a pleasure to find him.  He's a grand author with a gift for storytelling.  His characters are alive and real, causing us to engage with their struggles of disease, morality, love and living life in the face of fatality.  Primary characters such as Father/Dr. Pike and Big Fifteen are strong and earnest, and Susannah is the consummate nurse in every respect.  The patients of Waverly Hills sink into your heart.  I loved the gruff McVain and his gangsterish antics.  In fact, I was reluctant to leave the story and the characters as it closed in the end.

While I found moments to be written in a plodding way such as one might expect in a first novel, as the action/plot progressed it was so absorbing that that small hitch was easily overlooked.  With a bit more experience I expect Mr. Markert will be more than capable of maturing into the best of authors.  I look forward to reading more from him in the future, and only mention this because it speaks to a new writer but not to the main quality of the book.

Because of Markert's work, I'm very motivated to learn more about the mysterious Waverly Hills!  Since the book is based on facts about the famous sanatorium, I found this part of it fascinating.  The "cures" were interesting as part of the story. Some of them mentioned; like the lung surgeries, seemed archaic and frightening.  The body chute was a little horrifying to think of.  And the moving of the patients on and off the balconies into the icy air for breathing purposes seemed nearly cruel.  I could just feel them freezing~feeling cold most of the time in the day and night air. Makert brings all the sanatorium conditions to life. I wondered if the "music cure" of the fictitious Dr. Pike was ever really used; if there was actually a choir and small orchestra at the sanatorium at any time.  The whole scene and content of the novel was slightly eerie.

When all is said and done, I believe this is a book that will be enjoyed by those who love haunting medical stories and those who relish books set close to our country's heartland. It's moving and real as the people you meet every day. Poignant and mysterious, a love story and a story of triumph, this is one that I won't soon forget.  It had moments that reminded me a lot of "Cider House Rules."


4 stars                                    Deborah/TheBookishDame


A Youtube Video about the real Waverly Hills Sanatorium: