Featured Book for September: AIR TIME by Hank Phillippi Ryan

[becke_davis]

And Becke I like the new title and story line idea you gave Hank, maybe she could collaborate with Lorna and have it happen in her bookstore.

I like Debbie's idea!

[becke_davis]

"I just also got the first shipment of a fantastic new tote bag--made especially for the Charlie McNally Mysteries...the first five people who mail me though my website and mention this bookclub--I'll send you one!"

Here's a link to Hank's website -- I picked a link to her "cool stuff" page, so you can see Hank with one of my idols, the great author LEE CHILD. Also check out the wild billboard ad for Hank's books, shot in the Boston subway!

Remember, the bags go to the first five who respond -- I'm not going to do it, to give more of you a chance. And don't forget to mention B&N's Mystery Book Club when you respond!

http://hankphillippiryan.com/coolstuff.php

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Hey all!

Another new author for you--and more fabulous books. (And the concept is going to be a TV series--if all goes as planned. What a great one it'll be...sigh.)

Fidelity Files  

Love under Cover  

Jessica Brody has an amazing life! She says she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. She started self "publishing" her own books when she was seven years old, binding the pages together with cardboard, wallpaper samples and electrical tape.

(Aww, I bet she still has them. How adorable.....) 

After graduating from Smith College in 2001 where she double majored in Economics and French and minored in Japanese, Jessica later went on to work for MGM Studios as a Manager of Acquisitions and Business Development. In May of 2005, Jessica quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a published author. Between 2006 and 2007, Jessica sold two adult novels to St. Martin's Press and two young adult novels to Farrar, Straus, Giroux. The Fidelity Files, her debut, is now available in stores (in real binding) and the follow-up, Love Under Cover, is slated for publication in November 2009.

SO here's Jessica to tell you  about her books!

JESSICA:  Boyfriend behaving badly?
Suspect your husband of straying?

Jennifer Hunter can supply the ultimate test. She runs a company which specializes in conducting fidelity inspections for those who suspect their loved ones are capable of infidelity.

(HANK: Oh, why didn't I think of that??  What a great mystery situation!)

JESSICA:  An expert on men, Jennifer can usually tell if they're single, married or lying... Unfortunately, her new boyfriend, Jamie, is one of the few men that she's never been able to 'read.' Has she finally found the perfect man or is he too good to be true?

In more cool Jessica news:

The Karma Club, Jessica's debut YA novel will be released in May 2010.

The Fidelity Files has recently been optioned to Marina Grasic, the executive producer of Crash as a television series!

And there's one more wonderful thing about  Jessica--I'll tell you about that later today. (And it could mean loot for you!)

xoox Hank

http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

[jessicabrody]

Thanks for posting Hank! And yes, I DO have all my "self-published" novels from when I was in grade school. Actually my mom has them. I think she's hoarding them, hoping I'll become the next J.K. Rowling (fingers crossed, right?) and then she can sell them on ebay for millions of dollars.

I won't spoil your upcoming surprise about the "free loot," but I will say...yes, it's pretty freaking awesome! Or so says the 350+ people who have thus far received said "free loot."

XO

Jessica

www.JessicaBrody.com

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Oh, yes, yes, Jessica--ebay! Great idea.

So how did you get the brilliant brilliant brilliant idea for Fidelity Files? Who would you like to play the main characters?

And more on "loot" later today...

xo Hank

http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

[jessicabrody]

The main character is my alter ego. I worked in a very corporate environment before I started writing and I witnessed a LOT of inappropriate things happening between female and male colleagues...many of whom were married...during work functions where alcohol was present. I hated to think of these men's poor wives sitting at home waiting for their husbands to come home. I wanted to call them up and tell them what was happening. But of course, I didn't have the guts. You know what they tend to do to the messenger! So instead I created a character who does exactly that. She knocks on all the doors I never had the courage to knock on. And yes, there are a few male characters in my book who are "loosely" based on real people. Although I can never say who! Or I might get sued!

In terms of who I would like to see play the main character. Gosh, that's a toughie. She would have to be sexy but also a bit sweet and vulnerable too. Because really it's TWO characters the actress has to play. Normal, everyday Jennifer Hunter who is hiding a deep secret...and the sultry sexpot, Ashlyn, who she becomes when she's "on the job." Some actresses I think that could really pull it off: Kate Beckinsdale, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, and Rachel McAdams. And for the love interest, Jamie, I would love to see Patrick Dempsey!

Thanks for the great questions!

[becke_davis]

Wait a minute: I HAVE this book -- I've even read it!! I bought Fidelity Files after viewing this video clip:

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Oh, yes, it's irresistible!

Anyway--free loot...as I was saying...Oh, gotta go to a speech in North Reading Massachusetts... 

Jessica? You out there? You tell the scoop...and if you're out, too..I'll tell all when I get home tonight!

xoxo

Hank

http://www.HankPhilippiRyan.com

[jessicabrody]

Thanks for posting the trailer, Becke! And for reading my book!

You can view the trailer for my next book, LOVE UNDER COVER (available November 10) on my website:

www.JessicaBrody.com

And yes, finally... Free Loot!

Here's the scoop!

I run an awesome website called Free Book Friday. The concept is simple. Every Friday, we give away free books!

That's right! Each week, we feature a new author with an exclusive author interview and host a drawing to win free signed copies of his/her book.

Just visit: www.FreeBookFriday.com to learn more.

We'll be featuring Hank Ryan very shortly and giving away some of her books!

Cheers everyone!

Jessica

www.JessicaBrody.com

[becke_davis]

Everybody paying attention here? You can win a free Charlie McNally tote from Hank, and free books, too. It's a win/win!!

[dhaupt]

Wow Jessica that's amazing thank you for posting the link and I can't wait to read Love Under Cover, I love that little blurb about the book about running fidelity inspections. I just hope it's painful for those who don't pass inspection.

[ElizabethZelvin]

I love the covers too--sheer luck, since my publisher, Minotaur, makes those decisions. They're both designed by the fabulously talented David Rotstein, who's up for the Anthony award for cover art not only for Death Will Get You Sober, but also for two more of the five nominations. That shattered glass is not a CGI effect, btw. He had it shot with a real gun and high-speed film. I don't know if he also had DEATH WILL HELP YOU LEAVE HIM painted on a real New York street (Fifth Avenue? Broadway?), but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Oh, Liz, that's so funny! It would have been terrific to have him paint lines--and you could have gone out in the street and had your photo taken with it!

But I bet it's like the yellow lines electronically added to the football games, right? To show where the first down is? (What they can't do with electronic graphics these days!) I'll never understand how that works. Someone it just doesn't make sense in my brain.

xoxo Hank

http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

[Hank_Phillippi…]

QUIZ FOR YOU!!

The worrier who is not also a control freak is:

a)      delusional 

b)       a saint  

c)       heavily medicated or 

d)      a figment of her husband’s imagination.

Okay, fine, you know this is about a book. And don't you love the cover? I think it's so poignant, and so evocative...but let's let today's first guest, the wonderful Sheila Curran, step up to the B&N podium!

Sheila:  Hi all!  How'd you do on the quiz?  In EVERYONE SHE LOVED, Everyone She Loved Penelope Cameron makes no bones about her latest anxiety. Nor does she shy away from pressuring her loving husband and best girlfriends to relieve her worry through an outlandish and old-fashioned covenant.  It’s politically incorrect, a throw-back to the eighteenth century and yet, so intuitively right.  As she sees things, the lives of her two daughters hang in the balance and it’s within the powers of her inner circle to protect them.  End of story.

Note to self:  Death is inevitable.   Wicked Stepmothers, not so much.

Set in a North Florida beach town where Old Money meets the New South, Everyone She Loved is an unconventional mystery built on romantic confusion, financial intrigue, and the unbreakable bonds among women who’ve come of age together only to discover that life’s little instruction book will always need revising.  What they discover, as their prosperous lives are threatened from within and without, is that no woman is island, nor is her fate ever separate from that of everyone she loves.  

Thanks, Sheila! And that;s pretty tantalizing...can you tell us more?

(Sheila Curran lives in Tallahassee, Florida and tells me she's a huge fan of the mystery genre.  Her two novels, Diana Lively is Falling Down and Everyone She Loved employ a narrative structure built on suspense, secrets and intricate plot twists that Jodi Picoult called ‘warm, inventive, funny and original’ and kept Joshilyn Jackson ‘up way past …  bedtime, unable to stop turning the pages.” )

 She is presently working on a third novel--hey, Sheila, really.  Tell us more!

xoxo Hank

http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

[SheilaCurran]

"It's never a good thing when the flight attendant is crying." Such a brilliant first line. And strikes terror into the heart of this inexplicably phobic flyer, who is traveling to New York this weekend." I'm always looking at their faces (the attendants' to see if that loud noise I just heard means we're goin' down. I just cannot wait to read this book.

[SheilaCurran]

First, Hank, thanks so much for posting this, and I too am a fearful flyer, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that my father was a fighter pilot and one of the first team of acrobatic flyers for the Air Force.  You know, like the Blue Angels? 

Anyhow, as for my next book, it's set in Atlanta, in a beautiful old neighborhood in midtown.  A group of tight-knit neighbors are delighted when one of their own is sent home early from Iraq.  After all, she's got children and a husband and they've been worried to death about her.  The only trouble is that when she comes back, despite her former chattiness, she won't tell anyone what happened.  Not even her husband, though that's understandable since he's furious at her for enlisting in the first place, leaving him to take care of their children, something he's never handled in their marriage.  As her friends continue to try and coax her to talk, she begins taking risks that seem almost suicidal, except what we discover, as things unfold, is that she's in a lot of peril because, unlike her fellow soldiers, she won't leave alone a secret the military wants to keep hidden.

I got the idea for this when one of our best friend's daughters was deployed as an explosive ordinance disposal tech for two years.  She's back safe and sound but took me to a gathering of EOD (bomb squad people) where I interviewed them about their work...and now I'm really hooked.   If you haven't seen The Hurt Locker, go see it.  You'll be amazed.

Anyhow...unlike my real life friend, who is calm and cool and collected, my character comes home a mess and as the story unfolds, we'll understand what happened 'over  there' and why she's in such danger now...

This is sort of a branching out into new territory for me, but I'm hoping to pull it together into one piece...at my usual slow pace!

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Oh, thanks Sheila!  It's interesting..I can't start a writing new book until I get the first line just the way I want it in my head. Then I type it--and go from there.

ANd through all the revisions of all four of the Charlotte McNally books, the first lines have never changed.

So-thanks!

Interestingly, I watch the flight attendants, too--but one told me recently that they're trained NOT to show emotion. Makes sense, but it makes our theory of gauging their faces (I do it, too, of course) not as successful.

My "funniest" situaiton like that: on one flight I was seated next to a guy in a pilot's uniform--he was heading home from somewhere as a passenger.  He took out that slick plastic instruction thing from the seatback pocket in front of him--you know the illustrations of how to get out in an emergency?--opened it, and started laughing.  AH.

xooxHank

http://www.HankPhilippiRyan.com

[Hank_Phillippi…]

Sheila--your new book sounds great! Very compelling. Very cinematic. I got goosebumps reading about it--and can't wait to read the real thing.   (You'll come to our blog Jungle Red Writers when it's out, right? http://www.JungleRedWriters.com

And I should know this--but are you from Atlanta? I worked at WSB TV for five years--back in the 70's! And I lived at the corner of Virginia and HIghland.

xoxo Hank

http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

[becke_davis]

Another great book! (Curses --Must . . . Buy . . . More . . . Books!)

I love this: Note to self:  Death is inevitable.   Wicked Stepmothers, not so much.

[becke_davis]

---

SheilaCurran wrote:
"It's never a good thing when the flight attendant is crying." Such a brilliant first line. And strikes terror into the heart of this inexplicably phobic flyer, who is traveling to New York this weekend." I'm always looking at their faces (the attendants' to see if that loud noise I just heard means we're goin' down. I just cannot wait to read this book.

---

I had read the first two books of Hank's, so it was a given that I'd read AIR TIME, too. But if I picked up the book cold and read that opening line, I know it would have been a must-buy!