New Book Review of IN SEASON

Lovely review of IN SEASON today at the Horse Book Reviews blog. Thank you Sharon.

Punctuation Lesson

Very delinquent (I'm setting up a parallel blog) but I stole this today from FaceBook.  I need to internalize it (my editors would say).  Not the sentiment for I've committed that to heart from an early age, just the punctuation lesson.

PRESS RELEASE!!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT: Christina Wible
Website URL: www.christinawible.com

SECOND NOVEL BY LOCAL AUTHOR RELEASED

Clinton, NJ, August 1, 2011-- IN SEASON, the latest novel by Christina Wible, has been released in paperback. It is available on Amazon.com, through Chris’ website and directly from the author to friends who want a signed copy. The release of IN SEASON kicks off a three-month-long promotional tour that will include book signings and readings. 

IN SEASON is about love, horse breeding, and petty thievery… though not necessarily in that order. It takes place in the exclusive world of New Jersey horse breeding—a world about which Wible, a long-time rider, owner, and lover of Morgan horses, offers a rare insider’s peek.

Exclusive it may be, but caring for elite Standardbred horses still involves plenty of mud, sweat, and determination. Fortunately, Wible’s main character, FE Booker, is used to mud and sweat, and has determination to spare. Sure, she has a habit of keeping people at arm’s length, especially her aunt, who is both her bookkeeper and the only family FE has left, and her new vet, whom she initially mistakes for an effete New York model.

“I’ve lived in New Jersey almost my entire life, and still this book offered a completely new perspective on all those sprawling, beautiful horse farms I pass every day on my way to work. Non-Jerseyans who think all we are is a backdrop for The Sopranos will be amazed,” says Wible’s editor, Alexa Offenhauer.

IN SEASON also offers trademark Wible facets such as strong female characters, troubled relationships, dry humor, and even a touch of slapstick. Readers of romance, epic dramas, comedic women’s literature, and even Westerns will be drawn to this book, which incorporates elements of many genres and is, above all, about how one independent woman learns how to live and love within a community that supports her more than she could ever have imagined.

ABOUT

Christina Wible is a long-time horse lover and former Morgan Horse owner who lives and writes in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She recently took the plunge and quit her day job, and is now a full-time writer. She embraces the freedom and control of self-publication, and is already in the editing stages on her third novel, REMARKABLE LIKENESS.

For more information, contact Christina Wible at the above website.

Wack-a-mole

I have to quote one of my favorite authors from her FB page today.  Laurie R. King says: “After playing whack-a-mole with plot for the past few weeks--every time I fix one plot problem, another two or three pop up--I think I've flattened the thing into submission. A delusion, no doubt, but momentarily comforting.”

Oh do I know that feeling.  Laurie writes mysteries and they are absolutely the worst for plot thread interactions.  You’ve just got your hero in the right place at the right time and you realize that he was supposed to be in London two hours before and the Concorde doesn’t fly anymore.

The book I’m currently writing (tentatively titled Remarkable Likeness) has a twist that has me going back all the time to see if I’ve telegraphed too much or too little.  I have so many notes in my RL notebook I can’t find anything anymore and last week I found a character who had three different names and they weren’t supposed to sport any aliases.  Whack a Mole.

If you have a chance read one of Laurie’s books as part of your summer reading.  I recommend her Mary Russell series if you want great mysteries in a series (hint: Sherlock Holmes finds a late-life partner in crime) the first of the series being The Beekeepers Apprentice.  For more serious, but still woman-friendly reading, I would recommend Folly, a psychological thriller. 

Of course in a month you will be able to read my latest, In Season, on the lighter reading side.

The pitfalls of Cover design.

The pitfalls of Cover design.

Cover design for me is coming parallel with block design and I haven’t given enough attention to Lex who is designing the cover.  I think she is trying to see if I am awake.

A great design arrived this morning with the following back text.  I honestly wish I could actually use it.  Hmmm.  I just might.

FE Booker is a cool lady who you will enjoy reading about.  She’s very, very cool and funny and also snarky.  She has horses, and she does things with them.  Then she falls for a hot guy who happens to be her vet.  Then some tack gets stolen and, unrelatedly, she breaks her ankle.  She’s pretty pissed about that, but thinks turn out alright in the end.

This is obviously not real copy.  “But maybe there will be a quote here, or something about a liverwurst stealing dawg.”

Christina Wible has been writing books since she could spell but this is the second that is being published.  She wishes she could say that she had only researched on paper the parts of this book that involve horse semen.

Please buy her book, as she has quit her job and is now broke.

Pitchapalooza

I had so much fun and learned so much at Pitchapalooza at the Clinton Book Shop on Thursday night. Well these two authors (Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry) are pitching their new book about how to get published (The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published). Arielle is an agent-at-large from a fairly large literary agency ( http://www.levinegreenberg.com/arielle-eckstut/ ) and together she and David have a business called The Book Doctors.



For this book tour the local book store recruits two local authors and the four of them do an American Idol style (without Simon) workshop where the audience gets one minute to pitch their book and the panel critiques the pitch and then decides who gets a free hour at a later date with Arielle and David to hone their pitch or just to pick their brains.


I was going to pay my $25 (which includes a copy of their book) to pitch them In Season, but when I called Rob (who runs the Clinton Book Shop) was desperate and he asked me to be one of the locals on the panel. It was fun! Arielle and David were kind but realistic with the presented pitches. Two standouts. One had a really good pitch for a book and the other was a book for which I wish the pitch had been better.  Since this was a pitch contest the good pitch won. I also sold a copy of my book and gave a copy to David and to an independent book store owner who was there with her husband to pitch books.


All in all a night of networking and fun.