A Book A Week

A Book A Week is pleased to welcome author Cherie Kephart to the blog! Cherie recently chatted with us about her new memoir A Few Minor Adjustments. In addition to spending some time with us, Cherie and her publisher have graciously provided a couple copies of her book to give away. If this sounds like something you'd like to read, be sure to enter to win a copy at the end of this post.

Your inspirational memoir, A Few Minor Adjustments begins in Zambia, when you were working there as a Peace Corps volunteer. What transpired during your time there, and how has your experience as a traveler influenced your personal journey on the road to better health?

When I traveled, I was forced to open my mind, to pay attention, and to be adventurous. I had to learn to be comfortable with my fear of the unknown. Living in Zambia taught me that. I stayed with a local Zambian family, ate dishes such as boiled millet and fried-caterpillars. I build makeshift wells and latrines near a crocodile-infested river close to the border of politically unstable Zaire. Each day was an adventure, especially when it came to my health. I had giardia, dysentery, a putzi fly infection resulting in maggots in my butt, and almost died from an uncommon case of malaria. Almost dying in Africa was a pivotal point for me. I realized I needed a fierce will to live if I was going to survive. Now all these years later, that has never changed. It's the one constant that has kept me going.

After falling ill in Zambia, you returned to the US and began a journey that centered around trying to cope with continuing mysterious health issues. What were some of the high and low points of that time when you were first struggling to figure out the cause of your symptoms?

The worst part was the not knowing why I was so sick, if I would ever heal, or if I was going to die. Every day I woke with the same questions, and each night I went to bed with no answer. It was terrifying. And it went on for years. I was hundreds of doctors, healers, and therapists: rheumatologists, cardiologists, integrative medicine specialists, neurologists, acupuncturists, naturopaths, and eccentric healers such as a Russian ex-physicist who waved fertile chicken-eggs over my chest to try to reset the rhythm of my heart.

I came close to committing suicide. But that's the miraculous part. We don't realize what we are capable of until we are faced with enormous challenges. I learned to respect my inner strength, to know how much I could endure and how much I could rise above. I kept finding ways to change myself and my situation, like changing my attitude; changing the foods I ate, trying new therapies and treatments, including an exploratory heart procedure. I stayed open and stopped looking back. What a magnificent lesson!

There are many individuals, including family, friends, and the various healers you've spoken about who helped you along the way. What impact did these people have on your attempts to both live with and diagnose your illness?

That was one of the most beautiful gifts I've ever been given; to see how much people cared and fell their compassion and love. My family and friends never gave up on me. That kept me strong. Without them, I wouldn't be here. I'm certain of that, especially with regard to my mother and my grandfather. Both of them helped me financially, since I lost the ability to work. They were also there from me emotionally. My boyfriend Alex, the one I dedicated the book to, was amazing. He went to doctor appointments, did research on my health, cared for me while I was bedridden and unable to walk unassisted. I will never forget it. People often tell me how strong I am. I always reply the same way, "I'm only as strong as my support system." As horrendous as my physical health was, I always had love.

During the course of documenting what was happening with your health, you decided to turn your personal story into an inspirational memoir. What inspired you to do this, and how did writing the book help with your healing process?

I've always been fascinated with memoirs. Reading a memoir, I get to dive deep into someone else's world, to understand their most intimate struggles and triumphs. I got to know them. It's like I get to live another life for a little while. I also feel that memoirs connect us, bridging the gaps between different aspects of our humanity.

Writing a memoir is deeply cathartic. I believe we write a memoir twice. The first time we write it, we write it for ourselves. We write to release the emotions and energy surrounding everything we have endured. Then, when it is at the point where we feel clarity around it, we re-write and fine-tune it to make it accessible and ready to release to the world. We prepare the story in such a way that enables people to easily come along our inner and outer journeys and gain insights from them. Ernest Hemingway said it best, "Write hard and clear about what hurts." That's what I did.

It's difficult to explain how writing this memoir contributed to my healing. I certainly don't think it mad the process go any faster. But it made me go deeper into the crevices of pain where I didn't necessarily want to go. So the healing I've experienced is more profound and lasting.

What would you like readers to remember most about your story?

We all have pain and suffering, but we all have joy and beauty. It's really about perspective and choosing each day to show up in a positive way and to have more compassion for each other, and ourselves. If we don't understand something, like an undiagnosed illness, then it is our duty as human beings not to turn away or reject the unknown, but to offer compassion, even if it is something we don't understand. Actually, especially if it's something we don't understand.

You've said that you would like to give a voice to those who are also struggling with an undiagnosed illness. What would you say to those who are on a similar path as yours?

If I could survive all that I have, and it's been a lot for one person to endure, then anyone else can, too. Even when we feel like ending it all, we have to find a reason to live for just one more sunrise and then one more sunset. Because we never know what is around the corner. There were so many times I was ready to end it all. I was barely alive. Now, I look back, and I'm so glad I didn't give up. As long as you have the will to live, you can heal.

With such a powerfully personal and inspirational story, what's next for you? Are there any new books on your horizon?

My next projects are companion books to this memoir: The Healing 100 and The Symptoms 100. The Healing 100 highlights the top one-hundred things I did to heal, and The Symptoms 100 focuses on the top 100 symptoms I had what what helped me to work through them. I also have a collection of poetry, Poetry of Peace, which chronicles four stages of life, Seeing the World, Through Darkness, Into Light, and With Peace. It's really about the emotional and spiritual aspects of healing. Lastly, I am creating a cookbook filled with allergy-free recipes: The Cookbook for People Who Can't Eat Anything. I'm excited about these projects since the goal is to provide insight, a touch of humor, and ideas on ways to heal. I hope people can learn from my experience, be inspired, and have some tools for their own healing journey.

Our thanks to Cherie Kephart for joining us today. For more on Cherie and her memoir A Few Minor Adjustments visit her website www.CherieKephart.com

To enter for a chance to win either a physical or ebook copy of this novel, use the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US/Canadian residents, no PO boxes please. Ends October 4, 2017. Winners will have 48 hours to respond after being contacted.

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A Book A Week is pleased to welcome author Corey Lynn Fayman to the blog! Corey recently chatted with me about his newest mystery novel Desert City Diva. In addition to spending some time with us, Corey has graciously provided a couple copies of his novel to give away. If this story piques your interest, please use the widget at the end of this post to enter to win a copy of Desert City Diva.

Desert City Diva is your third mystery to feature Rolly Waters. What can you tell us about Rolly, and how does this book continue the traditions established by the previous novels in this series?

Rolly Waters is a cozy mystery hero living in a crime noir world. He's overweight, over forty, and lives in a small granny flat next door to his mother. He's a talented guitar player and a musician whose glory days are behind him, so he makes ends meet by working part-time as a private investigator. He doesn't carry a gun and would probably shoot himself in the foot if he had one. His chief virtues as an investigator are his ability to make friends with almost anyone and an absolute dedication to helping his clients, even when their cases lead him into dangerous situation and criminal activity he never envisioned when he first took it on.

Music has always been a part of all the Rolly Waters mystery novels, but in Desert City Diva it's become central to solving the case. A special musical instrument and the 'celestial' notes it plays are keys to the mystery. It's the first time Rolly's had to call on both his musical and investigative skills to solve a case.

Let's dig a bit deeper into that mystery for a minute. In the novel, Rolly takes on a missing person's case from a golden-eyed orphan and dance-club DJ named Macy Starr. What's special about Macy and why is the search for the woman who raised her so important to her?

Macy is a willful and independent young woman who's worked hard to create her own sense of identity. She's never known her biological parents. She grew up as the daughter of the chief of police on an Indian reservation, but she's not Native American. She knows nothing of her parents, or where she came from, except that she has some sort of 'golden child' status with her adoptive father. That didn't help much on the reservation she grew up on though, where she was viewed as a bit of a freak. She's taken that outsider view to heart in her professional life and created different DJ personas to express herself.

Macy is almost completely lacking in impulse control in both her speech and actions. Whatever comes into her head, she says it or acts on it. Rolly finds this attractive. It's how he used to be. But it frustrates him too, and he knows from experience it can lead to all sorts of trouble.

The only clues Macy can provide Rolly are a curious one-stringed guitar called a Diddley Bow and a black and white photograph of a young girl with a man in a baseball uniform. Without spoiling the story, what is the significance of these items, and why did you choose this unique instrument as a pivotal object in your book?

I can't remember exactly where i learned about the Diddley Bow, but I used it in the story because it's a simple instrument that non-musicians can pick up pretty quickly to thump out some basic melodies. It's important to the story because I needed an instrument that the members of a UFO cult could all play together simultaneously. They use the Diddley Bows to play alternate tunings of 'celestial' notes that will reflect their ancient heritage and serve as a beacon to interplanetary aliens. I didn't make that part up! There are people out there who believe this stuff! Search the Internet for information on the Solfeggio Harmonies.

The Diddley Bow is a real musical instrument. It's a primitive one-stringed guitar that was first developed by sharecroppers in the American South, who were trying to recreate instruments that they knew from Africa. The instrument interests Rolly because he's a Blues aficionado, and Diddley Bows were one of the first instruments used in the development of Blues music.

The photograph laminated to the back of Macy's Diddley Bow is the only connection she may have to her biological parents. She knows the woman is her Aunt Betty, who disappeared many years earlier and may of may not be her real aunt. Macy doesn't know who the baseball player is, but Rolly recognizes him at ones as a famous major-leaguer and local celebrity.

Desert City Diva takes place on an Indian Reservation in an area near the Anza Borrego Desert. How integral is the setting to this particular Rolly Waters mystery, and why did you place the story in this environment?

We have quite a few Indian reservation in San Diego County. They are much smaller than the Navajo or Hopi reservations of Arizona, but they are true reservations, and as such they are independent sovereign entities with their own government and polices force jus like their larger counterparts. Many of them are located in the mountains of east San Diego County, which is still largely rural, and the kind of area where UFO cults might develop without attracting much attention. Legal and criminal issues can get complicated, as county sheriffs do not have authority on reservation lands and vice-versa. Many of the tribes have built casinos now, and that provides some tension related to the character's motivations, as well.

It seems like you make a real effort to ground your stories reality through factual places and objects. Can you describe some of the research you did when you where writing this novel?

My last two novels were inspired by fortuitous driving adventure with my wife. In the case of Desert City Diva, the drive took place in the southern desert of California where we happened upon tow places with rather interesting names - Salvation Mountain and Slab City. The first turned out to be a remarkable monument to one man's religious passions, and the second is an off-the-grid gathering of hippies, retirees and social misfits who have chosen to live together in an ad hoc desert community where they resist both the comforts and confines of modern society. Most of the residents live in trailers or RVs, which are parked on slab foundations left over from a U. S. Army fort used in WWII. Slab City residents have a library, a cafe, a modern sculpture garden, and a stage where they hold musical jam sessions every week. Once I found out about those jam sessions, I knew I had to get Rolly Waters out there to play his guitar.

The other thing I did some research on was the concept of sacred harmonies and the use of alternate musical scales, much of which is quite interesting and some of which is quite silly. There was also a bit of San Diego history I had to look into, such as the mini-gold rush in our mountains in the 1870s, as well as local Indian reservations and their history. San Diego County was where the Heaven's Gate mass suicide took place in 1997, so I did quite a bit of research on that and other suicide cults, to help me understand how something like that could happen.

Are you working on another Rolly Waters mystery? If so, what can you tell us about it?

I've sent Rolly to the far edges of San Diego County in my last two books, so I've decided to bring him back home for his next adventure. Most of the action takes place in and around San Diego Bay. The jumping off point is the very read U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, which has trained captive dolphins and sea lions to perform tasks such as mine identification, sea floor retrieval, and enemy diver detection. The story centers on a Navy diver whose body was never recovered after a training accident twenty years earlier, but who seems to be taking revenge in the present day on some of the people who knew him. It also works in some of the recent controversy surrounding sea mammal captivity at Sea World and other animal water parks. The working title is Ballast Point Breakdown.

Our thanks to Corey Lynn Fayman for spending time with us. Desert City Diva is available from Amazon and Severn House Publishers. To find out more about Corey's works, visit his website. 

To enter for a chance to win either a physical or ebook copy of this novel, use the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US/Canadian residents, no PO boxes please. Ends January 17, 2016. Winners will have 48 hours to respond after being contacted.

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A Book A Week is pleased to welcome author Norma Jennings to the blog! This week I had the chance to chat with Norma about her latest novel Passenger from Greece. In addition to spending some time with us, Norma has graciously provided a couple copies of her novel to give away. If this story appeals to you, please use the widget at the end of this post to enter to win Passenger from Greece.

Can you tell us a little bit about the storyline for Passenger from Greece?

A classic tale of love, lust, and criminal behavior, Passenger from Greece tells the story of Olivia Reid, a feisty, resourceful international flight attendant who falls in love with a handsome Greek olive oil tycoon. Olivia gets caught up in a seductive affair that spans the Caribbean, New York City, Crete, and ocean voyages on a yacht called The Adonis.

That sounds like quite an adventure! The book opens with a movie-worthy crash. What was your inspiration for these cinematic opening scenes?

I was a flight attendant, and some of my dear colleagues were involved in a plane crash (a mere scheduling conflict kept me off that flight). I went back to them and asked them for descriptions of feelings, thoughts, and misery of crashing into a swamp, which really happened. They described the terror of first experience an aircraft crash, followed by the horror of being trapped in a swamp until rescue. So, when I set up a story about international romance and mystery, I thought what would be more captivating that to introduce the characters to each other in such an intense and terrifying situation.

International drug trafficking is central to the plot of this novel. What compelled you to delve into such a dark and real-world topic?

I had finished writing my first novel, Daughter of the Caribbean, and I was looking for another great story. I read about the Caribbean drug trafficking issues affecting my beloved Jamaica, where my family has an old sugarcane plantation called Twickenham. The headline-grabbing issues made me think about my next novel, which I wanted to be an international mystery. I also like to explore cultural issues and personal relationships about families and love, so I created a conflict that would impact two families in two different countries, each located in different parts of the world.

Speaking of families, the book addresses family relationships, infidelity, and mother/father influences. Why did you weave in these themes?

Motivations. I wanted to create flawed characters whose motives and desires were rooted in their familial relationships: a daughter's desire to please her mother, a son's desire to please his mother, and a grandmother betrayed by her spouse. I asked myself: What lessons could be learned? What understandings reached? How could I write relatable situations that would draw in readers? Based on the core foundation of any person's experience, one always comes back to his/her family beliefs, morals, and values.

You mentioned your family business in Jamaica inspiring your "headline-grabbing" story. Can you speak a bit more about how your personal experiences have shaped your writing?

The illicit drug trade is affecting my native homeland, Jamaica. I wanted to also dispel prejudice and ideas about Jamaicans and other Caribbean islanders. My books always deal with cultural differences through depictions of my own childhood experiences growing up at Twickenham with my grandmother, Sedith, who's featured in both of my books. She was our family's matriarch and had a tremendous influence on her children and grandchildren. I brought the stories she told me and the lessons I learned in my own life to the pages of Passenger from Greece.

With Passengers from Greece now published, what's next for you? Are you working on a new novel and, if so, what can you tell us about it?

I've made good progress on a third book, which is an action-packed historical fiction novel about the brutal colonization of Jamaica by the British, and the barbaric guerilla warfare staged by the Maroons (runaway slaves) against the planters. Raw sexual moments between planter and mulatto slave mistresses, and a sizzling romance between a rescued concubine and a young guerilla chief are weaved into the novel, as it chronicles how ferocious and unrelenting resistance by Maroon men and women led to the abolition of slavery on the island, and ultimately to the country's independence.

Our thanks to Norma Jennings for spending time with us. Passenger from Greece is available from Amazon and 3L Publishing. 

To enter for a chance to win either a physical or ebook copy of this novel, use the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US/Canadian residents, no PO boxes please. Ends October 29, 2015. Winners will have 48 hours to respond after being contacted.






a Rafflecopter giveaway