THE LAST TEMPTATION - What it's about

Synopsis from publisher Five Star

Release date July 18

Recovering addict Eileen Cameron and her daughter Kinley Whitney have vanished from Eileen's Palm Springs home. Kinley's custodial father, Bradley Whitney, lives in Atlanta. Eileen and Bradley are locked in a custody battle, and Bradley believes Eileen has taken Kinley to hide with the Indians in the desert. The court hires Moriah Dru of Child Trace to find and bring Kinley home.


Bradley's academic credentials are solid, but Dru is wary. He's rich and involved with the secretive Cloisters. Dru and lover, police Lieutenant Richard Lake, delve into Bradley's past, while Lake investigates the Atlanta Suburban Girl murders.


In Palm Springs, Dru meets a host of glitzy suspects, including Dartagnan LeRoi, a cop; Arlo Cameron, Eileen's movie director husband; Heidi, Arlo's widowed neighbor; Eileen's hairdresser, a cross-dresser named Theodosia; a donut-maker named Zing; Indian princess Contessa (Tess) Rosovo; and Phillippe, a self-styled Frenchman who claims he's a Cordon Bleu chef. Phillippe says everyone in "The Springs" is an actor.


To help find Eileen and Kinley, Tess takes Dru to the high desert for a Moon Maiden ceremony. Dru spots a young girl in a wig. Tess notices Dru's attention to the girl. Dru passes out then wakes in the desert scrub as a monsoon rages. Terrified, she's swept over a rock waterfall to certain death. Her miraculous survival brings her even greater pain.


The Last Temptation is an edgy mystery thriller loaded with eccentric oddballs. Murder and deceit are no strangers to glamorous Palm Springs. Nor to Atlanta.

Submitted by Gerrie Ferris Finger

Available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

(to name two)

Happy Reading

THE MYSTERY WRITERS - Jean Henry Mead

When Jean Henry Mead asked me to contribute to her anthology of advice from mystery writers, a broad category as you can see, I was honored and delighted. If you're a writer, would-be novelist or an interested reader, this book is for you. It's available on Kindle and paperback.

Pat Browning, herself an excellent mystery writer, posted the following list on her Amazon review of the book:

THE MYSTERY WRITERS is chock full of good advice and interesting personal tidbits. In all, there are 60 mystery writers within 12 categories.
The categories and authors are:
SUSPENSE: James Scott Bell, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Joan Hall Hovey, Ellis Viler, Cheryl Kaye Tardif.
CRIME NOVELS: Lawrence Block, J.A. Jance, Bruce DeSilva, Diana Fanning, Craig McDonald, Geraldine Evans.
POLICE PROCEDURALS: Leighton Gage, Alafair Burke, Martin Edwards, Pat Brown, Marilyn Meredith, Bob Sanchez, Maryann Miller.
THRILLERS: Robert Liparulo, Vicki Hinze, Shane Gericke, Timothy Hallinan, Lise Glendon.
PRIVATE EYES: Sue Grafton, Randy Rawls, Mark Troy.
NOIR: Vincent Zandri, Roger Smith.
TRADITIONAL MYSTERIES: Sandra Parshall, Gerrie Ferris Finger, Madeline (M.M.) Gornell, Earl Staggs, Holli Castillo, Alan Orloff.
HISTORICAL MYSTERIES: Julie Garwood, Ann Parker, Nancy Means Wright.
CONTEMPORARY WESTERN MYSTERIES: Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson, Curt Wendleboe.
HUMOROUS MYSTERIES: Lois Winston, J. Michael Orenduff, Rebecca (R.P.) Dalke, Marja McGraw, Susan Santangelo, Ann Charles, W.S. Gager,Chris Redding.
COZIES: Elizabeth Spann Craig, Anne K. Albert, Ron Benrey, Maggie Bishop.
AMATEUR SLEUTHS: John M. Daniel, Margaret Koch, Jacqueline King, Lou Allin, Karen E. Olson, Pat Browning, Leslie Diehl, Sunny Frazier, Jinx Schwartz.

Happy Reading!

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com
Coming in July: THE LAST TEMPTATION, sequel to
THE END GAME

Johnny Depp - From Dark Shadows to The Ghost Ship?

"Johnny Depp to play Lawrenace Curator and his great grandson, Rod Curator, in THE GHOST SHIP!"

It's a Hollywood headline I'd love to read.

 

Those who know me know I love Johnny Depp. He's proved himself an actor of unsurpassed talent and originality. The best of our time. Examples: John Dillinger in Public Enemies; the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland; Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean; Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Willie Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And that's just a few since he first starred in Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. 

Now comes the newly released Dark Shadows, and coming next year (2013), we'll see him as Tonto in the Lone Ranger. He is evil, kind, ugly and gorgeous. (The movie actor I got giddy over last was the young William Shatner in Star Trek.)

I haven't seen Dark Shadows yet - I'm waiting to see it with family - but I've read the reviews and the disappointing box office stats. I reserve judgment, but I can't help but wonder if the critics aren't missing the concept.

The original Dark Shadows television daytime soap, which first aired in 1966, was cheesy and campy with disparate plot lines that left a viewer wondering. With over 1200 episodes, the directors attempted to bring them together in subsequent episodes, but usually they continued to defy continuity and logic. If the movie, which was released May 11, follows the same style as the TV show, then I would venture to say it was a successful revisit to Barnabas Collins and his cast of ill-assorted creatures. However, if the reviewers want a vampire movie like Breaking Dawn, that would not be Dark Shadows.

Now for Mr. Depp's roles in the movie of my novel, The Ghost Ship. His first would be that of Commander Lawrence Curator, the ghost who meets a vulnerable young woman on the beach and takes her back in time to sail on the ghost ship. His quest is to learn why the five-masted schooner was scuttled on a beach in The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

After Lawrence and Ann Gavrion experience the scuttling, Ann is left to wash ashore and meet Rod Curator, Lawrence's great grandson - the second role for Mr. Depp. Rod's a rather surly young marine biologist who has lost his wife and doesn't believe a word Ann tells him about her voyage with his great grandfather.

Perfect roles for adventurous Johnny Depp. 

About Dark Shadows, I'll report back with my own review.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

THE GHOST SHIP

WHISPERING

THE LAST TEMPTATION

THE END GAME

HONORED DAUGHTER

WHEN SERPENTS DIE

WAGON DOGS

Novellas: HEARTLESS, MERCILESS

 

The Artist and Whispering: The Year of 1920 Historicals.

I've written it before. If you loved The Artist, I guarantee you'll love Whispering.

I love historical novels and last year had published two that were set in the 1920s. I love the period because a great cultural change happened in America: World War I, then called The Great War ended, women got the vote, and that misguided law that created Prohibition and its ills - elevating gangsters to idols - went into effect only to be repealed when saner lawmakers got to Congress. These changes were reflected in the language, clothing, art and archetectural styles, to name a few, but mostly in the attitudes of young people. The Flapper Era had begun.

Whispering isn't The Artist. It's not about silent films or stars, it's a romance set on an island that reflected the cultural changes and a change or heart and mind in heroine, Cleo Snow.

It's 1921. Cleo travels with her cousin, Neill Connolly, to Sago Island, Ga. to lessen the sadness of her fiance's death in The Great War (later called World War I). He'd been missing, presumed killed in France, and his body recently returned home.

America's victory celebration is in full swing.  Cleo is poised between her Victorian raising and post-war liberal ideas. Hemlines are rising. Jargon is spicier. Songs are racier. The fox trot is the cat’s meow. Everyone smokes coffin nails. The great experiment, Prohibition, has ushered in an epoch of fascinating gangsters and illegal speakeasies. Drinking and dancing go together like bathtub gin and painted dolls.

On Sago Island Cleo meets fly-boy hero Graham Henry, the dazzling son of a steel magnate. They fall in love dancing to "Whispering", the rage song of the year. Complicating their love-at-first-sight is Shafer and Josie Drake. Shafer is Graham's cousin. He lost his liquor business and knows he's about to lose his money-loving wife, Josie.

The morning after the dance, Josie is missing. A note she purportedly wrote says she's leaving the island to get a divorce and marry Graham. Graham swears the note's a lie and that he and Josie were nothing more than "boozing" companions.

Where did Josie go and when? Did she return to New York where she once danced in the Ziegfeld Follies? No one saw her leave the island. But Cleo knows Graham had nothing to do with her disappearance because Cleo was with him in the lighthouse the night Josie vanished. Cleo vows she will never confess to making love with a man she's known only two days. But Will Graham compromise Cleo to clear himself?

Island resident, the enigmatic Doc Holliday, who is said to be related to the infamous gunslinger, is a veterinarian and a falconer. His falcon, Billy, captures Cleo’s severely crushed heart. Cleo captures Doc’s heart, but she’s reeling over her gullibility. Will he win her with his darkly sensuous charm?

Everyone on Sago, it seems, has something to hide, even villagers who distill homemade "hooch" - and it all pivots around Josie and Graham. With her spirit firmed by shame and outrage, Cleo vows to uncover the truth and thus keep her own secret.



Happy Reading
Gerrie

On sale at: http://amzn.to/vnkv7u

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.crimewritersblog.blogspot.com

The sequel to The End Game (titled The Last Temptation) will be relased in July 2012. These novels represent my contemporary writing period, which exists alongside my historical writing period. :-D

How can someone be so HEARTLESS

FREE On Kindle May 2nd and 3rd.

Get to know Gemma Summers and the citizens of Roscommon in this novella series that features those with "less" sympathy, guts, fear, faith, sense or clues than we have.

HEARTLESS is the second in the Gemma Summers Series. MERCILESS introduced Gemma when she got promoted and headed to the north Georgia mountains and the Chattooga River to raft and celebrate her goal of becoming a Major Crime Case detective.

Her town Roscommon, a fictional place smack in the middle of Georgia close to the Oconee River, has to deal with the same problems that big cities like Atlanta do, but citizens are proud to say that cold, callous murder is rare.

But when it happens, it can happen to the best of Roscommon citizens.









Coming in August: THE LAST TEMPTATION, second in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Series. THE END GAME, a national award-winning novel, debuted the series.

Other Books:

THE GHOST SHIP
WHISPERING
WHEN SERPENTS DIE
HONORED DAUGHTERS
WAGON DOGS

Check them out at: http://amzn.to/nASzI0

PLATFORM SCHMATFORM

What's all this talk about platform?

I'm confused. It used to be a platform was something a non-fiction writer needed to sell a book. Think of it as an expertise. Think Dr. Spock. A pediatrician writing about raising children.   

But the last few years platform has come to mean a lot more. Not only must you be an expert on your subject, you must bring along an audience to buy the book on your expertise. You must, in other words, have guaranteed publicity. Which is why celebrities of every ilk write books. Have you become infamous, involved in a sex scandal, now everyone knows your name? Write a book, go on TV, sell a million copies. 

A few years ago, novelists didn't worry about platform. Your editor bought your book, arranged book signings, provided a little upfront money so you could hit the streets and help sell your book.

Not true today. You must have a platform to get your fiction published and that platform must be in place before a lot of editors look at your book. You must have a website, blog, do workshops, book clubs, Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads, LinkedIn, every list you can think of, pester librarians and book store owners - every avenue that leads to sales. If you're young and cute, so much the better. Write a (fictional) memoir ala James Frey and his million little pieces and touch the public's heart strings. Voila! There's your platform.

Editors say they want great writing, and they do. The marketing department wants great sales. Where the twain meet is your platform. The bigger it is, the more buyers it will entice. Buyers equal audience. Audience equals publicity. Publicity equals sales.  

I must go lie down. Standing on this platform is exhausting.

Cheers,

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION (AUG 2012)
THE GHOST SHIP
WHISPERING
MERCILESS
HEARTLESS

ARC Giveaway - THE LAST TEMPTATION

I'm Jenny's guest, blogging about writing in general and my second in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series,THE LAST TEMPTATION. The first in the series is THE END GAME.

Comment and be entered to win an Advance Reader Copy.
http://www.jennymilchman.com/blog/?p=2234

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com
http://www.crimewritersblog.blogspot.com