A Book and a Chat with Brenda Stanley

Brenda Stanley is my guest on today’s “A Book and a Chat” from being one of those quiet children she developed a career around communication. Be it as a news anchor and investigative reporter for NBC affiliate KPVI in Eastern Idaho to her latest novel “The Color of Snow”. Along the way she has won several rewards as well as bringing up five children including two sets of twins.
Her first dip into the published author pool was actually a cook books called “The Zucchini Houdini” originally written as a sort of “tongue in cheek recipe book after she overdid the Zucchini planting one year, but in the end became a well liked cook book for many readers. Brenda has another cook book coming out shortly.
This success was followed by a book she had written many years before but with the dust blown of it launched her as a novel writer of note, this book being “I Am Nuchu” a story of 17 year old half Ute Indian, it is  a coming-of-age story about a teen wrestling with his identity as he finds himself caught between two drastically different worlds.
Brenda’s latest book “The Color of Snow” has already received many great reviews.
About “The Color of Snow”
When a beautiful 16-year-old girl named Sophie is found sequestered in a cage-like room in a rundown house in the desolate hills of Arbon Valley, Idaho, the entire community is shocked to learn she is the legendary Callidora–a baby girl who was kidnapped from her crib almost seventeen years ago and canonized in missing posters with portraits of what the fabled girl might resemble. Authorities soon learn that the cage was there to protect people from Sophie, because her biological father believes she is cursed.
Sophie is discovered after the man she knows as Papa, shoots and injures Damien, a young man who is trying to rescue her. Now, unsocialized and thrust into the world, and into a family she has never met, Sophie must decide whether she should accept her Papa’s claims that she is cursed and he was only trying to protect others, or trust the new people in her life who have their own agendas. Guided by a wise cousin, Sophie realizes that her most heartbreaking challenge is to decide if her love for Damien will destroy him like her Papa claims, or free her from past demons that haunt her mind.
It is a book that covers many themes from Mental illness, and teen pregnancy to religious intolerance and racism. Though classed as YA it is a story that has been enjoyed by people of all ages, just check her many reviews…
As one reviewer put it…
I want more! The tension begins on the first page. From the very beginning the author has created a scene that leaves so many questions. I would read and think I had answers to some of them only to find out that I didn’t quite have it right. In the beginning I wanted to really dislike the man she had always known as her father. As I read I realized that even he was not black and white. As I was read his past I really disliked Sophie’s grandfather. The fact that he really thought that his family was better than Luke’s family because they raised sheep and worked for him made me dislike him. There are so many things going on here. There are family secrets, issues with social class, as well as a difference in religious beliefs. Was there really a curse on Sophia’s family as she believed?
As well as “The Color of Snow” Brenda also has another novel “Like Ravens in Winter” just out, this time it’s about a television network reporter (hmm who could that be based on….) who is assigned to Iraq at the beginning of the Gulf War. Looks to me like another hit for this great author.
So listen now and share an interesting, and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today on A Book and a Chat with Brenda Stanley
Barry
Direct link to the show A Book and a Chat with Brenda Stanley
or you can download the mp3 file of the show from “Brenda Stanley”
You can find out more about my guest at: “Brenda Stanley – The Color of Snow”
Barry Eva (Storyheart)
My Blogs:
Book Information and Things UK Including my Olympic Blog – Across the Pond
Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests – A Book and a Chat
Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World – Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

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A Book and a Chat with Pauline L Hawkins

Already we’re into September, kids are back at school, roads are once again busy and memories are once again brought back to bright sunny September 11, 2001.
The question “Where were you when the twin towers fell” is like a modern day “Where were you when JFK was shot”, it is a moment in time, when everybody remembers.
My guest on today’s “A Book and a Chat” Pauline L Hawkins started writing her book as her own way of coping with the trauma she still felt within her relating to 9/11.
She sat down in 2002, in a desire to come to grips with her own feelings; her expectation was simply to put a few words down on paper to work through the needed grieving process.
Like many others Pauline found putting her own feelings and thoughts on paper whatever the emotion helps her. Though she has always been interested in writing or rather telling stories she never intended to write a book. However the more she wrote, it was like the floodgates of her emotions opened and all the memories came back for her to share with the readers in her debut book Ashes to Ashes – The Twins Fall Down.
About “Ashes to Ashes – The Twins Fall Down” (In Pauline’s own words)
As I sat there recounting my memories of that bright sunny September day, I soon realized that while everyone talked about what happened in New York, at the Pentagon, and in the field in Pennsylvania, very little had been said about how that day affected those of us outside of those areas. An entire country, and world, was affected on that day. Lives were changed, security lost, and our story, my story, should and needed to be shared as well.
The book shares where Pauline was and what she was doing when she heard this horrible news. She tells us of how she felt throughout her day after the attacks and then some. She gives us details of the attacks, she has really done her research, statistics, quotes from the President and his response after the attacks, her research on Bin Laden and who he was, her feelings on terrorism, and so much more. As one reviewer put it.
This book is such a therapeutic read that I highly recommend it to everyone! It is so personal as the author shares her feelings, and own experiences with regard to the events of 9/11.
Pauline also shared with us about her next book “Always and Forever” about reconnecting after 28 years after breaking up with her High School sweetheart on Facebook, and how her life has changed along with many other views into g\her life… Can’t wait for that one!
So listen now and share an interesting, and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today on A Book and a Chat with Pauline L Hawkins
Barry
Direct link to the show A Book and a Chat with Pauline L Hawkins
or you can download the mp3 file of the show from “Pauline L Hawkins”
You can find out more about my guest at: “Pauline L Hawkins – Ashes Ashes – The Twins Fall Down”
Barry Eva (Storyheart)
My Blogs:
Book Information and Things UK Including my Olympic Blog – Across the Pond
Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests – A Book and a Chat
Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World – Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

Read Full Post »