Secret Sister by Emelle Gamble ~ Goddess Fish Blog Tour ~ Interview ~ Excerpt ~ Giveaway ~

Secret Sister

by Emelle Gamble

Emelle will be awarding a $100 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour AND her Reviews Tour. Please be sure to enter with the Rafflecopter  below. You may find the other tour locations here. http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/06/virtual-nbtm-tour-secret-sister-by.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interview:

Crystal: Today as part of the Goddess Fish Virtual Book tour, I have the opportunity to interview Emelle Gamble.  Would you share a little bit about yourself with us today?

Emelle: I’m a California girl, born and bred, who has lived for the past twenty-five years on the East coast, after a five year stopover in Mobile Alabama. My blessings are many…I am with the same man I’ve loved since laying eyes on him more than thirty years ago. I have a smart, sweet and caring daughter and sensitive, and dependable son. I have two female orange cats. I am too  too in love with them, they get away with murder. Real murder (birds, a bunny here and there, the neighborhood population of chipmunks). I have a fabulous critique group of writers (The Lifesavers) who are truly like sisters; a real sister and brother I adore; and (knock wood) good health. I wanted to be a writer since I was about four, and feel like a kid in a candy shop when I get the chance to talk with readers about my latest book, Secret Sister.

Crystal: Do you have a favorite scene you would like to share with us?

Emelle: One of my favorite scenes in Secret Sister is early on when the hero’s sister, Zoe, confronts the woman who was driving the car when a terrible accident occurred and killed Zoe’s brother’s wife. Zoe is young, edgy, and furious, but  her basic decency and fragility rule her words and actions. I love Zoe and tend to fall in love with my secondary characters. A lot.

Crystal: Where did you come up with the idea for Secret Sister?

Emelle: The Lifesavers were floating ideas around one night and I stated that I believed my hubby would recognize me (My big heart! My charm! My sense of humor! Ha!) even if everything about me on the outside changed. We brainstormed it a bit and I settled on the ‘trading places’ plot device, where one person’s identity resides in another’s body,  to best pull off dramatizing my thoughts about this.

Crystal: What are you currently working on?

Emelle: The Lifesavers are indie publishing a collection of novellas called Once and Forever. We all write different types of books, Mary Blayney writes classic Regency, Lavinia Kent a hotter version of that genre, Elaine Fox has done many sexy, witty contemporaries, and Evie Owens, our newest member, writes dark adult and young adult stories that are full of paranormal elements. But after many years of talking about this, we realized that despite our differing interests and genres, we all believed in “Once and Forever” romances. The type of relationships that, while they may be rocky and even appear to be fated to fail, are the real thing, the kind of love affairs one never  gets over and never gives up on. Hence, Once And Forever.

Crystal: Do you have any special routine that you follow when you are writing?

Emelle: No sleep. Too much wine. Daydream about Ryan Gosling and/or George Clooney. Wait, what? You want a real answer? My special routine is being possessed by an idea, splashing down the first 3 or 4 chapters in a frenzy of excitement, delighted and smug that I know exactly how the last scene will play out. Then slogging, kicking and screaming the whole way, through months of writing every day to flesh out the two hundred and fifty odd pages between the end of chapter four and the beginning of the last chapter. Writing is not for sissies. And neither is loving a writer, the day to day process of both  is a challenge.

Crystal: Did you have to do a lot of research for this book or any other? If so do you have a fascinating fact that you have learned you would like to share with us?

Emelle: I did do a lot of research on amnesia, which was engrossing, and proved once again there is quite a lot doctors don’t know about the human brain and injuries. But what I found most fascinating was an article I read about lightning.  Cathy Chance, the main character, did a paper in college on the ‘pattern of lightning bolts’ and her husband talks about this. It was amazing to me to learn that each lightning bolt has a unique structure. Like snowflakes, no two are alike. And some have theorized if you could figure out the formula of heat and moisture and a few other variables, you’d be able to predict their shape. I find all science absolutely fascinating.

Crystal: Who are some of your favorite authors that you like to read?

Emelle: Outside of romance, which I read a lot of, I love Tana French’s Irish mysteries. Obsessively. Her first 3 books are perfect, her last failed for me completely. I love Sue Grafton. J for Judgment was not good. The last five are masterpieces. I love Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey’s series. Steig Larsson’s Trilogy about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo nearly made me give up writing. I thought, okay, he’s done it all. What’s the point of even considering a new novel? I got over that thought!

Crystal: Is there any genre you haven't written that you would like to try?

Emelle: For a long time I’ve wanted to write, and even tried to convince some of my friend’s to write, a sci-fi Medieval. I can see the opening clearly…The willful and beautiful wife of a clan chieftain is running through the forest, bereft and intent on suicide because she’s endured the heartbreaking loss of her third stillborn baby.  But that night she’s given an infant to raise as her own. By an alien. Who crash lands his spacecraft in a field on the river bank where she’s gone to die. HA! Talk about blended genre!

But I’m serious about this as I love imagining what 13th century folks watching a flying saucer crash would be thinking.  I don’t know what genre it would be, but it certainly fits the Emelle Gamble pattern of blending different genres into one book!  Anyway, my friends refuse to write it, so who knows…?

Thanks for having me, Crystal!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:

To their friends, Nick and Cathy Chance have the perfect marriage. High school sweethearts who’ve been together for ten years, they’ve weathered challenges and are as committed as they were when they first fell in love. Cathy trusts Nick, Nick’s world revolves around his wife, and the future looks golden.

To everyone who knows them, Cathy Chance and Roxanne Ruiz have a perfect friendship. They connected in grade school and since then have been each other’s confident and trusted advisor. Cathy loves the gorgeous Roxanne like a sister, Roxanne has fun-loving Cathy’s back in every situation, though lately there’s been tension between these two best friends…

And then, on a sunny summer morning, the unthinkable occurs, throwing into doubt the truth of what each of these people really know about themselves and one another.

Will Roxanne’s sacrifice be too little, and too late? Should Nick’s love for his wife be strong enough to risk trusting his heart more than logic? Can Cathy’s devotion to Nick give her enough strength to convince him to see her for who she really is?

Secret Sister proves how strong, how stubborn, and how trustworthy love can be as Nick and Cathy and Roxanne are challenged to overcome the secrets, the lies … and one extraordinary twist of fate that turns their lives upside down.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Excerpt:

When I ‘woke up,’ strange words to use after being unconscious for what was surely days, not hours, I felt remarkably lucid. Which is to say, I opened my eyes and saw and understood that I was in a hospital bed, there were nurses working in the area outside my glassed-in room, and I was hooked to an I.V. and some other kind of machine.

I didn’t know the story of how I got here, but assumed it was bad. I remembered hearing, somewhere, that I had been in a terrible car accident, but I was blank to any other details.

For instance, I didn’t know my name.

I examined the contents of my brain and started a list of unknown things. Where was I? No clue. What day was it? I looked outside and saw blue sky. Zero. I was blank to the most basic of information.

My chest tightened and a roar began in my head. Don’t panic. I gulped air, blinked; fought to stay awake.

 “Roxanne. Roxanne Ruiz. Do you know where you are?”

I didn’t recognize that name. In my brain I saw a face. A kind face, smiling. A great looking guy with strong arms and blue eyes.

But I had no idea who he was either …

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Emelle Gamble was a writer at an early age, bursting with the requisite childhood stories of introspection which evolved into bad teen poetry and took her first stab at full length fiction in an adult education writing class when her kids were in bed. As M.L. Gamble, she published several romantic suspense novels with Harlequin. She has contracted with Soul Mate Publishing for Secret Sister, summer of 2013, and Dating Cary Grant, an early 2014 release.

Always intrigued by the words ‘what if’, Emelle’s books feature an ordinary woman confronted with an extraordinary situation.  She most enjoys reading stories that surprise and amaze her, and hopes her readers will enjoy the challenging and exciting journeys her characters take.  

Emelle lives in suburban Washington D.C.  with her husband, Phil, her hero of thirty years,  and two orange cats, Lucy and Bella. These girls, like all good villains, have their reasons for misbehaving. Her daughter, Olivia, and son, Allen, are happily launched on their own and contributing great things to society, their mother’s fondest wish.

Email: emellegamble@aol.com 

Website:  www.EmelleGamble.com 

FaceBook:  Author Emelle Gamble

Twitter: @EmelleGamble

Amazon Buy Link: Secret Sister

a Rafflecopter giveaway