Murder. Corruption. Romance. Movie stars. A modern day TV shoot ‘em up?
No. It’s 1926 Old Hollywood, and a film producer is gunned down in cold blood. In comes Rosie, a pretty bit-player, who, in spite of her stage-mother’s expectations, just longs to be happy. Silent screen idols Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, Lon Chaney, and Rudolph Valentino float in and out, as Los Angeles’ corruption is exposed, the era described, and a chase to find the killer revs up before there’s another hit.
"Trouble in Glamour Town is very historically accurate, portraying the real workings of the Hollywood sleaze, dishonesty and corruption happening at that time. S.R. Mallery is a gifted author who drew me into the story from the first word and kept me reading until the very last page...Trouble in Glamour Town is an old fashioned type of murder mystery story and is a very good read." - Trudi LoPreto for Readers' Favorite
S.R. Mallery, two-time READERS’ FAVORITE Gold Medal Winner, has been labeled nothing short of 'eclectic'. She has been a singer, a calligrapher, a quilt designer, and an ESL teacher. As a writer, History is her focus and is woven into her stories with a delicate thread. When people talk about the news of the day, or listen to music, her imagination likens the story to a similar kind of news in the past and is conjuring up scenes between characters she has yet to meet.
S.R. Mallery's books include The Dolan Girls, Genteel Secrets, Unexpected Gifts, Sewing Can Be Dangerous And Other Small Threads, Tales to Count On, and Trouble in Glamour Town.
For more information, please visit S. R. Mallery's website.
During the Blog Tour we will be giving away four eBooks of Trouble in Glamour Town!
To enter, please enter via the Gleam form below. Giveaway Rules
– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on May 25th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
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– Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.
It is no secret that I love audio books, usually averaging one a week. So in random order here are my favorites of 2014. Out of these 10 books 8 are new to me authors (love that).
Clicking on the cover will take you to Goodreads, the title will take you to my review.
"My daddy says that when you do somethin' to distract you from your
worstest fears, it's like whistlin' past the graveyard. You know,
making a racket to keep the scardeness and the ghosts away. He says
that's how we by sometimes. But it's not weak, like hidin'...it's
strong. It means you're able to go on."
Publication Date: December 16, 2013
Mockingbird Lane Press
Formats: eBook, Paperback, Audio Book
Pages: 276
Genre: Historical Fiction/Short Stories
Here I have discovered another benefit of taking part in these book tours. I never read short stories, they don't really appeal to me basically because I love a long story (sometimes the longer the better). Also I've never read a book on short stories, in fact I usually shy away from them. Why I even agreed to be part of this tour I am not even sure.
On that note I will say that I LOVED this book! And have totally changed my opinion on short stories. It had everything all wrapped in one, mystery, suspense, romance, history, murder and adventure. There was the seamstress, the quilter, the Jew, the slave, the surgeon and the curse (just to name a few). Each story was well written, rich in detail with unique plots. The authors writing style kept me reading all 11 stories in a matter of days.
This was an audio read for me and the reader did a fantastic job. If you are like me and have never read a book on short stories give this one a try, you won't be disappointed.
First, a classical/pop singer/composer, she moved on to the
professional world of production art and calligraphy. Next came a long
career as an award winning quilt artist/teacher and an ESL/Reading
instructor. Her short stories have been published in descant 2008, Snowy
Egret, Transcendent Visions, The Storyteller, and Down In the Dirt.
“Unexpected Gifts”, her debut novel, is currently available on
Amazon. “Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads”, her
collection of short stories, Jan. 2014, both books by Mockingbird Lane
Press.
Please join me in welcoming S. R. Mallery to JustOneMoreChapter today.
WHEN ANCESTORS COME BACK TO LEND A HELPING HAND
Ancestors,
forefathers, predecessors, antecedents.These
days they seem to be omnipresent on Ancestry.com, Mormon websites, in Ellis
Island public records.Yet as
individuals, how much time do we take to investigate our own lineage, much less
wonder if these cognates from our past have contributed to who we are today? And
if indeed we have found out anything about them, can we honestly say their
behaviors have helped us now?Not being
privy to any of their journals or letters, the answer is probably no. But what
if we did have access to their stories?
In
my historical fiction/contemporary novel, UNEXPECTED
GIFTS, I explore this very idea.My
main protagonist, Sonia, a confused, neurotic, forever-choosing-the-wrong-man
young psych student, is guided to her family’s trunk up in an attic, where
memorabilia, diaries, and journals abound.As the book journeys back and forth from her modern life and that of her
parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great great-grandparents, she
not only discovers former American eras through their writings, she learns of her
relatives’ human frailties and by doing so, develops better coping mechanisms for
herself.
As with
all historical fiction authors, my joy of scoping out these different time frames
far outweighed the tremendous amount of time taken to write this work. Interestingly
enough, in doing research for this book, one universal truism continuously stood
out: Politics and people have basically not changed over the ages.
A
few tidbits:
My
1969 chapters (taken from Sonia’s father’s and mother’s letters):
Documentary
film footage about the Vietnam War showed the then Secretary of Defense, Robert
McNamara, couching his words
carefully and as we found out later, deceptively.General Westmoreland blustered on about the
importance of the war as the American public watched napalm being dropped,
villagers scattering, and body bag after body bag of U.S. soldiers hoisted onto
transport planes to return home.Viewing
these documentaries just after the U.S. had entered Iraq, with Secretary of
State Donald Rumsfeld reiterating the same sentiments as McNamara, struck me as
particularly ironic.
Research
on Timothy Leary was fascinating—his ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ philosophy
influenced thousands of youths, including his own children.Woodstock’s lineup of top musicians of the
time was dazzling while reading Woodstock anecdotes turned up a sad side story
that I couldn’t resist using.The same
applied to the East Village of New York, where drug use ravaged youngsters, poverty
crippled helpless immigrants, and anti-war protests were plotted and advertised
in underground newspapers.
My
1950/early 1960’s chapters (taken from Sonia’s grandparents and other side
characters)
Tupperware
parties.Believe it or not, this was
huge back then for Suburban America.Film footage of Ms. Brownie Wise, Mr. Tupperware’s crack salesperson,
showed how “better living through chemistry” was tantamount to the Tao way of
life.Actual court records from the
House of Un-American hearings displayed a cold dismissal of innocent people
from all walks of life, not just the entertainment industry. Adding to this
mix, accounts of racial discrimination were ever-present not only in the Deep
South, but also in nice, clean northern Suburbia where, when push came to
shove, niceties fell by the wayside. Harlem lingo waxed poetic, Malcolm X
followers soap-boxing on apple crates as a reaction to Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. in its infancy, and the 1964 Harlem race riots were both self-destructive
and frightening. My characters mostly seeing the Beatles not hearing them at
Carnegie hall was based on my own frustrating, if not eye-opening, experience.
My
1930’s chapters (taken from Sonia’s great-grandparents and great-aunt)
Research
on the Great Depression displayed floods, tornadoes, and gigantic dust clouds
of biblical proportions whereas politics seemed to be business as usual.President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife
Eleanor attempted to help the nation, yet big corporations reared their ugly
heads and in the south, lynching laws were stronger than ever.The president’s “Fireside Chats” miraculously
reached millions of people through radio, and further documentation steered me
towards the High Steelers, those daring construction workers who stepped over
the Empire State Building’s cross beams as if it were a light stroll through the
park.Hobos hopped onto trains ignorant
of their many hazards, while dance marathon contestants exhibited a demonic
resiliency, proving how human beings could endure almost anything if they were
desperate enough.
My
1912-1919 chapters (taken from Sonia’s great great-grandparents)
Henry
Ford was a strange dichotomy. Situated in Detroit, the mecca for automobiles, he
paid his workers higher than most auto makers of the time, offered English
classes to the immigrant men while simultaneously sending a team of social
workers to ‘visit’ the employees’ private, tenement apartments to check up on
their cleanliness, deportment, and religious proclivities (he was fiercely
anti-Semitic).
Across
the city and indeed, around the nation, Suffrage groups were steadfastly upholding
their struggle towards obtaining an official 19th Amendment: Women’s
Right to Vote.Yet by 1916, two diverse,
rifting factions had taken hold of this movement. On the one side was the
philosophy of the more patient stalwarts Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Carrie Chapman Catt. On the other were the more recent, virulent
Alice Stokes Paul and her ilk, determined to protest in front of the White
House and suffer through jail and hunger strikes, in an all out war to force the
government’s hand.
Something to think about: What if you came
across several of your cognates’ diaries? How could they help you in your life?
Publication Date: April 16, 2013
Mockingbird Lane Press
Formats: eBook, Paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction
Can we learn from our ancestral past? Do our relatives’ behaviors
help mold our own? In “Unexpected Gifts,” that is precisely what happens
to Sonia, a confused college student, heading for addictions and
forever choosing the wrong man. Searching for answers, she begins to
read her family’s diaries and journals from America’s past: the Vietnam
War, Woodstock, and Timothy Leary era; Tupperware parties, McCarthyism,
and Black Power; the Great Depression, dance marathons, and Eleanor
Roosevelt; the immigrant experience and the Suffragists. Back and forth
the book journeys, linking yesteryear with modern life until finally, by
understanding her ancestors’ hardships and faults, she gains enough
clarity to make some right choices.
S.R. Mallery has worn various hats in her life.
First, a classical/pop singer/composer, she moved on to the
professional world of production art and calligraphy. Next came a long
career as an award winning quilt artist/teacher and an ESL/Reading
instructor. Her short stories have been published in descant 2008, Snowy
Egret, Transcendent Visions, The Storyteller, and Down In the Dirt.
“Unexpected Gifts”, her debut novel, is currently available on
Amazon. “Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads”, her
collection of short stories, Jan. 2014, both books by Mockingbird Lane
Press.
For more information please visit S.R. Mallery’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
S.R. Mallery, two-time READERS’ FAVORITE Gold Medal Winner, has been labeled nothing short of 'eclectic'. She has been a singer, a calligrapher, a quilt designer, and an ESL teacher. As a writer, History is her focus and is woven into her stories with a delicate thread. When people talk about the news of the day, or listen to music, her imagination likens the story to a similar kind of news in the past and is conjuring up scenes between characters she has yet to meet.
S.R. Mallery's books include The Dolan Girls, Genteel Secrets, Unexpected Gifts, Sewing Can Be Dangerous And Other Small Threads, Tales to Count On, and Trouble in Glamour Town.
