Bali Conspiracy Most Foul

Exclusive interview with author Shamini Flint and a review of his latest Inspector Singh novel **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/1/20 –“My dream is that my crime novels will raise awareness of and engage people in a discussion of the social, cultural and religious issues that plague Asian society,” says A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul author Shamini Flint. “The general idea behind the Inspector Singh novels is to write traditional whodunits with an Asian twist. I usually highlight at least one issue of contemporary importance, whether racial or religious issues in Malaysia, draconian laws on drugs or homosexuality in Singapore or the spectre of terrorism in Bali.”

Bali  is a wonderfully exotic locale for Flint’s second mystery with Inspector Singh. The characters and the plot drive the story equally. The overweight Singh is comparable to the detective Hercule Poirot. The differences in culture and history move the story along. The suspense kicks up a level and the ending will surprise you.

In A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul, Inspector Singh is sent to Bali after a terrorist’s bomb goes off.  Singh doesn’t quite know why he’s sent as he deals with homicides, not terrorism. The police, however, find a skull fragment at the scene that was there before the bomb went off. Joining Singh is Australian cop Bronwyn Taylor. The investigation leads them to the wealthy expat wife of the murdered man and her friends. Who killed him and how is it tied to the bomb?

“The Bali bombings of 2002 were a seminal event in Asia,” says Flint. “The island of Bali captures many of the contradictions of Asian society…economic, religious and cultural. I was determined to send Inspector Singh to Bali to investigate a murder in the aftermath of the bombings, but also to trip over all the fault lines within that society. There is no doubt that writing books that are not always complimentary about Asian society, or its political classes, does make me nervous sometimes.”

Flint is Malaysian. “Whenever I return to Malaysia and my passport gets stuck in the Autogate at the airport, I assume I’m in trouble. Fortunately, not many people in authority in Southeast Asia are big readers. Inspector Singh has received very good reviews in the international press and a few angry ones in the regional Asian papers.”

Flint says he did a lot of online research into terrorism in Southeast Asia. He was studying the roots of fanaticism, the social and cultural backdrop to suicide bombers and the ideology and methodology of terrorists. “One day, as I was trawling through the Internet, I was suddenly blocked from various sites by the Singapore authorities with a message suggesting that I was attempting to access banned material,” says Flint. “I printed out a copy of the manuscript and waited for someone to arrive to arrest me, rehearsing my excuses that I was just doing research for a book and wondering whether that’s what the terrorists usually said too.”

Flint says he doesn’t know if his novels make a difference, but that he does enjoy the process of trying to influence people. “I have an Aunt in Malaysia who recently confessed to voting for an opposition figure in a general election after fifty years of being too afraid to step out of line. Who says people can’t change?”

In his research, Flint visits the sites described in his books. “In Bali, this involved going to the bomb sites in Kuta, the hospitals and the police station in Denpasar and a bed and breakfast in the artist colony of Ubud. I knew Bali quite well before writing the book as I have family there. When writing a Singh novel, I usually read an enormous amount about the place…history, politics, geography…anything I can get my hands on really. Once I feel I have the destination in some sort of mental context, I spend a few weeks on location. I wander fairly aimlessly around the place, exploring back alleys and the quality of the beer. Inspector Singh is very fussy about that.”

Flint says there’s a lot of interest in optioning A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul. “I am really keen to see Inspector Singh in the flesh although I can’t think who might play the role.”

Flint says some of his children’s books have been short-listed for awards including the Red Dot Award and the Hedwig-Anuar Prize.

Flint’s agent is Elinor Cooper at AP Watt. “After I had found a UK publisher for the Inspector Singh novels a number of agents approached me about any further writing. Elinor was enthusiastic about my work. She is also a perfectionist so I am currently editing a stand-alone novel for the third time at her behest.”

A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul: Inspector Singh Investigates by Shamini Flint
Hardcover, 304 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (July 19, 2011) Language: English, ISBN: 9780312596989 $ 25.99

By Gabrielle Pantera

Can't get enough Pride & Prejudice? Read the new Annotated Edition

LONDON, ENGLAND (Gosh!TV) 2012/12/24 – It’s not too late to pop into a bookstore to get a gift for a special someone or for yourself. Let’s look at a dozen great books perfect for the Anglophile or for any reader.

Historical Fiction

1. Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition . Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer Spacks. Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

2. Persuasion: An Annotated Edition

Persuasion was originally published in 1817, after Austen’s death. Persuasion is quite introspective and more passionate that other Austen novels. The introduction for Persuasion is by scholar Robert Morrison. His notes are about the relationship between Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. He also covers Austen contemporaries such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Maria Edgeworth.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition. Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison. Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

3. Madam Tussaud

This story of Madame Marie Tussaud starts just before the French revolution. Tussaud and her family consider themselves survivalists. They work both sides of the revolution to survive the war. Will Marie survive or will her wax figures be her only legacy?

Madam Tussaud by Michelle Moran. Hardback, 464 pages, Publisher: Crown (February 15, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780307588654 $25.00 Paperback comes out Dec 7^th, 2011 $15.00

Modern Fiction

4. The Little Women Letters

Donnelly’s novel evokes the love and nurturing nature of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The trials and tribulations that are inherent with families and sisters in particular are woven beautifully through out the novel. The bond between the sisters in the novel will make even those who don’t have sisters want one or two.

In The Little Women Letters, Lulu Atwater is the middle sister. She’s close to her sisters and parents, but her life isn’t going as planned…if she had a plan. Older sister Emma loves her career and is planning her wedding. Younger sister Sophie is an actress whose career is starting to take off. Fed up with dead-end jobs, Lulu realizes that she needs to get her life together. Lulu finds some old letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. Lulu gets caught up Jo’s life lesson. Can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu figure out who she wants to be?

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Hardcover, 368 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (June 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9781451617184. $10.20

5. Mermaid Garden

In Mermaid Garden, ten-year-old Floriana loves the Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. Sitting on the crumbling wall she looks over the garden imagining she’ll one day live there. Dante, the son of villa owner Beppe Bonfanti, invites Floriana in to look at the mermaid garden. As Floriana and Dante grow up they fall in love, but his powerful and ruthless father has the poor girl from the local village disappear. Dante is devastated. Decades later on the coast in Devon, a beautiful old country house has been turned into a hotel. Marina Turner hires Argentinean artist Rafa Santoro for the summer to teach the guests how to paint. What’s the secret to how Floriana, Dante, Marina and Rafa all connect?

Mermaid Garden, by Santa Montefiore. Hardcover, 432 pages, Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (May 3, 2011). Language: English, ISBN: 9781451624304 $24.99

Mysteries

6. Naughty in Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

Set in the 1930s, Naughty in Nice presents Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne of England. Unfortunately, her branch of the family is flat broke. It’s the Great Depression. She struggles to make her own way in a difficult world. Unwilling to marry or settle for less then love, she is determined to be an independent woman.

Naughty in Nice the fifth book in Bowen’s wonderful the Royal Spyness series. Lady Georgiana takes a trip to Nice to unobtrusively recover a snuffbox missing from Queen Mary’s collection. What more could an unmarried woman want but to escape to a warm climate during the coldest time of year in London? Jean-Paul is a sexy Frenchman who hits on Georgiana. She’s glad for the distraction when she sees her man Darcy O’Mara with another woman and child who looks like him. There are a few surprises for Georgiana in this novel. With each new novel Bowen makes the characters more enchanting. Read this novel alone or read the series in order.

Naughty in Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery) by Rhys Bowen. Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; 1 edition (September 6, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780425243497 $ 24.96

7. Where Shadows Dance: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

Where Shadows Dance is set in 1812 London.  Sebastian St. Cyr, the only surviving son and heir of the Earl of Hendon, is asked by his friend, surgeon Paul Gibson, to solve a mystery. A body Gibson illegally bought from body snatchers for study has a stab wound at the base of the skull. The man was murdered. The dead man was Alexander Ross, who worked for the Foreign Office. St. Cyr and his wife to be, Hero Jarvis, work together to solve this mystery. With Napoleon invading Russia and the Americans going to war, will they find the answer without creating an international scandal?

The historical facts add to the story, such as deaths compiled by the elderly women in each parish for more than 200 years prior to 1812 called the Bills of Mortality. Harris’ descriptions draw you into 1812. The characters and characteristics of the protagonists, St Cyr and Hero Jarvis, feel a bit modern at times.

Where Shadows Dance: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris. Hardcover, 352 pages, Publisher: NAL Hardcover; First Edition (March 1, 2011). Language: English, ISBN: 9780451232236 $24.95

Factual

8. Scandalous Women

Scandalous Women provides succinct biographies of some of the most fascinating women in history. Their lives are revealed showing the high and low points in their lives. The chapter titles include Warrior Queens, Scintillating Seductresses, Wild Women of the West and Amazing Adventuresses. A total of 35 different women are in this book. Mohan is entertaining and even humorous at times. Whether it’s less familiar biographies like Vita Sackville-West and Emilie du Chatelet, or the ones everyone knows like Cleopatra and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the women’s lives are fascinating.

Scandalous Women, Trade Paperback, 320 pages, Publisher: Perigee Trade (March 1, 2011), Language: EnglishISBN13: 9780399536458 $15.00

9. George II: King and Elector (Part of the English Monarchs Series)

Raised in Northern Germany, George II was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was also the last British monarch to lead an army in battle, participating at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. While still the Prince of Wales he quarreled with his father, King George I, and was banned from the palace and from seeing his children. George II became king in 1727 on his father’s death. In 1745, supporters of James Stuart failed to depose the George II in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. The attempt to install a Catholic king was over.

This is not a social book describing parties, clothing or food. It describes family jealousies and gives a deeper understanding of the relationship between George II and his children. For anyone who wants to know more about George II, this is a definite must-read.

George II: King and Elector (Part of the English Monarchs Series) By Andrew Thompson Hardcover, 315 pages, Publisher: Yale University Press (June 28, 2011),Language: English, ISBN: 9780300118926 $40.00

10. The Second World War: A Military History

The Second World War is not controversial, but is thoroughly explored in nearly 700 pages. Despite the length, Corrigan’s writing is easy to read. This book is for anyone who wants to know about the conflict. It is straightforward due to the author’s dry wit and clear writing style. A historian, Corrigan compares WWII with previous wars. He’s not timid about voicing his opinion of actions during the war. Corrigan explores the different ways each country went about dealing with their part of the war. Even though there were alliances, rarely did they work together in accord. Corrigan discusses the different contributions the Americans, British and Russians made. The book presents in chronological order and moves back and forth between countries. A large portion of the book covers fighting in Asia.

The Second World War: A Military History by Gordon Corrigan . Hardcover, 672 pages, Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (November 8, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780312577094 $35.00.

11. A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice

Kenji Yoshino is a constitutional law professor at NYU. He compares Shakespeare’s justice against law in today’s society. Starting with Titus Andronicus, a very violent play that is all about revenge, he compares the play to America’s wars against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is America waging a war for safety or is it an act of revenge? Yoshino examines Hamlet, Lear, The Tempest and more. If Yoshino classes are half as good as this book no wonder he’s got students vying to get in his class.

A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice Kenji Yoshino. Hardcover, 320 pages, Publisher: Ecco (April 12, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780061769108 $26.99

12. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England

The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England drops you in the year 1300 to learn all about how people lived, dressed, worked, the difference between the classes and anything else you wanted to know about Medieval times but were afraid to ask.

The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England is a surprisingly engrossing read even if you don’t care about history. There are facts that will make you think about all you were taught about history and make you re-think it all. Now out in Trade paperbck.

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. Hardcover, 352 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (December 29, 2009), Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-1439112892 $26.00

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/12/20 – This article series offers holiday gift ideas to surprise and delight someone special. Watch for more gift ideas in future stories.

Persuasion an Annotated version

Jane Austen’s novels are timeless. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice novels are great as gifts.

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Jane Austen’s novels are the most beloved books of Western literature. Available wherever books are sold.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison
Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer
Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition

Persuasion an Annotated version

Jane Austen’s novels are timeless. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice novels great as gifts **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/12/18 – “I am, and have been since I first encountered Martin Gardner’s wonderful The Annotated Alice many years ago, a great fan of the genre of annotated editions,” says Harvard University Press is executive editor John Kulka. “Few people would dispute the claim that Austen is among the world’s most beloved authors. I’ve long thought that her novels deserved the full Martin Gardner treatment, replete with running commentary, essays, and lots of color illustrations.”

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Persuasion was originally published in 1817, after Austen’s death. Persuasion is quite introspective and more passionate that other Austen novels. The introduction for Persuasion is by scholar Robert Morrison. His notes are about the relationship between Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. He also covers Austen contemporaries such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Maria Edgeworth.

Both books would make fantastic gifts for anyone who loves Jane Austen. The books are designed to be read, reread and cherished to be passed on to the next generation of Austen lovers.

“Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion are so extravagantly beautiful that one reviewer has seen fit to call them anti-Kindles, anti-Nooks, and anti-tablets,” says Kulka. “We’ve spared no expenses with production. I knew the volumes had to be physically beautiful objects…books that readers, especially those readers who think of themselves as Friends of Jane, would want to own and treasure as part of their permanent libraries.”

Kulka says that when he pitched the idea of an annotated Austen series to his colleagues at Harvard University Press, they all were enthusiastic about the idea. “I soon assembled an international group of scholars to annotate Austen’s six major novels. Last year we published Patricia Meyer Spacks’s Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition and just this month we released Persuasion: An Annotated Edition, which Robert Morrison, a Canadian scholar, has edited and annotated.  We’ve had a tremendous response to these first two volumes.”

“The running commentary is all there in the margins of the book, to be consulted or ignored, depending on your mood,” says Kulka. “There’s something very appealing about the idea of an expert…someone smarter, more educated, and wiser than yourself acting as a guide to a work of literature.  And of course, there are all of those gorgeous illustrations, drawings, and maps.”

“When I approached Patricia Meyer Spacks, an eminent scholar, about annotating Pride and Prejudice, she was doubtful at first about the enterprise,” says Kulka. “She has since written and spoken about the challenge of ‘writing 2,000 notes for a novel that seems to demand no annotation at all.’  Pride and Prejudice is, in many ways, such a brilliantly limpid and accessible novel.  But Pat surprised herself. The process of writing notes taught her much about what she didn’t know about the book and the importance of what she didn’t know. Austen and her first readers understood much about their contemporary world that seems quite foreign to us now.”

Kulka did research for the color illustrations in Pride and Prejudice. That research took him to the Yale British Art Museum, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Houghton Library at Harvard.  “At the Houghton, I got to handle and page through a copy of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice, originally published in a three volume format, as all novels were then, to accommodate the circulating libraries, which functioned somewhat like Blockbuster or Netflix, except of course the circulating libraries rented out books not movies.  The copy of the first edition at the Houghton was owned by the poet and avid book collector Amy Lowell. The first of the three volumes contains her book plate.”

“I viewed first editions of Austen’s work and many Regency era publications,” says Kulka. “But, no, I didn’t get to handle any of Jane Austen’s manuscripts.  Sadly, very little of Austen’s work survives in manuscript form.  There are two canceled chapters from Persuasion that survive, but nothing more from that late novel, nor indeed anything else from her major novels.  You may remember that earlier this year manuscript pages from Austen’s The Watsons, an early, unfinished novel, sold at auction to the Bodleian library at Oxford for the equivalent of something like 1.6 million U.S. dollars.  The fact that so little Austen material survives in manuscript form accounts, in part, for that impressive figure.”

Kulka got help, counsel, and encouragement, in one form or another, from all quarters of the Austen community…the societies, the museums, and the blogs. The staff at Chawton House provided lots of help in tracking down images. Members of JASNA, the Jane Austen Society North America, were very helpful.

Next year Harvard University Press will publish Emma:  An Annotated Edition, the next installment in the Austen series. “I just finished reading the final manuscript,” says Kulka.  “A very good British scholar named Bharat Tandon has put that volume together for me.”

Anyone who read and enjoyed Patricia Meyer Spacks’ Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition will want to get Robert Morrison’s Persuasion: An Annotated Edition. “Rob is very good on the larger social and political events that shape the novel’s action,” says Kulka.  “In his Introduction and notes he reminds us that the Napoleonic Wars form an important backdrop to Persuasion.” The Napoleonic Wars are coming to a close during the action of the novel. Captain Wentworth, Admiral Croft, and some of the other male characters in the novel served in the Royal Navy.  Who these men are, what naval life was like, what their different ranks mean, and how England are haunted by the war are among the topics explored by Morrison in his notes.

Jane Austen’s novels are the most beloved books of Western literature.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison
Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer Spacks
Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

Kevin Sorbo

The tragedy that almost was turns into a triumph as Kevin Sorbo recounts his brush with death. **** 4 Stars

By  Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/11/10 “I wanted people out there who are struggling with illness like I did to know there is hope, that they can find strength inside themselves and not be slaves to prognostications by others,” says author of True Strength Kevin Sorbo.  “The docs told me 3-8 months of recovery - that’s it. After that, it was what it was. Well, after 8 months, I was still down for the count, lying on the couch, head buzzing and pounding, feeling dizzy and nauseated 22 hours a day. That was no way to live a life. So i said, “well, they must be wrong,” and my wife was right there telling me that, too, thank goodness.”

Andromeda and Hercules, that’s what most people know Kevin Sorbo for. Like most of us when things are going great we don’t think about any possible health problems that might happen.  A sudden health crisis affected his life dramatically. He was partially blind and incapacitated at just thirty-eight years old. Yet he was able to keep working because he managed to hide what was really going on. This is Sorbo’s memoir. He shares how he dealt with his physical health issues and came out the other side a stronger man than Hercules was.

This transformation for Sorbo was filled with many obstacles, but he had the love of Sam Jenkins who Sorbo married while recovering from the aneurysm and strokes that had threatened his life. Sorbo recounts the fears and anger that most will be able to relate to.  Sorbo wrote this himself with a few chapters done by Sam and a few friends also contributing. Sorbo’s writing style is engaging and I would love to see a fiction book by him.

The most challenging part of writing True Strength for Kevin was writing about God. “I know people all have their own opinions about whether he exists or whatever, but that voice I heard, and the journey I was on – I talked a lot to god, yelled at him a lot, and finally made my peace with him,” says Sorbo. “Writing that most intimate conversation was the hardest thing to come clean about, after having made the decision to tell my story.”

“Writing it would wake me up,” says Sorbo. “Once I got started, it wanted to be written.”

What was the cause for the aneurysm and blood clots? “The doctors don’t know, but I do,” says Sorbo. “God tapped me on the shoulder, literally, in a very rude way, but he needed to get his point across!”

“I still have to consciously slow down,” says Sorbo. “I want to do everything and I love to work, so I have (still) a tendency to overbook myself.”

“Well, after staring death in the face, it was a long uphill battle,” says Sorbo. “Every little ache and pain (and there were a plethora of them) went straight into my head like another warning shot. I’d say, for my psyche, I was literally about to die every day for about a year. The panic attacks took over several times a day for the first part of that. Eventually I both learned to control my response to them, and they also lessened as my brain ‘re-calibrated.’”

“I’ve joined forces with the American Stroke association to help them out where I can,” says Sorbo.

Sorbo has a charity called a World Fit for Kids, that once a year has a charity Golf Tournament. “We teach mentoring to teens to help the younger children in their communities, and we work with 12,000 kids in LAUSD, with a 98% graduation rate for our kids in a 52% drop out area,” says Sorbo. “Kids today start dropping out of school as young as 5th grade! Talk about giving up…” Find out more at www.worldfitforkids.org

Sorbo was born in Minneapolis and raised in Mound, Minn. He currently lives in the Los  Angeles, Calif., area. Sorbo has been busy with six movies in the can.  “ I just wrapped a faith based movie for Sony called Abel’s Field,” says Sorbo. “Two more movies to be shot in the next three months.”

True Strength

Sorbo is on a book tour across the country. You can keep up with him via Twitter at @Ksorbs,  at Facebook: Kevin Sorbo official or  Kevinsorbo.net for all info on movie releases and everything else .

True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal–and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life Hardcover, 296 pages, Publisher, Da Capo Press (October 11, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780306820366 $ 26.00

Exclusive interview with A Rather Remarkable Homecoming author CA Belmond and a review of her new book about **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) – 10/14/2011 – “I did a blog for the Huffington Post that caused a bit of a commotion,” says A Rather Remarkable Homecoming author CA Belmond. “Bad Words: 6 Words You Should Never Write” is a list of six words that are hyperbole no writer should ever use. Her newbook, A Rather Remarkable Homecoming, is presumably free of those six tiresome words.

A Rather Remarkable Homecoming is about a small Cornish village struggling to fend off aggressive real-estate developers from London. “While I was writing it, I kept hearing about one English village after another having such confrontations,” says Belmond. “Prince Charles, who has a bit of a cameo in my book, made headlines again and again as he spoke out to defend the English countryside and to build homes that work with nature instead of against it. Life really does imitate art.”

In this fourth novel in Belmond’s Rather series, Penny Nichols and her new husband Jeremy Laidley solve mysteries together and are witty. They seem a bit like Nick and Nora from The Thin Man movies. The characters in this novel are well defined, especially a bird-watching earl and a television chef. Belmond’a descriptions of Cornwall are vivid. You’ll want to travel to Cornwall after reading.

Belmond says the seeds for this novel were planted in the first book in the series, A Rather Lovely Inheritance. “My American heroine, Penny Nichols, is reunited with a childhood chum, Jeremy Laidley, whom she’d first met years ago. They were both children at her English grandmother’s seaside house in Cornwall, England.”

As adults reunited from the first novel, Penny and Jeremy must solve a family mystery. That leads to more novels, to A Rather Curious Engagement and A Rather Charming Invitation, and more adventures, taking them all across Europe. “They go to London, Paris, Rome, the French Riviera, Lake Geneva, Corsica, Lake Como, Italy, but they never got a chance to return to Cornwall,” says Belmond.

“I somehow always knew that Penny and Jeremy must one day go back to explore Cornwall again, to see what’s changed, and what new insights they can find in their shared past,” says Belmond. In A Rather Remarkable Homecoming, Penny discovers that her grandmother’s beautiful Cornish house-by-the-sea is in peril of being demolished, that the whole village is in jeopardy.

“Already readers are telling me how much they can relate to the fiercely protective feelings Penny has about wanting to rescue such an important family landmark as her grandmother’s house,” says Belmond. “Penny and Jeremy explore the wild, rugged, mysterious coast of Cornwall, home of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

Belmond says she enjoys having her book’s heroes interact with eccentric local folk, whose personalities for her grow naturally from their habitat. “I couldn’t help seeing a bird-watching English earl and a Shakespearean actor and a TV chef just springing out of the Cornish landscape, like wild, indigenous plants and mythological creatures,” says Belmond.

Belmond says she researches all her novels with extensive travel. “I read deeply about the history of the area, and I travel some more. Along the way, I talk to everybody I meet…whether it’s a museum curator, the waiter in a café, a stockbroker, a chef, a valet, a librarian, or the people at the next table in a restaurant. I invariably hear rich insights and the keen observations that people don’t always say in public. When it comes to storing up arcane nuggets of information for future books, I am a real squirrel, and whenever I find something of interest, no matter how obscure, I file it away.”

Belmond’s readers come from all walks of life, from teenagers to high-powered lawyers and doctors, to librarians and teachers, to the elderly and retired. She gets letters and e-mails not only from women who share the books with friends, children, mothers, but also from men who found her novels while browsing in shops and just couldn’t resist.

“I keep hearing from readers all around the world, which is a wonderful thing for an author,” says Belmond. “It’s like being an island castaway who’s tossed out a message in a bottle…what a joy when you get an answer.”

Belmond says she knows she‘s re in the running for some prizes for writing, but won’t know until next year. For previous books she was awarded the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship and was twice a Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award finalist. She was also chosen to be a writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France. Her original screenplays were shortlisted at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference.

Belmond’s editor at New American Library (NAL) is Claire Zion, the editorial director of New American Library at the Penguin Group. “She’s terrifically responsive, and really allows an author to be herself.,” says Belmond.

Belmond’s agent is Michael Carlisle and David Forrer of Inkwell Management. “Years ago I was introduced to Michael Carlisle through a film agent that we both knew from the William Morris Agency,” says Belmond. “I was writing for television at the time. When my novel was ready, I sent it to him, and he was wonderfully enthusiastic, so we were off and running. He’s not just my agent, he’s now a good friend. He and David Forrer are like knights in shining armor.”

Belmond is writing her fifth Rather novel, plus two stand-alone novels with entirely different characters and stories. Belmond shuttles back and forth between Connecticut and France. She was born in New York.

A Rather Remarkable Homecoming

Belmond’s website is: www.cabelmond.com

You can find her stories at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ca-belmond

And she blogs for the Penguin community websites:

http://community.penguin.com/_Adventures-Abroad-by-CA-Belmond/blog/5101707/150186.html

http://community.penguin.com/_Back-in-the-USA-by-CA-Belmond/blog/5093950/150186.html

http://community.penguin.com/_In-Defense-of-Happy-Endings-by-CA-Belmond/blog/5086522/150186.html

Click on the book to be taken directly to Amazon.

A Rather Remarkable Homecoming (PENNY NICHOLS) by C.A. Belmond,
Trade Paperback, 368 pages, Publisher: NAL Trade; 1 edition (September 6, 2011) Language: English ISBN-13: 978-0451234612, $15.00

Michael Gaffney- Celebrity floral designer and founder of the American School of Flower Design

Floral arrangement tips from celebrity florist Michael Gaffney

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 10/11/2011 – Celebrity floral designer and founder of the American School of Flower Design Michael Gaffney will be at Barnes & Noble to sign his new book called Design Star.

The book gives step-by-step instructions on everything from Classic English design to Exotic Tropical design arrangements. The book shares many tips and tricks on flower design.For example, to make flowers last longer, cut the stems at a 45-degree angle with sharp scissors when you first get them and every day after that. Dip flowers upside-down in water as soon as you get them. Keep flowers away from fruit and plants. Those give off ethylene, a  gas will cause flowers to wilt sooner.

There are more tips in the book and at the book signing you can ask Gaffney your flower questions and get your book signed by him too. With the holiday’s coming up, now’s a good time to get help from an expert.

Available for purchase exclusively that night at Barnes & Noble. $34.95

WHEN: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 7:00 – 8:30pm
WHERE: BARNES & NOBLE at The Grove
189 Grove Drive Suite K 30
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Vocal Essentials for the Pop Singer, look out American Idol and X Factor

Exclusive interview with author Teri Danz and a review of her new book to take your pop singing from good to great **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) – 10/4/2011 – “The book is overall in its approach; containing basic warm-ups, breathing exercises, music theory, harmony and much more,” says Vocal Essentials For the Pop Singer- Take Your Singing from Good to Great author  Teri Danz. “The biggest challenge for the aspiring singer is to believe that he or she is a singer, that it’s a calling. Without that, all of the challenges along the way will be too hard. Work it and be willing to do what it takes.”

Vocal Essentials For the Pop Singer is a complete guide for artists developing their voice while learning solid techniques for pop singing. It’s all here…music theory, sight reading, proper breathing, posture, vocal health, singing and musical styles, stage presence and career tips. The accompanying CD has warm-up exercises for daily use and vocal and musical examples of each of the concepts presented.

Danz says many different types of singers can benefit from a book that covers all the essentials. It’s more than a full range of singing techniques for beginning singers. It also appeals to “the voice, the natural talent may sound good sometimes, but lacks the technique to be consistent or reach the next level. Then there’s the gigging (performing) singer with no technique or training. That can be dangerous, cause strain that can temporarily or permanently damage a voice.

Danz says the best way to use Vocal Essentials is to go through it from the beginning and practice the exercises from the book’s CD as you go. “This way you build a foundation.”

Vocal Essentials was originally written to be a different book, as Stuff Good Singers Should Know,” part of an A to Z guide series. After finishing that book, Danz and the publisher the content didn’t seem to fit as well for that series. It was renamed and rewritten as Vocal Essentials.

Danz writes about vocal technique and performance for Music Connection, EQ Magazine and Guitar Player.“I actually got the idea for a book from publishing The Singer’s Newsletter, a monthly email-only publication where I write vocal-related articles, provide vocal tips and performing opportunities to a targeted readership of singers, musicians, managers, producers, and vocal enthusiasts,” says Danz. “The great thing is that the more specific I get about vocal technique and performance, the better a response I get. When people began asking me to send specific issues, like on breath control, I knew a book would be helpful.”

Danz had a club hit song in the early 90s with  Didn’t Mean to Fall in Love on Twilight Records. “I have experienced all of the challenges every artist faces,” says Danz. “The rejection, the learning curve, the search for self, the success, the failure, the missteps, the mistakes, and the ultimate joy of creating that perfect moment, when you transcend your technique and even the music, and connect in a real way with your audience.”

“There is nothing like having an audience cry to a song you’ve written and can actualize in performance,” says Danz. “ The music business is constantly changing, so as an artist, both from the outside and the inside, your work will change and evolve. The point is to renew yourself with inspiration and reinvent the next “voice” you put out into the world. The key to my insight and success as a coach is my real world experience as an artist.”

Danz is a classically trained flutist and plays guitar and keyboards. As a vocalist, she trained in San Francisco with Raz Kennedy. For performance, music theory, and piano and guitar, she studied at the Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco. Danz grew up with music around her. “My family is very musical,” says Danz. “My Dad plays clarinet, my sister also sings professionally, and I have sung since I was a little girl. “My sister and I would sing harmonies in the back seat and everywhere we went.”

Danz pitched her book to publishers directly, without an agent. She says she pitched to the appropriate publishers and relied on having a great book proposal.

Danz says negotiating with a publisher is challenging, but worth it. “I sent them a book proposal and was contacted by an editor about seven months later. For the second version of the book, she was assigned to editor Mark Baker. As publisher Hal Leonard is based in Milwaukee, she worked with Baker by phone and email, has yet to meet him. She says he’s been an amazing vocal editor, that he understands vocal issues and is a great organizer.

Danz is completing production of a second vocal exercise CD, with more advanced exercises to build range, tone, and strength. It’s intended as a next step for students who have completed the exercises included with the book. Her next project is a new record.

Danz is based in Los Angeles. She was born in Rochester, New York.

Danz has a website at www.teridanz.com where you can request to get on her newsletter list.

Vocal Essentials For The Pop Singer: Take Your Singing From Good To Great (Book and CD)
Paperback: 48 pages, Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation; Pap/Com edition (May 15, 2011), Language: English ISBN: 9781423488293 $14.99

Whistleblower

Exclusive interview with co-author Cari Lynn and a review of her new book about Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice**** 4 Starts

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 10/1/2011 –“The idea for the movie came first.  Screenwriters Larysa Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan read about Kathy’s court case and wanted to write a script about her story,” says Cari Lynn. “It wasn’t until the movie started ramping up that one of the producers encouraged Kathy to also consider doing a book of her story.  That’s when I got involved.”

This book has vivid descriptions that are difficult to read at times, but the novel shows a woman who knew something needed to be done to protect these innocent women and she stepped up to right a wrong. There’s also insight into how whistleblower get treated for exposing crimes.

Kathryn Bolkovac decided to take a job as a contractor as part of an International Police Task Force human rights investigator. The job pays well and with kids going to college Kathryn needed the money and the change would be good too.

While on the job she came across evidence about improper relationships with human trafficking victims. Documenting her findings she gathered sufficient evidence to arrest local police officers and IPTF members who were taking bribes from the mafia and raping trafficked women. When she mentioned it her files vanished  and her life was threatened her life. She had to flee Bosnia, after being fired. She feared for her life.

“Well, I suppose it’s strange when you consider that Kathy lives in the Netherlands and I was living in Chicago and Los Angeles, and we were trying to write a book together,” says Lynn. “We’d only met once up until that point, and then did the rest of our collaborating over Skype.”

“I did a lot of research on the war in Bosnia, on human trafficking, and on military contractors,” says Lynn. “I read a lot of State Department reports and Human Rights Watch reports and watched a lot of videos about Sarajevo.  I also interviewed other police officers who were on the mission with Kathy.”

“Most of the materials are public record, a lot of transcripts from interviews and hearings, and then Kathy either sent or emailed all of her files,” says Lynn.

“There is a movie based on Kathy’s story called The Whistleblower that’s out now and stars Rachel Weisz,” says Lynn. “ The script for the movie existed long before the book.”

“Kathy has been doing an incredible job of increasing awareness of the issues of human trafficking and contractors’ involvement,” says Lynn. “The UN is really taking notice.”

“There are very few awards for books, but we did receive excellent reviews and excerpts have appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian (UK) Sunday Magazine,” says Lynn.

Lynn doesn’t have an agent.  You can get the book at Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Whistleblower-Trafficking-Military-Contractors-Justice/dp/B005CDUBC2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314341216&sr=1-1

Lynn is based in Los Angeles and is currently working on a memoir, a fantastic story set in 1970s Texas.

The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice by Kathryn Bolkovac and Cari Lynn
Hardcover, 256 pages, Publisher, Palgrave Macmillan (January 4, 2011), Language: English, ISBN-10: 0230108024

Livia Empress of Rome

Exclusive interview with author Mathew Dennison and a review of his new book about Livia, the powerful female politician of ancient Rome *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 9/28/2011 – “Livia, Empress of Rome is a story of ambition and power, Livia Empress of Rome author Mathew Dennison. “Among the many people I talked to while writing this book was Sian Phillips, the actress who played Livia in the BBC adaptation of I, Claudius. Older now, wholly charming and wonderfully beautiful, she retains a stillness and intensity in which traces of her Livia survive.”

Dennison uses historical, society and cultural details to bring Livia to life.  Livia’s real live is hard to prove as most of the facts have disappeared as thousands of years have gone by. Dennison shows who she might have been, how life could have shaped her to act as she did. At times the names and details become confusing. In the ancient world, so many people had the same name. If you love reading about life in ancient Rome, you must pick up Livia Empress of Rome.

Dennison says Livia was much misunderstood, as most women in politics are.  Dennison attempts to explain how and why she did what she did. Her story is told thought the men in her life. Livia is a mother who loves her family and has a successful second marriage to Augustus. She has ambition for her son Tiberius from her first marriage. She wants him to follow Augustus as emperor of Rome.

“Livia is an intelligent, politically acute woman who, with circumspection, achieved a position of public prominence denied previous Roman women,” says Dennison. “During my research in Rome, I was a guest of the former Director General of the National Galleries of Scotland, Sir Timothy Clifford, and his wife Jane in their mountainside village house overlooking the hills of Rome. It was my stay with the Cliffords, in a house full of Greek vases, seventeenth-century engravings of classical ruins and baroque paintings, which gave me the final fillip to begin writing.”

“I wrote much of Livia, Empress of Rome in my house in the country in Wales,” says Dennison. “My desk stands in front of a tall Georgian sash window in a peaceful drawing room which was previously a nonconformist chapel attached to the house. There is no TV reception and no cell phone reception. From the windows the views are densely green, stretching up and down hill over a secret wooded valley. But it is a far cry from Rome and much of my writing happened in the winter, when Wales is cold and wet. On my desk I kept a dish of pine cones which I had collected in the gardens of Livia’s villa at Prima Porta outside Rome. They were stickily resinous and intensely aromatic. On cold, dark Welsh days, their scent transported me back to Rome.”

Dennison wrote Livia, Empress of Rome in the three years following completion of his previous biography, The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Daughter. “That rose to #1 bestseller status in the UK,” says Dennison. “Although the subjects appear widely divergent, both explore alternative forms of power and examine the impact of family politics on the wider political scene. Although there are no confirmed instances of poisoning at the court of Queen Victoria, reputations could still be made and lost on the toss of a coin…much as in ancient Rome.”

In Livia, Empress of Rome, Dennison explores the perceptions of the different roles of men and women in ancient society. “It is also a story about history and the calumnies perpetrated by writers of history,” says Dennison. As the story of a politician’s wife, it’s relevant to women in politics today.

Livia, Empress of Rome was published in the UK in April 2010. For the U.S. it was but bought pre-publication by St Martin’s Press, which also publishes Dennison’s The Last Princess. Dennison is currently completing a biography of the first twelve rulers of imperial Rome called The Twelve Caesars. It will be published in the UK by Atlantic in May 2012.

Livia, Empress of Rome: A Biography by Mathew Dennison
Hardcover, 336 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Press; First Edition (January 4, 2011), Language: English, ISBN-13: 978-0312658649 $27.99