Deborah Smith's Blog: Excerpts, News, Pronotions and Giveaways

yard sale brochure

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Inventory of a life’s interests. The odd bowl Grandma ignored on a back shelf. A gift from some notorious kin who went to Mexico in the 1940s. No one wanted it but me. Ebay says it’s worth twenty bucks as a collectible. The 80 year old wooden bread plate I salvaged from Grandma’s kitchen during the yard sale after she died. Scarred and stained, with the word BREAD carved in the rim. Someone bought it for ten dollars today. Go figure. The gold-trimmed Blue Willow china I collected after I wrote a book by that name. Cheap stuff at flea markets. Now worth enough to justify not donating it to Goodwill. The frou-frou frilly old-lady china pitcher and teacup Ma hated because Grandma forced it on her; she banished it to the cabinet below the kitchen sink for forty years. But I looked at the bottom and it’s by a notable Bavarian china maker. So now it’s on eBay for twenty bucks. The beautiful china plates that hung on the wall above Mother’s bed in my house; watching all those sad years go by . . . Dresden and Limoge, I was with her when she found them at antique stores. Now for sale to strangers who don’t care. My Dad’s AT & T tie clasp, and AT &T coffee mugs, coasters, kitchen magnets, even an AT & T screw driver; all up for sale because I have no idea what else to do with them. And what to do with the old linens and scarves from both mine and Hank’s family; the shabby but charming vintage fabric that buyers will turn into craft projects. The two fancy stemware wine glasses that survived from a great-grandma’s treasured finery; the wooden box of rusty woodworking tools from a great grandpa. Hank and I wanted to be the guardians and protectors of these small family mementos; that’s why we stuffed them into every corner of storage sheds and basements and homes. But who else cares about them but us? Even if we’d had kids, would they want the sentimental responsibility of running this informal family museum? The treasures we salvaged are dry pieces of a past to most people, but I touch them and feel their history. I have to let them go.

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Deborah Smith:

As a knitter, crocheter (crochet lover? hooker?) I am in awe of this Scottish gal’s knitted fence made of heavy fishing net cord. Lucy, in The Kitchen Charmer, will get to this kind of artistic level once she conquers her demons — fingers crossed.

Originally posted on Kate Davies Designs:

What’s this? A fence?

A fence and a flowerbed?

Take a closer look . . . for this is no ordinary fence. . .

. . .this is a knitted fence . . .

. . . a Shetland lace fence, no less.

This beautiful and imaginative creation is the work of Anne Eunson of Hamnavoe, Burra. Anne loves lace knitting, and how better to express that affection than by completely wrapping one’s garden up in Shetland lace? The fence is fashioned from strong black twine (the same kind that is used to make fishing nets) and Anne knitted it up on specially adapted curtain poles. It took her about three weeks to knit enough lace to surround her front garden, using a 23 stitch repeat of a familiar Shetland lace pattern.

It kills me how the pattern is revealed so strongly, as if it were stretched around the garden…

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Deborah Smith:

Great tips for writing your book blurb

Originally posted on HOME OF HIGH FANTASY:

Authors love to debate their craft, and few topics are more hotly argued than the humble blurb. I say humble, for it’s tiny compared to a book, and yet it’s the keystone that supports the relationship between reader and writer. Few people buy a book solely because of its cover. Most will read the first paragraph of the story, or some random pages. Some will look at reviews. But everyone reads the blurb. So, what makes a good one?

The people who know the most about blurbs – the big publishers, don’t share. Knowledge is power, and in this case it’s sales too.

Self-published authors share generously, but here lies a morass of personal preference, brilliance, naivety, truths and half-truths.

Anyway, the best place to start learning how to write a good blurb is with readers. Why do they choose one book over another? So, here are my tips –…

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Library Journal’s “Best Five Romances of 2006″
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award Winner
Independent Publisher Award Winner
Finalist for numerous regional awards
Reader’s Guide

A beautiful woman, scarred for life.

A tortured man, seeking redemption.

Brought together by fate in a small town high in the majestic Appalachian mountains

Live. Love. Believe.

Beauty is in the lie of the beholder.

Heartbroken and cynical, famed actress Catherine Deen hides from the world after a horrific accident scars her for life.

Secluded in her grandmother’s North Carolina mountain home, Cathryn at first resists the friendship of the local community and the famous biscuits served up by her loyal cousin, Delta, at The Crossroads Café, until a neighbor, former New York architect Thomas Mitternich, reaches out to her.

Thomas lost his wife and son in the World Trade Center. In the years since he’s struggled with alcohol and despair. He thinks nothing and no can make his life worth living again.

Until he meets Cathryn.

Reviews

Source: RomanceJunkies.com

Reviewer: Roberta Austin

This masterful, heartfelt tale is another masterpiece for Ms. Smith to add to her growing body of work. I’ve been a huge fan for a long time and highly recommend this and all the author’s previous novels.

Source: The Romance Readers Connection

Reviewer: Debora Hosey

Brava, Deborah Smith! THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ is magnificent! It’s stunning in its insight into the human heart and soul. You’ll find yourself laughing and weeping, then laughing and weeping again and again. Ms. Smith’s writing and voice are simply superb and make reading THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ a sheer pleasure.

Source: DearReader.com

Somehow I’ve missed reading [Deborah Smith’s] previous novels. Oh, not because I’ve not heard of them or how good they are. In fact, several of them are long time favorite reads of people whose literary opinion I trust. I guess I’ve just been stupid. Or as we say in the South, an idjit. THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ truly shows me what I’ve been missing.

Source: NovelTalk

Reviewer: Lucele Coutts

A must read.

Source: The Best Reviews

Reviewer: Kathy Boswell

Deborah Smith not only touches your heart, she and her stories touch your very soul. She writes of the best Southern Fiction I’ve ever read. I laughed and I cried and then laughed and cried some more. [THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ] is one book that I believe is a must read.

Source: “Fridays with Jackie,” Georgia Public Radio

Reviewer: Jackie K. Cooper

Deborah Smith creates stories that touch your hearts. She has done this with each and every one of the books she has fashioned in her career as an author. Her latest, THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ, is her most touching yet.

Source: The Romance Reader

Reviewer: Susan Scribner

THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ [is] the best romance of 2006. The novel grabs your attention from the opening chapter to the last satisfying sentence. Once you’ve finished, you’ll want to start reading it all over again.” FIVE STARS!!

Source: RT BookClub

Reviewer: Jill M. Smith

TOP PICK!!! There is a haunting and beautiful rhythm to Smith’s storytelling that paints beautiful pictures and characters. Her evocative stories wrap themselves around you emotionally, delivering joy and sorrow. Told from the perspective of both hero and heroine, this novel charts their damaged emotional states and rings amazingly true. Truly a great treasure, Smith’s wisdom and emotional resonance are astounding.

Source: FreshFiction.com

Reviewer: Betty Cox

THE CROSSROADS CAFÉ is a wonderful love story that deserves to be read again and again.

Excerpt

Prologue

Cathryn

Crossroads, North Carolina

The Blue Ridge Mountains

Before the accident, I never had to seduce a man in the dark. I dazzled millions in the brutal glare of kliegs on the red carpets of Hollywood, the flash of cameras at the Oscars,the sunlight on the piazzas of Cannes. Beautiful women don’t fear the glint of lust and judgment in men’s eyes, or the bitter gleam of envy in women’s. Beautiful women welcome even the brightest light. Once upon a time, I had been the most beautiful woman in the world.

Now I needed the night, the darkness, the shadows.

“Put the gun down,” I ordered, as I let my bra and white t-shirt fall to the ground. Behind me, a full, white moon hung in a sky of stars above the summer mountains, silhouetting Thomas and me. Frogs trilled in the forest. Beneath my bare feet, the pasture grass was soft and wet with summer dew, glistening in the moonlight. There were no bright lights in our world, not the pinpoint of a lamp in some distant window, not the wink of a jet high overhead. There might be no other souls in these ancient North Carolina ridges that night. Only Thomas, and me, and the darkness inside us both.

“I’m warning you for the last time, Cathryn,” he said, his voice thick but firm. He wasn’t a man who slurred his words, no matter how drunk he was. “Leave.”

I unzipped my jeans. My hands trembled. I couldn’t stop staring at the World War II pistolhe held so casually, his right arm bent, the gun pointed skyward. Thomas had been a preservation architect; he respected fine craftsmanship, evenwhen choosing a gun with which to kill himself.

Slowly I pushed my jeans down, along with my panties. The scarred skin along my right thigh prickled at the scrape of denim. I angled my right side away from the moon, trying to illuminate only the left half of my body, my face. Half of me was still perfect. But the other half . . .

I stepped out of my crumpled clothes and stood there naked, the moonlight safely behind me. The night breeze was a tongue of embarrassment, licking my scarred flesh. My hand twitched with the urge to cover my face. How badly I wanted to hide the awful parts. Thomas watched me without moving, without speaking, without breathing.

He doesn’t want me, I thought. I said quietly, “Thomas, I know I’m no prize, but would you really rather kill yourself than touch me?”

Not a word, still, not a flicker of reaction. I could barely see his expression in the shadows, and wasn’t sure I wanted to. Theuglies came over me like a cold tide. A festering wave of withdrawal – shyness and anger multiplied times a thousand. Me, who had once preened for the world without a shred of self-doubt.

I turned my back to him, trying not to shiver with defeat. “Just put the gun down. Then I’ll get dressed, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

I heard quick steps behind me, and before I could turn, his arms went around me from behind. His hands slid over my bare skin. I twisted my head to the pretty side but he bent his lips to the other and roughly kissed the rivulets of ruined flesh

No matter what might happen to us later, I saved his life that night. And, for that one night, at least, he saved mine. Hope is in the mirror we keep inside us,love sees only what it wants to see, and beauty is in the lie of the beholder.

Sometimes, that lie is all you need to survive.

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Forget, Hell . . . You want a fed holiday to celebrate the South's defeat?.

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This is new news to me, but apparently it’s an idea that’s alive and kicking–the creation of an annual federal holiday celebrating the South’s defeat, on April 9 — the date Robert E. Lee surrendered, ending the Civil War. The New Republic opines that Southerners should embrace the notion, and stop taking it personally when, say, people insist that Great-Great Grandpa was no better than a Nazi.

Read The New Republic article here.

I’m a liberal, progressive, seventh-generation Southerner who had ancestors in the war; my great-great grandfather, a dirt-poor farmer who didn’t own slaves, fought in the Georgia infantry throughout the entire war, and came home to a brutally savaged world with one arm mutilated by a minnie ball. Sherman’s army occupied an ancestor’s farm on the Chattahoochee River, building pontoon bridges on Sherman’s route to burn Atlanta (and everything else in his path.) Southern civilians of all classes and colors were attacked; lost their homes, and were left to starve. Reconstruction was a license for politicians and other thieves to loot what was left. In the meantime, the northern factories that had benefited from cheap Southern cotton (using their own form of slave labor to process it) continued on their merry way.

Do I celebrate the mythology of the Old South? No. Do I like to see rednecks waving Confederate flags as a symbol of racism? No. Do I want to sugarcoat the horror of slavery? No. But I have a distinct mindset of resentment for a federal “holiday” celebrating the hypocrisy, war profiteering, needless brutality, Northern bigotry, corruption, and history-as-written-by-the-victors.

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Deborah Smith:

Another great post from author Kristen Lamb

Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:

Many of you were here for last week’s discussion regarding What Makes a Real Writer? When we decide to become professional writers, we have a lot of work ahead of us and sadly, most will not make the cut.

I know it’s a grossly inaccurate movie, but I love G.I. Jane. I recall a scene during Hell Week (the first evolution of S.E.A.L. training) where Master Chief has everyone doing butterfly kicks in the rain. He yells at the recruits to look to their left and look to their right, that statistically, those people will quit.

Who will be the first to ring that bell? Who will be the first to quit?

Years ago, one of my mentors mentioned The 5% Rule. What’s The 5% Rule? So happy you asked. Statistically, only 5% of the population is capable of sustained change. This means of ALL the people who want to…

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Link to Digital Reader article here.

EAF will do is make some chump change for a handful of bestselling authors. For the rest, it is essentially giving away their books for free, to be endlessly pirated. Libraries are not interested in the general masses of indie ebooks that have no track record, no vetting by recognized review sources like Lib. Jnl. and no significant number of patrons asking for them. That is no different than trad published books at the lower levels. Indies think librarians are prejudiced against them; no, librarians are against books that don’t have the credentials to warrant spending acquisitions money.

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I love quirky and inventive music. Scott Bradlee and his troupe of amazin singers and musicians make cover versions of modern songs — but do it in a gin-joint, bluesy and jazz style straight out of the 1920’s. So much fun!

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