JUMP on Over to the Fresh Fiction Blog & Join Me!

I had a great time guest blogging about my latest novel, Jump (March 2011), over on the fabulous Fresh Fiction Blog! I love it over there...so many books...so much to see and learn. If you love books and enjoy learning about the authors who write them, do yourself a favor and add Fresh Fiction to your list of "must visit regularly" websites!

Got a minute? Check out my blog post HERE. Comment and you could win an autographed copy of Jump for your book collection!

See you there...

Purple Haze Virtual Book Tour with JA Adams

Residents of Pineview, Texas suspect no foul play when a popular young couple dies in a car accident. However, years later, when another friend of Landan and Janda (the Colquin twins) turns up dead, the twins mull over the possibility of a killer in their midst. Fearing for their lives, can the twins and their friends figure out the identity of the killer before there is another murder? For all involved, they soon learn that life is seldom played by its precedent rules, as a haze between the world in which we live and the one in which we wish we did emerges.












On today's virtual tour stop, read an excerpt of Purple Haze by JA Adams!

Excerpt from Chapter 1 ... Part 1

   The morning of May 30th, graduation day, Janda, opening one eye, peeked at the clock on her nightstand. Ten-fifty. Springing out of bed, she had less than one hour to get dressed, pick up her two best friends, Alison and Nita, and high tail it to Benny's house for the class barbecue. Tonight was the big night with Benny kicking the day off with a barbecue and Nita ending it with the after graduation party at her family's lake house. Everybody who was anybody was going to be there.

Giving her long, thick, honey colored hair a few swift, but gentle strokes with a brush, she pulled it back into a ponytail. Since her hair appointment was for that afternoon to get a retouch on her relaxer, she was careful not to put the rubberband on too tight. Cocking her head to the side, she looked over at the jeans she wore last night flung over onto the side chair in her bedroom. They were still unwrinkled. With a different shirt, no one would ever know they were the same ones she had on last night when the group went to the movies for senior night. Pulling the jeans up over her amber colored, petite swimsuit model built figure, she laughed thinking about how put out Nita would be if it were revealed she was wearing the same jeans she had on the night before. She smiled, admiring her regal features in the mirror. Her honey hair color and dimpled cheeks, she got from her father, but looks, she took from her mother's smooth skinned, red toned, West Indian ancestors.

Janda turned up the radio when Age of Aquarius, as recorded by the Fifth Dimension, came on. Using her brush as a pretend microphone, she belted out the lyrics mimicking Marilyn McCoo.

She was interrupted by a rapid knock at her bedroom door.

Knowing it was Landan, her five feet, ten inch, athletic, male near-mirror image, she did not respond.

"I know you in there! I hope you plan to use Mama's car, 'cause when I leave this time, I'm not coming back to get you!" he yelled from the other side. Landan Colquin, much more time conscious than his sister, had already left the house once, three hours earlier, to take care of what he considered manly business. Such as washing, cleaning, and waxing his car, getting a haircut, and allowing himself enough time to get back home for a quick shower before heading off to the barbecue.

A year ago, their parents gave them a car for their birthday, but the sharing got old after about six months. In whatever way, Janda did not particularly care since it provided her the ammunition to rationalize that if she wasn't the one driving, she didn't need to pay for the up keep or fill it up with gas. That left her allowance available for other things such as shopping trips to the mall.

The telephone rang. It was Alison. "Why you got the radio up so damn loud? You listenin' to King B's Oldies?" The area Disc Jockey, King B, played oldies during the noon hour on Fridays, the only other time slot allocated to "Black people" music besides the King B thirty-minute weekday evening show.

"Yeah," Janda responded. "Whatcha' want?"

"My momma wantcha' to come an hour early. She got a cancellation so, she movin' everybody's hair appointment up. And, you better be on time. I don't want my momma to have time to even think about any notions of getting her hands on my head!"

"Girlfriend, it is time to stop being such a tomboy and put down the 'Fro. You been wearing that Afro since ninth grade! Even the brothers are cuttin' theirs off!"

"Whatever. Anyway, remember, I did let my mama press it for the prom," she sassed.

"That's only because you got tired of her being on your back about how she wanted you to look ladylike on prom pictures. So, that don't count."

"You worry about that honey-colored mane of yours. 'Cause, I'm gonna keep sporting my Angela Davis Afro, girlfriend. Somebody got to keep representin' our oppression and keepin' the revolution alive.

"Girl, you a trip," Janda laughed. "You need to be laying out in the sun trying to tan withcha' yella-bone self."

 "At least my skin and hair ain't the same color, Miss Red-bone." Alison laughed back.

"See, you don't even know your colors," Janda chuckled with a comeback. "My hair is not red, it's sandy. You just be ready. I'll be by in thirty minutes! I'm driving Mama's car."

"Landan left us?" Alison's disappointment apparent. "Alright then, girl," she sighed. "Oh, by the way, Nita called saying we did not have to pick her up. And, she said something about having some surprise for us at the barbecue."

"I bet she got a new car."

"You think? Her daddy just got her that Pinto two years ago."

"Who knows? Anyway, see ya' in thirty."

Alison's mother, single parent of one, owned and operated an exclusive up-scale beauty salon. The Who's Who list of East Texas African-American females made up the salon's clientele. Alison's father, a military officer, died while serving in the Vietnam War.

The three long-standing friends, Alison, Janda, and Nita, were inseparable. With their array of beautiful skin tones representing the African Diaspora, the coming of age women were gorgeous to behold with Janda the shortest at 5'3" and Alison the tallest at 5'8". At high school, they were known as the Treacherous Threesome because they were always protesting some sort of injustice or female right's issue at school.

Read Chapter 1 - Part 2 tomorrow at Victorious Cafe...

JA Adams, author of three psychological suspense novels--Chameleon, Purple Haze, and Unfinished Business--uses personal and professional experiences to bring awareness to psychological issues that affect our relationships. 

Adams actively writes and volunteers with numerous organization bringing awareness to teen dating violence and women issues, as well as, advocating against intimate partner and family violence. 

Adams resides in Austin, TX with her husband and children nearby. For more information visit www.jaadamsauthor.com.

Purple Haze is available in print and ebook through most online retailers and your neighborhood book stores. To learn about locations and online purchases visit www.jaadamsauthor.com.

You can also follow the virtual book tour online at www.niapromotions.com.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Jump

by Terra Little

Giveaway ends March 15, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I Just Love My Nappy Roots!

I thought this article, courtesy of Black America Web (.com), was very interesting, especially since I have sported natural hair for coming up on a decade now. A new addition to the "Happily Nappy Family" is Rochelle Ritchie, a reporter with WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida. In her BAW article, she talks about her experiences - both positive and negative - with going natural, particularly in the midst of a high-profile and very public television career. She made her natural debut during television sweeps week, which was...very interesting to say the least. Click HERE to check out the article in its entirety and see how audiences and her coworkers responded.

In the meantime, take a gander at the video and step inside the world of Black women and their wonderfully diverse hair...




Thoughts, anyone?

Just Me Hanging Out...LOL

Black Diamond by Ja'Nese Dixon Virtual Book Tour: About NaNoWriMo

Join us as author Ja'Nese Dixon shares how participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month Project) with her children gave birth to her debut novel, Black Diamond. 

About Black Diamond

 

Camille Blackwell, an undercover FBI agent, poses as a jewelry purchaser for an international diamond trading company in hopes of identifying the domestic players in a vicious rebel group suspected of trafficking conflict diamonds. The Bureau requests CIA renegade Marc Fulton's assistance with sweeping international intelligence to identify the major rebel organizations with finances and stateside connections strong enough to evade criminal prosecution, despite Camille's objections.

Their attraction is instant and tense, but both resolve to focus on the case. But when Camille receives an encrypted memory stick from a murdered co-worker, Marc may be the only person she can trust.

Black Diamond is the eagerly anticipated debut novel by Ja'Nese Dixon. True love, like black diamonds, is rare and precious. But when murder and a persistent criminal threaten a frail relationship, will love triumph?

About Ja'Nese Dixon

Ja'Nese Dixon writes fiction novels for readers yearning to escape and disappear into a good book. She resides in Houston, Texas, with her husband and their two children. For more information visit http://www.janesedixon.com.

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Black Diamond by Ja'Nese Dixon Virtual Book Tour is organized by Nia Promotions, a marketing company that assists authors and publishers with using web-marketing strategy to market and promote books on the internet. Follow Ja'Nese's tour at http://bit.ly/blackdiamondvbt.

Author Spotlight on Mari Walker

Meet Mari Walker...

Mari Walker developed a love of words at a very young age by listening to her mother’s smooth, mellow voice as she read tales from an old Southern fairytale book or spun tales about her childhood growing up in Blakely, Georgia. Mari imagined that she could see worlds unfolding and characters acting out the adventures that were spun from those beloved stories.

Overcome with curiosity about whether the pictures in her head matched the ones in the book from which her mother read, she climbed onto her mother’s lap with cries of "Can I see the pictures?" To her utter amazement, there were none. A new and wonderful thought was birthed inside her that day. A person could carve out worlds, adventures, people, pictures, sounds and, at times, even smells from mere words. From that moment on, she knew she wanted to become an author.

Mari divides her time between freelance writing and editing, and advising aspiring writers on the techniques she has learned on creative writing. She has also volunteered with local elementary schools and with an after school reading & tutoring program, and done some grant research. In general, Mari lends a hand wherever and whenever needed.

She resides in Ohio and is currently at work on her next literary project. She hopes to one day capture her mother’s stories in a book. Learn more about Mari and her work at www.mariwalker.com. Also, follow her on Twitter and 'friend' her on Facebook! Write to Mari at mari@mariwalker.com.


About Mari's Books...

In Never As Good As The First Time, Jadyn Collins managed to survive her mother's crack addiction and a harrowing life and death situation that could have ended her young life. Now Jadyn is back - grown, sexy and trying to live her life like it's golden. Will she manage to live out her dreams without repeating her mother's mistakes? Or will her dark past and her quest to find a father that she barely knows derail her dreams and take her from the frying pan straight into the fire? (St. Martin's Griffin, April 2010)

Never As Good As The First Time is the story of Samai Collins - a young, naive, Christian mother of three, who finds herself on the brink of divorce from her minister husband, Ian. The unexpected and strong sexual desires that overwhelm her during their separation leave Samai doubting her faith and, unable to reconcile these carnal cravings with her spiritual teachings, Samai's emotionial turmoil spills over into a Sunday night service at her church. It is a cry for help that her pastor is ill-equipped to handle. These unrequited sexual urges and a chance encounter with an old high school crush - super fine, street-wise Zane Blackmon - lead Samai down a dark path that she never knew existed. One that will leave her questioning her belief in God, herself and her ability to mother her children. (St. Martin's Griffin, April 2008)

If you haven't picked up copies of Mari Walker's books, you're missing literary treats that you're sure to love! Available online and everywhere great books are sold!

Death at the Double Inkwell by Shonell Bacon

Meet Jovan Parham, the "everything's great, but..." woman in Shonell Bacon's newest literary contribution. She's a woman you won't soon forget!

About Death at the Double Inkwell...
Sometimes life is stranger than fiction; take the lives of mystery novelists and twins, Jovan Parham-Anderson and Cheyenne Parham. They are young, beautiful, talented, and on their way to their sixth best-selling novel; that is, until Jo learns her husband, Cordell Anderson, founder of Anderson Technologies, is having an affair with Alisha Stewart, his right hand at Anderson. Before she can confront him, tragedy strikes her home, and Jovan must deal with the fact that the careful, safe life she had with Cordell was merely smoke and mirrors.

Coming June 15th, 2010...Available for Pre-Order Now!




Check out an EXCERPT from Death at the Double Inkwell

Deadly Intentions. Double Jeopardy. The Sinister Chronicles. Murder on Hilltop Lane. Knocking on Death’s Door.

It was only a matter of time before writing novels about death and suspense would cause Jovan to conjure up her own violent tendencies; it just took a bastard of a husband to bring it out of her. In fact, as she co-wrote with her twin, Cheyenne, what was soon to be their sixth bestseller, Deadly Vows, Jovan could only think about how she and Cheyenne decided to kill the husband in their book with a shot to the head. She wouldn’t mind putting one clean shot into her own husband’s mindless head.

Jovan leaned against the doorway of her home office, watching Cheyenne chat with their agent, Elyse.

Cheyenne laughed. Jovan was jealous of her twin’s happy, lighthearted nature. Cheyenne slumped casually in one of the red, high-backed chairs that faced her desk as her thin fingers stroked her beloved dachshund, Riqué.

Jovan couldn’t hear the conversation in her office for the buzzing in her head. Her eyes burned with the sting of tears that begged to fall. She clutched her lower belly and moaned. Ever since her painful morning interlude with Cordell, her stomach had cramped. She had worn a pad for the first part of the day until the light bleeding had stopped.

Quietly slipping into the hallway, Jovan leaned against the wall and raised her hands to her face. It hurt her to relive any part of the day, but try as she might, her mind refused to let her forget.

Why did I go into Cordell’s office, Jovan thought.

She knew why. Sarah. That’s how Sarah found out about Mark.

Jovan had never bothered with anything that pertained to Cordell’s work. She never felt the need, but this morning, the urge was too strong not to look.

Not too long after learning of Sarah’s death, Jovan found herself sitting in Cordell’s stiff, black leather chair. The last thing she wanted to be was the type of wife who nagged or complained. She knew what it was like to be busy, to be successful. She and Cordell never really knew what a vacation was, and ever since she and Cheyenne penned their first novel five years ago, their lives had been in fast-forward.

After debating with herself for several moments, Jovan began to dig into Cordell’s desk, opening drawers, riffling papers. There was nothing. She almost breathed a sigh of relief until she turned on his computer. It rocked her to see Cordell’s indiscretion so blatantly placed on the desktop of his computer, in a folder marked “Alisha”.

It was as if Cordell thought that he could keep his lies and secrets to himself for eternity, or he just didn’t care if Jovan caught him. Jovan’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she opened the folder to find hundreds of e-mails and correspondences between Cordell and his assistant.

“I can’t believe it,” she had whispered. There were e-mails and letters in the folder that dated back three years, making her cry harder in the realization that she had been deceived for almost half of her seven-year marriage.

Magically, with a strength Jovan didn’t know she had, she turned off Cordell’s computer, making sure to clean the computer of her intrusion. She almost broke when she saw the dark reflection of her face on the computer screen.

Throwing up her protective shield, Jovan made the decision not to come forward with this information just yet. She couldn’t. She needed time to figure out exactly what to do before Cordell got wind of her knowing about his affair. She and Cordell had been cold toward each other for the past several months except for those times in the middle of the night when Cordell would roll over and demand sex. It wouldn’t be hard to fake a cool personality toward the man she had vowed to love ‘til death did them part.

Had enough? I didn't think so! Click HERE to order your copy of Death at the Double Inkwell by Shonell Bacon TODAY!

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Meet the Author...

As an author, Shonell has published both in the creative and academic arenas - short stories, essays, co-authored novels, and composition textbooks. In the last three years, every screenplay she's written has placed in some level of a competition. As an editor, she helps writers to develop their stories for publication with the mindset of not only helping the story but helping writers become better at their craft. As an educator, she has taught freshman composition, mass communication courses, and fiction writing at the university level. Currently, Shonell is busy writing screenplays and pursuing her Ph.D. in technical communication and rhetoric at Texas Tech University.

Introducing...Chameleon by JA Adams

About Chameleon...

When dreams turn into nightmares, spur of the moment decisions test the silent codes of family honor. Diane Darhling, beautiful, scholarly, and heir to a multi-million dollar fortune, finds herself caught in a triangular web of love gone seriously wrong. Two men, Jimmy and Jerrell, whose polarized unrelenting desire to have her is felt to the depths of the soul.  One loves unconditionally. The other, a suave psychopath. Reading like a backdrop story from headline news, a twisted plan, forged in pathological and psychotic manipulation, is plotted by the Chameleon.

JA Adams on Chameleon...

How would you classify Chameleon’s genre?

Psychological suspense/thriller with a faith-based undertone.

What type of readers love this story? The readership crosses all ages, gender and ethnicities. However, I do not recommend the book to anyone under age 15 without a parent’s okay, due to the mature content.

What made you decide to write about the love triangle between Diane Darhling, Jarrell Ellison, and Jimmy Dupree? I like creating polarized characters. Everyone has a counterpart to themselves. I show this by creating opposing characters.

Are they based on real people? Although not a one-on-one match, I utilize the technique known as composite character development.

How has Chameleon affected the lives of your readers? In ways too numerous to list. Many readers who are victims or survivors have thanked me, saying the book let them know they were not crazy. For others, it gave them the strength they needed to move forward.

What lesson do you want readers to walk away with? Regardless of how bad it gets, you can lean on your faith to make it through and come out on the other side a whole person.

About JA Adams

JA Adams, author of three psychological suspense novels, uses personal and professional experiences to bring awareness to psychological issues that affect our relationships. For 30 years, Adams has worked with traumatized victims of violence and crime. Adams’ experience, paired with her writings, allude to healing the spirit and soul of victims.

Adams currently resides outside of Austin, Texas. She continues to write and volunteers with numerous organizations, bringing awareness to teen dating violence and womens issues, as well as, advocating against intimate partner and family violence. Such organizations include the Ortralla Foundation and Recovery Ministry at Gateway Church. Moreover, she regularly speaks and mentors women using her life as proof that one can love again after trauma.

To learn more about JA Adams and her work visit www.jaadamsauthor.com or join her Facebook Fan Page at www.facebook.com/fansofjaadams. She also has an author profile on SIR (Shhh...I'm Reading!) Authors at www.sirauthors.com.

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This interview is brought to you by SIR Authors, a book marketing and promotions group organized by Nia Promotions, featuring seven authors working together to market and promote their work. To learn more visit www.sirauthors.com.

Chronicles of a Lesser-Known Writer: Part XV - The Truth About Black Diamonds!

Ever seen a Black Diamond?


No?


Well, you know yours truly just couldn't pass up the opportunity to get back to my roots here on the Blog-Zine - The Chronicles of a Lesser-Known Writer Segment - and a quick discussion on Black Diamonds seemed like a great way to do it. One Black Diamond in particular recently caught my attention and I think, once you check it out for yourself, it'll catch yours, too.


Debut author Ja'Nese Dixon is currently what I've affectionately coined "a Lesser-Known Writer," but if she keeps bringing it the way she's bringing it, she won't be for long. Check out the Black Diamond that she just pulled out of her box of literary jewels and try it on for size!


Introducing "Black Diamond" by Ja'Nese Dixon...

About Black Diamond
Camille Blackwell, an undercover FBI agent, poses as a jewelry purchaser in an international diamond trading company in hopes of identifying the domestic players in a vicious rebel group suspected of trafficking conflict diamonds. Meanwhile, despite Camille's objections, the Bureau requests CIA renegade Marc Fulton’s assistance with sweeping international intelligence to identify the major rebel organizations with finances and stateside connections strong enough to evade criminal prosecution. Sparks fly when Marc and Camille meet, and their attraction is instant and intense. However, both resolve to focus on the case. But when Camille receives an encrypted memory stick from a murdered co-worker, Marc may be the only person she can trust.

In a borderless game of cat and mouse, will a chance at happily ever after be thwarted by the deadly scheme of the faceless leader of the Imperial Dynasty? True love, like black diamonds, is rare and precious; but when murder and a persistent criminal threaten an already frail relationship, can love triumph?

Who is Ja’Nese Dixon?

Ja’Nese Dixon writes fiction novels for readers who are yearning to escape and disappear into a good book. She is married with two children and resides in Houston, Texas. For more information about her and her work, visit www.janesedixon.com.