Review: Last Call

 

Title: Last Call
Author: Jennifer Schmidt
Publication Date: September 29, 2011
Source: NetGalley
Summary (from Goodreads)
While on vacation, a night out turns into a drunken haze, and Novalee Jensen wakes up hung over, confused, and… married? Fleeing Nevada, Novalee returns home to Montana to hide out, dreading the moment when her husband will show up to take her hard-earned business. But two years later just when Novalee thinks her secret is safe, guess who walks through her door? Now, face-to-face with the man she left in a hotel room two years ago, Novalee discovers the difficult part isn't having to explain her actions that night, or the questions that arise about the sexy stranger's arrival, it's keeping her hands off her husband. And what's Novalee to do when the hardest part turns out not to be confronting her past, but facing a possible future without her soon-to-be ex-husband?

Multi-millionaire Dean Philips wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel room to find the pretty blonde he married the night before gone. The piece of paper he possesses proves she served her purpose, and guilt ridden over his actions, Dean begins a battle with his father for a fight for his grandfather’s fortune. When Dean is ordered to have his wife appear in court, he finds himself in a small town in Montana, looking for the woman who ran off two years ago. Caught up in secrets and lies of his own, he has to find a way to persuade her to come back to Vegas with him without having her find out that she's the missing puzzle piece to everything he's been fighting for. But when Dean decides to mix a little pleasure with business, he suddenly finds himself in unfamiliar territory that could cost him everything

You know when you find a new author, read one of their books and love it so much you need to find others by them only to be completely disappointed because it didn’t live up to the expectations you set from the previous book your read?

Let me assure you Last Call is nothing like that. This was Schmidt’s debut novel and it’s just as hot as her recent release Risking It All. The only reason I have this 4 instead of 5 stars was because it took me a little longer to get into it this time around, but once I did the sparks started flying.

And I have to say, you can see how much this author has grown in the year between her first and second novel. Schmidt is one of those authors who is just going to get better and better with every book she puts out. Mark my words; this is a best-selling author in the making.

I loved how Novalee was just a strong female character (I admit I was a little worried she would be like Kennedy from Risking It All and get on my nerves with her indecisiveness, but she didn’t) Novalee has been through so much and came out a better and much wiser person because of it. She has the strength, character, personality, and pretty much everything else you could want in a heroine.

If you have read Schmidt’s recent release than you know she knows how to write men who make you pant. Dean was no exception. I loved reading his POV. I loved how I got to get into both of the main characters’ heads every second chapter. I actually enjoyed his POV more than Novalee’s, maybe because with his we got a look at Abby, who I also adored.

Abby and Cali were the two perfect BFF’s for our burned and bruised hero and heroine. These two completed the story so much. I think I read somewhere that Schmidt said she would like to write a book based on Abby. All I can say to that? YES!

I also loved how the title of the book was incorporated into the book

“It’s last call, Novalee. Come get what you want or walk away.”

One of my favourite lines in the book!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is an author you need to look out for. I cannot wait for her next release.

  

Last Chance Trailer Reveal Tour

Back in May, I reviewed Michelle Birbeck's debut novel The Last Keeper. I loved it! And today I'm excited to be participating in trailer reveal tour for the second book in the series, Last Chance.

This is a bit different than a book tour. The trailer tour goes something like this: there are six stops on the tour. Each stop will feature a guest post or interview from Michelle and at the end of the tour, the trailer for Last Chance will be revealed! So be sure to keep up with the tour by checking out Michelle's website where you can find the tour schedule and links to catch the reveal. I'm excited to not only see the trailer, but for the release of this book!

You can check out The Last Keeper's trailer here

Curious what it takes to make a book trailer? Below is Michelle's guest post about finding the perfect way to word things and the pictures to go along with it....

Scripts and Pictures

There are really only three stages to making a book trailer. Find the pictures, find the music, and put it all together along with some words. But as with the rest of life, things are rarely that simple.

I normally start with the words, and with Last Chance’s trailer I went through three incarnations of the final wording. The first attempt sat for a long time, staring at me from the computer, screaming that it was missing something.

Here’s what I first came up with:

When the Keepers’ records are stolen, Serenity is left with only one choice...

Move Everyone

But they're already behind, and soon it becomes all too clear how high a price must be paid for the theft.

Forced to turn to their enemies for help, they're facing a greater threat than ever before.

But even asking for help can't bring back those who have been lost.

For me, there was something missing from this attempt. It covered some of the things that happen in the book, but it was missing the pow that I wanted from the trailer. So I walked away from it, left it to stew, and came back at it with fresh eyes.

When I came back, I realised my mistake. All the sentences were too long. For a trailer, it needs to be easy to read and understand, and long sentences don’t work. Not when the trailer is just over a minute in length. After scrapping everything I’d written in the first attempt, I started on the second attempt. This turned out a lot better, but wasn’t quite right, however, the third attempt was only minor variations on attempt two. Changes in the order, the flow, a word or two here and there. Little things that added up to exactly what I wanted.

Once the words were complete, the pictures came next. What did I want for each set of words? What picture would be the perfect representation of what I wanted the trailer to say?

The first of these pictures was the easiest. The Last Keeper’s book cover.

 

Simple. Easy.

Everything else… that’s what I complicated things.

There are many sites on the internet where you can get cheap pictures for book trailers. (I would like to point out that using google isn’t a great idea due to copyright laws. If you’re going to do it properly, it’s best to own the rights to the pictures) Now these sites offer a great range of pictures, and you purchase the rights to them, then use them as you like. Except that none of them had the pictures I wanted. They had ones that were close, but none that were spot on. So I made up my mind to repeat The Last Keeper’s book trailer and take the pictures myself.

Two problems arose in this. The first being that I’m not a professional photographer. My version of photography is point and click, and click, and click, and then click until there’s not room left on the memory card. Second being that my camera just isn’t good enough to take professional pictures.

Both of these are easy to overcome. I could either buy a new camera capable of taking the pictures, or ask someone I knew had both of the above skills.

Enter Paul Greathead, taker of all my pictures. I set them up, directed them, did costumes and make-up and hair, and he took the pictures. Now, professional pictures don’t come cheap, but if you know someone who has the skills and is willing to help out then it can be well worth it.

The end result is one I am completely in love with. But it wasn’t all point and click.

Check back on the blog tour tomorrow for Editing and Music!

About Michelle Birbeck

 

Michelle has been reading and writing her whole life. Her earliest memory of books was when she was five and decided to try and teach her fish how to read by putting her Beatrix Potter books in the fish tank with them.

Since then her love of books has grown, and now she is writing her own and looking forward to seeing them on her shelves, though they won’t be going anywhere near the fish tank.

When she’s not writing, she’s dressmaking or reading or plotting another story to write.

Where to find Michelle:

 Twitter

 Facebook

 Website

 Goodreads

The Last Keeper is available from:

 Amazon

 B&N

 Lulu

 TWCS

In the Spotlight #7

Today, author V.R Christensen is in the spotlight. Her novel Blind is available on US Amazon and UK Amazon.

About the Book

Tell us a bit about your novel.

Blind is a bit of an odd book. It’s historical fiction, but with a paranormal twist. Blind is about spiritual blindness, for a lack of a better term. It’s about prejudice and seeing beyond the physical. It is not a book about being blind, per se. It’s more about overcoming one’s obstacles and making the most of life, whether those obstacles are pride or physical impairment. It’s sort of a story about spiritual power, too, the power to understand. The power to heal wounds. The power to love.

What gave you the idea for your book? How long did it take you to write?

Unlike my full length novels, which have each taken me several years, Blind is the product of a short story that grew into something a little larger. What gave me the idea? As usual, I think it was a combination of things. I had been thinking a lot about the responsibility that we have as members of the human family to each other. I was thinking about how rampant prejudice and persecution seem to be. More so now than ever, though in different forms, of course. And sometimes not. I was thinking about love and kindness and charity, and what those mean to us, what they have meant historically, what they mean today and what, perhaps, they ought to mean. And I was thinking about self worth, and how we define ourselves. The story is meant to be allegorical. Fun, but thought provoking, too.

Which character was your favourite to create? Why?

As much as I love my main characters, I seem to have the most fun with my secondary characters. Charlie Mason, in Of Moths and Butterflies, is perhaps my favourite of all of them. Or Claire Montegue, perhaps. She was fun, and quite easy, to write for actually. In Blind, I think I’m rather fond of Zachary, the deaf, blind, but very wise, piano playing, semi-hero. It’s because of his goodness, I think. His patience in waiting for the good things in life to come to him, all the time striving to deserve them, but never feeling as though he is entitled to them. Knowing, when they come, to grab onto them, and being willing to take on the responsibility of that happiness (for happiness is a responsibility, particularly in the maintaining of it) when he is at last free to make it his own.

If you were asked to make a soundtrack for your novel, what songs would be on it?

This is a question, oddly, that I’ve given a lot of thought to. Of course, my writing being Historical, some haunting, brooding classical piece would be great. I’ve lately gotten into Vitamin String Quartet and the like. These are symphonic renderings of modern music, Nirvana, Dashboard Confessional, Fallout Boy, to name a few. If I were actually in the position to make a soundtrack, I’d beg Brandon Flowers (of Killers fame) to write something for me, or perhaps Panic! at the Disco. In the paperback version of Blind I’ve included a short Steampunk piece that was actually inspired by Brenden Urie of Panic! That would be really, really great.

If your book was turned into a movie, who would you choose to play the leading characters?

Blind is perhaps the first book I’ve written without a clear picture of who these people might be on the screen. I think I do tend to use real actors as a sort of crutch to help me define and draw out the details of my characters. This book, perhaps, didn’t require them. It being about blindness, and what is on the inside, I didn’t spend much time describing them. Also, Arthur and Zachary were inspired a bit by a photograph I found. I’ve certainly made a habit of casting my other books. Hugh Dancy (who I not so secretly adore) makes frequent appearances, as does Tom Hardy. He makes for such a great 

rogue.

What’s your writing process like? Was there a part that was difficult to write?

I don’t deal well with death. I don’t enjoy unpleasantness, but I find I have to go to some very dark places when I write. Thank heaven for my editors, who rap my knuckles and send it back, and make me really plumb the depths of the darker parts of my own experience. I also find that there isn’t much that’s actually frightening these days. If you don’t delve into blood and gore and rape and the truly deviant sorts of evil, it’s hard to chill a reader’s blood. I find those sorts of things extremely hard to write.

Do you ever use real life experiences in your books?

Absolutely. My first novel, Of Moths and Butterflies, is really about my journey to recovery from sexual abuse. I know it’s not a book for everyone, but I did write it from the heart, and I think it resonates with certain types of people. It’s clear from the reviews who gets it and who does not. My current work in progress, Cry of the Peacock, due out early spring, is about the various forms of pride, what it means to be civilised, genteel, what it is to be a ‘gentleman’, or even a lady, for that matter. And what it is that binds us to people. Are such bonds encouraged, or rather inhibited by moral obligation? For Blind, however, I think I was dealing with a different kind of experience. Life is hard. We’re all bruised and battered and scarred. We can choose to live within ourselves, victims of circumstance. Or we can reach out, put our arms around each other, and do what we can to heal a small portion of the world. If enough had such courage, and such a sense of responsibility for their fellow men, what a different world this would be. Don’t you think?

About the author

What is a normal day for you? Take us through your usual routine.

I get up, between 5:30 and 6:30, get the kids up and off to school. I come home, have a little reading time, breakfast, and sit down at the computer. Fridays, if my schedule isn’t too harried, I try to work on short stories. That’s a goal I set this year, to write a short story each month. I work as efficiently as I can until the kids get home. In the afternoons I edit for other writers and do some more reading.

When you’re not writing, what else do you like to do?

I volunteer at the local animal shelter. I try to go biking a couple of times a week. I sew, plink around on the piano (I don’t play well), cook, read... Lots of things, really.

How do you balance real life (work, kids, getting prepared for the zombie apocalypse) with being an author?

It’s hard, really. For the first five or so years that I started doing this, I was basically working every moment I got, to the detriment of the house and everything else. I was homeschooling at the time, so I did keep that a priority. Eventually we made the choice to put the kids back in school, and at that point I really tried to keep my workdays within a certain allotted time. I still struggle, depending on what I have going on. If I’m writing something new, I’ll take every opportunity I can, but I spend a lot of time thinking, so I don’t necessarily have to be at the computer. When I’m editing, particularly when I’m finishing up the final edits on a book, or really heavy edits, I get sort of sucked in, so I’ll vacillate between working ten, twelve hour days, and working a couple of hours, and then stopping to think, for hours, or even days. But it’s always in my mind. I never stop thinking about it.

Tell us about the day you found out your book was going to be published. How did you react?

You know, I think it’s similar with most authors. You’re ecstatic when you find out your dream has come true. And then you realise how much work is still ahead of you and you settle down and get serious. Then the book is out, and it’s exciting. At first. And in those rare moments you can stand back and appreciate it. But it’s frightening, too. Because suddenly you’re exposed to the world. This thing that you’ve laboured and sweated, and cried and bled over, is out in the public view, and they can love or hate it, and say so in as many words as they like. And they do. I have many published friends who feel the same way. And then I have many unpublished friends who assume I’m still just reeling with glee, and if I’m not I’m ungrateful. It’s great, really. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’m happy that I now have a justification to keep writing. But writing is hard work. And to be successful you have to keep at it. Of Moths and Butterflies is doing really well. It’s been pretty successful. But now I have to follow it up, and the hope is that the next book will always be better than the last. Which means I have to keep coming up with better and better ideas, and getting better as a writer. There’s a lot of pressure there.

Is there a certain book that has made a lasting impression on you?

Tess of the D’Urbervilles changed my life. I think it’s a huge contributor to what I write and why and how. I love Hardy’s writing, even if most of his books do not end quite happily. Certainly Tess doesn’t. But the way he makes us look at what we believe and think, even today, I think that’s really amazing, and very powerful. Other books that were influential are Pride and Prejudice, Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend and David Copperfield. War and Peace. Lorna Doone by Blackmoore. Daniel Deronda and Middlemarch by George Eliot. The Egoist, Diana of the Crossways and The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what five things would you want to have with you?

Can I take my husband and kids? And then the dog, maybe. That’s a hard question. I couldn’t be by myself. I’d want someone there to share the experience with, for bad or good. If we’re talking about things, though, then a book or two, music, a blanket, a pen and a pad of paper.

Going back to your high school years, what were they like? Do you think they shaped the person you are today?

I hated High School so much. I had good friends, still have them to this day, but I felt like the popularity contest--who’s wearing what, who plays what sports-- it was such a distraction from the whole purpose, which was to learn. Because I went to school with the same kids for the entirety of my pre-college education, I think I did take some life lessons on how not to treat people, on how to value myself as an individual. Those labels are applied early, and fighting against them is hard, and often futile. I think I was ready to claim my independence and to prove myself--and determined to do it--long before I was actually able to do it. But I think it also made me a person who aspires to be the best I can be and to give every worthwhile endeavour my all.

Bonus Questions

 

Favourite movie/TV show/food/season?

My favourite movie... That’s sort of hard. I love Andrew Davies’ production of Our Mutual Friend. His 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, of course. The Sixth Sense is probably one of the best movies ever. Oh. And Star Wars. I’m a total Star Wars fanatic.

As far as TV, I really only watch Project Runway. Aside from that, I’m totally addicted to the BBC adaptations of classic works. And Downton Abbey, of course. And have you seen the new Sherlock? Oh my word. It’s amazing. The writing is so utterly brilliant it’s actually spoiled me to be able to appreciate the Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes.

Favourite food? Pizza. Hands down. (And chicken. I love chicken.)

I love the autumn. I love the falling leaves and the smell of wood fires, and apples. It inspires me.

Who would you give the award to for best first kiss (in a movie)?

George Emerson in A Room with a View. Is there a kiss at the end of North and South, or do I just want there to be? So many of my favourite movies don’t have kissing at all. I don’t think there’s a kiss in Wives and Daughters and that’s one of the most romantic movies I can think of. Oh! The one in Our Mutual Friend, between Wrayburne and Lizzie. That one makes my knees weak.

Red or white wine?

I’m a teetotaller, me.

Worst fear?

The continuing decline of Western civilisation. Is that too heavy? How about, going hungry, then. Or being homeless. Having people hate me. I know that’s juvenile, but I hate contention. Publishing a book that only receives negative reviews. THAT would be bad!

Thank you, Ms. Christensen, for stopping by!