Category: fiction

Rave Reviews Back-to-School Book & Blog Block Party

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ 107 Comments

Hi! Sadly, the party’s over, but wasn’t yesterday fun?

So nice of you to stop by to help me clean-up the mess. You can always tell a successful party by the after-glow you feel and the amount of clutter to clear away.

If you will grab those balloons, there, I’ll sweep up this graffiti…careful not to step in the spilled cider.

Did you hear? We have Five lucky winners of the door-prizes:

Nonnie Jules, S.M. Spencer, Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko, Robyn K,  and Shirley Harris-Slaughter will soon receive a personal email letting them know which prize each has won.  But, I was the big winner. What a blast!  I can’t wait for next time.

If you don’t want to forget what fun we had, just read my conversation with Bunny below and all the super comments from my other guests.

Thanks for coming!

[9/16/15 post follows]

Welcome wonderfBlock Party Badge(1)ul readers! I am thrilled you came to my party. I’m so pleased, in fact, that I am giving away door prizes to five (count ’em, 5) lucky guests today. Leave your comment below and tomorrow you may be notified that YOU are the winner of the signed paperback of your choice from my published works or the winner of a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate. In addition, three lucky guests will receive a digital copy (in your preferred format: Kindle, ePub or PDF) of the Bunny Elder series book of your choice.  How do you like those nifty party favors, just for showing up today?

It may still be warm where you live (here in Northern California it’s downright HOT), but September holds the promise that autumn is on its way. So, pull up that comfy wicker rocker on my shady veranda, sip some spiced cider (okay, a tall glass of iced tea may be substituted, since you asked so nicely) and settle in for a friendly visit.

Some of you may have read the Bunny Elder series books, but whether you’ve heard of her, or not, I’m sure you will enjoy meeting the woman herself.

Bunny, come on over here!

Bunny: Here I am, J.B. I was out back picking an apple from your tree. See how pretty it is?

JB: Yes, that tree is bearing a bumper crop this year. Be sure to take a bagful home with you. But, right now, look! We have company.

B: Well, hey, I didn’t see YOU sitting there. Hi, I’m Bunny Elder Banks. Would you like an apple?

JB: I thought we might have a chat and let our guest get to know a little more about you, Bunny. Would you mind if I ask you some questions?

B: Ask away!

JB: Bunny is a rather unusual nickname. Can you tell us how you got it?

B: My older sisters, Jean and Linda, gave it to me when I was about six. When my two front permanent teeth came in they were too big for my mouth. My sisters said I looked like a little bunny rabbit and the name stuck. I was more than happy to leave “Leveline” behind.

JB: I can understand. But where in the world did your parents get that interesting name?

B: I was told it was the middle name of a favorite great-aunt of my mom’s, but I never met her. I always figured my mother just made it up after hearing Chuck Berry’s song “Maybellene” and she was too embarrassed to admit it.

JB: You grew up in Northern California, is that right?

B: Yep. In a little mountain community called Clark’s Hallow. You’ve probably never heard of it, but I loved it, from its quaint old-west style downtown to the quiet lanes overshadowed by tall pines and cedars.

JB: Where do you live today?

B: My main residence is in Bannoch on the Oregon Coast. I also maintain a condo in Houston, Texas.

JB: How do you support two homes, if you don’t mind my asking?

B: My late husband, Max Banks, was a well-to-do business man and a savvy investor. He left me very well off. I’ve discovered managing wealth is a huge responsibility, but I try to use the money for God’s glory.

JB: So you don’t work?

B: Not so much work, but I do write and I’ve published a book which has gotten some nice reviews. I manage to keep busy with my writing, my church work, trips to Houston to oversee things there, and occasionally I take trips with friends or my sisters.

JB: That’s right! You had quite an exciting trip to Italy with your sister, Linda, a few years back. [This adventure is recounted in “Vain Pursuits”-ed.]

B: That was almost too exciting. Most of my travels have been much more restful…well, except when Max and I were captured by those nasty pirates on our honeymoon in the Indian Ocean. That was not restful, at all. [Read about it in “…and Something Blue”-ed.]

JB: Um, no, that doesn’t sound very nice, but tell us, if you have a place in Texas because of your late husband’s business, what made you decide to settle in Oregon?

B: I have so many wonderful friends in Bannoch. I’ve even been made a sort of honorary member of the First Ladies Club. [Bunny moved to Oregon in “Seadrift”- ed.]

JB: Is that a group of past presidents’ wives?

B: (laughing) No! In some churches the pastor’s wife is called the First Lady. The group is made up of the wives of some of the pastors in Bannoch.

JB: Your first husband, Eustace, was a pastor, is that right?

B: Eustace was a pastor, but he wasn’t my first husband. Max was both my first and last husband. Eustace was a rather unpleasant interlude between.

JB: I believe he died in a car crash, is that right?

B: Yes. Can we talk about something else? [You can read all about it in “Hollow” – ed.]

JB: Of course!  What are your plans for the future?

B: One of the first things I want to do is make certain Max really did die in that plane crash in Eastern Europe.

JB: I’m surprised. Is there any reason to think he didn’t?

B: Probably not. But his body was never found and Max’s daughter, Marki, insists she saw him alive, not long ago. It’s been bothering me ever since she told me about it. Most likely she’s simply indulging in wishful thinking, but I need to make sure.

JB: Well, that is certainly intriguing. Please let us know if you find out anything. I see that our guest has finished her drink and is ready to say goodbye. She has several more Block Party stops to make. Thank you so much for joining us, Bunny.

B: Thanks for inviting me… and thanks for the apples!

JB: Any time. Watch out for that loose step! Goodbye, Bunny.

Thanks for joining Bunny and me today at our Book & Blog Block Party.  Before you go to the next stops, be sure to leave a comment, then watch your email tomorrow to see if you’ve won. Come back, again, anytime. Look out for the loose board on that step, there.

Goodbye!

Mystery Writers Revealed Facebook Event

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

11923623_10205638401851930_4965161041181905675_nThis coming Saturday, September 12 is the Big Event on Facebook, Mystery Writers Revealed. On that day only, many of your favorite cozy mystery, romantic mystery and mystery/thriller writers will be logged in to answer your questions. All the books featured will be 99 cents, as well. What a super opportunity!

My time slot is noon to one o’clock Pacific Time, when I will be discounting “The First Ladies Club” and responding to your comments and questions.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL…all this week there will be special FREE giveaways, just for stopping by.

This is a super opportunity to fill your Kindle or other e-reader for the long, cold winter ahead. Share the word with all your reading friends and DON’T MISS IT!

Click to visit the site

Launch Team Volunteers Wanted

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

My current work in progress,  A Body in the Belfry, the second book in The First Ladies Club series, releases in mid-December, so now is a great time to join my Launch Team.

Members of the launch team will receive an Advance Review Copy (ARC) of the book (ePub or Mobi) in exchange for posting honest reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble or other outlets of your choice on the release date, as well as spreading the word to all your friends, neighbors and far-flung relations in the meantime via word-of-mouth, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If you blog, post a review on your blog, or post an interview with the author (that’s me!)

Send an email to jbhawker@jbhawker.com with the Subject: Launch Team and I will add you to the list.  As soon as the completed manuscript is available I will email you the ARC.

In the meantime, I will keep you up-to-date on the progress of the book, including the final cover reveal and promotional snippets to help you increase interest in the book.

Thank you for all your support!

Upcoming September Excitement

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

We’re still sweltering in August heat here in Northern California, but September will arrive soon. Many of our California schools resume classes in the second week of August, but in my heart September remains the beginning of the year and a time for starting new programs, projects and looking ahead to my favorite holiday celebrations.

This September is living up to my expectations with two wonderful opportunities for readers and authors alike.

The first is a Facebook Event happening on September 12, for one day only, beginning at midnight EST. The event, Mystery Writers Revealed, can be accessed here: Mystery Writers Revealed

On the day of the event, dozens of participating popular & award-winning authors will be logged in for an hour each to answer your questions, tell you about our books and offer prizes. We will each offer a featured digital book for the way cheap price of 99 cents. I will be featuring The First Ladies Club .

Next, only four days later, I will be taking part in a month-long September Back-to-School Book Blog Block-party (say that three times fast!) hosted by the Rave Reviews Book Club. Many highly-regarded independent authors will be posting a special, fun blog post on their special day in September. My special day is September 16. This is a mid-week date different from my usual weekend posting schedule and I will be interviewing a very special surprise guest.

Everyone who drops by this blog on September 16 and leaves their email address will be eligible to win one of three super prizes: the paperback book of your choice from my published works, signed by me; a $10 Amazon gift certificate; or the free download of a J.B. Hawker or Jonna Hawker Turek digital book of your choice.

I’m excited and looking forward to seeing you on these special September days.

P.S.

The Midlist is running a promo of my book, Hollow, today. Check it out here .

Writing to the Review is like Teaching to the Test

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ 2 Comments

Working in the education field, I sometimes hear teachers lamenting about how the Federal regulations have them teaching to the tests, rather than teaching children the love of learning. They say this is taking much of the joy out of their job, since they aren’t free to be creative, spontaneous and remain true to their gifts as educators.

For writers, there is a temptation to remodel our writing style to fit the comments of reviewers, in essence, to write to the review.

While we certainly need to pay attention to constructive criticism, using reader feedback to improve our craft, if we try to please every reviewer there is a risk of losing the joy of writing and of transforming our unique voice into a counterfeit, or even losing our passion for writing.

When the criticism is about the quality of my writing, I try to take it to heart and keep honing my craft.  But, when a reviewer comments on the content of the story or the personalities of the characters, I try to remember they are simply expressing a personal preference.

I recently began reading a book by a new author, planning to provide a review, but the author’s style and subject matter were so personally off-putting, I couldn’t finish reading the book. Since I was not the person this author was writing for, I chose not to post any review. I didn’t think it would be fair.

Rather than removing the essence of who I am, in an attempt to please everyone who picks up one of my books, I’m going to try to target readers who will appreciate my style by being as clear as possible about that style in every book’s description.

Someone once told me, “Follow your passion, whether anyone follows you, or not.”  If you are one who writes from the love of writing, that sounds like good advice.

What have I done?!

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ 2 Comments

Being an independent author/publisher/marketer/promoter takes an inordinate amount of time, I was surprised to discover. Add in the occasional Beta review for fellow authors and a full-time day job and that leaves precious little time for reading for pleasure.  However, to be a really good writer one must continue to be an active reader, so I’ve begun to deliberately carve out time to read for the fun of it.

To my dismay, I am finding it hard to turn-off my critiquing/editing brain and simply dive into the stories. What have I done to myself?  I haven’t read anything uncritically for so long, I seem to have lost the knack.

The book I’m reading for pleasure, right now, is “The Psalmist” by James Lilliefors. It is a wonderfully crafted, engaging mystery with twists and turns, just the sort of thing to get lost in for a weekend, yet I find myself fixating on how a particular turn of phrase might be tweaked. Aargh!

Can anyone help me? Is there a cure for my malady? Has anyone else suffered this same affliction and recovered?

 

 

Author, know your reader

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been reading a bit about the importance of knowing my target audience. Naturally, I want the whole world to read and love my books, but that’s simply not practical.

Although I’m sure anyone who reads my work will become a fan for life, I can’t afford to make the whole planet aware of what I have published. My promotional budget is limited, so it only makes sense to use my resources to target the people who are most likely to appreciate what I write. Who, then, is my target reader?

I write contemporary mystery/thrillers featuring mature women with a Christian worldview. Fans of lusty historical romances will probably not be satisfied with my books. Being a woman of a certain age, I tend to write for women with a common cultural and generational frame of reference. Also, while I do not dabble in the paranormal in my writing,  I am convinced my readers and I have at least two supernatural experiences in common.

The first of these paranormal incidents happened on my fiftieth birthday when I became invisible. I was shocked and dismayed, initially, but eventually learned to take advantage of my ability to blend into the background to surprise those who underestimated me.

The second other-worldly phenomenon came to my attention gradually. Someone would snap a photo of me, alone or in a group, but when I looked at the picture I noticed someone had stepped in front of me just as the shutter clicked. No one else seemed to have noticed, but the woman in the photo was obviously years older and at least a few pounds heavier than I, although she was spry enough to jump in and out of the focus in the blink of an eye. Recently, this phantasm has taken to stalking me and jumping in front of me when I look in a mirror, too. I don’t think this wraith is dangerous, simply annoying.

Talking with some of my contemporaries, I’ve discovered they have these phantoms of their own, so I’ve come to believe most of my target audience share these experiences, even though they are reluctant to speak of it.

I still haven’t figured out how to use this knowledge in my promotions, but when I do, the top of the best-seller list will be all mine.

Nonfiction

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

I currently have one weekly Christian devotional guide published and am working on a daily version. These are written under my full name, Jonna Hawker Turek, and are taken mostly from my weekly inspirational blog, Power Walking with Jonna, on WordPress.

devotional guideWriting and promoting nonfiction is completely different from producing my novels. In the novels I can try on and discard one persona after another, but nonfiction calls for authenticity and transparency. With one genre I exercise my imagination and with the other my character.

Publishing anything makes a writer vulnerable, but I am learning to take the critical reviews of my fiction without flinching; looking for the helpful within the hurtful. I haven’t promoted my devotional guide since publishing it a few months ago and I haven’t received any reviews, yet, but I’m afraid I will be completely defenseless when the unflattering ones inevitably do arrive.

This writing game isn’t for sissies.

With a little (or a lot) of help from my friends

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ 8 Comments

I belong to an online support group for indie authors, and the wonderful folks who read them, called The Rave Reviews Book Club. The driving force behind this smaller, more intimate Goodreads-type group is Nonnie Jules, a powerhouse of energy dedicated to supporting and promoting her fellow authors.

This month I have the privilege of being named Member of the Month, and being a focus of social media support from the others in the group. It is a humbling experience and seems to be having an impact on the downloads and sales of my books. The Amazon ranking of my latest release, The First Ladies Club, has jumped over 600,000 places during the first week of the month.

I often read experts who say Twitter and Facebook don’t have much impact on fiction sales, but when it comes to support from other authors, they can’t be beat. At least not with such active promoters as those in the Rave Reviews Book Club.

Check them out here raveand if you like to read fresh new works, or if you are a writer who wants to network with both other authors and impassioned readers, join the group.

Reader Reviews: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

Since setting the digital edition of Hollow, the first book in my first series, as free, it has had a gratifying number of daily downloads. I’ve noticed during previous free promos of my books that readers tend to be harsher critics of books they’ve downloaded for free. This phenomenon was brought to mind this week when the first freebie reviews of Hollow were posted on Amazon.

I think my fellow writers will agree that receiving a negative review of their work is as painful to us as it is for a mother to be told she has an ugly baby. So, why do we continue to offer our precious creations up to the two-edged sword of public opinion?

I remember the elation I felt upon reading my first good review from a stranger. What validation! What joy! …and what a let-down when the first critical comments were posted.

Some writers avoid this emotional roller coaster by refusing to read their reviews. They only want to know how many reviews and how many stars. Others, like me, cannot resist the temptation to read every new word, in the hope of once again experiencing the affirmation of a rave review.

With Hollow I was lucky to receive only good reviews in the early days after publication. I was well into my second book before the first negative review arrived. That reader complained because I had not listed the book as a Christian Mystery. She felt I’d tricked her into reading it by calling it a Mystery/Thriller. Shortly after that, a reader took the book to task for “too much religious content,” although the book description clearly states the lead character is a pastor’s wife. Taking these comments to heart, and following marketing advice to narrow my metadata to improve my sales rank, I changed the category for my books to Christian Suspense.

In the years since Hollow was published, I’ve received numbers of good reviews from Christians, pastors’ wives and others, appreciating the book’s portrayal of a flesh and blood, flawed, though sincere, Christian woman.

The first negative comment in the latest batch of reviews complained about aspects of the plot which weren’t actually in the plot…that’s the sort of critique I consider a “bad” review. There’s nothing helpful when the comments seem to be about a different book. I was surprised later in the week by this terse one-star review: “Trash. NOT a Christian book.”

That grim denouncement was followed this morning with five stars from an obviously discerning and thoroughly admirable reader, “Loved this book— kept me in suspense the whole time, I could not put it down!!! I bought the rest of the series, can’t wait to read them!”

Go figure.