Shelley Workinger's Blog, page 24

Please Welcome Maria Murnane, Author of Perfect on Paper

What is it about Waverly Bryson and Dino’s Pizza?

In my first two novels, Perfect on Paper, and It’s a Waverly Life, Waverly Bryson and her two best friends frequently get together at Dino’s Pizza, located in the heart of the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. While Waverly is not a real person, Dino’s is a real restaurant, and I have many fond memories from the years I spent living around the corner.

Brooklyn is my home these days, but my parents and sisters are still in the San Francisco suburbs, and I visit them often. Whenever I’m in town I usually drive by Dino’s at least once, and I inevitably feel a sense of nostalgia not just for my own past, but for Waverly’s too. The backdrop of her life is based on mine (I like to say that her life is my life if my life were more exciting), and when I see Dino’s I remember the days when my girlfriends and I would plop down at a table, order a pizza and a pitcher of beer, and wonder out loud when we were finally going to figure out our lives.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/02...

Please Welcome Gemma Mawdsley, Author of The Paupers' Graveyard

The most frustrating thing that was said to me as a budding writer was, “write what you know.” This one sentence made me stop short and realise that I didn’t know very much and certainly nothing that anyone would want to read about. Another thing they tell you is to find your voice. How I struggled to find a genre where I would fit in until giving up on the standard ones and combining history with horror. My first novel, The Paupers' Graveyard, dealt with a very important time in Irish history, the time of the Great Famine. As I wrote, I began to realise that food, like most things in life, only becomes important when there is a shortage of it. Even before the famine, those who worked on the land were poor and their diet lacked all the nutrients we have come to take for granted. Potatoes were the mainstay, and on rare occasion’s pieces of dried fish, but this was for the man of the house, as he was the breadwinner. It seems such a meagre thing, a piece of dried fish, but to hear twelve-year-old Timmy describe it, it was mouth-watering:

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/02...

Please Welcome Lee Bice-Matheson, Author of the Paige Maddison Series

Food is essential, it’s delectable, it’s a chance to be social and discuss over a favourite meal what’s important in our characters’ lives. Food provides fuel … energy for our mind, body, and soul. At least that’s what our teen heroine, Paige Maddison, believes.

In our new release, Shine Your Light, Paige reveals in detail the meals or the snacks she’s eating. Paige is a lightworker: a soldier, fighting for good on behalf of humankind. She is passionate, rambunctious, and spontaneous … but she knows the importance of keeping up her energy to fight evil that seems to present itself at the most inopportune moments...

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/02...

Please Welcome Bernadette Marie, Author of The Three Wives of Adam Monroe

I had never been asked to write about the food in my books before. Quite a unique twist, I thought. When an author works on a story, character development is crucial. We think about their eyes, their hair, how they walk, and what they do for a living. However, a key element in who they are is building the world around them—including what they eat and how.

Each of the books in my The Three Mrs. Monroes series is titled after the character followed in the story—Amelia, Penelope, and Vivian.

Amelia Monroe, a martial artist who trains soldiers, is fit and loves a good meal. When she meets Sam, a lawyer, they find comfort in sharing meals. For a woman who loves to eat, and is very fit, a huge steak (on the rare side!) with all the fixin’s is just her style. Part of the fun with Amelia was her no excuses attitude.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/01...

Please Welcome Gale Martin, Author of Don Juan in Hankey PA

Good Food Still Abounds in Hankey, PA

Though once a thriving small town, Hankey, Pennsylvania, became part of the Pennsylvania Rust Belt when the steel mill closed and the ranks of high-paid executives and managers moved away in 2005. As a result, most of the finer restaurants and eateries closed, too.

Who can afford to dine at the Colonel Hankey Inn anymore, with entrees like Drunken Lamb, braised in porter and priced á la carte at $25 a plate?

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/01...

Please Welcome Paula Margulies, Author of Favorite Daughter

I wrote my first historical novel, Favorite Daughter, Part One, because I wanted to tell the story of Pocahontas in her own voice, from her point of view (rather than the John Smith version of her history we learned in school). When I first began writing the novel, I quickly learned that the backbone of good writing in a historical is a reflection of the amount of research the writer does. With that in mind, I spent many hours studying the culture and traditions of the Powhatan and Algonquian tribes. While researching, I learned that the Powhatan tribe had a rich culture of agriculture and food husbandry...

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/01...

Please Welcome Marla Madison, Author of Girl Undone

Girl Undone is the third book in my TJ Peacock and Lisa Rayburn suspense series. The main characters in Girl Undone, private investigator TJ Peacock and psychologist Lisa Rayburn, are women at opposite ends of the food addiction scale. TJ, slender and wiry, is one of those fortunate people who so many of us envy; she can eat all she wants—and she prefers junk food and comfort food—without gaining weight. Lisa looks on disgustedly when TJ packs in the food, while she, a more generously proportioned woman, has to watch every bite.

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/01...

Please Welcome Kathy LaMee, Author of Tansy Taylor Paranormal P.I.

I’m a total food junkie, or foodie, so there is always food in my books. We use food as a culture in so many ways, so it’s only natural to draw that into stories. I’ll be honest - it’s been a few years since I wrote the first Tansy - so I was struggling to remember all of the foodie bits in the book. So what does one do when they can’t remember? They open their Kindle Cloud Reader and use the trusty Cntrl+F to find the food! Wow, was there a lot of food!

First, a little insight into Tansy’s story. She’s a twenty-something soul who is sort of lost, wandering from bad love interest to bad love interest and working at a psychic hotline call center...

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/12...

Please Welcome Tony Macaulay, Author of All Growed Up

In my memoir All Growed Up, it’s 1982 and I leave my hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland for the first time in my life to begin a ‘coming of age’ adventure of learning as an eighteen year old student at university. One particular chapter of the book serves up the flavours of traditional Irish food. In Go Wild in the Country I tell the story of my first visit to my new girlfriend’s house in a small rural village in the middle of Northern Ireland. I meet the lovely Lesley’s mother who is very warm, friendly and hospitable and more importantly, a legend in her own kitchen. However, like every good Irish Mammy when it comes to offering the best of food to a guest, she cannot take no for an answer. The repercussions are most embarrassing!

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/12...

Please Welcome E.A. Lake, Author of Stranded No Where

When the EOTWAWKI (end of the world as we know it) arrives, everything will change. The Darkness, as I like to call it, will envelop all. And I mean every last bit of our lives.

Gone will be our electricity, our phones, our cars…our current way of life. Food will disappear from store shelves and your own pantry so fast that we won’t have time to think or react. Fresh water will become our daily quest.

And still, we’ll have to find something to eat.

So, my friends, what are we going to do for food? Want some help with that one? Here’s my top three finds for you:

More:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/12...