P.D. Workman's Blog, page 142

Pre-release trailer for Tattooed Teardrops

Tattooed Teardrops is scheduled to come out later this month! Get a sneak peek today by watching the pre-release trailer.

 

“I don’t plan on getting in any trouble.”

Tamara had thought that when she got out of juvie, things would be easier. But before long, it seems like her life is spiraling into chaos.

If she can’t prove to her probation officer that she is innocent of the allegations against her, she’s going back to prison, and Tamara just can’t let that happen.

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Blog Tour + Guest Post + Sneak Peek + Giveaway: State of Rebellion by Summer Lane
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Excerpt from Christmas Carol Murder #teasertuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Want a sneak peak at Tattooed Teardrops? Take a look at the pre-release trailer.

My teaser this week is from Christmas Carol Murder. Christmas in August? I admit I like reading Christmas books all year long. But it was kind of funny listening to descriptions of snow and frigid weather while riding my bike in 32ºC weather! I quite enjoyed this cozy mystery by Leslie Meier. It is a Lucy Stone mystery. I have not read any others in the series, but there was sufficient information to understand the characters and their relationships.

Once inside, with the kitchen door closed behind him, he set the envelopes on the kitchen counter, on top of a stack of empty egg cartons, and carefully examined the package. Only one way to find out what was inside, he decided, and that was to open it. Practically bursting with anticipation, he ripped off the flap.

Christmas Carol Murder, Leslie Meier

Lucy Stone normally loves the holidays, but this year, Tinker’s Cove has fallen on hard times. The story’s not so bleak at Downeast Mortgage, whose tightfisted owners, Jake Marlowe and Ben Scribner, are raking in profits from everyone’s misfortune. Half the town is in their debt, so when the miserly Marlowe is murdered, the mourners are few and the suspects are many. Can Lucy solve the case and deck the halls before the killer strikes again?

Cross-promotion: @MeganCyrulewski blog tour #PPD #memoir

Megan Cyrulewski is doing a blog tour to promote her book, “Who Am I?  How My Daughter Taught Me to Let Go and Live Again“.

Who Am I?  How My Daughter Taught Me to Let Go and Live Again, by Megan Cyrulewski

Megan’s book, Who Am I?  How My Daughter Taught Me to Let Go and Live Again, is about her journey into post-partum depression, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, stays in the psych ward, divorce, emotional abuse, domestic violence, law school, how she managed to graduate from law school and a beautiful little girl who emerged from all of this chaos.

I figured that since these topics are all within my wheelhouse, I would join in the cross-promotion. You’ll see PPD mentioned in my upcoming book Don’t Forget Steven, anxiety disorders in a number of my books, and of course, domestic violence tends to be a big part of my plots as well. Mental illness needs and deserves a lot more attention and understanding than it is currently getting in our communities.

Author Bio

Megan Cyrulewski has been writing short stories ever since she was ten-years-old. After attending Grand Valley State University, Megan eventually settled into a career in the non-profit sector for eight years. She decided to change careers and went back to school to get her law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School. While in school, she documented her divorce, child custody battle and postpartum depression struggles in her memoir. Megan lives in Michigan with her 3-year-old daughter who loves to dance, run, read, and snuggle time with Mommy. Megan also enjoys her volunteer work with various organizations in and around metro-Detroit.

Contact

Website and blog: www.megancyrulewski.com.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorMeganC.
Twitter: @MeganCyrulewski.

Buy links

Who Am I?  How My Daughter Taught Me to Let Go and Live Again is available in paperback from all good booksellers. eBook versions will follow.

Amazon Paperback
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble Paperback
Barnes and Noble Nook


 Excerpt

On January 18, 2012, we all convened in the courthouse for the Motion for Parenting Time hearing. My dad and I arrived with my attorney, but Tyler loved an audience so he brought his dad, step-mom, and his new on-again off-again girlfriend, Heather. Tyler walked in with his posse in tow, cocky as hell. It took all of two minutes for the judge to knock him off his feet.

The Judge addressed our respective attorneys. “Why are we here?”

“Your honor,” Tyler’s attorney began, “my client has clearly been denied his parenti—”

The Judge didn’t even let him finish. “How?” She turned to my attorney. “Don?”

“Your honor, as you can see in the divorce decree, there was supposed to be a review when the minor child turned twelve-months-old. The Defendant has ignored that review.”

“I–if I may, your honor,” Tyler’s attorney sputtered.

“I see the review in the decree. It’s here in black and white,” she told Tyler’s attorney. “What is the problem? Why didn’t you understand the review? Your client signed the divorce decree.”

Tyler’s attorney tried again. “But your honor—”

The judge cut him off. “There is to be a review conducted by the Friend of the Court referee assigned to the parties. Until then, the Defendant will continue his parenting time schedule as agreed upon in the divorce decree. Dismissed.”

And that was it. After eight police reports and numerous harassing text messages, phone calls, and e-mails, we won. As Don and Tyler’s attorney went to speak with the clerk to file the necessary paperwork, Don told us to wait for him outside the courtroom.

As we exited the courtroom, the hallway was so packed with people that my dad and I were only able to find enough space to lean against the wall. We were talking about the court proceedings when we looked up at saw Tyler and his new girlfriend standing right across from us.

“Why do you lie about everything?” Tyler screamed.

Heather walked up to me and stood about an inch from my face. “As a mother myself, you should be happy that Tyler is the father of your child.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry but I don’t know you.”

She smirked. “Well you’re going to get to know me, bitch.”

Tyler made a big show of pulling her from me like I was going to punch her or something. By this time, everyone in the hallway was watching us. We were pure entertainment.

Heather continued her rant. “Two times in the psych ward, Megan? What a great mother you are.”

“Where is your mom, the real mother of our child?” Tyler screamed. “She’s the one who takes care of Madelyne.”

My dad and I tried to move away from Tyler and Heather but they followed us.

“Do you have to take a Xanax because of your anxiety?”

“Go take your Xanax and sleeping pills, you drug addict,” Tyler shouted.

Finally, Don emerged from the courtroom and pulled us into a quiet corridor. He explained that I needed to call our referee to set-up a meeting to discuss a visitation schedule. I told Don about the verbal assault by Tyler and Heather. Don said he would call Tyler’s attorney to let him know that Heather would not be allowed in my house.

Upon leaving the courthouse, Heather screamed, “See you on Sunday, Megan.”

I turned toward her and said calmly, “I don’t know you, but you are not welcome in my home.”

That night, Tyler sent me multiple texts attacking my mothering skills, my supposed drug addictions, how he was going to fight for joint custody of Madelyne, how Heather would be accompanying him for his visitations, and a barrage of other insults:

“Get a life already.”
“Don’t you have something better to do than wasting your parents’ money?”
“Go take your pills and relax, oh yeah, then your parents would have to watch our daughter. Oh yeah, they already do.”
“Go talk to your friends. Oh yeah, you don’t have any because of how crazy you are.”
“Interesting to know you’ve been to the hospital a couple of times. You really need to get it together.”
“Better go call your lawyer and make up some more stuff about me.”
“Don’t be mad at your sorry life.”
“I am sure living with Mom and Dad the rest of your life will be fun.”
“When you get a job, then you can pay me child support. Fun.”

I finally had to turn my phone off at midnight.

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Related articles across the web

Understanding Post Partum Depression ( P.P.D )
Post-Partum Adjustment Resources
Interview with Megan Cyrulewski(an author and a true heroine)
Megan Cyrulewski on Dancing in Puddles

Latest updates and Excerpt from Other People #teasertuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

I have been moving forward on a number of fronts lately. It’s been a busy month.

Diversion has hit the shelves (Kindle and Paperback)!
Stand Alone has been published to Smashwords, so if you have been waiting for the ePub, you can get it now! It should be showing up in Apple iBooks, Scribd, and all of the other places that Smashwords publishes to shortly.
Tattooed Teardrops is out for final edits and should be out next month. I need to pull together a trailer…
I am looking for beta readers for Don’t Forget Steven (to be published in September) and for Those Who Believe (to be published in October). If you are interested and are not on my beta reader circulation list, drop me a line!
And, of course, I finished the first draft (actually, I’m on about the third draft now) of Cynthia has a Secret, which I wrote for July CampNano. See my shiny CampNano badge to the right?
And because I have so much free time, I’m working on rewrites of a couple of older novels that are planned for release next year…

On to the teaser! I picked up Other People because it is about a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder, one of the mental illnesses that I have also written about (mine isn’t out until next year). It had good reviews, so I wanted to see how another author (Kelly O’Callan) handled the research and writing about this difficult subject matter.

Other people are everybody but me… Other people have missions, a purpose on earth… Everyone else has fulfillment in life, not me.

Other People, Kelly O’Callan

“I can’t stay with you Ginny, because one day your disorder will cause you to hate me. And I never want you to hate me.”

Painfully shy and socially awkward, Ginny avoids engaging in a world filled with “other people” as best as she can. After a failed suicide attempt, Ginny is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and begins a journey towards improving her distraught life. In her quest to fit in among other people, Ginny studies the behaviors of her picture-perfect new neighbors, Jim and Nina, and tries her best to mimic their life skills. But, will Ginny’s attempts to be one of the other people help her fit into their world, or send her crashing back deeper into the dark, isolated world she is desperately trying to escape?

 

Excerpt from “Twelve Years a Slave” #teasertuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

New release! You may have seen yesterday’s post that Diversion has hit the shelves! Woo-hoo!

You may have seen my current read, Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, on the silver screen lately.

So I resolved to lock the secret closely in my heart—never to utter one word or syllable as to who or what I was —trusting in Providence and my own shrewdness for deliverance.

Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup

The astonishing memoir of a free man who was sold into slavery in Louisiana where he was kept for 12 years—a powerful, riveting condemnation of slavery, and a story soon to be introduced to a new audience through a major film

Tricked by two men offering him a job as a musician in New York state in 1841, Solomon Northup was instead drugged and kidnapped. Threatened with death, Northup was forced to assume a new name and fake past. Taken to Louisiana on a disease-ridden plague ship, he was initially sold to a cotton planter. In the 12 years that followed he was sold to many different owners who treated him with varying levels of savagery, including forced labor, scant food, and numerous beatings. Eventually Northup succeeded in contacting Samuel Bass, a white carpenter whom he knew to be sympathetic to the cause of black people. Bass contacted Northup’s family and together they gained the necessary paperwork to travel to Louisiana to retrieve him. Northup pressed charges against his captors but in a triumph of irony the case was heard in Washington—meaning that as a black man he could not testify against the accused (in the end they were able to countersue him.) A true-life testament to tremendous courage and tenacity in the face of unfathomable injustice, Northup’s account is also of extreme interest due to the meticulous recordings of slave life. Unique in its firsthand nature, the book became a runaway bestseller.

Diversion, Breaking the Pattern #2 released!

Thanks to my army of beta readers and helpers, Diversion is now available!

Watch the trailer, or jump right to the bookstore links.

Even though Diversion is the second book in the “Breaking the Pattern” series, it can be read as a stand alone.

 

Raised to a life of crime, Sandy is a teenage prostitute, junkie, and con artist. She always joked that her Da taught her a trade, that it hadn’t hurt her to be brought up like she was. 

But things keep getting more complicated, more dangerous, and Sandy doesn’t want to admit even to herself that she longs for an honest, normal life.   

Even when she tries to change, things don’t go smoothly. Sandy’s past keeps interfering with her new relationships. In the end, if she and her family don’t pull together, Sandy will not be able to escape yet another ghost of her past. Do they have what it takes for her to change her life completely? 


—I am very impressed with P.D. Workman’s writing. Sandy is a druggie and a hooker, but you really like and pull for her. She is a character you can really get behind and cheer on! Diversion is well-edited and an enjoyable read—fast-paced and intense, with a great climax and conclusion!   

—I absolutely loved the flow of this book. It worked as a stand alone too, if you haven’t read the series. The way that P.D. Workman writes just flows amazingly and allows the reader to get really invested in the book. 

—I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading this book and am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.

Excerpt from Necrodancer #teasertuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

While you’re waiting for “Diversion” to be published (any day now—excerpt here!) you can enjoy my special birthday present to you—a free download of “Stand Alone“! But be sure to download it today, it is only free for a limited time.

One of my beta readers for “Tattooed Teardrops” is a young beginning author, and asked me to read her debut short story on Amazon, The NecroDancer (Deadful Life of Ella, Book 1), by Joanne Boyd. So I thought I would use it for my Teaser Tuesday post, and post a short review here.

I was smashing zombies like they were baseballs coming out of one of those automatic pitching machines, apologising each time.

Jab. ‘Sorry’. Whack. ‘Sorry’. Stab. ‘Sorry’.

I wasn’t hurting them, since they were already dead, but it still seemed… disrespectful.

The NecroDancer (Deadful Life of Ella, Book 1), Joanne Boyd

My Review:

Sure, there are lots of zombie books and stories out these days. It’s a growing niche. But those zombies all shuffle and moan. Joanne Boyd’s zombies dance. As in, ballet.

Teenage protagonist Ella is a medium reminiscent of Melinda Gordon in “Ghost Whisperer”. But with less baby doll lingerie and more spunk. In this short story (38 real pages), book 1 in a prospective series, she must confront a necromancer reanimating corpses as his own dance company.

It is a fun, light read, well-edited, with a jazzy cover, well-suited to your bus-ride home after a long day at the office. Watch for more of Ella’s adventures in the future.

On Amazon:

I honestly thought that being forced to go to the ballet with my Gran was the worst thing I’d ever had to do and that was BEFORE I knew that the dancers on stage were a bunch of reanimated corpses controlled by a psychotic necromancer named Albertino. 

THEN I had to go to his studio to find and destroy his talisman to save the trapped souls all by myself – since Gran is the only other medium I know and apparently she’s “too old to run around all day chasing talismans.” And the talisman in question? Sitting right on Albertino’s big fat finger. 

I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet. 

What’s worse than a bunch of people watching dead ballerinas dance on stage and having no idea that anything is wrong? 

The fact that dancing is not the only thing they can do.

Excerpt from “Diversion” #SampleSunday

I am hoping to have Diversion published very soon! While it is the second book in the “Breaking the Pattern” series, you can read it as a stand alone novel (beta readers have confirmed that they had no problem understanding what was going on). I will warn you, though, that it is a spoiler for the first book!

While you’re waiting for release day, you can watch the trailer, and read the excerpt below!

 

It hadn’t been cold or damp that day. It was been a mild, sunny day, which had started off very pleasantly, with the prospect of a date at the Harbor.

Sandy looked around the hotel lobby for her date. A couple of people looked at her or smiled, but no one approached. She hung around, watching the sidewalk outside for any one of interest. Friends, Johns, cops… She waited a while, then started to get impatient. Sandy looked at her watch. It had been half an hour. He wasn’t going to show. He’d chickened out or something.

Sandy left the hotel and walked down the street slowly, watching the traffic for any possibility of a pick-up. She wasn’t paying much attention to the others on the sidewalk around her. She was irritated by the no-show. As she crossed the alley, a van pulled up in front of her and the side door opened and before she had a chance to take it all in, a masked man grabbed her and threw her roughly in the back. The door slammed shut and the van lurched into the street and sped off. Sandy started to right herself, pushing herself up onto her elbows, disoriented. Her purse was snatched out of her hand, and a pair of hands closed around her arms, pulled her up and wrestled her around, and just as Sandy’s brain processed the thought that she needed to fight, handcuffs closed around her wrist. Sandy jerked back against them reflexively, crying out in protest, unable to formulate words. Once the cuffs were on, he dropped her to the floor of the van.

Sandy sat up and looked around. Since the cuffs had closed around her wrists, her brain had been trying to convince her that it was some sort of police sting or covert op. But looking around, she knew it was not true. They had lured and kidnapped her. They wore masks. The interior of the van was dark and bare, stripped of passenger seats, carpet, down to bare metal.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, finally finding her voice.

“Shut up or we’ll gag you,” the masked man growled.

Sandy considered and decided to obey. She couldn’t see out the front windshield. She sat up taller and strained for a look, and the man kicked her shoulder, knocking her down with a bone-shaking crash.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

Sandy didn’t move, laying partly on her face and partly on her side, breathing heavily and trying to assess the damage. Her shoulder throbbed where the kick had connected and her back and head where she’d landed. She was grateful that he had chosen to kick her shoulder instead of her face, which he could have done just as easily.

After ten or fifteen minutes, the van stopped. The man stooped down and lifted Sandy to her feet. Then he pulled a black garbage bag over her head. Sandy gasped, her life flashing before her eyes. She was sure he was now going to suffocate her. But the bag remained loose around her head and body as he took her out of the van and walked her into a building.

She was pushed to the floor again, roughly. Sandy felt him remove the handcuff from one wrist, and she was pulled over to a metal post and it was re-locked. Then he took the garbage bag back off her head. Sandy gasped for breath, even though it had not restricted her breathing.

“Please tell me what this is about,” Sandy pleaded. “What’s going on?”

“Shut up.”

He walked out of the room. Sandy could hear snatches of his conversation—maybe with the van driver—in the next room.

“…just gonna leave her?”

“…teach him to mess with me!”

“…what if…?”

“…I don’t care…”

More low voices Sandy couldn’t hear, getting gradually further away.

“…no one does that to me…”

Then a door slammed, and there was silence. Sandy sat there, listening, her eyes gradually adjusting to the dark. Where did they go? Who were they? What did they intend to do with her?

Somehow she fell asleep, frightened and confused, overwhelmed by the situation. Maybe when she woke back up, it would make sense.

I want to give you a gift for my birthday!

My birthday is coming, and I want to give YOU a present! 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JRGBCH8

I love this book, it’s one of my best stories. I’m hoping you like it too!

Packing for Camp NaNo #nanowrimo #campnano

Oh the crazy weeks before Camp NaNo! Trying to clear the decks before the writing starts:

- One novel hopefully to be released before the end of the month (Diversion)

- Another out to beta readers now (Tattooed Teardrops)

- Rewriting one of my older novels, which needs lots of work: cutting out the deadwood, incorporating a new storyline, and trying to sort out a new ending (tentatively “Black Rider”). I don’t think the rewrite will be done before Camp NaNo.

- Editing NaNo novel from a couple of years ago (Lion Within)

And, of course, I have started on a mindmap/outline and research for the novel I will start writing July 1! Tentatively titled “Cynthia has a Secret”, the storyline is starting to coalesce and I am getting quite excited about writing it! Here is a first run at a cover concept.

There is still lots of work to do before starting (check out my process in a previous article). I have characters to flesh out, outlining to do, logline, and some more research. As of today, my Evernote notebook for Cynthia has 31 notes in it, as well as a checklist of issues in my todo list, and the mindmap has about 72 nodes on it.

If you are a writer doing Camp NaNo, search me out on the website under username pdw.