The Phantom Paragrapher

About the Talking Stick - From the Author's Perspective - Donna Levin.  Hunter Fitzgerald has a problem.   Well, two problems, actually.  She’s lost her job as a fitness center manager, her husband has left her for one of their friends after running up a $40,000 debt on their joint credit card, and now, though she’s frantically making calls and sending emails in search of a new position, her professional contacts are ghosting her. Desperate for money to pay her electric bill, she gathers her William Shatner Christmas albums and heads to the local flea market to sell them.  There she meets a mysterious woman who gives her an ancient Navajo talking stick with the implied promise that it will come in handy. Through a series of accidents that might-not-be accidents, Hunter soon meets three other women: Dannika, a young woman mourning her mother’s death, Alicia, an obstetrician with a troubled teenage daughter, and Penelope, an older woman in denial about her Valium...

Q&A with Author Colleen Hoover You are ‘label-less’ in the fact that you write in several genres. Readers never know what to expect next. If someone asks, how do you label yourself? When I self-published my first novel I had no idea what genre to put it in. I thought I had written a drama but it turns to that I had written a romance. I’ve learned a lot since then, but I still don’t put a lot of weight in genre when I write. When your best friend is begging you to read a book, it’s not going to matter what genre it is when someone you trust is passionate about the story. To keep all of your stories and characters straight, you must be very organized. I’m the most disorganized person you will ever meet! I have no schedule. I can’t wake up before nine in the morning. I probably don’t go to bed until like three in the morning. I usually work about 16 hours a day.  What happens if you get blocked when you are writing?  If I get stuck writi...

  About Jon Rance:   Jon Rance is the author of seven novels: the Kindle top ten bestseller, This Thirtysomething Life, Happy Endings (both published by Hodder and Stoughton), This Family Life, Sunday Dinners, Dan And Nat Got Married, About Us, and his latest, The Summer Holidays Survival Guide. He's also the author of the Christmas novella, A Notting Hill Christmas. Jon studied English Literature at Middlesex University, London, before going travelling and meeting his American wife in Australia. Jon loves comedy (especially sitcoms), the films of Richard Curtis, travelling and tea. He just turned forty, which is a terrifying time, so his books might get a bit edgier and possibly angrier as a result. Jon writes dramatic, romantic, comedy fiction similar to the work of Mike Gayle, Matt Dunn, Nick Spalding and David Nicholls. You can email him at: jonrance@yahoo.com Please visit his website: www.jonrance.co.uk   1 .    ...