Hi lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Emma
Cyrus and her new book, “Life Without Shoes”!
For other stops on her Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click
on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the
end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Emma
and to increase your chances of winning!
This book is on SALE
during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!
See below for more details.
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Life Without Shoes
by Emma Cyrus
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GENRE: Mystery
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BLURB:
In
the great tradition of The Name of the Rose, the Brother Cadfael mysteries and
Grantchester, Life Without Shoes confronts a modern-day monastic with a
horrifying crime.
Father
Ambrose has found a simple life leading a spiritual community in Northern
California. He spends his days on guiding the farming and teaching meditation.
Then, someone dumps a body in one of their orchards.
Now,
the violence of the modern world has come crashing through the gates. He wants
Sheriff Charlie Cormley to believe the body has nothing to do with them, but
it’s not that easy. He must take on the role of sleuth to protect his community
and find the truth. He finds himself moving out into the world in ways he never
imagined, and life at New Life will never be the same.
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EXCERPT TWO:
“Please
have a seat,” Cormley said. “You visited with Redmond after we saw you. How’d
that go?”
“Well,
probably not the way you’d like. He gave me more information, but he asked me
not to share it with you.”
Gus
slammed his palm on the table just as Ruth was putting down bowls of ice cream.
The bowls sloshed and she jumped back, startled. “I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m just
frustrated. Not with you. Not with this fantastic-looking treat. Just how this
guy is jerking us around.”
For
a moment, there was quiet. Is he talking about me or Redmond? Ambrose wondered.
“Gus...”
the sheriff started. This was one of the reasons he tried to protect his wife.
Tempers could flare in the department in a difficult case. He never wanted her
to bear the brunt, even unintentionally. But, of course, she wasn’t naïve or
thin-skinned.
“Detective,
I appreciate this is a tough one. But, please, not at my table,” she said
quietly but with firmness.
“I
do apologize, Ruth. And to both of you,” Gus said, looking across the table at
Cormley and Ambrose. “Totally uncalled-for. Please, Father. Continue.”
Ambrose
nodded. “I think I can give you the big picture without breaking my promise to
Redmond. His lawyer should be motivated to cooperate with you on looking at
Golden. In a nutshell, there’s supposedly a financial connection between Redmond
and Golden. Golden used that to get Redmond involved. The killing was
unintentional. Golden definitely has a role.”
“That’s
it? That’s all you can say?” Gus asked, still agitated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
Who Inspired My Love of Books?
Both
my parents were great readers, so I think perhaps I inherited a reading gene. I
started picking up books and magazines when I was three or four years old,
demanding that my mother read them to me, so I could follow along with my
finger and learn the words. By the time I got to first grade, I think I was
already at third-grade level, so school was often boring. This was in the
1950’s, and teachers had no knowledge about how to work with a diverse group of
students.
My
parents had subscriptions to Life
Magazine, Time Magazine, and The New Yorker, so I’d try to get
through those every week once I got to junior high school. And, of course, by
then, I’d already burned my way through lots of the Nancy Drew Mysteries, starting a lifelong involvement with the
genre I write in. By the time I was in high school, I was reading Agatha
Christie as my relief from jam-packed studying. There were assigned books like
Shakespeare’s plays and Catcher in the
Rye, but literature never grabbed me the way mysteries did.
I
also started some fiction writing assigned by my English teacher. One story in
particular seemed to bubble up from some place inside me that I didn’t quite
recognize. It was a little spooky, and I got a taste for exploring the dark
side of characters.
Once
I got to college, I was so overwhelmed with the work, I don’t think I had time
to look at any fiction at all. From that point on, through graduate school and
out into the working world, I only wrote non-fiction. But as soon as I had some
free time, I started reading mysteries again. I finished the Agatha Christies
and went on to other authors under the generic umbrella of the Golden Age of
Detective Fiction: Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Georges
Simenon, P.D. James, Mignon G. Eberhart.
Later
in life, I picked up some new favorites—Elizabeth Peters, Elizabeth George,
Anne Perry, Alexander McCall Smith, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman,
Patricia Cornwell, Janet Evanovich, Christopher Fowler, Ben Aaronovitch, Harry
Kemelman, Sue Grafton, Kathy Reichs, Gay Hendricks, Eliot Pattison, Tony
Hillerman, Dick Francis, M.L. Longworth, Alan Bradley, Ann Cleeves, Laurie R.
King, Donna Leon, H.R.F. Keating, Colin Cotterill. I’d also trade with my dad,
who liked James Patterson, John Grisham and John Le Carré.
Yes,
whenever I can, mysteries are what I pick up, although I have strayed to nearby
pathways for Harry Potter, The Name of the Rose, An Instance of the Fingerpost, and, more
recently, My Absolute Darling, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
So, I
inherited the reading bug from my family (I can still see them sitting in the
living room reading in the evening). But I learned to love books by being a
voracious reader. And I learned to write mystery books by reading and studying
the masters.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
Emma was
born in West Virginia and lived there until she was in high school, when her
family moved to Pittsburgh. After high school, she went to Boston to go to
college. She worked in different small and startup businesses until she moved
into a yoga community in Pennsylvania. There, she’s worked on various projects
and taught yoga.
She
started the Father Ambrose series as a way of pulling together her love of good
mystery stories with her deepening appreciation of the real-life magic and
mystery of inner work. Father Ambrose has many characteristics in common with
the leaders of her community, but his voice is probably hers, or at least what
she thinks her voice would be, if she were living inside the parameters of his
life.
She’s
discovering the compelling nature of writing fiction and the surprises of
working with what other writers have called their ‘muse.’ The creative process
seems to have its own timetable and logic. The best results seem to come from
stilling her own personal voice and allowing that ‘muse’ to speak.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONNECT WITH EMMA:
Website:
Blog:
Email:
Facebook:
BookBub Author Page:
BookBub Book Page:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS
& BOOK SALE INFO:
**Life Without Shoes is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY
$0.99!!!**
Amazon Kindle:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble:
The Book Depository:
BAM! Books-A-Million:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFO:
Emma will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to
a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Emma ~ It is great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteBook sounds really good!
ReplyDeleteThank you! Please be in touch via www.emmacyrus.com. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
DeleteThanks for hosting me today
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteHi Victoria, Nice to see you again! Thanks for following the tour.
DeleteEmma
Sounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rita! I'll look forward to hearing your comments. You can receive my monthly newsletter here: http://www.emmacyrus.com/newsletter/. You'll get peeks into the world of the book and notices about sales and the upcoming publication of the second book in the series.
DeleteEmma
Thanks, everyone for your comments. Sign up for my monthly newsletter to hear more about the world of the book, as well as notices about the upcoming second book and special price promotions. Here's the link: http://www.emmacyrus.com/newsletter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Chelsey. I'm working on two longer-term projects about Life Without Shoes - an audiobook and a book trailer. Get on my newsletter list and you'll get notices about them: http://www.emmacyrus.com/newsletter/. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
ReplyDelete