Hello, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host David Scott and his new book, “Stargazer,” here on FAB!! For other stops on his 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 $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with David and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
Stargazer
by David Scott
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GENRE: Autobiography
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BLURB:
For thousands of years, stars have held our attention and imagination. They influence our life—we wish upon them, sing songs about them, navigate by them, write about them, follow them, and even give their name to the actors we love. My memories have revealed a lifetime of navigating by the stars, and moving beyond the fear and anxiety that self-doubt so insidiously cloaks us in. Yes, as Jiminy Cricket sang for us in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, "when you wish upon a star . . . fate steps in and sees you through."
Memories and influences have a profound effect on our lives. I look back on my childhood years—the 1940s to mid-'50s—and I can recall the people who were inspirational to me. Mostly it was my family, but there was also Jiminy Cricket. You no doubt recollect the song "When You Wish Upon a Star," with its lyrics that lift the spirit and let you believe anything is possible. I didn't doubt Jiminy for a minute.
The early years of my life were a time of innocence, security, adventure, and family love. How quickly my situation changed—one decision by my parents, made with my best interests foremost in their thoughts, shattered the world I had known. Through the fear, torment, isolation, and loss of my own identity, my memories and influences would come to have an overwhelming power on the choices I was to make.
My transition from teenager to adult seemed to happen overnight, but my unflappable outward appearance belied the struggles of a boy coming to terms with his guilt, and an irresistible need for his parents to be proud of him. My future was being shaped from the past, but it took me a long time to realise it. I chose the road less travelled, steeped in the wonder of the cinema and accompanied by my beloved animal companions, and it has been intriguing, daunting, rewarding, and, at times, solitary, but I always felt it was the path I was meant to take.
Like so many people, I let the emotions attached to memories hold me captive, and I missed opportunities to choose with more clarity. A near-death experience helped me to live a simpler life. Participating in a creative writing course inspired me to engage in script writing, stage work, and novel writing. This is my third book, an autobiography that has revealed more of me than I ever intended to share, and fate has led you to it.
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EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT:
The war ended, taking with it most of the region’s military forces, the tent theatres and long traffic delays on the bridge crossing the Murray River.
Along with showing movies at Wodonga, Dad had started doing the same at the shire hall in Numurkah, a small town an hour-and-three-quarters drive west. From Wodonga, he travelled a short distance along the Hume Highway before turning onto the Murray Valley Highway, a road with a single lane each way that followed the Victorian side of the Murray River. He passed through Cobram along the way, a tiny town by the Murray River that was around one hundred kilometres downstream from Wodonga. Its population of four hundred and fifty was on the verge of expanding under a government scheme to establish irrigated dairy farms for servicemen returning from the war; earthworks to establish a vast network of channels to carry water from the river to the allotments were already underway.
It had no cinema so the opportunity for a free selection of movies to exhibit caused Dad to alter the location of the theatre he proposed to build from Wodonga to Cobram.
“Pack up your toys, Dick. We’re going to live where the sun sets.” Dad made it sound like a great adventure when, late in 1946, we moved to Cobram, leaving behind, in my case, a set of tonsils. I don’t know why he nicknamed me “Dick” when my name was David. It was a term of endearment, not a reference to my male appendage—the term for that was “whistlepot.”
Tea chests were filled with our belongings, several destined to remain sealed forever behind the silver screen at the theatre Dad would later build at Cobram. Decades later, I prised the lid off one and found round light shades, huge globes and coloured dog jackets with numbers on them—items from the Wodonga greyhound course when it closed. I will never know what was in the others as they went up in flames when the theatre burnt down in the twenty-first century.
My first impressions of Cobram were bleak. The gravelled main street was lined with peppercorn trees, gutters being car-tyre-rutted trenches to distinguish them from dirt footpaths. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Dad had parked our car in the centre of the weed-infested theatre site.
A rambling weatherboard house that had been added to as the family grew flanked one side of the theatre block, a Vacuum Oil depot on the other. Behind the properties was a narrow pot-holed laneway with outside toilets backing onto it, their back flaps installed for the convenience of the weekly dunny-cart run.
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AUTHOR BIO:
David Scott is a playwright, director and novelist – among other things. His career included forty years as a film exhibitor; establishing a horse stud; managing a motel; working in the hospitality industry, and a few other experiences along the way. David’s latest book, Stargazer, is an autobiography highlighting the value of family, ingenuity, bravado, old-fashioned common sense, colourful characters and unfailing good humour. From rural towns in Victoria and New South Wales, to the mountain life in Queensland, the constant has been faithful canine companions, perseverance and a joy for living.
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CONNECT WITH DAVID:
Website:
Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/davidscottstargazer
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20324821.David_Scott
Goodreads Book Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53496379-stargazer
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon US Hardcover:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.ca/Stargazer-David-Scott-ebook/dp/B0849SXLVR
Amazon CA Paperback:
https://www.amazon.ca/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824036
Amazon CA Hardcover:
https://www.amazon.ca/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824044
Amazon AU Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Stargazer-David-Scott-ebook/dp/B0849SXLVR
Amazon AU Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824036
Amazon AU Hardcover:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824044
Amazon UK Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-David-Scott-ebook/dp/B0849SXLVR
Amazon UK Paperback:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824036
Amazon UK Hardcover:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-David-Scott/dp/0228824044
Apple Books eBook:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/stargazer/id1496449313
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stargazer-david-scott/1136261174?ean=2940163451470
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stargazer-david-scott/1136261174?ean=9780228824039
Barnes and Noble Hardcover:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stargazer-david-scott/1136261174?ean=9780228824046
The Book Depository Paperback:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Stargazer-David-Scott/9780228824039
The Book Depository Hardcover:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Stargazer-David-Scott/9780228824046
BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Stargazer/David-Scott/9780228824039
BAM! Books-A-Million Hardcover:
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Stargazer/David-Scott/9780228824046
The Bookshop Paperback:
https://bookshop.org/books/stargazer-9780228824039/9780228824039
The Bookshop Hardcover:
https://bookshop.org/books/stargazer-9780228824039/9780228824046
Kobo US eBook:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/stargazer-34
Kobo CA eBook:
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/stargazer-34
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
David will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.**This post contains
affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is 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**
David ~ Good morning! Welcome to FAB! It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteYou are a new author to me. Because of this tour I will look into your book.
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I can only fathom the amount of courage it takes to write an autobiography. To invite strangers into you life while being so vulnerable is truly brave. Thank you for sharing your story.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteI would love to read your book.
ReplyDelete