Bell Bridge Books

Meet one of our newest authors, Tracie Provost!

Her first book, Under the Blood Moon, is available now!

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. As a little kid I would write stories when I wasn’t devouring every book I could get my hands on. I started my first novel, a pirate romance, when I was in high school. I wrote around 250 pages in it. It was horrible. I still have it, but it will never see the light of day.

Sometime in high school, somebody told me that I couldn’t make a living as a writer and I foolishly believed him. I decided that I would become a professor instead. Luckily, no one told me how hard it was to get an academic job until it was too late and I was committed to getting my PhD in history.

I managed to get a tenure-track position and have been at the same small Southern University for about 15 years. For the most part it is been great – except for the year and a half I spent in administration. I was miserable. I missed my students and I spent a lot of time crying in my office. But it was out of this that Under the Blood Moon was born.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of a vampire novel in my head for a number of years. I had even written a little bit, but it was during my administrative stint that the bulk of the book was created. I wrote through much of my frustration and anxiety. I typed “The End” on the first draft and returned to the classroom at about the same time and I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

I’m currently working on the second book in the series Under the Harvest Moon and hope to have it done by late summer.

Learn more about Tracie here: http://www.tracieprovost.com/

Under the Blood Moon by Tracie Provost

A supernatural war is brewing in New Orleans, threatening to expose the existence of vampires, werewolves, and Gatekeepers to the wider world . . .

Ritually staked and hidden for two hundred years, Juliette de Grammont, voodoo priestess and vampire, is found and revived. Just days after she is freed, still coping with a world she could never have imagined, she loses her sire and vampire coven in a fire. Confused and alone, Juliette seeks the help of the city’s powerful Grand Master, but dark elements within the city are conspiring to topple that regime. Soon Juliette’s struggle for survival places her in the middle of a supernatural war for control of the city.

Josh Bouchard, former Texas Ranger now vampire and coven lieutenant, is drawn into the conflict and appoints himself Juliette’s protector over her objections. They must enlist the help of both the city’s werewolf pack and the Gatekeepers—a shadowy group dedicated to keeping the paranormal world secret from humans—to forge a coalition to save New Orleans from the powers that seek to destroy it.

DO PUBLISHERS AND EDITORS READ BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OTHER PRESSES?

By Danielle Childers

Do publishers and editors read books they didn’t publish?  You betcha!  After all, we’re in this industry because we love good books. We’re such reading harlots. So I have no shame in presenting you with A Library Trollop’s Reading Recommendations!

I’m absolutely obsessed with retro fiction right now.  The stunning covers. The world events. The vintage feel. When I pick up these books it’s like they whisper “I’ve lived.  Read my wisdom. Experience my days.” And lately I’ve been reading new books about old summers.

I am super late to the party to read Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (Harper Perennial). But I was so excited that I purchased it in hardback. A luxury when you have to fund my reading habit.  A story within a story. A movie within a novel. The azure coast of Itlay. The 1960s.  An actress. An innkeeper. The filming of Cleopatra.  “The only thing we have is the story we tell.”

Yes.  It was beautiful. The writing. The imagery. The book.  Yes, this is literary fiction of a sort, but as a former librarian, I am bone tired of the limited genres we have to describe books that are just…more.  It’s vintage fiction. It’s retro-glam fiction.  It’s geographic fiction. It’s gently epic and strangely modern. It’s amazing. Read it. But don’t read it as a guilty pleasure. Read it like the clever and cultured book that it is. Read it with a touch of awe and leave your critique behind. Just…enjoy it.

Still on a high from Beautiful Ruins, I discovered (because books simply happen to me, for me.) Palisades Park by Alan Brennert (St. Martin’s Press). An Amusement Park. The 1930s.  It’s like The Great Gatsby gone wild but brighter, and the grit is not hidden by the glitz.  A book full of dreams from back when safety nets did not exist. Complete with frozen lemonades and the warmth of day that lingers in the asphalt.  It’s something you only notice as a child, I think. But it’s magic. I read it on my Kindle with a fan blowing in my face and the sun shining. Yes. Read it. Now. Read it and reflect on the happiest summers that were magical because you lived and breathed thirty years of summer at an amusement park. You didn’t? Well sometimes I can’t separate books from my life.

Now, when I’m feeling really sentimental or have found a book I know I’m going to love so much, I always turn to some old, faithful book friends. I like to read them and introduce them to their new book friends. They won’t sit beside each other on my shelves unless they have the good luck to be written by authors who are alphabetically compatible, but when I glance over their spines, I’ll know they’re related.

So, it felt completely natural after these thoughtful, retro books, to pull out The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (Harper Perennial). Don’t judge me. I feel very protective about this book, and I can’t explain it. I have a soft spot for Rebecca Wells because she can tell a great southern story spanning decades that will have you tasting pecans, dissolving in the summer heat with your friends, and sounding just like my Great Aunt Sherry. And it’s a great, mostly light hearted finale to this summer reading list.

There you have it. Three absolutely perfect summer retro reads. Where the time is just as much of a character as the beaches as the roller coasters, as the people.  Read Palisades Park and make lemonade. Beautiful Ruins should be read after watching Cleopatra.  And the Ya-Ya’s?  Just make a shoofly pie and drink the lemonade mentioned above. Sugar is sugar, and there’s just enough salt in the pie to enhance the tartness of the lemons.

Happy reading.

Bell Bridge Books presents these fabulous summer reading titles for only $1.99 on Amazon Kindle Today!