Bell Bridge Books

YOU GOT IT WHERE?

One of the many groaner questions asked of authors (or at least this author) is the ever present, “Where do you get your ideas?” Many of my author friends have had fun making up comebacks to that question, almost none of which are printable. But a couple that can be printed are, “From that guy from Mars, whenever I put on my foil hat.” Or, “From my dog. He’s got such an imagination.”

But the truth is, we do get our ideas from everywhere. And it’s hard to answer, “Everywhere.”

For example, I received the inspiration for Against His Will from my bud and critique partner, who handed me a newspaper piece about a dog spa. She said, “You’re an animal lover. This is right up your alley.” And she was right. I had a ball writing that book.

My next book out from Bell Bridge is For A Good Time, Call… And once again my inspiration came from a critique partner, who came breezing in holding out a dollar bill and saying, “Look what I got from the gas station!” I took one look at it and said, “Dibs on that for a book!”

Her twenty dollar bill didn’t have a phone number on it, but it had a message to some guy. Apparently the guy wasn’t interested in responding to her message, as he used the money to buy gas. But it most definitely got my mental juices flowing. The true “what if?”

And that’s where For A Good Time, Call… was truly born.

What if a man and woman met through a message on a twenty dollar bill? What if she called him, they met, and during the meeting to exchange money he realizes she’s going to pitch her ad campaign the next day to him? And he can’t wait for that, because she already drives him crazy, and he wants to fire her on the spot? And then she tells him off at the meeting, calling him an idiot?

Disaster, yes? Oh, yes. But she drives him so crazy, he won’t let her go.

So there you have it. A friend walking in with a dollar bill, and it set my synapses on fire. And thus, a book was born.

And that is where I got the idea. And I love my friend for that day.

Look for Trish Jensens’ FOR A GOOD TIME CALL in stores late October 2012!

“She rose from the ashes of her childhood to light a path for others.”

That tag line from Dolores Durando’s debut novel, BEYOND THE BOUGAINVILLEA (March 2011) echoes, in some small ways, the author’s own early 1900’s childhood on the plains of North Dakota.

Mrs. Durando didn’t live the cruel life to which Bougainvillea’s MARGE GARRITY was subjected as a girl—indeed, Mrs. Durando had a happy childhood being raised by her blacksmithing grandpa–but she does know whereof she speaks when describing the isolated and rough-hewn conditions of Dakotas life.

BEYOND THE BOUGAINVILLEA

She found her place in a turbulent era of deep passions, heartbreaking sacrifices, and grand dreams.

When scholarly, smart Mary Margaret is sixteen her father marries her off to a drunken neighbor in return for a tract of land. The year is 1929, and Mary Margaret’s childhood has already been hard as a farm girl on the desolate prairies of North Dakota. Abused and helpless, the new Mrs. “Marge” Garrity seems destined for a tragic fate.
But Marge is determined to make her life count, no matter what. Her escape from her brutal marriage takes her to California, where she struggles to survive the Great Depression and soon answers the lure of the state’s untamed northern half. There, embraced by the rough-and-ready people who built the great Ruckachucky Dam on the American River, she begins to find her true mission in life and the possibility for love and happiness with an Army Corp engineer of Cherokee Indian descent.

This vivid saga of one woman’s life in the early decades of a turbulent century is told from the heart of a true storyteller in the grand tradition of women’s sagas.

Look for BEYOND THE BOUGAINVILLEA at Amazon.com and elsewhere in trade paperback and ebook. PDF review copies now available. Email Editor Deb Smith at editor@bellebooks.com