Monday, August 24, 2020

Copy Boy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud - Book Tour + Giveaway

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Join Us For This Tour from August 24 to September 18, 2020

BOOK DETAILS:

Series Title:  COPY BOY by Shelley Blanton-Stroud

Category:  Adult Fiction (18+)

Genre:  Noir, Historical Mystery, Literary

Publisher:  She Writes Press


Release dates:   June 23, 2020

Content Rating: PG-13 + M. The book includes: the F-word 7 times, the word "g--dammit" 4 times, and one violent fight in the beginning.


Book Description:
Jane’s a very brave boy. And a very difficult girl. She’ll become a remarkable
woman, an icon of her century, but that’s a long way off. Not my fault,
she thinks, dropping a bloody crowbar in the irrigation ditch after
Daddy. She steals Momma’s Ford and escapes to Depression-era San
Francisco, where she fakes her way into work as a newspaper copy boy.
Everything’s looking up. She’s climbing the ladder at the paper, winning
validation, skill, and connections with the artists and thinkers of her
day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper’s front page, his arm around
a girl who’s just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane’s
newspaper―hit in the head with a crowbar. Jane’s got to find Daddy
before he finds her, and before everyone else finds her out. She’s got
to protect her invented identity. This is what she thinks she wants.
It’s definitely what her dead brother wants.

 
Guest Post
They want to know about my main character Jane’s brother, Benjamin, her twin who died at birth. They ask how to explain the way his voice speaks in Jane’s head. Is it her imagination? Is he a ghost? Is his voice a delusion or hallucination? Is he literally there, with her?

I don’t have the “right” answer. Any and all of this might be true.  Any or all of it works for me.

But I’ll remind you of the words at Copy Boy’s beginning: “Your body’s a lightbulb. If it burns out or breaks, the electricity’s still there—you’re still there, still you. Benjamin Franklin Hopper was born into a shattered bulb, shards buried under the loose gray silt of a ravaged Texas plain, but his energy never diffused.”

Though Benjamin died at birth, Jane thinks his electricity continues to hover over her until a moment of great crisis, when she cracks, and his electricity enters her body and begins to control her choices. Maybe that does sound crazy, pathological.

On the other hand, every one of us is controlled by electrical pulses running through our bodies. We’re made of masses of atoms, generating electricity, sending signals, firing synapses. This electrical messaging makes our hearts speed up when we're in danger. This happens to Jane. When she senses danger or even a surge of confidence, she feels like it’s a message from Benjamin.


I don’t really know the answer to this question. Maybe Jane is having some kind of mental breakdown. Maybe this is what it feels like to be haunted by a ghost. Or maybe this is real, explained by science. And maybe that’s true for all of us—that we continue to receive messages, impulses, instincts from the people we’ve loved, even when they are no longer standing right next to us, influencing us in their absence.



Meet the Author:
Shelley Blanton-Stroud grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of
Dust Bowl immigrants who made good on their ambition to get out of the
field. She teaches college writing in Northern California and consults
with writers in the energy industry. She co-directs Stories on Stage
Sacramento, where actors perform the stories of established and emerging
authors, and serves on the advisory board of 916 Ink, an arts-based
creative writing nonprofit for children. She has also served on the
Writers’ Advisory Board for the Belize Writers’ Conference. Copy Boy is
her first novel, and she’s currently working on her second. She also
writes and publishes flash fiction and non-fiction, which you can find
at such journals as Brevity and Cleaver. She and her husband live in
Sacramento with an aging beagle and many photos of their out-of-state sons.

Connect with the author:   website  ~  twitter  ~  facebook  ~ instagram ~ bookbub




Tour Schedule:
Aug 24 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway

Aug 25 - Locks, Hooks and Books – audiobook review / giveaway

Aug 25 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway

Aug 26 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review / giveaway

Aug 27 – I'm Into Books – book spotlight / giveaway

Aug 28 – Reading Authors Network – book review / giveaway

Aug 28 - PuzzlePaws Blog - audiobook review / giveaway

Aug 31 – Sefina Hawke's Books – book spotlight

Sep 1 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book review / giveaway

Sep 2 – T's Stuff – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway

Sep 2 - Literary Flits – book review / giveaway

Sep 3 – She Just Loves Books – audiobook review / giveaway

Sep 4 –Pick a Good Book - book spotlight / giveaway

Sep 7 – Svetlanas reads and views – book review

Sep 8 – 100 Pages A Day – book review / giveaway

Sep 9 – Olio by Marilyn – book spotlight / author interview

Sep 9 - Olio by Marilyn – book review / giveaway

Sep 10 – Books for Books – audiobook review

Sep 11 – Hall Ways Blog – audiobook review / giveaway

Sep 14 – Amy's Booket List – audiobook review / giveaway

Sep 15 – Casia's Corner – book review

Sep 16 – Dab of Darkness Audiobook Reviews – audiobook review / author interview / giveaway

Sep 17 –Pen Possessed - book review / giveaway

Sep 18 - My Fictional Oasis – book review

Sep 18 - PuzzlePaws Blog - book review / giveaway


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2 comments:

Please try not to spam posts with the same comments over and over again. Authors like seeing thoughtful comments about their books, not the same old, "I like the cover" or "sounds good" comments. While that is nice, putting some real thought and effort in is appreciated. Thank you.

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