Another amazing review...and a new book I think you would enjoy

Before I published The Color of Thunder, I didn't think much about other writers...at least writer's I don't usually read. For some reason I had it in my head that there is a big competition out there...or that author's were each on their own fighting to be on top. This, my friends, is not the case, and I'm so glad that it isn't. 

Mind you, I wasn't really sure what it was going to be like to be published. I started The Color of Thunder  way back in the late 90's. I was afraid for a long time, rewriting and editing the same chapters over and over again because I was fearful of actually putting myself out there to be read and judged. Then my husband and I began our family and, although I thought about this unfinished novel a lot, I was immersed in this wonderful thing called motherhood. When I went back to it, really got serious about it, it wasn't that I wasn't afraid any longer, (truthfully, in many ways I still am,) but the time to finish it and to get it published had arrived and I decided that I wasn't going to quit until it was out there.

Success!

My experience has been amazing...mind-blowing and wonderful. I have met some incredible authors who I am excited to call my friends. That whole competition thing? Not so much. All of us want to help one another, we want the other to succeed. We email, read each other's novels, post reviews and encourage. It's awesome.

I've already written about an author by the name of RP Dahlke. She writes mysteries and I'd already read and enjoyed all four of her books before we had an occasion to talk to one another. She's writing a fifth book right now and if you like a good mystery with a bit of humor and a great cast of characters, I suggest you check her out here:

http://www.amazon.com/RP-Dahlke/e/B004S2NJFO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1368179741&sr=1-2-ent

There's another author I'd like to encourage you to read as well. Actually, a pair of them. They are a husband and wife writing team, one from New Zealand and one from England, and their pen name is Lambert Nagle. This is the review of The Color of Thunder that I received a few days ago from them.

The Color of Thunder is a beautifully written coming-of-age story told from the viewpoint of Faith, one of three sisters in the Lindsay family. The story begins in 1946 in Jackson, Mississippi. These folks are model citizens: fine, upstanding, and pillars of the community and none is more self-righteous than the Lindsay family patriarch. Or at least this is what Pastor Lindsay would like his family to believe but one night Faith witnesses her father's dirty little secret first-hand, which forces her to confront Pastor Lindsay's warped religious belief system. By day he likes to preach God's word, spouting homilies such as 'love thy neighbour.' But by night, he and his fellow citizens have no qualms in carrying out vigilante acts of unspeakable violence towards their fellow man. And all the while the womenfolk either don't know or worse still, pretend not to know and turn the other cheek.

As a fellow reviewer has noted, there are parallels here with Louisa May Alcott's Little Women here and this is what lifts this story above its peers. To re-imagine the family saga and update it for the 20th century, replacing the Civil War with the Civil Rights movement is astute and brave. In the hands of a lesser writer this might have been difficult to pull off but J.C. Wing does a magnificent job and does so with such accomplished writing that I can't imagine why no agent or publisher has yet seen the commercial potential in her work. More fool them.

I would give this book 5 stars for the characterisations alone. Faith and her sister Hope are living, breathing, three-dimensional characters. Faith is as patient as Hope is feisty and for much of their childhood Faith despairs that her sister will ever grow up. But the bonds of sisterhood are too strong to allow the temporary setbacks to dent their solid friendship, although Hope at times seems to be a very hard person to love. As Faith says,' I love my sister unconditionally and no matter how mean and rotten she'd been to me or how many names she called me, I was there for her and she always knew where to find me.'

The other achievements in this richly evocative tale were the finely observed details that invoke all the senses. You can almost taste the food made by Faith's downtrodden mother - from the peach cobbler to the fried chicken and creamy mashed potatoes. And as I finished the book I imagined I could smell the unmistakable fragrance of magnolia as it was just beginning to fade...
But the lingering memory I will have of The Color of Thunder is the advice that Faith's friend Ruby gave her as a lasting legacy - 'grab all the sweet you can in this life.'

Move over Jane Smiley, J.C. Wing has arrived!

Right now I am in the process of reading Lambert Nagle's book Revolution Earth and I am enjoying it immensely. It takes place in four different continents and is written in a rich, colorful and engaging language that is so entirely entertaining. It's a thriller involving a Metropolitan Police Detective, a Big Oil PR guru, a group of eco-terrorists and one determined girl suffering from the injustices of a seemingly uncaring legal system. I will save the rest of my narrative for the glowing review of this book that I plan to post shortly but I will say this: Read this book...you will not be disappointed!

Check out this link to read more about this writing team and to purchase Revolution Earth. 

http://www.amazon.com/Lambert-Nagle/e/B008AV2NXI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

It's available from amazon in paperback for $8.97. The Kindle version is only $2.99. 

Summer time is nearly upon us and a lot of us will be traveling. You need a book to read on the bus/train/plane/boat. This one would be an excellent one to have on hand.

a little something about spring

I belong to a writing group set up by an awesome librarian and friend of mine by the name of Holly. She runs the library on the Vogelweh base and back in February she asked me to join.  It's called the Writer's Emporium and I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the experience but was very happy I chose to attend the first meeting. I was newly published and very excited to go and talk about my new book and share with the group the things I'd learned from self publishing.

We decided that our first writing assignment would be about the month of March. A lot of things happen for me in March...it's kind of a big month for me, but I chose to take a fanciful path with this prompt. I thought I'd share it here. Hooray for spring! I'd love to hear your comments. Please leave one for me if you're so inclined. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

           The young woman’s arm, outstretched and hanging over the shining metal of the car in which she rode bucked gently in the wind, her fingers pressed together in a mock salute and her hand riding the air currents rushing past the open window. Clouds were forming in the sky looking like swollen dirty cotton balls as they rolled in and began spitting cold rain that dotted the pale protruding limb. The only color she could see was the shiny, bright, neon pink polish she’d picked up on sale a few days ago at the mall that covered her short oval nails like enthusiastic little flags moving in the chilly wind. March comes in like a lion so the old saying goes, and that was the truth of it. What used to be the first month of the year many years ago in Rome was arriving quickly on the coat tails of winter, full of boisterous bluster much like the growling and grumbling in the back of a big cat’s throat.

Brown eyes raised upward and squinted against the oncoming rain to watch the clouds that now looked like thick plumes of smoke rising from the ruins of a city demolished in heated dusty battle. From within the amorphous swirls of darkening silver and gray, the girl almost believed she could see the figure of a man, tall and broad shouldered carrying a spear in one meaty fist, the weapon wrapped in a thick vine of laurel. Mars, the Roman god of war looked to be treading upon an unstable ground of moving gray with a pair of large bare feet and hairy unclothed legs beneath a skirt that looked surprisingly masculine while motioning time itself to move forward with a wave of his powerful arm. The thirty-one days of this unpredictable month boasted the name of this esteemed mythological deity who was said to have used his military power to secure peace, and each minute ticked by like an attentive and patient soldier in his army as the rain continued to fall and slowly obliterate from view the swirling clouds that moved above the speeding car.

With a turn of the head and a pair of raised eyebrows from the front passenger seat the girl acquiesced to the silent maternal request, first tossing a temperamental roll of her eyes before moving her wet arm into the warmth of the vehicle as the window whirred silently upward and locked itself into the frame. Almost instantly the glass was covered in a countless array of dots of cool rain, each one a round wet orb that splintered and multiplied her view of the outside world. If there had been a question of the god of war’s existence just moments before it was all but obliterated now as the sleek lines of the car moved quickly above wet pavement, throwing up a pair of plumes the color of ice behind the rear tires. The clouds above continued to move and churn as the chill in the interior of the car was chased away by the warm air spewing from the vents in the dash board. The change in temperature and the weather stubbornly limited her view and encouraged the teen to relax in her seat, her blond head pressed against the soft pliable leather as the film of limitless road and soft-edged scenery rushed past in a watery colorless blur.

Like the rhythmic beat of the windshield wipers that cleared the driver’s view in the front seat, the words in the ten syllable pattern of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter telling the tale of Julius Ceasar marched silently into her memory. She thought of her English class situated teasingly before the forty minutes of freedom that was lunch period and the steady, not completely unpleasant drone of her teacher’s voice as he recited the dying words of the Roman dictator uttered while he is being brutally murdered by a pack of conspirators at the Senate. “Et tu, Brute?” the dying man whispers as he falls dead upon the ground on the ill-fated day now remembered as the Ides of March. As the girl slowly drifts to sleep, a thoughtful smile plays along the line of her lips. A soothsayer’s warning and a wife’s premonition be damned. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be stubborn. Behind her now closed eyes she sees a vision before her; one of many a teen girl’s dreams in the shape of a handsome hulking vampire with a very unsexy moniker that hardly matches the body seen beneath the Calvin Klein underwear campaign he modelled for. The fifteenth day of March hadn’t been lucky for old Ceasar, she thought, but that was way back in 44 BC. It was so hard to mourn the death of someone she never even knew when more than 2,000 years later God saw fit to bring Kellan Lutz into the world on that very same day. Her smile widened just for a moment with the thought that the Ides of March was not entirely bad before she allowed the thump of the wipers and the movement of the car to lull her into the land of dreams.

It felt as though winter had shown up, liked the surroundings and settled itself for an interminable amount of time with its sharp claws imbedded firmly into the very fabric of the young woman’s being. The grayness and bitter temperatures seemed more like permanent residents instead of seasonal visitors and the twitch beneath her skin that felt like spring time had grown into an uncontrollable itch that no amount of scratching could diminish. She was no snow bunny and the bleak white canvas filled with nothing but shadows of screeching, dark winged birds and tall scraggly arms of bare trees reaching eerily up into the dense milky sky had her inner beach bum screaming to be heard. The girl longed for March’s lions, their eyes dark green with spots of red the color of bloodstones to stalk across the sky on big padded paws and pull from behind their muscled backs the wide warm banners of crisp aquamarine like bright Mardi Gras flags brightening up the sky to usher in the first day of spring. Nothing could bring out the drama queen in this sun worshipping girl more than winter’s never ending cold and snow, and no doubt the Old Bard himself would have happily awarded her over enthusiastic mental rumblings a well-deserved round of applause.

She barely heard the noise at first, so immersed in her silent diatribe against the bleakness of the first two months of the year that it took her mind a handful of minutes to register the tapping somewhere near the vicinity of her right elbow. She slit one eye open and focused on the culprit; one small and rather dirty troll strapped tightly into a heavy duty car seat next to her. There were square shaped books with hard unbendable pages and a cup with a supposedly spill proof lid leaking a suspicious honey colored liquid that smelled like sweet white grapes lying across a pair of rather chubby denim-clad legs. On the ends of those legs were two kicking feet keeping time with the almost lyrical gibberish flowing out of the toddler’s graham cracker encrusted mouth, and hair several shades darker than his older sister’s stuck out at wild angles giving him the look of a very young but energetic rock star. The girl wanted to be annoyed by the interruption of her nap but upon resting her eyes on her baby brother’s chubby pink tinted cheeks she found herself smiling at him instead. Okay, he wasn’t a troll she silently conceded. A pixie, maybe, or perhaps a leprechaun. Yes, she thought with a nod of her head, that’s what he is. He’s a leprechaun though cuter than most she’d seen depicted in books or movies but still as short and unruly. The stripes in his long sleeved shirt were the bright green color of the three-leaved shamrocks that St. Patrick used to teach the Trinity to the pagan Irish. The little imp grinned as he twisted in his chair to look at his sister and the smile on her face widened in return. The only rainbow he was liable to lead her to was perhaps a pilfered package of Skittles candy broken open and spilled on the floor, or a bright array of building blocks that hurt the tender insteps of her feet when she tried to traverse the messy landscape of the child’s room in the dark.

She reached for the upended cup and felt the stickiness of the juice coat the pads of her fingers. Score another point for false advertising, she thought. The lid was definitely not spill proof but who in the world would notice after looking at the mess her brother had become since he’d climbed into the car seat more than an hour before?

“Be like the Irish, little man,” she said quietly handing the cup over to him. The little sprite reached over with a pudgy hand and took it from her exchanging the juice for a wide gap-toothed smile. “Drink up.” When he wrapped his lips around the spout and took a pull from it the girl laughed. With that diaper of his bowing his short little legs he walked a bit like a drunkard much like any other toddler she’d ever seen, and without a nap he was nearly as surly and cantankerous as a few of the drunks she’d encountered.

With a shake of her head she turned and peered out of her window once more to find that the thick veil of clouds had begun to part. The rain was still spitting at her window but with much less intensity and the drone of the windshield wipers had slowed to a sluggish beat. She had to squint to see it but she was sure that the tiny little triangle of sky she saw behind the gray curtain was actually blue. Her eyes held fast to it as if they were daring it to change but she remained hopeful that it wouldn’t. It was the pale soft color of a robin’s egg nestled in a nest and the shell grew a little bit bigger as she focused on it, the cars and highway signs a blur in her peripheral vision.

Gradually the rain let up altogether and what remained was a world left shiny and clean if not still a bit chilled by the cool air. It looked reborn, almost fragile in its new state and as the clouds loosened the threads of their fabric and the weave became looser and looser, more of the pale blue sky was revealed. The girl silently coaxed the sun out of its den like she would a baby bird out of its shell. “Come on out,” she thought, the voice in her head gentle and soothing. “Come out and meet this cold winter world that needs your heat and light.” As if it had actually been listening to her the soft rays of sun peeked through, rays as warm and soft as thick creamy butter burned off more of the clouds and ever so faintly there appeared to be the smallest hint of a rainbow, the streams barely creating the merest suggestion of pastel colors reflected in the moisture that still hung in the air.

The car slowed and veered right off of the highway and the quiet clicking sound of the blinker faintly filled the warm air. Smoothly the girl’s father turned left and the scenery from the other side of the window moved but not on high speed as before. The girl caught glimpses of shiny rain washed windows glinting in the increasingly courageous rays of the sun above and the bare limbs of the trees were showing small tightly folded buds dotted along the wooden sleeves like little decorative buttons. Dirt as dark as coal filled planters and roadside gardens, the brave thick stalks pushing up through it the color of emeralds and sporting long wrapped hats the shade of downy feathers on a newly hatched chick.

A smile floated across the teen’s glossy lips once more as she peered up and watched the movement of the clouds, their shape rounded and snowy white now and moving across the sky like a herd of lazily grazing sheep. These were March’s lambs quietly following the thunderous noise of the lions and she decided she liked them just fine. Yes, she liked them very much indeed.

                                                                                                                              

I am now a part of the USAFE library directory

The Color of Thunder is now listed in the United States Air Force in Europe library  system. How cool is that? I received this email a few days ago stating that the book  had come in and that it was ready for me to pick up. ***** Vogelweh Library <vogelweh.library@sirsidynix.com>

 Vogelweh Library                       04/18/2013                         MPS

 86 FSS/FSDLV

The following item(s) are being held for you at the pick-up location listed below. 

We will reserve

the item(s) for you until close of business on the following date(s):

 Title                            Due/Expire Date Barcode             Call Number    Price

 ------------------------------   --------------- ---------------     --------------------Pickup Location

 The color of thunder /           04/25/2013      35612050403774      F WING              Vogelweh Library

*****

The libraries are important...and there are a lot of military families all over Europe who rely on the library system to supply them with the books that they need or want. (There aren't a lot of Barnes and Noble's around the streets of Germany, Spain or Italy selling books in English...and military families live on a budget. It's too difficult to buy every book a person might want to read.) I filled out a purchase request for The Color of Thunder and it was immediately approved. Because I was the one who requested it, it came to me as soon as it arrived and I couldn't be happier. Now all of the wonderful men and women who serve in the United States Air Force and their families can borrow my book.

I'm hoping it will be well traveled!

Here's to our U.S. military...and to libraries, too.

Great new review for Color of Thunder on Amazon

I received an amazing review on Amazon yesterday and I wanted to share it with you. Here it is:

By RP Dahlke

Format:Kindle Edition

I don't read a lot of women's fiction, being a reader/writer of mysteries, however, when the author asked if I'd read for an honest review I said I'd put it on my TBR file--with no promises to read, finish, much less write a glowing review.

I have to say I was immediately enchanted by the author's wonderfully colorful descriptions of Jackson Mississippi. Everything from the flowering trees to the color of the windows in her preacher father's church are magical in the descriptions . And then there is the narrator, Faith, whose young life transcends from an eleven year old into, at the end, a young woman of deep personal convictions.

The book reminds me somewhat of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Faith is the oldest of three sisters, and yes, the youngest is born sickly, but beloved and fiercely protected by her two older sisters.

There's loss, love discovered and tragedy in this book, and through it all there's triumph in the end.

I am so impressed by the writing in this book, that I have to say that I think J.C. Wing has the potential of becoming one of America's top women fiction authors, and I look forward to reading more of her wonderful stories. If you like Anne Tyler you'll love J.C. Wing.

RP Dahlke, author of the Dead Red Series, and A Dangerous Harbor on Kindle

This was left by a fellow author named RP Dahlke. Here is a link to her Amazon page if you'd like to wander over there for a  visit.

http://www.amazon.com/RP-Dahlke/e/B004S2NJFO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1366458013&sr=8-2-ent

I have read all four of her books and think they are terrific.

Don't forget to visit my Amazon page as well:

http://www.amazon.com/J.-C.-Wing/e/B00AZXVS1W/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Right now Amazon is selling my paperback for $17.99 which is two dollars off the original price. The Kindle version is only $3.99. 

Happy reading, everyone!

Goodreads giveaway winners and Wee Care Community Outreach program

Well, I have to say that I am pleasantly and wonderfully surprised by the final results of my goodreads book giveaway. There were 546 entries altogether! This astounds me and makes me incredibly happy.

I wanted to say congrats to the two winners, H.D. and Gary. I won't use last names because I didn't ask for permission to post their information. I sent the books off yesterday. I hope they enjoy them!

I also sent another book off yesterday. I donated it to a woman who entered my giveaway and sent me a very nice  email about my book. Her name is Savannah Lowery and she is the founder of a non profit organization called Wee Care Community Outreach, Inc. based out of Dalton, Georgia. I was intrigued by what she and her family are doing and I asked her if I might share some details about her work here on my blog. The following are excerpts from her goodreads page as well as the emails I received from her.

~~~~~

When I win books, after I read them I donate them to the small non profit organization which I founded. We have 3 literacy awareness programs and each book helps to promote literacy among at-risk lower income children who can not afford books as well as patients recovering from illnesses, surgeries, and injuries while they stay in the hospital. 

We accept youth-YA books for our childrens program. (We offer children free books to help promote literacy. These children are lower income and families who can not buy books)

We have a program which lends books to patients in hospitals recovering from surgery, illness, or injury. Often times patients are by themselves for long periods of time. We believe that books take patients minds off of their pain and healing. Books take their minds to creative places and allow the body to heal faster.

Lastly, we accept books for fundraising for our programs. At times other things are needed to run the programs (books shelves, stationary products, etc-BUT we do NOT pay anyone who helps with our programs, everyone volunteers their time). We use books donated for fundraising to help us with the purchase of more books, supplies, and etc. 

If you would be interested in donating, please send us a message or ship books directly to us. Books can be sent to:

Wee Care Community Outreach, Inc
C/O Dawn Lowery
2873 Wells Drive
Dalton, Georgia 30721

Our direct email is: everythingunderthemoonwv@gmail.com

Find us on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wee-Care-Outreach-Corp/379506468796582?fref=ts

~~~~~

Savannah enters many book giveaways on goodreads and then donates the books she wins. I know that she asks authors to donate their own books, but book donations from anywhere are helpful. I chose to donate a copy of The Color of Thunder to Savannah after doing further research about Wee Care Community Outreach and when Alabama Skye is published, I will send her a copy of that one as well. I can't even count how many times a book has helped me. If I can be a part of that, I'm all in.

Only two more days left for the goodreads giveaway!

Just a reminder...my goodreads giveaway ends in two days! 312 readers have entered to win one of two signed paperback copies. If you're interested, enter quick!

Here's the link:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17194440-the-color-of-thunder

Alabama Skye...second novel coming soon!

            I am not exactly sure when this second novel will be ready to publish but my goal is to have it out by the end of 2013. I have just completed a synopsis for the book and wanted to include it here.

When tragedy befalls Cheney McGillvray, she decides to pack up and leave her beloved home on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. She travels to the beachfront town of Kelby on Alabama's gulf coast and appears unannounced on her sister Meara's doorstep with a plan not only for her own future but also for that of her niece.

Greer, fresh out of culinary school and two months pregnant, takes the advice of her headstrong grandmother Sarah, and agrees to a partnership with her aunt. Together they transform Sarah’s beautiful old home into a proper Scottish B & B right in the heart of America’s southland.

Both women realize the time to face their pasts has arrived in the weeks before they are to open Gannon’s Glen. Cheney finds it difficult to hide the darkness of her past when she begins suffering from debilitating nightmares that bring Greer to her bedside at night and a hurricane sweeps in more than stormy weather. News of the destruction of his childhood home brings Greer’s high school sweetheart and their unresolved relationship back into town. Although they are nearly strangers separated by a forty year age gap, Cheney and Greer lean on one another as they come to terms with their lives and realize the possibilities of their futures.

Sprinkled with humor and colorful descriptions of both the Gulf Coast and that of Scotland’s Inner Hebridean Islands, Alabama Skye is a story about the strength of four generations of women who believe that when things go wrong the ones who stand by you and the ones who lift you up without flinching are the ones you call family.

I am very excited about Alabama Skye. I will keep you posted on its progress here as I get further along in the manuscript.

There is still so much going on for my first novel, The Color of Thunder. Thanks so much to those of you who have left me reviews on Amazon. Reviews are incredibly important to authors so please, if you've read the book and haven't left one, I ask you kindly to do so. You will have my eternal gratitude.

150 people have signed up to win one of two autographed paperback versions of The Color of Thunder on goodreads so far. If you haven't yet but want to, follow this link and enter. The giveaway ends on April 15th. Please enter! Tell your friends to enter!

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/48734-the-color-of-thunder

The weekend is coming up. Hope you all have a good one!

Goodreads giveaway starts today!

Okay, it's begun! If you're interested in winning one of two autographed paperback copies of The Color of Thunder, please visit my page on goodreads.com to enter. 

Here's the link:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17194440-the-color-of-thunder

You can also reach it by clicking on the Enter to Win button to the right of this post here on my blog. Please enter and tell your friends to enter! Remember...I have no say at all in who wins the two copies. Goodreads runs the entire giveaway and lets me know at the end whom I need to send the books to. The giveaway runs from April 1st through April 15th.

Good luck!

Win an autographed paperback of The Color of Thunder!

Hello, all!

Wanted to let you know about a giveaway I'm doing through goodreads. I have two autographed paperback copies of The Color of Thunder available and between April 1 - April 15, you can enter to win one of them. Below find the link to the giveaway, (this may not be the only link...it's not actually up and running for two more days but you can surely get there from here.)

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/48734-the-color-of-thunder

You can also click on the Enter to Win button to the right underneath the Goodreads Book Giveaway here on my blog. (Just look to the right.)

I hope many of you enter! I am not the one who determines the winners...that's all on goodreads. I will sign the books and simply mail them out once the giveaway is over. Please enter!

A few tidbits about the paperback...

I took the cover photograph while on a road trip in South Carolina. Of course the sky wasn't purple...that I added while playing with the picture later. Also, the author photo on the back cover was taken by my hubby while we were on a family trip to one of our favorite castles here in Germany. I wrote the text on the back cover and my publisher, Xlibris put it all together. I am quite proud of the way it all turned out. I hope you like it, too.

Great new blog for new authors

I belong to a couple of different writing groups through Google+. The other day I received an email from one of the members who has spent a great deal of time and energy compiling a list of newly established writers and is inviting them to become a part of a directory he's created on a wordpress blog. I happily took him up on his offer and wanted to send out the link here:

 http://establishingwriter.wordpress.com

The blog is beautifully put together and I am happy to be a part of it. I am listed under fiction. Please go check this blog out and visit some of these new author's webpages. I know they'd be grateful that you did.

New reviews on Amazon

I have received some wonderful reviews from readers on Amazon. Check these out:

The Color of Thunder is a slice of heartfelt American history that comes to life. It spoke to me about a time, generation, and location I previously knew very little about. The author J.C Wing, gave life to the journey of a young girl named Faith Lindsay raised in Mississippi from 1946-1965. The details in the book are written so that we the audience experience every detail- I could actually feel the hard pew underneath me, the hot southern sun shining down on me, and taste the southern cooking. You live the responsibilities of our heroine to be a dutiful daughter, loving sister, and a fighter against civil injustices. It’s funny; we always think that things were simpler long ago. We live in a high-tech world living at a fast pace and this book shows us through its passionate and relative writing that growing up is never easy and each generation has struggles. We all have to worry about family expectations, choosing right from wrong, and what we would do if we witnessed civil injustices and how those decisions/actions would shape the people we want to become. The heroine Faith does all of that and more. Reading about her journey is thought-provoking, emotional, and above all else… meaningful.

~~~~~~~~~~

Having grown up in the South during the 60's, I can tell you that Ms. Wing has captured the essence of Southern family life during the 50's and 60's. Her vivid descriptive palette places you in the middle of not only the Linsey family, but into the very feeling of the conflicts Southerners experienced during those turbulent times.

Well done. 4.5/5 stars

~~~~~~~~~~~

I loved this story of the old south. I love the descriptions JC gives about the characters and the scenery. I feel like I am right there alongside the characters in their every day lives. This is an awesome first book by the author. I can't wait to read more from her!

~~~~~~~~~~

This is a wonderful read. I love books that take you to a different place and this one does it. Great debut novel!

~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you to all that have read The Color of Thunder and to those of you who have reviewed it. I am still offering free e-book review copies. Let me know if you're interested.

Googling myself

Yep, it's true. I googled myself. Forgive me. I was curious. This is what I found...

Did you know that there is a restaurant in La Feria, Texas named JC Wing Co.?

It's true. They serve chicken wings, burgers and sandwiches...and it looks like a place I'd really like to have dinner sometime.

There's also another company that shares my name. They make aircraft models, which makes sense.

I also found something else that was pretty cool...maybe you'd like to check it out.

http://authors.xlibrispublisher.com/in-the-news/xlibris-author-j-c-wing

I didn't know this particular article was out there. See? It never hurts to google yourself. At least once in a while.

Book upload available now on goodreads!

I'm hoping I've done everything the way I need to in order to make it possible to download The Color of Thunder from my goodreads author page. I believe there is an excerpt of 20% of the book...which takes you into chapter 8. From there you can buy the rest of the book if you're so inclined. Remember, the ebook version is only $3.59 for Nook and $3.99 for Kindle. A book for the cost of a trip to Starbucks? That's not too bad. :)

Here's the link:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17194440-the-color-of-thunder

Click the "dowload e-book" button to the right of the book cover and there you go.

(Some of the formatting is a bit different than my original copy, but I know from firsthand experience that the Kindle ebook is laid out beautifully.)

This blog now has 930 page views. Thanks to everyone who has checked in. Please come back and visit me again!

Free e-book copies of The Color of Thunder!

Yep...I'm giving away ten free copies of my book...but there's a catch. I need a review on both Amazon and on Barnes and Noble in exchange. What do you think?

I have two versions of the e-book available so if you're interested, let me know which one you want. EPUB is the version all of you Apple users will need. It's also what Nook readers use. MOBI is supported by Kindle. Remember, you can download a Kindle app and read on your computer as well. 

If you feel like reading a free book then giving me a couple of reviews, please let me know. Either leave a comment on the blog or send me an email at: 

jcwing.novelist@gmail.com

Thanks everyone!

Come visit me on facebook

Hello!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I now have an author page on facebook if you'd like to come and check it out. Here's the link:

www.facebook.com/jcwing.novelist

I got a shipment of all my author's copies yesterday. Very exciting! For anyone who has read it, or plans to read it, I'm in desperate need of reviews on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It only takes a minute to do and I'll be eternally grateful to you for it. Thanks in advance!