Knowing by Laurel Dewey/PICT Review and Guest Post

 

Today Ms Laurel Dewey Joins us with a guest post.   Please welcome her, (soft applause).   Take it away, Laurel!

Guest Post:  A Day In My Life—Then & Now

By Laurel Dewey

            There’s a rugged romanticism about writers and how we live our lives. If the movies were true, we’d all be holed up in stone cottages by the seashore or nestled in rustic cabins in a rural mountain setting, wearing sweaters with holes in it and carrying around a ridiculously large mug of coffee. I assure it, none of that is true. Well, at least not for me.

            When I’m writing a book, it probably would be good choice to isolate myself in that cottage or cabin because the distractions of writing from home are nothing short of…well…distracting. Life goes on around you while you are supposed to be focused one hundred and fifty percent on your characters, the story arc, and much more. Thus, a long time ago I figured out that unless I wanted my life to unravel at the seams, it was best to figure out how to create balance in my day.

            But “balance” takes on a different meaning when you’re single then it does when you’re married.

When I was single and writing, a day in my life was very easy to describe. Wake up at 10:00am on the nose, exercise for thirty minutes, drink a morning smoothie, shower, spend one to two hours returning phone calls and emails, eat lunch, run short errands, be back at the house by no later than 2:30 and start writing. Take a break at 11:00pm to eat dinner (yep, that’s what I used to do), watch the news and go back to writing. Wrap it up at 3:00am, turn off the lights, go to bed….Wake up at 10:00am on the nose the next morning and repeat. Calling me a “night person” back then was akin to calling Hugh Hefner “good with the ladies”—it’s an understatement. There was something about the dead silence of the night that wrapped me in its arms and allowed me to listen to the creative muse.

            But that was then and this is now. When I got married, I knew my daily writing life would change or I’d never have another conversation with my husband that didn’t begin and end with “goodnight.” As willing as I was, it wasn’t easy at first to adjust the dial on my creative muse. When a muse is used to working the nightshift, it takes her a while to get used to the daylight and generate ideas. But adjust she did and my writing days now have morphed into a much more sensible pattern.

            My day usually starts between 7:30am and 8:00am. I still get in thirty minutes of exercise. If it’s winter, I jump on my mini-trampoline for fifteen minutes, go ten minutes on the elliptical and then lift some weights. After showering, and drinking my smoothie (yep, I still drink a smoothie in the morning), I walk into my home office and answer emails (which can take anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes). I then “allow” myself thirty minutes to surf the Internet. If I didn’t allow myself that time, I’d truly not know what was going on in the world since I don’t watch a lot of TV. After that, I write.

In a good day, I can easily write about five pages; on a great day, I can write as many as ten. (We writers live and breathe on our daily page counts when we are writing a book.) And when I’m on a roll, five solid pages takes about six to seven hours to write. And when I’m done with that, I call it a day. No more writing into the early morning hours. Interestingly, since I got married and did a 180 degree turnaround as to how I write, I don’t feel embraced by nighttime anymore. I’ve grown accustomed now to my revised routine and learned that the daylight—along with its buzzing, noise and energy—charges my creative juices. And I’m happy I made the change because, best of all, at the end of the day, I get to spend time with my best friend.
 Thank you for joining us Laurel.   We very much appreciate your visit!

Synopsis:

After the life-altering ending in the third Jane Perry thriller, REVELATIONS, Jane Perry takes time off from the job to find the missing part of herself she never knew existed. But her journey is quickly hijacked when a wanted criminal, Harlan Kipple, steals her car. Kipple—accused of the heinous murder of a prostitute in a seedy motel—is on the run and desperate to stay that way. Jane’s personal plans take a back seat as she tracks down her stolen ride and discovers through an unusual source that Kipple may be innocent and is being framed by a nefarious group. When she trails Kipple and confronts him, every belief she ever had about this world and the next is put to the test. 

Kipple, who by his own admission is not the “brightest bulb in the box,” received a heart transplant seventeen months ago. His life changed from the moment he woke up in the recovery room. In fact, he’s not so sure where he ends and his heart takes over. As strange as that sounds to her, Jane cannot deny what she witnesses after spending just two days with Kipple. It becomes clear that nothing is what it appears as Jane is drawn into a deep rabbit hole with dark webs and darker crevices that force her to operate on the other side of the law. With the police hot on Kipple’s tail and a devious faction intent on finding him first, Jane is caught in the middle and realizes that solving this crime could have fatal consequences. 

With themes as diverse as immortality, regeneration, resurrection, transformation and death, author Laurel Dewey tackles this latest Jane Perry novel with originality and plenty of suspense. “Finding yourself” takes on a whole new meaning in KNOWING.






Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound



         

Please note:

• Excessive language 
• Graphic violence

More Info:

# of Pages: 450
Genre: Suspense
Publisher: The Story Plant
Publication Date: December 4,  2012
ISBN-10:  1611880491
ISBN-13:  978-1611880496

My Review:

This my friends, is an awesome read from Ms Dewey.   I had not read Ms Dewey's previous Jane Perry series, (Books 1-3), but I will be seeking them out.  Jane is a well written and strong female protagonist.   She has history that shaped her strength of character and is very much a loner in this read.   Life is leading her on a wild ride with an accused killer;  a gentle giant who is harmless and his transplanted heart which has  a life all its own.  She is the only one who is trying to save him from the police and the evil group that set him up for the murder of a young black prostitute.

Give this book a read!   Ms Dewey has plenty to say and says it with fluency, suspense and holds your attention right to the end!   An enjoyable read from start to finish with tons of action!

Author:

Laurel Dewey was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the author of two nonfiction books on plant medicine, a Silver Spur nominated Western novella, hundreds of articles, and three other novels in her Jane Perry suspense series, Protector, Redemption, and Revelations along with the Jane Perry novelettes An Unfinished Death and Promissory Payback and the story collection Unrevealed. She is also the author of the novel Betty’s Little Basement Garden.

Visit her website:
www.laureldewey.com

 

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