A Book and a Chat with Andre Phillip-Hautecoeur

Andre Phillip-Hautecoeur is not a writer, or that is how he defines himself, he is simply a person who had an urge to share something with an audience and write something about Paris. This he explains during today’s "A Book and a Chat”.

Paris is a city where romance, history, fantasy and enchantment meet, Andre’s novel “One Exquisite Night in Paris” is that and so much more.

Andre came to know and love Paris hanging onto the hem of his wife’s skirt. She’s Parisian, she’s everything French without constraint; she makes understanding all of Parisness a pleasure. An understanding which made him want to write this novel.

About “One Exquisite Night in Paris”: (taken from The Broken Bookshelf blog)

It’s a real story. A boy-meets-girl version of a girl-meets-boy story where she’s from Paris and doesn’t speak any English, while he’s from New York and speaks no French, and they only have one amazing thing in common. It’s a story for all who have yet to experience the most amazing night of their lives; a night impossible to live anywhere else but Paris…purposefully the most wonderfully enchanting city in the entire world. Enchantment, fantasy, luxury and fairytale all converge in only two places; once in our dreams and once when our dreams meet Paris. Everyone should live the perfect fantasy of “One Exquisite Night in Paris.”

It’s hard to give a genre to One Exquisite Night in Paris. The novel is an autobiography, telling the story of how Andre and his wife Eff meet. However, it is also a tour guide to the most amazing places in France and a lesson on France’s history and culture.

The novel alternates between Andre telling the story of him and his wife trying to start a life together, and his attempts to plan their ‘One Exquisite Night in Paris’. There are a few points in time where it may take a moment to realise that the story has switched from one tale to the other but it is generally a smooth read.

An unusual writing style is used in the novel, one which reminds me of something that was written in the late 1800s. Something about the style draws the reader in, especially since the writing matches the magical tone set in the novel when talking about Paris and romance.

"One Exquisite Night in Paris" is a novel is full of enchantment, fantasy, luxury and fairytale that converge in only two places; once in our dreams and once when our dreams meet Paris. The story distills into a perfect night; creating a memory which lasts forever.

So listen now and share an interesting, and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today on A Book and a Chat with Dr Jay Roberts

Barry
Direct link to the show
A Book and a Chat with Andre Phillip-Hautecoeur

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"Andre Phillip-Hautecoeur"

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"Andre Phillip-Hautecoeur - One Exquisite Paris Night in Paris"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

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A Book and a Chat with Mark J Grant

My guest today is Mark J Grant, a name well known to people in the financial world. Mark has run Capital Markets and been on the Board of Directors of four investment Banks. He was also the President of a public company in the Telecom space. He started writing “Out of the Box” an economic commentary about eleven years ago that now goes to some 5,000 financial institutions in 48 countries.

Mark has also written “Out of the Box and onto Wall Street: Unorthodox Insights on Investments and the Economy”, but now as they say on Monty Python for something completely different.

At a dinner party friends were discussing how there was not any “fairy tale” type books their young children could read and enjoy, Mark took matters into his own hands stating he would write such a book. The result is the wonderful “LILA: THE SIGN OF THE ELVEN QUEEN.”

About LILA: THE SIGN OF THE ELVEN QUEEN:

Lila is a polite six-year-old girl who lives with her mama and papa in New York City. She has two cats, and would now like to have a dog–except dogs are not allowed in her apartment building. After thinking about it for awhile, Lila asks her parents if she can have an invisible dog.

Her parents agree, and together they decide to name the dog Fluffy. On their way to the pet store to buy invisible supplies for the invisible dog, a black and white Aussie appears from around the corner and introduces himself to Lila, saying, “My name is Fluffy.”

 In a series of fun adventures that follow, Fluffy introduces Lila and her family to the invisible people of Iceland, who live inside the boulders of Central Park and the cornerstones of New York City buildings. One day, the invisible people discover that the birthmark on Lila’s left forearm is the sign of their Elven Queen, and just as she turns seven, Lila is made a princess. Can anything be better than that?

The book has proved to be a huge hit both with those reading it as well as being read to. A second book is already planned which I am sure will continue Mark down the path of a successful children’s book author.

So listen now and share an interesting, and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today on A Book and a Chat with Mark J Grant

Barry
Direct link to the show
A Book and a Chat with Mark J Grant

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"Mark J Grant"

You can find out more about my guest and their books at:
"Mark J Grant - LILA: THE SIGN OF THE ELVEN QUEEN"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

Check out my song parodies
Across The Pond LLC- Links to everything including song parodies

Author of "Across the Pond" and "The Bathroom Book of Romance"
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A Book and a Chat with C.S.Lakin

Back again for today’s show is the always popular author C.S. Lakin, who like every great fantasy author uses her initials in her pen name.

She comes from a family of successful writers. She grew up collating television scripts for her mother, a screenwriter, story editor, and producer for television.
As an adult, Susanne assisted in developing series for television, and while raising two daughters and running a bed and breakfast inn in northern California, wrote her first three novels and a cookbook. In 2009, Susanne’s contemporary novel, Someone to Blame won the Zondervan First Novel contest at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. As well as being an author of some twelve novels she works as a freelance copy editor and writing mentor.

Susanne also teaches at various conferences about the art of writing and as we heard during the show, over the holiday she has created a blog for nearly every day of the year to be used on new blog site she has created which will be filled with articles that focus on the craft of writing. All this information can be found on her new blog Live Write Thrive.

Since she was last on the show as well as publishing the next volume in the great “The Gates of Heaven” series, Susanne has two new mysteries up on ebook at Smashwords! Conundrum , an intense relational drama/mystery about betrayal and faithful love, and Innocent Little Crimes, a top 100 finalist in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, a mystery spinoff on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians.

There is always Time Sniffers, a wild young adult time-travel romance for teens who love science is now out. as an ebook.

With all this other work however my favouirite is her fantasy series “The Gates of Heaven”. Book three “The Land of Darkness” is now available, book four “The Unraveling of Wentwater” is in “gally” stage to be released in the spring, and book five “The Crystal Scepter” will be out later this year.

Each of the novels in “The Gates of Heaven” series are subtitled “fairy tales,” and this description becomes especially pointed in The Land of Darkness. The story has everything a reader could want – mysterious creatures, a quest, a story that never falters and even a wicked stepmother (think Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, a baddy that will make you laugh) and two ugly stepsisters. They all mold together in a third magical story, which again has twists and turns and adventures that make the reader work for their dose of fantasy.

And it’s all wonderful….

About “The Gates of Heaven”: (from Faith Fiction Friends)

Jadiel, a 12-year-old girl, lives with her wealthy father and stepmother on a spacious farm. The stepmother is not what she seems, and finds way to bewitch the father while she steps up her mistreatment of and cruelty to Jadiel. After several unsuccessful attempts to kill the girl, the stepmother sends her off to find the leaves of the terebinth tree, which no one seems to have heard of. If Jadiel fails in her quest, the stepmother will kill her father.

Callen, a young man not much older than Jadiel, works for the girl’s aunt and uncle. He becomes interested in old parchment drawings of a bridge, with words inscribed in an unknown language and the drawing of a giant tree. He leaves for the capital city of Sherbourne (which was the major setting of The Map Across Time) – and finds himself rescuing Jadiel from kidnappers.

Together, Callen and Jadiel embark upon a quest, she to save her father and he to find the bridge. Eventually they are joined by an old, scarred guide named Ebed, who directs them forward both geographically and spiritually.

The reader comes to understand that whatever else The Land of Darkness is, it is the story of a spiritual quest, one that transcends the fantasy its set within to become something very recognizable – the meaning of faith.

It’s a delightful, enchanting story. Even with the wicked stepmother.
As mentioned book four is already into printing stage and book five with the publishers, each book as well as being part of the series can be read as a standalone novel in its own right. I have really enjoyed reading this series and am already looking forward to the next book when it comes out in the spring time.

So listen now and share an interesting, and entertaining show as I chat with my special guest today on A Book and a Chat with C.S.Lakin

Barry

Direct link to the show
A Book and a Chat with C.S.Lakin

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"C.S.Lakin"

You can find out more about my guest and their books at:
"C.S.Lakin - The Gates of Heaven"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

A Book and a Chat with C.S Lakin

My guest C.S. Lakin makes a very welcome return on today’s "A Book and a Chat". Previously a guest on the show last December, when she chatted about her book “The Wolf of Tebron” the first book in the fantastic new fantasy series “The Gates of Heaven”. Is back to tell us more about the series and her new book (second in the series) “The Map Across Time”.

She wrote her first novel over twenty three years ago, and got picked up almost straight away by a top literary agent. But it was not an overnight success, writing subjects from suspense and mystery to sci-fi it never really happened. That is until the last couple of years, when two of her books were published within months of each other.

Her contemporary fiction novel “Someone to Blame” won the Zondervan First Novel contest in 2009. The book is full of tension, written with scenes and characters that make you wanting to keep turning the page, keeping the reader guessing as to what happens next.

About “The Gates of Heaven” series:

Fairy tales inspire hope, while at the same time impart life lessons as a hero or heroine ventures out into the world on a classic "hero's journey." Those of us raised reading fairy tales have had these values inculcated in us from early on, but it seems no one has taken the path of reinventing traditional fairy tales and turning them into full-length, original novels.

This is the aim of The Gates of Heaven collection of fairy tales: to draw from traditional, well-known classic tales and combine these elements with new storylines and deep characters. Designed to follow in the tradition of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia (but for a more adult and sophisticated audience), these tales meld humor, purpose, and inner struggles as characters seek heaven's will for their lives.

The Map Across Time:

The kingdom of Sherbourne is plagued by an ancient curse which must be halted before devastation results. The King's twin teenagers, Adin and Aletha, use a magical map to go back in time to discover the origin of the curse and its cure, but everything goes awry. Can Adin manipulate events in the stream of time to assure the salvation of his kingdom?

We heard also about the third book in the series “The Land of Darkness" as well as a little hint about the fourth of this seven book series, also about another fantasy book to do with time travel.. and so much more… that she is producing.

With “The Gates of Heaven” series my guest C.S. Lakin has not just taken over the mantel from C.S. Lewis for adult fairytale/fantasy writing, but with her other writing has set her literary level of success to something that others will be looking up to.

So listen to an interesting and entertaining show as I spend sixty minutes sharing "A Book and a Chat with C.S.Lakin"

Barry

Direct link to the show
"A Book and a Chat with C.S.Lakin".

or you can download the mp3 file of the show from
"C.S.Lakin"

You can find out more about my guest and his books at:
"C.S.Lakin - The Gates of Heaven Series"

Barry Eva (Storyheart)

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry