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I have the priviledge of having my dear friend and critique partner, KC Sprayberry author of Softly Say Goodbye on my blog today.
Welcome, Kathi.
I have always enjoyed reading Kathi's stories, and Softly Say Goodbye is no exception. I give Softly Say Goodbye a five star review. Wow. I loved it. This book brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't help but cry with Erin when she lost the love of her life. KC Sprayberry has developed such real characters, I felt as if I knew them personally. This book is about teen drinking and the problems it can cause. But this story is also about love, friendship, and family. Thank you, Kathi, for a good cry as well as a good read. I can't wait to read more of your books.
About
the Book:
Erin
Sellers, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, hates teen drinking. She and
her three friends – Bill, her guy, Shari and Jake - decide to use Twitter to
stop a group, the Kewl Krew, from using their high school as the local bar. But
the members of this group are just as determined to stop anyone from messing up
their fun. Despite veiled threats to her safety, Erin continues her crusade.
To
make matters worse for her, the stress of school and extra curricular work
mounts and suddenly, shockingly, booze-fuelled tragedy strikes. Erin is now
under greater pressure as she spends all hours to produce a mural and other
work to commemorate the death of a teen friend. Bill, Jake and Shari support
her in all this...
But
more tragedy lurks nearby… until it’s time to softly say goodbye.
Excerpt
I hear Softly Say Goodbye is on sale this month so check it out. Also you can enter for a chance to win a copy of Softly Say Goodbye.
a Rafflecopter giveaway Excerpt
The
whole room erupts into moans and groans. None of us like someone calling us
kids, not with most of us already eighteen.
He
laughs instead of getting upset. “Sorry. All right, class, here's the list.
I'll call out a location, and the first person with their hand up gets it. I
have enough locations for everyone to work alone, except one. Two of you will
have to share.”
I
sit back and go over possible locations in my mind. One sticks out. The park
across from the police station on Main Street. There's a fantastic in-ground
fountain for kids to play in during the summer and a bunch of concrete benches
around it with walking paths and short walls. The fountain has a huge jet in
the center and shoots water in a long stream over the nearby area. It also has
smaller jets with bubbling water around the basin. But it's so plain, and the
perfect place for a fantastic mural about living in a rural area.
“The
old Long John Silver's near the Red Foods,” Mr. Janks says. “Mayor Flaggins
thought something related to farming there.”
“Me!”
Tuck waves his arm back and forth. “I have this fantastic idea. Maybe something
including Jackson Valley and all the farms down there.”
Wallis
County has a lot of small farms, nothing more than five to ten acres for people
to put in enough vegetables to feed their families and sell the rest at truck
stands. Tuck's suggestion brings up a visual of a long winding road beside a
creek with houses against small hills and open fields to either side. In the
summer, during the height of growing season, it looks fabulous.
“Okay,
Tuck has the Long John Silver's.” Mr. Janks makes a note. “Let’s get on with the
rest.”
The
list of places to decorate sounds boring, and like Mayor Flaggins wants free
labor to clean up some pretty nasty parts of town. Yeah, the economy stinks,
but why do we have to volunteer to do something the mayor can put people
sentenced to community service on?
“Okay,
just two more,” Mr. Janks says, jerking me back to reality. “Next, the fountain
near—”
My
hand shoots into the air, and I wave my arm harder than Tuck did.
“Looks
like Erin's hot for this one,” he says. “Okay, Erin. Want to share your idea?”
“Not
sure yet,” I say. “Something including kids and the fountain. Definitely
green.”
The
Author Info:
I
am happily married to a man I met while in the Air Force. We recently
celebrated our 18 years of marriage. Our teen, the youngest of 8, keeps us on
our toes with his band activities. Writing is something I've done since I was
very young. At first, it was in a diary and then I poured all my energies into
English compositions, earning praise from my Advanced Composition teacher in
high school for an extremely visual project. While in the Air Force, I placed
second in the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge's annual contest and from
then on, was hooked. However, the reality of a military career and raising
children forced me to put off attempting publication until my husband and I
moved to Georgia. It was after the birth of our now teen that I began taking
courses through The Institute of Children's Literature, Long Ridge Writer's
Group, and Writers Digest in an effort to make my life's dream come true.
We
live in Northwest Georgia, in a small town, where I write Romance, Westerns,
Young Adult, and Middle Grade stories, both short and book length. More than a
dozen of my short stories have appeared in magazines such as Listen Magazine,
Brio, and The Pink Chameleon website. I also have short stories in anthologies,
Passionate Hearts Anthology, Mystery Times Ten, The Best of Frontier Tales,
Vol. I, and Mystery Times Nine. My western stories have garnered interest by
avid readers and appear on The Western Online and Frontier Tales.
My
work appears under the pen names of KC Sprayberry and Kathi Sprayberry. Softly
Say Goodbye, a young adult novel, was my NaNoWriMo winning project for 2010.
This story was inspired by a quote from a song and hearing of an auto wreck
involving teens and drinking.
Important
Links:
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/kcsowriter
website:
www.kcsprayberry.com
Solstice
Publishing: http://store.solsticepublishing.com/softly-say-goodbye/
Barnes
& Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/softly-say-goodbye-kc-sprayberry/1113669521?ean=2940015893175
I hear Softly Say Goodbye is on sale this month so check it out. Also you can enter for a chance to win a copy of Softly Say Goodbye.
Totally blushing here. Thank you so much. Kathi
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