QUIMBY POND - Bruce Judisch - One Free Book or Ebook

Welcome back, Bruce. Why do you write the kind of books you do?

I enjoy reading and writing historical fiction and contemporary fiction that has historical roots, such as novels with paralleling contemporary and historical storylines. Aside from the fascinating research, I love sharing what I’ve discovered, because I believe it’s as important to learn something from a book as it is to be entertained by it.

Besides when you came to know the Lord, what is the happiest day in your life?

On December 27th, Jeannie and I celebrated for the 43rd time the best day of my life—and she has done everything in her power to make every day since our wedding another best-day-of-my-life. The days she failed to do so were completely my fault.

How has being published changed your life?

It’s made me a lot busier. J It has also immensely elevated my respect for those intrepid souls who have done it so much better than I.

What are you reading right now?

Fiction: I just finished Sibella Giorello’s latest release in her Raleigh Harmon series. (You all really need to read Sibella’s work—she’s one of those intrepid souls.)

Non-fiction: The Rhetoric of Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, by Dale Patrick. Fascinating perspective on how God communicates through the Scriptures.

What is your current work in progress?

I’m working on the “The Marble Falls Legacy – Part 2,” the sequel to Quimby Pond which is featured in this blog interview. How fun! There’s a sneak preview at the end of Quimby Pond for the more curious among your readers.

What would be your dream vacation?

A river cruise in Europe. Okay, so while we’re dreaming, an all-expenses-paid river cruise in Europe.

Good luck with that. J How do you choose your settings for each book?

The historical hook chooses it for me. I’m more interested in a really interesting premise for the story than I am where it takes place. For example, I would never have thought of Rangeley, Maine, as a setting for a novel (Quimby Pond) if such an intriguing historical event had not taken me there.

If you could spend an evening with one person who is currently alive, who would it be and why?

The same person I spend every evening with—that 43-year helpmate I mentioned earlier. But then, I don’t think that’s what you meant, so I’ll try to be a little more innovative. I’ll also assume you don’t include fictional characters—who are very much alive—because I’ve created some whom I’d love to spend an evening with just to see what they’re really like. J So, given those constraints, I suppose it would have to be Peyton Manning. He has nothing to prove to me, so he can be genuine (i.e., no need to force any “image”). I appreciate his work ethic and what I understand to be his perspective on living his faith.

What are your hobbies, besides writing and reading?

I enjoy camping, prospecting for gold, and playing the 12-string guitar. Sometimes all at the same time, which can get a little confusing. But it’s still fun.

What is your most difficult writing obstacle, and how do you overcome it?

Finding consistent time to write. I have a full-time job and a home life that I must prioritize. Writing sporadically hinders growing in the craft. I do edit manuscripts, though, so I’m able to stay in the discipline from that perspective, although creating my own work sometimes suffers.

What advice would you give to a beginning author?

Establish your goal as a writer up front. What do you really want to do? Do you want a writing career, an avocation, a one-time work to share with family and friends? If you don’t decide that up front, you’ll waste a lot of time, money, and frustration in seeking the proper path to publication (sorry about the alliteration, but hey, that says it all. J) Can you change your mind at some point? Sure, that’s the stuff of life. But in the publishing industry, making a drastic change in trajectory can be ungainly.

Tell us about the featured book.

Ah! J I absolutely love Quimby Pond. It’s my first contemporary mystery/suspense—but still with that true historical hook—and so the genre is a little new to me, although I’ve written elements of mystery in previous works. Quimby Pond takes place in northern Maine. It centers on a young woman who has come to Marble Falls (a fictitious representation of the lovely town of Rangeley) to escape her past. When she begins to restore an antique trunk for a friend, her past resurges, thrusting her and her friends into mortal danger.

Please give us the first page of the book.

This is the Prologue, which sets the historical backdrop for the story. It’s actually 1-1/2 pages, so be advised that I’m going to cheat. J

Thursday Night, August 20, 1896. Marble Falls, Maine. The Train Station.

Arthur Dunsley, reporter for The Lakes newspaper, tapped a stubby pencil against his chin as he circled the abandoned steamer trunk. It seemed sad, lonely, if such a thing could be. A bridal trunk with no bride? Just wasn’t right. He stooped and fingered a delicately inscribed card affixed to the lid, then jotted a word or two in his pocket notebook.

“So, what ya make of her?” Stationmaster Charlie Turner tipped up his billed cap and scratched behind an ear.

“Dunno. Suppose it was loaded on the wrong train?”

“On the line from Phillips?” Charlie shook his head. “Came off the one o’clock, nobody with it. Word got around town. Folks came for tonight’s train too. Still nobody.”

Arthur tugged on the hasp. “Locked.”

“Aye-uh. Already tried that.”

The reporter closed the notebook and rose with a half-smile. Finally, something more exciting than who-is-visiting-whom-in-the-lakes gossip and depressing obituaries. “I’ve got an empty corner in today’s edition. This oughta add a little mystery to the humdrum.”

“And I got an empty corner in the stationhouse where she’ll go ’til somebody comes ta fetch her.”

“Let me know if they do, would ya, Charlie?”

“Surely.” Charlie grasped one of the trunk’s leather handles and dragged it toward the stationhouse door.

Arthur pocketed his pencil and notebook, and strode toward town.

***

The dim glow of a cigar ember flared beyond the empty train platform. Among the shadows, a lone figure leaning against a knobby evergreen hacked a hoarse cough into his sleeve. A flick of his finger, and the stogie’s chewed stub arced onto the narrow-gauge railroad tracks, erupting sparks over their rough-hewn wooden ties.

The man pushed away from the tree and set a stealthy course toward the station. He drew up at the platform as the stationmaster’s bulky silhouette appeared in a window against the yellow glow of an oil lamp. The stranger backed against the station’s turret, one hand pressed against the rough stone, the other reaching toward his belt. When he withdrew it, the pitted steel blade of a hunting knife flashed in the weak lamplight.

The stationmaster moved from view.

The man palmed the knife and edged toward the door.

Nice hook. I am eager to find out what happens next. How can readers find you on the Internet?

I have a blog and a Facebook author page. I’d love to interact with any of your readers on either of those venues.

Thanks so much for the interview, Lena. It’s been fun!

Thank you, Bruce, for sharing this new book with us.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.

Quimby Pond - paperback
Quimby Pond - Kindle

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. You must follow these instructions to be in the drawing. Please tell us where you live, at least the state or territory. (Comments containing links may be subject to removal by blog owner.)

Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.

The only notification you’ll receive is the winner post on this blog. So be sure to check back a week from Saturday to see if you won. You will have 4 weeks from the posting of the winners to claim your book.

If you’re reading this on Goodreads, Google+, Feedblitz, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or Amazon, please come to the blog to leave your comment if you want to be included in the drawing. Here’s a link:
Http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com

THE LOST LOVES OF WORLD WAR II - Bruce Judisch - One Free Book

Readers, I met Bruce when he was a speaker for our local ACFW chapter and became intrigued by his stories. His book just came on Saturday, so I haven’t read the stories yet.

Welcome, Bruce. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

I suppose there are bits and pieces of me in most of my characters—some more than others, of course. I think what I more like to do is have my characters face significant emotional events that I’ve faced in my life and see how they handle them. If they do well, I’ve written into them more of who I’d like to be than who I actually am.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

Wow, where do I start? I suspect that a list of un-quirky things I’ve done would actually be shorter than a list of my quirky ones. Being a seat-of-the-pants writer, you have to have some quirkiness to surrender the manuscript so the characters will write the story for you. That way you can blame them if the book flops. There, is that quirky enough? (Hint: ask a writer who outlines…)

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

When my wife told me I was one. Seriously, I was introducing study through the book of Jonah to my Sunday School class, and I said, “If I were ever to write a novel, it would be about Jonah.” She elbowed me in the ribs after class and said, “Well…?” That gentle prodding gave birth to A Prophet’s Tale.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

I love to read (and write) contemporary-historical fiction, a hybrid where the two storylines parallel or complement each other. Susan Meissner is a master of this (e.g., The Shape of Mercy, Lady in Waiting). Historical fiction is next, and there are so many incredible authors in this genre I can’t begin to name them. The list scatters from there, where writing quality quickly overshadows genre. In the non-fiction realm, biographies and expository Biblical commentaries top the list.

I loved both of those books by Susan. How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

I’ve never claimed to have kept my sanity. In fact, I’m not convinced I ever started out with any.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

Oh, fun! Character names are really important. Although this may sound like I was groping, I got all 13 of my grandchildren’s names (or derivations of them) in Katia. And it worked really well. My 14th grandchild didn’t make it in time before the book was released, so I’ve named the female lead in my current manuscript after her. Other characters, well, I agonize over them. The names need to be comfortable, memorable, and fit the character for the reader. I just go through name combinations until I hit what I think is a winner.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

I’ve been married to my high-school sweetheart for over 41 years. The pride is in that I’ve managed not to chase her away in all this time. But then, maybe the pride should really be in her perseverance…

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?

A dog. I’d like to love and trust that completely, unconditionally, and without restraint.

What is your favorite food?

Easy: pizza. Nature’s perfect food. It has all the major food groups: carbs, fat … you know.

What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

I’m neither sure how to describe it, nor do I believe I’ve overcome it—yet. Cec Murphey once told me the greatest compliment he’d ever received on his writing is when an editor told him how easy he was to read. When you read a novel by an accomplished author (I’ve mentioned Susan Meissner; add Allison Pittman, Candace Calvert, Dan Walsh—and many more, not in any particular order), you can’t really put your finger on what it is that’s so good. I think that’s why it is so good: the prose is effortless, it disappears beneath the story and the dream isn’t broken from the front cover to the last page. I want to be able to do that. Perhaps someday I shall.

Tell us about the featured book.

Lost Loves of WWII is a Barbour Publishing collection of three novels, two of which are mine: Katia and For Maria (click hyperlinks for reader reviews). Katia is perhaps my favorite of the books I’ve written (it’s certainly my wife’s favorite),   For Maria is the sequel to Katia, also a contemporary-historical, and the historical storyline is definitely WWII. There’s also a third novel in the collection: The Train Baby's Mother by Sharon Bernash Smith, which promises to be a great read. Three novels for the price of one, I think, is a pretty good deal. and, although it deals more with the Cold War than WWII, it does have roots in that war. It’s a contemporary-historical novel with one storyline in the present and the other in the  mid-20th century.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Since there are two of my stories in this collection, I get two pages, right?  J  Okay, we’ll compromise; a page and a half. I’ll give the prologue to For Maria, since it’s a complete chapter.

1 March 1940

Frau Mahler,

I hope this letter finds you well. I have received no response to my letter of last December regarding your sister’s baby girls. I can only hope it reached you, and that your response is en route. I fear, though, that there may not be time to await its arrival.

Our apartment is being watched, as are so many others in this district. Rósa and I leave for Salzburg tomorrow evening…

* * *

“…AND THEY HIDE IN THE SHADOWS LIKE RATS.”

“Stay back from the window, Rósa. If they see you, they may come before we’re ready.”

Rósa Dudek eased the curtain closed and rubbed her thin arms against the damp cold permeating the front room of their tiny second-floor apartment. The chill crept inward from the tips of her frail fingers and numbed her bony hands, triggering a dull ache in her arthritic joints. She shivered and pulled a threadbare woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her wistful gaze flicked to a small fireplace, empty but for the powdery residue of last month’s coal, now too costly to replace.

“What are you writing, Gustaw?”

Her husband laid his pen onto the table and ran his fingers through thinning black hair. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he blew into them, then flexed his stiff fingers next to three stubby candles sprouting from a triple brass candle holder on the table. A weary halo shrouded the sickly yellow flames and cast weak shadows across peeling floral wallpaper and a pockmarked tabletop. The jaundiced glow accented the deep creases in Gustaw’s lean tired face. He coughed.

“I write again to the Mahlers in Berlin.”

“But why? They didn’t respond to your first letter.”

“I know they didn’t respond, but I don’t know why. The post is slow since the Germans invaded. There could be many reasons.” He lifted his gaze. “And we must do everything we can to return the girls to their family.”

Rósa clutched her arms around her slight waist. “Perhaps they’ve left Berlin. Or maybe they don’t want the children.”

Gustaw paused, then rose from his chair and took his wife into his arms. He kissed her forehead. “You understand we must return them, don’t you?”

Her eyes brimmed as he caressed her cheek.

“God has withheld children from us for reasons only he knows, Rósa, and lacking a son or a daughter does not lessen my love for you, you know that. I’m becoming attached to the twins, too, but we cannot take another family’s children for our own. God would never honor such a thing.”

“Of course I know this,” she sniffled. “But they’re so beautiful, and they look at me as though…” Her chest convulsed, and she rested her forehead on her husband’s shoulder. He let her release, as he had so often over the past twenty-five years at yet another month’s reminder that motherhood had eluded her.

“Rósa, it’s time we must—”

They stiffened at a tapping on the wall. Three taps, followed by two. Then silence.

Gustaw rushed to the table and blew out the candles. He stuffed the unfinished letter and envelope into his jacket pocket. “Get the children. Now!”

How can readers find you on the Internet?

I have a website at www.brucejudisch.com. If you click on one of the book covers, it will take you to a page dedicated to that book. The exception to that is the cover of Lost Loves, since it’s a compilation. Click on the Katia and For Maria covers for their respective pages to see what’s in Lost Loves.

I’d love to hear from any of your readers through the Contact Me link at the bottom of each of my Web pages. I give discounts for signed copies cheaper than the cover prices.

Thanks so much for hosting me, Lena. It’s been fun.

I've enjoyed having you on the blog as well.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.
The Lost Loves of World War II - Christianbook.com
The Lost Loves of World War II Collection: Three Novels of Mysteries Unsolved Since World War II - Amazon
The Lost Loves of World War II Collection: Three Novels of Mysteries Unsolved Since World War II - Kindle

Christian Book Store

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. Please tell us where you live, at least the state or territory. (Comments containing links may be subject to removal by blog owner.)

Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.

The only notification you’ll receive is the winner post on this blog. So be sure to check back a week from Saturday to see if you won. You will have 4 weeks from the posting of the winners to claim your book.

If you’re reading this on Goodreads, Google+, Feedblitz, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or Amazon, please come to the blog to leave your comment if you want to be included in the drawing. Here’s a link.
Http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com