About Susan: Susan Sloate is the author of 20 published books, including
FORWARD TO CAMELOT (with Kevin Finn), an alternative history of the JFK
assassination, STEALING FIRE, an autobiographical love story, and REALIZING YOU
(with Ron Doades), for which she invented a new genre – the self-help novel. FORWARD TO CAMELOT was a #6
Amazon bestseller, took honors in 3 literary competitions and was optioned for
film production by a Hollywood company. STEALING FIRE was a quarter-finalist in
the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. Susan has also written
young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including RAY CHARLES: FIND ANOTHER WAY!,
which won a silver medal in the 2007 Children’s Moonbeam Book Awards, AMELIA
EARHART: CHALLENGING THE SKIES, a perennial Amazon bestseller, and MYSTERIES
UNWRAPPED: THE SECRETS OF ALCATRAZ, which led to her appearance on a special
for The History Channel in 2009, as well as books for five girls’ fiction
series. As a screenwriter, she has written an informational film for
McGraw-Hill Films and optioned two scripts to Hollywood production companies.
As a sportswriter, she’s covered the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Pittsburgh
Pirates and the New York Mets. She’s also managed two recent political
campaigns, founded the East Cooper Authors Festival (which put 18 professional
authors in 17 area schools in one day) and serves on the Culture, Arts and
Pride Commission of the Town of Mount Pleasant.
Blurb: “How do you recognize
your soulmate?
In glittery 1980’s Los
Angeles, Beau Kellogg is a brilliant Broadway lyricist now writing
advertising jingles and yearning for one more hit to compensate for his
miserable marriage and disappointing life.
Amanda Harary, a young
singer out of synch with her contemporaries, works at a small New York hotel,
while she dreams of singing on Broadway.
When they meet late at
night over the hotel switchboard, what begins will bring them each unexpected
success, untold joy, and piercing heartache ... until they learn that some
connections, however improbable, are meant to last forever.
STEALING FIRE is, at
its heart, a story for romantics everywhere, who believe in the transformative
power of love.”
STEALING FIRE was a
Quarter-Finalist (Top 5%) in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.
Susan will be awarding a notebook perfect for journaling to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
Excerpt:
Six-year-old Amanda wandered over to the
table and picked up the album cover. The name of the show, The Life and Times, was printed in bold letters across the top,
with a pencil sketch of a black top hat and neatly folded white gloves in the
middle. A splashy yellow sun, its rays streaming diagonally, filled the rest of
the cover. She forgot about it, though, as the record began to play.
She
loved it instantly.
“Again, Mommy, again!” she said excitedly
when the first song ended.
Her mother shook her head. “Listen to the
rest first.”
Amanda sat down on her favorite soft footstool
near the big brown rocker and listened. She loved it all.
There was one song especially that she
liked. It was about blowing bubbles. She didn’t understand the verse, but she
sang along with the chorus:
“… Bubbles bursting, bursting bubbles …
Breaking dreams with every blow.
I’ll remember each dream burst
Till the final bubbles go.”
She didn’t really understand the song, but
it seemed sad to her.
As with most show scores, Amanda asked to
hear the record again and again. A few months later her older sister Josie,
tossing a ball carelessly around the room, smashed the record.
Amanda cried and asked her mother to
please buy it again, please. Her
mother explained regretfully that the show had been a `flop’ years before.
There were no copies around, and Josie hadn’t meant to smash it; it was an
accident. “Stop crying now, Amanda,” she said sharply.
She
listened to her mother and stopped crying. But she never forgot the song about
bursting bubbles.
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