5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Latin Temptress, author of The Encounter

March 31, 2009 Joey Pinkney 12 Comments

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Latin Temptress, author of The Encounter
(LT Publishing)

Caught between two worlds: her husband yields great power but her lover promises true love. In losing her heart to one man and her soul to another, Bella finds herself. Will she triumph or will it be too late? Trapped in a web of betrayal and deception, Bella rises from the ashes and becomes head of one of the largest underworld empires. Will love triumph over power or will Bella lose her soul… Everything has a price, including love. Latin Temptress’ The Encounter is a journey that will capture your imagination and never let it go.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write The Encounter?

Ana Rodriguez: I was talking with an online friend one day. We were discussing the possibility of us meeting someday. He began to tell me about the different scenarios in his head, and I said “Hold on. These sounds like a good idea for a blog.” What started as a blog became a novel.

JP: What sets The Encounter apart from other novels in its genre?

AR: It has a storyline that captivates the reader from the very beginning. I am often told from readers that The Encounter succeeded in holding their attention from start to finish. I am an avid reader, and this was my goal: satisfy my customer with a great story.

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to The Encounter getting out to the public?

AR: Perseverance and promotion. I am constantly on MySpace and Yahoo360 promoting the book. I also send out bulletins, mass emails as well as contact book clubs, reviewers and street book vendors. During the warmer months, I sell my book at street fairs and festivals. My readers also help in spreading the word by forwarding all my information to the contacts on their address lists.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish The Encounter?

AR: I jot down everything that comes to mind. Different stories are always swirling in my head, so I write them down. When I’m on the move, I enter it into my Blackberry and store it. When I begin to piece a storyline together, I look back on my previous notes. The Encounter took me about a year to complete. I wanted to give the reader the best possible story I could. I don’t ever want to rush the process.

JP: What’s next for the Latin Temptress?

AR: Several! The Encounter will be translated into Spanish. There has been much interest from my Latin community. The sequel is also in the works. It was not planned, but every reader has asked for a continuation. I am obliged to my audience. I will also be showcasing at Book Expo America 2009 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in NYC on May 30^th at the African American Pavilion.

http://www.myspace.com/latintemptress

latintemptress05@yahoo.com
latintemptress05@gmail.com

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Book Review: EveryDay Life by M. G. Hardie

March 31, 2009 Joey Pinkney 2 Comments

EveryDay Life
by MG Hardie
(Llumina Press)
4 out of 5 Stars

EveryDay Life, by MG Hardie, is a snapshot of African-Americana. This book can make you shudder because of its harshness and nod because of the universal truths. Many of the verbal exchanges between the characters are the same ones I experienced with the men I grew up around. I even had some of the conversations found in EveryDay Life with my college roommates — almost word for word. That’s how genuine the dialogue is in this book.

C and L are room mates. L was a promising star basketball player whose college hoop-dreams are cut short by a false conviction. L slowly grows to desire more from life than the everyday rut he and his friends are in. His desire for a better life includes the elevation of this three friends to not only a higher standard of existence but also more mature level of critical thinking.

C is lazy. He sleeps in late everyday, spends his waking hours smoking marijuana and has no qualms about receiving government aid for once being a Naval officer. C justifies it because it’s the path of least resistance. The crew is rounded out by E and B. E stays in a broke-down motor home in the vacant lot adjacent to L’s apartment. B is the youngest of the crew and drops by to check on his friends from time to time.

L and his comrades find solace from the stressors of their Long Beach, California, neighborhood in L’s one bedroom apartment. This is where they join in a cipher over blunts and Kool Aid. To the uninitiated, a cipher is a message written in a code. To be clear, a cipher is also a circle of discussion where each participant adds onto what it being discussed. Once you begin to understand the relationship between the men, you also begin to understand that they need each other. They are more of a family to each other than they are to their blood relatives. MG’s mastery of witticisms and reasonings, and will keep you entertained and deliberating at the same time.

Intertwined with the wisecracks is social anaylsis. The crew discuss diverse subjects that are common talking points within the African-American community. They cover interracial dating to the evolution of Hip Hop into Gangsta Rap to AIDS being manufactured to infect minorities and the poor and much more. Nothing is off-limits nor left unexplored. The duality of comedy and philosophy had me at times shaking my head in laughter and at other times nodding in contemplation.

I enjoyed reading EverDay Life because the characters melded social issues, conspiracy theories and verbal antics in a way that I could relate to growing up in predominately African-American neighborhoods in the 80s and 90s. Driven by an intense dialogue, EveryDay Life is an enriching read that is borderline controversial because of its bluntness. The only thing I had a hard time with was keeping up with who-was-who since all the characters had one-letter names.

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National Reading Month With… Precious Love

March 26, 2009 Joey Pinkney

Precious Love, author of A Mother’s Cry and Jailed By Blood: Inmate 798175: Ever since I was 9-years old, I had a knack for sketching. I used to make my own children’s books by making up story lines and sketching my own pictures. I would staple the drawings together and make my own book. I have always been a lover of words.

At the age of 15, I began to write poetry. That shortly turned into spoken word. In my adulthood, as I began going through trials and tribulations, the thought crossed my mind to turn my life story into a book. My books have aided others that have gone through or were going through the same things that I have experienced in my life.

About my first book, A Mother’s Cry: This book is an amazing autobiography about a young woman who stayed in a fifteen-year abusive marriage for the sake of her three children. Without notice, she finds herself filing for divorce on the grounds of abandonment because her husband walked out on her and their daughters. She then had to put her business on hold and move her family to another state to start over.

Once there, she tries to adjust to becoming a divorced single parent. Being in a new state, she strives to get her business back together. The ups and downs of raising her children alone and at the same time going through the struggle of getting to know herself again is exhausting. This book explores the victories and defeats of single parenthood, dating and starting life over under new management.

About my 5th Book, Jailed By Blood, Inmate 798175: This is an unbelievably true story about the author and her sibling that allowed revenge and jealousy control his actions, which resulted in Quiet Storm to be falsely incarcerated, but there was one thing her sibling forgot, “But [when these men set a trap for others] they are lying in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.” Proverbs 1:18

For more information about Precious Love, please visit http://www.georgiaeditingservice.com/.

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