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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Vanna B., author of Fancy

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JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Vanna B, author of Fancy
(Hope Street Publishing)

Maribel “Fancy” Alvarez is a trendy socialite who has it all: enviable looks, popularity and a closet full of designer threads. She lives an amazing life. At least that’s what she’s led everyone to believe. Fancy goes to great lengths to keep up a façade of perfection, but when a series of unfortunate events rattles her world, everything begins to fall apart.

She’s always been taught to use what she’s got to get what she wants. Deep down inside, Fancy knows there is truly more to her than just a beautiful face and perfect body. Will she abandon the superficial lifestyle she’s come to know or succumb to the temptation of the almighty dollar?

Fancy chronicles the life of a woman torn between the person she is and the person she wants to be. This iconic story will resonate with readers who, like Fancy, have battled issues within, as well as outside influences, while struggling to find themselves amidst a world of chaos.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write Fancy?

Vanna B.: I fashioned the premise of Fancy and character Fancy around the concept of people being fraudulent and trying to depict themselves as Continue reading 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Vanna B., author of Fancy →

5 minutes 5 questions with, amazon.com, interview

5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Valerie Stocking, author of Southern Strife

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Valerie Stocking, author of Southern Strife
(SJT Press)

Southern Strife gives us a complex but tightly woven plot in which twelve-year-old Joy, newly moved to northern Florida in the custody of her divorcing mother and having as yet no friends, is in the process of building a friendship with a biracial boy at school, Clay.

She is unaware that the area, so close to Alabama and the drama of Montgomery, is a hotbed of the KKK. Meanwhile, Joy’s mother, Jessica, has fallen in love with her lawyer, Bill McKendrick, who is a leader in the KKK. As both relationships deepen, the tension is stretched to an almost unbearable degree.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write Southern Strife?

Valerie Stocking: Between 1966 and 1967, I lived with my mother in a small town on the west coast of Florida. My experiences there inspired the book, Continue reading 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Valerie Stocking, author of Southern Strife →

african american author, african american authors, african american book, african american books, book reviews, urban lit

JoeyPinkney.com Book Review of Crying for Tears by Saleem Little

JoeyPinkney.com Book Review
Crying for Tears: The Sasha Pierce Story
by Saleem Little
3 of 5 Stars

Harrisburg, PA. Oslo, Norway. Gauteg, South Africa.

Question: What do they have in common? Answer: Saleem Little’s novel Crying for Tears: The Sasha Pierce Story. Little effortlessly brings the global human trafficking problem to the consciousness of Urban Lit readers.

The reality of HIV, cocaine and heroin addiction, violence and poverty is strewn throughout this novel. Crying for Tears is a very insightful read, not because of the elements it contains, but for the connections that are made. Little shows the collateral damage that flows through the families of inner-cities ravaged by the crack epidemic. This book captures the overlap that happens when a son could very well find himself supplying his aunt or uncle’s drug habit. Continue reading JoeyPinkney.com Book Review of Crying for Tears by Saleem Little →