WHEN ONE DOOR SHUTS...WITH GUEST AUTHOR CHARMAINE GORDON

Author Charmaine Gordon in the role of Grace with actor Roy Harry
in a production of The Fourth Commandment

Charmaine Gordon spread her wings at age fifty-four to drive alone to New York City and find a career as an actor. She worked on One Life to Live for eleven years, All My Children for two, and Another World. She also has roles in many movies, including Working Girl and When Harry Met Sally. She had fun with Harrison Ford, lunched with Anthony Hopkins, and sang with Carrie Fisher. Then one day while performing on stage, she noticed her voice felt odd. The next day, a voice specialist confirmed she had spasmodic dysphonia, which put an end to her acting career. That’s when Charmaine started writing. Learn more about her and her books at her website.

I sleep write. Why? I don’t know. One night I dreamed of a fifteen year old girt in Minnesota, a state I’ve never been to. In the morning I began to write, Reconstructing Charlie is book one of a series. Today I introduce the first three.

First, dear readers, a blurb from the girl who started this:

Reconstructing Charlie

In 1996, I killed my father. 

Dear old Dad was great with a belt. A belt of whiskey. A belt from around his waist unbuckled when you least expected it and later I knew it was coming and some of us escaped. Not me, not Mom. Never Mom. I’m the oldest. I didn’t want the little ones to see the okay Dad turn into a monster on payday. Every payday. One night he went for Mom, waving a tire iron in the air. This time I was ready. I wrestled it out of his filthy hands and hit him good. He’d never hit little Jimmy or the baby sisters again. Or Mom. She packed a suitcase and told me to run for the midnight bus to Chicago. She gave me an envelope to give someone. Scared, I did as told and ran. I opened the envelope when the bus began to roll.

Dear Eleanor, The girl standing before you is my daughter. Please embrace her, make her your own.

Your sister, Elizabeth

Reconstructing Charlie is the first of the three books in the Charlie’s Family Secrets, now available in one single volume. The two other books are Sins of Omission and The Catch.

Sin of Omission 

A twist of fate intervenes when Shelley keeps a secret that threatens to break apart the Costigans and her future. A mysterious client, Deanna Rose, enters Haven, victim of a savage beating under strange circumstances. Shelley investigates and finds Ms. Rose has an unsavory past. With the reputation and safety of Haven at stake, Shelley is at risk to lose everything and everyone she cares about.

The Catch 

Tom Donnelly, once known as The Catch – every woman’s dream guy, has fallen down every rung of the ladder he once worked so hard to climb. On New Year’s Day, he realizes just how far he’s fallen, and makes a list of resolutions to change his life. He vows to regain the trust lost from his family, his law firm, and his friends – and maybe even find the right woman this time.

Buy Link 

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS WITH AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON

Every so often we like to change things up a bit on the blog to keep it fresh and interesting. Today we kick off with a new feature: Favorites, Failures & Frustrations. For FF&F we’ll feature guest bloggers who will pick one of the three topics to discuss.

For Favorites they’ll talk about something they love and why they love it. This could be a favorite person in their lives, a favorite book, a favorite place they’ve lived, a favorite pastime, etc.

For Failures our guests will discuss things they’ve tried and failed at and what they’ve learned from the experience.

And finally, in Frustrations you’ll read about those things that set our nerves on edge or drive us crazy—everything from the writer dealing with a sagging middle in her latest novel to the dieter trying to shrink an expanding middle.

Our inaugural segment begins with Anastasia’s author Lois Winston sharing one of her favorite pastimes.

My Favorite Pastime

I love Broadway theater, both musicals and plays, but especially musicals. I would have loved a career on the stage. Unfortunately, I can’t sing, I can’t dance, and I can’t act. Those facts were made abundantly clear to me the one and only time I ever tried out for a school production. Talk about a humiliating moment!

But I digress. This post is about my favorite pastime, not one of my great failures in life.

Growing up outside of Manhattan, I was exposed to theater in my early teens. Back then you could buy what were called Student Rush tickets. My best friend and I would take the bus into Manhattan and for little more than the cost of going to the movies, we saw live theater productions with some of the most famous stars of Broadway.

The first show we ever saw was Promises, Promises with Jerry Orbach. You might remember him as the father who kept Baby in the corner in Dirty Dancing or as Detective Lennie Brisco in the original Law & Order series.

Times have changed, though, and going to a Broadway show has gone from a typical monthly date night for my husband and me to a splurge we treat ourselves to only a few times a year. The reason? A ticket to a Broadway show now costs about ten times what a movie ticket costs—and we all know movie tickets are no longer cheap! What did you pay to see the new Star Wars movie a few months ago? Yowza! I’m a Netflix gal and hadn’t been to the movies in ages. Talk about sticker shock!

Sometimes my husband and I are lucky enough to score half-price tickets (more on that in a moment), as was the case a few weeks ago when we saw Bright Star, the new musical written by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell, wife of Paul Simon.

If you’ve ever been to New York, you probably know about the TKTS booth in Times Square. Get on line (a very, very long line), wait a few hours, and you can buy half-price tickets to that day’s shows if there are any tickets available. Often if a show is in previews, you can see it at half-price before it becomes a hit, and tickets are impossible to get at any price.

But here’s a little secret that few people outside the New York metro area know. It’s called Playbill.com, and you can buy half-price tickets to many shows days or weeks ahead of time and without waiting on that long line in Times Square.

So if you’re planning a trip to New York in the future, treat yourself to a show without spending an arm and a leg through the normal channels that also add another 25-30% service charge on top of those already expensive tickets. And to save even more money, print out the offer and bring it to the box office instead of ordering by phone or online.

Some of my all-time favorite shows (in no particular order):

Wicked

Something Rotten

The Producers

Ragtime

Chicago
Les Miserable
Peter Pan
South Pacific
The King and I
Miss Saigon
Showboat

and now...
Bright Star

What about you? Do you have a favorite show you’ve seen on Broadway or at a regional theater?

~~~

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Visit Lois/Emma at her website. Sign up for her newsletter  here.