June 24, 2015

I Just Signed a Contract for My Third Full-length Novel!

Ashberry Lane Publishing has just offered to publish my third full length novel, The Memoir of Johnny Devine! I am so excited and can't wait to share this story with you. We will have launch date soon, so stay tuned.

A little history about how this story came to be:
I was working on another novel--one that was giving me trouble--when I woke one morning from a vivid dream. (My dreams are usually pretty boring, so this got my attention.) In this dream, a very handsome man who walked with a cane watched in silence as a lovely young woman walked out his door. He didn't say a word, but somehow--because dreams are like this--I knew that his heart was breaking and yet he couldn't do or say anything to stop her.

I woke instantly fascinated! Why was his heart breaking? Why couldn't he stop her? I mulled it over, and soon, Johnny Devine's story--or stories, to be exact--was born.

So with a lot of prayer and the weekly encouragement of a wise and wonderfulauthor friend, I pushed out chapters week after week until the book was finished in just 3 months (It usually takes me a year to complete a novel). I believe that when the Lord lends his divine help to my writing (or anything we do), he is affirming that what we are doing worthy of his time and the use of his beautiful, divine creativity. I believe this story was his idea, his timing. And I believe he helped me write it. I just hope that I've told it well, and that readers will find it worth their while.
The Memoir of Johnny Devine, A Novel
by Camille Eide

Love can’t rewrite the pages of your past, but it can cover a multitude of sins—one page at a time.
 

1953: Desperation forces war widow, Eliza Saunderson, to take a job writing the memoir of ex-Hollywood heart-throb, Johnny Devine. Rumor has it Johnny can seduce anything in skirt quicker than he can hail a cab. But now the notorious womanizer claims he’s born again. And so he seems to be. Eliza soon finds herself falling for the humble, grace-filled man John has become—a man who shows no sign of returning her feelings. No sign, that is, until she discovers something John never meant for her to see.

When Eliza’s articles on minority oppression land her on McCarthy’s communist hit list, both John and Eliza become entangled in a HUAC investigation that threatens both John’s book and Eliza’s future. To clear her name, Eliza must solve a family mystery. She also needs to convince John that real love—not the Hollywood illusion—can cover a multitude of sins.

But just when the hope of love becomes reality, a troubling discovery confirms Eliza’s worst fears. Like the happy façade so many Americans cling to, had it all been empty lies? Is there a love she can truly believe in?
 
COMING SOON from ASHBERRY LANE PUBLISHING!

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ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. . . .

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME:

I've published five novels and 2 novellas (more about those on my website.) I've been writing all my life, but decided in 2007 to get serious about being published.

I love action movies and Jane Austen. (she’s dead, I know. I found that out when I tried to get her to endorse my novel)

They let me play Bass guitar and sing in a worship band.

I can produce 4 dozen homemade cinnamon rolls in a flash for a crowd of drooling young adults. Or publishing house editors.

I used to have a Harley. Now we have seven grandkiddos. Decent trade, really.

I am a proud Grammy. Don't even think about taking candy from my babies.

I hate shopping (Yes, I'm aware that I'm a girl)

MY ROOTS:
I've lived in Oregon all my life, spent time in Eugene (Go DUCKS!), Springfield, Reedsport, and Smith River. Which is not really a town, but a river, about 70 miles long, a tributary of the Umpqua River in southwest Oregon.

Although it's not a town, it is a community with a strong sense of pioneer history. It's cool to say you've lived there, especially if you lived there during the days when you had to take a boat to school. No joke! The old farmhouse my grandfather and my mother grew up in still stands, nestled into a narrow, pasture carpeted valley, complete with a swimmin' hole and its own 'crick'. It may turn up in one of my novels.

There's a rumor that my ancestors had a connection with the Mafia back in Sicily. I used to fantasize as a kid about a big black limo with tinted windows pulling up and whisking me away from school. Ahhh. So THAT'S why I'm having so much trouble conjugating my dangling participles now.

NOT RANDOM: I am challenged by the truth and amazed by the grace of God. And it's either in spite of or because of that grace that I hold a PhD in Learning Stuff the Hard Way.