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Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Author Interview- Homecoming Chaos by D. W. Brooks #RomanticSuspense #AfricanAmericanFiction #AuthorInterview


- If you wrote a book about your life what would the title be?

Grateful, Fortunate, Blessed

I have been fortunate over my entire life. I was fortunate with the parents I was born to. They were incredibly supportive of what I wanted to try and of what I wanted to do. My father made sure that I was exposed to as many potential career opportunities as he could. They supported me through college, medical school, and business school—even when they didn’t understand what my end goal was. 

I met my husband almost by accident. A friend’s mother thought that we needed to get out there and find our spouses. She convinced (badgered) us to go to a ski club party. At least my friend had been skiing at some point in her life, but I had not. We reluctantly went and almost left before we went in. We enter and a handsome man comes up to me and asks me if I knew how to salsa dance. I was a dancer and actually been looking into taking some lessons before I met him. I said yes and our love story began. FYI: We did a salsa dance at our wedding.

When my kidneys failed and I was placed on the transplant list, my husband aggressively helped look for a living donor. My kidney problem is genetic and there are many people on my mother’s side of the family who have the condition. I am also an only child. The doctors said that it could take up to seven years to find a donor. So, we got to work. Fortunately, I found a donor through my FB page. It took a year to get everyone in optimal physical shape for the transplant. But I was also fortunate my donor was also aggressive about making the surgery happen. She called the transplant office and pushed them to complete the tasks they needed to.

I am very grateful for the things in my life.

- What is the hardest thing about being an author?

Marketing. There are so many marketing options out there. You can spend money or not to help promote your book. Deciding how to market, how much to spend—we all have a budget—and where to direct your money is difficult.

- What is the best thing about being an author?

Getting to tell the stories that I want to and letting my imagination run wild.

- What book changed your life?

The book Roots by Alex Haley. I watched the TV program before I read the book. My father had also gone to DC and searched for some of our ancestors while he was there. When I finally sat down to read the book for myself (I think I was around 12 years old), I understood the importance of learning your history. I became curious about what my father had been looking for in DC. It’s one reason I did an ancestry test to see where I came from.
A tidbit: Alex Haley came to my hometown when I was nine to give a lecture and sign copies of his book. My mother wouldn’t let me get in line to get an autograph (that event remained a sore spot between us for years!). 

- What were some of your favorite books growing up?

I am a mystery girl, so I loved the Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, and Perry Mason series. By the time I got to high school, though, I became a fan of reading all the classics. I read several Charles Dickens novels (A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist) Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers), Robert Penn Warren (All the King’s Men), and Flannery O’Connor (The Violent Bear It Away, Wise Blood, Everything that Rises Must Converge) books among others. I have returned to the mysteries again, but I would love to have the time to go back and reread some of those classics again.

- What books are currently in your to be read pile?

I have spent so much time working on this book and the marketing that my to-be-read pile is tiny. I need to read the latest six of the Stephanie Plum series and the last four of the Women’s Murder club novels. But I was looking at my bookshelves a couple of months ago and realized that I would love to take all the series and books that I own and start again at the beginning and read them straight through. I think this comes from streaming on TV, where you can watch an entire series in one sitting. I would love to read book sequels in that way!

- Which do you prefer ebooks, print, or audio books?

I like the feeling of a printed book in my hands. I enjoy flipping the pages back and forth while I am relishing a scene or a conversation. I can read an ebook if pushed, but I don’t enjoy that as much. My mind wanders with audiobooks, and I would have to rewind too often to make it worthwhile.


Homecoming Chaos
A Model MD Novel
Book One
D. W. Brooks

Genre: Romantic Suspense/ Contemporary Fiction/ African American
Publisher: Life: The Reboot LLC
Date of Publication: October 31, 2023 
Cover Artist: 100covers.com

Book Description:

Jamison Jones Scott has been out of the country and out of contact with most of her family for four years. Distraught, she had left the States previously to join a physicians’ relief organization after canceling her wedding and turning down a cushy job offer.

Now Jamie is back. It’s a homecoming where she is unsure of her family’s reception—especially her mother’s—and she walks into a murder mystery at her family’s business and a big birthday soiree. While trying to navigate her return and learning more about this case, she runs into a tall, handsome detective who is working to solve the mystery and who finds her a sexy challenge even when she interferes.

Can Jamie survive the chaos and protect her family’s business, deal with her family, and handle the dance with the hot detective without managing to get herself killed?

Amazon      GooglePlay     Goodreads     Bookbub

 

Excerpt

The sound of the flight attendant on the loudspeaker startled Jamison Jones Scott out of her light sleep. Despite having traveled frequently in her lifetime, she still couldn’t sleep comfortably on a plane. The seat location— first-class or economy—didn’t make a difference. The plane was nearing its destination, so the passengers needed to finish filling out their declaration cards. Jamie was returning to Atlanta to stay at her parents’ home with only the clothes on her back, a computer bag, the few items of clothing in her duffel, and a stethoscope. She had nothing to declare.

Her seatmate appeared to be sleeping through the announcements. Jamie was jealous. The four-year-old in front of her turned around and started babbling excitedly in French. She must have noticed that Jamie was finally awake. With her head still fuzzy from her nap, Jamie couldn’t completely follow the child’s rapid words, but the gist was that she wanted something from Jamie. Something about a playdate? Jamie smiled at the girl and hoped the girl’s mother would intervene. No such luck; she was asleep as well. The child eyeballed Jamie expectantly. Jamie realized she and the seatmate had started this situation by playing with the dark-haired child while they were over the ocean. Now, when she didn’t agree to the latest request, the little girl scrunched up her face to cry.

“Nous atterrissons bientôt. Elle ne peut pas aller avec vous,” Jamie’s seatmate answered, eyes still closed. “Mais vous pourriez être en mesure de visiter. Je suis sûr qu’elle tu aimerait garder les enfants.” He grinned.

Jamie gasped while the young girl clapped. This guy had just volunteered her as a babysitter!

“Je suis désolé, mais il se trompe. Je ne serai pas disponible,” Jamie stated. “Je parie qu’il a une surprise, pour toi.” The child looked at Jamie’s seatmate for her present and clapped again. This reply made him open his eyes.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce que c’est?” the child asked. Startled, her pregnant mother woke up and turned around in her seat sheepishly.

I’m sorry, she mouthed. She made her eager daughter turn around in her seat and asked her to leave the other passengers alone. The girl was disappointed, but her mother handed her a shortbread, which made her forget the people behind her.

Her seatmate smiled, opened his eyes, and said, “I could have given her the stuffed bear I bought. I have a daughter the same age.” He stretched gingerly. “I can’t wait to get home. I’ve been traveling for too long. What about you? Looking forward to getting home?”

Jamie thought about her return to Atlanta. She hadn’t been home in a while, so she wasn’t sure how she felt.

Revel in the chaos.

Revel in the chaos.

Revel in the chaos.

Jamie tried to live by this motto for most of her life because her life seemed to invite chaos. She learned to expect—and sometimes encourage—complications. As the plane taxied to a halt, she repeated her motto to herself. This phrase, tattooed on her right hip, particularly applied now.

The international terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport had changed since she was last there. Her brother, Jonathan, would pick her up at the baggage claim—alone, she hoped, and not sporting a clingy girlfriend. Time to re-acclimate and re-establish family bonds. Dealing with an unknown woman in her face when she wanted to spend time quietly with her brother wasn’t at the top of her to-do list.

As she waited in line to get through passport control, she thought about how she got to this point—back in Atlanta after several years abroad. She had spent two of those years working with the non-profit organization Doctors Overseas. Jamie worked in several locations, including the Central African Republic. She had her reasons for joining the charitable organization; not all were altruistic, and she kept those to herself during her entrance interview. The horrors she witnessed overseas helped her put her personal chaos into perspective. She realized her issues were nothing compared to what people endured in other parts of the world. This realization allowed her to embrace her job and enjoy what she was doing, despite the frequent threats of bodily harm. To help maintain her sanity while overseas, she traveled a lot and spent six months in Italy working with a designer friend.

The agent summoning her snapped her out of her reverie. Handing over her passport, she said, “Nothing to declare. Coming back home for my mother’s birthday and Christmas.”

At the check-in counter, the inspector carefully examined her and her passport photo. Jamison understood the scrutiny. At the time of that picture, she had been at the height of her glamor phase with a history of modeling and a resulting, above-average concern about how she looked. In medical school, she often showed up at rounds with perfectly coiffed hair and more than a swipe of mascara and lip gloss.

But in Africa, those concerns fell away. Right now, Jamie was makeup-free, and a baseball cap covered her hair. She was still beautiful, but now it was a girl-next-door beauty. Jamie had high cheekbones, almond-shaped dark brown eyes, a straight nose, a square jawline, and her golden-brown skin was still smooth. She wasn’t stomping down runways anymore, as in her past life, because she had shifted her priorities.

Her mother would hate it.

“Welcome to Atlanta,” the inspector said as she stamped her passport. “Have a pleasant stay.”


About the Author:

The author lives in Texas with her husband and children. She enjoys trying to stay in shape, sporadically cooking, reading (still), writing, and working on her blog. She is eternally grateful to the woman who donated a kidney to her over 5 years ago and continues to advocate for organ donation as much as she can.






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