#8Sunday It doesn't get any better than this, does it?

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This week, my romantic comedy The P-Town Queen was chosen by my publisher, Champagne Books, as their book of the year.  Does it get any better than this????

This week's snippet is the first eight lines of The P-Town Queen:

I did not blow up the Mona Lisa. Not only did I not blow up theMona Lisa—an old leaker of a boat whose blowing up could be construed as a favor to the aptly named Rusty Cook—I did not blow up any part of Rusty’s marina. My brothers will, of course, say otherwise. They had quite
the laugh at my expense over coffee at Ella’s Place.
     Rusty had been on the lookout for a boat for me. It had taken a lot of gumption and crow-eating to get to a place where I could consider buying a boat. I needed a cheap one, because God only knew how much money I’d be able to squeeze out of the Massachusetts Bay Commission via the research
grant proposal I’d spent three long months laboring to produce.The head of the commission was Ned Anderson.

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P-Town Queen has been selected as Champagne Books Novel of the Year.

 

I'm very excited, verklemped, overwhelmed and totally chuffed. My romantic comedy, The P-Town Queen has been chosen as Champagne Books Novel of the year!

The P-Town Queen is a crazy romp of a story, set in Provincetown Massachusetts. The heroine is a shark researcher who has lost the grant she had and wants desperately to get another one to continue doing the work she loves. The hero is running from the mob. He's moved to Provincetown, taken an assumed name and is pretending to be gay, because he figures the gangster after him would never look for him in P-Town's gay community. 

The two meet and fall for each other, but neither makes a move. She thinks he's gay and he has to continue to pretend to be gay. And so it goes... 

I think they gave the book the award because, in it, I blow up a dead whale. It's such fun to be a fiction writer!

Here's a snippet from that section of the book.

 At that point, a guy in a jacket labeled SWAT came over. Our new cop friend introduced us.
       “Oh, good,” said the SWAT man, a guy named Herman LeBlanc.“Just the experts we need.” Then he asked, with all due seriousness, how much TNT did we, in our expert opinions, think was necessary to blow up a whale carcass. “We’ve got ten tons under her,” he said, “but we’re thinking
we ought to put down another ten. We want to make sure we get her good, in small enough pieces so the tide can take her out. If we can manage it.”
     Max looked like he was going to have an apoplexy. He put his hands to his head and called the whole idea  imbecilic.
      I, on the other hand, realized that we could call them imbecilic all we wanted. Somebody wanted to blow up a whale and, come hell or high tide, they were going to blow up a whale. Besides which, I do have a little bit of bad girl in me. “Ten more ought to do her,” I told Officer LeBlanc.

  

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#8Sunday: Happy Easter

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Happy Easter everyone! In honor of the holiday, I thought I'd take a break from Anton and Lenora and give a snippet having to do with Easter.

These eight come from "The P-Town Queen", a romantic comedy set in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  Marco, the hero, has just been dropped off in the heart of town by the Teaneck Gay Men's Choir. He's running from the mob and has decided that the best way to hide is by pretending to be gay.

After the bus dropped us off and Evan got the boys to sing “So Long,
Farewell,” as we went our separate ways, I had to stop myself from flagging
down another bus and begging the driver to take me back to Newark.

I walked the length of Commercial Street. Most of the shops were
still closed and the only noise came from the pier where the boats were going
in and out and off into distance. Church bells started to ring, and I thought
about my Nona and how all those years she’d drag me off to Mass every
week and how on Easter she’d always hide a couple of those plastic Easter
eggs with pennies in them. I was a sucker for those eggs. I don’t think she
would’ve liked it to see me walking down the street homeless, so I made her
a promise that I’d find a job. And that, after I got done with being gay, I’d
settle down with a nice girl.

I remembered Evan’s words about my not seeming gay, so every
time I saw two men together I watched real careful so I could imitate.

Happy Spring! 
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#SixSecondSunday: P-Town Proud!

Hi Sunday Sixers! I'm excited to announce that The P-Town Queen has been nominated for Champagne Books Book for the year. I'm blown away, dazzled and gobsmacked.  This must be what the academy awards best picture nominees feel like!

In celebration, today's six is from the book.Nikki, the heroine, has gotten hold of a seal carcass, which she intends to use as shark bait. The hero, Marco, is telling the story:


“That the sheep?” I asked.
“Seal,” said Nik. “The carcass washed up in Boston. Max Groper
procured it for me. It was a very lucky find.”
“Wonder what he’ll do for your birthday,” I said.

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Nikki Silva feels like she’s blown up her life even as her brothers tease her about blowing up a boat called the Mona Lisa. Divorced, funding for her shark research cut off, she’s moved back to Provincetown to live with her father in her childhood home. Nikki hopes to regain herself. She’s written a grant proposal for the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Commission to fund a study that will get her back to the sort of research she loves. The commission is run by her ex-husband Ned, who would rather have a migraine than give money to his ex-wife.

Marco Tornetti wants to turn a hole-in-the-wall Newark spaghetti joint into a trendy bistro. His silent partner, Fat Phil Lagosa, wants to use the place to meet questionable people for questionable business deals.  When Fat Phil accuses Marco of a double cross and has him taken for a ride by one of his hit men, Marco knows he’s in too deep.

            Marco escapes the hit man and takes the first bus out of the Tri-state area, a bus chartered by the Greater Teaneck Gay Men’s Choir and headed for Provincetown. Marco  figures that Phil would never look for him in Provincetown‘s gay community. But when he meets Nikki and falls hard for her, he finds that pretending to be gay isn’t as easy as it would seem.


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I'm in the Vineyard

I'm over at The Writer's Vineyard today, blogging about the sharks on Cape Cod.

The P-Town Playlist: I Won't Back Down

From time to time, I've posted the music I listened to while writing P-Town Queen. I like to think of of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" as Nikki's theme song.

Nikki Silva feels like she’s blown up her life even as her brothers tease her about blowing up a boat called the Mona Lisa. Divorced, funding for her shark research cut off, she’s moved back to Provincetown to live with her father in her childhood home. Nikki hopes to regain herself. She’s written a grant proposal for the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Commission to fund a study that will get her back to the sort of research she loves. The commission is run by her ex-husband Ned, who would rather have a migraine than give money to his ex-wife.

            Marco Tornetti wants to turn a hole-in-the-wall Newark spaghetti joint into a trendy bistro. His silent partner, Fat Phil Lagosa, wants to use the place to solicit questionable business deals.  When Fat Phil accuses Marco of a double cross and has him taken for a ride by one of his hit men, Marco knows he’s in too deep.

            Marco escapes the hit man and takes the first bus out of the Tri-state area, a bus chartered by the Greater Teaneck Gay Men’s Choir and headed for Provincetown. Marco figures that Phil would never look for him in Provincetown‘s gay community. But when he meets Nikki and falls hard for her, he finds that pretending to be gay isn’t as easy as it would seem.

You can purchase  The P-Town Queen at:

http://champagnebooks.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=583

http://www.bookstrand.com/the-p-town-queen

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0088QAL6G

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-theptownqueen-819120-149.html

The P-Town Playlist: I Run to You

Now and again, I like to share the music I listen to while writing.
For P-Town, the music was upbeat, mostly, and a mix of music styles from rock to pop to country.
I don't have a lot of country tunes on my i-pod, but I like this one,  I Run to You, by Lady Antebellum.  It kind of embodies the spirit of the book