Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Island Life Sentence by Carrie Jo Howe @CarrieJoHowe @GoddessFish

Island Life Sentence

by Carrie Jo Howe

GENRE: Adult Fiction, Humorous, Romantic comedy

BLURB:

Peg Savage has contractually agreed to move to Key West, Florida. The smudged signatures on the damp cocktail napkin are irrefutable proof.

“An adventure…” her husband Clark says.

Peg can’t swim; she’s afraid of bridges (there are 42 of them); and she doesn’t want to leave her friends. However, after a bottle of Cabernet, a move from Chicago to the southernmost city in the United States seems like the best decision ever.

But now Clark has taken a long term job in Cuba and she’s on her own.

Neither her dog Nipper, nor the ghosts in the attic, offer up any good advice. But how hard can it be living in paradise?

Peg dives into island life but the more effort she makes, the wider her wake of catastrophes. She is tortured by a paddle board, a giant poisonous toad, the local Conservation group, and the patron saint of hurricanes. Not to mention the persistent sweat rash under her left breast.

A tropical depression descends on the island – one that can’t be cured with medication. Peg must gather her strength if she has any hope of surviving the storm.

Excerpt:

“Sunshine state… my soggy ass.”

It was dark. The power and the air conditioning had gone out hours ago. Peg hugged her dog under the makeshift bed-tent, clutching him to her sweaty pajama’d breasts.

An engraved locket pinned to Nipper’s blue life vest dangled under his pirate dog collar. Hurricane rain pummeled the bedroom window – the violent wind shook the glass panes. Peg wondered about the moaning sound until she realized it was coming from her own throat.

She shrieked at the sudden crash on the metal roof. Several days of binge drinking without proper oral hygiene, or any hygiene for that matter, produced noxious vapors in the tent. Nipper’s nostrils flared as he took in the odors and licked her fluorescent orange, cheesy, tear-stained fingers.

Interview with Carrie Jo Howe

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Island Life Sentence? 

Our protagonist Peg moves from Chicago to Key West with her husband Clark.  Trudy, Peg's loyal and outspoken friend, hates Clark and smells a rat. Once in Key West, Peg meets an entire cast of characters who help her navigate her crazy new island life.

Can you tell us a little bit about your next books or what you have planned for the future?

Island life Sentence is the first book in a planned trilogy. In the next book Peg and Trudy are in Key West  together. With Trudy by Peg's side, you can bet there will be bad behavior and sticky situations.

How long would you say it takes you to write a book?

It took me about a year to write Island Life Sentence.  Once written, the book went through an additional three months editing process. All total it was written, edited and proofed in approximately a year and a half.

What is your favorite childhood book?

My favorite childhood book was Anne of Green Gables. I guess I've always been attracted to characters who find themselves alone in a foreign land!

If you could spend the day with one of the characters from Island Life Sentence who would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular character, where you would go and what you would do. 

I would spend the day with Trudy. She's actually a true-to-life characterization of a good friend of mine from Chicago.  She's a no-nonsense, call-it-like-she-sees-it woman. It's very refreshing to know a person with non-filtered honesty.  I want to go dog walking with her around Key West.  She'll have a lot of comments!

What was the hardest scene from Island Life Sentence to write?  

I took the hardest scene to write out of the book. I spent so much time on it, changed it ten times, slept on it for a month, then got rid of it.  It was difficult because I liked the writing, but it didn't fit the character's evolution in the story.

What made you want to become a writer?

I don't think of myself as a writer. I'm more of a storyteller. I like to tell people what happened--especially if it's absurd. 

Just for fun

(a Favorite song:  Move - by CSS 2008 - random and fabulous

(b Favorite book:  I love Amy Poehler's Yes Please 

(c Favorite movie:  Young Frankenstein

(d Favorite tv show:  HGTV House Hunters (addicted)

(e Favorite Food: Chili Cheese Fritos

(f Favorite drink:  Alcoholic - Sangiovese Red,

                                Non Alcoholic - ice water (I'm always hot)

(g Favorite website:  Zillow (obsessed)

Thanks so much for visiting with us today!

Thank you for hosting me Nancy!

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

After raising three boys in the suburbs of Chicago, Carrie Jo Howe now lives in Key West, Florida with her husband and her dog. Her latest novel, Island Life Sentence, is a fictional account of an American Midwestern woman who feels like an alien in the “one human family” of Key West. Carrie Jo’s first book, Motherhood is NOT for Babies, received a rave review (thanks Mom), and works wonderfully as a form of contraception. Her blog Florida Keys Crime Report, tells of all the goings on in the Keys, where bank robbers get away on bicycles, and perps caught with undersized, pinched, out-of-season lobsters get more jail time than drug runners. She is currently working on the sequels to Island Life Sentence.

Website ~ Instagram ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Blog

Buy Link:

Amazon

Giveaway:

$10 Amazon/BN GC

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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