Women's Fiction
Date Published: June 2019
Publisher: Riverpoint Press
Laura Beckman’s comfortable suburban life would be perfect but for her daughter. Four years earlier, Brooke abandoned her husband and her own young daughter to run off with a musician. Now back home with her tail between her legs, Brooke’s self-loathing boils over in the face of her mother’s unrelenting condemnation.
Laura’s world is turned upside down after witnessing the long, painful death of her husband. In the search for a better version of herself, she creates the Chocolate Shop which grants terminally ill patients one last wish (e.g returning to the Rockette stage, having sex one last time, even skydiving). Laura then lovingly helps her clients slip away to a peaceful death. Laura must dodge the police who suspect she's committing second-degree murder, and an ex-wife of a client consumed with collecting on an insurance policy. Her relationship with her daughter flips as Brooke becomes the one doing the condemning: “I may have made many mistakes in my life but there’s one thing I can say. I never murdered anybody.”
As Laura comes to grips with the ethical, moral, and legal dimensions of what she's doing, she worries that her strained relationship with her daughter will never be repaired and wonders whether she can ever find love again. She meets Arlo Massey--brash, flamboyant, someone who couldn't care less about what other people think--the complete opposite of the always appropriate Laura Beckman. Arlo disrupts Laura's already tumultuous life. She finds him despicable.
And yet . . .
Interview with J. J. Spring
As a writer, what would you choose as your
mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
My dog, Handsome Jack, a part-poodle. Very smart, great instincts.
Lovable, friendly, but will bite your head off if he thinks his best
friend—that would be me—is in danger.
How many hours a day do you put into your writing?
4-5
Do you read your book reviews?
Of course.
Do you leave hidden messages in your books that only a few
people will find?
Not really. Although I use names of friends from high school for many
of my minor characters, and they enjoy the fictitious personalities I give them
(which most of the time aren’t really fictitious.)
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in The Chocolate Shop?
Sure. LAURA BACKMAN, late forties, is a country club
queen. Her life revolves around her clique of friends at the club, daily gossip
about women who don’t measure up, and making sure everything she does or says
is “appropriate.” She volunteers for worthy causes, but we suspect the reason
she does so is to impress the girls at the club with her numerous “Volunteer of
the Year” awards. She is continually critical of her eldest daughter, BROOKE,
because the girl ran off with a musician leaving her husband and daughter. Now
back home with her tail between her legs, Laura treats Brooke with disdain and
continually harps on her daughter’s “inappropriate” choices.
Then Laura’s husband becomes
terminally ill, and everything changes. She realizes she needs to search for a
better version of herself. She begins to act very inappropriately, and we come
to learn about events in her past that changed her from a wild child to a
stuffed shirt. She creates a service for terminally ill patients offering them
a last wish, and then, if they desire, helps them take their own lives. Brooke
revels in the change, pulling the mother-daughter relationship to the breaking
point. “I may have done a lot of shitty things in my life, but there’s one
thing I can say. I never murdered anybody.” Laura’s country club friends
abandon her.
Laura struggles with
the moral, ethical and legal dimensions of what she's doing. Complicating
matters is the fact that the cops are on to them. Nevertheless, she continues
her services until her world’s shattered by two unexpected developments. First,
she learns too late that one of her clients really wasn't terminal; and second,
she discovers that Brooke is gravely ill. Laura's beliefs are shaken to the
core.
Despite its sobering themes, The Chocolate Shop is a love
story—love of a lost husband, a prodigal daughter, good friends, a new man.
Love of a life in full.
Can you tell us a little bit about your next books or what you have
planned for the future?
Working on a sequel where Laura and her crazy Aunt Gracie
go to an Arizona dude ranch as a base of operations to smuggle in affordable
drugs from Mexico for poor seniors who can’t afford them.
Do you allow yourself a certain number of hours to write or do you
write as long as the words come?
I’m usually done after lunch.
Do you have a certain number of words or pages you write per day? No.
What inspires you to write?
Been doing it since I helped write the Christmas skits in
elementary school. The idea of creating something out of thin air and
entertaining people with it is an indescribable feeling.
Would you rather
Read fiction or
non-fiction?
Both,
but read more fiction.
Read series or
stand-alone?
Both.
But love series especially in the thriller genre.
Read Science fiction
or horror?
I love
a combo of both.
Read Stephen King or
Dean Koontz.
King.
(and his son, Joe Hill.)
Read the book or
watch the movie?
Book.
Read an ebook or
paperback?
ebook
when traveling, hardback or paperback the rest of the time.
Be trapped alone for
one month in a library with no computer or a room with a computer and Wi-Fi
only?
Tough
one. Probably with the computer so I could write every day without using paper
and pencil.
Do a cross-country
book store tour or blog tour online?
I love
to travel!
About the Author
J. J. Spring is a pseudonym for a successful author who writes in another genre. J. J. lives in Florida with a spouse and a rambunctious poodle named Handsome Jack.
Contact Links
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3 comments:
thanks for hosting
Great interview! I love hearing about the writer's creative process. Some of those questions in the end were real brain twisters. I also love to travel! Interview gave a wonderful insight to a complex character.
http://sandrasbookclub.blogspot.com/
This sounds really good, thanks for sharing
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