As many of you know, NLB has been on tour for two months. From comments around the internet, many people are finding that When Camels Fly is or would be an excellent addition to their TBR. Well ladies and gents, it is my immense pleasure to close out this tour by inviting NLB back to Teddyrose Book Reviews.
Publisher: NLBHorton, via Amazon’s White Glove (May 15, 2014)
Agent: Mary Keeley at Books & Such Literary Management
Category: Contemporary suspense, thread of Romance
Tour Date: May/June, 2014
Available in: Print & ebook, 370 Pages
A mother’s fatal shot. A daughter’s deadly choice.
In Israel, archaeologist Grace Madison shoots her daughter’s abductor. Seconds later, a handsome shepherd drops from the sky to kill a second assassin. Their world changes in two blinks of an eye.
Unbeknownst to them, a fiercely ambitious evil is destroying everything in its path—the unconventional path Grace and Maggie take. They struggle to right a wrong as old as time, and discover time is running out in the race for their lives. Family and friends are swept into their vortex, extinguishing old flames while igniting new loves.
While the scale tips dangerously toward disaster, millions of lives hang in the balance. And the mother-and-daughter team soon realizes nothing is as it seems. Even each other.
Because choosing what’s right is all that’s left.
Please give a warm welcome to NLB Horton!
Inspiration for When Camels Fly
The question for the subject of this guest blog, “What was your inspiration for When Camels Fly?” made me pause. Every time I thought I had the answer, my brain pushed further back, and I ended up in my childhood—roughly fifty years ago.
I was an odd child. Although I spent my summers reading, writing, and drawing, with some swimming and summer camp thrown in for good measure, my existence covered by the umbrella of boredom. I sought something I couldn’t find, and hungrily searched for whatever it was. I read about Nancy Drew and everything by Alcott, moved through du Maurier, the Bronte sisters, and Austen.
By the time I was a teenager, I face the great abyss of life without an arsenal of books to lead the way. Where were the vigorous heroines? And where were the vigorous heroines who weren’t sidekicks of men? And where were the women out to change the world, do the right thing, and live awesome lives? And was it impossible to do all that without falling in love in the process?
My future looked grim. Pass the well-worn bodice rippers as you fast-forward a few decades.
I have a daughter—an amazing young woman working in the sciences, taking classes at the U.N., planning to become Empress of the Universe when I vacate the position. She has the problems I did in terms of finding fiction that fully engaged me. So I wrote When Camels Fly and The Brothers’ Keepers (November 7, 2014), and am working on the third in a five-book series. I write for women like me, like my daughter, like our friends.
But writing When Camels Fly entailed a leap of faith. It is set in the Middle East, and my previous life in marketing makes me study demographics. The Middle East causes some women to shudder, while others reach for the next romance. So how can I communicate the competitive point of difference in my work?
But stop and think: aren’t perceptions of the Middle East pushed through a male worldview? What so many of us know about this region is the result of war or oil or jihad. (The three go hand-in-hand-in-hand.) When Camels Fly is a window on this most fascinating place, the “cradle of civilization,” opened by educated Western females—my protagonist, archaeologist Grace Madison, and her hydrologist daughter, Maggie. My work is a fresh, although totally accurate depiction about a remarkable place, both today, and all the way back to the earliest glimmers of human history.
As a result of a late-in-life graduate degree from one of the finest seminaries in the United States, I found myself hovering over archaeological digs in Israel and Jordan, listening to heavy artillery from Syria and machine gun fire peppering something in Lebanon. I loved every minute of it, with my daughter at my side. The venture was life changing (since we survived it).
With a start, I realized that this endeavor was exactly the type of adventure I would have loved to read as a young woman, and even as an (ahem) older one. We were exploring new territory. Accumulating experiences that broadened our perspectives and worldviews. Were living vigorously and as a team. We were growing and becoming more interesting, independently. The experiences we put in our life’s basket could never be taken from us, or credited to someone else. We were living the dream.
Not everyone can live on the lunatic fringe as we sometimes do. Not everyone wants to. But everyone can travel via books, and experience the exhilaration of a woman who does the extraordinary in an adventure occurring between the covers of a paperback, or in an e-reader. And that’s precisely what women do in When Camels Fly and The Brothers Keepers, and the other books in the Parched series. Then readers can cruise through the Readers Guide to answer questions about how they would react in Grace’s position.
Is there romance in these books? Of course. Life would be colorless without romance. But it’s not predictable romance, although it ends well. And it’s not simple, because romance seldom is. And it’s not limited to young people, or married people, or unmarried people. The romance I write reflects the realities of life, although I admit a fondness for gallant men.
So why did I write When Camels Fly? For so many reasons, not the least of which is that the role models in books can propel a woman to do extraordinary things, and provide a guide about how someone else—even a fictional someone else—lives life to the fullest.
According to my precious Beta Readers, Grace is Everywoman, who finds herself in dramatic adventures. And every woman, in her own unique way, can be Grace.
After an award-winning detour through journalism and marketing and a graduate degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, NLBHorton returned to writing fiction. She has surveyed Israeli archaeological digs accompanied by artillery rounds from Syria and machine gun fire from Lebanon. Explored Machu Picchu after training with an Incan shaman. And consumed afternoon tea across five continents. When Camels Fly is her first novel. Her second, The Brothers’ Keepers, will be available November 2014.
Website: http://www.nlbhorton.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/NLB-Horton/289059931145461 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NLBHorton
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nlbhorton/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8121286.N_L_B_Horton
Heads up, today is the last day of the book giveaway. However, you have to read this book, why not just go buy it. You all deserve a treat!
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