Guest Post by author Joanne Campbell Slan and Giveaway!

Please join me in welcoming Joanna Campbell Slan, author of the newly released Photo, Snap, Shot to Always With a Book! If you missed my review, you can read it here. Today Joanna guest blogs about ‘the least she can do.”

Enjoy and be sure to enter the giveaway!

The Least I Can Do 

By Joanna Campbell Slan 

Sometimes I think the trajectory of my life could be measured and charted by the titles of the books I’ve read.

      When I was a kid, there was Dick, Jane, Sally, Puff and Spot. What an ideal family, even if Sally was a bit of a third wheel. Thinking back, did those people even have a last name? Hmmm. Pretty suspicious, if you ask me. But Jane and Sally did seem to get along pretty well as sisters, didn’t they?

      Then there’s a jump, a gap caused by books that were probably too boring to recall properly, and suddenly I see the cover of Charlotte’s Web. Oh, my gosh, what a tear-jerker. I cried buckets and buckets over poor Charlotte. I can close my eyes today and still see Wilbur’s hopeful face as the baby spiders hatch in the barn. Charlotte, even though she was a tiny speck on the page, was a tour-de-force, a woman to be reckoned with. She faced her mortality squarely. She saved Wilbur’s life. Even though she wrote, “What a pig!” Wilbur could have just as easily scratched out, “What a spider!” in the dirt of his pigpen.

      Next came Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Mary Poppins. Now, Walt Disney did a number on old M.P. He really sanitized her for the screen. In the books, she was a lot more stern and, gulp, sort of creepy but in a wonderful, magical way. I remember finishing the last page in the series. Mary opens her umbrella and floats off, supposedly to another family with a bunch of needy kids. I staggered out of my bedroom and walked right into my mom, who was ironing. (Definitely NOT her favorite thing.) “What on earth?” Mom asked as she set down her cigarette and blew out a puff of smoke that would make a chimney sweep proud.

      “Mary Poppins is gone!” I wailed.

      I think Mom rolled her eyes. “It’s just a book!”

      Right. And Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle doesn’t really turn greedy little boys into pigs. Tell me another big whopper.

      I moved from nannies and ersatz grandmother types to Nancy Drew. Wow. A sports car and a boyfriend named Ned? Get out of town! All that, plus blonde good looks and father who was a lawyer. Gosh.

      I loved the mysteries. I enjoyed trying to solve the puzzles myself. But I have to admit, after awhile, Nancy’s life was just a bit too perfect for me. Her dad never got angry with her. She never got in trouble for any of the stunts she pulled. I started to wonder if Nancy was for real, or if Carolyn Keene was pulling a fast one on me. La-la-la, la-la-la, there goes Nancy where no girl fears to tread without ruffling a hair on her perfect head.

      Ugh. It was all too pat for me.

      In short, I was developing a taste for angst. Then I found an old copy of Jane Eyre tucked away on my parents’ bookshelves. From the first sentence, I was hooked. The horror of a ghastly school like Lowood kept me awake at night. The thought of waking up next to a dead girl totally grossed me out…but it also intrigued me. I was enchanted by the gothic spookiness of Thornfield Hall. And I fell completely, irrevocably in love with Edward Rochester, that passionate but complex man.

      From Jane Eyre, it was only a hop-skip-and-jump across the English fields to Wuthering Heights. Okay, now we have people with SERIOUS problems. Cathy and Heathcliff were total nut-jobs, but I hung on every word, even though I wasn’t sure I understood any of it.

      Looking back, all my favorites had one thing in common: strong female protagonists.

      I guess I was not only searching for a good read, I was also looking for role models. I found them on the pages of these books.

      This week at a signing in Festival of Mystery in Oakmont (PA), I reconnected with a young lady named Kiki, just like the protagonist in my series. Imagine how excited I was to learn that she’d “gobbled up” Photo, Snap, Shot, the first book in my series. My heart fairly leaped with joy when her mother told me they’d been waiting for my visit to buy Books 2 & 3 in the series.

      I hope that my Kiki provides that Kiki—and many other young girls and their mothers—with countless hours of reading pleasure.

      It’s the least I can do. 

** 

Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of fifteen books, including three books in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. Paper, Scissors, Death was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Cut, Crop & Die was the second in the series. Photo, Snap, Shot was just released this month. Publisher’s Weekly called it “a cut above the usual craft-themed cozy.” Visit Joanna at www.JoannaSlan.com or at http://www.KillerHobbies.blogspot.com

Thank you Joanna for visiting and now on to the giveaway.

GIVEAWAY RULES:

To enter:  Leave me a comment and let me know why you want to win Photo, Snap, Shot. Please include your e-mail address in your comment, so that I have a way to contact you if you win. No e-mail= no entry!

• Bonus Entry (+1)  Become a follower of this blog on Google Friend Connect. Please leave me a separate comment letting me know that you follow. Current followers are eligible as well- just leave a separate comment letting me know that you already do!

• Bonus Entry (+1):  Tell me who your all-time favorite book character is.

Rules:

• US  only
• No PO Boxes please
• Book will be mailed out by the author
• All entries must be separate in order to count as more than one entry

Thanks to everyone for entering!  Good luck!

GIVEAWAY ENDS

AT 6 PM, EST, MAY 26

Winners will be contacted by e-mail after this date and will have 48 hours to respond.