My Three Favorite Quotes
Thank you very much for having me over today. I thought about what type of information I could share with your readers that would give them an insight into me. So, I’d like to share some of my favorite quotes and what they mean to me. So let’s dive right in.
“Change happens. Capitalize on it or capsize under it.” Chuck Reeves
I first heard this from a business and sales consultant hired by the company I worked for. He uttered those fateful words just as he announced everyone was changing roles and job duties within the structure of the company. He was telling each of us we have a choice on whether we could take the changes and work them, or let them bury us. I’ve always been a Pollyanna and strive to see the bright side of every situation and find a way to make it work for me. It’s something I try to infuse into my characters. It was fun to do this with Lia and Ben from Hunger, but Ben went through the most change. Although, I think it would be great fun to try to write someone who refuses to change.
“You are your only roadblock” Unknown
This is another quote from a former co-worker whose name escapes me right now (at least his words stuck with me, and the fact that he was really handsome). It occurred in a meeting meant to motivate employees. His words came at a particularly opportune time, because I’d just broken up with a boyfriend and was wallowing in self-pity (it wasn’t very pretty). I added the words to your happiness to the end of the quote to fit my situation. Once again, it was all about choice. I could choose to pull myself up by my pantyhose and get on with living my life, or forever mourn the demise of my relationship. I invested in those words until they became a mantra of sorts. Many years later, I’m better and happier because I made a conscious choice to not be a roadblock (I don’t look good in orange stripes anyway).
“This above all; to thine own self be true” - William Shakespeare
When I hear these words, I am reminded that no one else can tell the stories my characters have entrusted to me. People can recommend changes to my characters’ traits, or suggest courses of action. But only I get to decide whether the guy gets the girl, or the hero has to start as a gruff so-and-so who is constantly angry with the heroine. No one can tell me to not put dirty words in my heroine’s mouth. No one gets to suggest my story might be better if I move the location to the beach or mountains. To me, Mr. Shakespeare is telling me to do it how I want. And I do like having that power.
Hunger
Goddesses of Delphi
Book 4
Gemma Brocato
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance
Date of Publication: Jan 10, 2017
Number of pages: Approximately 220
Word Count: 66K
Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde Media
Book Description:
Lia Thanos, Muse of Comedy, has joked her way through hundreds of lifetimes. But the past few months have been no laughing matter. She and her sisters have been locked in a battle to save Olympus from a hostile takeover. Now, the god challenging them has upped his game and personally selected the mortal man destined to help Lia win.
Botanist Ben Jordan has his hands full; running a farmer’s market, helping his hearing-impaired sister, and trying to figure out why crops around the world are failing. If the trend can’t be reversed, humans will starve and chaos will destroy the world. The only good news is the long-time famine he’s faced in his love life came to an end when he met Lia.
Despite the fact that Ben finds it hard to believe immortal gods exist, he accepts the challenge to help Lia, a woman he yearns to spend the rest of his life with. But Pierus and his daughter, Hunger, will stop at nothing to keep the two apart.
Book Trailer https://youtu.be/ZucJPocmXnM
Excerpt:
“Will you please
tell me what’s going on?” Ben’s earlier calm evaporated as Mnemosyne chanted in
a language he didn’t understand.
“I will. I know
we only just met, but Pierus has deemed you my partner in this challenge. It’s
going to require you to suspend disbelief and trust me.”
“A lady just
materialized out of thin air and I haven’t even once considered myself crazy.”
“There is that.
Will you come with me?” Lia moved toward a door to the left of the stage.
With one last
look at his statue-like friends, Ben followed.
Lia’s hips swung
side-to-side as she preceded him down a hallway lit by florescent lights. Even
as fucked up as reality seemed at the moment, he still noticed the seductive
sway. Barely curbing the urge to increase his speed so he could grab her ass,
he shook his head.
Maybe he was
certifiable.
She opened a
door on the right side of the corridor and slipped inside.
He followed,
closed the door, and then leaned against it. “I’m waiting.”
“You already
know my name is Thalia. What you don’t know is that I’m immortal. I’m the Muse
of Comedy and Agriculture. And mortals—the entire human race—are under siege.
You just don’t know it yet.”
“Bullshit!” he
scoffed.
“Wish I could
say it was. That it’s just a huge prank that is part of the comedy club’s
regularly scheduled entertainment.” She took up a position behind her desk,
resting her palms on the dark wood. “But this is deadly serious. My sisters are
Muses as well and we are in a supernatural fight for the safety of all mortal
kind.”
As she sat in
the chair behind her, the look on her face was earnest, brows raised, eyes
wide. She believed her own psychosis. He searched his memory for anything he
might have read about how to deal with delusional behavior. He had nothing
other than recollected warnings about not encouraging that kind of behavior,
and maintaining a distance in case of possible violent outbursts.
He took a step
toward the desk, and then another, shaking his head as he did. This was no way
to establish distance between them. He took another step and closed the gap,
until the only thing between them was a block of wood. Not a very good barrier,
considering the way she’d leaped over the bar when Paul had been going
schizoid.
“I suppose next
you’ll tell me Zeus is real and is your dad.”
She nodded
solemnly. “And Gaia is my mother. Although she isn’t a god. She’s a primordial
deity.”
He didn’t bother
to restrain his snort. He had to be dreaming.
“I’m happy to
pinch you if you think it would help. But I get to pick where I pinch.” Lia
dropped her gaze to his ass, then lifted her eyes and offered with a bright
smile. She gestured to a straight-backed chair.
Ben sat down
hard enough to bite his tongue. Thanks to the pain he experienced, he knew he
wasn’t dreaming. “Okay, I’m willing to go on a little faith here. Maybe you
should start at the top.”
“In my first or
second incarnation, a deity named Pierus challenged Zeus, claiming his nine
daughters were superior to the Muses. While my sisters and I inspire the world
to good things, Pierus and his offspring represent all the bad juju out in the
world. His bitches come with names like Greed, Strife, Doom, Disease…you get
the idea. It appears my challenge might be with Hunger.” She stood to pace
behind her desk. “Zeus got pissed at Pierus, and transformed his children into
magpies for all eternity. But the evil bastard still manages to rise up every
thousand years or so to challenge us.”
Thousands of
years? “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
She moved around the desk and leaned her hip on the edge. “In this lifetime. If
you counted up the entire number of years I’ve been alive, my age is closer to
six-thousand and twenty-four. No wait. Is it eight-thousand? I’ve sucked at
math in every lifetime.”
Okay, that
little fact freaked him the fuck out. Unable to deal with it, he filed the
detail for exploration later. “Tell me more about this challenge.”
“Okay, but you
have to know, until recently, no mortals in this millennia ever knew of our
existence. Only three other men even have a clue at this point. You’re kind of
a rare breed.”
She propped a
hand on her hip, pulling her T-shirt taut over her breasts. Ben dropped his
gaze to the luscious display and swallowed hard to move past the need to cup
his palms around them.
Lia cleared her
throat. “Um, just for now, eyes up. But this attraction you feel might be part
of the challenge.”
“Don’t you feel
it?”
“The connection?
Yeah. When you touched my wrist, I had a premonition that we are meant to be
together.”
“You too? I saw
us in a darkened room with…I don’t know, maybe crows flying around us.”
She tipped her
head to the side and pressed a finger to her lips. “That’s new. I’ve never
shared foresight with anyone before. One more nail in your coffin.” She winked
at him, followed the motion with a chuckle.
Her quiet laugh
swirled through him, twisting like an auger along his body. Everything from his
waist down drew tight, went hard. However, his brain heard coffin. “I’m not
going to die thanks to this challenge, am I?”
“You won’t. Not
if we beat Pierus. Unfortunately, we have to play to win.” Lia hopped up on the
desk, swinging her legs. She held up her hand, closed her eyes and lifted her
face. Almost like she was speaking to someone in her mind.
Ben studied her
casual posture, her easy confidence. For a six-or-eight-thousand and something
year-old, she was dead sexy. Oh, Lord. What was he thinking? Or better, which head
was he thinking with? Even if his attraction to her was a result of his
unknowing involvement in this challenge, he didn’t mind giving in to it.
About the Author:
Gemma's favorite desk accessories for many years were a circular wooden token, better known as a 'round tuit,' and a slip of paper from a fortune cookie proclaiming her a lover of words; some day she'd write a book. All it took was a transfer to the United Kingdom, the lovely English springtime, and a huge dose of homesickness to write her first novel. Once it was completed and sent off with a kiss, even the rejections addressed to 'Dear Author' were gratifying.
After returning to America, she spent a number of years as a copywriter, dedicating her skills to making insurance and the agents who sell them sound sexy.
Eventually, her full-time job as a writer interfered with her desire to be a writer full-time and she left the world of financial products behind to pursue a career as a romance author.
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Thank you so much for hosting me today.
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