Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Blurb Blitz ~ Joy After Noon by Debra Coleman Jeter


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Debra Coleman Jeter will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Joy marries a widowed bank executive caught in an ethical dilemma and misreads his obvious frustration while struggling to integrate into her new family. Inspired in part by Love, Come Softly, this novel explores the challenges of second marriages and dealing with step-children during the crucial years of puberty and teenage angst. A college professor coming up shortly for the huge tenure decision, Joy finds herself falling apart as her career and her home issues deteriorate and collide.

Read an Excerpt

Joy opened a cabinet door to gaze at the rows of hand-painted spices, little bottles labeled in delicate, loopy cursive and decorated with yellow daffodils, each flower unique. What kind of woman would take the time to transfer store-bought spices into hand-crafted containers? The same woman who painted the daffodils? As a teacher of finance, Joy would question whether she could sell the hand-painted jars for enough cash to compensate for the materials and labor.

In this new universe, the question was altogether different. What was the question? Joy felt lost.

The jars appeared to be aligned in alphabetical order, and she checked to be sure. Coriander seed, cumin ... tarragon, turmeric. They probably hadn’t been used since Carolyn died. Either that, or Carolyn had trained Ray and the girls to keep them in their proper sequence.

The phone rang, startling Joy in the unaccustomed setting. She recognized the voice at once. Her colleague and coauthor Natalie. Yes, the honeymoon was wonderful, Joy told her. She elaborated on the brilliant turquoise of the water, the amazing world she and Ray explored together beneath the sea. She couldn’t tell Natalie the real wonder. To be held, to be nurtured, to feel cherished for the first time in so many years. For the first time ever by a man. She flushed at the thought of confessing as much, at her age.

“I haven’t forgotten our paper,” she said instead. “I know I’ve been negligent lately. But I’ll get on it. Right away.”

About the Author:
Debra Coleman Jeter has published both fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines, including Working Woman, New Woman, Self, Home Life, Savvy, Christian Woman, and American Baby. Her first novel, The Ticket, was a finalist for a Selah Award, as well as for Jerry Jenkins’ Operation First Novel. Her story, “Recovery,” was awarded first prize in a short story competition sponsored by Christian Woman; and her nonfiction book “Pshaw, It’s Me Grandson”: Tales of a Young Actor was a finalist in the USA Book News Awards. She is a co-writer of the screenplay for Jess + Moss, a feature film which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, screened at nearly forty film festivals around the world, and captured several domestic and international awards.

Website and Blog: http://www.debracolemanjeter.com
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/njjeter/the-ticket-a-novel
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debra.c.jeter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebColemanJeter
The Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1941103863
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard
The Ticket trailer: https://vimeo.com/50187275

a Rafflecopter giveaway

13 comments:

Goddess Fish Promotions said...

Thanks for hosting!

James Robert said...

Thanks for sharing your book with us. I think we all enjoy hearing about new books we previously didn't know about. Also, thank you for the giveaway.

Bernie Wallace said...

How did you come up with the title for the book?

Nikki Wilbanks said...

Did your background as an accounting professor inform your writing about Ray's ethical dilemma?

Debra Coleman Jeter said...

Thanks, everyone, for being here today. In answer to the question about the ethical dilemma, this is something I often discussed in the classroom. For a few years I taught a short course to banking executives. But my regular classes were mostly finance and accounting majors, so the banking crisis hit close to home. Also, I wrote a textbook that focused (in about half the chapters) on mergers and acquisitions. A lot of people think accounting is black and white, but there's actually a fair amount of gray territory. Following the rules or disobeying the rules can also be about pushing the boundaries, or seeing what you can get away with.

In my first novel, The Ticket, I pushed boundaries for what readers are Christian fiction are used to seeing in a novel. That novel had a scene in which a teenager is subjected to sexual harassment by an older man. This scene was disturbing to a lot of people. In Joy after Noon, there's a point where Joy envisions her husband as having a much richer sex life with his first wife than with her. Sex is such an integral part of human life, I address it in some fashion in most of my books. So...pushing boundaries, either at work or in my writing, is something I'm well acquainted with.

Debra Coleman Jeter said...

Bernie, as for the title ... Initially, the idea behind my title was that my protagonist Joy’s life has been lonely (and joy has been elusive) since her parents died when she was sixteen, and she has about given up on finding love when she meets Ray. She comes into his ready-made family and, for a time, this seems like a mistake to her. However, in the afternoon of her life, she finds love and joy.
When do you think the afternoon of life begin?

To read more about the title and the characters (and other aspects of the novel), check out my blog at www.debracolemanjeter.com/blog

Victoria Alexander said...

Sounds like my kind of book!

Sonya Allstun said...

How do you come up with new book ideas
sallstun
at
hotmaildotcom

Debra Coleman Jeter said...

Different ways. Sometimes it is something that I hear about on the news or something I hear about from a friend or acquaintance, and sometimes it is something that I read that triggers an idea

Bernie Wallace said...

Are any of the characters in the book inspired by people you know?

Debra Coleman Jeter said...

not directly but there is always a bit of me in all my characters

Bobbi said...

This sounds really good! There's like real life drama, romance, and a little mystery going on too!

Debra Coleman Jeter said...

Thanks Bobbi.