My new novel, Sunny Side Up! has been available at Amazon.com in paperback and ePub since March 19th. Sales and the critical response have been gratifying—many sincere thanks to those of you who have purchased, read and let me know that they enjoyed the book—but, so far, readers have left only two reviews at the Amazon website. Since my greatest fear each time I do this is that someone very articulate will buy the book, read it, hate it, then post a well-written scathing review, I am always comforted after several positive reviews appear.

The average review-rating for my Three Prophets Series and Sunny Side Up! is 4.9 stars—thanks again. (Link to my author page at Amazon.)

Fortunately, Sunny Side Up’s two lonely reviews are both 5-stars. “You get a great story, laugh out loud lines from characters you may, like me, recognize, and unusual but real family dynamics,” says one.

“Many observations were laugh-out-loud funny and I really felt like I was transported back to the 50’s. Sunny Side Up! is light reading with full-bodied content!” says the other.

Additional reviews (especially if you enjoyed reading it) would be both helpful and appreciated.

 

 

Sunny Side Up! price promotion begins Sunday, April 16

Beginning Sunday, April 16, 8:00 AM EST, the Kindle version (only) of Sunny Side Up! Hollywood Invades the Everglades, the romantic comedy set in 1950s Southwest Florida that asks and answers the question, “Can love be found in food service, especially on breakfast shift?” will be on sale at Amazon.com for $4.99.

The “countdown” promotion sale will last five days. After Sunday the price will increase each day by 10% of list until April 20th, when the sale ends.

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You can read the opening of Sunny Side Up! HERE.

The Kindle Version is listed at Amazon.com, HERE.

The new, 1950’s retro romantic comedy, Sunny Side Up! which asks (and answers) the question, Can true love be found in food service? is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle versions.

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WHEN A LARGE Hollywood production crew invades tiny Vireo, Florida to shoot a feature-length film in the Everglades, local sisters Myra and Emma Rosenquest get caught up in the excitement. Determined to escape the tedium of waiting tables at her stepfather’s rural diner, Emma sets her sights on breaking free from her “old world” family and learning the movie trade but, to succeed, the rebellious, unwed mother of twins must enlist her older sister’s help.
After Emma coerces Myra into accompanying her to a casting call, hearts break and emotions flare when Myra, not Emma, lands a job. Slithering reptiles, pouring rain, swarms of mosquitoes and budding romance abound as Myra, hired to “grease wheels” during the unit’s month-long romp in the swamp, artfully referees frequent collisions between Vireo’s California visitors and shocking redneck reality.

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Sunny Side Up! is a lighthearted, retro-romance based on Warner Brothers Pictures’ actual visit to Naples, Florida in 1951 to shoot scenes for the feature-length film, Distant Drums, starring cinema legend, Gary Cooper. Reconstructed from archival news accounts of Warner Brother’s improbable, month-long stay in postwar Southwest Florida, Sunny Side Up! vividly recalls the postwar days of three-cent postage stamps and bobby socks, when Hollywood was king.

Take a look at Amazon.com …

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Shortly after World War II, a 130-person production crew from Warner Brothers Pictures arrived in Naples, Florida, having arrived to shoot Everglades action scenes for their feature-length thriller, Distant Drums, and, in so doing, increased the sleepy fishing village’s population by nearly ten per cent. I arrived in Naples as a Yankee child two years later. Though the Warner stars and film crew unit had vanished, the place was still abuzz.

You see, Gary Cooper, the “world’s most handsome man,” had walked among the natives and, they were certain, things would never be the same.

Twenty-five years afterward, I returned to nearby Fort Myers, Florida after living and working in Texas. Having never quite forgotten the fuss that the Naples citizenry (read, women) had made in Naples decades earlier, I drove to Naples and began to research Hollywood’s momentous visitation. After discovering in microfiche archives an odd but intriguing coincidence concerning two female Warner extras—they were, apparently, sisters—I was inspired to write a novel about two fictional sisters I very well may have known.

Sunny Side Up! to be released in March of this year, is the resulting lighthearted, retro-romance based on those fleeting days in Naples during which Hollywood actors, administrators and technicians haunted its restaurants, bars and environs, set in the imaginary town of Vireo, Florida.

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