Fenwick Street Books Signing

Leonardtown, Maryland is a cute little main street sort of a historic town. They’ve got a great little cafe called the BTB Coffee Bar & Speakeasy as well as a chocolate shop, among other things. They also have a cute, crammed-to-the-rafters bookstore called Fenwick Street Books. I had a signing there this past Friday.

The first Friday of each month Leonardtown has a little event. The shops stay open later and there is music and other things happening. This past Friday however, it was grey and chilly and damp, so turnout was kind of low. However, some people did come by the bookstore and pick up a signed copy of Red August. Any time somebody takes time out of their day to say hello to me and to spend their hard-earned money on my book, I am truly grateful.

This theme of this particular First Friday was Emergency Responders – so there was an author sitting next to me selling and signing his children’s books. It was nice to have good company while we waited for customers.

I believe Fenwick will be carrying my books. I will keep you posted on that once I get confirmation. So, if you’re in Southern Maryland and want to support a local business and a Maryland author, you can just go buy my book there!

Thanks for all of the support!

James Burd Brewster and H.L. Brooks at Fenwick Street Books, Leonardtown, Maryland

Red August Review by TomeTender

“Grab a fan, because the teen hormones are raging, in full, intimate detail! Red August by H.L. Brooks is not your childhood fairytale come to life, but rather a contemporary version starring an older Red, caught between womanhood and childhood. Filled with wonderfully quirky and kind secondary characters, a feisty grandmother, an ancient feud, death, misunderstandings and a cameo appearance by the Woodsman, H.L. Brooks has taken May-December romances to an entirely new level…”

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW

WHERE TO BUY RED AUGUST

Book Review by SandraTheBookworm

“I absolutely loved this book and the characters! I immediately fell in love with August she is such a smart young lady, takes crap from no one and is a very relatable character; Oh, and Faolan, gosh that man is complete perfection such a gentleman and he loves to read, he is very swoon worthy. The side characters also have a place in my heart; the way H.L. Brooks wrote them just makes them so lovable.”

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW

WHERE TO BUY RED AUGUST

Smashing Words and Other Adventures

WE DID IT!  Between my editor and my proofreaders and many reads and re-reads and re-re-reads (I could do that about ten times and it would be about right), the manuscript for Red August was uploaded to Smashwords.  I uploaded a previous copy, but the formatting was a bit off and we hadn’t linked the Table of Contents – SO MANY THINGS – so Will futzed with all that stuff and VOILA, I got it uploaded.  And guess what?  You can read 1/3 of the book on Smashwords for free RIGHT NOW, before it’s even released on August 19th.  You can also pre-order the book through Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBooks.

Yesterday was kind of a magical day.  We got up super early (Will got up super early, I got up an hour behind him).  By 12:30 the specially formatted for ebook manuscript was uploaded to Smashwords.  Then, we got ready to head down to a birthday party for my beautiful, smart and amazing friend Tracy, who lives about an hour south of us.  We were a bit late to her party, but we stayed extra late to make up for it.  I had SO MUCH FUN.  First of all – BOOK UPLOADED without errors.  So YAY.  THEN I got to see my wonderful friend for her birthday at a lovely bistro with tasty food and wine.  During the party one of her friends pulled into the parking lot in a sexy new red Corvette convertible and I started singing “Little Red Corvette” and then I met the woman who owned it and she took me for a drive.  WHICH WAS AWESOME.   Did I mention that the weather here in Maryland was BEAUTIFUL?  Well, it was.  It was the kind of day you would order, if you could order weather, for convertible driving.  Everybody was sweet to me and I think I made a couple of new friends.  AND somebody pre-ordered my book right there in front of me.  Then, on the way home we found out that my friend, talented playwright Audrey Cefaly, won a pretty amazing Samuel French contest in New York city with her play The Gulf — which is now going to be PUBLISHED by them!  She’s kind of a big deal, y’all!  When we got home my favorite parking space was empty at a time it normally wouldn’t be.  I was exhausted from not enough sleep all week and all the fun, but I was excited too, so I had a hard time getting to sleep.  So what do ya do?  You pull up the social media.  I  looked at Instagram because it’s the social media choice with the least amount of dissonance and nightmare material.  And lo, a nice comment from an instagrammer said they were really looking forward to my book.  I finally made it to sleep not long after that.

It’s been a busy and fulfilling week.  I’m hoping to get things working on Amazon in the next couple of days and I will be able to just focus on marketing and book 2, Red Archer.

Hell Week for Writers

I do some theatre work from time to time.  I enjoy making props and decorating sets.  The week leading up to opening night is called “Tech Week” where you get everything together and make it function – lights, costumes, props, sound, actor cues and so forth.  That week is also referred to as “Hell Week” because it’s very stressful. I have friends who are dedicated thespians who work full time day jobs then work until late at night after work to make a lovely piece of theatre for their community.  It’s a beautiful thing!

Anyway, I’m in my book’s Hell Week.  I need to get my edited, proofed, properly formatted manuscript of almost 90k words uploaded to the books sites by this up-coming Saturday.  I actually shouldn’t even be taking time to post this blog entry, but I couldn’t help myself.  I also wanted to explain, for those of you who like my regular posts of Wonderful Word Wednesday and Sensual Sunday, why those things haven’t been happening.  But I do want to share these photos of the flowers we bought at our local farmer’s market yesterday and also say that I am sure to write a Sensual Sunday soon about the farmer’s market.  This GORGEOUS bunch of flowers was only $8 from a family farm.  Buy local!  Support your local farmers!