Clients
BookSparksPR represents both fiction and non-fiction authors in a variety of genres.
Fiction author clients
Irene Zutell
Sarah Pekkanen
Liz Fenton
Lisa Steinke
Elise Allen
Holly Christine
Jennifer Ross
Jane Porter
Allison Winn Scotch
Jenny Nelson
Lisa Unger
Christine Lemmon
Non-fiction author clients
Marianna Owlszewski
Linda Samuels
Beth Feldman
Fiction author clients
Irene Zutell
Irene Zutell published her third book – Pieces of Happily Ever After (St. Martin’s Press) in September 2009. It was picked up by Target stores, a finalist for the Target Book Club and chosen as the first book pick for the popular online SheKnows Book Club.
Her debut novel, They’re Not Your Friends, a sizzling roman a’ clef about celebrity journalism, was published by Crown/Three Rivers Press and won national and critical acclaim. And her second book, I’ll Never Have Sex With You Again! Tales From the Delivery Room was published by Simon & Schuster and was featured in TIME, Glamour, The New York Times, The Star, The New York Daily News, and more.
Irene’s journalism has appeared in PEOPLE, US Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New York Daily News and Newsday. She also created and co-excecutive produced the CBS primetime reality series, Wickedly Perfect. A frequent panelist on The Fox New Movie Show, Irene has also been a contributor to the Joan Hamburg Show (WOR radio NY) and a commentator on the BBC, giving her take on humourous matters “across the pond.” Follow Irene on Twitter and friend Irene on Facebook.
About Pieces of Happily Ever After
What happens after happily ever after? Alice, a New Yorker who thought she’d never feel at home in L.A., is adapting. It’s not easy raising a 5-year-old daughter while trying to keep a job and make her new house a home. When her attorney husband lands a trophy client – box-office queen Rose Maris – things begin to look up. Then Alex starts working late – a lot. He crunches his paunch into a six-pack and trades his Gap ensembles for Armani everything.
Soon, Rose and Alex’s affair blazes in the tabloids and Alice is plunged into trash-gossip hell. Her life crumbles around her as she navigates her newly single self through the bizarre world of the San Fernando Valley. Is there a chance to wrest Alex from the Sexiest Woman Alive? And if so…would Alice want him back?
The Pieces of Happily Ever After book trailer.
Order Pieces of Happily Ever After now at Amazon.
Author Sarah Pekkanen
Sarah Pekkanen
Women’s fiction author of The Opposite of Me, published by Atria Books (a division of Simon & Schuster) March 9, 2010. The book, a Redbook magazine March book pick, received rave reviews in People magazine (3.5/4 stars), The Washington Post and more. Sarah lives in the Washington D.C. area and is currently working on her second novel. Find Sarah on Facebook and on Twitter.
About The Opposite of Me
Reminiscent of Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes and Emily Giffin’s Something Borrowed, this smart, funny and poignant debut novel explores the desire to have it all, the relationships that define us, and the complicated, irreplaceable bonds of sisterhood.
Twenty-nine year old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her devastatingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named Creative Vice President of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of 80-plus hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But during the course of one devastating night, Lindsey’s carefully-constructed life implodes.
Humiliated and desperate, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her prince charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin, while she furtively tries to put her career back together. But things get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.
Buy The Opposite of Me now at Amazon.
Liz Fenton
Chick Lit author and popular blogger who co-wrote I’ll Have Who She’s Having (Makdan Publishing, 2009) and part of the mastermind behind the witty, popular Chick Lit is Not Dead blog. Liz also blogs as the Drama Mama for ModernMom. She lives in Long Beach, Calif., and is working on her second book. Find Liz on Facebook and on Twitter.
Lisa Steinke
Chick Lit author and popular blogger who co-wrote I’ll Have Who She’s Having (Makdan Publishing, 2009) and the other half of the mastermind behind the witty, popular Chick Lit is Not Dead blog. Lisa and Liz are best friends in addition to co-writers. Lisa also blogs frequently for Barnes & Noble’s Unabashadly Bookish blog and Mall of America’s Fashion Sense blog. She lives in Chicago and is working on her second book with Liz. Find Lisa on Facebook and on Twitter.
About Liz and Lisa’s novel I’ll Have Who She’s Having
What happens when a man comes between one desperately single and one very married sister?
Kate’s been depressed ever since yet another long-term boyfriend unceremoniously dumped her. When her younger and married sister Kelly convinces her the way to meet a quality man is for the two of them to sign up for a volleyball class, she’s just desperate enough to agree. But Kate becomes so fixated on their coach that she fails to see an unlikely but perfect match right in front of her.
Kelly’s been less than happy for longer than she wants to admit. She’s the one who appears to have it all: the perfect husband, the big house and the beautiful daughter. Despite it all, she feels an emptiness she can’t explain and is conflicted when it’s her volleyball coach who offers an answer.
I’ll Have Who She’s Having follows Kate and Kelly as they battle themselves and each other in their search for a happy ending. Through a series of hardships and self-doubt, they both realize they were looking for happiness in the wrong places. It’s a novel for anyone who ever secretly let their insecurities get the best of them.
Liz and Lisa on their debut novel I’ll Have Who She’s Having
Order I’ll Have Who She’s Having now from Amazon.
Visit Liz and Lisa’s popular Chick Lit is Not Dead Blog where they blog about Chick Lit, favorite authors, books, pop culture, movies, bad 90s fashion, motherhood, marriage, relationships, unleashing your inner Cougar and more hilarious stories.
And become a fan of Chick Lit is Not Dead on Facebook.
Holly Christine
Holly Christine is the author of The Nine Lives of Clemenza, Retail Ready, and the recently published Tuesday Tells it Slant. She attended Washington & Jefferson College, earning a degree in English in 2004. Holly carried on a normal life until December of 2009 when the inspiration for Tuesday Tells it Slant hit. Twenty days and an unfathomable amount of coffee later, she published her latest novel. She resides in Pittsburgh and is co-creator of the Pittsburgh South Writers Group. Follow Holly on Twitter.
About Tuesday Tells it Slant
Tuesday Morning has always been a little… different. She’s kept a diary since 1989 and while researching for her senior seminar paper on Emily Dickinson’s Transcendental tendencies, reads a poem that will change her life. And not just her future. Tuesday changes her past. We all have secrets and skeletons in our closets, but Tuesday has managed to clean hers out with a pen and a diary. Just how precious is our past? And how much has our past created what we are today?
Check out Tuesday Tells it Slant teaser.
Buy Tuesday Tells it Slant from Amazon or buy the Kindle edition.
And check out the rave things Kindle Nation Daily had to say about Tuesday Tells it Slant.
Jennifer Ross
Jennifer Ross is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, a transplanted Texan who experienced a culture shock of her own when she moved away from New York. She writes novels and produces films. Currently she is in the middle of producing a gangster film based in London … and crossing her fingers that it will be filmed there.
On the side Ross is an amateur baker. She learned most of her baking skills from her grandmother, who was taught to cook in a sod house in Colorado. As her grandmother used to say, “If you can make something good in a wood burning stove, you know how to cook.” Her grandmother funded most of her retirement with a backdoor baking business that provided other grandmothers with “homemade” cookies for their grandchildren’s visits.
Ross graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in religious studies. She is now working on a double Masters in acupuncture and herbs.
Ross and her husband Kim have three children, all named after family: Columbus, Lyrah and Treat. They live in Austin, TX. Follow Jennifer on Twitter, or visit Jennifer’s site.
About The Icing on the Cupcake
The Icing on the Cupcake is a multi-generational story about a young Texan woman named Ansley, who builds a new life for herself after a broken engagement by opening a cupcake shop in New York City.
Jennifer Ross writes, “The idea for this story was born when I was pregnant with my daughter. I had a huge sweet tooth, and I baked almost every day—cakes, cookies, brownies and eventually cupcakes. Once I hit cupcakes I didn’t go any further—I made dozens of cupcakes. I experimented with all sorts of frostings, fillings, and flavors.
Baking like that reminded me of my grandmother, who was a baking legend in my family. She ran a small business out of her kitchen selling her cookies and cakes to other grandmothers, who would pass them off as their own. She never gave out a completed recipe. Whenever she gave someone a recipe there was a crucial step or ingredient missing—she didn’t like competition. I grew up baking in her kitchen and I learned a lot there.
I think for a lot of bakers and cooks being in the kitchen reminds them of their own childhood, and it’s a nice warm feeling. I wanted to capture that in a book.”
Order The Icing on the Cupcake at Amazon.
Jane Porter
Jane Porter, the bestselling author of 30 novels, including six for Grand Central Publishing, has been a finalist for the prestigious RITA award from Romance Writers of America in 2002, 2003, 2008, and 2010. Jane’s July ‘06 release, Flirting With Forty, picked by Redbook as its Red Hot Summer Read, went back for seven printings in six weeks before being made into a December ‘08 Lifetime movie starring Heather Locklear. Jane’s newest release, She’s Gone Country, will be out this August 2010. A busy mother of three sons, Jane holds an MA in Writing from the University of San Francisco and makes her home in Bellevue, Washington where she’s working on her next novel.
Keep up with Jane on her website, www.janeporter.com
About She’s Gone Country
Popular author of Flirting with Forty, Easy on the Eyes and more. Her latest book, She’s Gone Country, is about Shey Darcy, a 39-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated who led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband until the day he announced he’d fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons. Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey’s ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bullriding champ and she’s got her hands full. It doesn’t take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness—and maybe love—in the present.
Pre-order She’s Gone Country at Amazon.
Allison Winn Scotch
Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The One That I Want, Time of My Life and The Department of Lost and Found. She is also a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in dozens of national consumer magazines. She lives in New York with her husband, son, and daughter, and their dog.
Follow Allison on Twitter, or her blog at www.allisonwinn.com.
About The One That I Want
NYT bestselliing author of Time of My Life is coming out with a new title this summer, The One That I Want. Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a school guidance counselor, trying for a baby. Perfect. But one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into a fortune teller’s tent and meets an old childhood friend, who offers her more than just a reading. “I’m giving you the gift of clarity,” her friend says. “It’s what I always through you needed.” And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her alcoholic father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys in hand; her husband uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway. And even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly’s perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And as she furiously races to keep up with – and hopefully change – her destiny, she faces the question: Which life does she want? The one she’s carefully nursed for decades, or the one she never considered possible?
What if you could see into the future? Would you want to know what fate has in store?
Preorder The One That I Want on Amazon.com
Jenny Nelson
Jenny Nelson lives with her husband, twin daughters and dog in Millbrook, NY and Manhattan, where she was editor and producer at iVillage.com, Vogue.com and Style.com. This is her first novel.
About Georgia’s Kitchen
Getting burned—in and out of the kitchen—might be the best thing that ever happened to Georgia Gray.
At 33, talented chef Georgia Gray has everything a woman could want—the top job at one of Manhattan’s best restaurants, a posse of smart and savvy gal pals who never let her down, and a platinum-set, cushion-cut diamond engagement ring courtesy of Glenn, the handsome entertainment lawyer who Georgia’s overbearing mother can’t wait for her to marry. The table is set for the ambitious bride-to-be until a scathing restaurant review destroys her reputation. To add salt to her wounds, Glenn suddenly calls off the wedding.
Brokenhearted, Georgia escapes to the Italian countryside, where she sharpens her skills at a trattoria run by a world-class chef who seems to have it all—a devoted lover, a magnificent villa, and most importantly, a kitchen of her own. Georgia quells her longings with Italy’s delectable offerings: fine wine, luscious cheeses, cerulean blue skies, and irresistible Gianni, an expert in the vineyard and the bedroom. So when Gianni tempts Georgia to stay in Italy with an offer no sane top chef could refuse, why can’t she say yes?
An appetite for something more looms large in Georgia’s heart – the desire to run her own restaurant in the city she loves. But having left New York with her career in flames, she’ll need to stir up more than just courage if she’s to realize her dreams and find her way home.
Pre-order Georgia’s Kitchen at Amazon.
Lisa Unger
Lisa Unger is the award winning author of Die for You and the New York Times bestsellers Beautiful Lies, Sliver of Truth, and Black Out and a new book, Fragile, coming August 2010. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world. She lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.
Visit her online at www.LisaUnger.com.
About Fragile
Despite their mostly happy marriage, when their son Ricky’s girlfriend vanishes, Maggie and Jones find themselves at odds Maggie is positive Ricky had nothing to do with Charlene’s disappearance, while Jones isn’t as sure. With Charlene gone, the memory of another young girl who went missing some twenty years ago is haunting the town. That story didn’t have a happy ending, and almost everyone has an unrevealed reason to keep the horror of it firmly in the past. As Jones and the police turn their focus on Ricky, Maggie must find out the truth about what happened all those years ago. In order to save her son and the young woman whose life hangs in the balance, she’ll test the bonds of her community and find out just how fragile they can be.
Pre-order Fragile from Amazon.
Christine Lemmon is the author of three novels -Sanibel Scribbles, Portion of the Sea, and Sand in My Eyes, and the gift book, Whisper from the Ocean. She has lived all over the country writing for radio, newspaper, television and magazine. She currently lives with her husband and three children on Sanibel Island, a subtropical island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, which is the setting for her novels. She gets most of her inspiration while biking, kayaking or walking around the island, and watching sunsets with her family, but then she must hold her ideas until night, when her children are sleeping and she can write.
Christine is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs and women’s groups where she discusses writing and creativity. She is writing her next novel.
Become a fan of Christine on Facebook.
Follow Christine on Twitter.
About Sand in My Eyes
Twenty years ago, Anna Hott thought she could control everything-her crumbling marriage, her demanding children, her hectic life-by quitting her high-paced job in New York City and moving her family to tranquil Sanibel Island, Florida. But she brought her untamed emotions, her rage toward her cheating husband, and her yearning to write a novel with her. When her husband and children left the house for a week, Anna thought at last she would get her household, her novel, and her mind in order. Instead, her elderly neighbor Fedelina Aurelio knocked on her door bearing flowers and homespun wisdom, and when Fedelina’s recently divorced son arrived, Anna had a test of passion and a test of truth. Now, at 56 with an empty nest, Anna Hott pulls out the incomplete manuscript she started that memorable week and-to find closure for her life and a conclusion for her novel-travels to Indiana to visit Fedelina who lives in a nursing home.
A novel framed within a novel, Sand in My Eyes is both a story about the tension between motherhood and personal dreams as well as a story about women across generations inspiring one another to let beauty persist despite ugly circumstances.
Order Sand in My Eyes on Amazon.
Non-fiction author clients
Marianna Olszewski
Best-selling author Marianna Olszewski started from nothing- and reached all her financial goals by age 30. She is a Wall Street money expert, life coach, mother and now author. In her best-selling book, Live it! Love it! Earn it!, she empowers women to live the life of their dreams. She offers lifestyle and financial strategies for women who want to succeed – from starting their own business, to climbing the corporate ladder, to not being afraid of money, to finding time for joy, travel, love and more. Her book is full of tools, tips and ideas to live the life you want – and contains success stories from amazing women like Tory Burch, Tamara Mellon of Jimm Choo, and more.
Marianna on her book, Live it! Love it! Earn it! :
Order Live it! Love it! Earn it! from Amazon.
Linda Samuels
Linda Samuels, CPO-CD® is a compassionate, enthusiastic professional organizer and author of the book, The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection. In January 1993, she combined her visual arts expertise, business background, love of helping people, and organizing abilities to launch Oh, So Organized! In addition to hands-on organizing, Linda presents seminars, writes, produces an organizing newsletter, and consults for other professional organizers. She has been featured in The New York Times, Woman’s Day, Ladies Home Journal, and Westchester Magazine. She lives between two rivers in Croton on Hudson, New York with her husband and daughters. Follow Linda on Twitter.
About The Other Side of Organized
In her book, The Other Side of Organized, Linda encourages readers to get organized enough to reduce the stress of life’s details and make time to embrace your passions. Already, thousands of clients and readers have found help and inspiration in her advice, personal reflections on change and connection, and vision of what can be accomplished when you find that sweet spot between chaos and perfection.
Check out Chapter One of The Other Side of Organized .
Buy The Other Side of Organized from Amazon.
Beth Feldman
Beth Feldman is an author, popular mom blogger and entreprenuer. She is founder of Role Mommy, an online community and events company dedicated to inspiring, entertaining and empowering today’s busy moms to pursue their passion while raising a family. She wrote and edited the book See Mom Run: Sidesplitting Essays by the World’s Most Harried Blogging Moms (November 2009, Plain White Press).
Beth is also the co-author of Peeing in Peace: Tales & Tips for Type A Moms (Sourcebooks) and is a contributor to True Mom Confessions (Penguin). Feldman is a former television network executive who pole vaulted off the corporate ladder to become the president of her own PR consulting agency, and she’s the host of Blog Talk Radio’s brand new Role Mommy Radio network. Additionally, Feldman was recently named the co-editor for the Just For Fun section of LifetimeMoms.com.
About See Mom Run
See Mom Run is a compilation of essays from the best and busiest mom bloggers in the country – sidesplitting stories about the comedic trials and errors of today’s modern moms. With the help of the nation’s most talented bloggers, authors, magazine writers, television producers, a retired senator and a gaggle of grandmothers, Beth shares some of the most jaw-dropping, relatable and bittersweet moments of their lives in this fast-paced and entertaining read.
The See Mom Run Cross-country Book Tour
In November 2009, Beth and the contributing mom bloggers kicked-off a 10-city See Mom Run book tour presented by Swiffer. They traveled by planes, trains and automobiles to unconvential locations across the country to meet other real modern moms, sign books, giveaway books, prizes and share their stories.
Follow See Mom Run on Twitter and become a Fan of See Mom Run on Facebook.
Order See Mom Run: Sidesplitting Essays from the World’s Most Harried Blogging Moms from Amazon now.
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