Today I'm welcoming author J.M. Kelley to the blog. She's going to tell you a bit about her state and mine, Pennsylvania. I think I live on the wrong side of the state. All the fun stuff is out east!
Pennsylvania is a glorious cornucopia of weirdness. It’s no
wonder that the cosmos planted me in the midst of all the insanity the Keystone
State throws out there. It’s a perfect
fit for me, really.
You don’t have to look far for strangeness in Pennsylvania.
In fact, all one has to do is look up the names of cities and towns in the
state. Lancaster County alone is responsible for the majority of the oddball
name choices: Paradise, Blue Ball, Climax, and Bird-in-Hand. My grandmother,
upon seeing a sign for Intercourse, PA years ago, blurted out, “Intercourse?
That’s a screwy name.”
Of course the real awesomeness set in when she realized the
borderline dirty play on words she’d just shared with the entire carload of
people.
York County, where I was born and raised, is a stronghold of
weird. Countless not-so-urban legends abound in the area, probably because teenagers
have to come up with something fun that doesn’t have to do with cornfields and
hay bales. Most of us have taken a trip down Toad Road (now Trout Run Road) to
see if we had the courage to traverse the Seven Gates of Hell. We’ve gone to
Lewisberry to mess around on Gravity Hill, where you put your car in reverse
and let your mind boggle as the vehicle drifts back up the hill. Rehmeyer’s
Hollow, scene of a bizarre murder and rumored hauntings, was a must-see, if you
could get onto the property before getting run off by cops just waiting for a
bunch of underage hoodlums in search of a scare.
York has the Haines Shoe House. It’s a shoe. It’s a house.
There’s ice cream, too. In the heel, I think….
For the creepy-factor, drive to Centralia, a town abandoned
due to underground mine fires that warm the streets, unleash toxic fumes, and
makes for an all-around life-risking experience.
New York City isn’t the only place boasting a Statue of
Liberty. Pennsylvania has one too: smack in the middle of the Susquehanna
River, in a spot that…well, most people can’t really see it.
Pennsylvania has Hershey, a town with the scent of chocolate
wafting through the air and streets lined with street lights shaped like candy
Kisses. How can any town compete with that?
Don’t want to deal with the hassle of Times Square on New
Year’s Eve? Come to PA: York drops a white rose at midnight, Lancaster drops a
red rose, Lebanon drops bologna, Dillsburg drops a pickle, Beavertown drops a
beaver, Bethlehem drops a Peep (thank goodness they don’t drop a baby Jesus),
Red Lion drops a cigar, Ickesburg drops a French fry, Blain drops a cow, and
Frogtown drops a frog. Well, from what I hear, Frogtown winches a stuffed frog
doll up in the air and hurls it against a barn. But, you gotta do what you
gotta do for entertainment in the sticks, right?
Growing up in this kind of environment, you can’t help but
try to find a use for all the crazy that surrounds you. Me, eventually I
realized I had to write about it. Not in a blatant sense, mocking my home
state, or pointing out the endless oddities. I use it as inspiration. The day I
realized how necessary it was for me to set stories in Pennsylvania was an
average day. I lived in Dover back then, and I was stuck in traffic on 74
Northbound. I glanced over at the shoulder of the road in time to see a random
man toodling on up the road on a penny-farthing bicycle. Yeah, one of those
antiquated things with a giant front wheel? There he went. I have no idea where
he was going or where he got that penny-farthing, but I knew then and there
that I had to write about this madness. In Drew, its seen in Elmer Ochs, the
octogenarian on Rascal wheels, or in Daddy’s Girl, where no neighbors ever
reveal themselves, but their casseroles keep showing up in weird places. It’s
in the festivals that like to appear in my stories, from the River’s View
German Days, where a baby can lick all the head cheese he wants, to the magical
Essex Woods May Day Celebration in my forthcoming story, Almost Magic, to be
released later this month.
That’s Pennsylvania. That’s my home, and always will be, no
matter where I roam.
DADDY'S GIRL
By
J.M. Kelley
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BLURB:
Sometimes, returning home
isn’t about confronting your past; it’s about discovering your future.
Janie McGee, the black sheep of
her family, is free-spirited, uninhibited, and never one to stay in the same
place for too long. When Janie learns her father, Joe, is gravely ill, she
reluctantly returns home to rural Pennsylvania to care for him. Joe’s neighbor,
David Harris, sports a pocket protector, collects coins, and is addicted to Antiques
Roadshow. Everything about him rubs Janie the wrong way, from his nerdy
wardrobe to his enviable friendship with Joe. And to make matters worse, her
father thinks they’re perfect for each other, proof positive of how
little Joe knows his own daughter…or so Janie thinks.
A shared devotion to the elder
McGee begins to close the gulf between Janie and David, but a burgeoning
romance opens the door to new problems and unexpected consequences neither
could foresee. Joe, however, remains steadfast in his resolve to show Janie that
Daddy knows what’s best for his little girl. Can Janie finally open her heart
to David while watching the first man she ever truly loved fade away?
EXCERPT:
The interloper entered
the room. His eyes widened when he caught sight of Janie, and he raised his
hands up in front of him.
“Don’t think I won’t
hurt you!” Janie shrieked, holding her ground.
“Joe might need that
the next time he buys a pair of shoes,” the man said. His eyebrows arched
theatrically while he gave Janie an appraising once over. His eyes lingered on
her chest, she noted, which bolstered her resolve to kill him if he made any
sudden moves.
Great. Janie tightened her grip on the shoe stretcher. Pervert.
The man stayed where
he was and plastered an expression on his face that Janie assumed conveyed
harmlessness. “You shouldn’t bean me with that. I doubt they make those
anymore. It would be a shame to break it.”
Janie held the
stretcher up higher, wincing as it wobbled flaccidly over her head. “If you
knew my father, you’d know he only buys shoes once a decade. Who are you, damn
it?”
“David Harris.” He
slowly lowered his hands and took a step back. “I live next door. For the
record, your father bought a pair of shoes last month. Are you Janie?”
Janie narrowed her
eyes. “You’re David.”
A bemused smile
curved his lips. “Were you expecting someone else?”
Almost certain she
wasn’t about to be attacked, Janie dropped the stretcher to the bed. “I figured
you’d be an octogenarian like my dad.”
“Your father is in
his seventies.”
“So?”
“That would make him
a septuagenarian.”
Janie blinked. “Oh,”
she said. “Well, I rounded up. Sue me. What are you, anyway, the vocabulary
police?”
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Three
years ago, native Pennsylvanian J.M. Kelley packed her bags and moved south.
Now, the wannabe Carolina Girl can’t speak a single sentence without adding the
word y’all at the end of it, and
regards a blast of snow flurries as a doomsday-level event. When the day job allows, and when she can
pull herself away from George Takei’s Facebook fanpage, she likes to go on
writing jaunts to her favorite lake, or a local coffee shop with delicious
shakes and questionable Wi-Fi connections.
J.M.
Kelley is a proud recipient of a Carrie McCray Memorial Literary award, and is
a member of The South Carolina Writers Workshop and Romance Writers of America
(PAN). Readers interested in more information may visit her website at
www.jmkelleywrites.com.
LINKS:
Email:
readers@jmkelleywrites.com
Website:
http://www.jmkelleywrites.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AuthorJMKelley
Daddy’s
Girl purchase links:
Turquoise
Morning Press: http://www.turquoisemorningpressbookstore.com/products/daddys-girl-by-j-m-kelley
Barnes
& Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daddys-girl-jm-kelley/1114255053?ean=2940015960969&isbn=2940015960969
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/279529
J.M. will be awarding a gift basket of some of the author's favorite things, including a $25 gift card from Amazon and a signed copy of the Foreign Affairs anthology from Turquoise Morning Press to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
13 comments:
It sounds like an ideal State to fire up the imagination.
marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
Thank you for hosting
Thanks for hosting me today!
Thank you for the presentation.
With all the weird things you mentioned, I would think you would write paranormal stories. Instead you have written this touching and warm story about family.
Your Grandmother's comment made me laugh out loud. lol
As a fellow Pennsy girl, I can totally relate! LOL There is nothing more entertaining than taking someone without a clue on a drive through the towns in Lancaster county ;)
Gotta love those towns in Lancaster County...Blue Ball is one of my favorites...then there's Gap..which is not as funny but equally as odd
Thanks to everyone who stopped by today, I appreciate it!
Sharon, Mistress: Nothing more fun in life than directing people to Virginville, I think.
Ingeborg, classic Grandma, lol.
MomJane, funny that you mention that, because I also have a story that just released that is set in PA, and has a touch of the paranormal to go along with it all.
That was a nice excerpt
bn100candg at hotmail dot com
good book tour! thanks for posting!!
Sorry for the late post. I’m playing catch-up here so I’m just popping in to say HI and sorry I missed visiting with you on party day! Hope you all had a good time!
kareninnc at gmail dot com
Hahah! I like your grams. She's awesome!
andralynn7 AT gmail DOT com
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