Blog Tour: The Boys of Summer by Sarah Madison

The Boys of Summer by Sarah Madison
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press; 2nd edition (December 21, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1634766717
ISBN-13: 978-1634766715
Amazon: The Boys of Summer
Amazon Kindle: The Boys of Summer

Blurb: 2nd Edition
David McIntyre has been enjoying the heck out of his current assignment: touring the Hawaiian Islands in search of the ideal shooting locations for a series of film-company projects. What’s not to like? Stunning scenery, great food, sunny beaches… and Rick Sutton, the hot, ex-Air Force pilot who is flying him around.
Everything changes when a tropical storm and engine failure force a crash landing on a deserted atoll with a WWII listening post. Rick’s injuries and a lack of food and water mean David has to step up to the plate and play hero. While his days are spent fighting for survival, and his nights are filled with worrying about Rick, the two men grow closer. David’s research for his next movie becomes intertwined with his worst fears, and events on the island result in a vivid dream about the Battle of Britain. On waking, David realizes Rick is more than just a pilot to him. The obstacles that prevented a happy ending in 1940 aren’t present today, and David vows that if they survive this stranding, he will tell Rick how he feels.

( Excerpt )

About the Author: Sarah Madison is a veterinarian with a large dog, an even bigger horse, too many cats, and a very patient boyfriend. An amateur photographer and a former competitor in the horse sport known as eventing, when she's not out hiking with the dog or down at the stables, she's at the laptop working on her next story. When she’s in the middle of a chapter, she relies on the smoke detector to tell her dinner is ready. She writes because it’s cheaper than therapy.
Sarah Madison was a finalist in the 2013 Rainbow Awards and is the winner of Best M/M Romance in the 2013 PRG Reviewer’s Choice Awards.
If you want to make her day, e-mail her and tell you how much you like her stories.

"Some time ago, I wrote a blog post I’m quite proud of, titled Ten Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me as a Newbie Author. I thought it was a good post, and I thought it had some great quotes and resources. As always when you write something like this however, you can always think of something more you wished you’d added. In this case, the thing I wish I’d mentioned was the difference between being yourself and over-sharing online.
This struck home the other day when I read a post about professionalism and being taken seriously as an author. The truth was staring me right there in the face. Yep, you got it, I overshare.
I think this is part because I have always been a person who is better at communicating on paper than in person. I could also lay the blame to the fact that came from a fanfiction background, and journaling anonymously was part fandom participation at the time. I certainly have an over-inflated idea of the security of any online persona. Then too, there’s the notion we’re all supposed to ‘be ourselves’ and share little bits of our lives with our readers and fans. And let’s not forget that many of us feel closer to our online friends than our ‘real life’ ones. We’re all so busy, and it is so hard to make schedules match for a good old-fashion gab-fest with our friends. But we can always post something on Facebook, or Twitter, or our website and be reasonably assured of a response.
Well, let me tell you, there’s a fine line between sharing and over-sharing.
You have adorable dogs or cats? Post their pictures. People love sharing pictures of cute animals and talking about the funny things they’ve done. It’s a great way to start a conversation or to bring people to your blog—to check out the latest adventures of your pets.
You live in an unusual location or maintain an offbeat lifestyle? People love reading about a way of life that’s different from theirs. Share your alpaca farming anecdotes, or your pictures from the sci-fi convention. You’re a big Doctor Who fan? Talk about it. No worries there. Yes, this is a part of the authentic you that you can easily share.
You have interesting hobbies? Maybe you’re a snowboarder or a photographer in your spare time. Maybe you knit, or bake, or rock climb, or gallop horses over big fences. Share. Other people will find you through shared interests, or simply enjoy reading about something they find cool but know they would never do themselves. Heck, post about your ‘thing’ on a regular basis and draw in readers with the same interests. It’s all good.
Where it gets tricky is when you move out of the global you and into the more personal you. Health or financial crises. Relationship woes. Struggles with depression or illness. There are bloggers and personalities that have helped a large number of people by sharing their own battle with these things, and I’ve definitely noticed that posts on these subjects frequently get more comments than any other, but you’re entering a grey zone here. You don’t want to be known as ‘that writer with that problem’. J.K. Rowling can say that the Dementors are her metaphor for depression, and admit she’s struggled with it, but that’s not the same as writing posts about your struggle all the time. Believe me, I know how hard this one is. In part because that whole commenting thing is bloody addictive. That is the real reason we walk around with our eyes glued to our phones. I bet every time a comment on something we’ve posted lands in our inbox, the cocaine/whiskey/sex center lights up in our brains. It’s why we do it. It’s why we post things we know in our hearts we probably shouldn’t, especially if we want to be taken seriously as a writer.
Sometimes it’s hard not to post about things that make us angry. The state of politics in the US at the moment makes me froth with rage on a good day. I’m doing my best not to add fuel to the fire, but sometimes we should be outraged and we should speak our minds. Some of the most powerful, best essays I’ve ever read were born out of this kind of reaction. But again, you don’t want to be known as that writer who’s always going off about politics—unless, of course, that’s what you write!
There are levels of ‘being yourself’, you know. We practice this all the time with the people in our lives. There are things we choose not to share with our parents versus our friends. There are thoughts and opinions we might sit tight on when talking with our bosses or our pastor versus our neighbor or our siblings. The problem comes when we post something online, we aren’t sure who might be in that audience at any given time. I tend to share too much because I believe in authenticity. But when it comes to your brand as a writer, you have to remember what you want to be remembered for before you click ‘send’."

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( Tour Schedule )

Queer Places: Camposanto Monumentale, Pisa

Address: Il Camposanto
Piazza del Duomo,
Pisa PI
Italy

The Campo Santo, also known as Camposanto Monumentale ("monumental cemetery") or Camposanto Vecchio ("old cemetery"), is a historical edifice at the northern edge of the Cathedral Square in Pisa, Italy.

"Campo Santo" can be literally translated as "holy field", because it is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the Fourth Crusade by Ubaldo de' Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa in the 12th century. A legend claims that bodies buried in that ground will rot in just 24 hours. The burial ground lies over the ruins of the old baptistery of the church of Santa Reparata, the church that once stood where the cathedral now stands.

The term "monumental" serves to differentiate it from the later-established urban cemetery in Pisa.



The outer wall is composed of 43 blind arches. There are two doorways. The one on the right is crowned by a gracious Gothic tabernacle. It contains the Virgin Mary with Child, surrounded by four saints. It is the work from the second half of the 14th century by a follower of Giovanni Pisano. This was the original entrance door. Most of the tombs are under the arcades, although a few are on the central lawn. The inner court is surrounded by elaborate round arches with slender mullions and plurilobed tracery.

The cemetery has three chapels. The oldest ones are the chapel Ammannati (1360) and takes its name from the tomb of Ligo Ammannati, a teacher in the University of Pisa; and the chapel Aulla, were there is an altar made by Giovanni della Robbia in 1518. In the Aulla chapel we can see also the original incense lamp that Galileo Galilei used for calculation of pendular movements. This lamp is the one Galileo saw inside the cathedral, now replaced by a larger more elaborate one. The last chapel was Dal Pozzo, commissioned by archbishop of Pisa Carlo Antonio Dal Pozzo in 1594; it has an altar dedicated to St. Jerome and a little dome. In this chapel in 2009 were translated the relics of the Cathedral: the relics include among the others eleven of the twelve Apostles, two fragments of the True Cross, a thorn from the Crown of Thorns of Christ and a small piece of the dress of the Virgin Mary. Also in the Dal Pozzo chapel sometimes a Mass is celebrated.





On the south wall, under the frescos by Taddeo Gaddi, there is to monument to Conte Francesco Algarotti (d. 1764) by Carlo Bianconi, Mauro Tesi e Giovanni Antonio Cibei. In 1762 Francesco Algarotti moved to Pisa, where he died of tuberculosis. Frederick the Great, one of his previous lovers, paid for a monument to his memory on the Camposanto of Pisa (Pisa's cemetery), still visible today.

( Francesco Algarotti's Life )

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