A Song that Never Ends (Hamilton Place Book I) by Mark A. Gibson - Family Saga Fiction, Thriller, Historical Fiction Guest Post
Book Details:
Book Title: A Song that Never Ends (Hamilton Place Book I) by Mark A. GibsonCategory: Adult Fiction 18 yrs +, 338 pages
Genre: Family Saga Fiction, Thriller, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Hamilton Press (Self)
Release date: January, 2024
Content Rating: A soft R for the following: Language, although appropriate for situation, does have a smattering (perhaps 5 uses over 350 pages) of the F-word. Sexual situations are more so implied than graphic, although there is one soft description of fellatio. There is no use of derogatory descriptions for persons, sexes or races. No graphic violence is described.
Home.
That’s the failing tobacco farm where Walter and Maggie Hamilton choose to raise their three children. Walter has big plans to make the farm more profitable, but his plans are interrupted by World War II and family heartbreak. Walter returns from the war a changed man, and finds Maggie, too, has changed; neither of them for the better. But at least their family is together at...
Home.
More than anything, that’s where their eight-year-old son, Jimmy Hamilton, wants to be. However, after an unspeakable tragedy, he’s sent away from the only life he’s ever known—to live with a kindly uncle in North Carolina, far from…
Home.
That’s where Jimmy is finally going to be, unless fate has plans of its own…
A Song that Never Ends is the first installment of the Hamilton Place series, an epic family saga extending from the Great Depression to present day. Through war and peace, love and loss, triumph and tragedy; follow the Hamilton family on their journey from a run-down farm in South Carolina, through the jungles of Vietnam, to the top of the world in New York City, and beyond the gardens of stone at Arlington.
Guest Post
What Does Success as an Author Look Like to Me?
Mark A. Gibson
How does one define success as an author?
Is success trying to decide what to wear while picking up
my Pulitzer Prize and National Book
Award? Is success signing a seven-figure check from a major Hollywood studio,
before discussing plot points with Steven Spielberg for the movie adaptation of
my novel? Is it a standing ovation from the audiences during my Today Show,
Tonight show and Tomorrow Show interviews? (There isn’t a Tomorrow Show, but
they should make one just for my book tour!) Or, is success selling
more books than Stephen King, James Patterson and Jodi Picoult combined, and having the #1 position on the New
York Times Best Seller list permanently held open while awaiting my next work?
I suppose any or all of these would be reasonable, albeit
unrealistic, indices of success. But none really apply to me.
So, what does?
Ernest Hemmingway once said, “There is nothing to
writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.”
If you’ve read my “About the Author” page, or perhaps a
previous post, you are no doubt aware that I am a practicing cardiologist. Being
an impatient soul, I cannot bring myself to sit idly by as patients are brought
back into examination rooms for evaluation. If I’m caught up on reading my
patients’ cardiac diagnostic studies, I use the time in between patients to
write. It’s just a sentence here or a paragraph there, but over the course of a
day, it adds up.
I’m told that this is an unusual method of writing, but
it seems to work for me, and I’ve grown comfortable with it.
For my office staff, however, my process has taken a
little “getting used to.”
While writing the Hamilton
Place series, it wasn’t unusual for my nurse to come into my office to discuss
my next patient, only to find tears streaming down my cheeks. Once, she was so
concerned as to ask, “Oh my God, Dr. Gibson, are Robin and the kids okay?!”
I assured her that, yes, my wife and children were all
well, but I was just working on a particularly emotional scene at the time.
Another time, she came in to see me grinning from
ear-to-ear over my keyboard, and—she’d gotten used to my method by then—and she
said, “Ooh, this must be a really good scene you’re working on!”
And it was.
Would I welcome the opportunity to receive an honorary doctorate before giving the commencement address at my college alma mater? Absolutely. But if I can make my readers feel my tears, whether sad or joyous, upon the pages of their recently finished novel—or, better yet—feel their own tears while reading my novel. That is when I’ll consider myself to be a success as an author.
Book Details:
Book Title: Roses in December (Hamilton Place Book 2) by Mark A. GibsonCategory: Adult Fiction 18 yrs +, 358 pages
Genre: Family Saga Fiction, Thriller, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Hamilton Press (Self)
Release date: April, 2024
Content Rating: A soft R for the following: Language, although appropriate for situation, does have a smattering (perhaps 5 uses over 350 pages) of the F-word. Sexual situations are more so implied than graphic, although there is one soft description of fellatio. There is no use of derogatory descriptions for persons, sexes or races. No graphic violence is described.
Book Description:
Jimmy Hamilton overcame childhood tragedy to become a hero in Vietnam, only to die there in 1967. All but forgotten, Jimmy leaves behind a young wife, an infant son, and a man wracked by guilt.Circumstances allow Becca, his young widow, to be manipulated into an abusive, loveless union with Jimmy’s brother and into raising her son ignorant of his father’s true identity—a wrong she knows must be set right…but how? When?
Like Jimmy before him, James, Jr. is an intellectually gifted, albeit troubled man. Hamstrung by the false narrative of his life and then tormented by an unspeakable loss, his days are spent treading the knife’s edge between present day reality and a past he’s incapable of forgetting.
With his final act of bravery, Jimmy unknowingly saved the scion of a powerful Washington family. In so doing, he set in place circumstances that just might draw his son back from the abyss…but only if he can somehow make it home from Vietnam.
Roses in December concludes the Hamilton Place series, an epic family saga extending from the Great Depression to present day. Through war and peace, love and loss, triumph and tragedy, follow the Hamilton family on their journey from a run-down farm in South Carolina, through the jungles of Vietnam, to the top of the world in New York City, and through the gardens of stone at Arlington.
Meet the Author:
Mark A. Gibson is a physician who practices Cardiology in the mountains of rural North Georgia. He was raised on a small farm in upstate South Carolina—the last postage-stamp sized sliver of a much larger parcel granted to the family by land grant from King Charles II in 1665—and may or may not have once gotten in trouble for digging up his mom’s calla lily bed in search of the family’s long-lost charter.Dr. Gibson graduated from the Citadel in Charleston, SC with a BS in Biology. Afterwards, he received his medical degree from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, SC. He received his Internal Medicine training through the University of Tennessee Medical System and Cardiology training through the Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center. He served for eight years on active duty with the US Air Force, before leaving the military for private practice.
Although a cardiologist by profession, Dr. Gibson is a dreamer by nature. He is a self-styled oenophile who enjoys travel and fine food. In his spare time, he builds sandcastles and dreams of distant shores.
Roses in December represents Dr. Gibson’s second offering to the world of literature, and the conclusion of his Hamilton Place Series. All previous publications have been of the professional, peer-reviewed, medical variety, and make for lovely sleep aids.
This looks like a interesting read. Thanks for the opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThank you for selecting my Hamilton Place series to spotlight! I hope your readers will enjoy my story at least half as much as I did crafting it.
ReplyDeleteMAG