Featured guest, Margay Justice on Nora's Soul

“The path to publication has been a long, winding, and often broken road.”

Margay Justice, author

For as long as I can remember, I have been writing. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a notebook and pencil as my constant companions. For some years, I was able to pass it off as homework – until some savvy friends figured out that what I was doing was extracurricular. From that moment on, they tried to get me to show them my writing but in the beginning, it was a very private thing for me. It took some time before I felt comfortable enough to allow anyone to read the words I had written. But with time, I did grow comfortable with the idea, especially when my work was praised, and eventually, I entertained the idea of becoming published.

The path to publication has been a long, winding, and often broken road. In the beginning, I didn’t have the self-confidence needed for submitting to publishers and one rejection sent me back into the realm of writing just for my own pleasure. But in the back of my mind, the possibility of seeing my words in print still lingered. In time, I tried again, this time taking an unconventional route. I decided to test my ideas in the contest forum first. I thought this would be a great way to gain exposure and test reactions to gauge if I had what it took to be published. At the time, I had only one book that was suitable to submit – a little book called Nora’s Soul. This book idea had come to me one night in a pair of interconnected dreams and stayed with me over the course of some years and many ups and downs in my life. Still I wondered if it was good enough to publish – and if anyone would be interested in it if it was.

Enter Gather.com and their First Chapter contest. As I had hoped, this contest proved to be a grand testing ground for my story. The response was encouraging and I met a group of authors with whom I formed friendships and a mutual admiration society. Although none of us won the contest (some did come close), we gained the greater reward with our friendships and started a critique group to help each other stay the course on our road to publication. Well, somewhere along the way, the idea was tossed out that we should start our own publishing company so we could all be published and one of our members, the incredible Mike Simpson, took the idea and ran with it. Within months, he set up the company Second Wind Publishing, LLC and invited all of us to submit our stories to him. Just a few months after submitting Nora’s Soul to him, I had the privilege of seeing my first book in print.



NORA’S Soul

When angels of light and dark collide on earth…
Once he held a favored position in the heavens. But one moment of weakness casts Dante out and now he is cursed to walk the earth, collecting the souls of vulnerable women to buy his way into hell.
All hell breaks loose…
But standing in his way is Peter, an angel of light. Peter is everything Dante is not. Pure, above reproach. And determined to prevent Dante from achieving his goals. Peter will stop at nothing to protect the souls in his charge, even if it means achieving the impossible – leading Dante back onto the right path.
And no one is safe from the fall-out.
Nora Kendall believed in angels. Once. But then she lost her brother to cancer despite all of her prayers – and she lost her faith in all things angelic. Now, she is a lost soul who wanders through life like a sleepwalker, playing it safe and leaving the risk-taking to others.
Kyle Cameron is one of those risks. Burned by a bad marriage, his only concern now is providing a stable life for his children, who are left motherless by the unexpected death of his wife. This means working overtime to grow his architectural firm into a viable business – and leaving the care of his children to the care of someone he trusts. Despite his past connection with Nora, Kyle isn’t certain that she’s the right person for the job. He also doesn’t want to reconnect with her and repeat history.
But fate – and the machinations of two angels – has other ideas.

Nora’s Soul, by Margay Leah Justice, available now at Amazon.com

Visit Margay at:
http://margayleahjustice.com
http://www.amazon.com