Read-Love-Blog

Happy Thursday, gang!

Today, I have an eCopy of The Goddress Letters by Vicki Matthews to give away along with a great Q & A about the book.  This one looks pretty interesting!

Enter to win by commenting on this blog post and I will pick a winner on Sunday, 7/21.  Enjoy!

Book links:

Amazon  ~  Barnes & Noble  ~  Goodreads

Synopsis:

Chicago economics professor Rob Harris has it damn good: dream job, devoted wife, adorable daughter. Selena Richards has it even better – she’s a wildly popular Hollywood actress with awards and men galore. Yet each has a dark secret that only the other knows.

Since college, Selena has had alarming dreams where she’s asked to encourage women to create a radically different future for our world. Rob, her old college boyfriend, is the only person Selena’s told about these dreams. The devoted family man, Rob never mentions to his wife that he was secretly engaged to Selena when they met. Or that he and Selena still correspond.

Rob and Selena’s secrets collide when her dreams take a frightening turn. The powerful Jacobi appears, violently warns her to stop meddling with the world, then vanishes. Terrified, Selena reaches out to Rob, who wonders if she’s a prophet, or merely mad.

Unable to abandon her, Rob is slowly drawn into Selena’s haunting world of forgotten knowledge, ancient ritual, and demigods quite interested in controlling mankind. The line surrounding reality continues to blur and Rob finds himself in Selena’s dreams, face-to-face with Jacobi, who is happy to kill to hide the truth that will change the world. As Rob fights to keep himself and Selena alive, his concepts of reality crumble, as do his once-rigid views on nature, divinity, and even love. To his amazement, he finally accepts that the greatest hope for our world may actually rest with Hollywood.

The Goddess Letters is a story of love and faith, and one man’s unfolding relationship with both. A testament to passion of all kinds, it celebrates those who have the courage to discard the new in favor of the old, be it love, beliefs, or entire civilizations.

Q & A with Vicki:

1. What inspired you to write The Goddess Letters?

My primary inspiration for The Goddess Letters was a desire to help change the world.  I feel the reason we find ourselves dancing so close to the dangerous edge of lost sustainability is that we are missing a dynamic balance our world used to possess.  I wanted to share this idea in a way that people would want to read, and was greatly influenced by the success of The Di Vinci Code.  I think if you entertain and educate, you have the possibility of reaching more people than you would by writing a purely educational book.

2. The storyline for The Goddess Letters centers on a Chicago economics professor, Rob Harris, and a Hollywood actress, Selena Wilmington, whose dreams of ancient rituals and forgotten knowledge haunt them both. How did you choose the professions of the two characters and are they based on people you know?

Much of the beginning of the book is autobiographical.  I used my husband and myself as the starting point.  Then, since we are told to write about what we know, I kept Robert in academia and economics (my husband’s interests) and placed Selena in acting because, while I’ve never been a serious actress, my father worked in Hollywood so I am familiar with that world.  After that, it was just a matter of presenting my characters with the elements of the plot and letting them weave their stories.

3. How would you describe the themes outlined in the book?

We are out of balance as a world and a people, and I think this puts us on the brink of real disaster at so many levels.  All of our dominant cultures are patriarchies where, by definition, the masculine has a disproportionate share of the power.  All of our main religions have a male god at their head, too.  It didn’t used to be that way, but we have moved away from the balancing aspect of the feminine principle.  That is what I hope people will come to see as they read The Goddess Letters.

4. The Goddess Letters is about matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies as a cause of imbalance in the world. Yet the story is told by a male main character, Rob Harris. How did you determine which of the two main characters, Rob or Selena, would tell the story?

I decided to use the Rob to tell the story because I thought his reality would be the easiest to access for the reader.  Rob is a male in a patriarchal culture.  Selena is different not only in the “other-worldly” experiences she has, but also in the fact that she is a powerful woman in a patriarchy.  Rob provided the access point of the story, and Selena provides the movement and motive behind the story arc.  I thought that would be a winning combination.

5. Can you describe some of the research you did when you were writing this book?

Even though this is a novel, all of the facts presented as part of the story are true.  I used over 100 nonfiction books in writing my novel, and they are listed on The Goddess Letters website.  There’s a whole lot of truth in this work of fiction.  I wanted the book to be compelling and eye opening.  I hope it is.

6. Are you working on another novel? If so, what can you tell us about it?

Where the edge of today intertwines with forever, there are tales of a place called the Weave.  Seamlessly bound to our world, but not of it, this is where the Weavewalkers plan the cultural shift necessary to keep Earth from destruction.  No surprisingly, it will involve an infusion of more matriarchal ways onto our planet.  The success or failure of the plan rests squarely on a young girl who has been brought to the Weave for one purpose: to travel the Weaver’s Web and change a pattern that unraveled 30 years before she was born.

About the author:

Vicki Matthews, a Naturopathic Physician and Director of Education for Innersource, is passionate about re-establishing balance in the world. She has been an outspoken advocate for alternative healing and spiritual pursuits most of her adult life, and has appeared as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show twice to share aspects of this message. Matthews grew up in Santa Monica, California, and has a degree in psychology. Her graduate work includes an MBA from the University of Chicago and an N.D. in Naturopathy. Matthews lives on a lake just north of Chicago with her husband, Mark.

For more information on Vicki Matthews or The Goddess Letters, please visit www.amazon.com or www.thegoddessletters.com.

So, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get this contest going, but alas, here it is!

I am giving away all the swag I have from the 2013 Romantic Times Convention to one lucky winner!  Yay!  Let me tell you, this is some serious swag.

The swag includes:

Signed books from Liliana Hart & Gretchen McNeil, a signed mini notebook from Laura Kaye, signed magnets from Boone Brux, a signed bookmark from C. J. Ellison, a Hunter by Night tote bag and t-shirt from Elisabeth Staab, the actual Hunter by Night display sign used at RT by Elisabeth, a signed mini poster and post card from Raine Miller, a purse hook from Damon Suede, seven other books, signed trading cards and bookmarks, pens, drink coozies, post-it pads, buttons, key chains, bookmarks, postcards with QR codes for books and excerpts, and so much more!

Yep, there’s way more than I could squeeze into the picture below!  Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me.

So, enter to win in the rafflecopter below and good luck!

~ Jillian

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