Spotlight & Author Interview: What’s Not True, by Valerie Taylor

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Book Title:  What’s Not True by Valerie Taylor
Category: Adult Fiction 18+ 
Genre: Women’s Fiction, Chick Lit
Publisher:  She Writes Press, 321 pages
Release date:  August 2021
Content Rating:  PG-13 + M What’s Not True has several sex scenes and some bad language.


What’s Not True…is an enthralling, character-driven story that will appeal irresistibly to fans of women’s fiction…Taylor’s prose is crystalline…she does not waste words, rather using them to create a tense, nerve-shredder that
offers full entertainment to readers.”
Readers’ Favorite 5-star review

Book Description:

With her court date set for her divorce and her plans with the younger man in the rearview mirror, Kassie O’Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled career. But things get complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris. After a chance meeting there with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she accept them both?

But Kassie’s decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie. In the ensuing battle to protect what’s legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it’s what’s not true that can set you free.

Though a standalone novel, What’s Not True is the sequel to What’s Not Said (September 15, 2020).

 

You’ll Also Love The Award-Winning First Book in This Series:

 

WHAT'S NOT SAID by Valerie Taylor

Book Details:
Book Title:  What’s Not Said
by Valerie Taylor
Category: Adult Fiction 18+ 
Genre: Women’s Fiction, Chick Lit
Publisher:  She Writes Press, 300 pages
Release date:  September 2020
Content Rating:  PG-13 + M:  has several sex scenes and some bad language.

2021 International Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Women’s Fiction
2020 Canadian Book Club Awards Finalist in Fiction
Chosen as an August 2021 Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection
Featured by the international NoMo Book Club in May 2021
“Taylor’s dialogue is snappy and contemporary . . . A witty and often amusing marriage drama.”

Kirkus Reviews

Book Description:What’s Not Said is a story about Kassie O’Callaghan, a middle-aged woman on a mission to divorce her emotionally abusive husband and start a new life with a younger man she met while on a solo vacation in Venice. When she learns her husband has chronic kidney disease, her plans collapse until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits.

Then again, Kassie is no angel. The separate lives they lead collide head-on into a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. As she helps her husband find an organ donor, Kassie uncovers a secret, forcing her to decide whose life to save: her husband’s or her own.

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Author Interview:

What’s the biggest challenge you faced in writing the WHAT’S NOT Series?

After I decided to continue the story within a series, I found some online resources on how best to do that, and I studied them. I learned that I needed to develop the characters more deeply and introduce or expand secondary characters. Then, I discovered my biggest challenge was to maintain the voices of the characters in What’s Not Said and create voices for the characters in What’s Not True who were either new or who became more critical to the story.

At times, your writing is hysterical. Are you that funny in real life?

I’m tickled pink that many readers say my stories make them laugh, even though most agree my characters are very flawed and the situations they find themselves in are mind-boggling. In my own life, I try not to be too serious and to find some humor in my days. Though I can’t tell a joke, I grew up watching a lot of comedy shows, like Lucy, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Dean Martin and so on. I guess I’m dating myself. But it’s the simple comedy and one liners that bowl me over and that I try to infuse into my stories.

What research did you do for your novels?

Both What’s Not Said and What’s Not True required a bit of research. There are scenes in Venice and Paris that I needed to describe. I’d visited both in years past, so I still had those memories and photos. Coincidentally, I vacationed in Venice just a few months before I submitted the final What’s Not Said manuscript to my publisher, so I took the chapter featuring Venice with me. I read it there and kind of walked through the scene to be sure I’d gotten it right. I did!

In What’s Not True, there’s a dinner scene at a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. I used the Google machine to provide me with a description of the restaurant and the menu.

In What’s Not Said, the antagonist, Mike, has chronic kidney disease. I spent time researching various health care websites to inform me about the disease. There are numerous hospital scenes in both novels. I watched Grey’s Anatomy reruns to get me in the writing mood for those.

How would you describe your ideal reader?

Hopefully, you are my ideal reader! With 85 million mature women in the United States alone who are looking to read about characters they can relate to, I believe there are a fair number of women who would love my stories and my characters. I recognize, though, that my writing is not for everyone. Some women don’t like the sex scenes, though I tried to be as discreet as possible and not go full 50 Shades of Gray.

That said, one reviewer recently wrote: “Taylor’s easy writing style is like chatting with friends over coffee or a martini.”

Now that two books in the WHAT’S NOT Series are published, what’s next?

Since What’s Not True ends in a cliffhanger, I just have to move forward with book three! I’m about twenty-five percent into the new manuscript, which means I’m heading into what I call the muddy middle. It’s the place where the main characters get fully developed and conflict and tension escalate. The middle occupies about fifty-percent of the story. Once that’s done, I’ll be in the homestretch. And because book three will be the last of the WHAT’S NOT Series, this time I’ll try not to leave you all hanging!


Meet the Author:

Valerie Taylor was born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. She earned a B.S. Marketing degree and an MBA from Sacred Heart University, as well as a graduate certificate in health care administration from Simmons University (formerly Simmons College). She had a thirty-year career in the financial services industry as a marketer and writer. Valerie is a published book reviewer with BookTrib.com; and a member of Westport Writers’ Workshop, Independent Book Publishers Association, and Women’s Fiction Writers
Association. She enjoys practicing tai chi and being an expert sports spectator.

website ~ twitter ~ facebook ~ instagram ~ goodreads


Tour Schedule:Sep 15 – Viviana MacKade – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sep 15 – Cover Lover Book Review – book spotlight / giveaway
Sep 15 – I’m All About Books – book spotlight / giveaway
Sep 16 – 
Review Thick & Thin – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID / author interview 

Sep 16 – Pick a Good Book – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / author interview / giveaway
Sep 16 – 
AllBookedUpReviews (instagram) –book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE

Sep 17 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Sep 17 – Amy’s Booket List – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / giveaway
Sep 21 – Welcome To MLM Opinion’s Reviews – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE
Sep 21 – @twilight_reader – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID
Sep 23 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID / giveaway
Sep 23 – 
Review Thick & Thin – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / guest post

Sep 24 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / giveaway
Sep 27 – Sadie’s Spotlight – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Sep 27 – Sefina Hawke’s Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID
Sep 28 – Cheryl’s Book Nook – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / giveaway
Sep 29 – Sefina Hawke’s Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE
Sep 29 –
Falling Into A Good Book – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE

Sep 30 – @twilight_reader – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE
Sep 30 –
StoreyBook Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway 

Oct 1 – Celticlady’s Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 1 – Books for Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID
Oct 4 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID / giveaway
Oct 5 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / giveaway
Oct 6 – Splashes of Joy – book review of WHAT’S NOT SAID / giveaway
Oct 6 – Books Lattes & Tiaras – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE
Oct 7 – Splashes of Joy – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / author interview / giveaway
Oct 8 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / giveaway
Oct 8 – Books for Books – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE
Oct 12 – 
Books and Zebras  – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE

Oct 12 – Adventurous Jessy – book review of WHAT’S NOT TRUE / giveaway

 

Enter the Giveaway:
 

WHAT’S NOT TRUE Book Tour Giveaway

 

5 Replies to “Spotlight & Author Interview: What’s Not True, by Valerie Taylor”

  1. Thank you for sharing your author interview and book details, I have enjoyed reading about you and your work and am looking forward to reading your stories

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