Spotlight & Giveaway: Chasing Dreams by Carolyn Brown

Posted May 11th, 2023 by in Blog, Spotlight / 53 comments

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Carolyn Brown to HJ!
Spotlight&Giveaway

Hi Carolyn and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Chasing Dreams!

 
Hey, everyone out there in reader land. Thanks so much for stopping by today to visit with me about my brand new Audible Original novella.!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Three life time friends, Nita, Sharlene and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So, what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free. And they’re off to see the ocean, go to a dude ranch, and sing country songs in a Nashville parking lot.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

*“Guess I forgot to mention what Sharlene’s van looks like,” Billy Joe chuckled as he opened the pickup door and slid out of the passenger seat. “Just keep your sunglasses on and don’t take off your cap when we take pictures. No one will recognize you.”
*“We all have dreams whether we admit that we do or not. Smile or say cheese or maybe say sex,” Nita said with a giggle.
*“We’re lucky,” Joelle teased as she slid into the passenger’s seat and fastened her seat belt. “At least pot is legal now, and we’re not headed for another Woodstock.”
*“Honey,” his wife looped her arm in his, “Hank didn’t set the bar. He was the bar.”

 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

  • Those old folks became my friends while I was writing about them.
  • I hated to end the novella and wished I had agreed to write a full book.
  • I cut my teeth on Hank Williams’ songs, right along with Patsy Cline and all the old country music/Grand Ole Opry stars. It was a good Saturday night when Mama could pick up the Opry on her radio, so the songs in this book are a tribute to her.

 

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Joelle was attracted to Ford when she was a teenager, but the age gap was too wide back in those days. When Ford sees her for the first time after all those years, he’s a bit thunderstruck at how beautiful she is.

 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I loved the scene when they were playing instruments and singing in the parking lot in Nashville:

Dusk was settling, and the crowd had thinned out a little when Sharlene stood up. “We’ll be closing out our tribute to the amazing Hank Williams, Sr., tonight with one of his hymns. When I was a little girl, it was a good night when my mama could pick up the Grand Ole Opry on her radio. It was an awesome night when Hank Williams ended the show with this song. Thank all y’all for coming around and thank you for your contributions.”
She put her fiddle to her shoulder and pulled the bow across the strings. The light breeze picked up the haunting whine and carried it across the parking lot and down the strip. Then Nita and Billy Joe started picking their guitars and singing, “I Saw the Light.”
“Think they’re talking to us when they sing that?” Joelle asked. “Maybe not in the spiritual sense, but in seeing the light of what we should do in the future?”
Ford turned to look at her, and she could see that he was struggling with the same thoughts that she was. Did they take over the ranches? Did they step back and ask for more time? Where was the light, and what was it showing them?
“Goodnight, folks,” Sharlene said when the song was over. “Thanks again for coming around to make us old folks feel like stars.”
“Old Hank sure set the bar high for country music, didn’t he?” A gray-haired man stopped and put a bill into the guitar case.
“Honey,” his wife looped her arm in his, “Hank didn’t set the bar. He was the bar.”
“Amen,” Nita said with a smile as she put her guitar away.
Joelle glanced over at her aunt, who was loosening the strings on her fiddle. She had set the bar high when it came to independent women—no she was the bar—for what Joelle wanted to be when she was almost eighty.

 

Readers should read this book….

Folks, this is an Audible Original, and will only be available for listening for a few months. Sometime next year, it should be out in paperback and ebook. Until then, enjoy the listen.
 

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m working on a women’s fiction with romantic elements right now that will possibly be out in the summer of 2024. My upcoming releases are:
An anthology of some of my novellas: The Wedding Gift, June 27
The Lucky Shamrock: A women’s fiction, July 4
Paradise for Christmas: The first of the Sisters of Paradise trilogy, Oct. 10
On the Way to Us: A southern contemporary, Dec. 12
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

 

Giveaway: I will give away a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

 

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What are the first three things on your bucket list?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Chasing Dreams:

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ford Holt removed his baseball cap with his old Army Ranger insignia and ran his fingers through his thick black hair.
“What?” his grandfather, Billy Joe, chuckled. “Don’t you like my bucket list look?” He turned around slowly to give Ford a better look of his bell bottom jeans with a butterfly embroidered on one leg, and his neon-green T-shirt with Chasing Dreams printed on the front. “Sharlene and Nita have matching shirts.”
“Your look was fine for the sixties,” Ford said.
“And yours is good for a retired Army Ranger,” Billy Joe told him. “Now, let’s get these bags in the truck. Henry will take care of the place while we’re gone, and then when we get back, he’ll be retiring. I’m glad you’re here to take over.”
Ford picked up the two suitcases and headed toward the pickup truck. “Grandpa, you know I haven’t made up my mind about that.”
“You’ve got until the end of summer to get it done, and if you don’t want this ranch, I’m putting it on the market to sell,” his grandfather’s tone had a definite edge to it.
“Yes, sir.” Ford fought the urge to come to attention and salute, but that seemed rude and kind of military sacrilege to salute someone who looked like his grandfather did at the moment. Was the old guy going to grow his gray hair out and braid it like the hippies did in the sixties?
The two of them got into Ford’s pickup truck, and he drove down the lane to the road and made a left-hand turn. The reflection of the sun in the rearview mirror had him reaching for his sunglasses before they’d gone the three miles to the next ranch which Sharlene owned—one of his grandfather’s best friends, and who was going on the trip with them. He was sure glad he had them on when he pulled into the driveway and saw what was evidently the van that his grandfather said they would be traveling in for the next two weeks.
“Holy crap!” he gasped.
“Guess I forgot to mention what Sharlene’s van looks like,” Billy Joe chuckled as he opened the pickup door and slid out of the passenger seat. “Just keep your sunglasses on and don’t take off your cap when we take pictures. No one will recognize you.”
“Yeah right,” Ford grumbled. At four inches over six feet, and wearing a cap that screamed former military, there was very little doubt that someone on social media wouldn’t recognize him standing in front or even beside a VW bus with a trailer behind it. Both of them were painted up like a hippy wagon with Chasing Dreams written on the front of it in neon green letters. “So that’s where you got the idea for your T-shirt?”
“Yep, and because that’s what the three of us are doing. We’ll all be eighty this summer, and we’ve been best friends since before we could even talk, so we’ve decided to start crossing off items on our bucket lists,” Billy Joe said as he got out of the truck. “Hello! Are we ready to get his show on the road?”
Sharlene Griffith, one of his grandfather’s two best friends, came out of her house with a six pack of beer in her hands. “Yep, me and Nita done got our stuff in the trailer. Get yours squared away, and we’ll take our first picture. Joelle has taught me and Nita how to use Facebook and how to put our pictures on it right from these newfangled phones we all have. We intend to post pictures every day so the folks at our church and our neighbors can see what a great time we’re having. Everyone needs to stand in front of the bus so we can see the Chasing Dreams on the front.” She slid open the bus’s panel door, set the beer on the floor, and handed her phone off to her great-niece, who was going along with them as a relief driver. “Joelle, you can take the first picture of us three. Then I’ll take one of you and Ford.”
Nita Woods came out of the house, took her place at the front of the bus with them, and struck a pose. She was a short little lady with gray hair that had been braided and wrapped around her head in a style that reminded Ford of pictures he’d seen from the early sixties when the hippy era really was in full swing. She and Sharlene had either kept the jeans they were wearing for more than sixty years, or else they’d found a vintage clothing store somewhere in the area.
Ford had been stunned by the hippy wagon, but not as much as he was when his grandfather stretched out on the ground in front of the nose of the vehicle.
The whole thing looked like a six-year-old little girl had painted it, starting with the base coat that was hot pink. Then there were big daisies, peace signs and hearts everywhere—all in bright colors. And now three almost octogenarians were acting like they were on the way to a revival of Woodstock.
Sharlene held up two fingers in the peace sign. “Seems fitting that I take her out of the garage for this trip. I even had the name put on the back doors of the little trailer that carries our supplies and had it all painted up to match the VW.” She flipped her long red braid over her shoulder for the picture.
Billy Joe flashed a peace sign like both of his friends were doing. “If I was old, I couldn’t do this, now could I?”
“Okay, is everyone ready?” Joelle asked. “Smile for the photo. You are all about to fulfill the first item on each of your bucket lists.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

A summer road trip turns into a journey of a life time, full of last chances and fresh starts, in this heartwarming short story from New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown.
Nita, Sharlene and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free.
Spending the summer with three bickering old people in a tricked out VW bus isn’t what Joelle or Ford had planned, but they aren’t about to let the trio go that far without help. Both at a crossroads in their lives, neither expect to discover an attraction simmering between them. But somewhere between horseback riding at a dude ranch and slow dancing at the Grand Ole Opry, they discover that their elderly companions aren’t the only ones who need to take some risks in life… and in love.
 
 

Meet the Author:

Carolyn Brown is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publisher’s Weekly and #1 Amazon and #1 Washington Post bestselling author. She is the author of more than 100 novels and several novellas. She’s a recipient of the Bookseller’s Best Award, Montlake Romance’s prestigious Montlake Diamond Award, and a three-time recipient of the National Reader’s Choice Award. Brown has been published for more than 25 years, and her books have been translated 21 foreign languages, and have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
When she’s not writing, she likes to take road trips with her husband, Mr. B, and her family, and she plots out new stories as they travel.
Visit her at www.carolynbrownbooks.com
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | GoodReads |
 
 
 

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53 Responses to “Spotlight & Giveaway: Chasing Dreams by Carolyn Brown”

  11. noraadrienne

    I’d like to return to Israel, we haven’t been back since our first trip in 73′. I’d also like to do a road trip out to Texas and Arizona. My daughter is in Killeen, Texas and my brother is in Tucson and doesn’t get home anymore.

  12. Nina Lewis

    Visit Rome, Italy. See my favorite singer in concert. Meet my favorite author. 🙂

  21. Diane Sallans

    finish tracing my family’s genealogy, travel to where my ancestors lived, finish reading all the books I have accumulated

  22. Aline Azevedo

    Live an a A shaped cabin, visit Thailand and ride every rollercoaster possible!

  23. Maryann

    Visit some of the National Parks
    A scenic cruise
    Enjoy an extended winter vacation somewhere warm

  28. Glenda M

    Visit Scotland, New Zealand, and Italy (Honestly, the top 3 changes depending on my mood. Visit all the US National Parks in one that is often in the top 3)

  30. Dianne Casey

    Stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, go to Nepal to see Mount Everest, not climb it, just to see it, take an Alaskan cruise.

  32. Diana Tidlund

    Galápagos Islands
    Alaskan Cruise ( to see moose )
    National parks like Yellowstone

  33. Linda F Herold

    Visit Europe, learn to speak Spanish, go to Disneyland with my grandson.

  37. dholcomb1

    I don’t have a bucket list. I think having a wish list puts less pressure on oneself. I’d love to visit the UK, Italy, and Germany, but if I don’t, my life will still be full.

  38. Nicole (Nicky) Ortiz

    Visit Scotland castles, Poland to see where my mom was born and travel the states.

    Thanks for the chance!

  39. Shannon Capelle

    Travel to many countries.
    Buy a huge cabin in Tennessee mountains
    Zip lining

  41. Patricia B.

    First: visit Ireland, Scotland, and England. Second: go to Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. Third: visit New Zealand and Australia.

  43. Marisela Zuniga

    To visit Spain, let go of my fear when I drive and to pay off the mortgage on a house!

  47. Debra

    Travel to Italy and see why my grandparents lived.
    Watch my grandchildren & great grandchildren grow in the Lord and their dreams be fulfilled
    See all the wonders of the USA & beyond.

  50. Brenda

    Hello and thanks for this chance! My top 3 items on my bucket list are to go back to Maui for 2 weeks, visit Paris and Italy!

  51. Tammy Hudson

    I would love to travel to Ireland, Scotland and Hawaii. Thanks for the chance

  53. Laurie Gommermann

    Travel from NC Outer Banks up the NE coast stopping at Acadia National Park

    I would like to visit NE Canada and. Ova Scotia: Toronto, Montreal, Trois Rivières and London, Ontario where my relatives came from.

    Visit Switzerland and Austria hike the Alps walk where Mozart grew up and lived