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Interview on PI Online Newspaper
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| Janelle Meraz Hooper |
Reviews and clippings below.
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New! Now on Kindle, Nook and others!
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| Kindle, Nook $2.99 USD |
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Boogie, Boots & Cherry Pie
Janelle Meraz Hooper
When the great guy that Lily meets at her company’s St.
Patrick’s Day party takes her home he discovers she lives at the Zoo, an apartment building that caters to tenants who
have exotic pets. Unfortunately, one of the animals is missing and when Mike drops her off the first thing he sees is a sign
on the front door:
Please Don’t Let Out The Snake!
While Lily is trying to figure out how Boogie, a big boa constrictor,
is getting into her room, Mike, her new boyfriend, has his own problems. He’s a jewelry designer who is in danger of
defaulting on a contract because all of his workers live on a flood plain and the river is rising. When it finally floods,
everyone, including their pets, disappear without a trace. Suddenly, Mike isn’t worried about his business anymore.
He’s worried about his workers and their families. Are they okay? Where could they be?
Filled with lively characters including: a Jamaican landlady,
Reggae, whose traditional headdress holds her phone, iPod, and assorted office supplies; her boyfriend Mingo who thinks he
doesn’t fit in; and Velma, a woman who collects snakes—big ones. Tension rises when Reggae and Lily begin to fear
that Boogie is stalking Boots, Reggae’s pet iguana.
Read the first chapter for free on my website: www.JanelleMerazHooper.com
Janelle Meraz
Hooper is an award-winning writer
originally from Oklahoma
who now lives in Washington State.
Contact her: JanelleMHooper@comcast.net
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| Paperback $9.99 USD, Kindle, Nook $2.99 USD |
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"I loved the book. I will read it again!" H.B. Tacoma, WA.
Bears in the Hibiscus
A humorous romance...
Janelle
Meraz Hooper
Mary Bergstrom, a single
mom, has left her twenty-five year marriage and entered the work force for the first time.
Luckily, she has found
a job she loves and two good friends who are also starting their lives over. Despite challenges, they haven’t lost
their positive, humorous outlook. Mary has a plan to make a success of her new life that includes fiscal stability and excludes men. Not that she has anything against them, she just thinks she can’t
afford them. Unlike Mary, her friend, Roxanne, is launching a detailed plan to find Captain Marvelous with a yacht. Ray, another
friend, bounces from coffee baristas to business moguls looking for love that’s lasting and real.
Mary’s plans aren’t that grand. All she wants is a Hawaiian vacation so she can relax. Too late, she discovers
her ex-brother-in-law, Mark, a park ranger from Montana, will be there at the same time for a conference
on state parks. He leaves a note for her at the hotel desk warning her to watch out for bears. He hasn’t seen any, but he thinks there might be Bears in the Hibiscus.
Mark’s interest in her brings complications she isn’t ready for: romance; wealthy, demanding in-laws that
she didn’t like the first time she’d married into the family; a jealous and vindictive ex-husband; and a greedy
and crazed ex-sister-in-law who dumps her two daughters to follow a con man into a scheme to get-rich-quick raising
emus. Then, when that fails, she takes off with a rich Arab in a silk keffiyah.
Mary can’t deny she may have found true love in Mark, but is it worth it if it means being a part
of that family again?
Contact Janelle:
JanelleMHooper@comcast.net
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| Paperback $15.95 USD, Kindle $2.99 USD |
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"...you are excellent at spinning a yarn and at painting a verbal picture
of people and places." P. R., Tacoma
Custer and His Naked Ladies
Janelle Meraz Hooper
When her husband unexpectedly
dumps her, Glory boards an Oklahoma-bound plane at the Sea-Tac
Airport. On her way to the ticket counter, she takes the framed photo
of her husband out of her gym bag and dumps it into the nearest trash bin—frame and all. She has wasted too many years
on a man who doesn’t want her, and her biological clock is beginning to pound like a powwow drum.
Part Hispanic, part Anglo, and raised on the reservation, Glory hopes that by going back to her roots she’ll
discover who she is, but her home is in turmoil. Her greedy stepmother has returned, a group of dysfunctional mobsters wants
her mother’s land on the Indian reservation to build a casino, her pastor cousin is kidnapped in Mexico while on a mission, and Glory’s beloved turtles
are in an environmental crisis. When the mob tries to kill her, Glory counts herself as being an endangered species!
Her biggest problem of all may be Soap, a sexy Comanche lawyer who wants to do something about that powwow drum
pounding in her head…
Sprinkled with Spanish phrases and Comanche words, Custer and His Naked Ladies is full of Southwest flavor.
Although this book stands alone, it is the third book in a Turtle Trilogy, and the characters
in the first two books reappear for one last time in Custer and His Naked Ladies.
I'm going to miss them.
A fun read!
Contact Janelle:
www.JanelleMerazHooper.com
JanelleMHooper@comcast.net
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| Paperback $17.95 USD, Kindle $2.99 USD |
This book has just been listed on Amazon's Prime free lending program on Kindle!
Winner!
2002
Bold Media Fiction
Book Award!
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First place fiction: 2002 Bold Media Award!
Janelle Meraz Hooper gives us more than a story. She gives
us a cast of hilarious and memorable characters in a vividly drawn scene...Libros en iguama.com
A
Three-Turtle Summer
Janelle Meraz Hooper
An entertaining book about women who stick together to help one of their own
find her place in the world for herself and her daughter…
Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, 1949…Grace and her five-year-old daughter, Glory, are living through A Three-Turtle Summer—a
summer so hot the turtles are dying. It’s also the summer that Grace’s sisters and mother join forces with Grace
to help her dump Dwayne, her abusive husband, who her sister Pauline says is “meaner than a rattlesnake and dumber than
adobe.”
Besides her Hispanic family, a rich list of characters also assist in her escape, including: Sako, an American-born Japanese neighbor whose former home was the internment camp at
Poston, Arizona; two gay dance instructors; a Negro gospel singer who sells lip-smackin’ Barbecue out of the trunk of
her new orange Cadillac convertible; and Rudolf, her older sister’s husband who’s a colonel in the Army.
This women’s fiction story, set in the Southwest, will appeal to women everywhere who are looking for a good
story with a happy ending. Published by iUniverse, softcover, 6x9, 323 pages, ISBN # 0-595-24375-4.Fictional autobiography.
A Three-Turtle Summer
is the first novel in the turtle trilogy. The second novel, As Brown As I Want, The Indianhead Diaries, is also available
for order and was a finalist in the 2004 Oklahoma Book Awards.
Purchase
Janelle's books from iUniverse at www.iuniverse.com , on her web site, or order from your favorite walk-in bookstore.
contact
Janelle: janellemhooper@comcast.net
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| Paperback $13,95 USD, Kindle $2.99 USD |
This book has just been listed on Amazon's Prime free lending program on Kindle!
Finalist!
2004
Oklahoma Book Awards
1999
1st place fiction
Surrey
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2004 Oklahoma
Book Award finalist!
1999 Surrey Book
Conference 1st place fiction winner!
As Brown As I Want, The Indianhead Diaries
Janelle Meraz Hooper
The summer of 1952, Lawton, Oklahoma… Eight-year-old Glory has a father who's taken out a $50,000 accidental-death
policy on her--now he's spending the summer trying to collect. In his first attempt, he throws Glory to the snakes, but a
giant alligator snapping turtle scares the snakes away.
Glory writes in her diary: Well, Powwow Pete drove
us home to talk to Mom, but we didn’t get very far. Mom thinks I just have a wild imagination. At least Powwow Pete
believes me. I think it was the turtle that killed it for Mom.
“How could there be a turtle that big?” she scoffed. They talked
some more and Powwow Pete got kind of mad and got up to leave.
This was one of those times when a kid thinks they’re talking about a
turtle, but the grown-ups are really talking about something else entirely. In this case, I think Powwow Pete was accusing
Mom of still loving my dad, but he never said that, he just kept talking about the turtle. Mom was doing the same thing: talking
about the turtle but meaning that she didn’t want to get messed up with some guy who was a pathologgy liar (Glory can’t
spell). As Brown As I Want is the second book in the turtle trilogy. Published by iUniverse, softcover, 6x9,
166 pages, ISBN # 0-595-29408-1.Fictional autobiography.
To read sample chapters or purchase Janelle's book, visit her web site: http://JanelleMerazHooper.com
A popular young adult book!
contact
Janelle: janellemhooper@comcast.net
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| Paperback $12.95 USD, Kindle $1.99 USD |
This book has just been listed on Amazon's free lending program on Kindle!
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"First
of all let me congratulate you on your wonderful stories. I find them to be very funny and entertaining."
B.
M., Texas
Free
Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories
Janelle
Meraz Hooper
What’s a chick story? It’s a story with no drugs, bombs, or spies who have numbers instead of names.
And clean. It’s gotta be clean. Spend some time with Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories and its other stories and
shorts like Elvis Has Left the Building…and is Living in My Computer, Harpy and Julianne’s War
of the Roses, and Gets Tickled and the Fish Trap, and have a smile on me.
I balanced out the short stories with some commentaries
so we won’t forget where we’ve been…and how far we have to go.
If you’re looking for the answer to world
peace, you probably won’t find it here, but why does everything have to be so serious? Published by iUniverse, softcover,
6x9, 132 pages, ISBN # 0-595-34464-X. Mixed genre. Includes Thanksgiving and Christmas short stories. A favorite of teachers! Good for English-as-a-second language classes!
www.janellemerazhooper.com
Also available on online and instore bookstores
contact Janelle: janellemhooper@comcast.net
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Custer and His Naked Ladies
Review by Tiffany (Richards) Elliot
"Custer and His Naked Ladies," is not normally a book I would just pick up and read. Personally, I'm more of a historical
fiction and sci-fi nut. It was a pleasant deviation from my usual literature-diet.
I loved the setting. Not many people think great stories can come out of the American mid-west, or even Oklahoma
for that matter, but trust me, they can. It provides a unique flavor of it's own, I was actually pleased that it didn't take
place the whole time in Seattle, or even LA or New
York. Plus, the huge presence of the native culture provided a brilliant and thought-provoking look
on society, from casino debates to the influence of the Mob.
The second unique factor I enjoyed was the age group. With the exception of the few key characters; Glory, Soap, and
Ben, everyone was a senior citizen. Most stories feature characters between birth to middle age, so it comes to no surprise
that most are convinced that all the fun has to end when you turn sixty. This story, and this cast of characters, proves different.
They are all the most feisty, and entertaining lives I have ever had the chance to glimpse at.
I also highly enjoyed the romance between Glory and Soap. I kept thinking, "Oh please get together, please get together." You
don't see enough older romances and they're beautiful. The love scene (yes, there is a small one) was revealing, modest, and
simply lovely.
The third, and perhaps best, was the inner-weaving of so many plot lines. You not only had the drama with Glory going
on; her divorce and endless fear of never finding true happiness, which was the main arch. But also the drama going on in
the community, the casino debate on the reservation and over-reach of the Mob. As I live-long Washingtonian, I am very familiar
with the love-hate relationship between reservations and casinos, but until I read this book, I was unsure of how the Mob
worked into all of this. And the measures the ladies take, is both hilarious and serious. The third plot was the side story
of Dan, a cousin of Glory's, who is kidnapped while on a mission trip to Mexico.
I was unsure of how this would go down, but you were able to weave it in seamlessly - this was just another thing they had
to deal with - and I enjoyed it very much.
If you want a break from the daily grind of the Northwest winter, pick up "Custer and His Naked Ladies." No only will
you feel relaxed and refreshed from all that great Oklahoma
sunshine, you might learn something along the way.
Tiffany (Richards) Elliott
Freelance writer and part-time critic
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| The Oklahoman, July 6, 2008 |
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