Interview: Chelle Cordero, Author of Hyphema

Joining us today is Chelle Cordero.  She is the author of Bartlett's Rule, Forgotten, His Lucky Charm, and other books. Her latest release is Hyphema.

Welcome to The Book Connection, Chelle. Let's start by talking about where you grew up.

I like to tell folks that I grew up in the only NYC borough that begins with a “D” – da Bronx. We lived in a nice 3rd floor walk-up facing a city park. It was a great place to stare out of the window and daydream.

What is your fondest childhood memory?

I had a very happy childhood with a lot of fond memories. But one memory does stick out… my dad was really just a big kid, when my sister and I used to watch TV with him, we all dressed up like the characters from the show. LOL, cowboy hats for Gunsmoke, army helmets for Combat, and police badges for the cop shows – this was terrific for my already overactive imagination.

When did you begin writing?

As a kid, I was always writing stories – tried to write a TV script starring an actor I had a crush on! In high school I took a creative writing class with instructor and poet Daisy Aldan. She was wonderfully encouraging. In college I wrote for my school’s newspaper and helped write news stories for the college radio station. I had my first professionally published piece, a newspaper article, in a local weekly paper when I was 19. After that it was really just a hobby until I was pregnant with my daughter (1981) when I decided to work at creating a home business. But it wasn’t until the mid 90’s when I pursued my dream of fiction writing. I am pleased to say I finally “grew up to be a novelist”!

Do you write during the day, at night or whenever you can sneak a few moments?

While I try to write my fiction whenever I can find a chance, I am most productive during the late night hours when the rest of the world sleeps. As a full time freelance writer, I do spend much of my day writing to meet newspaper deadlines.

What is this book about?

Matt Garratti was a NYS paramedic (readers first met him in my novel Final Sin). He is married now with a son and has moved to North Carolina to work at his dream job as a flight medic. His wife, Sudah was born in Pakistan, is a practicing Muslim, and is not yet an American citizen (although she is working towards becoming one). As a family they meet up with prejudice and suspicion and when apparent threats are made against his family, the local police are quick to write things off as local reaction to a Pakistani Muslim in the area – maybe they are a little too quick?

What inspired you to write it?

Matt did, the character from Final Sin. Matt developed quite a personality of his own in Final Sin. He became a character that needed his own story. Since Matt is a bit of an “adrenaline junkie” (responds to 911 medical/trauma emergencies), he definitely lives in the field of EMS (emergency medical services). He’s a family man who wants better for his family than he had with a father who abandoned them. He’s also a romantic who is willing to work through cultural differences and social snubs because he truly loves the woman he married.

Who is your biggest supporter?

I am fortunate to have a few very supportive folks in my corner. I think the biggest would have to be my publisher Kimberlee Williams. She is extremely encouraging and knows just when I need some ego bolstering.

If you knew then, what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?

When it comes to my fiction, I think I would have surrounded myself with other writers long ago. Writers have a unique way of understanding other writers.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

While the book will be available in print (probably July), it is available as an e-book for now: you can purchase it for the Kindle from Amazon (http://amzn.to/fEYUR7) or through Smashwords for multiple e-book formats (http://bit.ly/epqtjy)

Do you have a website and/or blog where readers can find out more?

Both! My website is http://chellecordero.com/ and my blog is http://chellecordero.blogspot.com/.  Also, please feel free to visit my “media room” on my website to find out more about me, my latest release Hyphema, and even download free .pdf e-books.

Do you have a video trailer to promote your book? If yes, where can readers find it?

Yes I do, you can go to http://youtu.be/8IcK1NN7P2E to see it.

What is one piece of advice you would like to share with aspiring authors everywhere?

Never give up, never stop writing.

What is up next for you?

I have this idea rolling around in my head for a paranormal romantic suspense but, please, don’t say anything to my publisher yet, I want to see how this idea works out first…

Is there anything you would like to add?

Thanks so much for allowing me this opportunity to chat here today.

Thanks for spending time with us today, Chelle. We wish you the best.

Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah--Book Review

Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah is an eloquently written and moving story of a Muslim woman living in America, whose world is turned upside down on September 11th.

Arissa Illahi is a Muslim artist and writer living in New York City with her husband Faizan. Expecting their first child, they are happy with life. But on the morning of September 11, 2001, Faizan would go to work in the World Trade Center...and never return.

Always free to live as a Muslim in America, after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Great American Melting Pot doesn't seem to blend so well. People who greeted Arissa with a smile before that fateful day, barely look at her. Feeling adrift after her loss, Arissa wanders through the days awaiting the birth of her unborn son, a son Faizan would never hold. The discovery of her husband's unfinished manuscript may be the key to her survival. And perhaps by finishing Faizan's legacy, Arissa will redeem a race.

If ever there was a book more eloquently written than Saffron Dreams, I would like to see it. The words simply fly off the page and float into your consciousness; their power touching you in a way like no other book might ever touch you again. The struggles of being a 9/11 widow and a Muslim, come together in a moving story that will find you filled with every emotion ever experienced by a human being.

Abdullah's masterful storytelling draws you in from the very first moment and does not release you until you've turned the very last page. Anyone who has ever loved and lost will be touched by this heartrending, yet triumphant story of one woman's difficult journey to pick up the pieces of her shattered life in a country that has suddenly put her and an entire race under a microscope in order to make sense of a monumental tragedy. The descriptions and details put you right alongside Arissa so that you are totally captivated by her world, her dreams, her struggles, and her triumphs.

The stunning cover art must be seen up close, as it is even lovelier and more striking in your hands than what you see posted here.

Saffron Dreams is destined to add more awards to Abdullah's portfolio. This is a must read book for 2009!


Title: Saffron Dreams
Author: Shaila Abduallah
Publisher: Modern History Press
ISBN-10: 1932690735
ISBN-13: 978-1932690736
SRP: $19.95 (U.S.)

Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out by Crimp and Richardson

Here's a book I would love to read if my "to be read" pile every dwindled down. When someone decides to change faiths I always wonder what the deciding factor is. What is it about his current faith that he felt he could no longer relate to or accept?

I found myself faced with the same decision a decade ago and it wasn't the easiest choice I had to make...especially considering that I had practiced my faith for 30 years. Looking back on it now, I know I made the right choice; but back then I felt very uncertain.




Why We Left Islam Synopsis:

The penalty for renouncing Islam is death, which makes the stories in Why We Left Islam -- and the lives behind them -- all the more remarkable.

Contained in these brutally honest personal accounts written by former Muslims is an urgent truth that the mainstream media and cowed politicians won't admit -- that far from being "a religion of peace," Islam is instead barbaric and repressive, a nightmare for those living under it and those seeking to confront it.

Here are some of the voices from Why We Left Islam...

"I still remember my sister's black eyes; she stared at the sky while she was dug into the ground. She was wrapped in white sheets and her hands were tied to her body. She was buried up to her waist. The rabid mob circled her with stones in their hands and started throwing them at her while the roars of 'Allah-u-Akbar' added to their frenzy..." -- Yagmur

"As a Muslim man, the fact that my mother had only given birth to three girls made him really angry. He beat my mother very badly and the doctors were forced to remove her womb...When she awoke, my father was kind enough to tell her that he was divorcing her now that she could no longer have children, and being a man he needed a son." -- Shara

"The Koran is full of verses that teach the killing of unbelievers and how Allah would torture them after they die. There are no lessons on morality, justice, honesty or love..." -- Ali

These shocking, real-life stories from those who have escaped the Muslim yoke make Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out a powerful communique -- and a warning -- to the West.

Read the excerpt!

My Sister

My sister, Dr. Homa Darabi, was born in Tehran, Iran, in January 1940, two months premature, to Eshrat Dastyar, a child bride who at age thirteen had married Esmaeil Darabi. Homa was my older sister, my protector, and my role model. Homa had a life full of hope and promise that a tyrannical and fundamentalist Islamic system destroyed.

Indeed, my sister could never have imagined what lay ahead for her as she completed her elementary and high school education in Tehran. She then immediately entered the University of Tehran’s School of Medicine after passing the university’s entrance exam in 1959. It was a marvelous accomplishment and one that made our family proud. Homa was in the first 150 out of thousands of students who took the examination and became one of the three hundred who were accepted (the medical school’s capacity).

A feisty and spirited young woman, my sister became quite active in politics and hoped to bring human rights and equal status for women in Iran. Her dream was most evident during her days in high school and in her freshman year at the university. Yet her quest would not be easy. In 1960, as a result of her efforts, she was arrested and imprisoned for a while, during the students’ protests against the oppressive regime of the Shah. The regime was especially hostile towards students and youth who were beginning to demand more freedom of expression, assembly, and speech.

In 1963, my sister married her classmate, Manoochehr Keyhani, presently a prominent hematologist. Together they brought into this world two intelligent daughters.

Following the completion of her studies at the University of Tehran, Dr. Darabi practiced for two years in Bahmanier, a village in northern Iran, while her husband completed his military obligation as a physician in the Iranian health corps. In 1968, she and her husband passed the Education Council Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) examination and came to the United States to further their education. She took her residency in pediatrics and later specialized in psychiatry and then in child psychiatry and was licensed to practice medicine in the states of New Jersey, New York, and California. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the mid-1970s.

Due to pressures from her husband and family and her desire to give back to her native country, she returned to Iran in 1976 and was immediately accepted as a professor at the University of Tehran School of Medicine.

She was the first Iranian ever to pass the board in child psychiatry in the U.S. and was the driving force behind the establishment of the Psychiatric Clinic of Shahid Sahami in Tehran.
Although she was a strong supporter of the revolution, my sister opposed the establishment of an Islamic republic. Furthermore, when her party leader took advantage of the new Islamic guidelines and took a second wife, Homa was devastated and totally broke away from all politics. My sister then devoted her time to her profession as a medical doctor.

In 1990, due to her non-compliance with wearing the hijab (covering up of women), she was fired from her position as a professor at the School of Medicine.

Later, my sister was harassed in her practice for the same reason until finally, when life was made too difficult for her, she closed down her practice and became a full-time housewife for the first time in her life.

During her professional life my sister was under pressure from some parents of her younger patients to give the label of “mentally incapacitated” to many perfectly intelligent young girls so that they could be saved from the tortures of the zealots (150 strokes of a whip for things such as wearing makeup or lipstick). Having to label these young women truly broke my sister’s heart.

When a sixteen-year-old girl was shot to death in northern Tehran for wearing lipstick, my sister could no longer handle the guilt she felt about her former involvement in the Iranian Revolution. My sister felt Iran had been hijacked by the religious factions, and the way women were treated in Iran was unforgivable.… She wanted the world to know what was happening. She finally decided to protest the oppression of women by setting herself on fire in a crowded square in northern Tehran on February 21, 1994. Her last cries were:

Death to tyranny!
Long live liberty!
Long live Iran!

Susan Crimp is a respected journalist and author specializing in Middle East affairs and Joel Richardson is an expert in Jewish and Islamic theology.

The WHY WE LEFT ISLAM VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR '08 will officially begin on May 1, 2008 and will continue all month. If you would like to follow Susan and Joel's tour in progress, visit http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/ in May. Leave a comment at any of their blog stops and become eligible to win a free copy at the end of her tour! One lucky winner will be announced on this tour page on May 31!

This virtual book tour has been brought to you by: