WELCOME to our first AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT!
We are lucky to have Babette de Jongh here with us today. Babette is an award-winning romance author as well as an accomplished animal communicator. Her debut contemporary romance, ANGEL FALLS, is available on Amazon--and is fabulous. WELCOME, BABETTE!
**As part of today's post, Babette is giving away an autographed copy of ANGEL FALLS as well as one animal communication session with the dog of your choice! Sign up in the Rafflecopter box at the bottom of the page to enter. Winner will be selected by random drawing on Monday, April 30 and announced here -- so check back to see if you are a winner!**
Please Tell us about yourself! I’m an early-starter (With a late-August birthday, I went to kindergarten in September, and skipped my senior year in high-school to go to college early) and a late-bloomer (I didn’t start writing or accepting my ability to communicate with animals till my 30’s).
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? I’ve always been good at writing; unlike most kids, I loved essay questions on tests because I could bullshit an essay question and make an A without knowing the answer! Writing is one of the few things that seemed to come easily to me. But I never had an “I want to be a writer!” moment. The movie Pretty Woman gave me the what-if I needed to write my first novel—What if the gorgeous, rich man (played by Richard Gere) who picks up a prostitute (played by Julia Roberts) wasn’t such a nice guy? What if he was a psychopathic killer instead? That book hasn’t been published yet, but the manuscript won the fiction category of the 2016 San Francisco Writing Contest. And that’s in competition with all genres of fiction, so I’m really proud of that accomplishment.
In your book, ANGEL FALLS, your main character Casey has a dog who plays an important role in Casey’s life. Tell us about the animals in your life! I wouldn’t know how to live without animals. The current animal-count here on Dragonfly Pond Farm is three horses, two donkeys, one ram (who sorely needs a girlfriend of his own ilk but he’s making-do with Esmeralda the mama goat), four goats, four dogs I claim as mine (plus one, two, or three others depending on which of the grown kids are home with their dogs), two geese, a dozen-or-so cats, three parrots, and an ever-changing array of chickens and guineas.
What is their craziest behavior/story? Crazy animal stories seem to be generated here on a weekly basis (at least), but here’s the craziest animal story I’ve written about lately in my blog: http://bit.ly/MissingGoats
We see that you are also an animal communicator. Do you really speak with animals? How does that work? Yes, I really speak telepathically with animals, and probably, so do you. Anyone who has ever loved an animal has experienced telepathic communication with that animal, though they might not have recognized it. Like any psychic ability, telepathy is an extension of the regular senses. I tell my students that “seeing” telepathically is like visualizing a scene we’re reading about in fiction. “Hearing” telepathically is like imagining the voice of a character in a book. “Feeling” can come as an actual sensation in your body (your dog’s hip hurts and suddenly yours does, too) or as a shared emotion. “Smell and taste” can come as a memory or an actual experience—don’t ask a dog to show you his favorite taste, because some like to eat poop! Telepathic information can also come as “knowing,” which is like remembering everything that happened in a book you’ve read. Often, telepathic communication comes as a combination of all these modalities.
If you’re interested in accepting your ability to communicate with animals, I’d be honored to teach you. This world needs more people who are willing to know how animals think and feel.
Do you have any new books coming out? HEAR THEM SPEAK is my upcoming non-fiction book about learning to communicate with animals telepathically. It’s a twelve-week course that will give you everything you need to know to accept your own abilities. It will be out this fall.
What’s a book you’ve read recently? I just read another great book by Kristan Higgins: Now That You Mention It. I love anything she writes, because she has an ability to capture emotion, and (of course) because she always includes an animal character in each of her books.
ABOUT ANGEL FALLS: Welcome to Angel Falls, a deep-south small town in the heart of L.A. (That’s Lower Alabama, y’all.) Injury shatters Casey Alexander’s dream of becoming a prima ballerina, so she opens a dance studio in her home town of Angel Falls. Among her students are the daughters of her high-school sweetheart Ben and his wife Melody, Casey’s ex-best friend. Witnessing Ben and Melody’s happy-ever-after on a weekly basis fuels her determination to find someone of her own to love. But eligible men are scarce as hen’s teeth in the quaint little town on the backside of nowhere. Until a sexy Scottish editor, Ian Buchanan, buys the town’s failing newspaper. Ian is hot and hunky, intelligent and interesting, easy to fall for. And Casey does fall, hard. Then fate returns Ben to Casey. Torn between the might’ve beens of the past and a new dream of the future, Casey must choose between one man she never stopped loving, and another who holds the power to heal her wounded heart.
You can purchase ANGEL FALLS here:
Amazon: http://bit.ly/AngelFallsDeJongh
You can find Babette de Jongh here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabettedeJongh.author/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Babette_deJongh
Remember, Babette is giving away an autographed copy of ANGEL FALLS as well as one animal communication session with the dog of your choice! Sign up in the Rafflecopter box below to enter. Winner will be selected by random drawing on Monday, April 30, and announced here -- so check back to see if you are a winner!
