C. Alease, Author, Contemporary Literary Fiction

FIRSTS

2010-03-01T14:32:00.002-05:00

I don't remember anything about being a baby, or how it must have felt inside when I took my first step, said my first word, or got my first "booboo." All I can do is feel my way vicariously through the absolute pride and joy in my mother's eyes; that twinkle in them when she reminisces about how my grandfather would stand a few steps away from the top of the landing of the stairs to the kitchen and pat his hands against the top-most step, nearest the opening. She would laugh out loud when she remembered how each time I crawled to him at the top of the steps, dragging a brown paper bag, full of stuff I collected while I crawled around the house. She told me he would say, "When I come back from work today, you are gonna walk straight to me."

Of course, it took a few of those pats from my grandfather against the wooden stair step, but one day, she recalled, as her smile filled her cheeks to their brim, "when Grandpop Lawson came home and stood those few steps down from the top of the landing and began to pat his hands on the top step, you got up, clutching your brown paper bag full of stuff you collected, and you walked straight to him!"

While I regret nothing of my life so far, it has been a series of the same good and not so good things, repeating themselves in different forms and experiences, but repeats, nonetheless. Until now.

I am now situating inside of the tremendously sublime place of firsts again; my first novel, my first sale, my first radio interview, my first book signing. The feelings I have will not be expressed adequately by the words I write to describe them, but sufficed to say, it’s like being a baby all over again, but with a twist; I will remember these firsts.

C. Alease

THE GATEKEEPER, A NOVEL BY C. ALEASE
http:thegatekeeper.cadsmith.net

Trade Paperback
216 pages
ISBN: 1449552641

Distributed by the Ingram Group

Available online now at:

Amazon.com Barnes and Noble.com
iFOGO.com
Bumblebee (http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net
(Prices may vary and shipping charges may apply)

For additional information and for signed copy purchase information please contact:

orderbooks@cadsmith.net

Please include your name, address, zip/postal code and email to receive your invoice with instructions. Purchase with confidence through Paypal

Visit my Website!

Written and Video Excerpts (Read 3 Chapters Online), Reviews, Articles, Pictures, News and Events

http://thegatekeeper.cadsmith.net or http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net

For all other information, including speaking engagements, booksignings, and bookclub readings, please contact: C. Alease at info@cadsmith.net

Word of Mouth is still the BEST Advertisement

2010-02-11T09:50:00.000-05:00

Dream 4 More Reviewer, Vanessa Richardson says "THIS IS AN IMPRESSIVE DEBUT NOVEL!"

Amazon Reviewer, J. Gibson says, "The novel `The Gatekeeper' by C. Alease is a brilliant and powerful first novel. It is RIVITING... POWERFUL... ABSORBING... INTRIGING... COMPELLING..."

Premiere Writers (www.premierewriters.com) reviewer Fran Lewis says, “One of the best thought provoking books I have ever had the honor of reviewing: The Gatekeeper by C.Alease."

Amina Robinson, award winning actress who plays "Jermaine Hicks" from the Academy Award nominated movie, "Precious" says, "The Gatekeeper By: C. Alease is definitely a must read. First, your writing is absolutely beautiful...”

THE GATEKEEPER, A NOVEL BY C. ALEASE

For complete reviews, visit http://thegatekeeper.cadsmith.net/reviews

THE GATEKEEPER, A NOVEL BY C. ALEASE

Anyone may have a “Trollop,” a “Sick and Tired,” a “Chatterbox” and even a “Perfectionist” in themselves. The question is, “who’s in charge.” What if they were alive?

Some of our Narrator’s best friends live inside her head. “So it appears that I am fragmented, though not completely split.” This is what our Narrator in The Gatekeeper, a Novel by C. Alease, believes. In reality, she is a human jigsaw puzzle not yet assembled, cracked mirror pieces in a worn, weather beaten frame, ready to fall apart.

Something inside our Narrator believes that her desire to find a therapist is actually for her eighteen year old son, to manage his anger issues. A close friend recommends one, and after a few visits with her son, the psychotherapist becomes much more interested in her. And so begins an unintended journey through her fractured, but not broken, dissociated mind, to places she did not know existed, chose to forget, and was not prepared to revisit.

This odyssey takes the reader and our Narrator through an obstacle course of events, a journey of self-actualization and recollection, trauma and confusion as she learns the extent to which she has been guided by, interacting with and struggling to find a precarious peace amid these fractured pieces of herself, all living inside her head, and all of whom were created for their own specific purpose.

Our Narrator’s story is not unique, which works tremendously well, enabling readers to identify with all its characters. Readers will find that the story of The Gatekeeper is dark and foreboding, yet amusing and playful, providing a proverbial rollercoaster ride of emotions that will touch the reader’s soul, as these multifarious personalities emerge alive, completely different, yet being, loving, living and arguing with each other, much like the best friends that our Narrator believes they are.

The Gatekeeper, a Novel by C. Alease
Trade Paperback 216 pages
ISBN: 1449552641

Distributed by the Ingram Group

Available online now at:
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble.com
iFOGO.com
Bumblebee (http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net
(Prices may vary and shipping charges may apply)

For additional information and for signed copy purchase information please contact:

orderbooks@cadsmith.net. Please include your name, address, zip/postal code and email to receive your invoice with instructions. Purchase with confidence through Paypal

Visit my Website! Written and Video Excerpts (Read 3 Chapters Online), Reviews, Articles, Pictures, News and Events

http://thegatekeeper.cadsmith.net or http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net

For all other information, including speaking engagements, booksignings, and bookclub readings, please contact: C. Alease at info@cadsmith.net

Follow C. Alease on Twitter:

@sinnyisthename

Become a Fan on Facebook: C. Alease Fan Page

What is BumbleBee?

2009-12-14T22:25:00.000-05:00

I have been receiving questions about BumbleBee. BumbleBee is the official website for me and my novel, The Gatekeeper. At BumbleBee, you can view the book trailer, view a video excerpt, sign the guestbook and read the first three chapters of the novel for free. You can find out about events, and safely and securely purchase your copy of the novel from Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle or iFOGO.com. You can even get $5.00 off the price when you buy directly from my e-store on Createspace! Keep the BUZZ going!

I invite you to visit BumbleBee! http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net/

Lovingly,

C. Alease

The Gatekeeper, a Novel by C. Alease is the story of a woman who suffers from dissociative personality disorder to protect her from her childhood. The novel explores her decision to go into therapy and slowly unlocks the truth that shaped her vast and conflicting personalities. By delving into the past, the main character is brought to reality and must come to terms with the secrets her mind chooses to forget.

The novel is an insightful and humorous journey of self-preservation and actualization, where readers are drawn closer to the truth in their own lives by gaining a better understanding of how their own experiences are catalysts for their behavior. Our protagonist’s complex personalities take the reader through a literary odyssey to emerge with greater clarity and understanding of their own lives.

*Inde-Authors-Self Publishing: The Novelist's 21st Century Revolution Against the Establishment

2009-11-01T16:09:00.003-05:00

I was somewhat discouraged when I finally finished my first novel in October this year, after 20 years of procrastination. I guess just like quitting smoking cigarettes all those many years ago, it took something completely unrelated to what I was procrastinating about to act as the catylist for the drive and eventual sucess at both. Unlike quitting smoking so long ago, when I didn't have to rely on others or even an establishment of esoteric, overly commercial individuals and companies to validate the fact that I quit, publishing my first novel the "traditional way" proved to involve a great deal of that.

Perceptions being what they are, I knew that I wouldn't be able to asway any of the perceptions of my novel by the throngs of agents and publishing houses that I queried; of the ones who allowed queries at all. After a great deal of research and investigtation on the subject of traditional publishing, I grew even more discouraged at the prospect of having to self-publish. There was so much negativity out in the tradtional literary world for inde authors and self-publishing.

Then it hit me.

Of course! How could I realize anything else about it? There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with self publishing. There is nothing inherently wrong with independent authoring. There is nothing wrong with doing it yourself; "just doin' the dang thing." My discouragement is misplaced!

Whenever such an entity, whether human or corporate, societal or cultural, has nothing left to hold onto except a feined perception of superority over that which they are trying to relegate to a lesser place or state of being, they create a distinction, an exclusivity that places them in a different, more highly prized, discriminating place. Validity is based solely on being in that place.

At the same time, they place a stigma on that person, place or thing that they wish to hold with contempt, such that anything other than "their" way is the wrong way, constituting and providing an illegimate validity to the stigmatization of those who do not "make it" into that superior perception of the way that "it" should be done.

Sadly, validity within traditional publishing has been reduced to "commercially marketable appeal," and not the literary voice of the Author.

Simply put, the traditional publishing world is in its last gasp, thus creating a "superiority" and "exclusivity" that has become closed to all but celebs and the wealthy, politicrats and reality show participants. Traditional publishing is giving way, albeit kicking and screaming, to digital forms of publishing, self publishing included.

This is the 21st century, already. There is no REAL stigma associated with inde-self authoring and publishing. Stigmas only have the power that you give them.

I am proud of my accomplishment, and I am glad that I live in the 21st century. I am happy I know how to use the Adobe Master Suite, own a computer and have an account with Amazon.com. I self-published my novel with CreateSpace and Kindle on Amazon.com, and that doesn't make my literary voice any less valid, it means that the revolution is now digitized.

http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net/
info@cadsmith.net
The Gatekeeper, a Novel by C. Alease, at Amazon.com and Kindle Books

The Gatekeeper, a Novel by C. Alease

2009-11-01T13:55:00.004-05:00

After confiding in a friend and coworker who was seeing a therapist, a seemingly normal, middle-aged woman decides to take her teenage son to a psychologist to work on his anger issues. She thinks that she has lived a rather lackluster life, with an understanding that if she feels a bit “touched,” it is only because “everybody is a bit touched.”

During her therapy visits with her son, David, she learns that the therapist is more interested in her, and begins therapy on her own, only to discover that her uninspiring life is that way because of repressed memories, caused by a series of trauma-ridden experiences from long ago. Her therapist introduces her to her Safe Room, a magical place, where she discovers that there exist many personalities wrapped inside of her mind, invading and suppressing it, all with stories of their own intertwining lives to share.

She learns through a combination of hypnosis and extremely vivid flashbacks, just how distinct each of these unique individuals has meticulously maintained her sanity or insanity. She is jolted, tossed, and relentlessly bombarded with one startling revelation after another, until the final revelation, which threatens to send her toppling over the edge into complete insanity.
Visit: http://bumblebee.cadsmith.net for details!