Pamela Fagan Hutchins - Going for Kona is featured in the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Pamela Fagan Hutchins's Book: Going for Kona.

Going for Kona

Today's Featured Book is

Author: Pamela Fagan Hutchins


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When her husband is killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident, it takes all of Michele Lopez Hanson’s strength not to burrow into their bed for the rest of her life. But their kids need her, and she promised herself she’d do the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Adrian’s honor, and someone seems to be stalking her family, so she slogs through the pain to keep herself on track. Her dangerously delirious training sessions become a link between her and Adrian, and she discovers that if she keeps moving fast enough to fly, she can hold onto her husband—even as she loses her grip on herself and faces her biggest danger yet.

Excerpt
Chapter One:

The best-looking man in the River Oaks Barnes and Noble had his hand on my thigh, and with the weight of hundreds of eyes on us, I snaked my hand under the table, laced our fingers, and slid mine up and down the length of his, enjoying the contrast of rough against soft. My index finger bumped into the warm band on his ring finger, and I let it stay there, worrying it in semicircles, first one way and then the other.

A Barbie-doll lookalike in form-fitting hot pink strutted into the spot vacated moments before by a tittering fifty-something woman. The bleach blonde brandished a plastic glass of champagne in one hand and held out a copy of our book, My Pace or Yours? Triathlon Training for Couples, in the other. Without letting go of my leg, Adrian took it from her and opened it to the title page, where a yellow sticky bore her name. “Hi, Rhonda. I’m Adrian, and this is my wife, co-author, and editor, Michele.” He scribbled his signature and scooted the book over to me. “I know that, silly.” Her little-girl drawl burrowed under my skin like a chigger.

I released Adrian’s fingers to sign, then held the book back out to the woman. “Hello, Rhonda. Nice to meet you.”

“I loved your talk, Adrian,” she said, ignoring me. I bristled. We had opened that night with a reading and Q&A. The book gets a little steamy at times, which is easier to write than to read aloud, so Adrian read those parts. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

He studied her, eyes narrowed a fraction. “Thanks. Have we met?”

Maybe he didn’t remember her, but I was sure I had seen her recently. She didn’t exactly blend in here with Khaled Hosseini on her left and John Irving on her right. I set the book on the table and fought the urge to chew a fingernail. I was well trained by my mother, the one woman in Texas who could give Ms. Manners a run for her money, and Southern Women Do Not Bite Their Nails.

A slim man with a strained, too-cheerful smile stepped forward. He held up $3500 worth of Minolta. “Miss, around here for your photo.”

Rhonda swooped around the edge of the table and leaned over Adrian with her hand on the back of his neck, gripping the slice of shoulder that showed above his round-necked shirt.

The photographer held up his hand. “Look this way, please.” Adrian and I dutifully swung our faces in his direction and smiled. The flash blinded me for a few seconds, but as my vision cleared I got an eyeful of expensive cleavage. Rhonda Dale remained draped over my husband.

She dropped her voice, but I was six inches from Adrian and could hear her and smell her. I live with a teenage girl, and I’d recognize Urban Outfitters’ roll-on Skank perfume anywhere. “Of course we’ve met, Adrian, and I’ll never forget it.”

Where hot pink was before, I now saw red. Time to assert matrimonial authority. “Rhonda?” She glanced at me, barely, and her mouth tightened. I inclined my head toward the double-door exit and smiled as big as I could.

Rhonda released Adrian’s shoulder, leaving crimson fingerprints behind, and took one step back. She bit her lip. She ran her fingers through one side of her bleached hair. She shifted her weight, cocked her right hip, and reached into the white pleather bag slung over her shoulder. I tensed. This woman tripped my switch.

“You’ll be wanting this, Adrian.” She flipped a pink business card onto the table. If Adrian were a rock star, she’d have thrown her panties and bra instead. The card sucked less. A little, anyway. She turned and walked, hips slinging and champagne sloshing, toward the ubiquitous Barnes and Noble Café and the aroma of Starbucks coffee. I could hear her heels clicking across the floor even after she disappeared from view.

Adrian turned to me and shrugged his eyebrows.

I drew mine together in return. “What just happened here?”

“No comprendo.” He drew circles with an index finger beside his temple.

“La señorita está loca en la cabeza.” He took a sip of his Kona coffee—cup number six of the day, no doubt—a nod to his quest for the triathlon world championships in Hawaii.

My eyebrows lifted. “Was that even Spanish?” I reached for his hand under the dark green tablecloth again and squeezed hard enough to do minor damage. I whispered sotto voce so the next customer in line couldn’t hear, “If you promise not to talk in that horrible accent, you’ll get a nice reward later.”

He shot me a grin. “Maybe you can show me what’s under that necklace, Itzpa.” Sometimes he used my papa’s nickname for me, which was short for Itzpapalotl, a clawed butterfly with knife-tipped wings, and an Aztec goddess of war. Usually he just called me Butterfly.

I reached up to the locket suspended from a long gold chain around my neck. Adrian had given me the brilliant enameled monarch at our second “wedding,” the secret B&B family affair he threw in La Grange on our first anniversary to make up for the original quickie at city hall without our kids. When we were pronounced “still man and wife,” Adrian put the locket around my neck and told me I was his butterfly. I’d stashed a picture of us taken on that perfect day in the locket and had never changed it since.

I scrutinized it. “This old thing?” I dropped it and stretched my shoulders, catlike. Or rather, like a cat would. There is no feline quality to my short frame. At best I am probably a Pomeranian; at worst, a Pekingese.

He laughed and mouthed, “Thanks a lot, baby,” and held his hand out toward the customer at the front of the line.

I signed the next few books on autopilot, trying not to grind my teeth over Miss Boob Job In Hot Pink strutting her stuff for my husband. I could take the Rhonda Dales of the world in stride, mostly. I’d known ever since I was assigned to edit his column for Multisport Magazine that Adrian attracted groupies. His following, and the fact that we were working together, were the reasons I’d resisted him at first. He tricked me into going out with him, though—research over a cup of Kona, my ass—and I melted like a butterscotch chip into a warm, sweet cookie.

Soon after, Adrian coaxed me to “just try” triathlon, something I had never aspired to do. Never, meaning no effing way, ever. Swim, then bike, then run? I didn’t think so. I’d rather curl up with a novel, when I had any free time at all as the single parent of a tween. Still, I was that butterscotch chip, and it turned out that I was made for triathlon, like I was made for Adrian. It spoke to the parts of me that like rigor and suffering. I signed up for one, and then another, until here we were at Barnes and Noble, at our book launch.

“I’m Connor Dunn,” a man’s voice said. Something about it made me flinch and brought me back with a bumpy reentry. A certain pitch. A heaviness of import. My gaze lifted to his face and I read the creases around his eyes like rings on a tree: forty-five-ish. Dark hair, freckled, light skin. Toned, as was to be expected at a triathlon book launch. Pressed Dockers and a collared shirt: earnestly conservative. No champagne cup.

Connor Dunn was still speaking to Adrian. “We haven’t met in person, but—”

My husband interrupted him, brightening. “Sure, I know who you are.” Adrian turned to me. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Michele. Michele, this is Connor Dunn.”

“A name I know well from Adrian’s column,” he said to me. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Eva Longoria?”

I nodded. “Nearsighted people.” Eva Longoria doesn’t have the butt I got from the short, curvy Mexican women on my dad’s side. My blonde, Caucasian mother has no butt, but her genes passed me by in the looks department.

Adrian shook his head. “Not a chance. You look better à la natural on your worst day.”

“My husband is biased,” I explained to Connor.

He laughed and nodded at Adrian. “Hey, congratulations on your Kona qualification.”

“Thanks. There’s nothing like aging up to give you a boost.” Adrian was playing it cool, but he was over the moon about the Kona Ironman world championships. At forty-five, he had qualified by winning his first race as a forty-five to forty-nine age grouper, at the Longhorn Half Ironman in Austin last fall. “Will Angela be racing?”

“Yes. She qualified in thirty-five to forty.”

“That’s great.” Adrian turned to me. “Connor’s new bride is a tri-beast like us.”

Connor broke in. “I think we saw you guys last weekend at the Goatneck ride in Cleburne. I was going to introduce myself, but things got crazy.”

My skin went cold. A hit-and-run driver had killed one of the cyclists during the race.

Adrian put down his black Sharpie and sighed, sagging like a deflating balloon. “Yeah, that was horrible. Michele and I were one Brahman away from it.”

Connor’s voice and eyebrows went up. “Brahman?”

“Adrian hit a cow. It knocked him off his bike and left him with a flat tire.” I sucked in a quick breath. “I think it slowed us down just enough that we weren’t the ones hit by the car, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s scarier and scarier out there on the road.”

“We were the first ones to get to him after he was hit.” Adrian’s voice grew raspy. “I ended up doing CPR on him while Michele called 911.”

It was a surreal picture: Adrian and the fallen cyclist were mirror images of each other, one upright and one prone, both covered in blood. They were dressed alike and had similar blue bikes. It freaked me out, big time. I couldn’t keep their images from returning to me over and over…

Author Genre: Mystery, Romance, Humor And Comedy, Non-fiction

Website: Pamela Fagan Hutchins - Holding Nothing Back
Author's Blog: Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Blog: Pamela F. Hutchins - Employee Relations
Twitter: @PamelotH
E-Mail: pamela@pamelahutchins.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest


Author Description: Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes award-winning and bestselling romantic mysteries and hilarious nonfiction, and moonlights as a workplace investigator and employment attorney. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound, if she gets a good running start.


Author's Book List
What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too? - Writing & Publishing
Who knew indie publishing could be this much fun? Whether you have published before or are contemplating your first book, Pamela Fagan Hutchins makes an overwhelming field manageable by presenting tried and true how-tos and a myriad of resources, including the marketing plan that got her debut novel national distribution - all with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Leaving Annalise - Katie & Annalise
One unexpected and hotly fought-over little boy, two dead bodies, and a series of home vandalisms throw Texas attorney turned island chanteuse Katie Connell into a tizzy. Juggling all of this, Bloody Mary cravings, baggage, and the bad guys too, she waffles between the jumbie house that brought her back from the brink and the man she believes is the love of her life.


Book Trailer: Leaving Annalise
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Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Saving Grace - Katie & Annalise Series
Katie Connell is a high-strung attorney whose sloppy drinking habits and stunted love life collide hilariously during a doomed celebrity case in Dallas. She flees Texas for the Caribbean and escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but ends up trading one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are.

Most people prefer my personal Saving Grace “trailer” which was just me being silly.


Book Trailer: Saving Grace
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Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
The Clark Kent Chronicles - ADHD & Aspergers
A Mother's Tale Of Life With Her ADHD And Asperger's Son

They’re the parents who other people secretly believe must be doing a crappy job, the ones whose children don lacrosse gloves to weed the flowerbed, won’t turn in their homework, and throw age-inappropriate tantrums in public. They’re the parents one frayed nerve short of a breakdown as they scrub off the giant perceived “L” for Loser from their foreheads, turning for help to every source they can think of, because their kids just don’t respond like other kids, because their kids aren’t like other kids. The very brains of their children are wired differently, and the disciplines, motivators, and strategies that are supposed to work on them, according to conventional wisdom, don’t.

These are the parents of children on the ADHD Spectrum, and most of them have used up their Phone a Friend Lifeline and just want a little understanding and the hope of shared knowledge from someone else who has survived a life like theirs. They are parents like Pamela Fagan Hutchins, whose son, dubbed “Clark Kent the WonderKid,” has ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.

Pamela takes readers on a heart-wrenching and hilarious road trip from toddler to adulthood with Clark Kent and his family, sharing their collective wisdom and empathy along the way.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
How To Screw Up Your Kids - Divorce and Stepparenting
Blended Families, Blendered Style

Married couples with children divorce 40% of the time. In less than three years after that divorce, chances are both mom and dad are remarried, and probably each to someone who has kids of their own. The single most explosive and divisive issue in those marriages? Stepparenting.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in a bubble gum and sugar plum world where, without a ripple on Lake Placid, kids embraced stepparents and appreciated their contributions? Where stepsiblings didn't compete for attention and argue over favorites and fairness? Well, we don't.

So what we need when stepparenting is a good plan. A plan for blending, or blendering if you will, the disparate stepchildren and their parents into a chunky smoothie of stepfamily goodness. How To Screw Up Your Kids helps the parents everyone predicts will fail prove all the naysayers wrong. Through the use of practical human relations principles and the author's achingly honest and often hilarious stories, readers will learn to envision and instill a unique set of family values and culture into their new household, and by God, have fun doing it


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Hot Flashes And Half Ironmans - Women's Health and Triathlon
Middle-aged Endurance Athletics Meets The Hormonally Challenged

Women get older, dammit, and sometimes it sucks, especially for women who pride themselves on athleticism and an adventurous spirit. Hot flashes. Weight gain. Sleepless nights. Yes, it can be hard, but middle age doesn’t have to be a flashing red stop light. It’s perfectly acceptable for women of a certain age, a certain level of hormonal imbalance, and a certain amount of cellulite to don spandex and even enter the rarefied sport of endurance triathlon.

In fact, there’s a huge advantage to aging: much of the potential competition drops out in favor of the couch and a remote control. And the endurance high? The elation of dietary purity and discovering you can have arms like Madonna? The Zen of goal attainment? Better than a good Shiraz buzz. Once you get past the ugly mood swings, chafing on your girly parts, and a “kill your own mother” craving for sleep and a hot Cinnabon, that is.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins has been there and done that, with lessons learned and sense of humor (usually) intact. She completed her first triathlon at 39 and her first Half Ironman at 40. She has her eye on an M-dot tattoo in 2014.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
eBook Author’s Corner
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