Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Love, Loss, and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl (19 February 2015, Tablo Publishing) a New Adult historical novel by Iris Dorbian.PREVIEW: Read the first four chapters with Amazon Look Inside. Love, Loss, and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.
Check out the book's synopsis and the excerpt below, as well as our Q&A with author Iris Dorbian.
Iris Dorbian will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).
Synopsis | Teaser One | Teaser Two | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops
Synopsis
It's the early 1980s, MTV is in its infancy, the Internet does not exist, Ronald Reagan is president and yuppies are ruling Wall Street.Edie is a naïve NYU student desperate to lose her virginity and to experience adventure that will finally make her worldly, setting her further apart from her bland suburban roots. But in her quest to mold herself into an ideal of urban sophistication, the New Jersey-born co-ed gets more than she bargained for, triggering a chain of events that will have lasting repercussions.
Teaser One: Excerpt
From Chapter One
The following week I looked at my grades and knew I had to do a serious overhaul if I wanted to get into NYU. Sure, NYU was not the Ivy League but it was a respectable institution of higher learning and a menu of B’s, C’s and one D (for geometry) wasn't going to admit me into Valhalla. I needed to get straight A’s or else.Until my sophomore year, straight A’s were the norm for me. But then feeling bored and listless with my sheltered suburban lifestyle, I fell in with a crowd of misfit kids, potheads and pill-poppers, some dropouts, others permanently jaded with the status quo—all railing against authority.
Before I was the archetypal geek who dutifully read every assignment, handed in homework on time and always raised her hand in class. Afterwards, my daily regimen consisted of cutting classes and getting high in the bathroom with my new pals.
Sometimes we’d bolt from the premises altogether to go to Paramus Park Mall, where we’d drop speed in the bathroom before driving back to catch the last class or two.
That soon changed when I made going to NYU and moving to my Shangri-La, the Village, my all-consuming goal. I removed myself from the dead-end clique and got back on the academic track. Soon my mediocre grades were replaced with straight A’s.
In the late winter of my senior year, my guidance counselor collared me in the hallway before I made my way to algebra. He told me that he had just gotten off the phone with NYU admissions. They had accepted me and I was going to get a pretty nice financial aid package. I don’t think anything else stuck in the hollows of my brain the remainder of the school year.
Moving to the Village to attend NYU in September of 1979 was more than just a fulfillment of a teen goal: It would be a watershed in an incomplete life, introducing me to three relationships that would haunt me like a specter long after they were over, leaving me with an emotional legacy that I would never get over.
Teaser Two: Excerpt
From Chapter Two
Looking like a cross between Keith Richards right before his descent into unregenerate drug addiction and a homeless vagrant with a permanent 10 o’clock shadow, Peter flashed a confident smile at me, revealing two rows of jagged, yellowing teeth. Wearing a snug black shirt with a V-neck that showed generous tufts of dark chest hair, a Free Sid button referring to the arrest nearly a year ago of Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols’ bassist for the murder of his girlfriend and skin tight blue jeans, I recoiled at the sight of Peter but also couldn’t turn away. He was that perversely transfixing.“Edie, this is my roommate Peter. Peter, this is Edie,” said George whom I had practically forgotten at that point.
Peter duly nodded back at me. “So, what do you think of Professor Jackson’s class?” he asked, gazing back at me with his Rasputin eyes.
I was flustered. His freaky eyes and sexy caveman aura threw me off balance. On one level, I was grossed out by his teeth and he seemed really hairy. But on the other hand, I liked his feathery dark straight Beatle mop, his trim, cute body and his softly masculine deep voice. He was short though—only slightly taller than me and I’m barely 5’7.
“What are you interested in doing when you get out?” I said, the words rushing out of my mouth before I could clog them. What a heavy-handed question to ask someone I just met. I should be muzzled.
“I want to be an English professor,” Peter said forcefully, the leering gleam in his eyes temporarily dissipating. “And write.”
While Peter talked, I continued to eyeball him even though my better Emily Post instincts kept telling me I shouldn’t. It wasn’t polite but I couldn’t help it.
My nose noticed, much to my delight, that Peter reeked of pot, which I soon learned he smoked nonstop. I hadn’t smoked pot in a long while—not since my stint with the misfit crowd I briefly hung out with in high school. My nostrils flared a bit as I tried to inhale more of that familiar sticky-sweet scent.
Love, Loss, and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl
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About the Author
Iris Dorbian is a former actress turned business journalist/blogger. Her articles have appeared in a wide number of outlets that include the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Venture Capital Journal, DMNews, Playbill, Backstage, Theatermania, Live Design, Media Industry Newsletter and PR News.
From 1999 to 2007, Iris was the editor-in-chief of Stage Directions.
She is the author of “Great Producers: Visionaries of the American Theater", which was published by Allworth Press in August 2008. Her personal essays have been published in Blue Lyra Review, B O D Y, Embodied Effigies, Jewish Literary Journal, Skirt! Diverse Voices Quarterly and Gothesque Magazine.
Giveaway and Tour Stops
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Follow Love, Loss, and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl's tour at:
August 27: The Blog of C.R. MossAugust 27: Undercover Book Reviews ✍
September 3: BooksChatter
September 10: Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews
September 17: Blog of author Jacey Holbrand
September 24: Archaeolibrarian - I dig good books!
October 1: Please Pass The Books
October 1: Romantic Fanatic ✍
October 8: Books Direct
October 15: Mythical Books
October 15: Writer Wonderland
11 May 2015
1: Tea Talks
2: BookSkater
3: BooksChatter
4: Wendi Zwaduk ~ Romance to Make Your Heart Race
5: The Pen and Muse Book Reviews
6: Writer Wonderland
7: A Book Addict's Delight
8: StarAngels Reviews
9: Kaisy Daisy's Corner
10: Author CA Milson
11: Deal Sharing Aunt
12: House Millar
13: Hope. Dreams. Life... Love
14: LibriAmoriMiei
15: Edgar's Books
16: Dina Rae's Write Stuff
17: Yeah Books!
18: The Restless Writer
19: The Booksnake Etc.
20: Linda Nihgtingale...Wordsmith
21: Tamaria Soana
22: Welcome to My World of Dreams
23: It's Raining Books
24: Straight from the Library
25: Long and Short Reviews
Thank you for hosting
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