Item: What's Not Said
Author: Gina

What’s Not Said by Valerie Taylor | Spotlight Tour | Also featuring What’s Not True

A book blog tour from iRead Book Tours.

Thank you to the author, publisher, & Lauren at iRead for providing me the information for this tour.

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Book Details

What’s Not Said by Valerie Taylor | Spotlight Tour

What's Not Said by Valerie Taylor
Series: What's Not #1
Published by She Writes Press on September 15, 2020
Genres: ChickLit, Fiction, Family Life, Literary Fiction, Romance, Women's Literature, Marriage or Divorce
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pages: 316

Award-winning Finalist in the Women's Fiction category of the 2021 International Book Awards

Kassie O’Callaghan’s meticulous plans to divorce her emotionally abusive husband, Mike, and move in with Chris, a younger man she met five years ago on a solo vacation in Venice, are disrupted when she finds out Mike has chronic kidney disease—something he’s concealed from her for years.

Once again, she postpones her path to freedom—at least, until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits.

But Kassie is no angel, either. As she struggles to justify her own indiscretions, the secret lives she and Mike have led collide head-on, revealing a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. Still, mindful of her vows, Kassie commits to helping her husband find an organ donor.

In the process, she uncovers a life-changing secret. Problem is, if she reveals it, her own immorality will be exposed, which means she has an impossible decision to make: Whose life will she save—her husband’s or her own?

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Purchase Links for What’s Not Said

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WHAT’S NOT SAID eBook Sale – only $1.99!!
Beginning the afternoon of August 9 and ending September 7,
wherever you buy eBooks in the U.S.

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What’s Not True – Book 2

What's Not True by Valerie Taylor
Series: What's Not #2
Published by She Writes Press on August 24, 2021
Genres: ChickLit, Fiction, Humorous, Literary Fiction, Romance, Women's Literature, Marriage or Divorce
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pages: 336

With the court date set for her divorce and the future she'd planned with a younger man presumably kaput, Kassie O'Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled marketing career.
But that goal gets complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris.

After a chance meeting with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she possibly accept them both?

Kassie's decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie.

In the ensuing battle to protect what's legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it's what's not true that can set you free.

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About Valerie Taylor

Valerie Taylor was born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. She had a thirty-year career in the financial services industry as a marketer and writer.

After her divorce, she spread her wings and relocated her career, first to Boston and then to Seattle.

When she retired, she resettled in her home state to be near her two grown children and granddaughter.

She's a published book reviewer with BookTrib.com and a member of the Westport Writers' Workshop. She enjoys practicing tai chi and being an expert sports spectator. What's Not Said is her debut novel.

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Author Interview

1. What is the biggest challenge you faced in writing What’s Not Said?

They say write what you know! That can be challenging if your story or characters begin to resemble your
own life without your meaning to do so. As I started my first draft, the main characters had a son. So do I.
That felt too close for comfort, so I decided to have the couple be childless. What amazed me was that
from that point on the story I really wanted to tell emerged and flowed out of me.

2. What did you learn about writing your first novel, What’s Not Said, that you wish you’d known at the
beginning?

When I embarked on the process of writing What’s Not Said, I figured I’d write one book and be done. I
was shocked when my early readers reacted so positively to the draft, insisting on more. To a person, they
wanted to know what happens next to the characters. So, what was supposed to be a standalone novel
became a series.

On reflection now, I wonder what I would have done differently in What’s Not Said if I had originally
planned for the storyline to continue into other books. Of course, it’s a conundrum I’ll never have an
answer to. As it turned out when I wrote the sequel, What’s Not True, I expected to write a third book in
the series, so I made sure the story had arms and legs that could catapult into the future.

3. What did you enjoy most about writing What’s Not Said?

Writing dialogue is clearly the most fun. When I was a marketing and communications professional, we
would often say that our “clients” all wanted to be copywriters because they loved to edit our copy. Now
as an author, I can honestly say, some of us (ahem) may be frustrated screenwriters.

4. What did you enjoy least about writing What’s Not Said?

Initially, the main characters were named Kate and Jack. Wouldn’t you know, about halfway through the
draft, I discovered apparently there are way too many stories with characters named Kate and Jack. I was
disappointed because I had my heart set on Kate and Jack. So, I had to come up with new names that fit
the story (the main character had to have a first name that began with a ‘K’).

I searched for an Irish name for the main character and found the name, Cassandra. What’s wonderful
about being an author is that we do have the creative authority to take license with many things, like
names. Thus, I simply changed the initial C to K, and Kassandra O’Callaghan was born. Mike replaced the
name Jack, just because it was an easy fix. Fortunately, my writing program, Scrivener, allowed me to
change the names in less than a minute. Phew.

5. In What’s Not Said, Kassie and Mike have a dysfunctional marriage. If Kassie had a different set of
parents, do you think her relationship with Mike would’ve been different?

I love questions like this because it requires supposition. And then supposition leads to an entirely
different conclusion. If Kassie’s family life had been different, more than likely she would’ve had
different role models to form her own belief system and confidence. However, just as the story changed
when I made the couple childless, What’s Not Said would’ve been an entirely different story if Kassie’s
childhood had been all hearts and flowers. Would you agree?

6. What’s coming up next for you, and where can people find you?

What’s immediately on the horizon is the sequel, What’s Not True, which publishes on August 24, 2021.
Beyond that, I’m well into the third book in the series which will probably be published in 2023, if all
things go according to a plan I’m formulating in my mind.

Once the third book is drafted, I’m itching to write a cozy mystery. That’s a bit of departure for me, so
I’m reading Agatha Christie, watching old episodes of Murder She Wrote, and studying the important
elements that make a cozy mystery a success. I’m trying to decide if I really can kill off a character in
chapter one!

I love to hear from readers. You all have such insightful comments and awesome ideas!
And please do subscribe to my newsletter, Behind and Ahead, which I write with readers in mind.
(See links under “About the Author”)
Thank you so much! Read on!