I think one reason I got so choked up in those final scenes is that this story marks the end of an era that deeply affected me as a writer. As I have just sacrificed my savings, am turning down assignments to spend every waking hour when I’m not writing for a living, finishing my first novel — the first in my own trilogy of books — I just pray that my characters touch people the way Stephanie’s incredible books and characters have touched me, and changed so many other lives.

We writers live with our characters. We love them. We admonish them. We let them play in traffic. We cry when they die. We cheer when they succeed. We mourn when they don’t make the final cut, or we have to change their names, or have to cause them to part ways with their own loved ones.

I have jokingly said several times that my characters bang on the inside of my head to get out, to be birthed, to be given life. In some ways, their lives are not mine to give, as they will live on to have lives of their own in the pages and hopefully on the screens they will occupy, much like the incredibly well-written characters in the Twilight series.

Every day my characters call to me, and every word I type is an open call for new characters to spring forth. Stephanie Meyer’s characters have been part of my life for years now, and it’s obvious she has loved them well into the pages of her stories. I hope someday my characters will become part of your life as Stephanie’s characters have become part of mine. And that my characters will find a place in your hearts to earn your love, scorn, concern, contempt, longing, and empathy.

Thank you Stephanie Meyer, for your gift of these characters and your wonderful stories.

Here is the scoop on FishbowlLA from our amazing friends at Media Bistro.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/miles-corwin-midnight-alley-kind-blue-lapd-russian-mafia_b63224

‘Chef Chronicle’: Author Jim Ruch Serves Up Intrigue in Debut Novel

NAPA, Calif., May 1, 2012 — Licio Gella is one of Rome’s
top private chefs, and he’s disappeared. For more than
fifteen years Licio cooked for an elite group of businessmen
and Vatican officials — but his clients never suspected
that over the course of hundreds of meals their trusted chef
had been recording their dinner conversations. So begins
Chef Chronicle (ISBN 978-1-938297-40-3,
http://chefchronicle.com), the new thriller released this
week by first-time author Jim Ruch.

Chef Chronicle unfolds as Rome hires freelance journalist
Mike Ambrose to track down Licio. What they discover is
their worst nightmare: Licio has compiled an historical
document of corruption and deceit spanning decades. Now
operating a restaurant in central Missouri under an assumed
name, Licio is suspicious when Mike arranges to conduct
interviews with the restaurant’s cooks on the pretext of
researching a book on food. His suspicions are confirmed as
he learns Mike is reporting back to Rome.

Forced to move up his timeline for revenge, Licio heads back
to Rome for a showdown twenty years in the making. As Chef
Chronicle careens toward its climactic ending, readers will
be hard-pressed to put the book down.

Ruch, a freelance private chef living in Napa, California,
has worked on yachts for fifteen years, traveling through
the Caribbean, the Bahamas and the Panama Canal; for six
seasons he has worked on the coastlines of Spain, France,
Italy, Greece and Turkey. Ruch holds degrees from The New
York Restaurant School, Le Cordon Bleu and The Royal Thai
Culinary Institute; in 1999 he was awarded third place at
the Chef de Concours Megayacht competition in Monaco.

Ruch began writing music, poetry and prose in his early teen
years. Chef Chronicle blends two of his passions — writing
and cooking — to produce a richly woven story made all the
more readable for its accurate portrayal of the private chef
profession.

For fans of Chef Chronicle, Ruch has good news: The book is
the first of a trilogy. Yacht Prospect Due, the second in
the series, details the life of a yacht crew working in the
Mediterranean on a boat that has no budget, thanks to the
events that unfold in Chef Chronicle. The final book, The
Prospect Theatre, tells the story of three brothers from
Germany who come to St. Louis as master cabinetmakers and
build the Prospect Theatre in 1926; that building later
becomes the restaurant setting for Chef Chronicle.

Chef Chronicle is available everywhere for iPad, Kindle or
Nook.

Order direct from the author at:
https://secure.myBookOrders.com/order/jim-ruch

Learn more about the book at http://chefchronicle.com.

Contact:
Jim Ruch
954-850-3866
pajovajim@mac.com
http://jimruch.com