#MMBBR #Showcase The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere - a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he's welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he's a runaway from a nearby farm town.

When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever. 

Watch the book trailer HERE

An Ohio native, Tiffany McDaniel’s writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows.  She is also a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and artist.  The Summer that Melted Everything is her debut novel. 

“Sometimes this world is like red fences in the snow.  There ain’t no hiding who we really are.”—THE SUMMER THAT MELTED EVERYTHING

Q.  What inspires your writing?

A. What inspires my writing is the characters themselves.  There’s an obligation I feel to the characters to really tell their story as honestly as I can, as if they do really exist outside of their fictional realm.  The more I write and draft a story, and the more the characters become realized, the more they themselves inspire me to get it right. 

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being a writer?

A. Creating these worlds that I can instantly step into whenever I need a little escape from the real world.

Q.  What is the toughest part of being a writer?

A.  I’d say the toughest part is not the writing itself, but the getting published.  I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen and didn’t get a publishing contract until I was twenty-nine.  Eleven years of rejection and fear I’d never get published.  That’s the toughest part.  Feeling like you never will get published.    

Q.  If you could not be writer, what would you do/be?

A.  Astronaut, archaeologist, marine biologist, artist.  Pretty much anything that gives me the chance to travel to the stars, dig in the dirt, swim in the ocean, or throw some paint around on a canvas. 

Q.  What would the story of your life be entitled?

A.  She Ended Happy

Q.  What is your favorite book of all time?

A.  So tough.  But I’d say Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.  Gravedigger take note: I want to be buried with this book. 

Q.  Which character from ANY book are you most like?

A. I have no idea.  Honestly!  Merricat from Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle comes to mind.  Not that I’m saying I’d ever put arsenic in sugar.

Q.  What character from all of your book are you most like?

A.  A little bit of me is in all of them. 

Q.  Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?

A.  Dandelion Wine.  Though maybe one of Agatha Christie’s novels because who doesn’t love a good murder mystery.  And who doesn’t love Agatha Christie?

Q.  What is your favorite season?

A.  When it’s summer, I say summer.  Though I love autumn as well.  Can we mash these two into one season?  Call it sumtum or aummer?

Q.  What inspired your book cover(s)?  Or what is your favorite book cover and why?

A.  I didn’t get to choose my book cover.  That’s up to the publisher.  I’d say one of my favorite book covers is Dandelion Winebecause it captures the story so well. But also The Great Gatsby has one of the best covers of all time. 

Q.  Tell me something funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book.

A.  The Summer that Melted Everything is my debut novel, so no such book tour or promotion yet.  But I’m prone to step my foot into the mud, so I anticipate many funny things to come. 

Q.  Are you working on something new?

A.  My most recent novel I’ve finished is titled, When Lions Stood as Men.  I hope to follow The Summer that Melted Everything up with this novel.  When Lions Stood as Men is about a brother and sister escaping Nazi Germany.  Their survivor’s guilt pushes them to the brink and really they’re at the cliff, trying to figure out how not to go over. 

Q.  Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

A.  Keep reading.  Especially debuts.  We debut authors need all the support we can get.  It really determines whether we have a career or not.  Plus, we authors love it when our books are read.  It’s why we write, after all.