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Michelle Gamble-Risley
The California Girl Chronicles – follows the life and career of Brea Harper. A typical California girl full of dreams and aspirations. She has it all…the looks…the brains…the fake tan (because she doesn’t want to get skin cancer, naturally). Brea is a writer, and dreams of writing a screenplay for a movie or television show. She gets laid off from her job in her home in Northern California, and moves to glitzy Hollywood – in pursuit of her wildly, ambitious dreams, and because she has nothing better to do with her time. Along the way…she meets three good-looking men. Lance, a college colleague, who is her ‘friend with benefits’. He is the one who pushes her to move to Hollywood with him, and take a chance on life. Drew, an aspiring rock star, who steals her heart, but also treats her like crap. He follows Brea to Hollywood in pursuit of his own dreams, but also as a way to keep tabs on Brea. And lastly, Kale (as I mentioned above) he is the one who was inspired by Alexander Skarsgard. Kale has charm, good looks, and amazing charisma…not to mention he’s a big Hollywood movie producer. Kale bursts onto the scene, introducing Brea to the Hollywood lifestyle. He inspires her to actually sit down and write, which is something she has procrastinated about for a long time.
In order to pay her bills, Brea temporarily gets a job in a bikini shop. She has brains, but sometimes forgets to use them, especially when it comes to men. But don’t worry, she doesn’t hang out with guys all the time…she has a couple of close girlfriends too. Denise, her friend from back home who has also moved to Hollywood, and Maya (Kale’s maid), both give her the feminine support all women need. This story takes you on Brea’s journey of self-discovery, maturity and understanding; spoken from Brea’s point of view. She is sweet, loving and caring. She knows what she wants professionally even while romantically she is confused by who she really wants. You’ll either love her or you’ll hate her, but Brea is what all of us are…only human. We all make mistakes. We all want our dreams to come true. We all want to find true love. Most of all, we all want to find happiness.
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Becky Blanton
Becky Blanton is a former journalist, TED Global 2009 speaker and freelance writer. No Pulitzers, but she does have a handful of state press association awards in Washington State, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Associated Press (AP) has picked up hundreds of her stories and photos, and she has a photo or two in Time Magazine. The late Tim Russert selected her essay for his best selling book, “Wisdom of Our Fathers, Letters from Daughters and Sons.” Russert told reviewers the essay prompted him to add a chapter on forgiveness to his book. Always an honor to be associated with Mr. Russert.
Her stories have been published in Dog Fancy, Airstream Life Magazine, Motivated Magazine, Road King, Woman’s World, Trailer Life and more than 300 newspapers, magazines, journals and publications.
Although she’s worked off and on as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, magazine writer and ghost/copy writer since she was 28, along the way she also pursued an associate degree in Criminal Justice, graduated from a certified police academy and did complete several various FBI and police science classes in everything from gangs, to bomb identification. Those real life experiences have given her a solid foundation for some of the events and settings in the book.
She’s also been called on to cover stories or asked to investigate strange events, hauntings, unexplained phenomena and other general weirdness (for lack of a better description) for almost three decades. She’s interviewed hundreds of people on and off the record (including celebrities, astronauts, presidents and governors) and has often had conversations turn to talk of UFOs, ghosts, and other unexplainable phenomena
