[bctt tweet=”From Photographer to Novelist . . . introducing Jon Michael Riley!” username=”judylm”]

I love it when someone believes in themselves, their skills and their idea’s.  Novelist, Jon Michael Riley is one of those people!  When I met Jon, he was transitioning from photographer to novelist.  His first book in the Channey Moran Action Thriller Series “Dream The Dawn” wasn’t published yet – but he sent me the ebook and I was totally hooked!

I read the entire story in 2 days and was after him for book #2!  But let’s get back to Jon here, I also had the pleasure of meeting him 3 years ago when my dear friend and I went to South Carolina.  Where we were wasn’t far from Jon in North Carolina so not only did we meet up with him, but we also met up with a dear couple Amanda and Sang Koh.

If it wasn’t for the internet ~ Jon’s love of photography ~ and the need to find some great pictures for a project I was doing – I would have never had the pleasure of meeting him.  Jon Michael Riley found himself in a position of not being able to continue his photography career – with health issues and a wife diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, he had to make a career change.

So many of us find ourselves in similar situations – making career changes.  Things happen in our lives and usually it is because of something that we don’t foresee.  For myself I have done so many different jobs, acquired many different skills and never once thought that I would be working for myself blogging and promoting others.

Promoting others is what I enjoy doing.  Jon Michael Riley, Author, Photographer, and History buff is someone I want to promote and introduce to all of you.  If you are in the Asheville, North Carolina next Thursday, March 29th,  stop by Malaprop’s Bookstore & Cafe at 6 p.m.  Jon will be presenting “PhotoShoot” Book #2 in the Channey Moran Action Thriller Series.

A bit about PhotoShoot . . .  an international thriller involving New York photographer, Channey Moran, who joins a group of mercenaries traveling to Somalia to rescue Americans taken by force from their sailboat in the Indian Ocean. Channey’s job is to stage a fashion shoot as a camouflage for getting mercenaries in place to go after the pirates holding the Americans. The book borrows from Riley’s experience as a highly successful career photographer. Help celebrate this local author’s second book in this exciting series!

The San Francisco Book Review also has published a review on Jon’s “Searching for Cool ~ Praying for Heat”     An excerpt from Grady Harp ~ Jon offers a summary that is minimal but a very open invitation to jump into this marvelously written novel: ‘Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat is a novel of love, desire, loyalty, and honor that affects the O’Rourkes, a relocated New England textile family who face entrenched white supremacy in a small North Carolina cotton mill town in 1960.

Want to learn some more about Jon?  Check out the Blue Ridge Public Radio, NPR’s home in Western North Carolina – a great review – with an audio version also available – You know, life throws us many curves – but Jon Michael Riley has come thru those curves with such strength and courage ~ not only am I a fan of Jon’s but I am also a friend.