10 things you didn’t know about Phillip Overton. He lives in Australia and is currently promoting his latest novel Last Wish of Summer, but to many readers he is just another name on the cover of a book. So I spoke with Aussie author Phillip Overton to learn ten very interesting things that you wouldn’t normally associate with a novelist. As he likes to point out to the people he meets, sometimes you just can’t judge a book by the cover.
10 – As a young teenager, he was almost killed when he climbed atop a freight car in a railroad yard and came into contact with the overhead wires. He used the experience in his first novel The Long Way Home.
9 – At Foster High School in Victoria, he was both the senior sportsman of the year and writing workshop award winner in his final year.
8 – In his post high school years he competed on the fun run and marathon circuit in South East Queensland, he was a finisher in two marathons, four half-marathons, numerous fun runs and even placed second in the open men’s category in one road race.
7 – He now enjoys hiking through National Parks in the Australian bush with his wife and two children.
6 – He is a proud supporter of the Brisbane Lions Australian Rules Football club, and even has the personalized license plates on his car to prove it.
5 – Phillip is a huge motor racing fan and has travelled around the country to watch V8 Supercars live in action at venues as hallowed as Bathurst, Philip Island and the Surfers Paradise street race. His bookshelf is littered with signed scale model cars of his favourite drivers. The first race meeting he attended was won by then V8 Supercar champion Marcos Ambrose, and he continues to follow his career in NASCAR on TV.
4 – A photo taken with his favourite author, Matthew Reilly serves as inspiration and takes pride of place on his bookshelf. Like Matthew, Phillip self-published his first novel. Today Matthew is an Internationally Best Selling Author.
3 – He deliberately taught his children when they were young to read twenty four hour time by deducting ten hours from what the clock said so that he could get them to bed early. His plan came unstuck when his daughter reached grade three and checked with her teacher.
2 – He admits to having some rather quirky traits, one being a road map of Australia in which he highlights each road he and his wife have travelled on together in pink fluorescent marker. His wife Denise has dubbed it their Love Map and the name it seems has stuck.
1 – His dream outside of writing is to have his model railroad layout of Alaska that he is currently building inside a glass-topped coffee table featured in Model Railroader Magazine.
Author: Phillip OvertonTitle: Last Wish of Summer
Publish Date: 1/18/12
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: As the sun prepares to rise on the last day of summer, three friends find themselves totally unprepared for the events that are about to take place around them. For Tanya it is a chance to find peace three years after losing her parents in an auto accident. Deciding she simply can’t continue blaming God for her loss, she places a heartfelt poem in a bottle and throws it into the sea on the eve of her birthday, granting her birthday wish to whoever finds it. Early the next morning, her best friend Anton and his buddy Johnno find the bottle washed up on the shore and set about putting it to the test. When Johnno falls for the new waitress at the café where Tanya works, it stirs up feelings of jealousy in Tanya. Surely Johnno couldn’t be the man that God had in mind for her? Suddenly, strange wishes are beginning to come true, but is it all a coincidence? Or is God about to change people’s lives for the better? Welcome to Kings Beach, where the forecast for the last day of summer promises to be hot, hot, hot, with a definite change in the air.
Book Excerpt: Johnno grabbed the bottle and turned it upside down. The letter caught in its neck. Then with a bit of prying using his car key, he was able to gently pull the letter from the bottle and let it fall onto the table. It lay there wrapped only with a small hair ribbon tied in the centre. Anton reached across to untie it as Johnno stood the now empty bottle back in the centre of the table. “Well here goes.” Anton said as he uncurled the two pages and held them up for his friend to see. The pages were cream in color, decorated with a border of flowers entwined along the edge of each page in black ink. At the top of the first page before the letter began, was a small turquoise colored love heart someone had painted, again in what appeared to be nail polish. It left a slightly oily stain around the edges which only added to the letter’s charm. Around them, the air filled with the scent of women’s perfume that wafted up from the page. With their curiosity now firmly aroused, Anton and Johnno huddled in closely and began to read. To whoever finds this, If I’ve washed up on your distant shore, From a land far over the sea. Please tread carefully on the morning sand, And know you’ve set me free. Wrapped in my mother’s ribbon, This letter is but a token. A plead to let her see the world, From a young heart torn and broken. A turquoise heart that was my Aunt, Left footprints in the sand. Her magic just a memory, You now hold in your hand. So I light a candle for my Dad, But this gift I give to you. He always told me to make a wish, So today may all yours come true. It’s time to live, to find true love. Before the winter’s scorn. Somewhere it’s always summer, May my true love’s arms be warm. P.S. Please return me to the sea at sunset.
Review: This book is a shiny happy novel and definitely not what I was expecting. It was really a light Christian romance and totally sweet. Though you may not be able to relate well to very Christian Tanya and her two surfer friends Anton and Johnno, you will love them.
Tanya's Christian beliefs are a little bit overwhelming at times. She's 26, a virgin and when Sebastian gets romantic with her, she slaps him and then realizes she's in love with another guy. Uh erm. It doesn't ring true to me, but really I didn't care. I loved her. I loved her message in a bottle too, that somehow managed to find its way back to the shore where her friends were surfing.
It would have been nice to possibly figure out why the poem she placed in the bottle somehow had the powers to grant wishes. The way the wishes are granted makes this book a worthy read. After all, you really do have to be careful what you wish for, and everyone learns that in this book. Some in harder ways then others.
I really loved this story. It was a fun and fast read that will work for all ages.
Rating: 4 flowers
Author Bio: Phillip Overton’s writing has been compared to none other than Nicholas Sparks (http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewOvertonAWalkBeforeSunrise.html), and his latest novel Last Wish of Summer offers readers the perfect book to spend a summer’s day reading at the beach. In a book that reminds us to be careful what we wish for, it manages to weave the wholesome, virginal qualities of the main character Tanya with her band of misfit friends in their pursuit of being able to reason why a washed up message in a bottle is somehow granting their every wish come true.
Often in a manner that is both coincidental and strangely bizarre. Just as a movie adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel will appeal to people of all ages, so too will this story that follows the adventures of a group of twenty-something’s on the last day of summer. The book not only manages to cut through any pre-conceived ideas we hold on morals, body-image and social status, but delights in helping us discover what may already be right under our nose to begin with.
Website: http://sbpra.com/phillipoverton/
Twitter: @phillipoverton
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