Friday, December 28, 2018

Book Tour: Alive, Shadows of a Living Past by Marcia Maidana





In death she found life.


Florence Sterling should be perfectly happy. She’s been given a second chance at life with her beloved husband. But all is not well. She yearns for more children, even though Alex is reluctant. Memories of the day she and her baby were murdered still haunt her. And she can’t shake the feeling she will be separated from Alex again.

As if in confirmation of her premonition, Alex is called on a dangerous mission to enlist America’s aid in WWII. Trying to distract herself, Florence investigates what really happened when her son died. As she searches, she becomes convinced her son is alive, although witnesses say otherwise. And with each clue she discovers, she unwittingly draws closer to her old enemy—the deranged woman who will stop at nothing to destroy her.

When Alex goes missing in action, Florence must reach deeply into her faith as she faces her greatest fears. If Alex is lost to the war, will she allow herself to love another man and fulfill her desire to have a family? Or will she remain alone the rest of her life? 

Book one in this series WON the bronze medal with the Readers' Favorite International competition
in the historical-mystery category!!! 
Make sure you Check out both books in this series!






Marcia was born and raised in Argentina during the military regime which ended with the loss of many young lives in the invasion of the Falkland Islands. Amidst the devastating effects of military government and war, reading and writing became a passion which expanded and transported her imagination with the possibility of a brighter future.
At the age of eighteen, she moved to the United States, where she studied English and started her own family. She soon discovered that the love she has for her husband and children would naturally unfold towards her European roots, leading her to become a genealogist and family historian. A decade of searching, compiling, and learning the stories of thousands of people has instilled in her a profound gratitude for the strong ties that can be achieved in families through personal sacrifice.

So it is that through fiction, Shadows of Time duology (Awaken, Shadows of a Forgotten Past and Alive, Shadows of a Living Past) explores and exposes the characteristics of true love and loyalty in times of fear, war, and finally, death. But perhaps the most captivating element in the story is the battle within the souls of the main characters as they search to know who they really are and how they are connected.





Snippet # 3

    “Nights?”
    “Yes, nights. How many nights, after I lost you, I came back to Forte Radici yearning to find you there…I was surrounded by people yet felt empty, cold. I looked for you knowing full well I wouldn’t find you. I’d leave the house in suffocating agony and ride to the cemetery. There was a deceptive peace there. In the end, of course, I had to return to my dark world.”
    Mr. Morris’s words came back to me. “I always knew when he was in town because he came to see her every day, come rain or shine. He spent hours kneeling by her side. It was a sad sight to behold—very sad.” ~~~






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Saturday, December 22, 2018

Christmas Countdown: ONE WINTER NIGHT by Heather Tullis



HEATHER TULLIS has been reading romance for as long as she can remember and has been publishing in the genre since 2009. She has published more than twenty books. 

When she’s not dreaming up new stories to write, or helping out with her community garden, she enjoys playing with her dogs and cat, cake decorating, trying new jewelry designs, inventing new ways to eat chocolate, and hanging out with her husband. 

Learn more about her and sign up for her newsletter on her website.






Jonah Owens thought moving to Echo Ridge to open his art gallery would solve all of his problems. The need to sell his grandma's house adds an unexpected complication. It would be easier if his neighbor didn't have all those farm animals.

 Kaya Feidler's family has owned their land for nearly a hundred years--long before the neighbors were there. There's no way she's giving up the animal therapy business she's been struggling to make profitable. She gets a temp job helping Jonah in the gallery. 

Spending time together is a recipe for romance, but can they overcome their own hangups to be more than friends?





Q&A With the Author:

1.  Describe yourself in 50 words or less. 
  I'm a small-town girl who loves writing sweet romance--even my mysteries have romance in them! When I'm not writing I and trying out new recipes, working in my garden, renovating my house, or getting sucked into someone else's story.

2. What do you love most in the world?
  Snuggling up with a great story and a cup of cocoa.

3. What inspired you to become an Author?
  I've always had stories in my head, even when there wasn't a book anywhere in sight. When I was going through a rough period in 2000, I decided to write one of them down and I haven't been able to shake the desire to write for long since then.

4. What is your favorite Winter / Holiday tradition?
  Spending time with family and friends and putting up the tree! Oh, and making really terrific food. 

5. What is your trick for getting past writer's block? And what advice do you have for other authors who are struggling to tell their story?
  For me writer's block usually means that I don't know where the story is going, so I sit down and do some journaling about the characters and the story until things start to flow and I'm able to figure out where I was going wrong. Very occasionally it's not about the storyline, but because my brain is legitimately pre-occupied with something in my real life and then sometimes you just have to put the story aside while you work through whatever is demanding all of your attention--just make sure that it's a legitimate real-life problem and not an excuse to procrastinate that you're using instead of putting the words on the page.

6. Now that we've gotten to know each other, tell me a story. It can be long or short. From your childhood or last week. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it's yours. What's your story?
When I had been out of college for a few months and was still looking for a job, I took on a bunch of temp jobs, including a one-shift job rolling burritos at a frozen burrito factory. I was told the shift would last for 8-10 hours, or until the batch was done. I worked 14 hours that day and have had trouble eating frozen burritos ever since--and it's been nearly twenty years.







To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page
    




Friday, December 21, 2018

Christmas Countdown: THE BILLIONAIRE'S BLUE CHRISTMAS



Jennifer lives in Arizona where she writes escapist fiction she calls "Cotton Candy for the Soul."






He needs this job to honor his late wife.
 She needs to complete her late fiancé’s bucket list to be free.

Former action-movie star Chet has counted the days since he lost his wife last New Year’s Eve almost a year ago. When he’s given a shot at starring in a reboot of her favorite TV show, he jumps at it. But there’s a catch: the producers won’t hire him unless he can prove he’s regained emotional stability—by bringing a steady girlfriend to his five auditions.

Which means: five mandatory dates for this bereft widower.

Social worker Holly lost her fiancé to war. With his good life snuffed out too soon, she feels compelled to finish his bucket list of unselfish deeds. But four years later, several remain, and they’re ridiculously impossible. Until she accomplishes her soldier’s dreams, she can’t even consider moving on with her life.

When they meet on the beach at Getaway Bay, what she doesn’t know is homeless-looking mourner Chet is actually Colt Winchester, screen star and fashion icon. What he doesn’t know is that he’s a means to an end.

When their walls start to crumble on their Christmas season dates, can these two find love again, or will they forever be chasing ghosts?"



Q&A With the Author:

1.  Describe yourself in 50 words or less.

I’m a wife, a mother, and I love a great book. I write sweet, escapist fiction I call “Cotton Candy for the Soul.”

2. What do you love most in the world?

Easy, my family. This will probably sound dull! But it’s so true. They’re the reason I do pretty much everything, even writing the fluffy, sweet romance novels I’m constantly trying to come up with. I’m a wife of a handsome, brilliant lawyer/judge, and we have these five amazing kids who delight and challenge us, and I’m just … all in when it comes to them.

3. What inspired you to become an Author?

My husband! I was a writer, majored in writing in college. My jobs out of college were all political writing in the U.S. Senate and in the U.S. House, answering letters, writing press releases, and such. But when I quit a day job to do an all-day-and-all-night job raising kids, I was getting a little brain dead. My husband suggested I write a novel. I thought, no way. I only write technical things. But he encouraged me. And so I began. It took me six years to complete my first novel, and he cheered me on, making sure I had the proper tools and at least a little time now and then to create and edit. He’s my biggest cheerleader, and now he helps me plot and rework stories. I am probably the luckiest writer there is, in that matter. Plus, everything I know about romance, I’ve learned from him.

4. What is your favorite Winter / Holiday tradition?

Ooooh, pie. Hands down. I’m part of a big, food-loving family on my husband’s side, and on Thanksgiving we get together and eat. But what I call the “pie count” is part of the fun. There’s just so much pie! Often, I’ll count pies and count people, and I’m often hoping for a greater than 1:1 pies:people ratio. We eat dinner on Thanksgiving, and then pie from morning to night the following day. And there has to be whipped cream. Lots of it. I married into a really fun family.

5. What is your trick for getting past writer's block? And what advice do you have for other authors who are struggling to tell their story?

For me, if I know what motivates my character and what his/her biggest fear is, then I can get past the block. I find when I’m blocked it’s because I just don’t know my characters well enough. Once I know them, I can tell their stories.

6. Now that we've gotten to know each other, tell me a story. It can be long or short. From your childhood or last week. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it's yours. What's your story?

Remember Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? Well, the follow-up was Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, an inferior movie, in my opinion. However, its title perfectly mirrors my experience … with fake eyelashes.

You may shake your head in a mix of horror and pity. It's raw, it's real, and it's got a lot of jumps in verb tense. (Sorries. Lots of sorries for that.) It’s the tragic history of me and my eyelashes, also known as The Great Lash-tastrophe.

In the late summer, before attending a couple of writing conferences, I decided I need fake eyelashes.

Not sure why I came to this conclusion, since my normal eyelashes are actually one of the features I am okay with on myself. Eyelashes and ankles! As for everything else in between? Well, let’s not talk about that.

Before I had allowed myself to give it too much thought, I’d texted my hairstylist and she’d slotted me in for the following morning at nine. No backing out now.

I go through the nearly two-hour process (which sucked away nearly a whole morning of writing time—a precious commodity since I have kids at home and mornings are my only chance to write) and come out with these holy cow look at her lashes.

If I’d been in a movie, they would have needed their own line in the credits.

I mean, did I like them? Heck, yeah. They looked amazing. I asked my stylist how much I owed her. When she told me, I kept it together, but inside I was falling off the tilted table. H-h-h-how much? And h-h-h-how often do I have to redo this? Oh, twice a month? Oh. Oh … okay.

The things we should research, people! The things!

So, I go through life with these awesome lashes. I don’t have to put on mascara. I don’t really even have to wear other makeup or even really do my hair, since they’re the only noticeable feature on my person. I. Am. LashLady.

Until…they begin to trickle out. My stylist warned me this would happen, which is why a fill is necessary after a couple of weeks. I hemmed and hawed about just caving and getting them filled, but we had a sudden household expense, and I realized that many dollars a month was just stupid when I have a kid in college and another teen about ready to need auto insurance.

Not happening.

So I allowed lash-attrition (lash-trition?) to occur. After another couple of weeks, only the Truly Glued lashes remained. The brave, the strong, the ones that could have doubled as the legs of a black widow spider—which is basically how my eyes looked now. Like I’d killed a few beetles and done some kind of ritual sacrifice involving my eyelids.

Something had to be done. But not something crazy-expensive, but what?

Walgreens drugstore to the rescue. Turns out they have an enormous selection of false eyelashes and glues—from subtle to LashLady made of “faux mink” (whatever that is. I grew up in the country with neighbors who raised mink, and I saw very little resemblance.) I choose something middle of the road, and what looks like a durable glue.

Maybe my first mistake (besides doing this in the first place) was not watching the YouTube how-to videos. Instead, I forged ahead. Who needs how-to videos when you’ve got common sense?

Ummm… Forty-five minutes later, I’m sitting on my countertop in my bathroom (a place I’ve never once sat in eighteen years of owning the house), with little tiny balls of black glue all over my clothes, the countertop, the sink, an unlucky hand-towel, the floor. Some even ventured as far as the tub.

Plus, my top and bottom eyelashes are glued together. I can’t separate them. I’ll be blind. Forever. And I’m late to take my daughter to school.

At this point, what could I even do? I peeled them off, but now my eyelids were red and swollen—plus they still had the beetle-legs on them from the earlier stylist lashes. At which point I discovered that my natural lashes that had been quite nice were bare stubs.

Disgust at my vanity gave me some kind of adrenaline-fueled superpower, because I reapplied glue, reapplied the sticker-lashes, and stomped out of my bathroom, swollen eyelids and all.

And they didn’t look too bad. Other than the blobs of grey glue mushing them together in some areas.

Let’s just say that today, I’m wearing simple mascara on my formerly quite-nice lashes. They may grow back. Fingers crossed. Something about this feels like one of those fairy tales with an obvious moral. However, shouldn't I come away from this wiser? 


Probably, but the truth is, I'm going to buy another set of the faux mink lashes later today. This will not defeat me.





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Thursday, December 20, 2018

Christmas Countdown: JACOB T. MARLEY by R. William Bennett






R. William (Bill) Bennett is the author of Jacob T. Marley, The Christmas Gift, and a new Christmas novel being published by a major publisher for Christmas, 2019



 ~ Website ~
  




"Marley was dead to begin with . . . "

These chillingly familiar words begin the classic Christmas tale of remorse and redemption in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. 


But, what about Jacob Marley?  And why hadn't he been given the same final chance of redemption as Ebenezer Scrooge?



Or had he?









Q&A With the Author:

1.  Describe yourself in 50 words or less.  I love stories that move the human spirit, that wake us up to realizing our gifts and reaching out to do something for others.   I love hearing them, I love sharing them.  

2. What do you love most in the world? After my family and my faith, being on the water.  Or in the mountains.  Or the  forest.  Or in the yard with the dog.

3. What inspired you to become an Author?  I have always loved telling stories of all kinds.  When I was in sixth grade, an author came to our class (Lester Del Rey) and I found out someone would actually pay you to tell stories!

4. What is your favorite Winter / Holiday tradition? Cuddling with the growing family, watching "Its A Wonderful Life."

5. What is your trick for getting past writer's block? And what advice do you have for other authors who are struggling to tell their story? 
For writer's block, my only solution, but it works every time, is get away from your desk and do something physical that will occupy your mind.   Not just push-ups or toe-touches.  Go for a half hour run, or a long hike, or walk the dog for an hour, and while you are doing it, think about anything but your story.  As far as advice, its trite, but its true: Tell the story that's in you.  That does not mean that you shouldn't have someone else edit and consider their suggestions.  But if you feel it, write it.

6. Now that we've gotten to know each other, tell me a story. It can be long or short. From your childhood or last week. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it's yours. What's your story? 
Recently, my nephew died a tragic death.  Beset with drug and other problems, his short life ended after only twenty-six years.  I was asked to speak at his funeral and while I accepted, I was completely perplexed about anything to say other then 'don't be like him.'  In preparing, I read a story of man who had a sister with a host of life problems.  In sitting with her in her final hours, he said he could only see her in terms of her trials.  At that moment, he received a divine rebuke, allowing him to see what she had accomplished in spite of her trials. His appreciation for who she was starting changing immediately.   He said he felt he was being asked by Deity, "Can't you see that everyone around you is a sacred being?"

I started making a list of my nephew's qualities, which started slow, but began to grow.  I went from feeling his life had no redeeming value, to acknowledging that he had some qualities, to realizing his list of positive character traits was long, and stronger in many ways than mine, to eventually seeing him as a magnificent human being.  One who struggled terribly and eventually lost the  battle to human frailties, but at the same time, exemplified some of the most important human characteristics - love, forgiveness, patience, imagination, and more.  It then struck me how it might change my life to try to see the magnificence in everyone, and let them know I do before I lose the chance. 


We miss my nephew terribly, but he was, in the end, successful in leaving a positive legacy, something all of us would hope for at end of our own lives, long or short.







To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page