Things only my family would understand

Goodness! Week 10 already. Today’s topic is a little, well, I don’t want to say intrusive, but it kinda is, because I’m wondering if I have to explain WHY only my family would understand. I’m gonna take the easy way out here and just list them without explaining why. It’s not only easier, it’s less embarrassing. You guys have enough imagination, you might be able to answer why I’ve listed these things. If you can’t…oh well!

In no apparent order, only my family would understand:

  • my insane, almost pathological need for privacy
  • why shopping gives me a panic attack
  • my love for old black and white movies from the 30’s and 40’s
  • the reason I don’t remember my sophomore year in college
  • why I consider mayonnaise sandwiches comfort food
  • my uber-defined personal space bubble
  • my issues with food.
  • the reason I dislike Tom Brady
  • why I’ve dyed my hair since I was 16

It’s gonna be interesting to see if the other authors on this blog challenge put up their reasons and don’t take the embarrassed coward’s way out that I did! Click on their links and find out.

 


7.

5 Comments

Filed under #Mfrwauthors

#GoddessFishtour Betting on Cinderella by Petie McCarty

Today, multi-published author Petie McCarty is on a whirwhind Goddess Fish tour and she’s stopping by to tell us all about her newest release, Betting on Cinderella. And she’s giving us more than just the juicy details of the book, folks: there’s a rafflecopter at the end of this blog piece that you just won’t want to miss!

Here’s a little bit of BETTING ON CINDERELLA

BLURB: 

Garrett Tucker inherits his grandfather’s casino empire and steps into the reclusive billionaire’s shoes as the “Prince of Vegas.” His first act is to buy and renovate a bankrupt casino in Biloxi. When he discovers embezzling in his new operation, Garrett goes in undercover. His number one suspect is the new finance supervisor.

Andi Ryan moves to Biloxi to care for her godmother and takes a job as finance supervisor for the renovated Bayou Princess casino. She discovers someone is skimming from the till and starts her own investigation, worried she will be blamed for the theft when the new owner discovers her godmother has a costly gambling addiction.

Garrett’s rival Vegas competitor has sent a spy in to ruin the Bayou Princess, and Garrett and Andi are forced to work together to prove her innocence and discover the identity of their casino spy.

Excerpt 

He held up his scotch and water. “Here’s to the newest Bayou Princess employee.”

She clinked her wine glass to his. “The two newest Bayou Princess employees. Don’t forget you started today, too.”

“To the two newest,” he quickly amended.

Holy cow! I need to be on my toes tonight.

As she lowered her glass, he leaned in and gently brushed his lips across hers. She froze. He pulled back no more than an inch, stared into those wide, hypnotic-blue eyes, and pressed his lips to hers again.

Both of them holding glasses, they touched only at their lips, a flashpoint that sent heat straight to his gut. She pressed back against his lips, and he wanted to whoop. He traced her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue and—Hallelujah!—she let him in. He thought of pitching his glass into the creek, so his arms were free to wrap her up. So great had his need skyrocketed when she timidly touched her tongue to his. Blood rushed high to pound in his head and rushed low to pound in . . .

Lord! Tucker, get control of yourself! What the heck is wrong with you?

He had lost control, that’s what. He never lost control. His attraction to Andi had been instantaneous and visceral, like the feeling had been there incubating all along. Hell, he had kissed Andi in front of a bank of restaurant windows. An odd little tug pulled near his heart. He forced himself to pull back and not roar his delight when she swayed toward him. Thank God, she wasn’t ready for the kiss to be over either.

Buy Links:

Amazon  // B&N 

AUTHOR Bio 

Petie spent a large part of her career working at Walt Disney World — “The Most Magical Place on Earth” — where she enjoyed working in the land of fairy tales by day and creating her own romantic fairy tales by night, including her new series, The Cinderella Romances. She eventually said good-bye to her “day” job to write her stories full-time. These days Petie spends her time writing sequels to her regency time-travel series, Lords in Time, and her cozy-mystery-with-elements-of-romantic-suspense series, the Mystery Angel Romances.

Petie shares her home on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with her horticulturist husband, a spoiled-rotten English Springer spaniel addicted to pimento-stuffed green olives, and a noisy Nanday conure named Sassy who made a cameo appearance in Angel to the Rescue.

Visit Petie’s web site online at http://www.petiemccarty.com or her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/petie.mccarty.

 

You can connect with Petie here:

Website // Facebook //Twitter // Goodreads //  Amazon // LinkedIn

 

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:

Petie McCarty will be awarding 3 eBook copies of Book 1 of the Cinderella Romances series: Cinderella Busted to 3 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

Enter for a chance to win: Cick on this link:  rafflecopter 

or this one: Prize

 **My review of Betting on Cinderella is here

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

#FacebookParty tonight!

Please join me and a few of my friends as we celebrate my uber-talented and wonderful writer and friend, Kari Lemor, tonight at her Book Birthday Party. One year ago Kari’s book WILD CARD UNDERCOVER released into the romantic suspense reading world and Kari’s never looked back, so we’re gonna celebrate her and her book birthday with a whole bunch of fun, prizes, games and giveaways tonight from 6pm-9pm EST.  Here’s the link to attend: Party

Hope to see you all there! Put on your party hat and dancing shoes!

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

#ARCS for the asking!

Hey kids! My Publisher has given me ecopy arcs of my upcoming release CAN’T STAND THE HEAT that I’m allowed to give out to readers/bloggers/reviewers if they’ll read the book and post a review of it to Amazon and/or Goodreads. If you’d like to receive a free ecopy  ARC so you can read and review it,  you need to let me know, so I can tell you how to upload the copy to the ereader of your choice ( or even your phone). Just comment below if you want to do this!

6 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

It’s #Menopause Tuesday….

Another Tuesday, another posting about Menopause. This one’s a …trip. Stop by. See why. Here’s the link: menopause

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Is it Narcissism, or something else? Why I blog…

I had a random acquaintance ask me the other why I bother to blog. The way she phrased it was “does anybody really want to read about your daily life? I mean, all you do is write, right? That’s kinda boring.”

Those of you who know me probably think you know how swift, cutting, and murderous my reply to her was. You would be wrong. I actually stayed silent and just stared at her. She was probably thinking, “well she can’t even come up with a creative reply, so she mustn’t be that good a writer.” In reality, I was thinking something else.

And it wasn’t 75 ways to verbally vivisect her.

Her question got me thinking: “was she right? Would anyone who doesn’t know me, and even those who do, want to read a blog about my life as a writer? Why would they?” And the fact that I think people would, well, does that make me a little narcissistic in some way?

Heady stuff.

I had to take a step back and consider the reasons why I started writing a blog to see if I could truthfully answer that question.

The moment I signed my first book contract, the marketing instructions I was sent stated that I needed to begin an online presence so I’d have a platform to inform the public ( the people I didn’t know personally) about my soon to be released book. I joined Twitter, developed a Facebook author page, and then this blog. In the beginning, it really was just a venue to promote my book. It quickly turned into something more, though. I started writing about my life as a writer, my struggles, creative ideas to break through writer’s block that I’d learned from other industry professionals. It became a place to recap conferences for writers who couldn’t attend them, a place to promote good books I’d read, and new authors I’d found whose work I wanted to share.

And through all of this, I kept getting more readers and subscribers, to the blog- the majority of whom I’ve never met!

There’s a way on WordPress you can get your daily analytics to garner info on how many people are reading your blog, clicking it through it and when ( like, what time of the day). Every day when I check those analytics I see a lot of data and it’s all good, so that means people really do want to read what I have to say, receive what I want to share, get to know the authors I’m introducing. And that makes me feel good. Really good.

So, to the fringe acquaintance, if you’re reading this ( and who am I kidding because you’re probably not!) take that!

Oh, and those 75 ways to verbally vivisect you? Yeah, I came up with 143. In less than 10 minutes…just saying. So the next time we meet…

When I’m not being narcissistic, I mean, WRITING, you can find me here: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me

26 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

#LASR #SaturdaySeven

Romance tropes are fun to read. Truly. I mean, who doesn’t love a secret baby, or a Women in jeapodary story? Things are tired and true for a reason, folks!

So, in no order, here are my seven favorite romance tropes to read:

  1. Second Chances. There’s really something so powerful about giving someone a second chance at anything: life; health; love. These stories take a relationship that failed – for whatever reason – and then allows that relationship to bloom anew. The h/h don’t have to start where they left off – and really, shouldn’t. A new day and a new depth to their love evolves. Truly, Madly, Yours by Rachel Gibson is a good example of this trope.
  2. A marriage of Convenience. Even though this trope gets used a bunch in historicals, it can also be used in contemporary’s if written the right way. The Weekday Brides series by Catherine Bybee and The Marriage Bargain by Jennifer Probst are good modern day depictions of this trope. 
  3. Friends to Lovers. The first book I read with this trope was Emma by Jane Austen. Emma and Mr. Knightly are social friends, having known each other for years. When their friendship takes a wrong turn and then a right one to love, well, all I can say is that Austen was a master of romance writing for a reason.  In my own book. There’s No Place Like Home, I have two friends, Moira and Quentin,  use this trope. There’s something so wonderful about falling in love with your best friend! you share a lifetime of past memories, being with the other person is comfortable, and the love that blossoms is familiar. Love that!
  4. Opposites Attract. Who doesn’t love when two people who on paper seem so wrong for one another are in reality so perfect! Prime examples of this trope that are really good depictions are Bet Me, by Jennifer Cruise and Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas 
  5. Fake relationship. Lovelovelove this one! A good explanation of this trope ( but not the only one!) a girl’s been recently dumped by her boyfriend ( or she dumped him) and now needs a date to a wedding so she doesn’t look like the only girl in her crowd without a significant other. Good examples of this trope are Julie James’  A Lot like Love and Slow Heat by Jill Shalvis
  6. Enemies to lovers. A prime example of this trope is both the h/h want the same thing, say a job. They are each vying for it, trying to outdo the other, hating that the other exists. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is perfect for this trope.
  7. On-the-Run ( aka Women in Jeopardy) Anytime a guy has to protect the girl and take her on the run to do so well, that story is just rife with lots of sexual tension and intrigue. I used this trope with my Will Cook For Love novel, book 2 A Shot At Love.

5 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

I’m not Inventor-y…

This week’s topic is a hard one for me because I’m not an inventor-y-type girl. I don’t even like to go to the beach, much less an island. If I got stuck on a deserted island, I’d probably be the first one the cannibals ate, anyway because, you know…I’m chubby! Lots of protein and fat.

But…..

So survival being the name of the game I’d need some kind of device that would be able to turn the water surrounding the island into water suitable to drink. It takes 3 minutes to die without air, 3 weeks without food and three days without water, so the water is a necessity. I know there are currently machines called desalinization thingies, but I’d need to be able to make this on the island from the raw materials around.

Don’t know how I’d do this, don’t have a clue where to being, but….that’s what I’d make. A thingie machine to make clean, drinkable water.

And then once that was off the drawing board and put into practice, I’d find a way to invent a pizza oven. Just saying. Food, you know?

Heehee.

Well, it’s uber obvious I’m not inventor-y, but maybe some of the other authors on this challenge are. Hop on over to their sites to see what they’ve come up with. And if it’s good, I’ll probably make arrangements to be deserted with them so I could survive.

6 Comments

Filed under #Mfrwauthors

Research is spelled P-I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T!

This is a funfunfun topic for me. I sincerely don’t know what writers did before PINTEREST came along. The first time I was ever told about the site and then visited it, I was addicted. For Life. Seriously.

You all know I’m a huge plotter when it comes to my books. I have everything lined up, plotted out, and squared off before I ever start writing because I’m so anal. It’s that damn scientific background – I always need to know where I’m going. In the past I’d look for pictures of my characters or places or settings in magazines. Being able to visibly “see” how I wanted someone to look made it waaaaay easier for me to write about them. With the advent of Google, I tossed the mags and started trolling celebrity sites – because back in the day they were the only pictures you could really find.

It’s a new day, people. We don’t need google images anymore -we’ve got PINTEREST. Anyone can upload a picture of pretty much anything ( legal, that is!) From the moment I used Pinterest to categorize and help me plot/storyboard my books, my life got sosososos much easier. I had more time to write because I didn’t need to troll endlessly looking for images thru mags anymore. I simply plugged in something like “guys, 30’s black hair, green eyes” and 9,000,000 PINS instantly popped up for me to choose from.

Score!

So, for the first time, I’m giving you a little glimpse into how I storyboard my characters on Pinterest. The links below are to my Will Cook For Love Series books. These Pins/pictures are how I “saw” the books when I was writing them. (A few of the books haven’t been published yet so this is like a little teaser!)  Let me know your thoughts.

Will Cook for Love

A shot at Love/Gemma

Melora and Riley

Abby and Rick

Ellie and Sloan

And I even have an alternative, breakout, spinoff series to Cooking with Kandy called Bros, Inc.

You’re welcome for that last one!

When I’m not doing RESEARCH ( wink wink) you can find me here: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Alpha Hero, Alpha Male, Author, Characters, Contemporary Romance, Cooking, Food lover, Foodie, Kensington Publishers, love, Lyrical Author, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women, The Laine Women

If it’s #Tuesday it’s time to talk about #Menopause

And here we are again on another Menopause Tuesday! Click on the link to my other blog to see what’s up this week

Sweating to the oldies and feeling….old.

When I’m not hanging out on my blogs you can find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// Book Me

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized