Afterglow Playlist

I like to listen to music while writing and I make a playlist for each of my books as I write it.
Since Afterglow is up for votes as a RONE nominee in the best contemporary, I'd like to share a few of the songs from the playlist, along with a link to where you can give a listen.
You can vote for Afterglow in the reader poll HERE

Feel a Whole Lot Better--Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

If You Want Me--Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard (Once)

Irreplaceable--Beyonce

Stolen Car--Bruce Springsteen

Gone Gone Gone--The Everly Brothers

When Love Takes Over--David Guetta and Kelly Rowland

Silly Habits--Janice Ian

My Love Will Not Let You Down--Bruce Springsteen

RONE nominees

The RONE awards are given by InDTale magazine each year for stories that are Indie or small-press published. This year, I'm honored to have two of my books nominated

Afterglow was nominated for best contemporary

India Othmar isn’t having a great year. Her husband of thirty-one years has left her for their son’s ex-girlfriend. Her grown children have moved home. Her best friend Eva seems determined to set her up with every oddball in their small Massachusetts town. And her most significant relationship these days is with Cherry Garcia.

But India is more resilient than she thinks. And though it will take a broken arm, a lawn littered with engine parts, some creative uses for shoes, and a scandalous love affair of her own, she learns, much to her surprise, that her life hasn’t ended with her marriage.

The book can be purchased at:

Champagne Books

Amazon: 

ARE: 

To the Wind was nominated for best historical novella

The Journey Continues

In this sequel to Sweet Lenora, Anton and Lenora sail away from trouble in Rio de Janeiro only to encounter new problems. With only half a crew and a first mate that is hated and feared, they venture to San Francisco plagued by threats, mutiny,and illness. As they arrive at their destination, the ghosts of the past come back to haunt them and may prove to be the greatest menace of all. At each turn, the love they have forged is tested. Will it prevail?   

The book can be purchased at:

Amazon

Champagne Books

Kobo

#8Sunday #SundaySnips second eight from The P-Town Queen

Welcome to Sunday 8, the the blog hop where writers post eight sentences of a writing project or a published book.
For today, I thought it might be fun to look back at my books. I recently wrote a blog about The P-Town Queen. I've already posted the opening  eight of this book on  8Sunday. But what of those that come after?
So, without further ado, here's Nikki and the second eight sentences of The P-Town Queen.

Ned, a brilliant shark researcher in his own right, had tumbled a long way: to full time administrator of a bullshit state commission. Though to hear Ned say it, it wasn’t a tumble but a reward for all the years he’d spent roughing it on a California channel island—an island that only had electricity every other day— in order to unlock the mystery of white shark feeding behavior. I had spent five years on that island with Ned. We were married at the time.

One divorce and one un-granted California grant later, I was back on Cape Cod, in Provincetown, living just off Bradford Street with my father and in dire need of a job. I wrote the (grant) proposal. Then I revved up my resolve, packed away my pride, and called Ned. He agreed to a meeting at the Long Wharf Marriott in Boston.




Thanks for stopping by!
For more Sunday Snippets, please visit Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday
For more on The P-Town Queen, including where you download your very own copy, please visit my P-Town Queen page

#8Sunday#SunSnips: Bring on the Wrecking Ball

I'm currently touring cyberspace with Superman.. That was a fun sentence to write. Anyway, in honor of the Searching for Superman blog tour, I'm offering up a little bit of one of my favorite scenes from the book. A wrecking ball has shown up unannounced, ready to tear down the Rialto Theater.  

Conrad stood at attention and put the hand of his unlinked arm over his heart. “You’ll have to put that ball through my chest before I allow it to touch a brick on my theater.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Hard Hat said as she climbed back into the crane cab.

Stephanie admired Conrad’s resolve, but the woman’s move shook her nonetheless. Death at the hands of a wrecking ball was not an end she envisioned for herself and certainly not before her thirtieth birthday. “You don’t think she’s going to do anything stupid, do you?’

“She wouldn’t dare.” Conrad, Stephanie noted, had gone chalk white.

Please visit Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday for some great bits and pieces.

Searching for Superman is a light sweet and funny romance. Read more about it HERE

The Superman Blog Tour is HERE

Searching for Superman, The Tour.

I'm taking Superman and going on the road! The cyber road, that is. The Searching for Superman tour starts today, with lots of stops along the way.
Here's the schedule:

July 29: My Devotional Thoughts

 

July 30: Rose & Beps Blog

 

Aug 1: Coffee Beans & Love Scenes

 

Aug 2: The Divas of Desire

 

Aug 3: It's All About the Romance!

 

Aug 4: Musings And Ramblings

 

Aug 5: Sharing Links and Wisdom

 

Aug 6: Musings of a Writing Reader

 

Aug 7: Crystal's Many Reviews

 

Aug 8: Brianna's Bookshelf

 

Aug 9: Triad Literary

 

Aug 10: deal sharing aunt

 

Aug 11: Salacious Reads

 

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Searching for Superman!

 

I love release day. It's so exciting to share a book with readers. This one is a light as air romantic comedy. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are ten of my favorite lines from the book. Since the opening line is a good place to start, I'll start there.

1.If the perfect man existed, why did he keep eluding her?

2.“The guy pretends to be Superman for a living. I find that a little suspect.”

3. Gary looked at Stephanie as though she ought to be stuffed with bacon and featured at the Tapas bar.

4.“Mother weighs ninety pounds when wet. In a tussle with a marble head, the head would win every time.”

5.She was clearly more interested in big bushy haired guys like Gary or calendar boys with six-packs, like Hawk the fireman. And what kind of name was Hawk, anyway? Who names their kid after a big predatory bird?

6.Stephanie had eaten two hot dogs, an order of cheese nachos,and a snow cone that was the most unnatural shade of blue she’d ever seen. The very thought of adding pizza to the mix made her

stomach do a somersault.

7. Doug heard footsteps behind him. Must Merry follow him everywhere? He began to wonder if he could keep climbing, out onto the roof and rapel down. It wasn’t that long a jump, he could aim for

the bushes.

8. “Well, I don’t think it does. Might as well call the Mona Lisa the Purty Picture. Might as well call the Sistine Chapel the Pope’s Hidey Hole.”

9. “Patience, darling, patience. Your knight-errant will come riding into the theater yet. If you’re lucky, he’ll be bearing gifts from Starbucks.”

10. His lips found hers. And there it was, the feeling she had been looking for all along, her heart flying out of her chest and swooping around the chandelier. Maybe she did get to change things. Maybe second chances were possible.


Book Blurb:
Stephanie Holbrook has finally found a job she really loves: working as an assistant to Conrad Finch in a small regional theater that’s about three dollars and a power outage from being torn down.  Stephanie wishes her love life would be as perfect as her job. She’ll be thirty on her next birthday and she still hasn’t found Mr. Right.  According to Stephanie, Mr. Right has to be strong and brave, with great values and good looks. A guy a lot like Superman. 

 When Doug Castleberry shows up at her niece’s birthday party dressed as Superman, Stephanie is positive he’s not the real deal. Sure, he’s great with kids and he’s kind of cute.   But he’s just a high school teacher making extra money by dressing up for kid’s parties. Hardly the strong, brave, and drop-dead gorgeous guy she’s looking for.

 As the theater teeters ever closer to the edge of disaster, Doug proves to be a better man than Stephanie had ever imagined. Could he be the Superman she’s been looking for all along?


To buy this book, still steaming hot off the e-presses, click HERE!! 

#8Sunday: When Stephanie met Doug

For more snippets, click on button

I've been busy getting ready for the release of my romantic comedy, Searching for Superman, which will be out in a few weeks.
This week's snippet is from the book, the scene where the heroine, Stephanie, meets the hero, Doug. Doug is dressed up as a character for Stephanie's niece's fifth birthday party:

“You are not supposed to be Superman.”

      “What?” Superman went to the van and drew a paper off the seat. “I’m sure, yup-says right here, Superman.”

      Stephanie took the paper from him and crumbled it. “You are supposed to be Cinderella.”

      “No.” Superman looked at her with a combination of horror and confusion. “Cinderella?”

For more great snippets, check out Weekend Writing Warriors HERE

For more about Searching for Superman, click HERE

#8Sunday: The P-Town Queen is a RONE nominee!

For more great snippets, click on button.

I was very chuffed, pleased, and generally bowled over to find out the P-Town Queen has been nominated for a RONE award in contemporary romance.

The book is a romantic comedy set in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It's told from two first person points of view; that of the heroine, Nikki and that of the hero, Marco. The two first person structure was a little tricky, as I had to have openings for both characters. Last week, I posted Nikki's first eight lines, which open the book. This week, I give you Marco's first eight lines, which are the first lines of chapter 2:

I’ll never make gnocchi again. Don’t get me wrong, I like a nice
gnocchi and I do it up pretty good, if I do say so myself. With just the right balance of cream and garlic, it’s food for the angels as my Nona would have said. But some foods, they have memories attached, and gnocchi, that’s a memory I’d just as soon forget.

It was me and Angelo Del Rossi in the kitchen at Roma’s. Angie,
he’s this big slow thug of a guy. Jesus and Mary, he didn’t know a paring knife from a carving knife and was not likely to learn anytime soon. I was cooking for my silent partner, Fat Phil Lazario.


For more great Sunday eight, click HERE

For more on The P-Town Queen, including where you can buy your very own copy, click HERE

And, in a little bit of shameless promo;  I would love it if you could stop by and vote for The P-Town Queen in phase two of this contest, where readers vote. You can vote HERE

The P-Town Queen has been nominated for a RONE!

I'm excited to announce that The P-Town Queen has been nominated for a RONE award in contemporary romance!
In the next step of the process, readers are asked to vote. I would love it if you would pop over and vote for the book.
To vote, please click HERE

For more on the P-Town Queen, including where you can buy your very own copy, please click HERE

#8Sunday It doesn't get any better than this, does it?

Click on image for more WeWriWa

This week, my romantic comedy The P-Town Queen was chosen by my publisher, Champagne Books, as their book of the year.  Does it get any better than this????

This week's snippet is the first eight lines of The P-Town Queen:

I did not blow up the Mona Lisa. Not only did I not blow up theMona Lisa—an old leaker of a boat whose blowing up could be construed as a favor to the aptly named Rusty Cook—I did not blow up any part of Rusty’s marina. My brothers will, of course, say otherwise. They had quite
the laugh at my expense over coffee at Ella’s Place.
     Rusty had been on the lookout for a boat for me. It had taken a lot of gumption and crow-eating to get to a place where I could consider buying a boat. I needed a cheap one, because God only knew how much money I’d be able to squeeze out of the Massachusetts Bay Commission via the research
grant proposal I’d spent three long months laboring to produce.The head of the commission was Ned Anderson.

For more great WeWriWa snippets, click HERE

For more about The P-Town Queen, click HERE