Bella's Point Cover Reveal!

Today I'm helping Elizabeth Seckman with her latest cover reveal. Elizabeth is one of my favorite blogging buddies, and I was more than happy to have her here! She is bright, funny, and always supportive. Just a downright wonderful lady.

 

And her latest cover is absolutely gorgeous!

 

 

 

Did you know? In the story, Bella cares for a young Cherokee boy. The Cherokee lived in the western portion of North Carolina. They often adopted white man's ways in order to live peacefully. This didn't completely work. When gold was found, the Cherokee was sent marching on the "Trail of Tears" from the East coast to reservations in the west.

 

Isabella Troy Stanley is a divorced, slave freeing pariah surviving in the shattered post Civil War south the only way a fallen debutante knows how. 

She heads to a Yankee prison and buys herself a husband. 

Jack Byron is the former Troy plantation stable boy and object of young Bella's affection. He rejected her then, and he's still not sold on the idea of marrying her now.  

 

 It’s complicated.

 Though to Bella, it’s simple: make Jack love her, marry her, and live happily ever after. The plan seems to work...at least until her secret is revealed.

 

Elizabeth is a wife, a mom, and a writer. She has four wonderful boys, one dusty house, and three published books to her credit. Feel free to check them out and buy them HERE! Erm, the books, not the kids or the house...though all things in life are negotiable ;)

You can find her here - Blog // Facebook // Twitter

Cover art by Sprinkles on Top Studios.



 

Cover Reveal: FINDING HER WAY BACK

Today I'm helping out with Heather van Fleet's cover reveal for FINDING HER WAY BACK. Heather is kind of super awesome. :) I first met her via twitter, and she is so friendly and supportive! (Link to her Twitter profile is below. Go find her!) And now, the book!

FINDING HER WAY BACK

By Heather van Fleet

 

Releasing October 7, 2014

A New Adult Contemporary Romance

Meet Callie. She’s eighteen, quirky, and fears commitments. She also has a love/hate relationship with her tennis shoes.

Nine months of college, done and gone, and all Callie has to show for it is her freshman thirty. But alas, no worries, life has other crap plans for her now. Plans that include a set of nuptials from hell for her older, she–devil sister Anna. Struggling to rid her chubby–sexy vibe, Callie is put on a strict Anna regimen of ‘do this do that’ while attempting to avoid the unavoidable. The unavoidable being Ky Hampton: her once skinny–skater–boy turned sex–god, ex best friend from across the street.

Kylan feels as though he is a waste. A mechanic, country music singer with not a lyrics to his name. A boy with a proverbial skateboard still strung around his neck from high school. He’s lost, and he’d be the first to admit it. But the moment he spots Calla Lily––with a cemented penis in hand––the more he realizes that she’s exactly the muse he’s been missing.

But when the going gets tough, and the secrets of her past grow thicker, Callie has to figure out if her tennis shoes will be her escape this time around in life, or her demise instead.

 
Doesn't it sound good? And I'm totally digging the cover. :) Don't forget to add it to our TBR list on Goodreads!!
 

About the Author

 

Midwestern native Heather Van Fleet lives in a small town on the Iowa/Illinois border. She’s a wife to her hubby--and high school sweet heart--Chris, as well as a mom to her three little girls, Kelsey, Emma and Bella. When she’s not obsessing over her fictional book characters, cooking dinner, or running around chasing her crazy kiddos, you can usually find her with her head stuck in her Kindle, sucking down White Chocolate Mochas like they're water. 

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Into the Swing

Hello everyone! I've been missing my blogging, and my writing, lately. It's a busy time of year for me. (One of the reasons I never do A to Z.) We took two kids to State speech last weekend, both seniors, and that was pretty awesome. One of them is a girl who's been on my team since seventh grade and always put in so much work. I was crazy proud of her. :)

 

Now I'll start holding practices for spring play. No rest for the weary. :)

But that's fun, too, so it's okay.

 

But, it does mean I've gotten very little writing lately and am likely to not get back into the swing of it for another month. I miss it, and characters are having conversations in my head that I worry I'll forget by the time I get in front of my screen again.

 

Do you guys ever have times when you get little writing done?

Or are you strict with the "write every day" rule?

 

Good advice! :)

I hope you all have a great weekend and a great holiday!

Meradeth Houston and the Sary

Today I have Meradeth Houston here to talk to us about the Sary, which I thought sounded fascinating and wanted to know more about!

Thanks so much for having me here today, Rachel! I love getting to meet new people, and chat more with those I know :).

Today, I thought I’d talk a little about the Sary in my Sary Society books. I figure, it’s kind of fitting, as the next book comes out on May 2nd (I know, it’s a little blatant promo there—I promise I’ll keep the rest to a minimum!). The Sary are kind of like angels, but kind of not. They got their basis from reading several books about winged characters when I was a kid, most notably Many Waters by Madeline L’Engle (I love her!) and being kind of obsessed with the idea of flight. Somewhere along the line, I started creating these characters in my head, and they became the stories I write now. Add and subtract a whole lot of changes in the meantime!

The Sary themselves have their own quirks—like I said, they’re not exactly angels, even if they do have wings J. They are children who don’t survive to their first breath, which they think of as the breath of life, which ties them to their mortal body. Without that, well, they end up in limbo and can chose to come back as a Sary, someone who is asked to help keep troubled souls from suicide. It’s not an easy lot, but the alternative is eternity without any physical form. It can get really rough when one of the mortals they’re assigned to protect rejects their help.

As the author for characters like this, I find myself reading a whole lot of literature on suicide, the signs someone is contemplating it, and the best way to ensure they don’t carry it out. (This is certainly not light reading!) While I don’t get into a lot of the psychological stuff in my books—I’m definitely not a counselor—I do try to layer in the emotions that people go through when they’re so unhappy. And what the people feel who are left behind. I do layer in some more upbeat stuff, but I find myself really hoping to make my readers feel something while they’re reading—that’s when I feel like I’ve done my job J.

So, that’s a little of what goes on with the Sary. What I think I like best about them though is the thought of someone stepping in to help when people need it the most. It doesn’t have to be any angelic being, just someone who realizes someone else needs help and is willing to lend a hand. It can really make all the difference. I love stories about these kinds of events, too, and if you have any to share, I’d love to hear them!

 

Thanks for stopping by, Meradeth! And since she kept the self-promo to a minimum, I will do it for her. ;) Here's more about her upcoming book:

 

Gabby lives by two unbreakable rules: don’t expose her kind, the Sary, and don’t fall in love—too bad some rules are made to be broken.

When Gabby’s most difficult charge accidentally shoots her in front of a class full of students, the event exposes her carefully hidden identity. She shifts from looking like a normal teen to her secret Sary form, revealing her wings and the existence of her kind—immortals who try to keep people from committing suicide. Her incident attracts the attention of the next leader of the Sary, Jassen, who offers her an impossible bargain: she can keep her wings if she makes amends with those who know the truth. Things get more complicated when a rebel Sary, intent on exposing them to the world, starts interfering with Gabby’s work. And there’s no denying her attraction to Jassen, who is torn between his duties and his heart. With threats at every turn and her immortality on the line, Gabby has to find a way to save the Sary or surrender the sky forever.

 

Sounds good, right? And here's where you can find Meradeth:

www.MeradethHouston.com

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, & blog!

Win Cute Stuff & an Amazon Gift Card!!

To celebrate the release of OVER THE OCEAN, my NA novella, I decided to do a give-away!

I have a cute little mine-suitcase featuring the book's cover, and a necklace

with a plane and a teapot charm. :)

 

 

One winner will receive the mini-suitcase, the necklace, and a $10 Amazon gift card.

Another winner will receive a $5 Amazon gift card.

 

 

 

When Bree meets Logan, and hears his oh-so-sexy British accent, it's lust at first sight.

Bree thinks Logan feels the same way, especially when they're snuggled up on her couch with his tongue down her throat. But when Logan decides that getting into a relationship when he only has a few months left in the States is a bad idea, Bree agrees to be "just friends."

But every time he flashes his swoon-worthy smile, complete with dimples, Bree has a hard time keeping her thoughts in the "friend zone."

 

I do want to say, for those who read my YA stuff,

this is NA and therefore has a bit more mature content.

 

You can find OVER THE OCEAN for 99 cents on Amazon, and B&N,

and add it to your TBR list on Goodreads.

The rafflecopter will be open for a month.

Good luck!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Romantic Flop, and IWSG

It's Insecure Writers Support Group day!! Where writers from all over the world get together to spew out all their insecurities, then help each other mop them back up. (A lovely visual, yes?) ;) Find out more about this wonderful, amazing group here.

Big thanks to the IWSG founder, Alex J. Cavanaugh, and his awesome co-hosts, Hart Johnson, Chemist Ken, Candilynn Fite, Terri Rochenski, Clare Dugmore, and Lilica Blake!

My biggest writing insecurity right now is about the next step. I'm thankful for what I've achieved thus far, but there's always a next step. Right? But what should it be? I want to get an agent, I want to see a book by me in a bookstore, but sometimes I wonder if those steps are too high. Sometimes I think I should aim lower. Then I get mad at myself for not believing I can get there. And then, later, I start all over again, thinking that those things aren't going to happen for me and I should be okay with that.

So yeah, same old, same old, right? I've read enough of these IWSG posts to know I'm not alone, and that helps so much. :) We all seem to go through these bouts of "Reach for the sky!!" followed by "What is wrong with you?! Why did you think you could do this?!"

So the plan is to keep reaching upward, and to be happy with wherever I land. :)


On a different note, I'm participating in Krista McLaughlin's Romantic Flop bloghop today. In celebration of the release of her debut novella, BREATHLESS, she is hosting a blog hop as a fun way to spread the news and share some laughter!
About the hop:

Awkward romantic moments. We’ve all had them. In the beginning of my novella, Lainey has a delightful awkward first meeting with her love interest, Jon. This blog hop gives everyone a chance to share an awkward moment they’ve had with someone they had a crush on, whether you eventually married the person or never saw them again.

 

Oh my goodness, I have a lot to choose from. Seriously. From klutzing out at dinner and accidentally chucking a fork at my prom date, to having my ex call me over and over again while on a date with my brand new boyfriend, (who's now my husband.)

 

But I'm going to tell you about my first kiss with my first real boyfriend. We were at a last-day-of-school party at my house, (it was the end of tenth grade) and we snuck off into the woods. He had finally gotten up the guts to lean in for that kiss when we saw bright flashes of light coming from between the trees. He jumped up at lightening speed. A second later we saw my older brother and his girlfriend-who was holding a camera. They laughed their heads off as my poor bf and I turned eighteen shades of red!