Thursday, September 27, 2012

Welcome Jannine Corti-Petska


Jannine Corti-Petska stopped by today to answer a few questions. 


Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do for fun?

Well, I reached the big 6-0 this year. That just blows my mind. I'm a senior citizen!!! But, I don't act my age, lol. I love going to McDonalds and getting a senior coffee for $.64 (tax included <g>). And my husband and I get 20% off our bill at Denny's, our favorite restaurant. So far, I'm liking being one of the "old folks." :-)

For fun? I wish I could say I read for fun. Unfortunately, I don't have the time. Skimming through a magazine is all the reading I do, and that lasts all of 5-10 minutes. I do garden, which is therapy for me when I'm down or when I've hit a bump in my story and can't get past it. I write linear, so writing on ahead and coming back to it is hard for me to do.

I relax with my 3 Rat Terriers. We watch Italian soccer games together on the weekends (when league is in play). Wow, that's sad. When putting it in writing, it looks like I have a boring life. That's not the case, though. My dogs and grandkids keep me going.

Q: What do you like most about the genre you write in?

Because I write historical romance, I'd say living in the past. Obviously, I can't experience first hand what that was like (not sure I'd really want to), so researching, writing and getting lost in the time and place is most enjoyable. And since I was a horrible history student, I'm learning so much...and kicking myself for not paying attention in school!

Q: Where is your favorite place to write?

When I write long-handed, I favor the kitchen table. I have an office, but it's jam-packed with desks, bookcases, 2000 plus research books, and other office equipment. I don't think I've seen the top of my roll-top desk in years! When I'm writing directly into the computer, then I have to be in my office where my pc is. I have a netbook, but the smaller keyboard and screen isn't right for me.

Q: What’s your next project?

Actually, I've been working on TEMPT NOT MY HEART, book 4 of my Italian medieval series. Recently, I decided to sit back and not worry about finishing it. I've been under a lot of stress lately, and trying to be creative is difficult. Since that decision, I've actually worked on the story but without the pressure. Amazingly, the ideas are coming back.

Q: How do you feel about Dr. Pepper?

LOL. Sorry, Lisa, not a fan. When I drink soda, it's usually diet caffeine-free Coke, diet Sunkist or diet Ginger Ale. A can lasts me two days.



MINE TO KEEP by Jannine Corti Petska

Lady Elizabella Aldrich receives notice of an inheritance in Padua, Italy. Arriving from England, she discovers another heir lays claim to the castle. An unreasonably handsome Italian rogue stands between her and the castle she’s inherited.
Leonardo Da Mitri never met the noble who included him in his will. But after one look at Lady Eliza he relishes the challenge of defeating the beauty to make the castle his own.
Astonished to learn they must wed and remain married for a year, it soon becomes apparent someone does not want the nuptials to take place. As Eliza fights her growing desire for Leo, he fights for his life. Will he walk away from his inheritance—and Eliza? Or is he willing to risk everything to stay married to the woman who has claimed his heart as hers... to keep?

Buy links:


Amazon

 * Excerpt *

Elizabella and Leonardo haven’t been married long. Neither have they consummated their
marriage. In this scene, they both slipped on wet stone in the castle’s great room, and Leo traps her to the floor.

“Think you my brother will stand idle when I tell him how horrible you
have treated me? You are rude and ill-mannered.”

“So I am.” Leo feigned boredom. Her observation of his character didn’t
offend him. She was unapprised about Italian society…and Italian men.
“From the moment we met, you acted as if I am not fit to be in your
company. So be it. I am not a noble, so I need not behave like the rigid men
in your society. And since I am not compatible in your eyes, then I shall do
what I should have done last night.”

“You would not dare!”

He lifted his mouth into a non-committal smile.

“Oh! Let me up at once!”

“It appears milady must be taught manners as well.” Leo crushed her lips
beneath his. He ran his hand down her waist and hip caring not that his
caresses were rough, groping. Her protests died in an instant. When he pushed
her tunic up to her shoulders, he was surprised to find her naked beneath the
expensive garment. He tore away to lave his tongue across her breast, taunting
her nipple. Her deep, unfettered moan seeped into his heart. Last night had been
merely a prelude to the ecstasy awaiting him with his feisty wife. Leo recaptured
her mouth and shed any misgivings about consummating their marriage. Even
though theirs was more illusory than real, he should have sunk into her and
bedamned his righteous conscience. He desired Eliza like no other.

He broke off the kiss and gazed at her, from the red, irritated skin around her parted
lips to her eyelashes shadowed high upon her cheeks. Resisting her was impossible,
from the way her body moved, like a sultry feline, to her soft sounds of pleasure.

“Eliza.” Her name echoed in his head. “Do you want me? Truthfully, do you
desire me?”

When her lashes fluttered upward, her eyes beheld a desirous sheen. Leo’s heart
skipped a beat while his manhood surged upward in anticipation. Pray she didn’t
reject him, for he’d not walk away a second time. Hope kindled the jagged
pounding of his heart, even when her features lost their passionate glow.

“If I said no, would you leave me be?”


Thanks for stopping by today, Jannine. I actually won this book and had the chance to review it. 


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Welcome Avery Flynn

Passion Creek by Avery Flynn

Uptight history professor Sam Layton may have the abs of a movie action hero, but he stopped believing in the joy of adventure a long time ago. However, when a one-night stand with a tattooed bombshell leads to a treasure map for the long-buried Rebecca’s Bounty, the call to action is too strong to ignore.

All Las Vegas cocktail waitress Josie Winarsky wants to do is paint. But when she lands smack dab in the middle in a mob plot, she has to push aside her dreams to find a treasure in Dry Creek, Nebraska and save her family from harm. With Sam at her side and a Vegas loan shark on her tail, the treasure she finds turn out to be much more valuable than emeralds and rubies.

This book is intended for Adults 18+



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Purchase
Passion Creek

FOLLOW THE TOUR!
Now, for the best part. Avery has answered a few questions!

Welcome Avery!

Thank you so much for having me over at your place today!

Name three authors with whom you’d love to be mentioned in the same breath.

Only three? I’m going to say Lori Foster because I just love her books, the way she tells a story that balances the romance with the suspense is so much fun to read. Next, Janet Evanovich because of her humor and pacing. I pick up one of her books and I know I’m going to be ordering dinner that night because I will be too sucked up to stop to make something healthy to eat. The other member of my ideal author trifecta would be Dakota Cassidy because she makes me giggle like I’m back in study hall with my best friend.

What makes you happiest?

A warm beach. That is always my happy place.

What talent would you most like to have?

I’d love to be able to draw. My mother and sister are amazing visual artists and for me even stick people is a challenge. I guess that’s part of why I made Josie Winarksy, my heroine from Passion Creek, a painter. It’s about as close as I’ll ever get to being an artist.

For the sake of this question you’re single, what five personality traits would you put down on a matchmaking questionnaire?

1.  Slightly twisted sense of humor.
2.  Feisty.
3.  Known to talk a rock into submission.
4.  Loves to dance.
5.  Can’t wait to travel the world.

Tell us a little about Passion Creek.

Gladly! Uptight history professor Sam Layton may have the abs of a movie action hero, but he stopped believing in the joy of adventure a long time ago. However, when a one-night stand with a tattooed bombshell leads to a treasure map for the long-buried Rebecca’s Bounty, the call to action is too strong to ignore.

All Las Vegas cocktail waitress Josie Winarsky wants to do is paint. But when she lands smack dab in the middle in a mob plot, she has to push aside her dreams to find a treasure in Dry Creek,
Nebraska and save her family from harm. With Sam at her side and a Vegas loan shark on her tail, the treasure she finds turn out to be much more valuable than emeralds and rubies.


About Avery Flynn

Avery Flynn has three slightly-wild children, loves a hockey-addicted husband and is desperately hoping someone invents the coffee IV drip. Evernight Publishing released the first two books in her Layton Family series, Temptation Creek and Seduction Creek. The third book in the series, Passion Creek, released on Aug. 31. Find out more about Avery on her blog (www.averyflynn.com), follow her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/averyflynn), like her on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Avery-Flynn/177161972329973) or friend her on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/avery.flynn.7). Also, if you figure out how to send Oreos through the Internet, she’ll be your best friend for life.

Thank you so much for stopping by today Avery!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Mine to Keep Review

Lady Elizabella Aldrich receives notice of an inheritance in Padua, Italy. Arriving from England, she discovers another heir lays claim to the castle. An unreasonably handsome Italian rogue stands between her and the castle she's inherited.

Leonardo Da Mitri never met the noble who included him in his will. But after one look at Lady Eliza he relishes the challenge of defeating the beauty to make the castle his own.

Astonished to learn they must wed and remain married for a year, it soon becomes apparent someone does not want the nuptials to take place. As Eliza fights her growing desire for Leo, he fights for his life. Will he walk away from his inheritance--and Eliza? Or is he willing to risk everything to stay married to the woman who has claimed his heart as hers... to keep?


Author website

Amazon Buy Link


My Review: 5 Star!


This is a fun, hilarious historical romance. Forced to marry and remain so for a year and a day, Leo becomes a new husband. Pure sexual frustration makes him demanding of his hot-headed, spoiled wife, Eliza. Her own frustrations cause her to deny him. It’s very well-written. The characters and their situation are delightful and fresh, and I loved every word! I highly recommend this book, it is so entertaining!

Monday, September 24, 2012

A Diary's House Book Tour

A Diary's House: Where True Love Endures

A Diary’s House is about adventure, lost love, and the hope that dreams, even those in the final years of life, can at last prevail. It is of a young boy’s attempt to become a man, the once-lost secrets of a diary, a sweeping romance which transcends time and place. It is more than a boy’s journey into manhood, but the mysteries of so many lives unknowingly intertwined, now brought together in a climatic ending; all from the engrossing world embedded in a forgotten diary; a diary of a woman. 

Born in the vast and looming mountains of North Carolina during the 1870’s, Landon Hampshire always remembered the folklore and legendary tales his father told him during his early childhood; about the people of the Kituhwa (Cherokee) and the birth of this tribal nation – an enchanting story he could never forget. Incorporating the aid of an eccentric old French trapper (old man Montague), Landon and his friends set out on an adventure, their initial intention is to discover treasure and become men. But what Landon will eventually come to discover is more than he ever bargained for. 

Landon didn't realize his boyhood adventure would yield the incredible journey he ultimately experiences - going down the mysterious and mystical Randola River. At the base of the river is an island even more mysterious than the Randola itself. 

The island releases many of its mysterious, yet even many more are created when Landon discovers, on the island, a diary of a young woman who lived forty years prior during the 1830’s (Trail of Tears). The diary entries are hopeful, though haunting. It reveals, in intimate detail, the life and dreams of this very special young girl who is turning into a woman of beauty and adventure, her love for a Cherokee boy, and the trials she will ultimately face. Her story unfolds through the reading of her diary, and Landon suddenly finds himself caught up in a sweeping, empowering world of re-invention and ultimate redemption.


  C. David Murphy I am a writer; first and foremost. Anyone who reads my works will instantly know this. I have found no greater joy on this earth than to be close to God and nature; exploring the serenity of landscapes, waterfalls, epic mountains, meadows and grasslands. To sit on those spots of earth and write to where my imagination will take me yields a tremendous amount of peace and serenity.. To create characters with true and genuine emotions, feel their heartbeat thru every word I write; their trails, their hopes and ambitions; to breathe life into their eyes and see their soul become one with me and the reader is absolutely amazing. I simply love to create on that venue and canvas; to affect change in the lives of others. It is my hope, when someone picks up my stories and reads the full weight of them, that somehow I have affected change in their lives, brought them to places they could never have imagined before, and moved them to believe in humanity again – to go out into the world and create ‘goodwill towards all’.

The Diary’s House is C David Murphy’s first digitally published novel. He is also the author of two Shakespearean-style genre plays In the Years of the Ages and Hildengrass. He is currently finalizing his next novel, When Tomorrow Never Comes and The Chronicles of Good and Evil – Dracula’s Lair / The Darkest Tower, both due out later this year. Also, the sequel to A Diary’s House is in the works – The Long Journey Home due out the first part of 2013.

 Follow Blog / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

Buy Amazon /Barnes & Noble /Smashwords / Kobo

The author is having a contest for a KINDLE FIRE and 5 autographed copies of the book!! Fill out the form below to for a Chance to win. Ends October 31 Open US/ Can

Closed - Congratulations Amanda R., Christine H., Kristine J., Debra H., & Shari D.!

  Follow the Tour

Friday, September 14, 2012

Crimson Groves Excerpt

Crimson Groves by Ashley Robertson

Abigail Tate was a normal human girl. Until the day Bronx the vampire barges into her life and turns her against her will. Held captive while forced to deal with never ending cravings for blood, Abby prays for a way to escape. Only when an opportunity arises, it's with the aid of an innocent human named Tyler--except vampires are forbidden to interact with the unbitten. But Abby quickly learns this human has secrets of his own...secrets that can either help her or get her killed. Only Abby discovers that she was the one with the biggest secret of them all.

Purchase Kindle / Paperback

Check out Ashley's Blog

Follow the Tour


Excerpt


HER MELODIC VOICE WAS LIKE that of an angel, and her tender touch on my cheek felt like silk. “Abby, are you okay? Abby, it’s me. Wake up. Wake up and bite me.”

I couldn’t move, my eyes were sealed shut, and I didn’t want to bite her anyway. Why live? Why should I want to live? To be Bronx’s slave all over again. He would use my power and I’d never be able to defend myself.

What had Tyler done to me? How had I become so helpless, so defenseless? After all that fighting and training, I couldn’t even use those moves. Would drinking from Lily change that? Mostly likely not. Bronx had demolished me in the woods; whatever was happening to me had already taken me down.  No powers, no senses, and no longer a will to fight.

“Abby, please,” Lily begged, “please Abby, bite me. I need you, don’t leave me here.” She brushed her neck against my lips, back and forth, trying to taunt me.

Her skin was so warm, inviting, alive. The vein thumped rapidly; vibrations danced through her neck. My tongue swelled, saliva moistening it. I parted my lips to release some of the pressure. Her neck was right there. Closer than I’d realized. My tongue stroked across it. I couldn’t stop now. I opened my mouth wider. In one swift movement my fangs pressed out, then down into her skin. The warm delicious liquid flowed like a river and my stomach was the mouth to the ocean. I could feel Lily’s body trembling. I raised my arms. They moved with ease—I was getting my strength back! I held onto her head, her soft brown hair mashed in my hands, and I drank feverishly. I was feeling better, stronger. I twisted her head slightly to the side, dug my mouth deeper into her neck. She gasped, then released a very happy sounding sigh. 

Friday, September 7, 2012

Learning to Fly Release Day Review & Giveaway

Melissa Snarks latest romantic suspense title, Learning to Fly, released today by The Wild Rose Press.


Cassandra Claeys is a bohemian artist with a passion for shoes and architecture. Her past wasn’t pretty and she’s got the scars to prove it, but she’s determined to live and love again and she’s hoping her newest client is just the man for the job. But the crazed serial killer that once held her captive escapes from prison, willing to kill again to make his manical fantasies come true.Architect Kyle McCloud hires the fiery redhead to illustrate his latest project, never dreaming that she would bring passion and danger to his door. Cassie is easily spooked and as flighty as one of his injured birds, but he’s willing to work overtime to make her soar for him alone.


To celebrate her release, Melissa's having a giveaway! Check it out on her website here!

Now available on Amazon and through The Wild Rose Press.


Learning to FlyLearning to Fly by Melissa Snark

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Learning to Fly is a beautifully crafted romance about a woman learning to love and trust again after she’s been hurt by a madman. When he escapes from prison, she takes refuge with the one man who can break down all her defenses. I love this book! The symbolic usage is inspiring. The characters are realistic and enduring, a couple you won’t easily forget. Suspense and tension rose steadily along with the romance, and I couldn’t stop reading. I was captivated by Cassie and Kyle’s story and I highly recommend this novel!



View all my reviews

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Passion Creek Blog Tour

Passion Creek by Avery Flynn

Uptight history professor Sam Layton may have the abs of a movie action hero, but he stopped believing in the joy of adventure a long time ago. However, when a one-night stand with a tattooed bombshell leads to a treasure map for the long-buried Rebecca’s Bounty, the call to action is too strong to ignore.

All Las Vegas cocktail waitress Josie Winarsky wants to do is paint. But when she lands smack dab in the middle in a mob plot, she has to push aside her dreams to find a treasure in Dry Creek, Nebraska and save her family from harm. With Sam at her side and a Vegas loan shark on her tail, the treasure she finds turn out to be much more valuable than emeralds and rubies.

This book is intended for Adults 18+



Follow Blog/ Twitter / Facebook
Purchase
Passion Creek

Avery Flynn is a pseudonym for the author who, at least for now, prefers to remain behind the scenes. She believes having Avery as her alter ego is a very good thing because, as she says, “Pen name Avery is way cooler than me. Her favorite color is hot pink. She drinks single malt scotch on the rocks. She loves the Argentinean tango and stays at Iceland’s Ice Hotel.”

Author Avery has been writing since she was a child and her father gave her a baby blue Brother typewriter. She couldn’t read but nonetheless wrote numerous stories about her stuffed animals in gibberish. She hasn’t stopped since, though she maintains that her spelling has gotten much better and she now prefers to write in English.

Today she’s enjoying her own happily ever after with her dashing husband, three crazy kids and two arthritic dogs. She dreams of one day having a floor-to-ceiling library à la Beauty and the Beast and is working to perfect the coffee IV drip.

Tour Starts September 4th!!

The author is giving away a HUGE prize pack! Digital copy of Passion Creek, Signed paperback copies of Temptation Creek and Seduction Creek, 1 I heart Dry Creek, Nebraska T-shirt, 1 I heart Dry Creek, Nebraska keychain, 1 $100 Amazon gift card To pick the name of a character in Avery Flynn's next book
Fill out the form below to enter. Open US Residents. International receive Digital books and Giftcard.

Closed - Congratulations Susan M.!

Follow the Tour


Saturday, September 1, 2012

Welcome to Vampire Mania!

Lisa Rayns has teamed up with Big Fish Games to bring you Vampire Mania!


We're giving away 3 eBooks of Lisa Rayns' new release, Wanted: Vampire - Free Blood, along with 15 games!





Big Fish Games offers a huge selection, including some mesmerizing vampire games like Vampire Saga - Welcome to Hell Lock, Vampire Brides: Love Over Death, and Mystery Agency: A Vampire's Kiss



About the novel: Wanted: Vampire - Free Blood is a dark paranormal romance. Take a peek:




Check out it's first review at Sizzling Hot Book Reviews here!

To find out more about Lisa Rayns' novels, go to her booklist.




3 winners will receive a prize pack!


*1 eBook of Wanted: Vampire - Free Blood

*5 Big Fish Games


Enter below to win.

Contest ends October 1st and is open worldwide. 
Good Luck!

Closed - Congratulations Karina V., Chrissy N., & Norman L.!