Tag Archives | blogfest

INDIE-kissing – A SPY LIKE ME.

By on February 14, 2013 in murder and mystery, spies

Welcome! And Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is all about kissing. I’m participating in the INDIE-kissing blogfest. And it’s never too late to join!

Here’s a scene from A SPY LIKE ME. The first book in the Circle of Spies Series.

 

“Great. I’ve got people trying to kill—”

He pulled me to him and his mouth covered mine. I fought back at first but he wouldn’t let go and my defenses crumbled. Heat washed over me as his kiss deepened. His body pressed into mine. I stifled a tiny groan of pain and pleasure. The vodka had pretty much numbed any feeling in my leg. His kiss deepened again, and it was better than eating a triple peanut butter chocolate ice cream cone in Pennsylvania or skinny-dipping in the creek when it reached 100 degrees.

His kiss softened. He was gentle and loving, like he cared. His hand grazed my cheek. His past, my past, our families all faded. It was just me and him. Malcolm and Savvy. Two teens.

My heart broke a little bit. I don’t even know why. Maybe because I could add one more person to the list of people I cared about who would betray me and leave me. One more person I cared about more than they did me.

His hands slid down my back to the hem of my shirt. In one suave lift, my shirt was off.

My hands roamed across his chest, exploring. He tenderly ran his fingers down my arm, and I shivered.

He whispered in my ear, “God help me, you’re beautiful. Even with frosting in your hair.”

The words sank in and something broke. The cracks in my heart that I’d plastered and put Band-aids on tore open. Emotion flooded out and filled every inch of my body. My face was wet with tears.

He pulled away and kissed them. “In my line of work, you can’t care about anyone too much. It can get you killed.”

“That’s good, because I don’t care about you. The tears are purely a post-traumatic side effect of getting shot.”

At least I was pretty sure my life wouldn’t end tonight.

***

Thanks for stopping by and reading! Check out all the INDIE-kissing posts!

Comments { 17 }

INDIE-giving – Thankful for the small things. (And a giveaway)

By on November 18, 2012 in murder and mystery

 

 

When we were first planning this INDIEgiving blogfest, I said to myself easy peasy – I can do this. I’m thankful for so much. But it was really hard to narrow down.

I’m thankful for the option to self publish, for readers, for the Indelibles and the wealth of knowledge within the group. I’m thankful for all my blogging friends, critique partners and beta readers.

But that feels so insignificant when compared to the fact that I have a friend with 3-6 months left to live. Yet, he and his family are finding ways to glorify God through this tough time.

So I’m thankful for life. I’m thankful for health and a place to live and the food on our table. I’m thankful that I believe in a God who is all about grace and mercy, even when our prayers don’t get answered in the way we’d like.

But I’m especially thankful for the little things.

My son’s smile and the hug I get every day. My daughter’s teachers at school, who totally impressed me. My sister, who called yesterday.

The fact that my husband is pushing me completely out of my comfort zone with this huge Thanksgiving party. Gulp. **breathes into paper bag**

For the friends in my life who show me grace and still invest in my friendship even when I’m not the perfect friend.

Small things.

But small things add up, and together, they bring a smile to my face every day.

And for the giveaway!

This is really simple. The sequel to A SPY LIKE ME will be out in the next couple weeks. Yay!

If you haven’t read A SPY LIKE ME yet, use my contact form or leave a note in the comments with your name, email, and preferred file (epub or mobi) and I’ll email it to you!

Here’s the sequel. 🙂

Offer is good until my next blog post.

Make sure to visit everyone posting in the INDIE-giving blogfest. Click here for the links.

For all my friends in the States, have a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

 

 

Comments { 22 }

Never Surrender and Elana Johnson

By on June 4, 2012 in book reviews, three dimensional characters

Yay! Surrender by Elena Johnson releases June 5th!

Description: The thrilling and seductive sequel to Possession puts love on the line in a dystopian struggle for independent thought.

Forbidden love, intoxicating power, and the terror of control… 

    

Raine has always been a good girl. She lives by the rules in Freedom. After all, they are her father’s rules: He’s the Director. It’s because of him that Raine is willing to use her talent—a power so dangerous, no one else is allowed to know about it. Not even her roommate, Vi. 

Thank you to Simon Pulse for the advanced copy!

I could talk about Surrender and how much I loved this book, the writing. I fell in love with the characters: Raine and Gunner. Both of them have been the most enjoyable YA characters I’ve read in a while. Elana does an incredible job in drawing us into the story: we live, breathe and cry with them.

Of course, it’s nice to see Jag and Vi too.

I enjoyed Possession but Surrender blows the first book out of the water. Can I say that? Well, I did. I didn’t want the story to end. Some of the passages took my breath away.

I could talk about all that but I’m not going to.

I want to talk about Elana. She’s always been so giving on her blog. She’s down to earth and never pretended to be someone she’s not. She got published and still acted like a normal human being. She’s one of the organizers of WriteOnCon, which takes a huge amount of time – I can imagine. Basically, we’ve seen her everywhere.

So if you want a breathless read with incredible characters and writing then buy Surrender. It releases Tuesday!

And don’t you want to find out what happened to Jag and Vi….?

But wait you didn’t read Possession?

That’s okay. Surrender is a companion novel and you can read it without having read Possession. It helps but not necessary!

Elana organized a cool blogfest next week. Sign up on her blog to post about a time you never Surrendered. And you have to read her blog post about Fear. Elana at her best – open and honest.

Purchase Surrender at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Who are some of your favorite YA couples?

 

Comments { 11 }

My first blogfest – Opening Pages

By on April 2, 2010 in Writing

I love reading opening pages. It’s so enlightening and fun to see how other writers approach the all important first page.

For a complete list of the other writers participating click over to Kelly’s blog.

Below is the first page from my middle grade contemporary fantasy titled, How to Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings.

Survival Tip 1       Never doubt the power of the pumpkin pie.

  I hid in the shadows of the hallway outside our kitchen—the perfect place to do a little yoga before one of the hardest missions of my twelve-year-old life.

I had to talk to my dad, who is more like a clam than a canary when it comes to certain subjects. Like missing relatives.  

My hands on the floor and my body in the push-up position, I took a deep breath and dipped into the double dog dare. Don’t get me wrong. My dad talks to me about all sorts of things, especially when it comes to the History Channel and ancient civilizations. But he doesn’t understand the seriousness of split ends or the fact that girls need cell phones (not walkie talkies).

I arched into the alley cat. Communicating with a biological parent shouldn’t be that difficult. We both speak English. And, impossible tasks are my thing. For example, I finally beat my cousin, Melvin, at checkers. Though he claims it never happened. And I figured out how to keep shoelaces tied. Just make sure you can slip your foot in and out of your shoe before using the hot glue. Seriously.   

But none of that was important.

Not compared to finding Zebulon, my grandfather, who’d been missing for two years.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be reading through a lot of first pages today! Join in the fun.

Comments { 34 }
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