Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! Mine has been very, very busy, since I’m hosting my family’s Christmas get together. I look around at the glitter and stray scraps of bright wrapping paper on my living room carpet and wonder why I bothered to vacuum? And cleaning the guest bedroom (which is also my sewing room and office), making the bed, setting out fresh towels, etc, took me THREE hours yesterday, and my brother has spent hardly any time in there! But it’s all worth it. I see him only once a year or so.
I love seeing my brothers and sister, and I’m so glad to have them with me for Christmas, but to be perfectly honest I’ll be happy when they’ve all gone home. My plan for tonight? A hot bath with scented bath salts from Japan, a good book, and a good night’s sleep.
How about you? Do you set aside some reading time? If you haven’t gotten it already, Wolf’s Lady is free on Amazon for the next few days. Here’s the link for Amazon.com. And HERE is the link for Amazon.uk And the entire catalogue of books at Liquid Silver Books is 40% off! That should give you many hours of reading enjoyment. What a wonderful way to unwind from the stress of the holidays.
Happy Reading!
Wolf’s Lady Has Released!
Wolf’s Lady is out!
I’ve priced it at $0.99 through the holidays. After that it will be raised to $2.99. I’ve enrolled it in Kindle Unlimited, so it will be available only at Amazon until March. After that it will be at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, the iBookstore, and Smashwords.
Wolf’s Lady takes place a few months after Wolf’s Vengeance. In this 45,000 word novella we get a look at Sky and what he’s been doing, and we re-visit Sara, Stone’s mate.
In the year 2070, there are no cool advanced technical gadgets or weapons. In fact, most people are living like it’s the American frontier all over again. Terrorists used nuclear devices to simultaneously destroy most major US cities, as well as major cities in other countries. With the huge loss of life, the infrastructure crumbled. Hospitals and rescue services were so overwhelmed that they failed. The terrorists also released a virus that later came to be known as the Woman Killer Plague. It killed both men and women but more women died, making females valuable commodities.
This is the world of Sand Wolfe, a lonely bachelor of the Lakota Wolf Clan, and Miss Amanda, the woman his wolf claims as their mate.
Sand goes to Omaha to work as muscle in his cousin Sky’s whorehouse. There he meets his mate, Miss Amanda, who also works in Sky’s House, although in a very different position. She is the only woman his wolf will allow him to have, and she’s the only woman he wants. He will do anything to convince her to accept his mate claim.
Can a businesswoman leave her glamorous life and settle down in a wolf den? Amanda finds Sand’s methods of persuasion very persuasive. But will the men of Omaha allow her to leave? Sand figures he might have to kill a few of her clients, but it’s a small price to pay to bring his mate home.
BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON.COM
BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON.UK
Wolf’s Lady News
In this day and age of digital publishing (and Amazon) authors have many options in getting their stories out to the reading public. I’d say 99.999% of us write because we have stories we want to tell. Having people read them and then tell us, “I really enjoyed your book!” is the greatest return we could receive for the hours we put into our writing. But making a little monetary income from our work never hurts, you know? My original plan was to release Wolf’s Lady for free everywhere. I’ve since decided to put it up at Amazon for $0.99 in their KU and Select programs. It will go up at Barnes & Noble and Kobo and the iBookstore in March, but that’s not fair to those I told it would be free. So I will be including links for free .ePub, .pdf, and .mobi downloads in the newsletter I will send out next weekend.
So if you don’t get my newsletter, the sign up link is on the right. I won’t be offended if you sign up in November and cancel in December. 🙂
Happy Reading!
Come To My Party!
Did you know that Wednesday, October 29, 2014 is the day the plane left Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and crashed a few hours (and fifty years) later in rural Nebraska USA? What plane, you ask? The plane in my make believe world of the After the Crash series. You know, time traveling women courted, wooed, claimed, and mated by hunky wolf shifters who worship them?
*Happy Sigh*
When I wrote the first story I didn’t know it would become a multi-volume set of stories, and I didn’t know I would still be writing them when the day actually rolled around. Back in 2010 I figured I’d be long done with this series, if it even sold at all. But here I am, hard at work on Wolf’s Princess, the last story in this story ARC, and October 29 is only a few days away. People like to read my stories. I thought that called for a party!
So, I’ll be hosting a Facebook Party on Wednesday. I would love if readers would ask me questions about the series. Is there anything you’ve wondered about characters? I may write one more short story after Wolf’s Princess. Who would you like it to be about? You can ask anything and I’ll do my best to answer.
I’m also going to be giving away a few prizes. My current heroine, Rose Turner, is a spinner and knitter, and in Wolf’s Princess she has a scarf/wrap that she spun and knit. I’ll be giving that away, along with an amethyst bracelet Sky sent her years ago for her birthday. Also, the earrings Connie’s fiancé gave her and which she wears to her wedding (and wedding night!) with Des. I have two sets of the paperbacks to give away. And lots and lots of downloads, and coupons for audio books. The Grand Prize will be two ARCs of Wolf’s Princess.* I will set up individual threads for each prize and I’ll draw a winner from the comments in that thread. Since not everybody is in my Time Zone, comments will remain open until Thursday evening at 6:00 pm Central Tine (that is the time of Mexico City, Chicago, Minneapolis) So if you’re in Sydney AU the party begins at 9:00am Thursday October 30 and comments close at 10:00am Friday October 31. You can check out the time differences HERE.
*I have to admit the manuscript isn’t done. I had thought the rough draft would be completed by now, but it’s isn’t. The winners will receive the rough first draft as soon as I’ve finished. My target goal is December 1. They will also receive the finished product when it is published in the format of their choice.
The first 4 books and 2 novellas in the series
Connie’s Earrings
Rose’s handspun handknit wool scarf
Click HERE to go to the Facebook Page!
I hope to see you there!
Without Words by Ellen O’Connell
The newest book by one of my favorite authors of Western Romance has just gone up for pre-order today. If you enjoy western romance, why not head over to Amazon and order it? Ellen’s heroines are strong without being stupidly feisty. Her heroes are to die for. Rugged, strong, and just a little different than the typical run of the mill cowboy. It sounds like bounty hunter Bret Sterling will be another hero to make me dream. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to reading Without Words. I have mine already ordered, and now I can’t wait for September 30!
Bounty hunter Bret Sterling kills Rufus Petty, thief and murderer, less than ten feet away from a frightened, half-starved woman. Rufus should have surrendered. The woman should have kin to help her. But Rufus went down shooting, and the woman has no one. Bret figures by the time he finds a safe place to leave Hassie Petty, he’ll earn the five hundred dollar reward several times over.
Hassie doesn’t mourn Rufus, but the loss of the ten dollars he promised her for supplies is a different matter. The bounty hunter gives her nothing, takes everything, ties the body on one horse and orders her on another. Afraid if she defies him, he’ll tie her down tighter than Rufus, Hassie mounts up and follows the icy-eyed killer.
Mismatched in every way, the sterling man and petty woman travel the West together, hunting thieves, deserters, and murderers. Wary traveling companions, friends and partners, lovers, Bret and Hassie must decide what they want, what they need, and the price they’re willing to pay for love.
To order or learn more about Without Words, click below
Without Words
Sizzling Summer Nights Bloghop!
Sky Wolfe, hero of Wolf’s Princess
Welcome to Maddy Barone’s stop on the Sizzling Summer Nights Bloghop! If you fall off, you can CLICK HERE to get back on the bloghop.
I’m glad you’re here! I love these bloghops. Read on to find out how to win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card.
I am currently hard at work on the last book in my After the Crash series, called Wolf’s Princess. You can see from the pic that Sky has grown up. (and very nicely, too!) If you haven’t read the series, it’s kind of hard to say exactly which genre it fits in. Shifter? Yep. Post Apocalyptic? Yep. Time travel? Yep. Paranormal? Yep. Dystopian? Yep. If you’d like to know about my hot and yummy Alpha wolves, you can click the Books link or the Excerpts link above.
The hop organizers will be giving away a download of any of my backlist in digital or audio format, but I am giving away two separate prizes here on my blog. One is a $10.00 Amazon gift card, and the other is a different sort of off-the-wall prize…
One person who leaves a comment will be chosen to “design” Rose’s cat. I’ll email the winner Sunday night with a short questionnaire to determine what the cat looks like, its name, etc. In return that cat will have a small but pivotal role in Wolf’s Princess, and the commenter will receive the $10.00 gift card to Amazon.
This is either the silliest prize ever offered on a bloghop or the coolest. I’m not sure which! Either way, thanks for stopping and Happy Hopping!
Writing Update! News! Read All About It!
It’s probably not as exciting as the subject line sounds, but I thought I’d post to let you know what I have going at the moment. Summer is here in North Dakota USA, so I’m sweating and moaning about the heat and humidity. In five months I’ll be shivering and moaning and the cold and the windchill. lol But I should get to the point.
So, NEWS:
I will be part of a blog hop beginning Friday August 1 and ending Sunday August 3. That’s next weekend! I love these bloghops because they are so well run, and there are tons of great prizes. Not just gift cards and free books, but the grand prize is a Kindle Fire. I will be offering a download of any of my ebooks or audiobooks, plus I’ll be running another contest on my blog. If you are a cat lover, you might like to sign up. One winner will have the right to name and design Rose’s cat. This cat will be Sky’s mortal enemy, but even Sky has to love him when he helps to save Rose. You can signup for an email reminder at www.JustRomance.Me So, be sure to swing by next weekend.
The other thing is that on Wednesday October 29 2014 I’ll be having a Facebook Party. We’ll chat and you can ask me any question, and I’ll be having games and prizes. The main prize will be a (very raw and unedited) ARC of Wolf’s Princess. I’ll be sending out more info on that in a couple of months.
WRITING UPDATE:
We are coming to the end of Wolf’s Lady, the serial short story I’ve been posting on Tuesdays on my blog. I haven’t posted all of it, and I think it will be about 35,000 words long. I plan to have it released for free on December 5, 2014. It will be on my website, and Smashwords. I’ll upload it on Amazon also, but they don’t allow a book to be started at FREE. It must be at least $0.99, and then people can report it as free in other online stores and Amazon will match the price. So you might want to download it from Smashwords if you prefer a format for kindle. More about that to come.
I feel like I’m doing well with Wolf’s Princess. I love, love LOVE this story. Sky is half Alpha jerk and half tender lover. Rose is snarky, pragmatic, and brave. Once she figures out what she wants, she goes for it. Poor Sky doesn’t have a chance. Not that he complains after the first few chapters. I hope to have it ready to go out to the Beta readers by mid-October and hopefully will have it submitted to Liquid Silver by mid-November. I can’t tell you for sure when it will be released, because it depends on the publisher’s schedule, how long edits take, etc, but my educated guess is late February to mid March.
Well, I better sign off and get Rose and Sky going on their first kiss. Fireworks are about to erupt in the form of a jealous, mean feline who despises Sky. 🙂
How To Make Win Win Magnets
I have some old business cards left over, and I’m too darned stingy to just throw them away. My sister and my niece made me some fridge magnets, and while I was admiring them, a thought popped into my head. Hey! I could make some cute magnets out of my business cards! It took me almost no time to make a dozen of them, and didn’t cost very much, and now I’ve gotten rid of some old business cards that were just taking up space. That’s what I call a Win Win! And then I thought: Wow! What a great thing to do with lots of the swag that I’ve gotten. I mean, I hardly read paperbacks anymore, so I could recycle all those great bookmarks I’ve picked up at conventions that are too nice to throw away. Oh, and maybe my mom would like some magnets with the grandkids’ pictures! Or those Christmas cards I keep saving but never do anything with could be great seasonal magnets! And the more I thought, the more hooked I became on this quick and easy craft. And, being a nice, generous person, I thought I’d share how I did it.
Gather supplies. I used the following:
Glass bubbles.
I don’t actually know what these are called, but they are glass round things flat on one side and rounded on the other. You can get them in the floral section in the craft store, or in the mosaic making section. Mine are about 1 inch in diameter and about a quarter of an inch tall. Mine cost $2.99 for a 2 pound bag. You can get something like them for a buck at the dollar store. Or you can buy square glass tiles for a bit more.
A clear adhesive to glue the picture onto the bubble.
I looked at my glue supplies at home, and considered the Mod Podge, but it was pretty thick and old. I picked up some “Glossy Accents” at the craft store for $5.99. I couldn’t find Diamond Glaze, which is what others have used.
Magnets
I bought a 48 count pack of 3/4 inch round magnets for $7.99.
Glue
A good, strong glue is what you want here. I already had some E6000, but Goop would be fine, or whatever you like.
Pictures
Anything you want. Scan and print photographs. Cut out pieces of pretty wrapping paper, old Christmas cards, Valentine’s cards, paper swag from Romance Conventions like bookmarks, trading cards, and postcards, or whatever you want.
Hole Punch
This actually optional. I already had a 1 inch round hole punch from my scrap booking days. A pair of scissors would work just fine. If you decide to buy one it would cost under $10.00.
Directions:
1. Clean the glass bubbles to be sure there’s no lint or dust on them.
2. Cut out your paper. Should be a hair smaller than the flat side of the glass bubble. Doesn’t have to be exact. The glass isn’t always a perfect circle.
3. Smear a small amount of adhesive to the flat side of the bubble.
4. Place the paper on flat side of bubble, picture side to glass, and gently move it around to be sure the adhesive coats all parts of the paper. Smooth it flat to get any air bubble out. Let dry an hour or so, until it is completely dry.
5. Squirt a pea sized dollop of the strong glue to back of picture. Press magnet firmly into the glue. Set aside to dry.
Done! See how easy that is? Unique and fun gifts that take very little time and very little money. Even if you have to buy every item needed, including the hole punch, and pay to have old photos printed out, I think the magnets come out to about $0.49 each. But watch for sales and clip coupons, and it’s more like $0.28 each. A set of 6 would be a great stocking stuffer gift and could be tailored to the recipient. Know a quilter? Know a cat lover? This is a perfect, easy gift with a quirky, personal touch that won’t take weeks to make or break your budget. That’s why I call these Win Win Magnets.
Happy Fourth of July!
Here in the States, we’re celebrating our Independence Day. For most of us that means, picnics, parades, and Fireworks.
Well, I have some fireworks to set off too. Rose and Sky will be pretty explosive. Click Here to read the first two chapters UNEDITED of Wolf’s Princess.
Happy Fourth and Happy Reading!
Sleeping With the Wolf FREE!!
I am so excited! My first book is FREE!
iTunes is running a First In Series world-wide promotion this summer, and my After the Crash series was selected for it. That means Sleeping With the Wolf is FREE at iTunes for the next few weeks. I don’t know how to link to iTunes, but you can go there and search for Sleeping With the Wolf.
My publisher, LSBooks, has set the book to Free at some other online bookstores too. If you don’t have a copy yet, you can click the links below. Tell your friends too. This is only a for a few weeks, so grab it now!
At Amazon
At Barnes & Noble
