Book Festivals and New Release by Diane Burton

Is it worth it to do book festivals? I've participated in six events in two and a half months. Most were local, so mileage wasn't too bad. Plus, most I shared a ride with another author, which cut the gas and table cost in half. But, here's the kicker question: did I break even? Half and half. That's disappointing. I have three more this fall, then it's time to re-evaluate.

When sitting at a table, watching potential readers sail by is disheartening. But sometimes they stop and pick up my book. I tell them a little about it--like it takes place nearby, which always gets a smile. Just when I think they'll buy it, they set the book down and say they'll be back. I know they won't. They're just being polite. 

But then there's a person who buys all three books in a series because she's going on vacation and wants to read mysteries. Yay! Or the person who says she's read all my books and wants the newest one. Double yay!

A book event is a mixture of surprised elation and heartbreak. Besides the cost of gas and the table, there's also the time. Should I be home writing the next story or working on promo? Or playing with the grandkiddies? The latter is the most fun.

In anticipation of these events, I finally put two of my shorter books (ROMANCE REKINDLED and MISSION TO NEW EARTH) in paperback. ROMANCE REKINDLED is a Christmas story, so I have big hopes for that one the closer we get to the holidays.

Now for the best news. In August, I received the rights back to ONE RED SHOE, a romantic suspense. I love this book. I love all my books, but this one has a special place in my heart. Our own Alicia Dean did the original editing and made the story so much better. Because the cover art belonged to the publishing house, I needed a new one. Our own Alison Henderson did the cover. I hope you think it's as good as I do. I love it!

Here's a little about ONE RED SHOE:

Blurb:

It Happened One Night meets Knight and Day

When elementary teacher Daria Mason left Iowa for a writers’ conference in New York City, she didn’t expect to come home with a wounded spy. Sam Jozwiak works for a shadow agency that gathers intel vital to U.S. security. From the moment he steals digital files from a Russian Mafia kingpin, Murphy’s Law takes over. No matter how he covers his tracks, the kingpin’s assassins find him. What’s worse than getting shot in the butt? Accepting help from an Iowa tourist. Thus, begins a road trip that takes Sam and Daria cross country with the assassins right behind them.

Excerpt:

For the second time in her life, Daria Mason came face-to-face with a man pointing a weapon at her. A pervert, with unzipped jeans, wielded a green box knife. Because she’d raced into the restroom without checking out the situation, he now stood between her and the exit.

She was at the end of the proverbial rope. After walking in circles, she finally found a restroom and nobody was stopping her from using it. Especially not someone playing copycat with that guy in the movie who wore one red shoe.

“I am having a really bad day,” she declared in the don’t cross me voice she used on her brothers. As soon as her words echoed off the hideous pink and black tiled walls and floor, she lowered her voice. “You are in the wrong place, mister. Now zip up and get out.” She pointed straight-armed toward the door.

The man shook his head and set the flimsy knife on the counter. “Lady, you have more guts than sense. You are in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” His voice was even softer than hers. He eyed her with a look so dark and intense it paralyzed her like a hawk freezes its prey. She swallowed past the fear in her throat, certain it sounded like a gulp.

ONE RED SHOE is available for pre-order at Amazon http://a.co/d/8DH9M5H

An Unexpected Location Photo-op by Alison Henderson

As some of you know, I recently had a nasty little surprise when I decided to be a responsible homeowner and have our septic tank proactively pumped. The crew discovered the 45-year-old concrete tank was cracked and full of tree roots and had to be replaced. A few-hundred-dollar job instantly morphed into many, many thousands. I cried a little, sighed a little, forked over my deposit, and waited.

After four months, I started pestering the company and was told they were out of tanks but expected a shipment the following week. They would call to make an appointment. When the phone rang at 7:55 AM five days later, I thought they were ready to schedule. Oh, no. They would be there in an hour. Yikes! OG and I took very speedy showers and stuffed down our breakfast. Once they started digging, all the plumbing would be off-limits for the duration of the day until the new tank was installed, so we decided to take a road trip.

After a brief debate re: north vs. south, we hopped into the car and headed south down scenic Highway 1 toward Big Sur. Our plan was to have lunch at the iconic Nepenthe Restaurant. We'd driven by, but never stopped there, and it's been on my bucket list for years.

A plus to this plan was that I'm setting my next series, tentatively subtitled Cypress Coast Mysteries, in and around coastal Monterey County. Setting is very important to me, so I grabbed my camera to take a few location shots to remind me of the details. The drive took us across grassy meadows that sloped into the sea and through towering redwood forests. This photo marks the entrance to Los Padres National Forest.

In the first book, Second Wind, the heroine is a kinetic sculptor who lives next to the family's vegetarian restaurant in Big Sur. I had long thought Nepenthe would make the perfect prototype, and was I ever right! It's a glass and redwood structure situated on an oak-studded cliff with stunning views down the coast. Here's the view from our table.

On the way back, I managed to get a great shot of the iconic Bixby Bridge. Amazingly, it's almost the exact view I've been planning to use for the cover. Here's my photo:

And here's the stock photo for the cover:

Any way you look at it, it was a great way to spend what would otherwise have been a very stressful day.

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com 

Road Trip by Diane Burton

I’ve mentioned a time or two that Hubs loves to drive. Being a passenger is an invitation for him to snooze. I’ve adapted by being the navigator. Give me a map (a GPS thingee or my phone) and I can get you anywhere. As you can tell by the map above, it's one I've used a lot--actually, since our first visit after our son moved to Arizona in 2010. Can you imagine Hubs wanted to throw it out and get a new Southwest US map from AAA? Heck, no, I told him. It's got all my notes. Anyway, after all the driving trips to Arizona, the old route is pretty much same-old, same-old: Michigan -> Illinois -> Missouri -> Oklahoma -> Texas -> New Mexico -> Arizona.

When we’re concerned about snow in the mountains (Flagstaff), we’ve taken a diagonal route across New Mexico. I even got to stop in Roswell. Twice! Perfect for someone who writes sci-fi. Soon, that became old, too. So, I suggested we go through Texas on our way home. First thing Hubs and Son mentioned was how close we would be to Mexico. On the map, it looks like the highway runs alongside the Rio Grande. We hear horror stories all the time about Americans being kidnapped, and my imagination worked overtime. I thought about bad guys creeping up the river bank and jumping out in front of our car. Wild imagination, right? For about a hundred miles east of El Paso, we drove next to the river, which we were so far away from that I saw it once or twice.

Next thing the guys said was won’t that take longer. Possibly. But…I’ve never been through that part of Texas—diagonally up through Odessa and Midland then through Fort Worth and Dallas. I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to see oil wells. Not just the pump jacks in the fields that I can see in Michigan, but the rigs/platforms for doing the actual drilling.

You might think that odd until you consider that for four years I worked for an oil and gas company. When I was sent there by a temp agency to do secretarial-type work, I was asked by my boss if I knew anything about oil and gas. I told him I put gas in my car and we heat our home with natural gas. That was the extent. He tried hard not to roll his eyes. What he didn’t know was I’m very curious. I wanted to know everything about how oil got out of the earth and into our cars. Or how natural gas came out and heated our house.

I’m like a sponge when I want to learn something. The guys I worked with were eager to explain things to a novice. After my temp stint was up, I was hired to work in the Land Department—that’s where leases are drawn up before the drilling can start. I still did a lot of secretarial work and learned more.

The thing is…I worked at the corporate headquarters. Never out in the field. I suggested to my (new) boss that we should do a field trip so we understood our jobs better. He said we could. On our own time. LOL Now I suppose Hubs (you know, the one who likes to drive?) and I could have driven up north to see the drilling. Never happened. When the opportunity to see oil rigs from the highway in Texas arose, I had to grab it.

So I convinced Hubs to go that route. Mistake #1: Texas is big, towns are far apart, towns with hotels are even farther apart. Mistake #2: not making a reservation. Hubs likes to see how far we can drive and then stop when we want to. Usually, that works. But not when drilling is going on around our designated stop, Pecos, Texas. Our first clue were the “Christmas trees” (oil rigs) on both sides of the highway. And since it was now dark, they were lit! Just like the nickname.

 

USA Today: Photo Courtesy Sacco, AP

All the pick-up trucks in front of the hotels was our second clue that we might not find a room. Well, there was one room we could have at $245 for the night. Did I ever tell you about Hubs’ Scot’s ancestry? Even though we’d been driving for eleven hours, no way was he paying that much for a room at a Comfort Inn. We drove on down the road. The hotel apps on my phone weren’t working. The internet wasn’t working. How the heck do you find the number for reservations?

Shakespeare said, “All’s well that ends well.” I found a phone number, got a reservation for a room at the next town. We’d driven 700 miles in 12 hours through two times zones. We were whipped. It’s amazing what comfortable beds and a good night’s sleep can accomplish.

In our youth, we could drive through the night and think nothing of it. We’d take turns sleeping and had a blast. Newsflash. We aren’t young anymore. The second day, even though we drove through (around) Fort Worth and Dallas, we stopped earlier. I'm writing this on Saturday, our 3rd day on the road. No problems. Until the storms started. Thank goodness, we're in a hotel room where we watched on TV about all the flooding...of the highway we're supposed to take in Illinois. Hopefully, we'll make it home. (I'll let you know in the comments.)

I don’t think Hubs was thrilled with my route. But we saw parts of the country we’d never seen before. I got to see the oil rigs. If I’d planned ahead, we could have stopped at the Petroleum Museum in Midland. I saw the sign as we whizzed past going 75 mph. Oh, well. Maybe another time.

As an aside, I’ve used my experiences at the oil and gas company in my Alex O’Hara PI mystery series. In The Case of the Meddling Mama, one of the characters worked in the Land Department of a fictional oil and gas company. Can’t let experience and good info go to waste.

Once again, Alex O’Hara is up to her ears in mysteries. After surviving an attempted murder, all she wants is R&R time with Nick Palzetti. But his mother leaving his father (“that horse’s patoot”) and moving in with Alex puts a crimp in their plans. Then Nick leaves on assignment and the teen she rescued from an abusive father believes his buddy is doing drugs. Meanwhile, Alex has two easy cases to take her mind off her shaky relationship with Nick—a philandering husband and a background check on a client’s boyfriend. Piece of cake.

Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Kobo ~ Barnes & Noble ~ iTunes ~ Smashwords

Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction, and romance into writing romantic fiction. Besides the science fiction romance Switched and Outer Rim series, she is the author of One Red Shoe, a romantic suspense, and the Alex O’Hara PI mysteries. She blogs here on the 30th of each month.

Ah, the Midwest. Ah, America

I am here to report that I had a most excellent road trip. We loaded up the mini-van to within an inch of its life. We had one couch, one chair, an enormous hassock, two lamps, two end tables, and assorted boxes, sewing machines, lampshades, and cushions.

There was room for me, my passenger, and two small suitcases.

I have to say it was a fun trip. My friend and I talked about everything under the sun, and often didn't talk (while I lapsed into thoughts about plot points in my current book). We managed to find my niece in Colorado (my memory of her house was a tiny bit faulty). Got everything unloaded and up the STEEP stairs to her office, while my great-niece (4 years old) was enthralled by the doll I brought her (my old doll, the one with the special haircut I gave her and all the doll clothes my mother had made).

We stayed for a day with them for a good visit, then made our way through Kansas to visit Marcia's husband's cousin. We had a near brush with a tornado (it was Kansas, after all). A tornado touched down in a town we drove through 2 hours earlier. Other than that, good weather all the way.

We stopped to visit Marcia's cousin (and picked up some furniture from her to bring home, items which she wanted kept in the family. Well, we did have an empty van, so...) Then we visit my sister, and came back home.

2000 miles. 5 states, 5 days.

It was so good to give the furniture to someone who loves it (I've gotten photos of my niece and my great-niece, snuggled on the couch, reading together, just like my Mom did with me and with my niece). Old memories and new ones coming together.

Win-win.

Now back to the writing life. I'm trying to hit a self-imposed deadline and it may be tough to do. But here's hoping for no more unplanned trips, food poisoning, or storms that drop trees on our house (as has happened the past two Junes).

Fingers crossed!

J L
(jayellwilson.com)

Road Trip Through America by Jannine Gallant

I'm going to shamelessly plug my new release using our "America" theme for the month. In case any of you missed my big announcement, Road To Serendipity is now available on Amazon. A little background to bring you up to speed. This is a three book anthology that originally started life as three separate stories for the Class of '85 series. After several years of dismal sales, I took matters into my own hands (and dragged Margo into my devious plot with me.) We took our rights back, edited, changed the reunion to 20 years to make our characters younger since I'm getting the feeling no one wants to read books about old ladies like us, and relocated the reunion from the shores of Lake Ontario in New York to the shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont. Yea! I've actually spent time in Vermont and thought it was absolutely gorgeous. If you saw Chris's post on the subject on the 14th, you'd have to agree. So, the town of Serendipity, Vermont was born.

Back to the Road Trip Through America my title promised. The first story in the Anthology, Lonely Road To You, takes readers from Seattle to Vermont on a cross country drive to the reunion. Kate crashes into Tyler in Montana (literally) and they continue the journey together, with stops in Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore and The Badlands along the way. You won't want to miss their trip!

In  Rough Road Ahead, Chantal leaves New York City for the backwoods of the Adirondack Mountains. Not by choice, mind you. Her cosmetics company is gobbled up in a hostile takeover, and the decrepit hunting cabin is all she has left. I promise you'll enjoy Chantal's transformation from a confirmed city dweller to a woman who learns to appreciate nature.

Finally, Winding Road Home features my hero, Adam, disappointed in Vermont at the reunion while the woman he wanted to see, Chloe, is in Hawaii getting booted off a reality dating show called Get Lei'd. Don't worry, they hook up at the Lake Tahoe Marathon where they're both hot and sweaty and gasping for breath... Moving on from Tahoe, the story wraps up at Chloe's home on the California coast. (Check Alison's post from the 15th for photos of this area!)

So, for a journey from coast to coast across America, you won't want to miss Road To Serendipity. You can also check out Margo's Serendipity stories by picking up a copy of Saturday In Serendipity. Hope you'll enjoy both books!

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