New Release - Undercover Nanny by Alison Henderson

Yippee! I have a new release!! UNDERCOVER NANNY is here!!!

There were many times over the past eighteen months when I didn't think I'd be able to say that. As I told Jannine last week, sometimes it takes a village, and let me tell you, this book took a village and then some. I needed--and received--more help with this one than anything I've ever written. Happily, the end result is something I think we can all be proud of.

When I asked for input on the blurb, many of you responded with suggestions. If you look closely, you may see a few of your own words in the final version.

BLURB:

Kidnapping. Extortion. Antiquities smuggling. Add one light-fingered, bad-tempered monkey, and it’s all in a day’s work for novice bodyguard Casey Callahan when she’s hired to protect the five-year-old niece of a handsome archaeology professor.

Alec Bainbridge has been balancing excavation and teaching duties with single parenthood since the death of his sister. When a stranger attempts to kidnap his niece, he hires a bodyguard to pose as the little girl’s nanny. However, the young woman who shows up is a far cry from the matronly type he was expecting.

Amid break-ins, anonymous threats, and arson, Casey and Alec race to identify the villains before they harm the child or make off with a priceless Egyptian artifact. All the while, their mutual attraction complicates an already volatile situation. With an innocent child’s life at stake, Casey and Alec risk everything to solve the mystery before their growing feelings become the final casualty.

Balthazar, the monkey, was one of my all-time favorite characters to write and plays an important role in the story. Have you heard the old show business warning against working with children or animals because they'll always upstage you? Well, UNDERCOVER NANNY has both, and this short excerpt gives you a taste: 

Alec climbed the two flights of stairs to the playroom, where he found Grace and Balthazar playing her current favorite make-believe—Jungle Adventurer. Grace was wearing her pith helmet, while the monkey sported his veiled pink princess hat.

“He’s a giant gorilla who’s rescuing the hippo from the flooded river.” She pointed at her stuffed hippo, who was wrapped in an old blue bath towel.

       Alec gave a mental shrug. After the kind of day he’d had, he could see no reason why a heroic giant gorilla shouldn’t wear a conical pink princess hat.

Like the first two books in this series, UNDERCOVER NANNY mixes a healthy dose of heart-warming emotion and humor with the suspense. I just hope readers will enjoy it as much as the others.

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com 

Addicted to #Suspense #Giveaway by Brenda Whiteside

I wanted to let you all know about a really great giveaway that is still going. There's one more week left so hurry on over and get in for your chance to win Kindles, a gift card and a whole lot more!

ADDICTED TO SUSPENSE GIVEAWAY

Enter now for your chance to win! 

March 13-31

Readers of romantic suspense, mysteries, and thrillers, I have a giveaway just for you! Enter now and you could take home a Kindle Fire HD8, Kindle Fire 7, or Amazon gift card. Have you been eager to get your hands on that new suspense bestseller? Win one of 4 ebook prize packs also among the list of prizes and you can tell us which books to buy to feed your reading habit: suspense, mystery, thriller. CLICK HERE TO ENTER THIS FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY

Plus, shop our book fair for some heart-pounding reads from our talented group of sponsoring authors writing in your favorite genres. CLICK HERE FOR THE BOOK FAIR

It's a dynamite event you don't want to miss!

This Giveaway is Sponsored by

Alex Gordon • Amanda Uhl • Angela Sanders • Ava Bradley • Brenda Whiteside • BV Lawson • CB Samet • Colleen Mooney • Dara Carr • DiAnn Mills • Donna R. Mercer • Ellen Byron • Ethan Jones • Eva Winters • Fiona Quinn • Greta Boris • Inge-Lise Goss • J. L. Lora • Jacqueline Diamond • JC Andrijeski • Jennifer St. Giles • Judith Lucci • Julie Mulhern • K A Servian • Kris Michaels • Kristy Tate • Mimi Barbour  • Monique Singleton • Naomi Bellina • P. Creeden • PJ Fiala • RM Alexander • Sahara Roberts • Stacey Joy Netzel • Stephanie Queen • Stephany Tullis • Tamara Ferguson • Tamra Lassiter • Taylor Marsh • Tee Smith

Happy Double Birthday to Me by Alison Henderson

Tomorrow is my birthday, as well as the book birthday for BOILING POINT, book two in my Phoenix, Ltd. female bodyguard series. Although I don't usually do anything special to mark either occasion, this time I plan to cut loose. Six years ago this month, my first book was published, and tomorrow I'll be celebrating the release of my sixth book. (Much more fun than marking the occasion--once again--of being older than dirt.) 

Since I self-publish and control my own schedule, I chose this release date on purpose. OG usually takes me out to dinner for my birthday, and I've never done anything more than sit around anxiously on my book release dates. I'm not sure why that is. For some reason, I seem to be afraid to celebrate, even though each book marks the successful conclusion of a HUGE amount of work. Maybe it's a cultural hangover of being raised not to blow my own horn. (My mother's motto was, "There's always room for improvement.") Maybe I'm secretly afraid I'll jinx things if I make any noise. Whatever the reason, this time I've decided to do things differently.

For the first time, I've decided to spend a little money. Instead of begging my friends for free space on their blogs, I've hired a company called Loving the Book to coordinate a release day Book Blitz with a group of higher profile book bloggers than I could reach on my own. I'm putting UNWRITTEN RULES, the first book in the series, on sale for $.99 for the first three days and paid a couple of sites to promote it in hopes it will spur some sales for BOILING POINT. I've even paid Facebook to boost a few posts about the new book and have been pleased by the number of likes from complete strangers. It's quite possible none of these things will make the slightest difference in sales, but I've only spent a little over $100, and least I tried. Whatever the outcome, tomorrow night I plan to celebrate with OG over Yin Yang Salmon at my favorite restaurant.

BOILING POINT really is a fun book. Here's the blurb:

Zoe Hargrove’s first solo assignment as a bodyguard is off to a rocky start. On the way to her client’s lakeside estate, a pair of kamikaze bikers nearly runs her off the road. Upon arrival, she learns she’s expected to work undercover as a personal chef—a potential disaster since she can barely burn water—while secretly protecting the client’s pregnant wife from a potential assailant. To top things off, her culinary assistant will be the client’s latest invention—a robotic sous chef named GRAMPA.

And if that isn’t enough, the couple’s dangerously handsome chauffeur, who looks more like a prize fighter than a car jockey, glowers at her as if she’s about to steal the silver. Zoe soon suspects he’s hiding secrets of his own, but can she uncover them in time to stop the escaped criminal who threatens them all?

And here's a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

As soon as she transferred her weight, pain shot through her ankle and up her shin. She gasped and grabbed the bannister. Two seconds later, she was back in Nick’s arms.

“Put me down,” she hissed in protest. “It took me by surprise, is all.”

“Shut up,” was his only response.

She told herself she didn’t want to make a scene and risk waking the Prescotts, so she might as well settle back and enjoy the ride. It almost worked.

As he carried her up the grand staircase, visions of Tara flashed through her mind. Although he didn’t take the stairs two at a time like Rhett Butler, all she needed was a lush, red velvet dressing gown to transform into Scarlett O’Hara. Oh, and the anticipation of a night beyond her wildest dreams.

      That was so not happening.

BOILING POINT is available for Kindle and in paperback at: http://amzn.to/2cw9hPX

Wish me luck!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

When Things Fall into the Wrong Hands by Alison Henderson

Last week I was staring at our topics for the month, waiting for inspiration to strike, and this one began to worm its way into my brain. Fall into the Wrong Hands. I write romantic suspense, so I ought to be able to do something with that, right?

In fact, following my Christmas short story collection, my next project will involve industrial espionage—something falling into the wrong hands. I’ve written most of the first chapter and have a pretty good idea where the story is going, but I would love a little help brainstorming, so put on your plotting caps!

This book, tentatively entitled BOILING POINT, will be the second in the Phoenix, Ltd. female bodyguard series, so I want it to be similar in tone—light, snappy, and suspenseful, with a strong dose of humor.

Here’s the premise:

An eccentric inventor has hired Zoe Hargrove to pose as a personal chef while protecting his pregnant wife without her knowledge. Only one problem – Zoe doesn’t know how to cook. As a cover, the client tells his wife Zoe’s there to help him test his latest invention, a cooking robot known as GRAMPA (Great Robotic Automatic Meal Preparation Assistant.

While a representative of a Japanese Electronics Conglomerate, Mr. Watanabe, has been trying unsuccessfully to buy GRAMPA, several incidents have occurred, including attempted break-ins and an episode of road rage. Fearing for her husband’s life, the inventor’s wife has hired a secret bodyguard of her own to protect her husband—Dominick “Nick” Rosetti, a former police detective. Nick is posing as the family chauffeur.

I anticipate lots of mayhem and mistaken identities as Zoe and Nick try to figure out who’s who and protect both their clients from the real villain.

Question #1: Do you think the premise is fun or over-the-top hokey, with all the secrets the characters are hiding from each other?

Question #2: How do you feel about the idea of GRAMPA? The Japanese are crazy about robots that do domestic chores, so that’s too not unrealistic, but do you think American readers will enjoy it? There’s one planned scene where the inventor orders GRAMPA to scare off the man trying to steal his plans with a small kitchen blowtorch. Fun or dumb?

Question #3: Do these characters and the set-up suggest any fun scenes to you?

Any suggestions are welcome. Let your imaginations run wild!

Thanks!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com

Romantic Comedy vs. Drama...Finding the Balance by Jannine Gallant

It occurred to me our two movies this month represent these categories. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is drama. Crazy people in an insane asylum. Screams drama, right? He's Just Not That Into You is billed as romantic comedy--a group of young adults filled with angst over their romantic problems. Their situations are silly and over the top and funny. But there's a darker side to their problems, as you'll find in most romantic comedies. The balance is necessary, or the film turns into an...um...Jim Carrey movie. LOL As for our Cuckoo's Nest, well, have you ever seen Jack Nicholson not be funny? He lightens a serious situation with some really comic lines.

So, basically we need to mix our drama and our comedy in the right proportions to come up with a winning combination. Whether it's in a movie...or a book. I never really thought about it before, but subconsciously I've been doing this all along in my writing.

Asking For Trouble is romantic comedy. I've mixed an inept uncle (the hero) with his precocious baby nephew, and thrown in a heroine who saves his butt on more than one occasion. The resulting situations are funny. (At least I hope they are.) But underneath runs a thread of heartache for both characters because they feel their life goals are simply too different to find common ground, despite the love they share. A little tragedy mixed with the babysitting mishaps. Without the drama, my book would have turned into a Three Stooges episode.

I also write romantic suspense. Some of it can be pretty dark. In A Deadly Love, a serial killer is cutting the hearts out of women--literally. But there's a giant dog who constantly digs holes in the neighbor's yard and a grandmother who wears tie-dye and has some great one-liners. They make the reader smile. (I hope.) Again, a little balance to keep the reader entertained while they bite their knuckles, wondering who the killer will strike down next.

So, do you like your romantic comedy with an underside of drama...and vice versa? Or is mixing genres not your thing?

Visit me at my website to find out more about me and my mishmashed works! 

Movies: Love 'em, Hate 'em by Diane Burton

I love movies. Almost as much as I love reading. Give me a rousing action-adventure or a laugh out loud romantic comedy or, better yet, an action-adventure with romantic comedy. Knight and Day (Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) fits that last category. Bruce Willis’ Die Hard movies combine action adventure with a lot of humor. Fantasy and science fiction movies with humor and/or romance also appeal. Star Wars, Star Trek. I love being swept away into another dimension with likeable characters.

I won’t go so far as saying I hate serious drama, I’m just not a fan. While I can appreciate the talent that goes into making films like Lincoln or Schindler’s List, they aren’t on my “watch again” list. When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey came to the theater, I wanted to see it. Hubs (who isn’t into fantasy but often indulges me) said he couldn’t sit through a 2 hour, 50 minute movie. So what did we see instead? Lincoln (2 hours and 40 minutes). Great performances by Daniel Day Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Sally Field, but for me, the movie dragged.

One of the things I hate about the Oscars is the lack of recognition for comedy. The quote “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” has been attributed to various actors. That’s not as important as the quote itself. Comedy takes perfect timing and the right touch. It can’t be too heavy-handed (like some of the James Bond movies). I love sparkling wit, as in movies like It Happened One Night and All About Eve (both of which won the Oscar for best picture, by the way). Why is it that back in the “olden days” of the 30s and 50s, comedy was recognized and now it’s not?

My taste in movies is about the same as my taste in books. I'm not a fan of literary fiction, either. So I probably won’t see most of the Oscar nominees. But I will continue to enjoy my action-adventure-romantic-comedy-scifi-thrillers.

Writing Programs: Help A Writer, Win an eBook!

Spring is all about new beginnings, and I love it. I’m a spring baby – born on March 21^st, the date many people consider to be the first day of spring, after the Spring Solstice. But it gets more confusing – the solstice can occur on either the 20^th or more rarely, on the 21^st, depending on time zone and year. And then there’s the differences between the Gregorian and the Julian calendars, oh my! Small wonder I get easily confused J

Here in the Great White North (rural Ontario, Canada) Spring is all about planning while waiting for the snow to melt. Yep, we still have plenty of the white stuff. So we browse magazines and catalogues to plan spring wardrobes, pore over seed catalogues and plan for fresh veggies and a riot of flowers.

The seed catalogues contain positively pornographic photos of gorgeous exotic new types of flowers, shrubs, and vegetables, plenty to keep a gardener warm in her dreams until the weather warms up!

Yes, I love the new beginnings Spring offers. But some new beginnings are there all year round. New novel ideas are waiting like gifts to be unwrapped. The secret is to know when the time for the great unwrapping has arrived!

With four new releases in the past four months: The No Sex Clause, Saving Maggie, Judgement By Fire, and Winters & Somers – I’ve been feeling exhausted and a bit jaded. The excitement that goes with a new release involves lots of exhausting promoting and talking about the books – at least, once the editing, formatting, and waiting are over – and all I could think about in the last couple of weeks was NOT writing. My DH and I went out a lot, visiting, shopping, exploring. Planning. I did a lot of catching up with friends who thought I’d fallen off the face of the earth. Reading. Housecleaning. Paperwork. Taxes. But most of all, playing and replenishing the creative well.
And daydreaming.

Then it happened. An idea popped into my head and held out its arms like a newborn to several other ideas that were languishing in a file on the computer. Every writer has a file like this – mine is named IDEAS – not very poetic but gee, it serves the purpose.

So, with ideas linking, characters began to step out of the shadows of my mind and introduce themselves. Considering I write romantic suspense, mystery, and comedy, I sometimes worry about what – or who – exactly is lurking in the shadows of my mind. But let’s not dwell on that!

Anyhow, during my ‘recovery’ time, I’ve been reading a terrific book on getting more written. It’s called 2kTo 10k: Writing Faster,WritingBetter,And Writing More ofWhat You Love. It’s by Rachel Aaron, a prolific writer herself, and well worth reading if you want to – well, if you want to do what it says on the cover!

So now I have a dilemma. I have this terrific idea for a contemporary mystery series leavened with humor, set in a country house in England. My fingers are itching to hit the keys without even an outline – chapter one is already done.

Then I took Ms. Aaron’s advice and downloaded a trial version of Scrivener (click the link for a trial copy). It’s a marvelous program that helps you keep track of, and easily access, everything in your manuscript.

Now I’m torn. Do I plunge into the writing , knowing I’ll face blocks when the plot or characters don’t gel and I’ll have to rework, revamp, or edit like crazy. Or do I take the time out and explore this new program and figure out if it really will work for me?  I know I’ve had problems sometimes (who hasn't?) with having to go back and edit for mistakes in simple details such as character descriptions and names, or chronology. This is a real pain that usually occurs if you have to stop writing for a few days and then try to get back into your manuscript.

So, learn the new program or fly by the seat of my pants into the writing? Any thoughts? Do you use a writing program like Scrivener? Do you outline? Are you a planner or a pantser when it comes to writing? There’s the gift of an ecopy of Saving Maggie from Amazon for the most helpful comment!

 Glenys O’Connell writes romance and mysteries laced with humor. You can read some of her first chapters at Romance Can Be Murder!

A New Beginning in Italy by Catherine McNamara

Today's guest is Catherine McNamara. She's having a drawing so read on and enjoy!

Around six months ago I gave birth to my youngest child. The pregnancy had been long - well over three years - but now my child is running about the globe making faces, exercising her limbs and requiring yards of my time. It has been a New Beginning of the most demanding kind, and I don't see her antics calming down any time soon. My new child is my debut women's romantic comedy 'The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy', published by Indigo Dreams, a small British press.

The first assumption people make is that the novel must be autobiographical. I mean, I am divorced, I live in Italy, I have a bunch of teens at home. But while there are places I know (and invented as well!) and I did borrow shades of certain people I am familiar with, the protagonist couldn't be further away from myself. (She has womanly curves and I am rather skinny!)

Marilyn Wade, dumped by her philandering husband who works in television, hears a rumour about local neighbour Jean Harper. Apparently divorcée Jean Harper had met the love of her life on a Singles Tour and now lived in Milan with her Italian partner and new love child. Marilyn flees to Milan in Jean Harper's wake and attempts to remap her life in the glamorous city.

What follows is Marilyn Wade's New Beginning in Italy. But like all New Beginnings Marilyn's is fraught with linguistic misunderstandings, lack of money and fraudulent friends. Her search for love is messy and embarrassing.

Here is my blurb:
But sexy glamorous Milan is about as unfeeling as a Prada bag. The streets are full of mile-high models, immigrants and remarkable men in suits. Who will she meet as she downs espresso after espresso in bars and learns grammar from a friend of George Clooney? Marilyn's entanglements involve a fetish party, stolen D&G heels and kisses with astonishing views, a kinky Hong Kong benefactor and a stirring love scene set in Venice. Will she ever find herself and a way to conjugate Italian verbs?

Italy of course provides a perfect backdrop for Marilyn's interwoven love stories with both older and younger men. Her transition-by-espresso takes place mostly in chic central Milan but there are also chapters set in Rome, Venice and the enchanting Dolomites. Her efforts to learn the romantic language involve sexy young agronomist Federico - and shades of tantalising punishment and reward. And her attempt at mature online dating throws her into the arms of the unsavoury Brett, who provides her risqué employment that pays much more than her meagre teaching job.

'The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy' is a hilarious dance through modern Italy, but it also tells what happens when a woman is bruised and rejected and has to struggle up again.  We see a woman rebuild a life for her children and regain some self esteem,  we see a woman strive to redefine herself as a sexual being.

It's not my story, but it is a story about a New Beginning in the most delicious of places. Not Eat, Pray, Love, but more Prosecco, Espresso and Linguistics. I hope you will enjoy Marilyn's Mediterranean transition as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Ciao ciao a presto!

Catherine http://thedivorcedladyscompaniontoitaly.blogspot.com

 

From Chapter One:

1.       LONDON

An old friend of mine named Jean fell through a tear in her marriage and landed on her feet. Jean met a solicitor from Milan on a singles trekking tour in Peru and packed her bags one autumn. She sold the house with its clutch of hydrangeas. Her adolescent children learnt Italian with ease. It was reported that at forty-four, Jean gave the Milanese man a chubby male love-child.

Jean wasn’t really a close friend of mine, though we had married the same year and our children were the same wretched ages. The parallel in our stories narrowed one quiet Sunday afternoon in the kitchen, when my husband Peter informed me he had fallen in love with a woman named Danielle and was moving to a flat in Shepherd’s Bush. His words exerted visceral, slow-release punches. I realised he had been naked in the arms of another woman. The first person I thought of was Jean in Milan, framed with dabs of gold from a painter’s brush and a corona of religious spurs. Jean in that moment became my patron saint.

In the aftermath I dropped a stone while waiting for my outrage to burst like rotten fruit on cement. It never happened. Rather, I was curious to know of Danielle’s hair colour and whether her neck had train tracks already faintly sketched; if she blew her nose in public and where she bought her shoes; whether her ovaries were better kernels than mine. I asked Peter. He gave me strained, sideways looks. He refused to include me in this new threesome and I quickly became the lone mare put out to pasture, the divorcée. I walked woodenly through the streets and couldn’t understand how the brand had come to be on my forehead, but now it was there.

Everything that I had taken as given in my life had been swept away.

WIN A COPY OF THE DIVORCED LADY’S COMPANION TO LIVING IN ITALY!: There are two copies of 'The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy' to be given away. Just write down the name of your favourite Italian city and tell us why. The best answer wins!

OR BUY A BOOK OR EBOOK FOR A FRIEND-IN-NEED OF A NAUGHTY MEDITERRANEAN LAUGH!

www.amazon.com

www.amazon.co.uk

www.bookdepository.co.uk  (free worldwide postage)