Book Release, Kindle Freebie, & Grand Giveaway!

I’m pleased to share with you my latest release, Love Request. This one is special to me because it’s not only the first romance I penned, but it features a “hearing-impaired” heroine, like myself.

I say “hearing –impaired” because really, there’s nothing wrong with Ciara. She’s not damaged or in need of repair. She just can’t hear as well as others.

As a reader, I grew tired of all the women in romance novels being perfect. In real life, many of us have disabilities—and they are disabilities others can’t see. And worse, they are disabilities others can’t understand, and a lot of times what people don’t understand becomes something they fear…and belittle.

This is where the bullying comes in. You see, this is more than just a romance novel. Open its pages, hit that Kindle “next page” button, and find out for yourself. Learn. Be enlightened. Relate.

Want to sample it first? No problem. Available on Kindle and FREE for the next five days, is a humorous Valentine short story, Mating Instinct.

You’ll find the first chapter of Love Request at the end.

Thank you, readers, for celebrating this special time with me. Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of you, I’m giving away a print copy of Love Request, a plush dog, a lipstick for that special date, and 5 pheromone-soaked chocolate incense sticks! WARNING: Be careful if dogs are in the vicinity.

Blurb:

When Ciara Littleton finally joins Facebook to socialize without the limits her hearing impairment gives her, she looks up a childhood friend on a whim. In sending him that first message, she ignites the memories of a crush from twenty years ago. Can a simple friend request fix all that stands between them and maybe even lead to something more?

Hunter's plate is full. A recent divorce, a pregnant sister, and now, he realizes he's in love with a woman who lives states away. Can he overcome the boundaries of Internet romance to make this desire turn into something real, or will adversity and distance be their undoing?

This book was formerly titled A Facebook Affair and has been revised with a new ending.

Love Request has been named a LASR Best Book and is now up for vote on Best Book of 2012 Poll. You can cast a vote here. I’m so excited and so grateful!

Blurb for Mating Instinct:

This is exactly what you need!

It’s Valentine’s Day and when Ariel receives a package of incense in the mail from her Pagan friend and mentor, she isn’t sure what to make of the enclosed note. Sure, she has some issues, but who doesn’t?

When the smoke releases its magic, Ariel gets an evening of surprise humor and romance, and it is indeed exactly what she needs.

Links:

Love Request on Amazon

Mating Instinct FREE

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Best Valentine's Day Ever

I wrote this for Romance Junkies, a giveaway that was done in a chat room. As I couldn't direct my family and friends to the chat group, I decided to also post it on my blog. Cause this is one of the best things I've ever wrote.

My Best Valentine's Day Ever Was:

NOT romantic for starters. I was only eight years old, maybe nine, and my hero was my DAD. I was in the second grade, and my dad worked a ways away. I only saw him in the evenings, and he was often tired (he worked hard!) or planning a sermon. He was a minister too at the time.

Like Ciara, the heroine in Love Request, I battled school bullying everyday due to my hearing impairment.

Well, my mother always came to pick me up at school, but that VD, I walked out of my classroom, and who was waiting for me?? My dad!!! Right there in my school hallway! He had gotten off of work early, and he was picking me up. You know the term "grinning from ear to ear?" That was me. I was grinning ear to ear.

Not only did my dad get off work early and take me home, but he handed me a little plastic heart full of those conversation hearts right there in front of my classmates! They were jealous! LOL It felt good to make the mean girls jealous. Their dads didn't come pick them up with a heart full of candies!

I ate them slowly, and I saved the container.

That was my best VD ever. :)

What was yours? Did it involve a hunk? A high school sweetheart? Or was your hero your dad?

               My daddy and I. I was three.

Valentine Delights: Kiss Me Anthology from Still Moments Publishing

This is an anthology of three short stories just in time for Valentine's Day.

First up, is The 14 Days of Valentines by Maggie Devine.

A woman lawyer suddenly gets a secret admirer who sends her expensive gifts everyday starting Feb 1 till Valentine's Day when she's supposed to don her new dress, earrings, and bracelet and meet her potential suitor for a fancy dinner. Who is the man? Is her boss, John, who has been trying to convince her for some time that they would be good together? Or is it HIS boss whose she's had HER eyes on, but is otherwise taken? Or is it that man upstairs who just wants to bed her?


Liked: I honestly didn't know who it was till it was revealed. Common sense kept telling me it was the guy she wanted it to be, BUT there were enough doubts in the story to keep me on my toes. I started questioning the happily ever after and who it may be with.


Didn't like: The abrupt ending. And no, it has nothing to do with it being a shortie. I love shorties. I just didn't feel the connection required btw these two, who have never dated before, but are suddenly planning to have sex and live together. Relationships don't build to that level without some dating.


Second up, Love's Fortune by Nicole Zoltack.
Woman loses job, is walking the street, when she's offered another job...at the circus! That's pretty cool! So she takes the job as a fortune teller, meets a shape shifting lion, and kinda learns some stuff from her new job: such as, she needs to practice what she preaches.


Liked: The way she makes a widowed woman feel better about moving on.. the way she tells a man that the only reason he hasn't found love is because he's shut himself off, basically. He's preventing himself from finding love. In the process, the heroine realizes she's doing the same thing. Real sweet moral there.


Didn't like: Fail to see how the shape shifting really moved anything along. Or them wanting her to be a witch. The shape shifting, except for him saving her life, didn't mean anything.


Third, The Designer's Bride by W. Lynn Chantale.
Story contains both sensual content and suspense. The sensual is hot, sexy sex between the heroine and the man she loves and wants to marry. The suspense plays into the story when her father keeps barging into her life demanding she marry a man she hates, said man in tow with him everywhere. He's a real jerk. I didn't like him at all.


Liked: The sex. Also loved Jordan, the hero, and how he makes everything just perfect from the ring to the dress to the plans. I thought that was just awesome. Except for the dad, this story was like a fantasy come true. It also had me reeling for a minute there toward the end as I seriously worried things were ruined. Also, Chantale injects the perfect amount of description into her story, not too much, not too little.


Didn't like: I would have liked things to end better btw the heroine and her dad. I got kind of sad by the way things panned out there. I would hate for my dad and I to be on the outs like that. This was my favorite story, however due to the sensual elements and just OMG hero.


Conclusion: Four stars for this anthology. :) I receive this from an author who wanted my honest opinion.


Buy here: http://www.stillmomentspublishing.com/p/ebook-store.html