WELCOME BACK LORI FOSTER

LORI FOSTER

Since first publishing in January 1996, Lori Foster has become a Waldenbooks, Borders, USA TODAY, Publishers Weekly and New York Times bestselling author. She also received the Romantic Times “Career Achievement Award” for Series Romantic Fantasy and Contemporary Romance.

Lori believes it is important to give back to the community as much as possible, so she routinely arranges events among authors and readers to gather donations for various organizations.
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Q&A with Lori Foster

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
The ideas are just… there. I’m so amazed by authors who can teach this stuff, because it’s impossible for me. I’ll be minding my own business (often working on a different book) and bam! I get hid upside the head with characters who want on the page – or sometimes they just show up on the page without even introducing themselves first – and sometimes that’s not enough for them. They want their own books too!

It’s almost magical to me. I could never dissect the process or explain it.

It just is.

Once the characters are there, THEY tell me what the idea is. They lead me through the plot, sometimes page by page – although sometimes they tell me the whole story right up front.

Your routine when writing?  Any idiosyncrasies?
I prefer to write at my desk at the lake house and I write from the morning, say around 10 am (after I’ve finished emails and online stuff) until 5 or 6pm. When I’m under a close deadline that expands with me starting earlier and going later in the day. I’m only at the lake house during mild/warm weather though, and I like my office space at home too. At the lake house, my desk overlooks the lake, and at home my desk faces French doors that lead to the pond. Water inspires me!

I LOVE my music playlist. I have a lot of Kid Rock on there. He’s my fave. Also KORN. Lots & lots of KORN. Some Marilyn Manson. Cage the Elephant. Nirvana. I have a few artists where I like only one song – like “Rumour” by Adele, or “List of Demands” from Saul Williams.  Overall I have around 200 songs on my playlist.

What is your favorite book?
Of my own? Hmmm. Probably “My House, My Rules,” from one of the Bad Boy anthologies.

Of others? Well, I love the Sherbrook series by Catherine Coulter.  If I can only pick one, maybe “Perfect Partners” by Jayne Ann Krentz. It was so brilliant!

What’s on your nightstand right now?
Clock, lamp, decorative tissue box, plug for my iPad, a pair of eye glasses (I have several around the house) and CRASH INTO YOU by Katie McGarry. It’s *amazing.* I’d have finished reading it by now, except we just welcomed our 3^rd grandson into the world and that occupied me for a few days.

What are you working on next?
I just finished Dash’s story. Dash is the brother of the hero from the first book, RUN THE RISK. I think readers will be surprised with Dash now that it’s his turn to reveal his soul. I know I was surprised! I kept thinking, Dash, you devil! Lol.

And now I’m ready to get started on Cannon’s book. Cannon (You met him in GETTING ROWDY) will actually star in the first book of a new series set for Sept 2014.  I really enjoyed him in GETTING ROWDY, and he has a larger role in Dash’s book, DASH OF PERIL (April 2014) so I hope readers like him as much as I do!

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
My favorite pastime is anything with family. We have big family parties at my house. I look for reasons to invite all 60+ people over.

I also love, love, love going to movies. Horror and action are my favorite movie genres, but I can comedy and romance in a pinch. Drama… almost never. Who needs more drama? How is that entertainment?

Also really love the outdoors for relaxing. Hubby and I love to go to Hocking Hills (Fantastic place! Look it up!) or Cumberland Falls or The Natural Bridge. We have a small lake house and I spend much of the summer there. Boating, swimming, skiing… just being outside and seeing the birds and fish and hearing the breeze in the trees and feeling the sun on my skin… Love it.

Favorite meal?
I love roast and mashed potatoes, stuffed pork chops, beef stew and bean soup and sauerkraut with ribs… I’m a country girl.

ABOUT THE BOOK

An alpha hero’s attraction to the one woman he can’t have could draw him into a killer’s snare.

Charismatic bar owner Rowdy Yates isn’t the kind of man women say no to. So when he approaches waitress Avery Mullins, he fully expects to get her number. However, the elusive beauty has her reasons for keeping her distance— including a past that might come back to haunt them both.

Avery spends her nights working for tips…and trying to forget the secret Rowdy is determined to unearth. But when history threatens to repeat itself, Avery grows to rely on Rowdy’s protective presence. As the sparks between them ignite, she will be forced to choose between the security she’s finally found…and the passion she’s always wanted.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Contemp. Romance
Publisher: Harlequin HQN Books
Publication Date: October 2013
Number of Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 978-0-373-77779-2

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WELCOME SARA CONNELL

SARA CONNELL

Sara Connell is an author, speaker, and life coach with a private practice in Chicago. She has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, NPR, The View, FOX News and Katie Couric. Sara’s writing has been featured in: The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Parenting, Psychobabble, Evolving Your Spirit, and Mindful Metropolis magazines. Her first book, Bringing in Finn; an Extraordinary Surrogacy Story (Sept 4, 2012 Seal Press), was nominated for Book of the Year 2012 by Elle magazine.
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GUEST POST

Even before the seven-year journey I took to have a child, I would have said that every birth is extraordinary. The phenomenon of an egg and a sperm joining to create a human life is, to me, miraculous. Paradoxically, I’d always thought, the way an egg and sperm come together—through sex—is a wonderfully basic thing that anyone, regardless of education, creativity, skill or life advantages can do.

Nine years ago, when my husband and I gave ourselves over to the primal desire of having a child, this is what we wanted: a totally normal conception followed nine months later by an extraordinary event—the birth of a healthy child.

Normal, however, did not turn out to be our path.  Instead of dinner out and making love, we drove back and forth from the fertility clinic and took turns injecting hormones into my stomach and behind.  We worked up to IVF and got pregnant! With twins!  Five and a half months into the pregnancy I went into pre-mature labor and the twins were delivered, stillborn.  A year later: a miscarriage, more IVF (six rounds in all). The word “extraordinary” did not enter into conversation during this time, unless it was to describe our extraordinary feelings of grief, despair, and loss.

We took a break. And during this time, my mother, who had, according to her, never done an extraordinary thing in her life, saw a story about a post-menopausal woman who’d become pregnant and made the collosally generous and yes- extraordinary- offer to be a surrogate for our child.

Fearing our fertility clinic might refer us to a team of psychiatrists, we proceeded with caution, trying to guard our hearts. But to our surprise, our doctor did not dismiss our idea.  While the viability of a woman’s eggs are influenced by her years on the planet, it turned out that the uterus does not age in the same way. (definitely extradordinary!)

After batteries of tests, my mother was cleared to be a “gestational host” ( a woman who carries the biological child of a couple).  My eggs were joined with my husband’s sperm and then transferred into my mother’s uterus—and on the second joint IVF attempt, we heard the amazing news: we were pregnant and the pregnancy was advancing.

My mother moved in to our house in Chicago. We read Harry Potter books to the baby. We took walks and cooked my mother nourishing meals of her favorite foods. And in February 2011, thirty-nine weeks after we received that call of congratulations from our doctor, Finnean Lee Connell came into the world.  Two beautiful hands, ten perfectly shaped toes, a face with a tiny nose that lifted up at the end like my husband’s. A beautiful, vibrant new life that the doctors in the delivery room pronounced, perfectly, wonderfully, “normal.”

At two and a half years, Finn is talking, running, making friends and running to the potty – sometimes making it, sometimes not- when he needs to go.  He is – as many parents truthfully but obnoxiously say- our greatest joy; in every way “normal” and most definitely, extraordinary.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Bringing in Finn is the true story of a couple who wanted nothing more than to have a family and a mother who would do anything for her daughter. After unsuccessfully trying to conceive naturally, years of fertility treatments, miscarriage and a late term loss of twins, Sara and Bill Connell were emotionally and financially depleted and at a loss as to how they could have a family. When Sara’s mother Kristine offered to be their surrogate, the three embark on the journey that would culminate in Finnean’s miraculous birth and complete a transformation of their at-one-time strained mother-daughter relationship.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Seal Press
Publication Date: October 8, 2013
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN-10: 1580055419

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…….of This Is Rage by Ken Goldstein

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An email has been sent to the winners and they have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.  Thank you to all that entered.

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WELCOME TONI PICCININI

TONI PICCININI

Toni’s writing career started when she stapled her first “book” together and launched it at a reading attended by her brother, Scotty, and her Boxer, Lonesome. The title-less story was a mash-up of Hansel and Gretel, The Six Swans, and a Box Car Children adventure, with the protagonists (sister, brother, and dog) risking everything in their quest for a magical lump of coal that would save the town. It was an immediate success. During the fifty years between her first and second book, The Goodbye Year: Wisdom and Culinary Therapy to Survive Your Child’s Senior Year of High School (and Reclaim the YOU of You) she has, in no order of importance or chronology

• · opened a “Top 100” San Francisco restaurant
• · published scientific articles on the efficacies of antibiotics
• · sang the National Anthem at high school football games
• · published essays, recipes, and cookbook reviews
• · sent three children off to college

Toni lives in Marin County California, which is a long way from her Western Pennsylvania hometown, Heilwood. She is busy on her next book, which may revisit the power found in a magical lump of coal.
Connect with Toni at these sites:

GUEST POST

How To Reclaim the YOU of You

A funny thing happens on the way to Motherhood Nirvana—we get a little lost. It is so busy being a mom. One day tumbles into the next and by the time we come up for air our baby is a senior in high school. The summer before my oldest and only daughter, Page, started her senior year I could feel the sand shifting beneath me. I had dove into the deep end of motherhood, gratefully, gleefully, and completely. Before Page graduated from pre-school she had a toddler and infant brother at home. We were a family of five and I was defined as “Mommy” a role I cherished. When my first Goodbye Year started I recognized that it would be a year of Last Times. What I didn’t recognize was the woman staring back at me in the bathroom mirror.

 I had three Goodbye Years and they couldn’t have been more different from one another. I was a different person each time, too. As I let go of my need to please everyone in my family I caught glimpses of my authenticity. It didn’t happen in one day, or one year, but the journey back to womanhood was and is a beautiful one.

From Chapter One: The First of the Lasts

“The start of a new school year means new friends and some- times saying goodbye to old ones. The September of your Good- bye Year might also mean saying the first goodbyes to some of the roles that you have taken on as mom. With the last back- to-school night dawns the realization of just how much of your social time is spent with fellow moms, whom you met as you settled into your new roles as purveyor of food, school supplies, and clothes, and conveyer of bodies to class, baseball practice, and dance recital. If your child liked another child, you met the mother, and a friendship was formed. That’s nice. They’re nice. Your friendships are still valid, but ask yourself two questions: Will you spend time with this group after graduation? And what kind of folks might you be spending time with if this had never happened, this being your motherhood?

To Do: Join a New Group
It can be as easy as taking a class. Are you interested in photography? Not the family-photos-on-the-annual-vacation kind; I’m talking about black-and-white shots of raindrops pearled on a paned window. Maybe you really know how to apply eye shadow. That’s a skill and could be your passion. Take a cosmetics class or volunteer your talents to the makeup department of your community theater and meet like-minded folks. The members of your new tribe may be much older or much younger than you. They may be single, childless, pierced, or Republican, but they will share your passion for the written word, coastal conservation, or a rubber of bridge. Your new group will stimulate a spark in the You of you that has been buried under the weight of years of motherhood. Don’t worry. The flame is still there; it just needs some air.”

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Goodbye Year is an inspirational, honest, and hilarious tale of Toni’s approach to the end of an era in the Piccinini household.

For many mothers, a child’s senior year brings about a serious look back on the past eighteen. Every event—from Halloween to Mother’s Day—becomes The Last Time.

Toni Piccinini knows exactly what that’s like, and in The Goodbye Year, she offers the loving support every soon-to-be Empty Nester needs. Think of Toni as your bossy-but-loving Italian auntie, with modern sensibilities and a packed pantry. With the wisdom she’s acquired from saying goodbye three times to her own children, she reassuringly holds your hand while encouraging you through the insanity of the college application process, the rejections and the acceptances, and the teary dorm drop-offs. Even better, she reminds every mother that the best is yet to come—freedom, creativity, flexibility, and the Me Years.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Health & Well Being
Paperback: 264 Pages
Publisher: Seal Press
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
ISBN: 1580054862

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WELCOME B.J. DANIELS

AUTHOR NAME

B.J. Daniels wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of 37 published short stories.

That first book, ODD MAN OUT, received a 4 ½ star review from Romantic Times magazine and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue for that year.

Since then she was won numerous awards including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and numerous nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two Springer Spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis.

She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

To contact her, write: B.J. Daniels, P.O. Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538 or email her atbjdaniels@mtintouch.net
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Q&A with B.J. Daniels

Writing and Reading:
-Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
I draw mostly from personal experience. With FORSAKEN, I had done a newspaper article about an old sheepherder and his “tender,” the young man who took care of camp while the sheepherder took care of the sheep.

So when I began to write my book, I remembered that old sheepherder (I think he said 3 words total) and the poor young man who couldn’t shut up after traveling 150 miles with the sheep over 3 months back in the Beartooths with only the sheepherder as company. J

So I remembered that and it gave me the idea for the book. Other books come from overhearing conversations, news, newspaper stories, or just my own crazy thoughts. J

-Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I write by the seat of my pants, so I just start writing at the beginning and hope for the best. For FORSAKEN, I knew I would have a mystery and a romance and 2000 sheep back in a remote part of the Beartooths. That’s about all I knew. As I meet the characters, they tell me the story.

-Your routine when writing?  Any idiosyncrasies?
I write every day. My goal is 10 pages. Once I get those done I can quit for the day. Idiosyncrasies? Hmmm. I have to have a Coke Zero or I can’t write. J

-Is writing your full time job?  If not, may I ask what you do by day?
Writing is my full time job. When I’m not at the computer I’m thinking about my characters. There aren’t any days off because of that.

-Who are some of your favorite authors?
Oh gad, I love so many of them. Off the top of my head…Lisa Gardner, Gillian Flynn, Harlan Coben, T. Jefferson Parker, so many more. I read anything I can get my hands on.

-What are you reading now?
Deadwood by Dani Amore

-Are you working on your next novel?  Can you tell us a little about it?
I am always working on my next novel. J MERCY is the fifth book in the Beartooth, Montana series. The series began with UNFORGIVEN, then REDEMPTION, then FORSAKEN. ATONEMENT comes out in March and then MERCY. MERCY is about a US Marshal who goes rogue to catch a serial killer. It isn’t your usual serial killer kind of book though and it’s going to be a lot…sexier than some of the others. That’s all I can tell you because I haven’t written it yet.

Fun questions:
-Your novel will be a movie.  Who would you cast?
I would love to see the Beartooth series as a TV series or movie. I think Tom Selleck could be my sheriff. Or Sam Elliott. The younger hero? Collin Firth.

-Manuscript/Notes: hand written or keyboard?
Keyboard. I can’t imagine not working on a computer.

-Favorite meal?
Anything Mexican

-Favorite food?
Chile Rellenos (that would be peppers and cheese)

-Favorite beverage?
Coke Zero. J

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us

Thank you for having me. It’s been fun.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Danger runs high and passions burn hot in Montana’s wild country

Big-city detective Bentley Jamison is a long way from home in the Beartooth wilderness when one of local rancher Maddie Conner’s ranch hands goes missing. Towering mountains and a small, tight community are as unfamiliar to Jamison as herding sheep, but he’s never shied away from a challenge. As the new deputy sheriff, he’s sworn to protect every inch of this rough terrain—starting with unraveling a mystery that has left Maddie a wide-open target.

Maddie’s as beautiful—and untamable—as the land around them. Like Jamison, she won’t back down from danger. But desire that flares hotter than their tempers only raises the stakes when a fierce storm traps them in the high mountains. Caught in a killer’s sights, Jamison and Maddie must trust one another, because now survival…and love…are all that matter.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Published by: Harlequin HQN
Publication Date: Sep 24 2013
Pages: 384
ISBN: 9780373777808

PURCHASE LINKS:

         

THANKS TO ANNA AT HARLEQUIN,
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