……..of  Fall In Love With Forever Prize Package

117 Lisa Pecora Be a Public Follower of ‘CMASH Loves to Read’

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

Hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading

Today’s question:
Do you have any hobbies outside of reading?
Or do you collect anything?

My answer:
I do have other hobbies, but reading has always been my number 1 hobby for as long as I can remember.  I used to do needlepoint but stopped due to eyesight changes.  Hard to see those little x’s.  I also like to crochet, having made many afghans, ponchos and a few sweaters.  And since finding the book blogging community, I have to say I really enjoy blogging.

And to the second question, I collect Hallmark dated Christmas ornaments.  This started in 1981 when friends of our’s, bought us one for our 1st Christmas.  They went on to tell us how they collect them for every year married and we then started that tradition.  Steve and I now have 31 collectible ornaments with 1983 and 1986 being my favorites.  The one for ’83 is of a cradle for the year our oldest son was born and the ’86 is of a mobile for our second son’s birth.  I love unwrapping them every year, hanging them according to the year, and remembering that year of our life.

What are your hobbies?  Do you collect anything?

September is being hosted by BookNAround

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia of A girl and her books and is now on tour.
According to Marcia, “Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.”
Click on title for synopsis via IndieBound and Amazon

Monday:  The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner–won from Booking With Bingo
Saturday:  The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri–from author (Partners In Crime Tours)

Hosted by Acting Balanced

1. What room in the house do you try your hardest to keep clean?
There are 2, the bathrooms and my office/reading room, since that is where I spend the majority of my time working, blogging and reading.
2. How do you describe your blog to someone you just met?
I say it is a book blog that has my thoughts about books I read, hosting Guest Authors and book giveaways with a little of real life thrown in.
3. What was your lie from last week? (If you didn’t play last week, What was your favorite cartoon you watched as a kid?)
Had a few but my favorite would be Bugs Bunny.
4. What is your favorite kind of salad? (post a recipe if you got one)
Chicken Milanese from Uno’s.
5. And my bonus question. Did you watch the Emmy’s last night?

…..of  American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

Audio Edition

38 Daniel M Leave a Blog Post Comment

TPB Editions

Bonnie Yee Leave a Blog Post Comment 

42 Erica Haspiel Szlosek Tweet About the Giveaway

16 Caitlin McClure Leave a Blog Post Comment

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.

You know if you visit, that I like my mysteries!!  So when Carissa from Attica Books contacted me about today’s  guest, and I read the synopsis, I had to invite the author to stop by, visit and tell us more.  Please help me in welcoming Marsali Taylor to CMash Reads!

MARSALI TAYLOR

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland’s scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland’s distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women’s suffrage in Shetland. She’s also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.
You can visit the author at Marsali’s Website, Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest.

GUEST POST

Death on a Longship by Marsali Taylor

She was my longship.  She floated beside the boating club pontoon like a ghost from Shetland’s past, her red and ochre striped sail furled on her heavy yard half-way up the wooden mast, her painted shields mirrored on the early-morning calm water.

Okay, she belonged to Berg Productions Ltd, but I was her skipper.  Stormfugl, Stormbird.  She was 75 feet long, with a carved head snarling in a circle of teeth, a writhed tail, and a triangular log cabin on a half-deck in the stern.  Gulls were wheeling around her, bickering among themselves, as if one of them had dropped a fish.

I started Khalida’s engine and put-putted across the bay torwards the marina.  I wasn’t keen on gulls dismembering fish all over my clean decks.  I’d hosed them yesterday, after filming.  The cameramen, lighting operators, make-up, costume, best boys, grips and all the hundred people that seemed to be needed for even a simple shot had squelched the path from road to shore into dusty gravel, which had clung to the sheepskin boots of  my Viking oarsmen.  The shore had added a generous helping of sand-laden algae.  I didn’t intend to start the day re-scrubbing them.  I’d fire the gulls’ fish overboard, and let them squabble about it on the water.

It was amazing, too, that Anders hadn’t heard them.  Even someone who slept like the dead, as he did, must surely be woken by them perching on the cabin ridgepole to stretch their necks at each other.  I’d have thought he’d have been out to clear them by now.

As we entered the marina I realised that there was a white bundle lying on Stormfugl’s deck under the circle of snatching gulls.  I turned Khalida in a sharp curve and brought her up on the other side of the pontoon.  Damn the way Norwegians went for cheap British drink.  He’d obviously gone out and got blootered, staggered home and fallen, injured himself –

It wasn’t Anders.

I looked at the body lying on the half-deck, one hand stretched towards the prow and felt my newly-won promotion to skipper slipping away.  It was Maree Baker, one of the film lot, the stand-in for the star.

I was ashamed of myself for thinking first of me, but I couldn’t help Maree now.  She lay sprawled on the larch planks like a marionette washed up by the tide, the manicured nails still gleaming like shells in the bloody mess the gulls had made of the exposed hands.  There was mottled dirt on her cream silk trouser suit.  The red-gold hair falling across her face was stirring just a little in the breeze, as if at any moment she’d shake it out of her eyes and leap up.  I looked again at the back of her head, tilted up towards me, and saw the pool of blood spreading out from below her stand-in wig.  The gulls had left footprints in it, and across the deck.  I’m not squeamish about blood, but I felt sick then.  I yelled at the three that had only gone as far as the pier, orange eyes watching me, then looked back at Maree.  I didn’t want to touch her, but I had to.  I was the ship’s Master under God; captain, minister, doctor.  I curved my hand around the chilling neck and laid two fingers over the vein.  There was no flutter of pulse.

I withdrew my hand and reached into my back pocket for my mobile. 999.  No, here in Shetland, 999 would probably get me some Inverness call centre three hundred miles away, where I’d have to spell out every name twice.  I wanted Lerwick. I dived into the boating club for a phone book, and found the number.  There were two rings, then a voice.

‘Northern Constabulary, Sergeant Peterson here, can I help you?’

I took a deep breath and wished I was at sea, where the procedure was laid down.  Mayday three times, this is yacht name three times – ‘I’d like to report what looks like a fatal accident,’ I said.  ‘On board the longship Stormfugl, moored at Delting Boating Club.’

‘The film boat,’ she replied, briskly confident even at this hour of the morning. ‘Your name, madam?’

‘I’m Cass Lynch, the skipper of the boat.’

‘Remain with the body, please, Ms Lynch.  We’ll get a doctor to you as soon as possible.  Have you any idea of the casualty’s identity?’

ID was Ted’s problem.  ‘She’s lying face down.  I didn’t want to turn her over.’

‘We’ll be with you in about half an hour.  Until then, please ensure that nobody goes near the body.  And don’t call anyone.  We’ll do that.’

‘I’ll stay with the body,’ I said, but made no other promises.

I picked up a stone, and scattered the gulls with one vicious throw.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When she talks her way into a job skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film, Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived – even though it means returning home to the Shetland Islands, a place she hasn’t set foot on since she ran away as a teenager to pursue her dreams of sailing. When a dead woman turns up on the boat’s deck, Cass, her past and her family come under suspicion from the disturbingly shrewd Detective Inspector Macrae.

Cass must call on all her local knowledge of Shetland, the wisdom gained from years of sailing, and her glamorous, French opera singer mother to clear herself and her family of suspicion – and to catch the killer before Cass becomes the next victim.

GIVE AWAY GALORE, THANKS TO AUTHOR, MARSALI TAYLOR,
GIVEAWAY CRITERIA:

Giveaway Info
Marsali is giving away THREE prizes; a copy of Death on a Longship at each blog stop on her tour, a 1st place grand prize giveaway at the end of the tour of some silver Viking-inspired jewelry from the Shetland Islands, and a 2nd place $15 Amazon gift card.

1) To win a book:  (open internationally for ebook or the US, UK, and Canada for a print book). Be sure to leave your email address in the comments so we can contact you if you’re the lucky winner. This giveaway ends five days after the post goes live.

CLICK HERE TO BRING YOU TO THE
CMASH READS GIVEAWAY ENTRY PAGE

2) To win Viking-inspired Jewelry OR a $15 Amazon gift card: Click the link to go to the contest’s website and enter the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post. A first and second place lucky winner will be selected on October 1st. First place person gets to choose which grand prize he/she wants. The second place person gets the remaining grand prize. Open to every country.
Here’s the contest’s website >

DISCLAIMER
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.

*USE THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM BELOW
IN ORDER TO BE INCLUDED IN THE GIVEAWAY*
BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL

ADDRESS IN THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM
SO THAT I CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU WIN
*LEAVE COMMENT: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SAILING?*

*INTERNATIONAL FOR EBOOK

OR

(US, UK, and CANADA (for a print book)*
*NO P.O. BOXES*

**HONOR SYSTEM**
ONE WINNING BOOK PER HOUSEHOLD
PLEASE NOTIFY ME IF YOU HAVE
WON THIS BOOK FROM ANOTHER
SITE, SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE MAY
HAVE THE CHANCE TO WIN
AND READ THIS BOOK.
THANK YOU.

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

According to the calendar, Fall is set to arrive tomorrow, so…..
My Question is:
What are you going to miss most about Summer?

Today’s question:
Quick–what are you reading right now? (Other than this question on
this website, of course.) Would you recommend it? What’s it about?

My response:
I am currently reading Low Pressure by Sandra Brown.  

I have been a fan of Sandra Brown’s for many, many years.  I would say from the time I was in HS/College.  It had been quite some time that I had read a book by her but not so long ago, I read Lethal and it was pure Sandra Brown.  I enjoyed it so much and wish that there hadn’t been a lapse of reading her books.  So when I saw that her new book was released, I jumped at the chance to read it.

I am enjoying it, definitely would recommend it, at least so far.  The only problem in reading this book is me.  Because I just don’t have the time to really get into it due to business and RL, I am hoping that when things calm down, I can dedicate some quality reading time so that I can enjoy it.

Shop Indie Bookstores

………of Victorious Woman! by Annemarie Kelly

9 Diane Margolis-Baum Leave a Blog Post Comment

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