Thursday, March 7, 2013

Book Feature - Turkish Delights by Liz Crowe



A young American woman comes face to face with her destiny in Istanbul in the 1960's and an epic dynasty is born.  

When Vivian Kinkaid turns around in her college classroom and makes eye contact with a man who was once her forbidden childhood friend, her life is changed forever.


A sweeping saga of family, love, loss and recovery—The Turkish Delight series begins with a special sort of magic. Then  Madame Eve works her miracles for the Deniz family, but even she can’t overcome the harsh realities that force this Turkish/American family all to deal with tragedy when one of their own is ripped from their close-knit circle.

 “The Turks” opens with best-selling classic romance for the ages.  Then ends with a thrilling novella that brings all the players back together.  Set in Istanbul, Las Vegas, and Southern California, The Turkish Delights series has it all—heat, heart, intrigue and a deep, family connection that transcends all barriers.

The Diplomat's Daughter
Turkish Delights
Blue Cruise
Tulip Princess
Flower Passage



Individual Blurbs for the books:

The Diplomat’s Daughter:

When Vivian Kincaid's eyes meet those of a hunky local at the Turkish university her father forces her to attend, it only takes her a split second to recognize her childhood friend. Levent Deniz was the servant boy who taught her to run the streets of Istanbul years before, giving outlet to her wild streak even as a child.

Now face-to-face once again as adults, the only thing standing between them and happiness is her father. The newly appointed Consul General for the United States has other plans for his only daughter. Ones that do not include a former servant, now successful entrepreneur and businessman. He will do everything in his power to keep them apart.

The Diplomat's Daughter is set in 1960s Istanbul and tells the story of pre-destiny, passion and the rebellious power of true love.

Turkish Delights (1NightStand)

The fifteen year age difference between Elle Kensington, expatriate American executive and Emre Demir, son of Istanbul's most successful businessmen, has not kept them from becoming fast friends as they toured Istanbul together. But the time has come for him to return to the U.S. to finish his master's degree, and she has just been named CEO of the pharmaceutical company that brought her to Turkey in the first place. Elle adores her adopted country, and is alarmed to find herself falling in love with the young man who's been her impromptu guide for the last few months.

She knows they can never be. She will return home to California within a month, leaving behind all she loves about the ancient city. In a rare fit of spontaneity, Elle has contracted with Madame Eve's 1Night Stand dating service, hoping to find a way to forget the dark, handsome young man who has captured her heart. Little does she know what awaits her in the ancient recesses of the Ottoman palace turned luxury hotel under the hands of her one-night stand masseur.

Blue Cruise (1NightStand, m/m)

Caleb and Tarkan were an odd couple—men from two different cultures—so in love, they were determined to overcome any obstacles. But fate had different plans for Tarkan. Shattered and unable to function a full two years after tragedy strikes, Caleb faces the hollow shell that is his life.

Adem Broussard is happy enough, as owner and chef of his restaurant on the Turkish southern coast. But a tall, American Adonis he saw once, years ago on a Turkish Blue Cruise haunts his most erotic dreams, and he hopes contracting Madame Eve's 1NightStand service for an unconventional date will help him forget.

When Caleb caves in to his friend Elle's insistence that he return to Turkey and exorcise some of the demons that haunt him, he reluctantly climbs on board a private yacht for a special 1Night Stand Blue Cruise. There he comes face to face with the man who remembers him well…and helps him heal.

Tulip Princess (1NightStand, BDSM)

Lale Deniz was always prone to wildness. But when her family is ripped apart at the seams, she becomes more reckless than ever. Desperate to stop her self-destructive slide, her parents step in and send her to America to live with her brother, Emre. Just the chance, she thinks, to escape the tragedy suffusing her Istanbul home.

Andreas Michos, Greek former NFL star, the recently divorced athletic director at UNLV, floats through life seeking fulfillment. He has reason to doubt his own abilities as a natural Dom and has given up finding his perfect mate. Until he agrees to a 1Night Stand.

Set against a backdrop of ancient cultural clashes and Mediterranean family dynamics, Lale and Andreas meet in Las Vegas at the Castillo resort for their date. But it seems Madame Eve and destiny will both fail this time, unless Lale and Andreas are willing to relinquish enough control to discover what happiness can be found inside the soul of the other. Will stubbornness keep them from connecting, or can they let go long enough to heal?

Flower Passage (final novella, m/m/m)

What would you do if the lover, brother, son, and friend you thought you'd lost forever was returned to you?

Brutally battered, emotionally and physically for the past two years, Tarkan Deniz has escaped his captors. When the Deniz family discovers the shocking truth they rally and do everything in their power to bring him back safely. But all have been affected by the tragedy of his loss and must come to terms with the new reality, each in their own way.

When Happily Ever After seems like a nightmare...one man can bring healing to all, but will he ever be the same man again?

Flower Passage is a story of love lost and regained, even if it takes a slightly different form than before.


print anthology: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Microbrewery owner, best-selling author, beer blogger and journalist, mom of three teenagers, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great middle west, in a Major College Town.  Years of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as an ex-pat trailing spouse plus making her way in a world of men (i.e. the beer industry) has prepped her for life as erotic romance author.  When she isn't sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, she can be found writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications.  Her ground breaking romance sub genre: “Romance for Real Life” has gained thousands of fans and followers, interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”)

Her beer blog a2beerwench.com is nationally recognized for its insider yet outsider views on the craft beer industry. Her books are set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch and in high powered real estate offices.  Don’t ask her for anything “like” a Budweiser or risk painful injury.


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Sweets Blogfest - My One and Only Sweet



To celebrate the release of their sweet love stories, Kelly Hashway and Beth Fred are hosting The Sweets Blogfest today. Be sure to stop by their blogs for a chance to win ebooks of Love All and The Other Marlowe Girl.

Goodreads
Goodreads

So I'm going to talk about a sweet that's dear to my heart - my hubby. We met the first day of classes freshman year of college. I complained to him about being a chemistry major and not being too fond of science (I wanted to work in a forensic lab, or even be a CSI). We became friends and over Christmas break, he  asked me out on AIM. During Easter break, he said "I love you" for the first time - on the phone.

But he more than made up for that when he proposed. We had been dating for two years and four months to the day. Since we were poor college kids, we don't go out on dates often so we tried to go out for our monthly anniversary at least. Todd told me to dress up because we were going to eat at a nice restaurant for dinner. It was a beautiful April day but the weather people had said there might be rain so Todd pulled over at a park to get an umbrella out of the trunk so we wouldn't get our nice clothes wet if it did rain before we got there. Imagine my surprise when he comes around to my window with a cape and a Phantom from POTO mask on!

Now, this was shortly after the movie had come out and we both loved it - saw it on Valentine's Day. Todd took me out of the car and sang two songs from the movie, before getting down on one knee and telling me how much he loves me and how I make him a better person and how he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. Then he pulled out the ring box. Of course I said yes! (and yes, I was crying a little!)

*sigh* That's my sweetheart!

Goodreads

And if you want to check out another sweet romance, be sure to look at my Woman of Honor. It's now available for print! Woman of Honor tells the story of Aislinn, a girl who dreams of becoming a knight and finds love as she struggles to achieve her goal.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Justine Dell Author of All-American Girl Talks Romance

Today, we have the lovely Justine Dell talking about romance. Enjoy!

JustineDellOne of my favorite things about romance novels: the build.

You’ve got two people who have some sort of attraction (or maybe they even hate each other!) and you have the plot that drives the story forward. Romance IS the building of the relationship between the hero and heroine. That’s where the fun is!

Two people just don’t see each other, fall in the sheets together, and then live happily ever after. Well, sometimes they do see each other and immediately fall in the sheets together, but that’s a topic for a different time.

How do you build a relationship? First, let’s learn about build:

build
   [bild]  Show IPA verb, built or ( Archaic )build·ed; build·ing; noun
verb (used with object)
1.
to construct (especially something complex) by assemblingand joining parts or materials: to build a house.
2.
to establish, increase, or strengthen (often followed by up ):to build a business; to build up one's hopes.
3.
to mold, form, or create: to build boys into men.
4.
to base; found: a relationship built on trust.

Ah…so it’s an author’s job to increase the attraction, strengthen the relationship, establish more than just that initial umph, if you will.

So now you put the characters together in the story, develop their relationship, build their foundation (and many more levels above them!).  It's an author’s job to construct this. Give the characters more than just that sexual attraction. Give them a common goal. Make them work together. Make them hate each other but still have to work together. JUST GET THEM TOGETHER. 

Maybe they’re star-crossed lovers thrown together in the middle of a family feud about a Fabergè egg. The man and woman meet at an auction for said egg. Both want it. They bid like crazy against each other, shooting each other stern looks and snarls. (All while thinking the other is cute…maybe). Then yank the egg from both of them with another ridiculously high bidder!

Now the man and woman come together with a common goal = get the egg back. Each still wants it for their family, but in the meantime they have to work together. During this working together, they get to know each other, get to know the problems between their families, develop a deeper attraction and respect. Learn. Grow. Okay, they end up in bed sometime and then get right back to their plans. All while the story is unfolding, the characters are talking, learning more about their lives, each other—I mean really getting to know each other. No matter what story they are in, no matter the plot, there has to be the build if their relationship. 

There’s a gazillion other ways to build a relationship and I’ve really only skimmed the surface here. The main point being: you have to take that initial attraction (or hate for that matter) and build it into a relationship. That relationship has to grow, change, develop into respect, longing, kindredship, and finally love. And all along the way the characters will face obstacles putting them closer (and farther away) from their goals. At the very end, everything comes together. The egg will end up in the right hands and boy and girl will end up together. Happily Ever After.

Are than any good stories you can think of that have a great building of a relationship between a man and a woman? Most teens would say Twilight here. ..but I still say that the first ten minutes of the Disney movie UP has a better romance. *snicker*

BLURB:

At the age of thirty, with two failed marriages and a tanking writing career, Samantha Moore deals with the world with the only tool she had left: anger. And she’s tired of it. When her grandmother's near-death sends her rushing back home to Vermont, she hopes for the chance to overcome the rage ruling her life.

Once she’s home, Lance Cummings becomes a constant source of indigestion. Lance is a single father who learned first-hand the devastating effects of a damaging relationship. He sees through Samantha’s nasty temper—straight to her cry for help. He wants to help her, but he also wants to know why Samantha ran from him—and their future—twelve years before.

Taking care of her Grams, dealing with an alcoholic brother, and getting Lance to remove his annoyingly attractive nose from her business is draining on Samantha. And she’s only got three weeks to finish her stagnated novel or her publisher will drop her. No pressure. To top it off, pretending to hate the man she actually loves makes each day in Vermont harder than the last. Especially when Lance turns up the heat.

BIO:

Justine lives in the Midwest, happily catering to her family, which consists of a horse-obsessed teenage daughter, four dogs, and a husband who is too good to be true. She's never moved from her hometown, but hopes to grow old in a much warmer climate.

During the day she works a normal job with college students who try their best to keep her young. They've done a good job thus far. At night, said teenage daughter and her horse require mounds of love and attention. The weekends belong solely to her and her writing. That's when she morphs into a sticky bug, unable to leave the confines of her computer chair.

She started writing four years ago after seeing a movie that set off a chain reaction she couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted. It's not a hobby for her; it's an obsession. One she loves and one she loves to share. Her debut book, Recaptured Dreams and her newest release, All-American Girl, are available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever book are sold.








GIVEAWAY:

Because Justine is so awesome she's giving away an ecopy of All-AmericanGirl and an AAG postcard and Vermont Maple Candy. To enter, just leave a comment (with your email address) telling us why you like or don't like to read romances.

And if that's not a big enough prize, had over to Justine's blog to enter yet another giveaway!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Cover Reveal for Frailties of the Bond by Angela Brown

Take it away, Angela Brown!

Revealing a new project is such a milestone in an author's pathway to publication. Many thanks to Heather McCorkle for the book cover design. Introducing the cover for...

FRAILTIES OF THE BOND (Add to Goodreads)

Description-
NEO – Network of Extraordinaires and Otherworldlies:

Those who answer the call from NEO play their part in maintaining balance in our ever-changing times. With power-hungry malcontents, jealous gods, and even those with misguided good intentions, the fate of our world has oft been held in the hands of unsung heroes such as those that are members of NEO.

But before NEO, these heroes and heroines had lives, loves, issues and interests that didn’t involve saving mankind.

In Frailties of the Bond, it only takes one bite to change a life

After a hiking trip gone wrong, sixteen-year-old Luca should have been dead. Since then, he’s drifted from one school day to the next, annoyed by the looks of suspicion. When a vampire attack claimed his mother and forced his first shift into animal form, Luca set out for Texas, vengeance bound, only to discover so much more when Aimee crossed his path.

Flesh-born of vampire parents sixteen years ago, Aimee shouldn’t exist. Magic, though, made dreams come true for an undead couple desperate for a child all their own. But this magic came with a price, a cost Aimee discovered after one forbidden bite.

And now...to the cover:
Cover design by Heather McCorkle of CP Design
Xpresso Book Tours is handling the release blitz set for March 20h through March 31st. If you are interested in participating (YAY! and THANK YOU! if you are), click here to sign up.


About Angela: Born and raised in Little Rock, AR, Angela now calls Central Texas home.

Reading and writing have been lifelong passions. It was around the time she gave birth to her forever-love, nicknamed Chipmunk, that she really took writing seriously. After all, how could she teach her child to follow her dreams if she hadn't tried herself?

As a YA fantasy/sci-fi reader and author, she favors the magical, mysterious, the darker side of life...even harbors a secret fright for things that go bump in the night.

NEVERLOVE is a special project spawned from a blog-challenge-turned-blog-opera, 
the Abby and Basil affair. It is the first in the Shadow Jumpers series.

FRAILTIES OF THE BOND is the first in a series of novellas and short stories introducing heroes and heroines of the secret organization, NEO – Network of Extraordinaires and Otherwordlies.


Now, as tempting as it is to ask for a sound off of total love for this book cover, I'm curious about a few other things? How much does the book cover matter in choosing a book? Do you prefer symbolic covers, i.e., everything on the cover means something or directly relates to something in the book? Or just something that grabs your attention, no matter how it relates to the content within?

Friday, March 1, 2013

Cover Reveal - Violet Dawn by Lynn Rush



Violet Dawn (Violet Night Trilogy, #2)—Release Date April 1st, 2013 from Crescent Moon Press


In the darkest place, the Light shines brightest.

Emma’s love saved Jake from life as a vampire. But their happily ever after is threatened by a savage Vamp seeking retribution for destroying the Avenos Trinity of Evil.

A mysterious stranger enters the mix, coinciding with the first Vamp attack in months. Emma’s new friendship, and the suspicion and deceit surrounding it, further drives a wedge between her and Jake.

To complicate things, Emma is bitten by a Vamp with abilities no one has ever seen before, and that bite has left its mark.
A mark that might tear Jake and Emma apart forever…

What people are already saying about Violet Dawn:

"Fast-paced, action-packed, Violet Dawn is basically everything you'd want from a vampire hunter novel and then some. Emma has kick-ass written all over her." ~Kate Evangelista, author of Taste

"Rush knocked this sequel out of the park." ~Carrie Butler, author of Strength
~~~
Bio:
Driven to write, Lynn Rush often sees her characters by closing her eyes watching their story unfold in her mind. Lynn Rush is a pen name that is a combination of two sources – Lynn, the first name of her mother-in-law, who passed away and Rush – since the author is a former inline speed skater and mountain biker. All of Rush’s books are dedicated to Lynn, her namesake, and a portion of the proceeds benefits cancer research and awareness.

Links:
Catch the Rush™: www.LynnRush.com