CASTING CALL for THURSDAYS AT COCOONUTS

 

Here we go with another weekly challenge from one of the talented authors of Romance Writers Weekly (RWW). This week, Victoria Barbour http://victoriabarbour.com/blog asked us to create a cast of characters from our new release or WIP. I hope you made it over here from Jeanne McDonald's blog at https://authorjeannemcdonald.wordpress.com/

In my newest release, THURSDAYS AT COCONUTS, I have quite a cast of characters and know who would be IDEAL to play them in a movie. See if you agree or feel free to suggest your own cast. Here goes:

Suzy - A wedding planner who can't find her own wedded bliss. She's a motherly single mom who is still pining for her high school boyfriend and faces the ultimate betrayal on her wedding day. She single handedly deals with neurotic brides and a horrible, pretentious mother of the bride--all with a smile (mostly). To play Suzy, I'd suggest Amy Adams. She looks like the perfect wedding planner who could handle my crazy brides.


Alex (Alexandra) - A bank marketer who falls for a sexy bad-boy cop. Alex is a beautiful blonde professional who is a savvy businesswoman but falls for a married officer who may be stalking her. She also has a "touch" of OCD and is habitually late. Reese Witherspoon would make a fantastic Alex. I could see her in the boardroom, being sexy and harried all the while having serious chemistry with the cop.




Hope - A fun high school guidance counselor who is adored by her students. But Hope hates her body, her frizzy hair, and is straddled by hippie parents. She loves her BFFs, Alex and Suzy, but wishes she had one-ounce of their sexiness. Hope faces many trials with her hippie parents and discovers a secret that almost went to the grave. Melissa McCarthy would make such a great Hope. I can just see her dealing with the hippie parents, Larry and Montana, and the students would love her!




Sgt. Tony Montgomery - A sexy bad-boy cop who has a cheating wife. He falls for Alex but won't leave his marriage because of his young son, Joey. Tony has a few secrets of his own but that swagger, chiseled jaw line, and icy blue eyes pretty much let him get away with anything. I don't KNOW who would be best for Tony. He needs to have dark hair and be tall. I describe him as a younger, taller George Clooney in my novel. Any suggestions? Maybe a taller Adam Levine? I know Adam's a singer but he has the right look. Feel free to suggest an actor to play the cop! Thanks to Leslie for suggesting Ian Somerhalder for one of her characters. He'd make a great Tony/cop!

Okay, that was fun. And, by the way, my novel is available on Amazon at

tinyurl.com/l9m26ht

THURSDAYS AT COCONUTS has gotten over sixty rave reviews! I can't tell you how much that excites and humbles me. Thank you! Please comment and then hop over to see the cast of characters for  Carolyn Spear at http://www.carolynspearromance.com/blog

Leapin' Lizards

 

 

Challenged by the talented attorney-author Veronica Forand, the writers from RWW are supposed to write a 100-word fiction story using these three words: Coffee, Spring, and lizard. I wrote my story in 15 minutes and it's exactly 100 words. Enjoy! I hope you made it here from Veronica's page  http://www.veronicaforand.com  then head over to read Susan Scott Shelley's flash fiction at http://www.susanscottshelley.com/#!blog/c1cod

 

“That lizard is so sluggish.” Julie sipped her coffee. “He hasn’t moved in an hour.”

Her neighbor, Sylvia, ignored the comment and snipped Hibiscus blooms. “I love Spring.”

Julie studied the lizard. “Do you think he’s alive?”

Her friend peered at the statue-like lizard. “Not sure but he certainly has good balance.”

Julie walked inside to answer a ringing phone. With warp-like speed the lizard crawled across the screen, onto the wicker patio table, and into Julie’s pink coffee cup. Sylvia covered her mouth to keep from screaming—or laughing.

Julie reappeared. “What’s wrong?”

“Um, apparently Mr. Lizard likes lattes.”

NEW RELEASE: NOBODY'S ANGEL by Sarah Hegger

 

I'm pleased to host RWW author friend, Sarah Hegger, who is releasing a new contemporary, NOBODY'S ANGEL, on March 31, via Zebra. Isn't her cover fantastic? I'm definitely adding her newest novel to my TBR list. Congrats, Sarah!

Blurb

In this evocative new series from author Sarah Hegger, a woman returns home after a long absence—and wonders if two wrongs really can make a right...

Nine years ago Lucy Flint ran away to Seattle, taking her friend's boyfriend and leaving her high school sweetheart without a word of explanation. Now she's back in Willow Park, Illinois, to help care for her ailing father—and it's no surprise that her ex, Dr. Richard Hunter, is still angry.

Still, she's a different Lucy now. Sober, wiser, ready to make amends to the long—make that very long—list of those she mistreated during her wild younger days. Falling for Richard all over again would mean wreaking havoc in both their lives and possibly squandering her opportunity for redemption. But here, in the place where everything went wrong, is the one person who always felt right, and a second-chance that could be the best mistake she ever made…

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnj4IHOhcuU

Sarah's Bio (one of the coolest I've ever read!) 

 

Born British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A hot Canadian engineer, whose marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met. Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese, even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.

Mimicking her globe-trotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations, settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a wife and mother.She currently lives in Draper, Utah, with her teenage daughters, two Golden Retrievers and aforementioned husband. Part footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s restless heart is most content when reading or writing books. She loves to hear from readers and you can find her at any of the places below.

 

Link to Follow Tour:  http://www.tastybooktours.com/2014/12/nobodys-angel-willow-park-1-by-sarah.html

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22494932-nobody-s-angel?from_search=true

Buy Links:  Amazon | Barnes | ITunes | Kobo

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Angel-Willow-Park-Romance/dp/1420137395

B&N:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nobodys-angel-sarah-hegger/1119742529?ean=9781420137392

iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/nobodys-angel/id928922851?mt=11

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/nobody-s-angel-8  

PRIZES!!!

Rafflecopter Giveaway (Including: (1) $20.00 Amazon Gift Card, (3) $10.00 Amazon Gift Cards, Five Print Copies of NOBODY’S ANGEL (Or Digital for Int. winners))

Link to Rafflecopter Page, http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/NTIxYWM0YzhjYmFkNDc1MDkxYzA3ZDNmMjhhM2RjOjYzOA==/

Thanks for stopping by to read about Sarah's new release. Feel free to ask her questions in the comment section.

 

 

Cover Reveal for RWW Author Friend

I'm pleased to help fellow RWW author Andrea Fenichel reveal her new cover for DECEPTION. Congrats on a fabulous cover, Andrea!
 

Genre: Paranormal Historical Romance
Date of Publication: July 7, 2015 Available for Pre-order: Amazon- http://www.amazon.com/Deception-Demon-Hunters-S-Fenichel-ebook/dp/B00ONTR7WS/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 Barns & Noble- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deception-as-fenichel/1120611640?ean=9781616505622 Kensington- http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/31375

Blurb:
When Demons threaten Regency London, only a Lady can stop them. Lillian Dellacourt is beautiful, refined and absolutely lethal. She’s also the most feared and merciless demon hunter in The Company. She’s come a long way from the penniless seamstress’s daughter sold to the highest bidder, and it wasn’t by trusting a man, let alone an exiled Marquis with more on his mind than slaying the hellspawn . . . For Dorian Lambert, Marquis de Montalembert, being sent to keep track of Lillian is no mean task. He’s wanted the fiery vixen since he first heard of her five years ago. But wooing the lady while fighting the demon uprising is no easy feat, especially when the lady’s tongue is as sharp as the Japanese sai blades she favors for eviscerating the spawn of hell. These two will have to learn to trust each other fast, because the demon master is back, and he’s planning to turn Edinburgh into a living hell…

About the Author:
A.S. Fenichel gave up a successful career in New York City to follow her husband to Texas and pursue her lifelong dream of being a professional writer. She’s never looked back.
A.S. adores writing stories filled with love, passion, desire, magic and maybe a little mayhem tossed in for good measure. Books have always been her perfect escape and she still relishes diving into one and staying up all night to finish a good story.
Multi-published in erotic paranormal, contemporary and historical romance, A.S. is the author of the Mayan Destiny series, Christmas Bliss and many more. With several books currently contracted to multiple publishers, A.S. will be bringing you her brand of romance for many years to come. Originally from New York, she grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in the East Texas with her real life hero, her wonderful husband. When not reading or writing she enjoys cooking, travel, history, and puttering in her garden.

Connect with Andrea here:
Find A.S. Fenichel Web Site- http://asfenichel.net/
Blog - http://asfenichel.net/blog/
Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5154640.A_S_Fenichel Twitter - https://twitter.com/asfenichel
Tsu - https://www.tsu.co/ASFenichel
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/A.S.Fenichel
Google +1 - https://plus.google.com/113195747154467378107/posts
Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/asfenichel/boards/

Rafflecopter Giveaway!
Code for Rafflecopter giveaway.< a class="rcptr" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bb0ebfb10/" rel="nofollow" data-raflid="bb0ebfb10" data-theme="classic" data-template="" id="rcwidget_fxvb3y95">a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Hopeless Romantic

On this Valentine's Day Eve, I'm feeling a bit romantic and somewhat sappy and sad because I won't be with my sweetie on the most romantic day of the year. He's going on a long boating trip so I'm on my own. I'll be fine. I have plenty to do and even plan to go out, though, I don't want to appear desperate and sit at a bar wearing a red dress. Okay, maybe I'll wear black. :)

My love for Valentine's Day and all things romance goes way back to elementary school when we would take shoe boxes and decorate them with red and pink tissue paper, little hearts, and "x's" and "o's." Then, my mom or dad would cut a slit through the top (so my schoolmates could drop Valentines inside) at our school party. It was an exciting time--picking out the Valentines I wanted to give to my friends, signing them using my best penmanship, deciding whether I should write "Love, Beth" on a few special cards(!) and then waiting with great anticipation to see which Valentines I'd receive in return.

As an adult, I took a small group communication class in college. Once, we all took a handwritten test called the "Abigail River Story." The professor asked us to read the story and rank the characters from our least to most favorite. I was the ONLY student in class who preferred one character, Abigail. At the end of class, the professor told us what each character symbolized--money, sex, family, and power. Guess what Abigail represented? Hopeless romantic. Yep, that's me. This might explain why I love writing happily ever afters!

What are your fondest Valentine's Day memories? Are you also a romantic? Happy Valentine's Day!

Choosing Novel Settings

It's Tuesday which means the Romance Writers' Weekly blog hop is hopping away. This week's question was posed by the lovely and talented Brenda Margriet.  http://www.brendamargriet.com/blog/romance-writers-weekly-whats-up-with-settings-lovewritechat 
Brenda asked her fellow writers how we choose our settings and whether they are real or fictional, no matter the genre. I hope you made it over here from Elizabeth's blog http://elizabeth-janette.blogspot.com

In THURSDAYS AT COCONUTS, my characters live in a town called Crystal City (fictional) and is set in Missouri (real). Crystal City is mid-sized and loosely based on my home-town of Springfield. Side note: Since I have cops in my novel, I tried out different names to make sure the abbreviated version of Crystal City Police Department (CCPD) would sound okay over a police scanner! I do enjoy the familiarity of writing about places I know but also like the challenge of creating entirely new worlds, people, and places.

As far as my three main characters' job settings, they're all very different and only one is similar to my real-life experience.

Alexandra (Alex) is a bank marketer who gets involved with a sexy bad-boy cop who may be stalking her. I was a bank marketer and did date a cop (cough, cough). Many of her duties such as creating branding campaigns, chairing 8 o'clock Monday morning marketing meetings, writing television scripts, and getting promoted to VP all happened to me.

Hope is a high school counselor. Of course, we ALL went to high school but I've never been a teacher nor a counselor, so Hope is completely fictional. She has hippie parents (I didn't have those either) but I loved the seventies and wanted to incorporate that decade. Hope also hates her looks, hair, and compares herself to her gorgeous girlfriends. Who doesn't do that?!

Suzy is a single mom who is a wedding planner. I, too, was a single mom for many years. As far as Suzy's company, Weddings By Suzanne, I've never been a wedding planner but discovered I thoroughly enjoyed coming up with themed weddings--and creating neurotic brides and a nasty, pretentious mother of the bride was icing on the ol' wedding cake.

So, the long answer to the question posed is a little of both--I used a few real-life experiences and settings but the vast majority of my novel is fictional. I hope you'll comment and then head over to Gemma's blog at http://gemmabrocato.com/blog I was lucky enough to meet Gemma/Heidi when we both went to Kansas City to hear Stephen King talk. What a great time. Meeting the fun, sweet, prolific Gemma and hearing SK on the same day! Wow. It's not often that authors who live in other cities, states, and countries get to meet, so this was a big deal. I'll never forget her first words when I walked into the B&N coffee shop. "I'd know you anywhere." Sweet.

Please follow the fun, quirky, talented RWW writers on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RomanceWritersWeekly?ref=bookmarks or Twitter at #lovewritechat.

New Year's Resolutions & Goals

First of all, I apologize for not blogging lately. Good grief. I thought it had been a month but it has been over TWO months. That's terrible but we have hosted family for Thanksgiving, Christmas (doesn't everyone?) and flew to Arizona to be with grandkids and more family. It has been a hectic fall. I'm ready for some routine and normalcy.

Now, for my timely (haha) New Year's Resolutions and Goals:

 * Finish and submit my sequel to THURSDAYS AT COCONUTS. I'm currently at about 30,000 words last I checked. The working title is either COWBOYS AT COCONUTS or MEET ME AT COCONUTS or something else entirely. Any ideas? Maybe I'll have a contest.

 * Submit one (or two) picture books. For months, I've been SO close to finishing SOUR POWER. I just need to tweak it a bit and get it to my publisher.

 * Write a novella (a first!) I am excited about this one. I like writing shorter stories and have several ideas. I just need to harness them.

 * Get back on my exercise routine. I used to work out four times a week. For years! A massage therapist messed up my knees two years ago and I really got out of my exercise routine. I miss it.

* Get organized. I’m a mess lately. My files are in shambles. My photos are all lumped together. I have boxes of books and swag in my office. Don't even ask about my closet. Oy.

Now, that I'm holding myself accountable by putting these in writing, feel free to yell at me if I don't comply with them. And what are your resolutions? Do you make them? Keep them?