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The Splash Into Summer Giveaway Hop is hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & Page Turners.
Each of the 300+ blogs listed below is hosting their own giveaway. Hopefully you can find time during the few days that this hop runs to visit each blog and enter each giveaway.
A little HINT: To keep track of which giveaways you have entered you can print off the linky list and cross them off as you enter them.
Earlene Fowler was raised in La Puente, California, by a Southern mother and a Western father which is probably why her Benni Harper series features quilts, cattle, smart-mouthed women, cowboys and a sexy Latino cop. She wrote literary and commercial short fiction for ten years with no publishing success when she decided to change gaits and write a mystery novel.
Earlene's first novel Fool’s Puzzle and two sequels were sold within a week of submission to Putnam-Berkley Publishing Group as one of three lead titles for their new hardcover Prime Crime Line. Fool’s Puzzle was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery of 1994. Kansas Troubles, Goose in the Pond, and Dove in the Window were each nominated for an Agatha award for Best Novel. Earlene finally won the Agatha Award for her sixth book Mariner's Compass. It was followed by Seven Sisters,Arkansas Traveler,Steps to the Altar and Sunshine and Shadow, Broken Dishes. It was followed by Delectable Mountains, Tumbling Blocks, and State Fair. In March 2009, she published her second mainstream book, Love Mercy, which is set in Morro Bay, California, and stars a new set of San Celina County characters (Benni and family are minor characters and the book is set eleven years later than the Benni Harper books). Her fifteenth Benni Harper novel, Spider Web, comes out in May 2011. She is currently working on the sequel to The Saddlemaker's Wife.
The Benni Harper mystery series is set on the Central Coast of California in a town remarkably similar to San Luis Obispo. Love Mercy is also set on California's central coast in the town of Morro Bay.
Earlene is an avid lover of quilts, folk art, horses, oral history, cowboy boots (she owns 25 pair), the Central California Coast and country/western music. She lives in Orange County, California, with her husband Allen and Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Boo.
Benni Harper is back in an unforgettable new mystery from national bestselling author Earlene Fowler.
The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for her loved ones, especially her police chief husband. Benni is determined to make her hometown safe-before their peaceful street fair becomes a day to remember in the worst way.
* Please complete the form below - do not leave information in the comments - it will not count.
* One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.
* The contest will end on June 8th at 11:59PM EST; 1 winner will be selected and contacted thereafter.
* Once the winners are contacted, they will have 48 hours to respond to my email or another winner will be chosen (make sure to check your spam filters!).
* Book will be shipped directly from the publisher.
I am pleased and honored to have Elaine visiting my Reading Corner today.
The Question
By Elaine Viets
“Which one of your books do you like best?”
That’s the question I hear most from readers.
I tell them, “That’s like asking which of your children you love the most.”
I love all my literary children, and each one of them has taught me an important lesson. Let me count the ways:
In my first Dead-End Job mystery, “Shop Till You Drop,” I studied that elusive creature, the blonde bimbo. Contrary to the way bimbos are portrayed in movies, these women are not stupid. They’re shrewd at getting what they want. It’s not the way I’d do it. They pay a terrible price as they head toward their 40s. The sort of man they want prefers impossibly young females.
For “Murder Between the Covers,” I worked at a bookstore and learned there are many dedicated readers – including a twelve-year-old boy who told me “Steinbeck rules.”
In “Dying to Call You” I was a telemarketer who sold septic tank cleaner. I worked with parolees, a junkie trying to go straight – and a fiftyish divorced woman, a single mom who brought her baby to work because she couldn’t afford daycare, and a former bank vice-president. Be gentle to telemarketers. Nobody ever says, “I want to be a telemarketer when I grow up.”
In “Just Murdered” I worked in a pricey bridal department. I saw the mother of the bride come out of the dressing room in an attractive blue dress cost.
“How much does that cost?” her husband demanded.
“It’s $500,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Don’t you try on another cheap dress,” he said. “I want you to spend at least $3,000.” After working there, I wondered why there weren’t more murders at weddings.
In “Murder Unleashed,” I worked at a dog store. As a cat lover, I thought small fluffy dogs were useless. Until a woman with a white bichon told me, “I have a husband and a teenage son. This dog is the only creature on earth who listens to me. She saves my sanity.” In “Murder Unleashed,” my paperback series was published as a hardcover. That book has a special place in my heart.
For “Murder With Reservations” I worked as a hotel housekeeper. I made 38 beds and cleaned 17 toilets a day. Most hotel housekeepers get small salaries and no benefits. “If everyone tipped me a dollar a day,” one said, “it would make a big difference in my life. I’m trying to stay off welfare. I want my daughter to be proud of me.” Now I tip $2 a day.
In “Clubbed to Death,” I went from the overworked to the under-employed in customer service at a snobbish country club. I solved the problems of people who have no problems. One man wanted an owners’ parking pass for his new Ferrari. “I have to give you a rental pass until the owners’ passes are ready in two weeks,” I told him.
His face turned red as his ride. “I paid cash for that car,” he shouted. “I don’t want people to think I rented it.”
“Killer Cuts” was a look at the heady world of expensive hair salons. I was a gopher in a salon where a color and cut were $300. One multi-millionaire tipped her stylist in Burger King coupons. “She amuses me,” he said. “And when she doesn’t, I shall dye her hair orange.”
For “Half-Price Homicide” I worked at a designer resale shop and met trophy wives. These women had married men who gave them unlimited shopping at the high-priced shops, but no cash. The women desperately wanted their own money. They would bring a $3,000 designer purse still in the box with the tags on it. The consignment store owner said he could sell it for $500. Once a fashion item leaves the store, its value drops like an anvil out a window.
If it sold, the trophy wife got $250. It cost her husband $3000, so she could pocket $250 in cash. I hope she spent it on the pool boy.
I loved “Half-Price Homicide” for another reason: Helen and Phil were married on the beach under a sky lit by lightning, then feasted with their friends. They deserved a dramatic wedding.
My tenth book, “Pumped for Murder,” is just out. Helen and Phil, back from their honeymoon, have opened their own private investigation agency. Helen still works those dead-end jobs, but now she’s undercover as a private eye. She follows a possibly cheating husband into the world of extreme bodybuilding. She and Phil also work a cold case from 1986, trying to prove that a suicide is really murder.
This novel marks a milestone in the series: Helen goes from amateur detective to private eye.
“Pumped for Murder” is my favorite book. Until I finish the next one.
***
“Pumped for Murder” is available as a hardcover and an ebook. To win a $50 gift certificate to your favorite bookseller online or on land, click on Contests at www.elaineviets.com
About the author ~
Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series. In her tenth Dead-End Job mystery, “Pumped for Murder,” Helen Hawthorne investigates extreme bodybuilding and a death from South Florida’s cocaine cowboy days.
Elaine’s second series features St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus. “An Uplifting Murder” is the sixth book.Elaine has won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards and has been praised in the New York Times. She blogs for The Lipstick Chronicles and the Femmes Fatales.
Elaine lives in Fort Lauderdale with her husband, reporter Don Crinklaw.
Helen Hawthorne and her new hubby Phil have opened their own P.I. agency and their very first client is Shelby, who thinks her husband is developing a killer body for another woman.
To keep track of the suspected cheater, Helen gets a dead-end job at Fantastic Fitness, where she has to pump iron to stay employed. Then the budding agency takes on a murder case, and Helen has to move her workouts to the early morning just to keep up. With so much weight on her aching shoulders, will Helen catch a killer-or just drop dead from exhaustion?
* Please complete the form below - do not leave information in the comments - it will not count.
* One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.
* The contest will end on June 7th at 11:59PM EST; 2 winners will be selected and contacted thereafter.
* Once the winners are contacted, they will have 48 hours to respond to my email or another winner will be chosen (make sure to check your spam filters!).
* Book will be shipped directly from the publisher.
Jean Henry Mead writes mystery/suspense and historical novels. She’s also an award-winning photojournalist, former news reporter and editor. Her first book was published in 1982, and she now has 14 published, both novels and nonfiction. She writes two mystery series, the Logan & Cafferty mystery novels, and the Hamilton Kids’ mysteries. Her new releases are Murder on the Interstate, which features senior sleuths, and Mystery of Spider Mountain, an autobiographical children’s story.
Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty are feisty 60-year-olds, a mystery novel buff and private investigator’s widow, who sell their homes in a San Joaquin Valley retirement village to travel the country in a motorhome. Along the way they manage to stumble over dead bodies. In their latest adventure, they discover a beautiful young woman shot to death in her Mercedes convertible. When the killer returns to disable their RV, a woman trucker comes to their rescue. They chase after the killer in the produce truck to get his license number and later discover that the killer is stalking them.
While investigating the young woman’s death they encounter sulfuric acid spills as well as other terrorist activities. Dana Logan then calls in her journalist daughter to help in the investigation. When they compare notes they discover that Kerrie is also investigating the case for a story she’s writing for her news magazine in Denver. Kerrie later meets a handsome FBI agent who’s on the case and falls in love not long before the three women are kidnapped by terrorists.
Mead did considerable research about homegrown terrorists and those sneaking across the border with Mexican nationals. She also researched chemical spills that take place south of Phoenix, the kidnap capital of the nation where an average five murders are committed every week. She came up with the idea for the novel while driving her 36-foot motorhome along mountainous 1-40 in northern Arizona, the setting of the first murder. Along the way she listened to truckers on their CV radios, so the dialogue is both authentic and humorous.
At the other end of the literary spectrum, her first children’s book, Mystery of Spider Mountain, is autobiographical in that it takes place in Los Angeles, where the author grew up at the foot of a huge hill she and her four brothers called Spider Mountain. It was inhabited by trapdoor spiders and tarantulas that arrived from Central America on banana boats. At the top of the hill was a mysterious house with four vicious dogs. When the Hamilton kids climbed “Spider Mountain” to investigate, It changed their lives forever. The second novel in the series is the Ghost of Crimson Dawn, which will be released later this year.
About the author ~
Jean Henry Mead is a mystery/suspense and western historical novelist. She’s also an award-winning photojournalist. One of her fortes is interviewing writers, actors, politicians, artists and ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinary things. She began her writing career as a California news reporter/editor/photographer, first in Central California and later in San Diego. Mead then transferred to Casper, Wyoming, to serve as a staff writer for the statewide newspaper. While there she served as editor of In Wyoming Magazine and two small presses. She also freelanced for other magazines, both domestically and abroad, among them the Denver Post’s Empire Magazine. Her first book was published in 1981. She’s since published thirteen novels and nonfiction books.
She currently writes the Hamilton Kids children’s mystery series as well as the Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series. Her latest release in the Logan & Cafferty series is Murder on the Interstate.
While traveling a northern Arizona highway, Senior Sleuths Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty watch in horror as a pick up truck chases a Mercedes convertible past their motorhome, ultimately forcing the car off the roadway and into a ravine. Dana applies the brakes and pulls over to offer aid. She discovers the body of a beautiful young woman in the Mercedes when gunshots ring out. Stunned, she and Sarah realize they're the targets! The bullets disable their motorhome and a long-haul driver comes to their rescue, giving them a lift into Flagstaff, where they can arrange for repairs to their RV. The idea of resuming their trip home is back-burnered, however, when the first person they spot at the truckstop is their shooter. Coincidence? Dana thinks not. Quickly, the women scheme to turn the tables on the woman's killer, and the chase is on... Sometimes hunters, sometimes the hunted, Dana and Sarah delve into the shooter s identity and activities. They find more than a few surprises, and soon realize they have stumbled into a plot that not only endangers them, but puts national security in the crosshairs.
Read an excerpt ~
Lulled by a lack of traffic and the steady beat of rain, Dana was in danger of nodding off when a convertible roared past, followed by a late model pickup. The heavy downpour obscured her view, but they appeared to be coupled like boxcars. Why were they driving that dangerously close, and why so fast in the rain?
An I-40 highway sign signaled an approaching curve so she clicked off the cruise control and slowed to forty-five. Taillights had vanished and she glanced in both side mirrors. The earlier truck traffic had also disappeared and no headlights were visible in either direction. Darkness was closing in on her.
Sarah groaned from the passenger seat, apparently still asleep. Must be the anchovies. Her friend had insisted on stopping for pizza at a Kingman roadside cafe. Dana groped for the Tums. As she rounded the curve, she noticed two sets of brake lights not far ahead. The motorhome swayed as she stepped into her own brakes and skidded on the pavement. Road signs had warned of animal crossings. The convertible might have swerved to avoid hitting a deer and gone off the mountain road. Dana pulled onto the shoulder as the pickup following the convertible screeched back on the pavement. Why hadn’t the driver stopped to help?
Bolting upright in the passenger seat, Sarah said, “What’s happening?” Her voice was thick with sleep.
“We’re about to find out.”
Headlights angled upward from somewhere off the road, illuminating a huge digger pine. It had to be the convertible. Dana opened her door and climbed down. The steps were slick with rain and she nearly lost her balance. She heard the passenger door slam as she started down the embankment. Chilled and miserably wet, she slipped and landed in a bed of pine needles. Why hadn’t she grabbed the flashlight? Dana glanced up at her friend, who stood shivering on the shoulder. “Sarah,” she yelled, “Call 911 and hurry.”
The smell of gasoline was strong, despite the heavy rain. The convertible had missed several pine trees but a boulder had stopped its forward motion. Both doors were locked. Peering through the driver’s window, she could see nothing more than shattered glass, a dime-sized hole centering the web design. She then heard several backfires and a ping of metal as though the convertible had been struck by a rock. Realizing it was a gunshot, she dropped to her knees in the mud.
Sarah!
Slipping and clawing her way up the slope, she crawled onto the shoulder. A pickup was parked behind the RV. The driver had a nervous foot. A moment later another set of headlights emerged from the curve down the road. Tires squealed as the pickup roared off. As it passed, the RV’s headlights caught a dark red truck, which appeared to be a newer model. When Dana glanced in the passenger window, Sarah was crouched between the seats, the cell phone clutched in her hand. She took her time unlocking the passenger door.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not sure.” Sarah patted her chest, breathing heavily.
“What happened?”
“He shot up the motorhome.”
“Did he shoot at you?”
“I don’t think he saw me. He only seemed interested in wounding Matilda.”
Dana hated the name Sarah had christened the RV, but that was the least of her worries. Grabbing a flashlight, she climbed back down the steps. A quick inspection revealed inside tires still inflated but the outer ones in the back were flat. She heard an engine shift down and was caught in the glare of headlights. Signaling with her flashlight, she was relieved when the big truck slowed and pulled in behind the motorhome. The driver seemed to be endlessly checking gauges before descending from the cab. Once on the ground, a warm, plump hand gripped hers in greeting.
“The name’s McCurdy,” the husky voice said. ”Everybody calls me Big Ruby.”
At nearly six feet, she was Dana’s height although nearly twice her girth.
When I lost the use of my body's right side to Multiple Sclerosis several years ago, I was advised to learn how to write with my left hand. So I used daily journaling as a way to practice my handwriting.
At the same time, I read The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, a book about reconnecting with creativity. Part of the discipline that Cameron suggests is the 'Morning Pages:' three handwritten pages of daily stream of consciousness whatever. NO thinking, NO old English class rules.
I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. For weeks and weeks and weeks. And I began to realize, like a child comes to understand language, that this writing could reveal enormous amounts of new information to me, about me and my soul and my opportunities. I began to write poetry for the first time. I started remembering pieces of my childhood. Best of all, I developed a stronger affection for myself.
After a time, I modified my Morning Pages practice, making it more a dialogue and less a data dump. I asked questions: "Where does that feeling come from?" "Who told me that?" "What's the logic behind that fear?"
The writing practice naturally spilled over into my daily life, so that I began to notice answers to my questions not only in my notebook but while doing dishes, walking in the garden, going to the store.
I'm still writing every day, these many years later; still finding huge rewards in the practice. It used to be that when I suffered, I had nowhere to turn. When life was hard or whenever I just had the blues, there was no way to make sense of it.
Journaling gave me a way to deal with hard times or difficult emotions. But here's the amazing thing: eventually journaling also taught me how to go beyond the control my emotions held over me. No longer did I feel at the mercy of my emotions. My attention shifted and I became enthralled with my own creative potential. Through my journal, I started to build my own happiness.
Journaling shows me how my imaginings can become reality, and how my attitude makes all the difference. Journaling leads me like the gentle, patient teacher that it is, towards a far wiser, more hopeful and peaceful me.
Therapeutic Journaling helps us move out of our head with its highly critical over-thinking and return to living in and communicating (on a first name basis) with our body.
My journal is my number one health resource, my primary care provider, working hand-in-hand with me to achieve my goal of Perfect Health.
About the author ~
When a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) exacerbation kidnapped my body's right side, I needed some way to teach myself how to write with my left hand. So I started free writing (stream of consciousness) in a journal notebook. I got more than a functioning left hand! What I discovered (and the discoveries continue) was my true Self, buried under the old, negative, hypercritical baggage (I call it crazycrap) I've been carrying around since childhood.
Working daily with My Journal Therapist, I'm curing my spiritual, mental and psychophysical diseases, like Shingles which we healed in less than 3 weeks. And with lots and lots of daily Journaling, we’re making progress in curing my diseases to achieve my goal of Perfect Health!
My self-therapy journaling helps me revise my thoughts and determine what I want to be, do and have in my life. It guides me in adjusting my attitudes, modifying my behavior and creating a happier relationship with myself. And my Journal is teaching me how to write again with my right hand!
Do you want to stop your self-sabotage, make life changes, solve more problems and achieve your goals but are not sure how to get started? Do you want to stop your self-sabotage, make life changes, solve more problems and achieve your goals but are not sure how to get started? Let’s meet (no cost, no obligation) and talk about how ‘Journaling for the Health of It’ ™ helps you create a healthy, happy life write now!
Face down those voices in your head that always hold you back!
Finally leave behind the negative beliefs about yourself you've been carrying around since childhood!
Stop overthinking things that just don't matter!
Explore your creativity
Discover your passions
Are there changes you want to make in your life, but you just don't know where to start? Do you want to be happier in your life, but you can't figure out how to change the way you feel? Do you have a hard time identifying your goals, let alone reaching them?!
Personal growth and development is hard work, but this book makes it seem easy.
The Peace of Mind & Body: 27 Days of Journaling to Health and Happiness guide takes you on a step-by-step journey to identify exactly what it is you want -- and how to get there. In just 27 days, you'll find yourself on a clear path to achieving the peace of mind, health and happiness you want for your life.
Check out Mari's video on how to get started on journaling ~
When filling out the form, please select if you would like the paper copy of the book or the e-copy of the book.
GIVEAWAY Rules for entering:
* This contest is open to residents of USA only.
* Please complete the form below - do not leave information in the comments - it will not count.
* One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.
* The contest will end on June 3rd at 11:59PM EST; 1 winner will be selected and contacted thereafter.
* Once the winners are contacted, they will have 48 hours to respond to my email or another winner will be chosen (make sure to check your spam filters!).
Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.
When Julie’s off-campus housing falls through, her mother’s old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side … and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.
And there’s that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That’s because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tenderand silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie’s suddenly lonesome soul.
To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that … well … doesn’t quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.
Flat-Out Love is a warm and witty novel of family love and dysfunction, deep heartache and raw vulnerability, with a bit of mystery and one whopping, knock-you-to-your-knees romance.
Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novel RELATIVELY FAMOUS, five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park) and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2). She grew up in the Boston area and then went to Macalester College in frigid St. Paul, Minnesota. During her freshman year, there was a blizzard on Halloween, and she decided that she was not cut out for such torture. So she moved back to the east coast where, she'd forgotten, it still snows. Oops. She now lives in New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, she is probably on Facebook , pining over 80s rock stars, or engaging in "Glee" activities. Or some combination of the three. Probably with a coffee in hand.
