BBB Thanks for Great Books Blog Hop

Welcome to the Beach Book Blast Thanks for Great Books blog hop happening November 25-26th. So glad you stopped by to chat about the thing that ties us all together—good books, fabulous authors, and amazing characters. Please feel free to share your favorites down in the comments section. To show you how much I appreciate you sharing your precious time with me, I’m giving away a signed copy of each of my first three books to random commentors. Yes, that’s a signed paperback copy of Heaven is for Heroes, On Thin Ice, and Savage Cinderella to three people who leave a comment with a valid e-mail address below. No worries, your e-mail address will not be used for any future promotions.

If you want to stay in touch and get all the updated info about upcoming releases, contests, and appearances, you can sign up for my newsletter here, or stop by the calendar page of my website. I also post my activities monthly, here at my blogspot. I’d love it if you followed me by clicking on the "join this site" button to the right. You can also find me on Facebook or Twitter.


When you’re all done here, be sure to hop on over to the other WG2E Street team member’s sites and check out their new releases and see what they have for prizes. For your convenience, I've listed them below. The grand prize is a $25 and a $10 gift certificate to Olive Garden. You can enter to win on our BBB main page by filling out the Rafflecopter in the right hand sidebar. The more you help us spread the word about our books, the more chances you have to win. So now, onto the reason we're all here. The theme for this blog hop is giving thanks for great books, authors, or characters who have inspired us to write.


I have tons of authors I love, but if I had to narrow it down to just one, I’d have to say that Diana Gabaldon is one of those authors whose work I find enthralling. Her Outlander series is amazing. The seven or eight brick-sized books about a time traveling nurse from 1945 England who gets thrown back to 1700’s Scotland and falls in love with a red-headed highlander named Jamie Fraser has to be the best series I’ve ever read. Gabaldon’s prose are poetic perfection and the dynamic love story between Claire and Jamie has captivated the hearts of millions of readers over the past twenty years. There is action, intrigue, a complexly woven cast of interesting and well developed characters, and an epic journey through time that leaves me breathless after each book.

My only complaint is that it takes Ms. Gabaldon three years to write her masterpieces. But then again, I’m willing to wait since she gets the research just right and I’m never disappointed in which direction the characters take me. I also have to say that as far as inspirational characters, Jamie Fraser is the BEST hero ever! He is as “stubborn as a rock” but willing to fight for what’s right at all cost. We love his sensitivity, his intelligence, his wisdom, and most of all his devotion to the equally stubborn and brilliant Claire. The dialogue in these books is real and heartwarming and the love scenes are the most organic and naturally steamy scenes I’ve ever read. I hope you’ll give this incredible series a try if you haven’t read it already.

Okay, readers, who/what is your favorite author, character or book?

After you leave a comment, stop by these other sites and see what great books have influenced these other wonderful authors. You'll find some fun prizes along the way!

Fabio Bueno @ http://www.fabiobueno.com
Debra Burroughs @ http://www.DebraBurroughsBooks.com
L.C. Giroux @ http://www.lcgiroux.com/thoughts
Stacy Green @ http://stacygreenauthor.com/
Stacey Joy Netzel @ http://staceyjoynetzel.blogspot.com/2012/11/thanks-for-great-books-blog-hopfall.html
Janice Lane Palko @ http://www.thewritinglane.blogspot.com
Lily Silver @ http://romancinghistorylove.blogspot.com/
Tamara Ward @ http://www.authortamaraward.blogspot.com/

Hoppy April!

Hey Gang! Happy Spring time wherever you may be. I love this time of year. The birds are back in force, everything is budding and blooming, and the promise of warmer days has me itching to get out and dig in the dirt.

To celebrate this month, I’m joining forces with a fabulous group of authors on a Blog Hop called Authors in Bloom. How it works is that between April 9th and April 18th, you can visit each author’s blog or website and enter to win an amazing array of prizes. At each stop, you’ll be able to pick up some great gardening tips and wonderful recipes to make your spring that much brighter. You'll also be able to collect phrases at each author's site that will add up to a story. If you collect all the phrases, you can enter to win a Kindle or a Nook loaded with free books! You’ll find all the details and the list of participating authors with links to their sites by clicking here to go to the Authors in Bloom landing page.

Don’t go yet! Here are my phrases to the Authors in Bloom Traveling Story.
Line 4: Nestled together in the garden,
Line 5: they present a lovely palette of beauty; fresh fragrant.

I recommend checking out the details of the contest requirements on the Authors in Bloom site, but if you want to hop right on over to the participating authors and their links to collect your phrases, see their recipes and gardening tips, and enter their individual contests, you can find the links here.

Here's my idea of a Sunny Delight dessert. If you want a great super easy pie recipe that's just perfect for spring and summer, try this:

You'll need one package of vanilla instant pudding mix, 2 cups of cold milk, an 8 oz. package of cream cheese, a graham cracker crust (I buy mine ready made), and a banana. Beat the softened cream cheese with a half cup of the milk until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla pudding mix and the rest of the milk and blend until thickened (3-5 minutes). Slice half the banana onto the bottom of the pie crust and then pour the pudding mixture on top. Top the pie with the rest of the banana slices and add whipped cream if you like. I also add sliced strawberries to both the bottom and top of my pie to add a sweet/tart flavor. Chill and serve. Enjoy! You can make this low fat and sugar free by using lite cream cheese, sugar free pudding mix, and skim or 1% milk.

As for gardening tips, here's one of my favorites. Check out this you-tube video to find out how to make manure tea. Trust me; your plants are going to LOVE it!

My Contest
At the end of the blog hop, I’ll pick one lucky winner to receive this awesome prize pack which includes signed copies of each of my books, a free download of ON THIN ICE, a mug, bookmarks, a pen, a tee shirt, a World Wildlife Fund water bottle, and a national Wildlife Federation tote along with a cute stuffed baby polar bear! Whew…what a giveaway!

So here’s how you enter. Between April 9th and April 18th leave a comment on this blog. That’s all you have to do to be in the running. Make sure you include a valid e-mail address. If you want more chances to win, you can subscribe to my Newsletter by "Joining my mailing list" here, “like” my Face Book page here, follow me on Twitter here, and tweet about the Authors in Bloom Blog Hop (#Authors in Bloom Blog Hop. Enter to win amazing prizes @pjsharon http://www.pjsharonyawriter.blogspot.com ). It’s that easy, and for every effort, you will be rewarded by having your name entered for another chance in the drawing. If you do all of the above, I’ll add your name an extra time. That means you could be entered five times! That has got to up your chances. Just let me know in the comment section what you’ve done to help me spread the word.
Contest is only open to US residents and deadline to enter is midnight on April 18th. Winner will be announced here and also on the Authors in Bloom site on April 21st.

And if that doesn’t get you hopping, I’m joining fifteen other authors on April 19th for a “Give Your Child a Free Book Day (or fifteen)!

That’s right, SAVAGE CINDERELLA will be included in this wonderful opportunity to grab free Kindle books for kids from children’s books, to Middle Grade, to YA. You can check out the amazing lineup here. Just so you don’t miss out, I’m extending my free days to include April 20th and 21st. Awesome, right? Here's the link to Amazon where you'll have three days to get SAVAGE CNDERELLA for free!

Before I forget, a big thank you to Gina Beach for all of her creative "Title ideas" for Book One of the dystopian trilogy I'm working on called the Chronicles of Lilly Carmichael. A few other folks chimed in with suggestions, but I had to go with my gut on this one. Book One will be titled "WANING MOON", Book II will be "WESTERN DESERT" and Book III, "WINTER SUN". So there you have it! Now I just have to write it:-)

Well, that’s all I have for now. It’s going to be an exciting month!

March Magic

Twenty days until spring, folks. This is always a time of rebirth and awakening for me. I can sense the energy grumbling beneath the earth and waiting to burst forth with life. It's time to get outside and start the early preparations for my garden. I know it sounds crazy with six inches of snow on the ground, but it will be gone before we know it and I'll be out there in a few weeks trimming down some of last summer's remnants. Butterfly bushes and hydrangeas will get a gentle trimming and all the dead pods I left for winter birds will need to be cleared out to make way for new growth in the perennial bed.

On the writing front, I'll be busy getting SAVAGE CINDERELLA ready for publication. Release day is March 15th.

I'll have hard copies available through my website or on Amazon, but since I've elected to publish with Amazon's KDP Select program, the book won't be available for Nook readers until June. This was a hard decision for me because I have loved B&N for many years. But honestly, this is a business decision for me. I have had much greater sales through Amazon and the Select program offers some benefits that I can't get any other way. If you have an i-pad or sony reader, or even an i-phone, you can download a Kindle app and be able to get the e-book that way. If anyone has a problem with this, please contact me and I will make sure you get a copy of the book.

As for where I'll be this month, please check out my calendar page of my website to follow my blog tour. You can also "like" my Face book fan page and keep track of my activiteies that way. I always love hearing from readers and writers about what's happening in your world and what your thoughts are about my books.

And speaking of books, I need a title for the first book in the dystopian trilogy I'm working on. The series will be called THE CHRONICLES OF LILLY CARMICHAEL. Click here for a brief synopsis and then stop back in when you have some ideas for titles. If I choose your title, I'll send you signed copies of my first three books. Contest ends at midnight on March 31st.

I look forward to hearing your ideas!