Bell Bridge Books

From Jeanne Stein

I want to thank Belle Books for featuring Blood Drive in this month’s promotion. I thought one way to promote it was to show you a few of my favorite moments in writing the Anna Strong novels.

The first picture is my writing space. I love seeing where other authors work their magic. I hope you enjoy this peek into where I spend much of my time.

Next, Blood Drive has been translated into three languages. Here’s the Norwegian cover.

The Anna Strong stories are set in Mission Beach, California. If you are familiar with the area, you will recognize many of the locations I use in the books.

While I’ve been on several National Best Seller lists, The only Anna Strong title that has yet to make the NYT list was the story, Blood Debt, in the anthology HEXED.

It was a thrill to see my name on that NYT list, even if only for a week!

Hexed  by Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, Jeanne C. Stein

So there it is…a glimpse into the life of a writer. It’s one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had, but without a doubt, also one of the best. Please feel free to contact me at Jeanne@jeannestein.com. I love hearing from readers.

Pick up BLOOD DRIVE for just $1.99 through the 15th!

What Began as as Whim…

by J.A. Ferguson

Dream Singer, the first of the Dream Chronicles, began as a whim. I’d been writing historical romances for years, and I wanted to write something different. For the fun of it, taking the advice of C.S. Lewis to write the book I wanted to read. I took the characters of Durgan Ketassian and Nerienne and dropped them into the setting and let the story unfold.

The only requirement was that anything was possible.

I wanted the book to have music and color in it. I’ve always admired musicians who create wondrous melodies out of nothing as well as visual artists like my sister and my daughter. They see things in unique ways. I gave music to Durgan, making him a dreamsinger, someone who can see into dreams through music. Nerienne got the gift of being able to discern people’s true feelings by seeing the colors surrounding them.

Right from the beginning, the idea that they were enemies who would have to fight a common foe drove the story. Okay, it’s a beloved romance trope – the bad boy and the good girl. But in this case, the girl is well-familiar with evil because her mother, the leader of their world, is not the nice and cuddly soccer mom type.

I wrote the first chapters, but something was missing. The heroine needed a reflection character, someone she could talk to so the reader (me!) saw the emotions she kept hidden from the hero. I tossed away the ideas of a servant or sibling as mundane. That led me to a pet…a talking pet only she could hear. But better yet, a truly annoying talking pet. Bidge was born.

I’ve been asked a lot about the origin of Bidge’s name. At first, I saw her as the character who not only listened to Nerienne, but nudged her to do the right thing. Her fuzzy-faced conscience in a shell. Nudge became Budge which evolved into Bidge. But Bidge evolved as well, and her name was even more accurate because instead of nudging, she nags. Think of a synonym for nag and say Bidge’s name aloud, and you should be able to pick up on the accuracy of her name!

With my characters in place, I wrote the book I wanted to read. Once it was finished, I went back to work on my contracted books. I never thought I’d do anything with it…until a good friend mentioned a friend of hers was starting a publishing company and looking for odd paranormal books. I sent off an email to Linda Kichline, the founder of ImaJinn Books, asking if she wanted to see my manuscript which definitely fit the definition of odd paranormal. Since then, the first book has grown into five, and my original three characters, especially Bidge, have played a part in each one to the delight of readers.

Pick up DREAM SINGER for just $1.99! On sale til the 15th!

A Note from Wally Avett

I am grateful to Bell Bridge Books and my agent, Jeanie Loiacono, for getting my first two novels —MURDER IN CANEY FORK and LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE —  included in Amazon’s Holiday Gift Guide for the month of December.

My goal is to be a good storyteller so both novels, works of fiction, are solidly based on a number of true incidents.  I’m thankful the partnership of BBB and Amazon can enable me to reach a wider audience for my books.

My wife(52 years and counting) and I will welcome children and grandchildren into our mountain home over the holidays, where we always share good food and good stories.  Merry Christmas to all and a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Seasonal greetings from the Smoky Mountain farm of the Wally Avetts.

Last Bigfoot in Dixie by Wally Avett is on sale during the month of December for only $1.99! Click the cover below to purchase!

“As a longtime resident of North Carolina I felt while reading this book how authentic and real the characters came across. People in the southeastern part of the country do speak and act as portrayed in this story. I think just about every little town around the country has some strange and wild individuals that everybody in the town knows about and are suspicious of as well as the everyday common folks.

The story takes some unpredictable and sudden twists that keep you intrigued and anticipating what will happen next. A very well written book with some surprises along the way and a dramatic end fitting for a cast of characters such as these.”

Review posted by Robert on amazon.com

NOT FOR EVERYONE!

by Susan Kearney

What’s an author to do when she loves to write stories that some readers won’t even try?  It’s a dilemma because writers need to pay their bills like everyone else, so we want to be popular with readers. At the same time, my taste has always been a bit outside the norm.  Okay, if I’m honest, my taste is far from the norm.  And when I wrote my first futuristic romance, the Rystani series, the books were way, way out there.  Readers either loved or hated them.  But I learned that many readers simply heard the word futuristic and thought–it’s not for me.  The reasons were varied and  interesting for not even giving the books a try.  Some thought it would be too techie, too weird, too hard to understand or simply didn’t think they could relate.  So I set out to write a book that would ease non-readers of futuristic romance into the genre.  Lunar Heat was that story and  I set the book mostly on Earth.  I made sure to make one character an earth woman.  Okay, I gave her a man from another world to love and a mission that tests her morally, emotionally and physically.  And the romance had to be steamy.  So I finished the book and you’d think an author’s work would be done, right?  Wrong.

The next step was working on a cover.  Lucky for me I got to pick the cover models, was there for the shoot and had a lot of say in the cover art.  I wanted romance and a mood that would be inviting to romance readers.  The cover was so important because I wanted to depict romance, because that’s what the story is.  It’s romance that just happens to be set in the near future.  And if there’s a side trip to the moon, please don’t let that throw you.  It’s fun.  And I promise…the science is underwhelming.  So if you’ve never read a futuristic, I urge you to give this book a try.  Perhaps you’ll fall in love with a new genre and even want to read the sequel Solar Heat.  Um, got to admit, I when a bit further out into the galaxy on that one.  🙂

     Pick up LUNAR HEAT for just $1.99 through December! 

And make sure you pick up the sequel – SOLAR HEAT! 

Oh, What Fun: Diving into an 18^th Century Christmas

by Katherine Scott Crawford

Christmastime in the eighteenth century: This was something I had to research in order to write the Christmas scenes in my historical novel, Keowee Valley, which opens in the year 1768.

I say “had to,” but really—it was a blast! I’m a research hound and a history nut, and to top it off, Christmas happens to be my favorite time of year. Diving into the details of a Christmas nearly 250 years past was a job for which I’ll happily volunteer any day of the week.

But it wasn’t easy. For one, Keowee Valley is set in the American colonies during a time of great upheaval—the American Revolution is brewing—and not only that, the particular Christmas I was writing about takes place on the Southern frontier, in the then-wilderness of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The woman hosting the Christmas festivities—my protagonist, 25 year-old Quinn MacFadden—is a bit of a conundrum: she’s a quick-tempered bluestocking who rides a horse like a man, speaks a couple of long-dead languages, takes off into the back-country in search of her kidnapped cousin, barters for land from the Cherokee Indians and builds a settlement which functions as an egalitarian community, and is (at this point in the story) falling in rather complicated love with a mysterious half-Cherokee, half-Irish tracker with conundrums of his own.

While we know a bit of the Christmas traditions of the American colonists during this time, most of that comes from the diaries of people living in towns and cities like Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Philadelphia and New York. During a time of war, everything is thrown off kilter, even the holidays. And in the wild Carolina back-country, where Quinn lives with a handful of settlers, her faithful horse, and her Cherokee neighbors, we don’t really know what went on this time of year. We can assume folks of European descent celebrated much like they did wherever they were originally from. Perhaps they sang songs, made a special meal, lit precious candles, and spent time with family. After all, throughout history people have always attempted to hold on to tradition, no matter where they are when Christmastime rolls around.

For Quinn, this means the giving of simple, carefully-chosen gifts for the settlers with whom she shares her wild new home: people who were once strangers, and whom she has come to love.

There’s the leather gloves for a freed slave, a corncob pipe for a disgraced English lord, a tea kettle for a hard-working couple and a wood flute for their young sons. But it’s the two gifts Quinn receives in the middle of the deep, cold, holy night—one, the gift of a saved life, and two, a rather perfect surprise from a man who’s swiftly becoming much more than a stranger—that make it a very merry Christmas indeed.

Pick up KEOWEE VALLEY by Katherine Scott Crawford for just $1.99 through December 31st!

A Sense of Place

By C. Hope Clark

I love a strong sense of place in my stories, as writer or reader, so when given the opportunity for a new mystery series, I leaped onto the chance to place my mysteries on Edisto Beach.

The hardest of hearts and the saddest of souls can find peace on the sand, waves lapping at their toes. How many stories have been written and movies made about the ocean, and how people have used that ebb and flow, soft breezy environment to get away, seek answers, and let go of life’s burdens if even for a few days?

In my Edisto Mystery Series, I take a broken main character running from an interrupted law enforcement career, and help her escape to the beach where she hopes to heal. But of course I do not let that happen, and what was supposed to be a long-term retreat turns into death, injury, mental anguish, and a vicious cycle of life-threatening events. Amidst the waves, gulls, swaying palmettos and salty balmy wind, danger abounds.

She is often her own worst enemy, and since she’s operated in Boston for years, she views the beach from a detective’s eye, so even where island residents don’t see danger, she does. Without that juxtaposition of locations – big city versus beach village – the magic wouldn’t happen nearly as well.

Setting can often assume the role of a character. When a tale can’t be told better anywhere else, setting has morphed into a player. Frankly, that’s my preference in reading material – those stories where even the very ground the character stands on has an impact on the plot.

Imagine Sherlock Holmes in other than England. Or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum in other than New Jersey. Or Tony Hillerman’s western mysteries without the Navajo west? True, there are many mysteries that could happen in any urban setting, or any rural setting, or any country, for that matter. But doesn’t it enrich the storytelling so much more to know that where the players fight, love, live and die impacts how it all turns out?

BIO

C. Hope Clark inserts strong setting in both her award-winning Carolina Slade Mysteries and Edisto Island Mysteries, all set in rural South Carolina. When she isn’t writing mysteries, she is editor of FundsforWriters.com, an award-winning site to aid professional writers in their careers. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central SC when she isn’t walking the coast of Edisto Beach. www.chopeclark.com

Make sure you grab MURDER ON EDISTO only $1.99 through December! Happy Holidays! 

And make sure you also grab the second in the series – Edisto Jinx!

3,500 Posts

by Melissa Ford

This summer will mark 10 years of writing my blog, Stirrup Queens. I publish a post at least 5 times per week, though I write more posts than I publish. What this means is that for the last 10 years, I’ve sat down in front of my computer almost every single day and written down a record of a thought or event, polished it, and hit publish.

I write on my birthday and holidays and weekends. I write when I’m sick and when I’m in a terrible mood and when I only have 15 minutes before school pickup. Blog posts are the warm up for my regular 6 hour book writing day.

They’re not always good. I don’t always enjoy it.

But I like having 3,500 posts. They are 3,500 pieces of evidence that I showed up, even when I didn’t feel like it, even when I didn’t know what I was going to say when I turned on the computer.

They’re proof that showing up matters. That showing up is how work gets done. That showing up moves things forward. If I didn’t show up, I wouldn’t have 3,500 posts. I might only have 2,000 posts. Or 1,000 posts. Or be writing about how I’m hitting my 500th post, and isn’t that a terrific milestone?

And yes, it would be. But 3,500 is better, no? 3,500 over almost 10 years means that I have written every day. Slow and steady, bit by bit. Always showing up, and then continuing on to write six books, too.

That is the number one piece of advice I can give to new writers. Show up. Even when there are holidays, even when you’re sick, even when you’re in a terrible mood. Sit down with your book or your blog and put words on the screen. It’s okay if it isn’t what you feel like doing in the moment. Do it anyway.

Because maybe all of that work will mean that something good happens, like having your book chosen by Amazon to be one of their December deals.

Pick up APART AT THE SEAMS for just $1.99 through December!

A Note from Wally Avett

I am grateful to Bell Bridge Books and my agent, Jeanie Loiacono, for getting my first two novels —MURDER IN CANEY FORK and LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE —  included in Amazon’s Holiday Gift Guide for the month of December.

My goal is to be a good storyteller, so both novels, works of fiction, are solidly based on a number of true incidents.  I’m thankful the partnership of BBB and Amazon can enable me to reach a wider audience for my books.

My wife(52 years and counting) and I will welcome children and grandchildren into our mountain home over the holidays, where we always share good food and good stories.  Merry Christmas to all and a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Seasonal greetings from the Smoky Mountain farm of the Wally Avetts.

Murder in Caney Fork by Wally Avett is on sale during the month of December for only $1.99! Click the cover below to purchase!

“Living in the N E GA/W NC mountains, I can certainly relate to these characters as if they were walking down the street in our small town. They come alive and realistically go about their days as you’d expect in a southern town in America. Wes, a wounded soldier coming home near the end of WWII, tries to settle back into his ‘normal’ environment on his return. Post war direction is needed and he chooses to become an apprentice in his uncle’s law firm. Being part of a southern lawyer’s cases delves him into suspense and mysteries, some surrounding those he loves…family. Justice is dealt with a little differently in the South and if the law doesn’t get the job done, then others will band together and take action deemed necessary. Certainly being thrust into multiple thrilling events opens the protagonists’ eyes into the world he is now surrounded by. Starting over can sometimes be thrilling, and call into focus that which you must deal with one incident at a time!”

Review posted by Rhonda Brigman on goodreads.com

An Attitude of Gratitude

by Sparkle Abbey

We recently had an opportunity to chat with some readers about family traditions. Our biggest take-away from those conversations was, it’s all about attitude. So many talked about how, though they love family traditions, things were going to be different this year. For some, they’d become empty-nesters, for others they’d lost someone dear, and for still others, there were new additions to their families.

We’ve both had our share of life changes this past year and the stories these readers shared reminded us that whether a happy change or a sad one, change requires adjustments. And the main thing you have to adjust is your attitude.

There is joy in remembering times past and in making new memories.

There is joy in carrying on traditions, but perhaps adapting them to include new family members.

There is joy in beginning new traditions—maybe enjoying a quiet dinner, catching a movie, or taking a drive to see the holiday lights.

Or maybe your quiet get-together has become a rollicking feast with new little ones, or new in-laws, or outlaws. There can be joy in that change too.

As 2015 comes to a close and we reflect on all the changes (both good and bad) we’ve experienced this year, we hope to remember the stories that were shared.

And we hope we remember to find the joy.

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of mystery authors Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter. They write a national bestselling pet themed mystery series set in Laguna Beach. The first book in the series Desperate Housedogs, an Amazon Mystery Series bestseller and Barnes & Noble Nook #1 bestseller, was followed by Get Fluffy, Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, Yip/Tuck, Fifty Shades of Greyhound, and The Girl with the Dachshund Tattoo. Downton Tabby is the latest installment in the series. Up next is Raiders of the Lost Bark. www.SparkleAbbey.com

Downton Tabby is currently a

Kindle Daily Deal at $1.99

www.amazon.com/ B00VVOYB86

From THE DEADLIEST HATE, Book 2 in the Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series: Miriam arrives in Caesarea

By June Trop

After five days at sea, Miriam arrives in Caesarea to trace an alchemical secret that has surfaced there:

My doldrums were relieved… when I heard above the wash of the sea the mournful screech of a lone gull spiraling overhead. A moment later, emerging through the portside doors onto the afterdeck, I saw a squadron of them wheeling above the deckhouse, dipping low, some settling fore, some aft, others flitting here and there, one already with a strip of blood-streaked meat hanging from its bill. Land at last! The long, slow curve of the shoreline was sliding toward us. Soon I’d see the Sebastos, the famous harbor Herod the Great built and named for his emperor, and be greeted at its gateway by six colossal statues, three starboard, three port, each portraying a member of Augustus’s family atop a column that would tower over the tallest mast.

And soon she’d see Judah. Would he be happy to see her? Uh, not exactly. Find out why in THE DEADLIEST HATE.

The Deadliest Lie by June Trop is on sale for just $1.99 through December! 

Don’t forget to pick up the second book in the series, The Deadliest Hate, below!