Summertime, and the reading is easy!

I vacation every summer in a beautiful beach town on the New Jersey shore, not too far from where my husband grew up. I start each day with a leisurely jog up and down the town’s boardwalk bordering the beach, which offers the best views of the sun rising up out of the Atlantic Ocean. The beach is always empty then—except for an occasional gathering of sea gulls—and the breezes lift off the water and keep me and the few other early joggers from getting too hot. It is the most peaceful time of day. While my sneakered feet stay on the boardwalk, my mind wanders in all directions. I get some of my best writing ideas during these tranquil morning jogs.

After I return to the inn where my husband and I stay, I wash up, change into a swimsuit and coverup, and grab some breakfast, after which we head back down to the beach, armed with chairs, an umbrella, and books, books, books! My husband loves biographies, narrative history, and thrillers, many of which he buys in hardcover (which makes our beach tote bag weigh a ton.) I prefer women’s fiction, romances, and mysteries—the same genres I write—and I read them on my Kindle. Of course, this means I can bring hundreds of books down to the beach with me, all stored on my lightweight reading device.

Much as I love my morning jogs (and my evening ice-cream pig-outs; our inn is a short walk from a fabulous ice-cream parlor), my favorite part of vacation is sitting on the beach and reading. I slide my chair into the umbrella’s shade, dig my toes into the sand, and gorge on books. My definition of bliss!

If you’re like me, and looking for some delicious new books to read while you’re on vacation, I hope you’ll give The April Tree a try, especially while it’s specially priced at only $1.99. Much as I love all the books I’ve written (one hundred so far!), The April Tree is the book closest to my heart. It contains drama, romance, sorrow, and laughter. It’s about life and loss, fate and faith. And it’s about the enduring bonds of friendship.

Some of you may be beach readers like me. Some may be hammock readers. Some of you may be hopping on planes and traveling long distances this summer—but hey, you’ll need a good book or two to keep you company on the flight. So stock up on your summertime reading—and take advantage of any discounts you can find. I hope you’ll include The April Tree on your summer reading list.

Judith Arnold

THE APRIL TREE is on sale for just 1.99! Grab it today!

Everything Old is New Again!

by Nancy Gideon

I’m a big fan of Reuse/Recycle/Repurpose for saving time, money and resources. I was beyond thrilled when BelleBooks applied this principal to my “Touched by Midnight” vampire romance series.  The original three titles came out in the early ’90s. Fans convinced me to continue with six more installments when ImaJinn started up. When I got the rights back to the first three long out-of-print books, ImaJinn (now part of BelleBooks) bought them with the plan of repackaging all nine under a new header (“Touched by Midnight”) with gorgeous new covers,  the chance to sneak in and tweak, and to reach a whole new audience! R/R/R at its finest!

Book 6, MIDNIGHT SHADOWS (my favorite!) comes out this month with a dynamite cover (I’ve been sworn to secrecy!). To celebrate, the first two books of the series are on SALE.  MIDNIGHT KISS is $0.99 and MIDNIGHT TEMPTATION  $1.99 through May 15 – an awesome intro that begins in the Regency era and moves, with characters weaving throughout, into modern times (MIDNIGHT SHADOWS takes place in the modern day jungles of Peru).

Here’s a teaser from MIDNIGHT SHADOWS to whet the need to sink your teeth in for more . . .

“If I’m going to go out there to put it on the line for, as you so succinctly put it, the paycheck, I need to know if you can keep it together. If you have any doubts, you stay behind.”

“I’ll be fine, Cobb.”

“Will you? Are you? Then tell me what you saw earlier tonight in your room. Can you do that?”

“A mask on the wall.”

“Bull.”

“I didn’t see anything.” His steady stare wouldn’t let her leave it at that. “I didn’t see anything real, okay. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’m nuts, bonkers and all the rest? That I see things that aren’t there? That I have a hole in my memories large enough to drive a Mack truck through? That I can’t trust myself to know what’s real?”

“Trust me.”

His sudden intensity dragged her back from the edge of hysteria.

“Why, Cobb? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I can protect you if you let me. Because I know you’re not crazy.”

“How do you know?” she whispered, fearing to believe it because she didn’t believe it herself.

“Because I know what’s out there, and it’s real.”

FIREWORKS, FEISTY HORSES AND FRISKY COWBOYS
Kathleen Eagle

If you’re ever in North Dakota on the Fourth of July, head straight for Mandan, “Where the West Begins.”   Bismarck and Mandanare the Twin Cities of North Dakota, and like my current home near the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the cities are separated by a great river—the Missouri in North Dakota and the Mississippi in Minnesota.  In both cases, a state capitol looks across the water at its sister city.  In both places, the two siblings have two very different personalities.  It’s East meets West personified, where cowboys and Indians may be one and the same.  My husband’s people, the Lakota, are sometimes called “West River Sioux.”  Their Dakota cousins’ homeland stretches from east of the Missouri as far as the Mississippi.

THIS TIME FOREVER, my latest release from Bell Bridge Books, begins as rodeo cowboy Cleve Black Horse runs into serious problems on his way to the annual Fourth of July Mandan Rodeo Days, advertised nowadays as “The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Boots On.”  You couldn’t prove it by Cleve—he didn’t make it to the rodeo—but I can tell you from experience that Fourth of July in Mandan, while maybe not the most fun I’ve ever had wearing boots, is definitely right up there in the top tier of good times.  When we lived in North Dakota, we rarely missed what I consider to be the real Western rodeo—outdoors, old-fashioned grandstand bleachers, clowns shouting out the same jokes you hear every year, a snow cone for every kid and a pretty blonde buckle bunny for every cowboy.

There’s an afternoon  parade down Main Street, of course, home of thriving local stores and lively saloons.  One of our favorite features is Art In the Park, where artists and crafters sell everything from fine pottery to funny whirligigs.  I have many treasures made by people I came to know through Art In the Park.  If you appreciate American Indian Art—and who doesn’t?—you’ll find it in the Five Nations Gallery at the Mandan Depot, which isn’t too far from the park.  One of the beauties of Mandanis that nothing is too far from anything else.

On “Patriot Night,” July 3, the rodeo committee does a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project.  On the Fourth, the evening rodeo is followed by fireworks, made especially wondrous by the North Dakota night sky.  Most of my books are set in the Dakotas, where the sky is everywhere you look, and the stars are gloriously bright and abundant.  You have to see it for yourself.  Day or night, sunrise or sunset, no IMAX or Omni Theater or Biosphere will ever do justice to the Dakota sky.  It’s “America the Beautiful” in real life, real time.

And that’s what the Fourth of July is all about.  Have a good one!

Get your $0.99 kindle download immediately!!

EYEWALL   by H.W. “Buzz” Bernard- FINALIST in the 2012 EPIC Ebook Awards for Best Suspense/Thriller is on sale today only (10/11) Get your Kindle version immediately for only $0.99!!!

A Regular Colum by Bell Bridge Books Senior Editor Pat Van Wie

 Techniques Of  The Selling Writer by Dwight Swain

One of the things I do in my creative writing classes is bring in and recommend great books on writing. The first of these is TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight Swain.

As most writing teachers will tell you, this is the bible for writing commercial fiction. It’s a valuable resource you’ll use throughout your writing career.

However, a word of warning. It’s very dense, and you might not get it all the first time through. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get the parts you’re ready for as a writer. Then I promise you’ll pull it out again and again during your writing career – maybe just to read sections — and then you’ll say, “Oh, I get it.”

After over twenty years of writing, I still use it today and am still finding new information that I didn’t ‘see’ before.

Do authors get homemade cardboard purses from their editors at the Big 6 publishers? I think NOT!!!!

Here at Bell Bridge we’re known for . . . okay, Deb Smith is known for . . . using any excuse to play in the glue-sticky world of home crafting. Which is why Bell Bridge authors often open perfectly businesslike-looking packages to find, tucked among official correspondence or book galleys, some beaded bracelets, photo pendants, custom bookmarks or Christmas ornaments made from dried peppers. And yet, for GODDESS OF FRIED OKRA author Jean Brashear, the Craft Goddesses had something special in mind: a GOFO purse made from cardboard, fabric, an Inkjet transfer of her cover art, and lots and lots of buttons, beads and assorted metal geejaws to hide the glue marks.

And so we present, below, THE PURSE, as modeled by the lovely Jean herself.

It has been suggested that THE PURSE may serve best as 1. a windowsill planter for some nice catnip or a cactus 2. a bird feeder 3. a doorstop 4. a weapon or 5. all of the above. 

Hi, I’m Pat Van Wie, the newest addition to BBB’s editorial staff. My main focus for Bell Bridge is mystery and suspense (and yes, I’d love to find the next Dennis LeHane or Lisa Gardner), but I read all the genres BBB publishes.  In particular, I enjoy all forms of fantasy, from urban to sword and sorcery, and the great YA books surfacing in the market.

Although I’m new to editorial, I’ve been immersed in writing and publishing for over twenty years as both an author and writing teacher. I sold my first book in the mid-90’s and subsequently published eleven novels for three different publishers, including Ballantine, Bantam and Harlequin. About the same time I published my first book, I started teaching Creative Writing. I’ve given workshops and taught classes at writer functions all over the country and online. Then, about three years ago, I started teaching at the local community college. Plus, over the years, I’ve also judged numerous – as in hundreds of – writer’s contests.

What all that background means is that writing, and publishing, has been a huge part of my life for a long time. Oh, and I admit to certain left brain tendencies – that you don’t find in a lot of authors – which make editing particularly appealing to me. IOW, I love the details of constructing a really good sentence.

So, where am I’m headed with this blog?

Well, I got the idea from one of my classes. (Thank you, Thorwald, Belinda, Mario, Suzanne, Steve, Shannon and Tibold.) When I started working for Bell Bridge, I added a fifteen minute segment to the beginning of my class, where I talked about things that editors see – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The class loved it. In fact, they wanted me to develop and teach a new course on how to avoid driving editors crazy. Well, instead of the class, I decided to write brief blog entries about how to improve your writing. Thus — “How To Drive An Editor Crazy. Or not.” — was born.

Enjoy!

A big blog welcome to Kat Magendie, bestselling author of TENDER GRACES, SECRET GRACES and now SWEETIE.  Her books are lyrical, evocative Southern lit-fiction.  The Kindle edition of  SWEETIE is currently perched high on the literary fiction bestseller list at Amazon.com.  And now, here’s Kat:

She held out her hope like rose.

Teen Bullies, Outcasts, Prejudice and SWEETIE

 Whenever Bellebooks/Bell Bridge Books sends my novels out to the world (bless you BBs!), something hidden is always revealed—because of my readers. You’d think I’d know all the inside and outside and in the nooks and crannies of my work, but this is not the case. Readers will see what has not occurred to me or has not been revealed to me, and then they will open my eyes wider and brighter.

 I knew SWEETIE’s themes of belonging, place/displacement, home, friendship, loyalty, and family—topics I return to time and again. But what I never thought was that Sweetie would help readers with their own painful memories of childhood/adolescent angst, loneliness, being bullied, and those awful feelings that one is a misfit in a world of Those Who Fit. As sophisticated as we think we have become, we still have problems with compartmentalizing on the “playground,” in schools, in social networking, in neighborhoods, at work, and sometimes even within families.

Narrator Melissa remembers torment by the Circle Girls (Beatrice and Deidra were the head Circle Girls. They picked the girls to be The Circle, and the ones to be inside of it. It was never good to have their attention until you knew which one . . .) as she says, “What society of children could resist tormenting the walking cliché from daytime movies?—I was always the awkward new girl in town. One would hope I brought that cliché to the limit, somehow growing to be beautiful and showing them all, but I was at best unremarkable, average . . . .” And Sweetie says, “Not nothing average about you, Miss-Lissa,” because she sees deep into the full burning heart of Melissa.

The bestselling first book in The Graces series

Kathryn

There is a troubled boy who, along with his Posse, bullies Sweetie and Melissa. But it is again Sweetie, with her wonderful insight, who understands T.J.’s bullying behavior, “Nobody deserves to be treated like a dirty worm under a dirty foot by they’s own kin. T. J.’s mean but his daddy’s a long-sight meaner. Guess his daddy teaches him how to be.” Sweetie, who is scarred and strange and mis-fitting sees the world with wonder and generosity—we could all use a Sweetie in our lives.

A humbling but incredibly cool thing is mail I receive from teachers and from parents. Teachers have said how through the years children like Melissa and Sweetie have come to their classroom, and the Sweetie novel not only resonates with their experiences, but with the teacher’s own memories of childhood awkwardness, friendship, with their own mothers and fathers, with fitting in and filling out, and even first crushes.

And mothers pass my book(s) on to their daughters to read to inspire discussion about just how hard it is to be a kid, an adolescent/pre-teen/teenager, no matter if it is the 1960s, 70s, or 2011—we all have been 11, 12, 13, and we all have searched to find Identity without being Different—oh to celebrate our differences!

What more could an author hope for than to have teachers, mothers, fathers, and other readers relay to her how her books promote discussion—to those who remember a time when they felt as if they’d never fit in, or never rise above a bully’s harsh words and taunting, or felt ugly or weird or fat or scared or skinny or . . . just different. (Melissa: “I think it would be great never to feel pain.” Sweetie: “I reckon that’s what most would think.”) We do rise above it, things do become better, we grow up and out and beyond—we learn empathy, a great gift. As Melissa says, we are beautiful biological wonders; scientific anomalies. No one can take away our joy if we only believe in the magic of our own beautiful Selves.

When I write a book, I never set out to teach a lesson, or write something that will promote discussion. I just write what the character experiences, digging deep into the core, the heart of the character, peeling away layers (except those that must remain). I listen and I relay. It is you all, you readers, who take my work to the highest level, opening up my world and their world to even greater possibilities.

Thank you for reading with such care. Thank you for telling me your stories. Thank you for your trust. And in return, I promise to do the best I can—to write my stories with a full and burning heart. As Sweetie says, “All a person can do is give it all they’s got. Right?” Right, Sweetie . . . that’s right.

—–

Kat lives in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, in a little cove at Killian Knob with two dogs, a ghost dog, a GMR (Good Man Roger, her husband,) a mysterious shadowman, and many wild critters. She is co-editor/publisher of the Rose & Thorn. Visit her at kathyrnmagendie.com, follow her on twitter @katmagendie, on Facebook, or  her blog www.tendergraces.blogspot.com.