Meet me!

The Liberty States Fiction Writers conference is this Saturday at the Renaissance hotel in Woodbridge, NJ on Rt. 1.  There is a free, open to the public book fair from 5:30-7:00, full of your favorite authors.

I'll be there, not signing this year as it is difficult to sign a book that exists in cyberspace, but I intend to be signing next year.

Stop by if you get a chance and seek me out...just ask anybody where I am.  I'll be looking for you!

Attention all you Spring Breakers!

I guess I'm feeling like I should do something to honor my daughter's dead fish today.  It was a good fish, lasted three years and it was quite pretty.  Near broke her heart to flush it.

And I know it is Spring Break!  With all the free time you're going to have over the next two weeks or month or so, why not download a copy of Dancin' in the Dark?  For a limited time, I'm offering it at the special low price of $2.99, just so you can enjoy reading Carly's story while on the beach or other warm place.  I've found that if you use the FREE READING APP at the top of the book page, you don't have to have a Kindle to read the book.  It can go directly to your computer, iPad, phone or other electronic device.

Just stop by here:

http://www.amazon.com/Dancin-Dark-Glory-Series-ebook/dp/B0072UZJR0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1331329488&sr=1-1

Remind me to tell you what happened with Tyler Hetherington sometime.  Enjoy!

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The benefits of living in New Jersey

Not only do we have lots of wonderful diners in New Jersey, we also have this thing called "the shore".
Smack up against the Atlantic, we have this great shoreline that is nearly 100% sandy beaches.  In the summer, they're jam packed with people, sloshing about in the waves, riding their surfboards and belly boards, tanning themselves golden brown like biscuits and cooling off in the green waters.

Sometimes, it is just the idea of the shore that makes me happy.  When I was in my teens, I actually used to use Coppertone suntan lotion as a moisturizer.  I'd go to sleep smelling as if I were ready to put down my towel and loll in the sunshine.

Jersey guys know about the wonders of the shore, too.  I used to find some very handsome guys on the boardwalk at either Seaside Heights or Point Pleasant.  Wildwood was too far for us to drive back then, and there were all those tolls, but it has a great boardwalk too.  People from Philly tended to go there, while people from north and central Jersey did Seaside and the Point.  (As pointed out by Stephanie Plum in one of her misadventures, yes, that was how the shore points were divided.)

It's beautiful, even in winter when the ocean is grey and the waves seem to pound the beaches harshly, taking it out on the sand because nobody is playing on it.  Maybe the ocean is lonesome, can't wait for summer.  I will never know.

I will say that some of the most fabulous times of my life were spent "down the shore".  That's a Jerseyism.  Nobody else in the world says that that way.

I'm proud to be from New Jersey.
I'm thankful to friends who led me there this weekend.  I learned so much.  But I hope I contributed something worthwhile, too.

Two blogs, another one of mine, visual aids

I've been so lucky the past couple of weeks to be hosted on two different blogs, writing about writing and Carly's story in Dancin' in the Dark. It isn't always easy coming up with different things to say...oh, no, wait.  I do it all the time.  What isn't easy is finding a good, safe direction for all these words building up pin my brain. 
Check out Joanna Aislinn's blog today:  www.joannaaislinn.wordpress.com

Then go to Rosemary Battista's blog at:  http://rosemarydibattista.com/blog/  Where I share a recipe for Dead Guy's cookies.

Then, just today, I posted something in response to what I didn't bother saying in the previous blogs...about my own personal trials.  http://peachette48.livejournal.com

Introduction to Carly Snow

Here's a sample of Carly's state of mind at the beginning of the book.  What beautiful young woman fresh out of university, able to speak five languages, and quite full of herself, wouldn't feel that way?

     Throwing on a sweatshirt over her soiled shirt, Carly started unpacking her books, placing them with care onto the built-in shelves Liz had forced John to install.  He’d probably thrown a little fit over the pretense, but caved after one smile from his wife.  That funny little weirdness gurgled up inside her when she let the mental image form ...it must be that special love thing those two had that excluded everybody else in the world.

     Weirdness aside, no matter how she felt in her gut, she knew she wouldn’t mind having that love thing going for her.

     Hell, she’d been to Europe.  She’d visited castles and palaces and galleries and museums, spoken with the natives, eaten exotic food, learned more in the months abroad than she had in all four years of college.  But she’d come back just as untouched as when she’d left.

     Untouched. 

     Virgin.

Books thudded back into the box. 

     She leaned against the wall, overcome with a sense of longing and--something--she couldn’t quite put into words.

     It wasn’t because nobody had wanted her.  She’d turned down lots of men, good-looking guys, rich guys, not so rich guys, musicians, computer geeks, geniuses--whatever was on the menu for the day. 

     Too Catholic, she figured.  That’s what she got for hanging around nuns most of her life.  And Father Mike.  And her father, though he was not a shining example of restraint, he was an example of the opposite kind.  What not to do concerning the opposite sex.

     She laughed out loud.  “Oh, Daddy, you must have been something else!  A studmeister.  And look where it got you.”

     It had gotten him her.

Happy Birthday Carly!

In honor of Carly Snow's Valentine's Day birthday, Dancin' in the Dark is going on sale over at Amazon for Kindle for .99, two days only, Monday and Tuesday, February 13th and 14th.

Yes, Carly was born in Philadelphia in a convent home for inconveniently pregnant unmarried daughters of the very wealthy.  She's been raised in the convent by nuns and kicked out at 16 when the funds which kept her from being adopted ceased coming .  It was snowing that Valentine's day.  The only thing her mother gave her was her first name...the nuns handled the rest.

Now she's found her birth father and a huge loving family, graduated from college, toured Europe and come back to Asbury Park to work in her father's PI business.
She thinks she can handle everything.
Sort of.

http://www.amazon.com/Dancin-Dark-Glory-Days-ebook/dp/B0072UZJR0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1327772802&sr=8-6