Best Ever Summer Blog Tour Week 8!

On the tour today we are discussing our favourite quotes from our books and I'm thrilled that Angie is here to share some of her favourites with us!!  She runs a review site at  Love Romances and More  

Welcome Angie!!

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Favorite quotes from my books… Well as a non author, I have a hard time answering this question, so this week I am going to focus more on what I tend to say as a reviewer – and what I really mean!

I think my all time favorite line in my reviews comes with “Tug at the heart.”  I love books that make my heart FEEL something.  I want books to remain with me way past the last page.   Good tugging or bad, crying or laughing, tugging at my heart is the way to make me want more.

Another phrase I tend to use is that it is a great beach read – something else I want readers to know before they pick up the book.  To me a great beach read is light hearted, easily put down and picked back up without feeling the need to re-read the last chapter.  I love to bury myself into a book, but being able to come and go from the scenes is what makes a book great for vacation, when I want to be up for anything and to roll with good times! 

Flowing off the page is another great line I tend to use over and over… I want books that just seem to keep going on and on before you want to take a break from reading.  If a book keeps me reading LONG after I should be asleep – or working, etc. Then it meets my criteria for a great book AND flowing from the pages.  Some authors have this talent and leave me jealous of their talents.

I am sure there are many more things I use as a I review, but these three tend to stick out.  If I had to quote myself for the real life chatter – I think my favorite phrase has become “I don’t know” it is so much easier to not know than to be quoted later!

To end, I will leave you with two of my favorite quotes of all time.

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

“If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.” – Lemony Snicket

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Do you have a favourite quote from a book...or a favourite book that you love to reread? Please write it in the comments below and you will be placed in the draw for this week and the the Grand Prize Draw in a couple weeks!!!

The Best Ever Summer Blog Tour ~ Week 7

Hi everyone! Please give a warm welcome to Regina Andrews who is hanging out with us this week :)
This is the second last week of the Blog Tour! Be sure to comment on the tour and be entered into this week's prize and a chance at a grand prize. 


Today our posts are a bit of a game. We are each going to give you a series of facts about ourselves but one is a lie. It's up to you to guess what we're fibbing about. Have Fun!!


It is a pleasure to be on your blog this week Corinne. Such a great topic, too!

   First item: I used to be a music teacher. When I finished grad school, I applied to a few jobs in the area but as a writer was basically directionless. To fill in the gaps, I answered an advertisement for an after-school recorder teacher. With three back-to-back sessions of second and third graders, I quickly came to love working with children and sharing my love of music. After the fall session, a full-time opening presented itself and I got the job! Remembering that time flodds my heart with warm memories!

   Second item: I took a tour of the Houston Astrodome. Tthe Houston Astrodome in Texas was a trailblazer in sports arenas and referred to as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World'. After taking a tour there I also saw an indoor fireworks display. It still gives me chills to think about it.

   Third item: One summer night I went on a dinner date with Seve Ballesteros While touring the Pays Basque in Southen France, my friends and I visited a private country club for dinner. While sipping our aperos, I spotted the dashing golfer Seve Ballesteros arrive and wind his way through the crowd. Naturally, his appearance caused quite a stir. My father being a big golf fan, I couldn't miss the chance to get Seve's autograph for him. So up to him I went, introduced myself in French and requested his autograph. Not only did he give me that, he asked me to dinner with him the following night. We dined at the same Country Club and he was incredible! My heart still races when I think of him.
 
   So which is the lie? Thank you for having me, Corinne!

   You can find me, Regina and get more information at: 
WEBSITE: www.reginaandrews.com
BLOG www.reginaandrews.wordpress.com
EMAIL: andrews_regina@yahoo.com Here’s a link http://bit.ly/pLV5w

Here's a blurb and an excerpt of my book, "In Good Faith" and a blurb about my novel “In Good Faith”: 
Blurb

   Haley Hawthorne is a successful Art Director at a high-powered greeting card company in Manhattan. Designer clothes and expensive material luxuries are what she uses to try and fill the emptiness inside — but it wasn’t always that way for her. Orphaned at a young age, Haley was raised in rural Dunbar Falls by her Uncle Nelson amid pasture lands and a clear sense of the things that matter most in life, including her joyful relationship with God. One day Aaron Carrier, her old friend from Dunbar Falls pays her a surprise visit to her office at Sterling Greeting Cards with devastating news about Uncle Nelson. When she returns home to Dunbar Falls, Haley is faced with a professional decision upon inheriting Uncle Nelson’s air-conditioning company. More than that, she faces a crossroads in her heart. It is a crisis of faith, of loyalty and of love. What does God want her to do? Will she be able to return home to Dunbar Falls and all that it has meant for her? And will Aaron Carrier be more than a friend?

  There will be a grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift certificate awarded at the end of the tour. Enjoy the blogs and leave comments for the opportunity to be the grand prize winner. One entry ticket per comment! 

Excerpt:  “In Good Faith”

  “Ms. Hawthorne, could you look at these proofs?”
  “Do you have a minute to go over this copy together, Ms. Hawthorne?”
  “A call for you from Grace on line three, Ms. Hawthorne!”
  Haley Hawthorne tossed her long red curls over her shoulder as she swept through the Creative Area of Sterling Greeting Cards. She carried a designer bag in one hand and a steaming latté in the other. As Senior Art Director for the largest greeting card company in the world, these early morning entrances refreshed her enough to get through the day ahead. They were her redemption. But I can remember a time when I didn’t feel like that, and it wasn’t so very long ago.

  A hush fell over the flock of artists and interns following behind her as she passed. With a frown she accepted a stack of messages from the leathery, outstretched hands of her receptionist Bernice, a fixture at Sterling’s for over forty years.

  “I’m already carrying too much, Bernice,” she murmured.
 
“There, there.” With a motherly pat, Bernice tucked the papers under Haley’s arm. “Toting a heavy load can weigh you down, Haley. Maybe it’s time to think about what you really need to carry and what you can let go.” She gave Haley a look.

  “Maybe you’re right, Bernice.” As if I haven’t already tried! That’s what was keeping her awake most nights. The old Haley used to travel light and breezy, her heart and soul as free as a bird. But lately she felt heavy in her heart and she couldn’t put her finger on why. How had things changed so much? Ignoring the chirp of her cell phone, Haley walked down the corridor to her office, glancing at the framed collections of award-winning cards on the walls and the shelves crowded with shining trophies she’d won over the years. When would she get a chance to start her own company? The fact that all her talent was padding someone else’s profit column wasn’t the only thing bothering her these days. There was something else that had been nagging at her for some time now, an emptiness she couldn’t fill with work…or with her boyfriend, Derek, either. All she knew was that she had to get through each day.

  Her young assistant, Suzie, unlatched the chrome double doors to her office for her and Haley flashed the smile that had been opening doors for her all her life. She called over her shoulder, “I’ll get to all of you in a minute.” The entourage scattered, leaving her and Suzie in the peaceful calm of her office. And then she saw him.
 
  “Aaron Carrier! I can’t believe it! What are you doing here?” She put down her bag and her coffee and  reached her hands out to him after smoothing her lemon yellow designer suit. She gave him a warm hug, then turned to her assistant.”I’ve known this guy since we were kids. He and his two brothers were like triplets, they were so alike. I’ll never forget when he insisted we start calling him Carrier, to be different from his brothers Adam and Austin. Boy, were they mad…”
 
  With his broad, six-foot frame blocking the Manhattan skyline in the window behind him, Haley noticed how his glinting azure eyes and thick hair had grown more imposing in the ten years that had passed since she had last seen him.

  He jammed his fists deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Hey. We have to talk, Haley. It’s about Nelson.”  
 
  Her heartbeat quickened. “You’ve come all the way here from Dunbar Falls to tell me something about Uncle Nelson?” She glanced at Suzie, then back at him. “It must be bad news.”

  “I’ll have Bernice hold all of your calls.” Suzie hustled off in a cloud of expensive perfume, latching the door behind her with a solid ‘click’.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, Carrier. Is it bad?” “Yeah. The worst.” “He’s -” Carrier nodded. “Last night.” His piercing blue eyes, steely as two sapphires, searched her face. But they didn’t stop there; they burned into her soul.

If you’ve read this far, please take the time to leave a comment. You might just win a book by one of the Best Summer Reading Blog Tour authors and qualify for a $50 Amazon gift certificate to be awarded at the end of tour near the end of July. This is a stop on the Best Ever Summer Blog Tour. Eight authors in mixed genres trading blog space for eight weeks for your enjoyment. Someone on the blog tour is giving a prize every week – this week find me, Regina Andrews, with Corinne Davies at her blog: www.daviesromance.blogspot.com There will be a grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift certificate awarded at the end of the tour. Enjoy the blogs and leave comments for the opportunity to be the grand prize winner. One entry ticket per comment!

Want to continue the tour? Here’s a list of the blogs:
Ann Tracy Marr - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ann-Tracy-Marr/114711658247?ref=ts
Susan Roebuck - http://lauracea.blogspot.com/
Sharon Poppen -http://poppensthoughtsonwritingandstuff.blogspot.com/
Regan Taylor - http://regantaylorsworld.blogspot.com/
Corinne Davies - www.daviesromance.blogspot.com
Regina Andrews - http://reginaandrews.wordpress.com/
Christine London – www.christinelondon.com
Lynn Hones - lynnhones.wordpress.com

 Thank you, Corinne, for a fabulous visit!!

Best Ever Summer Blog Tour! ~ Week 6

Today's special guest is, Regan Taylor!!!

 Yeah!!!!!!!!!

DINNER AT SIX

Or

IF I WAS ORGANIZING A DINNER PARTY THE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS I’D WANT AT MY TABLE.

Ohhh, this could be the best dinner ever. So many choices….no one said how big a dinner party but I’ll go with a table of eight.

I’d like to sit down with Ian and Beth MacKenzie and talk to them about how far we have come and yet how far we have to go helping people with autism.  I would ask Ian for advice on what would have made life easier for him growing up and what it is about Beth, if he could define it, that allows him to be present.

For a friend to chat with about life as a psychic Abby Cooper and her hottie boyfriend Dutch Rivers would be the next couple I’d invite. While Amy Haskel from Diana Peterfreund’s Ivy League novels started out kind of annoying me, the character grew on me. The series takes Amy through her college years and a bit beyond. What I’d like is to be able to ask Amy what has happened in oh, say the past ten years—has she been called back to Eli University for any reason to help out the current society members.  To my mind that opens the door to some pretty interesting mysteries to be solved. I’d invite one of the Argeneau men who haven’t met their mate yet for her date.  I’m sure Etienne would know which male relative would be a good choice.

                                         

And my date? These days it would be Rick Hansen.  He’s been clamoring for me to finish up his story and maybe sitting down to dinner and talking about those last few twists and turns might get me back in gear to tell his tale.

Our menu would be similar to the dinner I gave Kim and Chris Turner in IT TAKES TWO—Caesar salad, escargot followed by a lobster bisque.  The main course would be Beef Wellington and fresh asparagus and for dessert baked Alaska and lattes.

What characters would you like to invite to dinner and why? 

The Best Ever Summer Blog Tour ~ Week 5

This week we are talking about our favourite summer reads and I'm lucky to have Susan Roebuck visiting my blog today. Don't forget to write your favourite summer book in the comments for a chance to win this weeks prize!

Welcome Susan!

Thank you Corinne for letting me run riot on your blog today. Summer’s here! And that means lots of reading…actually I read in Winter too. And Spring. And Autumn too, now I think about it LOL. Anyway, if you like paranormal books, which I do, here’s what I recommend for summer reading:

1. I only recently discovered Karin Marie Moning’s Fever Series. And it’s number 1 of my list because I devoured these books with a greed that had me looking round for more. MacKayla Lane is the ideal feisty heroine who is tested over and over (too much “over” sometimes) until she comes out of the end of the series completely changed from the little rainbow girl she started out to be. I’ve just finished Shadowfever so I feel like I’ve come to the satisfactory end of a tasty, full-blown dinner. Shadowfever ties up all the loose ends so you know who everyone is. My my only criticism about the final book is, without giving any spoilers away, that MacKayla does spend too much time in introspection, questioning her actions, questioning her thoughts and desires.

2. I’ve also just found (lucky me) Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. I’ve read Storm Front and just recently Fool Moon and I think I’m a little in love with Harry Dresden who, in my mind, looks nothing like the hunky figure on the paperback version of Fool Moon. Much to my delight this hero is deeply flawed. He’s feckless and clumsy but he bravely undergoes such hardship it’s hard not to admire him.

3. Ann Rice’s Vampire Lestat series. I read the books before I saw Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt strut their stuff. Actually I preferred Antonio Banderas as Armand – he made a great vampire.

4. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness is rather a lengthy novel but it features vampires (pretty scary ones too), witches and daemons who are all against each other. So the sparks fly when a witch and vampire hook up. This is part of a series and I’m anxious for the sequel when there’s going to be all-out war between vampires, witches and daemons. And while all this is going on, humans wander about oblivious (don’t look over your shoulder – and check out the pale guy in the corner).

5. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman. It is supposed to be for children, but the subtle religious undertones are for adult reading. I’m fond of daemons and wouldn’t mind one of my own (it would be an otter).

6. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Leave the light on for this horror story in which figures leap out of shadows and go Boo! They’ll scare the wits out of you. They did me.

7. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  In Wales, a teenager comes across an orphanage whose occupants are definitely not what they seem. One child speaks to the dead, another has two faces, another levitates. And real photographs from days gone by cleverly illustrate the odd skills. This was a strange read – which is probably why I enjoyed it. I like fiction that’s out of the ordinary.

8. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I’m just on the point of reading this book. Some of the reviews say that the book is stuff that dreams are made of  - just my type of book.

9. Diavolino by Steve Emmett. This is an undiscovered little gem which dodges between sixteenth century and modern day Italy with a horrifying climax. Emmett has been likened to a mix of Stephen King and Dan Browne.

10. The Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw. I’m reading this one at the moment. Elsa moves from New York to a place that is set in the UK somewhere – probably Wales because there are mountains. She falls in love with a guy who turns out to be half man and half weather (he turns into a thunder cloud occasionally and spits lightning). It’s a brilliant concept, written in such a way that I can relate to it – there really might be people like this living amongst us.

Here are the blurbs of Susan’s books:

Hewhay Hall (published April 2012 – a dark fantasy)

An unsung hero's destiny--Slater's house of horrors.

Fire-fighter Jude Elliott loses part of his leg trying to rescue a family held hostage during a terrorist attack. He journeys to mysterious Hewhay Hall, where it is told there are wondrous, magical cures. Little does Jude know that his destination is Slater The Prince of Envy's lair where a demon resides and courageous souls are tormented... Can Jude escape Slater's house of horrors, or will he suffer for all of eternity?

Buy links:

Amazon
Barnes and NobleKobo
OmniLit

Also by Susan Roebuck: Perfect Score (Finalist in the Mainstream Category of the 2012 EPIC E-Book Awards)

 Buy:  Amazon

Publisher

Blurb: Perfect Score is about the rite of passage of two young men, Alex and Sam, from the opposite side of the tracks. Alex lives in his uncle's mansion, and while money and a stable future have been lined up for him by his powerful and withholding uncle, he wants nothing more than to be a song writer and to live happily ever after with Sam -- a boy he met once when he was in his teens. Sam's life is more wretched: he was abused, ran away from the fists of an abusive step-father and unstable foster homes, and lived most of his prepubescent and teen years in the streets, fending for himself and taking on as many jobs as he could to pay for his sister's bills at the hospital for the crippled. Struggling to make sense of the two divergent lives they have been dealt, Alex and Sam find their way to one another through a journey full of boundless love and compassion, growth, and strength.

Find Susan Roebuck:

Blog: http://www.susanroebuck.com/

FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/SuRoebuck

Be sure to continue your tour with my list. :) I'm visiting on Christine London's blog this week. http://christinelondon.blogspot.ca/