Show No Weakness

Welcome to my blog!  My guest today is Joyce Holmes, author of Show No Weakness.  Joyce, thank you so much for coming. 

1.Tell us a little bit about you and your work.

I live with my husband and teeny tiny dog, Roxy, in the beautiful Okanagan valley, in British Columbia.  I'm an empty-nest mom with two precious little grandsons.  My first book, Show No Weakness, was released in June by Secret Cravings Publishing.  I work part-time which gives me plenty of opportunity to pursue my writing.  When I'm not dreaming up stories in my head or planning my next great travel adventure, I enjoy hiking, biking, boating and photography.

2.Congratulations on your first release.  It's exciting, isn't it?  Where do you go when you write?

I work in my upstairs office on an old laptop that gets a little cranky when I try to use the internet, which helps keep me focused on my writing and off the social media sites.

3.LOL.  It's easy to get distracted.  What is your favorite genre?  Have you tried to write in others?

Contemporary romance is the only genre I write because I enjoy tormenting my characters until they get their happy-ever-after, but I love to read every genre.  Mystery and suspense are a couple of favorites, but unfortunately I don't have the deviously clever mind necessary for writing it.

4.Describe your hero and heroine in your latest release.

My hero, Cole Dennison, is an RCMP Corporal.  Years after his daughter's death, he's still overwhelmed by feelings of grief and guilt, and the only way he can deal with these emotions is by hiding from them.  My heroine, Joely Sinclair, is a single mom and a social worker.  She's a compassionate and outgoing person, and she falls hard for Cole.  Her transparent personality doesn't mesh well with his carefully guarded one, which causes plenty of struggles as she uses the power of her love to try and heal him.

5.I love the sound of that.  What are you reading right now?

The Summer of Living Dangerously by Julie Cohen

6.Would you share your links with us?

My social media links:

http://www.JoyceHolmes.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/Joyce.M.Holmes

https://twitter.com/#!/Joyce_Holmes

My buy links:

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Show-No-Weakness-ebook/dp/B008GWRCP0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341333667&sr=8-1&keywords=show+no+weakness

  B&N:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/show-no-weakness?keyword=show+no+weakness&store=allproducts&iehack=%E2%98%A0

Secret Cravings:  http://store.secretcravingspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=book_info&cPath=4&products_id=354&zenid=aad0292ec9fe9522115b9f4f57b6cfe8

My Amazon author page:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008H5HTV8/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

7.We’d love to read an excerpt.

Cole twisted the cap off the beer bottle and tossed it at the small garbage can by the back door. It balanced on the edge for a moment, teetered and fell to the deck. Damn, that should’ve been a sure shot. Thinking he must be losing his touch, he debated hauling his carcass out of the hot tub to try again. It ended up being a short debate. It was only a beer cap after all, and what did it matter if he made the basket or not?

He tilted the bottle back and chugged a long swallow of ice-cold beer, and another one, then eased back in the water. He felt great. Totally relaxed.

He straightened back up and balefully eyed the beer bottle. Who the hell was he trying to kid? He felt restless and edgy. And he could pinpoint the exact moment it all started. That fateful day when he’d looked up from his paperwork and saw Joely Sinclair standing beside his desk. His hottest dream and worst nightmare all rolled into one tempting little package. Relaxed? He didn’t know the meaning of the word since she walked into his life.

Drawing hard on the beer bottle, he emptied most of it in one long pull. He set the bottle aside and smiled, even though nothing was remotely funny. His grin quickly faded.

For the better part of two weeks he’d tried to forget Joely Sinclair existed, but the encounters with her in the last couple of days proved he’d only been fooling himself. He had it real bad for the lovely Miss Sugar and Spice, and she was one huge distraction he didn’t need. Didn’t want. Correct that, he wanted her all right. He just didn’t want to want her, and it made him jumpy, this combination of wanting to be near her and wanting to be rid of her.

Hard to believe someone who looked like her could have a teenaged son. A teenaged son headed for delinquency if he didn’t shape up. But as long as the boy didn’t end up back in police custody, he wasn’t Cole’s concern. When he’d tried to warn Joely about her son’s choice of friends, she’d jumped on him with both feet. Who needed the hassle?

With his mood rapidly turning sour, he drained the last of the beer and deliberately turned his mind away from thoughts of Joely Sinclair and her son. He should get out of this hot tub and spend an hour or so unpacking. After a month in this house you’d think he’d be good and tired of looking at boxes stacked a mile high in the dining room.

He slouched low in the water, letting it lap over his chin and around his ears. On second thought, those boxes could stay right where they were. They contained nothing but memories. Memories best kept forever sealed away in cardboard.

Wonderful excerpt, Joyce.  I know your book will be a great success.  Readers, don't wait to get it.  It sounds just great.

Hello, Guests.  My name is Violet McCallum, and this gorgeous man beside me is my husband Matt.  Elaine told our story in her book A New Dream. 

That's right, she did.  Please feel free to buy a copy if you like.  It's a great book.

Tell them the address, Matt.

Oh, yeah.  That's http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=a+new+dream+by+elaine+cantrell&x=32&y=27  Folks, Violet booked a wonderful author to be our guest today.  When Elaine heard who agreed to come, she turned as pale as a ghost.  I heard her mumbling something about how everyone would want us to stay on permanently because we recruited such distinguished guests.

(Violet laughs.)  Our guest today is Jean Joachim.  Jean, welcome to the blog.  I admire your writing so much.

Thank you, Violet. 

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing, Jean?

            I’ve been writing non-fiction for a long time, 20 years at least. My first book was non-fiction, published in 2003 called, “Beyond the Bake Sale, the Ultimate School Fund-Raising Book” and it was a labor of love. I’ve always loved to write and to make up stories. When I was a child, I would act them out with my friends. I didn’t attempt fiction until two years ago and fell in love with both fiction and romance.

            I’m married and I have two sons. We live in a too-small apartment in New York City with our rescued pug dog named Homer. I spend time walking in Central Park with Homer, who is my muse. I discuss plot and characters with him and he is very wise in his council, also he’s a good listener, a rare quality in a man.

            I love writing and don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t write. I suppose I’d tell stories or scratch them out in the sand! LOL.

2. LOL.  Don't tell Matt, but you're dead on about men and their listening habits.  Most people always ask where authors get their ideas, so tell us: where do you get your ideas?

My first stories landed, unbidden, in my head. It felt like a small door in my brain between the conscious and unconscious opened only as wide as a crack and characters slipped through. They proceeded to tell me  their stories and I scribbled them down as fast as I could. Fourteen hundred pages later, their stories became the Now and Forever series. Only the first two books in the series are published yet.

After that, a situation might land in my brain or a character and I said to myself, “what if???” and my what if became “Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights” my first published romance. I never know where a story idea is going to come from next but I seem to have no control over the process.

3. How long did you write before you got published?

I have only one article that hasn’t been published. After that one, I learned how to edit my work and take a critical eye to it. Then every thing I wrote got published. With my books, the same has been true. When the first one failed, I kept writing and a year later I edited again, my publisher editing, too and its out as Now and Forever 1, a Love Story. 

4. To date which of your books was hardest to write and why? I wrote to prequels to the first books in my series and they were the hardest to write. I had to remember all the details from the published books and make the timelines meet and the details dovetail. It was a giant pain in the neck even though the books were short and I doubt I’ll ever do that again!

5. Oh, I wouldn't either.  What do you think makes a book a page turner?

You can’t escape a good plot with plenty of believable twists combined with real characters who are not perfect but are immensely likable. Add a dash of danger and a slightly unpredictable outcome (romances all have HEAs) and that does it for me.

6. Sounds like my kind of story.  Tell us what you’re working on now.

 I’m finishing up my Christmas novella, “Champagne for Christmas” and having a hard time finding time to work on it. Then I have to edit the third in the Now and Forever series and start the last one in the Moonlight series.

7.We'd love to read an excerpt.  Don't forget to leave a buy link.

Here is an excerpt from “Now and Forever 2, the Book of Danny” my newest release.

When he got to Willow Falls, Danny checked into the only motel in town. The next

afternoon, he left the motel and hiked the three miles to the reception for new professors. The
walk couldn’t compare to the long, hot, dry treks with a seventy-pound-pack on his back he
endured in the desert.

 While he walked, Danny wondered what kind of women he would find here. Danny dated

and bedded lots of co-eds in college and graduate school. He achieved an enviable sex life by
reciting love poetry by heart and discussing books with young women. Unfortunately, when his
lovely bed partners discovered he planned to fight in the Middle East, they dropped him.

Overseas, he got to know only prostitutes, a group of desperate women doing whatever they

needed to for survival. He turned to alcohol and women to deal with the pressure, to dull his
senses and escape the horror of reality.

He arrived at the dean’s house twenty minutes late for the party. The colonial house loomed

larger than some in the neighborhood, painted beige with white trim and black shutters. When he
rang the bell, an angel answered the door–Dean Eliza Baines, dressed in a chiffon print dress of
aqua and soft green, matching her eyes. Her short blonde hair glistened in the afternoon sun,
framing a delicate face, a small nose and sensuous lips. The gentle fragrance of gardenia flowed
from her slender neck down to the tips of her pink fingernails. Danny couldn’t find his voice. He
never expected such beauty to be standing right in front of him in the middle of nowhere.

Buy Links

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Now-Forever-Book-Danny-ebook/dp/B0067964RQ/

Barnes & Noble -http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1107349184?ean=2940013595156&itm=1&usri=now%252band%252bforever%252b22c%252bthe%252bbook%252bof%252bdanny

To find out more about all my books, check out my website: www.jeanjoachimbooks.com

Jean, thank you so much for coming to Elaine's blog.  I knew she can't wait to read your book.

Welcome Dana Littlejohn

Hello and welcome to Dana Littlejohn's blog tour.  Dana was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, but has called Indianapolis, IN her home for over 10 years. Her love for writing started as a young girl in junior high school where she discovered her first romance novel. Falling in love with love she started writing her own ongoing story in weekly installments to entertain her friends as they passed it around the lunch room.

 When she became an adult she put her love for writing on hold to do the start a family, but in 2003 with encouragement from her husband she picked up her pen again. This time she has no intention on putting it down. To date she has written 3 full length novels, 11 novellas, 36 short stories and has had her stories in 3 anthologies under her own name and a pseudo for another genre. Her do-do list grows daily and the ideas flow freely. Keep an eye out for what she has coming next.

1.     Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work?

Where to start, where to start… Well, people ask me all the time if Dana Littlejohn is my real name or a pseudo. Let me go on record and yes. It is my real name. I work a nine to five and my pay check comes in that name. LOL I cannot claim it though because my husband shared it with me. I have four children all over eighteen and a wonderful husband who loves my crazy edge that leads me to the stories I write. I write African American and interracial romances. They have crossed over and merged several genres, but all are erotic.

2.     I use my own name too.  When writing a new book, how do you decide on a theme, genre, or topic?

Anything can spark a new idea for a book for me. A picture, a comment, a conversation…anything and anything has! When my son returned from the air force I asked him what life was like behind the wings? He laughed and said, you don’t have a life when you’re enlisted only the officers do. That answered sparked the idea to one of my full length novels, Behind the Wings.

3.     What do you think makes a book a page turner?

I think a great story with engaging characters make a great a story, but with that being said the idea of ‘engaging’ is different for everyone. I think if a reader can connect to the characters in some way, whether they see themselves in the character themselves or the situation, they become engaged.

4.     How many WIP do you have going?

When I saw this question I drew a total blank. LOL I really didn’t know. I’m usually working on at least two stories at once sometimes three. It just depends on who is talking the loudest to get their story told that day. Most times I finish them back to back t submit them and usually they are totally different and are going to different houses.

5.     At the moment I have three going.  What other authors if any have influenced your writing?

I don’t get the chance to read as much as I liked to, but when I do I really like Bertrice Small. Her characters are strong independent woman with minds of their own. They get the same kind of men who appreciate them as is and absolutely adore them. I love that!

6.     Would you share your links with us?

Sure! My website: www.danalittlejohn.net  my blog: www.authordanalittlejohn.blogspot.com  you guy find me on twitter and Facebook by authordanalittlejohn

7.     We’d love to read an excerpt.  Don’t forget to give us a buy link.

This excerpt comes from my latest release Releasing the Baggage. It is available at Secret Cravings Publishing. Here is the blurb.

Blurb:

Jerri Ivory was over divorce cases, but when your boss asks you to do him a favor... During the important case, her boss is killed and she becomes a suspect all while she is trying to get to know Felix, a man her friend Linda hooked her up with. With all the chaos and mayhem going on in her life, can Felix slow her down long enough to show her they were meant to be? 

Excerpt:

Jerri smiled and relaxed in her chair. “This is nice restaurant. I’ve never been here before. Have you?”

“No. I had no clue where we should go, so I Googled for a good place for a first date. This place came up with four stars for ambience and four stars for food.”

“That’s great. We can experience it together.” The waitress came to take their order. Jerri waited for her to leave before continuing their conversation. “So, you said you haven’t been in a relationship in a long time. Does that mean you haven’t dated since your divorce?”

“Yes, but what I meant was I haven’t had a relationship since before my wife, but, that is also true. I haven’t dated since the divorce either.”

“Oh. Are you and your wife still friends?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying friends, but I wouldn’t call her my enemy.”

“So, what happened . . . if you don’t mind me asking?”

He hesitated.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I completely understand,” she rushed out. “In fact, forget I even brought it up. God, I suck at this. I’m sorry. That’s not really first-date conversation, is it? I don’t know what I was—”

Felix waved his hand. “No, no, it’s okay. I was actually just wondering myself what happened.”

“Oh.”

The conversation paused when their food was delivered.

“I guess what really happened was we just grew apart. That’s the only thing I can think of. I didn’t know it at the time, but we had different agendas and were on different paths from the start. She didn’t want to do the work it takes to bridge the gaps.”

“So, it was all her fault, huh?” she asked skeptically.

“No, I’m not saying that at all. It’s never one person’s fault when two people are involved in a relationship.”

“So, you believe a marriage is a fifty-fifty thing?”

“Actually, I think it’s more like one hundred- one hundred. Each person should bring one hundred percent into their marriage, not fifty percent.”

Jerri sat quietly eating for a while contemplating his words. “Hmm, you sound like you didn’t want the divorce, Felix,” she finally asked.

“I didn’t.”

Her head snapped up. “You didn’t?”

“No, I don’t think you get married to get divorced. It’s supposed to be ‘until death do you part.’ I was willing to work on it, but she wanted out.”

She nodded and pushed her plate back. “Do you still love her?” She reached for her glass and, not realizing it was empty, brought it to her lips.

He chuckled at the look on her face when she realized it was empty and refilled it for her. “No, I don’t. I don’t think I had for a long time before she asked for the divorce.”

Jerri sipped her drink. “So, I guess that kind of makes you a little bitter toward the whole marriage thing, huh?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. She hasn’t poisoned me toward getting married again at all. I still think it’s a beautiful thing. As long as it’s with the right person,” he added. “She obviously was not the right person for me, and I wasn’t for her.”

“I’ve been privy to a lot of divorces—some decent, most not—and the one thing all those people have in common is none of them took their marriage seriously anymore.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, the whole thing has kind of soured me a little to the whole idea.”

Felix reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I still take it seriously. Perhaps all you need is some positive relationships to combat some of that negativity you’ve been exposed to.”

Over the candlelight, their eyes met in a hypnotic trance. The same feeling had come over her when he held her as they danced that slow, sexy salsa dance. Something deep within the depths of those sultry honey colored eyes called to her. Jerri felt like she was falling, losing herself within those sensual golden pools. She tried to speak, but her mouth and her brain had momentarily lost disconnection. Her body was leaning across to him and he was doing the same. The sudden clank of the plates crashing into each other as the waitress came to remove the dishes brought her back to reality, making her aware of her surroundings. She chuckled away her embarrassment and sat back in her chair. 

“So, Felix, are you always this charming or is this a ploy to get into my panties?” she asked playfully.

His blush was instant as he tried to laugh it away. “Charming? No, I’m just being me, but if you find that charming, then I’ll take whatever extras come with it.”

“I don’t know, Felix, you might not want to get into my panties,” Jerri said jokingly. “To push past the coohie cobwebs would be a hell of a workout, even for someone in as great a shape as you are.”

Confusion settled on his handsome features as he absorbed what she said, and then he burst into fits of laughter. “I don’t think I’ve heard that particular metaphor for abstinence before.”

Jerri nodded and picked up her glass again. “Well, unfortunately my friends keep me updated on such things.”

“Well, I think we’re in the same boat, then, Jerri. It’s been a long time since I had sex, too, years, in fact.”

“So, I guess that makes us both second-time virgins, huh? It’ll be like starting all over again if we ever hooked up.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be.”

Their eyes met over the candlelight again. An entire conversation passed between them without a single word being said aloud. Each one understood exactly what the other wanted and needed. Felix was the first to break the heavy, sexually charged silence.

“Check, please!”

Folks, Dana is giving away a promotional: t-shirt, a key chain, an ink pen and a baseball style hat to randomly drawn commenters during the tour (US and Canada only please). Follow her book tour and comment often for a chance to win. To follow the tour go to http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2011/09/virtual-book-tour-releasing-baggage-by.html