Visit with Author Sherrill Bodine

We end our Grand Central authors tour by visiting author Sherrill Bodine. Sherrill sold her first novel in 1988 and a week later received a two-book contract from Fawcett. Sixteen novels later, she has seen THE OTHER AMANDA win the Wisconsin Romance Writers of America Write Touch Readers’ Award and TALK OF THE TOWN was chosen by Cosmopolitan magazine as its “Red Hot Read” for February 2009.

Not only is Sherrill a prolific author, but she also finds time to work on charity board projects. To see which charities Sherrill supports visit her website.

Sherrill's upcoming January 2010 release will be A BLACK TIE AFFAIR

About the book:

Fashion curator Athena Smith will do anything to get her perfectly manicured hands on the Clayworth family’s celebrated couture collection for her exhibit. So when she’s called in to make sure the gowns are the real deal, she’s ecstatic...until a dress she’s examining turns out to be loaded with toxins (talk about killer threads!) and Athena faints dead away, only to wake up face-to-face with the One That Got Away, notorious Chicago banker Drew Clayworth. Drew still believes Athena betrayed him all those years ago, and he’s sure he can’t trust her. But when the priceless gowns go missing, she offers to help track them down. Reluctantly allied in the quest, Drew and Athena are soon stunned by the barely restrained passion still sizzling between them...and memories both bitter and sweet. Is their new partnership just a business arrangement? Or is this something more than . . . A Black Tie Affair?

RomanceJunkies.com has said A BLACK TIE AFFAIR is “A witty and sexy new contemporary romance.”

Sounds like a great read. Since A BLACK TIE AFFAIR has not be released yet, Sherrill will give away a copy of TALK OF THE TOWN. So, leave a comment to be entered into the drawing. I will choose a winner on December 31st!

Best of luck and Happy New Year!!

Julia

A Visit with Author Carolyn Jewel

Today we get to visit with historical and paranormal romance author, Carolyn Jewel. Carolyn is the author of ten books, the latest released in June was MY FORBIDDEN DESIRE.

Carolyn Jewel has been writing stories ever since she could scribble. Now that she's grown up she writes historical and paranormal romance because she loves history and imagining the lives of people who lived in years past, and because she's fascinated by the loves and travails of the not-exactly-human in any time period.



About MY FORBIDDEN DESIRE:

Torn Between. . .

Alexandrine Marit is a witch in mortal danager. An evil mage craves the powerful, mysterious talisman that supplies her magic, and the only person who can keep her alive is a dark and dangerous fiend called Xia. With his fierce animosity toward witches, he's hardly the ideal bodyguard. Yet as days turn into nights, she can't deny the white-hot passion between them.

Desire and Temptation . . .

Xia hates witches. They enslave and mercilessly kill his kind. But he's been ordered to protect Alexandrine, who, to his surprise, has a spirit he admires and a body he longs to possess. With the mage and his henchmen closing in, Alexandrine and her protector must trust the passion that can unite them . . . or risk losing everything to the enemies who can destroy them both.

Visit Carolyn's website to read and excerpt of MY FORBIDDEN DESIRE and even view a trailer and read the great reviews!

Don't forget to return with your comments to be entered in the drawing and win Carolyn's book.

Good luck!

Julia

A Visit with Robyn DeHart

Today, we're visiting author, Robyn DeHart. I swiped this picture of her from her website and love it, because every time I've see her at writer's conferences she's got this same great smile.



Robyn is a historical romance author who wrote four novels for Avon, before moving to Grand Central and releasing SEDUCE ME last July. On her site, she shared a bit about being a writer: "I'm one of those writers who always knew that she wanted to be a writer. It took me a while, however, to figure out precisely what I wanted to write. Reading Kathleen Woodiwiss' "A Rose in Winter" sealed the deal for me and I've been reading and writing romance ever since. I should have known I was destined for this when my Barbies insisted on hosting elaborate masquerade parties, complete with stolen kisses in the moonlight."






SEDUDE ME has gotten many well deserved great reviews. One of my favorites is from Seductive Musings - "If you like fast paced, hard to put down action, intrigue and romance a la Indiana Jones, with a charmingly independent heroine, a handsome treasure hunter, an ancient curse...this is the book for you!"




About the book: Fielding Grey is a treasure seeker with a taste for danger and experienced women. His latest mission: wrest Pandora's fabled box from a notorious criminal mastermind. Not in the job description: save an innocent damsel in distress.
A bookish miss, Esme Worthington has favored dusty tomes over society balls, and thrilling tales over flirtations. But when two scoundrels break into her home, she is thrust into a real-life adventure. Pursued and suddenly possessing the forbidden box, Esme can't resist peeking inside. Under the spell of Pandora's seductive curse, she's soon offering herself to Fielding – body and soul. With her reluctant rescuer determined to resist her charms, can the two outwit an enemy who will stop at nothing to seize their precious prize?

To read an excerpt from chapter one visit Robyn's SEDUCE ME page.


I think you'll enjoy visiting with Robyn. Drop by her website and then come back and leave a few comments. Because I know that everyone is still buried under ribbons, boxes, and after party dirty dishes left over from the very busy holiday celebrations, I will collect comments until the end of the year before awarding a copy of Robyn's book.


Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to return for our last two author visits with Carolyn Jewel on December 28th, and Sherille Bodine on December 30th!

Julia

A Visit with Jennifer Haymore

Historical romance author, Jennifer Haymore grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she surfed, learned how to fly airplanes, raced bicycles, and developed a love for sailing. She was an avid reader and completely destroyed her eyesight by sneaking a flashlight under her covers and reading far into the nights — making her mother wonder why on earth she couldn’t get up for school in the mornings…

Jennifer holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in Education from UCLA. Before she became a full-time writer she held various jobs from bookselling to teaching inner-city children to playing bit roles in soap operas.

Jennifer's novel, A Hint of Wicked was released in June of 2009. Here is a taste of what you'll find in the book:

CAUGHT BETWEEN DUTY AND DESIRE…

Sophie, the Duchess of Calton, has finally moved on. After seven years mourning the loss of her husband, Garrett, at Waterloo, she has married his best friend and heir, Tristan. Sophie gives herself to him body and soul…until the day Garrett returns from the Continent, demanding his title, his lands—and his wife.

TORN BETWEEN TWO HUSBANDS…

Now Sophie must choose between her first love and her new love, knowing that no matter what, her choice will destroy one of the men she adores. Will it be Garrett, her childhood sweetheart, whose loss nearly destroyed her once already? Or will it be Tristan, beloved friend turned lover, who supported her through the last, dark years and introduced her to a passion she had never known? As her two husbands battle for her heart, Sophie finds herself immersed in a dangerous game—where the stakes are not only love…but life and death.

To win a copy of Jennifer's book, visit her website, then return to this blog with your comment.

Happy Holidays to all!

Julia

Christmas Crazies!

The Christmas crazies have officially taken over my life and so I'm behind on my Grand Central author web tour. I'm thinking that others also are probably super busy doing last minute shopping, entertaining family or traveling to visit family, so I'm going to push back the tour a bit. We'll visit Jennifer Haymore on December 22nd, then take a break until December 26th.

In the mean time, I'll share a bit about a Tamalada I had the pleasure of attending on Saturday. What a fun day!! The organization MANA has a Tamalada every year to raise money to help young girls. People that want to learn how to make tamales are guided through the process and at the end of the day, they leave with a dozen tamales to take home and cook for their family. It's a fun, social event. And circling the room are vendors who sell a variety of crafts and goodies to again raise money for the "hermanita" program. If you live close to Orange County, Ca., plan on attending next year. You'll love it!

I'll post better pictures when I get home after Christmas. I borrowed this one from facebook : )

See you all tomorrow when we'll visit Jennifer Haymore!

Julia

As we continue our Warner authors tours, I'm thrilled to stop by author, Elizabeth Hoyt's website. Elizabeth Hoyt is a New York Times bestselling author of historical romance. She also writes deliciously fun contemporary romances under the name Julia Harper.

Elizabeth's newest book, just released on November 2009 is TO DESIRE A DEVIL. Here is a little teaser:

NOTHING IS MORE INTOXICATING—

Reynaud St. Aubyn has spent the last seven years in hellish captivity. Now half mad with fever he bursts into his ancestral home and demands his due. Can this wild-looking man truly be the last earl’s heir, thought murdered by Indians years ago?

OR DANGEROUS—

Beatrice Corning, the niece of the present earl, is a proper English miss. But she has a secret: No real man has ever excited her more than the handsome youth in the portrait in her uncle’s home. Suddenly, that very man is here, in the flesh—and luring her into his bed.

THAN SURRENDERING TO A DEVIL.

Only Beatrice can see past Reynaud’s savagery to the noble man inside. For his part, Reynaud is drawn to this lovely lady, even as he is suspicious of her loyalty to her uncle. But can Beatrice’s love tame a man who will stop at nothing to regain his title—even if it means sacrificing her innocence?

You can read an excerpt on Elizabeth's website or view a trailer. This book is on my Christmas list for sure!! I know you'll want to add it to yours as well.

For today's contest, Elizabeth has generously donated three books from her Princes Triology! THE RAVEN PRINCE, THE LEOPARD PRINCE AND THE SERPENT PRINCE.



Please visit her website to learn about Elizabeth and her books, then come back to my blog and leave a comment. Elizabeth has shared tons of interesting facts about herself, so you'll enjoy your visit.

I'm also still taking comments for Lisa Dale! Her book has not yet been awarded.

Thank you all and good luck!!

Julia

A Visit with Author Lisa Dale

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed visiting with Susan Crandall on Monday.

Today, we leave the world of suspense and visit with author Lisa Dale and her heart warming, romantic stories that take readers on wonderful, emotional twists and turns.

A lifelong bookworm, Lisa Dale is a firm believer that there are few things in life better than curling up with a novel and a cup of tea. Lisa Dale grew up in rural Northwestern New Jersey before attending McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. She worked briefly in publishing before going back to school to get an MFA in fiction at Fairleigh Dickinson University. A nominee for Best New American Voices and the Pushcart Prize, her writing appears in many literary magazines, such as Fourth Genre, Flyway, Fugue, Sou’wester, The Southeast Review, The MacGuffin, Many Mountains Moving, and more. Lisa is the author of two books for Grand Central:

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT - Lana Biel longs to leave her family’s Vermont wildflower farm so she can travel and see the world. And her sister Karin wants nothing more than to put down roots and conceive the child she and her husband just can’t seem to have. When a lighthearted fling with a mountain biker leaves Lana expecting, she finds herself tumbling headlong into motherhood while her sister Karin can only look on.

For help, Lana turns to Eli Ward, a professional meteorite hunter and her best friend for the last ten years. But Eli’s keeping secrets that could turn their friendship on its head. As the Vermont seasons change and the flowers in the wildflower meadows begin to fade, Lana must make some meaningful decisions about her family, her friendships, her love life, and her dreams.

AND


SIMPLE WISHES - Adele Matin couldn’t wait to put her lonely childhood and hometown behind her. Amid the bright lights and hustle and bustle of New York, she built a life for herself—until one terrible mistake brought it crashing down. Now Adele is running again, this time to a cottage she inherited from her mother in rural Pennsylvania. And she’s about to realize that a small town has more to offer than she ever dreamed.

An artist and woodworker, Jay Westvelt knows a thing or two about living in the country. Adele is intrigued by her mysterious green-eyed neighbor, a man who took care of her house and soon cares deeply for her. But even as Adele’s steely heart begins to soften toward him, dark secrets from her mother’s past threaten to send her running once again. Can Jay convince her to stay with him?

Only if she can learn an important truth: that happiness begins with Simple Wishes.

Lisa is an amazing writer! Don't miss out on a chance to read her books. One perfect opportunity is by visiting her website, then returning to this blog and leaving a comment about and for Lisa. And of course, authors love to hear readers share that they've bought their books, so don't forget to add IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and SIMPLE WISHES to your Christmas list!

A Visit with Author Susan Crandall

There are many things I love about being with my publisher, Grand Central Publishing, and one of them is that I'm in great company. There are so many fabulous authors writing for Grand Central. I hope you'll be as excited as I am to visit just a few with me in the next couple of weeks.

I'm excited to start our visits with women's fiction and suspense author, Susan Crandall. BACK ROADS was Susan's first published work, and her first award winning novel, winning a RITA for Best First Book and two National Reader's Choice Awards. After this amazing start, Susan sold eight more books. The latest will be released in January of 2010 and is titled SLEEP NO MORE.

SLEEP NO MORE

DANGER NEVER RESTS

The night was always Abby Whitman’s enemy. As a young girl she walked in her sleep, and one night, started a fire that scarred her sister for life and left Abby with unbearable guilt, and a loneliness that echoes within her

AND EVIL NEVER CLOSES ITS EYES

Now Abby has begun blacking out again—with apparently fatal results. A car accident has killed the son of a prominent family. Even though the evidence seems to exonerate her, Abby is plagued by doubts—and soon by mysterious threats. A young psychiatrist, Dr. Jason Coble, is intrigued by Abby and offers to help her explore the dark recesses in her mind. Through this terrifying journey, Jason’s interest turns to passion, and he yearns to give her the love she craves. But first, Abby must trust him—and shed light on

secrets that will rock this Southern town and reveal a danger that threatens them both.

Doesn't that sound great?! I can't wait until it's released!

Visit Susan's website to learn more about Susan and her books, then come back and le

av e a comment - perhaps something you learned about Susan or her books. At the end of the day, one lucky person will win a copy of SEEING RED which was released this year. Romantic Times Magazine said about SEEING RED, "A tight and suspenseful story that will have readers guessing until the last chapter. Poignant in places and nail-bitingly tense in others..."

Good luck on winning SEEING RED, and don't forget to put SLEEP NO MORE on your Christmas list!

New Contest for Christmas!

Last week, I was buried under long sleeve shirts, sweaters, jackets, scarves, hats, and anything else I could throw over me as I made my way through northern Utah. Since my husband wanted to take the kids somewhere where they could play in the snow, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to meet booksellers and readers in a new state. So off we went to Utah, driving through Las Vegas while we were at it.
I loved Salt Lake City, and want to return to Utah in the spring time to be see the gorgeous national parks. The little we got to see on our drive was enough to interest us in returning.
Now, I'm back home where it's cool and raining, but not even close the zero degree weather in Utah. I can pull out my normal leather jacket and be on my way to all those stores to do my Christmas shopping.

As my Christmas present to you, starting Next week I will begin my Grand Central contest, highlighting a few of the great authors at my publishing house. So, please stop by and read a little about these authors and leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win a copy of the author's latest book.

December 14 - Susan Crandall

December 16 - Lisa Dale

December 18 - Elizabeth Hoyt

December 20 - Jennifer Haymore

December 22 - Robyn DeHart

December 24 - Carolyn Jewel

December 27 - Sherrill Bodine

Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating Hanukkah today! And see you all on December 14th!

Julia

Interview with Lucha Corpi

Today we have a special treat. I've gotten the opportunity to interview author, Lucha Corpi about her wonderful books.

Lucha Corpi, a woman, a Hispanic, an immigrant and a mother, has always found herself breaking down barriers in both life and literature.

Her initial writing forays led to the exploration of poetry in Spanish as an outlet for her creativity. In 1970, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship for poems later included in Palabras de mediodia / Noon Words (Fuego de Aztlán Publications, 1980; bilingual edition Arte Público Press, 2001). Her first collection of poems appeared in Fireflight: Three Latin American Poets (Oyes, 1976), and a third poetry collection followed: Variaciones sobre una tempestad / Variations on a Storm (Third Woman Press, 1990).

After her first collection of poetry appeared, Corpi experienced a long and personally worrisome poetic silence. To ease the tension, she turned to prose, penning several award-winning short stories. In 1984, she wrote her first story in English and her first English-language novel, Delia's Song, was published by Arte Público Press in 1989.

In 1990, Corpi was twice honored: she was awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship in fiction by the City of Oakland, and she was named poet laureate at Indian University Northwest.

The publication of Eulogy for a Brown Angel: A Mystery Novel (Arte Público Press, 1992) was the culmination of a life-long dream. The novel won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and the Multicultural Publishers Exchange Best Book of Fiction. Corpi holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from UC-Berkley and an M.A. in World and Comparative Literature from San Francisco State University. A tenured teacher in the Oakland Public Schools Neighborhood Centers Program for 30 years, she retired in 2005. After reading her interview, Feel free to ask Lucha questions or leave a comment. Lucha will award a copy of DEATH AT SOLSTICE to one lucky blog reader who comments today. Be sure to also follow her tour all week and leave comments else where. The person with the most comments will be eligible to win the entire Corpi book collection. Now, lets start the interview.

Lucha, can you give us a brief overview of your last three books and tell us how your current book relates to those?

I write detective novels, four in the Gloria Damasco series: Eulogy for a Brown Angel (1992), Cactus Blood (1995), Black Widow's Wardrobe (1999), and the recently published, Death at Solstice (2009). Each of the novels highlights various aspects of the history and culture of Chicanos/Mexicans and Latinos in the U.S., and in particular in California. These aspects are always integral to the plot. However, each of the novels stands on its own and may be read separately.

Eulogy for a Brown Angel: Gloria Damasco and her friend, Luisa Cortez, find a murdered a child, his small body defiled, during the 1970 National Chicano Moratorium (on the Vietnam War) protest march and subsequent riot in East Los Angeles. Gloria is deeply impacted by the death of the child, and she begins a search for the murderer. It leads her on a trail of international conspiracy and bloody vengeance. Before long, two other people are dead. Gloria is determined to piece the mystery together, no matter how long it takes her. The mystery comes to its hard-hitting conclusion eighteen years later in the Napa Valley, California's wine country.

Cactus Blood: Visions of striking rattlesnakes and a crucified woman haunt Gloria Damasco's dreams. Who is the naked woman she sees tied to a cactus cross? And who would do such a horrible thing? What role does a young undocumented Mexican girl, dying of pesticide poisoning and with ties to the United Farm Workers movement, play in the death of one of Gloria's poet friend, the disappearance of another poet, and the death of a third person? Is the naked woman tied to a cactus the next victim? Gloria races against time as the intensity and poignancy of her visions compel her to follow the trail of a ritualistic killer to save the life of the woman on the cactus cross.



Black Widow's Wardrobe: Gloria Damasco, a widow, and her mother and daughter take part in a street procession during the celebration of The Day of the Dead, in misty San Francisco. Soon after, they witness the bizarre abduction of a young woman and the attempt on the life of notorious convicted murderer, Licia Lecuona, otherwise known as Black Widow, and an heiress to a fortune. Gloria is hired by Black Widow's good friend and manager of her estate to find out who wants Black Widow dead. Her investigation takes her from the fog-shrouded San Francisco Bay Area to the remote sunlit peaks of the Sierra de Tepoztlan near Cuernavaca, Mexico, and perhaps, she fears, back in time to a mysterious and violent encounter as ancient as Mexico itself.



In Death at Solstice, just published, Gloria is hired by the Chilean owners of the Oro Blanco winery in the California's Gold Country, to investigate the theft of a family heirloom, a pair of antique diamond and emerald earrings rumored to have belonged to Mexico's Empress Carlota. But she soon finds out there's more to the case than stolen jewelry when a young woman believed to be a saint disappears and her nurse is found dead. Gloria follows the alleged Death at Solstice arrives as I enter and celebrate my 40th year as a published poet and writer.




Wonderful! I love your settings and use of real historical events as the background for the mysteries. So, what has been your motivation to write this series?


I fell in love with the detective story when I was a girl in Jaltipan, Veracruz, Mexico, hiding and reading the crime page--la pagina roja--of the regional newspaper. Although for the first two decades of my writing career I wrote and published only poetry (written in Spanish and published bilingually) and short fiction, I dreamed of writing a mystery novel one day. Eulogy for a Brown Angel was the fulfillment of that dream. But what can I say--I grew addicted to the writing of mystery stories. I enjoy the challenges it presents. Since the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter, the detective story has changed little. It is a plot-driven long or short story, leaving room for little more than the solution of the crime. The challenge--the art--for any crime writer is precisely to find ways to offer much more than the unraveling of the plot or bringing to justice those who have broken the law, thus finally restoring the social order. My novels follow some, many or all of the conventions, traditions and structural demands of the mystery genre. They are solid, fast-paced mysteries, but they are also multilayered. Yet anyone reading them will immerse themselves in Latino/Mexican American culture and history and become aware that what we share in common--our humanity and the human condition anywhere and everywhere in the world and together in the U.S.--makes us more alike than different. That is the beauty of reading bicultural and/or multicultural literary works.


Will there be another book in this series? What are your plans for the future?


I have begun researching topics and other motifs that I believe belong in a new Gloria Damasco mystery novel. The research for any of my novels takes almost a year, and I like to complete it before I sit down to do the actual writing of the book. In the meantime, I continue writing poetry and working on a book of personal essays, The Orphan and the Bookburner, which combines selected memoirs to illuminate those events and people that have formed and informed my poetry and fiction, but also lead beyond my personal experiences to larger themes, such as the nature of justice, the education of women, colorlines, bilingualism and biculturalism, and the quest for meaning and destiny, among others.

I wish you great success with your work, Lucha. Thank you so much for stopping by. I enjoyed our online chat. Besos!

Julia