Christmas Kisses is a collection from five bestselling and award-winning authors. Set in the snowy town of Echo Ridge in upstate New York, these inspirational romances are sure to delight while you sip cocoa by the fire and listen to Christmas carols.

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Christmas Makeover by Cami Checketts Amazon bestselling author

Chelsea Jamison has been infatuated with Drew Stirling longer than she’s loved playing basketball, high-top sneakers, and the Knicks. Unfortunately, all Drew sees is the kid who kicked his trash in the high school free throw contest and not the girl whose heart breaks into a fast dribble when he’s near.

Drew makes an unexpected visit home to Echo Ridge and their friendship picks up where they left off as they scheme to make a teenaged boy’s Christmas dreams come true. When Chelsea realizes she’s fallen for her best friend, she wonders if there is any hope of a relationship with Drew or if she’s stuck in buddy-status for life.

The Candy Counter Heiress by Lucy McConnell Amazon bestselling & award-winning author

Someday Reese Gates will own The Candy Counter at Kenworth’s; but someday can’t come fast enough when the manager threatens to bring in a national candy provider. Reese secretly takes matters into her own hands hoping to save her parents from additional worry and prove herself capable of running the company. Her deception deepens as she ropes computer guru Andy Edwards into helping her expand the business. Reese wanted to shake things up, but she wasn’t planning on her heart getting caught in the mix by Andy’s stolen kisses. If she can hold it together until after Christmas, then she can reveal her successful online company and her feelings for Andy. Unfortunately for Reese, even the best laid plans can melt like chocolate.

Soda Fountain Christmas by Connie E. Sokol Amazon bestselling author

Keira Kenworth has one focus this holiday season: save her father’s old-time department store from bankruptcy. She is not focused on Tayton Wells, the tall, dark, and genius marketing guru from downtown New York, hired to make it happen. He is as doubtful that her nostalgic connect-the-town ideas will succeed as she is about his numbers-first plan. However, it’s not just their different approaches that cause sparks to fly. Working together on a fast deadline to save the store before Christmas, the unspoken connection between them grows. But will the tough decisions they face drive them back to their separate worlds, or will they lead to the beginning of love?

Christmas Makeover by Heather Tullis Amazon bestselling author

Jonah Owens thought moving to Echo Ridge to open his art gallery would solve all of his problems. The need to sell his grandma’s house adds an unexpected complication. It would be easier if his neighbor didn’t have all those farm animals.

Kaya Feidler’s family has owned their land for nearly a hundred years–long before the neighbors were there. There’s no way she’s giving up the animal therapy business she’s been struggling to make profitable. She gets a temp job helping Jonah in the gallery. Spending time together is a recipe for romance, but can they overcome their own hangups to be more than friends?

Hope for Christmas by Rachelle J. Christensen Amazon bestselling & award-winning author

Anika Fletcher hates Christmas–its promises of good tidings and hope for the future are as tinseled as the ornaments on Kenworth’s Hope Tree. Despite her feelings, Anika wants to maintain her daughter’s faith in the magic of the season and gladly accepts a second job working with the handsome Carlos Rodriguez to restore Kenworth’s old fashioned soda fountain. Carlos is no stranger to hard times and slowly shares his life of light and joy with Anika as they work together. Just as her fragile soul begins to feel hope again, an ill-timed act of charity changes everything. Anika isn’t sure who she can trust or if hope is worth nurturing–especially at Christmas when it’s easy to enjoy a kiss and believe love can last longer than the season.

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Murder, She Floats: A Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective Mystery
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Cozy Cat Press (August 22, 2014)
ISBN-13: 978-1939816498
E-Book ASIN: B00NR8QJI4

Synopsis

A suicide note found in a locked room. A shard of glass buried in a scoop of whipped potatoes. A pickle jar filled with poisonous spiders. Precious jewels yanked off of a woman’s neck but left at her feet. It’s just a week in the life of Damon Lassard when he boards The Vitamin of the Seas with his charismatic mother for a ‘relaxing’ Caribbean cruise. After Damon’s acerbic dining companion is found floating alongside the ship and local police rule the death a suicide, the loveable amateur sleuth is left to find the killer himself. He encounters seductive sirens, cunning con artists, and fascinating family members en route to solving not only the murder but a handful of clever capers as well.

Praise

It was a change of pace to read a cozy with a male perspective. It is well put together and I liked his friendly relationship with his mother. ~Lilac Reviews

Murder She Floats was an enjoyable read – a nicely paced, light mystery, ideal for a day at the beach (or on the deck of a cruise ship). ~Cassidy Salem Reads & Writes

…very well-written…The victim’s family has a multitude of skeletons in the closet, and thanks to the author they all come tumbling out over the course of the story. ~Book Babble

About The Author

STEPHEN KAMINSKI is the author of the Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective series published by Cozy Cat Press. The first three cozy mysteries in the series are It Takes Two to Strangle, Don’t Cry Over Killed Milk, and Murder, She Floats. Each of the three has won a Reader Views Literary Award and Don’t Cry Over Killed Milk won the 2014 Murder & Mayhem Award for Best Classic Cozy and was a finalist in both the 2014 Clue Awards.  Stephen is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School. He serves as the CEO and Executive Director of a national healthcare association and lives with his wife and daughter in Arlington, Virginia.

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It’s a Big Easy Mystery with Uneasy In New Orleans

UNEASY IN NEW ORLEANS has everything you love about the French Quarter, delicious food, sexy men, mystery, gossip, trouble, and dead bodies…Well maybe not all of what people love about the city. However Finnigan Jones is dealing with all of these things and more. UNEASY IN NEW ORLEANS is the first in a new series called the Big Easy Mysteries from multi-published author Carol Carson.

To learn more about Carol Carson and her books check out her new website!

Synopsis

FINNIGAN JONES HAS A PASSION FOR COOKING AND A PECHANT FOR TROUBLE.

Dead bodies aren’t on Finn’s New Orleans walking tour of cemeteries and haunted houses. Ditto disappearing bodies. Now she has to explain to Detective Jack Boyle how her missing corpse has turned up in the Mississippi putting her smack-dab in the middle of a murder investigation.

Unfortunately, another of Finn’s odd jobs is taking questionable photos for Jack’s PI brother, Tommy. After she snaps shots of a dubious pair of lovebirds, they stalk her, then kidnap her. Now Finn’s dealing with two lunatics intent on killing her. Or driving her crazy. She’s not sure which.

Because lunatics and smokin’-hot brothers aren’t enough trouble, she’s gossiping, yes gossiping, with a chef ghost at culinary school, cat-sitting her aunt’s six felines and attempting to corral her wayward teenage sister.

All Finn wants is to survive school and become the best chef in the world.

FINN’S LIFE IS ABOUT TO GET EVEN MORE COMPLICATED.

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Excerpt

Was that a dead body?

Drawing a ragged breath, Finn Jones blinked hard to clear her vision.

She wanted to blame her eyesight, the harsh sunlight or the glare off the asphalt pavement.

She even wanted to blame her cheap, lousy-ass sunglasses. None of it worked.

She could still see it.

Her heart sped up. Perspiration trickled between her boobs. Gulping, she swallowed her dread. In the midst of conducting a walking tour through the French Quarter with eight, honest-to-God paying customers, she didn’t dare let them know panic was about to take her away like an alien abduction.

She darted a glance in their direction. Busy talking about how hungry they were and whether the hotdogs from the Lucky Dog vendor nearby were any good, they didn’t notice.

How could they be so clueless? How could they not see it?

She’d seen dead bodies before–in Uncle Ed’s funeral home. Until now, she’d never seen one in its natural state. Those other earthly remains had been dead for several days and embalmed. They were laid out nice and neat, appropriate wax-like figures, in a satin-lined coffin at Big Ed Finnigan’s Funeral Parlor and House of Rest.

Corralling her meandering thoughts, Finn moved her sunglasses to the top of her head. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again. Her throat narrowed and she swallowed around a huge lump. From her position next to the two-story building, he–and she was sure it was a man–looked pale, stiff and decidedly dead. The body slumped across the gallery railing on the second story of the converted apartment building, one arm dangling over the side. Dear. God. And this, after seeing a ghost in class earlier.

On a muggy summer day when dead bodies had no business scaring the bejesus out of her, the corpse draped above her head like Spanish moss looked nothing like any she’d seen at a funeral.

About the Author

Multi-published author Carol Carson was born and raised in central Iowa. She is a former finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart contest and is an avid bookworm who actually enjoys doing research. Her other passions include travel, American history, the Kansas City Chiefs, the St. Louis Cardinals and dark chocolate. She has lived in Colorado and Kansas, and currently lives with her husband in a log home on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri. Write to her at carol.carson@centurytel.net

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Title: Too Hard To Handle
Author: Julie Ann Walker
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

“The Man” is back

Dan “The Man” Currington is back in fighting form with a mission that takes him four thousand miles south of BKI headquarters, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. He’s hot on the trail of a rogue CIA agent selling classified government secrets to the highest bidder, when Penni DePaul arrives on the scene. Suddenly the stakes are higher, and keeping Penni safe becomes Dan’s number one priority.

And this time she’s ready

A lot has changed since former Secret Service Agent Penni DePaul last saw Dan. Now a civilian, she’s excited about what the future might hold. But before she can grab onto that future with both hands, she has to tie up some loose ends-namely, Dan Currington, the man she just can’t forget. And a secret that’s going to change both their lives-if they can stay alive, that is.

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Excerpt

“Brooklyn,” he whispered into the soft shell of her ear, feeling her shiver delicately against him, smelling the scent of rosewater that clung to her skin and hair. That smell had plagued him since the day they parted, lingering in his dreams at night.

“You remember.” Her voice was husky, hoarse. It went to his head like top-shelf whiskey. Making him dizzy. Making him burn.

“I couldn’t forget.”

That was God’s honest truth. He couldn’t forget her. No matter how hard he’d tried. And now she’d flown to the other half of the world to talk to him. Which had to mean she couldn’t forget him either, right? Did she think maybe there was something for them? Something between them? Something more than lust fueled by the madness and mayhem and adrenaline rush that had been Malaysia?

The idea filled him with dread and longing and hope—and more dread—as a million and one questions raced through his brain. But the one he asked when he pushed back to look into her warm, dark eyes was, “How in God’s name did you find me?”

A delightful flush rode high on her cheeks. He recognized it for exactly what it was. Awareness. Arousal. Whatever had been between them, whatever connection they’d made, was still there. And more than that, it’d grown during their long—too damn long—separation.

The realization had his heart beating so hard he could feel it in the fingertips he pressed against the plaster wall on either side of her head. In his toes encased in hiking boots. And…uh…other places. Yeah, definitely other places. One look at her, one smell of her, and his idiotic libido was throwing a kegger and streaking around like Frank the Tank in Old School.

“Well…I made a trip to Chicago,” she told him, licking her lips. The dart of her pink tongue nearly had him panting. He wanted so badly to kiss her, to suck that sweet tongue into his mouth and drink her in until he was drunk on all things Penelope DePaul. “And rolled up to the gates of Black Knights Inc., I presume?” he asked, brow raised.

She bobbed her chin. Her delightful chin. It needed nibbling on, didn’t it?

“So now the question becomes…just how the hell did you convince my lovely friends and coworkers to send you to me in the middle of a mission?”

She winced, and he barely resisted the urge to kiss the tip of her adorable nose. “I didn’t have to convince anyone of anything. I just asked. Nicely. You’d be amazed what asking nicely will get you.”

“Really?” He conjured up all the things he might ask her to do to him later. Nicely.

About the Author

Julie Ann Walker is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling Author of the Black Knights Inc. romantic suspense series. She is prone to spouting movie quotes and song lyrics. She’ll never say no to sharing a glass of wine or going for a long walk. She prefers impromptu travel over the scheduled kind, and she takes her coffee with milk. You can find her on her bicycle along the lake shore in Chicago or blasting away at her keyboard, trying to wrangle her capricious imagination into submission.

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Excerpt

About the Author

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Synopsis

Sterling Towne decided to take a last minute vacation to a sunny paradise to cheer herself up after a divorce. When the airline misplaces her luggage, she thinks it’s just a typical airline snafu until she gets her luggage back only to find out it’s not hers. Rather the suitcase belongs to someone who thought it a good idea to transport a gold Buddha statue via commercial airlines.

Sterling turns the statue into hotel security for safe keeping but then her room is ransacked, and she’s sure there was someone following her in town. Does the owner of the statue think she still has it? But if so, why not just ask? She’s getting nervous, and even her new friend Steve thinks she might be in danger.

Is she? Or is her imagination just working over time?

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About the Author

As a child Laina thought she would either be a truck driver (thanks to Jerry Reed in Smokey and the Bandit) or work at Taco Bell (her favorite restaurant as a child). As she grew older she realized her talents lay in academics and business and for the last several years has been a business consultant and college professor where she uses the analytical side of her brain and not the side that makes up stories.

Through all her career choices she has continued to have a passion for writing. This stemmed from childhood whereas an only child she developed a vivid imagination spending most of her time making things up and thinking the Incredible Hulk lived in her closet.

Proud of her vast experiences in life from barrel racing to being on the dance team for a semi pro basketball team to being a mom of 2 amazing kids, she tells her family and friends that no one is safe from their escapades slipping in to her books.

Taking the plunge to write books that she actually lets people read in 2010, she has worked her way up to having 5 fans (maybe 6 now). Her blog, The Art Of Living Fabulously, was launched to share the daily fun in the life of a Real Housewife of the Midwest along with the musing of other fabulous ladies.

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Author: Nicole Pouchet
Series Name: Elemental Myths
# in the Series: 3
Date of Publication: August 25, 2015
Publisher: Nicole Pouchet
Cover Artist: Ann Alger

Synopsis

D.C. lawyer, Annie Birch, believes her life is one logical assessment after another. That changes, however, on the day she accidentally teleports during a high-profile negotiation. Knowing her new power must be a side effect after miraculously getting healed by the Incan Mother Earth goddess doesn’t help matters. Annie has already seen how emerging powers like hers also come with psycho villains that are bent on destroying her, as well as the corporeal world.

The icing on the cupcake of her ridiculous day is two gorgeous men who show up on her doorstep, both vying for her attention. Now, her choices involve much more than her oft-neglected libido. Annie is tasked to play a role in the Incan prophecy, which she prefers to watch from the sidelines. Will she stick to her safe, legal path? Or will she defy all logic to experience the decidedly more fun adventures being thrust her way?

Excerpt

Rubbing the smooth marble surface, she peered down over President Lincoln’s leg to the ground beneath her. Opening her arms, she decided to fly the twenty feet that separated her from the bottom of the statue. Why not? She might as well enjoy her dream.

“I see you’re awake,” a deep voice rumbled from the stone.

“Abraham?” Her dream was taking a weird turn, and she instantly regretted caressing the statue’s leg. Doing the deed with a giant stone replica of Honest Abe was never on her list of fantasies.

Laughter followed as Stone appeared on the ground beneath her. His eyes crinkled with mirth, brightening every feature of his chiseled face. “No, the monument dedicated to your country’s beloved leader has not come to life.”

“Of course not,” Annie snapped, wishing he hadn’t witnessed her little mix-up. Perhaps she could blame it on having just woken up. “What’re you doing here anyway?”

“I told you I would help you whenever you’re in need. Can you think of a more needy time than this?”

Needy? Yes! This dream was a great time to unleash her hidden Harlequin persona. “How about you showing up in my bedroom next time I’m reaching for my vibrator,” she baited him in her sultriest voice. “That’s a needy moment.”

“Do you mean that?” His amusement vanished, replaced by a lust-filled gaze so intense, she could feel her body responding without her permission.

Maybe she should insist he join her on top of the statue… but even in fantasy, the cold marble was decidedly uncomfortable.

“Yes. I’ll fly down and show you how much I mean it.”

He frowned. “I wasn’t aware you possessed the power of flight.”

“We all do, in our dreams.” Saying that, she launched herself off the statue.

No wind supported her newly weightless body. On the contrary, Annie plummeted as fast as an anvil, despite flapping her arms like a featherless chicken.

“By the goddess,” grunted Stone when he caught her, despite receiving a blow to the head from one of her flailing limbs. “You still think you’re deep in slumber?”

“Aren’t I?” Annie stammered before trying to right herself while in his firm grasp. At last, her feet dangled above the ground and her face was inches from his. “Could there be any other explanation?”

Her breath hitched as she stared into perfection. His blue eyes flashed, and she felt him growing hard against her thighs. His hands squeezed her closer and he held her firmly against his body. She prayed her alarm clock wouldn’t wake her from this perfect fantasy as she leaned in for the kiss.

Stone lowered her onto her bare feet and rested his forehead on hers. “You will learn soon enough. But, for now, I must stop this before we do something you may regret.”

“Oh, come on,” she protested. “I can’t even get laid in my dreams? I’ve got to be responsible now, too?”

“Believe me, Nature’s girl, when we finally come together in unbridled passion, you’ll forget every responsible thought you ever had. You’ll think of nothing else, but my cock fucking you over and over until you’re lost in an alternate reality of carnal pleasure. There will be no room for responsibility, or apprehension, for either of us, only the essences of you, and me.”

About the Author

Nicole Pouchet is a memoirist and a paranormal romance novelist. Books from her Elemental Myths paranormal romance series have enjoyed spots on Amazon’s Bestseller lists. Layla’s Gale, A Paranormal Romance won second prize in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.

Still amazed to be an adult, Nicole has managed to center her life around raising her two small sons and being true to her family (including husband and friends). She resides in Leesburg, Virginia where she owns a marketing agency. Happiest near the water, Nicole spends her free hours plotting her next escape, writing, and staring at the ceiling.

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Synopsis

Annabelle Aster has discovered a curious thing behind her home in San Francisco–a letterbox perched atop a picket fence.  The note inside is blunt—trespass is dealt with at the business end of a shotgun in these parts!—spurring some lively correspondence between the Bay Area orphan and her new neighbor, a feisty widow living in nineteenth-century Kansas.

The source of mischief is an antique door Annie installed at the rear of her house.  The man who made the door—a famed Victorian illusionist—died under mysterious circumstances.

Annie and her new neighbor, with the help of friends and strangers alike, must solve the mystery of what connects them before one of them is convicted of a murder that has yet to happen…and somehow already did.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Pray for Me, Father

May 16, 1895

San Francisco, California

Mission Dolores Basilica

Randall—­

I’ve not forgotten our quarrel, but I’m asking you to put that aside for the sake of scholarship and the friendship we once shared. You were right, I fear. I meddled in something beyond my understanding.  The time-­travel conduit works—­I’ve shaped it as a door—­but not, I suspect, by science or my own hand. You are the only person who won’t think me paranoid should I put words to my suspicion. Something slumbers within it. Something with designs of its own.

Words have power. You know that better than anyone. And I am beginning to suspect the ones the shaman spoke—­and which I foolishly copied into my journal’s companion piece, my codex—­were an invocation.

Please come soon, I beg you. Or don’t come at all. And if you don’t come, then pray for me, Father. Matters are coming to a head, and my instincts say this will not end well.

David Abbott

Cap’n—­adolescent con artist extraordinaire, picker of any lock, leader of Kansas City’s notorious sandlot gang, and unofficial mayor to all its throwaways—­plucked a wilted lettuce leaf from her hair as she peered through a break in the pile of rubbish where she was hiding.

Fabian didn’t look so good, she thought, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. He was lying in the mud, his legs bent at odd angles, and was staring down the length of his outspread arm, his mouth opening and closing in a creepy imitation of a fish on the chopping block. She couldn’t make out the words, but it was clear Fabian was telling her to flee.

He wasn’t going anywhere. Danyer had made sure of that. Whether it was a first or last name, Cap’n didn’t know. He just went by Danyer. He was Mr. Culler’s hatchet man, and he didn’t fight fair. Danyer wasn’t interested in fair, though; he was interested in results, and Fabian had failed. Cap’n knew it was a bad idea to let failure go unanswered in their line of business, but she never imagined it would come to this. Fabian was a moneymaker for Mr. Culler, after all.

Danyer towered over him, a granite block with meat-­hook arms, his legs straddling Fabian’s belly. As his boots rocked in the muck, Danyer’s duster swept back and forth across Fabian’s chest. His voice reminded Cap’n of a humming turbine—­deep and dangerous—­as he read from the letter they’d filched. “‘Please come soon, I beg you—­’” Danyer crumpled the paper, lobbing it into the air. It bounced off Fabian’s cheek and into the mud. “Where’s the journal?” He squatted, grabbing Fabian’s chin with his sausage fingers before slapping him lightly across the cheek. “Hmm?”

Cap’n said a quick prayer for her friend and started backing up. But it was too late. She stepped on a stick that lifted a crate at the base of the rubbish heap just a fraction of an inch, and she could only grit her teeth as a tin can toppled from its perch, tinkling down the pile of debris while making a sound like a scale played on a badly tuned piano.

She froze as Danyer pivoted to stare at the pile of rubbish. He turned back to Fabian, speaking warily. “And where’s Cap’n?” he asked. “Where’s your pet pickpocket?” She watched him slap Fabian’s cheek one more time, the muscles in her legs tensing as he turned and started to walk toward her hiding place. Five feet out, Danyer lunged, but all he got hold of was the remaining head of lettuce as she bolted from the mound, racing down the alleyway in a flurry of muslin, freckles, and carrot-­colored pigtails.

Three blocks later, she rounded a corner, waiting. When the crack of the gun echoed down the street, she ducked into a drainage pipe to collect herself. A cockroach crawled over her foot, its antennae waving. Fabian admired cockroaches, she remembered. He said they were survivors. Suddenly, a whimper broke from her throat, and she ground the bug into a mosaic of chitinous shards before huddling in on herself, sobbing. And just as suddenly, she sat upright, her mouth set in a grim line while she ran the back of her hand across her nose.

Tears were for kids, and she needed to make a plan. When Fabian turned up dead, and there was no doubt he would, Danyer would want to tie up some loose ends—­namely her. She wasn’t too worried about that. She knew every hidey-­hole in Kansas City, and the gang would watch her back. She regarded what was left of the cockroach, one of its severed legs agitating as though not realizing the body it belonged to was already dead, and nodded to herself. It was time to put the shoe on the other foot, she decided. Something had to be done about Danyer and his boss.

Guest Post

HOW I WOVE FOUR STORIES INTO A SINGLE CLIMAX

Weaving time travel into a novel is not for the faint of heart, not even for a seasoned author, but what if you are a freshman writer who had only an eye to some characters you’d dreamt up and it just happened—the time travel element, I mean?

That gets tricky really fast. Truth be told, I wrote the whole darn book by the seat of my pants; the first draft, anyway. And it all began with an image in my head—a pair of unlikely pen pals, one an eccentric young lady living in contemporary San Francisco who is obsessed with Victorian clothes, the other a dowdy, old schoolmarm living in a turn-of-the-century Kansas wheat field who possesses an inventory of curse words to make a sailor blush, as well as a take-no-prisoners attitude.

If you can believe it, I’d dreamt them up as I drove home with my tail tucked between my legs after a botched first date. Yup. I owe my book to those humble beginnings.

Though I thought the date was going swimmingly, he thought otherwise, and leaned back in his chair to say, “I think we are destined to be great friends.”

Not.

Good.

I drove home determined to salvage what I could, and conjured Annie and Elsbeth somewhere on Dolores Street in San Francisco. By the time I’d pulled into my garage, I’d written up a letter (in my head) from Annie to El, one in which she asked for advice regarding her love stuck friend—me.

I didn’t stop there, though, putting it to paper, so to speak, and emailed it off to his work address. While I won’t bore you with the details, the letter was a bit of a hit, having gone “viral” throughout the office where he worked. Many more were written.

But back to time travel.

Lemoncholy was born from those letters, first and foremost, and since I couldn’t shake the original notion of Elsbeth living a hundred years in the past, I was going to have to toy with the concept of time so that these two women could communicate. And what better way than through a letterbox that sits in some common magical ground between their two worlds? Annie, of course, had to be delighted with her pen pal. That was a “given” in my mind. I had bigger plans for Elsbeth, however. I decided she was going to be none to happy with the general state of affairs.

The front end of my manuscript quickly became crowded with their letters—Annie expressing delight, Elsbeth itching to make good use of her shogun—and while I was having a blast, it quickly became apparent that I had little in the way of story.

So I cooked one up.

I asked myself a question. What would happen if Annie found an old article, one in which she learns of a murder that took place a hundred years ago in Kansas City, yet will take place in four days on Elsbeth’s timeline? And what if the person who was murdered is responsible for Annie and El being able to communicate across time?

Voila! I had a story!

You’d think that I would have simply sail along at that point, but things only got messier when I created Annie and El’s supporting cast.

There’s Christian. He’s Annie’s best friend; a sweetheart of a man who is burdened with a secret buried so deep within his subconscious that it leaves him with a stutter.

Then there’s Edmond; a total charmer who lifts Christian’s secret to the surface, all the while burdened with a demon of his own—drug addiction.

And, finally, there’s Cap’n. She’s a twelve-year-old street urchin living in turn-of-the-century Kansas City who survives by dent of her wits, a total smarty-pants.

I’d fallen in love.

With all of them.

So I did something crazy. I wrote a separate story for each of them—for Annie and El, for Cap’n, and for Christian and Edmond—not because I wanted to add dimension to a time travel novel, but because it was becoming more and more obvious to me that these characters had something to say. A theme was rising to the surface. I was going to write a story about the marginalization of misfits, with each of mine in pursuit of a little understanding, a little hope, in an unforgiving world. Whether or not they found what they were seeking is a matter of opinion, but it is clear they did find something greater.

Each other.

So, in the end, The Lemoncholy Life Of Annie Aster is really three stories, each exploring the life of a loner, a person struggling to find his or her place, that also happens to be woven together by a fourth story—a mystery that has time travel at its core.

About the Author

Scott Wilbanks graduated summa cum laude from The University of Oklahoma and went on to garner several national titles in the sport of gymnastics. Scott’s husband, Mike, is a New Zealander by birth, and the two split their time between the two countries while Scott is at work on his next standalone novel.

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The Musubi Murder
Cozy Mystery
Hardcover
Publisher: Five Star (August 5, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-1432830748

Synopsis

In the remote college town of Mahina, Hawaii, Molly Barda just wants to stay out of trouble until she gets tenure, but there’s a problem. A grisly prank targeting a controversial donor puts her college in financial jeopardy. Molly’s hapless ex is implicated, and Molly soon finds herself neck-deep in a stew of corruption, revenge, and murder. Along the way, she finds herself drawn to a local fast-food entrepreneur, the too-good-to-be-true Donnie Gonsalves, who seems to like her for all the wrong reasons–and has a few secrets of his own.

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About The Author

Like Molly Barda, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, a loving family, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining.

In addition to writing murder mysteries, she publishes in scholarly journals under her real name. Her experience with academic publishing has taught her to take nothing personally.

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Tour Participants

August 5 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – Cozy Wednesday

August 6 – Lilac Reviews – Review

August 7 – Jane Reads – Review, Guest Post

August 8 – dru’s book musings – Guest Post

August 9 – Book Splurge – Review, Interview

August 10 – Bea’s Book Nook – Review

August 11 – Kelly P’s Blog – Spotlight

August 11 – Laura’s Interests – Review

August 12 – readalot – Review

August 13 – View from the Birdhouse – Spotlight

August 14 – deal sharing aunt  – Interview

August 15 – LibriAmoriMiei – Review

August 16 – Cozy Up With Kathy – Interview

August 17 – StoreyBook Reviews – Spotlight

August 18 – Brooke Blogs – Review, Guest Post

Synopsis

Praise for the book

Excerpt

About the Author

Nancy Herriman retired from an engineering career to take up the pen. She hasn’t looked back. A multi-published novelist, she is also a former winner of the RWA Daphne du Maurier award for Best Unpublished Mystery/Romantic Suspense. Her latest release, No Comfort for the Lost (NAL/August 2015), is the first in her ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series. When not writing, she enjoys singing with various choral groups and eating dark chocolate. After two decades in Arizona, she now lives in her home state of Ohio with her family.

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Giveaway

Nancy is kindly offering 2 copies of her book in this giveaway.  Open to US residents only

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