Meet Angela Scavone, On Tour With CELEBRITY STATUS, her Contemporary Romance

CELEBRITY STATUS

by Angela Scavone

Meet Stacy Eaton--Here's LOVE TORN, Book 2 of the Twisted Love Series

LOVE TORN

Book 2 of The Twisted Love Series

Written by USA Today Bestselling Author Stacy Eaton

Co-Authored Series with Bestselling Author Amy Manemann

Meet J.L. Sheppard and Check Out her Paranormal Fantasy Romance DEMON KING'S DESIRE

DEMON KING'S DESIRE

Elemental Sisters Series#1
by J.L. Sheppard

Meet Bonnie Edwards and Read About FINDING MERCY, her Contemporary Romance

FINDING MERCY

Return to Welcome, Book 1
by Bonnie Edwards

Meet Kris Bock--A Mother & Daughter say Happy Mother's Day with a Free Mystery & a 99-cent Romance

About Kris Bock and Sharon Eboch

In case you’re wondering why we have similar but different last names, Kris Bock is my pen name for writing adult romantic adventures and mysteries. I write for children under the name Chris Eboch.

As Kris Bock, I write novels of adventure and romance involving outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. In Counterfeits, stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town. What We Found is a mystery with strong romantic elements about a young woman who finds a murder victim in the woods.

Each of the Southwest Treasure Hunters books stands alone in a series mixing action and adventure with romance. The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives compete to reach a buried treasure by following a series of complex clues. In The Skeleton Canyon Treasure, sparks fly when reader favorites Camie and Tiger help a mysterious man track down his missing uncle.

Read excerpts at my Amazon page or website. Sign up for Kris Bock newsletter.

Sharon Eboch lives in Tempe, Arizona, where she enjoys reading, quilting, and occasional social activism. Murder on the West Glacier Trail was inspired by her love of cozy mysteries and her years living in Juneau, Alaska, with her family and a dog named Bandit (featured in the book). Originally from Nebraska, she has also lived in Saudi Arabia, San Francisco, and the Seattle area. She has a PhD in Human Development and the Family, which she now mostly uses to attempt to understand her two adult children.

* * *

What do you have in common with your mother? Physical features, interests, ethics? I’m lucky to have a mother who is creative, a world traveler, and a bit of a rebel. It’s possible I inherited some or all of those traits from her.

Kris & Mom, 1970s

We are also both writers. I came to writing early, with my parents’ support – I’ve been a professional working writer for twenty years. Mom wrote an occasional article, along with business documents and a PhD thesis, before turning to fiction after she retired. As a fan of mysteries, she decided to write her own. She set it in Juneau, Alaska, where we lived while I was in high school. (I’m not featured in the book, but our former dog Bandit is.)

Today we both live in the Southwest – she’s in Arizona and I’m in New Mexico. I write romantic suspense novels set in this region, including my Southwest Treasure Hunters books. These are action-packed adventures with a touch of humor, featuring quests for treasure – whether long-lost, recently hidden, or in human form.

To celebrate this Mother’s Day, I have a romantic suspense novel available for free, while Mom’s cozy mystery is on sale for $.99.

Kris & Mom 2016

The Dead Man’s Treasure is FREE till May 14

“The Dead Man’s Treasure is fast-paced and a perfect read for the weekend. I highly recommend this one.”

Rebecca Westin is shocked to learn the grandfather she never knew has left her a bona fide buried treasure – but only if she can decipher a complex series of clues leading to it. The hunt would be challenging enough without interference from her half-siblings, who are determined to find the treasure first and keep it for themselves.

Good thing Rebecca has recruited some help. Sam is determined to show Rebecca that a desert adventure can be sexy and fun. But there’s a treacherous wildcard in the mix, a man willing to do anything to get that treasure – and revenge.

Action and romance combine in this lively Southwestern adventure, complete with riddles the reader is invited to solve to identify historical and cultural sites around New Mexico.

“I can’t say enough how much I loved this book! It has mystery, adventure, danger, romance, and above it all family remains a huge theme.”

The Dead Man’s Treasure is book 2 of the Southwest Treasure Hunters novels. Each book features a different hero and heroine, and stands alone with a happy ending. The first novel, The Mad Monk’s Treasure, is $.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited. The Mad Monk’s Treasure, “Smart romance with an ‘Indiana Jones’ feel,” has 4.7 out of 5 stars with 50 reviews. 

Murder on the West Glacier Trail by Sharon Eboch is on sale for 99 cents – a 67% discount! – till May16

“This is a fast-paced mystery that keeps you guessing. It has good locale and character descriptions.”

If Kate Foland had known how her bed and breakfast guest would change her life, she might have left her at the airport.

When Kate’s guest is shot to death while hiking in the Alaskan woods, Kate feels compelled to investigate. Sandra Allison seemed like a perfectly nice young woman. So who would want her dead?

Sandra’s archeology work often caused construction delays while Native artifacts were removed. Did a Juneau builder follow up a threat with a gunshot? Or was Kate the intended victim, since Sandra was wearing Kate’s coat and walking her dog? And why is the dog suddenly acting like a scaredy-cat?

“... a fun story with a great sense of local flavor.”

“...hard to put down!”

“Knowledge of the Juneau area was evident, and at least a couple of the recipes included appear as must tries.”

Book Quote from Depression/Prohibition Romantic Thriller BOOTLEG BROADWAY

For Book Quote Wednesday, the word is LUCK. Authors, find LUCK in your book and Tweet using #BookQW.
A short snippet from my Depression/Prohibition novel BOOTLEG BROADWAY, Book Two of the New York Saga:
With a few hours till the joint opened, Billy went behind the bar, filled his flask, then went outside to lean against the brick wall and watch the world go by. This entire scene was foreign to him, this workforce who made their living by day and slept by night. A life he wasn’t cut out for. Bored with watching that after two minutes, he walked towards the Columbus Circle subway, passing all the briefcase-toting workaday stiffs in suits. He glanced at the tired and haggard faces. And these were the lucky ones-­they had jobs.
The subway reeked of stale urine, and for the first time in years, he had to stand and be a straphanger. The train swayed and jolted. The lights dimmed and blacked out, on and off. He lost his balance several times, bumping into bodies pressed up against him; he couldn’t have fallen if he’d tried. He mouthed silent thanks he’d been born with musical talent; he’d go off his nut if he had to live like this.
getBook.at/NewYorkSagaBookTwo

UFO Buffs: My Podcast Chat About the Revealing Book UFOs & NUKES: EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS AT NUCLEAR WEAPONS SITES

I've appeared on Art Sippo's podcast many times. Dr. Sippo is a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, the American College of Preventative Medicine and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He is also affiliated with the United States Army Flight Surgeons and The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

We're both huge UFO buffs; neither he nor I have ever seen one, but my husband did--it flew very low over his car, only a few hundred feet, and without a sound, took off to the north. (He did check his watch, and didn't lose any time!)

In this podcast, Dr. Sippo, our mutual friend Tom Johnson, a veteran who wrote the novel THESE ALIEN SKINES about UFOs and had an experience with them in 1977 in the military, joined us. 

The main topic of our chat was the book UFOs & NUKES: EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS AT NUCLEAR WEAPONS SITES by Robert Hastings.  

On September 27, 2010, CNN live-streamed his UFOs and Nukes press conference in Washington D.C. during which former U.S. Air Force officers described numerous nuclear missiles mysteriously malfunctioning moments after a disc-shaped craft was observed hovering near their underground launch silos. That shocking episode, in March 1967, was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The book explores many more similar incidents.

Of course as any conversation goes, we went off on many tangents about the UFO phenomena, including the Roswell incident in 1947, and various reported abductions.

Here's the link to the podcast if you'd like to have a listen.

An Emotionally Gut Wrenching Historical Novel

Every once in a while, you read a book that blows you away.
My agent asked me to write a blurb for a manuscript she'd asked me to read in 2015, titled DEADLY KISS. The book was released last year, with Black Opal Books.
I asked the author Bob Bickford for another copy, since I read so many books. It started coming back to me, bit by bit, as I read each scene...then I remembered how much I enjoyed it. But this time around, it went beyond enjoyment...it was an emotionally gut wrenching experience. I picked up on things I didn't seem to have noticed the first time around. That's why I always recommend re-reading a favorite book, as soon as a year later, or as much as decades later. We get so much more out of it because of what we bring to it. I'd like to share the review I wrote for Amazon:

One kiss, so many shattered lives.

Rural Georgia, 1946: Mike Latta has a difficult, distant relationship with his father Sam. On a rare visit to Mikes island cabin in Canada, Sam uncharacteristically opens up and begins to tell his son about a tragedy of sixty-plus years ago that haunts and scars him to this day. Before he can finish sharing his story, looking out at the water, he dies. Mike goes back home to Georgia to seek the truth behind this long-ago tragedy with only his late fathers sketchy details-a horrific murder of a little black boy for something he didnt even doa kiss that started a string of revenge killings as ghosts linger...spanning the decades between post-WW2 Georgia and present-day Canada, DEADLY KISS takes us on the journeys of people who took grudges to their graves, as Mike makes peace with his father and puts his troubled soul to rest. I read this book twice, and seemed to have gotten a lot more out of it this time. It goes really deep and is very thought-provoking. A great read, and worthy of much success.

Purchase DEADLY KISS on Amazon

Meet Diana Stout and Check Out Her Epic Fantasy GRENDEL'S MOTHER

My guest is Diana Stout, an award-winning screenwriter, author, and former English professor, whose writing led her into academic teaching, then creating a production company. Published in multiple genres, she has written romances, magazine articles and short stories, is a former magazine and newspaper columnist, optioned a Hollywood screenplay, and had two short plays produced in New York city.  She’s served as a judge for various screenwriting, romance, and academic contests. When not writing and helping other writers, she enjoys reading, watching movies, bird watching, researching new topics, jigsaw puzzles, and visiting family and friends.

About Grendel’s Mother

Late 5^th century, Grendel’s Mother is the story of social injustice, where a girl is sacrificed to the dragon for bringing shame to her family and community and finds herself alive, alone in the wild, where she discovers special skills that enable her to survive, to give birth, and to raise a baby—deemed a monster—entirely on her own.

An epic fantasy, this book was ten years in the making from the first night where I wrote 20 in an hour, realizing I had a story to its publication. The idea was born out of having studied Beowulf three different times in various medieval studies classes and having taught a woman’s studies course where we analyzed books where women didn’t have a voice. Much research and a forty-page outline later, I was finally able to finish writing the book shortly before I created my production company, which is how the book became published.  

Purchase GRENDEL'S MOTHER

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Happy Birthday to The Wild Rose Press and Happy Beltane!

A very happy birthday to my publisher The Wild Rose Press!

It's also Beltane or May Eve (April 30/May 1).

Beltane is a Celtic word which means ‘fires of Bel’ (Bel was a Celtic deity). It's a fire festival that celebrates of the coming of summer and the fertility of the coming year. In springtime, at the beginning of the farming calendar, everybody hoped for a fruitful year for families and fields.

Festivities generally involved fire which was thought to cleanse, purify and increase fertility. Cattle were often passed between two fires and the properties of the flame and the smoke were seen to ensure the fertility of the herd. Fire is still the most important element of most Beltane celebrations and there are many traditions associated with it. It is seen to have purifying qualities which cleanse and revitalise. People, leap over the Beltane fire to bring good fortune, fertility (of mind, body and spirit) and happiness through the coming year. The largest Beltane celebrations in the UK are held in Edinburgh. Fires are lit at night and wild festivities carry on until dawn. But all around the UK fires are lit and private celebrations are held amongst covens and groves (groups of Pagans) to mark the start of the summer.

Beltane rituals would often include courting, for example, young men and women collecting blossoms in the woods and lighting fires in the evening. These rituals would often lead to matches and marriages, either immediately in the coming summer or autumn. Today’s Pagans believe that at Beltane the God Bel achieves the strength and maturity to court and become lover to the Goddess.

Although what happens in the fields has lost its significance for most Pagans today, the creation of fertility is still an important issue. Because of its sexual imagery, the tradition of dancing round the maypole is still very popular with modern Pagans. Others see fertility as referring to the need for active and creative lives. We need fertile minds for our work, our families and our interests.

The heroine of my time travel romance DARK BREW, Kylah, is a Druid. Thanks, Cape Cod Times, for a great review!

An excerpt from Dark Brew 

Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the tolling bells . . .

These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.

Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality: the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave. But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here. 

“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served. Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now. And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.” 

She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb. 

“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the detectives in. 

“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said. 

“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked everywhere and found nothing.” 

“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open, four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake, hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E. determined it was a lethal dose.” 

Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought.  

“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up. 

“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered inside.

“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,” Egan ordered.

Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your bedroom?”

What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered, as if that would faze them. It didn’t.

After giving him her cell number, she got into her car and drove to the beach.

An hour later, she let herself back in and looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact: This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect. 

Purchase DARK BREW