Friday, November 30, 2012

Taryn Raye Spotlights Silent Partner by @ReneeVincent


Grayson Anders has it all. He’s the co-owner of a happening nightclub in downtown Boston, he’s wealthy, and women practically throw themselves at his feet the moment he steps on the dance floor. His passion is dancing and he wants nothing more than to find the perfect dance partner.

Chloe LaRoche is a talented artist, but a failing entrepreneur. Her once thriving studio is now on the brink of foreclosure and unless she paints the next Van Gogh Starry Night, she’ll have to cut her losses and say goodbye to her quaint little gallery. Fearing her career is at an end, she drags herself to the local hotspot, determined to drown her worries in the bottom of a shot glass.

Then, Chloe finds herself in Grayson’s arms, indulging in a passionate, out-of-control, one night stand. Grayson finds his perfect dance partner and Chloe finally finds her muse. But will her secret destroy both their dreams?

Review

top pick, night owl review"Ms. Vincent’s writing has the unique ability of capturing both the reader’s heart and mind. The emotional investment in the characters starts from the beginning. You’ll want things for them that you might never have otherwise thought about wanting for someone so fiercely...Another highly recommended read by Renee Vincent!" Night Owl Review, Top Pick
 

“I loved this story. Ms. Vincent packs more feeling into just over one hundred pages than many authors do in a full-length book.” ~Suzanne Barrett, Romance Author



Author Bio: Renee Vincent holds a passionate interest in Irish and Norse history. She lives in the rolling hills of Kentucky with her husband and two children on a beautiful secluded farm of horses and hay fields. When not writing, she spends her time on the back of a horse, whether with her family or with friends, and thinks there is nothing like the feel of sunlight on your face, the wind in your hair, and the power of the animal beneath you. Seeing the world from a saddle, she says, is by far the best view and the best therapy for a heavy heart or a troubled mind.  www.reneevincent.com

Click image at top of blog to go to Amazon to check it out on Kindle!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Welcome Thursdays with Taryn visitor DC Thome aka @DaveThomeWriter #author of Palm Springs Heat #excerpt

Thursdays with Taryn

DC Thome
Please help me in welcoming fellow romance writer, D.C. Thome, author of Palm Springs Heat, the first book in his new Fast Lane Series.


What book(s) most influenced you as a writer?
My all-time favorite book is The Great Gatsby, and I aspire to write the kind of pretty prose F. Scott Fitzgerald seemed to write naturally. Romantic in its own way. But I was also a big Hemingway fan back in high school, and those two guys—the fancy one and the succinct one—are always duking it out when I’m at the keyboard.
The romance novels I’ve read are mostly ones recommended by my wife Mary Jo, and she’s a big-time Jennifer Crusie fan. I like Crusie’s humor and offbeat characters, in part because they’re like the humor and characters I wrote before I ever read any Crusie. (I wrote a bunch of screenplays before turning to novels.) Faking It and Bet Me show how idiosyncrasies can be used to make characters more real and likable. Plus, I think Crusie likes men and her heroes seem pretty real to me.

What book do you read over and over again?
This may sound pathetic, but it’s Superfan, a graphic novel I got when I was in seventh grade. It’s a Mad Magazine book about a nerd who drinks a potion and becomes the greatest quarterback ever. Absurdist sports science fiction. A real genre-bender.

Thursday Trio-
1)      Movie- It’s a Wonderful Life
2)      Music- Sex Pistols (that’s right—It’s a Wonderful Life and Sex Pistols)
3)      Decadent Dessert- Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream liberally dusted with a  powder of finely ground Lindt 72% cocoa bar

What’s the most interesting or bizarre bit of trivia you’ve learned from researching for a novel?
That some women are offended by the word “panties.” Seriously. I thought that was the word for women’s underwear, but Mary Jo informed me it’s a stupid, juvenile term and I’ve never heard her say it. Thinking back over thirty-three years…I have no proof otherwise. She asked me how I would feel if she called my underwear things like “grundies” and “pantaloons,” and I said, “I call my underwear ‘grundies’ and ‘pantaloons.’ I’m all for using stupid, juvenile terms for underwear all the time.”

Novel on your Nightstand:
Who/what are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading a nonfiction book called “Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Belly.” It’s by a cardiologist from Milwaukee, and now I’m terrified of bread and pasta. Not brownies, though.

Whom would you cast as your Main Characters/Hero/Heroine if your book became a movie?
I thought Lara looked like Julianne Hough before I had any idea who Julianne Hough was. Nina Dobrev or Frieda Pinto would make a good Sushma. Or Mila Kunis. I wouldn’t mind Mila Kunis playing any role in any movie made from any book or screenplay I’ve written. Still, if Nina could convince her boyfriend Ian Somerhalder to play Clay that would be nice.

Palm Springs Heat (Fast Lane Romance #1)


Can an ordinary woman make a billionaire bachelor fall in love with her…so she can dump him as soon as he’s hooked? Lara Dixon sets out to make it happen with infamous international playboy Clay Creighton.

Lara embarks on a mission of justice, certain that Creighton’s Fast Lane media empire, with its philosophy of “fast women, fast cars and fast living,” encourages men to stray from happy homes. And by “men,” Lara means her ex, a Fast Lane devotee who turned out to have had not a single shred of respect for women.

Lara finds backers to help her get revenge on the notorious, but decidedly handsome, tycoon. With new fabulous clothes and a glorious makeover, she infiltrates Clay’s inner circle and uses her research about his likes and dislikes to charm him into believing she’s not just another L.A. woman looking to romance a rich guy.

But as she becomes steeped in the Fast Lane culture during a weekend involving an exhilarating ride in a very fast car and passionate moments in Clay’s very exotic Palm Spring resort, “Heat,” Lara discovers nothing is what she expected. Especially Clay.

Women’s perceptions of him, it turns out, are based on fiction—the products of a skilled public relations team. Lara’s startled by how well Clay treats her, how much they have in common—and how much she’s falling for him.

So now, Lara has a new problem: Can she put the brakes on her plan to destroy Clay and make the turn toward a happily-ever-after instead?

This light-hearted romp into today’s jet set includes a cast of wacky assistants, bubbly fashionistas and unexpected enemies—and friends.

Palm Springs Heat is a fast, fun read—a contemporary romance with a touch of intrigue and a reminder that nothing, not even a waterfall, is exactly what it seems.

Excerpt:


The limo jerked hard to the right, sending Lara Dixon sliding across the slick leather seat.
That can’t be good.
The man seated across from her—the man Gina had found to introduce her to Clay Creighton—scrambled upright and banged on the Plexiglas partition separating them from the driver, a uniformed woman who had quarter-inch silver hair peeking from beneath a livery cap.
“What the hell?” he demanded as the partition slid open. “Did you hit something?”
The driver met Lara’s questioning gaze in the rearview mirror. “Oops.” The partition slid shut.
That really can’t be good.
Lara flipped down a mirror to fix her hair. Her natural color shimmered through the semisweet chocolate veneer. Hard to get used to after thirty-two years as a blonde.
“Just a bump in the road.” Anton Roche worked his neck like a preening turkey and settled back in as the limo raced past Paradise Cove on the road to Malibu. “As I was saying, the girl thought she was the aurora borealis, Liberty’s torch and the leprechaun’s pot o’ gold rolled into one. But she knew she looked even hotter in my bustier.”
Lara suppressed a sigh. How does Gina put up with this guy? The lingerie designer had prattled about his life with the glitterati from the minute he’d picked her up at her humble Santa Monica apartment. She wished he’d let her concentrate on this new experience of riding in luxury. After tonight, she might never step into a limo again. Then again, Roche had put his turkey neck on the line to talk up Lara to Clay Creighton.
He has his own axe to grind, but I should at least pretend to be interested.
“Why is it the ‘STP’ bustier?” Lara asked, though after weeks of researching Creighton’s Fast Lane empire, she knew the answer. Never hurts to practice. You’ll be lying all the time if everything goes right tonight.
Roche straightened with pride. “‘Seconds to Paradise.’ It’s goddamn brilliant. Builds up the bust—and a man can unhook it one-handed like that.” He snapped his fingers. “You know how much money Creighton’s made from that thing? It’s the biggest seller in the Toy Store. But do I get the credit?” He looked more closely at Lara. “It wouldn’t have been a bad idea for you to wear one tonight.”
Lara had considered buying one from Fast Lane’s notorious online gift shop back when she was married. “I thought STP had something to do with gasoline.”
“Yeah, well…Fast Lane: Racy cars, the high life…and all that.”
Fast women, fast cars, fast living. I know all about Fast Lane and Clay Creighton.
Lara looked out the window as Roche chattered on. The sun drifting down through the maritime haze toward Point Dume reflected in her diamond-blue eyes. The conflagration of red, orange and purple looked no different from here than it did from the bluffs on the other side of Santa Monica Bay.
The limo jerked again as they turned up a gravel road. Lara’s heart quickened. We must be close.
“We’re here!” Roche announced as the car turned into a driveway that twisted skyward through desert terrain. “Are you ready?”
Lara thought about the weeks she’d spent in the gym. The coaching sessions on how to lie with a mysterious woman whose name and accent changed daily. The hours poring through the enormously popular Fast Lane website, reading Creighton’s daily encyclicals on materialism and carnality until she could easily extemporize on the advantages of gadgets she’d never use and the attributes of running backs she’d never cheer for.
But everything she learned did nothing to change her opinion: Fast Lane was nothing but a place where men like her asshole ex, Kyle, could leer at naked women and find validation for believing they deserved their own harems.
 An instructional guide on how to screw over your wife.
She closed her eyes and her mind to escape Roche’s jabber. When she had approached Gina Wray, creator of the pro-woman website HardCoreGrrrls.com, with the idea of infiltrating Fast Lane to reveal its sordid secrets, Lara had never expected to be the one doing the infiltrating.
“I know plenty of people who’d like to bring Clay Creighton down—people who’d pay big bucks for an exposé,” Gina had told Lara. “Putting an end to The Rotation wouldn’t be so bad, either.”
The Rotation consisted of three women who were at Creighton’s beck and call 24/7. Every six months, he dumped the most senior member and introduced a new plaything. Relationships arced, he said, starting out passionate and ending up routine, so a man had to bring in “new talent” to keep things exciting. Gina’s plan was for Lara to become the first woman in The Rotation’s disgraceful sixteen-year history to dump him instead.
“I don’t know,” Lara had protested. “I’m not exactly Fast Lane material.”
“The material is there,” Gina had assured her. “You just have to move it around a little.”
Nothing’s simple. The world is warm and cool and open and mysterious and bright and muddled—all at the same time. How do you live with that?
Lara opened her eyes to see Roche staring at her chest. He frowned. “Can’t you show a little more cleavage?”
Lara reflexively looked down the ruffled collar of her dress—a sleeveless midnight blue Roland Mouret crepe Gina had purchased for this night. Lara marveled at how easily the twenty-five-hundred-dollar price tag convinced her the dress fit and felt better than anything she’d ever worn.
But does it look good enough?
Even with her new body and hair, even with every follicle below her forehead sugar-waxed and ripped clean, her nails filed, polished and buffed to a mother-of-pearl sheen, her feet soaked in lavender-scented Dead Sea salt water and tucked neatly into a pair of Guillaume Hinfray platform slingbacks, even after two months of Gina’s pep talks, she had to ask this clown, “Do you believe I can even get into The Rotation?”
Roche leaned back against the velvety leather, his beady black eyes taking in Lara’s slender five-foot-eight-inch frame, long legs, toned and spray-tanned arms. She held steady under his gaze. He reached up and pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. She knocked his hand away and moved the hair back.
“Eh,” Roche said. “Stranger things have happened.”
Just what I needed: a big boost of confidence.
The limo crested a hillock and slowed to a stop. A busty young woman wearing the lowest-cut Lakers jersey Lara had ever seen opened the door. “Welcome to the ICE House!”

Palm Springs Heat is a KDP Select book, so it’s only available from Amazon and is eligible as a free download to Kindle Prime members.

You can find out more about DC Thome on his blog 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

#Writerly Wednesdays- Amazing Things Are Happening 5 Star #review #booktrailer

Monday Mercury went out of Retrograde and it seems things are starting to straighten out a bit, in life. We'd already suffered through having to buy a new washer when we really couldn't afford it and anything that could go wrong, had been...

BUT....

It was Monday that I happened upon, quite by accident when I was checking my Author Central information, a 5 STAR REVIEW on Amazon for CASTAWAY HEARTS, which thrilled me to no end! It is officially my first real Amazon Customer review and I couldn't be happier about it!

Monday was also the day that I put out a final plea on my social networks for votes for my CASTAWAY HEARTS book trailer that was in a Video Contest on YOU GOTTA READ REVIEWS, which I posted about last week. I was in third place at the time, and content in the idea that I could still win a month's FREE Featured Book advertising (for 3rd place) on their website for CASTAWAY HEARTS- it's promo and exposure I wouldn't have otherwise since I haven't invested much in paid promo (can't really afford to at this point).

Like the paranoid nervous little thing I am, I couldn't stop going back to obsessively check my numbers because I thought the voting would end on the 26th and I was holding out for that 3rd place spot. I, of course, later read the rules again only to find that the voting would end sometime during the day of the 27th and then the winners would be announced.

Imagine my surprise of surprises when I went to check it mid-morning and discovered I was in 1ST PLACE! I had been at least a good 40 odd votes behind and then suddenly I was sprinting past the person's video in first place by leaps and bounds. I couldn't fathom why, so I posted about it on Facebook only to find out a few minutes later when I scrolled down my timeline that one of my sisters-in-law had shared it and asked her friends to take a moment to go vote.

By the time I went to bed that night I had a good 50-60 point lead and was still in 1st. It was the next morning when I awoke to find myself in 2nd place and approximately 80 votes behind, but the polls were still open, but I didn't know for how long.

I again posted about it and thanked those who voted that I would still end up in 2nd place, with 2 months of FREE advertising on the site. That beats not winning anything- but...somehow my request for a few more votes at the end were heard and by the time the voting ended, I was in 1st place again with a 50 vote lead.

Here is the
I will have 3 months of free advertising spots now and it's because of a great many strangers who took a moment to help me out.

I feel like the Comeback Kid, and I'm so full of gratitude to those who voted for my video. It's greatly appreciated and I'm deeply moved that so many took the time to go vote when they didn't have to. To be honest, I hadn't even hoped to be in the Top 3 in a roster of 20 videos, because I haven't entered any contests like that before. I truly am grateful and I feel blessed beyond my comprehension this morning.

If you haven't seen the book trailer, here it is-


Now that I've had my thrill for the week and I'm still a good 8,000 behind on my NaNo, I need to dive into HEART OF THE SURF with all seriousness today, especially after the oddball dreams I had this morning before getting up, about a white/blue beam of light shooting down from the sky at the darkest dawn and liquid silver unicorns the size of elephants that glided by overhead like rumbling thunder.

Please don't forget to stop by
Only about 3 1/2 days left to enter, so please stop by and get your entries in for your chance to win! Next Monday it will be a different set of goodies!


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Tuesdays with Taryn- Visit with @PamelaTurner #author of FAMILY TRADITION, her #newrelease



Tuesdays with Taryn
Pamela Turner


What book(s) most influenced you as a writer?
The Stranger (Albert Camus) was probably the book that inspired me to write. Ironically, not to write fiction, but rather to become a journalist for the alternative press. But after a brief stint freelance magazine writing for a couple of local publications, I returned to writing fiction. 

What book do you read over and over again?
The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun. A reporter owned by two intelligent and charming Siamese cats, what’s not to love?  

Tuesday Trio-
1)     Movie- I love foreign films, especially After Life, Dolls, Ashes and Diamonds, and the Three Colors Trilogy by Kieslowski.
2)     Music- Within Temptation, Eisbrecher, Blutengel, dark wave or symphonic metal.   
3)     Decadent Dessert- To be honest, I’m not much of a dessert eater. Now, if I’m allowed to add coffee to this list... J

What’s the most interesting or bizarre bit of trivia you’ve learned from researching for a novel? “The Venus Day / Earth Year harmonic interval is 2/3, the perfect musical fifth (3:2), the most universally consonant (pleasing to the ear and emotionally peaceful) harmonic and most durative (strong and long lasting compared to other harmonics which subside before the fifth).” (Nick Anthony Fiorenza http://www.lunarplanner.com/HCpages/Venus.html) I found this fascinating and used the idea in a story.

Novel on your Nightstand:
Who/what are you currently reading?
The Black Dahlia.

Whom would you cast as your Main Characters/Hero/Heroine if your book became a movie?
I’m holding out for the graphic novel. J But if I had to cast Rick (“Family Tradition”), then I would choose Benedict Cumberbatch. I really like him in Sherlock. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.  


Blurb for Family Tradition
Artist Rick Stanton needs a commission. He faces eviction from his apartment and his latest project is on hiatus. Worse, his muse refuses to cooperate. A recent letter may contain the inspiration he needs. Inside is the photograph of a mysterious woman, her face hidden by an umbrella. But there’s no identification, no way for him to contact her. A month later, another envelope arrives, this time with a phone number. Realizing this may be his last chance, Rick calls her. The woman introduces herself as Elizabeth and tells him she wants him to paint her portrait. 

Rick agrees, only to learn there are conditions. Elizabeth is a recluse who lives with her two servants in a Victorian manor. She never allows her face to be seen. Not only must he stay at Elizabeth’s residence while painting her, he can’t leave, nor can he ever tell anyone about the portrait.

Sensing something isn’t right, Rick is even more disturbed by the sinister undercurrent beneath the household’s genteel façade. It’s somehow connected to the family portraits hanging in Elizabeth’s living room. Could they be haunted? And why doesn’t Elizabeth’s housekeeper want Rick to finish the painting?
 
Amazon
Muse It Up Publishing

To find out more about Pamela, visit her at the following sites!

Website
Darkling Delights Blog