Showing posts with label CLPTours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CLPTours. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

CLP Blog Tours, Review, & Giveaway: Love Me Anyway (JL Redington)



There is a serial killer loose in America’s National Parks. Greyson Beauchene, Head Ranger of Alaska’s Denali National Park is certain he will never have to deal with that because his park is too ‘out of the way.’ However, Ranger Beauchene soon finds out he is dead wrong.
Greyson and his two assistants are flown by helicopter into a remote section of the park where hikers have found a casket, one of the biggest indicators the serial killer has found Denali. Greyson’s team is joined by one incredibly irritating and extremely demanding FBI Profiler and her two Agents. Very good at what she does, Aspen O’Connell sets out to take control of the crime scene and everyone involved in it, and Greyson is having none of it.
Greyson, Aspen and their teams must work together to find this killer before he kills again. Events move quickly as the group pieces together clues from the crime scene and a profile is established. As they work through abduction attempts and visible threats, Greyson and Aspen struggle to put their growing feelings for each other in a place that will keep them focused on finding an evil, evil man and bringing justice to innocent victims.


Buy the Book!













JL Redington lives Juneau, AK, with her husband Terry and puppy, Shelby. Together they are the parents of 6 grown children and 19 grandchildren. She loves to read, camp, cook and be with her friends and family. In writing this romance series, JL has found a new love in her life, and that is writing books. JL has always felt books are a way to take us out of the everyday and into a place we can relax, be entertained and enjoy a different world for a period of time. Happy reading!










Connect with JL!
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WOW!! A murder mystery romance...doesn't get much better than that! This book made me want to plan a trip to Alaska, in hopes of meeting a handsome park ranger;) When Ranger Beauchene got the call that some hikers had found a coffin in his woods of Denali National Park he was shocked!

 Greyson loved Denali and had dedicated his life to protecting the park. Greyson knew he would be having to work with the FBI and a profiler on this case because it looked to be the work of a serial killer!!!! What Greyson didn't know was that he would quickly fall for Apsen O'Connell the blunt and beautiful profiler. This one was a real page turner!!! I had to keep reading to finding out who the killer was and who was helping him. Plus the tension between Aspen and Greyson made for some great moments in the story!

 I give this one 4.5 stars! I will for sure check out the next book in the Passion in the Park series: Cherish Me Always

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Friday, March 14, 2014

CLP Book Tours, Interview, Guest Post, & Giveaway: Becoming Mrs. Walsh (Jessica Gordon)


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Shoshana Thompson is 26 years old, miles from home, and engaged to Andrew Walsh, the last single Walsh brother of one of Washington, D.C.'s wealthiest families. Throughout her engagement she becomes enamored with the Walsh lifestyle. 
Life in the fast lane comes to a screeching halt when Shoshana develops feelings for another man. When she discovers the feelings may not be one-sided, things are about to get a lot more complicated. This man is not only part of her fancy new world, he is also completely off-limits.









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Jessica Gordon is a Johns Hopkins University alumna for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She received her bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from the Writing Seminars program and her master’s degree in communications.
After working in the corporate world for several years, Jessica decided to return to her first love: creative writing. Jessica takes her readers to the prominent Washington, D.C. area where her characters navigate through the complex world of family, in-laws, and love.









1. Becoming Mrs. Walsh is a story about love, life, and family. I am fascinated by how these topics are related and I love looking at the dynamics within family and extended family. These core concepts have always been interesting to me. Then a few years ago I met my husband and the experience of being newly engaged and meeting my future in-laws led to the spark of an idea. My husband is the youngest of three boys so I was particularly fascinated by his dynamic with his older brothers and their wives, my now sisters-in-law. This experience combined with my love of writing family dynamics and juicy tales led to the beginning of what is now Becoming Mrs. Walsh. Shoshana's steep learning curve has her facing several obstacles. Where do your loyalties lie when there is conflict: with your soon-to-be new family or your current family? Some people are closer with their in-laws than their own family, others do not get along with extended family. You get to see all different dynamics play out in the book. I wanted to take relatable, everyday feelings, but put my characters in the most extraordinary of situations. While my own experiences joining a family sparked the original inspiration, the rest of course is fiction.

2. My favorite character is Rachel because I like how she is a keen observer and calls it like it is. I love watching the friendship between Rachel and Shoshana blossom. While I like "Sho" (Shoshana) as well and she is my leading lady, she is not my favorite because I don't always agree with her and raise an eyebrow at times at her decisions, but I think she is human and relatable so she will always have a special place in my heart. Rachel, however, has a 'girl next door' personality and I would love to be her friend in real life! I think she would make an excellent friend. She doesn't seem judgmental, she gives good advice, she's a good listener, and her own life seems to be on track.

3. This is an interesting question! The title came at the end, for sure. I knew I loved the story from the minute I started writing it. I had many titles I was considering, pads full of titles, and then Becoming Mrs. Walsh came to me. I had two others I toyed with but in the end Becoming Mrs. Walsh won out because to me it tells the whole story without giving anything away. It sums up her journey because it really is all about the trials and tribulations on the road to becoming Mrs. Walsh in this case, but really "becoming Mrs. anyone." Becoming Mrs. Gordon was a journey albeit a good one, but a journey nonetheless! ;)

4. The scene on the Metro. Readers will know which one I mean, it is within in the first few chapters, Chapter 3. I love this scene so much for so many reasons. I will not give away what happens, but I can describe why it is my favorite. First off, I woke up in the middle of the night to write it. Completely sat up in bed, grabbed the nearest pad and wrote feverishly. The scene sums up these two characters so well. It is such a human moment and a moment that really magnifies the electricity between two people. I feel that scene is a really special moment and you can feel the emotion, longing, curiosity, and conflict leap off the page. Sometimes the smallest of moments mean the most, more so than pages of words.

5. The most important thing I've learned is the simplicity of writing. Write simply. That's it. Communicate your ideas clearly and concisely. Don't bog readers down with useless prose, tell a good story and tell it well. How you communicate the story is just as important as the story itself. I think all great writers are actually gifted story tellers that managed to write them down.

6. The simplicity of it. Similar to my answer in question 5. Simple story telling, simple cover. My book is about Shoshana's journey to becoming Mrs. Walsh. I love that particular hue of blue and the white writing. The only image is the engagement ring and I think the engagement ring is the one item always with you, a guiding light through the treacherous waters of being a bride, newly engaged and attempting to plan a wedding.

7. Good question! To be honest, I'm not sure. There are so many good ones and with the popularity of e-books they are so many new amazing authors bursting onto the scene it is hard to tell! I love to read but when I am working on a book I really choose to focus only on that. I like to hear my characters voices and not get too distracted with other character drama.

8. I loved Tracey Garvis Graves On the Island, though it came out in 2012, I wanted to mention it here because it was the last book to really get me excited where I found myself recommending it and followed that story all the way through from beginning to end.

9. Up next is hopefully a sequel to Becoming Mrs. Walsh. It is officially in TBD status because I want to really publish something that makes sense and feels authentic to the characters. I am working on it though, so we will see! I'm excited. :)

10. The only thing I would like to add is a thank you to all my readers and bloggers and potential readers and bloggers. I really appreciate the wonderful feedback I've received on the book and all of the people who have featured, mentioned, commented, blogged, tweeted about Becoming Mrs. Walsh. I love seeing the comments and please feel free to contact me at any time. I love hearing from you! jessica@jessica-gordon.com




I wanted to talk about endings and sequels. I want to discuss them in general, but wanted to take a minute and discuss Becoming Mrs. Walsh. The ending has been inciting some provocative insights and feedback. I've received so many e-mails about this ending! It's funny because I didn't set up to write an ending that would in any way be a jumping off point to a potential sequel. I felt the ending was a good conclusion for these characters. It felt right for them. When I think about the course of a story, I think a lot about the characters and how they would handle the situations thrown at them. I don't like to write a specific beginning, middle, end, but rather a journey for the characters. The book ends but their journey doesn't. Using that as my mindset, without their lives ending at a finite point, what would be the right path for every character involved? This fueled how I arrived at the conclusion. To me, these are choices these characters would have made if I met them in person. Readers, please feel free to write me and we can discuss further. Just don't want to give anything away! But I did want to explain my thoughts on endings. :)

As far as sequels, I think a sequel is a great thing if it is not forced. When you are so invested in characters it is nice to know that you can see how they continued on with their lives. I think we would all like it if we could check in on our favorite characters all of the time, but all good things do come to an end at some point and books have to end. What I like about sequels is the ability to keep reading on so that if you are glued to a book and when that final page is turned or you reach 100 percent on your e-book device you know you can keep going. You don't have the empty feeling that it's over. And a lot of the time the sequel concludes the story in a way that feels finished and hopefully satisfying. There is of course the other side of the sequel. This is when the sequel doesn't live up to expectations, stay true to the characters, and is generally uninteresting and dissatisfying. For me, it leaves a bad taste for the entire series. If you loved the first book, I don't think it ruins it forever, it just makes the series and perhaps those characters potentially feel less desirable or interesting. A sequel has to be as good if not better than the first book because you can't disappoint readers! If they are connected enough and invested enough in your story to want to read on you must deliver. I think it is so important to do right not only by the readers but your characters too! This is why I tell people Becoming Mrs. Walsh is in TBD sequel status because unless I feel it does the book and characters justice, I don't think I could ever publish it. So we will see! But so far, I think it is headed in a good direction. As always, thanks for reading the book and following along the blitz!


CLP Blog Tours
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

CLP Tours Blog Tour, Interview, and Giveaway: Dandy Day (Annie Wood)





Dandy Day is a thirty-five year old free-spirited, commitment-phobic, Venice Boardwalk roller skating waitress. When Dandy is suddenly dumped by her therapist, right when they were on the brink of figuring out why her relationships last only a whopping three months, Dandy decides to take her relationship issues into her own hands. With the reluctant help of her lifelong best friend, Simon, Dandy tracks down her exes one by one and does a relationship autopsy on each of them in order to get to the bottom of her relationship challenged life.

A short novel about love, friendship and grown ups (sort of) growing up (sort of).






Annie was born in Hollywood, raised in the valley. She avoided the valley girl accent by speaking backwards for the first 15 years of her life. As an actress she has guest starred on several TV shows. You may remember her best in her recurring role onBecker with Ted Danson, Lara in Good Luck Chuck and as the host of her own nationally syndicated dating show, BZZZ! which she also co-produced. As a writer, she is a produced and published playwright and recently had a comedic scene in the NBC/UNIVERSAL showcase. Her web-series, Karma’s a B*tchhttp://anniewood.com/karma.htm was chosen by Virgin America as BEST OFTHE WEB and season 2 is now in the works. Her books of comedic scenes, Snapshots! & Act Up & Make a Scene have been performed on Hollywood stages and is available on Amazon. She lives in Los Angeles with her charming, Italian husband and her equally charming, Jewish/Buddhist/Italian dog, Lucy.



Connect with Annie!



Blog: I only occasionally blog at SheWrites:

And my dog, Lucy, blog’s when we travel each year to Italy, where my husband is from.

Facebook page:

Goodreads:

Twitter:




Buy the Book!

http://www.amazon.com/Annie-Wood/e/B002BMFM1C


1. What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
I wrote the screenplay version several years back. I was thinking about the idea of “growing up” and the pressure some feel about needing to have life and love all figured out by a certain time in their life. I also like the concept of names and how our names can affect us. If my name was Dandy would I feel the need to alwayshave a dandy day? 

2. Who is your favorite character in the book?
I love Dandy. She’s definitely neurotic with her endless self analysis and her inner rants, but she has a good heart.

3. Which came first, the title or the novel?
The title. I have a list of titles I often refer to. I am inspired by titles. I also enjoy naming bands, songs and giving people nicknames.

4. What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
I like the scene where Dandy is remembering a recurring dream she has about her parents because of the bitter-sweetness of dreams, memories and loss.



5. Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?
The first draft is just for yourself. You need to sit down and write that first draft. Get it all out. Just get it done. Don’t share during the process because too many voices in your head can mess you up.

6. What do you like most about the cover of the book?
That’s a picture of me that I had my husband, Peter, take. I am sitting in the Venice boardwalk (where the story takes place) drinking a Yoo-Hoo (Dandy’s favorite beverage) wearing my roller skates (Dandy is a roller skating waitress on the boardwalk.) I played around with the photo to make it a little cartoony. I like the colors.


7. What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2014?
I don’t usually look ahead when thinking about books but Angelica Houston has an autobiography titled, “A Story Lately Told” coming out later this year that looks interesting.

8. What was your favorite book in 2013?
I loved “Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter.

9. What’s up next for you?
I’m working on my next novel (or novella, not sure yet) titled “La Tua Casa.” It’s another romantic comedy, this time from the male perspective. It’s based on my screenplay, “Martin’s Theory.” I’m also getting ready to shoot *season 2 of the web-series I wrote, created and star in, “Karma’s a B*tch.” You can watch season one by clicking on the “Karma’s a B*tch” button on my site – anniewood.com(*season 2 was co-written with my pal, the talented TV writer, David Schladweiler.)


10. Is there anything that you would like to add?
If you like, you can follow me on twitter - @anniewood

And…

Keep Creating.

Keep Positive.

Keep Showing Up. J


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