Category Archives: The Very Best Man

New and Improved Very Best Man

My entire Very Manly series has been undergoing a huge makeover in the past six months. The whole process turned out to be a lot more work than I’d planned but is also a lot more rewarding. There’s so much to write about the amazing editor who worked with me, my wonderful publicist, and my “Oh no, not again,” digital content manager/husband. Let’s just say I’ve learned setting deadlines for others can be a necessary thing.

How new and improved can this book be? So much so that I’ve added 10,000 words to the original story. Not by appending or inserting new chapters but by adding more drama and more importantly, more feeling. The love scenes are a lot spicier, too.

Now, on to the good stuff. The VERY Best Man releases tomorrow and is available for preorder now.

Jane Lawson is getting married, so of course her sister Susan will be her maid-of-honor. But when sis skips out on planning the wedding, Jane finds a surprising stand-in… the best man!

Dr. David Wells is more than willing to taste wedding cakes, sample reception menus, and even help the bride in and out of wedding dresses, if it means spending time with her. Soon enough, she’ll be his best friend Alan’s wife… and thus off limits forever.

But when the groom says ‘I don’t’, and runs off with the maid-of-honor, his best man is left to pick up the pieces of the bride’s heart. David is more than willing, and as Jane turns to him for support, their friendship blossoms into something much more.

Until Jane’s old fears get in the way, and David realizes that to keep her, he must fight not only her hostile family, but ghosts from her past.

#MondayBlogs and Spring Fever!

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Our weather in the Midwest US has been so lovely this week! I’ve struggled to stay inside and work but gave up on everything last Saturday. My husband and I spent the day running around town. I even took off a lot of Sunday. I’ve not taken off that much time in a row for weeks.

I needed the break. After going over The Very Best Man for its rerelease, Surplus, the fourth book in the Nova Scotia Murder Mysteries needed me. I’m almost done with chapter three and while that doesn’t sound like enough, there are only twelve chapters plotted. My only hang up is the murder is a stabbing, exactly what happened in Pleasures. Does it bother anyone else when a murder mystery series has too many of the same kind of deaths? Appearances is going to have a unique murder, Rage is a bit predictable but not a stabbing, and Honeymoon? I don’t know how I’m killing that random character.

Creepy, isn’t it? Such fun, though! Being a writer is the best job I’ve ever had. The boss, me, is a bit of a hard ass, however. Never letting me goof off outside or anywhere else, really.

We have a winner!

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Ruth won my contest! She was randomly chosen by Rafflecopter, thank goodness. Otherwise, I’d want to be Oprah and give everyone a $50 gift card. Don’t tell my husband or he’ll pass out. 😉 He has this thing called a “budget” that he won’t let me ignore. I plan on doing more of these contests in 2017 so keep an eye open.

In other news, writing The Very Poor Man (sexy!), giving The Very Best Man a serious rewrite, 15281831_10154114959577338_501215846_n-png editing Pleasures: a Nova Scotia Murder Mystery, and plotting Surplus from the same series has kept me busy. November got away from me and December is all about helping Christmas Veterans. Our unit adopted three families, so there’s a lot of shopping and coordinating!

Stay tuned for later contests and thank you so much for being a part of my 2016. I hope you’ll hang out with me in 2017.

New Contest!

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FinishedSummerofReadingGiveaway$100GC
Welcome to the 4th of July Summer of Reading Giveaway!

The authors below are offering up $150 Amazon Gift Card to you can get your read on!

Please check out the books below, some are Free, Free with KU, or Inexpensive.

Young Adult

New Adult

Sweet Romance

Contemporary Romance

Women’s Fiction

Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy

Science Fiction

Want to win a $150 Amazon Gift Card? Follow the authors in the rafflecopter below for a chance. Open WW 18+ Ends July 20, 2016 @ 11:59 PM EST

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Summer Vacation, Part 1 for #MondayBlogs

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This year, I’m having three summer vacations. Yep, three. Am I lucky? Heck yeah! I’m also paying for it and working hard to earn them.

The first one and subject of this post was in Dallas for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention last May. I’d toyed with not going because money. The ROI (return on investment) isn’t there. I ended up giving away more books than selling, which I expected. I want readers who enjoy my work and if that means give to get, I’m ok with that a hundred percent.

Gosh, the workshops? Wonderful. Pushing myself to ignore the shy and meet authors I’d admired? Fantastic. Ava Branson deserves all the credit for me saying hi to so many people this year.

What was even better was I learned so much about being a better writer and getting my work out there. No one can follow exactly in an indie author’s footsteps but I can go in the same direction and find my own way. Isn’t that really true of everything in life?

Icing on the cake of work-I-love vacation? Seeing a beloved aunt and uncle, seeing the Red River full (too full!) of water, getting to decorate my parents graves (they’re nine hours south of my home), birthday cake ice cream from Braum’s (none near my home), mini champagne bottles at the events, new friends, and giving out swag like a big shot.

Not so fun things I missed? Being too self-conscious to ask my cousins to interrupt their weekdays or Saturday for a visit just from me. Their kids and grandkids are super active and I didn’t want to intrude. A champagne event that I was on time for but missed because of a meeting. Business first, champy and choccies later.

Pluses bigger than the minuses, right? I had an awesome time and am already looking forward to RT16 in Vegas. Even more friends will be there and we’ll get to be a gang! I really can’t wait.

Bonus for readers?

People who went to RT15 and saw my swag table already know this, but you don’t! I have Smashwords 50% off coupon codes for the Manly Series and for the current Oregon Trail novel, Undeniable.

The Very Best Man’s code is AP26W and The Very Worst Man’s code is NJ54V.

For Undeniable and Undesirable? Undeniable is free from today until June 20, 2015 everywhere, while Undesirable is $0.99 at the same time and places. It makes Undesirable’s 50% off coupon code of La32N redundant until June 21, 2015.

Coupon codes expire May 31, 2016, feel free to share.

Book Covers Before and After

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If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you likely know about my Very Manly series of books. All two of them. There’s four in the entire series, but the last two won’t see the light of day if the sales for the first two don’t pick up. I’m an artist and a business owner. Do I want to spend my time writing and then spend the money on editing and book covers to do so at a loss? No.

Here are the two covers for the series, before. Notice how the photography is professional, the fonts clear? There’s some color and detail but not so much it’s overwhelming or difficult to see as a thumbnail. You can also see them in their natural habitat over at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and everywhere else.

In stores now!

Nice, right? Not huge eye catching best sellers in the contemporary romance department, either. And by ‘not huge’ I mean sad, very very sad.

So what to do? To take my editor’s sage advice and give them a professional makeover. I hired someone to help me ratchet up the sex, which I did by having Carrie at Cheeky Covers help me out. I’d admired her work done for a friend of mine, Ava Branson, and needed her expertise.

This is what she came up with.

Nice, right? It’s way too soon to tell if the covers affect sales. Probably in six weeks, if nothing has seen a bump in downloads, I’ll have my answer. The stories are solid and professionally edited, so I know they’re good. Every time I go over a proof, I love what I read so if nothing else, there’s one person who loves these books. I’m not sure if that’s enough to write The Very Rich Man and The Very Poor Man, but I have those stories and covers planned just in case.

So. What do YOU think? Enticing or meh?