This commercial hit my radar and while it’s totally not PC, as a romance author, it gives me all sorts of ideas. And some smiles and a chuckle or three. Happy Friday! (And remember: Drink responsibly. 😉 )
No universal wisdom today. Nope. Today, I want to introduce readers to my upcoming release, BILLIONAIRE COUNTRY, with a cover and blurb reveal. It’s book #8 in my Red Dirt Royalty series, and it’s also part of the Billionair and Babies series. Y’all have met Tucker in other books. He’s Chase Barron’s second in command at Barron Entertainment and up until now, he’s spent most of his time hanging out either at the Tate family ranch in Oklahoma or at the Crown Casino in Las Vegas. Then he meets runaway bride, Zoe Parker. She’s country roads and he’s city lights but somehow, I think they might just make it to their HEA.
Rule Number One:
Never mix business and pleasure.
Country music producer Tucker Tate is laser-focused. But finding a pregnant runaway bride forces him to slow down. Zoe Parker has a voice like an angel—and nowhere to go. So when he moves her and her baby into his condo, it’s just business…until it’s not. Will broken rules lead to broken hearts? Or is Tucker writing his very own love song?
BILLIONAIRE COUNTRY releases the first week in March. You can grab the paperback version a month early by ordering it from the Harlequin website. You can also click the HARLEQUIN LINK to get links to all the other sales outlets for pre-order. You have to click on the [Buy From Other Retailers] button. I’ll make it easy for the Amazon peeps. CLICK HERE for the Amazon page.
I’m a tad late this morning but there was stuff to do first and I was too lazy to set up this post yesterday. I hope all of you rang in the new year with family and friends. Ending the old year and moving into the new is always a bit discombobulating. That makes today’s #1lineWed theme **Best BEGINNING or ENDING line** rather apropos. Since I need to start hawking COWBOY COUNTRY, here’s a snippet from it. FYI, the book releases March 1st. I’ll reveal the blurb and cover tomorrow. In the meantime, while this is the end of chapter one, it’s also the beginning of Tucker and Zoe, so it fits a broader definition of the prompt. 😉
****
Tucker cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, and evidently thought better of it because his jaw clamped shut. Zoe decided silence wasn’t so bad. The man lasted all of five minutes.
“So, it was a shotgun wedding?”
“You could say that. Only it was my head they were holdin’ the gun to.”
He slammed on the brakes and her hands flew to the dash to brace her body. “What? What’s wrong?” She swung her head back and forth looking for whatever emergency caused him to stop.
“Sorry! Sorry,” he repeated, swiveling in the driver’s seat to face her. “Please tell me that was…a euphemism. Or a joke. Or something.”
“I wish I was jokin’.” He scowled at her. “Hey, I didn’t plan on my life takin’ this detour.” She shrugged.
“I will admit, however, t’bein’ young and dumb at the time.”
“And now?”
“Older and wiser. Gettin’ ready to have a kid and watchin’ my life turn into a bad soap opera will do that to a body.”
Tucker glanced at her rounded belly. “Yeah? And you figured all this out when? All of…what, eight months ago?”
“About that.” Zoe pressed her lips together, wondering how far she could trust this stranger. “My life is a tad crazy, Tucker. I figure the best I can do is grin and bear it. You know, laughter bein’ the best medicine and all?”
“Don’t you have family to help?”
She curled her lips between her teeth and bit down. Her eyes burned, and she looked away so he wouldn’t see.
The compassion she saw in his expression was about to undo her. “Don’t have any family t’speak of. There’s just me.”
“I…wow.” He looked surprised. “I can’t imagine what that would be like. I have a huge family.”
A big family? There’d only been Zoe and her dad. “Lucky you.”
His smile was warm and fond. “Until they get all up in my business.”
Zoe felt a sharp twinge. Grimacing, she pressed her palm against her side.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just those Briggs & Stratton things.”
He looked confused, opened his mouth to speak, then pressed his lips together for a moment. He eventually asked, “Don’t you mean Braxton Hicks?”
Eyes twinkling, she tilted her head, pretending to think about it, because of that whole laughter-being-the-best-medicine thing. She went for the cheap laugh. “Braxton Hicks. Doesn’t he sing at the Grand Ole Opry?”
****
I’ll admit that Zoe is one of my favorite Red Dirt heroines. Do you have any beginnings or endings to share? Or first or last lines? Here’s hoping your 2019 if off to a rollicking start!
In a writer’s cave far, far away…
So, I’ve been hibernating in said cave the past month or so. It’s time to rip out the page that was 2018 and start a new one. I have hopes for 2019. Not huge ones but I’m going to work each day toward becoming more organized, more focused, just…more. I want to continue to improve as a writer. I want to get better at marketing. I want to get unfinished projects finished.
I want to be a better wife, mom, “Jammie,” MiL, SiL, and friend.
I want to clean out my office, my closet, the library, and shed the physical and emotional detritus that often weighs me down and holds me back.
Will I accomplish all of this? Probably not. But that’s not the point. The point is to try. If I don’t try, I’m already doomed to repeating the past. That’s an exercise in frustration and insanity. I had enough of that in my life last year.
I’m not making any publishing promises. Last year ended in a creativity black hole. New words just didn’t want to form. The next Red Dirt book releases on my birthday in March (and will be available from Harlequin a month before that if you want it early.) I’m three books behind in other series, plus three rewrites of two previously released books and a compendium volumn. They’ll get done when they get done. No promises beyond that because I think part of the problem was the pressure I put on myself. My main goal this year is to rediscover my creativity and love of storytelling. I lost that last year and it makes me sad.
So that’s where I am here in the opening hours of 2019. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you’ll hang in there for our next ride. Happy New Year.
Grab your drink of choice, kick back, and spend about 8 minutes enjoying this little animated film from Dreamworks. I’m still smiling.
This is my last Thursday Thoughts of 2018. It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Still, in retrospect, I believe there’s been more things to be thankful for than not. I mean, besides the things listed by the Universe, because those things? yeah those are all good things.
So much to be thankful for, huh, Silver?
Yet so little time.
Let me start with you –
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®And then, Silver, rainbows, oceans, sunshine, air, inertia, turquoise, gravity, cotton, otters….
I’ll add all of you who drop by here to read my musings, who leave comments, who have become friends even though we might not have met beyond our spaces on this old WWW. Y’all have made my year worthwhile. So thank you.
So, it’s the day after Christmas. I hope Santa was good to everyone. 😉 We celebrated with family with much good food and laughter. And now it’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for #1lineWed. The Twitter theme today is all about the “Light Bulb Moment” – that instant a character has an epiphany, makes a discovery, decides on a course of action that will change everything. I’ve mentioned that I participate in several flash fiction challenges. I try hard to relate them to a current WIP but soemtimes, the words just come out of the blue. I’ll be sharing our #TooSexyInHisShirt candidate shortly. He’s someone who could be in this scene. Until then, I leave you with this snippet of a book that’s still floating around in Iffy’s convoluted brain. I hope you enjoy.
****
“But I recognized—”
“My handwriting? So what?”
“I’ll tell you what. You lied.”
He arched one infuriating brow, his air of superiority filling the room until I was choking on it. The corner of his mouth—the mouth that had kissed me into submission not a day ago—ticked up just adding to the sardonic expression I was coming to hate. The amusement bled into something…darker, something…hungrier.
“Come here.” His hair fell over his forehead, a dark comma punctuating the sin in his eyes.
I backed up a step. Which was fruitless. I had no place to go and running? The man was a predator and I was his prey. Me running was just a game that whetted his appetite. “Did you kill him?”
His devastating smile could melt panties at twenty paces, then I caught actual humor in his eyes. I’d amused him.
“And if I did?”
He didn’t move but that step I’d backed up? Yeah, I discovered I’d taken it back plus two more. I was within reach now. “What do you want with me?”
Laughing, his long fingers closed around the back of my neck, tugging me into his chest. His other arm anchored my body to his. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Well, yes, it was, considering what thrust against my stomach. It wasn’t much of an epiphany, given my current situation. Still, the part of my brain that struggled to keep me out of this man’s clutches. “Why me?”
“So full of questions. Are you sure you want the answers?” He tilted my head back so he could see my face.
Did I? What would happen if I knew the truth?
****
I suspect this will develop into one of my Moonstruck Mob stories. How about y’all? What epiphany have you had lately? And writers, please share a light-bulb moment your character has. 😉
I’m a sucker for military homecoming videos, especially this time of year. I remember when Lawyer Guy and I stayed on post for Christmas and opened our quarters up to some soldiers who either couldn’t go home or didn’t have homes to go to. It’s still one of my favorite Christmas memories. Get your hankies out because Toyota got this one just right.
If you celebrate the winter solstice, have a blessed Yule.
Karma can be a bitch witch. Or an elf, as the case may be. Almost all of the winter holidays are about giving. Not receiving, but giving. And you know what? That giving doesn’t have to be material goods all wrapped up in shiny paper and sparkly ribbons. It can be quiet looks, hugs, kisses. It can be shared laughter and food. Friendship. Caring. It’s about people not things.
Give with a truly glad heart, Silver, for the sole purpose of the good it will do, and whatever you give shall return to you, multiplied, as if on wings, covered in sparkles.
Richly,
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®Just don’t expect the beneficiary of your kindness, Silver, to be the bringer of your new blessings – very rare; not their job; I know faster ways.
Pay it forward, my friends. Eventually, it will call come back to you. Happy Holidays, happy hearts.
NEW RELEASE
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Silver James 