Sunday, December 9th, 2018
Blog
Saturday, December 8th, 2018
You ready for another high-octane thrill ride? Love sexy alpha males who cruise along at the edge of the law? You’re going to love WOLF! Along the way, you’ll see some familiar faces, Reaper and Fetch are pretty prominent. So are the guys and girls from RIP. Haven’t met them yet? Tsk-tsk. They are coming soon!!!!
Missed a book in the series? No worries. Just click on a cover to find out more about these stories, read opening scenes, and find out where to get them!
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you’ve read any books in this series, so far!
Meet Wolf
MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: Authentic Men… Real Adventures…
Former Marine Wolf Patterson is working with a team of MBH bounty hunters in the densely forested Kootenai Forest to bring in one Reese Tobin, a man wanted for arson, who escaped from jail just before his trial. When Wolf catches up to him, Tobin draws a gun, telling Wolf he can’t return to lock-up or he’s a dead man. Just as one of his teammates is about to lunge toward Tobin to take him down, a shot rings out, and Tobin is dead.
Former Army Military Police Officer, now Deputy, Meg Henry, was the officer who arrested Tobin, and nothing about that night sat right since. After hearing he was killed, she heads to Kootenai, hoping to talk to the men who were with him last, hoping Tobin told them something that might help her figure out the mystery surrounding him. Because handsome bounty hunter, Wolf, was the last to talk to Tobin, Meg offers Wolf a ride back to the sheriff’s department. They barely begin their conversation when they find themselves running for their lives. Meg doesn’t know who to trust, but she instinctively trusts the tall, intensely attractive Wolf. Together, they work to unravel the mystery while staying one step ahead of someone who wants them both dead.
And coming very, very soon…
With His Client is coming your way December 18th!
And Animal releases January 22nd!
Friday, December 7th, 2018
I have this theory. That stories are born, not made. They are alive and floating around in the universe waiting for their author to pluck them from the stars and put them down on paper. These stories hit with a whoosh. Sometimes coming out nearly fully formed. (Coincidentally, author Elizabeth Gilbert and I share this same theory, as evidenced in her awesome book, Big Magic.)
I’ve been gifted a few stories this way and it always feels a bit like an electrical shock followed by an exciting ride on the world’s best rollercoaster.
For my newest novel, Vortex, I remember the whoosh perfectly. I was watching post-tornado coverage on TV and had this vision of a small girl being found in the rubble with no recollection of who she is or where she came from. I spent several days thinking about that little girl, wondering what her life would have been like. Where did she come from? Was anyone frantically looking for her? And, who did she grow up to be?
Sometimes the whoosh isn’t a whoosh. It could be a seed of a story that grows out of an off-handed comment.
Several years ago, I worked in public relations for a Fortune 500 company. I was getting antsy to get a press release out and was annoying my contact in the legal department to hurry up. When he quipped that he was just trying to keep me out of jail for accidentally committing security fraud – there it was – a quiet whoosh that grew louder as that “what if” became a story. That off-handed comment became the genesis of my Phoenix trilogy.
Whooshes can even come in dreams.
My current work in progress came to me in a dream. In this dream, I was speaking with one of the main characters, a man who runs a very unconventional business that grants dying wishes. When I woke, I immediately grabbed my journal and wrote down everything I could remember.
Much like an old wives’ tale of a child’s birth, I think the way these stories come into the world says a lot about them. Vortex hit me in a whirlwind and the story felt that way as I wrote it. Phoenix had a slower burn, thus the trilogy. And Dire’s Club is much more character driven than anything else I’ve written, which would make sense for a story that started with a character whispering to me in a dream.
Stories are like children. Every one of them is different. Some are headstrong and stubborn (ask anyone who’s tried to control a plot). Others are quieter, making an impact with soft words rather than a shout. And all of them need a parent – an author – to nurture them and give them the opportunity to live up to their fullest potential.
Whether they came in with a whoosh or a whisper.
Vortex
[Cover’s coming!]
Constant spinning, round and round and round, temperatures rise and fall from stifling heat to chilling cold, emotions run high in anticipation of what will happen next… there’s a fine line between surviving a tornado and falling in love.
A close encounter with a tornado, during the final months of her doctoral studies, jogs a lost memory to the surface. Desperate to relive the vision and find answers, storm chaser Elaina Adams continually puts her safety at risk by placing herself in the path of dangerous storms.
When betrayal strikes, Elaina is forced to pair up with Robert Tucker. “Tuck” owns a storm chasing tour group and only cares about two things: chasing tornadoes and making his next buck.
Seth Maddux was climbing his way to the top as the star meteorologist for the Forecast channel, but an embarrassing outburst on camera sent his career on a downward spiral. Hoping to reignite his career with a promising field assignment, he meets Elaina and a different kind of flame sparks.
Family secrets surface and passions explode in this twister of a tale.
Vortex is a story of family, love, identity and determination set against the thrilling backdrop of Tornado Alley.
About the Author
Kimberly Packard is an award-winning author of edgy women’s fiction. She began visiting her spot on the shelves at libraries and bookstores at a young age, gazing between the Os and the Qs. Kimberly received a degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, and has worked in public relations and communications for nearly 20 years.
When she isn’t writing, she can be found running, doing a poor imitation of yoga or curled up with a book. She resides in Texas with her husband Colby, a clever cat named Oliver and a yellow lab named Charlie.
Her debut novel, Phoenix, was awarded as Best General Fiction of 2013 by the Texas Association of Authors. Other published works by Kimberly includes a Christmas novella, The Crazy Yates, and the sequels to Phoenix,Pardon Fallsand Prospera Pass. Her latest novel, Vortex, will be released in early 2019.
Follow Kimberly online at www.kimberlypackard.com, Twitter or Instagram @kimberlypackard, or Facebook, www.facebook.com/kimberlypackardauthor.
Thursday, December 6th, 2018
Ever wonder what it feels like to be haunted? I hadn’t…until this past Fall.
I’d expected to find plaques like the one on St. Peter’s church in memory of former slave and Haitian philanthropist, Pierre Toussaint or actual edifices like Fraunces’ Tavern, owned by Samuel Fraunces, a West Indian of French and African ancestry. Instead, I arrived time and time again at a corner with no marker or an address that no longer existed. So I tried to imagine the boys and girls who learned at the African Free School or the free blacks who owned farms situated north of the African Burial Ground as far as 34th Street. I felt their spirits accompany me as I moved from site to site.
I worked as a secretary in a law firm on lower Broadway. I walked these streets to and from work or window-shopped or ate on my lunch breaks, unaware of all this history. How easy it is for one’s story to be lost or erased, not always intentionally or maliciously, but simply because life goes on.
My self-guided tour took me from contemplating the centuries-old histories of Africans and African Americans to wondering about other people and their histories. Where were their plaques, their walking tours? The Gustave Haye Museum of the American Indian is now a Smithsonian museum relocated in 1994 to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House near Bowling Green. Beautiful as its new location is, I was glad I took my Sunday school class to visit the collection in its original home on 155th Street and Broadway. I hope one day to visit The Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street and learn about the lives of European immigrants who came to New York in hopes of a better life.
I ended my day by taking the 2 train from Wall Street to Court Street in Brooklyn and sitting on the Promenade where a wreath hangs memorializing the September 11 Broken Sky event. Two beams of light displayed against a night sky to symbolize where the Twin Towers once stood and to honor the lives lost that day.
As I sat staring at Manhattan across the East River, a line from the musical Hamilton came to me: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? That line haunted me then. It haunts me still. What haunts you?
One Breath Away
Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. Never having been courted, cuddled or spooned, Mary now fears any kind of physical intimacy when arousal forces her to relive the asphyxiation of her hanging. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.
Wealthy freeborn-Black Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing a relationship with Mary was foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.
Then just as Eban begins to win Mary’s trust, an enemy from the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…
Excerpt:
“It’s a really hot night.” He turned his hand palm up in a silent plea. “Perhaps you’d find a waltz more cooling.” He eased his fingers into her clenched hands. “May I beg the honor of this dance?”
“Beg?”
“Yes, Miss Hamilton.” He tilted his head, slanting his smile to the right. “Beg.”
“You don’t strike me as the begging type, Mr. Thurman.”
“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” He tongue-swiped his full lips as if he’d just tasted something he wanted to taste again. “I know when it’s time to beg.”
She pursed her lips into a frown, fought back the urge to grovel and won. Barely.
The fingers around hers, clean and huge and strangely slender, hadn’t moved, hadn’t trembled. Their stillness aroused her. His stillness aroused her. Her lips quivered. She inhaled deeply against the surrender summoned by that tiny tremor.
Resist the devil and he will flee.
Silently she called upon the truth in this scripture for rescue.
The devil waited. She stared at the hand on hers, helpless against the appeal, the allure of temptation.
She swallowed hard, opened her mouth to say no, but her tongue refused to cooperate. She huffed out a breath and shook her head. “I—I can’t. I don’t know how to waltz.”
“Well, you’re in luck.” His lips bowed in a smile, full, broad, and hypnotizing. “I’m an excellent teacher and I bet you’re a fast learner.” He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Shall we?”
He really wanted to dance with her. She blinked, speechless. A warning voice protested.
Resist.
Her heart countered.
Surrender.
She firmed her lips, heaved a sigh then accepted his invitation. Felicity’s sputtered shock and Widow Hawthorne’s happy cackle accompanied them to the middle of the dance floor.
He placed his fingertips respectfully but firmly above the rise of her buttocks and held her in place against him. A tickle invaded the wool of her skirt where the tip of his middle finger rested at the head of her crack. Pleasure tripped up her spine and trickled between her thighs. But, from the recesses of remembered experience, a voice of caution persisted.
He wants something, Mary. Beware.
*~*~*
Buy links:
Wild Rose Press: https://bit.ly/2Oog1Ny
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2DmrZWC
About the Author
A native New Yorker, Michal Scott is the pen name of Anna Taylor Sweringen, a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA minister. Using the writings of the love mystics of Begijn for inspiration, Michal Scott writes Christian erotica and Christian erotic romance (i.e. erotica and erotic romance with a faith arc), hoping to build a bridge between the sacred and secular, spirituality and sexuality, erotica and Christ, her readers and a well-written spiritually-stimulating and erotically-arousing story. As an African American, she writes stories to give insight into the African American experience in the US. She has been writing romance seriously since joining Romance Writers of America in 2003 and had her first novel published in 2008. She writes inspirational romance as Anna Taylor and gothic romance as Anna M. Taylor. You can connect with Anna on Twitter @mscottauthor1 and learn more about her and her writing at her various websites: www.michalscott.webs.com, www.annamtaylorwebs.com and www.annataylor2678.webs.com.
Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
That’s how I feel anyway. Hot, cold, nauseous. I’m going to let my dd pamper me today…
Tuesday, December 4th, 2018
What is that, you ask?
That’s my pie-in-the-sky plan for December. I keep a calendar like this every month to keep track of what I have to accomplish. Always, always, something drops off because I’m always too ambitious. But I’m a dreamer.
If it’s not too tiny on your screen, you’ll see I plan to have three releases this month: Wolf, this Friday; Stepbrothers Stepping Out — With His Client, on the 18th; and maybe, if I finish it in time, the last of the Stepbrothers Stepping Out —With His SEAL Team stories (just in time for the holiday!) on December 24th.
Days 1-3, you’ll note there’s a lot of light blue. That denotes what I’ve already accomplished. The red numbers? Words I wrote. See the bright green? That’s a FREE class I’ll be teaching for authors, called “Write 50 Books a Year!” So, yes, amid all the writing, I’ll be teaching. And I don’t have any editing tasks reflected here, but I expect two books in this month to edit—two long ones! And when they get here, my plan will likely have to be rejiggered again.
Why am I sharing? Because, sometimes, I wonder if folks think I sit eating bon-bons all the time. Not reflected in this schedule are the following: blogging, organizing critique rounds, reading-answering a gazillion emails a month, organizing promo for releases, sending out newsletters, etc.
I work. And it’s more than a full-time job…
Monday, December 3rd, 2018
I have two major traditions that we count on this time of year. One is seeing The Nutcrackerwith my two daughters. We usually see the ballet, but every now and then, we mix it up. A couple of times we saw The Nutcrackeron horseback (the performers all ride horses and do tricks). Yes, it’s as weird as it sounds. This year, we’re going to see a hip-hop version. I’m not sure how well that’s going to go over with my youngest, who dances ballet, but she’s willing to check it out.
While seeing The Nutcracker is a tradition for my daughters, the other tradition is all mine. Every year, my best friend and I get together and bake Christmas cookies that we then give away to everyone we know. We started doing this when we were teenagers, and now, more than 30 years later, we’re still going strong. Through college, dating, first jobs, marriages, babies, divorce—you name it, we experienced it and still got together for cookie baking. It’s quite the production. We usually bake about 25 different kinds of cookie. I’m not sure how many batches total, but it’s a lot.
Over the years, our kids have all had a hand in cookie day. Unwrapping Hershey’s Kisses, rolling dough, sprinkling or decorating, and of course, sampling everything. They count on cookie day as part of their traditions, but it’s a special day for me and my best friend. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without it.
Because of my own fractured family experiences, I’ve always been drawn to big, rambunctious families. That’s why I write what I do. I believe family gives us grounding and connection in life. Found family is as real as born family and I think my books reflect that.
I am currently re-releasing my O’Learys series about a big, Irish-American family in Chicago. Next month, the beginning of my Daring Divorcees series will launch about friends who all met in a divorce support group and are now ready for the next phase in their lives.
For a chance to win a digital copy of More Than This (O’Learys #1), leave a comment sharing your favorite tradition or your favorite cookie.
I will draw a random winner from the comments by the end of the week.
Social media links:
Web site — https://www.shannynschroeder.com
Goodreads — https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6575201.Shannyn_Schroeder
Twitter — https://twitter.com/SSchroeder_
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/shannyn.schroeder
Book and Main Bites — https://bookandmainbites.com/Shannyn
More Than This
A sexy bartender stirs up a daily lesson plan for an adventurous teacher…
When she discovers her ex-husband is about to be a father, Quinn Adams is on a mission. Determined to get pregnant without the commitment of a man, Quinn sets out for her own adventure. But everyone seems to think she need to focus on herself first. With a list of challenges compiled but her sister and their friend, Quinn embarks on some life-altering fun.
Her first challenge is to go on five dates within two weeks. After a few disastrous attempts, Quinn’s ready to give up—until sexy bartender Ryan O’Leary offers his assistance. Ryan is the go-to person for everyone in his large family, so it’s natural for him to want to help Quinn. However, as they get to know each other better, friendship with Quinn isn’t enough for him. Now, it’s time for him to show her how serious the Irish can be. Will the bartender quench Quinn’s thirst by mixing up more than she ever imagined?
Buy links:
