Hello lovely readers, I’m back again, this time with a limited-time sale AND a cover reveal!
Today I’m raving about my new cover. I’m thrilled to have such a lovely, and colourful cover for my upcoming story, The Siren and the Water Witch.
If you aren’t already familiar with the Clayridge Chronicles, this story will be part of that universe. It will include some characters from Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets, as well as introduce new ones that we can look forward to reading about in future books.
The Tails from the Clayridge Fountain, will be a series of novella-length stories with a primary focus on the fountain in the middle of the town that houses the sirens. These ladies are basically the town prostitutes, so you can imagine what the emphasis will be on!
Fair warning, The Siren and the Water Witch has a HFN for the couple but ends on a cliffhanger. Don’t worry, we’ll see Ezra and Misty again in the next Clayridge Chronicle novel.
Ezra is about to discover just how much one night of pleasure is really worth.
Star athlete and academic wizkid, Ezra Graves, is acing his classes at the Barrett Academy, all except botany. After scoring a passing grade on the midterm, Ezra considers ways to celebrate, and nothing sounds more appealing than a trip to the Clayridge fountain to indulge in the forbidden with a siren.
Ezra doesn’t need to vie hard for female attention as the Academy’s golden pupil, but he’s dying to shed his good boy image and taste the forbidden. Visiting the fountain could damage his reputation and academic career—even get him kicked out of the Academy. More could be at stake, as he receives a gentle reminder that half-blood witches have been disappearing lately. Being away from the protection of the school grounds—particularly at night—could prove deadly.
Armed with enough gold coins to pay for a night with one of the fishy seductresses, Ezra ignores his better judgment and heads for the fountain. But little does he know something dangerous is lurking in the shadows, with Ezra’s name and the promise of a significant paycheck if the witch can be caught and delivered to the notorious vampire, Nixon Castor.
Playing with Michael is a contemporary short novella. It’s a cute, but steamy friends to lovers story. It kicks off a series of novellas that all focus on different couples.
Drew, my paranormal romance novella, is my first ever wolf shifter story. It was featured in the Shifters Do It Better Anthology, which is available in KU, and for this month it’s also on sale for .99 in the U.S. and the U.K. through Kindle. It’ll be unpublished at the end of the month, so grab it now before it’s too late. It’s got 19 sexy shifter stories inside!Note: This sale is in effect from June 23-29th 2022.
Lastly, for this week only, I’ve put Love Spells, Full Moons, and Silver Bullets on sale for .99 on all ebook platforms. This is the first story in the Clayridge Chronicles, and is a whooping 115K. It’s a big book.
So take advantage of these sales while they last, and as always, if you sign up for my newsletter you’ll receive a FREE short story. It’s a contemporary cop romance called, Arrested Valentine.
When his long-time crush Nikki gets dumped, Michael decides to make his move. She’s the perfect girlfriend — so perfect so that she’s never single for long. Michael knows his window of opportunity is limited. It’s now or never.
When her best guy friend Michael breaks all the rules and kisses her at the bar, Nikki’s stunned. Michael’s the guy Nikki always turns to when her heart is broken — again. He’s a friend, a confidant, and, best of all, he’s safe. She can tell him anything. But once the shock wears off and she has time to sort out her feelings, she decides he’s worth the risk. Time to find out just how compatible they really are!
Alyssa Mayer’s scent is intriguing. It’s sweet, sensual and ignites Drew’s blood like nothing before. His body burns for her, his mind is occupied with thoughts of her, meaning only one thing. She’s his fated mate.
The problem? He doesn’t recognize her from a local pack, nor any pack he’s ever smelled before. Is she human? She is his fated mate, but if she’s human will he dare to break the species barrier? It wouldn’t be the first time a wolf shifter mated with a human, but such a bonding brings its own mess of troubles, and that’s before considering a neighbouring alpha wants Drew to agree to an arranged mating.
After spending her youth drifting from one foster home to the next and spending her adolescent and adult life homeless and alone, Alyssa wonders how long she’ll be able to stay in the small town. She can’t risk anyone discovering her secret. All she wants to do is paint and find a forever home, but as an oddity, a freak of nature, she knows that can never be, no matter how much she’d like to stay.
When she meets Drew, her instinct tells her to run, but for the first time she might just have a reason to stay, but pack pressures and hidden foes are threaten to keep them apart.
What do you do when your ex’s werewolf boss wants to feast on the mortal you’ve sworn to protect?
Quinn was unaware of the love potion her meddling cat dumped into her tea, so when Ian Hannigan ends up injured on her property, she thinks she’s dealing with another mortal, not the man who can help mend her heart. Her life becomes a balancing act as she attempts to keep him safe while hiding secrets better left buried with the dead.
In a realm filled with things that go bump in the night, Ian didn’t expect to find security and happiness in the arms of a green-skinned witch, yet for the first time since his parents’ tragic car crash, he’s found some measure of peace. The rumors he hears in Clayridge aren’t pleasant, but Ian knows there’s more to Quinn than what people would have him believe. If he’s placed his trust in the wrong hands, he’ll be paying with more than just his heart. He’ll pay with his life.
Write a review. Seriously, even a few words about being excited to get the book or looking forward to the next one matters to the algorithm. Note: Even bad reviews count as reviews and push those books to the top of search feeds.
Share what you are reading on social media. This is one of the most awesome things to see as an author. We love it when people share that they are reading our books!
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Join their Facebook reader groups. You get all the details, the opportunity to interact with the author(s), and other readers reading the same books you are.
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Comment on social media posts. Even emojis can make their day.
Send a message or comment about your favorite book. Sometimes authors feel like giving up, like no one wants their books, so little comments, if you like a book, may be the difference in a series you love getting completed or pushed to the back burner in favor of another book in the author’s mind that they think people will like.
Be kind. A lot of indie authors are not making 3 much less 6 figures on their books. It may take a bit of saving to get better covers, more detailed editors, etc. Everyone starts somewhere.
Don’t return books. Again, most indies are not rolling in the cash. Every return hurts. Use your local library to get digital or print copies of books. It costs the time it takes to get a library card and ask the librarian to add it to the digital or physical shelf.
Join an influencer, street, or advance review copy (ARC) team for your favorite authors and volunteer to read the books first in exchange for sharing on social media or leaving a review.
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As I walk through the woods, around the pond, or at the marsh, I enjoy the beauty of nature around me. The neat thing is that I never know what bird or animal I’ll see.
I’m continually amazed at what I learn about birds. For example, Blue Jays can mimic a hawk’s screech.
At the marsh, baby Terrapin Turtles are out and making their way to the ocean. Turtle crossing signs are posted along some of the local marsh bordering roads.
Laughing Gulls have returned, which to me is a sign that summer is close. If you’ve heard their cries, you understand why they’re called ‘Laughing Gulls.’
Cormorants are migrating north, with some remaining locally through the fall. They’re quite a large bird and interesting to watch.
The kits are so cute and are growing fast. I’ll miss watching their playful antics once they leave their den and begin life on their own.
Take care, and wishing you a wonderful summer!
Contest
***ONE winner will be drawn from everyone who posts on my guest blog post about, ‘For The Love of Nature!’ on Delilah’s blog between 5 June 2022 – 12 June 2022, and will win a signed copy of His Conquest.”
About Diana Cosby
A retired Navy Chief, Diana Cosby is an international bestselling author of Scottish medieval romantic suspense. Books in her award-winning MacGruder Brothersseries have been translated into five languages. Diana has spoken at the Library of Congress, Lady Jane’s Salon in NYC, and appeared in Woman’s Day, on USA Today’s romance blog, “Happy Ever After,” MSN.com, Atlantic County Women Magazine, and Texoma Living Magazine.
After her career in the Navy, Diana dove into her passion – writing romance novels. With 34 moves behind her, she was anxious to create characters who reflected the amazing cultures and people she’s met throughout the world. After the release of the bestselling MacGruder Brothersseries and The Oath Trilogy, she released the bestselling The Forbidden Series.
Diana looks forward to the years of writing ahead and meeting the amazing people who will share this journey.
Due to fan requests for FBI Agent Reggie Casse to have her own series and find a love interest, the Reggie Chronicles were born last year with Hart’s Girls, Reggie Chronicle 1. Reggie’s struggles and successes in life continue with the launch of Heart of the Matter, Reggie Chronicle 2, launching 6/1/22. It will be followed by Magnolia Blossoms, Reggie Chronicle 3, launching 7/1/22. eBooks and Print are available. They will launch in audiobook format near the end of this year, so stay tuned.
Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to leave a review. You are so dear to me and greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy my books, and we become great friends. Stay in touch.
Heart of the Matter, Reggie Chronicle 2
By Multi-Award-Winning Author, Lynda Rees, The Murder Guru
FBI Agent Reggie Casse and fiancé, U. S. Marshal Shea Montgomery, want a quiet but memorable wedding. Shea’s WITSEC witness, a corpse with a unique tattoo, a missing baby, and a kidnapping at their reception lead to an international ring selling items money shouldn’t be able to buy and a wedding no one can forget. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum meets James Patterson’s Alex Cross in rural Kentucky racehorse country.
Thank you so much for letting me visit you so I can share my news with your loyal readers.
Free books!
Pretty cool, eh?
So the deets—I’m launching an indie series in the fall. I’ve written a bunch of books for the serie,s and it’s time I put them out in the world. I’ve titled the series Mission City. Pretty simple, eh? (I’m Canadian…I just had to throw that in.) Anyway, in writing those books, I developed a number of secondary characters whose stories I couldn’t wait to tell. Ace’s Placeand Marcus’s Cadence are two of them. Characters from both stories have already appeared in several books published under the pen names Gabbi Grey and Gabbi Black. Although each story I write is a standalone, I like to interweave characters into the stories. I think it brings a richness and, to those who read across my genres, an opportunity to see old friends.
Today I’m letting your readers know about the two short stories—available on all platforms for free—and offering a contest. What is your favorite trope? What type of stories do you return to again and again? I’m a big fan of second chances. I’ve written age-gap. And many of my stories have a touch of angst (although not these two). Share your thoughts for a chance to win an audiobook of either Ace’s Place or Marcus’s Cadence—coming soon and narrated by the amazing Michael Dean. If you don’t listen to audiobooks, I’ll be happy to give you any book from my back catalog—Gabbi Grey or Gabbi Black.
Thanks for hosting me, Delilah. I love sharing my good news with your lovely readers!
Ace’s Place
Derek Murphy has come to the godforsaken small town of Merritt, British Columbia in search of a new beginning. The man is tired, jaded, and resigned to never having sex again. Until Friday night at the local sports bar changes everything.
Harold Graham, hometown boy made good, has lived in Merritt his entire life. When he meets the new guy in town, he’s compelled to reach out the hand of friendship. And maybe more.
But secrets and omissions cloud what could be the beginning of something special. Can they take a chance on being vulnerable enough to fall in love?
What happens when your biggest crush turns up on your doorstep after twelve years?
Cadence Crawford has a good thing going. He’s making waves as a realtor in Mission City, British Columbia. Yes, he’s recently suffered a personal loss, but he’s moving on, and his path forward includes selling the only true home he’s ever known.
Marcus Brannigan is doing fine. He has his physiotherapy practice, he watches over his younger twin sisters, and he’s happy. When he unexpectedly runs into Cadence, who is selling the home he’s always coveted, he’s prepared to do some negotiating.
Neither knew they were seriously crushing on each other. Now they’ve admitted the truth, is happily ever after in the cards?
Marcus’s Cadence is a 7k second-chance gay romance, instalove short story with a very happy ending and a malti-poo named Kiki.
Gabbi lives in beautiful British Columbia where her fur baby chin-poo keeps her safe from the nasty neighborhood squirrels. Working for the government by day, she spends her early mornings writing contemporary, gay, sweet, and dark erotic BDSM romances. While she firmly believes in happy endings, she also believes in making her characters suffer before finding their true love. She also writes m/f romances as Gabbi Black and Gabbi Powell.
This month on May 26th, my mother turned 92. As I thought about an African-American woman I wanted to honor in my post this month, Catherine Louise Williams Taylor Phillips came to my mind.
Lately, I’ve been asking her questions from a book/journal called My Mother’s Life: Mom I Want To Know Everything About You. I speak to her every morning and after our check-in ritual, I ask her if she’s ready for the question of the day. She says yes, answers what she can recall then shares anecdotes that have nothing to do with the question. That’s my momma.
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the turn of the 20th-centuryth century song “M-O-T-H- E- R (M Is For The Million Things She Gave Me).” Here’s a vintage recording if you want to give a listen. It’s a schmaltzy ditty that touches my heart because of the mother I was fortunate to have. So today, I want to celebrate a few of the million things my mother gave me.
My mom was born on May 26, 1930 and was sent to live down South with her grandmother when she was a few months old. She shared with me that she didn’t even know there was a depression and regales me with stories of being the spoiled red-haired fox her uncles chided and chastised.
When Alex Haley’s Roots was televised, she wondered what the big deal was then proceeded to tell me about the Pitt family that owned her grandparents. When I let her know I’d decided to pursue a Masters degree two years after graduating from college and having worked in the big bad world of advertising, it was only then she shared that she had been hoping I would go back to school. She even declared, “Why who knows? You may want to go on and get a PhD.” That was the first time I realized my mother wished things for me, but by her restraint showed she respected that what I wanted when and if I wanted it was what was important.
In things small and large, she made it plain—not only to me but to my sister as well—that we were to be who we wanted to be. We weren’t put on this earth to live up to anyone’s expectations. She recalled a time my sister came to her with a picture she had drawn and said, “I couldn’t do it as good as Anna.” To which my mother assured her she wasn’t supposed to do it as good as Anna. She was supposed to do it as good as Muriel. When I felt unconfident or about to settle for less than what I was worth, I recalled her telling me with great vehemence, “You can scrub toilets before you kiss anybody’s ass.” She doesn’t remember saying this but I do, and I will always be grateful for the confidence those words instilled.
As a minister, I’ve helped families in which the relationship between mothers, daughters and sons was strained and far from loving. They can’t sing without reservation as I can the last line of the song I shared above but thanks to the love I have from my mom, I’ve found ways to help honor their struggles and woes.
The last line of M-O-T-H-E-R goes, “Put them all together they spell MOTHER. A word that means the world to me.” I will forever be grateful to my mother who means the world to me. For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share in the comments about someone who was a mother to you or perhaps you have mothered.
HauntedSerenade – by Anna M. Taylor
All the women in Anora Madison’s family have lived haunted by the curse of Poor Butterfly: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, not only severing her ties with her mother Angela, but also ending her relationship with Winston Emerson, her lover and the father of her child.
Six years later, Anora comes home to make peace, but an unseen evil manifests itself during the homecoming and targets not only Anora, but her little girl Cammie.
With nowhere to run, Anora must confront the evil now trying to destroy her life. She vows to protect her daughter at all costs, but if that protection can only be found with Winston back in her life, how will Anora protect her heart?
Excerpt from Haunted Serenade…
In September 15, 1963, the one year anniversary of my aunt Diana’s death, four young girls in Birmingham, Alabama died when their church was bombed for its involvement in the Civil Rights movement.
My mother called that evening and inquired after my health and the health of my daughter Cammie – the granddaughter she vowed never to acknowledge.
Fear, anger and sorrow sounded in her voice. Mine too. We mourned those girls, their families and the sister/aunt we both loved. In that spoken grief, I silently mourned what had died between my mother and me.
The following month she called again, this time inviting me to bring Cammie to dinner. Like some sulky child, I felt tempted to ask what took her so long. Instead, I swallowed my hurt and came home.
Years ago, I was in high school reading an article about John F. Kennedy Jr. and started wondering what it’d be like to deal with that level of scrutiny. As it was, I felt very judged in my hometown, so it threw me into imaging what he must have felt in his everyday life. Later in college, I wrote a short story imagining a teenage girl who was dating a guy who was basically a high school version of JFK Jr. I kept thinking about all the focus that had been on his wife, Carolyn, and I decided to turn that short story into a novel. I read (and watched) a lot of biographies on John and Carolyn and got a feel for what their lives were like behind closed doors. I read about insecurities they had, the opportunities he couldn’t take because of his family name, and what it was like living in a fishbowl with strangers watching you grow up and having an opinion on everything you did.
I really got into what it would be like to grow up where every move you made was watched, so then I imagined this teenage girl, Emme, who already has insecurity issues after being in a bad first relationship. I had Emme find a soulmate connection with this popular guy named Brendon who is also a well-known senator’s son. Brendon is trying so hard to live up to the family name and be the perfect son and student, but he is overwhelmed by the pressures on him. In my short story, I had given him a love interest that was his opposite, so I made Emme much more carefree and laidback. I pictured Brendon being on all these school committees and clubs and worried about grades and getting into his dad’s former college, while Emme is busy just being a normal high school student and trying to get on the school newspaper staff.
Then I thought about how important family ties were to JFK Jr. as I felt that connection with him as John passed shortly after I lost my grandpa. I wanted to include what my family had gone through with my grandfather’s dementia, and I thought I could have both Emme and Brendon dealing with grandparents with health issues which winds up cementing their bond even more. Brendon and Emme became more real to me as I was writing, and I almost felt bad giving this couple so many relationship obstacles on their path to true love. Notice I say, “almost.”
I re-released the updated book, Dating the It Guy, this April and since so many readers had asked if I’d do a sequel, I thought instead I would write an epilogue of what happens to Emme and Brendon couple years later after they graduate from college. In one way I was giving the readers a look into the future, but it was also a way for me to give my characters a happily ever after since it’s always been so sad that John and Carolyn’s lives were cut short. I learned a lot about John and Carolyn in my research and came to admire them both.
I write novels about friendships, crushes, hope, dealing with self-doubt, finding where you belong as well as your soulmate. My sister says my books are an airing of my grievances, but I like to think I’m just working through issues via my characters to help my readers work through theirs. Either way, the bumps along the road gave me a lot of material.
I’ve been writing since I was a kid, but my mom made me show her I was serious about it my senior year when she signed me up for writing conferences to see if I’d sink or swim. Who knew I’d finally feel like I fit in somewhere…well, fit in-ish. I love reading, TV shows, watching strangers’ IG stories, and lipstick.
