10 Things Readers Would Be Surprised To Know About Me by Mercedes King

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We all have our little quirks and secrets, those habits and ‘favorites’ that make us oh-so-lovable to friends and family. And, yes, I’ve decided to subject you to 10 items of uh, interest, that you might be surprised to learn about me.

1. I was born in the car. At 5 weeks premature and a scrawny 4 pounds, I didn’t wait for my parents to make it to Grant Medical Center. According to my mom’s version of the story, most of the emergency room staff abandoned a man who had been stabbed so they could attend to me and my mom. An unusual entrance into the world, and maybe it explains why I can’t stand being late.

2.  I’m a terrible library customer. I’ve almost given up going to the library. As much as I love it, I’m awful at returning books on time. I once owed $38 in fines! (I paid it.) and I’ve lost count as to how many books I’ve, uh, lost over the years of my patronage. Stark contrast to the anti-late trait within me.

3. I’m not afraid of spiders. Give me someone else’s shoe, and that arachnid is a goner. Unless, of course, anyone else nearby wants to volunteer…

4. I’m competitive at board games. Doesn’t matter which one--Boggle, Life, Pictionary, Taboo, whatever--expect a throw down if you’re not on my team. I can also hold my own at badminton, but my athletic prowess ends there.  

5. I stink at Wii bowling. How is this possible? I thought, finally, at last, here’s my chance to bowl a decent game without bumpers. Even when others play against me left-handed, I’m still a disgrace.

6. I can hold my breath almost 2 minutes. I love swimming, especially underwater, and whenever I have a chance to enjoy the pool (which isn’t often, living in Ohio), I challenge myself to swim the length of the pool in one breath. It takes some doing, and I have to build on it, but being able to hold my breath for that long sure does help.

7. I “heart” dessert. My eyes sparkle when it’s time to look over the dessert menu at a restaurant. Cheesecake is a weakness, I admit, and dessert is always more delicious when you share.     

8. I’ve never had a manicure. Gasp! Yes, I am of the female race, wear make-up, and all that, but I’ve never gone to a salon and had my nails done. Never. For one thing, I can’t stand chipped nail polish, and I mean just one chip on one nail. It’s right up there with being late. Beautiful as they are, a long, glamorous set of nails would only get in my way. But peeking at them now, maybe I should treat them to a clear coat. 

9. I worked at Wendy’s for 4 hours. That was all it took for me to realize that I had no long-term future in making burgers or asking people if they wanted to Biggie-Size their order. Actually, it took a lot less than 4 hours to figure that out, especially when my co-workers had me water the plants (that were plastic) and hunt for the bun fluffer (which didn’t exist).

10. I could live on a deserted island with Cheese ’n Crackers. If Cheesecake isn’t available, I could see myself living happily with those Handi Snacks. I am just that low-maintenance kind of a gal. (Wait, we are talking a tropical island, right??)

 

Mercedes King is an Ohio native and founding member of Sisters in Crime Columbus, Ohio (affectionately dubbed SiCCO). With a degree in Criminology from Capital University and a passion for writing, she crafted O! Jackie, a novel focusing on the private life of Jackie Kennedy. She has also written The Kennedy Chronicles, a series of short stories featuring JFK and Jackie before they were married and before 'Camelot'. Mercedes writes in a variety of genres, including historical and mystery / suspense. In fact, she's working on creating a new genre, 'modern historical'.

Her newest release, Plantation Nation, follows the journey of Emma Cartwright, a 16 year old Southern girl who disguises herself as a young man and joins the Union Army.

Visit her sites, OJackiebook.com or Mercedesking.com . Contact her at Mercedes 'at' ojackiebook 'dot' com. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Ready to Wed Favorite Colors featuring Cindi Madsen

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So, today I thought I’d break a bit from the norm and talk about favorite colors! Dakota, the heroine in Ready to Wed, is a wedding planner, and she’s heard of every color under the sun, and some that she’s not sure are of this planet. When it comes to weddings and receptions, sometimes asking for pink or blue doesn’t quite cut it. And let’s face it, it’s kind of fun to mention a color like cerulean and watch guys struggle to figure out which shade of colors they know that even falls under. I even found a funny graphic about it on Pinterest.

I’ll admit if someone told me they wanted chlorophyll, I’d run because the first thing that comes to mind is chloroform and I’m so not going down like that. I had a lot of fun playing with colors in Ready to Wed, though. Dakota even has her own bridal terror alert scale, that can go anywhere from Low-key Lime to Fanatic Fuchsia. I had so much fun working colors into jokes.

Here’s a color discussion between Dakota and her friend (a friend she’s having a hard time thinking about on a strictly-friends basis) Brendan.

    Brendan looked over my shoulder and I caught a whiff of his aftershave. “I didn’t know orange, purple, and blue went together, but it looks pretty good.”
    “That’s because it’s rust, amethyst, and cerulean. With a hint of jade thrown in.” I moved the jade and amethyst place setting over the cerulean fabric that’d make up the tablecloths at Valentina’s wedding to make sure it worked.
    Brendan cast me a suspicious sideways glance. “Now you’re just making up colors.”
    “Pretty sure I know every color there is now. The first few months I had a couple of brides surprise me—one requested cement. With dusty plum and blueberry. It was one of my favorite color palettes, actually.”
    “Cement? What’s wrong with gray? It’s the same thing.”
    “Not romantic enough, duh.” I smiled and nudged him with my elbow.
    “Silly me. Nothing’s as romantic as the color you used to trip on and leave half of your skin and blood behind.”
    I laughed. “Okay, you got me there. How’s pewter? Romantic enough for you?”
    “I’m swooning just thinking about it.”

Personally, I’ve always been a purple fan. Every shade, from the lightest to the darkest—I heart them all! For my wedding, I even did dark purple and periwinkle combination, with a little bit of silver thrown in for good measure. And when it comes to clothes or shoes shopping, I find myself gravitating toward all things purple. So, how about you guys? What colors are you a sucker for?

Cindi Madsen is a USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance and young adult novels. She sits at her computer every chance she gets, plotting revising, and falling in love with her characters. Sometimes it makes her a crazy person. Without it, she’d be even crazier. She has way too many shoes, but can always find a reason to buy a new pretty pair, especially if they’re sparkly, colorful, or super tall. She loves music, dancing, and wishes summer lasted all year long. She lives in Colorado (where summer is most definitely NOT all year long) with her husband and three children.

Q&A with Spencer Quinn (and Chet the Jet)

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Spencer’s Quinn’s 7th mystery in the Chet & Bernie Mystery Series hits bookshelves on 8/5. Here, Spencer answers a few questions about his writing process, the series, dogs in entertainment and more. Plus, we get a little time with the star of the series, Chet the Jet!

So, Spencer:

What was the initial inspiration for the series?

My wife said, “You should do something about dogs.” That very day I wrote the first page of Dog On It. We took a vote and by a count of 2-0 we decided it was working.

Do you tend to watch dogs and other animals more closely now to mine them for good Chet behavior?

Curse and blessing, but I’ve always been a close watcher, period. I don’t dial it up in order to be productive – it’s just sort of there. That said, I’m a dog lover and of course you pay attention to what you care about.

What’s your favorite part of interacting with your fans?

The online community that’s arisen around the Chet and Bernie series on Facebook and at www.ChettheDog.com is wonderful. We’ve got dog lovers, mystery lovers, and story lovers in general. But my favorite part is the question period after I give a talk. Imaginations connect!

You write so naturally as Chet. Is it hard for you to get into the “dog” mentality?

If it was hard I wouldn’t do it. Slipping into the dog mentality seems to come easily to me. Maybe there’s been a DNA mixup somewhere, of the benign kind.

What other authors have inspired your writing?

I admire the work of many writers, including Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, Ross Macdonald and P.G. Wodehouse. Beyond everything else, they were all great plotters. That takes hard effort for anybody, which is maybe why plot is often a neglected element.

What can humans learn from dogs?

That’s a huge subject, and a main theme of the Chet and Bernie series. Boiling it down, it’s about an attitude toward life: in the now, optimistic, physical, loving. And not overthinking things.

OK then, Chet:

Cats: take them or leave them?

I don’t have the slightest problem with cats, unless one escapes up a tree, or yawns in my face, or lounges on a couch in that annoying I’m-better-than-you-are way, or otherwise crosses my path.

Do you prefer car rides or walks?

That’s like asking what’s better, Slim Jims or steak tips? I prefer them both.

Are clues best dug up or sniffed out?

Sniffing is huge in my business – I’m a partner in the Little Detective Agency, in case that needs mentioning.

Sniffable clues are in the air just about all the time when it comes to humans, perps or not. The things I’ve learned from sniffing people! Don’t get me started. Digging is more of a specialized thing, important sometimes – take that Greyhound bus I once dug up, and what was with that name, anyway? – but on lots of cases I don’t dig at all, except for my own pleasure.

Spencer Quinn is the author of six previous Chet and Bernie mystery novels: Dog on It, Thereby Hangs a Tail, To Fetch a Thief, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, A Fistful of Collars, and The Sound and the Furry.  He lives on Cape Cod with his dogs Audrey and Pearl.  When not keeping them out of mischief, he is hard at work on the next Chet and Bernie mystery.  Keep up with him–and with Chet and Bernie–by visiting ChetTheDog.com or Facebook.com/ChetTheDog.

The Secret to Making Love Last By Marissa Stapley

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A few summers ago, while out for a canoe ride with my mom at the same cottage that inspired part of the setting of my debut novel, Mating for Life, my mom said something to me that I have never forgotten. I had just had an argument with my husband that morning. The fight was nothing too major: our kids were quite young at the time; we were often tired; I know I sometimes got resentful of the fact that he seemed to be able to sleep through any and all night-wakings while I, even on vacation, ended up bleary eyed and tired in the mornings, groping blindly for coffee and fantasizing about napping.

But still, this resentment was worrying me. Even back then, even before I had written a novel like Mating for Life – which shines a spotlight on the ins and outs of relationships, as well as the sometimes harsh reality of bonds that are meant to last for life – I recognized resentment as the enemy of love. A recently divorced friend had told me he was sure resentment (of late nights working, of interrupted sleep because of young children, of household chores unfairly distributed, of guy’s golf weekends or girl’s spa weekends, of anything, really) was what spelled the beginning of the end of his marriage. As I confided in my mom about the unrest between my husband and me that morning, I told her that I resented him – and that it scared me. I said, “I always envisioned us staying together forever but … What if it doesn’t work out? I’m sure you thought you’d stay with dad when you married him, but you two ended up breaking up. What if that’s my destiny, too?”

She stopped paddling and our canoe glided across the still water. And she said to me, “The difference is that the two of you work on your relationship a lot harder than your father and I did. We just gave up. Probably before we needed to.”

She went on to explain the difference in our generations: that my dad and her – who are still close friends, even after divorcing – were a lot younger when they married than most couples are today. That their parents were of a generation that, generally, did not get divorces, and that, in some ways, the idea of being able to dissolve a marriage was seen as a new type of freedom, a result of the liberation of the ‘60s. Except, she said, no one realized quite how painful it was all going to be. And also, no one considered the fact that trading one relationship for another wasn’t going to solve the challenges that long-term relationships posed. What many people learned was that making a relationship, any relationship, last forever was hard work, no matter who you ended up with in the end. (And sometimes, you didn’t end up with anyone. Sometimes, you ended up counting on your friends or your family, instead of a spouse.)

My husband and I made up, of course. And over the course of the next few years, I began to resent the amount of work our relationship required less and less. I looked around and noticed that our friends were working at their relationships, too, and that those who were heading for divorce court were doing so only after much counselling and deliberation. I started to create the characters in Mating for Life, characters whose tales were very much about the realities of long term love in all its forms, and characters who were connected to each other in profound ways, just as I believe we all are. My novel certainly does not present a rose-coloured view of any type of relationship, but I do think it presents an honest look – and sometimes, being honest about our relationships is one of the most important ways to sustain them.

As I mentioned, my parents are still friends. They “consciously uncoupled” long before Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin made it fashionable to do so. Ultimately, they’re still in a lifelong relationship of sorts, as co-parents of my brother and I and as friends with each other. Perhaps my mom is right, and they could have tried harder—or perhaps they just weren’t meant to be married. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from living my life and writing a book like Mating for Life it’s that love is rarely simple, and that loving anyone – spouse, sibling, parent, child, friend – can present some of the most significant challenges in life. But love can also present the greatest rewards.

So what’s the secret to making love last? Sisters Ilsa and Liane have a very important conversation in Mating for Life that I think reveals this very thing:

“Here’s the thing about love. It can last, but you have to be careful with it. You have to treat it like it’s your most precious possession, you have to never, ever take it, or the person you love, for granted. Even just doing it once could spell the beginning of the end. Resentment, it’s love’s worst enemy. Don’t forget that, Liane, okay? Don’t forget that, and you’ll be fine.”

This is an excerpt from the book that has been quoted by many fans and reviewers. But I’ve always thought this second part of the conversation is important, too—the part about the what if? (What if it doesn’t work out? What if this relationship isn’t my destiny?)

“And also, don’t be afraid. Helen said something to me once about the pain of love leaving behind a beautiful memory. Even if something doesn’t work, maybe you don’t have to let it scar you. Maybe it can be something other than a scar, something that makes you stronger.”

Our relationships sustain us. They’re important. We should always try our hardest at them. But we will not always succeed. That’s just reality – and, as the characters in Mating for Life learn, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

 

Bio

Marissa Stapley is a writer and former magazine editor who contributes to Elle, The Globe and Mail and The National Post, among others.  She also teaches writing at the University of Toronto and editing at Centennial College.  She lives in Toronto with her husband and two young children–and she has the same birthday L.M. Montgomery.

Behind the Scenes: Return to Love featuring Kathleen Shoop

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Return to Love is romance novel that I never thought I would write. Why? Because eighteen months ago was the first time I’d written a word of sweet, romantic fiction in my life. Yes, I’d written about love in award-winning historical and women’s fiction, but it wasn’t until I was invited to contribute a novella to an anthology called, Bliss, that it occurred to me that I could write romance, that I even wanted to. And boy, have I fallen in love with it.
 
Bliss is a collection of stories that are all set in the same house on the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, but each story is set in a different era. How fun is that? Well, I was one of the last to choose my era and the 1960’s was one time period available. I narrowed my setting down to 1969 and I could not be more thrilled with what I found in researching that era! My novella in the collection is called Home Again and from that story, came two characters who I could not stop thinking about. April and Hale Abercrombie—two lost souls who find love together.
 
Return to Love is a novel, book two in the April and Hale series, and it takes the reader further into their relationship—a journey filled with sweet moments, passion, and humor. Still, knowing that a great romance holds the couple at its center, didn’t keep me from formulating a world around them that went beyond the well-worn stereotypes of the time (or at least I hope so!).
 
Some struggles of the Vietnam War era are well known and I do draw from them in making Hale a navy pilot. Hopefully he comes across as a fully developed, layered man and not just a hanger holding up a uniform. Likewise when I created April, I wanted to go beyond the well-known archetypes of the time. I wanted her to embody elements of women who were experimenting with freedom and control over their livelihoods, but as I researched I found that was not always a straight path from daddy’s little girl to independent woman breaking glass ceilings. I wanted her to embody the struggle between the two, the struggle that is less often portrayed—a woman with all the advantages, skill, education and desire for a career who is not sure how that will fit with her personal goals.
 
In Return to Love, April must deal with the loss of a late-term pregnancy. Hale must return to her in order to help her through it. Again, this area of research was fascinating and compelling. The push and pull between a couple caught in the distance and stress that war creates is material rife with passion. But again, there is humor. If nothing else, it is clear that the most resilient people in life are those who find pockets of laughter in grief, in worry, and from this ability to see absurdity in sorrow, there is hope.
 
It’s my hope that readers love April and Hale as much as I do and find their story heartwarming and satisfying. They are unique fun characters who led me to learn a lot about life at a time that found love and peace to be the motto by which it was defined.

Amazon Top-100 Bestselling author, Kathleen Shoop, holds a PhD in reading education and has more than 20 years of experience in the classroom. She writes historical fiction, women’s fiction and romance. Shoop’s novels have garnered various awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards and the San Francisco Book Festival. Kathleen has been featured in USA Today and the Writer’s Guide to 2013. Her work has appeared in The Tribune-Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Pittsburgh Parent magazine. She lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

April and Hale Abercrombie’s love is tender and sweet. While he serves in Vietnam, their marriage is marked by trust and the belief that they will grow old together with a gaggle of grandchildren at their feet. But, their charmed marriage changes in the face of losing their newborn daughter.

On leave from his tour, Hale can barely wait to hold his wife and her help her heal. When he arrives, his embrace, his touch, and his love are as perfect as April remembered. Their reunion is passionate and their physical connection is strong and soothing. But, April’s heartache remains.

Hale stumbles through his attempts to prove to April that their future will be rich and full of wonder. His good-hearted, but take-charge approach causes her to retreat. Even in grief, April can see Hale’s earnestness, yet she finds solace in putting space between them. With a short time before Hale must return to war will they see that real love endures in the face of adversity, that their marriage can be strengthened even when it looks as though all is lost?

Set on the beaches of the Outer Banks, Return to Love is the second book in the Endless Love series. Book one, Home Again, was named a finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. 

 

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My Top Ten Lovy Story Movies by Lisa Burstein

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I am a sucker for a good love story, especially in movie form. So I thought I would share, my top ten Love Story Movies in no particular order. You may notice they are hot guy heavy ;).

  1. Sixteen Candles- Jake Ryan and a birthday cake, need I say more.
  2. Harold and Maude- A Cat Stevens musical score and an ending that makes you cry.
  3. Love, Actually- So many love stories packed into one movie and of course Colin Firth.
  4. Bridget Jones' Diary- You so want Bridget to get with the right guy, who is of course Colin Firth.
  5. The Breakfast Club- Judd Nelson I'll give you one of my diamond earrings any day.
  6. Annie Hall- Love is hard and funny and Diane Keaton wears a mean tie.
  7. Crazy, Stupid, Love- One of the best modern movies on the subject of love and of course Ryan Gosling.
  8. Some Kind of Wonderful- The best friends to more than friends movie of the 80's.
  9. Pretty Woman- Billionaire Richard Gere on a fire-escape with flowers- swoon!
  10. Romeo and Juliet(The one with Leo DiCaprio)- Leo and Claire Daines- perfection.

Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. She is the author of Pretty Amy, The Next Forever, Dear Cassie and Sneaking Candy. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats.

 

One weekend together could change everything…

When her friend called to tell her about the funeral, Cassie wanted to say no. She had enough to handle with her own hollow existence. But she knew she should pay her respects to her old camp counselor…as long as her ex, Ben, wouldn’t be there.

Except Ben is there. Still gorgeous, still angry, and still able to penetrate her defenses with one intense stare. All the reasons they left each other in a flurry of heartache start to fall away over one long, snowy weekend.

But tough Cassie can’t truly open up to Ben when she knows confessing her secrets will leave her raw, defenseless. And the possibility of forever might not be enough to gamble on all the impossibilities of now.

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