EVERNIGHT BIRTHDAY BASH

I'm super excited to participate in my first ever blog hop. Don't know what I'm doing but I'll just wing it. It's what I do best, ask anyone who knows me lol

Evernight's 5th Birthday Blog Celebration Evernight Celebrates 5 Years of Publishing!

Thanks to readers like you, Evernight Publishing has grown by leaps and bounds in five years so they’re pulling out all the stops and throwing an extreme BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION BLOG HOP in your honor!
That’s right! It’s Evernight’s birthday but YOU get the presents… Prizes include: 

Apple Watch Sport 

NEW Kindle Paperwhite 

Fitbit Flex Evernight, 

Amazon, and

ARe Gift Certificates 

Plus, each author on the hop will offer his/her own special prize! As my special pressie to Evernight readers, I'll give away not one, BUT two ecopies of Freefall (when it's available of course. Did I mention its coming out on Oct 8th!! YEW!! ***COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED WINNERS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN AT RANDOM AND NOTIFIED BY EMAIL. JENNY SCHABER AND KAISQUARED CHECK YOUR EMAIL FOR DETAILS***

   

BONUS ENTRIES: Be sure to comment at EVERY stop! The more comments you post, the more entries you will receive for our GRAND PRIZES (limit one bonus comment entry per stop).

It’s a great time for an Evernight shopping spree because all Evernight titles are 25% off through October 9th at AllRomance eBooks!

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/fdb586fd60/

TWO RELEASES IN ONE PERECT MONTH

This month is a busy one for me, even busier than the last which was taken up edits and rewrites for my two MS. October, will see me become, not once, but a dual published author!!

Freefall, with Evernight Publishing, (if you follow me on Facebook you would have noticed that Freefall was signed to this amazing publisher a couple of months back. God knows I neglect this blog) is out on October 8th 2015, and Illuminated Darkness is finally back on October 17th 2015 with a new and improved but slightly similar cover. The story is the same, but only better!!

Keep an eye out for my buy links. I can wait to share my work with you. xx

FREEFALL

This past long weekend has given me the opportunity get reacquainted with a manuscript I've had on the go for the past 12 months or so. If you've read my blogs in the past, then you know how easily I'm distracted, so this writing time frame should not come as a shock! In my own defense, I have been writing other stuff :) Anyway, it's really not far from being finished and I thought it was about time it was, as I have a whole series planned ahead...and another one waiting in the wings! Hopefully, I'll have this one published by the end of the year. I can't wait for you to read it. It's a New Adult Contemporary Romance titled Freefall, and it's everything I love to read. I hope you'll feel the same.

So... let me introduce you to Levi and Andi: Levi is a twenty-five year old skydiver, and the illegitimate son of an Australian publishing magnate. He has a troubled past and is struggling to come to grips with his father's unwanted presence in his life. He wants nothing more to get him out of his life, and will do almost anything to achieve it. Andi is a twenty-one year old Costco cashier, and comes from a loving, somewhat suffocating, traditional Italian American family. She feels lost in life and has no direction, and unbeknownst to her family and friends is in a deep depression and often seeks solace in the bottom of a Vodka bottle. That is until she meets Levi, and she falls instantly for his Aussie charm. He makes her feel alive. But can their fledgling relationship survive their different backgrounds, and the meddling of Levi's father, who refuses to let his son go?

Read on for an excerpt of Chapter One from Freefall:

LEVI

My head was pounding. Actually pounding wasn't exactly the most accurate word I could use. There was also: throbbing, pulsating, thudding, thumping. It felt like someone had taken a hammer to my skull in the middle of the night and it was split in two. It was all self inflicted of course, so I couldn't even afford myself some pity. In two words: Excruciating hangover. My eyes were glued shut tight and my mouth felt like I had chowed down on a bucket of sawdust. I couldn't even be sure I had a good night. My memory of the night was very, very hazy. All things considered though, if my head was this sore, it must have been legendary.

I needed water. Maybe I could do without it and just rollover and go back to sleep this almighty hangover off. Unfortunately my dry foul tasting mouth had other ideas. It felt like I was breathing out deadly toxic fumes. Perhaps if I just cracked one eye, enough to see where I was going, I could get to my bathroom to brush my teeth. I gave myself a pep talk in preparation for the big move; You can do this, and I practically dragged my sorry naked ass to my bathroom. My head felt like it was about to cave in. I needed something to take the edge of this headache. While gripping the basin with one hand for support I quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth, and after relieving myself, I then shuffled my way into the kitchen for some life saving fluids and some ibuprofen.

Fuck. It must have been one hell of a party. The condo was trashed. Empty bottles of beer and tequila were strewn from one end to the other. The place smelt like bar and stale cigarette smoke. An unknown semi naked male and female couple were still passed out on my couch. I didn’t smoke but judging by the unsmoked joints lined up on the coffee table, my guests liked to light up more than just camels. I spied a pair of black Calvin Klein boxer briefs on the floor and recognized them as my own. I hadn’t remembered whipping them off during the night and slipped them back on in case my guests happened to wake up. Party rule 101: It’s one thing to show your junk during the festivities while under the influence, but it’s never acceptable to release the dragon the morning after. Unless of course you happen to be in bed with a member of the opposite sex who is also naked and willing to partake in a morning after sex session. And seeing as I woke up alone, the boxers had to go on. I squinted at the couple that were passed out on top of each other on my couch. Damn who were these people? It appears I had found a rent a crowd in my travels last night. Screw it. I’d deal with them later.

I continued to the kitchen and guzzled two large glasses of water and threw down a couple of ibuprofen tablets to take the edge off this headache. Food would also go down a treat right now. What I would have given for a dish of greasy bacon and eggs. Unfortunately I had no food in my condo and even if I did, I doubted I had the energy to cook. I looked in the refrigerator just in case a magic food fairy had come during the night and left me a gift. Nope, empty. Not even any beer was left. It appears my guests had thoroughly enjoyed my hospitality.

What a hell of a housewarming. Mission accomplished. Trash my asshole father’s condo. Next stage, make him pissed. With my ibuprofen yet to start to kick in, I went back into my room and dialed my father’s number. 

 

NEW YEAR NEW ME AND ALL THAT JAZZ

2014 has left the building so to speak. For me 2014 was a big year of learning about the writing and publishing business. I never thought it was going to be such an eye opening journey of ups and downs. I started the year as Just Another Self Published Author with the dream of being signed by a publishing house, and ended the year with a signed contract with a small boutique Indie publishing house based in the US called Black Opal Books (BOB). 

Yes you heard correctly. I am officially a contracted author! Now that everything has been signed sealed and delivered I feel I can finally announce the news and the name of my publisher. Time to break out the champagne and celebrate. I have been hesitant in sharing my news, as a small part of me has been thinking that at anytime BOB will have realized they made a mistake and rescind their offer. Too late now, they've invited me to their Yahoo Group Boards! So what does this contract mean? It means another year of edits, hopefully less, as I had Stephen Ormsby, an awesome editor and owner of Australian publishing house Satalyte Publishing do a complete re-haul of Illuminated Darkness. Same story, same plot, there have just been a few tweaks to my writing that I'm confident makes the story all that much more better. However BOB need to have their edit team go over it as well. Soooo, I'm super excited for you to read the new version, but you will have to wait! Once my edits arrive it will be a rather long process, but I'm hoping it will be ready by the end of 2015 for publishing.

Now that I am Not Just Another Self Published Author, I just want to say that I'm not opposed to self publishing. Without self publishing Illuminated Darkness first, I would not have had the journey I had last year. I have learnt some very valuable lessons and have gained some great advice. Will I self publish again? Yes without a doubt, I would do it in a heart beat. 

Now my initial dream of signing a contract has come to fruition, it's time for a new goal, a new book and new ideas.

Stay tuned, 2015 is the year of me :)