Monthly Archives: October 2015
Halloween Happening: Bobbing for Apples was never like this #HappyHalloween
Happy Halloween!!
I love Halloween and dressing up in a pretty costume. Especially a can-can outfit with a white petticoat and layers of ruffles and black stockings. Imagine if you could go to Paris and dance the can-can at the famous Moulin Rouge.
You can…with the help of a little black magic.
Meet Autumn Maguire in “Naughty Paris“ She’s jilted at the altar and uses her pre-paid honeymoon tickets to go to Paris. She’s turned on when she sees a full-size painting of a sexy, lost Impressionist named Paul Borquet in a studio in the Marais District…
Here is an audio/video podcast of two short scenes from “Naughty Paris“ where Autumn hears the laughter of the scandalous artist…and she’s transported back to 1889 Paris.
Find out what happened to Autumn Maguire in “Naughty Paris.”
Happy Halloween!
WRITERS REACH: FIONA QUINN WITH ‘WEAKEST LYNX’
Fiona Quinn is truly one of a kind — a brilliant writer with superpowers…and a damned nice person, too. She never fails to amaze me…you gotta read the whole post!! So please mosey on over to Jennifer Skutelsky’s blog…and a big thank you to Jennifer for another great Kindle Scout interview.
On Fridays right here, authors talk about their books, their process, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Say hello to FIONA QUINN, who joins us to celebrate the success of WEAKEST LYNX, a Kindle Scout winner published by Kindle Press, and the subsequent sequels in the LYNX series.
What Lexi wants is a simple life. What she gets is simply terrifying.
Lexi Sobado is a 20-year-old experienced intelligence consultant with a special psychic gift. However, her gift couldn’t prevent her from becoming the focus of a stalker’s desires. With a death threat shoved in her purse, she finds herself caught in the middle of a sinister web of crime and corruption.
Striker Rheas, a seasoned special agent, is charged with keeping Lexi safe. But can he keep his personal life separate from his professional life as he finds himself falling for his assignment?
What Lexi hides, what she reveals, and…
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The little kitten who could…and did make me smile #NationalCatDay
I was fussing with my WIP and drinking vanilla-flavored coffee when I decided to take a break…and found this photo. I love daisies–they always brighten the day. Along with this adorable kitten who made me smile…and ain’t that what we all need.
And yes, I promise. I’m now going back to writing.
~Jina
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
A Chocolate Lover’s…Lover on #NationalChocolateDay
If you’re like me, you don’t need a special day to celebrate the joys and passion of chocolate.
But…since today is National Chocolate Day, here’s a special poem I wrote for all you chocolate lovers…and your lovers, too!
~Jina
A Chocolate Lover’s…Lover
There once was a pretty Irish lass
Who was smart and funny with a lot of sass
But when the gentlemen came a calling
The sassy lass kept a stalling
‘Cause the one man who was truly her star
Was the hunky guy with the big chocolate bar!
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
Calling my Fairy Godmother on #NationalPumpkinDay UPDATED
Happy Pumpkin Day! See UPDATE below…
Look what my Fairy Godmother brought me round midnight. Oh, yeah…
If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
WRITERS REACH: KIM CARMICHAEL WITH ‘TYPECAST’, A ‘HOLLYWOOD STARDUST’ NOVEL
Kim Carmichael has an amazing persona — filled with stardust just like her characters! Kudos, Kim, for bringing a touch of Hollywood magic to all of us…great interview, Jennifer Skutelsky!! Awesome blog.
On Fridays right here, authors talk about their books, their process, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Today KIM CARMICHAEL joins us to celebrate the success of TYPECAST, a HOLLYWOOD STARDUST novel that won a Kindle Press contract through Kindle Scout. TYPECAST has attracted over 50 favorable reviews in the short time since its launch.
What’s your fantasy?
Twenty years ago, the movie Hollywood Stardust defined a generation of teens and changed the four actors’ lives forever. Typecast as the villain, both in front and behind the silver screen, Logan Alexander has purposely allowed his star to fade. Now with the 20th Anniversary of the movie on the horizon, he is the only one fit to step into the spotlight, deal with the unwanted publicity, and make sure that things meant to be left on the cutting room floor remain there. Ivy Vermont has always longed to be a…
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My Wild Elevator Ride #shortstorysunday
I love to write stories and sometimes those stories take a long time to write. My Civil War time travel romance, LOVE ME FOREVER, took me three years to write before it was selected as a Kindle Scout winner. I’m very proud of that.
But writers do get lonely. So I came up with this fun character who is a writer and what happens when she goes out into the world and goes on a wild elevator ride…
I hope you enjoy my short story.
~Jina
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My Wild Elevator Ride
I work in a cubicle surrounded by books, computers, and ideas.
I get lonely.
Very lonely. Hey, a girl can only fantasize so much about meeting a sexy guy who’ll knock her bunny slippers off. (Crazy, but I don’t wear shoes when I’m writing.)
So when I go out, which isn’t often when you’re trying to promote your work online and get through the quagmire of the first chapter in your next book, I get talkative.
Very talkative.
It goes back to junior high and the austere looks and extra homework laid on anyone who talked in Mr. Hamm’s second period geography class. I can name every state capital forwards and backwards because he gave me so much homework for my extracurricular talking in class. By the middle of the semester, I’d learned my lesson, but ever since then when my goddess gets her gab on, I can’t stop her.
My therapist says it’s repressed speech syndrome ad finitum. Or something like that.
Anyway, I got in over my head when I walked into the elevator in my hotel. I was in town to speak at a writer’s group which always makes me a nervous wreck. I was going through my usual ritual to calm my nerves. A six-pack of diet soda and dark chocolate.
The only problem was, the soda was warm.
I like ice. Cold, numbing ice. Makes me forget I have to face a room of creative ladies who are probably way more talented than I am, but for some reason they think I’m cool. I just got lucky, I tell them, but yeah, I earned my stripes in this business. Writing, getting rejections for years, and working my butt off. I’m grateful to be where I am.
So what I didn’t need was a guy chatting me up about his hundred thousand dollar a year sales job and his black BMW. Nice enough, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than an ice machine that worked.
The one on my floor was broken.
Now I was stuck in an elevator with a sales guy who had obviously removed the wedding band from his left hand. His tan line blinked at me like a neon sign. Come on in, it seemed to say, the water’s fine.
I don’t swim with the sharks.
“You don’t want to drink alone,” he said, observing my ice bucket filled with chilled cubes.
“I have my laptop for company.” I smiled. “Besides, I have work to do.”
“Are you here with the software convention?” he asked warily.
“Well…” I wasn’t, but I decided to play along.
“No way…a pretty girl like you can’t be a techie.”
“Why not?” I shot back, perturbed. I hated guys who put down a girl’s ambition. “Can’t women use their brains to get ahead?”
“Not when they have natural attributes…” He eyed my chest. Mind you, I was wearing navy blue sweats and my pink bunny slippers with floppy ears. This guy was either desperate or he’d been on the road too long.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but I’m a writer.”
“You’re kidding?” He seemed genuinely surprised, which didn’t help my ego. “What do you write?”
Ooh...I couldn’t resist shooting him the punchline.
“I write sexy novels.”
“Well, you are full of surprises,” he said, edging closer to me. “We should get to know each other better.”
The air in the elevator suddenly got stuffier and I prayed my deodorant didn’t work so he’d get the message. So far, no one else had gotten on the elevator and I had two more stops before we got to my floor.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I wiggled the ears on my rabbit slippers, hoping to shoot down this guy’s sex-o-meter. That should have stopped him right there.
It didn’t.
“How about a nightcap in my room? My bottle of bourbon and your—” He paused, wetting his lips. “Ice cubes.”
“You mean do research for my books?”
“Oh, yeah…”
“I bet,” I said.
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but sometimes we writers just ache to act like our heroines and throw back those snappy remarks. I tried to discourage him, but when he started breathing in my face, I knew I was in over my head. I did what any romance heroine would do.
I dumped the bucket of melting ice on his pinstripe suit.
“Hey, what the—” he called out and thank God, the elevator door opened. It wasn’t my floor, but I didn’t care. One more minute with Mr. BMW and I would have ended up served on a chilled platter.
Before he could brush the ice off his shoulders, out I ran. Down the long corridor and then I jammed down the stairway to the next floor to my room.
I never looked back.
I imagine that was the last time he tried to pick up a girl in an elevator wearing pink bunny slippers.
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
The Rogue from Rome on #NationalPastaDay
The way to a rogue’s heart is through his…
Well, not exactly. At least for this handsome, dashing rogue from Rome.
Find out how a pretty signorina catches his eye on National Pasta Day!
Ciao!
~Jina
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(my poem as written on the graphic)
The ROGUE from ROME
There once was a rogue from Rome
Who wandered far from home
A pretty wife to find
To make pasta divine
Such was his desire
To light his fire
But the girl who caught his eye
Couldn’t cook or bake or fry
What she could do I don’t have to tell you
Needless to say They went out for pasta every day
And made passionate love all through the night
Our virile rogue al dente when out went the light…
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
WRITERS REACH: MAGGIE TOUSSAINT WRITING AS RIGEL CARSON WITH ‘G-1’ AND ‘G-2’
Here’s a Kindle Scout winning author, Maggie Toussaint, who will set your brain spinning and your heart pumping with her stories. Brilliantly researched and smart stories. Not to be missed. Thanks to Jennifer Skutelsky for her ongoing series!! And Maggie, I love your last name — reminds of a beautiful summer I spent in Versailles roaming the palace gardens…
On Fridays right here, authors talk about their books, their process, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Today we welcome award-winning MAGGIE TOUSSAINT writing as RIGEL CARSON, to celebrate the success of G-1, a Kindle Scout winner published by Kindle Press, and the sequel, G-2, launched in September, 2015.
Though plague, locusts, and earthquakes riddle 2065 Earth, Dr. Zeke Landry focuses on the one resource vital to the planet’s survival: the world’s quickly vanishing water supply. When his uncle disappears, Zeke abandons his hydrology research to find Uncle John. His efforts land him in deep trouble. The Chameleons, a secret society, believe Zeke has the keystone, an object of great power. This group has already murdered in its quest to find the keystone, so if Zeke can’t produce it, his hours are numbered. Time’s running out for Zeke . . . and the world.
Brand new Guardian of Earth…
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Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day and don’t forget the mocha latte…
Writers write.
Teddy bears cuddle.
Who is in more need of a cuddle than a writer staring at the empty page?
So on Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day, grab those wonderful teddies and sit them next to your computer. Then watch the words fly onto the page as they whisper into your ear. Helping you write that love scene with more oomph…or googling research for you.
But if your teddy bears are like mine, they don’t work for peanuts.
Nope. It’s got to be double lattes. Pumpkin spice and a salted caramel mocha.
Who am I to argue? I think I’ll join them…delicious.
Happy writing!
~Jina
If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
Once upon a story... 