Leanne Tyler's Good Luck Charm

When I first started writing The Good Luck Charm, I didn’t own a dog. In fact, I hadn’t had a pet of my own since I was in elementary school. My first dog was a white Spitz we named Penny. She was fluffy and white, with a black button nose. I can still see her in my mind. And I recall pictures of her and me (as a toddler) sitting in the oversized rocking chair at my grandmother’s house. Penny was with me from the time she was a pup until I was in fifth grade when she died. That’s a pretty long life for a dog.

So what made me think I could write about a dog and make him an important secondary character in a story? I’m not sure now, but my critique partners who owned dogs repeatedly pointed out that he should do this or he’d do that, and what about this.  I learned quickly I needed to do my research. I needed to remember what it was like to own a dog. I also began observing a friend’s basset hound and I modeled Duke after the lazy dog in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies. When I pictured my dog for the story, I thought of that dog. This helped.

As I did revisions and prepared my story for publication this year, I can proudly say I am a dog owner again. I have been for the last seven years so I was able to add a personal knowledge to Duke that I have from my own very special little girl, Rocke.

She’s a shi tzu and I let my son name her before she was born. We were expecting a male pup, but the litter was all female. Rocke was the runt of the litter, yet looking at her now and seeing what she weighed at her last check up (a whopping 17.1 lbs.), you would never know it. Her father only weighed 11 lbs. when she was born and the breeder thought he was large so she didn’t really expect Rocke to get much bigger than that. Little did she know Rocke likes to eat homemade biscuits! She’s a southern dog through and through.

But back to Duke and making him an authentic character. As you see from the cover, my graphic designer did an awesome job bringing him to life. I couldn’t have described him better if I had tried. In fact, all I told her was that I needed a bloodhound on the cover. And she found the perfect one. By the way, if you enjoy Duke in The Good Luck Charm, you’ll see him again in The Good Luck Spell and The Good Luck Potion. (In fact, and this is on the QT, I wouldn’t let Lucinda know, but I think Duke is the real good luck piece for these couples instead of the charm.)

You ask, who is Lucinda? Oh, she’s the Cajun Jazz singer from the Louisiana bayou who practices voodoo. Not the evil kind, but the love kind. What charm? The gris-gris Lucinda gives Keely to wear. What’s a gris-gris? An amulet with an incantation or love spell attached to it.

If you'd like to become acquainted with Duke and the other cast of characters, check out my buy links below.

Buy Links:

The Good Luck Charm ~ http://tinyurl.com/7xkr9h6

A Country Kitchen Christmas ~http://tinyurl.com/c5ykffz
It's Always Been You ~http://tinyurl.com/c95xce2
Season of Love ~ http://tinyurl.com/bu9wasu
Victory's Gate http://tinyurl.com/c3os4ql

About The Good Luck Charm, a Sweet Romance:

Keely Jones believes all she wants in life is a successful advertising career and a corner office. However, that all begins to change when she bumps into a Frisbee player while jogging with her dog. When she’s given a good luck charm she’s skeptical about the magic of true love or finding her soul mate. But when things start to heat up between her and Darren, can she truly ignore it? Or will he be the one man who can ruin her career?

Darren Wright has returned to Knoxville to regroup and to join his sister’s advertising agency. He isn’t looking for anything major to happen in his life, yet when he bumps into a cute brunette and her dog, things begin to change. He’s soon promoted to Creative Director and falling for Keely. How can he tell her he works for an opposing firm? And if he doesn’t, will he risk losing her for good?

Award winning author, Leanne Tyler lives in the South and her writing reflects her heritage. She writes sensual Southern romances whether historical or contemporary. Leanne’s debut release Victory’s Gate was the 2007 American Rose winner of the Through the Garden Gate contest and was released electronically by The Wild Rose Press in December 2007. Finally in December 2009 the Through the Garden Gate Anthology is available in print and includes the four winning entries.
Stepping into the Contemporary circle, she debuted with her Class of ’85 Reunion story It’s Always Been You in August 2011. And her first full-length novel Season of Love (Nov. 2011) is a time-travel set in 1850 Charleston, SC. A recent release A Country Kitchen Christmas (Feb. 2012) is a light inspirational romance. Her first indie-publication, The Good Luck Charm is a romantic-comedy (May 2012).

Currently she has two upcoming releases from The Wild Rose Press. A short story, Ava is a sweet romance set in the pastoral country side of Georgia in 1836 and Because of Rebecca a full-length novel to be released in print is set in the deep South prior to the Civil War. She invites readers to step into her world and enjoy the passion.

You can find Leanne at:

Website: www.leannetyler.com

Twitter: @LeanneTyler

Email: leannetyler@gmail.com

Facebook fan page: http://tinyurl.com/6upmayo

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LeanneTyler

My Sweet Contributions to The Corner Cafe: A Tasty Collection of Short Stories

Just wanted to mention that my short story contributions to The Corner Cafe: A Tasty Collection of Short Stories are definitely in the sweet category. 

In What Nice Blessings, tragedy strikes a young adult, testing her courage and teaching her the value of friendship.

The Closing of the Corner Cafe describes the rise and fall of a cherished eating establishment.

You'll hear more about these stories when I guest post at Helen Ginger's blog on June 14 at http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/

If you can't wait, here's the link to the collection: http://amzn.com/B0085YDO7E

Lots of diverse stories from 15 authors to suit every taste.

Morgan Mandel, the owner of this blog, is a past president of Chicago-North RWA, past Library Liaison for Midwest MWA, belongs to Sisters in Crime and EPIC.

Excerpts and buy links to her full length novels are at http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com/

Celia Yeary's Charlotte and the Tenderfoot

Charlotte and the Tenderfoot--a 99 cent Dime Novel

What This Sweet Romance is About:

~*~

While driving home in her buggy, Charlotte Dewhurst discovers a man lying by the road. William Montgomery, an attorney, was passing through the area when accosted by two hoodlums. The resulting court case keeps Will in town. His attitudes confuse Charlotte as he seeks her company, yet proclaims he will soon be moving on. But Will may be the most confused one of all.

~*~*~

Available on Amazon at:
http://amzn.com/B007DIWWGM

 

~*~*~*~

About the Author:

 

Celia Yeary is an eighth-generation Texan, and her life revolves around family, friends, and writing. San Marcos has been her home for thirty-eight years. She has nine published romance/women's fiction novels, three short stories, two novellas, three anthologies, and published essays with the Texas Co-Op Power Magazine. The author is a former science teacher, mother of two, grandmother of three boys, and wife of a wonderful, supportive Texan. Celia and her husband enjoy traveling, and both are involved in their church, the community, and the university.

Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas

And Now Celia Tells Us About Dime Novels:

Charlotte and the Tenderfoot is a 22,000 word story called a "Dime Novel." In the 1800s, Dime Novels might be considered the paperback books of their day. They told tales of mountain men, explorers, soldiers, lawmen, or Indian fighters. Sometime a female character provided a bit of a love story.

Critics of dime novels often denounced them as immoral, perhaps because of violent content. But the books themselves actually tended to reinforce conventional values of the time, such as patriotism, bravery, self-reliance, and American nationalism.

Modern Western Historical novels and Western Historical Romance novels hold to the same standards: Truth, Justice, and The American Way; ie, treat women and children with respect, as well as your neighbor, protect the downtrodden, and carry out justice within the law...if at all possible.

Today, Western Historical Romance novels and true Westerns are published as Dime Novels at "Publishing by Rebecca J. Vickery" through the imprint Western Trail Blazers. The Dime Novels are shorter stories, perhaps novellas, priced at 99Cents.

The idea intrigued me. Since I had nine full-length novels published traditionally, along with two novellas and three anthologies, I found myself writing 22,000 word stories with catchy titles. As of this moment, I have three WTB Dime Novels:

http://westerntrailblazer.com/dime-novel-store.php

Titles, in order of date of publication:
Angel and the Cowboy
Addie and the Gunslinger
Charlotte and the Tenderfoot.
Coming Soon:
Kat and the U.S. Marshal

These have been highly successful, landing on Amazon's best-seller lists: Top 100 Best Western Romances, Top 100 Genre Fiction/Westerns, and Top 100 Action/Adventure/Westerns.

If you try one of these, I hope you like it! I've had more fun writing and selling these than I have any other novel I have published. Also, the covers use photos of Jimmy Thomas.

Celia  
Celia's Website

Celia's Blog
Sweethearts of the West-Blog
Celia's Facebook Page

Please leave a comment to welcome Celia to Sweet Not Spicy



Wendy Chen and Her Liar's Guide

LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS, AND YOU MIGHT WIN AN E-BOOK COPY OF WENDY'S LIAR'S GUIDE!

About Wendy Chen:

Wendy Chen has worked at Random House, iVillage, and The Washington Post. Her first novel, Liar's Guide to True Love was written during her frequent (and sometimes severe) bouts of wedding nostalgia. Years after planning her own nuptials, she still gets unduly giddy about attending weddings.

Wendy was a lifelong New Yorker until she decided to try out suburban life a few years ago. She now lives in Northern Virginia with her family. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.facebook.com/wendychenbooks

https://twitter.com/#!/wendychenbooks

About Wendy's Sweet Romance, Liar's Guide to True Love -

Wedding planner Cassandra Hanley is in the business of making other people's dreams come true. But for some reason, whenever she meets a potential mate of her own, she finds herself telling little (and not so little) white lies. She's not trying to sabotage her relationships on purpose: as a people pleaser, she just naturally tells men what she thinks they want to hear.

When Cassandra meets Nick, she's determined to be herself this time—until she learns he abhors weddings. So she recasts herself as an advertising exec, and now she's scrambling to cover up the lie...with more lies.

Into the tangled web wanders Cassandra's college sweetheart, Kevin. Kevin, the one man who knows the real Cassandra, and loves her anyway. Could he have been The One all along?

Torn between the past and the present, Cassandra is about to learn that you can't plan the perfect life the way you can plan the perfect wedding.

Buy Links:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Guide-True-Love-ebook/dp/B005UPRT9A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319650297&sr=8-1

Carina Press: http://ebooks.carinapress.com/FEF5A809-7497-4108-9539-278A5C033863/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=4A61953A-ED9C-4C26-86BC-022D2BC5CB49

iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/7lejm5o

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/liars-guide-to-true-love-wendy-chen/1030430137?ean=9781426892721&itm=1&usri=wendy%252bchen

And Now, Wendy Has Some Confessing to Do:

Confessions of A Wedding Addict by Wendy Chen

“Sometimes I like to wear my tiara around the house. Is that weird?” My friend looked a little sheepish when she said it, but I got it. Years after I walked down the aisle, I still get nostalgic about my own nuptials. I wore the most beautiful dress I will ever own, and spent over a year planning (admittedly) frivolous details. And I missed it (the dress and the planning). When I was writing my first novel, Liar’s Guide to True Love, I would pick up copies of wedding magazines in the name of “research” – I had to get in the head of my wedding planning protagonist didn’t I? Now my outlet for wedding nostalgia is to devour any means of weddingtainment – flicks, lit, whatever. If I can’t live it, I will read/watch it. Some are better than others, but I have to admit, there are few wedding themed books or movies that I truly dislike. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:

·    Bride Wars – Beautiful dresses and Bridezillas. But at the end of the day, two best friends learn what’s most important -- true friendship and love.

·    The Bride Quartet series by Nora Roberts – Not just one or two, but FOUR books centered around a wedding planning company run by four best friends. By THE Nora Roberts, need I say more?

·    My Big Fat Greek Wedding – So smart, so funny, and the best parts aren’t about the wedding at all.

·    Made of Honor – Sometimes men are stupid when it comes to love, and don’t see what’s right in front of them.

·    Wedding announcements and the Vows column in The New York Times – the real deal, and you never know when you’ll recognize someone

Yes, weddings can be ridiculously over the top and expensive, and planning them can make us temporarily insane (Carrie Bradshaw: I wore a bird in my hair). But there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the beginning of someone’s Happily Every After. Admit it, you love a beautiful wedding dress on the cover of a book as much as I do. What’s your favorite weddingtainment?

Please leave a comment with your e-mail address and you might win an e-book from Wendy!

Working Behind the Scenes

Jillian Baker, the heroine in my sweet romantic comedy, Girl of My Dreams, is content to work behind the scenes as a temporary assistant to the producer at a TV studio. Only when a crisis occurs, does she ignore her reticence, step up to the plate and be a contestant in a reality show, where all eyes are upon her.

Since this is fiction, my heroine sheds her ordinary persona and gets noticed in a big way. I'm happy for her, but there are so many of us in the real world who never get noticed in our everyday life and jobs. I toiled for years as a secretary, and hardly ever got thank yous from clients or bosses for my efforts. I'm sure others of you can relate as well.

The entertainment world fares no better. I notice who stars in a show, might even remember one or two of the secondary characters, especially if they're cute, pretty or quirky. Still, how about the tons of men and women who toil behind the scenes, yet never get recognized? I know for a fact that I don't bother to look at the movie or TV credits to see who did the lighting, makeup, or any other necessary jobs behind the scenes.

Am I the only one who pays no attention to the hardworkers behind the scenes?

Speaking of Working Behind the Scenes, I'm actually the blog owner of Sweet Not Spicy. I enjoy showcasing the many talented authors of Sweet Romance and Fiction, but every once in a while I like to pop in to let readers know I'm a real person and also have a Sweet Romance available, as well as three other novels.

Girl of My Dreams is on Kindle for 99 cents at http://amzn.com/B0065R11QO
My Amazon Author Central Page: http://amazon.com/author/morganmandel

You can find all of my books, with excerpts and buy links to every electronic media I know of at http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com/

Please leave a comment to share your thoughts on Working Behind the Scenes.

Travel in Time With Clover Autrey's Sweet Romance

Why a Time Travel?

I love the idea of a contemporary woman traveling back to a time and place where she is totally out of her element and has none of her support group, friends or family to go to. Surviving depends solely on her own wit and courage—as well as having to trust the not-so-modern-thinking hero.

What’s not to love about that scenario? Throw the heroine back into the arms of a guy in a kilt and I am so there.

Of course I can’t leave a world alone without magic, so I made the bare-kneed hero a sorcerer, tossed in some witches, healers, vampires, dragons and shape-shifters, and I have a whole new universe to play in.

Highland Sorcerer is the first of my Highland Sorcery novels where the heroes and heroines are flung back and forth through time and into alternative universes where all sorts of magical beings reside and history gets mucked up time and time again.

It all begins with Charity Greves who has the gift of healing. So when a wounded bleeding Highlander materializes out of the air into her kitchen, she does what any rational free-thinking herbalist under the same circumstances would do--she heals him. She didn’t expect to be drawn back to the 13^th Century where a dangerous whacked-out witch holds the jaded Highlander captive.

Excerpt:

Charity Greves barely plunked her purse down on the counter when a mini-cyclone rippled through her kitchen, lifting her hair and zinging an electrical current down her spine—and a naked bleeding man materialized out of thin air.

And dropped to the linoleum.

Hey. She'd just mopped that floor.

She frowned. Sorcerer.

Had to be a sorcerer. They were the only magic wielders around who had the ability to travel a rift from one place to another.

A powerful one by the looks of him. There weren't many who could tune in and sense a healer across distances and fewer still who could open and travel through a rift while in the weakened condition he appeared to be in.

Her pulse kicked up a notch in fear. Backing up toward the door, she grabbed her cell phone to punch in 911, wondering just how dangerous the sorcerer could be, except…he didn’t look all that dangerous sprawled on her floor, bleeding all over it. Kicked puppy was more like it. And she was a healer who couldn’t exactly explain how a naked guy ended up in her apartment in that condition. Geez, get a grip and take care of the man.

He’d obviously come for help. Which was mildly flattering that someone within the magical community had actually heard of her for him to seek her out. Unless he had simply let his senses pick a healer out at random. All right, that wasn’t so flattering.

Charity pulled a stack of hand towels from a drawer and knelt down beside the guy. After all, it wasn't everyday she came home from the herb shop to have a wounded sorcerer travel across space especially for her world-renowned healing abilities.

Okay, so she wasn't world-renowned, and she’d only been sought out maybe three times before. At most. And one of those was a sorcerer seeking her mother, but technicalities. She'd been present when he came.

"All right, big guy, what's going on with you?" Yikes. These were not wounds of the stubbed-my-toe variety. He was covered in welts and gashes, blood and grime across his torso, hips and legs. Some of those cuts looked pretty deep. His eyes remained closed though the thick lashes fluttered with each pain-filled rise of his chest. His wrists were torn and chafed as though some kind of bindings had encircled them for a long time, some kind of thick band, not rope. Since nothing inorganic traveled through a space rift she couldn't be sure.

Whatever he'd endured, it had been horrible and her heart went out to him. What on earth had this sorcerer gotten himself into? And a more troubling thought: Would whatever he’d gotten himself into follow him here? She really didn’t want to get into any magical squabbles.

She lifted his head off the floor to get a few of the folded towels beneath him and then smoothed a lock of sweaty dark hair off his cheek.

He flinched at the touch, eyes snapping open, and before she knew what hit her, Charity was rolled onto her back with two hundred pounds of disoriented naked male on top of her, pinning her wrist against the floor.

His gaze tracked around her kitchen, dark brows scrunching together at the shiny red trash compactor before settling back on her.

"Are ye the Healer Enchantress?" he rasped and promptly passed out.

A little about Clover:

Clover’s books have been referred to as “Romance in the Safety Zone.” The pages are chock full of adventure, attraction, fantasy and love, safe enough to read with your daughter or your grandmother, yet not so sweet it will put you in a sugar coma. Clover calls Texas home and the world her backyard.

Highland Sorcerer on the Nook   http://bit.ly/bnhighlandsorcerer 

Paperback  http://amzn.to/HighlandSorcererPaperbk

Kindle  http://amzn.to/highlandsorcerer

Clover’s Blog  http://clovercheryl.blogspot.com

Carolynn Carey Offers Sweet Southern Fiction and Great Recipes

A Recipe for Writing Sweet Southern Fiction

By Carolynn Carey

One of today’s popular myths about people who live in the southern part of the U.S.—the states that are known as “the South”—is that we all love to drink sweetened iced tea. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know anyone who drinks sweet tea. I’m sure there are some among us, but everyone I know orders their iced tea unsweetened and then adds an artificial sweetener that has no calories.

So what does sweet tea have to do with writing sweet Southern fiction? Merely that sometimes the writer has to choose between the myth and the reality, especially when the story setting is a small town.

I love writing stories set in small towns in the South, partly because I can create a world where neighbors are always neighborly, traditions are always observed, and people enjoy the simple pleasures of life year round. Among these simple pleasures are social gatherings, such as picnics, cookouts, and church suppers, all of which are excuses for Southern cooks to create their favorite dishes.

Three of my books are set in the fictional small town in Tennessee that I called Barbourville. The most recent of these books, Dealing with Denver, is the story of Denver Vance, one of three triplet brothers. Denver is the most laid-back of the brothers. In fact, when his new friend, Mattie Meadows, first asks him to help her search for her birth mother in Barbourville, he politely declines. After all, he explains, he was just passing through town on his way back to Chicago. But Mattie is determined, and Denver stays around to help. In the process, he’s introduced to some interesting Southern foods, such as buttermilk pie. If you’ve never tried buttermilk pie, you really should. It’s easy and delicious. Here’s a basic recipe.

Buttermilk Pie

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

Cream butter and gradually add sugar. Add flour and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs until combined. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla. Beat well. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 400 degrees for five minutes, then reduce to 350 degrees and bake another 45 minutes or until set.

Yield: One 9-inch pie.

Food also has a role in the sweet romance I published in February 2012. In Prognosis for Happiness, at the request of his sister, Dr. Trevor Kendall takes a leave of absence from his Hollywood plastic surgery practice to return to the small Tennessee town where he attended high school so he can oversee the medical treatment of his young niece. Only after he arrives does he learn that his niece’s pediatrician is Dr. Gwen Meyer, his nemesis from their high school days. Once back in Brook Haven, he also happily becomes reacquainted with Southern cooking, including (since it’s summer), a delicious cucumber salad one of the hospital employees takes to the annual Mayhew County Memorial Hospital picnic. With summer coming on, you’ll want to try this recipe too.

Cucumber Salad

About 4 medium-sized cucumbers (enough to make 3 cups sliced)

1 medium onion

Peel cucumbers, score lengthwise with a fork, and slice thin. Slice onion very thin and mix with sliced cucumbers. Salt to taste.

Mix the following until very smooth and stir into cucumber mixture:

½ cup salad dressing or mayonnaise

2 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons vinegar

Chill until ready to serve.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, my recipe for writing sweet Southern fiction involves characters who reflect their small-town heritage, actions that are based on the traditional values of rural locations, and the love of good Southern cooking!

Buy Links for Carolynn's Sweet Romances:

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B0073J1I34

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prognosis-for-happiness-carolynn-carey/1108801627?ean=2940014025089&itm=1&usri=prognosis+for+happiness

Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/135872

Carolynn's website and blog:

http://www.CarolynnCarey.com

http://www.CarolynnCareyBlogs.com

Please welcome Carolynn to Sweet Not Spicy by Leaving a Comment.