Title: Soul Keeper
Author: Natalie Dae
Author Website: http://nataliedae.blogspot.com/?zx=18830fc74bf39019
Genre: Contemporary Erotic
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave
Price: $2.49
What I liked: Soul Keeper by Natalie Dae is a sweet, well-written short story with some very hot sex. The premise of two lovers connecting in person after getting to know each other on the internet is definitely a relevant theme these days.
With Carrie eagerly awaiting her new lover to arrive by train in nothing but her underwear and an overcoat, the reader becomes equally nervous wondering if he truly will show. Ms. Dae brought out Carrie’s naughty girl persona perfectly and the fun romp is the perfect lunch time read.
I look forward to even more from Ms. Dae, hopefully in more than a short story.
Book Summary:
Carrie Marsh anxiously awaits her online lover of two years, pacing the station in her stylish red coat with nothing but luxurious black lingerie underneath and stilettos on her feet. Will Rob Edwards really be on the train from Scotland? Will the attraction still exist in person? Can she even stave off the first anticipation-induced orgasm before he arrives? Excitement spirals through her, for Carrie has planned a night to remember.
Rob is shy, and Carrie intends to show him how to unleash his sexy side during a series of sexual encounters. But once he arrives, she can’t wait until they get to the hotel, let alone a bed. No. They hardly make it to the first tree, where anyone could spot their antics.
One unforgettable evening of passion leads two virtual lovers to a lifetime as each other’s soul keeper.
Bewitching Finn
Emma Wallace
Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal Romance
Purchase: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8418-bewitching-finn.aspx
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
What I liked: Grace Woodrow needs some help in the love sector. One spell and that's exactly what she gets when she has one hot night with Finn. Although Grace thinks she just needs one night to get what she needs, she finds out that Finn is more than she bargained for. In a chance meeting, Finn finds her only to want her again and again. Will Grace accept Finn's advances ? You bet she will when she sees that there is more to the handsome Irishman than a one night stand. Wallace really knew how to throw magic and love together in this tale. I really connected with the characters. I felt Grace's pain when we find her sad story of a past love gone wrong, but I really loved Finn's character and his wanting happiness and love. He knew what he wanted and he went for it. Wallace makes this story magical, beautiful, and a story that a reader will want to read again and again. This is a book not to miss.
Book Blurb:
Armed with a secret family recipe book, Grace Woodrow is cooking up a storm. And as every good witch knows, the real power of magic isn’t in the lotions and potions but in the intent. Grace wants a simple life but events conspire to keep her world complicated. As a result, Grace resorts to drastic measures that inadvertently trigger a chance encounter with a sexy, stranded Irish stranger. It’s lust at first sight, and after a year of being virtuous, the temptation to succumb to the promise of a no-strings-attached night of pure sexual indulgence proves too much to resist.
But once isn’t enough. And as if Grace doesn’t have her hands full with her interfering mother and Finn Delaney, the locals are acting…well… Frankly? Weird. Soon the rest of the island is unable to resist the side effects of her notoriously decadent delicacies, and before long it isn’t only Grace and Finn who are making merry…
Excerpt: http://www.jasminejade.com/productspecs/9781419926488.htm
Do you enjoy reading books and reviewing them? Well then the Pen & Muse needs you!
If you are interested in reviewing and reading books, we could use another good one.
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Please feel free to use this release as is or to include any information in it that might benefit your reading audience. Please let me know if I can help in any way. M E D I AR E L E A S E CONTACT: Carolyn Howard-Johnson E-Mail: HoJoNews@aol.com San Gabriel Valley Author Receives Two Awards Glendale, CA, August, 2010—Carolyn Howard-Johnsonreceived the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) two awards for her books, one the gold medal for her marketing book A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotion and honorable mention for her chapbook of poetry celebrating mothers She Wore Emerald Then. It is a cooperative effortwith Aussie poet Magdalena Ball. MWSA President Joyce Faulkner, said, “Among the benefits for (Author) and other award nominees will be appearances on various Internet blogs and radio talk shows, features on MWSA’s website and in our monthly Dispatches magazine, and interviews on radio and public-access TV during our annual conference in Pittsburgh.” Although these two winning books have nothing to do with the military (all writers are welcome to become MWSA members), Carolyn Howard-Johnson often writes to increase awareness for the plight of our troops. She wrote the foreword for Support Our Troops published by Andrews McMeel, blogs resources for our soldiers and their families at www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.comand has included military themes in many of her poems. She is the author of several chapbooks of poetry and has been published in many print and online journals. All awards recipients will be honored at the MWSA’s conference, Thursday, Sept. 30 – Sunday, Oct. 3, at Pittsburgh’s Wyndham University Plaza. The Conference will include a special ceremony at the Dawn’s Early Light Flag Retirement Plaza in Pittsburgh’s South Park, special interest luncheons around the city, a play featuring the works of MWSA authors at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Oral History Day, workshops, book signings, and the awards banquet. Many of the events are open to the public. Joseph Beth’s Book seller is the official MWSA Pittsburgh Conference bookstore. Howard-Johnson is among more than 900 authors, poets and artists who comprise Military Writers Society of America. Most MWSA members are active duty military, retirees, or military veterans. Others are life-long civilians who’ve chosen to focus on military and/or historical themes with their writing or art. Learn more about Howard-Johnson, a multi award-winning author at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. Learn more about MWSA at: http://militarywriters.com/ or contact Joyce Faulkner, MWSA president, Bridgeville, PA (412) 496-5034. ### Support Materials are available on request. If you wish to unsubscribe, please return this e-mail to be removed from this list for the media.
From Military Writers Society of America
Sanctuary
Author: Wendy Stone
Length: 70,545 words/ 254 pages
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Purchase: http://www.eternalpress.biz/book.php?isbn=9781615720873
What I liked: What a thrill ride, Sanctuary is! This is a book that will have you reading from start to finish. I really felt sorry for Chloe and how she gets snatched up by horrible person and what he does to her. Stone certainly knows how to take the reader on a journey. I also loved Chief Dane's charisma, how determined he was to get the case solved, and to save Chloe. Very good read.
Blurb:
Sanctuary, Michigan is a town like no other. Its people are happy and private. So when a serial rapist and murderer starts preying on young hitchhiking girls in the area, Police Chief Dane Alistair takes action.Chloe Sinclair is a young girl searching for answers. She hitchhiked into the vicinity of Sanctuary and took a ride from the wrong person. When she finds herself being attacked and then raped, she can only scream no and pray for someone to help her. Will Dane be able to help Chloe? Will they be able to survive what happens next? Take a trip to Sanctuary and find out!
Excerpt:
“Need a ride, girlie?”
Chloe waved a hand in front of her face as the smoke he blew out the window threatened to choke her. Cheap cigar, bad breath and a lack of personal hygiene made her feet hurt less, and she shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m almost where I’m going.”
“You aren’t thinking of going to Sanctuary?” the man said, his tone one of horrified disbelief. “You don’t want to go there, girlie. You go there and you won’t be heard from again.”
“What are you talking about?” Chloe let her hands rest on her slim, jean-clad hips and blew a strand of black hair away from her face. “Come on, I’m a bit old to listen to ghost stories.”
“I’ve been driving these roads for a lot of years, girlie. These aren’t stories. Lots of hitchhikers go missing on this road.”
A clap of thunder rent the air around them, followed by a gust of breeze that sent a shiver down Chloe’s spine. “Is it always so cold around here?”
“It’s Michigan in October, girlie. You’re lucky we don’t have snow. Now, do you want a ride or not?”
Chloe glanced down the dark road and the forest that lay just beyond the ditches. Another shiver shuddered through her, this one not due to the cold. A sharp wind blew through the trees, stirring up the leaves and making a rattling kind of noise that had her reaching for the door handle.
Title: Love at Last
Author: Cassidy Ryan
Genre: romance
Purchase:http://www.eternalpress.biz/book.php?isbn=9781615720972
Tagline:
Just good friends?
What I liked: I have always liked romances that begin with friendships. It comes so natural as the characters start to see more than just friends. I love how the how the author uses such a incident between the two characters for one to understand what's been in front of her all along. Classic romance and I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read romance that is heart warming.
Blurb:
Since she met him at college, Wade has been Peyton’s best friend and the one person she can rely on. So, it is no surprise that he is there to help her when her private life suddenly becomes very public. Fleeing a media circus, pursued by a particularly zealous paparazzo, Peyton and Wade are involved in a car accident. Sitting by Wade’s hospital bed Peyton comes to realize the true depth of her feelings for Wade. Dare she risk the most important relationship in her life by telling Wade?
Excerpt:
She closed the door quietly and walked slowly along the hallway to the door of the living room, where she paused, eyes drawn immediately to the figure in front of the windows. With the morning sun shining bright behind him, he was just a dark silhouette, but relief bloomed warm in Peyton’s chest. She would know those wide shoulders, those long legs and that mess of dark hair anywhere.
A sound like a sob escaped her when he wordlessly opened his arms, and she was crossing the room, bag falling from her hand. Without hesitation, knowing that he would catch her, Peyton launched herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.
“Looks like I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” Wade Rafferty squeezed her until she could barely breathe, and then pulled back to look at her, a smile on his handsome face, but concern in his brown eyes.
Peyton sighed and leaned her forehead against Wade’s chest. “God, you have no idea how glad I am to see you.”
Today I had the privilege of interviewing Jackie M. Smith, author with XOXO Publishing. 
Frugal and focused Tweeting for Retailers: Tweaking Your Tweets and Other Tips for Integrating Your Social Media
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Publisher:HowToDoItFrugally Publishing,
Paperback. 130 pages.
ISBN: 9781451546149
Order at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451546149?ie=UTF8&tag=howtodoitfrug-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1451546149
What I liked: Howard - Johnson as a a lot useful and valuable information as to how to use Twitter for those of us trying to make it out here as writers, sellers, etc. She provides all the easy set up and goes through sample processes as to how to use Twitter to our advantage. This is a must read for those of us who write or are in the industry in general where we have to market out goods. From the setup to the other tips and tricks - as to how to integrate your other social media as well as all those different Twitter apps and which ones are better. These are all valuable tools that everyone can benefit from. Howard-Johnson is a talented person and she grants us these Twitter gifts and more. Go ahead and pick up this book, you won't be disappointed!
Book Blurb:
· How to Get Twitter--The Simple Way
· How to Set Up Twitter as a Selling Machine
· What to Say: Sample Tweets and Critiques
· What All Those Links Mean--And Which You Need, Which You Can Safely Avoid
· How to Drive Traffic: Integrating Twitter with Your Other Social Media
· Sample Media Release
· Sample Blog Post
· List of Tried and True Applications for Twitter
· Making Online Life Easy: A Glossary of Important Twitter and Tech Terms
Don’t be fooled by the word Retailers in this title. The book is not exclusive. Retailers also include any author trying to promote their book. This information, as is true of all Howard-Johnson’s acclaimed books for authors, is invaluable to your promotion arsenal. And Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers is all about beating the recession one tweet at a time.
Twitter has become the Web phenomenon of the decade even though many say they “don’t get it,” and even those who think they do "get it" appear to be missing something. Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers will help those with businesses—large or small, online of off, or individual author—use Twitter in ways they never imagined by “doing it right” and integrating their efforts with all the other marketing they do.
This book gives authors and retailers the benefit of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s nearly three decades experience in publishing and as founder and manager of her own chain of stores, a stint as a New York publicist, retail consultant and journalist and a veteran Tweeter (If there can be such a thing as a veteran of such a new concept!). It is the second in the Survive and Thrive series for retailers in her USA Book News award-winning HowToDoItFrugally.com books.
What the professional say about Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers:
“Experts say that when business is slow, the last budget one should trim is advertising. Frugal and Focused Tweets lets a retailer have their promotions online and do it very nearly free.” ~ Robert Ricciardi, President of About Face
“In thirty-five years in the industry, there are only a handful of retailers I have observed reach the success level of Carolyn Howard-Johnson. There is only one thing you need to learn from her to succeed . . . everything she says!” ~ Randy H. Eller, industry speaker, business consultant, and President Eller Enterprises, LLC
“As a columnist for Home Décor Buyer, Carolyn’s no-nonsense approach to retailing and her easy-to-read writing style made her a coach to thousands of retailers.” ~ Jim Carper, founding editor of Home Décor Buyer
“The use of social media by retailers is tricky business. Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers details practical strategies for retailers to connect with their target audience in a way that delights them, builds relationships, and creates a sense of community with people of like interest. It will help you not only drive new traffic to your site, but it will also help you create a loyal following of repeat clients . . . It’s a treasure trove of information." ~ MaAnna Stephenson, Web site training and designs and author of Just the FAQs series of books on tech .
Retailing Bio:
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, has nearly three decades of retail experience plus oodles more in the fields of journalism, public relations, publishing, and marketing into this Survive and Thrive series of books. She consults in the three Ps: publishing, promotion and publicity and is the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and award-winning books of fiction and poetry.
She founded and operated stores ranging from home décor to gifts to antiques and other collectibles. She owned and operated the souvenir shop at the world renowned Santa Anita Race Track. During that time, she served on the boards of directors of the malls where her stores were located, of the boards of cooperative catalogs her stores utilized, and on the board of the California Gift Show. She speaks at retail industry conferences including The National Stationery Show, The California Gift Show, The California Mart and the LA Mart and has written articles for the LA Mart, Home Decor Magazine and others. She puts this world of experience in retailing to work for anyone trying to sell books in this economy with her series of Survive and Thrive books, or in private consultation sessions.
Howard-Johnson was named by members of the California Legislature Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment and American Women Business Association (ABWA) Impact Council’s Woman of the Year. Find more information on her speaking in the retailing industry and others here.
Visit her literary pages on this Web site as well as the published works almanac on this site. Her formal education includes a BA in English Literature from the University of Southern California (USC), a certificate of completion for instructors at UCLA and courses at these universities in writing and editing:
· University of Utah
· Utah State University
· UCLA
· Herzen University, St. Petersburg, RU
· Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
· Cambridge University, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK
· Glendale Community College
Author Bio
Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s first novel, This is the Place, won eight awards and her book of creative nonfiction, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, won three. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. A chapbook of poetry, Tracings,was named to the Compulsive Reader's Ten Best Reads list and was given the Military Writers' Society of America's Silver Award of Excellence. She speaks on Utah’s culture, tolerance and book promotion and editing and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program and her how-to book, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t was named USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book 2004." and the Irwin Award. Her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Successalso won a nod from USA Book News and won Readers' Views Literary Award. Her marketing campaign for that book won the marketing award from New Generation Indie Book Awards.
Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, the Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award and her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen."
The author loves to travel and has studied at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and journal with her wherever she goes. Her website is: http://carolynhoward-johnson.com andwww.howtodoitfrugally.com.
Interview:
Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself!
Oh, dear. I love writing. I love writers. I'm loving helping both retailers and writers with my HowToDoItFrugally books!
What inspires you to write?
I guess about everything. I never get writers' block. There are always stories in my head, poems roiling around on scraps of paper waiting to be typed, and ideas for nonfiction books that will help others waiting to be published. Or edited. Or written.
Do you find that your muse takes over when writing?
Well, most times. Mostly the secret is to put bottom in chair. Push chair up to computer and make fingers push the keys.
Tell us a bit about your Frugal and Focused Tweeting?
Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers is part of my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for retailers. There is a series for writers, too, but in all practical matters, both series work for both groups. That's because marketing is marketing is marketing. The principles are the same. And lots of the specifics can easily be adapted.
What inspired it?
I love Tweeting. And I love marketing--especially fruitful marketing. And I got tired of hearing people say "I don't get tweeting," or "Tweeting isn't my audience," or "Tweeting won't work for me." Especially when I saw how well it can work when it's done right.
Do you have any have any other works in progress that you want to share?
Well, I just published Your Blog, Your Business (www.budurl.com/Blogging4Retailers) and A Retailer's Guide to In-Store Promotion (www.budurl.com/RetailersGuide) . And a nifty little booklet that is a fun brush-up on some tricky word trippers waiting to humiliate anyone who writes--from business letters, to blogs, to full-blown manuscripts. It is Great Little Editing Tips for Writers (www.budurl.com/WordTrippersPB) and it's only $6.95.
What would be your advice to aspiring writers out there?
Not to give up. Not to give up writing and not to give up promoting their writing. The only failures are those who give up.
What are your favorite books at the moment?
I just read FREE: The Future of a Radical Price which has influenced my thinking on some promotions I'm doing. It's probably still on the Bestseller list. Creative work? I love Marrying George Clooney (by Amy Ferris), a memoir. And nothing will ever replace To Kill a Mockingbird as my all time modern (?) favorite.
What is your favorite word? Least favorite?
My least favorite are the ones I mistype. I type about 120 words a minute. I know because typing teachers used to measure those things. But I also mistype about 60 words a minute. (-: My favorite word. Mmmmm. Acceptance. I use the meaning behind that word in lots of my poetry and fiction.
