Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike

Guess what day it is?

Launch Day for A View to a Nerd.

Buy it here: http://amzn.com/B00SU0LVFA

Love in the Time of Zombies

Chapter One

Guess you never know. Who would have thought something as terrible as the zombie apocalypse would bring me something as wonderful as Seth Ripley?

Of course, the zombies got my mother and my father, and my husband, Carl. Pretty much, they got my whole family. Okay, my husband Carl had been an asshole so he was no great loss. Never could keep it in his pants, if I may be so crude. If he could’ve kept it in his pants, he may have kept that appendage altogether. But, it was the early days of the Z virus mutation and how could he know the hooker he took to the cheap by-the-hour motel had the sickness? I’m sure he didn’t realize anything until the woman chewed it off, to be honestly blunt. He never was a great one for paying attention during sex as it was. Oh, maybe in the early days of our marriage, but he’d changed in the last few years, just before the end of the world.

Five years of him spreading it far and wide to prove his virility and all I was left with was a one-sheet police report and a blurred photo of Carl with one between the opaque, dead eyes. The police had stopped trying to take sickies to the hospital a couple of weeks before. By the time Carl was attacked it was kill ‘em, identify ‘em, and burn ‘em in a pile. KIB was the order of the day. A few weeks after that and they skipped the identify part of the acronym too. A few weeks more and there weren’t enough police or bullets for the killing part either.

Six months had passed and the police were all gone, along with the military. Now it was survival of the fittest. Never in a million years would I have pictured myself; neglected society, trophy-wife, Emily Gray, in that category. Guess you never know. /

Jill James Bio

Jill James is a published author with The Wild Rose Press and now self-published. Her books are contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and urban fantasy romance. She lives in Northern California with her husband who is the inspiration behind all her romance novel heroes.

J

ill has been a member of Romance Writers of America since 2004. She started her work career as an accountant but soon realized that books and writing were her passion. Her first published book, Tempting Adam with The Wild Rose Press was a combination of her love of romance novels and the golden era of Hollywood movies.

Her hobbies are writing and reading, not necessarily in that order.

Book Blurb:

Influenza swept the planet. In months, two billion were dead. In the decimated United States, President Andrew Thomas signed an Executive Order to spray the national food and water supply with a flu vaccine. It spread and mutated up the food chain. The infected craved the flesh of the living and the undead walked the earth.

Overnight, Emily Gray’s privileged world was ripped away. From pampered trophy wife to sharpshooter zombie hunter. From an elite address in San Francisco to the outskirts of an East Bay farm town. You never know what event will define you. The apocalypse showed Emily what she was truly capable of doing to survive.

Seth Ripley was a truck driver with simple dreams. Pay off his mortgage, not live paycheck to paycheck, and take care of his mom. The end of the world as he knew it stole all that away. His home and livelihood are gone and the only dream he has left is for his mother to awake from her diabetic coma brought on from the trials and tribulations of getting out of Oakland ahead of the horde of undead.

When surviving day to day is all you ask of life, love seems an unrealistic dream. Who would ever think that something as terrible as the zombie apocalypse could bring Seth and Emily something as wonderful as their other half, their soul mate, their true love?

Now all they have to do is survive death, destruction, and a madman who wants to control what is left of the world they knew.

Author Links:
Website: http://www.jilljameswrites.com
FB: http://www.facebook.com/Jill.James.author
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jill_james
email: jill@jilljameswrites.com
Book Links:
http://amzn.com/B00RHGTYUC
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-in-the-time-of-zombies-jill-james/1120981220

Author Rock Star Roundup

It's been awhile so here's another listing of what my Author Rock Stars are posting.

Hugh Howey is talking about his new digital reading habits and has highlighted what others are doing.

I recently posted a video describing my new digital reading lifestyle and why what I’ve learned signals a very strong future for digital books. I’m very curious about people’s reading habits, as a book lover, a book seller, and a writer. This week, two other avid readers chimed in. I’m loving these accounts.

Read more.

Joanna Penn has also taken up the discussion.

I love reading and I love books, plus I believe writers are usually great readers. We spend our lives immersed with our minds elsewhere, in someone else’s world or one of our own creation. Happy times indeed!

Read more.

That's about it. Everyone else must have had a busy Christmas season.

New Release– End of Lonely Street by Alicia Dean

– Plus an Awesome Giveaway

I’m excited to share my latest release from The Wild Rose Press on what would have been Elvis’ eightieth birthday. ‘End of Lonely Street’ is a Vintage Romance Short Story set in 1957, in the era when Elvis first burst on the scene. Like my heroine in the story, I am a diehard Elvis fan. (As you probably figured out, I took the title from a line in Heartbreak Hotel, which was Elvis’ first million selling record).

Check out End of Lonely Street and enter to win GREAT prizes…

GIVEAWAY: - Entries accepted from January 8, 2015 through noon on January 22, 2015

Three prizes –

Elvis Gift Basket including DVD, CD, plus more
$25 Amazon Gift Card
$10 Amazon Gift Card

First place winner has first choice, second place winner has second choice, third place winner receives remaining prize.

Rafflecopter Code:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Amazon Buy Link: http://amzn.com/B00QQO3BK0
Blurb:

Can she let go of the past, before it destroys her future?

All Toby Lawson wanted was to go to college to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher and to be free of her alcoholic mother and the painful memories of finding her and the guy Toby loved kissing. But when her mother nearly burns the house down, Toby must put her dreams on hold and return home to care for her. The only time she isn’t lonely and miserable is when she’s listening to her heartthrob, Elvis Presley. His music takes her away, helps her escape from everything wrong in her life.

Noah Rivers has always loved Toby, but no matter what he says, and even though she knows her mother initiated the kiss, and that he didn’t kiss her back, she can‘t seem to get past what happened. He soon realizes that the true problem lies in Toby’s belief that she’s not good enough for him and in her fear that she will be just like her mother.

What will it take to prove to her that she deserves to be happy, and that he would give anything to be the man to make her dreams come true?

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Mapleton, Tennessee, November, 1957

Toby Lawson closed her eyes and shut out all sounds of the diner, except for Elvis Presley’s voice. He was crooning about how she was the only one for him…no matter where he went or what he did… he’d spend his whole life loving her…

Rough hands landed on her waist and shattered the fantasy. She caught a whiff of hair tonic and too much cologne, and she snapped her eyes open. Wes Markham’s hateful face replaced the image of Elvis’ beautiful, crooked smile and smoldering blue eyes.

“Let me go.” She gritted her teeth, keeping her voice low. If her boss, Mr. Winstead, knew there was trouble on account of her, he’d explode. He’d barely let her have the job in the first place. Everyone in Mapleton knew the Lawson women were trouble.

“Come on, honey. If you like that hip swivel, Presley ain’t the only one who’s got it. I got it too.” He released her with his left hand so he could run it over his slicked down hair and gave her a big-toothed, wolfish smile. “Only we’d be naked.” He shot a cocky grin over to his two companions—Chuck Stenson and Billy Garfield—who were leaning against the jukebox making kissing and whooping sounds.

Toby gripped his right wrist with one hand, tightening her hold on the utensils she held in the other. “I said let me go. Now!”

“Aw, be a sport, Green-Eyes.”

The bulge of his pelvis pressed into her abdomen, and she gasped in shock. Nausea tightened in her esophagus. “Wes Markham, I’m warning you…”

She shoved against him, but he didn’t budge.

He pulled her tighter. “Your momma’s a whole lot friendlier than you are. They say the apple don’t fall far from the tree, so how’s about you cut the pretense and we go someplace quiet? Winstead won’t miss you for a few minutes.”

Her cheeks heated. She didn’t dare look around. No doubt the customers were watching, listening. Elvis had stopped singing and everyone in the place could hear what he’d said about her mother. It wasn’t like they didn’t all know, though. Constance Lawson hadn’t exactly kept her escapades a secret.

Toby clenched her teeth and brandished the utensils. She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Release me this instant, or I swear, you’ll be pulling this steak knife out of your eyeball.”

***10% of all of Alicia Dean’s net royalties for End of Lonely Street will go to The Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation (http://www.elvis.com/about-epe/giving.aspx) ***

Bio:

Alicia Dean lives in Edmond, Oklahoma. She has three grown children and a huge network of supportive friends and family. She writes mostly contemporary suspense and paranormal, but has also written in other genres, including a few vintage historicals.

Other than reading and writing, her passions are Elvis Presley, MLB, NFL (she usually works in a mention of one or all three into her stories) and watching her favorite televisions shows like Vampire Diaries, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Haven, The Mindy Project, and Dexter (even though it has sadly ended, she will forever be a fan). Some of her favorite authors are Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Lee Child, Lisa Gardner, Sharon Sala, Jordan Dane, Ridley Pearson, Joseph Finder, and Jonathan Kellerman…to name a few.

Find Alicia here:

Website: http://aliciadean.com/
Blog: http://aliciadean.com/alicias-blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008364070487
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alicia_Dean_
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/aliciamdean/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/468339.Alicia_Dean

Gambling On A Secret

Book 1 of The Colton Gamblers….

***ON SALE FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY FOR $0.99*** Blurb:

When Charli bets everything on a secret, will she find the deck stacked against her?

Former runaway-turned heiress Charli Monroe is hiding her sordid past and planning a future in Colton, Texas. Attending the local college for a degree in social work, she intends to raise cattle on her newly purchased ranch, which she plans to open as a home for troubled teens. Only a few glitches—the Victorian mansion is crumbling, the barn needs a roof, and her oilman neighbor wants more than friendship. When she meets Dylan Quinn, Charli is willing to take a chance on the town drunk to help her rebuild the rundown ranch.

Dylan has his demons, too. The former Special Forces commander can’t get past his ex-wife’s betrayal and the botched mission that left him with much more than a bad limp. Certain the greedy oilman next door to Charli wants much more than just her heart, Dylan’s even willing to stop drinking in order to protect her.

When things get dangerous and secrets of the past are revealed, is he only looking out for his new employer, or is she the new start he so desperately needs?

Excerpt:

Dylan regarded her for a long moment and cocked a brow. Damn, was he making fun of her? He looked her up and down. “Wouldn’t a woman like you be more comfortable getting manicures and massages in a Dallas spa, not worrying about cattle breeds and barn roofs? It’s no secret around town you’re the heiress to the Monroe Farm Equipment fortune, and you sold a huge ranch in Oklahoma your grandfather left you. Why on Earth did you buy a dump like this?”

Now he’d pissed her off. Charli might have more money than she’d ever dreamed of having. She might like to dress in designer clothes, but it was none of this jerk’s business which ranch she bought. Or why she wanted it. She had a business plan and a vision for the ranch; what else mattered? “I happen to like this place. It suits me better than the ranch I sold.”

“Is that so? Did you bring any equipment with you? A tractor, a planter, hay mower, baler, anything?”

He would bring up one of the stupidest things she’d done. Sighing, she admitted, “I sold the equipment with the ranch when I decided to leave Oklahoma. One more reason I need a manager.” Her cheeks burned. “When I sold the ranch after inheriting it, I didn’t intend to buy another.”

“Why did you buy another ranch?” He slid his gaze back to hers and peered at her as if he could read her every thought--but what had her swallowing hard was the spark of something hot in his eyes.

She tightened her arms in the hug she gave herself--a self-protecting, insecure gesture she’d acquired while she lived with her abusive lover in Las Vegas as a teenage runaway.

“Buying a ranch the size of this one isn’t something most folks just wake up and decide to do, Miss Monroe. A ten-thousand-acre spread takes commitment and dedication and is damned hard work.”

Yeah, she knew that.

He looked down at her multicolored Manolo Blahnik five-inch heeled slides. The ghost of a smile touched his lips again, but this time little crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, which held a spark of interest she didn’t want.

Damn, he was good-looking. She squelched that notion like the roach she’d killed earlier in the house. Hadn’t her life with Ricardo taught her a handsome face meant nothing but trouble?

“I can’t imagine you stuffing those pampered and polished feet into rubber boots to muck around in the barn.”

Me, either. But she would if she had to.

Buy Links:
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iTunes | Kobo | Google
Bio:

Although Sara Walter Ellwood has long ago left the farm for the glamour of the big town, she draws on her experiences growing up on a small hobby farm in West Central Pennsylvania to write her contemporary westerns. She’s been married to her college sweetheart for over 20 years, and they have two teenagers and one very spoiled rescue cat named Penny. She longs to visit the places she writes about and jokes she’s a cowgirl at heart stuck in Pennsylvania suburbia. Sara Walter Ellwood is a multi-published and international Amazon bestselling author of the anthology set Cowboy Up. She also publishes paranormal romantic suspense under the pen name Cera duBois. /p> Author links:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Also look for:
Book 2: Gambling On A Heart at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iTunes | Kobo
Available now for preorder—Book 3: Gambling On A Dream at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo