August 10th, I’ll be signing books at Barnes & Noble in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Watch for more on time of the event.
Nathan Hopp and I will be talking about using animals in your/our writing. They aren’t just there to be cute.
Wednesday night, Written Dreams Publishing sponsored an author signing at The Attic bookstore in Green Bay. First picture is of the attending authors. I’m front row center with the cover of my just released paranormal romance, THE VISITOR.
Written Dreams Publishing was represented by a diverse group of authors. Back row L to R: Lexi Jordan with her debut novel, a dystopian futuristic, RESURFACED. Evan Michael Martin, author of a series of Wiccan & Sorcery books. Katerine Nohr, author of courtroom mysteries. Nathan Huff with his soon to be released historical fantasy. Front row L to R: Mary Grace Murphy, author of culinary mystery DEATH NOSH. Myself, Barbara Raffin, with the cover of my just released paranormal, THE VISITOR, and Gail F. Meintzer with his memoirs, DETOURS: A Memoir of a Railroad Man.
WRITTEN DREAMS PUBLISHING is making its mark as a publishing house unafraid of putting out unusual stories of exceptional quality. Of notable interest, Lexi Jordan, back row left, is a mere sixteen. Look for her distopian futuristic, RESURFACED, this fall.
Picture two: L to R: Brittiany Koren, owner/editor of WRITTEN DREAMS PUBLISHING & me, Barbara Raffin
Picture three includes the Publisher Koren and her WD staff of interior designer, copy editor, and cover artist.
Pre-order THE VISITOR from Written Dream Publishing
http://writtendreams.com/store/…
Nine months after he’s been cremated, Rebecca Tierney’s husband shows up in her living room…naked.
I’m so excited to share the cover of my upcoming release, THE VISITOR. Watch for release information later this summer from me and/or my publisher, Written Dreams Publishing.
Shape shifter or clone? Which has returned Rebecca Tierney’s husband’s body to her nine months after he was cremated?
Rebecca has returned to her husband’s family home on the largest, deepest, coldest, and most unforgiving of the Great Lakes, Superior, to dispose of his ashes. But the old house holds more than memories of a love ended too soon. A Visitor searches the old Victorian house perched on the bluffs of a lake that never gives up its dead for the key that will stop the dying in his world.
The secrets of the house cloistered from the world by towering pines and iron rich bluffs in an isolated finger of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula can free Rebecca from her grief and teach a man of logic that love is worth more than eternal life…if only she will open her mind and he his heart.
Okay, it’s not new news. I posted about SAVING ANDI winning the Write Touch Readers’ Award when I was notified. I even posted a pic of my local Wisconsin Romance Writers of America group giving me a dozen red roses. But the celebration continued at the WisRWA conference May 19-20. Check out the beautiful plaque I got!
Since winning the Write Touch Readers Award with SAVING ANDI, I’ve been thinking maybe you’d like to know what prompted me to write this romantic suspense.
It started with Andi Johanson making an appearance in CRAVING A HERO. She’s the character who plows out Kelly’s family camp when Kelly and Dane get snowed in (don’t get me started on the bombshell that forced togetherness exposed) and later for their Valentine Day winter wedding.
Initially, Andi was a guy with a different that was going to make a walk on and never be heard from again. But this young woman living hand to mouth reached out from the back of my brain and I knew SHE was supposed to be driving that beat up old truck with the plow. When Andi let me see into her past–see what a hard childhood she’d had, I knew she had a story that needed to be told.
In my last blog post about SAVING ANDI, I mentioned Andi’s rough childhood. Cruel is a more appropriate adjective what with an alcoholic father who viewed women as little more than chattel to do his bidding and an older brother following in his path. Her mother’s premature death left Andi to take on the household duties and to mother her younger brother. Put them all in an isolated cabin on a wooded lake living hand to mouth because Dad couldn’t hold down a job and you have a recipe for everything from poaching to outright burglary.
This is the environment that shaped Andi, the only saving grace her need to protect her younger brother—to see him free of the harshness of their lives. Her mother had instilled at least that much integrity in her before she died.
But a drug addicted older brother, a protective young brother, and the law all came together to one fateful afternoon, shattering the one hope she had in life; that her baby brother could escape their wretched life. It left her with the burden of guilt and a big distaste for cops.
A year and a half with her baby brother dead and big brother in prison, Andi has given up on life–hope…until she finds Cole McCall, a man with a bullet hole in him and no memory. Prime for a dangerous liaison, she takes him in, nurses him back to health, and hides him from the authorities. Too bad whoever wants Cole dead are still tracking him.
Find SAVING ANDI at most online book sellers, including:
Having been a finalist in this prestigious competition in the past, I am thrilled to win with SAVING ANDI. This Romantic Suspense is the first of my new spin-off series, St. John Sibling: FRIENDS. That my Great Green Bay Area Wisconsin Romance Writers of America group would honor me with a beautiful bouquet of roses puts me over the moon. Big THANK YOU to my fellow writers for your thoughtfulness. Having a community of fellow writers to share the good times with is priceless. And thank you to all of you readers who judged SAVING ANDI in THE WRITE TOUCH READERS’ AWARD CONTEST and found it worthy.
For those of you who haven’t enjoyed reading SAVING ANDI yet, let me share a little about the story and its characters:
Cole McCall is shot, dives off a bluff, and hits his head. Now he has amnesia and can’t remember who wants him dead or why. He doesn’t even know which side of the law he operates on.
Fortunately for him, Andi Johanson finds him at the camp he’s broken into. Given her family history of being on the wrong side of the law, her distrust of lawmen, and a guilt she carries over her younger brother’s death, she takes Cole home rather than to a hospital and nurses him.
All that togetherness feeds their attraction to each other. But their love is jeopardized by his unknown past, her secrets, and the fact whoever wants Cole dead has tracked him to Andi’s cabin.
CHECK my FB author page for snippets about what inspired me to write this story and what shaped these characters.
VISIT MY WEB SITE to read excerpts from all my books and learn more about me. Dog lovers, there’s a surprise waiting there for you. But above all know this about me. I love to write romances that will make you laugh and cry.
BUY “SAVING ANDI” from most online stores including: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, D2D, and Apple iBooks
On November 7th you will find me on a Q&A panel at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha for the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books. Joining me on the panel will be New York Times Best Sellers Stacey Joy Netzel and Donna Marie Rogers, Vice-President of communication for Wisconsin Romance Writers and author PJ Fialla, and former Publisher Weekly Blogger Barbara Vey, known for her yearly author/reader extravaganza luncheons.
If you’re in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area on Saturday November 7th, join me from 12:30 to 1:30 in the university Commons room 101. Or make a weekend of it and check out the entire Festival. For a full list of panels, events and times at go to www.sewibookfest.com and click on program, then 2015 Festival of Books, and Print Program 2015.
Take a ride up Wisconsin’s beautiful Door County Peninsula October 2nd and you’ll find me, Barbara Raffin, and several other Wisconsin authors at the Lautenbach’s Orchard Winery just south of Fish Creek from 4-6pm. Come meet us, listen to our readings, and chat with us all while enjoying wine and snacks.
Okay, I’m a little behind here. But it’s been a tough summer. Lots of family medical issues. We are trudging along, however, and life sends us happy events as well as sad. Focusing on a happy event…
Last May, I published the first in a spin off series from the St. John Sibling Series. The St. John Sibling: FRIENDS series is/will be about secondary characters from the sibling books who insisted their own stories be told. The first, SAVING ANDI, follows Kelly and Dane’s friend from CRAVING A HERO. But Andi wouldn’t settle for a straight contemporary romance. No, she had to go find her hero half dead from a gunshot wound. If that’s not enough for Andi and Cole to contend with, Cole has amnesia as well and neither of them know which side of the law he operates on.
Both digital and print formats are available from Amazon.
Thank you to Rogenna of Covers by Rogenna for creating yet another great cover for my book.