Widow, Virgin, Whore by Deanna Lynn Sletten

Widow, Virgin, Whore

Widow, Virgin, Whore by Deanna Lynn Sletten

Kindle Edition, 318 pages
Published December 10th 2011 by Amazon

Three very different women − one house − one devastating diagnosis.

When recently widowed Katherine Samuals purchases a home to share with her son, Christopher, and best friend, Denise Richards, the last thing she expects is to include Denise's outrageous sister, Darla Richards, into the household. But Katherine agrees because she adores Darla's daughter, Chelsea, and feels this is a good opportunity to give the young teen a real home.

Living with Darla is not easy. She parties too much, sleeps around, and speaks her mind without apology. To conservative Katherine and shy Denise, Darla’s behavior is intolerable. Then, Darla is diagnosed with AIDS, and the household is turned upside-down. Katherine finds herself thrown into Darla's life, first as her caregiver, then as her companion as she explores the devastating lives of AIDS sufferers.

Katherine's fledgling writing career flourishes as she shares the experiences of Darla's AIDS group in newspaper articles across the country. And Denise finds true love for the first time, but struggles with the inappropriate timing of her personal happiness. Surprisingly, Darla also finds love − real love − in a time when she needs it the most.

As the household struggles with the stress of living with a terminal illness, Katherine, Denise, and Darla learn just how strong their bond of friendship, and sisterhood, is.

If you are a sister or best friend, you will love this story.

My thoughts about Widow, Virgin, Whore ~~

Wow! Just wow! This is a very heartfelt, beautiful story about a very serious illness that has affected so many people over the years. The emotions blew me away.

These three women, these three very different women, start sharing a house. Katherine and Denise have been best friends for years but neither one of them get along with Denise's sister, Darla very well. It's going to be a struggle living with her all the way around. And then Darla gets some devastating news, she has full blown AIDS and her time with her family and friends will be cut short.

I immediately loved all three women, even wild and crazy Darla. They are all beautiful, caring women in their own way. The way they all come to depend on each other makes this such a wonderful story. All three women have to step out of their comfort zones to make this all work.

The reader really gets an inside look at the world of AIDS, from a lot of points of view; as a patient, as a caregiver, as family and friends, as the community members, and the world at large. This is a stark portrayal of how those affected by AIDS have been treated and I hope that things have changed as people have learned about the disease.

'They weren't like the people she thought had been her friends, they actually cared and stuck by each other. Through them, she learned how to cope better herself.'

One of the greatest parts of the story was when the three women get arrested for standing up for what they believe. It makes me smile just thinking about it now. They all went above and beyond to support their friend. It was wonderful to see their support and to see them realize how strong they really were.

'And while the entire marketplace of people stared on in disbelief, the officers led the three women off to the patrol car.'

This is a story with so much emotion, and yes, I did find myself with tears in my eyes at certain points. That's how involved I got with this story. And this story will resonate with anyone who has lost or is losing a loved one to a dreaded disease. It did with me. /div>

'Damn you Darla. Damn you for making me care so much.'

About the author

Deanna Lynn Sletten grew up on the sunny coast of southern California before moving to northern Minnesota as a teenager. Her interest in writing novels was sparked in a college English class and she has been writing in some form or another ever since. In 2011, Deanna discovered the world of self-publishing and published three novels she'd written over the years. After that, she was hooked.

Deanna enjoys writing heartwarming women's fiction and romance novels with unforgettable characters. She has also written one middle-grade novel that takes you on the adventure of a lifetime. She believes in fate, destiny, love at first sight, soulmates, second chances, and happily ever after, and her novels reflect that.

Deanna is married and has two grown children. When not writing, she enjoys walking the wooded trails around her home with her beautiful Australian Shepherd or relaxing in the boat on the lake in the summer.

Connect with Deanna

Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight Giveaway! Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

The book that I am featuring this week is one that I have had for awhile and I am just not getting to it. Someday, sigh..... In the meantime, I want someone else to enjoy it. So many books, so little time.  

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares 
Series: Sisterhood #3
Hardcover, 338 pages
Published January 25th 2005 by Delacorte Press 

The Pants first came to us at the perfect moment. That is, when we were splitting up for the first time. It was two summers ago when they first worked their magic, and last summer when they shook up our lives once again. You see, we don’t wear the Pants year-round. We let them rest so they are extra powerful when summer comes. (There was the time this spring when Carmen wore them to her mom’s wedding, but that was a special case.)

Now we’re facing our last summer together. In September we go to college. And it’s not like one of those TV shows where all of us magically turn up at the same college. We’re going to four different colleges in four different cities (but all within four hours of one another—that was our one rule). We’re headed off to start our real lives.

Tomorrow night at Gilda’s we’ll launch the Pants on their third summer voyage. Tomorrow begins the time of our lives. It’s when we’ll need our Pants the most. 

About the author

Ann Brashares grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with three brothers and attended a Quaker school in the D.C. area called Sidwell Friends. She studied Philosophy at Barnard College, part of Columbia University in New York City. Expecting to continue studying philosophy in graduate school, Ann took a year off after college to work as an editor, hoping to save money for school. Loving her job, she never went to graduate school, and instead, remained in New York City and worked as an editor for many years.

Ann made the transition from editor to full-time writer with her first novel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Ann and her husband live with their three children in New York.

Connect with Ann

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

On Tour: Laguna Lights by Kaira Rouda and an Excerpt

Visit other stops on the tour here

Laguna Lights

Laguna Light by Kaira Rouda

Series: Laguna Beach #3

Publisher: Real You Publishing Group

Pages: 180

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Welcome back to Laguna Beach, California ...

Laura Kincaid’s glamorous Hollywood life is falling apart. After years of reality television stardom beginning in high school on Laguna Nights, her career and relationship with her long-term boyfriend Scott are fizzling out. Laura decides to go home to Laguna Beach for the weekend to attend a baby shower for her high school friend. That decision – and a car accident – will lead her to a new future, if she’s ready to take a chance at love.

Paul Dorn’s former life in New York City is far behind him and he’s working in a popular Laguna Beach surf shop when fate brings the most beautiful woman he’s ever met into his life. The attraction is instant and he has an overwhelming desire to protect her. While Paul’s retail sales career is a short-term job for market research purposes, his focus on Laura is long-term.

Will Laura allow a handsome stranger to help her create a future unlike her past, or will the bright lights of Hollywood pull her back to LA?

For More Information

• Laguna Lights is available at Amazon
• Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble
• Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads

My thoughts about Laguna Lights ~~

Oh, it was wonderful to take another trip back to Laguna Beach. I really like these stories of Kaira's and I love that we get to learn more about the different characters in this series. Each main character gets their own book.

Laguna Lights is Laura's story. She is the not-so-nice character and at first it was kind of hard to like her. But in the course of the story, her side of the story, we get to learn who the real Laura is. She's a regular person just like the rest of us. She wants what the rest of us want. She just wants to be loved and she wants to be happy.

'At least she'd look good, certainly in comparison to her hugely pregnant or new mommy friends back home in Laguna Beach. She'd look good, but they'd look happy. And that was the rub. She wanted happy, but hadn't found it.'

Laura really learns a lot about herself. She finally realizes that she can indeed change who she is and she can have the life she wants. I loved the instant attraction that Laura and Paul had for each other, they had the chemistry and nothing else mattered. I loved watching that relationship grow.

'There's a sweet girl in there somewhere beneath this reality show persona you've taken on. I think you should take a little time and find her again.'

I have previously read the other 2 books in this series - click to read my thoughts about Laguna Nights and Laguna Heights. I totally love the storylines and the characters. Each trip back to Laguna Beach is like revisiting old friends. And I am super excited that will be a book 4 coming soon!

Excerpt

Laura Kinkaid stared across the table at Scott, her on-again-off-again lover, wondering why she had wasted a decade of her life with him.

They’d met in high school, and Scott had been infatuated with her. He was the new kid on the reality TV show they’d appeared on together, Laguna Nights. Fame hadn’t changed him. Yet. And back then, he’d had a full head of thick brown hair.

Today, he was a cocky, bald television star who was ignoring her. How things changed, she realized with a sigh. Maybe she was jealous, or maybe – she decided with a feeling that she realized could almost pass for hate— she was angry.

She looked out the window to the lights of LA stretching out 35 stories below. If they hadn’t been seated at the most visible, most desired table at the hottest new restaurant in LA, she would have thrown something at him. She surveyed the table to see what she could throw. Her fork? Maybe. Her full glass of expensive red wine? No, that would be a waste of good wine. Maybe even one of the pieces of intricately designed sushi taunting her from the plate of appetizers on the table. This had to be it. The proverbial last straw, she told herself. She smiled at the image she conjured - his bald head glistening with sushi debris, the smirk wiped off of his handsome face.

Why am I so obsessed with someone who is so obsessed with himself?

“Why are you giving me that look?” Scott said, finally placing his phone on the table, its glowing contents face up and taunting her. She had to find out what was on that screen, she realized.

“We are at dinner. A romantic dinner that was your suggestion, I might add, and you’ve been on your phone for the past ten minutes,” Laura said. She knew her tone of voice, shrill and whispered at the same time, would repel him. She was right. He leaned back in his seat, a smug grin on his face, his arms crossed. Laura grabbed his phone. Her brain couldn’t register what she was viewing. She stared at the screen. She was shocked to see a young brunette woman with huge breasts barely contained within her skimpy bathing suit, and the words, “Congratulations, you and Jamie are a match!” As Laura realized what she was seeing, anger boiled deep inside her. She couldn’t decide whether to run out of the restaurant, throw his phone and smash it against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, or simply cry.

“Hey, give me my phone,” Scott said, reaching across the table. But Laura was faster. She jumped back, cradling the phone in her hand and staring at him with disgust.

“Tinder? You’re searching for hook-ups for tonight while you’re here with me?” She’d seen the ‘so called’ dating app and its competitors and they repulsed her. Lonely people used apps like Tinder for random hook-ups. The younger women on the set of the show Laura had been producing, Reality TV Triple Play, had shown her how they worked. They’d scrolled through an array of selfies of desperate men and judged each guy’s merit by that one photo. One young make-up artist had admitted using the dating app to get free meals from men, something she insisted on before hooking up with a stranger. The woman had called the guys she’d met on the app “fuckboys,” men with no interest in having a relationship or even hanging around until morning. Now she knew another type of ‘fuckboy’: boyfriends who used apps like Tinder to cheat. Like the man sitting across the table from her at this moment. As the realization hit her, she felt her eyes filling with tears.

“We’ve been drifting ever since the show was cancelled,” Scott said. His voice was quiet, almost patronizing. He spoke the words slowly, like she was an idiot, not the woman he’d been dating for a decade. Like they hadn’t known each other since high school. Both Scott and Laura had become instant celebrities during their years on Laguna Nights. And both, unlike most of the cast members, had gone on to enjoy careers in Hollywood. In fact, when Laura was offered her own show, Hollywood Nights, chronicling her college years and first job in LA, Scott eagerly rode her coattails to fame and a sizable fortune. But eventually, like all reality television, the audience moved on and Laura and Scott had been left in a dimming spotlight.

Scott had transitioned successfully into another industry, opening his own branch office of his parents’ successful, high-end travel business in West Hollywood. He loved the travel and had even invited Laura along for some of his all-expenses-paid site inspections. But apparently the only thing that had held their relationship together was gone. She needed the camera’s focus. She needed the spotlight. It was something she craved, something that had become as necessary as breathing air. Her chest felt tight as she took a sip of water.

We never loved each other, we only used each other for television, her mind screamed. Had she ever had a true relationship, one based on love and respect, or had her entire life been as superficial as the industry she craved? Laura blinked, trying to focus on this moment but the reality of her life wouldn’t allow it.

About the author

Kaira Rouda is a bestselling, multiple award-winning author of contemporary women's fiction and sexy modern romance novels that sparkle with humor and heart. Her women's fiction titles include Here, Home, Hope, All the Difference, and In the Mirror. Her bestselling short story is titled, A Mother's Day. Kaira's work has won the Indie Excellence Award, USA Book Awards, the Reader's Choice Awards and honorable mention in the Writer's Digest International Book Awards. Her books have been widely reviewed and featured in leading magazines.

Her sexy contemporary romance series set on Indigo Island includes: Weekend with the Tycoon, Book 1; Her Forbidden Love, Book 2; The Trouble with Christmas, Book 3; and The Billionaire's Bid, Book 4. Each of these novellas can be read as a stand alone, or enjoyed as a series. Her new series is set in Laguna Beach and includes: Laguna Nights, Book 1; Laguna Heights, Book 2; and Laguna Lights, Book 3 coming winter 2015. She also helped launch Melissa Foster's The Remington's Kindle World with her bestselling novella, Spotlight on Love, and is part of Carly Phillips Dare to Love Kindle World with The Celebrity Dare.

Her nonfiction titles, Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs, and Real You for Authors: 8 Essentials for Women Writers (available for free download on her website) continue to inspire.

She lives in Southern California with her husband and four almost-grown kids, and is at work on her next novel.

Connect with Kaira

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

More books by Kaira Rouda

Contact Kaira

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? December 21, 2015

Hello! Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This weekly meme, hosted by Book Date, is where we share what we have read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week. It’s a great way to see what others are reading and to discover books to add to your own To Be Read list. You never know where that next great read may come from!

Click on the book image to read more on Goodreads.

What I'm currently reading/listening to

Laguna Lights (Laguna Beach #3)

by Kaira Rouda

My stop on it's tour is tomorrow.

T

A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens, Tim Curry (Narrator)

What I recently finished reading

Laguna Heights (Laguna Beach #2)

by Kaira Rouda

Read my thoughts here.

The Body in the Landscape (A Cherry Tucker Mystery #5)

by Larissa Reinhart

Read my thoughts here.

What I am going to read next

I am not sure what I'll be reading next. I always try to limit my review book commitments over the holidays so I don't have any 'must-reads' for a few weeks. I'll take this time to try to get in some other books that have been calling to me from my TBR pile/list. Any suggestions?

I really love my reading life!

What are you reading this week?

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Laguna Heights (Laguna Beach #2) by Kaira Rouda

Laguna Heights

Laguna Heights by Kaira Rouda

Series: Laguna Beach #2

Kindle Edition, 96 pages

Published October 15th 2015 by Real You Publishing Group

Annie and Hank have created a perfect life in Laguna Beach but when a dark secret is revealed, will their marriage survive?

In high school, Annie Johns was the calm, supportive sidekick to the rest of the tumultuous female stars of the hit reality TV show, Laguna Nights. Today, she's living the happy life as a mom that she predicted on the show long ago. There's only one problem: the secret from her past that haunts her most nights, a secret that if revealed could ruin everything she shares with her husband, Hank, the man who saved her from the heartache.

Laguna Heights can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone novella. And if you enjoy Annie and Hank's story, please consider reading the rest of the Laguna Beach series.

Laguna Nights (Laguna Beach Book 1), Madison and Josh
Laguna Heights (Laguna Beach Book 2), Annie and Hank's
Laguna Lights (Laguna Beach Book 3), Laura and Paul
Laguna Sights (Laguna Beach Book 4), Jamie and Scott 

My thoughts about Laguna Heights ~~

I am loving this Laguna series by Kaira. I read the first book, Laguna Nights (read my thoughts) and enjoyed it very much. It is a wonderful story filled with a lot of wonderful characters. Laguna Heights gives us a look at the lives of a few of those characters, people we met but didn't get to know very well. 

Annie is Morgan's best friend, and in this story we learn all about what she has been through to get to the great life she has today, the life of her dreams. It was not an easy journey but I was rooting for her all the way! 

I love reading this series. Kaira writes believable, loving characters and interesting storylines that are very easy to get immersed in. I thoroughly loved this visit to Laguna Beach and I look forward to going back again. 

About the author 

Kaira Rouda is a bestselling, multiple award-winning author of contemporary women's fiction and sexy modern romance novels that sparkle with humor and heart. Her women's fiction titles include Here, Home, Hope, All the Difference, and In the Mirror.  Her bestselling short story is titled, A Mother's Day. Kaira's work has won the Indie Excellence Award, USA Book Awards, the Reader's Choice Awards and honorable mention in the Writer's Digest International Book Awards. Her books have been widely reviewed and featured in leading magazines. 

Her sexy contemporary romance series set on Indigo Island includes: Weekend with the Tycoon, Book 1; Her Forbidden Love, Book 2; The Trouble with Christmas, Book 3; and The Billionaire's Bid, Book 4. Each of these novellas can be read as a stand alone, or enjoyed as a series. Her new series is set in Laguna Beach and includes: Laguna Nights, Book 1; Laguna Heights, Book 2; and Laguna Lights, Book 3 coming winter 2015. She also helped launch Melissa Foster's The Remington's Kindle World with her bestselling novella, Spotlight on Love, and is part of Carly Phillips Dare to Love Kindle World with The Celebrity Dare. 

Her nonfiction titles, Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs, and Real You for Authors: 8 Essentials for Women Writers (available for free download on her website) continue to inspire.

  

She lives in Southern California with her husband and four almost-grown kids, and is at work on her next novel. 

Connect with Kaira

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

More books by Kaira Rouda

Contact Kaira

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight Giveaway! Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline

This week's Book Spotlight Giveaway is for Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline. This is another one that I got from my daughter after she cleared her bookshelves. I have not read this author before. Have you?   

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

Devil's Corner

Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline
Hardcover, 393 pages
Published 2005 by HarperCollins

When prosecutor Vicki Allegretti arrives at a rowhouse to meet a confidential informant, she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and is almost shot to death. She barely escapes with her life, but cannot save the two others gunned down before her disbelieving eyes. Stunned and heartbroken, Vicki tries to figure out how a routine meeting on a minor case became a double homicide.

Vicki's suspicions take her to Devil's Corner, a city neighborhood teetering on the brink of ruin -- thick with broken souls, innocent youth, and a scourge that preys on both. But the deeper Vicki probes, the more she becomes convinced that the murders weren't random and the killers were more ruthless than she thought.

When another murder thrusts Vicki together with an unlikely ally, she buckles up for a wild ride down a dangerous street -- and into the cross-hairs of a conspiracy as powerful as it is relentless. 

About the author

Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author and Edgar award-winning author of 24 novels, including her latest work, Corrupted. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter Francesca Serritella for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Chick Wit" which is a witty and fun take on life from a woman's perspective.

Connect with Lisa

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Blitz: The Insanity Series by Cameron Jace, an Excerpt, and a Couple of Giveaways!

Insanity

Insanity by Cameron Jace
(The Complete Books 1-3)
Publication date: October 28th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal

A Top 100 Bestseller! Amazon readers love it – over 500 reviews of 5* and 4* for the first book in the series.

‘Most absorbing fantasy read in years!’ W. McNaughton.

‘Insanity is A Summer Hit!!!’ Kindle Gram

‘An insane page turner’ – Kindle reviewer

‘Engrossingly fun!’ Rhonda Miller.

‘A truly twisted tale….fantastic!’ Sheri A. Wilkinsonon

Hannibal Meets Alice in Wonderland in this fantasy page-turning thriller.

After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder becomes a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. All but a hookah-smoking professor named Carter Pillar who believes he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll’s paintings, photographs, and finding Wonderland’s real whereabouts.

Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the Wonderland Monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.

Larger than life characters, intricate mysteries, engrossing fun, and intriguing historical locations. Insanity will thrill you, makes turns pages, and stay with you forever.

Warning: intended for insane audience only.

Goodreads | Amazon

You can also purchase book 5 – Wonder – today!

****************************

Excerpt

Chapter 45

The rabbit hole, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation
Time remaining: 12 hours, 01 minute

I wake up to a continuous beeping on my phone.

Eyes still blurry, I reach for it blindly until I clasp it by accident from the floor. When I bring it to my face, I am shocked by its size. It looks as big as a plasma TV.

How so, when I am gripping it in the palm of my hand?

The pain in the back of my head attacks me, and I remember that I am under the influence of the pink drink in the bottle.

Did it really shrink me, now that I think I am smaller than my own phone?

But I’m gripping it. What kind of mind-bend is this?

Through my hazy vision, I realize that almost everything around is much bigger than me. Or I am much smaller than them.

Even the small door at the foot of the wall.

Then again, when I reach for it, I can touch it as if it’s small, not big.

The phone keeps beeping.

I push the overly big answer button—the one that is also small—and find more than a hundred messages from an anonymous number.

It must be the Hatter.

What you’re experiencing now is no hallucination—although it is in a way. It’s a medical condition, induced by the pink drink. It’s called the Alice Syndrome."

About the author

Cameron Jace is the bestselling author of the Grimm Diaries and Insanity series. A graduate of the college of Architecture, collector of out-of-print books, he is obsessed with the origins of folk tales and the mysterious storytellers who spread them.

Three of his books made Amazon's Top 100 Customer Favorites in Kindle 2013 & Amazon's Top 100 kindle list. Cameron lives in California with his girlfriend. When he isn't writing or collecting books, he is playing music.

Sign up for his mailing list here

Connect with Cameron

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

The tour-wide giveaway is for 

a paperback copy of the boxed set. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I also have a giveaway for one (1) ebook copy of
The Insanity Series (the #1-3 boxed set).
Open internationally.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hosted by:

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

On Tour: The Body in the Landscape by Larissa Reinhart and a Giveaway!

Check out the other stops on the tour

The Body in the Landscape

The Body in the Landscape by Larissa Reinhart 

Series: A Cherry Tucker Mystery #5

Print and e-book, 276 pages

Published December 15th 2015 by Henery Press 

When Cherry Tucker’s invited to paint the winning portrait for Big Rack Lodge’s Hogzilla hunt, it seems like a paid vacation. Back home in Halo, a Hatfield-McCoy-style standoff builds between Luke and Cherry’s families. She’s ready for a weekend away, hobnobbing with rich and famous hunters, where she can forget her troubles and nobody knows her name.

As Georgia sunshine turns to bleak December rain, Cherry’s R&R goes MIA when she finds a body in the woods. While the police believe the local drunk took an accidental spill, Cherry has her doubts, particularly when a series of malicious pranks are targeted at the rifle toting contestants. With loyal companions at her side—sort-of-ex-husband Todd and a championship bayer named Buckshot—Cherry tracks suspects through a forest full of pitfalls and perils. And all the while, a killer’s stalking the hunt party with a bead on Cherry.

My thoughts about The Body in the Landscape ~~

I love this series and I love it when I get to go back to Cherry's world. She is such a great character and these books are so much fun to read. I am totally in love with the wonderful people from Halo, Georgia. 

Per usual, Cherry gets involved with a dead body. Not sure why this always happens to her, it just does. In this case, she's got some downtime and she just wants to paint a landscape to relax. Low and behold, a man she just talked to the night before ends up dead, right near the spot where she has decided to paint. 

Everyone treats the man's death as an accident but Cherry has this feeling that there is more to his story and that maybe the police should be investigating a murder. She's not going to give up until she gets some answers. And the things she does and all the situations she gets into make this series a 'must-read' for me.   

This is book #5 in this series. I have read 4 of them so far. The last one I have left to read is on my TBR list. I'll be getting to it soon. I have a Kindle copy of book # 1, Portrait of a Dead Guy for one of you so you can get started on this great series! Scroll on down for the giveaway.

About the author

Larissa considers herself lucky to have taught English in Japan, escaped a ferocious monkey in Thailand, studied archaeology in Egypt, and survived teaching high school history in the US. However, adopting her daughters from China has been her most rewarding experience. After moving around the Midwest, the South and Japan, her home address is Peachtree City, Georgia.

In June 2015, she and her husband, daughters, and Biscuit, a Cairn Terrier, moved back to Nagoya, Japan, where she'll continue to write about Southern characters, although some might find their way to the Land of the Rising Sun.

She loves small town characters with big attitudes, particularly sassy women with a penchant for trouble. The Cherry Tucker Mystery series with Henery Press begins with Portrait of a Dead Guy (August 28, 2012), a 2012 Daphne du Maurier finalist, a 2012 The Emily finalist, and a 2011 Dixie Kane Memorial winner. Following Portrait are Still Life in Brunswick Stew, (May 21, 2013), the 2014 Georgia Author of the Year and Silver Falchion nominee, Hijack in Abstract (November 5, 2013), and Death in Perspective (June 24, 2014) follow. The Cherry Tucker novella, Quick Sketch, in the mystery anthology The Heartache Motel (December 10, 2013) is a prequel to Portrait. The fifth Cherry Tucker mystery, The Body in the Landscape, will launch December 15, 2015.

She was very pleased to receive the 2015 finalist medal for Georgia Author of the Year, Best Mystery, for Death in Perspective.

Connect with Larissa

Website | Facebook | Twitter
Instragram | Pinterest | Goodreads

The Cherry Tucker Series on Scribd

Portrait of a Dead Guy 

A Cherry Tucker Mystery #1

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Blast: Dead in a Park by B.L. Blair and a Giveaway! #ParkBlast

Can she find the killer before the killer strikes again?

Dead in a Park

Publication Date: November 12, 2015

Genre: Mystery, Romance

Series: Leah Norwood Mystery #2

When Leah Norwood finds the body of Donald Collins in the city park, she doesn’t know he is a distant relative. Young Donnie was a jewel thief and a career criminal. Hidden in the lining of his suit jacket was an exact replica of a ring that has been in Leah’s family for over a hundred years. After her home is burglarized, the sexy chief of police is convinced the ruby ring has something to do with the murder.

Leah wants to find out what happened to Donnie, but why would someone kill for a hundred year old ring? She discovers a connection between Donnie and the drug-dealing Cantono family, between the Cantono family and a jewelry appraiser, and between the jewelry appraiser and one of her own employees. Chief Griggs might be onto something. All clues lead back to the family ring.

Leah loves a good mystery. Can she find the killer before the killer strikes again?

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | iBooks | Kobo

B. L. Blair writes simple and sweet romance and mystery/romance stories. Like most authors, she has been writing most of her life and has dozens of books started. She just needs the time to finish them.

She is the author of the Holton Romance Series and the Leah Norwood Mysteries. She enjoys reading books, writing books, and traveling wherever and as often as time and money allows. She is currently working on her latest book set in Texas, where she lives with her family.

Connect with B.L.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads | Pinterest | Blog

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!