Author: Cindy

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Double The Kisses Romantic Comedy Two-Book Bundle Release!

Sort of a new release!

My two romantic comedy novels, HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX, are now available in a two-book bundle titled, appropriately enough, DOUBLE THE KISSES ROMANTIC COMEDY TWO-BOOK BUNDLE: HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX. How’s that for emphasizing Search Engine Optimization?

Because DOUBLE THE KISSES is a bundle, there’s a cost savings per book. Yes, two complete novels for one low price! Very info-mercial. Buy once, read twice! Perfect if you haven’t yet read either book. Or, if you’ve read the original Amber Quill Press editions of the novels and would love to see how HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX were updated for the 2012 and 2013 releases, DOUBLE THE KISSES is a cost-efficient way to do so (both books were revised and re-edited and BORROWING ALEX includes two additional scenes over the previous edition).

I’m still catching up following our trip to Australia, so haven’t yet built a book page for DOUBLE THE KISSES on my website (bad Cindy), so here are the links to the major on-line e-tailers:

Amazon

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

For readers from other countries who don’t purchase from the above Amazons, please check your home country’s Amazon site.

Apple iBooks (so easy when one link goes everywhere – thanks, Apple). Note, you must have iTunes installed on your computer for the link to work.

Kobo

NOOK

Of course, you can still buy the ebooks, audio books or trade paperbacks as individual editions. Check the HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX book pages for links.

I totally love the DOUBLE THE KISSES cover! All shiny and new, designed by talented Kim Killion of The Killion Group, the cover combines visual elements of the Blue Orchard Books editions of HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX (which you can check out by clicking on those links or eyeballing the blog sidebar on the right). Take a look:

Cover for Double The Kisses Romantic Comedy Two-Book Bundle: Head Over Heels and Borrowing Alex

Want to know about the books?

HEAD OVER HEELS – Set in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., Canada

“What a set-up for a comedy of errors! Everything that can go wrong in this scenario does go wrong, and the reader is well entertained by the comedic chaos. If you like your romance with humor, you’ll love this one.” Fallen Angel Reviews

One tiny lie can cause a whole lot of trouble…

Magee Sinclair has had it up to her sassy short hairdo with the recent blunders pushing her family’s advertising agency to the brink. How can she accept the promotion her father plans when she keeps making costly mistakes? She needs to bring in more business however she can. So when new client Justin Kane asks her to role-play as his girlfriend for a weekend in exchange for a lucrative campaign, she jumps at the chance.

Justin’s goal to expand his chain of bike stores hinges on a distribution deal with a manufacturer. First, he needs to impress the man at a mountain resort while they bike trails with their significant others. But Justin’s girlfriend dumps him, forcing him to find a quick replacement. Magee—pretty, clever, and a skilled cyclist—is the perfect choice to masquerade as his “lover.”

Or so Justin thinks.

Because Magee is in major trouble. She knows no more about mountain biking than Justin does about demi-bras. Before long, an irate ex pops up, fake identities abound, and a whole lot of doors slam in the middle of the night. Yet, through the chaos, Magee and Justin discover what it really means to fall head over heels….

Length: 50,000 words. Includes mild cursing and love scenes.

BORROWING ALEX – Set in Seattle, Washington and also at fictional Lake Eden.

“I really like romantic comedy as a genre, but it takes some really good writing to make me laugh. This book made me laugh.” Fallen Angel Reviews

She’ll return him eventually. Or maybe not.

Nikki St. James wants to get married more than anything. But what’s she to do when her fiancé spends his days sucking up to her rich father instead of helping with the simple task of, oh, setting a date? Why…fake a fling with the best man, of course!

Nikki is the first to admit that ambushing Alex Hart and whisking him off to secluded Lake Eden is a tad desperate. But maybe pretending she’s hot for the handsome history professor will kick-start the attention of her future groom. Besides, a sojourn at a lakeside cabin is exactly what uptight Alex needs. Not that Nikki cares what he needs or how sexy he is….

Alex is not on-board with Nikki’s plan. Yeah, he’d love a break from his quest to achieve tenure at warp speed, but getting kidnapped by a crazy blonde hardly tops his to-do list. If what he’s heard is true and Nikki is perfectly happy with her ‘open’ engagement to his former college roommate, why bother getting married?

Quickly, he realizes Nikki isn’t a wild party girl at all. She’s cute, sweet—and faithful. Against his common sense, he’s falling for her. Should he spill the beans about her cheating fiancé? Or will he ruin his own chance for a happy ending?

Length: 50,00 words. Includes mild cursing and love scenes.

*Head Over Heels and Borrowing Alex are stand-alone romances that share the same comedic tones, over-the-stop situations, and wacky characters. The stories are unrelated and not part of a series.

Links again!

Amazon

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

For readers from other countries who don’t purchase from the main Amazon, please check your home country’s Amazon site.

Apple iBooks

Kobo

NOOK

Now, back to catching up on business-of-writing and soon, very soon, back to writing itself!

Thanks for your support, my dear readers. Happy spring!

Travel Bug

It’s been a week since my husband and I returned from a month-long trip to Australia. We had a marvelous time! Caught up with family members in Melbourne, met family we haven’t met before, stayed with friends in Perth who we met on our trip to the Galapagos two years ago, and did tons of exploring on our own. Even met up with an author pal from California who just happened to be in Sydney during the same time.

I am exhausted.

Traveling is a blast, but work piles up while you’re gone. So I’ve been slowly tackling the paper pile on my desk while trying my best to combat spring fever (it’s sunny out – I want outside!). The jet lag this year is killing us, possibly because, on top of losing a day on the trip there and then gaining a day on the trip back, we switched time zones within Australia itself four times. So that was six time/day changes in total in four weeks. Almost immediately upon our return, we needed to go out of town overnight, this time to somewhere fairly local, just as beautiful and intoxicating as Australia but different. Lakes instead of oceans. Trees instead of red rock and desert.

I fully intend to blog about this trip. I intended to blog about our trip to China last year to see our son, however, time and family events got away on me. So I might blog about Australia and then blog about China. We’ll see. First, I need to upload my pictures and sort through them. Well, before that, must continue clearing off my desk and then return to the writing project I last looked at in late February/early March. It’s been a long time since I had a new release. A new book is coming, the release date of which is dependant on editing schedules, and then I’ll return to writing the Love & Other Calamities short story series. Before all that, indeed very, very soon, is a little treat. If you haven’t yet read my books, stay tuned!

Home Secrets by Mary J. Forbes 99 Cents Until March 23rd

Please welcome my friend and writer extraordinaire, Mary J. Forbes, to the blog! Mary’s Women’s Fiction novel, HOME SECRETS, regularly priced $3.60, is on sale for 99 cents exclusively from Amazon between March 17-23. So make sure to grab a copy. And, if you’re a member of Amazon Prime in the U.S., you can also borrow HOME SECRETS from the Kindle Lending Library for the next couple of months. Either way, you’re in for a great read! By the way, you can read an excerpt of HOME SECRETS on Mary’s website.

From Mary:

MaryForbes_HomeSecrets_200

Cindy, thank you for inviting me to be a guest on Muse Interrupted! What a delight to give your readers a peek into the writing of my women’s fiction book, HOME SECRETS.

The story intertwines the lives of three friends, Lily, Joy and Sydnie Rose. Yet, each buries a long-standing secret. But before the women can reap forgiveness, redemption and love, each must face her secret square on. So… Can Lily ensure her teenage daughter’s happiness while they live on the edge of poverty? Will Joy knock down the wall of hurt that caused her weight to escalate? And does Sydnie Rose have the strength to fight her austere father and claim her dreams?

As I wove these questions into my story, dug deeper and deeper into the histories of these women, I laughed, smiled—and reached for a tissue. In the end, there was a sense of satisfaction and peace in my heart…and in theirs. And HOME SECRETS, I knew, was the beginning of the Hawkes Landing series. 🙂

About the Story:

She believed in him when no one else did…

A terrible divorce and car wreck scars Lily Wheaton inside and out. Desperate to reclaim normality, she flees to the quiet ambiance of her late grandmother’s birthplace in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. There, Lily believes she has conquered her demons. That is, until her ex-husband demands sole custody of their child. Without funds to battle him in court, Lily will do anything to keep her daughter, even stand up for her landlord and neighbor, Grey Montgomery—a man her ex insists is a criminal. 

After serving time for a drunk-driving fatality sixteen years ago, Grey escaped the censure of Hawkes Landing. Now his mother is dying, and he returns to his childhood home where his sister remains as obstinate as ever, the lack of medical facilities could mark the downfall of his family, and people won’t let him forget the nightmare of his mistakes. Only Lily sees him for the man he is today. But as another tragedy strikes at the heart of Grey’s past, he and Lily must accept a dark truth about their families before discovering that some of life’s toughest choices involve the healing power of forgiveness, love, and the will to go on.

Buy from Amazon

Read Excerpt on Mary’s website

About Mary J. Forbes:

MaryForbes

Mary J. Forbes writes stories with an emotional depth that is reflected in each of her characters. Several of her (Harlequin) Silhouette Special Edition books were Waldenbooks bestsellers, and reached BookScan and Amazon’s respective top 100 lists. Mary loves to garden and especially enjoys the color and fragrances of the flowers she plants each spring and summer. The rain of the Pacific Northwest where she lives with her family is often portrayed in her stories. But once the clouds roll away, her heroes and heroines always find their rainbow waiting on the horizon.

Mary loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her at www.MaryJForbes.com and www.facebook.com/MaryJForbes.

BORROWING ALEX Large Print Sale!

Yoo-hoo! Large Print English-language rights to BORROWING ALEX have been sold to F.A. Thorpe in England for their Linford Romance line! These are the same folks who just published HEAD OVER HEELS in large print (scroll down the blog to catch a glimpse at the cover).

The Large Print edition of BORROWING ALEX will release in the next 18 months. The Large Print edition of HEAD OVER HEELS is now available from Amazon, if you’re so inclined.

Calling Kobo Owners…

Recently, following the free promotion of HEAD OVER HEELS, a Kobo reader emailed me to let me know that something wonky was going on with the em dashes—these things—in her copy of the book. I don’t own a Kobo ereader, so I can’t check to see if this was an isolated incident or if something warped in the Kobo conversion/upload process. The ePub edition that was uploaded to Kobo way back in August 2012 looks flawless on my end, using the Adobe eReader app.

This particular reader has a standard Kobo with no bells and whistles. If you recently downloaded HEAD OVER HEELS from Kobo during the free promotion, or if you already had a copy that you had purchased on your Kobo ereader prior to the promotion, can you please contact me either through my website email address or the message function of my Facebook author page and let me know if you experience the same formatting issue?

This is what it looks like, according to my reader:

Instead of having em dashes—these things on either side of “these” and WORD—she’s seeing Ì — Ì, those two big I type characters with the accent to the left on top, except not in bold (I bolded it for effect here).

I don’t sell a lot of books through Kobo, so this is the first I’ve heard of the possible glitch. I’d like to get it addressed if it isn’t an isolated incident.

Thanks!