Yesterday, January 27th, was very exciting for me. I honestly never thought I’d see this. I certainly didn’t expect, on the second day of WHERE SHE BELONGS’s five-day free promotion on Amazon that the book would hit #1 in the Free Kindle Store. Yes, Number One! Woot!!!
WHERE SHE BELONGS dropped to #2 last night and remains at #2 this morning. However, it had the #1 spot in the Kindle Free store for most of Sunday. As of this typing, the book is still #1 in Romance, #1 in Contemporary Romance, #1 in Contemporary Fiction and #1 in Women’s Fiction!
Later, when I saw that the book had dropped from the #1 slot overall, I realized there were a couple of other bestseller lists to check. Genre Fiction, where the book currently sits at #2 and Fiction, where the book also sits at #2. I don’t know if the book hit #1 on either of those lists yesterday, because I didn’t think to check them. I was too excited about the others.
To date, since just after midnight Saturday, January 26th, over 54,000 downloads have occurred. Wow!
The five-day promotion doesn’t end until January 30th, inclusive, which means you can still get a copy for free now.
So, I just had to take some screen shots. I mean, this might never happen for me again. Here they are!
Blew my mind! NUMBER ONE IN THE ENTIRE KINDLE FREE STORE!!Number one in Romance!!! Woot!!!Number One in Contemporary Romance!!Number 1, Contemporary Fiction, Kindle Free store.January 27th, 2013, Number 1 in Women’s Fiction, Kindle Free Store
I’d love for the book to remain in the Top Ten for the duration of its free promotion on Amazon. So if you haven’t downloaded your copy yet, please do so. And tell your friends, tell your goldfish, tell your puppies!
It’s the second day of WHERE SHE BELONGS’s five-day run in the Kindle Free Ebook store. This morning, I am thrilled to report that the book is #10 in the Kindle Free store overall, #7 in Romance, #4 in Contemporary Romance, and NUMBER ONE in both Women’s Fiction and Contemporary Fiction.
Also, yesterday I received a wonderful new five-star review from a reader on Amazon. I have no idea if this review is a result of one of the free downloads or from one of the paid sales (on which I earn royalties) from December. The reader says, “This story made me laugh and cry. I absolutely loved the characters and their love story.” She also remarked on the book’s lack of grammar and spelling errors. Thank you, dear reader!
The free book downloads from Amazon continue until January 30th, inclusive. If you haven’t downloaded your copy yet, please do! Here’s the link again.
Also, thank you to Michael Gallagher of Free Kindle Books and Tips for mentioning WHERE SHE BELONGS on his blog this weekend.
WHERE SHE BELONGS is FREE on Amazon to download to your Kindle from Saturday, January 26th to Wednesday, January 30th! That’s five whole days during which the book will be free. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the book to your PC or tablet and read it on whichever free reading app works for your device. You can even read it on the Kindle Cloud Reader.
This is the only time I know of that the book will be made available for free, so don’t miss out!
If you check the link to the Amazon page very early on January 26th (like, say, at 1 a.m.) and the book isn’t free yet, just give it a couple of hours and check back again. Amazon might make the book downloadable for free one minute after midnight, or a few hours might pass until it’s available. That is completely up to Amazon mechanics.
You have five days to grab your copy. Please share on Facebook and Twitter and tell your friends. Thanks!
I haven’t blogged in a while. That’s because, on Jan. 11th, I had touch-up laser eye surgery on my right eye—the distance eye. The eye that didn’t “take” when I originally had laser surgery on both eyes over a year ago. Today I had my third post-op follow-up appointment, however, so it’s time for a report. And then, unless I have something newsworthy to announce, I will take a break from blogging until my right eye can withstand the bright, 21-inch desktop screen. Right now I’m wearing my Panama hat to help shield the brightness. As I’m editing BORROWING ALEX for re-issue, I’m finding it much easier on my eye to work on my netbook and check email, etc. on my iPad.
Back to the surgery…
I went in January 11th expecting to have the SBK procedure, which is what I had last year. However, the optometrist had warned me that if my “flap” (created by LASIK and SBK) was resistant to lifting, I might have to have PRK (I’d link to articles explaining the differences in the surgeries, but I don’t want to spend more time here than necessary, and if you Google PRK versus SBK, or PRK versus LASIK, you’ll find them). (P.S. when my son had PRK, the cost for the LASIK and PRK were the same; when I had SBK, it was quite a bit more expensive. The idea is the benefits of achieving best vision quickly make up for the cost. However, when you experience a regression, like I did, in retrospect the extra money would have been better spent elsewhere).
The flap was resistant to lifting. This is something they don’t discover until you’re flat on the table with your head squished in a pliable pillow thingy, your eyeball frozen, a bit of drugs flowing through your veins, and the surgeon attempts to lift the flap with an “instrument.” I didn’t get a look at this “instrument,” and I didn’t want to. If it had looked anything like a scalpel, or even a crochet hook, I would have been all that much more nervous.
Despite the Atavan, and despite that I had experienced surgery in both eyes before, I was nervous. I like to think the surgeons have everything under control, but of course I never believe that until it’s over.
So my surgeon is digging around in my eye with the “instrument,” trying to lift my flap. I felt him try four places. I thought maybe the flap was lifting and he just needed to pry all four places loose. So I just held my breath and tried to remain calm. Then I heard him utter, “Damn it.” That was during the fourth flap-lifting attempt. He inhaled, sat back and said, “I’m sorry, Cindy. This isn’t going to work.”
I thought, Crap, they’re going to send me home. Because that’s what a technician had mentioned—that if the flap couldn’t be lifted, they would send me home and “try PRK another time.” PRK is when, instead of lifting your flap, they “melt” (my word for it) the top layer of your eyeball off. Well, they don’t really melt it off. They use a little brush type of thing to sweep it off. My son had PRK two years ago, and I watched his surgery on the TV screen in the waiting room. I thought the sweeping off of the epithelium (after it had been doused with a VERY cold solution) would feel horrid. But, actually, now that I’ve experienced SBK and PRK, I far prefer the PRK. The surgeon stepped away from my head after telling me that my eye had already been traumatized and so they wouldn’t send me home. They would proceed to the PRK. They then needed to switch things around a bit, so I just laid there.
Once we got going again, they added more freezing agent to my eye, then, as far as I can remember, swamped it with the ice-cold solution, then brushed off the epithelium, which was nowhere near as horrendous as I expected. If I had to do it again (and I don’t think I can ever do it again—if this time doesn’t work, I’m out of luck), if I had to do it for the first time, I’d choose PRK. Now, you might think I’m saying this because the SBK didn’t work. And that’s partly it. Why not give the PRK a try? But I somehow also thought the PRK would be a worse experience; however, I discovered I prefer the sweeping away of my epithelium to a suction cup clamping my eye while a laser makes an incision in the epithelium.
Once the SBK or PRK preparation has occurred, the procedure is the same from there. You focus on these little red lights that make zapping sounds (and you smell your hair burning, but it’s not really your hair, it’s the lasering of your eye). Because this was a touch-up, I didn’t see as many red lights or smell as much burning or hear as many zapping sounds as I had last year. The nice thing about laser eye surgery is it’s over very fast.
Then a technician helped me up, and I spotted a teddy bear by one machine. “What’s the teddy bear for?” I asked.
“If someone’s very scared, we’ll give them the bear to hold.”
“I was very scared!!”
I guess I wasn’t as scared as I’d thought.
Recovering from SBK, for me, was horrific the first day as the eyes unthawed. And my eyes were super dry for months afterward. This year, with PRK, I knew from my son’s and others’ experiences that the third or fourth day is generally the worst, and this stood true for me. I didn’t have that much discomfort on days 1 and 2 (however, I had only had a touch-up, not a full-on eye-frying), but day 3 was a nasty little witch. This year, I was prepared. I had purchased eye drops up the whazoo of the brands and types that I had experimented with over the last twelve months when it became apparent that the regular old eye drops they supply you with weren’t going to work.
The day after surgery, I returned for my first post-op. With SBK, I was seeing at 20/20 minus one on day one (which means I missed one letter on the 20/20 chart). However, my astigmatism did not go away from the treatment and by the time I reached 3 months post-surgery my eye was reading 20/30 (what a normal person could see at 30 feet, I could see at 20 feet). Last summer and this fall, my vision had regressed even more, to 20/50 (what a normal person can see at 50 feet, I could see at 20 feet…you can understand how that might have annoyed me).
Well, today, ten days post-surgery, I am back to 20/30, which is good for PRK recovery at this time. Unlike SBK or LASIK, with PRK you can’t expect to be back at work or driving after 72 hours. Luckily, my left eye, my reading eye, didn’t require a revision treatment, so I found that I could read and use the iPad within two or three days…as long as I kept my right eye plenty saturated with eye drops.
As well as my eye not being as dry from the revision, my eye isn’t as light-sensitive as it was last year. It’s sensitive, just not as much. I go back again a month post-surgery (about three weeks), and I look forward to reporting even more progress. The optometrist was very happy with my progress today. With PRK it takes about 6-8 weeks before you know where you really stand, and you see the clinic again at 3 months and 6 months. It can take up to six months to achieve your best vision.
Cross your fingers that the touch-up works! So far, I’m happy.
By the way, I do have some good news to report, but I must save it for another day. Time to get off the desktop and douse my eye in drops!
If you’ve been following my Galapagos posts, by now you should be getting a sense of just how much activity gets packed into one day. It wasn’t enough that we went swimming in the morning, visited amazing caves, went snorkeling (or didn’t go, depending on one’s nausea issues) on Day 16, no, we had to top it off in the afternoon with a steep hike.
If lounging around on the sundeck all day is your idea of a good time, don’t visit the Galapagos. Or, you could visit and stay back on the boat while your fellow travelers go off exploring. But where’s the fun in that?
Swimming at Witch Hill last post (link if you’re too lazy to scroll down), we saw beautiful white beaches. In the afternoon, we visited Pitt Point, which is the northernmost point of San Cristobal. The beaches at Pitt Point are a beautiful, squish-between-your-toes brown:
Harry informed us that we were going to hike up to the top of this little hill, from where we would get a great view of the ocean.
My Liege, beginning the ascent:
Climbing the path up the “little hill” felt like being transported to the gravel pit where Fred Flintstone worked. Except, there weren’t big boulders lazing around. Just a lot of steep, steep “stairs” either naturally occurring or carved from the rock, lava lizards, more tiring climbing paths, and amazing rock scenery.
By this time it began to occur to me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to gain weight on this trip. That maybe, just maybe, I would lose a couple of pounds. Another bonus of the Galapagos! You can eat like a pig and be assured you are going to exercise, swim, and sweat it all off.
See that bent over passenger making her way up the little hill? She’s not old and decrepit (well, she is older than me…). That’s how steep the path was. One felt the need to lean forward so one could pretend one wasn’t ascending, ascending, ascending.
The rock formations were really quite spectacular, and I’d have to say that was the big difference between Week 1 and 2 of our cruise. I still couldn’t choose which of the two weeks I would recommend if you only had one week to spare, because they are so incredibly different. But if you’re into geology, probably our Week 2 (the Southern and Central islands) would be the week to choose. But then you’d miss the beauty of the Northern Islands and the wildness of Fernandina and Isabela. It’s really an impossible choice, but if choose you must, here’s a nice breakdown of the various islands.)
If I were the accommodating sort, I might also choose this moment to plug our naturalist guide’s blog. It’s filled with tons of information about the Galapagos. Check out the swimming with sea lions video in this post!
Okay, that was an aside. Where was I?
Ah, yes, Pitt Point.
At the top! Steve et moi. It was very windy up there. I nearly lost my hat! That darn Panama hat just did not want to stay on my head.
View of The Cormorant from where I almost lost my hat:
Alas, there was no hang glider to get us back down again. No, we had to descend.
Wondering what sort of shoes to take on a Galapagos cruise? Good hiking runners and a pair of Keens or similar:
Fish eye effect courtesy of Brilliance is Moi.
For Pete’s sake, whose dangling shoelaces are those? Who can’t be bothered to tuck in her shoelaces like everyone else?
Beats me.
That evening, we enjoyed a very social time, because the following day we would lose two of the “couples” from Week 2, a mother/daughter pair and a couple who chose to only identify themselves as “Dick and Jane” (yeah, like we believed those were really your names!). Both pairs of travelers had embarked on the Cormorant along with the other Week 2 passengers. However, they were on a 4-day/3-night cruise (which one could combine with a Fernandina/Isabela week-long cruise, if one so chose).
But the good news…we would once more get fresh victims!
I am keeping good on my New Year’s Resolutions and returning to the Galapagos posts! The day this post appears, I’m having touch-up laser eye surgery in my right eye, the distance eye. The left eye turned out wonderbar last year, but the right eye, she is stubborn. So I wrote this post ahead of time, and, if you’re lucky, I wrote the next post ahead of time, too. So even if I can’t see in a few days, hopefully YOU will be able to read another lovely Galapagos post.
Here’s the last post, written way back in November (Cindy’s bad!). If you’re into self-torture, or you’re super interested in visiting the Galapagos yourself, here’s the first post of our trip, which occurred back in April/May of 2012. Hey, I didn’t procrastinate. I had things to do. Like eat salt ‘n vinegar chips.
Ecuador Trip: Day 16 Galapagos Cruise: Day 11
Day 15 found us on Santa Fe Island. For days 16 and 17 (days 11 and 12 of the cruise), the Cormorant itinerary focused on San Cristobal Island and the gorgeous Kicker Rock. Here’s a view of Kicker Rock as we passed it on the way to Witch Hill. I swear, I could go back to the Galapagos again just to catch another view of this geological marvel.
Note the lovely reflection in the water? Isn’t that cool? That’s how beautiful the day was–and the view. One of my better photographs, wouldn’t you agree (come on, I need pampering—agree!)
At Witch Hill, we frolicked in the water, doing handstands (not me, but another of our party), trying to stand on our husband’s shoulders (have I ever mentioned my lousy sense of balance?) and talking to other travelers on the beach. In fact, we thought this was the entire reason we had come to Witch Hill. To take pictures of Kicker Rock in the distance, frolic in the water, and capture guys like this on film:
Mr. “I’m Ready for My Close-Up” had a captive audience. There were at least 5 women, including me, taking pictures of him. And he’s not camera shy. He didn’t even move. In fact, he appears very proud of himself, no?
You’d think photographing iguanas would get tiring, but it doesn’t.
Here’s a view from the beach of Witch Hill, which our guide told us was also called “Witch’s Hat,” but wouldn’t tell us why:
Harry said we would find out more about Witch Hill on our return to the Cormorant. So, after enjoying one of the best swimming days on the cruise (during which we met a couple from our home province who knew “of” my BFF—small world), we cobbled into the two pangas and headed back to the boat. The pangas took us very close to Witch Hill:
This was when we realized that there were openings in Witch Hill. That there were caves! Woot!
I almost shouldn’t explain what happened next, because, if you go to Witch Hill, I’m ruining the surprise. If you don’t want the surprise ruined, stop reading this post right now. Go and buy one of my books or something. (How crass. I swear, it wasn’t me who typed that. It was the Ghost of Witch Hill!)
Can’t tear yourself away, huh? Just gotta know more about Witch Hill? Well, my photography skills might disappoint. Okay…I don’t think it’s MY photography skills in particular that will disappoint, because I don’t remember (dum-de-dum) if I had my camera with me this morning. I thought all we were going to do was swim. Thank God other cruisers had their cameras, and I can bum one of their pictures. Note, I am only bumming a picture off the Group of Four.
The first cave we floated into was this one:
Can you see the other panga in the distance? Close to the cliff-face of the cave? This photo doesn’t show the contrast of colors of rock against water very well, but it does show the sheer size of the cave.
I don’t have a photo of The Cathedral, which was the second cave we visited, but it was even more awe-inspiring, if possible, than the cave above. The Cathedral cave featured a “ceiling,” and could best be viewed by reclining on the other passengers in the panga and staring straight up. You don’t want to see a picture of my thigh with a big bruise (no idea where I acquired it), my bathing suit cover-up and my hat as I’m lying flat on another passenger and she’s trying not to topple our guide into the water, do you? Of course not. Doesn’t sound very pleasant at all.
I would show you the photo, but it doesn’t picture the actual cathedral ceiling and it also shows the face of another passenger, not one of the Group of Four. I’m too lazy to email her and ask her permission to post it, so we’re stopping with the caves right here.
See, I don’t necessarily have to ruin surprises! All you need to know is that you DO want to go swimming at the beach near Witch Hill and you DO want your guide to take you into the caves afterward. You don’t want him to ruin the surprise by telling you about it first, either. Experiencing the surprise is half the fun.
So, we returned to the boat and then I had to make a big decision. If you went back and read Day 15, you’d know that my seasickness had returned. As much as I love snorkeling, it was time for me to take a day off and just lounge in the sun on the upper deck and wait for my seasickness patches to take effect again. I needed to decide, should I go snorkeling at some small rock I can’t remember the name of or wait until the next day, when I might be feeling better, and go snorkeling around Kicker Rock?
I asked Harry, our guide. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “Harry, I feel like crap, and I need a day off of snorkeling before sea water starts leaking out my pores. Should I not snorkel today or not snorkel tomorrow? I’m thinking I should miss today.” (I mean, who would want to miss snorkeling at Kicker Rock?)
Harry: “Welllllllll, if you have to choose, remember, I can’t choose for you, but I might, maybe, if I were going to suggest a day to miss, which I wouldn’t suggest, because we just never know what we’re going to see or what visibility will be like until we get there, I might maybe, perhaps, on the off-chance, recommend that you miss today and don’t miss Kicker Rock.”
Me: “I kind of feel like you’re telling me to miss today.”
Harry: “I would never do such a thing. You should come both days.”
Me: “I might throw up in my snorkel mask.”
Harry: “All right, you are probably correct that you should miss today.”
Me: “And go instead tomorrow? I shouldn’t miss Kicker Rock, right?”
Harry: “No one should ever miss Kicker Rock.”
Me: “Will you promise me good visibility tomorrow?”
Harry: “I do not promise anything.”
Me: “Will you promise me sea turtles?”
Harry: “I can not promise sea turtles. I can not promise sea lions. I can not promise rays. I can not promise hammerhead sharks.”
Me: “Can you promise rock?”
Harry: “I can not promise anything.”
Me: “Can you promise ocean?”
Harry: “I can not promise annnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyything.”
Me: “Can you promise that you won’t promise anything?”
Harry: “No, not even that.”
That Harry, not promising the ocean!
Based on our conversation, I did not go snorkeling on Day 16. I would save myself for the following day, Kicker Rock, which, we were told, if visibility is good, is absolutely amazing snorkeling (you can almost feel the punch line coming, can’t you? But you have to wait for my Kicker Rock post).
Although I did not go snorkeling after swimming at the beaches near Witch Hill, I wanted to take pictures of my SIL and BIL getting ready. Alas, I was so groggy from seasickness (and someone had stolen my hat, which escaped my notice, even though it was on his head), that I totally forgot to get pictures of Harry and my relatives getting ready for the snorkel until I heard the panga driving away! Ack!
Luckily, I had my camera with me on deck. So I raced (without barfing) to the railing and snapped this photo of the lonely only panga heading off for what was supposed to be the second choice of snorkel days:
Harry: “I do not promise annnnnnyyyythingggg!” Except a bit of showmanship. 😉
So of COURSE when the boat returns, my BIL and SIL had had the time of their lives! My husband had stayed back with me, and meanwhile they saw rays:
Tons and tons of rays! (Photo Credit: Rembrandt)
And they saw sea lions! Tons and tons of frolicking sea lions! Sob…
See the yellow shadow above the cuteness sea lions playing like baby beagles in the water? That’s the underside of the panga. (Photo Credit: Rembrandt).
It was one of the best snorkel days of our entire two weeks on the cruise, I was told.
I swore never to miss another snorkel opportunity on the trip, and I didn’t.
I wish I could remember the name of the little island, but, alas, my nausea prevented me from writing it down (or looking it up right now).
All I can tell you is that you don’t want to miss Witch Hill. And you don’t want to miss snorkeling at the little nameless island afterward. No matter how soggy and full of sea water you are.
