Category: Giveaway

Summer Lovin’: In Which I Get All Mushy Because of the Heat

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in CMP's Summer Lovin' Blog Hop, Crescent Moon Press, Giveaway, Life

cmpbloghop

 

Crescent Moon Press authors are ready for summer! We’ll be blogging about our summer loves, our romances, and how much we love summer! Have you ever had a summer fling? Do you have a favorite book about summer? What’s on your summer reading list? What are some great beach reads? We’re blogging about all of it!

 

Visit our blogs below and enter to win some great prizes between June 14 -17.

 

Grand Prize: A Kindle Paperwhite & some of our eBooks to read on it!

 

1st Prize: A $20 Amazon gift card, and a Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, more eBooks, bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, and more!

This is just some of the awesome swag!
This is just some of the awesome swag!

 

Other Prizes – You’ll have to hop around the other blogs to find out what they are!

 

Drop by our blogs between June 14 & 17 and enter the rafflecopter!

 

Good luck & hope to see you there!

 

Okay, here’s my summer lovin’ post!

 

Schooooooooool’s out for summer! But that’s not the only reason I love this time of year. Sure, I have more time to catch up on life and I can write until my fingertips are bloody, but summer fills me with smiles for other reasons, too. The soaring temperatures, the freedom to do whatever I want, the excited stir in my stomach – it all reminds me of one summer long ago when love grabbed me around the waist and hasn’t let go since.

 

Yes, the ewey, gooey love stuff is about to begin, but you can handle it.

 

One summer in high school, my crush had a birthday party and invited me. After some high-pitched squeezing, I went, of course, and I sat next to a guy from out of town who I’d never met before. He was the drummer in my crush’s band, but that was all I knew. As we sat there, he kept showing me pictures of recent concerts he’d gone to and cracking me up with every bizarre thing that fell out of his mouth. He was strange in a just-like-me sort of way, and he had the prettiest green eyes I’d ever seen. And that smile…wow. I was a total goner. (He must’ve been a goner, too, because he’s sitting just a few feet away as I type this, many years after this happened.)

 

But anyway, he lived out of town, about six hours away to be exact. So, I would only get to see him during summers when he came to visit his dad (who happened to live in town) and to visit and practice with his band. Summers became the best time ever for that exact reason.

 

In between summers, we wrote letters back and forth. Real letters with paper and pencil since these were the pre-email and pre-texting days. If you guessed that I’m at least five hundred years old, you’re absolutely right!

 

I still have all the letters he sent me. He’d write about random things he was doing or planning to do, school projects, or odd things he’d seen. He would illustrate his letters with funny drawings in the margins. Getting one of his letters in the mail was almost as great as summer.

 

I graduated high school and went to college where he lived, and then we didn’t have to rely on summers or letters anymore after that. We had the rest of our lives.

 

Your turn! What’s your favorite summer memory? Leave your answer with your name and email for a chance to win a $5 gift card to the bookstore of your choice!

 

Here’s the link to the Rafflecopter: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don’t forget to hop around the blogs below for more chances to win!

Shawna Romkey Author blog
Constance Phillips, A Writer’s Musings
Katie O’Sullivan;
Summer Lovin’ – On Olympus…
Kate’s Blog
Kary Rader
Lindsey R. Loucks
Summer Lovin’, postcards, and maybe bookmarks
Jody A Kessler Summer Lovin’ Mountain Style
Official Website of Maer Wilson
Author Jean Murray ~ Wicked Romance Blog
Summer Lovin’ Heat
Hildie McQueen’ s Author Site
Loni Lynne’s Blog Site
Author Avery Olive Blog
Wendy S. Russo
Cindy Young-Turner
Michelle Clay – The Darkside of Romance
the Marvelous Misadventures of Mrs. t
Shannon Eckrich

Happy Book Birthday to #Taste by @KateEvangelista

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Book Birthday, Contests, Crescent Moon Press, Giveaway, Kate Evangelista, Liliana Sanches, Taste

Taste Birthday

My Crescent Moon Press sister, Kate Evangelista, is celebrating a book birthday for her YA novel Taste. One year ago today, it was released into the world!

To celebrate her book birthday, she’s throwing a major party with a giveaway! The giveaway is for readers to take a picture of the most interesting place where they read Taste, whether paperback or ereader.  The most interesting pictures win. Winners will be announced on May 11.

First prize is an Amazon Gift Card for $30, $20 for second, and $10 for third. For more information, visit her blog!

Here’s more about Taste:

 

At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

 

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.

 

 

Author Bio:

 

kate

 

When Kate Evangelista was told she had a knack for writing stories, she did the next best thing: entered medical school. After realizing she wasn’t going to be the next Doogie Howser, M.D., Kate wandered into the Literature department of her university and never looked back. Today, she is in possession of a piece of paper that says to the world she owns a Literature degree. To make matters worse, she took Master’s courses in creative writing. In the end, she realized to be a writer, none of what she had mattered. What really mattered? Writing. Plain and simple, honest to God, sitting in front of her computer, writing. Today, she has four completed Young Adult novels.

 

Author Website: www.kateevangelista.com

Twitter: @KateEvangelista

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kate-Evangelista/165693410143202

Find Taste on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13484226-taste

Crescent Moon Press page for Taste: http://crescentmoonpress.com/books/Taste.html

 

Purchase Links:

 

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Taste-ebook/dp/B007Z1AC78

 

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/taste-kate-evangelista/1110599907?ean=9781937254551

 

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Taste/book-Q8M5pIKoJkKLo_FgBJ_BOQ/page1.html?s=vUVZkfrXZUeDOQXRE7MhuA&r=4

 

The Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/Taste-Kate-Evangelista/9781937254551

Official Taste Cover

Oh, and here’s a juicy bit of information: The same amazing cover artist designed Kate’s Taste and my The Grave Winner! Liliana Sanches rocks!

18 Things With @jamiemayres

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in 18 Things, Contests, Giveaway, Jamie Ayres

cover high res

 

I recently had the privilege of interviewing YA author Jamie Ayres. Because her recent release is called 18 Things, I thought it would be fun to ask her 18 questions. I cracked myself up with some of the questions I thought up, but Jamie’s answers are even more hilarious!

 

Read on and be on the lookout for an e-book giveaway!

 

1. What’s your favorite planet? I’m originally from Dagobah, so that’s still my favorite.

 

2. What do fish think about? Please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me!!!

 

3. What’s your favorite drink? COFFEE!!! Right now I’m hooked on Coconut Mocha Donut Shop with Bailey’s Cheesecake Creamer (hubs got me the Keurig Machine for Christmas, so I’ve nominated him for “Husband of the Year”)

 

4. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, or ICK! CHOCOLATE?! WHAT? Okay, if anyone says ICK, they need to get their head examined! Um, yesss to all kinds of chocolate for sure!!!

 

5. Did you learn anything today? If so, what? As a teacher, I’m always learning something new! My third graders are very good at relaying random bits of information to me throughout the day. Examples from JUST today: “Mrs. Ayres, did you know there’s about 35,000 different kinds of fish in the ocean?” and “Mrs. Ayres, did you know that the main job of a flower is to make more flowers? Isn’t that funny?” and “Mrs. Ayres, did you know that the Megladon is the biggest prehistoric shark that EVER lived?”

 

6. Would you consider yourself a settler or a pioneer? Pioneer—but I will say my spirit of adventure doesn’t come naturally. I have to constantly push myself out of my way!

 

7. What’s the last song you listened to on purpose? Listening to Imagine Dragons song, Radioactive, right now on YouTube.

 

8. What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done? Publish my first baby book, 18 Things

 

9. Here’s a free plane ticket! Where would you like to go? Uganda to take my 12yo daughter there to meet our sponsored child. They’ve been pen pals since we ‘adopted’ her 5 years ago and they want to meet sooo very much!

 

10. What’s something about yourself that really annoys you? Nothing, I’m perfect;-) HA! I could be a bit more patient *husband coughs next to me on the couch* Okay, okay . . . A LOT more patience would be awesome!

 

11. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Probably painfully obvious to everyone in a room with me that I’m an extrovert!

 

12. You just walked in the door after a long day. What do you do first? Kiss my husband and change into my pj’s, which aren’t sexy *blue cotton shorts and an old shirt that says “Night Owl”*

 

13. Would you rather be able to read everyone’s mind all the time or always know their future? Read their minds so I can help push them toward the future they desire!

 

14. Why do you write? I’m afraid the white van will come for me . . .  the voices in my head just won’t shut the hell up unless I do.

 

15. What’s the title of your book? 18 Things

 

16. What is your book about? A young girl struggles to live again after a lightning strike kills the best friend she was secretly in love with. Her therapist suggests she write a life list of eighteen things to complete the year of her eighteenth birthday, sending her and her friends, including the new hottie in town, on an unexpected journey they’ll never forget. As she crosses each item off her list, she must risk her own heart, but if she fails, she risks losing herself and her true soul-mate forever.

17. Where can we buy your book?

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

18. Where else can we find you on the web?

www.jamieayres.com

Goodreads

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

 

If those answers don’t make you want to be BFFs with Jamie, then you’re just silly.

 

Because Jamie is made of awesome, she’s giving away an e-copy (Kindle or Nook) of 18 Things. All you have to do is leave a comment, and she’ll pick a winner using Random.org. Good luck!

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Everything!

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Characters, Contests, Crescent Moon Press, Firefly, Foo Fighters, Giveaway, Librarians, Life, Lynn Rush, Music, Reading, Writing

http://www.dreamstime.com/-image17577654

 

Love’s got everything to do with everything in my life. I love books so much I became a librarian so I can build forts out of them on my desk and pop out from behind them whenever anyone comes into the library. (If that doesn’t wake the students up, nothing will).

 

Chocolate and the Foo Fighters and Firefly all put a smile on my face because I love them/it so much.

 

So, yeah, love is huge in my life. But why do I feel the need to write about it in most of my stories? I’ll answer that question with another story. Don’t worry – it’s short.

 

Lightning struck my heart when I first got to know my BF eighteen years ago. No, not literally, but it sure felt like it. Every time I thought about him, which was all the time, my cheeks heated, a smile would dance across my lips, and I’d lose my appetite. Oh, yeah. I was falling for him. Big time.

 

Fast forward to now. The lightning that struck me has fueled a raging fire, and me and the BF are still ridiculously in love. We leave love notes for each other. We call each other cute nicknames. We walk each other to the door before work for one last kiss goodbye. It’s almost sickening how cute it is, isn’t it?

 

But that’s why I write about love. I want to capture that feeling for my characters because that feeling will stay with them forever, even if that particular love doesn’t last. Plus, as a reader, I enjoy reading about characters who find first love or long-lost love or love in the strangest place. I feel what they feel all over again.

 

Now, because I love all of you, here’s a gigantic contest! The winner gets a $250 e-giftcard to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, your choice.  The contest is international and ends February 19th, so hurry! Enter the Rafflecopter below to win and good luck!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you want to hop around to other Crescent Moon Press authors’ sites to see what they think love’s got to do with it, you can start here.

 

The Forever Girl Character Tour

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Characters, Contests, Giveaway, Rebecca Hamilton, The Forever Girl

Welcome to The Forever Girl Character Tour! I’m helping to celebrate The Forever Girl’s one year anniversary—that means it’s been one year since The Forever Girl was released! Copies are still available at the same low price of $2.99 for ebook and $10.95 for print. But fear not, this tour is not without some really cool prizes for you to win, whether you already own a copy of The Forever Girl or never plan to read it. Each stop on the tour will feature one of the main characters from the book, and you can easily enter to win some of their favorite things! For a full list of stops on this tour, visit the author’s blog at www.beccahamiltonbooks.com.

MEET IVORY

Ivory is one of Sophia’s best friends, but as much as she loves Sophia, she often puts her own desires first, even if that means putting Sophia in danger. Can their friendship survive Ivory’s selfishness? How will Ivory’s heartbreak and lost loved one affect the special bond she has with her best friend? Will Ivory’s feelings about Charles stand between him and Sophia’s future together?

 

Here’s the top five fast “fun facts” about Ivory.

 

1)       Favorite Color: Black.

 

2)       Favorite Drink: None of your business.

 

3)       What she’s afraid of: Losing Sophia.

 

4)       Likes: Sophia. Club Flesh.

 

5)       Dislikes: Men. Anyone who tries to tell her what to do.

 

Today’s character giveaway features some of Ivory’s favorite things: NARS Red Lip Gloss, SMASHBOX Eye Shadow Kit, and Red Magnetic Effect Nail Polish.

 

Ivory

 

If you want to snag Ivory’s favorite items for yourself (or as a gift for a friend or loved one!) simply enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by! If you want to connect with Rebecca, she can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and her Blog as well.

 

Learn more about Rebecca’s books and where to purchase them HERE.

 

eBookTFG2

 

BLURB

 

“Whatever you do, fight.”
Sophia’s family has skeletons, but they aren’t in their graves.
At twenty-two, practicing Wiccan Sophia Parsons is scratching out a living waiting tables in her Rocky Mountain hometown, a pariah after a string of unsolved murders with only one thing in common: her.

Sophia can imagine lots of ways to improve her life, but she’d settle for just getting rid of the buzzing noise in her head. When the spell she casts goes wrong, the static turns into voices. Her personal demons get company, and the newcomers are dangerous.
One of them is a man named Charles, who Sophia falls for despite her better judgment. He has connections that might help her unveil the mystery surrounding her ancestor’s hanging, but she gets more than she bargains for when she finally decides to trust him.
Survival in his world, she learns, means not asking questions and staying out of the immortal council’s way. It’s a line she crossed long ago. If Sophia wants to survive the council and save the people she loves, she must accept who she is, perform dark magic, and fight to the death for her freedom.
The Forever Girl is a full-length Paranormal Fantasy novel that will appeal to lovers of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, witches, vampire fiction, ghost stories, paranormal mystery, and paranormal horror.

Chocolate Aftertaste and a Giveaway!

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Giveaway

Happy release day to Liz Davis, author of Chocolate Aftertaste!

Here’s the summary:

At her pre-wedding dinner, Nora Darkin, the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, discovers her fiancé is not the man she thought he was. As her father hoists his glass to toast them, she makes an announcement: there will be no wedding to her father’s right-hand man.


Due to the fresh rift driven between her and her father, Nora escapes to the quaint town of Dreara. Determined to live her life her own way, she makes new friends and pursues her lifelong desire of becoming a chef. Ethan Danes, a neighbour with his own broken heart, helps soothe hers. 


Just as Nora discovers what it means to be happy, and she begins to fall in love with Ethan, a woman from his past re-enters his life…

And an excerpt:

Nora turned her attention back to the reality in front of her. She hated arguments; sometimes she wished she could hide somewhere, just wait them out. Unfortunately, life was not like that.

She lifted her eyes to meet Liam’s. The ice in his eyes had not melted. She dropped her gaze.

Instead of flirting with her appetite, the large marinated tiger prawns made her stomach queasy, and the oriental noodles looked like neglected yarn left out in the rain. From the way he dissected his steak, Liam’s appetite was just fine. She gritted her teeth as his knife scraped the porcelain plate.

Unable to bear the silence between them, she leaned forward and whispered, “I hate it when you ignore me.”

“What do you want me to say?” He chewed the last of his food and waved for the waiter. “We’re done.”

The waiter nodded and scuttled over to remove their plates.

When the waiter was out of earshot, Nora hissed through clenched teeth, “I wasn’t done.”

Liam took a swig of water, probably wishing it was something stronger. “You didn’t look like you were hungry.”

“Stop treating me like a child,” she snapped.

“Stop acting like one.”

Nora’s cheeks heated. She contained her anger with difficulty. “That’s really insensitive.”

“What do you want from me, Nora?” A vein pulsed in his neck. “What exactly do you want me to say?”

“Say you want me to be happy.” Her eyes brimmed. “Don’t ask me to get rid of my best friend.”

He loosened his tie—and then slammed his fist on the table, knocking over Nora’s glass of water. The silver stream raced straight for her lap.

The waiter appeared as if from nowhere to replace the white tablecloth with a new one. Nora forced a smile and whispered an apology. The waiter nodded, and a minute later he left.

Ignoring the curious looks they got from the other diners, she dabbed at the moisture on her black jeans. “You can’t always explode every time I refuse to do what you want.”

Liam ignored her. “Ask to pay. I want to leave.”

Nora flinched, but abided. Paying wasn’t so bad—so long as it was fair. On their first and second date, he paid. On their third and a few more after that, they went Dutch. After one year, he asked her to pay for an occasional meal until it became an unspoken arrangement between them. The only thing Liam had paid for himself in three years was her engagement ring.
Watch the trailer:

If you need this book right this second, buy it here:

OR
Leave a comment and tell me your favorite kind of chocolate. I’ll pick a random commenter and give away a free e-copy!