Category: STRWC

VBT: Enticing Hart by Mae Hancock (book tour and contest)

 

This is a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly drawn commenter via Rafflecopter will receive a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

ENTICING HART
by Mae Hancock

Hart Emile is tired of cruising for guys, living a soulless existence. He needs a change; so when an acquaintance gives him the number of the gay friendly Red Fox Ranch that’s hiring for staff, he heads south.

Oak Redman is eighteen years old and desperate to explore his awakening sexuality. The moment Hart lays eyes on the handsome young rancher he’s smitten. Not only is Oak hot, spirited and very persistent, he is also the ranch boss’s son and strictly off limits. Hart tries to fight his feelings and to respect his boss and the family who quickly become dear to him, but after Oak’s Grandma suggests he gets with Oak he can’t deny himself the most exciting and enticing man he has ever met.

Hart’s not the only man to have noticed how sweet and charming Oak Redman is. A family friend, Steve, is also anxious to have the affections of the young rancher. Can Hart work out Steve’s dark secrets before it’s too late and keep his job, his lover and his life?

Enjoy an excerpt:

The high-pitched choir of songbirds echoed through the forest as Oak and Hart settled on a rug, late in the afternoon. The two of them had found a clearing at the side of the forest that was near enough to the tress to offer shade, but also close to the water where they’d been fishing. They’d no sooner sat down than Hart spotted something on the other side of the riverbank moving in the grass.

“Shh…I just saw something. I think it’s an otter.” Hart absentmindedly put a hand on Oak’s lap to still him. He didn’t know which was more exciting, seeing the otters, or the burning hot palm that touched his thigh. Oak sat rigidly, glancing between the handsome cowboy’s hand and the otter family bounding along through the grass bank.

“Aren’t you going to get your camera?” Hart chivvied him along.

“Oh…yes.” Oak moved slowly, reaching for the black bag and pulling the camera out. He attached the lens calmly and crawled down the small decline toward the stony bank. He beckoned Hart to join him then focused the lens on the otters. He could hear his companion creeping through the grass behind him. Belly down on the mud, Oak steadied the camera as Hart came alongside him, and let out a sigh as he sank down next to Oak to watch.

The female had two pups with her. As their svelte bodies wound through the rocks to the water’s edge, the mother otter glided into the river without so much as a splash, and the two pups followed. Oak lost count of the photos he took, possibly hundreds of shots as they paddled through the murky depths cautiously. Their fur shiny and dark from absorbing water, making their frames sleeker as they gracefully bathed against the flow.

“Can you hear them?” Hart said with a smile that sprang from his lips right through to his big gray eyes.

“Yeah…” Oak whispered.

The otters called to one another with endearing high-pitched squeaks.

“You ever seen them hold hands?” Hart asked, his lips so close to Oak’s ear that he could feel Hart’s breath tickling the skin.

“No, but I’d love to get a picture of it.”

After about fifteen minutes of lying in the grass like a predator, Oak’s pointed his lens to follow the family towards some big flat stones that were warm from the sun. The otters rested on the smooth surface, shaking their fur, and squeaking to each other until eventually all three disappeared through the long grasses.

“Hart.” Oak turned to face his companion on the ground.

“Yes?”

“I just realized I’m getting damp down here,” Oak said, letting out a snort.

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I enjoy writing both academic and fiction material. My research interests include focus on people who experience marginalization, both in historical societies and modern. Themes include disability, neurosis, homosexuality, addiction, mental illness, slavery and prostitution. The most important part of my work is creating multi-dimensional, believable characters that are able to build lasting romantic relationships against the odds. I want all my readers to laugh, cry and enjoy the erotic journey towards a happy ending.

MBB_TourBookCoverBanner_EnticingHart copyContest:  THE AUTHOR WILL BE GIVING AWAY: $10 Amazon/BN GC, must be 18 years of age or older to enter.  Contest open world wide.

Follow the tour and comment; the more they comment, the better their chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here.

Use the link provided to enter the contest and for all additional contest details:

 

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A MelanieM Review: Cutting Out by Meredith Shayne

Rating:  4.5 stars out of 5

Cutting Out coverTransplanted Aussie Shane Cooper loves his job as a shearer and the home he’s made for himself in New Zealand.  For over 20 years Shane has climbed to the top to be recognized as one of New Zealand’s premier shearers in the Senior Division where the most experienced of them all compete.  Now 39, Shane has a house, good friends, and a life he loves.  He’s only missing out on having someone to share his passion for shearing and his life.

Lachlan “Lachie” Moore is an up and coming shearer.  Not yet good enough to compete in the Senior Division, he still loves to watch them shear, hoping to pick up on pointers to help him do a better job.  At 24, young, reckless and gay, Lachie spots the hot, older shearer immediately, and its not just for his skills at shearing sheep that catches Lachie’s gaze.  But Shane appears more than content to just look then act on the attraction each feels for the other.

Then the horrific Christchurch earthquake hits, and tragedy strikes Lachie’s family. Lachie deals with his traumatized family and takes up new responsibilities, ones that makes it impossible for Lachie to continue on with his dream of shearing as a profession.  A year later, a new opportunity arises for Lachie to pick up shearing once more if only he can find the confidence in himself that now he has lost.

The new job reunites Shane with Lachie, only now he finds the lad changed and uncertain.  Shane decides to help the struggling Lachie regain his skills and direction and the time together reignites old feelings between them.  But Lachie has secrets he is afraid to share with Shane and Shane’s seems to want more than Lachie can give.  What will it take to break up this barrier Lachie has created so both men can have what they so desperately desire?

I throughly enjoyed Cutting Out by Meredith Shayne.  I seem to be reading quite a few books lately from New Zealand and Australian authors and all of them make me want to get on a plane and go “walk about” down under.  Meredith Shayne’s story deals with professional shearers in New Zealand, a job that requires remarkable precision and care as well as speed if you are to make it to the top.  Handling large squirming animals and a pair of shears at the same time takes a passion and coordination that not every person has and Meredith Shayne takes us into the heart of these men and women and the almost vagabond life they lead going from farm to farm to shear large numbers of sheep at a time.

I particularly enjoyed the insight Shayne gives us into the different levels of shearers, from the junior divisions of shearers just learning their  profession (junior and senior refer not to the shearer’s age but experience) to the top Senior level and the sought after shearers that are asked to shear the top quality and much larger breed Merino sheep.  The author easily slides her information about the profession, from the “shearing teams” that tend to work together over and over again as well as the loosely aggregated bunch assembled at the last minute, into her story making it all feel as natural as their surroundings.  The camaraderie and the close community is strengthened by the bond of the Maori society that hovers like a benign parent over its members and families.

As the characters move from farm to farm and home locations, the reader is brought keenly home into the various cities and places of New Zealand, from Christchurch to Gisbourne, from the Queenstown Hill Time Walk to the Basket of Dreams statue.  I felt she made me really  see these place while also sending me to look up areas and places of interest in each town and park.  And again all this is neatly folded into the narrative in such a way that it enhances rather than impedes the flow of the plot and the character growth.

But those characters!  That’s the heart and joy of this story.  I loved the reticent, introspective Shane, older, more experienced at life and love at 39 he knows what he wants but isn’t sure about where he stands with others.  Shane has many facets to his personality and not all are compatible with the much younger Lachie’s 24 year old outlook that begins at cocky, free wheeling and exuberant.  Something that the devastating impact of the earthquake in Christchurch changes forever.  The author takes her time and theirs for the relationship to begin as a friendship and slowly turn into something deeper.  For some readers, this timeline will feel far too slow and unhurried, but I found it to be in keeping with the characters personalities and background the author has created for them.  And its makes the ending all that  much sweeter.

What did I wish had been enlarged?  Perhaps the Epilogue or the chapter preceding it.  I would have loved a little more of their life at the end and how it all came about.  But perhaps we can have that in another story, one that includes these characters and enlarges on others we meet inside this story.  I loved it enough that I hated to have it all end.  I think you will feel the same.  Looking for a new romance to read?  One with a spectacular setting and hot men to boot? Pick up Cutting Off and enter Meredith Shayne’s world of sheep shearers and their HEAs!  I absolutely recommend this to one and all!

Cover artist is from Mumson Designs.  They did a great job.  I love that cover and it works perfectly for one of the characters.

Note:  Use of Aussie/NZ English used.  There is also a wonderful vocabulary to refer to at the beginning!

Sales Links:  All Romance eBooks (ARe)  amazon    Cutting Out

Book Details:

ebook, 200 pages
Published October 11th 2014 by Bottom Drawer Publications
http://www.bottomdrawerpublications.net

ISBN139780994157232
edition languageEnglish

A Sammy Review: A Clean Break (Gay Amish Romance #2) by Keira Andrews

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

A sense of power flowed through him. Isaac was splayed out—so trusting and vulnerable—and David wanted to keep him safe always. They may be sinners, but Isaac was still a gift from God.

A Clean Break coverA Clean Break picks up where A Forbidden Rumspringa left off. Isaac and David have fled from Zebulon, left behind the plain ways and entered a world completely new and different. It’s amazing and freeing, but somehow so constraining all at the same time.

They thought they knew what they were getting into, but life outside their small community in Minnesota is far more complicated than either of them imagined. More than that, they still have to deal with the guilt that comes with leaving behind not only your family and the only life you’ve ever known, but also turning your back to God.

San Francisco may be their destination, but they still have a long way to go.

The thought of having a workshop again—the scratch of pencil on pad as he sketched, the grind of sandpaper, and the resistance of the lumber as he sawed and shaped it to his will—it filled the spaces in him like water around rocks. Yet when he imagined it now, working alone somewhere in the maze of the city, he ached.

A Clean Break is told from David’s point of view, providing a deeply saddening view into what comes with the freedom of an English world. Keira Andrews does a great job of conveying the doubts that linger and the guilt that continues to fester within David, as well as balancing a small sense of hope that this new life with Isaac is somehow all going to work out.

A lot of the story, to me, was about trying to find yourself when everything is so completely foreign. It was a journey for David, and it struck me how alone he felt at times, even when surrounded by people. It’s easy for people to say that this is a great thing – the boys leaving the Amish lifestyle and coming to San Francisco, but there’s so much more to it, and that’s what this is all about.

I really appreciated that the transition was made to be realistic. There was no super smooth, easy fix. I think it also helped that things were different for David and Isaac. Isaac dealt with things in his own ways, and David his. They had to find their own ways – together.

I did miss a bit of the strengthening of the relationship, or growth in general, but I think we began to get more of it toward the middle/end. I felt like David was keeping so much of himself from Isaac and it made me a bit uncomfortable to know all those things, like I was invading some private space.

I also loved the brief bits with Anna and June. It was great that we weren’t just left to wonder what was happening back at Zebulon, we got some answers.

There was just a special spark that existed in the first book and seemed to be a bit dimmer here. Still, it was a great book and I really (no, really) can’t wait for the next.

The cover art by Dar Albert is quite lovely. I’m glad that it includes the water and the bridge, which both seem symbolic to me in this story – a sign of freedom, but also the journey yet to come.

Sales Links:   All Romance (ARe)        Amazon        Buy it here

Book Details:

ebook, 245 pages
Expected publication: February 3rd 2015 by KA Books
ISBN139780993859861
seriesGay Amish Romance #2

Series Includes in the order they were written and should be read:

Heat up your Heart with The Burnt Toast B&B Tour by Heidi Belleau and Rachel Haimowitz (Book tour and contest)

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Hi, and welcome to the Burnt Toast B&B blog tour! We’re Heidi Belleau and Rachel Haimowitz, the authors of the book, and we’re so thankful to have you along for the ride, and thankful to our hosts, Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words, for having us here today!

Normally on a blog tour, we like to share all kinds of behind the scenes goodies to do with the book: inspiration images, glimpses into research and plotting, deleted scenes, conversations about our process, character bios, etc. For this tour, though, we’re doing something a little different, but we hope you’ll still find it worth your while.

When Heidi first pitched The Burnt Toast B&B, it was as an opposites-attract story centring around the world’s worst B&B . . . and an M/M romcom where one of the lead guys just happened to be transgender. Writing solo, she’d done a trans book before, but that was very much a Trans Book, all about exploring gender identity, defining who you are, and coming out to your friends and loved ones. This book . . . isn’t that. It’s the story of an optimistic hipster stuntman and a pessimistic lumberjack who learn to make espresso, fix up a failing B&B, and generally butt heads in between loads of laundry.

Ginsberg, our hipster, is much like many of our other favourite M/M heroes: he’s funny, resilient, romantic, and sexy as hell. He’s also transgender; secure in his identity, his body, and his sexuality; and working in a career he loves. But his life isn’t without hardships. Ginsberg made his own family after his biological one turned out to be too toxic to live with. He scrimped and saved and borrowed to pay for the medical care he needed to be happy and healthy. He found a roof over his head as a “considerate couchsurfer,” living with friends and acquaintances on a temporary basis when money got tight. In Derrick and his failing B&B, Ginsberg finally finds an opportunity to have a real home, if only he can convince Derrick to keep the place open.

Ginsberg’s background of financial hardship and lack of family support is all too common among many people who, like him, are trans and trying to live happy, fulfilling lives as their true selves. As such, we the authors, our publisher Riptide, and our generous blog tour hosts will be using the next few days to highlight the personal fundraisers of real trans people in need. We hope that if you’ve got a little extra money this month, you’ll consider donating, and if money’s tight, maybe you can help by spreading the word, too.

For our part, Rachel, Heidi, and Riptide will be giving donors a $5 Riptide credit code for every $10 in donations you make (up to $50 in codes per person, up to $5,000 in codes overall)–just email your donation receipt(s) to info@riptidepublishing.com with the subject line “Burnt Toast Tour Donation,” and Riptide will send out all $5 codes a week after the tour ends. (It’s totally cool, by the way, to spread your donations across multiple fundraisers if you’d like; we’ll add up all your receipts sent in a single email and base your credit vouchers on the grand total.)

We’re also hosting a special contest for people who donate: every dollar in donations to any of these fundraisers will earn you an entry into a drawing for a full paperback set of Riptide’s current Bluewater Bay lineup, OR two signed paperback copies of The Burnt Toast B&B. We’ll draw one week after the blog tour ends. Every dollar helps, and every dollar counts!

Lastly, we’ll randomly select three commenters from all the tour stops and donate $50 apiece in each winner’s name to the trans charity or fundraiser of their choice. (Please be sure to leave a way for us to contact you if you win!)
Today’s featured fundraiser is for Reid, a young Canadian trans man struggling to make ends meet because of employment discrimination. You can find it at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/transman-needs-a-little-help. And here’s Reid 🙂

As a trans man in “the armpit of Canada,” Reid has been unable to secure long term employment, and is thus in need of emergency living expenses, as well as funds to help him purchase items like safe binders and packers to help him be safe and secure in his body. As a thank-you to those who donate, Reid is offering a number of reawrds, including original fiction, original music, and handwritten letters of gratitude. You can learn more about Reid and help this young man to get his feet beneath him at his fundraiser page, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/transman-needs-a-little-help.

Thank you so much for following our (slightly unconventional) blog tour! Be sure to leave a comment on this or any of our other tour stops for a chance to have $50 donated in your name to a trans-related fundraiser/charity of your choice. And if you choose to donate to any of the fundraisers we’ve highlighted over the course of the tour, don’t forget to forward proof of your donation to info@riptidepublishing.com with the subject line “Burnt Toast Tour Donation” to claim your $5 coupon(s) and enter your name in the extra special drawing!

Lastly, if you or someone you love is transgender and going through a difficult time, please check out the Trans Lifeline, http://www.translifeline.org/. This crisis helpline is staffed entirely by trans volunteers and runs at least twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in the US and Canada. If you’re in crisis, please call them. If you’d like to support this nonprofit, please visit http://www.gofundme.com/translifeline.

About The Burnt Toast B&B:

The Burnt Toast B & B coverAfter breaking his arm on set, Wolf’s Landing stuntman Ginsberg Sloan finds himself temporarily out of work. Luckily, Bluewater Bay’s worst B&B has cheap long-term rates, and Ginsberg’s not too proud to take advantage of them.

Derrick Richards, a grizzled laid-off logger, inherited the B&B after his parents’ untimely deaths. Making beds and cooking sunny-side-up eggs is hardly Derrick’s idea of a man’s way to make a living, but just as he’s decided to shut the place down, Ginsberg shows up on his doorstep, pitiful and soaking wet, and Derrick can hardly send him packing.

Not outright, at least.

The plan? Carry on the B&B’s tradition of terrible customer service and even worse food until the pampered city boy leaves voluntarily. What Derrick doesn’t count on, though, is that the lousier he gets at hosting, the more he convinces bored, busybody Ginsberg to try to get the B&B back on track. And he definitely doesn’t count on the growing attraction between them, or how much more he learns from Ginsberg than how to put out kitchen fires.

Sales and Contact Links:

A MelanieM Review: Red Dirt Heart Series by N. R. Walker

Rating: 5 stars out of 5 for the Series 

Red dirt Heart Cover

 

Welcome to Sutton Station: One of the world’s largest working farms in the middle of Australia – where if the animals and heat don’t kill you first, your heart just might.

And with those words, N. R. Walker introduces us to one of the most heartwarming, delightful, and throughly addicting series that is Red Dirt Heart!  Red Dirt Heart revolves around the complex and totally embraceable characters of Charlie Sutton of Sutton Station and Texan Travis Craig.   Per N. R. Walker:

Charlie Sutton runs Sutton Station the only way he knows how; the way his father did before him. Determined to keep his head down and his heart in check, Charlie swears the red dirt that surrounds him – isolates him – runs through his veins.

American agronomy student Travis Craig arrives at Sutton Station to see how farmers make a living from one of the harshest environments on earth. But it’s not the barren, brutal and totally beautiful landscapes that capture him so completely, it’s the man with the red dirt heart.

But that brief synopsis doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of these stories. Through 4 books we trace Charlie and Travis’ journey towards love, relationship and a permanent home with each other.  Along the way we fall in love with not only Charlie and Travis but the red dirt desert of the Northern Territory that Charlie loves so much.  It doesn’t happen immediately but gradually in scene after scene as the stark, red hot environment claims the heart of Travis just as surely as Charley does.  And this is not a romanticized version of the red dirt country.  No, its comes complete with venomous snakes and spiders,  extreme temperatures that are lethal if caught unprepared or lost, and an almost alienness, a sense of solitude that can comfort or kill depending upon the circumstances.   And we learn to respect and love it for exactly what it is.

The same truth can be said about Charley…complex, abandoned, self-doubting Charley.  So easy to connect with and understand, Charley is a character as layered as the desert, full of extreme swings in his decision making, as durable and elemental as the red dirt he loves so deeply.  The Sutton Station is a part of Charlie, although he has yet to learn exactly how much and what large boundaries that station family includes.  For the Sutton Station comes with Ma and George, farm employees who are more mom and dad to Charley than his own. There’s Billy (an Aboriginal), and  several other workers that over the course of the stories form a close knit family to Charley and Travis.  But it’s not Charley that is the impetus for this shaping of people and events, no, its the arrival of Travis Craig that throws Charley and the status quo into shambles.  Delightfully so.

When Travis arrives, he meets a closeted, closed off Charley just waiting for a love he’s sure he doesn’t deserve.  And one of the things that makes this beginning of their journey so compelling is that the readers live inside Charley’s  head, an element that brings us so close to this bruised man that we love him immediately.  Books 1 through 3 are all told from Charley’s point of view.  In a neat feat of writing, N. R. Walker gives us the ability to see through the haze of Charley’s confusion, self doubt, and desire to realize that Travis is falling deeply in love with Charley even if Charley can’t see it.  Even as Charley is internally arguing with himself, busy throwing obstacles in their path to happiness because of his fear and uncertainty, we see Travis always in Charlie’s orbit, watching and urging Charlie forward.  What an addicting, captivating and yes, throughly charming pair and instantly we are invested in their happiness and future together.

What a troublesome road it is for Charley and Travis.  Outside of Charlie’s two step relationship dance, there’s immigration laws and visas, and the reality that Travis is an American citizen whose family (who loves him dearly) lives in Texas.  There complications that abound with Ma and George, orphaned animals that quickly grab onto your heart as much as the rest of the Sutton Station crazy, warmhearted group of individuals.  We get lessons in the mineral layers of dirt, learn what a bore is (no it has nothing to do with a person), and in general, see what it takes to run a station as large as Charley’s.  Those of us readers not from Down Under learn bits of Australian english and phrases, enough to instill the urge to travel and see it for ourselves.    As I say in my review for Red Dirt Heart 4, this series is as much a love letter from N. R. Walker to her country as it is about a deeply abiding love between Charley and Travis.

Along with way, there are some heartstopping moments so painful that tissues will be needed, white knuckle events that will make you feel suspended, frozen, until you (and the characters) are able to move forward and past them once more.  Those will be balanced with scenes of joy, laughter, and romance, such as Charlie understands it!  I laughed, cried, and laughed again through all the highs and lows, and even quiet moments of reflection and contentment that flow from these stories and the series as a whole.

Just a memory of a dialog or scene can send me running back to grab up that book, and before I realize it I’m lost once more in Red Dirt Heart romance and setting of Sutton Station and Charley Sutton.

Now the series is ending with Red Dirt Heart 4.  I’ve read the story, wept a little (ok ,more than a little. a lot) and said my happy goodbyes.  Told this time from Travis’ point of view, it’s a wholly satisfying, totally engaging series finale and gives us and Travis and Charley a glorious happily ever after.  It ends just where it should, no more, no less.   The Red Dirt Heart saga quickly became and still is one of my all time favorite series. It will be among the top on my rec lists as well as Best of.  N. R. Walker’s writing was vivid, at times lyrical in her love for her country and the Northern Territory, and full of the human spirit and endurance it takes to not only live life on the desert but to embrace it with all that you are.

But don’t take my word for it,  pick it up and start your journey into red dirt territory and the hearts and minds of Charley Sutton and Travis Craig.  It’s easy to read them in order as they are titled Red Dirt Heart 1 thru 4!  Elegant and simple.  Just don’t expect the same simplicity inside.  Be prepared to fall madly and completely in love with Charlie, Travis, Sutton Station and yes, the red dirt of  Australia’s Northern Territory.  What an amazing trip it is!  A real journey of their lifetimes! Begin it today.

All covers are the creation of Sara York.  I loved them.  They brand the series as a whole while each cover has elements important to that story.  Great job.

Sales links can be found on each individual review page listed below:

Red dirt Heart CoverRed Dirt Heart 2Red Dirt Heart3Red Dirt Heart 4 cover

Down Under Author: N. R. Walker

DownUnder_January Is Banner

 NRW logo

Meet N. R. Walker!

N. R. Walker is the author of the Thomas Elkin series, the Red Dirt Heart series (both Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Must Have, Must Reads) and other books listed below.

To get to know N. R. Walker a little better, the author agreed to an interview. Look for the interview below and the Down Under Scavenger Hunt word found somewhere within.

✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍Author Bio 1

Who am I?

Good question…

I am many things; a mother, a wife, a sister, a writer.

I have pretty, pretty boys who live in my head, who don’t let me sleep at night unless I give them life with words.

I like it when they do dirty, dirty things…but I like it even more when they fall in love.

I used to think having people in my head talking to me was weird, until one day I happened across other writers who told me it was normal.

I’ve been writing ever since…

*********************Author Contacts

Contacts/Follow at :

  Please note – NOT safe for work or kids


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Author Books Stories Down Under1 copy

 

Reddirtheart3300Red dirt Heart CoverRed Dirt Heart 2Red Dirt Heart3

 

 

 

 

Books:

Taxes and TARDIS
Ten in the Bin

 

Blind Faith coverThrough These Eyes cover (BF2) Young man in the cityThe 12th of Never (BF3.5)

 

 

 

 

Blind Faith (Blind Faith Series #1)
Through These Eyes (Blind Faith Series #2)
Blindside (Blind Faith Series #3)
Twelfth of Never (Blind Faith Series #3.5)

 

Elements of Retrofit coverClarity of Lines coverSense of Place coverSixty Five Hours cover

 

 

 

 

Point of No Return (Turning Point #1)
Breaking Point (Turning Point #2)
Starting Point (Turning Point #3)

 

Point of No Return coverBreaking Point coverStarting Point coverLearning to Feel cover

 

 

 

 

Elements of Retrofit (Thomas Elkin Series #1)
Clarity of Lines (Thomas Elkin Series #2)
Sense of Place (Thomas Elkin Series #3)
Red Dirt Heart 1 (Red Dirt Series #1)
Red Dirt Heart 2 (Red Dirt Series #2)Best Books of 2014
Red Dirt Heart 2 (Red Dirt Series #3)
Red Dirt Heart 4 (Red Dirt Series #4) just being released!

And my free reads:
Sixty Five Hours
Learning to Feel
His Grandfather’s Watch

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Contests and Giveaways:

1. Today’s Giveaway (thank you,N. R. Walker) is an eBook copy of Red Dirt Heart 4. Enter using this Rafflecopter link here. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

2. Down Under Scavenger Hunt – find the Hunt “word or phrase” in bold green . Collect all the words from each author and submit the list in writing no later than midnight on February 1st. Make sure you include an email address where you can be reached. Prizes will be given to 5 people selected, from 1st place to 5th! Happy Hunting.

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Author Qand A

Q: When did you start writing?

A: I started writing fiction about 4 years ago, after reading fan fiction online. I wrote fan fiction first, but then original characters started telling me stories. 😉

Q. Were you a reader as a child?

Yes. Loved reading. I loved adventure books mostly.

Q: Title or characters or plot? Which comes first?

A: Usually the characters, though sometimes the title is crystal clear from the very beginning. I normally have the characters talking to me for a little while before they tell me the plot.

Q: Do you have a favorite character that you have written?

A: I do love Charlie Sutton from my Red Dirt Heart Series. He’s a true Aussie farmer; hardworking, loves his family and friends and puts himself last, every time. He’s flawed, he’s frustrating, and he’s wonderful.

Q: Favorite book/story you have read as an adult?

A: Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Just wow.

Q: Do you have a certain regimen that you follow as a writer?

A: I know it’s cliché, but write every day. Set hours if you can, or the same time slot every day, if real life allows it.

Q: Do you have a specific writing style?

A: My writing style consists of listening to what the characters tell me, and hoping for the best. LOL

Q: How do you think books written from authors in Australia or New Zealand differ in style, language, and culture?

A: There’s an Australian/Kiwi-ness in our everyday dialect that we can recognise straight away in a book, which I just love. Our genre is so Americanised, so to read Aussie books with Aussie characters (by Aussie authors) is like putting on a favourite pair of jeans. I have written books set in both America and Australia, using American and Australian characters respectively, and for me the language/setting/culture to do Australian is SO much easier. I think (some) authors – I know this is true for myself – become Americanised in their writing. I know even now when I write in real life (not for books) I find myself using American spelling. I think this is why I have LOVED writing my Red Dirt Heart Series so much. Having Aussie farmers in the Australian outback… doesn’t much more Aussie than that.

Q: If you were a tour guide, what would you like a visitor to see and what impression would you want them to take away with them when they leave?

A: The people! Aussies are so laid back and welcoming and the saying “no worries, mate” is a fabulous mantra.

Q: What are your current projects?

A: I’m working on my first paranormal romance. It’s a modern day vampire story that delves into Ancient Egypt (sort of). It’s very different from what I usually do, and it’s been a lot of fun to write so far.

Q: What’s next up for you?

A: Red Dirt Heart 4 was released January 9th, so my next release will be my paranormal romance, hopefully early March.

Thanks so much for having me!

Down Under Author Showcase Day 10: N. R. Walker

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Day 10: N. R. Walker

It’s Day 10 of STRW Down Under Author Showcase.  Our featured author today is N. R. Walker.  Her Red Dirt Heart series which concludes with yesterday’s released Red Dirt Heart 4 is on ours and many other’s Best of 2014 Lists.  I expect that with this final story, it will be on this year’s Best of Lists as well.Best Books of 2014

So don’t miss out on her giveaway, read our interview and check out all the books she has written to day.  It will make you want to book a flight, jam a Akubra (Australian cowboy hat), climb into a Ute, and head out into the gorgeous red dirt country that she writes about so lovingly and well.

 

Australian-ranch

 

Australia Fun Fact of the Day:

Anna Creek Station

 

 

 

 

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The largest cattle station in the world is Anna Creek Station in South Australia at over 34,000 square kilometres is the world’s largest cattle station. It is even larger than Belgium.

 

New Zealand Fun Fact of the Day:

From the driest to the wettest!

Enough Drinking Water for a Whole Country – From One Spring!

The Te Waikoropupu Springs in Golden Bay are record breakers.Pupu springs NZ

They push out more fresh water than any other springs in the world, producing one to two billion litres of water a day.

If required, the springs could provide enough drinking water to supply the entire population of New Zealand.

As if that wasn’t enough, the spring waters are the clearest natural water in the world outside of Antarctica. You can see an average of 63 metres when you look down through the water.

 

Are contests today are N. R. Walker’s giveaway, find the Down Under Scavenger Hunt word and don’t forget to enter Bottom Drawer Publications contest on the Down Under Showcase page on the menu!