Blog Anniversary Day 8: Kathi Daley

Guest Post: Kathi Daley

People often ask me what I attribute my success as a self-published author to and I always answer without a doubt that it is the people in my life, my team so to say, that have gotten me to where I am today. There is a saying about it taking a village and I can state with absolute certainty that this is true.

While there are many people on my team, each who serve an important role, some of the most important people I work with day in and day out are cozy mystery book bloggers. When I first started out as an author three years ago I was so very, very, green. I had a Facebook account with a handful of family members as friends, but I had never taken the time to learn Twitter and had never even heard of Goodreads. I was lucky during my first month as an author to meet a book blogger named Amy Brantley who took time out of her busy life to show me the ropes and introduce me to the world of social media. 

Shortly after I met Amy I managed to get hooked up with Lisa Kelley from Lisa K’s Book Reviews. She was more than happy to not only promote my work but also to introduce me to other bloggers such as Linda Langford from Chatting About Cozies, Kathleen Kaminski from Cozy Up with Kathy, Jenna Czaplewski from Girl with Book Lungs, Shelley Giusti from Shelley’s Book Case, and many others. 

Of course once I got started in social media I took the bull by the horns and went a bit social media crazy. I began sponsoring scavenger hunts, murder mystery parties, book and swag giveaways, and of course my Halloween Spooktacular, which this year featured over 50 authors and seven book bloggers including Lisa, Jenna, and Kathy, as well as Brooke from Brooke Blogs, Karen from A Cup of Tea and a Cozy Mystery, Mary form MJN Reviewers, and Millie from A Touch of Romance Book Club. 

The number of bloggers in my life has grown to the point where there are too many to mention in this one article. I do however have to give a special shout out to Lori Boness Caswell who put together a spectacular launch tour when my first set of books published by Henery Press were released in September, and Dru Ann Love who has been offering guidance and support from the beginning.

I have two Christmas Books I am promoting in November. Jpg’s of the covers are attached to the email and here are the links:

Candy Cane Caper http://amzn.to/2cqO0pd 

The Cat of Christmas Present http://amzn.to/2d1P0yS 

I would love to do a giveaway. I usually offer a Kindle or Paperback copy of the book – winners choice – NON US winner Kindle only. 

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BOTM: Giveaway Time

As everyone knows the BOTM for October is Colleen Helme's Deep in Death and she is offering a lucky reader of the blog a copy of the audio version of this book!  There are some guidelines for this review:

1. Must live within the U,S,A, Unfortunately not a international giveaway but stay tuned you never know what other giveaways we have!
2. Must leave an email address in the comments along with answering my mystery question.
3. Giveaway will run two weeks to give people plenty of time to enter and share the link to the giveaway.

HERE'S YOUR MYSTERY QUESTION:Mind you the mystery question doesn't always pertain to the author or book in question it's just a general mystery themed question.

What is your favorite Halloween themed mystery to read?  Or do you pick new ones each year?  

If you share this link on other social sites please include links below :)  Any promoting will help your chances of winning!!

Good Luck to All Who Enter the Contest!!

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Winner: Deanna Stillings

I have picked the winner of the giveaway Feta Attraction the winner is Deanna Stillings! Congratulations Deanna aka Gram.  If you entered and didn't win stay tuned I will have more giveaways soon for you all to enter!

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Guest Note and Giveaway: Once Upon A Grind by: Cleo Coyle

A NOTE FROM CLEO:


For over a decade, our wonderful readers have been meeting us at the Village Blend, where coffee and crime are always brewing. This latest entry in our Coffeehouse series is more than a murder mystery. It’s also a novel about the magic and power of story. That’s why we chose the most basic and beloved stories of our culture—fairy tales—to serve as our motif.

Like any good fairy tale, Once Upon a Grind takes you through secret doors; plays with your sense of reality; introduces you to an array of colorful characters; and while the ending may be happy, not everyone survives.

Intertwined with the murder mystery is a very personal story for our amateur sleuth. Coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi doesn’t want to admit it, but her life has become a grind. “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.” This is the epigraph that opens Once Upon a Grind, and it applies directly to Clare.

She wants to leave her story and start another, but she’s afraid of disappointing the people she loves. Is Clare able to change her story by the end of the book? No spoiler here. But if you’re a fan of our series, you won’t want to miss this entry. 

On the other hand, if you’ve never read our Coffeehouse Mysteries before, no worries. Once Upon a Grind can be read as a stand-alone novel. And if you enjoy it, you’ll have 13 more books you can read, as well.

To download a free checklist of all 14 Coffeehouse Mystery titles, click here.http://www.coffeehousemystery.com/userfiles/file/Coffeehouse-Mysteries-in-Order-Cleo-Coyle.pdf

To read the Prologue and First Chapter of ONCE UPON A GRIND, click here.

To sample some of the book’s wicked good recipes click here.

SECRET CODE: The 8th of the 9 words in Cleo’s Secret Code Contest is ELSE (Learn how to enter Cleo’s Secret Code giveaway here.)

Thank you to Community Bookstop for hosting us today. We have one last stop on our blog tour. Be sure to join us for a special treat, and…

May your holidays be bright!

~ Alice and Marc (Cleo Coyle)

https://cleocoylebooks.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/once-upon-a-secret-code/

CONTEST:

Enter The Giveaway to win a copy of Once Upon A Grind.  This contest is open to USA residents.  Leave a comment below of your favorite character in the Coffeehouse mysteries.  Also include your email address and I will pick a winner at random.

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Giveaway: Geared For The Grave Tote Bags

Giveaway Time:

I have something super awesome to offer my followers in order to win one of these great tote bags: 

• you will have to follow me either through friend connect, rss feeds, or google +, or Networked Blogs.  
• Leave a comment in the comment area with how you are following me, also include your email address and you can have a chance to win one of these great tote bags.  
• This giveaway is open to USA residents only.  
• This contest will end November 14th so take advantage of this great contest!!

 

I mean isn't this a great tote bag to use for storing books or a day at the beach or park.  Also don't forget to check out Duffy Brown's latest book Geared For The Grave.

 

Purchase Links:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

Synopsis:

Where biking takes a deadly turn

Shakedowns cover-ups and big fat lies keep bodies hidden on Mackinac Island and bike-riding tourist oblivious to it all.

Geared for the Grave
To boost her chances for a promotion, Evie Bloomfield helps her boss’ dad with his cycle shop. The good idea turns bad when dad winds up prime suspect in a murder. To save her job Evie takes over the failing shop though she’s never ridden a bike, finding a killer though she can’t find her keys in her purse and discovering why someone is out to frame Dad. Can Chicago Evie survive life on Mackinac Island without her Honda, being on an eight-mile chunk of land with horses, carriages, bikes, fudge-eating tourists, the resident sage writing her eulogy and a killer who wants her dead?

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Giveaway: Dark Sun, Bright Moon by: Oliver Sparrow Giveaway

GIVEAWAY TIME:

It's that time of year again when I have a book to giveaway! Today I have an e-book to giveaway by: Oliver Sparrow.

Book Synopsis:

Human sacrifice, communities eaten from within, a vast mind blazing under the mud of Lake Titicaca; the rise and fall of empires cruel and kind.

In the Andes of a thousand years ago, the Huari empire is sick. Its communities are being eaten from within by a plague, a contagion that is not of the body but of something far deeper, a plague that has taken their collective spirit. Rooting out this parasite is a task that is laid upon Q'ilyasisa, a young woman from an obscure little village on the forgotten borders of the Huari empire. This impossible mission is imposed on her by a vast mind, a sentience that has ambitions to shape all human life. Her response to this entails confrontations on sacrificial pyramids, long journeys through the Amazonian jungle and the establishment of not just one but two new empires. Her legacy shapes future Andean civilisation until the arrival of the Spanish.

"Dark Sun, Bright Moon" explores the unique Andean metaphysic: not one of gods and heavens, but a cosmology developed over millennia of isolation, developed over generations by its practitioners but at constant war with the various state religions. It has been systematised from current beliefs, but is essentially authentic to them. As described in the book, therefore, this cosmology is a concrete thing, neither magic nor religion but a technology with a logic of its own that drives the story line. However, this is above all an adventure story in which credible people undertake rational if desperate acts in the face of extreme threat.

Biography of Oliver Sparrow via Goodreads:

Oliver Sparrow was born in the Bahamas, raised in Africa and educated at Oxford to post-doctorate level, as a biologist with a strong line in computer science. He spent the majority of his working life with Shell, the oil company, which took him into the Peruvian jungle for the first time. He was a director at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House for five years. He has started numerous companies, one of them in Peru, which mines for gold. This organisation funded a program of photographing the more accessible parts of Peru, and the results can be seen at http://www.all-peru.info. Oliver is the author of Dark Sun, Bright Moon. He knows modern Peru very well, and has visited all of the physical sites that are described in the book. 

**To Enter This Contest please leave a comment with your email address and also add this site through google friend connect or google plus.  Include that in your comment..   This contest is open to USA residents only.  This contest will end next Thursday Nov. 13th.  Good Luck to all who enter the contest!**

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Book Spotlight and Giveaway: Wicked Hunger by: DelSheree Gladden

Book/Series title: Wicked Hunger/SomeOne Wicked This Way Comes

Author: DelSheree Gladden

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Length: 95,000 words/240 pages

Synopsis:

“Save him and hurt him, don’t save him and hurt him. Pain, either way. Delicious pain. Hunger will be the only one that wins. Hunger always wins.” 

Vanessa and Zander Roth are good at lying. Their whole life is a giant web of deceit made in an effort to conceal the deadly secrets that plague their family. 

Zander will do anything to forget his mistakes, including pushing everyone away. He was barely surviving in his self-forced solitude before Ivy Guerra entered his life. The new girl in school, with her pink-striped hair and unyielding curiosity, incites something wicked inside Zander that can only be blamed on his family genes. Now Zander is forced to fight an internal war and make a choice between loving Ivy Guerra and killing her. 

Vanessa wants nothing more than to shed the strange powers she wields and be normal. Because if Van were normal, she’d be able to have normal things… Like a relationship with the boy she’s been secretly in love with for years. Unfortunately, her life is anything but ordinary. That boy who owns her heart just happens to be her brother’s kryptonite and a potential liability for her entire family. When choices between love and family loyalty have to be made, Van finds herself faced with an impossible decision. 

As if the Roth family needs anything more to worry about, a vicious plot to expose Van and Zander for what they are is uncovered. When it becomes apparent that someone close to them is at the center of this devious plan, the fight to maintain control and keep their cover ensues. It's a seemingly impossible battle because something is causing their powers to stir stronger than ever before… and it won’t stop until Van and Zander give in to their wicked hunger. 

Wicked Hunger is the first book in the all-new paranormal series, Someone Wicked This Way Comes.

Blurb:

Vanessa and Zander Roth have spent their lives battling an uncontrollable hunger for pain and suffering that will either gain them limitless power or lead them to their deaths.

Author Bio:

DelSheree Gladden lives in New Mexico with her husband and two children. The Southwest is a big influence in her writing because of its culture, beauty, and mythology. Local folk lore is strongly rooted in her writing, particularly ideas of prophecy, destiny, and talents born from natural abilities. When she is not writing, DelSheree is usually reading, painting, sewing, or working as a Dental Hygienist. Her works include Escaping Fate, Twin Souls Saga, The Destroyer Trilogy, Wicked Hunger, and Invisible. Look for, Wicked Power, the next book in the SomeOne Wicked This Way Comes Series, Intangible, book two in the Aerling Series, and Soul Stone, book two in the Escaping Fate Series, coming 2014.

GIVEAWAY TIME: That's right you head it DelSheree Gladden is offering up a e-copy of the arc of Wicked Hunger for those who are interested. 

That's it easy peasy.  Good Luck to those who enter.  This contest will end December 24, 2014 I am hoping to get the winners their ebooks before Christmas.  

What you need to do to win:

1. leave a comment in this post with your email address

2. share your favorite YA urban paranormal book

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