AMEN TO LOVE – AVAILABLE NOW!

After several attempts on ex-Navy SEAL Bond Bergstrom’s life, the mountain hospital where he works as an MD hires ex-Delta Force operative Rory O’Shea’s team for security. Bond resists—no one can protect like a SEAL. Rory O’Shea disagrees, his security firm accepts the contract, and Rory takes the night shift inside Bond’s home.

Bond doesn’t remember the one steamy night they spent together after a rescue operation in Afghanistan a few years back. Rory is determined to make sure he does. This is the man he wants in his life, but will he satisfy Bond…both in and out of the bedroom?

http://www.jmsnyder.com

Want to know why I chose this theme for my story? Go to the link above and click on Blog.

Carolina

Necessary tools for writers – Merriam-Webster Dictionary and a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FREE READS:  http://www.mysexysaturday.blogspot.com

 

AWAKENING THE ALPHA

Scheduled for release June 6, 2016 from Loose Id

I don’t know what growing pains WordPress is going through, but I’m finding it difficult to post any more and have it come out making any sense.

I wanted to share that I’ve just returned the final edits on Awakening the Alpha and am excited to see what the new cover will
be. I love some of those on their website, and I was asked for suggested designers who might turn out something out that would fit my story. Unlike some writers, I’m artistic but not an artist. Even providing tips for a designer is tough for me. Readers may not realize that big presses do not let authors have control over their cover. To an extent, smaller presses do.

I’ve found that juggling more than one publisher’s editorial guidelines guidelines can be a bit confusing. If I write “baskets, napkins and utensils” do I put a comma after napkins or not? It’s publisher’s choice. Most publishers I’ve had contact with lean on The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)and a copy of a dictionary published by by Merriam-Webster. For instance, which compound words do you hyphenate? Check out the dictionary and/or the CMoS. I’ve always been fairly good with grammar and punctuation, but figuring out the written rules blows my mind.

My friend Linda Carroll-Bradd, an author who edits freelance and for The Wild Rose Press, tells me she has always loved that stuff. Wish it were true for me. My point is that an editor’s job, as I see it, is to make your story the best it can be. Thank heaven, for good editors!

~~*~~

WHAT IS YOUR GENDER?

Your gender identity is what you know it to be.

It may not be not what is written on your birth certificate.

It is not how you dress.

It is what you know it to be.

Have a great weekend!
Carolina Valdez  (Cisgender. Pronouns she and her)

http://www.CarolinaValdez.com (This is being adjusted to reflect the removal of some of my Amber Quill Press stories)

Tweets by carolina_valdez

http://www.facebook.com/author.carolina.valdez

Coming Soon – Awakening the Alpha from Loose Id

 

SCHEDULE FOR RELEASE JUNE 6, 2016

I've just returned the final edits and am excited to see what the new
cover will be. I love some of those on their website, and I was asked
for suggested designers who might turn out something out appropriate
for my story.

Unlike some writers, I'm artistic but not an artist. Even providing 
tips for a designer is tough for me. Readers may not realize that big
presses do not let authors have control over their cover designs. To an
extent, small presses do. 

After writing for only one publisher for twelve years, I've discovered
juggling more than one publisher's editorial guidelines lines can be
a bit confusing. If I write "baskets, napkins and utensils," do I put a
comma after napkins or not? It's the publisher's choice.

Most publishers I've had contact with lean on The Chicago
Manual of Style (CMOS)and a Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Where do commas go? Which compound words do you hyphenate? Check out the dictionary and/or the CMOS.

I’ve always been fairly good with grammar and punctuation, but figuring out the written rules blows my mind. My friend Linda Carroll-Bradd, an author who edits freelance and for The Wild Rose Press, tells me she has always loved that that stuff. Wish it were true for me.

My point is that an editor’s job, for poor souls like me, is to make a story the best it can be. Thank heaven, for good editors!

Have a great weekend!

Carolina Valdez
Cisgender; pronouns she and herl
http://www.CarolinaValdez.com Cisgender; pronouns she and her http://www.CarolinaValdez.com (This is being adjusted to reflect the removal of some of my Amber Quill Press stories) http://www.twitter.com/carolina_valdez http://www.facebook.com/author.carolina.valdez

WHAT IS YOUR GENDER?
Your gender is what you know it to be.
It is not what is written on your birth certificate.
It is not how you dress. It is what you know it is.

SAD NEWS – AMBER QUILL PRESS, MY PUBLISHER, WILL CLOSE IN MARCH

http://www.amberquill.com

If you’ve been to the Amber Quill Press website recently, this is what you’ll see—

“AMBER QUILL PRESS, LLC WILL CEASE ALL RETAIL OPERATIONS AT MIDNIGHT (MDT) MARCH 30, 2016 (0700 UTC) MARCH 31, 2016. The site and all its books will disappear from the Internet at that time. Be sure you’ve downloaded everything from your Bookshelf and have used all your rewards points prior to those dates and time.”

This publisher opened its doors in late 2002, and I was privileged to become one of the authors for this “Gold Standard in Publishing” small press in 2003, when I was a winner in the first Amber Heat Wave Erotic Short Story Contest. My winner, Dark Stranger, was released in the spring of 2004. I recently toned down the sex from erotic to sensual and indie published it as Night Rider, under a different name.

Epublishing was in its infancy in 2002. I’ve been through its rise in popularity and our books finally accepted as non-vanity, non-subsidized real books. In the beginning, you had to purchase an expensive eReader. Today, free apps allow you to read any book on any device.

I like being with a publisher, and am crushed at the loss of mine. The AQP owners and staff were wonderful to work with, they operated an honorable publishing house, and I feel a deep sense of regret that changes in the publishing world have created its demise. Through their support of my work,and thanks to my fans, I earned Published Author Network (PAN) status in Romance Writers of America, saw my stories final and place in romance contests, and built a wonderful online network of author and fan friendships.

In the last two years, I watched royalties slowly decrease for all of us due to a major drop in sales from Amazon. I was among many long-timers who wondered if small presses could survive. With AQP’s closure, I believe at least four houses have been forced out of business in the past year.

Why? Were they poorly managed?

No, the behemoth Amazon, in effect, became a publisher. Not just with Montauk and their Kindle Scout program, but by opening the door to indie publishing. They’ve eliminated the middle man functions of small presses. Now, as an indie publisher/author under a different name, I am the middle man—I pay an editor, a formatter and a cover designer for my books. I pay for advertising, and I’m accountant and tax woman.

Novellas selling for $6.00 on small presses couldn’t compete with Amazon’s prices…often at $1.99, $2.99, $.99. Sometimes even free. Those of us who have joined the indie phenomenon  have had a role in forcing those middle man, small presses out of business. We are part of the downfall. I am part of it because I’ve indie published under a different name.

My website will remain, but on March 31st two male-female erotic stories will be the only books there. In From The Cold will be my first gay erotic rerelease come April 1st. If Loose-Id accepts Silk Stealth (combined with Silk Stealth: Shadow Warrior to make it novel length) it will eventually show up there.

I’ve lived long enough to get it: the world changes. Has ever since my birth in a small Texas town. Now four small presses have closed in the past year, and I’m sure there will be more to come. Some people will stop writing. Others, and I am one, will continue to write. It is what writers do.

Check out the great prices for my books now on Amber Quill’s website. Pick up your free copy of Savage Lust, my prequel to the Night Train vampire series. Do check out my now short-lived, latest release Surf’s Up!, where Raven must decide if he can love a glam man. (I just love these characters.)

http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/78-Carolina-Valdez.aspx

Stay with me! And have a great weekend…

Carolina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GUEST BLOGGER DEE ANN PALMER

Sixteen years ago, Dee Ann Palmer finished her first novel in a writers workshop in the mountains. Later, as a public health nurse visiting pregnant and parenting teens in those same mountains, she became aware of young men eagerly awaiting the first snowfall so they could work at the ski facilities. With those memories, it’s not surprising she chose the mountains, a blizzard and a ski resort for her two stories in this winter romance collection.

The opening to A Night to Remember —

It was the worst Christmas Eve Marlee had ever lived through. Providing she did live through it, she thought. People who longed for a white Christmas obviously didn’t expect it to come with a power outage and a blizzard like she was creeping along in in her old Nissan.

Squinting to see, she switched the heat to the front and rear windshields. If she didn’t reach her house soon, the wipers wouldn’t be able to cut through the ice forming there. The snow had thickened and the temperature had dropped in the last thirty minutes…

Opening to Snowfall–

What a glorious day! Riley filled her lungs with the icy air as the seat of the lift slid under her. She looked out as it pulled her upward. The night’s storm had floated fresh powder over High Mountain as far as she could see.

She smiled. Great. We’ll be busy today, and we’ll have a white Christmas.

Angels Ski Resort was on the California side of the Sierra Nevada range, and as the ski instructor she worked at the base of the lift and runs. Today, her task as a senior ski patroller was to do a trail safety sweep. Arriving early, she’d keyed open the drive terminal, stepped inside to set the chairlift in motion, then exited the building and relocked it. She’d turned on the heat in the next building, which held the instruction rooms and ski patrol offices…

Read them both in Exquisite Christmas, available in print or digital from your favorite bookseller.

~*~

In every age, the heart loves, and Dee Ann Palmer’s romances over the past twelve years have reflected those eras in contemporary, historic and fantasy tales. Palmer is a member of Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America’s PAN group. She’s married to her college sweetheart, and they live in beautiful southern California in easy reach of mountains, desert and beaches.

http://deeannpalmer.com   http://deeannpalmer.blogspot.com http://www.facebook.com/AuthorDeeAnnPalmer

 

 

NIGHT TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS

Be sure to pick up a free copy of SAVAGE LUST, prequel to the series. NIGHT TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS is the second story in the series. http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/Carolina-Valdez.aspx

Alexandros and Dante meet and fall in love in Naples. Alex talks Dante into visiting him in his home town of New Orleans….Confusion, danger and passion heat up the reunion of Italian diamond courier Dante Rocco and his once business-rival-turned-lover, the vampire Alexandros Nicolaides. Alex has never wavered in what Dante means to him, but Dante arrives in New Orleans suddenly unsure of his feelings and the impulsive promise he’d made to leave Italy for America. In the historic richness of the French Quarter, Dante must decide how he really feels about Alex, even as the powerful ruler of the Louisiana vampires complicates their lives, and Giacomo arrives bent on murder.

Excerpt

Alex studied the man in the drunken stupor. Where were the welcoming arms, the sexual passion and heat, the fucking he’d anticipated with his lover tonight after such a long separation? This reunion had not only fallen short of his expectations, but Dante’s behavior puzzled him. For openers, he’d never seen him have more than one drink at a meal. For another, he’d sensed guardedness even over a simple kiss. Dante had pulled back instead of stepping forward into the kiss. Tonight Alex suspected Dante had used overindulgence to shut himself off from lovemaking. At the moment he wasn’t sure why because Dante’s response to his kisses and his touch had signaled how much Dante wanted to fuck with him.

Alex sighed. So he’s shut me out, and here I am, my cock as hard and tight in its skin as a boulder and my body trembling with wanting him.

Slipping off his shoes, he lay on his side on top of the covers behind Dante and propped himself up on one elbow. Dante’s hair was in his eye, and Alex brushed it back, enjoying its silken feel and that of the elegant lines of Dante’s facial bones. His skin was warm. Alive. Alex especially loved that about him and intended he would stay that way. Dante didn’t stir as Alex’s finger slid down the bridge of his nose, which was just as aristocratic as Alex remembered it. In sleep, Dante’s dark lashes reached well beneath his lower lids. Only their upward curl kept them from touching his face. Like men with dark hair, his jaw line and upper lip were shadowed by the hint of new growth.

Alex found it very sexy.

Dante didn’t move even when Alex ran his hand over his hip and spread it wide across one buttock to press the firm roundness covered by bedding and briefs. His hand retreated to Dante’s shoulder and the delectable place where it met his neck. Alex’s eye teeth, pointed and sharp, lengthened as he smelled the blood coursing there and detected the alcohol tainting it. Leaning forward, he closed his eyes and listened to Dante’s heart as with its every pump blood pulsated against the vessels in his neck. The blood magic enthralled him, called him…to drink. No one else’s blood tasted like Dante’s. No other human intrigued him as much. Alex moved closer, spooning with the curve of his lover’s body. It would be wrong to sink his fangs into that neck unless Dante knew of it, but Alex’s aching cock and marbled sac demanded release and almost leaped into his hand as it found them. Pleasure absorbed him as he toyed with himself, then seriously stroked, kneaded and pulled until his body sang with sensation and he knew he was close to the zenith of all he could feel. It was time. Only then did he lean over and sink one fang carefully into Dante’s earlobe.

As the sweet taste of Dante’s blood hit his tongue, his body remembered how it was to be inside his man-love. He arched more tightly against him.

http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/1451-Night-Train-To-New-Orleans.aspx

SURF’S UP! – NEW – 35% DISCOUNT THIS WEEK

Native American Raven is a successful architect and businessman. He’s also an accomplished surfer who, out of fear, typically hides his orientation and is extremely discreet about any sexual liaisons. His haircut and clothing are those of a white man, and his employees and friends know nothing of his early life on a northern California Indian reservation.

Now, six years after leaving the rez, a young man named Hunter literally surfs back into Raven’s life. At first Raven doesn’t recognize the guy who, as a boy, was his best friend, and also his first love. When he does finally recognize Hunter—now penniless, drunk, and a lover of the “glam look”—he sees him as a loser, an embarrassment, yet their reunion will shake some of Raven’s most closely held beliefs.

But is he up to the challenge? Will he release those stubborn beliefs and open himself to live life more fully and openly?

http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/2287-Surf-s-Up.aspx

Genres: Gay / Contemporary / Sports / Athletes / The Arts
Heat Level: 3
Length: Extended Amber Kiss (14k words)

SURF’S UP! IS ONE OF FIVE STORIES IN THE 98k EROTIC GAY COLLECTION BELOW

THIS WEEK BEACHCOMBERS AMBERPAX IS DISCOUNTED TO $15.60

http://www.amberquill.com/store/c/193-AmberPax-Collections.aspx

http://www.CarolinaValdez.com

Carolina Valdez’s SAVAGE LUST will always be free from Amberquill Press

SAVAGE LUST will be Forever Free

http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/2278-Savage-Lust.aspx

Thanks to George Lucas and STAR WARS, we know what a prequel is!

SAVAGE LUST is just that to my vampire NIGHT TRAIN series–available as individual novellas and collectively in a trade paperback collection. When the series opens, Alexandros Nicolaides is a vampire. But who was he while still human? Why and how did he lose his humanity–to be ruled by blood lust, forced to ride the trains at night?

BLURB

In Byzantine Athens, someone—or something—is slashing men’s throats in a nearby town. Meanwhile, Alexandros Nicolaides meets a seductive stranger, Vlad Rodko, unaware of the price he will pay for the explosive sexual pleasures Vlad provides. In time, the excitement fades as Alex sinks deeper and deeper into decadence, losing more and more of the man he had once been.

Will this be his forever life? Or can Alex find his way up and out of evil?

THE SERIES

NIGHT TRAIN TO NAPLES – The hot urgent passion of an immortal for his human lover, the vengeful vampire who wants to kill them, and the world of precious stones.

NIGHT TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS – In New Orleans, the vengeful vampire still stalks, and confusion and passion heat up the reunion of human and vampire lovers.

NIGHT TRAIN TO VENICE – For a courier of precious stones and metals, the next delivery could mean death. Can his vampire bodyguards protect Dante in Venice?

ALL THREE ARE COMBINED IN AMAZON’S PAPERBACK, NIGHT TRAIN

OPENS TOMORROW THROUGH HALLOWEEN

COMMENT ON ONE OF MY PARTY POSTS AND WIN A COPY OF NIGHT TRAIN TO NAPLES OR SOME SWAG

AND THE WINNERS ARE —

MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED OUR GIVEAWAY. IF YOU MISSED THE POST, IT’S IN GUEST AUTHORS ON MY WEBSITE http://deeannpalmer.comTHERE YOU CAN READ ABOUT THIS FASCINATING AUTHOR AND HER BOOKS.

DRUM ROLL!!!

OUR GIVEAWAY WINNERS ARE DEE O – THE EGYPTIAN FILE BY JANIS SUSAN MAY. SHE WILL CONTACT YOU TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THIS.

DEBRA WON THE $10 AMAZON GIFT CARD.

HAPPY SUNDAY!

DEE ANN

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Well, I Never….”