Twitter Party Scavenger Hunt

Several of the authors from Omnific Publishing with be on Twitter this Friday, May 31st, at 7pm EST, chatting about writing, our books, romance, and giving away copies of our books. There's a lot of great reads to be won. 

If you're on Twitter, look for hashtag #Omnilicious!

How it works: 

Follow the links to the Authors blogs and collect the numbered letters for the secret word. As soon as you’ve worked out the word, enter the word and your twitter handle into the form below. Entries are open from the day before the party and close at the end of the party when winners will be announced. 

My letter:

The rest of the hops:

Carol Oates
Debra Anastasia
Patricia Leever
Amber Belldene
Sarah Glover
Autumn Markus
Lisa Sanchez
Hannah Downing
Jennifer Lane
Jennifer DeLucy
Nicki Elson
Kate Evangelista
Justine Dell

The following e-Book Packs are up for grabs:

Young Adult Pack

Reaping Me Softly by Kate Evangelista

Ember by Carol Oates

Shades of Atlantis by Carol Oates

Embrace by Cherie Colyer

New Adult Pack

Streamline by Jennifer Lane

Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia

Three Daves by Nicki Elson

Eve of Samhain by Lisa Sanchez

Contemporary Adult Pack

All-American Girl by Justine Dell

Recaptured Dreams by Justine Dell

Cocktails & Dreams by Autumn Markus

Pieces of Us by Hannah Downing

Cat O’ Nine Tails by Patricia Leever

With Good Behavior by Jennifer Lane

Paranormal Adult Pack

Divine Temptation by Nicki Elson

Blood Vine by Amber Belldene

Crushed Seraphim by Debra Anastasia

Seers of Light by Jennifer DeLucy

Divinity by Patricia Leever

Grave Refrain: A Ghost/Love Story by Sarah M. Glover

Get Healthy Blog Hop

Welcome to the Get Healthy Blog Hop! 

First, let me thank the hosts of this hop, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Stephen Tremp, L. Diane Wolfe, Michael Di Gesu, for teaming up and putting together this hop! 

The Objective of this hop is to share with everyone something you've done that affected your health in a positive way. I'm going to share 5 easy tips anyone can do to keep from overeating and packing on unwanted pounds.

1. Eat on a lunch plate instead of a dinner plate. Dinner plates are bigger, and therefore easier to load up with too much of a good thing.

2. Wait 10-15 minutes before going back for seconds. Sometimes it takes our stomachs a little time to tell our brains we're full.

3. Before you super-size your meal, make a fist. Now remember that your stomach is the size of your fist and ask yourself if you really need a super-sized portion.

4. Avoid empty calories, especially at night. Sugary drinks, alcohol, and junk food may help satisfy quick cravings, but those empty calories add up. If you drink or eat before bed, then you aren't burning off those calories. Can't give up the treats? Try cutting back or switching to low calorie beverages and healthy snacks after 6pm.

5.  Get your family involved in eating right. It's much easy to make healthy choices when you aren't doing it alone.

Before I go, I'd like to share with you a recipe for what my husband and I like to call Carnival Stuffed Peppers because they are not only healthy but colorful, too.

Carnival Stuffed Peppers:

Ingredients:

  1 lb. ground turkey

  1 Tbs olive oil (or coconut oil)

  1 tsp Spikes seasoning

  1 Tbs oregano

  1 Tbs basil

  1 Tbs minced onion

  ½ tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

  1 cup fresh spinach (rinsed)

  3 bell peppers (I like to use 1-green, 1-red, and 1-yellow)

  Season salt

  1 cup cooked brown rice

Cooking Directions:

-  Cook brown rice according to directions (start this first since brown rice takes longer to cook)

-  Cut bell peppers in half and then slice off ¼-inch from each pepper

-  Dice the ¼-inch slices of bell pepper and set aside

-  Place halves in a casserole dish and sprinkle with season salt

-  Set aside

-  Brownie meat with small amount of olive oil, Spikes seasoning, salt, oregano, basil, minced onion, and crushed red pepper

-  Add in the diced bell pepper

-  Mix in cooked brown rice

-  Stir in spinach and cook until spinach starts to become soft

-  Pour mixture over bell pepper halves. 

Bake covered for 30 minutes on 400. And enjoy!

If you're near Twitter this Friday, 7pm EDT, look for hashtag #Omnilicious. You'll find several authors from Omnific chatting about all sorts of things and giving away books.

Be sure to follow the links below for more tips on being healthy!

UPRISING Virtual Launch Party

Welcome to the party!

Hi guys! Book two in Jessica Therrien's series Children of the Gods is now available and to celebrate Jessica his hosting a Virtual Launch Party.

Congratulations to Jessica on the release of UPRISING!

Jessica gave participants a few options for our posts today. I decided to chat about my favorite supernatural power.

This will come as no surprise to those of you have read my book or my blog. Hands down, my favorite power is witchcraft. I'd love to have the ability to blink my dishes into the dishwater and command a vacuum to do its job while I kick back and read a book. Think about the things you could do with a potion that made you smarter, stronger, or gave you the ability to teleport yourself to different places. (I'd see the world, and of course I'd want the ability to bring my family and friends with. It's no fun traveling alone.) You'd have an instant green thumb and the best garden around. If it's raining on your day off, no problem. Just conjure up a beautiful, sunny day. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to will that slow car in front of you to move out of the way? With magic coursing through your veins the possibilities would be endless.

So tell me, what's your favorite supernatural power?

And now what you've been waiting for, here's a little information on Jessica's newest book...

Title: Uprising (Children of the Gods #2)
Author: Jessica Therrien
Publisher: ZOVA Books
Release Date: May 28, 2013
Genre: Paranormal Romance



Synopsis:
Elyse has done everything she can to protect her friends from The Council's reach. As long as they believe she's dead, she has time to rest and train for war. And war is inevitable.

When Kara arrives with the news that Anna and Chloe have been captured, Elyse is faced with the realization that no one is safe until The Council is stopped and Christoph is destroyed. She doesn't need a prophecy to tell her to lead an army. Christoph has done the one thing that ensures she'll fight to the death. He's threatened the people she loves.

It will take more than the words of an oracle to help them fight against the most powerful Descendant alive. To break The Council's oppression and rise up against a plot so many years in the making, Elyse will need to get dangerously close to her enemy. So close, in fact, she may not survive. 

Click here to see what kewl prizes are up for 
grabs and for information on how you can win!

Links to Oppression (Children of the Gods #1):

Amazon | B&N | GoodReads | Facebook

Links to Uprising (Children of the Gods #2):

Amazon | B&N | GoodReads | Facebook

About the author:

Jessica Therrien is the author of the young adult paranormal fiction series Children of the Gods. Book one in the series, Oppression, was published by ZOVA Books in February of 2012 and became a Barnes & Noble best-seller shortly after its release. The second book in the series, Uprising, will be available in May of 2013.

Aside from her Children of the Gods series, Jessica’s work can also be found in a published collection of flash fiction stories called Campaigner Challenges 2011. Out of over 350 submissions her story, The Soulless, won first place for people’s choice and fourth place in the judging round of Rachael Harrie’s Writing Campaign Challenge. Her story, Saved, is also available as part of the anthology.

Jessica currently lives in Chula Vista with her husband and is working on book three in her Children of the Gods series.

Author Links:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

Sign up for the HOLD TIGHT cover reveal

Hi everyone!

A Tale of Many Reviews is hosting the cover reveal for HOLD TIGHT on June 26th and I would love for you to join the fun! If you have a blog and would like to participate, click here and fill out the brief sign-up form.

Can't participate but don't want to miss the reveal or future events and giveaways? No problem! Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to be the first to learn about important dates and giveaways!

Best, Cherie

Click here to add Hold Tight to your To Be Read list on Goodreads

Round One: Hold Tight Update

Last week I finished the first round of revisions on Hold Tight. That made me curious as to how many days are left until book two in the Embrace series is available. I decided to create a quick countdown clock. I'm not sure if that was my best idea, because it made me realize that there are less than 100 days to release date. Wow, it's creeping up quickly!

I actually love to revise, especially when I have feedback from my critique partners, beta readers, or my editor. Knowing what’s working and what didn't quite do the trick lets me know where I need to focus my energy.

This round of revisions was based on my editor's feedback, and she's absolutely amazing. She gets my novel and my characters as well as I do. She’ll point out when she feels a character’s behavior seems out-of-character and she sandwiches the bad between the good. You know, she’ll start with a comment along the lines of I really like how you…. Before a note like there’s something not quite right with the scene with Isaac….

There I was with pages of notes and an 80,000-word manuscript waiting to be improved. As I said I like revising, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t times when I had to take a deep breath and think through how I could address different issues. I re-wrote a good chuck of two chapters, added and deleted different sections throughout the book, and breathed several sighs of relief when I’d hit a chapter that didn’t need any change (at this time, anyway). The good news is I can see how the changes make the writing stronger. I think I managed to answer questions a reader might have at different points in the story, leaving less doubt and hopefully allowing him or her to stay wrapped in the action. And on that chapter that wasn’t working, I think the replacement scene flows so much better. It’s definitely less weird. (In the original chapter a lot of the action happened out of Madison’s line of sight.)

I'm happy to report that round one of revisions are done. I’m anxiously waiting for round two, dying to see if what I did works or if I still have some major changes ahead of me. The cover is in the works. One more thing I’m anxiously waiting to see. To keep myself busy, I've been planning some fun events and cool swag.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Click here to add Hold Tight to your TBR list

One Mother of a Blog Bounce

When Nicki Elson suggested we do a blog post about how our mother, mother-figure, or a mother character either from our books or another book has supported or influenced our writing, I was in.

I’ve been blessed with amazing parents, and my mom has been a big influence on me all through my life, including in my writing. She really should get an award for her listening skills. She’s heard me talk about the writing process, the joys (a.k.a. stress) of querying, my ramblings while I brainstorm, my squeals over the phone when I called to tell her I sold my first book, and my excitement over readers’ feedback. Writing is a journey filled with bumps, road blocks, and triumphs. I know that whenever I’m starting to doubt my work or if I need to hear someone tell me my latest project doesn’t suck all I have to do is call her.

Below are just some of the ways she's inspired my writing:

If she hadn't indulged my wild imagination growing up, I may never have been able to create new characters with special abilities and weave together compelling stories.

If she hadn't taken the time to read the essays I was most excited to write when I was in school, I may never have developed a love for sharing my words which would have meant I would have never started writing and blogging and I wouldn't have met even half the wonderful people that I have.

If she had told me to get my head out of the clouds and back in reality, I may not have the imagination needed to write a novel.

If she hadn't picked me up when I fell, brushed off the dirt, and encouraged me to try again, I may have given up on my stories after the first dozen rejection letters.

Without my mom encouraging me to dream when I was young, I wouldn't be the person I am today. (Mom, if you're reading this, thanks for everything you do!)

Do you have a mother or a mother figured you’d like to honor, feel free to join in and write a post. If you share your link in the comment section, I’ll be share to hop over to your blog.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing moms out there!

Click the link below to join the hop! 

Fine: an IWSG post

It seems like just last week I was writing a new IWSG post and here we are again, at the first Wednesday of the month. First, I'd like to thank Alex Cavanaugh for hosting this meme. If you'd like to learn more about it, click here.

As some of you know, I was the keynote speaker at a lit fest last month. Now that it’s over, I will allow myself to admit I was nervous. See, in the months leading up to the event I kept telling myself I was fine. You know what fine stands for, don’t you?

                    Freaked out

                    Insecure

                    Neurotic

                    Emotional

Yep, I got that from the Italian job and ever since I first saw that movie I can’t help but think freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional whenever I say I’m fine. 

Let's face it, one doesn’t say “I'm fine” and mean they're great. Nope, there is always an underlying meaning to that word.

It’s not like I speak in front of large crowds for a living and I wanted my speech to entertain the audience. I had the fear of looking out into the crowd and seeing people yawning, or worse, snoring. I’m glad to say that didn't happen. The speech went good. I gave a recap of the event in a previous post. 

Because I was insecure about speaking to a large crowd, I practiced my speech prior to the event. I would recommend this to anyone who has to give a speech. By the time I was standing on stage with a microphone in front of me and a big screen behind me I was comfortable with what I had to say, I knew when to pause, and I knew at what points to expect a chuckle from my audience. (And thankfully I did get them.)

May promises to be a busy month. I have big news coming about Embrace that I can't wait to share. (I know, I know, I'm such a tease, but I have to wait for the go from my publisher before I can say much more.) I will have my butt in chair revising the sequel, Hold Tight. And I'm working on some special promotions to go along with the release. I'll be posting updates on my blog as I have them, so be sure to stop back by.