Just a reminder...

Today is the last day The Lonely Hipster will be offered for free on Amazon, so if you haven't downloaded it yet, you know what to do.

ALSO! Starting tomorrow, January 23rd, I'll be offering another one of my short stories, The Sea Queen's Daughter, for free through the 27th. Grab it up if you haven't already.

Thanks to everyone for making The Lonely Hipster's debut week a success!

An Interview with Becky from One Literature Nut

It's the final day of The Sea Queen's Daughter blog tour and today I'm answering questions at One Literature Nut. Find out what work of art I based Serena's mask off of, the truth behind the legend of the Sea Queen, and whether or not I'm planning on writing another story set in Venice (one never knows!).

Thank you to all the bloggers and readers who participated in the blog tour this week. Just in case you missed a day, here are all the posts:

• "All the World's a Stage: Venice and Carnevale" guest post at Dina Rae's Write Stuff
• The Sea Queen's Daughter review and giveaway at Penelope's Romance Reviews (giveaway runs through October 1st, so there's still time to enter!)
• Interview at A Buckeye Girl Reads
• Interview at One Literature Nut

It's been a great week, everyone! Now back to writing.

An Interview with Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads

The Sea Queen's Daughter blog tour continues today at A Buckeye Girl Reads, where I'm answering a few questions. Find out about what topics I researched, what my next release will be, and who my favorite characters are in The Sea Queen's Daughter.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway at Penelope's Romance Reviews and stay tuned tomorrow for a guest post at My Cozie Corner.

THE SEA QUEEN'S DAUGHTER Giveaway Today!

The Sea Queen's Daughter blog tour continues today with an awesome giveaway at Penelope's Romance Reviews. Not only is Penny giving away a copy of The Sea Queen's Daughter, she's also sending one lucky winner a pair of unique, handmade Venetian glass earrings from Vickie Joe's Jewels (pictured above). Love them!

To enter, simply comment on Penny's review of The Sea Queen's Daughter. Tomorrow the tour will continue with an interview at A Buckeye Girl Reads.

All the World's a Stage: Venice and Carnevale

Welcome to the first day of The Sea Queen's Daughter blog tour! Today I'm at Dina Rae's Write Stuff discussing the strange and wondrous world that was the Venetian Carnevale. Here's an itty bitty excerpt to whet your appetite:

During Carnevale, everyone who appeared in public wore a mask. This wasn't just a gesture: the anonymity the mask afforded was considered sacred, giving everyone from the Doge to street urchins the illusion of equality. One 18th century visitor even reported seeing a masked mother nursing a masked baby!

Read the rest here! And stay tuned tomorrow for an awesome giveaway at Penelope's Romance Reviews.

Excerpt from THE SEA QUEEN'S DAUGHTER

We are getting perilously close to the release of my next novella, The Sea Queen's Daughter. It's an adaptation of the fairy tale The Little Mermaid, set in 18th-century Venice.

Here is a short excerpt from the beginning of the book, where our hero and heroine meet on a tòpo, a Venetian-style barge:

Marco pulled the mysterious woman into the dance, her slim form seeming to fit against his like water to the shore. The complicated patterns of the Hunt dance required them to part, but Marco couldn't bear to release her. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her waist and spun them away from the other dancers, to a corner of the ship relatively shadowed.



"I'm not sure what we're doing is dancing," the woman said. He looked deep into the clear glass of the eyes of the mask but saw only the faint movement of what might have been her eyelashes.



"It will be. Just trust me," he assured her.



He mapped out the steps to the dance and she copied him, their torsos brushing against one another until Marco pulled back, afraid of embarrassing himself. The impenetrable mask she wore tilted, but she said nothing and kept the distance between them.



Eventually he pulled her back and she settled against him, the press of her mask cool against his heated cheek. He set his gloved hand against the side of her head. When she didn't pull away, he ran the back of his fingers down her neck and over her collar bone.


She stirred then. "I must go," she said, pulling away.

A Sneak Peek...

A twist on the fairy tale The Little Mermaid set in 18th-century Venice...

On a barge anchored in the middle of the Adriatic, Marco Lorendan meets a mysterious and beautiful woman. His fascination for her is sealed when she saves him from drowning and then disappears into the sea. Is she dead, or simply lost? Marco is determined to find out.

Living beneath the waters of the lagoon, Serena can change into whatever form she chooses, but cannot change her fate: to die in an ancient ritual that goes back to the founding of Venice. Serena wants to live in the human world with Marco, but how can she save herself if it means the destruction of Venice?

A tale of star-crossed lovers and the magic that created one of the most beautiful cities on earth.