Tag Archives: contemporary

Two Months to Magic!

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I just realized it’s August 31, exactly two months until Movie Magic releases! I’m very Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00074]excited about this one. I really, really love the characters and the circumstances, and the setting ranges from Beaufort, N.C., to Hollywood, California, so you get plenty of variety there!

Plus, as you can plainly see, the cover is super beautiful. (Thanks, Farah Evers!)

Anyway, I’m trying to build excitement about the book over the next couple of months, and the best way I know how to do that is to blog about magic and my book and more magic and more book. I’m kicking it off today with an excerpt. Let me know what you think in the comments!

 

The festival was what she’d expected. Crowds of people and stalls all along the roads. As she neared the square, the crowd on the sidewalk became nearly unbearable, but the groups clustered around the booths were much sparser. Spotting some colorful scarves at a booth, Sabrina stepped off the crowded sidewalk into the nearly empty street. Why were so many people sticking to the sidewalks when there was so much to see at the booths? Shaking her head again, she walked bravely toward the stall she’d spotted. Two giggling young women dressed in very short shorts passed her. They both gave her dubious looks and shrugged.

Ignoring them, Sabrina entered the scarf stall. The scarves might be handmade, but they were gorgeous enough to be found on Rodeo Drive. Sabrina ran her fingers over the smooth, silky texture. She turned to ask the slightly grizzled looking woman about the material she’d used and found her looking as dubious as the young women she’d passed. “What?”

“Honey, is that really what you’re wearing for this?” The stocky older woman gestured at Sabrina’s silk blouse and pencil skirt.

Sabrina rolled her eyes, deciding she didn’t want one of the scarves after all. “Look, I know I’m a little overdressed. I didn’t bring clothes for a street fair, okay?” She turned to stalk away.

Someone whooped from the far end of the street and then a chorus of screams sounded from around the square. Sabrina stopped, puzzled, noticing the people on the sidewalks were laughing and pointing. At me? No. Something behind her. Before she could turn, another loud whoop from directly behind her drew a scream of her own, and then a strong arm swooped around her waist and scooped her up and over a shoulder. She gasped, surprised to find herself hanging over the shoulder of her attacker, who smelled strongly of some sort of male cologne meant to stimulate female pheromones. She screamed again and kicked, smacking at her attacker’s back ineffectually as he plowed through the stalls and into an alley.

Find out more on October 31!

NEW REVIEW! Ducks in a Row still has it!

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Ducks_CoverSaturday Love
What a great way to end the old year…especially when I’m kicking off the new one with another book. If you check this page out closely, you’ll see what I’ve been up to besides happy holidaying with my family. Yes, I’m getting ready for the release of SATURDAY LOVE (sequel to DUCKS IN A ROW), which will definitely be available for purchase on January 1, 2014.

And what better way to celebrate the end of the old year than with a FIVE STAR review of DUCKS!? Read below for a bit of what WE’RE JUMPIN BOOKS had to say about DUCKS:

One of the best books I have read this year, very thought provoking…Michelle brings you close to the characters, you can understand their logical, or what seems to be, thinking. This book has so much depth on so many levels. The thought process, and how everything played out was so great! —WE’RE JUMPIN BOOKS

You might want to pick up DUCKS IN A ROW now for only 99 cents on AMAZON…and catch up on the story before it continues in SATURDAY LOVE.

The Countdown: So Much to Do, So Little Time!! (Exciting news at the end!)

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June 1. The release of my contemporary romance novel Close Up Magic. I feel it coming like the blind curve in a roller coaster. You know the one at the top of the long climb that curves around a partition and you just can’t tell what’s past it? Yep. That’s the one. It might be a plunging fall, it might be more twists and turns. It might be a climb to a higher peak.

Oh my.

When I took on the quest of self-publishing the novel of my dreams, I don’t think I fully appreciated what I was doing. It’s so much easier to turn a book over to a publisher and let them do the work. Let me tell you three things I’ve discovered over the course of the past month.

1. If you’re really gonna do everything you can to sell a book, you’re not going to have time to write.
2. I can survive on four hours of sleep a night, but only if I don’t drink wine.
3. There are some really great people, both in the Twitter-verse and in my own back yard that are willing to help me.

Now that June 1 is right around the corner, I’m looking forward to breathing at least a little sigh of relief. Because no matter what I find around that blind curve, I’ll finally be AROUND it, you know? Success or failure or just more of the same awaits me there, and I plan to embrace it no matter what. Because at least I’ll be there.

So what have I been up to in the world of writing?

1. Finishing up my posts for the Close Up Magic virtual book tour starting on June 3. It’s gonna be loads of fun, so stay tuned!
2. Rounding up reviews. If you missed them, you can find links and excerpts to some of them on the Close Up Magic page of this blog. Here’s a link: Close Up Magic. There are also more on Goodreads and Amazon! BTW, you can also read the ENTIRE first chapter of Close Up Magic on the blog page!
3. Speaking of Goodreads, you can register to win a copy of Close Up Magic here: Goodreads Giveaway.
4. Finalizing and proofreading advance copies of Close Up Magic. I want it to be as perfect as possible for those who buy it!
5. Writing guest posts on friends’ blogs. Many thanks to my friends Zoe Dawson, Donna Steele, Nancy Lee Badger and all the wonderful romance authors at the Contemporary Romance Cafe for allowing me to voice my thoughts on their blogs over the past couple of months!
6. Organizing my thoughts about magic and some of my research in some interesting ways. Want to know more? Check out my Goodreads magic history quiz, my Listmania list of magic books, or my Close Up Magic Facebook Page.

Don’t forget you can still enter to win a Kindle Paperwhite! Like my Facebook Close Up Magic page, Tweet (and tag me) about my book Close Up Magic, post about my book Close Up Magic (and tag me) on Facebook or blog about my book Close Up Magic. Each one is an entry and you can enter as often as you like. Just make sure I know about it. Winner will be announced as soon as possible on June 1.

How can you make the Close Up Magic release day even more special?

Wonder of wonders, guess where I’m going to be on June 1? Las Vegas. The actual setting of my book! This has got to be fate. Karma. I absolutely did NOT plan it. My husband and I are going to Vegas for our anniversary, which just happens to fall at the end of May. And we’ll still be there June 1! I’ve been looking for places to visit in Vegas, which, as most people know, has a rich history in the business of magic. So far I’ve come up with a few, but I’d love to have some more suggestions. I’m inviting everyone who reads my blog to suggest a magical place for me to visit while I’m in Vegas. I’ll go to as many as I can, take a picture of me with the book and then Tweet and blog the pictures on June 1. And everyone who suggests a spot for me to visit gets entered into a drawing for a $20 Amazon gift card! Can’t beat that, can you? So come on, send me your suggestions! Email to michellegflye (at) gmail (dot) com, leave them on my Close Up Magic Facebook Page or right here in the comments!

What is at the heart of Where the Heart Lies

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I’ve been concentrating so much on promoting Ducks in a Row recently, I’ve neglected my other book Where the Heart Lies, so I wanted to refresh your memory and mine about this book, which was, really, my first foray into the world of women’s fiction, even if it is classified as contemporary romance.

At its heart, Where the Heart Lies is a story about second chances. For military widow Alicia, for her husband Ty’s parents, for guilt-ridden and besotted Liam, for single mother Penny, for Penny’s fatherless daughter and for Alicia and Ty’s children. Even the bookstore Alicia takes over from her ailing father-in-law finds new life. I wrote this book because I believe in second chances for all of us. Remember the old adage about a window opening when a door closes? Sometimes we may feel like fate has screwed us over, but in the end, I hope we all find our way to the window that opened when the door slammed in our faces.

This is an excerpt from the beginning of Where the Heart Lies, available in ebook format from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Carina Press.

Where the Heart Lies copyTy lay his hand on her still flat belly. “It’s the perfect place to raise children. Boys and girls. There’s a pond for fishing and swimming. And the street is pretty quiet, so they can ride their bikes. The house is the perfect size—not too big. Just homey.”

Alicia laughed and rolled over, and his hand slid across her belly to her hip. “You might be a little prejudiced considering it’s your childhood home.”

He pulled her closer, kissing her, and her body responded to him as she always did. She loved his long, lean form and the way he touched her with such confidence. She drew away after a moment, unable to resist teasing him a little. “Are you sure it won’t be a little, um, inhibiting for you?”

“What do you mean?” He looked at her, uncomprehending, his hands caressing the backs of her thighs now, causing little rivers of pleasure to run through her veins.

She smiled wickedly at him, using all her self-control to keep from letting him know how pleasant his touch was. All part of the game. “Well, you know, being in the same bedroom your parents were in when they—oh, you know…”

He laughed and rolled over on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and kissing her firmly and thoroughly. His lips left hers and trailed over her jaw and down her collarbone as he cupped her breasts. She gasped at his touch on her sensitive nipples and felt his mouth curve. His lips returned to her neck and he nibbled her earlobe. “Baby, as long as you’re there, I won’t have any trouble being inhibited,” he whispered.

Chapter One

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Alicia Galloway pulled her minivan into the driveway of her new home. The last time those words had popped into
her head had been the day Ty’s CO placed a neatly folded triangle of red, white and blue silk into her hands, and she knew the rest of her life wouldn’t be with her husband. She remembered staring at the flag, thinking about its thirteen symbolic folds.

Fold one is for life, fold two for eternal life. Fold three stands for our fallen veterans. Fold four is for the One who guides us in peace and war. Fold five is for our country and the sixth fold is for where our hearts lie…

She pulled away from the memory, her eyes tearing. Wiping the tears away, she looked around, trying not to be too cynical. “Hard to believe the rest of my
life begins here.”