Celebration Time – Release Day

Today is officially the beginning of release week for my latest book, Blues at 11, and I am celebrating.

Release day is always special for an author. Seeing your book available for sale is exciting. Others can finally read the work you spent so much time and energy working on for months, in some cases years. This is my first mystery so this book release was even more special for me.  This was the book of my heart, and I never realized it until I got into the middle of writing it. I have always enjoyed writing romance, and then romantic suspense, but this latest effort also showed me how much I enjoyed writing mystery stories. I’ve always been a mystery buff, since my childhood when I loved Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

But it wasn’t just writing a mystery story, writing humor in first person just seemed to fit me and my character.  And I got to return to my roots in TV news as I wrote it. The world of broadcast journalism can be cut throat, but it is also exhilarating, and I loved spending time with my heroine, Kimberly Delagarza, as she navigated the rocky waters being on the inside of a news story instead of on the outside.    

Here’s a blurb:

Kimberly Delagarza is a familiar face in Los Angeles as she can be seen nightly on the evening news. She drives a fancy car, lives in a house on the beach, and wears designer clothes. But the TV anchorwoman has been accused of murder.

No one believes she didn't kill her louse of an ex-boyfriend after he dumped her. Her next picture may be on a wanted poster, and her next home may be the Big House, with a wardrobe consisting of orange jumpsuits. The only man who can help her is someone she once wronged...

I hope everyone has as much fun reading Blues as I had writing it. it is now available at Amazon.com, The Wildrosepress.com, and bn.com as either an ebook or in print.   

 

So today, I am drinking a toast, perhaps several, to writers everywhere who might be celebrating release day!

A Toast to a Great Cover

Today there is real cause for a pause for a taste of the bubbly!

Here’s why -- for a writer there is nothing quite like release day when you finally see your book, your baby, put out there for the whole world to see. Whether it is in a bookstore, or online at the Amazon and BN stores or your publisher’s online page, just seeing that book available widely for others to read always brings a tear of joy to my eyes and I’ve heard so many other authors say the same thing.

Before that wonderful date though, there are other great steps along the way – getting that call or email offering a contract, seeing the signed contract come back to you, seeing the manuscript sent back to you with edit marks for you to work on, then seeing the galleys where you actual work is placed into book form.

Then comes the “cover reveal.”  That is always a source of great pride because the cover is the first thing the public will see. It’s always been a source of great joy to me because I have been pretty lucky with my covers. Designing a cover starts with a great artist, even if there is a production team involved. This week I had that great moment.  I got the final cover back for my next book, BLUES AT 11.

The artist is Debbie Taylor from The Wild Rose Press and everyone who has seen it and read snippets of my book from my critique partner to my family say it’s spot on.  A toast to Debbie! And a toast to the entire production team at The Wild Rose Press for giving me another winning cover.

Here’s the blurb for Blues – 

Kimberly Delagarza is a familiar face in Los Angeles where she can be seen nightly on the evening news. She drives a fancy car, lives in a house on the beach, and wears designer clothes. But now the TV anchorwoman is being accused of murder.

No one believes she didn't kill her louse of an ex-boyfriend after he dumped her. Her next picture may be on a wanted poster, and her next home may be the Big House, with a wardrobe consisting of orange jumpsuits.

And the only man who can help her is someone she once wronged

This was a book I truly enjoyed writing because it allowed me to go back to my days in the crazy world of television news. While the people and situations are straight out of my head, it gave me a great opportunity to have my characters say and do all the things I always wanted to see said and done!

So here’s a toast to Blues, to talented folks at the Wild Rose Press and to the wonderful people in the TV news profession.