Chloe Holiday's Blog, page 13

Countdown to Monday’s Cover Reveal!

Stay tuned for the COVER REVEAL on Monday!  All 15 NEW books in the series will begin releasing on October 18th and you can preorder some of them now. Available only on Kindle Unlimited. Check out this line-up!The Boyfriend Pact by Emily Robertson (https://amzn.to/2Xy4Vjr)Boy Business by Megan Matthews (https://books2read.com/u/mgEyzz)Boy, I’m Yours by Molly McLain (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09G4PK12J)The Boy Upstairs by Amanda Shelley (https://bit.ly/TheBoyUpstairs)Oh Boy! By Hope Irving (https://mybook.to/OhBoy)A Boy and His Dog by Chloe Holiday (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097JBFXVQ)Boyfriend Material by Marie AhlsThe Boyfriend Checklist by Sierra HillThe Boy I Shouldn’t Want by Stephanie RoseThe Boy I Can’t Forget by S MooseThe Boy Under the Gazebo by S.L. Sterling (https://geni.us/TheBoyUndertheGazebo)The Boy I Loved by Leanne DavisInked Boy by C.A. HarmsBoy and the Family Plan by Anna HagueSmall Town Boy by K.L. Humphreys (mybook.to/SmallTownBoy)I can’t wait!

Doctors, Pimps, and Witches, Oh, my!

Nope, I’m not writing a Dark Romance about a “physician by day, master pimp by night.” In this instance, “pimping” refers to the aggressive, rapid-fire questioning of a medical student or resident by an attending physician. A Boy and his Dog, my upcoming medical / military story, contains an episode of this.   “Pimping” is a tool used by a supervising doctor, intended to teach young physicians-in-training by oral questioning, generally in front of other members of the team.  Pimping consists of aggressive, rapid-fire questions, often to the point of humiliation of the young trainee, occasionally crossing the line to outright sadistic. Advocates consider pimping a chance to not only see a young physician’s knowledge but also as measure of mental quickness and emotional toughness. Hard-core pimping is going out of vogue now, in a shift to kinder, gentler medical training, but its origins are venerable, dating back to the rhetoric of Socrates’ day.  The earliest reference to pimping is attributed to Harvey, one of the early giants in the pre-modern medical area, in London in 1628. He lamented his students’ lack of enthusiasm for learning the circulation of the blood in this letter: ‘They know nothing of Natural Philosophy, these pin-heads. Drunkards, sloths, their bellies filled with Mead and Ale. O that I might see them pimped!’  He had just published his treatise on the circulation of human blood, De Motu Cordis, earlier that year, so the subject was near to his heart. Harvey was a bigshot: the personal physician of King James I, and also a notable skeptic regarding the witchcraft trials prevalent at the time. In 1634, he was appointed an investigator for a purported witch in Newgate. He visited the woman, claiming to be a wizard, and they discussed craft. He asked if she had a familiar, and she set down a saucer of milk for her toad, who drank it.  Luckily for her, instead of condemning her as a witch on the spot, he asked her to fetch some ale for them, and while she was at the market, he killed the toad, dissected it, and concluded that it was an ordinary creature, not supernatural in any way. Her anger at the death of her pet was quelled when he revealed his purpose there, and she realized she got off easy.   The term pimping spread; in 1889, Koch recorded a series of ‘Puempfrage’ or ‘pimp questions’ to use on his rounds in Heidelberg. Unpublished notes made by Abraham Flexner on his visit to Johns Hopkins in 1916 yield the first American reference: ‘Rounded with Osler today. Riddles house officers with questions. Like a Gatling gun. Welch says students call it “pimping.” Delightful.’   It’s not “delightful” to be on the receiving end, I can tell you! I once endured a pimp session so tough that when the attending left the room, my colleagues whispered, “Why does he hate you so much?”  What IS delightful? A Boy and his Dog is out to beta readers! I’ll post some of their comments soon.

New Heights is Free /27 & 28!

                                                 New Heights is Free Today & Saturday (4/23 & 24)!https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C9P8QL6      Wild child Sarah Ann will do anything for “her people,” including moving to Greece to help her best friend with her fledgling advertising agency, though she’s secretly afraid to be so far from the emotional support of her family. A Navy base full of hot men sounds like a promising distraction when she’s assigned a job in Souda Bay, Crete—just because she doesn’t believe in relationships doesn’t mean she can’t have fun. Then a chance encounter in a taverna with a sexy Navy man leaves her angered but intrigued when he walks away.      Lieutenant Carlos Mornaric is done with women, after his last girlfriend stepped out. Instead, he’ll use his year in Crete to advance his career. A hot, flirtatious woman in a bar reinforces his plan—he doesn’t need the drama. But when she beats Carlos at the climbing wall, her hard-charging personality tempts him to abandon his resolve. When she’s assigned to work with him, he’s doomed, and he dares to hope that he can become her people. But Carlos’ career is threatened when he clashes with his commander over his fledgling relationship with Sarah Ann. Carlos suspects his boss is dirty, but never imagines it could endanger the woman he loves.       New Heights is an immersive, steamy story featuring a young woman struggling to overcome a traumatic past, a swoon-worthy military hero, laugh-out-loud moments, and elements of suspense and danger.      Want to be my hero? Leave a review on Amazon, BookBub, and/or Goodreads!

Kong Me, Baby! and other Military K9-Speak

For today, let’s keep in mind Inigo Montoya’s famous line: “I do not think it means what you think it means,” as we chat about the K9 Speak I learned during my research for A Boy and His Dog. Don’t forget to scroll down for your chance to win a ten-dollar gift card and ten novels from the authors in the All-American Boy Series!

Kongs are the favored reward for military dogs, since a game of fetch doesn’t add pounds or cause cavities. To “Kong” someone means to give them something terrific. Military handlers call themselves “Kong dispensers” since they reward their dogs so much—praise works better than punishment for motivation.

Dogs that are trained to apprehend practice on other handlers, so if a K9’s partner asks you, “Will you catch my dog?” it means to decoy for them: putting on the bite suit and hiding to be found and dragged out, or running away to be tackled. This could lead to getting “housed,” or taken down so hard that the decoy ends up dazed on the ground, as in this video below at 6:34, from GoArmy. A decoy must act menacing early in a dog’s training, so to avoid not knowing what to say, handlers are trained to shout “Hot sauce! Hot sauce!” to rile up the dog.

The dogs hit hard, and in training, a decoy is supposed to “give” a bit, allowing the dog’s momentum to spin them around, since to lean into a flying bite can jam a dog’s jaws, causing injury. A decoy that fails to give adequately might hear the rebuke, “Want some peanut butter with that jam?”

A beautifully-trained dog that rarely needs correction is a “push-button,” like Mojo in my story, and he’s also a “landshark,” one that is a cut above in strength, agility, and intelligence. At the other end of the spectrum is a nervous dog who, instead of taking a big bite and holding on, will bite, let go, bite again, and readjust. These dogs are called “typewriters.”

I’ve always found the bond between dogs and people fascinating and loved writing this story!

Want a chance to win ten novels and a $10 Amazon gift card? My contribution is the ebook, Helios. Enter here! https://tinyurl.com/3cfrtn4r

Want a sure thing? You can preorder A Boy and his Dog now, and Helios is available on Amazon now to purchase or read via Kindle Unlimited.

Here’s that vid from GoArmy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvjwH1r7_Iw

Win 10 Novels and a $10 Gift Card!

To celebrate the upcoming release of The All-American Boy Series (and my novel, A Boy and his Dog, how about a chance to win a ten-dollar gift card and ten novels (my contribution is Helios, a workplace billionaire romance set in Greece). Check out the contest here:

10 and 10 Contest

Bring on the Fireworks!

Fireworks feature in A Boy and his Dog, both the pyrotechnic and the romantic kind. Set on the Fourth of July weekend, the fireworks relate to the plot, and there’s plenty of sparks in the relationship, too. Like many of the new All-American Boy Series, it’s now up for preorder for 99 cents, on Amazon!

Fireworks originated in China, and described as early as 960 BCE. Early fireworks were used for celebrations as well as warfare, and delivered noise, light, and smoke, yet the brilliant colors we know today hadn’t been discovered yet. It wasn’t until 1786 that potassium chlorate was found to produce a violet emission.

Colors in fireworks are generated by pyrotechnic stars, which generate intense light when ignited. They’re comprised of a fuel, an oxidizer (to generate heat to speed the reaction), color-producing salts, and a binder, to hold it all together. Red is produced by strontium or lithium, orange by calcium, yellow by sodium, green by barium, blue from copper, etc.

Shaping the burst’s pattern, as well as the desired noise effect (which can range from bangs, crackles, whistles, and hums), involves complicated physics to design, and precise detonation during a show.

However stunning, fireworks are dangerous, both to manufacture and to ignite, so most municipalities strictly regulate them, for public safety and to control pollutants as well as the risk of fires and the noise nuisance’s effects on both humans and pets.

If you set off fireworks for the fourth, be safe! Or better yet, leave those to the professionals and get your pyrotechnics from Romance novels!

How Hot is Too Hot?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

After a week down South, my escape back to the Pacific Northwest was a surprise: it’s a scorcher here, with a high of 112 predicted for Tuesday!

Speaking of scorchers, I’ve just finished my story for the All American Boy Series, A Boy and His Dog. I’ve got a lot of steam packed in, which always makes me ponder: How hot is too hot? My goal for sex scenes is to make them 1) sexy but not crassly trashy, 2) meaningful for both the characters and the story, 3) fun to read, often incorporating humor or unexpected elements, and 4) different than the Same Old, Same Old Sex Scene. The latter two, especially, have resulted in some unusual situations, and this one’s no exception. Thanks to a reader in Colorado for inspiration for one of them!

How do you like Sex in Fiction? Do you want action on page one, or do you skim through it? How much description do you like? Do you like humor in yours? Realism, or The Perfect Coupling?

A Boy and his Dog is up for preorder now, for November release: on Amazon

Stay cool and safe out there: curl up with a cool drink and a hot book!

A Boy and his Dog

My new story is up for preorder, for release November 1st! Cover reveal September 20!If Dr. Hope Hernandez were any more exhausted, she’d be the one on the gurney. Her drive for perfection leaves her scrambling to juggle an insane ER schedule, studying for boards, and her boyfriend—whoops! Ex-boyfriend.Fine. One less thing demanding her attention. Hope buries her pain in work. The truth is she’d get more affection from a dog, with less risk to her heart. Safe and uncomplicated. The second she sees the forlorn, retired military K9, Hope falls hard: he’s sad and alone, just like her. They head to Colorado, aiming for a fresh start—if she can score the coveted ER job.Yet when a scorching hot veteran shows up to lay claim to her dog, he disrupts her careful plan. He’s anything but safe—he’s dynamite. And he’s oh, so wrong if he thinks he can charm Hope into giving up her loyal companion.Bomb disposal technician Grant Calloway loses the best partner he ever had when his whole life blows up after an IED detonates at a Kosovo parade. He and his working dog, Mojo, save hundreds with his off-duty heroism, but reality bites hard: Mired in red tape, then bounced out of the Army for hearing loss, Grant’s blindsided when Mojo’s adopted out by a civilian who won’t understand the needs of a military-trained dog. His best friend deserves better. Grant turns his back on a lucrative job and instead hits the road for Colorado to track down his dog.But finding Mojo isn’t the hardest part. The woman who took him won’t listen to reason, and Grant’s charm has no effect. Refusing to be diverted by her big brown eyes and a gorgeous smile, Grant lays siege to reacquire Mojo—by whatever means necessary.A Boy and his Dog is a steamy, enemies-to-lovers medical / military romance, which contains profanity and sex scenes.About the All-American Boy Series:Welcome to Bear Creek, Colorado, an idyllic all-American mountain resort town and home of the Rocky Mountain Music Festival. Filled with summer love, country music and unexpected pleasures, this brand-new series of short contemporary novels bring together a mix of summer fun and music with the backdrop of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.The All-American Boy Series gives you a taste of 16 new books in a shared world experience. All books are standalone but may include cross-over in characters or scenes.Preorder now for 11/1 release, for $0.99!https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097JBFXVQ

How Cool is This?

Greece has opened the world’s first underwater museum!  The wreck of the Peristera, a cargo ship loaded with thousands of pottery amphorae, sank in the Agean Sea near Alonissos Island around 500 B.C.E. The find is important because it changed our understanding of ancient shipbuilding, as this cargo ship was much larger than any were thought to be at that time, carrying 4,000 vases, probably containing wine. It’s not clear why the vessel sank, though there are indications of fire. Piracy? An accidental blaze? The site is 92 feet deep, and there are virtual tours available for those unable to make the dives. The museum won first prize in all of Europe for “Innovation & Digitalization in Sustainable Cultural Tourism/Smart Destinations.”

The plans are to gradually open several more ancient shipwrecks to the public over the next few years.

The photo’s included because it reminds me of the Poseidon-vs-Zeus debate from Submerged Hopes, but it’s not at the site of the Peristera shipwreck, and this statue is clearly Poseidon, with his trident.

Here’s a link with some details: https://www.afar.com/magazine/long-of...

Looks like I have a new item on my bucket list!

Photo by yue su on Unsplash

Hard Truths is free June 4th and 5th!

Fearful of heartbreak, Theresa is drawn to safe, unavailable men. After she flees to Greece to escape becoming her alcoholic mother, she lands her dream job working for the sexy CEO of Helios. So what if she has a little crush on her boss? He’s safely married. Theresa’s content to worship him from afar until a company shake-up, her boss’ divorce, and the arrival of Jason, a cocky adventure racer, topple her carefully constructed walls.

Despite their disastrous near-hookup, Jason’s smitten by Theresa, but he can’t afford to lose his heart to her: it’s clear she carries a torch for her boss. His new boss, who’s sponsoring Jason’s adventure racing team. And no way is Jason content to come in second.

An enemies-to-lovers story at the intersection of Romance and Women’s Fiction, Hard Truths features real-world issues beyond simply boy-meets-girl: an immersive, steamy story about a young woman struggling to overcome addiction, a love triangle between a billionaire CEO and a tech-savvy environmental champion as well as family drama and laugh-out-loud moments.

Hard Truths is a stand-alone novel in the Helios Series, with a happily ever after (like the others), and will appeal to discerning readers who crave escape but want more depth than a cookie-cutter romance with a “meet cute” on page one and a couple of misunderstandings. It contains on-page sex scenes and adult situations.

https://storyoriginapp.com/universalbooklinks/62d5b834-56a1-11eb-acf1-7b4ba5c4c508

If you get it, I’d love a review! Or tell me what you think!