Michelle Garren Flye's Blog, page 86
July 16, 2012
Where the Heart Lies on Kindle for iPad
Where the Heart Lies on Kindle for iPad
Happy release day! Win a Nook! And a great review!
WHERE THE HEART LIES is live today! Which means you can start reading it right now. Click on one of the buy links at the top of the left column and go for it!
And what a great way to start the first day of my new book’s life. Another reviewer loved WHERE THE HEART LIES! My thanks to Smitten with Reading who gave WHERE THE HEART LIES an A rating and said this:
“Really a brilliant stroke of amazing and entertaining story telling.” –Smitten with Reading, A
What a great way to start the day. Don’t forget you can win a NOOK Simple Touch by helping me spread the word about my book. Tweet, blog, pin, facebook…and then send me an email for your entry. Each tweet, etc. is worth one entry into the NOOK drawing, but make sure I know about it! You can email me michellegflye@gmail.com.
July 15, 2012
Publication Day tomorrow! Win a NOOK!
Tomorrow is the day I’ve been waiting for since I got the acceptance from Carina Press. I still remember the thrill of that acceptance, and every step of the process toward publication of WHERE OF THE HEART LIES has been nothing short of fantastic and enjoyable. Now the day looms…and I’m in the mood to give stuff away!
Tomorrow is all about this blog, right here. I’ll be celebrating all day with excerpts and trivia about WHERE THE HEART LIES. And at 5 p.m. eastern time I’m planning to give away a NOOK Simple Touch to one luck entrant. Want to enter? Mention WHERE THE HEART LIES in a Tweet, on Goodreads, your blog or a Facebook post tomorrow and email me at michellegflye@gmail.com. You can enter as many times as you like (two tweets gets you two entries, etc.). Friends and family of me are still eligible as you guys are my fan base. 
Look forward to seeing you here tomorrow!
July 12, 2012
A new review and partying with The Romance Studio!
Wow, I’m overwhelmed by the reviews. NOT that I’m complaining! Especially when they cheer my coffee like the one from Book Reviews and More by Kathy. Here’s a quote:
Where the Heart Lies by Michelle Garren Flye is a beautiful and heartwarming novel that is quite compelling. –Book Reviews and More by Kathy
Can’t get much better than that, right? How about this?
A lovely contemporary romance with a few unexpected twists and turns,Where the Heart Lies by Michelle Garren Flye is an engaging novel with charming and likable characters. –Book Reviews and More by Kathy
Awesome! Thank you so much, Kathy! I’m thrilled to hear you liked the book and feel you can recommend it.
The praise put me in the mood to party, so I headed on over to The Romance Studios to post about WHERE THE HEART LIES. You can check out me and lots of other folks here: The Romance Studio Release Party. BYOB, but streamers and confetti provided!
July 10, 2012
New Review from Ravishing Romances! But why doesn’t anybody like Penny?
Yesterday I found another review, one of the best I’ve gotten yet. No, not best as in totally good, but best in the sense that the reviewer was so clear about what she did and didn’t like, I really felt like I could see how at least some readers might read my book. What I discovered kind of surprised me.
Nobody likes Penny.
Penny is the good friend of Alicia, the heroine of the book. She was a good friend of Alicia’s deceased husband Ty, and over the years she’s maintained a close relationship with Ty’s parents, Alicia’s in-laws. Unfortunately, Penny has a secret, and her secret affects Alicia. To keep her secret, she really doesn’t want Liam, Ty’s best friend from high school and the only other person who knows Penny’s secret, getting involved with Alicia. She knows he’ll want to be totally honest with her if he does, and Penny’s secret would come out.
So in a way, Penny is a bit of a villain.
However, she’s also loyal and very good to Alicia when she arrives in her new home. She’s a loving mother, a good wife, and scared of losing it all.
At least two reviewers have failed to see her that way, though, so I’m starting to think I failed in her respect.
At any rate, I was very impressed by my 3.5 star review from Ravishing Romances, and I’d like to thank Musing Sallie for the thoughtful read. She did like Alicia, Liam, Lulu and the in-laws, so I didn’t fail utterly. She even liked Sandra, a very minor character who starts out as a bit of a villain and ends up with more to her than you expect. I very much encourage you to check out Sallie’s other reviews, if you have any interest in romance. Here’s a bit of the positive stuff from her review of WHERE THE HEART LIES:
Where the Heart Lies by Michelle Garren Flye has the workings for an epic novel. The premise is heart stopping. –Ravishing Romances
Sounds good, right? I wish it hadn’t gone downhill from there, but at least I know why. And I can take notes and do better next time! Thanks, Sallie.
July 9, 2012
Two more reviews! And your chance to win a Nook!
Any news at this point is good news, so I’ve decided to give you links to both of these reviews, even though one is a two-star review and really didn’t say anything positive. However, it’s only fair that I report both reviews to you, since these people were kind enough to spend time reading and thinking about my book.
We’ll start with the good review, which was from Mother & Daughter Reading Team (indubitably the cutest idea for a blog I’ve ever seen). Maybe when my daughter is old enough, we’ll start one of these. I browsed through some of their other reviews and found some interesting stuff. Here’s a short quote and a link to the review:
This was a great book with likable characters and a few interesting surprises, all things that kept me engaged. — Mother & Daughter Reading Team
And the flip side of the coin, a review from Jo’s Sanctuary. Two stars. Jo says it was “ok”, and if you want to know why she thinks so, you’ll have to read the review. Anyway, you can’t please everybody.
My thanks, again, to both reviewers!
By the way, WHERE THE HEART LIES is the top most popular book on the Carina Press website today, and it’s only 99 cents during the month of July! And you can enter to win a Nook Simple Touch to use by the pool just by tweeting the news! (Or posting on Facebook, your blog or pinning it on your Pinterest board). You can find convenient links at the top of the left-hand column of this blog. Of course, after you do it, drop me a line at michellegflye@gmail.com, so I can put your name in the hat to win!
July 8, 2012
The Good and The Bad…but not The Ugly
I’ve been trolling the internet looking for reviews again. Good or bad, I want to know what people are thinking about WHERE THE HEART LIES. I’ve turned up three kinds:
1. The Good. Overall positive review. The reviewer liked the book, explains why, may point out anything they didn’t like, but gives it a positive rating.
2. The Bad. Negative or somewhat negative review, still well-written. The reviewer explains why he/she didn’t like the book, giving me the opportunity to take notes on how to make my writing better.
3. The Ugly. Negative review, but no real explanation of why. Usually full of grammatical errors. I don’t plan to advertise these reviews on my blog.
I’ve recently found two reviews, representing both Good and Bad. One of these I knew about ahead of time since it was on Goodreads. I thanked the reviewer for taking the time to read and thoroughly review the book, even though her overall impression of it wasn’t all I would have hoped for. The other was an unexpected surprise, and a very sweet and encouraging review. Here are quotes and links to both reviews:
“…a good story and deals with some really serious issues. I really felt for Alicia and the difficulties she faced moving on with her life without her husband Ty with her. It made me think about all of the real people out there who have lost someone important to them because of the war. It really was heartbreaking. Michelle Garren Flye does a great job of expressing Alicia’s pain and frustration throughout the book.”
–The Book Garden, 3.5 stars
“…a lovely book with some sad, yet feel good moments and is about love, trust and friendship.”
My thanks to both reviewers!
July 7, 2012
How to earn prizes for WHERE THE HEART LIES online release party!
It’s now less than nine days to the release of my fourth book (ebook), WHERE THE HEART LIES. I’ve got high hopes for this one. It’s on sale for 99 cents during the month of July, it’s gotten some pretty decent reviews and it’s already garnered a higher sales rank than any of my other books—and that’s just pre-sales. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to recruit you all to help me sell my book between now and July 16. And to give you an idea of what you’re helping promote, here’s a short excerpt:
Alicia took her time getting ready for bed. Finally, looking at her cleaned, toned, moisturized face and hair brushed to the edge of staticky chaos, she couldn’t put it off any longer. She turned to the bedroom with reluctance. The empty bed looked uninviting. One side was turned down and she focused on that neat triangle of rose-colored sheets against the darker wine-colored bedspread. She closed her eyes and pictured Ty on the other side. “This isn’t how I imagined our first night.”
She climbed into the bed and curled herself into a ball under the thin chenille. The room was warm enough, but cold permeated her body. Or maybe it was loneliness. Ty wasn’t there and never would be again. She remembered the sound of his voice and the feel of his body and let the tears come at last, her shoulders shaking with her sorrow while she tried to keep her sobs quiet so she wouldn’t wake Jason.
After a while, she slipped from the bed to the hall closet and found another blanket. It was an old quilt, probably one Millie had owned when Ty was a child. She held it to her face for a moment, taking comfort from its age and sense of history. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she got back into the bed, pulled the sheet up to her chin and fell asleep.
And one more:
Liam watched her minivan disappear down the road. He sighed and looked at the tiny crushed body in the road, thinking that just a few minutes before, it had been a living, breathing soul. Now it was just a pile of meat and bone.
“That’s the way it goes, my friend,” he said. “One minute you’re trying to find the sweetest patch of clover, the next you’re lying facedown in the road with tire tracks on your back.”
His mind turned to Ty and how death had come for him so suddenly. He didn’t know the details, just that he’d died in Afghanistan. He hoped it had been quick for his old friend. Ty hadn’t been hopping around looking for a sweet patch of clover. Ty had been doing a job, and from what Liam understood, he’d done it very well right up until the end. A hot surge of guilt and self-disgust filled him. If Ty was the rabbit, he was the minivan who’d run his friend down.
WHERE THE HEART LIES is Alicia’s story about love and loss and starting over. And it’s Liam’s story about recovery and forgiveness and finding love. I think you’ll like it. So here’s the deal. On July 16 at 5 p.m. I’ll be giving away a Nook Simple Touch. I just bought one and I love it. It works outside, inside, in the car, just about anywhere you want to read. Plus, you can download the Nook app to your smartphone or computer or tablet and if you bookmark your place on your Nook, you can pick it up on whatever device you happen to have on you. You can literally read anywhere. Plus, if you want to become Nook friends, you can send me your email and I’ll figure out how to input it and we can trade books!
Here’s how to enter:
1. Pin my book cover on Pinterest. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Carinapress.com and many other ebooksellers.
2. Tweet about the July 99 cent sale on Twitter using one of the buy links at the top of the left column of this blog. Tag me in the post @michellegflye.
3. Post a link on Facebook or your blog.
4. Put my book on your Goodreads, Shelfari or LibraryThing shelf.
5. Any other good ideas? Let me know!
For everything you do, email me at michellegflye@gmail.com to let me know and I’ll enter you to win the ereader on July 16. I’ll also be giving away ecopies of all my books and some gift certificates to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so make sure you stop by for the party!
July 6, 2012
New Cover! Foreign Affairs cover announced…
Hey everybody! Big news this morning. Foreign Affairs, the romance anthology from Turquoise Morning Press with my story “Agapi Mou” (which means “My Love” in Greek), has a face!
What a face, huh? This book is chock full of romantic stories about gorgeous men from far off lands. The stuff dreams are made of. I’m thrilled to be in this anthology, which features the talents of Karen Booth, Sidney Bristol, J.M. Kelley, Karen Stivali and Georgia St. Mane. The anthology is set to release in August, so stay tuned for more information.
While you’re here, don’t forget that WHERE THE HEART LIES is my next baby, due out July 16. And to make it better, it’s only 99 cents during the month of July. You can pre-order your copy now using one of the links to the left. If you’ve already got your copy pre-ordered, help me spread the word. Tag me in a tweet or a Facebook post helping me promote WHERE THE HEART LIES, and I’ll go ahead and enter your name in some of my awesome giveaways I’ve got scheduled for July 16. And you know me…I love to give away e-readers!
July 5, 2012
I’m the number 3 most popular author today! (and a side note about erotica—it’s NOT “mommy porn”)
Today I’m at number 3 on the Carina Press “most popular” list. I’d love it if they’d call it a bestseller list so I could call myself a bestselling author, but I think there’s more that goes into the calculating of the “most popular” books than just sales, so… At any rate, I’d love to preserve my status as a popular author, so if you know anybody who’d like a good romance for a great deal, send them my way. You can refer them to the buy links on this site (look to your left), to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or the Carina Press site. Check out the Carina Press most popular books here: Carina Press.
By the way, the term “mommy porn” that’s being used in the media to refer to books like Fifty Shades of Grey is technically incorrect and degrading to both mothers and the writers of erotica. These books are not pornography, and women should not be ashamed of reading them, and I almost feel like this term will make women ashamed of reading what they enjoy. I don’t write erotica, and I probably wouldn’t be much good at it, but I respect the authors who can write it well.
