Susan Hanniford Crowley's Blog: From Nights of Passion Blog, page 233

New Year’s Paranormal-Scope

With the New Year comes a lot of changes, new adventures, and surprises. Keep on your toes.

While I am not qualified in any way to read neither stars nor planets, I am intimately linked to the paranormal in the world in many ways. So are you.

The paranormal-scope is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to guide your life by.

The week for:

Aries:

Werebunnies are everywhere munching on vegetables. Add more vegetables to your diet.

Taurus:

Zombies are lumbering down the street. Apparently they are not runners. Walking is good exercise too. As always speak to your doctor, before adding to your exercise regimen.

Gemini:

Ghouls eat too much and fall asleep.  Tiptoe and pass trouble by.

Cancer:

Werewolves think that you’re a howling success.  Enjoy the spotlight. Plan your next venture.

Leo:

Dragons leap into the air.  They don’t look down.  Look forward and work hard toward your next opportunity.

Virgo:

Hobbits are unpredictable, and so are you! You’ve been hiding your talents too long. It’s time to show off what you can do well.

Libra:

Elves shimmer against the snow as they move. First you see them and then they’re gone. Enjoy the everyday miracles that are happening around you.

Scorpio:

A faery gives you a jewel. Don’t call it “my precious.”  Let its light guide you in a dark time ahead.

Sagittarius:

Shapeshifters go with the flow of change. Learn to adopt. Also relax with a new hobby.

Capricorn:

Goblins are careful with their money. You should be too.  It’s time to save.

Aquarius:

Vampires love the dark.  Enjoy your nights more. Give yourself more sleep time to rest your body.

Pisces:

Mermaids love swimming to new lands. Travel is you can, even if only day trips on the weekend. Enlarge your world.

-Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley, Amazon Kindle Bestselling Author of Vampire Romance

www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

Where love burns eternal and whispers in the dark!

Vampire King of New York available at Amazon Kindle and print, Barnes and Noble Nook and print and in Kobo

A Vampire for Christmas in Kindle

Filed under: A Vampire for Christmas, Max Vander Meer, paranormal, paranormal romance, romance, Susan Hanniford Crowley, vampire books, Vampire King of New York In Print, Vampire Maximillion Vander Meer, vampires, Weekly Paranormal-Scope

What Are Your New Year’s Plans?

I’ve got big plans for the New Year. How about you?

Now, I’m not talking about just New Year’s Eve, although my husband and I are actually doing something rather special. For Christmas he gave me New Year’s Eve at our favorite bed & breakfast—dinner, romantic midnight tryst, and gourmet breakfast on New Year’s Day. We’ve stayed there several time and always love it. So I’m very much looking forward to the beginning of 201

But I’ve already put a plan for my writing in place for 2015. A rather ambitious plan, but one that I believe I can accomplish if I have a little discipline and a lot of hard work

My great friend and wonderful author Patricia Green put a link up on her website some weeks ago to a post by Russell Blake, who gave some great advice to indie authors about how to make your writing pay off. So I have taken this advice to heart and have made a plan for 201

This plan is more than just a New Year’s resolution, because Blake’s advice is adamant that in order to make serious money at writing, you must treat it as a business. This requires scheduling, dedication, and long hours at the computer writing and promoting. However, his first rule is to publish regularly. I am taking this to heart and have scheduled six books to come out during 2015, approximately one every other month. I am fortunate that three of these books are already written and a fourth is halfway done. Two are already scheduled for release on Amazon: Almost Perfect on January 23 and Only Marriage Will Do on June 9. I have tentative dates for the rest and I have outlines or ideas for the remaining two books that are unwritten at this time

So as you see, I am serious about getting my work out there in 2015. I encourage the writers among you to make a plan for the New Year. It need not be this ambitious, but once you decide on it, stick to it, own it. Make it happen. And see where you are in December 2015

Starting next Sunday, my blog posts here at Nights of Passion will be the ABCs of Romance. Each week I’ll post on a topic of interest to readers and writers of romance, beginning with A and going through to Z. I hope you’ll be stopping by for my initial post: A is for Attraction.

Filed under: Holidays, Jenna Jaxon, Marketing

Relaxing and Seeing “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” by Susan Hanniford Crowley

Even though the movie got mixed reviews, I’m a Tolkien devotee and wanted to see it.  I’m also speaking on a panel about it at Arisia in Boston on Martin Luther King Weekend.

I have to say that I really enjoyed it. Yes, that are parts written in that do not appear in the book but I’m okay with that.  I thought the battles were very well done, as it’s difficult to do when you have five armies.  Because I read the book I knew who would die and who would survive.  I enjoyed it enough, that I’ll buy it to complete my collection.

There’s something a little sad about finally saying goodbye to Middle Earth.  My connections started when I was a teenager.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were among my first books to a wider world. They were not taught in my school when I was a kid.  I loved the adventure, the making of friends who would stick by you through thick and thin, and the travel to strange lands, where things changed around every bend.

Reading soothed my adventurer’s heart.

So I recommend to you a journey to Middle Earth for one last time to stand with Bilbo as he unravels for himself what it means when a journey is more than killing a dragon or fighting for homeland and gold, where hard choices are made and friendships are tested.

-Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley, Kindle Bestselling author of vampire romance

http://www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

Where love burns eternal and whispers in the dark!

Vampire King of New York available at Amazon Kindle and print, Barnes and Noble Nook and print and in Kobo

A Vampire for Christmas in Kindle

Filed under: A Memoir: Maurice Sendak, fantasy, Susan Hanniford Crowley

THE END IS NEAR by Stacy Hoff

 

Yes, Passionate people, that’s right—THE END IS NEAR! The end of 2014. Dramatic sounding isn’t it? Well, for me, 2014 was dramatic. My life changed irrevocably – I became a published author. January 2, 2014, I got an offer for publication. The one I had dreamed about. The one I had been waiting for—oh, I don’t know—forever! I finally had vindication. Acceptance. Dream fulfillment. Validation.

It also brought angst. Confusion. Self-doubt. Would anybody besides my publisher like my story? Would it sell? Can I ever master social media? What would people think of me—a lawyer who wants to be a romance writer? Probably that I’m crazy.

Then I experienced the high of selling my second book. My newest release will be out late winter, but not in this year. Thank goodness all my new anxieties will therefore be pushed into 2015. I’ve still got the rest of 2014 to sit back, relax and enjoy.

Thanks for taking the ride with me.

How was your 2014? I’d like to know!

Find Stacy on Social Media:

www.facebook.com/authorStacyHoff Twitter: twitter.com/authorStacyHoff   Web: http://www.stacyhoff.com

Desire in the Everglades available on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Desire-Everglades-Stacy-Hoff-ebook/dp/B00NFSMCYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410289138&sr=8-1&keywords=desire+in+the+everglades.

 

Filed under: A writer's life, Holiday, New Year, romance, Stacy Hoff

Merry Christmas! May Your Holidays Be Bright, Warm and Safe!

The authors of Nights of Passion would like to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Thank you for spending time with us each day!

In this festive time of year, it’s important to hold those we love close.

May your holidays be filled with joy!

At this time of year, it is common to think of those far away who are thinking of us.

Here are greetings from the International Space Station.

Merry Christmas! May Your Holidays Be Bright, Warm and Safe!

Susan, Gerri, Toni, Stacy, Jenna and Mandy

Filed under: holiday greeting, romance, Susan Hanniford Crowley

Christmas Joys

Another year almost done, another Christmas to look forward to. As today is Christmas Eve, I thought I’d share what I love most about Christmas and the images that stand out to me.

To me, I love and hate the Christmas wait. It comes so fast and yet not fast enough. As a child and even teenager, I’d dig into my presents ahead of time and then rewrap them (awful, huh?!) but as an adult I take more pleasure in the giving than receiving. This year is the first that my son has more of an understanding as to what is going on, so it is especially exciting as I feed off his excitement and the magic of his imagination (although I haven’t quite lost all of mine).

I love midnight mass. I know we all have our own religious preference but beyond this, I just enjoy the sense of community and the singing of Christmas songs. I love the crispness of the air (even out here in the desert) and the smell of chimneys, cookies and baked hams. There are many years I can recall staying up late and entering that packed church. The candles, the songs, the smiles as we all headed home to barely sleep and wait some more.

I love family and food on Christmas day. It’s a reply of Thanksgiving in many cases but it’s also the last holiday with this family tone to it (let’s face it, New Year’s is just a bit different). And sure I’ll probably be making some reluctant resolution about losing weight as the year ends and we go into 2015, but for tonight and tomorrow, it simply doesn’t matter.

So, enjoy your Christmas (and/or other holidays too)! Spend time with those most precious to you. Thanks for joining me today and I wish you all Happy Writing this week and a Merry Christmas.

Filed under: Toni Kelly, Writer's Life

So It Turns Out I’m Psychotic by Mandy Rosko

I think it was the last post when I mentioned that I was having trouble with all the books I’d bought on my book binge. A little voice, or a tick, inside of my head told me that I hadn’t done much reading in a while, and as if I needed to make up for that somehow, I went crazy with the books. Lots of brand new ones that went on my list after seeing some cool reviews on Katytastic’s channel on Youtube, and a few others I found used that have also been on my list to get for a good while. Either books that I’ve gotten through on Audible and wanted the physical copies, or others by the same author :)

Anyway, so, apparently my brother got a look at my apartment, and he thinks I’m in a serious need of a purge. He wants me to get rid of a lot of it because some of it is literally sitting in piles on my floor.

I’m pretty sure he thinks that I’m a hoarder or something, and that I’d start getting the chills if I had to get rid of any of them. This may or may not be true. I’m adamant that it’s not like I have a lot of books, it’s just that my apartment is small and there’s not much room to put all of these in.

But! The happy ending in this story is that I might not need to get rid of any books at all :) I could just buy some newer and bigger bookshelves to put them all on :D I’m so happy with this idea, I wish it had come to me a while ago. New Bookshelves! What was I thinking? Considering getting rid of some more of my books when I already did purge a whole lot of them :3 Maybe two little bags or so a couple of months ago.

I ran this idea by my brother, and I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m insane. He keeps trying to talk me out of y excellent idea by pointing out that we may have some hoarding aspects in our family, but I assured him that I had everything under control as I picked up some mystery novels in the local thrift store.

It was a pretty sweet find ;)

Anyway, this was just a quick post to let you all know how I’m doing on that front, and to assure every book lover out there that I won’t be getting rid of anything awesome or precious. I just need to hide them better, organize better, and start buying more books on my kindle :)

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me? If you share this issue, how do you get it by your relatives? And what do you ay to yourselves whenever you add another book to the stack of books you have yet to read?

Cheers!

Mandy

————————–

Burns Like Fire (Dangerous Creatures Book One) is now available for Pre-Order!

Captured Box Set is Now Available!

The Princess’ Dragon Lord is Now Available at Amazon and B&N

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Filed under: romance

Solstice Paranormal-Scope by Susan Hanniford Crowley

Snow fluttered around during an early morning yoga class.  We were warm inside and it was magical watching it.  Magical and peaceful.

While I am not qualified in any way to read neither stars nor planets, I am intimately linked to the paranormal in the world in many ways. So are you.

The paranormal-scope is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to guide your life by.

The week for:

Aries:

You have lived through the longest night. Werewolves howl to rejoice and call friends and family for a feast. Do everything that makes you comfortable.

Taurus:

Minotaur craves the light and so do you. Try “full spectrum light bulbs. One brand is the blues buster but there are others. What a difference a little more light can make.

Gemini:

Hobbits thrive on planning for festivals. Plan downtime too to prevent exhaustion.

Cancer:

Vampires like the long dark nights.  Keep a watchful eye out and eat Italian food.

Leo:

Some snowmen do come to life and you don’t want to meet them in a dark alley.  Be kind to everyone and you’ll avoid troublemakers and go far with influencers.

Virgo:

Elves don’t mind the cold, but then again they dress for the weather with warm boots and capes. Do the same!

Libra:

Mermaids sometimes come to the surface to watch the snow dance above the waves. Enjoy a snowy night with a warmed mug of a favorite beverage in your hand. Enjoy the season.

Scorpio:

Dragons bring in their young ones into the caves for protection and warmth. Decorate that cave a bit more festively.

Sagittarius:

The Faery Queen has opened a new door for you.  Take a chance.

Capricorn:

Pegasus carries you aloft to sleep. You need to plan more rest to enjoy this holiday season more.

Aquarius:

Pixies are a delight.  They are small but quick, witty but shy, and always fun. Grow appreciative of the young ones in your family.

Pisces:

Gnomes may have mastered the art of home decor for the holidays but you will do better.  If travel takes you away, then make sure to give yourself some gifts in addition to getting gifts for others.  Remember when you travel, you are guided by a star.

-Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley, Amazon Kindle Bestselling Author of Vampire Romance

www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

Where love burns eternal and whispers in the dark!

Vampire King of New York available at Amazon Kindle and print, Barnes and Noble Nook and print and in Kobo

A Vampire for Christmas in Kindle

Filed under: A Vampire for Christmas, Norse, paranormal, paranormal romance, romance, romance novels, Susan Hanniford Crowley, vampire books, Vampire David Hilliard, Vampire King of New York, Vampire King of New York In Print, Vampire Maximillion Vander Meer, vampires, Viking, Weekly Paranormal-Scope, Yule

Another Winter Holiday

The winter solstice is upon us, the official beginning of winter and the shortest day of the year. Of course, that means it’s also the longest night of the year. A great set-up for romance if ever I heard one.

This solstice occurs in the Northern Hemisphere each year between December 20 and 23, though most often either on the 21st or 22nd. It is the day when the Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun, causing total darkness at the North Pole and total sunlight at the South Pole.

Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net).

The solstice was also known as Alban Arthuan by the ancient Druids. Their ritual for the beginning of this season, held at Stonehenge, has become very popular with both pagans and the merely curious. The standing stones at Stonehenge are aligned with the sunlight on both winter and summer solstices, creating an eerie and spectacular effect in the morning light.

 

Below is the winter solstice as seen at Newgrange–an ancient burrow in Ireland created to be lit only at the time of the summer and winter solstice.  I’ve actually visited there, though not at the solstice. And when they turned the lights out and the simulated solstice sunrise lit up the burrow, well, it was a total mixture of creepy and awesome.

Solstice 2013

As I said earlier, the set-up for this ancient holy day at either Stonehenge or Newgrange, is just begging to be the setting for a romance–ancient or modern. Perhaps that project will find its way onto my list of New Year’s Resolutions.

This year, however, I celebrated both solstice and Christmas early, as I did three years ago with the original release of Almost Perfect. This year I’ve released An Almost Perfect Christmas, a short story about Pam and Roger’s first Christmas.

Pam and Roger are the hero and heroine of Almost Perfect, which is now up for pre-order on Amazon pending a January release as my independently published novella. And although neither book has anything to do with winter celebrations, An Almost Perfect Christmas is a sexy romance that will warm the cockles of your heart. It’s FREE at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

Filed under: Almost Perfect, Holidays, Promotion

Giveaways & Fun Movies to See for the Holidays

I have two giveaways going on right now.  You have to enter at the site to be eligible.

1. I’m doing a worldwide giveaway at Jaunty Quills jauntyquills.com/2014/12/19/meet-susan-hanniford-crowley/   That giveaway ends at midnight today (Dec. 20), and the winner will be announced on Sunday. Please, see that site for details.

2. I’m doing a winner’s choice ebook giveaway on The Romance Studio Christmas Party. Here’s the post for my toasty warm excerpt. http://trsparties.com/vampire-king-of-new-york-excerpt-and-contest/  That giveaway ends on Dec. 23rd. See the site for details.

Movies for little Kids:

1. Despicable Me 2 – so hilarious 2.

2. Ice Age

3. Frozen

4. Epic

I’ve been watching a lot of little kids’ movies because I have a granddaughter.  What do I like to watch for the holidays?

1. Howl’s Moving Castle (based on the book by Dianna Wynn Jones, a student of J.R.R. Tolkien, it’s a masterpiece of a story and anime, also made by Studio Ghibli)

2. Whisper of the Heart (made by Studio Ghibli, I love this anime because it especially speaks to my writer’s heart)

3. White Christmas

4. Elf

5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version)

I plan on seeing the most recent Hunger Games in the theaters and also the final Hobbit movie.

I’ll be back before you know it.

-Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley

http://www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

 

 

 

 

Filed under: contest, Norse, paranormal, paranormal romance, romance, romance novels, Susan Hanniford Crowley, vampire books, Vampire King of New York, Vampire King of New York In Print, Vampire Maximillion Vander Meer, vampires, Viking, What are you watching?, Writer's Life, Yule