Lori Brighton's Blog, page 10

Winner!

The winner of Wild Desire and Archangel's Consort is.... The Itzel Library! Send me your mailing address and I'll get those to you.

New Cover

I recently had the cover for The Ghost Hunter remade by the fabulous Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs.

To celebrate, I've lowered the price of the book to 99 cents! You can find the Ebook on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. But the 99 cents is only for a limited time!!!

There's also still time to enter the contest in the blog below!

P.S. It may take a day or so for the new price to show up so keep checking back on the sites listed!

Giveaway!

Okay, giveaway time, just because :)

Which books? Well, I'm giving away a signed copy of Wild Desire and a copy of Nalini Singh's Archangel's Consort.

Just leave a comment and email addy! I'll pick 1 winner next weekend.

In The News...

First, I want to thank everyone who has emailed me about my books. You don't know what a thrill it is to receive positive feedback. When I worked in the Museum they told us that the thing you'll hear most often is negative feedback. I'm sure those of you who work understand that. Well, for an author it's the same. Often it seems like we hear mostly negativity. So when a reader takes the time to write an encouraging email or review, you don't know how much we appreciate it!

With that said.... I've gotten more emails about The Mind Readers than all of my other books put together. Everyone wants to know about a book 2! There will be 3 books in all, although book 1 is only available right now.
As you may remember, awhile back I mentioned that I signed with a new agent. I did this because I had gotten such an amazing response for The Mind Readers and I've had quite a few people ask me if it will ever be in print. An agent would be able to try to sell it to a N.Y. Publish er who would put it in print and get the book to more readers. An agent would also be able to sell overseas rights and movie rights. How cool would a Mind Readers movie be?!!!!
So this week my agent sent The Mind Readers to N.Y. It's with quite a few editors. If someone buys the book, they will publish the series. If it doesn't sell to N.Y., no need to worry, I'll still self publish book 2 and 3.
The N.Y. version actually has a few minor changes; added info, added scenes. Nothing major, but just a little extra. If it doesn't sell, I'll upload the new version as well.
I'd love for it to sell to N.Y. because it would be in print and Ebook format, it would get to a lot more people and I'd have a better chance at Overseas and Movie sales. But if it doesn't sell, that's fine too! Book 2 and 3 will still be available sometime in the future. They're all planned out, by the way, so I do know what will happen! Oh, and to let you know.... just recently I sold the Ebook rights to Brazil! The Mind Readers' first overseas sale!

Winners!

I have a couple winners to announce. First, the winner of Harris Channing's The Demon Is In The Details....
Blodeuedd!

And the winner of Kelly Moran's Summer's Road is... Tea!



Please email me so I can contact the authors. A special thanks to the authors for stopping by and to those of you who left comments :)

Interview with Kelly Moran

I've known Kelly for awhile through her awesome blog where she has many author interviews and giveaways. If you haven't visited, I suggest you stop by! You never know who will be there.

But Kelly doesn't just promote other writers, she's also an author of romance and children's books. Join me in welcoming Kelly to the blog!


Tell us something about yourself that you've never told in an interview.

Hmm. Like what? Like... Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches are my comfort food? Or I think Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are talentless hacks? Or the show Forensic Files calms me down and helps me sleep? Oh, I know! I have a tattoo of a lizard on my ankle! How's that?

You work part time, you have an amazing blog, you're a book reviewer, you write your own books and you're a mom. How in the world do you manage it all?

Well, if you promise not to tell the government, I secretly cloned myself so I can get everything done. LOL. Seriously, I just manage my time really well. I work part time in healthcare, so everything else except the kids goes around that. I feel like my interviews on the blog and book reviews help me be a better author. Ergo, I have my author schedule set up far in advance so I just have to post it come that time. I read my review books before going to bed. I write a little of my own manuscripts every morning and weekends. And spending time with my kids is rewarding and gives me inspiration to keep going. I feel showing them how hard I work at my dream teaches them a valuable lesson in how to obtain theirs someday, whatever that may be. (Currently they both want to be Spiderman.) To each his own.


Is there a dream author you'd love to interview on your blog, or one you have interviewed?

I've interviewed NY TIMES bestsellers Karen Rose, Larisa Ione, and Caridad Pineiro twice each. Which was so cool. But I'd love to have Carla Neggers or Nicholas Sparks one day. I've reviewed several of their books for their publishers, but haven't been able to get them on. They did both however send me a nice email and signed the guestbook on my site.

You write children's books, poetry and woman's fiction (romance). Okay, tough question time… if you had to pick just one, which would it be?

LOL. Believe it or not, this isn't a tough one. Romance was always my true calling. When I was a kid I began writing poetry as an outlet, and eventually had some published. When I had my kids, I started writing kids books and love it. But romance... there's thousands of plots and characters in my head for future books.

For your children's books, how do you find an illustrator, or do you draw the pictures yourself?

Actually, I've known my illustrator most of my life. She's my best friend and an uber talented artist. She has a graphic design degree from UWM and works as a veterinary assistant. I tell her my ideas for a kids book, and like the story comes to me, the pictures come to her. It's a great fit. She has a page on my Web site with some of her art if interested. http://www.authorkellymoran.com/

Can you tell us about your newest release?

Summer's Road is a single title contemporary romance set in beautiful South Carolina. It's not only a story about finding love right in front of you, but about home, grief, friendship, and forgiveness. Here's a blurb:

After her father's death, Summer Quinn realizes just how alone she feels in the world. With no family to fill her life now, she finds comfort among friends, but yearns for true love, contentment, and family. When her boyfriend, Matt, suggests they raise their relationship to a higher level, Summer jumps at the chance to get everything she's always wanted. Only, she doesn't expect the heat arising between her and her best friend, Ian – a man who never seems to settle down. A man the complete opposite of what she's looking for. But when her estranged mother reappears after twenty-eight years, Summer's world completely flips upside down. As secrets from her family's past and Ian's true feelings for her emerge, Summer's now faced with choices she's not sure she can make. The rest of her life's happiness hinges on her confronting a past she'd rather deny and legitimately opening her heart to love, even if it's not where she expected to find it.

What other books do you have available?

Idle Thursday (2009) is a literature novella told from the viewpoint of a dead housewife. The Tiny Caterpillar and the Great Big Tree (2009) was my first kids book about how the physical differences between us do not define who we are as an individual. And When the Leaves Stop Falling (2007) is a romance about four friends who are brought together by fate and their only chance for happiness is to forgive. That book placed was a finalist in the 2008 Best Books Awards and is being rereleased in hardcover soon.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on a non-fiction memoir that someone contacted me about back in August. I don't normally write outside of romance or children's books, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity as it was once a high profile case. It's near complete, and then we'll start submitting. That's about all I can say for now on that. I'm also halfway through a romantic suspense called THE DRAKE HOUSE, and my second children's book called ALL THE COLORS OF MY FEELINGS.

Thanks so much Kelly! To find out more about Kelly, visit her blog and website! Leave a comment! Kelly is giving away 1 Ecopy of Summer's Road!

Wild Desire Ebook is FREE!

I have no idea why it is or how long it will last, but on Barnes and Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle, my second Kensington book, Wild Desire, is free! Just Ebook.

As I said, no idea how long it will last so download now and tell your friends!

Where Do You Come From?

Let's face it, most people in the United States are mutts. Mixed heritage from all over the country. Which is probably why here, more than anywhere, we've become obsessed with tracing our lineage. Perhaps it's something innate; perhaps we're born with the need to feel like we belong. Or perhaps it's because more and more people are moving away from families, floating into a sea of stranger-filled suburbs. Who knows.

But I've always been fascinated with other countries and cultures, which is why I went into Anthropology in college. Over the years I've attempted to search for my lineage, but mostly hit dead ends. My friend and author Harris Channing (and btw, her contemporary paranormal, The Demon is in The Details, is only 99 cents right now as an Ebook! Check out that cover, creepy cool!) is great at tracing lineages. I knew very little about my father's side of the family. One night I decided to try and trace them. Frustrated, I gave up after a few hours on the web and went to bed. Before going to sleep I had shot Harris an email telling her that I couldn't find anything. When I woke up the next morning she had found a site that traced the paternal side of my father's family all the way back to 1600s England. I was shocked and thrilled.

Ancestry.com is a great place to search for information and I hear it can become addictive. But it costs a monthly fee. Harris gave me two other sites great for researching: Family Search, and Roots Web (part of ancestry.com).

So what is my family lineage? Well, my father's father's side came here in the 1600s from Somerset and Thornbury (Gloucestershire) England area. When they arrived, they settled in Massachusetts.

His mother's side is much more complicated as her father came from Sweden when he was only around 14. That's all I know about them, other than their last name was Olsen (or Olson), which I've heard is a rather common name over there.

It's the opposite on my mother's side. I'm not sure where her father's family comes from, although I'm guessing England.

As for her mother's side... Norway (Last names of Gunderson and Rierson) and... of course, England. In particular Great Baddow, in which they apparently left because they were Puritans and settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s. Hmm, who knows maybe they knew my father's side. I believe my great great great Grandfather on my mother's side came from Germany.

There were a few things that have surprised me so far. One, is my father's side. I thought both his mother and father were from Sweden, so it was rather surprising to find out that only his mother's side was. The German blood! I didn't realize that I (probably) have German in me. It makes me wonder why all those German classes in High School didn't catch on. And another thing I found interesting... how many times women named their daughters after themselves. Or a son's middle name might be the mother's maiden name.

As I sit here typing, I can't help but wonder what my Puritan forefathers would think of my romance novels :)

So I'm curious to know... where do you come from? Leave a comment and one person will win an Ecopy of Harris Channing's The Demon is in The Details!

Winner!

The winner of a signed copy of my book Wild Desire and a copy of Julie Anne Long's What I Did For A Duke is ...

Kati!

Please email me your mailing address.

And if you didn't win, I'll be doing another giveaway soon!

Giveaway!

Okay, l et's do another giveaway just because!

A signed copy of my book Wild Desire and a copy (not signed) of Julie Anne Long's What I Did For A Duke, just because I've heard it's a great book!


Leave a comment and I'll pick a winner in a couple days :)