Mina Carter's Blog, page 19
June 23, 2014
Guest post: A Soccer Heartbreak By Liz Crowe
So, anyone that knows me even a little knows that I’m a BIG rugby fan. But, today, just for you, I have best-selling author Liz Crowe as a guest, talking about football!
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I’m sitting in a hotel lobby with a nice Belgian beer, listening to a bunch of soccer parents yammer about recruiting, since we are at a premiere ‘”showcase tournament” for the Wenchling’s Region 2 tournament (they are 2 and 0 so far, one more game tomorrow then we will likely play through to the semi finals).
I am also in deep mourning over that U.S. Men’s soccer World Cup match tonight. Oh dear lord in heaven those boys….tsk…tsk…tsk….seriously guys when the ref ads FIVE MINUTES to the end you, um, “play” for FIVE MORE MINUTES. But I am 100% sure that they are right now being harder on themselves than I could ever be on them.
Anyway, I digress.
I love the game of soccer—futbol—football whatever you want to call it. It’s full of drama, athleticism, dudes in shorts prone to ripping their shirts off when they score. What is not to love?
Of course, I get it that some folks don’t value the fact that a “tie” in a major, international game “matters.” But at this moment, after all the drama of a match that was lost, tied, won, then tied again I don’t have the energy to explain “why” it is potentially okay that they ended with that tie (damn that Ronaldo).
I fell in love with the game when I lived in Turkey the year that national team made an epic run to the semi finals (2002) and then after 2 years in England I was hooked. We sort of got lucky (depending on your perspective) that our youngest child, born overseas, turned into a Major Soccer (girl) Stud. So we are hooked.
It felt natural that I would turn my love for the sport into a trilogy of books. I have a handful of super-experts at my disposal in the form of my daughter’s club team coaches, and I love to contemplate the lives of the men who play this game. Hence…The Black Jack Gentlemen, the soccer team of Detroit.
My favorite teams are a mix of “obvious” and not so much.
Real Madrid (La Lia)
Juventus (Serie A Italian)
Bayern Munich (Bundelig)
Everton (England Premiereship)
Besiktas (Turkey)
And right now I am BOUND AND DETERMINED TO BE A FAN OF THE U.S. MEN’S NATIONAL TEAM! We already have our ticket requests in for the U.S. Women’s World Cup games in Toronto next year!
My current favorite player? Graham Zusi, rookie midfielder on the US men’s team although he had a fairly unimpressive game. Bless him.
Cheers,
Liz
MAN ON ….. .99 during the 2014 World Cup!
Bad boy of European football, Nicolas Garza is about to hit American shores with a vengeance. Signed by the Detroit Black Jack Gentlemen as lynch pin for their expansion club, Nicco only half believes he’s making the right move. But with a past full of ghosts and rotten behavior chasing him from his homeland, he has no real choice.
Parker Rollings is a college soccer superstar, but his parents’ plans for their only son do not include professional athletics. When the Black Jacks approach him to finalize their roster, Parker leaps at the chance to keep playing, leaving behind medical school, stability and his first and only college sweetheart.
Nicco and Parker face off as bitter rivals for a coveted starting spot at midfield and are forced to channel their negative energy into something positive for the sake of the group—and themselves.
All eyes are on the fledgling team in its debut season. It’s crucial that the Black Jacks prove all the doubters wrong. They must make a good showing in the league and with new fans. But player drama, club dynamics, and misplaced priorities may tear it apart before it even begins.
Man On: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-manonblackjackgentlemen1-1551511-341.html
RED CARD….. FREE during the 2014 World Cup!
AMAZON WILL NOT MARK RED CARD DOWN TO FREE. IT’S .99 THERE STILL. JUST FYI.
Red Card: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-redcardblackjackgentlemen2-1551513-148.html
Free will makes us human.
Choice makes us individuals.
Love makes us unique.
Metin Sevim has it all. At the pinnacle of international soccer playing success, he has managed to craft a perfect world for himself along the way.
When fate strips him of free will and the ability to choose his own path, he retreats from everyone and everything, destroying his hard-won career in the process.
Dragged back from the brink by his desperate family, Metin reluctantly agrees to coach the Black Jack Gentlemen Detroit soccer team but remains debilitated by memories and loss. When a surprising friendship emerges, it renews his passion for life, providing much needed solace… and extreme complications.
A saga of family dynamics and gender politics that cuts across cultures and circumstance, Red Card illustrates the human capacity for forgiveness through the life of one man as he attempts to rebuild his shattered existence.
SHUT OUT….. .99 during the 2014 World Cup!
A submissive once, a submissive forever?
A man on the run from the only life he’s ever known, Brody Vaughn is poised to accept the Black Jack Gentleman’s newly vacant goalkeeper’s position. It’s a desperate move, but one he must take to regain his emotional equilibrium. Reeling from his Mistress’s rejection and on the ragged edge of a total breakdown, he arrives in Detroit. Numb with thinly veiled grief, he walks into the club’s front office completely unaware that an encounter with true destiny awaits him.
Sophie Harrison has seen it all–as Domme, sub, and victim. Now that her complicated circumstances have landed her as legal counsel for the expansion Black Jacks team, she holds herself aloof in body and spirit. Nothing and no one gets past her fiercely guarded walls. Until the day she looks up to greet the new goalie standing in her doorway, his raw combination of vulnerability and strength making her breathless.
Two people, horribly scarred by the excesses of the BDSM lifestyle and hiding from their true selves, meet across a desk over a simple contract. All bets are off.
Shut Out: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-shutoutblackjackgentlemen3-1551515-147.html
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Amazon best-selling author, beer blogger and beer marketing expert, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe lives Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse.
Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”). More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very much “real life.”
With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.
www.facebook.com/lizcroweauthor
www.facebook.com/groups/lizcrowefans
June 4, 2014
Pack Princess Goodreads Release Event and Giveaway!!
A single night of passion, or the one meant to be…
Evva Castillo knows she’s a pack princess. Duty to her family and her pack will always come first. But duty turns to hardship when she’s ordered to marry someone she doesn’t want. Can her hope for a night away from the packs’ prying eyes bring her the courage to go through with her job?
Razor is the leader of the Devil Riders MC. They’re rough, tough, and dangerous enough that no one would risk entering their sanctuary. Until a daring princess shows up to cause trouble, stir his libido and give him a run for his money. But when the time comes to let her go, he’ll either have to watch her walk away or finally face the past he’s been running from…
May 28, 2014
Dragon’s Chase (PPA #7 – Shifter romance) Available now!
He’s found his mate. But can he convince her that he’s her dragon?
Working for the Paranormal Protection Agency has never been boring, but shadow-dragon Duke didn’t expect to meet his mate in the line of duty. He certainly didn’t expect a warrior every inch his match, or for her to slap him across the ass with her tail and take off across the city.
With Baron on a very personal protection detail, Duke has to fly solo on the pair’s investigation into the warlock who nearly killed Baron’s mate. Just one problem, his mate is working with the warlock. So, dead or alive, he has to bring her in…
She found the one thing she didn’t want. Her mate. Now she needs to get rid of him before he ruins her mission…
Sleeping for centuries has it’s drawbacks, Chase knew that going in. What she didn’t expect was to wake with a Warlock’s spelled collar around her neck and to find her charge, the Queen’s daughter, in a cage. Vowing to free them both will take skill and strength and she doesn’t need the distraction of a hot as hell male dragon trying to make his claim on her. Even though her heart aches to complete their joining, she can’t. Not yet.
The mission, or her heart. Can she have both? Or will she need one to complete the other?
Available from: Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | ARe | Smashwords
May 14, 2014
Writing Process Blog Hop
I’d like to thank Leslie Lee Sanders (Please hop on over and check Leslie’s site out at http://leslieleesanders.com/) for inviting me to the blog hop. It’s not an organised blog hop or anything, just a word of mouth thing that perhaps gives an insight into the minds of some authors, and you never know, you might find a new-to-you author you love!
So, onto the questions!
1) What am I working on?
At the moment I’m working on three different projects (more if you count editing ;)). First up I’m working on another Reaper story. This one is set after the events of The Reaper and the Cop, and follows more of Laney and Troy’s story. There’s the usual hotness between the main characters and some end of the world type stuff.
My back-burner project is the first in a spin-off series to Project Rebellion (Perfect Mate, Blood Mate) and will involve zombies, vampires and one pissed off ex-wife, not necessarily in that order.
My third project is a little out of left field and is a screenplay. In a total departure to my ‘normal’ writing, it’s not a romance. There’s a little bit of romance in there, of course, but its more horror/thriller.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Oh my, how to answer that question. Every writer’s voice is unique to them. I tend to write fairly gritty, dark storylines with a large dose of sarcasm. My female leads are usually very strong women, but rarely anything ‘special’ within their own worlds. Even if they are (like the reaper women), then they have all the same insecurities as every other woman out there. They’re just normal, amazing women going about their daily lives that sometimes have to go save the world.
3) Why do I write what I do?
Because I’d go mad if I didn’t write? Writing for me is an expression of creativity and a way to explore facets of the human condition that fascinate me (Someone pointed me at a book on Philosophy once and I’ve been hooked since). The challenge of weaving a storyline around a theme and poking at all the elements within is alluring and impossible to resist.
4) How does your writing process work?
I spent ten years as a transport scheduler, so I am most definitely a plotter. I work in one of two ways. In the first, once I have a story idea, I work out what’s going on behind the scenes, the theme, the character motivations and all that. Then I work out a story outline, detailing in brief all the plot points. After that I break down into chapters and scenes (sometimes they over-run) and then start writing. I know where I’m going and can drive through the story. Sometimes I’ll even go so far as to brainstorm each and every scene (I always do this if struggling to get words down).
In the second way, I have a character in my head—It’s usually the male one, although I’m not sure why—and I start to write. Just the first scene or so, as I ‘set’ the character in my head. Then I go back and plot the story as above. It’s extremely rare for me to write more than a chapter or so without a plot outline.
So, that’s me… Check out my nominated authors below!
Milly Taiden
Milly Taiden (also writes as April Angel) was born in the prettiest part of the Caribbean known as the Dominican Republic. She grew up between New York, Florida and Massachusetts. Currently, she resides in New York City with her husband, bossy young son and their little dog Speedy.
She began writing when she learned to put words together and her first book consisted of two homeless dogs living in a park for her second grade English class. She didn’t win a prize, but she acquired a love for writing that never went away.
When she’s not working full-time, texting with her best friend Heidi in England, chastising her son for pulling the dog’s ears, shopping with her sister Jewel or watching scary movies with her husband, she can be found writing on her laptop. She’s addicted to shoes, chocolate, Dunkin Donuts coffee and JIMMY THOMAS covers!!!
Cynthia Sax
Cynthia Sax lives in a world where demons aren’t all bad, angels aren’t all good, and magic happens every single day. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you”, they will do anything for the women they love. They live passionately. They fight fiercely. They love the same women forever.
Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research, while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.
May 11, 2014
Cover Reveal: Sinful Rewards by Cynthia Sax
Sinful Rewards 1Cynthia Sax
Releasing July 15th from Avon Impulse
Belinda “Bee” Carter is a good girl; at least, that’s what she tells herself. And a good girl deserves a nice guy—just like the gorgeous and moody billionaire Nicolas Rainer. He is everything she wants in a man.
Or so she thinks, until she takes a look through her telescope and sees a naked, tattooed man on the balcony across the courtyard. Hawke is mysterious, the bad boy she knows will bring only heartbreak. He has been watching her, and that makes him all the more enticing.
But when a mysterious and anonymous text message dares her to do something bad, she must decide if she is really the good girl she has always claimed to be, or if she’s willing to risk everything for her secret fantasy of being watched.
Is her mystery man the reclusive billionaire with a wild side or the darkly dangerous bad boy?
Buy Links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sinful-Rewards-1-Cynthia-Sax-ebook/dp/B00I7V89H0
Barnes And Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sinful-rewards-1-cynthia-sax/1119055390
Bio:
Cynthia Sax lives in a world filled with magic and romance. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they adore. They live passionately. They play hard. They love the same women forever.
Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research, while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.
Author Website: http://cynthiasax.com/
Blog: http://tasteofcyn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.sax
Twitter: @CynthiaSax
May 7, 2014
Have boots…will travel! #sexyrugby #blogtour
Some more stops for you on the Playing with the Prop blog tour!!
Sweet Treat Reading Reviews
Smexy Fab Four
AND, just in case you didn’t catch it…
Book one is FREE!!
Book two is just $0.99!!
May 6, 2014
On on my travels… #sexyrugby #blogtour
And another few links for you on the blog tour! Head on over and check them out!
Literature Lighthouse
Butterflies, Books & Dreams
Carpe Diem
The Color of Ink
2bibliophiles
For the Love of Bookends
Sandra Love
For Whom the Books Toll
Read Me
May 1, 2014
Playing with the Prop blog tour kicks off! #sexyrugby #blogtour
I’ve been a bad blogger *hangs head in shame*. With getting the first draft of Dragon’s Chase finished and not only the release of Playing with the Prop, but also the two bundles Sin Circus and The Alpha’s Mate, I totally forgot to tell you all about the blog tour for Prop!!
So, there are the first few stops, up to todays!!
Ebooks Galore kicked us off on the 29th over here! There’s a tour rafflecopter on this one, so you’ll want to check it out 
Then we’re over at Angee’s After Thoughts and Smut and Spitfire books!
And finally we have today’s stop at Bookends!
Hop on over and check them out, and feel free to share the love
Playing with the Prop – Review giveaway!
Goooood Morning!!!
So because today is a good day, and I’ve had coffee (a LOT of Coffee ;)) I’m having a brand new giveaway starting today through to 8th May!!
Okay, did you read PLAYING WITH THE PROP? (If not, have a gander over here and pick it up ;))
And… Did you LIKE it? Or even better, did you LOVE it?
Did you write a review?
Yes to all?
Then you’re in the right place!
Send me a link to giveaways@mina-carter.com and you will be entered to win one of these 2 AWESOME prizes…
**P.S. All prizes are INTERNATIONAL Eligible!**
Prize #1
Prize #2
So now that I have your attention with these lovely pics…you want to know how to win them, don’t you?
If you READ Playing with the Prop and wrote a review.
Send me a copy of your review link to: giveaways@mina-carter.com
It could be from any of the following:
Good Reads
Amazon.com
Barnes and Nobles
Kobo
And if you send me more than one link you get extra entries for each one!!
So what are you waiting for? Send me those links for a chance to WIN!!
April 29, 2014
Playing with the Prop (Hot Rugby player!) by Mina Carter – out NOW!
Never mix business with pleasure…
A physical therapist for successful Rugby team, the Strathstow Sharks, Ashley’s golden rule is never to mix business and pleasure. She loves her job and the guys she looks after, and doesn’t want to jeopardise her place with the team. As nicely put together as her charges are, she’s never found herself remotely tempted.
Until now.
Harry James, the team’s newest prop gives her butterflies in her stomach every time she has to treat him, and her fantasies involving his hard, muscled body and sinful lips keep her hot and bothered at night. Luckily, he shows no sign of having noticed her attraction, and hasn’t shown any interest in her…
She’s been his from the moment he saw her…
Harry James marked the pretty little physio the first day they met. For the last year he’s been biding his time, and trying to get her attention. So much so, it’s gained him a few nicknames in the squad. Not that anyone would dare tell her.
When the Sharks win big on Harry’s birthday, can he stop at claiming a birthday kiss, or will he want everything she has to give?
Available NOW!
Amazon -
http://amzn.to/1fsON60
Amazon UK -
http://amzn.to/1fsP2xO
B&N -
http://bit.ly/1nZ8d2i
Smashwords -
http://bit.ly/1tZ6Pki
