Kemberlee Shortland's Blog, page 10

Christmas came early

Back on the 2nd of December, I did a guest spot on Romancing the Book. I wrote about Making Time To Write During the Holidays.

As part of my day on RTB, I awarded two lucky winners a copy each of A Piece of My Heart and the short story sequel Constant Craving. Those winners are Danielle DoNascimento and Afshan Nawaz. Congratulations ladies!!

I've recently received an email back from Danielle and asked her if it was OK to share it online. She kindly said yes. So here it is . . .

I thought I'd email you to report to you what I thought of your novels 'A Piece of My heart' and 'Constant Craving'. I must congratulate you Kemberlee. That was the most fascinating and intriguing story I have ever read. I love it. And I do not like when I say this, but I absolutely loved it. At first I was saddened but by then I had understand along the way! Mick and Kate were super fascinating characters. Your story portrayed a lot of emotions. Love, anger, distance, etc. It was quite amazing and it had me trying not to ball over with tears! I loved the scenery of Ireland. To think that even in other countries....some follow old tradition, Neh? Even more the characters...were truly amazing. The legend of the stones was interesting too! Tell do they really exist? Either way I feel the need to go to Ireland to tour around.I have always wanted to travel you know. But I read both of your stories...and I was quite....shocked and very happy they had a very good happy ending. I didn't like Flann though! He was a mean heartless person and Gob? Oh Geez! But I loved Michael and Kathleen. Though stubborn they were headstrong and knew what they wanted! I am truly writing to you to congratulate you and ask that you keep up the good works! I'll be looking forward to purchasing your stories :D! Tell me are Irish men truly handsome? I wouldn't mind have one of my own. LOL! Anyways...Thanks for choosing me in the contest. I am so thrilled to have won something and just finishing your novels....I fell in love!

Your Fan For Always,Danielle DoNascimento!
P.S. Keep up the good work!

Needless to say, this is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a long time. It's like Xmas came early! Thank you so much, Danielle for your very kind words. {hug}

I wanted to share items of interest --

I'm taking a holiday break from posting articles over at Hearticles: Articles from the Heart. I'll be back again on 7 January 2011. Mark your calendars and bookmark my blog.


21 December I'm participating in another Long and Short of It Reviews' programs, which is part of the Jingle Bell Blog Fest. Drop over and check out my exclusive interview with the man himself . . . Mr Ho Ho . . . Father Christmas . . . Santa . . . KRIS KRINGLE! Believe me. If you thought you know Kris, think again. A few spiked eggnogs and the man was babbling like a baby :-) I'll be giving away another pair of books, so be sure to post your comments on the day.



To all of my readers and all the reviewers who've taken the time to read and comment on my stories -- your support and comments mean the world to me and I want to take this opportunity to give a big THANK YOU.

Happy holidays everyone!!

~ Kemberlee
PS . . . You can catch up with me on Facebook. I love meeting up with readers and new friends.

A Piece of My Heart and Constant Craving for under $5!

The digital versions of A Piece of My Heart and Constant Craving have just been repriced for the holidays.

You can now download a digital version of A Piece of My Heart for $3.99 through Smashwords!

Mick and Kate thought they were falling in love. Kate hadn't been just the girl next door. She'd been Mick's life, and he hers. When an unforeseen force draws them apart they're left with wounds that refuse to heal. Now, ten years on, Mick's father's will should have been straightforward, except his addendum was like ice water in Mick's face.

It's essential that Mick and Kate work together to save his family's farm. Mick doesn't count on his new manager being accused of murder, and Kate doesn't expect a dangerously seductive woman from Dublin to claim Mick is the father of her child.

Kate thought she was falling in love with Mick all over again; however this newest revelation is too much for her. She is determined to finally say goodbye to her childhood sweetheart forever, but Mick has other plans for Kate's future. And none of them involve goodbye.

Constant Craving is also repriced at Smashwords at an amazing .99 cents!

The perfect life Mick and Kate thought they had was slowly dissolving. With Mick obsessing about the farm and Kate thrown into a life of domesticity, both lose some of what they'd fought so hard to regain.

It all comes to a head when Kate suspects Mick of having an affair. Kate's parents step in to give each of them advice from their own years of marriage.

Now, both Mick and Kate have set their own romantic plans in motion, but it could all fall through when Kate nearly blows up the kitchen.

With Christmas around the corner, what better gift can you give than these two stories? And both for under $5!

Smashwords offers versions for all popular ereaders on the market, including Kindle, Sony, Nook, and Stanza, as well as HTML, PDF and RTF.

To read excerpts for both of these stories, log into my website where you'll also find reader and reviewer comments.

As always, I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to drop me a note and let me know your thoughts.

It's all good!

Like those great Steve Miller Band lyrics go — Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future! I know it's been a few weeks since my last post. I've been busy and a lot has been happening. Some writerly, some not. But it's all good.

For those of you who don't know, I keep a blog called Hearticles: Articles with Heart. You'll find a variety of writing-themed articles aimed to help other writers. I know I'm a relatively new author, but I enjoy sharing what I've learned with others. My latest post is Writing is Writing and aimed at writers who think they haven't had time to write. I grumble about it sometimes, then realize that I AM writing, just not fiction. But it's all good, as you'll see when you read the article.

It's all good with A Piece of my Heart, which is still selling well, as is the sequel, Constant Craving. And Christmas is coming . . . just saying! ;-)

My current WIP is The Diary. This is my first time travel and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The Diary is a project I've worked on in bits and pieces while writing the Irish Pride series, but now that those books are completed and starting to publish, I've gone back to The Diary and have HIGH hopes it will be published before April 2014, as this will be the 1000 year anniversary of the event in my story — The Battle of Clontarf. So it's all good there too.

What's coming up for me —

2 December - Romancing the Book will be hosting me for the day. Drop over and visit!

21 December - The Long and Short of It Reviews will also have me back on their blog for the day during their month-long Jingle Bells Blog Fest. I'm SO lucky! Kris Kringle let little ol' me into his workshop on the North Pole where we sat with a cup of tea and had a chat about the man behind the beard. Would love to see you there, too.

I love to hear from readers, so be sure to drop me an email, even if it's just to say howdy.

~ Kemberlee

And the winners are . . .

First, let me say a huge thank you to all of the entrants of my September month-long contest. Some of the answers were very interesting, some amusing, but all were most welcome.



The draw was done by none other than our dog Poppy. Poppy has a thing for paper, and she's probably the world's best fetcher. Well, she's the best in our world.



Each entrant's name was put onto a piece of paper and wadded up, then put into a container. Poppy was sent to fetch each name in order of placement. She first drew the third place winners, which was just as well since she brought me TWO at once. Then we drew second place, and finally first place.



As you can see, this was a totally impartial drawing. :-)



Without further ado --



Third Place - Ms. Yadira Alonzo, Ms. Sidolitta Mateo and Ms. Donna Womble!



You have each won digital versions of A Piece of My Heart and the short story sequel, Constant Craving. Ladies, If you have a specific ereader, please let me know and I will send you an appropriate copy for that reader. Otherwise, they will be sent to you as a PDF. Please let me know ASAP so you don't have to wait.

Second Place - Ms. Kathi Barton!!



You win an autographed copy of A Piece of My Heart, Constant Craving on disc, a certificate of ownership of land in Ireland (compliments of A Piece of Ireland), and a plush Jess dog toy. . . Molly's puppy from A Piece of My Heart.







First Place - Ms. Jennifer Mathis!!!



You have won an autographed copy of A Piece of My Heart, Constant Craving on disc, a certificate of ownership of land in Ireland (compliments of A Piece of Ireland), AND a ladies silver Claddagh Ring!





---> If you're curious about the answers, log into the contest page where I've posted the answers.



There was only one correct answer to the bonus question. A bit of lateral thinking was required for this one. That person's name is on my quotes page, as is the image of the actor portraying him! You'll find the answer on the contest page, too.



The winner of the bonus question goes to Mercedes McCoy! Your prize for guessing correctly is a box of Irish chocolates. Yummmmmm! And yes, the chocolates will be in the box when you receive it ;-)



Big, big, big congratulations to all my winners! And thank you to everyone who entered. I don't know about you, but I had fun.

---> Join me tomorrow, 2 October, at You Gotta Read , where I'll be talking to the gang there and answering reader questions. Please stop over and say hello!

September is contest month!!

Yes folks, you heard right. For the month of September, I will be hosting a contest. And what a contest it will be. At least, I hope you think so.

I'm celebrating the release of not only a lovely new website, but also the long-awaited release of the short story sequel to A Piece of My Heart — CONSTANT CRAVING.

September is the month of romance and love in Ireland. All month, people from all over Ireland gather in Lisdoonvarna, County Clare for the annual Matchmaking Festival. This tradition dat...

AVAILABLE NOW: Constant Craving

Available now: Constant Craving, the short story sequel to the award winning A Piece of My Heart.

The perfect life Mick and Kate thought they had was slowly dissolving. With Mick obsessing about the farm and Kate thrown into a life of domesticity, both lose some of what they'd fought so hard to regain.

It all comes to a head when Kate suspects Mick of having an affair. Kate's parents step in to give each of them advice from their own years of marriage.

Now, both Mick and Kate have set their own ...

Celebrations Galore!

The Long and the Short of It Reviews is celebrating their third anniversary in style. They're having a scavenger hunt that runs from August 2-29 and culminates in a two-day live author chat that final weekend (28th and 29th) in their Yahoo Groups, during which they'll announce the winners.



What are the prizes? THREE Nook eBook Readers that come with $50 Barnes and Noble gift certificates AND are already pre-loaded with dozens of romance and juvenile fiction eBooks, including A Piece of My...

Now available at SMASHWORDS

[image error] A Piece of My Heart is now available at Smashwords for $7.49usd.

Available in electronic formats for ereaders, including --Kindle ReaderSony ReaderStanza ReaderPalm ReaderHTMLPDFPlain Text and RTF (rich text format)

A Piece of My Heart is also available in print through -- Amazon USAmazon UKAmazon CanadaAmazon FranceAmazon GermanyAmazon Japan
Also through --Barnes and NobleBooks-A-Million (in-store orders taken)BookStrand (available soon)Booktopia (AU)CoffeeTime RomanceEason Booksellers...

I've received The Versatile Blogger Award

I've been given the Versatile Blogger award. A big thank you to Marsha A. Moore for selecting me to receive this award. To accept it I need to:

1. Thank those who loved me enough to bestow this gift.
2. Share seven things about myself.
3. Bestow this honor onto 15 newly discovered or followed bloggers–in no particular order–who are fantastic in some way.
4. Drop by and let my fifteen new friends know I love them.

Seven things about myself:

1. I'm an Aries by birth, but a Gemini by creation. When it...

Upcoming Events

I'm feeling very authorish at the moment. I get to post some upcoming events that involve me and/or my book, A Piece of My Heart!

First of all, I want to say congratulations again to both Lisa Finch and Ashley Applebee who won signed copies of A Piece of My Heart during my recent visit with Long and Short Romance Reviews. The prize package also includes a 1 square foot plot of land in Ireland, which is part of a land preservation scheme through A Piece of Ireland, as well as a surprise gift. N...