Denise Grover Swank's Blog, page 9

The Curse Keepers Release Day!!!

There’s LOTS of info in the post so bear with me!!!

Information about The Curse Keepers
A $100 Amazon or B&N gift card giveaway
The Chosen box set is on sale for $0.99

At long last, The Curse Keepers release is here!!! The Curse Keepers is now available in eBook on Amazon and print on Amazon, B&N, and other retailers. I seriously love this book and these characters. I can’t wait for you all to get to know Ellie and Collin. If you’ve read the Chosen series and Rose Gardner, you’ll see that Ellie is a mix of the sweet, southern Rose but with the cynicism of Emma. And Collin… well he’s Collin.

The Curse Keepers is based on historical facts surrounding the disappearance of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

I’ve referenced real historical people in the story. Manteo was the son of a Croatan werowance who met the first Englishman who landed on Roanoke Island in 1585, the returned with them to England to be presented to the court. He went to London twice, returning to America the second time with the ill-fated English colonists in 1587.  I also reference Ananias Dare, the son-in-law of the governor of Virginia, John White.  Ananias and his wife Elinor (Eleanor, Elynore, spellings alternate depending on source) traveled with John White and landed on Roanoke Island in July 1587.  Their daughter Virginia was the first English child born on American soil. White suddenly decided to return back to England “for supplies”, leaving 118 men, women and children–including two newborns–behind. Including Manteo who now lived in with the colonists. When White finally returned in 1590, (delayed due to the Anglo-Spanish war)  the entire village had disappeared. Including the buildings. There was no sign that the village existed.

Historians have their own theories as to what happened to the colony, but I put my own spin on it. In my version, the colony disappeared because of a curse.

 

Amazon

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon CA

Amazon AU

The wall between our world and that of vengeful spirits has protected humanity for more than 400 years. It’s about to come crashing down.

Ellie Lancaster has lived her whole life by the site of the mysterious Lost Colony of Roanoke, the Virginia settlement that vanished without a trace around 1590. Only the descendants of the two men who banished the spirits of an enemy tribe from the material realm know what really happened to the colony. Ellie is one of those descendants—a Curse Keeper. Her father took pains to teach her what he knew of the curse and the responsibilities of its guardians. He taught her that if the two Curse Keepers ever meet, the curse will be lifted, the gate will open, and the raging Native American spirits will be unleashed to seek their revenge.

Despite her father’s seriousness, Ellie has always taken the legend for a harmless fairy tale. Until she meets the darkly handsome, but downright infuriating, Collin Dailey and realizes everything she was told is true. For when they meet, it’s like the air is sucked from the room. Collin’s presence is electrifying… and it’s not just attraction Ellie feels, but the inexorable pull toward her destiny. The prophecy is real, and now Ellie and Collin must battle supernatural forces and their loathing—and passion—for each other to set things right.

The Curse Keepers are all that stand between the world and its destruction.

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Win $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card!

Here’s how to enter:

1) Purchase a copy of THE CURSE KEEPERS

Then

2) Email me the receipt to TeamDGSwank@gmail.com

OR

Post a photo of the book on your reading device (or the print book) on Facebook and/or Twitter and tag me so I’ll see it. (Tag either my author page  or my personal account or Twitter.)

The contest is open from now until Friday, November 22, midnight CST.Winner will be announced in the December 2 newsletter.

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**THREE DAYS ONLY**

THE CHOSEN BOX SET $0.99!!!

To celebrate the release of The Curse Keepers get the first three books of the CHOSEN series on sale! (Regularly $6.99)

Sale ends Thursday night, November 21.

Amazon

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

Amazon DE

Amazon AU

B&N 

Kobo

 

Happy Co-Release Day to Fellow 47North author Richard Ellis Preston, Jr.!

*****GIVEAWAY BELOW*****

It’s release day for The Curse Keepers, but it’s also release day for another author at 47North:  Richard Ellis Preston, Jr. He’s releasing the second book in his The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin series– Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War.

Amazon

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

Amazon DE

Amazon AU

The swashbuckling steampunk adventure continues …

  As the Snow World teeters on the brink of war, Captain Romulus Buckle is desperate to solve the mysteries which haunt him, mysteries which hold the key to his survival and the survival of the Crankshaft clan.  Buckle journeys into the treacherous Tehachapi Mountains to discover the true identity of a crashed enemy zeppelin, a wreck brimming with skeletons and secrets.  Trapped by a bloodfreezer storm, Buckle is surrounded by hordes of alien sabertooth tigers.  And when his beautiful half-Martian lieutenant, Max, comes to his rescue and is horribly injured, both end up fighting for their lives.  But this is just the beginning of the battles against the elements and the alien beasties.

  Arriving at the Crankshaft stronghold at the Devil’s Punchbowl, Buckle joins his father, Balthazar, in a meeting of wary clan ambassadors.  Whispering spies have revealed that the powerful but resource-strapped Founders clan is readying for a war of conquest and enslavement and every other clan in the known world is at terrible risk. With assassins and saboteurs lurking in the shadows, Buckle and his crew are forced to team up with former enemies.  In a race against time, the crew of the Pneumatic Zeppelin must secure the grand alliance before the Founders invaders can mobilize.  

  More secrets rise to the surface, carried by moonchildren and half-melted robots.  And for Romulus Buckle, the search for his lost sister Elizabeth is verging on obsession.

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Oh my word, I LOVE that cover. More about Richard’s covers below.

A few days ago, I had a chance to talk to Richard.

Denise: Your bio says you attended a sperm whale autopsy? I’m almost afraid to ask how did you managed that.

Richard: I was an ENG news cameraman for CBC Canada in Charlottetown, PEI at the time. The whale had beached and died. A museum wanted the skeleton, so the whale was lifted onto a huge flatbed truck and carted inland to be buried. They were going to dig it up after a number of years and collect the clean bones, I guess. A group of scientists performed an autopsy on the whale to look for disease and other clues as to why it beached itself (along with 5 or 6 others). They basically cut a doorway into the blubber and waded into the spilling guts. The stench was horrific. I had an expensive pair of hiking boots on and when I got home I couldn’t get the fish smell out of them no matter what I did. I left them in the backyard overnight and in the morning I found that the local cats had chewed them to pieces.

Denise: I guess that took care of that! Ha! So you lived in Canada for awhile. I love to travel for research, in fact, I’m going to Paris in January. What is the furthest afield you have ever gone to research a book?

Richard: Russia, for sure. I went to Russia on a World War Two city and battlefield tour in 2007 to research a trilogy that I am still working on. It was an amazing trip to St. Petersberg, Moscow, Stalingrad (Volgograd, now) and Kursk. I got a lot out of it. When my characters stand in Red Square, I know what it feels like. Such things are not absolutely necessary to writing but they are great to do if you can manage them.

Denise: That sounds amazing! (Note to self: Set a book in St. Petersberg.) I know this is going to sound lame and cliche’ but I’m fascinated with the concept of your series. How did you come up with it?

Richard: I had always wanted to write a Saturday afternoon matinee kind of adventure novel, something in the vein of The Adventures of Robin Hood and Indiana Jones, with a larger-than-life, swashbuckling hero. I knew I wanted it to be about a crew on a ship of war and I also wanted it to include zebra-striped aliens and strong female characters. The steampunk subgenre provided me with the perfect environment to world-build, to construct the kind of story I wanted to tell.

Denise: Did I not tell you all that the concept was awesome??? Okay, totally random question:   What is you favorite kind of doughnut?

Richard: Plain cake. Yeah. I know. I’m boring as hell.

Denise: Not to worry, I’ll take care of all the chocolate ones.

Richard Ellis Preston, Jr. is a science fiction writer who loves the zeitgeist of steampunk. Although he grew up in both the United States and Canada he prefers to think of himself as British. He attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where he earned an Honors B.A. in English with a Minor in Anthropology. He has lived on Prince Edward Island, excavated a 400 year old Huron Indian skeleton and attended a sperm whale autopsy. Romulus Buckle and the Engines of War is the second installment in his new steampunk series, The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin. Richard has also written for film and television. He currently resides in California.

Richardellisprestonjr.com

@RichardEPreston

Richard Ellis Preston, Jr. on Facebook

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Now anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE book covers and Richard’s are AMAZING.  I’m definitely planning to check out cover artist Eamon O’Donoghue, who coincidentally designed fellow 47North Author, Steve McHugh.

I wanted you to see Richard’s two covers side by side.

What did I tell you? Amazing!

Giveaway!!

Be sure to check out the giveaway Richard and are hosting. We’re EACH giving away a $25 Amazon gift card. Enter to win one from Richard here on my website, but hop on over to Richard’s website to win one from me.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Annual Signed Print Book Sale

Every Christmas season, I post Paypal Widgets to sell signed print books.

I will be selling copies of THE CURSE KEEPERS for $11.99 plus shipping.

This year I have a couple of surprises!

The first is that I will be selling print copies of FALLING TO PIECES, the Rose Gardner novella on my website only. The eBook and print book will be available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble in January, 2014, so the only way to get a copy of the print book is through my site.

But here’s the fun part: The print book will be available beginning November 18, so you could potentially read the entire novella before Part Three posts on my website! Why am I doing this? Because I know that some people like to plan ahead. Some people have there Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. (Do NOT include me on that list.) Signed copies of FALLING TO PIECES will cost $6.99 plus shipping.

The second surprise is that I’m selling special edition copies of The Chosen Series books. The first three books will each include a short story in the back. CHOSEN will have Emergence. HUNTED will have Homecoming, and SACRIFICE will have Middle Ground. All three books and REDEMPTION will sell for $12.99 each plus shipping. The special edition copies will be sold on my website only.

***ALL BOOKS WILL BEGIN SHIPPING ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18.***

Signed Copies of Rose Gardner Series




Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes $11.99 USD
Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons $11.99 USD
Thirty and a Half Excuses $11.99 USD
Falling to Pieces $6.99 USD




Sign copy to:

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Signed Copy of The Curse Keepers




The Curse Keepers $11.99 USD




Sign copy to:

*********

Chosen Series – Signed by Author




Chosen $12.99 USD
Hunted $12.99 USD
Sacrifice $12.99 USD
Redemption $12.99 USD




Sign copy to:

*********

Signed Copies of Off The Subject Series




After Math $10.99 USD
Redesigned $10.99 USD




Sign copy to:

*********

Signed Copies of On The Otherside Series




Here $11.99 USD
There $11.99 USD




Sign copy to:

Falling to Pieces (A Rose Gardner Between the Numbers Novella)

If you look at the right side bar, you can see that I plan to release Thirty-One and a Half Regrets on January 9, 2014. Thirty-One will start  about a month after the end of Thirty and a Half Excuses.  But Rose is going to go through a lot in that month. I’ve had readers tell me that they want to know what happened after The End of Thirty.

But then I also thought: Did you wonder what was going through Joe’s mind during the last few chapters of Thirty and a Half Excuses? Do you wonder how Joe coped after the end of the book?

Then I have a surprise for you.

I’m halfway done writing a novella that I’ve titled Falling to Pieces. It starts immediately at the end of Thirty and a Half Excuses and follows Rose and some of Joe through the next couple of weeks. It also lets you in Joe’s head so you can see what happened at his parent’s house AFTER Rose went home.  I plan to publish it as an ebook and print book in February, 2014.

But here’s the best part:

My newsletter subscribers get to read it for free. And EARLY.

 

I will release the novella in a serial format. I’m writing it in three parts and will release each part, one month apart, with links and passwords to read it on my website.

FOR FREE

 

The first newsletter will go out around October 1, so be sure to sign up NOW! If you miss the October 1st mailing, you’ll have to wait until November 1st to get the links! So sign up now and don’t miss out!

You can sign up by clicking HERE or up in the top right side bar.

And not to worry if you stumble upon this post after October 1, I’ll post ALL the links available in each month’s newsletter.  So if you sign up on October 28, you’ll get the links and password to read the first and second part in the November 1 newsletter. And the same with the December newsletter.

Sign up NOW!

Which NA University Fits YOU? And a Southern University Back to School Giveaway!

Lyla Payne has coordinated an fun quiz and giveaway to celebrate back to school. She’s gathered five new adult authors:

Lyla Payne
Colina Brennan
Sophia Bleu
Alessandra Thomas
Denise Grover Swank (hey, that’s me!)

We all have books set on or around a college campus and Lyla put together a fun quiz to see which of our schools is right for you!

Sure, taking the quiz is fun, but EVERY PERSON WHO TAKES THE QUIZ WINS SOMETHING.

After you take the quiz, go back to the Your NA University website and let us know in the comments which University YOU chose (either with the poll’s help or just because you have that feeling in your bones) and we’ll send you an OFFICIAL ACCEPTANCE PACKAGE from the college of your choice!

And not only that!  Everyone who takes the quiz and leaves a comment on the Your NA University site between Tuesday, August 13th and Monday, August 19th will be entered to WIN A COLLEGE PRIZE PACK, including signed BOOKS and awesome SWAG from ALL of our institutions of higher education–including pretty much everything a college student could need to go back to school.

While you’re on the Your NA University website, be sure to click on the links for all the schools to help you make an informed decision about which school you want to attend. You”ll REALLY want to check out Southern University page. (Hint, hint.)

That’s the OFFICIAL contest, but those of you who know me, know I like to have my own.

On my website, I’m giving away THREE prize packs of my own. Rafflecopter will choose THREE random winners:

A Southern University SPORTS package which will include:

A Tucker Price t-shirt (size of your choice)

An After Math water bottle

A Southern University STUDY package which will include:

A Higher Ground Coffee Shop T-shirt (size and color of your choice)

A Southern University thermal coffee mug

A Southern University FUN package which will include:

A Redesigned themed charm bracelet

A Southern University Key Chain

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So head over to Your Southern University and take your quiz NOW!

Rose’s Fresh Look And Thirty and a Half Excuses Pre-Order Link

 

The Rose Gardner Mystery Series

Gets a New Look!

To celebrate the long-awaited and soon to be released third book in the Rose Gardner Mystery series, I’ve updated and freshened up the covers! 

 

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes is on SALE for $0.99 until Sunday, August 11!

Amazon

B&N

Kobo

iTunes

 

 

And today I’m revealing the cover for
Thirty and a Half Excuses
Available September 10!

You can preorder your copy from Amazon today! 

Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes will be available on September 10, or soon after.

 

Life in Henryetta, Arkansas is turned upside down with the arrival of a televangelist, but it’s the death of a little old lady on Rose’s street that catches her attention. The Henryetta police deem her death natural causes, but Rose suspects foul play and so does an unlikely supporter– the president of the Busy Body Club, her eighty-two year old neighbor Mildred.

But Rose is in the middle of opening her nursery with her sister Violet, who’s separated from her husband Mike, as well as stalling her boyfriend Joe’s family, rich socialites who are determined to meet her. Along with her multiple encounters with Fenton County’s new assistant DA, Mason Deveraux III, it’s just another day in the life of Rose Gardner– chaos.

**Update** Take Denise With You on Your Summer Adventure

It’s Heather here today with an update on the winners of our contest.

What a completely fun and downright hysterical contest.  Not many participated but the few who did, kept Denise and I laughing(And by laughing, I mean with snorting and all).

Without further ado I present our winners:

Kathy Rice won the Funniest photo contest for actually taking Denise with her to her annual *ahem* lady Dr. appointment:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stormy Udell won for the Famous Person with her picture of Travis Pastrana and Denise(I had to look up who he was):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jo Elle R won for the most places/pictures.  She came in with a stunning 22 photos of Denise in all sorts of locations around her area.  THIS was my favorite:

Christie Timpson won for the furthest traveled with Denise.  She took Denise with her from Oklahoma to Atlanta, Georgia to the big Thirty One conference.  She documented the trip with Denise along the way:

 

 

Congratulations to you all!  Thank you for sharing your summer adventures with us and for taking Denise along to all of these fun places!  You guys Rock.  Now I’m off to the post office to mail your fun prizes

Sometimes You Have to Write the Wrong Book Before You Can Write the Right One

I’ve written three and a half books this year. Impressive, no? That’s a total of almost 300K words in six and a half months.

Only not so impressive.

I wrote the first three books in four months. Now before you think “Gah! She must be writing crap.” Keep in mind I use developmental editors, beta readers, copy editors, proof readers. You get the picture. When a book takes fire in me, it takes FIRE and I become a woman possessed. It’s not uncommon for me to write a minimum of 5000 words a day. Shoot, in those periods, 5000 words a day is slacking.

So I wrote my three books and eagerly started Thirty and a Half Excuses, the third book in the Rose Gardner Mystery series. I didn’t have it plotted in detail, but I knew the high points and Rose usually falls out of my fingers. Besides, a lot of ideas come to me as I write. It’s rare for me to have a detailed synopsis before I start to write.

I started Rose in early May, already realizing I was cutting it close to send a completed first draft my developmental editor by the first week of June. But why was I worried? I wrote Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes in about 25 days, and it was 105,000 words in first draft. (I cut about 12K in revisions.)  Hell, I’d wrote the last 40,000 words of Redesigned in 10 days.  What was I worried about?

Only the words didn’t come.

I’d sit down to write and getting words on the screen was like having bamboo shoots jammed under my fingernails. I found every conceivable–and quite a few inconceivable excuses–to NOT write. I’d sit down with my laptop and think, “What the hell, Denise? What is WRONG with you???”

And that just made it worse.

By the end of May, I’d barely cracked 30K, and I was in deep shit. I emailed my editor and told her I was going to be late. How late? I hoped only a few more weeks. I was still waiting for the kindling to ignite.

Then my four youngest kids got out of school, I was planning for a trip to Europe with my daughter and her friend, a trip we’d been planning for three years. But the biggest issue was my latest release didn’t sell nearly as well as the first book in the series. I already felt like a failure with my word count deficit.  I’d never been late on a deadline, let alone so embarrassingly late. I saw that as a professional failure.  Then I saw my book sales as a failure.

My confidence was nil.

Why was I wasting my time writing when nobody wanted to read my books? That thought was not only stupid, but not true. I have people eagerly waiting for Thirty and a Half Excuses. But that made it worse. So not only could I not write, I couldn’t sell books, I couldn’t meet deadlines with professionals, and I was disappointing people.

My writer’s block got even worse.

I had planned to write in Europe. And I tried, but it was just so WRONG. I knew the book was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.

But worse than that, I had NO desire to write. I combined my trip to Paris with research for an upcoming book I plan to write. I hoped that would get me excited to work on Rose again. Not only did I not want to write Rose, but the idea of writing anything made me anxious.

I watched hours and hours and hours of Netflix. ALL six seasons of Mad Men, All three seasons of Wallander. All seven episodes of Top of the Lake. I deluded myself into thinking that it would help me plot. And sometimes that works for me, but not this time.

By the Fourth of July I was at 40,000 words. It had taken me two and a half months to write what I’d written in ten days of the last book, and I knew that 40K was crap.

I was beginning to rethink my career.

It helped that in June and early July I wrote and revised a short story 47North contracted for the Curse Keepers series. I not only enjoyed working on the story, but I thought it was good. It was the first thing I’d written since April I liked.  My editor liked it too.

Maybe I wasn’t entirely broken.

But I still couldn’t work on Rose.

I wish I could say I had a lightning bolt moment, but I can’t.  I spent a lot of time evaluating why I do what I do and realized that I have stories in my head that I want to tell. Sometimes other people will want to read my stories and sometimes they won’t. It doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean I’m a terrible author. But I had to ask myself, bottom line, WHY do I write?

Because if I don’t get these stories out of my head, I’ll go crazy.

Next, I reread Twenty-Eight and a Half Excuses. And I liked it. I know that sounds weird, I wrote it. But it was my third completed book– sure I edited the hell out of it– yet I finished reading and thought “This book is really good. I want to write like that again.”

Then I picked up Thirty and read it. I compared it to Twenty-Eight and asked myself what was wrong with it.

Once I realized what was wrong, I felt like an idiot. There was no ticking clock. No sense of urgency. No wonder I was bored writing the book. It was as dry as toast.

I’d love to tell you that I sat down and started rewriting like  crazy person, but that would be a lie. Honestly, at that point, I was scared to work on it.  What if I really couldn’t write this book? What if my brain was really broken? But I started slow and worked up to more and more pages every day. I’m at 47K, 170 pages, but I’ve revised the first 90 pages and love the way the book is going now. I’m finally excited to work on it.

So why couldn’t I just write the book right the first time?

One: my brain was fried. I needed a break but I kept pushing. My brain rebelled.

Two: I was too close to it at first to see what was wrong.

But three, and this leads into the Netflix obsession: Inspiration comes from EVERYTHING. The revision I’m working on came from the crap I wrote.  When I wrote Here, which is based off the Many Worlds theory,  I realized that the Many Worlds theory not only applies to life, but also my books. What if I take the wrong path? What if I have the story go the wrong direction? It can be paralyzing if I let myself think about it too much. Sometimes a story just feels so right I know it’s good, but other times I know I’ve gone down the wrong path. I just can’t figure out which path is wrong. But it doesn’t mean the wrong path is a failure. It usually inspires something I might not have written otherwise.

When I looked back at my books, I realized how many I’ve revised/altered MAJORLY:

Hunted– cut 20K from the first 40K
Sacrifice–the first half of the book with major alterations to the second half to make it all work
Here– the last third of the book
There– added 25K in revision

Those books aren’t failures, and truth be told, they wouldn’t be the books they are now if I hadn’t written the first crap book.

Some books take longer to write than others. With the last three books I’ve written, I’ve revised all three while still working on the first draft. (Thirty included)  Once I hit a “sweet spot”– usually around 30K–the book takes off. But I have to remember every book won’t be that way. And when a book isn’t, I’m not a failure.

I now have a publication date for Thirty and a Half Excuses–September 10. I realize it’s much later than I intended–and many of you hoped–but I hope it’s worth the wait. I’m not entirely back to 100% yet, but I’m excited to work on Rose. And not only that, after my trip to Roanoke Island, ideas for the second Curse Keepers book are bursting from my head. On my ten hour drive leaving the Outer Banks today, I plotted out most of the second book and over half of the third.

If you’re a writer, I hope you see that every book is different. Some books will come easier than others. Some books will make you rethink your career. That doesn’t make you a failure. It just makes you appreciate the easy books even more.

And to everyone else: Thanks for bearing with me.

**If you plan to leave a comment that I need to plot my books more/better, please read paragraph #4. My brain doesn’t work that way. Writing a synopsis has only worked with one book out of twelve.

 

 

 

 

The NAmazing Adventure Denise Grover Swank Stop!

Welcome to my stop on the NAmazing Adventure, a blog hop featuring over 60 New Adult authors, and prize packs that include ARCs, signed books, gift cards, swag, and more! If you’re not sure what the NAmazing Adventure is, please click here  to start from the beginning and read the complete rules on the NA Alley website. Now let’s get this journey on the road!

My featured book is:

 

While fashion design major Caroline Hunter may have been born economically unlucky, in college, she’s been lucky in love. Until her senior year at Southern University. She’s gone from a serious long term boyfriend to a string of crappy dates.

Then she meets mathematics grad student Reed Pendergraft.

Reed is everything she’s not looking for. Serious. Headed for a low paying university job. Boring. Caroline spent the first eighteen years of her life wondering where her next meal was coming from. She sure wasn’t getting trapped in that life again with a man living on a professor’s salary.

An encounter with Reed in a club proves she might have pegged him wrong. He brings out a lusty side she never knew she had. But just when she’s about to give in to her hormones, Reed makes a fool out of her. 

When she shows up for the first committee meeting for Southern University’s Fall fashion show, a fundraiser for underprivileged kids, Caroline’s horrified to discover the insufferable Reed is the committee chairman. While she refuses to tolerate his totalitarian rule of the committee, she’s not sure she’ll survive the month with her heart—and her pride—intact. Just when she thinks she has everything figured out, she finds that her entire life has been redesigned, thanks to Reed Pendergraft.

Got that jotted down in your quest scroll?

Great, because you’ll need it for the quiz at the end of this quest! And remember, you must complete ALL SIX quizzes to be eligible for a prize pack.

 But wait! You can win a prize on my site as well! I’m giving away a prize pack with:

Signed copies of  After Math and Redesigned

An After Math water bottle

A Redesigned inspired charm bracelet

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by. Ready to move on?

Click HERE to go to the next stop on your adventure!

Good luck!

Take Denise With You on Your Summer Adventures

It’s summertime and that means that Denise is packing up the kids and heading out for a summer adventure. This year she is heading to the East coast to enjoy some beach time with her family. We thought this would be a great time to run a little summer contest in our own personal style of Flat Stanley.  Our challenge to you is over the following dates, July 17-31, 2013, you take Denise with you on your vacation.  How do you do this?  Great question.  You aren’t going to actually take Denise, BUT you are going to take her books. You can take an actual physical book, you can pose your e-reader in the pictures or you have our permission to print out a copy of a cover of one of her books(perhaps your favorite), and challenge yourself to win one of five categories.  They are:

The Farthest Traveled-  You have three weeks to take her the furthest of anyone in the contest. Heading to Australia? Take her with you and get a shot of her frying up some shrimps on the Barbie with you

Funniest Photo Opportunity-  Put your creative wit to use with this one.  Get a comical picture of you with Denise on your travels. I’m picturing a pyramid of your family with Denise on top, maybe on The Great Wall of China…I can dream.

Most Places- Let’s see who can get Denise to the most destinations. Tag them all so we can keep track of them for you.

Famous Faces-  Let’s say you are having lunch(with Denise) on your vacation and you look at the table next to you and there is Kate Middleton(probably not going to happen with the baby and all), get a picture of THAT and send it to us.

Lucky Draw - This is the easy category.  Just participate in any of the above categories, and you are entered in this one automatically.

How this works(aka-the rules):

1.  Post your picture on your facebook page and tag Denise in it. Write which category you are entering your photo in. This is how we will follow along and keep track of the entries.

2.  You can enter every category(which increases your chances of winning) BUT you can only win one as we would like to spread the love.

3.  The picture needs to give an idea of where you are OR at least tag your location as well.

4.  Pictures must be up by midnight on July 31 in order to be entered in the competition.

5.  Have fun with this.  We can’t wait to see what all you guys come up with.

Now for the PRIZES-

For the Farthest Traveled you could win this package of goodies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Funniest Photo Opportunity you could win this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Most Places we have this great package:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Famous Faces category we have this to give away:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND Finally, last but definitely not least, our Lucky Draw category:

I don’t have a picture for this because Denise will be collecting souvenirs along her travels to send out to one lucky winner.  She has great taste so I expect this to be something that you will want to be entered f

Have fun with Denise on your adventures.  We cannot wait to see what you come up with.