Caron Rider's Blog, page 7

The Indie List

For all you budding authors out there, a new website has been put together to feature your work:

The Indie List

The above website has been designed by author Stephanie Jackson. It offers a place to feature books in myriad categories from YA to Erotica from Romance to Sci-fi and Fantasy. It's just getting started and it's free! There's not so many books at the moment that your book will be overlooked. I really don't see how you could go wrong by having your book placed on this website. It's another avenue to get the word out and if you promote it, you can be sure that everyone else is promoting it too. My thanks go out to Stephanie. I appreciate her efforts and gladly promote the website.


Just to give you an idea of her work, I thought I'd give you the details.

Description:

Danielle Coulter had never believed in anything except her mother, hard work and heartache. She never had time for religious fairytales. But when her mother died, Dani was forced to believe…or die.
Not only was she forced to accept that God and Lucifer are real, but also that she is the last living descent of God on Earth. An undeniable fact when the Archangel Gabriel fell to Earth to protect her.
Archangel Gabriel; banished from Heaven over four million years ago for refusing to kill his brother, Lucifer, was about to get a second chance to re-enter Heaven. He was sent to Earth on a mission from his Father to protect the last Daughter of God; the last woman to carry the Blood of God on Earth, and kill his brother, once and for all.
Gabriel had never expected to feel anything for Dani, but he soon found himself willing to fight Heaven and Hell to keep her safe, even if it meant his own destruction.  Show More Show Less $2.99 Kindle download http://alturl.com/2cn2j
UK Kindle Download http://alturl.com/zpzsd
$9.99 Paperback http://alturl.com/mkw72
Facebook http://alturl.com/4gfg2
Youtube Book Trailer http://alturl.com/gie6i

Sounds exciting! Be sure to have a look. And be sure to check out The Indie List!

Hollow Blog Hop

The Hollow Bloghop is an effort to introduce you to some new (and cool) indie authors (myself included). On the tour you will find lots of freebies from gift cards to books and beyond. So in the spirit of the times, I am willing to giveaway a hardback copy of Lee Child's The Affair (US only). I was going to giveaway a copy of Silver Knight but I just realized that I need to order some more. I've had quite a few sales off my website, and I didn't notice I had shipped the last one off.



#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEREverything starts somewhere. For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997.

A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A cover-up. A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington.

Reacher is ordered undercover to find out everything he can and then to vanish. But when he gets to Carter Crossing, Reacher meets local sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux, who has a thirst for justice and an appetite for secrets. Uncertain they can trust each other, they reluctantly join forces. Finding unexpected layers to the case, Reacher works to uncover the truth, while others try to bury it forever. The conspiracy threatens to shatter his faith in his mission—and turn him into a man to be feared.

It's an awesome read. Just send an email to caron@caronrider.com with Lee Child as the subject for random selection. Here's the linky so you can haunt the other participants of the hop and find plenty of good stuff:

A Video Review for Silver Knight

Wow, Kayla the Bookworm did the first ever video review of Silver Knight. I am so excited. Let me put you at ease, she enjoyed the story and can't wait for the next book, Silver Demon. Yeah! So here it is:



Usually I never respond to reviews, unless it's just to like them or thank the reviewer, but since she went out of her way to give such a wonderful and detailed account, I wanted to give some background for my book and Diana's character. I wrote Silver Knight with the intent of sparking an interest for history with teenagers. (Of course really anyone, but as a high school history teacher, I faced students who absolutely and completely found history BORING! And I wanted to make them curious.)  So, let me just say that as an adult, I would never just fly off to Rome or leave when I saw my obviously injured friend being helped by a stranger, but as a teenager, we just kind of went with stuff...especially during Mardi Gras. I absolutely shudder at some of the situations I was involved in that could have so easily ended badly (from rape to death). But at the time, as a teenager, I felt I would live forever, nothing bad could happen, and I was as mature as I was going to get. LOL. I know better now. I was very, very fortunate. ;)  Now because of my work with teenagers, I've seen that same tendancy by the vast majority to say: let's do it! And without thought, they do it. You might ask them later: Why would you do that? Don't know or seemed like a good idea at the time. What were you thinking? They shrug. In other words, they weren't. Anyway, that is where Diana gets much of her immediate acceptance of her situation.  To view more of Kayla's reviews be sure to check out her blog: http://kaylathebookworm.net/

Amazon Recommendations

Amazon's an odd duck. Their little price bot definitely goes out on the Net and checks to see if anyone has underpriced your book. They notified me that my price was below list on the Internet and I had absolutely no idea. I got my book off of a site that shouldn't have been selling it.

BUT I'm very excited to discover that Amazon has been sending out emails recommending Silver Knight to people AND it was top of the list. A friend sent me the email, so I thought I'd post it for you to check out:



Quite frankly, I'm amazed. Granted there has been a little run of sales the past couple of months, but I have no idea what could have triggered Amazon to start promoting it. It will be interesting to see if this generates more sales than usual. Also, I am definitely curious to find out if Amazon has also been posting it on their "People who bought this also bought" list that flashes across their screen when you're shopping. If anyone knows or has noticed, please, please let me know.

Miami International Book Fair

 
I just wanted to give a shout out because Silver Knight got an award from Readers Favorite in their Supernatural Category! As a result, it will be one of their featured books in their booth at the Miami International Book Fair.
 
Now I had no idea how big a book fair could be, but my goodness! Check it out:
  
http://www.miamibookfair.com/

There is a street fair portion that over 100,000 people pass through, and my book will actually be in one of the booths. Chances that it will be noticed? Better than if it wasn't there at all! ;)

Fall is Baking Time

I don't know what it is about this particular season, but it is one of my favorites. I think it might be because it's chilly outside and warm coco is sooo good. One thing I particularly like to do at this time is bake. I just got the stuff to make the apple pie recipe from a previous post. I can't wait to try it. But then I just found this baked donut recipe and wanted to share. It's from the Formula Mom website, which is a pretty ecletic site. You might want to check it out.


http://formulamom.com/baked-doughnut-recipe/

If you try this, let me know how it turns out. Plus feel free to share any of your favorites with me!

Oh my goodness Apple Pie!

Apple pie is about my favorite dish EVER and I can't wait to try this recipe. I felt like I just had to share. I enjoy the Pillsbury website and many of their recipes. That's where I discovered this little gem along with its creator, Arlene Cummings of Cooking with Sugar. The blog is a goldmine of good cookin' that you might want to check out. ENJOY!
Cinnamon Roll Dutch Apple Pie


Crumb Topping
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened

Crust1 can (12.4 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated cinnamon rolls with icing
Filling6 medium Granny Smith apples, thinly sliced3/4 cup granulated sugar2 tablespoons all-purpose flour1 1/4 teaspoons apple pie spice2 tablespoons lemon juice Heat oven to 375°F. In medium bowl, mix Crumb Topping ingredients with fork until large clumps form. Refrigerate. Spoon icing from can of rolls into small microwavable bowl; cover and refrigerate. Lightly flour rolling pin and work surface or cutting board. Separate dough into 8 rolls. With rolling pin, roll each cinnamon roll, cinnamon side up, into 4- to 5-inch round. In ungreased 9-inch glass pie plate, place 1 dough round in center. Arrange remaining 7 dough rounds around center round and up side of plate, overlapping slightly as necessary. With fingers, press dough to seal together in bottom and up side of pie plate to form crust. Flute edge. In large bowl, gently mix Filling ingredients. Spoon filling into cinnamon roll-lined pie plate. Sprinkle crumb topping over top to completely cover filling. Bake about 1 hour or until top is golden brown and apples are tender. Cool on cooling rack at least 1 hour. Before serving, microwave icing on High 10 to 15 seconds or until runny enough to drizzle. Drizzle back and forth over top of pie. Makes 8 servings

Review: The Bourne Legacy

Another super secret, black-ops agent with a tarnished heart of gold goes on the lamb with a pretty girl who needs a little help with lots of action.

This is a MUST see! I actually went to the theater to watch this one. I'm a huge Bourne fan and thought this one fit in extremely well. The time frame is the same as the last movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, when Bourne was in New York. Tony Gilroy, who wrote all the Bourne screenplays, works in many of the same characters, some as very bit parts, and we see a little more of the political side of the decision process than in the previous movies.

One thing that I liked: We couldn't have another amnesiac, so Gilroy gave us a very clever and believable reason for Aaron Cross agreeing to be a black-ops guy yet wanting out. Cross really had no choice. If he wanted to be "normal," he had to take special medication available only through this government program. So we were given  a sense of his frustration and disgust at having to commit moral atrocities in the name of patriotism in a couple of flashbacks. Also included is the now trademarked (no doubt) incredible, high octane chase--this time on motorcycles--with an OMG cringing ending.

Again, thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend watching.

Review: Safe

Synopsis
A second-rate cage fighter on the mixed martial arts circuit, Luke Wright lives a numbing life of routine beatings and chump change... until the day he blows a rigged fight. Wanting to make an example of him, the Russian Mafia murders his family and banishes him from his life forever, leaving Luke to wander the streets of New York destitute, haunted by guilt, and tormented by the knowledge that he will always be watched, and anyone he develops a relationship with will also be killed.
But when he witnesses a frightened twelve-year-old Chinese girl, Mei, being pursued by the same gangsters who killed his wife, Luke impulsively jumps to action…and straight into the heart of a deadly high-stakes war. Mei, he discovers, is no ordinary girl, but an orphaned math prodigy forced to work for the Triads as a "counter." He discovers she holds in her memory a priceless numerical code that the Triads, the Russian mob and a corrupt faction of the NYPD will kill for.
Realizing he's the only person Mei can trust, Luke tears a swath through the city's brutal underworld to save an innocent girl's life... and perhaps even redeem his own.

I finally caught the 2012 movie entitled Safe with Jason Statham. It. Is. Fabulous! Action from the word go. I've been a fan from the time I watched the Transporter movies, and while all his movies aren't the best, Safe is at the top of the Best List. If you like your action movies with a good storyline, this one is for you!

The Lane in the Woods

I've decided to post one of my all time favorite poems today. I may have already done so, but it seems particularly appropriate at this time in my life because I rarely look back and think, "Oh, I should have done that instead." I pretty much choose my path and just go forward. I am the product of the choices that I've made, and it's hard to regret any of those choices when they've brought me my wonderful children and a chance to live my dream of writing novels.
But in July I began suffering from depression. There were a multitude of reasons: my second book wasn't going as well as planned; I was shuffling my kids around the country to visit relatives which was exhausting; and my constant companion of 17 years was gone. Now I've always been the kind of person to shrug off being depressed, believing that a positive outlook leads to positive feelings. And up to that point, my philosophy had always worked for me since I'm a pretty mellow person. This time it was hard to shake. I began to think that I might actually need medication.

Then last week I stood on a grassy lane surrounded by trees with the insects buzzing and the birds chirping while a fawn slowly crossed the path a mere ten feet ahead of me. Robert Frost came to mind along with my favorite poem that epitomizes my philosophy on life. I felt renewed, energized and realized I had to decide if I was going to succumb to depression or rise above it. I'm happy to say that I've regained my equilibrium. But I feel for those who continue to suffer from depression and I encourage you to find your equilibrium any way that you can. Find someone to talk to, take medication, or find a lane in the woods and let nature bring you back to yourself.
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.1. The Road Not TakenTWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.