Joyce DiPastena's Blog, page 9

Bookmarked Bargains ebook sale!

It's time for the semi-annual Bookmarked Bargains ebook sale again! Dozens of ebooks are available for free or at drastically discounted prices! PLUS, BB is giving away a Reader's Party Pack worth over $175! You don't want to miss this! Hop on over to Bookmarked Bargains now to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway, and while you're there, pick up a few awesome books on sale!

Giveaway and sales prices are available this week only (Oct 12-16, 2015). Please help spread the word!

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Fall Book Sale!

My sweet medieval romance, Dangerous Favor , is available again for Kindle with a shiny new cover! To celebrate, I've banded together with some other author friends to offer you some great books sales! Prices are good today (Sept 16) through Sept 22. We'd love it if you'd help us spread the word!

Dangerous Favor by Joyce DiPastena 

Regular Price: $3.99SALE Price: $.99
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Mathilde needs a champion.
Her father has been accused of stealing from the king, an allegation that has reduced her family to poverty. She has one chance to find and marry a man who can help her prove her father's innocence. Lord Therri, heir to a rich barony, has the wealth and connections Mathilde needs to delve into the mysteries of her father's past. Furthermore, Therri embodies all her romantic dreams.
Etienne, the younger son of a disgraced family, has neither wealth nor connections, but is smitten with Mathilde at a glance. She finds the knight intriguing, but believes he is only out to seduce her. While she seeks for a way to win Therri's attention, Etienne tricks her into granting him her favor, an embroidered white ribbon, for a tournament, setting in motion a dangerous chain reaction of events. 
Can Etienne save Mathilde from a nightmare from her past and prove himself the true hero of her dreams?

Imperfect Love by Rebecca Talley 


Regular Price: $3.99

SALE Price: $.99



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Lauren Wilson is well on her way to her happily-ever-after. She’s passionate about her career as a middle school English teacher, she adores her handsome, hard-working husband, and with a baby finally on the way, her perfect life is within her grasp.


But then a devastating test result changes everything.


Forced to choose between her baby and her husband, Lauren makes the only decision she can live with, and she returns to her small hometown in hopes of rebuilding her shattered life.


Ethan Campbell is a gifted photographer who travels the world and has no desire to settle down. When his mother dies, he must go home to settle her estate. Then it’s back to exciting adventures across the globe.


When Lauren crosses paths with Ethan, her teenage crush, old feelings resurface—feelings she’s not prepared to face. Will Lauren have the courage to trust again or will she spend her life alone?

Imperfect Love is a story about sacrifice, healing, second chances, and discovering that although love isn’t always perfect, sometimes it’s the imperfect love that’s the sweetest of all.



A Change of Plans by Donna K. Weaver

Regular Price: $3.99

SALE Price: $.99

Purchase A Change of Plans

Audiobook   (If you own the eBook, the audiobook is only $1.99)

When Lyn sets off on her supposedly uncomplicated and unromantic cruise, she never dreams it will include pirates. All the 25-year-old Colorado high school teacher wants is to forget that her dead fiancé was a cheating scumbag. What she plans is a vacation diversion; what fate provides is Braedon, an intriguing surgeon. She finds herself drawn to him: his gentle humor, his love of music, and even his willingness to let her take him down during morning karate practices. Against the backdrop of the ship’s make-believe world and its temporary friendships, her emotions come alive.


However, fear is an emotion, too. Unaware of the sensitive waters he navigates, Braedon moves to take their relationship beyond friendship—on the very anniversary Lyn came on the cruise to forget. But Lyn’s painful memories are too powerful, and she runs off in a panic.


Things are bad enough when the pair finds themselves on one of the cruise’s snorkeling excursions in American Samoa. However, paradise turns to piracy when their party is kidnapped. Lyn’s fear of a fairytale turns grim. Now she must fight alongside the man she rejected, first for their freedom and then against storms, sharks, and shipwreck.


Salem Witch Haunt by Theresa Sneed

Regular Price: $4.99

SALE Price: $2.99

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When she finds herself
thrust back in time, 17 year old Bess Martin, a senior at Danvers High, sets
out on a mission to save her 11th great-grandmother from the gallows-tree. With
a near-perfect knowledge of the historical events about to unfold, Bess knows
the untimely fate of many. 
The problem is that Bess has inherited her
grandmother’s sharp tongue—a tongue that caused her grandmother to be tried and
hanged as a witch in Salem Village, 1692. 
Can Bess stop the hangings and change
the course of history, or will she share her grandmother’s fate? 



Felicity A Sparrow's Tale by Loralee Evans


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Tales of adventure and
danger have thrilled Felicity since Augustus, her ivory-billed woodpecker
friend, taught her to read as a little nestling. She adores the tales of heroes
and heroines who forge ahead in spite of all odds, and who always seem to
succeed no matter what. More than anything, Felicity wants to be brave and
selfless like them. 


But
adventures are in short supply, especially for someone who’s just an ordinary
sparrow. 


Until the
day an unexpected visitor shows up at her tree with an unusual request…



Newbie by Jo NoelleRegular Price: $3.99SALE Price: $.99
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The housing market is crashing, and Sophie’s life is crashing with it. At twenty-four, her successful real estate career evaporates. She’s broke, can’t find a job, or pay her bills, leaving Sophie wondering how her successful lifestyle became so fragile.At the urging of her roommate, Sophie accepts a job in her fallback career—teaching six-year-olds. She hopes it’s temporary. After all, how long can a tanking economy last anyway? The best part of the new job is Liam, another employee at Rio Grande Elementary. The worst part of the new job is, well, teaching.Sophie has a surprise real estate closing from a contract she wrote months ago, leading her to a niche in the real estate market and to a new partner, Kevin. Sophie must choose between Liam or Kevin and between a lucrative career or recess duty.




Lost Without You by Annette Lyon
Regular price: $2.99SALE Price: $0.99
Purchase Lost Without You For months, Christopher Morris has been Brooke's idea of the perfect man—attractive, charming, and fun to be around. But lately he's begun acting strangely, becoming possessive, controlling, and moody. Brooke feels she has no choice but to break up with him, but Christopher doesn't take it well. He drives her wildly back home and gets into a car accident. 

That's when Brooke first meets police officer Greg Stevens. After she keeps meeting him—at the worst possible times—they begin dating. Greg confesses he's a widower and that Brooke is the first woman he has so much as looked at in years. 

But as Brooke agonizes over whether Greg will ever be able to truly love her, Christopher makes a dangerous return into her life, deciding that if he can't have her, no one can.



The Man from Shenandoah by Marsha Ward


Regular Price: $2.99

SALE Price: $.99


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When young cavalryman Carl Owen returns from the Civil War, he finds the family farm destroyed, his favorite brother dead, food scarce, and his father planning to leave the Shenandoah Valley to start a cattle operation in Colorado Territory.

But Pa does a bit more: he also chooses a suitable mate for both Carl and his younger brother, James.

With no one else in mind, Carl is agreeable to marrying the delightfully flirtatious Ida Hilbrands somewhere along the trail, but James is devastated. Ellen Bates isn't the girl he loves and must leave behind.

Making their way across the vast continent, the Owen family and their friends battle a prairie fire, internal strife, a band of vicious outlaws, and the land itself to try to achieve their goals, but before that can happen, the two brothers are fighting over the hand of one girl—and only one of them can win!

With No Regrets (Book Two) by Julie N. Ford
Regular Price: $4.99SALE Price: $.99
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Living With No Regrets Is Harder Than It Seems
Finley isn’t exactly sure when her life began to feel unfamiliar. She suspects the transformation started long before she caught her husband and fellow garden club member doing the white-trash-two-step on her new Bernhardt sofa. Now free from the shackles of a loveless marriage, and with her children off to college, she’s finally able to go searching for the missing pieces of her heart.

Finley’s best friend, Cathyanne, is already working hard to ensure that Finley finds true love this time around. But when Finley is unwittingly tossed into the arms of two men—their sexy trainer and her neighbor, a popular country star—Cathyanne fears finding the right guy will be more complicated than she ever could have imagined.

For Finley, building a new life feels as impossible as flying a paper airplane to the moon. But maybe, just maybe, with the right help, she will find her whole heart—even if it’s in the very last place she thinks to look.

This Very Moment by Rachel Ann Nunes
Regular Price: 4.99SALE Price: $.99 
Purchase This Very Moment
A Compelling Story of Heartbreaking Loss, Inspiring Faith, and a Newfound Love Strong Enough to Heal All Wounds.
Bill Dubrey is a sought-after plastic surgeon for LA’s prestigious and wealthy, and an equally sought-after bachelor. On the surface it appears he has it all—money, respect, and fame. Yet behind his aloof exterior lurks a tragic past that prevents him from finding lasting happiness.

All that changes on the day Kylee Stewart reenters his life. She alone knows Bill’s secret agony, and she is determined to help him face his past. During the years they’ve been apart, Kylee’s own life has been far from easy, but unlike Bill, she has turned to God in her need, finding a faith to which she desperately clings.

The tentative friendship they begin has Bill rethinking his stark future, yet he keeps his heart in check—afraid to commit, afraid to lose again. During Kylee’s darkest moment, when she needs him most, will he be there for her? 


Shooting Stars by Philip Carroll
Regular Price: $3.99SALE Price: FREE Sept 15- 19
Purchase Shooting Stars
Chuck McWilliams is fourteen years old and had just started high school in Washington State when his father lost his job and moved them to the hot, dry, valley of Central California. Starting his freshman hear six weeks after the rest of the students, Chuck is insecure about finding his way, making new friends and overcoming bullying from members of the cross country team. 
When he is invited to the Homecoming Dance by a strange girl in his English class, Kelsey Llewellyn, he can't think of any reason to say no. Later that day Dahlia Chand, an attractive girl on the cross country team, asks him to the dance, he wonders if he has made a mistake. 
How a secretive student, Doug Le Roux, avoids the notice of the rest of the students, yet stands out so clearly to Chuck makes him wonder if something extraordinary is going on at this high school. 
Chuck will become entwined in an ages old battle with werewolves, vampires and elves that most of humankind is unaware of in their midst. Remarkably, he will find the most enchanting magic comes from romance.


Ideal High by Valerie Ipson
Regular Price: $4.99SALE Price: $1.99
Purchase Ideal High
There’s no way I’m taking Blake’s place as president of the student body. As soon as the memorial for him and six of our friends is over, I’m resigning as VP. Really.
Except people say the fire was no accident. (I say it’s way too easy to blame someone who’s dead.)
When I read the writing on the wall, literally, the bathroom wall, I know what it means. To get to the truth I have to come out from under my paisley comforter.
But, seriously, what stage of grief says I have to be the one to fix what’s wrong at Ideal High? Maybe I’m the one who’s broken.


First Love Second Chance by Lindzee Armstrong
Regular Price: $.99SALE Price: FREE
Purchase First Love Second Chanc e
When wedding planner Keslee gets asked on a date by her long-lost high school crush, Bryce, everything should be perfect. But Bryce mistakes Keslee for her deceased twin sister, Jadyn. And Keslee doesn’t correct him. Talk about awkward. To make matters worse, she learns they’ll be seeing a lot more of each other because Bryce is the marketing director at the venue where Keslee’s new client has chosen to get married. Keslee knows the charade can’t last much longer, and fears she’ll lose Bryce forever when she tells him the truth.


Emerine's
Nightmare by Anna del C. Dye
Price:
$2.99
PurchaseEmerine’s Nightmare 
What would you do if one night, life as
you know it changes and you are left alone in despair? That is how Emerine’s
nightmare starts and now all he does is run.
His family lived at the edge of the forest
until dark shadows killed them all. Now they want him, and so does a magic
tree. He has never seen dark shadows or enchanted trees before. Emerine has to
get to the heart of Red Forest, to the fairy people. Only then he will be safe.
Safe? He has never heard of fairies before and once he gets there what?
We have a fantastic line-up of great books that are on SALE! Everyone loves a sale, right?



Cassandra Jones by Tamara Hart Heiner
Regular Price: $3.99SALE Price: FREE Sept 16-17
Purchase Cassandra Jones
What's special about Cassandra? Absolutely nothing. She's as ordinary as any other fifth grader. And yet her ordinary life is riddled with hilarious and sometimes heart-breaking mishaps as she guides herself through the world of pre-teens on the brink of adulthood. 
Cassandra Jones is the new girl at school. She's been uprooted from her beloved state of Texas and relocated to the hillbilly Ozarks of Springdale, Arkansas. She wonders if she will like her teacher or if she will have any friends. She can only hope school won't be harder than it was back home. 


She doesn't expect to have two close friends, and even worse, two friends that don't like each other. As she tries to make a spot for herself, will she keep her friendships intact? 

Summary Sunday

This is the last Summary Sunday from Courting Cassandry that I will be sharing with you. Why? Because I finished my first draft this week! (Please join me in a roaring "Huzzah!") There will be many revisions ahead before the story is ready to share with you in full, but now I have the "clay" (a first draft) to work and fashion into something polished and hopefully enjoyable for my readers.

So here is a final sampling of sentences from my final chapter of Courting Cassandry. Thank you for joining me on this part of the journey!

Mini-Cast of Characters:

Cassandry: my 40-something heroine
Gerolt: my 50-something hero
Egelina: Cassandry's teenaged daughter
Rauffe: Gerolt's teenaged son

Monday: (Cassandry to Egelina:) “Gelli! How could you and Rauffe perform such a desecration of something you must have recognized as precious to Lord Gerolt?”
Tuesday: Gerolt felt a tug in his chest, as powerful as if a physical cord sought to jerk him from this chamber into the yard below. Did she still linger there? Was it too late?
Wednesday: Gerolt had focused on fate’s unlucky whims for so long. Did he dare hazard all the future that this time it would be kind?

Thursday: Oh, saints, if she misread the intent in his eyes, she was afraid she might splinter into a thousand jagged shards.

Summary Sunday

Here are some sample sentences from my last two chapters of Courting Cassandry. I'm hoping to finish the first draft this week!
Mini-Cast of Characters:
Cassandry: my 40-something heroineGerolt: my 50-something heroEgelina/Gelli: Cassandry's teenaged daughterRauffe: Gerolt's teenaged son
Monday: Cassandry could not speak these hard truths to a daughter still so precariously on the edge of faith and fear.
Tuesday: I lost too many years with you, Gelli. Too many years lost to my own confusion and hopelessness and grief.
Wednesday: (Rauffe:) “Cassandry could not possibly have made this. She knows that I dislike peas.”
Thursday: Cassandry stared a long moment at the shell. The sternness slid from her face, but Gerolt could not interpret the expression that replaced it.
Friday: Clearly Gerolt needed to teach his son a little more about chivalry.

Summary Sunday

Good news! I am absolutely, positively in the next to the last chapter of Courting Cassandry now! Just have to tie up the final few loose ends and, well, still figure out exactly how my hero and heroine are going to get their happy-ever-after ending (okay, so that's still looking like a bit of a challenge, but I've made it this far with the plot, I'm sure my characters will figure out how to solve this problem, too--I hope!).

Here are some sentences from my next-to-the-next-to-the-last and next-to-the-last chapters of Courting Cassandry, and a mini-cast of characters to help you along. (Once again, I've concealed the identities of some of the characters so as not to give away the ending.)

Mini-cast of characters:

Gerolt: My 50-something hero
Cassandry: My 40-something heroine
Egelina: Cassandry's teenaged daughter

Monday: (Gerolt's thoughts): Only the myopic young with their still callow charms could fail to see the beauty of a silver strand of hair, the wisdom in a creased brow, the compassion of crinkled eyes.
Tuesday: There was no reaching her before she could do the deed. Gerolt searched with a rising desperation for words to deflect the purpose she looked chillingly reconciled to now.
Wednesday: Gerolt stood alone on the tower. The sun had come out again, bathing his face in its warmth. He glanced behind him. His shadow had never looked so empty.
Thursday: “Stop,” Cassandry murmured against his mouth and tried to push him away. “Gerolt, stop. We cannot do this.”
            “I know,” he said, and kissed her again

Friday: For someone on the verge of obtaining what she “desired most,” Egelina looked very close to bursting into tears.

The Lady and the Minstrel is going on tour!

Blog tour, that is. This banner pretty much says it all.


There will be interviews (including one with my heroine, Marguerite), spotlights, reviews, and TWO GIVEAWAYS!!! To follow along click on the link below.
The Lady and the Minstrel Blog Tour

Summary Sunday

Good news! I'm pretty sure I'm in the next to the last--or possibly, the next to the next to the last--chapter of Courting Cassandry! At any rate, the end is coming into sight. Here are a few new sentences from my writing sessions this week.

I can't give you all the speaker attributions for the sentences below because it might give too much away, but in case you still need it, here's my mini cast of characters for those characters I do mention by name.

Cast of Characters

Cassandry: my forty-something heroine
Gerolt: my fifty-something hero
Egelina: Cassandry's teenaged daughter


Monday: Cassandry rode past the village with its mix of neat and dilapidated cottages, into the smear of greenery soaring skyward on either side of the forest road.
Tuesday: “I would remind you that the Lady Egelina is of age to make her own choice. The monks have no obligation to return her to you against her will.”
Wednesday: “I envied Gerolt his clothes and his jewels and his privilege—but when I came home from the East, I found it was the love of his children that I envied of him the most.”
Thursday: Gerolt sought Cassandry’s gaze, desperate for wisdom greater than his own.

Friday: They stood at stalemate, until Cassandry appeared so suddenly between them that Gerolt wondered if she had conjured herself from one spot to another.

Summary Sunday

I thought I saw the end in sight for this first draft of Courting Cassandry, only to be thwarted by a character this week who decided to throw an unexpected wrench into the works. I argued with her, I tried to ignore her, I struggled to resist, but in the end she defeated me and I wrote the scene the way she demanded. Whether it makes the cut in revisions and stays in the story is yet an open question, but don't tell her that I said that. J

I still think the ending is relatively near. In the meantime, here are some new sentences from my work this week on Courting Cassandry.

Mini-Cast of Characters

Gerolt: my fifty-something hero
Cassandry: my forty-something heroine
Egelina: Cassandry's teenaged daughter
Rauffe: Gerolt's teenaged son


Monday: The wounded wife, the benumbed mother, the broken woman had all burned away in the brightness of Gerolt’s love.
Tuesday: She took the circlet from Egelina, and when her daughter did not answer but sat gazing at her mother with wide, watery eyes, Cassandry took the parchment, too.
Wednesday: Some flicker of awareness had awakened in Rauffe’s eyes and he rolled onto his side, curling up in a ball and groaning out, “It burns. It burns.”
Thursday: "I threw the container away in the moat so that no one could trace it back to me.” (And no, I'm not going to tell you which character says this. J )

Friday: If he ceased to fight the pain, if he succumbed to the refuge of full unconsciousness, Cassandry did not know if she would ever be able to rouse him from it.

Summary Sunday

I've fallen a few weeks behind in sharing a Summary Sunday with you. I'm still working on Courting Cassandry, but I think I'm finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this first draft. As usual, my outline flew out the window along the way and the story took on a life and direction of its own. Fingers crossed, though, that it won't be too much longer before I'm able to type "The End!" (Of this first draft. Then of course, there will need to be a second draft, and a third draft, and . . . well, as many drafts as it takes to polish the final product up.)

In the meantime, here is a sampling of sentences from this week's labors (and I assure you, writing often feels very much like labor!) of Courting Cassandry.

Mini-cast of characters to help you keep everybody straight:

Gerolt: My fifty-something year old hero
Cassandry: My forty-something year old heroine
Antony: Cassandry's late husband
Rauffe: Gerolt's teenaged son
Samson: Gerolt's best friend

Monday: Perhaps that was why Gerolt had courted Cassandry with praise as a girl, instead of speaking to her frankly from his heart, permitting Antony to beguile her away from him with the endearments that fell so easily and passionately from his lips.
Tuesday: Then Cassandry’s words floated into Gerolt’s mind. Rauffe wants so much for you to be proud of him. He has no comprehension of how much you love him. Why have you never told him?
Wednesday: Either way, the bliss she had tasted in Gerolt’s kisses had already shattered. All her longings stilled in his embrace, only to be snatched away by one cruel truth—she was too old.
Thursday: Cassandry would have thrown the gift in Samson’s face if he had been standing here. Instead she threw it on the bed with a force that made it bounce three times across the blankets.

Friday: Cassandry had buried her love for one man in her life. She would bury this love too.

New review of The Lady and the Minstrel!

Kirkus Reviews has just posted a new review of The Lady and the Minstrel ! Kirkus Reviews says:

“The novel effectively incorporates aspects of the time period, ranging from the popularity of fables about Reynard the Fox to the use of dried yarrow leaves. As a result, readers hungry for historical details will find much more than lutes and swords, although the story has its share of both of those, as well…. [T]he tone throughout is one of grandiose emotions and epic decisions—one that’s designed for a man like Robert, who “understood the call of loyalty and love."

“A nuanced, passionate love story that will transport readers to King John’s England.”
You can read the full review on the Kirkus Reviews website: 
Kirkus review of The Lady and the Minstrel
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