Wednesday, May 20, 2015

You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet- Release

Doesn't this sound nice? Who doesn't enjoy a cozy mystery once in awhile.
We're excited to announce the release for You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper! This is the first book in A Study Club Mystery series and it's now available for sale on Amazon and Smashwords for only .99 cents!


Dear Readers,

Yes, the day has arrived. My first cozy mystery, You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet, is now available in ebook form for 99 cents. If you’ve read the third book in The Lockwood Legacy, you’ve already met the main characters in this story.

Clara Wyler, Sugar Watson, Wilma Schneider, and Mae Ella Gormley are feisty old women in Alice’s Portrait. In Shag Carpet, they’re feisty young women with big 1960s-era Texas bouffants lacquered in place with a thick coat of Aqua Net hairspray.

When I wrote Alice’s Portrait these women absolutely demanded page time of their own. I confess, this book is a homage to a group of ladies who helped raise me. My Mother was a member of the Daedalian Study Club in Junction, Texas. I can’t actually tell you what a “Daedalian” is, and since my father consistently referred to them as the Dandelions, I have some difficulty to this day getting the name right.

While they may not have been as flamboyant as the women in Shag Carpet, they were all larger than life and had no concept of the need to be liberated since they were perfectly in charge in the confines of their own world. In a small West Texas ranching community, it’s difficult to “oppress” a woman who’s a better shot with a 30-30 than any man in her life.

These are the kind of women who help pull a kid goat during a difficult labor at 4 o’clock, have supper on the table at 6 o’clock, and show up for the Saturday night dance dressed to the nines at 8 o’clock. I loved and admired them all and I was scared to death of them.

The Study Club Mysteries is my droll look at the eccentricities of small town life, especially in the 1960s, which is a decade that colors my childhood memories.

As you know, I am actually two people and clearly these experiences are drawn from one half of me, but the other half recognized, appreciated, and polished the humor. This book is an absolute labor of love and was more fun to write than I can possibly describe. And if you think this one is funny, wait until you get to read the next one, You Can’t Put a Corpse in a Parade!

Cheers,
Juliette

-----------------------------
About the Book:
Wanda Jean Milton discovers her husband, local exterminator Hilton Milton, dead on her new shag carpet with an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest. Beside herself over how she’ll remove the stain, and grief-stricken over Hilton’s demise, Wanda Jean finds herself the prime suspect in the case. But she is also a member of “the” local Study Club, a bastion of independent Texas feminism 1960s style. Club President Clara Wyler has no intention of allowing a member to be a murder suspect during her administration. Aided by her younger sister and County Clerk, Mae Ella Gormley; Sugar Watson, the proprietress of Sugar’s Style and Spray; and Wilma Schneider, Army MASH veteran and local RN, the Club women set out to clear Wanda Jean’s name — never guessing the local dirt they’ll uncover in the process.

                                                  --------------------------------------------

About the author:
Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet is the first installment of Harper’s debut cozy Study Club Mysteries, an hilariously funny look at the often absurd eccentricities of small town life. The second book, to be released in coming months, is called You Can’t Put a Corpse in a Parade.

The droll series, set in the 1960s, is a light-hearted spinoff of Harper’s Lockwood Legacy a nine-book chronicle of the lives of three sisters who inherit a ranch in Central Texas following their father’s suicide. Three of the novels are currently available: Langston’s Daughters, Baxter’s Draw, and Alice’s Portrait. The fourth book, Mandy’s Father, will appear in Summer 2015.

And don’t miss Harper’s first foray into the world of the supernatural, Descendants of the Rose, Book 1 in the Selby Jensen Paranormal Mystery series. The second Selby Jensen book, Lost in Room 636 is also scheduled for a Summer 2015 release.

Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan, worked as a journalist and university history instructor before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 2002.


Giveaway:
One (1) winner gets a $25 Amazon Gift Card (INT), one (1) winner gets Langston's Daughters, Baxter's Draw and Alice's Portrait in paperback (US) and one (1) winner gets Descendants of the Rose in paperback (US)
Ends June 10th

a Rafflecopter giveaway


This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.
Glutenfree+2 is not responsible for the prize. 

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Descendants of the Rose- release celebration


I am so excited to bring this release celebration to your attention :) Feel free to enter the giveaway :) Us/ internationally
Welcome to the release celebration of Descendants of the Rose by Juliette Harper! This is the first book in the Selby Jensen Paranormal Mysteries series and it's now available for sale for only .99 cents on Amazon

The author wrote a letter to her readers to explain why she decided to "genre hop".

To My Readers,

So where the heck did this book come from? It came from a weekend of writer’s block on another manuscript. Descendants of the Rose had been sitting on my desk for more than a year while I’ve been working on The Lockwood Legacy series. Then I switched gears to the cozy Study Club Mysteries, but this other character -- Selby Jensen -- wouldn’t leave me alone.

As usual, she knew what she was doing since the book debuted on the Amazon supernatural mystery bestseller list this morning.

Selby wanted out there in the world, and that Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, she told me plainly that she’d waited long enough. I spent the weekend with her, and Monday morning I had a complete draft ready for my beta readers and proofreader.

This might seem like a big genre hop, so I wanted to take a few minutes and talk to you about how and why I write. Creating strong women characters is my primary interest. I don’t want to be confined to or defined by any genre. My goal is to put my characters in interesting, challenging, and often painful situations and explore how they cope -- or don’t cope -- and wade through the fallout and triumphs with them.

From page one of this book, you’ll meet a woman in pain over a tragic loss in her life. She prefers to keep company with the dead, but her commitment to protecting and improving the world of the living is her real reason for existing. Yes, there is a murder that is solved in the pages of this book, but Selby’s journey is only starting.

As I’m writing to you today, I have a plot map on my desk for book two of this series, Lost in Room 636 that centers around a grisly murder that occurred in San Antonio, Texas on February 8, 1965. San Antonio is one of the most haunted cities in America and it’s also Selby Jensen’s stomping grounds, but you may be surprised where destiny leads this woman over the series arc I have planned.

So, while Selby jumped to the head of the line in my project planning, she’s been an integral part of my creative vision for some time. I’m delighted to introduce her to you, and while she’s different from the women of the Rocking L in one way, in another, she’s not. Selby is the kind of woman you want on your side in a fight. She’s never let me down, and I don’t think she’ll let you down either.

Juliette

About the Book:
Selby Jensen’s business card reads “Private Investigator,” but to say the least, that downplays her real occupation. Let’s hear it in her own words:

“You want to know what I do for a living? I rip souls out. Cut heads off. Put silver bullets where silver bullets need putting. You think there aren't any monsters? . . . I have some disturbing news for you. You might want to sit down. Monsters walk among us. I'm looking for one in particular. In the meantime? I'm keeping the rest of them from eating people like you.”

In this debut novel of her new paranormal mystery series, Juliette Harper, author of The Lockwood Legacy books and The Study Club Mysteries creates a cast of characters, most of whom have one thing in common; they don’t have a pulse. The dead are doing just fine by Selby, who is determined never to lose someone she loves again, but then a force of love more powerful than her grief changes that plan.

Join Selby Jensen as she and her team track down a shadowy figure tied to a murder at a girls’ school. What none of them realize, however, is that in solving this case, they will enter a longer battle against a larger evil.

Goodreads | Amazon
------------------------------------------------------


About the Author:

Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. Descendants of the Rose is the first installment of Harper’s debut Selby Jensen Paranormal Mystery series.

Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan, worked as a journalist and university history instructor before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 2002.

Juliette Harper is also the author of The Lockwood Legacy, a nine-book chronicle of the lives of three sisters who inherit a ranch in Central Texas following their father’s suicide. Three of the novels are currently available: Langston’s Daughters, Baxter’s Draw, and Alice’s Portrait. The fourth book, Mandy’s Father, will appear in Fall 2015.

And don’t miss her hilariously funny “cozy” Study Club Mysteries, a light-hearted spinoff of The Lockwood Legacy. The books, set in the 1960s, take on the often absurd eccentricities of small town life with good-natured, droll humor. The first book, You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet, will be available shortly, with the second, You Can’t Put a Corpse in a Parade, coming in Summer 2015.

--------------------------------------

Giveaway:
$25 Amazon Gift Card (INT), Langston's Daughters, Baxter's Draw and Alice's Portrait in paperback (US) or ebook (INT)
Ends May 27

a Rafflecopter giveaway


This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.
Ashleigh's Books is not responsible for prize fulfillment. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

New Mom, New Woman: Creating your Smart Motherhood Plan

New Mom, New Woman provides you with skills and strategies to become more competent, decisive, and empowered. You will develop a broader perspective of your new life, a deeper awareness of your needs and desires, and a keen understanding that a life you love won’t happen miraculously; it needs to be consciously defined and deliberately designed.
Rachel Egan, MBA, is a certified life coach and President of Maternity Transitions®—a national coaching service provider. She is the author of Life after ‘I Do!’ and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and four children.

My Review:


The New Mom, New woman book by Rachel Egan is a great guide for new mothers. It's an easy read for after the baby is born. Although, it would be interesting to read before hand. There are a lot of handy exercises for moms to complete. For example, I enjoyed The Compass and The 3 C's. 


There are plenty of useful tips to adjust to motherhood.There is tips for everyone- even as a veteran parent. It doesn't leave out fathers or other parental helpers. I would add this to a new parent's gift guide!

Thank you netgalley :)