Tote Bags 'n' Blogs

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Kristina Knight's Playlist for Jase, #NevadaCowboys

It's no secret that music plays a big part in all of my books, whether they are stand-alone books or parts of a series. Music actually plays a big part in my life - from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed, music is usually playing somewhere in the house.

What kind of music is the best music? All of it, really, depending on what else is going on. When I'm cooking, I'll shuffle through all 1432 songs on my iPhone. I have a playlist for when I'm working out, another for when I'm waiting in the carpool pick-up line at bebe's school. When I'm drafting, I'll either have my white-noise app playing (a mix of nature and mellow guitar music) or turn on the light classical station on our TV.

As I'm drafting, though, I'm thinking about pop, country, oldies, rock, and even holiday songs that fit my characters or the plot or a specific scene. And, when the draft is turned in and I'm beginning to think about polishing and revising, those songs become a new playlist - one that gets a pretty heavy workout of its own.

I'm just finishing up my Nevada Cowboys trilogy - book three, Jase, released April 17 - and for that series I actually had a series-specific playlist, and each book had it's own playlist, too. Some of the artists that made the series playlist include Elvis (how could he not? the books were set in Las Vegas, after all!), Kenny Chesney, Smokey Robinson, Train, and Wilson Phillips. Here's a peek into the songs that spoke to me while I was writing What the Gambler Risks:

Brothers Osborne - 21 Summer

Zac Brown Band - Beautiful Drug

Ashes Remain - On My Own

A Thousand Horses - Smoke & This Ain't No Drunk Dial

Chase Rice - MMM Girl

Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble

Dierks Bentley - Riser

But the song that got the most play? Sugarland's Run - here's the video, which I absolutely love...it really evokes both Jase and Sabrina, for me:

Do you have a favorite song right now?

Kristina Knight's latest release, Jase, Nevada Cowboys Book 3, is available now in paperback or e-format:

Hot Las Vegas nights get even steamier for these three powerful, wealthy businessmen with cowboy roots and the strong, independent women who fall for them. What happens in Vegas certainly won’t stay there as these successful tycoons win at love.

Jase Reeves lives his life by rules: never get emotional at the poker table and never get emotional with women. But when he meets self-help author Sabrina York all bets are off. Sabrina enjoys fame and fortune writing her female-empowerment books, but she could do without the reputation – that of the Oldest Living (Supposed) Virgin in Vegas. Blowing up her entire life because sexy gambler Jase Reeves has shown an interest in her? Sabrina has already written the book on that, but staying away from Jase isn’t as simple as closing the cover of her favorite book. And for Jase, melting the heart of the Vegas Virgin might be his greatest gamble yet…

Buy Jase: Amazon B&N iBooks Kobo

Kristina Knight is a contemporary romance author, part-time TKD-kid wrangler, and full-time ThinMints enthusiast. You can find out more the book and Kristina on her website, and feel free to ~~stalk~~ follow her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Free Books for you! By Jenny Gardiner

Hey all!

First off, I think you need a Pippa picture right now. My pup Pippa has brought me great joy in this stressful time and I love to share her pictures on Instagram because, well, puppy! Even if she's growing rapidly into a full-sized dog! So here's puppy therapy for you:

By now I hope you are all staying home and avoiding being too close to others in an effort to slow down the spread of this awful Coronavirus. If you aren't, I hope you will reconsider that because this is the real deal and maybe I'm more acutely aware of the sacrifices that medical professionals make since my youngest daughter is a medical student, but my goodness, what selfless humans doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters etc are. As the saying goes, they run into the fire when everyone else is running away. So please, please, please, consider staying home so that we can lessen the sudden onslaught of cases of COVID-19 which will be overwhelming hospitals and creating dangerous situations for those carrying for the sick.
And while home, maybe avoid an overdose of news because it ain't too cheerful. I want to let you know I've got FOUR free books for you to help you escape all the grim reality. So please take advantage of them and ENOY escaping for awhile! I know, I know, it's not a trip to Italy, or to a Jamaican beach, but for now, it's better than watching the numbers of cases rise on the 24/7 news.

By now I hope you are all staying home and avoiding being too close to others in an effort to slow down the spread of this awful Coronavirus. If you aren't, I hope you will reconsider that because this is the real deal and maybe I'm more acutely aware of the sacrifices that medical professionals make since my youngest daughter is a medical student, but my goodness, what selfless humans doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters etc are. As the saying goes, they run into the fire when everyone else is running away. So please, please, please, consider staying home!

And while home, maybe avoid an overdose of news because it ain't too cheerful. I want to let you know I've got FOUR free books for you to help you escape all the grim reality. So please take advantage of them and ENOY escaping for awhile! I know, I know, it's not a trip to Italy, or to a Jamaican beach, but for now, it's better than watching the numbers of cases rise on the 24/7 news.

Posting links below:

Book one of the It's Reigning Men series, Something in the Heir, is free here:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Google Play

Also Red Hot Romeo is free! A hot Italian, a gorgeous supermodel, and fabulous wines…what’s not to love?!

You can check out the first book in the Royal Romeo series for free here:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Google Play

And Falling for Mr. Wrong from the Falling for Mr. Wrong series is free here:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Google Play

Lastly, Skirt Chaser is now free!

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
GooglePlay

And if you enjoy these books, there are plenty more in each series to read on and they're very affordable at $3.99!

Nothing like a world emergency to clarify all of the most important things in your life. I'm so very grateful for my wonderful family, my adorable dog, a home with a roof over my head, spring weather so that we can at least be outside and enjoy the blossoming trees and listening to birds singing. I'm grateful for all of those medical professionals willing to put their lives on the line for us, and for the many reporters who also have risked themselves for reporting from Coronavirus hotspots, and experts being available 24/7 on many TV networks to answer questions from a nervous public.

Our country has been through many awful things before, things that required far greater sacrifice, sending millions of our young people overseas to fight in dreadful wars. Staying at home is easy peasy in comparison. We can do this folks! Stay safe and thanks for staying home to protect the vulnerable, those who are immunocompromised, the elderly, and of course our medical care providers on the front line in this new and eye-opening war.

Love you all and stay safe! ❤️

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Michelle Styles: Keeping Sane in a time of crisis

Today (15 April) is my day for Tote Bags. Like most people in the world, the UK is currently under lockdown.

Michelle Styles's garden

I have spent more time recently relearning about Auto regressive moving average models than I should have done – these are the things which are powering the various models which governments are using to see when they should be easing quarantines (lockdowns). Because I was an economics major once upon a time, I had to learn how to use them with econometrics. They are fascinating but really, they are only a representation of reality and predictions don’t always work. People can tell you probabilities but they can’t read the future. And while they can look at populations as a whole, they can’t look at you as an individual. For example, what is the probability that you meet someone who lived in New York City last year. If you live in or near NYC that probability may be one—definite. If you live in the middle of Wyoming that probability may be very remote indeed or it may be one because your new next door neighbour moved from there last August because they decided to do up a ranch they inherited.

There are so many factors which go into the calculations. Assumptions have to be made (sometimes they are incorrect). A bit like writing or witchcraft, it is a Dark Art to get a model to actually work. There are always a huge range of outcomes but people tend focus on a narrow band. Ultimately though it is all beyond my paygrade and something I am doing to try to keep sane.

Always remember that people dedicate their lives to this but garbage in equals garbage out and if you mess up on the initial assumptions, chances are you are not going to find the answer you are looking for.

Other ways of keeping sane include gardening and trying to write. Speaking of writing, the ex-editorial director of Harlequin, Joanne Grant has been doing a series of free motivational talks – every Monday in April. She has done 3 so far and they are helping my productivity. You can listen to them on Facebook. The one thing I liked was her suggestion of celebrating one positive thing per week (no matter how small) and setting weekly goals. If you are an aspiring author, a seasoned author or simply someone interested in writing and how books are created, you will find her talks interesting.https://www.facebook.com/Joanne-Grant-Editorial-Coach-106250077690215/

In other news:

Harper St George’s 2^nd book in the Sons of Sigurd series Falling for Her Viking Captor is out now on Harlequin. It is tremendously exciting and you can read the start of her book here. https://aerbook.com/books/Falling_for_Her_Viking_Captive-250684.html?identifier=9781488065675

Until next month and hopefully by then most people will be out of lockdown.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances for Harlequin Historical in a wide range of time periods, most recently Viking. Her next book Conveniently Wed to the Viking will be published in July 2020 and is the third book in the Sons of Sigurd series. You can read more about Michelle and her books on her website at www.michellestyles.co.uk

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Christina Hollis: The Sound of Silence...

A belated Happy Easter to you all!

I spent the days running up to Monday 16th March this year in a torment of indecision. On that day I had a tutorial scheduled with my dissertation supervisor at the university, I was due to give a presentation as part of one of my modules, and I was going to be observing a session as part of my teaching module.

Normally, I would have been raring to go. Instead, I was scared. At the time, the Coronavirus crisis was gathering momentum in the UK, and Gloucestershire had reported its first case of the disease. Like everyone else, I wasn't sure how safe it was to mingle with other people in a public space.

Buy online from http://bit.ly/SSBRISTOL

Right up until the moment I left home that day, I was in two minds whether or not to attend. In the end, my enthusiasm for the course won, and I went. It was also a chance to catch up with my son. He is also studying at the University of Gloucestershire although we're on different courses, in different campuses, and he lives on site while I commute. His immune system is compromised by the daily medication he takes, so he was also concerned about coming in contact with the virus.

Luckily for us both (although sadly too, as we both love our respective courses), the university soon decided the safest course was to put as much teaching online as possible and let those students who wanted to, leave.

On Wednesday, 18th March, my son and I loaded all his belongings into my car and I drove him home. We stopped on the way to fill up with petrol and buy some milk, but since then the whole family has been in lockdown. We've been taking the dog out for walks each day since then, but apart from that none of us have been anywhere. We're all now working from home. The cash I withdrew at the beginning of March to pay for that month's local group meeting of the Romantic Novelists' Association is still untouched in my purse.

Wild cherry blossom in the wood

Saving money because there's nowhere to go is one of the very small number of good things to come out of this horrible crisis. Another one is the worldwide drop in pollution caused by the huge reduction in travel. We live in a wood, half a mile from the nearest main road and never imagined that would impact us. Yet it's surprising the difference this makes. For one thing, the sky used to be criss-crossed with white con trails from commercial aircraft passing high over head. We rarely see any of those now. As a result, the glorious weather of the Easter weekend was canopied by a clear blue sky.

Perhaps the best unintended consequence of Coronavirus is the lack of traffic noise. The springtime dawn chorus is always lovely here, but this year we can hear far more birds, and from right down in the valley, too. All the summer warblers have arrived and there is singing from every tree, hedge and thicket.

Willow Warbler, pic by E. Jagdmann

On Sunday evening we had a particularly surreal experience. We were on the far side of the wood with the dog, close to the main road and marvelling that minutes can pass between each vehicle rather than seconds. Then we heard a clock strike eight. We were a couple of miles from our village church and in any case it doesn't have a clock, so the source of the sound was a mystery. When we checked on Google maps, the clock we heard is a good three and a half miles away from where we were standing. We'd never have stood a chance of hearing it if the usual aircraft and traffic noise had been about!

Christina Hollis's first non-fiction book, Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol is published by Pen and Sword Books. You can find out more about that here, catch up with her at https://christinahollisbooks.online, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Monday, April 13, 2020

New Puppy during the Pandemic

Like so much of the country, Pennsylvania has a stay-at-home order. Right before the state went on lockdown, we got a new puppy. Tallulah Mae. I'll confess, she's been keeping us busy. As a writer, staying at home is my normal. This week, I've been writing another short story, Quarantine, this week in between house-training a puppy, homeschooling the minions and working on the barn.

Quarantine

I've also been trying to post upbeat messages of hope and glee on my social media accounts! In the midst of this crisis good things still happen. Kids laugh, puppies chase balls, and people love. People fall in love. That's the story I wanted to tell in this short story. I didn't want to minimize the tragedy of what's going on, but rather I wanted to remind myself and anyone who reads it that in the midst of awfulness, good things happen. I hope this short story does that.

As always, there are elements of real life in my fiction. Of course this one has a puppy in it. Tallulah Mae to be exact. And it's a story of heroes. A nurse and a grocer. I think this crisis has reminded us all that heroes are everywhere.

I still love writing short stories. Those were my first writing sales and they're still such a joy to write. I hope you check out Quarantine and I'm including the list of the other shorts I have up and available. And don't forget the first two books in my Hometown Hearts series are out, and the third is up for preorder!

I hope you all are staying safe and staying at home. I hope despite everything that's going on, you're still finding moments of glee in your days.

If, like me, you're home with kids, I've got some tips on what we're doing here with 4-8 year olds. Tip 1 & Tip 2.

Holly

Thursday, April 02, 2020

No Waffle House! By Susan Sands

My how the world has changed since my last post! Did we ever imagine we'd be on almost total

Photo Credit: AP

lockdown in our homes? Unable to get toilet paper or paper towels? Told we can't go to our favorite restaurant or catch a movie on the big screen? Or GO TO WAFFLE HOUSE?

Waffle House never ever closes. But they are shut tight now. The term "social distancing" hadn't crossed my ears until recently. I wonder if I have COVID-19? I wonder if you do? Maybe we already did and don't know it. Those are the questions that run through my mind. I haven't let my own mother in the house in over two weeks. For her own good. For our own good. She doesn't stay home. We are all careful if we have to run the dreaded errand, but mostly we order our groceries delivered. But what about those poor delivery shoppers? Do they have it?

This is frightening and the complete unknown. The health aspects of it for the country and for our mothers, and for everyone. And the ruination financially at our age. We already went through it in 2008. It has been an uphill climb to recover ever since. We aren't young either. We have two kids in college. The market is crashing. Our savings is at risk as is the health of our nation.

I know that my concerns are everyone's concerns. Except that we won't starve to death. Some people will. We have great health insurance as long as we can afford to pay the crazy-high premiums. Some people don't. So, pardon my slightly freaked-out post. It's a freaky time.

I'm praying next month's post will contain great news and great hope for a flatter curve and new cures and vaccines. And small business relief for dentists.

Stay safe and healthy!!

Susan

Friday, March 27, 2020

Life at Home

by Joanne Rock

Greetings from the housebound to the housebound! I hope this week finds you healthy and safe while we adjust to a new normal. For my part, I'm mostly adapting to how to bring groceries safely into my house and trying to figure out where the next roll of toilet paper will come from. But the work from home isolation is something I'm long accustomed to as a writer.

In the years that I was first disciplining myself to write books, the adjustment to so much alone time was a big one. Then, just when I got a rhythm going, my significant other started working from home too, and there was a whole new learning curve of being productive with someone else in the house. I see a lot of friends online struggling with both of these-- being productive while isolated, and being productive while isolated with someone else.

My best advice for the former is to pay attention to your high productivity times. If you're no longer tied to 9-5, it can be a surprise to discover you are most effective at your job from 7pm to 11pm. But if that's what works for you, go with it! Don't ignore your natural ebbs and flows of good work energy. My other advice is to mix up your work tasks so you're not stuck doing one kind of work all day long. Varying your tasks and putting time limits on them can help you accomplish more.

As for being productive while there are others in the house with you? I liked being really mobile with a laptop so I could seek out quiet places in the house wherever they happened to be. Kids take over your office? Go find an empty bedroom to work in. Spouse decide to chat while you need to focus? Tomorrow, try working with headphones on. Your family isn't trying to disrupt you. They just lack the visual cues to remind them you're working.

A good deal! https://books2read.com/TheRebel

But sometimes the biggest stumbling block to being productive at home is YOU. Before you dismiss it, consider this-- is there any chance you're self-sabotaging without realizing it? You like to be the go-to family chef so you jump up to prep food four times a day for various people? Or maybe you're the only one who knows how to accomplish certain things at home, so those around you are used to relying on you for help with those things. Stop this. Teach each kid a task you used to be responsible for and let them manage it. Relinquish some house control for the sake of your work life.

For your downtime, of course, I hope you're taking advantage of the oodles of deals on books right now. I know I've downloaded tons of free and .99 cent books. My friend author Eva Moore is compiling a nice list on Facebook, but I know there are lots more lists out there. My first-in-series book, The Rebel is just .99 through the weekend, so please go grab it, and stay safe!

Monday, March 23, 2020

On Cowboy Heroes ~ @AuthorKristina Knight & The Nevada Cowboys

Cowboys have been near and dear to my heart since I was a little girl. The only times I was allowed to skip bedtime were Saturday nights when, more often than not, my grandpa (we called him Big Daddy) would find an old spaghetti Western on television. It might start at 10 and not get over until midnight, I might yawn and snooze my way through Sunday School and Church the next morning, but I was always allowed to stay up and watch.

From John Wayne and Gary Cooper to the cowboy-types played by James Dean, I watched them all. Some I've found on DVD, some live only in my memory but they all hold a special place in my heart. As I got older I realized very few of them actually had a love story – sure, the cowboy would get the girl, but we never saw them falling in love. So when more modern Westerns started to come out, I was once again enthralled. I wanted to see the cowboy beat the bad guys but I always wanted to see the love story.

Movies like 8 Seconds, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys and Wyatt Earp have been added to my favorite's list and have lengthened my favorite Cowboy Moments, too. But there are three movies – from the modern era – that take cowboys to a whole new level. At least for me.

Here are my top three cowboy movie moments:

#3: Please don't throw rotten tomatoes because in my top three is John Travolta in city-slicker-cowboy garb. It was the 80s, people! And you have to admit John Travolta was it in much of the early 80s. For me John's Urban Cowboy mode was ohsomuch better than his Saturday Night Fever mode. And I absolutely love when Bud finally tells Sissy he loves her. And I even found a clip for ya:

#2: This one was hard for me to put in number two because Tom Selleck is just so…Tom. Quigley Down Under is probably one of my favorite cowboy movies, even though it takes place in the Australian Outback instead of the American West. But when Quigley finds Cora in town, when he says his name is Roy – not Quigley – I just melt a little. Every. Single. Time. Because he's had a hard road – he isn't Roy and he shouldn't want to be Roy…and yet because it will save both their lives, he accepts the name.

#1: I love the movie Walk The Line, because nothing is sweeter to me than a real life love story – and Johnny and June Cash certainly had that. So, even though Johnny isn't technically a cowboy, I have to give him the top slot. Because he might not rope cattle or ride horses but he certainly had the attitude of a cowboy: he took care of business, he spoke his mind and he stood up for the people and things that he believed in. So, to honor him, here's my favorite clip from the movie:

Kristina Knight's latest release, Connor, Nevada Cowboys Book 2, is available now in paperback or e-format:

Connor, Nevada Cowboys Book 2: Hot Las Vegas nights get even steamier for these three powerful, wealthy businessmen with cowboy roots and the strong, independent women who fall for them. What happens in Vegas certainly won’t stay there as these successful tycoons win at love.

Vegas Nightly publisher Connor Reeves is close to meeting a big-time career goal: making his magazine a state-wide must-read. The only problem? His biggest competition, a larger publisher based in Colorado seems to know his every move. Miranda Clayton is tired of society parties and shopping, but her tycoon father refuses to take her seriously. Her solution? Beat him at his own game by going to work for his top competitor, Connor Reeves. Connor isn’t fooled by Miranda’s act for a second. He knows exactly who she is; the question is what does the lady want?

Pre-order Connor today: Amazon BN.com iBooks KOBO

Knight is a contemporary romance author, part-time TKD-kid wrangler, and full-time ThinMints enthusiast. You can find out more the book and Kristina on her website, and feel free to ~~stalk~~ follow her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Friday, March 20, 2020

Free Distractions While You're Homebound!!! by Jenny Gardiner

Hey all!
By now I hope you are all staying home and avoiding being too close to others in an effort to slow down the spread of this awful Coronavirus. If you aren't, I hope you will reconsider that because this is the real deal and maybe I'm more acutely aware of the sacrifices that medical professionals make since my youngest daughter is a medical student, but my goodness, what selfless humans doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters etc are. As the saying goes, they run into the fire when everyone else is running away. So please, please, please, consider staying home!

And while home, maybe avoid an overdose of news because it ain't too cheerful. I want to let you know I've got FOUR free books for you to help you escape all the grim reality. So please take advantage of them and ENOY escaping for awhile! I know, I know, it's not a trip to Italy, or to a Jamaican beach, but for now, it's better than watching the numbers of cases rise on the 24/7 news.

Posting links below:

Book one of the It's Reigning Men series, Something in the Heir, is free here:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Google Play