Monthly Archives: August 2017

Welcome to Pine Point by Allie Boniface

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What better way to celebrate the dog days of summer than with a small-town romance series filled with heat and suspense? Welcome to Pine Point, where secrets abound. I’ve always loved writing about the quirky wonderfulness of small towns, probably because I grew up in one (and I live in one now, too). They’re charming, often picturesque, and filled with characters who know, love, hate, and have all kinds of juicy gossip about each other – some that goes back generations!

People in small towns support each other when push comes to shove, but sometimes they’re oh-so-willing to throw a sworn enemy under the bus too. You can walk down Main Street at midnight and not worry about a thing (yes, the single stoplight has turned from red to blinking yellow, but that won’t matter, because everyone’s in bed anyway). You can buy amazing BBQ chicken from the volunteer firefighters in the summer and ice skate on the church green in the winter. You can make your best friends, your worst enemies, find your soulmate and raise your kids in the house where you (and maybe your parents and grandparents) were raised. Everyone knows pretty much everything about you, but that’s not always a bad thing, isn’t it?

This series was originally published by Samhain Publishing from 2009-2016 but has found a new home with Entangled Publishing and is officially releasing today! In addition to the beautiful new covers, each book has updated content, especially Summer’s Song, which has a whole new beginning: a sneak peek at Summer as a child, a pre-teen, and an angsty adolescent. I loved writing it and can’t wait for readers to see it.

In Summer’s Song, our heroine comes home to Pine Point after 10 long years away. She doesn’t have plans to stay, but that changes once she meets a local hunky handyman. But like almost every main character I seem to create, these two have secrets waiting for them. Each title in the Pine Point series is on sale for only $0.99 through August 27 so you can treat yourself to this entire collection for less than $4.00! Even better, I’ve joined with 7 other Entangled authors to create a Hot August Nights giveaway, and I’ll hope you check out this link for more information about that: http://entangledauthors.myforeverhea.com/

Enjoy this excerpt of Summer’s Song, and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Summer’s Song Excerpt:

“Hey, you can’t go up there.” A strong hand grabbed her elbow.

Summer turned with a start. “Why not?”

“Not safe yet.” He motioned to the steps, and when she looked closer, she saw a missing riser that gaped like a placid crocodile, ready to snatch up her unsuspecting foot.

“Oh.” She smiled an apology at Mac’s assistant.

He was tall, with light brown hair and deep blue eyes, and his broad, shirtless chest shone with sweat. Muscular biceps, no doubt made strong from summer labor, twitched as he reached for an itch between his shoulder blades. Summer swallowed and tried to chase away a crazy urge to scratch the spot for him.

“I’m Summer Thompson, by the way.” She reached out a hand in greeting. “The—ah—the new owner of this place.”

He studied her with a serious expression. “So I guessed. Damian Knight.”

The one who’s renting the farmhouse. “Listen, I…” She meant to talk to him about that, but she couldn’t quite process the words as his blue eyes locked with hers. He hadn’t yet dropped her hand, which she didn’t mind in the least. Strong. Warm. Sending electricity straight through her.

“Summer!”

Mac’s hand on her shoulder broke her reverie. Summer turned and plastered on a smile she hoped looked normal. “Hi, Mac.”

“Shit. Can’t believe you’re here.” He shook his head and grinned, and she glimpsed the chipped front teeth she remembered from high school.

“Well, I wanted to see the house. I just…” She faltered. “I just found out about it.”

“I know. Your father wanted it to be a surprise for you. Sorry about your loss, by the way.” He looked over his shoulder. “He did a great thing, buying this place. Wish he could have seen it finished.”

Mac gestured around the yard. “We’re working on the roof today, obviously. Got another day or so before it’s done. There’s some interior work to do after that. And don’t use these front steps, okay? We still gotta replace a few.”

“Can I see the inside?” she asked. She wanted an idea of the mess she was dealing with. But her doubt grew as she looked around. The needed repairs seemed overwhelming, and those were just the ones she could see.

Damian ran one hand through his hair and sent a cloud of sawdust flying. A grin touched his eyes and, for a brief second, Summer saw her own reflection in his gaze. She looked small and dark, a little girl floating on the blue of his iris. He smiled, and in the sunlight, the blue deepened until she felt like she was falling inside it, floating, forgetting who and where she was. Something jumped in her stomach, and her palms tingled. Knights in Pine Point? There hadn’t been any for as long as she could remember.

Don’t fall for the guy whose heart you have to break tomorrow…

Buy Links:

Entangled Store: https://entangledpublishing.com/summer-s-song.html

Amazon: http://bit.ly/SummersSongAmazon

Apple: http://bit.ly/SummerSongApple

B&N: http://bit.ly/SummersSongNook

Author Bio:

Allie Boniface is the USA Today best-selling author of over a dozen novels, including the Cocktail Cruise, Hometown Heroes, and Pine Point series. Her books are most often set in small towns and feature emotional romance with relatable characters you’ll know and love.

A graduate of the University of Rochester and Case Western Reserve University, Allie is a full-time high school English teacher in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York. When she isn’t teaching or writing, she and her husband love to travel.

Take some time to browse around Allie’s website, check out new and upcoming releases, and sign up for her newsletter. You can join Allie’s All-Stars too, an exclusive readers’ group on Facebook where fans and friends chat about life, characters and story ideas, and have exclusive access to prizes, giveaways, and early sales!

Author Links:

Website: www.allieboniface.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorAllieBoniface

Allie’s All-Stars: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AllieBonifaceAllStars/

Twitter: @AllieBoniface1

Newsletter Sign-up: http://bit.ly/AlliesNews

Interview with Cynthia Middlebrook Harris

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  1. How did you get started writing? I started writing Christmas and Easter plays for a local church I attended. In 2006, I was asked to write a full-length play for Still Useable Women’s Conference by the founder, and years later the play blossomed into a series titled The Other Side of Through.
  2. What genre (s) do you write in and why? I write Christian Romance. But not so Christian overpowered that anyone wouldn’t enjoy the read. The stories contain real life sticky situations people often find themselves in no matter their religious backgrounds.
  3. Tell us about your current series. I am currently writing The Consequence of Temptation, the sequel of The Opportunity for Temptation of the Temptation series. The series follows the lives of three football players and the temptations they encounter with the women they meet on and off the grid iron. It exposes childhood hurts that affected the type of adults the characters became, and exposes the behind closed doors secrets of broken marriages. In, The Consequence of Temptation, the danger of not closing emotional and relationship doors explodes in the lives of every character of the story. The series follows the nature of its title completely. It should be completed and ready for upload by mid-September.
  4. What inspired your latest book? It was inspired by an NFL football player named Torrey Smith (my favorite player by the way), who doesn’t drink or smoke. Those characteristics and values inspired me to reverse the aspect of women usually being the virgins in a relationship. I’m not saying if he was or wasn’t a virgin before marriage (that’s personal and his business). Only that his clean and responsible habits inspired the story behind the main character of the book. Outside of that fact, anything else in comparison to his life is coincidental.
  5. Where do you get the ideas for your stories? The first series The Other Side of Through is based on courses of events in my own life where I changed several of the instances to protect identities and other ideas come from my everyday surroundings. Still others were birthed out of current works when a scene or idea didn’t flow properly.
  6. What advice do you have for other authors wanting to self-publish? If you are certain that writing is your passion and mission… then keep going. Whether you have ten to twenty minutes or two to three hours to write… write every day. I once heard the phrase, “Words make sentences… sentences make paragraphs… paragraphs make chapters… and chapters make novels.” So, keep writing.
  7. What is most difficult for you to write?  Characters, conflict or emotions? Why? I would have to say conflict. Mostly because 80% of the conflict in my novels have been personal battles. Oftentimes, I realized I wasn’t as over the situations as I previously convinced myself and my own emotions would threaten to take over.
  8. Tell us about your hero.  Give us one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses. JaQuan Sulter is a rising football start who spent his life helping his mother care for his younger siblings when his father walked out of their life. He doesn’t drink or smoke, is a virgin and a Christian. He sees the heroine and immediately knows she is his wife. She, of course, has other plans. He endeavors to show her what the true love God designed of a husband in relation to his wife. His weakness is that he can be somewhat self-righteous and judgmental at times without realizing he is doing it.
  9. Tell us about your heroine.  Give us one of her strengths and one of her weaknesses. Vanessa Banks is the counterpart of JaQuan Sulter. She is highly intelligent accountant for the football team JaQuan has been drafted to. She graduated high school and entered college at sixteen, and is faithful to a fault in relationships. She is running from the pure innocent agape love that oozes from JaQuan Sulter’s pores. She tends to allow her life to be controlled by and become the person she is dating. She is angry and afraid of God and wants nothing to do with Christianity… at first.
  10. What’s next for you? I am current working on a partial autobiography titled, From Abortion to Anointed: The Journey of a Serial Killer. This book has been on the back burner for well over a year and a half. You could say I have procrastinated a bit. I find myself revisiting areas where I assumed I had clarity and closure. This is a work I want to get perfectly right because it is destined to will minister to countless woman who suffer from the guilt of the abortion table. I look forward to speaking engagements and mentoring young women facing unsurmountable odds that have pushed them to considering terminating pregnancies.

Author Bio and Links

Cynthia Middlebrooks Harris is an ordained minister, native of Atlanta, Ga and Christian Fiction author who has published six books. She entered the US Army in 1984, where she met and married her husband of 32 years, Minister Kim Harris. Together, they have two children; Dominique and Stephanie. Cynthia is a true intercessor with a passion and heart to see the people of God healthy spiritually, emotionally and physically. She is a teacher, playwright, Christian mentor and is currently working to earn her degree as a Registered Dietician. Her work has appeared in Higher Connection magazine twice and her ministry expanded to Kaiserslautern, West Germany in 2014. Cynthia understands that her responsibility to God is to spread His word by any means necessary. It is her determination to do just that through the power of fiction, romance and sound & drama. Cynthia was born to write for such a time as this! She lives and breathes her motto, “Ministry is always… Required!”

Order autographed soft copies her books on her webpage www.tosotministries.org

eBooks and soft cover copies also available on Amazon:

Connect with Cynthia

Email: tosotministries@gmail.com

Twitter and Instagram @Writtercynt

LinkedIn and YouTube: Cynthia Middlebrooks Harris

Blog: www.writingfortoday.wordpress.com

Facebook: T.O.S.O.T. Ministries, LLC

 

Scorching Summer Sale!

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It’s August and the temperatures are hot as fire. To celebrate, here’s a scorching summer sale. You can get the first three books of The Ocean City Boardwalk Series for just 99¢. That’s a $7.00 saving off the regular cover price. So… what are you waiting for? Take advantage of this scorching summer sale now!

About the series: Sara, Heather, and Cathy are best friends. Through the years they’ve cheered each other on, celebrating each victory, and they’ve been supportive through every crisis. Join them as they face love and loss… and learn to hold tight to the idea that friends are your chosen family.

The Ocean City Boardwalk series, where life isn’t just fun in the sun—love is waiting on those sandy shores!

Don’t miss this scorching summer sale. Find the bundle:

US Kindle        UK Kindle

iBooks Store

Nook Book

Kobo

Google

As a bonus, here’s a frozen summer dessert that’s sure to cool you down.

Summer Coconut Peach Dessert

Ingredients

3 cups raw cashews

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

2/3 cup coconut oil, melted

1 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup agave nectar

2 fresh peaches, peeled and thinly sliced

Preparation

  1. Prepare cashews: Place nuts in a bowl and cover with water. Soak for several hours to soften, drain. Discard water.
  2. Combine the cashews, lemon juice, coconut oil, coconut milk and agave in a food processor and process until smooth. This step may take a few minutes.
  3. Line a greased sheet pan with wax paper. Allow paper to hang over the edges of the pan to make removing easy. Pour cashew mixture into pan, spreading evenly.
  4. Place the pan in the freezer and chill for 20 minutes.
  5. Remove from freezer and layer peach slices on top. Freeze for at least 2 additional hours.
  6. To serve, remove from freezer and let sit for 5 minutes before slicing into squares. Place any leftover squares in a covered container or zip-top bag and store in the freezer. Keeps for about a week.