BIGFOOT CSI is on the loose!

It's finally out! BIGFOOT CSI is the novel I've been working on for way longer than I care to admit. I started it years ago, before we even moved away from Illinois, then things got busy when we got to our new home in Georgia. Poor Bigfoot was pushed to the side too many times. I even finished a couple other projects in the meantime and published the adult novels SAUCY GIRL and DEAD GIRLS DON'T GET FAT.

No matter what happened, I couldn't stop thinking about Sasquatch. It was like he was lurking in the woods of my subconscious, waiting to stroll across the path when I least expected it--and when I happened to be without a decent camera--just like a typical cryptid.


So I buckled down and finished the book. Now it's published, and the whole world can read it! Please, Whole World, read it!

This is a funny, exciting novel about 16-year-old Piper O'Connell who has just learned that she's part of a secret sisterhood of girls and women who are born with the skills to protect the race of bigfoot from human hunters who seek to expose them. The job is dangerous, the hours stink, and Piper gets paid in trinkets like dead animal parts and shiny stones. The only perk is her tall, dark, handsome, and genetically complicated partner, Sam. Piper is intrigued by him, but she's reluctant to meet his mom, who's 7 feet tall and lives with a pod of other bigfoot in the Georgia mountains.

Piper is kept busy "scrubbing" the bodies of dead bigfoot near her small town of Senoia, Georgia, and she must solve the mystery of who is killing the creatures before her friends--and maybe even Piper herself--become the murderer's next victims.

Please check out BIGFOOT CSI and please write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. This book is the perfect companion for those long, cold vigils in the woods waiting for Bigfoot to show himself. Enjoy!

Full to Bursting

Moving to a new city is hard. Moving to a new city when you’re a kid and it’s the middle of the school year can seem impossible. That’s what’s happening to seventh grader John Regan in the new novel Full to Bursting, coming next week from Kissing Frog Books. He doesn’t want to move, but since his dad is being transferred for work, he doesn’t have much choice. He’s convinced he’ll be as lowly as an earthworm crawling along on his belly through the hallways of the new school.

I wrote this book a few years ago and originally published it under a different title. To put it mildly, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. That said, my husband insists it’s his favorite story I’ve ever written. Then I found a book cover that suited it perfectly, and I decided it was time to give it a fresh start. It’s funny and optimistic and doesn’t have any monsters in it at all. I hope lots of people read it and enjoy it. If you do, could you please post a review on Amazon or somewhere? As a big thank you, I’ll be posting a discount coupon on Smashwords when Full to Bursting is released.

Thank you and happy reading!

She's Back!

It's been awhile since I posted. Can't believe it's been so long. I feel guilty, which is silly. The blog doesn't care, and I've been busy working on other stuff.

So what's been going on these past months? Well, for one thing, I had two books published by Highland Press. I co-wrote Saucy Girl with my cousin Annmarie Ortega. We launched it at RWA's Spring Fling conference last spring. Saucy Girl is a cute, funny, exciting book about a woman who falls for the handsome widower next door who might or might not be a serial murderer who killed his former wife. Or maybe he's just a nice, lonely guy.

Read the book to find out. And please write a review for it if you read it. It's impossible to get people to write book reviews, but people read those things at Amazon, etc. before deciding whether to buy a book. It's a challenge.

The other book that Highland Press released recently is called Dead Girls Don't Get Fat. It's hilarious and sexy and exciting. This one is about a school teacher who has to move back in with her parents when her ex-boyfriend steals her identity and all her money. It adds insult to injury when she's bitten by a demon and is transformed into a flesh-hungry monster. Her new status makes teaching a little more challenging than it used to be, too. Again, you should read this book and buy copies for all your friends. And write (hopefully good) reviews. Lots of reviews.

I'm trying to do some book promotion for these titles which is hard because it's challenging to compete with all the books that are out there. But for every great book, there's a great reader who would love it, right? So I'm working on getting Saucy Girl and Dead Girls out there on Twitter and Goodreads and of course this blog. And it would be great if the books got some good reviews. Lots and lots of book reviews. Hint, hint.

Happy reading!

First Review - And It's Good!

That Google Alert I set up to tell me when anyone mentions my upcoming book I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT: A PSYCHIC'S GUIDE TO TRUE LOVE has paid off. Today it led me to the book's first review. http://biggestlittlereviewblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/book-i-saw-your-future-and-hes-not-it.html
Now, I know I SAW YOUR FUTURE is a great book, and my coauthor (and aunt) Louise Helene knows it's a great book, but until you actually see a good review, there's always that nagging little doubt that maybe the rest of the world will wake up on the wrong side of the bed and won't be in a mood to like anything. So it was a huge relief when I read the review and saw that this reviewer understood what we were trying to do and enjoyed it. (Exhale huge sigh of relief here) I'm so glad that the reviewer recommends the book, and it was especially fun to read that she identified with some of the women whose stories of good love and and good love gone bad are presented. That's something we've heard from many of the women who've read the book. This is serious cause for celebration this weekend.
Cheers to good reviews!

Tracking Book Sales

Back in the days before the internet, there must have been fewer ways for authors to obsess over their book sales. There were best seller lists and statements from the publisher, but what else? Today, with the internet, there are countless websites offering a variety of ways to keep track of book sales, plus reviews, readers' comments, and a zillion other factors that affect a book's popularity. What did authors do with themselves back in the day when they weren't spending their days setting up Google alerts for mentions of their book titles or their own names? Maybe they actually had time to write new books.

My latest obsession is a site called NovelRank.com. If you put your book's title into the system, it tracks the Amazon sales and ranking. Don't ask how many times per day I've popped over there since putting I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT into the system. It's already been up and down a bit, and as the release days of January 8 gets closer, I'm hoping the ranking and sales will steadily improve.

Next on my agenda is to put my Abraxas books into the system. I think it will track print books and ebooks separately, which gives me that many more chances to obsess about book sales. Isn't technology wonderful?