Snappy Snappy

Something you may not know about me is I was a fine art photography student for two years in college and for a while I considered making that my career. I abandoned it to go to cosmetology school after realizing it wasn't what I wanted to do for a living but I never stopped loving being behind the lens. I'll snap the occasional artistic photo but I mostly drag out my former skills to do family portraits of my brother's family a few times a year. But most recently I dusted off my camera to shoot cover images for Natural Harmony and The Low Notes!

I knew I wanted to shoot the Natural Harmony cover photo myself not only to save money but also to keep myself from seeing the same stock photo on someone else's cover at some point in the future AND to ensure my vision was exact. A mutual friend stood in as my Sabrina and, after being stood up by my original male model, my second shooter and good friend Jeremy stood in as my Wade. I got a great cover out of the shoot and a handful of extra shots that I've since used as teaser photos. I even added to the story by describing the dress Olivia wore on the day of the shoot to a certain scene. 

Here's a few of the shots that came from the day ...

 

 And of course the cover ...

Here's me, Olivia and Jeremy  on the day of the shoot giving our best 'model' faces. Jeremy makes me laugh too much so I could hardly keep it together. Olivia is clearly a blonde which made for some tricky Photoshop work for my cover artist, Jenny. She did a great job transforming Olivia into Sabrina. 

Next up is the second edition cover of The Low Notes. I adored my original cover but unfortunately I couldn't retain the rights to it after leaving my publisher to self-publish. So I knew I wanted something very similar and I thought, how cool would it be to shoot the piano I learned to play on as my cover? I hopped over to my parents' house and took a few shots and then with the help of Miss Jenny, the second edition was born. As partial as I was to the original cover, this one is better to me. Not only is it more meaningful knowing it's my own photograph (which has more meaning than any reader will EVER know ;) ) and the piano I grew up playing, it's also been amended to be called 'A Wexley Falls Novel'. I'm so excited to expand on the Wexley Falls world and adding that subtitle was the very first step.

Thanks to my amazing cover artist, Jenny Streif, my models Jeremy Shoemaker and Olivia DePaulis, and to all the readers who have complimented me on both covers. I'm proud that more than just my writing went into both of these books.

Natural Harmony

I wish I could put into words what this journey has been like. I'm going to try, at least. 

If someone would've told me three years ago that by 27 I'd have three novels under my belt, I would've laughed in their face. Writing has always been a passion for me -- an escape from reality and a love for which I meditate on. I only dreamed of having my name on the spine of a book and I wished for the kind of amazing things people have said to me over the last year and a half about my work. 

With the arrival of my third novel I know there is so much ahead of me, so many more words and experiences. The amount of love and support that I feel from family, friends, readers and fellow authors on a daily basis in regards to my new career is astronomical and humbling. 

Natural Harmony was such a unique writing experience. I wrote it quickly and fiercely as though the story moved through me rather than from me. Something about it was different but I can't put my finger on it. I love this book in a different way than my others. Maybe it was the fact that I took complete control of this one (much like my heroine). Maybe it was the fact that it was the first book to be written start to finish after my career had already begun. Either way, this one is a different kind of baby. 

I have high hopes for this book but no matter what happens I will always be proud of it. Proud of the story, the characters, the manuscript, the cover, the fact that I coordinated the whole thing and hit the big publish button all by myself. 

I hope you enjoy it. I hope you fall in love with Wade. I hope you want to be Sabrina as much as I do. I hope you don't write Beau completely off. And I hope you never stop reading, no matter what you pick up. Just keep reading.

Natural Harmony is now available!

Amazon Kindle :  http://amzn.to/1gd99fW
Barnes & Noble Nook : http://bit.ly/1dhKOoO
Paperback : http://bit.ly/1fSo2ng

The Art of Tease

For those of you who are fans of authors and book review blogs on Facebook, you'll no doubt have already noticed the trend that has been going on for some time. 

The teaser pic.

A photo with a quick quote from a book to pull you in. It's the movie trailer for books (though actual book trailers are on the rise too!). I've recently been collecting a stock pile of photos for ALL of my works in progress and I've been hard at work creating a wealth of teaser pics for my books.

I must say it's been a lot of fun finding people who look enough like my characters to represent my books. A few pictures are already up on my website and Facebook but I just thought you all might like to know that more are coming. I'd like to be releasing teasers every few weeks. A lot will be in preparation for my December 30th release of Natural Harmony but I'm also making teasers for Last Resort (my first erotic romance), the next two Confession Records novels, The Low Notes, Reckless Radiance and maybe a top secret project I'm working on ;)

Here's a little taste of my first baby, The Low Notes ... more to come from all my books!

Natural Harmony Cover Reveal!!

It's here, it's here! My sweet, pretty, baby is here! So much hard work went into this cover. I have to thank four people for making it possible. First, my cousin & friend Elizabeth Hinds for giving me a remedial photography class (I majored in Photo for two years before ditching college for beauty school) so I could play photographer and director for this one while she kept her feet up for Baby Girl Hinds! Next, my two LOVELY models, Jeremiah Shoemaker and Olivia DePaulis! You two are awesome and damn fine. Thank you for being my characters. And last but certainly not least, Miss Jennifer Streif, for creating this cover. Thank you for the time and love you put into making me my dream cover for Sabrina's story. And thank you for caring about the story itself, too. 

Coming December 30, 2013...

Suddenly named the acting president of her uncle’s record label, former pop princess Sabrina Walker is finally ready to grow up. While her professional life moves forward, she still clings to the last fragment of her past life in the form of an uncertain relationship with her manager, Beau.

When Sabrina hires handsome, young assistant, Wade Lawson, he awakens in her the hidden confidence she’s always desired. What starts as a casual affair quickly intensifies to something much more.

Sabrina must decide—return to the familiar life of an insecure one-hit-wonder, or embrace Wade and the woman his passion has helped reveal. 


Here's your chance to win an ADVANCED copy of the book before it comes out in December!
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Psst....
 
Do you see that little tag line under the title? A Confession Records novel? That's there because this is the first of at least three stand-alone novels in a collection! Two other novels are planned in the Confession Records Collection, a sort of universe-sharing series. I don't have timelines on either Sway or Changing Keys right now but I can tell you that they are in production and the Confession Records Collection has the potential to grow even bigger. I cannot wait to share Sabrina, Wade and Beau with you!

Thank you so much to all of the 40-some AMAZING blogger and Facebook Pages that took the time to share my cover today! I love this indie community so much. You guys rule!

When the words don't stop...

Thank you so much to everyone who helped with this week-long blog tour for the release of Reckless Radiance! I had a lot of fun hopping around to everyone's blogs and doing fun interviews, excerpts and giveaways. I feel very blessed to have an amazing support system of authors, bloggers and colleagues who love me. I love you right back.

With the end of this tour comes some very big news...my third novel, Natural Harmony will be released before the year is over!! I am tentatively putting the release date at December 30th BUT things have been moving very quickly and if I can get it out sooner I know I won't be able to wait that long. So what I will say is before 2013 is done, you'll have this book! 

It will be my very first venture into self-publishing, something I have been planning to do for a while and am so excited about! This story took over my brain earlier this year and even kept me from working on Reckless Radiance for a few weeks because it just wouldn't quit. I'm in love with it and I want you to be in love with it too. 

So get ready for my third novel, folks! Because she's coming sooner than I ever imagined!

Thank you for reading, thank you supporting, liking, commenting, sharing, smiling...my dreams continue to come true every day all because of the ways you help me and I couldn't be more grateful.

Natural Harmony

Suddenly named the acting president of her uncle’s record label, former pop princess Sabrina Walker is finally ready to grow up. While her professional life moves forward, she still clings to the last fragment of her past life in the form of an uncertain relationship with her manager, Beau.

When Sabrina hires handsome, young assistant, Wade Lawson, he awakens in her the hidden confidence she’s always desired. What starts as a casual affair quickly intensifies to something much more.

Sabrina must decide—return to the familiar life of an insecure one-hit-wonder, or embrace Wade and the woman his passion has helped reveal.

Writing Up a Storm, Creating Universes

When I decided I was going to try and have The Low Notes published, the manuscript was already written start to finish. I cranked that book out in about nine months because I literally couldn't stop writing it. Now, it needed A LOT of work by 2011 but all in all it didn’t take much to turn what I'd finished in 2009 into the book that is out today. The story with Reckless Radiance is similar. I’d written one draft in 2008 and another around 2010 and finally pieced it all together last year, finishing it up and doing my final draft this March. It’s been a long time since I started and finished a draft consecutively. Until Natural Harmony.

In a matter of four months I’ve written over 55,000 words of my third novel. It pours from my heart onto the page. I can’t get enough of my characters and the setting, the plot and the romance. I think about this book constantly and to me that’s proof that I’m in love with it. I still have more of the story to draft but I get closer to the end every day and I can see 'The End' in sight. 

The best part about this book is the world it has created in my head. Natural Harmony is going to be the start of the Confession Records universe. With each subsequent book, readers will meet new characters connected to each other in very small ways. They won’t be sequels but they will be companions to one another. I’m so excited about sharing this first book and all of the others I have lined up. In total, as it stands right now, I have four books that will be a part of this series!

Stay tuned for more news on Natural Harmony and be sure to send me the good vibes for many more words!