Sweet contemporary love stories are just my style…

If you are one of the lucky readers that already downloaded and read THE PRACTICE PROPOSAL…then you already know what an awesome story it is. You might have even noticed that the cover blurb was from me

I was thrilled to be asked to provide that blurb because I absolutely loved THE PRACTICE PROPOSAL by Tracy March!

But it’s not just me. Readers are totally falling for Liza and Cole’s story! Here’s what Valerie over at Stuck in Books said about THE PRACTICE PROPOSAL “It wasn’t brazen or brash.  It was sweet and charming.  Little secrets that popped out made it interesting.  I must admit that at least one of those secrets was a complete blindside for me. Love it when that happens.

I enjoyed these two together.  I loved that they were on opposite sides of a baseball rivalry.  I love the pie wars.  I loved Liza’s bestie.  I loved that all the little pieces were tied up.  I loved the ending.  I felt good reading this book. If you’re looking for a nice quick read that just feels good, then give this one a shot.”

And everyone’s falling for Cole, the sexy hero. And why not…could you resist a face like this?

Yeah…that’s what I thought. He was one of her inspirations for, Cole, the hero in this book.

Hurry and get your copy today!  http://bit.ly/12AUeZM

No excuses — THE PRACTICE PROPOSAL is only $2.99 and is available for nook and kindle readers  And don’t forget to follow Tracy March on facebook and twitter (@Tracy_March) … trust me…you’ll want to be in the loop when her next book, GIRL THREE, comes out next month….and her next sweet contemporary comes out later this year.

FORWARD….MARCH…

Hi Friends,

We turned the clocks and did the SPRING FORWARD thing this weekend and I bet you all are just as antsy as I am for spring to get here. Well, today I have a special treat for you. A great book that will put you right in the swing of things.

My author friend, Tracy March, has her debut release today. The book is called THE PRACTICE PROPOSAL. It’s a sweet contemporary with small town connections and a hot baseball player as the hero. I had the great honor of reading this book prior to release. I loved the story so much that I did the cover blurb.

Don’t take my word for it….jump on over to Amazon.com and order your own copy. You’ll be swept away by Liza and Cole and if you’re like me … you’ll be anxiously awaiting the next Bliss book from Tracy later this year.

You can follow Tracy on facebook and twitter via @Tracy_March.

Let me know what you think! And if you love it … please take just a moment and leave a sweet review on Amazon. It’s one of the best gifts you can give an author

Hugs and happy reading~

Nancy

PS — Tracy is a Virginia girl, too!!

Happy Valentine’s Day

If the thought of Valentine’s Day makes you roll your eyes … let’s roll back the years to when it was exciting and fun for everyone.

Remember the days when we decorated bags or boxes so that we could exchange Valentine’s with our class mates? Those were the days. My favorites were always the ones with the sucker stabbed through the middle of the card. You know the ones — red clear heart shaped sugar with the white heart drawn on them. I remember sitting at the kitchen table for hours the weekend before Valentine’s Day carefully sorting the cards by cool vs really cool, then deciding who would get each one.

My most romantic Valentine’s Day ever was more than twenty years ago. My husband and I were just dating. I came home from work and he’d left a beautifully wrapped box with a red negligee with little diamond bling on it and a strategically placed note card that said “my lips go here” — a dozen red roses were carefully arranged in a beautiful vase next to a dozen rawhides tied with a pretty red ribbon for my little dog, Snoozy. You know the guy is serious when he’s wooing you AND your dog!

Nowadays we spend our Valentine’s celebration at the local Ruritan club where Mike is a member and helps serve the Valentine’s Day steak dinner. Since he’s racing around serving up dinners, Mom and I go together and then he joins us at the end. It’s fun for me to see my handsome husband making sure everyone is having a special evening, and I’m proud of the things he does for our community. It’s a really nice evening, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate it.

Things change over the years, we’ve been married for 19 years this September. We might not be doing things that are romantic like we did in the beginning, but that’s okay. It might not be quite as sexy, or romantic, but it’s filled with love and I feel so lucky to keep adding great and thoughtful moments to my memory bank.

Hugs and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Soooooo—-how about sharing your favorite Valentine’s Day?

Or if that’s too private, what’s your pleasure — conversation hearts, chocolate, or red hots?

A HEA kind of day ~ Eighteen years of my own love story.

Eighteen years ago, on September 24th, I was getting married. It wasn’t my first walk down the aisle so I wasn’t about to do the big white dress thing…again.

So, sweep away those visions of a rose bouquet, white gown, men in tuxes and gals in gaudy dresses. That’s not the kind of wedding I had at all. Nope. Mike and I had just bought our small farm and the closing kept getting sc0oched out. We’d moved the wedding date once, but thank goodness, the nice folks that owned the property let us have the wedding there anyway so we wouldn’t have to move the date.

Picture this. It’s a beautiful sunny fall day in Chesapeake, Virginia. A bright red barn sits in the backdrop with the symbol HF on he big hay doors (HF for Holland Farm!), straw bale squares are set up around the concrete apron in front of the 40×50 red metal industrial building. The huge sliding doors have been opened so you can see straight through.

The wedding cake was a gift from my soon-to-be (like in any minute!) sister-in-law who had created three luscious layers of the best darn cake that met your lips. Hand decorated with board fence, little pumpkins, and piggies climbing up the side, and an arch with a John Deere tractor under it. It was perfect!!

No white gown? Oh, so you’re wondering what I did wear. Overalls, and Mike and his guys wore jeans and tuxedo t-shirts. It was a hoot. Now, I have to tell you that I wore a pair of blingy LA Gear tennis shoes (they were all the rage back then) and my girlfriend, Patty, well she didn’t even own a pair of tenny-pumps…she had to go out and get some just for the wedding hahah. It was a wonderful day and Mike’s children, Michael and Michelle, stood up with us as we took our vows and started our life together.

It was a great day of celebration and a pig-pickin that kicked butt Virginia style. We rode off on our John Deere Model B tractor…and I was glad for those overalls as I climbed up and hopped my fanny on that metal fender!

It’s been a pretty amazing 18 years with this man who somehow seems to understand me, and love me, in spite of all the crazy notions I get. He’s a tiny bit of every hero I write, and he keeps me laughing which is quite a treat.

Wishing you all your own little happy-ever-after!

Hugs~

Sweet Tea and Secrets – Sightings Around The Town

Hey Friends,

Just sharing a few online “flickr” photos of Sweet Tea and Secrets sightings around different towns this year. Here we are in Philadelphia, PA. More than 8,700 attendees gathered in Philadelphia, March 13–17, for the Public Library Association 2012 Biennial Conference and Sweet Tea and Secrets was on display.

See if you can spot the book cover or Adams Grove bookmarks among these pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43822981@N02/6882198672/in/set-72157629698620367/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43822981@N02/6882203200/in/set-72157629698620367/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43822981@N02/6882199626/in/set-72157629698620367/

This is the annual show that librarians attend to gather information from all the book publishers. Let’s hope a few librarians fell in love with Adams Grove

Thanks for your caring support. I sure appreciate it.

Hugs and happy reading~
Nancy

Make New Friends…

All Girl Scout and Brownie troopers can begin humming or singing along…

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold!

I do believe friends are one of our biggest treasures, and I love-love-love making new friends – both in person and online.

I’m attending several conferences this year, and although it’s great fun to have someone stop by to purchase a signed copy of my book, I always hope to create an environment for anyone to come and just say hello. No purchase required.

What suggestions do you have to help create an approachable atmosphere?

I’ll share my plans later this week.

Thanks in advance for the help! Hugs and happy reading~
Nancy

Find beauty in every day …

STOP! Take a second and find the beauty around you. It’s there. You just have to look.
One thing I do every morning is take a pause to look out the window. I’m lucky living here on a goat farm in the country. I have livestock meandering the pastures outside of my office window. A nice view.

This time of year we’re getting ready to kid so the momma goats are especially heavy and moving a little slower. Hopefully, they are saving up their energy for the bouncing offspring that’ll be coming starting next month. I have forsythia and other brambly kinds of bushes that line the pasture fence. The Cardinals adore them. That’s good with me because Cardinals happen to be one of my favorite birds. You see, I consider them lucky. Okay, so it’s the Virginia state bird and there are a lot of them…I get a lot of luck and yes it’s possible that 99% of luck is believing…and I BELIEVE!

It’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What I see and embrace may be different than what appears to be the beauty of today to you. That’s what makes it special.

A bird in flight, the breeze through a tree, a bright something amidst the flat colors of winterscape, maybe your beauty is the hustle-bustle of people rushing down a city street. That’s okay, too. Maybe a mother walking hand in hand with her child, or an old man shuffling into the bank with his collar up against the cold. Choose your moments – make them yours.

This is my gift to you — reminding you to find the beauty in every day.
Care to share the beauty you saw today with us?
Hugs and happiness~

Sharing Fun Moments

Hi Friends,
There’s nothing more exciting than receiving notes or pictures from folks who’ve read my books. For a while there I was getting a bunch of them. What fun to get this one tonight.
Big huge thanks to Abby Easterling (@StBernardLady on twitter) who shared this picture. Abby gave her lovely mom, Judy Herndon, an autographed copy of my first Adams Grove Novel, Sweet Tea and Secrets, for Christmas.

I hope she enjoys the book, Abby. Keep us posted~
Hugs and happy reading,
Nancy

Happily – Ever – After USA Today

It was a pretty exciting Christmas morning. Mike and I didn’t exchange gifts this year. Instead we bought gifts and meals for three local families and took gifts to the Jackson-Feild Home in Jarratt, VA to the girls there.

To my delight … I did have one suprise. I opened my email to find an alert. When I clicked this link–

http://t.co/eU32Db0J

There was mention of my novel, Sweet Tea and Secrets, right at the top of the article in the USAToday Happily-Ever-After blog.

The review was written by Maya at indiReader.com and she’d given it a 5 star review. (Thank you so much!) I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect gift. Thanks for letting me share my stories.

Hugs and happy reading~

Nancy

Goodreads Giveaway ~ Out of Focus

Hi Friends,

I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who entered to win a signed copy of Out of Focus on Goodreads.com. We had awesome interest with a total of 279 folks entering.

The winner of the Dec 1-6 giveaway was::

SARA LOZEFSKI from Maine 

If you’re not familiar with Goodreads.com, it’s a wonderful site that allows you to log books you’ve read or plan to read and rate them (if you like). With that information Goodreads will suggest other books you might enjoy based on the likes/dislikes of other readers with similar interests as you. It’s a lot of fun and there are some wonderful groups on that site as well. The giveaways are awesome and spread across all the genres…even poetry.

Because of the number of entries and feeling especially joyful this time of year…I’m going to share another giveaway of a signed copy of OUT OF FOCUS on Goodreads.com. Entries will be open from 12/8 until 12/15.

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/18059-out-of-focus-an-adams-grove-novel

So, tell your friends and GOOD LUCK!

Oh…and a little insider information. My debut novel, Sweet Tea and Secrets will be specially priced for your e-readers from December 12th – 24th for just 99cents. I hope you’ll take advantage of the offer.

Hugs and happy reading,

Nancy