Tag Archives: kindle

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas! I love, love, love Christmas Eve! This is the night when we get together with my huge extended family. We eat yummy food, sing carols, exchange presents, and generally have a wonderful time. I look forward to it all year and I’m so happy my family has this tradition.

What traditions do you enjoy celebrating this time of year?

Since I’m in such a festive mood I wanted to share something cool with my awesome readers. Today only the entire Three Girls collection is available on Amazon for just $2.99. That’s three full length books for the price of one! Check out the link below. The three Girls series would make a nice gift for any fans of chick lit or romantic comedy.

Three Girls Collection

I hope you all have a lovely holiday with your friends and family. I am so blessed to have such amazing readers. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Oooh, Look at the pretties!

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Lots of fun news today!

First of all: Did you know I have a mailing list? Check out the right side of the page, there’s a link there to sign up. I’m going to use the mailing list to alert readers of new releases, sales, contests, and free books. I also plan to send out some sneak peaks of what I’m working on and exclusive looks at my books as they progress. I’d love it if you’d sign up! I promise to use the list very sparingly–I know we all get plenty of email. You won’t be hearing from me on a weekly basis, or anything like that (which would be super annoying and I don’t want you guys to get sick of me!). I will only send out newsletters when I have something really good to share, promise!

Next up, the sequel to In Search of a Love Story is almost ready! This is the second in the Love Story series and will be titled An Unexpected Love Story. The book is edited and formatted (by the very talented Shelley Holloway) and I just received the GORGEOUS cover art from Scarlett Rugers. I’m so excited! I’m looking to have the book live on Amazon before the end of the week. I’ll let you know the exact day ASAP. While we wait, let’s check out the cover, which I ADORE:

Unexpected cover

Isn’t that lovely? Scarlett does such a great job. I think she really nailed the feel of the book, and I love how this one goes with Emily’s book so well.

In all the busyness of getting these books ready, I realize that I haven’t talked too much about the actual content of An Unexpected Love Story. This book focuses on Brooke Murray, Emily’s best friend from her small hometown in northern Michigan. It was fun to write about “up north” Michigan, as it’s one of my favorite places in the world to be. And Brooke was one of my favorite characters to write. Even though she’s very different from Kiki, writing her was a similar experience. Both of those girls took on a life of their own. I had little say in how their character’s developed–as soon as I started to write them they took over. That’s always a fun thing for an author to experience. I hope everyone likes Brooke as much as I do! Here’s a little synopsis about her story:

Brooke Murray is looking for an escape.

Breaking away from her small town to go away to college, she thought she’d finally made it. For someone like Brooke—smart, sexy, bold, and confident—the sky should have been the limit. But a mere five years later, she found herself right back where she started: living in her parents’ apartment in the same little town in the middle of nowhere.

Though she’d rather be just about anywhere else, Brooke is determined to help her parents save the inn they nearly bankrupted. With this heavy responsibility on her shoulders, Brooke has little time—or inclination—to put much effort into her love life. Instead, she relies on her best friends, Emily and Paul, for companionship and support, and relegates the men in her life to the role of drinking buddies and one-night stands.

Brooke is perfectly happy with this arrangement until a new guest at the inn challenges everything she once thought about love. John is gorgeous, sophisticated, and exciting, and it looks like he might be hanging around for much longer than a weekend visit. 

But when hidden mistakes from the past surface, the inn’s very survival is threatened—and John himself may be involved in its imminent downfall. Suddenly forced to question everything she ever assumed about her small-town life, Brooke must now take a closer look at what is truly important to her. In doing so, she will find that true love is not nearly as complicated or scary as she thought—and may be much closer to home than she ever imagined.

 

In other exciting news, I’ve decided to put together a digital boxed set of the Three Girls books. Now people can download the entire series all at once, for a discounted price. Scarlett did another lovely cover for this digital collection. I’m probably a giant dork but it made me so happy to see the different Three Girls fonts on a cover once again. Check it out:

rachelschurig_threegirlsomnibus

rachelschurig_threegirlsomnibus3d

 

Isn’t that cool?

Okay, I think that’s all the fun, exciting news I can handle for a day. Hope everyone is doing good! I’ll have more to share later this week!

 

 

Happy Book Release Day!

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The Truth About Ever After is here! You can check it out on Amazon for your kindle here or on Barnes and Noble for your nook here.

To celebrate the release of Kiki’s book, I have made the first book in the series, Three Girls and a Baby, free. Today is your last chance to pick up the book for free so don’t wait! Find it here on Amazon.

For those new to the series, you can also pick up the second book, Three Girls and a Wedding, for $.99 for today only over on Amazon.

Edited to add: Kindle Fire Department has a big post about my sale today over here. If you have a kindle you should definitely follow these guys! Particularly if you have a Kindle Fire, as they link to lots of cool apps.

I’m celebrating the release of my new book by getting cable. Yay!! Words cannot express how excited I am, for realz. I cancelled my cable ages ago, hoping it would make me more productive. I’ve been fine without it, of course, but I miss it! I’m hoping that now that I am writing full time, I can afford to give myself a little more free time for my guilty habits–such as Dance Moms, Sister Wives, Vampire Diaries, Mad Men, Project Runway. Oh my God, I miss TV so much!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I will probably be MIA (you know, watching TV and all) but I’ll stop back in soon to let you know how the new book is doing.

Happy Thursday!

One More Day!

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You guys, Kiki’s book comes out TOMORROW!

Can you tell that I’m excited about this?:) I really had a great time writing this story, and Kiki is one of my favorite characters, so I cannot wait for people to read this book!

Here’s a little synopsis so you can see what it’s all about it!

Kiki Barker-Thompson has always lived a charmed life.

Blessed with wealth, a loving family, a dream career, and the perfect husband, Kiki appears to be living a modern-day fairy tale.  But when a startling loss turns Kiki’s world upside down, she realizes that her perfect fairy tale life may not be so perfect after all. Maybe living happily ever after is not all it’s cracked up to be!

For the first time in her life, Kiki has to learn to deal with true heartache—and the repercussions for her marriage are far-reaching.  To make matters worse, Kiki must work with a nightmare client in the form of a frenemy from the past—or risk endangering her new business. Their uncomfortable reunion will force Kiki to confront issues and insecurities that she left behind long ago.  Or so she thought.

With her unshakable spirit and optimism, Kiki Barker-Thompson must now learn to re-evaluate her choices—and her dreams. In doing so, she may just find that a real-life happily-ever-after could be possible after all.

I really, really hope you guys like it!

To celebrate the release, I made the first book in the series, Three Girls and a Baby, free on kindle. The promotion has been going really well so far! More than 20,000 copies of the book have been downloaded so far! Yay! If you haven’t read Three Girls and a Baby yet, now is your chance to pick it up for free here at Amazon.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far!

 

Kiki’s Book! Excitement!! Exclamation Points!

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As I write this, I am literally jumping up and down on my seat—that’s how excited I am right now. Why am I so excited? Two words: Kiki’s book.

It’s almost ready to go, you guys! I’ve worked so, so hard on this book. At times it was a struggle but I ended up loving how it turned out. Kiki is such an awesome girl and I just can’t wait to share her story with everyone!

Now that things are getting so close, I can share some details with you guys. First of all, the book should be available for Kindle and Nook next Thursday, July 26th. That’s a little over a week away! I can’t wait for it to be out in the wild so I can talk to people about it. I’m sure my beta readers are tired of hearing me go on and on about these characters:) Soon I’ll be able to talk to everyone else as well!

Now for the name: I thought long and hard about the title for this story. For so long in my head it was just called Kiki’s Book. But I doubted that would go over so well as a title! In the end, I decided on The Truth About Ever After.

Kiki’s book is the story of a girl who seems to have the perfect fairy-tale life. Kiki has money, power, a great family, and is married to the love of her life. But even Kiki will find that life can’t be perfect forever. I wanted the title of her book to reflect that. Kiki had the perfect happily ever after when she married Eric in Three Girls and a Wedding: but what happens next? What happens when the fairy-tale is over and real life kicks in?

Of course Kiki deals with all these difficulties in a very Kiki-like way. She’s funny and optimistic and completely loyal to the people she loves.

If you can’t tell, I really love Kiki. She’s one of my favorite characters that I’ve ever written. From the moment I first started writing about her, she took on a life of her own. Originally, the rich girl in Jen’s book was supposed to be a snobby brat. But right away Kiki let me know that that wasn’t her—not by a long shot. I had little choice but to go along with it and write her the way she demanded to be written. I know there are some people who might find her a little over the top, but I hope learning more about her life will convert even those who may not always have been crazy about her.

One of the most exciting aspects of the publishing process, in my opinion, is getting the cover art back from my amazing artist. Scarlett Rugers has, once again, exceeded my expectations. I absolutely love her work. If you’re an author looking for a great cover to make your work stand out, you should really give her a try at www.scarlettrugers.com. Here’s what she did for The Truth About Ever After. Isn’t is gorgeous??

Alright, that’s it for me, for now. I am currently hard at work on my next book—or I am when I can drag my mind away from how excited I am for The Truth About Ever After. I have managed to get my stop-work-to-stare-at-pretty-cover-in-amazement breaks down to a bare minimum—hopefully that can continue!

 

Happy Wednesday everyone!

 

 

 

Book Release!

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I’m doing a happy dance! That can only mean one thing–my book must have come out today! (oh, and Vampire Diaries is on. That makes me do a happy dance too)

I’m so excited, anxious, nervous, and happy for people to finally get the chance to read the book I’ve been working so hard on. This is always kind of a terrifying moment. Like, I-think-I-might-puke kind of terror. I know I’m getting close to release day when I start having nightmares that I uploaded the wrong file. Hitting that publish button on Amazon requires a great amount of blind faith. But it’s also one of the most exciting, awesome feelings in the world. I’m so glad I get to experience it!

On a related topic, this is chick lit month! Next week I’m participating in a blog hop–I’m going to post a bunch of information tomorrow. There’s going to be prizes and giveaways and lots of new authors to discover. I hope everyone checks it out!

And if you want to check out my new book, that would be pretty awesome, too! You can follow this link to find the kindle version on Amazon. The paperback isn’t showing up quite yet, but i’ll let you know when it does! if you want to stop back in and let me know what you think, I’d love to hear it!

In Search of a Love Story for Kindle.

Oh, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas out there. Have a great weekend!

So much excitement! So much!!

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Things are moving right along with the release of my fourth book, In Search of a Love Story. I can say with a good amount of certainty that it will be available for your kindle reading pleasure on Thursday, May 10th (paperback might take a little longer). Huzzah!

I am really excited about this book. Like, really, really excited. Writing it was kind of a struggle for me. I had a hard time getting into a flow until about half way through the writing process. I think I was just so used to writing about the Three Girls I had a hard time getting into a different character’s head. But once I did, I became really attached to this story and these characters. Because the writing process wasn’t all sunshine and roses, I think I feel even more strongly about this book. It’s all well and good to be proud of something that came easy–creating something that was hard fought gives even more satisfaction.

The reaction of readers to the Three Girls series was so positive and amazing. I really, really hope you guys like the new one as much. I know I do! I’ve sold more than 40,000 copies of the Three Girls books since January, which is absolutely mind blowing. I don’t know that I can ever really live up to that kind of response, and that’s okay. If people read and like this next book, I’ll be pleased as punch!

So to give you some idea of what I’ve been working on (and obsessing about. And sweating over. And crying about), I wanted to share with you the synopsis. And if you haven’t seen it on Facebook, I’ll also post the cover. My designer, Scarlett Rugers, once again did an AMAZING job on the cover art. Seriously, she is the best. My books would be wallowing in obscurity and none of you would have ever heard of them if it wasn’t for her awesomeness and eye-catching covers.

So, without further ado, I present In Search of a Love Story!

Emily Donovan doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body.

At least, that’s what her friends Ryan and Ashley keep telling her. They’re convinced her bad luck with men is directly related to her life-long lack of interest in all things romantic. When Emily’s latest relationship crashes and burns, she decides to go along with her friends’ plans for a romance research project. Sure, the idea that she’ll have better luck if she learns about the great romances of literature and film seems a little silly, but Emily figures it can’t hurt.

In no time at all, Emily finds herself buried under a mountain of romance novels, chick flicks, and sappy love songs, hopeful that her hard work will pay off with true love. When she meets Greg, Ashley and Ryan are convinced she’s found prince charming—after all, he’s rich, handsome, and totally into Emily. What more could she want? And why isn’t her friend Elliot exactly happy for her?

Faced with misunderstandings, miscommunications, and a seemingly endless string of missteps, she is nevertheless determined to give love a try. In doing so, Emily will eventually find that true romance, the kind that lasts, has little to do with stereotypes or clichés, and everything to do with finding out what’s in her own heart.

In Search of a Love Story, available on Amazon.com May 10th, 2012!

I can see clearly now…

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Well, almost.

I got LASIK surgery on Saturday. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been in glasses for twenty years and I loathe them. Really, I do. I hate exercising in them, I hate that I can’t see in the shower, I hate that I can’t see when I’m swimming, I hate that I can’t see when Lucy wakes me up in the middle of the night with doggy kisses (At least, I think they’re doggy kisses. I can’t see. For all I know they’re monster kisses). I have contacts and I hate them too. I think they’re hard to put in and harder to take out and they generally give me a headache.

So the idea of not having to deal with contacts or glasses was incredibly tempting to me. I researched it a lot and finally decided to use some of my hard earned royalty money on fixing my eyes.

If anyone is considering it I suggest you do your research. There are pros and cons and lots of information to consider. Personally, I opted to get an insurance package with mine which would cover any “enhancements,” or corrections, that I might need. My doctor recommended this because my vision was so bad. The procedure itself was pretty simple. I won’t go into gory details but I will say it was incredibly fast and painless, though I did find it very uncomfortable and quite freaky. If they offer you Valium, take it. It helps. Love the lovely Valium!

Post surgery I had some issues. My eyes burned like mad for a good five hours, and they watered constantly that entire time. The constant feeling that something is poking your eye is hard to ignore. But I got through that stretch and noticed improvement right away. I have to say, I’ve been a little jealous of all those people who say they woke up the next day with perfect vision. Those people stink. I woke up the next day with improved vision, but not perfect. It still isn’t perfect. It seems to be great for a while then I slip back into blurry. I’m wearing reading glasses for using the computer and I have my kindle set to a pretty high font for reading. I did get to drive today, and that was awesome. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will continue to improve and maybe I won’t need corrections. If I do, I’ll have to wait four months. And four months of seeing like this would suck.

You know what doesn’t suck? My family. Particularly my mom, and dad, and my sister, Hannah. My parents took care of me all weekend, driving me to my appointments and to get my medicine. This was particularly nice of my dad as he is still suffering the painful effects of the Great Old-Man Trampoline Debacle of 2012. My mom made sure I took my eye drops and made me delicious food AND she even took Luce out for her walks. And when they both had to leave for the evening Hannah came over and took care of me. Seriously, how lucky am I?

(The answer is very, very lucky)

So here’s hoping my vision keeps getting better. It’s kind of important for me, being a writer and all. Even more so, I need to be able to read. The thought of having difficulty reading is one of the scariest things I can imagine. How would I get by without it? I love reading more than just about anything else on Earth (minus the people I love, of course. And Lucy). Before surgery I was in the waiting room reading a kind of crappy chick-lit. Before I went in I had a terrible thought–if something goes wrong and this is the last book I ever read, I’m gonna be pissed. Luckily I can already read somewhat with the bigger font on kindle. Thank God for that. But I promise here and now I will never take my ability to read whatever I want, whenever I want, for granted. It’s way too precious.

So what are you reading that you’re grateful for?

 

Awesomesauce

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Something really cool happened today. I went to add up my Amazon sales, like I do every day (usually more than once. Man, it’s so nice that amazon gives us these reports daily, but it also makes for some obsessive behavior on my part), and noticed that I just passed a pretty big milestone. I’ve sold more than 30,000 copies of the books in the Three Girls series in 2012.

I can’t tell you how happy–and shocked– this makes me. I never in a million years thought I would see numbers like that. And I really didn’t think I would see those numbers in just two months. It’s madness!

For everyone who has read one of my books, recommended them, reviewed them, tweeted about them, or shared them with a friend, can I just say THANK YOU. You rock more than I can possibly say. You have helped my wildest dreams to actually come true. How many people get to say that?

I really can’t thank you guys enough. What I can do is try to make my next book as good as I possibly can. So I’m gonna go work on that for a while. But please know I am truly thankful to everyone who has given my books a chance.

My readers are awesome!

 

Where to go next…

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I’m currently working hard on my next book and liking where it’s heading. I don’t have a set title yet, but I’ll let you know when I do!

I’ve been a little frustrated with myself because I haven’t been as productive as I could be. My day job has been so emotionally draining lately (and physically exhausting) and it’s hard to snap out of that and write when I get home. The other day I gave in and took a nap. Lucy, by the way, was thrilled about this, as it meant she got to lay on the couch with me. Anyhow, when I woke up, I had an idea for my next book pretty much fully formed in my head. So I guess sometimes being unproductive leads to inspiration, or something. At least I’ll tell myself that when laziness next strikes.

On the subject of being productive, I’ve been considering cancelling my internet at home. Cancelling my cable didn’t result in as many words written per day as I had hoped. The culprit? Netflix instant streaming. There are just so many good shows! And when they’re all there, episode after episode, just waiting for me, it’s so hard to turn it off and get to work. Since I cancelled my cable I’ve watched the entirety of Vampire Diaries (which I am totally obsessed with), Downton Abbey (also obsessed), Firefly, and Mad Men. So not good for my writing pace. Then there’s the general time suck of surfing the internet. Oy.

Now that I have the iPhone, I can use that for blogging, email, facebook, etc. Do I really need a home internet connection? What do you think? Could you live without internet? I’ll have to ponder it some more.

On that note, I should probably try to add to my word count before bed. Which means I should turn off Vampire Diaries. Even if they did just find out that Katherine is the doppleganger and Klaus is after her. I don’t need to see what happens next. Really. I don’t.

Oh, by the way, that idea I had for a new book? It may or may not involve Kiki Barker/Thompson. Just saying…