Coming soon…

Hello, lovely readers! I hope you’re all having a wonderful 2018 so far. It seems like we’ve either had snow or rain all winter long but that’s okay with me–I like to be cozied up inside while I’m writing. And I’ve been writing a lot! I think quite a few of you will be happy to hear that I’m working on the 6th Ransom book–finally!

You guys, I missed these characters soooo much. I’ve been re-reading the whole series to prepare for the new book and it’s been so nice to visit with the boys and their ladies again. People always ask me which Ransome brother is my favorite and I’m constantly changing my mind. Right now I have a huge crush on Reed, which isn’t really surprising. Paige is one of my favorite characters from any of my series. Whoever makes Paige happy makes me happy! Anyhow, I’m really liking the way book 6 is turning out so far and I can’t wait to share it with you soon!

In the meantime, I’ve been working with an awesome cover artist (Shout out to Paper and Sage Designs!) to give the Three Girls series a facelift. I’ve had the same covers on those books for years now so I thought it would be nice to try something new and fresh. What do you think??

The same cover artist has been helping me come up with a more cohesive look for the Lilac Bay series–which is really helpful since the 3rd book is super close to a publication date! All’s Fair is currently in the editing phase and I should have some release news for you in the next two weeks. Check out the covers for this series below and stay tuned for info on the release!

Okay, that’s it for me. Can’t wait to have more news about Lilac Bay and Ransom for you soon. Hope you’re all doing great!

xoxo Rachel

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Book sale and other fun news!

I have so much exciting news to share!

Okay, first things first, you can now find ALL of my books on Barnes and Noble for your Nook! I’m a big Nook fan myself, it was my first e-reader, so I’m very happy readers can now find me over there. I’d like to be able to say the same about the iBookstore but I’m still missing one book on their site (An Unexpected Love Story). I hope to rectify that soon, keep your fingers crossed that Apple cooperates! You can still find the entire Three Girls series there as well as In Search of a Love Story and An (Almost) Perfect Love Story. My books are also up over on Kobo.

The second bit of news is that Three Girls and a Baby is now on sale for only $.99. Baby is the first book of the Three Girls series. If you haven’t read about Ginny, Jen, Annie, and Kiki yet, this is where you should start! The sale is being featured on Bookbub today so hop over there and get the link for the bookstore of your choice (the sale is happening on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and Smashwords). The sale lasts all week because I’m celebrating. More on that later…

P.S. If you’re not subscribed to Bookbub yet, you really should be! They send you a daily email with free and cheap ebook finds. They are very selective in what they promote, so you know you’re only looking at really good books. And they let you personalize the kinds of books you see, so you’ll only get the genres you like. I love them! Since I signed up I’ve found so many great cheap and free ebooks (too many, really. My book budget is out.of.control).

The most exciting news I have to share, and the reason I’m celebrating with a book sale, is because my new book comes out NEXT WEEK! I cannot wait to share it with people! It’s been a really long time coming and, for some reason, this book was really a struggle for me to finish the way I wanted it. I’m so happy that it’s FINALLY ready!

I’ll be posting about the release all week. I’ll be sharing a sneak peek at the first chapter, interviewing some of the characters, and offering several contests. Tomorrow will be a big day: I’m revealing the cover and title and explaining how you can enter to win a $20 Amazon gift card. Make sure you check back throughout the week for the latest information on the release!

I hope you guys are enjoying the spring, wherever you are. Michigan decided we’d had enough of lovely 70 degree days and turned on the cold this weekend. I am NOT happy about it. But the Red Wings won their first round series and are moving on in the Stanley Cup playoffs, so it’s not all sad around here.

See you tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!

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!

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!

 

 

What I’m Working On

I am so happy to see December on the calendar. I’m really, really happy. November was a bit rough. NaNoWriMo fell smack dab in the middle of me trying to get two books ready for publication (Don’t know about NaNoWriMo? You can read more about it here or in my blog post from last November). In addition to editing and lining up marketing stuff, I managed to write 64,813 brand new words during the contest. Some of those words were for a short story collection (more on that in a minute), some were for something brand new (a project I’m calling The London Book in my head), and a lot of the words were for rewrites on the last book in the Love Story series. I know, I know, NaNo is supposed to be 50k words of one single novel, but my schedule didn’t quite work out that way this year. One of the things I love about NaNo is the sense of freedom surrounding the project. I decided to exercise that freedom to do things my way this year. NaNo is so good for getting me productive, and this year that was more true than ever.

So let’s talk a little about the various projects I worked on in November. The first was a short story for this awesome collection:

holiday_wishes_final

Holiday Wishes, a short story collection to raise money for children’s charity.

Fourteen bestselling indie authors have come together to write a holiday short story collection to benefit a children’s charity this holiday season. These authors, who write in genres ranging from contemporary romance to science fiction, have joined in the holiday spirit to write all new stories for this anthology.

The collection includes contributions from the following authors: David Adams, Jason Brant, Elle Casey, Deanna Chase, Kate Danley, Dee Ernst, Ashley Mackler-Paternostro, Becca Mills, Dalya Moon, Christine Pope, Deanna Roy, Rachel Schurig, Jack Sheppard and Amber Sweetapple, with cover art donated by Claudia McKinney of Phat Puppy Artwork.

Holiday Wishes was the brainchild of Amber Sweetapple, a really great author I’ve been lucky to get to know over the last few months. Amber and her husband, Jack Sheppard, write really cool books AND they’re from Michigan! You can check out their author pages here and here. I was so stoked when Amber asked me to contribute a story. There are some seriously talented people involved in this! I decided to write something about the Three Girls and I’m so glad I did! It was so much fun revisiting Ginny, Jen, and Annie. The Christmas themed story takes place after Annie’s book. It was really fun to write and I hope you’ll check it out. All of the proceeds benefit a great children’s charity. The paperback is lovely and would make a lovely gift! You can get it here:

Kindle

Paperback

In addition to working on the short, I also spent a lot of time last month getting two new books ready to publish. Have you checked out In Search of a Love Story yet?

rachelschurig_insearchoflovestory_front_web

It is the first book of my new project, the Love Story series. I’ve been hard at work getting the two sequels finished. The next book, An Unexpected Love Story, will feature Emily Donovan’s best friend Brooke and her life running an inn in northern Michigan. The third and final book of the series, An (Almost) Perfect Love Story, will feature Ashley Phillips, who you may remember as Emily’s roommate. Like the Three Girls books, this new series celebrates love and friendship, with a dose of laughter mixed in. I really hope you’ll check them out! I should have cover art to reveal very soon! Oh, and if you look very closely, you may spot one of the Three Girls in each of the Love Story books;)

One more fun piece of news: I’ve been working on getting the Three Girls books put into a digital boxed set. I’m hoping to have this ready for Christmas!

I hope everyone is enjoying December as much as I am! It’s been rainy here in Detroit, and not very cold, which is strange. I’m hoping for some real snow by Christmas!

So much excitement! So much!!

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!

The highs and lows

I hate this part of the writing process. Hate it. When I haven’t gotten into any kind of flow yet and every word feels forced. When I’m sure everything I’ve written so far is terrible.

I’m taking part in a little challenge over on the kindleboards. A bunch of authors are trying to get to 60k words during the month of February. This is like NaNoWriMo on steroids. But hey, NaNo turned out really good for me (almost 5,000 people have downloaded my NaNo novel, Three Girls and a Leading Man, in the three and half weeks it has been available!) so I’m hoping this will have a similar result on my productivity. But so far, it’s been rough.

I keep reminding myself that this is the first novel I have written that isn’t about Annie, Ginny and Jen. And it took me a while to really get to know those characters. It’s only normal that I would have a bit of a rough time getting used to a whole new set of people. They don’t feel like friends yet. And it’s really hard for me to write about people who don’t feel like friends.

At the end of my writing session tonight, I had a bit of a brainwave. If I follow it through it will take this story in a different direction. I think that might be a good thing. It will take some thinking about, but maybe this is that moment where things start to take shape.

And that is my favorite part of the writing process. That almost magical moment where it all just clicks in my brain. When I know who these characters are, what they are doing, and where they’re all going to end up. Where does that come from, that certainty in how things will go? I have no idea, but I’m addicted to that feeling. It’s the reason I keep writing, even when things aren’t working. Even when I’m tired after work and all I want to do is lay on the couch and watch Vampire Diaries. It’s the reason I stay up way too late writing despite needing to be up early. I’m always in search of that elusive, magic moment.

Will the brainwave tonight result in that magic? I’m not sure. But I do know that if it doesn’t, I’ll keep writing until I find it. It’s what I do.