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Showing posts from August, 2011

What I'm writing in YEAR OF THE DOG

I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
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Need title ideas AGAIN

Captain’s Log, Stardate 08.24.2011 Yup, I need your help AGAIN. This time, for a different book. I’m writing a cozy mystery in a series about an antique quilt restorer, Sarah. The series is called the Patchwork Mysteries series. Here’s the basic overview of the book I need a title for: Story idea: Sarah and Maggie travel to Boston to attend a special antique show. But when quilt after quilt goes for much higher than Sarah would have appraised them for, she begins to think something hinky is going on with the auction. Discovery: Sarah to goes to Boston for a special antique show with her daughter-in-law. There will be all sorts of antiques, including quilts. Sarah enjoys the quilt auction, and even considers bidding on a couple pieces. But Sarah notices that the quilts are going for up to five times their true value. Something is going on and she’s determined to find out what. Sarah spends the next five days interviewing participants in the auction. Any ideas?
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Excerpt - Buried Truth by Dana Mentink

Buried Truth by Dana Mentink "Coming for you." A note, impaled by a knife on Bill Cloudman's door, tells the former tribal agent a murderer has escaped. The vicious madman who murdered Bill's partner—and cost Bill the community's trust and his job—is on the loose in the South Dakota badlands again. Bill vows to put him behind bars once and for all. But when the woman he loved and lost returns to Eagle Rock reservation as a newspaper reporter determined to restore her own reputation with the story, Bill has to protect her…and his guarded heart. Excerpt of chapter one: The heat shimmered up from the asphalt as Bill Cloudman drove the pickup, Tank barking enthusiastically in the back. It had taken eight months away from Rockvale for him to realize he'd actually missed the ferocious heat. After two days back home, he felt as if he'd never left. This small town, snuggled up next to the Eagle Rock reservation, was undeniably a part of him, as much as h...
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Excerpt - Fallen Angel by Major Jeff Struecker and Alton Gansky

Camy here: Thanks to B&H for sending me an ARC of this book! Fallen Angel by Major Jeff Struecker and Alton Gansky Major Jeff Struecker (a real life Black Hawk Down veteran) and his award-winning coauthor tell a space-based intelligence story of intense extremes in their new novel,  Fallen Angel , named for the "Angel-12" American satellite that is ambushed by China and falls 22,000 miles to land in remote Siberia. U.S. Sgt. Major Eric Moyer and his Special Ops unit are deployed to find Angel-12 and keep its advanced nuclear fuel from enemy hands-and there are many. A Russian shadow government bent on restoring the former USSR pursues the satellite as does the Chinese special forces group that knocked it from the sky. A rash of military and domestic hostage concerns ensues as the stark truth looms: three nations are racing to the satellite, but only one will get there first. Excerpt of chapter one: Print book: Barnes and Noble Amazon Christianbook.com Bo...
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Excerpt - On Deadly Ground by Lauren Nichols

On Deadly Ground by Lauren Nichols Danger in the darkness The prowler on the construction site of her new camp didn't frighten Rachel Patterson…at first. Fear comes when her home is torched—and worsens when a body is unearthed on the campgrounds. Someone's trying to cover up a murder, and if Rachel can identify the intruder, she might be the only witness. Her neighbor, Wildlife Conservation Officer Jake Campbell, is determined to keep the lovely widow safe. But when a misunderstanding separates the pair, their distance risks more than the growing feelings between them. It leaves Rachel alone and unguarded, which could be just the chance the killer needs… Excerpt of chapter one: Sighing, Rachel Patterson squinted at the clock on her nightstand, saw that it was only 2:00 a.m., then groaned, flipped over and burrowed groggily into her pillow again. Outside, the coyotes were up to their old tricks, howling and yipping at the moon, even though there was barely a moon to yi...
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Excerpt - The Baby's Bodyguard by Stephanie Newton

The Baby's Bodyguard by Stephanie Newton A shocking discovery When an anonymous text message arrives with photos of tiny hands and feet—and GPS coordinates—Florida cop Ethan Clark believes it's a prank. Then he follows the coordinates to an abandoned toddler. Handing Janie Doe over to caring child services worker Kelsey Rogers, Ethan thinks his job is done…until the little girl turns out to be a kidnap victim. To protect the child, Ethan and Kelsey stumble into an investigation that digs up a tragedy from Ethan's past. Will they uncover the truth before the kidnappers bury the trail forever? Excerpt of chapter one: Ethan Clark had always preferred the gentle slap of water on a fishing boat to the raucous houseful of boys that he'd grown up in. He still had that old wooden fishing boat he'd inherited from his grandpa, but these days his ride was a dual-outboard powerboat fitted with blue lights. Policing Florida's waterways kept Ethan Clark out of his...
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Galleys - and not the cooking kind

I'm over at Seekerville today talking about galley proofs! Camy here! As I write this, I have just finished going through the galley proofs for my November humorous romantic suspense novel,  Protection for Hire . But as soon as I finished it, I started on my galley proofs for my January 2012 Love Inspired Suspense novel,  Stalker in the Shadows , which are due in less than a week. So what are galley proofs? Click here to read the rest of the post and join the conversation!
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Excerpt - Agent Undercover by Lynette Eason

Agent Undercover by Lynette Eason What does little Alex know? The traumatized six-year-old boy hasn't said one word since the unsolved murder of his single mother. And now, the killer is after the child—and the devoted uncle raising him, Dr. Dylan Seabrook. Working undercover in the boy's school, DEA agent Paige Ashworth is determined to find the murderer. But she can't tell Dylan her real identity, what she knows—or just how close to the case she really is. Dylan's strength and fierce love for his nephew soon have Paige longing to join their family. First, though, they must catch a killer who never wants little Alex to speak again. Excerpt of chapter one: Undercover Drug Enforcement Agent Paige Ashworth, known as Paige Worth in the little town of Rose Mountain, North Carolina, realized she had only seconds to act or the child would be dead. Shoving her right foot down on the bicycle pedal, she ignored her pounding heart and the desperate fear that said she di...
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Need title ideas!

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.17.2011 My editor has asked for title ideas for the second book in my Protection for Hire series, so I’m polling you guys for ideas! Here’s the short blurb: A Christian ex-yakuza bodyguard must work with the Louisiana lawyer who helped sentence her to jail to protect a contestant from a nationally televised singing competition who has information that the show is rigged. Here’s a longer blurb: Tessa Lancaster, niece of the San Francisco Japanese mafia boss, became a born-again Christian while in prison for a murder she didn’t commit, and now that she’s released, she wants to use her unique skills to help people as a bodyguard while keeping her distance from her yakuza connections. So far, she has refused help from her yakuza boss uncle because she wants to be legit. She takes a job as bodyguard to a contestant on an American Idol -like singing competition and his thirteen year old daughter, who has discovered evidence that one of the producers...
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Cataloguing my books!

I am over at the Love Inspired Authors blog today with something I'm a bit passionate about--cataloguing my books! Camy here! Thanks to my friend Dream, who’s also the eHosty at the  Love Inspired forum boards , I found a cataloguing program for all my books. I used to use an Excel file, but I wanted something a bit more robust which would also have a matching iPhone app so I can take a copy of my catalog with me on my phone, and that way if I’m at a store and I don’t know if I already have a particular title, I can look it up really quick. Click here to read the rest of the post and to join the discussion!
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A word for the school year

I'm over at the Girls, God, and the Good Life blog today with "A word for the school year": Camy here! Most of you are probably getting excited about going back to school, since you’ll see all your friends and get back into your sports and clubs. But as you’re preparing to reenter the world of homework, team practices, and club meetings, also consider how God can use you this coming school year. Click here to read the rest of my blog post and join the conversation!
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Green smoothie

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.12.2011 So, this requires a little explaining. On the advice of my friend Tosca Lee , who was Mrs. Nebraska, I read the book Fast Track One-Day Detox Diet by Ann Louise Gittleman . I did not do the one-day detox, but I was fascinated by her explanation of liver function (yes, my geeky biologist side is coming out) and the foods that help the liver out. Apparently in order to break down toxins, the liver uses a two-step process (which I vaguely remembered from my college biology classes). The first step sometimes creates a compound even more toxic than the original, but that’s so that the liver can then go to the second step and break down the compound entirely into a form that can be eliminated from the body. It’s a common thing that I remembered from organic chemistry. Sometimes you need to make a more complex-looking compound in order to use a certain catalyst and break the compound down into what endpoint you want. Anyway, the body needs cert...
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Nookie love - BN came through

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.11.2011 So remember how I was complaining about how if I wanted to download a backup ebook file from BN.com, it would automatically download .pdb files for Mac users when the new Nook doesn't even read .pdb files? At the time I mentioned that it might be a glitch they’ll fix eventually either on the website or the Nook itself. Well, they've fixed it on the BN.com website. Now when I download a backup copy of my purchased Nookbooks, they download as .epub files. Yay! I did complain about it, but now I miss the .pdb files a little because if I read ebooks on my computer, I vastly prefer using the eReader app rather than Adobe Digital Editions or the Nook for Mac app. ADE is too limited--I can't change font size or style, for example--and Nook for Mac takes forever to load on my computer. However, now that I have my Nook touch, I can just read the books on my Nook anyway, so I don't know why I'm missing the .pdb files. I'm su...
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What I’m bringing to the ACFW Conference

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.08.2011 I decided to update my list! So here it is. The highlight of my year is always the ACFW conference in September. It’s my favorite conference for so many reasons, some of which are: the friends I get to see there the industry professionals I get to meet the workshops the hotel (I am SO not a “roughing it” girl.) I’m terrible at forgetting what to bring every year, so once again I’m pulling out my list. And I also thought it might be a useful list for other people who might be going to conference, too (not just the ACFW conference, but any writer’s conference). So here goes, in no particular order: 1) business cards and/or bookmarks . For me, bookmarks are usually easier since writers are readers, too, and can always use a bookmark. 2) A one-sheet of my latest proposal. Dineen Miller did a great blog series on One-Sheets: http://www.acfw.com/blog/?p=137 , http://www.acfw.com/blog/?p=170 , http://www.acfw.com/blog/?p=203 , http://w...
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