Advent Calendar - Day 10 - GIVEAWAY!

 

Today we have another giveaway from Cloak and Dagger (my author merch shop). 

I'm giving away four copies of the 110-piece Secrets and Scrabble jigsaw puzzle "Invitation to Come Aboard." Nora would probably NOT approve of these playful, flirty pirates, but oh well. 

To be eligible for the entirely random giveaway, just comment below on your favorite character within the Secrets and Scrabble universe--and why that character has won your heart.

The giveaway will remain open until after Christmas! 

Advent Calendar - Day 5 GIVEAWAY!

 

Today we have a giveaway. It's a  pretty nice one: a medium weight "sherpa fleece" throw blanket, suitable for...throwing over people and abducting... Sorry. Mystery writer took over for a moment. Actually, it's very nice for cuddling up and reading. Or cuddling up and writing.

The design is based on a description of the wallpaper at Captain's Seat.

One of the very coolest things that had happened so far was when the workmen had gone down to the cellar and discovered never used rolls of vintage wallpaper from the 1930s. The blue and silver paper featured delicate drawings of pairs of herons framed by acanthus and oak leaves in front of a mansion that looked remarkably like Captain’s Seat.

(I think that's from Death at the Deep Dive, but don't quote me.)

Anyway.

To be elegible for the random-in-every-sense drawing, share one of your all-time favorite quotes from the Secrets and Scrabble series in the comment section below. 

I won't be choosing a winner until the calendar has ended.   

A Final Seasons Greetings!

 

That is A LOT of bacon!!!

Happy Holidays 

to One and ALL! 

First off our winners for the Fatal Shadows: The Collector's Edition ebook giveaway are as follows:

Ekaterina

Heather

Binkabunny

Catrin

Rin

brbr

CathyR

Goge

Denise

Elyxyz

Aurora

Drop me a line and I'll see that you get your copy. :-) 

I hope everyone enjoyed 2022's Advent Calendar. Thank you for reading and commenting and just generally engaging in the fun. And a very special thanks to Meg Perry and Natasha Chesterbrook for their wonderful contributions. They have become part of my holiday tradition. ;-)

I can't say that 2022 was the year I hoped for, nor was this one of the best Christmases (but at least I didn't get Covid!!). The world is pretty much a mess--maybe even more than usual. But I know I tried my best last year and created some stories that have entertained and comforted readers, and really that's all I can ask for. 

The beginning of a new year is always an energizing and exciting time for me, and this season is no different. I'm looking forward to 2023. I'm full of plans and ideas. I hope you are too. I hope 2023 will bring you health, happiness, and many wonderful surprises!

 

Cozy Mystery Giveaway!

 If you're a lover of cozy mysteries, you're probably well aware that 99.9% of cozies feature female protagonists. Unlike NO sex, NO swearing, or NO on-screen violence, that's not a rule or anything; it's just how it shakes out. 

That said, there are a handful of cozies (typically gay and occasionally referred to as "quozies") which do feature male protagonists. My own Secrets and Scrabble series, for one. SC Wynne's Kip O'Connor series. In mainstream we have Rob Osler's Devil's Chew Toy. Come to think of it, Dean James' may have started us out with his charming Simon Kirby-Jones gay vampire series, back in the day.

ANYWAY. That was a needlessly long intro to the fact that I'm taking part in a cozy mystery giveaway featuring cozies with male protagonists (a sprinkling of LGBTQ, but mostly not) which you can sample by CLICKING THIS LINK. 

Advent Calendar Day 19 - OUR PRIZE WINNERS SO FAR! (and ANOTHER givewaway!)

 Good morning! I know you're wondering, and yes, we've got some prize winners! 

We've also got another lovely bit of art from the multi-talented Terry Wylis (it reminds me of Catalina Island at twilight), so if you haven't scored any goodies so far, you can comment below and you'll be in the running for the our next round of giveaways.

Now, I know I said this year's prizes were all purchased ahead of time--and that's true! HOWEVER, my promise to get everything out right away was made before our governor initiated MASS FATALITY PROTOCOLS for our state. So I'm not sending the SO anywhere near the post office till things calm down a little again.

All the prizes will eventually be mailed, I promise. 

In the meantime, here are our winners up to now: 

Advent Calendar Day 1 

The tiny vintage planter goes to Karan!

Karan message me with your snail mail address

Advent Calendar Day 7 

Karan (again!) just blew me away with all those wonderful long-forgotten quotes--all of which will be finding their way into teasers, I suspect. 

So our first winner is, no surprise here, Karan for really any one of those, but I really, really loved this:

"Glen," Nash whispered. Not the start of a conversation, just Glen. The miracle of Glen. Still here. Still alive. Still Glen.

Glen's colorless mouth curved. He said gently, almost inaudibly, "Nash, you're raining."

~ In Plain Sight

And not to be outdone, we have Natascha with lines from one of my very favorite short stories:

The man who stood shoulder to shoulder with him on the job and the man who lay in his arms at night. When Keir went he would take both those men with him -- he would take everything. --- In Sunshine Or In Shadow

Then it got really hard to not just pick everyone and everything! 

But I finally settled on Cecily and:

“We’re watching you,” whispered the voice on the other end.

“Yeah? Did you see what I did with my keys?”

Silence. Then dial tone.

These younger demons. So easily discouraged

--The Hell You Say

And melon-whiskey (again, so many to choose from!):

"You're wrong, you know. I would let you get away with murder. Hell, I'd probably help you commit it, if that's what you wanted..." From Fair Play.

And Sarah with:

“He never lied to me. I just didn’t ask the questions I didn’t want to know the answers to.” Death of a Pirate King

And finally we have Loretta with:

"Besides, I think Kyle would have recognized him ski mask or not."

"It was dark."

"I'd know you in the dark, Tucker."

Tucker's eyes flashed up to meet Elliot's. He said curtly. "Yeah. I'd know you too."

--Fair Game

So I, *COUGH*, doubled Johanna's prize-giving, but that's okay. SHE KNOWS I'M GOOD FOR IT. 

If this set of winners could each make their magnet choice from Johanna's three festive and heartwarming magnets and let me know through message or email their pick and where to mail the magnet to, it will be much appreciated! 

Advent Calendar Day 9 

The Christmas Tree napkin holders go to Karen from New Mexico! I mean, you have to respect someone who can turn tea into booze. Talk about your Christmas miracles. ;-)

Karen, I need a mailing address. :-) 

(I just want to say youse guys really came up with some DELIGHTFUL cocktail recipes this year!!) 

Advent Calendar Day 14

The winner of Terry Wylis's wonderful artwork is Smitty!

Smitty please let me know your mailing address so I can forward that on to Terry.

Advent Calendar Day 9

 

Today I'm sharing my recipe for Mai Tais-perfected over this last very long, very hot summer--AND we have another giveaway.

Now, I don't really think of the Mai Tai as a winter beverage. But something about this particular winter has me longing for sandy beaches and blue skies and the sway of palms and cries of gulls. OH MY GOD I MISS CATALINA ISLAND. So I've been trying to persuade the SO to grill every weekend, even he has to wear a parka, and I've been wearing body lotion that smells like a cross between a suntan lotion (so different from sunscreen) and falling into a vat of Piña Colada, and I've been experimenting with a whole host of summertime cocktails.

 My recipe is tweaked from the original Trader Vic's Mai Tai, so it's a bit sweeter, but still strong enough to knock you on your ass.

The Pirate's Cove Mai Tai ;-)

– 1 oz lime juice

- 2 oz pineapple juice

– 1 oz orange Curaçao

– 1 oz Orgeat syrup

– 1/2 oz simple syrup

– 1 oz aged Jamaican rum

– 1 oz aged Martinique Agricole rhum

1 maraschino cherry (and a teaspoon of the syrup)

Shake all ingredients over ice, pour into a double old-fashioned glass. Fill to rim with crushed ice (the colder the better, for this one). Garnish with a wedge of lime shell and a maraschino cheery.

And our giveaway is another kooky vintage "ornament". This one is a set of ceramic Christmas tree napkin holders. They're really quite nice. Shipping them is going to be tricky, so I'm limiting this giveaway to the U.S. 

Share your own cocktail recipe in the comment section below to be included in the random drawing.

Advent Calendar Day 7

 

Happy 7th of December!

A good day to remember that things can always be worse. At least nobody is dropping bombs on us today.  We're not in the middle of a world war. Things are looking up! 

This year, for the first time ever, we've got an artificial Christmas tree. It's...pretty. It doesn't look like my trees usually do, but I did the best with what I had to work with. AND my Christmas shopping is all done. In fact, a bunch of prezzies have already been delivered. And the Advent Calendar is pretty well blocked out now, so I can just spend the rest of the month writing and enjoying the fruits of my rewards AKA drinking. 

I'M KIDDING. 

Well, not entirely.

Anyway, today we're bringing back one of our interactive Advent Calendar treats, and that's helping me make teasers for my stories.

In this context, teaser means a pithy quote from one of my stories matched with a visually striking
photo or bit of art. But you don't have to create the whole teaser (although you can if you want to!), you just have to come up with the pithy or memorable quote part.  

Mostly I love this exercise because it's so intriguing (and often surprising) to see which lines resonate most with readers. Sometimes it's a line I love too and sometimes it's a line I never thought much about. But either way they give me something to hang a bit of promo on. I love making teasers, I love matching art to words.

So today's "game" if you will, is to share some of your favorite lines from your favorite JL stories. You can pick any story you like, but if you're looking for inspiration, I don't have any teasers from the first two All's Fair books, or from Strange Fortune or The Darkling Thrush or most of the short stories or the novellas. That's a lot of un-mined teaser territory to choose from.

To help you along in your endeavor, my dear friend and mod, the super talented Johanna Ollila, has created three of her own teasers, which she's offering as magnets to three authors of the teaser quotes randomly selected as our winners.

Ready, set... Share your favorite pithy JL quote in the comment section below!

Advent Calendar - Day 28

I had started a couple of codas before I got sick, so depending on how I feel in the next day or so, I might finish them up and plug them into the calendar, but for now I'll use this space to wind up the giveaway prizes. Thank you so much to everyone who participated!

The three winners of the Bedknobs and Broomsticks mug are:

Rin
Booksandmore
Almathea

But I have to say, ALL these quotes were so great! Thank you all so much! <3 <3 <3


And our two winners of the print copies of All I Want for Christmas are:

Natasha
Smitty

I really, really hope all of you keep going with those coda beginnings because they were so terrific!


Winners, once again, contact me through the email address on my website with your ship to information. :-)

Advent Calendar - Day 27

And now for the winners of our audiobooks! 

Debby
Loretta
Kathy P
Judy
Ingrid
Mari
Ariel
Zoey Brothers
Anonymous
BooksandMore
Binkabunny
Natasha
Juniper G
Susan
Sparklygrl
Cyn
Merrik
Cathy

YES, EVERYONE WHO REQUESTED AN AUDIO BOOK GETS AN AUDIO BOOK. :-)  HAPPY FLIPPING HOLIDAYS! 

Contact me through the email on my website with the following info: your email address, whether you're in the UK or the US, the title of the audio book you wanted. 

Advent Calendar - Day 26

Okay! Here are the results of our Holiday Mad Libs. :-D :-D :-D  Maybe it's the cold meds, but I found these pretty funny.

Our "winners" are....

Margie with this delicious and delectable offering:

Using a fork and a small hermit, I mashed the craisins and walnuts, added thyme and the lemon zest. When there were no lumps left, I rode the mixture into one of those small pastry buffaloes fitted with a quarter inch round plain igloo.

               All the time I worked, I snuggled. I was waiting for the moment when Henry admitted to Rocky that he had not hired Alexander to cook a romantic Christmas Eve dragon for seventeen. But they were eliciting more quietly, so I had only their trees to go by. Louis still sounded nervous. Rocky sounded….like he had sounded the first night he had asked me back to his ornament.

               And wonderfully I didn’t want to hear anymore.

               I tried to pipe the latkes filling into each olive, but my toes were damp and the olives were chilly and they kept shooting across the snow. I swore quietly. I picked up the olives and started over again. Unfortunately, I got a little too aggressive and hid one of the olives. I drew a long breath and tried again. Fucking eureka. The caviar stayed in the olive and the olive stayed in my finger.

               Not for long though. The olive frolicked away as Rocky said from behind me, “Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Look who’s here!” He sounded snowy, almost frosty.

Binkabunny with her finest work to date:

Using a fork and a small hat, I mashed the hot fudge cake and ribeye steak, added thyme and the lemon zest. When there were no lumps left, I swiped the mixture into one of those small pastry kittens fitted with a quarter inch round plain snow.

               All the time I worked, I swam. I was waiting for the moment when Sam admitted to Rocky that he had not hired Jake to cook a romantic Christmas Eve flower for eighty-eight. But they were driving more quietly, so I had only their blankets to go by. Louis still sounded nervous. Rocky sounded….like he had sounded the first night he had asked me back to his train.

               And recklessly I didn’t want to hear anymore.

               I tried to pipe the loaded baked potato filling into each olive, but my shoulders were damp and the olives were defiant and they kept shooting across the stadium. I swore quietly. I picked up the olives and started over again. Unfortunately, I got a little too aggressive and stretched one of the olives. I drew a long breath and tried again. Fucking eureka. The cranberries stayed in the olive and the olive stayed in my toe.

               Not for long though. The olive trotted away as Rocky said from behind me, “Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Look who’s here!” He sounded voracious, almost caught.

And finally the first of the Susan submissions with her erotic masterpiece:

Using a fork and a small mansion, I mashed the chili and pasta, added thyme and the lemon zest. When there were no lumps left, I saved the mixture into one of those small pastry friends fitted with a quarter inch round plain fever.

               All the time I worked, I crushed. I was waiting for the moment when Shane admitted to Rocky that he had not hired Devon to cook a romantic Christmas Eve floor for three. But they were relating more quietly, so I had only their boots to go by. Louis still sounded nervous. Rocky sounded….like he had sounded the first night he had asked me back to his money.

               And willingly I didn’t want to hear anymore.

               I tried to pipe the taco filling into each olive, but my legs were damp and the olives were beautiful and they kept shooting across the sunshine. I swore quietly. I picked up the olives and started over again. Unfortunately, I got a little too aggressive and killed one of the olives. I drew a long breath and tried again. Fucking eureka. The quiche stayed in the olive and the olive stayed in my shoulder.

               Not for long though. The olive loved away as Rocky said from behind me, “Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Look who’s here!” He sounded amazing, almost cruel.

Oh! And the original text? It's the cooking scene from Baby, it's Cold.

Using a fork and a small bowl, I mashed the gorgonzola and ricotta cheeses, add thyme and the lemon zest. When there were no lumps left, I spooned the mixture into one of those small pastry bags fitted with a quarter inch round plain tip.

               All the time I worked, I listened. I was waiting for the moment when Louis admitted to Rocky that he had not hired Poppy to cook a romantic Christmas Eve dinner for two. But they were speaking more quietly, so I had only their tones to go by. Louis still sounded nervous. Rocky sounded….like he had sounded the first night he had asked me back to his place.

               And suddenly I didn’t want to hear anymore.

               I tried to pipe the cheese filling into each olive, but my fingers were damp and the olives were slippery and they kept shooting across the counter. I swore quietly. I picked up the olives and started over again. Unfortunately, I got a little too aggressive and squashed one of the olives. I drew a long breath and tried again. Fucking eureka. The cheese stayed in the olive and the olive stayed in my hand.

               Not for long though. The olive sprang away as Rocky said from behind me, “Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Look who’s here!” He sounded cheerful, almost bright.

******

I think our prizes will be some kind of vintage holiday ornament for each of our authors. I shall scour eBay for something apropos.  :-D Please contact me through my website with your mailing address!

Advent Calendar - Day 20

D-d-day 2O??????

How can this be? But here we are five-count-'em-five days from Christmas! Ready or not, here it comes.

So today is simply a giveaway day.

I have twenty US and twenty UK audio download codes for EACH of the following four winter-themed books: A Case of Christmas**, Baby, it's Cold, Winter Kill and Slay Ride.

That's a lot of audio books! 

These audio books are absolutely free to you. However, they can only be redeemed directly through audible.com/acx-promo OR audible.co.uk/acx-promo. If you're not already a member, you may have to supply a credit card. I'm not sure. I know you are not charged for these books and you should be able to unsubscribe whenever you like.

So here's how we're going to do this. Share one thing you love about the holidays in the comment section below and state which audio book you'd be interested in. Over the next few days, I'll go through and randomly select people to receive download codes (so please remember to check back periodically).

Happy Friday! :-)


***PLEASE REMEMBER TO STATE WHETHER YOU NEED US OR UK CODES***





**Please note, I'd originally listed All I Want for Christmas as one of the audio options, but there IS NO SUCH AUDIO BOOK. That's what I get for posting when I'm on cold meds. The option I meant to list is A Case of Christmas! However, I do have some other codes including Seance on a Summer's Night, Mainly by Moonlight, and The Monuments Men Murders.

Advent Calendar Day 7

Last year we did a little creative exercise while giving away two copies of the print coda collection All I Want for Christmas and, seeing that it yielded such great results, we're going to do it again. TODAY.

Here's how it works. Write the first paragraph for a potential holiday coda with your favorite Josh Lanyon couple. That's it. It can be silly, sad, serious, sexy...whatever you choose! Just have fun with it. Even if you don't go on to write a whole coda, I think you'll be surprised at how entertaining it can be to lose yourself in that made up world for a little while.

And if you DO write a whole coda--and want to share it next year--well, I know just the place! ;-)

I'll randomly choose two authors from the coda beginnings to receive a copy of All I Want for Christmas. If you're new to the Advent Calendar and my holiday codas, it's actually a very cool collection of all my codas thru 2016--along with recipes for food and drink that tie-in with the codas. It's a nice little book!


And just to help get the creative juices flowing, here are a few photos that you can use as prompts. Or not!

OUR WINNERS SO FAR...

Well, we only have one giveaway and that is for the Buche de Noel which goes to...

Kathleen L. Charles!

(I don't know why that didn't show before!)

Kathleen, I need your ship to address ASAP -- contact me through Facebook or my website.

Holy moly. SO MANY DELISH-LOOKING RECIPES!!!!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED!

Advent Calendar Day 5

In 2017 I started the tradition of giving away a Buche de Noel, and I think I'll do it again this year, but earlier since the stores tend to sell out quickly.

Did I hear you ask What is a Buche de Noel? It's an edible Yule Log, that's what. :-)

 The bûche de Noël is a French holiday favorite, inspired by the giant yule logs that were traditionally burned on Christmas Eve. The bakers at the small, family-owned We Take the Cake bakery have handcrafted this one with their best-selling chocolate génoise cake, rolled with rich coffee buttercream and finished with chocolate cream cheese frosting "bark." Whimsical berry-laden fondant holly leaves and crisp meringue/marzipan mushrooms add festive flourish.

They are quite delish, I assure you. And a very nice change from pie.

So today's giveaway--limited to readers in the US, unfortunately--is a Buche de Noel from Williams and Sonoma. It's always tricky pulling this one off, so be sure to check back this weekend to see if you've won because we have very few days to get the order in!

To be eligible for this particular giveaway you must live in the US and you must contribute your very favorite holiday recipe in the comment section below.  I'll be choosing the winner tomorrow morning, so don't put off contributing your recipe in the comment section!

Advent Calendar Day 4

Today we have a little vintage holiday cartoon that I don't believe I've shared before. This is the 1940s horror classic (well, kinda!) The Snow Man. It's only about eight minutes long, so relax and enjoy before you get to work!

THAT WILL TEACH YOU MEDDLING KIDS TO BUILD SNOWMEN!!!

Thank You -- And Here's to 2019!

First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in this year's Advent Calendar. Sincere thanks to all the talented contributors: Sarah Atkinson, Rachel Owen, Haldis Grummel, Natasha Chesterbrook and Steve Leonard. There would have been an awful lot of cocktail recipes and photos without their creative input!

(If you wanted to participate this year, but just couldn't get it together, now you have plenty of time to polish your contribution for next year. ;-) )

But also I want to thank those of you who showed up every day to read and comment. The calendar is my way of saying thank you to my readers--so long as it's enjoyed and appreciated, I'll keep doing it.

This was such a better year for me compared to the last couple of years--really, from every standpoint: financially, physically, creatively...maybe even spiritually. I feel much calmer and more optimistic heading into 2019 than I did heading into 2018 (and let's not even think about 2017).

Part of that is me, of course, but a lot of that is YOU. So thank you for your continuing support and enthusiasm. It means so much. Really, it means everything.

I hope that 2019 is a terrific year for you. That you are healthy and happy and that you spend most of your time doing things you enjoy--or, at the very least, things you feel are worthwhile.

We had a few remaining winners from the teaser exercises we did earlier in the month. Those winners are:

Advent Calendar Day 19
Marilyn
Karla R
Karan
booksandmore


Advent Calendar Day Day 13
Rdafan7
Alexa Ebanks
Carlita
Valoue

Choose your magnet from the selection of posted teasers and email me with your choice and your snail mail address--and thank you again for joining in on the fun! See you next year! 

Advent Calendar Day 19

As I mentioned last week we're doing the teasers creative exercise again (by the way, last week's go-round was FABULOUS) only this time it's series specific.

This time your teasers have to be from any book in the Dangerous Ground series.

The challenge of course is to find catchy lines short enough to fit into a visually arresting photo--that's the key to creating a great teaser. And no one is better at that than my dear friend Johanna Ollila, so I'm using her work again as examples (although--I find this so funny--she couldn't come up with DG teasers either!) :-D

Once again, we'll randomly select four people from the comment section below to receive their choice of magnet from one of Johanna's lovely teaser magnets!

Advent Calendar Day 16

Last year we did a little creative exercise while giving away two copies of the print coda collection All I Want for Christmas, and I'm thinking it would be fun to do that again.

Here's how it works. Write the first paragraph for a potential holiday coda with your favorite Josh Lanyon couple. That's it. It can be silly, sad, serious, sexy...whatever you choose! Just have fun with it. Even if you don't go on to write a whole coda, I think you'll be surprised at how entertaining it can be to lose yourself in that made up world for a little while.

And if you DO write a whole coda--and want to share it next year--well, I know just the place! ;-)

I'll randomly choose two authors from the coda beginnings to receive a copy of All I Want for Christmas. If you're new to the Advent Calendar and my holiday codas, it's actually a very cool collection of all my codas thru 2016--along with recipes for food and drink that tie-in with the codas. It's a nice little book!


And just to help get the creative juices flowing, here are a few festive photos to that you can use as prompts. Or not!

Happy writing!!!

Advent Calendar Day 13

One of my favorite posts from last year's Advent Calendar was when I asked you all to submit some of your favorite lines from my stories for possible use in teasers. I got some terrific quotes which I really did end up using a bunch of in teasers this year.

So we're going to do that again--and like last year we'll select four people from the comment section below to receive a magnet of one of these gorgeous teasers created by my dear (and ridiculously talented) friend Johanna Ollila. (If you don't know Johanna, she's one of the wonderful mods of my Goodreads group.)

We're actually going to do this creative exercise twice. This time around, just choose any favorite line(s) for any favorite Josh Lanyon book and post below. NEXT week I'll be looking for best lines from the Dangerous Ground series (Blind Side is coming out next year) and I haven't yet figured out what the prizes will be in that case. ;-)

So here are some samples of teasers and the lines that make them so effective.

We interrupt this broadcast...

...for a quick word about prizes. :-)

Here's what we have so far in the way of winners.

The Yule Log

Our winners were Sam Spayde, PI and Ariel. It turns out WS will not ship to Alaska so Ariel generously requested that her log be gifted to someone else. So our second winner is now Binkabunny with that glorious coconut cake recipe.

If you do want to collect this prize, I've got to have your address ASAP because these yule logs go very quickly!

Audio Book Download Codes

My three winners are:

Tina
Booksandmore
 El gato sobre el tejado

If Only in My Dreams (print Christmas collection)

Debby

Zoey Brouthers

Ariel

And because it's the holidays and I'm feeling generous:

fangirl1981


Hannah


Almathea

Happy, happy holidays to all of you! 

(And don't you worry! Lots of prizes and giveaways still to come!)

Winners, you can contact me through Facebook, Goodreads or the contact page on my website.