New Release and ALL the Giveaways!

That cat is me this morning. I’ve got the day-before-release-day spins. There’s *this* to do and *that* to do and omg I forgot something else!! Please may I have an extra few hours today….like maybe 24 extra….?

It’s clear that I haven’t figured out how to balance the writing with all the non-writing parts of being an author. I find it awfully easy to get caught up in the networking and blog posting and promo-joining and whatnot. There’s also the editing and the formatting and the cover arting and the teaser-making. It all sucks up so much time! This last couple weeks I’ve been spending just about every free moment on something to do with publishing – and some not-so-free moments, tbh – and I haven’t written a new word in all that time.

Yikes.

But enough about me. (LOL!) You’re here for the new release and ALL the giveaways, right? I’m pretty excited about this book. It’s different from our other Irene&Liv books, but it’s still us. In a good way. Frog is part of the Royal Powers series, a shared-world series about an imaginary country on the coast between France & Spain, with two mythical royal families who also happen to possess superpowers. When they invited us to contribute, we couldn’t say no to a premise like that, and it was a whole lotta fun to play in that world.

You can find Frog HERE! It’s $3.99 or FREE with KU!

Here’s the blurb...

Spy vs Spy

Jim Calhoun and his sister Lori are just two Americans in North Abarra exploring their roots. They are definitely not off-duty CIA agents.
Enzo da Silva is the head groundskeeper on Princess Odile’s country estate. He is definitely what he seems to be – the guy who trims the hedge maze and measures oxygen levels in the national forest.
The Princess’s birthday bash is a major celebration every year. As the big day approaches, a series of accidents plague the preparations. It’s almost like someone wants things to go wrong. But it’s not as though two commoners like Jim and Enzo – with absolutely no super powers – can stop a rogue supervillian.  And if Jim and Enzo keep showing up at the same crime scenes, it’s not because they can’t keep their eyes off each other.
Definitely not.

Did I mention you can find Frog on Amazon? It’s $2.99 or FREE with KU!

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To celebrate the second season of the Royal Powers series, all of the authors got together for a SUPER BIG giveaway! The prize is a $75 gift card plus books from all the authors, and you can find the rafflecopter widget HERE. (Irene and I are also running our monthly giveaway for a $10 gift card. The rafflecopter widget for that one is conveniently located on the same page.)

Click HERE to get to the GIVEAWAY!

And finally, I joined another multi-author giveaway! One lucky winner will win a bundle of prizes including 2 x $5 gift cards, 8 x backlist ebooks, 1 x swag bundle, 1 x audiocode, & a signed paperback! Here’s a list of some of the participating authors:
RJ Scott, H.L Day, Clare London, Davidson King, Susan Scott Shelley, Liv Rancourt (that’s me!), A.D. Ellis, Elle Keaton, Anne Barwell, Avery Cockburn, Mel Gough, Jay Hogan, and Elizabeth Noble.

A bunch of the authors have freebies over on bookfunnel. You can find them here!
And go here to enter to win the grand prize!!

Thanks so much for reading along!!

More Holiday Reading Fun!

Last year I made a Ten Holiday Reading Recommendations post, and I thought it would be fun to do something similar today. The biggest difference – other than the numbers on the calendar – is that last year’s post appeared in mid-December, so I’d had a couple more weeks to get some holiday reading in.

Since Thanksgiving, I’ve only read three holiday books, so I can’t really do a top-ten list. They’re all wonderful stories, though, so I figure I’ll start with them and see where we end up. I’m also taking part in the Rainbow Advent Calendar giveaway, so I’ll post a link to that near the end. (Because you know you want a free read every day in December, right?!)

Here’s the first of my holiday reads….Mr Frosty Pants by Leta Blake. Oh my goodness! This story! It’s so good! Though it’s not the kind of thing I’d generally think of for a holiday read. It’s a full-length novel, as opposed to a warm&fuzzy little novella, the kind I can knock off in an evening. The story digs deeper, too, demanding both characters fight through real issues to reach their happily ever after. 

Yeah, there’s angst, but the ending got me all choked up, in the best possible way! 

My next holiday read was Mr. Winterbourne’s Christmas by Joanna Chambers. This one has a little backstory; a few years ago, blogger Susan Lee put together an anthology that is (sadly) no longer available. The anthology began with Introducing Mr. Winterbourne, and with all due respect to the other authors who contributed, that elegant little story was my favorite in the collection.

(And that’s saying something, because the second story was KJ Charles’ The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh, the beginning of her amazing Society of Gentlemen series.)

Anyway, Mr. Winterbourne’s Christmas picks up 18 months after the first story ended. I was a bit nervous about whether it would live up to my memories, but no worries there. It’s a wonderful, satisfying follow-up, and I recommend you read them both to get the full effect! 

The Holly Groweth Green by Amy Rae Durreson is just about my ideal for a holiday romance. It’s not long, but the author does a lovely job of giving the characters space to develop. The atmosphere is appropriately Christmassy, and I loved the way the fantasy elements are woven into the story.  Technically this one came out last year, but it’s been sitting on my TBR since then and I’m so happy I finally read it!

There are a few more holiday books on my TBR pile, including The Probability of Mistletoe by EJ Russell, Unwrapping Mr. Roth by Holley Trent, The Winter Spirit by Indra Vaughn (which some friends of mine have really loved), and Crossroads by Garrett Leigh. That should pretty much carry me through till Christmas, and then it’ll be time for Kris Ripper‘s annual New Year’s book.

And if you haven’t read Ripper’s Scientific Method series, you’ve been missing out. Just know that while there are very few sure things in this life, xer New Year’s book is at the top of my list of auto-buys.

Final thoughts for today….December 1st is the start of the Rainbow Advent Calendar Giveaway. Here’s a link to the Facebook Group  – join up so you can get notices when new books are posted. There are a lot of fantastic authors involved, and it’s all FREE! Happy Holidays!

My Advent Calendar contribution will be The Christmas Prince. It’s a sequel to my Steampunk-lite novella The Clockwork Monk, and I had a ton of fun playing in that world again. Monk is still available for FREE – jump here for a copy – and you can keep an eye on my website for more information about The Christmas Prince. Or, you know, join the Advent Calendar Facebook Group. Merry Merry!