CLP Blog Tour: Miss Kane's Christmas by Caroline Mickelson

Follow the tour and enter the giveaway HERE

With Christmas only three days away, Carol Claus agrees to her father’s request that she leave the North Pole on a mission to help save Christmas. Joining single father Ben Hanson and his children for the holidays seems an easy enough task until Santa informs her that Ben is the man behind the disturbing new book ‘Beyond Bah Humbug: Why Lying to Your Children about Santa Claus is a Bad Idea’. 

Posing as Miss Kane, the children’s new nanny, Carol pulls out all the stops to show Ben how fun Christmas can be, all the while struggling to understand how one man could hate the holidays so much. How could she, Santa’s only daughter, be so attracted to a man who refuses to believe her father exists? 

**Please note - this book was originally titled Carol's Christmas**

“I cannot believe you’ve banished me from the North Pole.” Carol Claus glanced across the sleigh at her father. “What have I done?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, my dear.” Santa smiled at his daughter. He hopped down from the driver’s seat and motioned for Carol to join him. When she did, he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her an affectionate hug. He gestured across the moonlit neighborhood of Indian Village. “This is a beautiful place for you to spend your first Christmas away from home.”

Carol looked down on the snow covered street. Each two story home in the cul-de-sac was bedecked with strings of colored lights, nativity scenes, plastic gift wrapped lawn ornaments, and pine wreaths on the front doors. The seventh home just under their feet was the exception to the neighborhood’s festive spirit. A white clapboard colonial with black shutters, it gave no indication that its owners knew Christmas was only three days away.

She fixed a pleading expression on her father but, while his blue eyes sparkled with his love for her, he showed no sign of going back on his decision that she spend her first Christmas with a family of his choosing. It was a Claus family tradition, and Carol, as the youngest child, was over-due for her turn. Still, she made one last ditch effort to change his mind. “You’ve said yourself that no one excels at elf management like I do.”

“True, I said it and I meant it. But your absence will give your brother Nicholas a chance to work more closely with the elves. Besides, you deserve some fun this year. You work too hard.”

“I love every moment of it.” Carol tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She shared her father’s blue eyes and his love of Christmas. “I’ll miss you, Daddy.”

“I’ll miss you too, my girl. I know this won’t be easy, Carol, but it’s necessary.” He dug into the pocket of his red down jacket and pulled out a sheet of folded paper. “Read this.”

She reached out for the paper. “What is it?”

“Just read it. It’s the reason you’re here.”

Carol unfolded the slightly crumpled sheet of lined paper and instantly recognized that it had been written by a child. Fortunately the moon was bright enough to allow her to easily read the words that had been neatly printed in crayon.

Dear Santa,

My Daddy doesn’t know I’m writing to you. He would say I can’t write a letter to someone who doesn’t even exist but I know you are real. My Mom told me so before she died. My little brother Patrick doesn’t remember her saying that but that’s only because she was gone before he was even in preschool. I’m not writing to ask for anything for Patrick or me. But Santa, can you please bring my Daddy some happiness? I know the elves can’t wrap it, and it’s nothing you can bring down the chimney but he needs help. I don’t know who else to ask. I know you’ll think of something Santa.

from Hillary (age 8)

p.s. Patrick likes to play with cars and my favorite color is pink

Carol finished reading the letter, refolded it and handed it back to her father. “I take it we’re at Hillary and Patrick’s house?”

Many people know I am a sucker for all things Christmas...books, movies, decorations the whole nine yards. So when given the opportunity to read this novella, I jumped at the chance. I love it! The whole time I was reading Miss Kane's Christmas it was like a movie was playing in my mind. I could see the characters, the setting the whole story playing out! I just adored it cover to cover!!! This book is romantic comedy mixed with the miracle of Christmas and makes for a cheerful and fabulous Christmas read! 5 stars!!

 ******************************************************************************

Author Bio:

Caroline Mickelson loves her family and loves to write. She also loves a good adventure, among her favorites thus far were attending graduate school in a Scottish castle, riding a camel around the Pyramids in Giza, and taking a best-in-a-lifetime road trip to Graceland. Caroline lives in the American southwest with her husband and their four children, affectionately known as The Miracles.

Connect with Caroline!

Website: www.carolinemickelson.com

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/CarolineM67

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/authorcarolinemickelson

Buy the Book! 

Amazon

B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/miss-kanes-christmas-caroline-mickelson/1117004957?ean=2940148746034

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/miss-kane-s-christmas

Highlight: Loving by Corin Hughs

Synopsis

Hannah Mattox longs to be a mother. But her heart disease, Pulmonary Hypertension, precludes her from safely bearing children. Karla Valez is a homeless prostitute who despises the “thing” growing inside her and hopes to kill it in-utero with the drugs that have ruled her life—and buried her painful past—for nearly five years.  Gabriella Greene, founder of the Sanford Crisis Pregnancy Center, finds herself the bridge between these two women.  A time when questions far outweigh answers, there is one most pressing: why would God allow this?     

Weaving together the lives of three very different women, Loving will take readers on an emotional journey that reveals one common thread: they each need to surrender to a God who loves.

Bio

Corin Hughs wrote her first “book” the summer after third grade, an illustrated children's book about the principle of compromise (the main characters were pigs!). Many years have passed since that book, but she never stopped writing. Her first novel, Loving, released in October 2013. Corin married her high school sweetheart nearly 10 years ago, and they have three young children. Please visit www.corinhughs.com to learn more.

Facebook Page :

https://www.facebook.com/corinhughsauthor

Google+ Page:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/111545704426403022279/111545704426403022279/posts

Twitter Profile:

https://twitter.com/CorinHughs

Amazon:

Highlight: Evil Shadows by Rick Hallock

Evil Shadows is a true story…

of the extremes of identity theft that can lead to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of the victim. It shows how the author’s identity was stolen and how that theft ultimately led to his financial ruin and closure of his successful business enterprise, all the result of actions of federal agents and prosecutors.

After an exhaustive investigation, the author lays bare the whole story of how his identity was stolen and how it was used as cover for commission of other crimes.

The story tells of his becoming the primary suspect in a worldwide federal investigation for those crimes and how federal authorities leveled their awesome and destructive powers directly at him in their zeal to make an arrest. It details the destruction of his successful publishing company and of how he narrowly avoided being arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.

The story concludes with self-help chapters on the subjects of Prevention, Detection and Recovery from identity theft.

RICK HALLOCK was born and raised in the Catskill region of New York State. He entered the US Navy in 1965 serving on board nuclear powered guided missile Submarine USS Robert E Lee where he made seven patrols over a four-year period and where he discovered he had a natural talent for computer programming.

Upon leaving the Navy he tried the corporate life but in 1979 decided to leave that world behind and set off in pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities.

Over the years, he took part in the formation of two successful business enterprises culminating in the founding of Ferncliff Associates Inc. Under the Ferncliff banner he created and published the successful authoring products known as CDMotion and DVDMotion. The enterprise and products enjoyed substantial successes in the late 1990s but were ultimately destroyed by Rick’s Evil Shadows in the spring of 2000.

Today Rick splits his time between Naples, Florida and Saratoga Springs, New York while continuing to provide software engineering services. In his spare time he writes and pursues his next entrepreneurial opportunity.

CLP Blog Tour: Unscripted by Jayne Denker

Follow the tour HERE

One of Hollywood’s hardest working women is about to discover there's a lot more drama behind the camera than in front of it...

Faith “Freakin’” Sinclair probably shouldn’t have called her boss a perv…or grabbed his “privates.” But as creator of the hit dramedy Modern Women she’d had enough of his sexist insults. Now she’s untouchable in the industry—not in a good way. The only way to redeem herself is to convince Alex the wildly popular wildly demanding former star of her show to come back. But there’s one obstacle in her way—one very handsome broad-shouldered obstacle…

Professor Mason Mitchell is head of the theater department where Alex is studying “real” acting. The only way he’ll let Faith anywhere near Alex is if she agrees to co-teach a class. It’s an offer she can’t refuse—and as it turns out the professor just might end up teaching Faith that there’s more to life than work—and that real-life love scenes are way more fun than fake ones….

Guest Post: One Drop

Jayne Denker

And then there was the time I nearly gave up writing fiction altogether.

It was a moment that would turn your hair gray in an instant, I swear. I mean, I could feel my favorite not-found-in-nature purplish auburn leaching out of every strand while I did one of those slo-mo reaches, crying in a voice altered to an octave and a half lower than normal by the drawn-out special effect, “Nooooo...”

Well, wait—let me set the scene first. Picture a happy fledgling author, halfway through the first draft of her first novel. That would be me. With hair color intact. I had powered through my first NaNoWriMo, conquered the quest for 50,000 words in thirty days. If I could get that far, I reasoned, I could make it all the way to the end of a book. What an exciting thought! So now, with the diligent writing during the month of November, and the distracting holidays, behind me, I was charging ahead under my own steam, gleefully continuing with my First Ever Chick Lit/Contemporary Romance.

I was even more excited to get to a chapter I’d been looking forward to writing for ages. In it, my hapless heroine throws a Christmas party, where everything—and I mean everything—goes wrong. And then culminates with her house catching on fire. (Don’t worry—like all my novels, it’s a comedy. It all comes out fine in the end.)

I started writing the chapter eagerly, enjoying knowing exactly what was going to happen every step of the way for once (hey, I’m a pantser—I only keep a vague plan of action on my best days, so this much knowledge was a blessing) but being pleasantly surprised by little details and clever twists that came out of nowhere. I was halfway through the scene and loving it.

And then...

It was just one errant drop. My son bumped into me as I was taking a drink from a bottle of water. The drop went flying...straight under the keys of my laptop. Before I could turn the machine off, that evil droplet snaked its way to the battery.

“Nooooo...”

Yes. Dead. I’d lost my MacBook. It was confirmed the next day by one of the dudes at the Genius Bar. Nothing was salvageable—nothing. I’d lost the Christmas party scene. (The rest of the MS was safely ensconced in Google Docs, thank goodness.) Yes, I cried. I really did. Even though I was grateful that I hadn’t lost the entire half a novel, I still wept for what I did lose. I stopped writing for several weeks.

It sounds silly, I know. It was only one scene. But I struggled to recreate it, all the while suspecting I never matched what I had written originally. To this day I’ll never know. Was the original version the better one? I realized eventually that it didn’t matter. What did matter was that I started writing again (on a new MacBook Pro).

What mattered was that I finished the novel, found an agent, and the agent found a publisher. (It wasn’t that easy, but it happened.) And then I finished another novel, and another one, and now I’m almost finished with a fourth. That whole “never give up” thing? I think there’s something to that. It’s right up there with my other favorite bit of advice: Back up your computer. Frequently.

Jayne Denker is the author of three contemporary romantic comedies, By Design, Unscripted, and Down on Love, and is hard at work on a fourth. She lives in a small town in western New York, USA, with her husband, son, and one very sweet senior-citizen basement kitteh who loves nothing more than going outside, where she sits on the front walk and wonders why she begged to go outside. When Jayne’s not hard at work on another novel (or, rather, when she should be hard at work on another novel), she can usually be found frittering away stupid amounts of time online.

Connect with Jayne!

Blog: http://jaynedenker.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JayneDenkerAuthor

Twitter: @JDenkerAuthor 

Buy the Book!

Amazon:

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unscripted-jayne-denker/1114865242?ean=9781601831316

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/unscripted-5 

(Also available on iTunes)   

Highlight: Stryker by M.M. Wheezee

Since his mom died a few years ago, Harold Stryker, just a boy of 12, has been following her instructions: 

He lives all alone, in secret, in his house outside Los Angeles.

He avoids, as best as he can, other kids—and certainly grown-ups. 

He keeps only his huge, gassy dog and his collection of power tools for company.

But he's okay with all that. Until the big night of the little earthquake. And his plunge into a dangerous forgotten tunnel beneath his dining room floor. And his encounter with the sweet, terrifying girl baseball star named Tien Tang (aka TNT, aka “T”), and the compulsive, camo-suited, overweight force of nature known officially as Bella but universally as Blunt. They push and pull him through an underground adventure with a bullying science teacher, a tasteless chef, a greedy criminal, hairy tarantulas (live), sabertooth cats (long dead), a sweet guy who only looks bad, an aunt who's not related to her nephew, smelly mushrooms, old trolley cars, new subways, and a baker's dozen of illegal Asian immigrants who need to be rescued from a life of slavery in a California ghost town. Harold Stryker is okay with all that too. But those two girls are now his friends. And that has him shaking. 

Stryker is a funny, scary adventure story for middle graders, filled with unforgettable characters and at least one wholly unnecessary plug for pasta with peanut sauce.

*******************************************

About the authors?????

M. M. Wheezee is actually two people: Mark Wheeler is a senior media relations officer for the UCLA Health System where he writes about science and healthcare and daydreams about tunnels (yes, there are tunnels in Stryker. Lots of tunnels). Earlier he was the editor of that university's alumni magazine, and a freelance writer for the likes of Smithsonian and Discover magazines. He was also a senior editor at Discover, where he met and reported to Marc Zabludoff, now his co-author.

Marc Zabludoff has wandered through several careers, with artist, teacher, and cook being among the more interesting. For more than a decade he was the top editor at Discover, a publication dedicated to communicating science to a mass audience of self-defined adults. (It was there that he recognized the peculiar talents of Mark Wheeler and assigned him the role of chief humor writer.) For a similar but more discerning audience of children, he has written a small pile of allegedly educational books, many of them focused on creatures with tusks, fangs, or way too many legs. 

Highlight: The Water Thief by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

CHARLES THATCHER is a private citizen, which is to say that he’s the private property of the Ackerman Brothers Securities Corporation. He’s got problems: the cost of air is going up, his wife wants to sell herself to another corporation, and his colleagues are always trying to get him tossed into the lye vats.

But when he discovers a woman stealing rainwater, he sees his chance to move up in the world, maybe even become an executive. He reports her, painting a picture, not just of a thief, but of a seditionist and revolutionary, someone who believes in that long-dead institution called “government.”

When she suddenly vanishes, he fears the worst and begins trying to track her down. What he finds is a nightmare far worse than he’d imagined—that his report on her may actually have been right.

Now engaged with a small rebel group, Charles learns about life outside his corporation. But in a world where everything is for sale and lies are more profitable than the truth, he begins to wonder if even these revolutionaries have something to hide.

 More about the author HERE

Highlight: Highfall by Ani Alexander

AMAZON KINDLE #1 BESTSELLER in Women's Fiction, Drama and New Adult & College Romance
A true life love story
dramatic and emotional 

What if early on your life changed drastically several times? What if you were betrayed more than once? Would you have the courage to fall in love again? How do you choose if you love two men at the same time? Will you be able to leave the past behind?

These are the questions Annika asks herself in the novel Highfall.

Annika falls down many times but never gives up and always gets back on her feet. Her life is one long roller-coaster with the unexpected at every turn. As a result she turns from unassuming teenager into a strong woman.

The book includes different facets of life, such as love, drugs, loss, despair and hope.
Once you pick it up you will not put it down.

About the author:

Ani Alexander is my nom de plume. Why do I use one? Well the only answer would be stating my real name – Ani Chibukhchyan.  You see now? Yeah… that’s what I thought too 

I have been writing since my teenage years. Back then I did not realize that it was more than a passing phase, interest or hobby. That is why I listened to the left part of my brain and studied business instead:)

When I finally became wiser I left my 11-year corporate career behind and decided to follow my passion.

Now I am balancing being wife and mother with being fiction author and blogger. A while ago I set up my self-development blog called Life Probabilities, which aimes to help readers increase possibilities  of  fulfilled, happy and successful life.

Writing fiction is what I am truly passionate about. I love creating words, which evoke emotions, provoke thoughts and touch readers’ soul.