Wordless Wednesday: Jump Rope Girl Vintage Valentine

Found at Birdhouse Books

Book Spotlight and Giveaway: Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The dead of winter.
An isolated island off the coast of Maine.
A man.
A woman.
A sinister house looming over the sea ...

He's a reclusive writer whose macabre imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill with laughs.

But she's not laughing now. When she was a teenager, he terrified her. Now they're trapped together on a snowy island off the coast of Maine. Is he the villain she remembers or has he changed? Her head says no. Her heart says yes.

It's going to be a long, hot winter.

 Link to Follow Tour: http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/07/heroes-are-my-weakness-by-susan.html

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23215475-heroes-are-my-weakness-intl

Buy Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062106090/susaelizphi03-20/

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heroes-are-my-weakness-susan-elizabeth-phillips/1118735367?ean=9780062106094&itm=1&usri=9780062106094&cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-1KSIRJmDm4M-_-2:9780062106070&r=19780062106094

BAM: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Heroes-My-Weakness/Susan-Elizabeth-Phillips/9780062106094?id=6377087445407

Author Info

Susan Elizabeth Phillips soars onto the New York Times bestseller list with every new publication. She’s the only four-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Favorite Book of the Year Award. Susan delights fans by touching hearts as well as funny bones with her wonderfully whimsical and modern fairy tales. A resident of the Chicago suburbs, she is also a wife, and mother of two grown sons.

Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Website:  http://susanelizabethphillips.com/

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

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/sepauthor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/41313.Susan_Elizabeth_Phillips

Rafflecopter Giveaway (Surprise SEP Romance Prize Pack)

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Did You Know Tuesday: Billboard Hot 100 Chart

The Billboard Hot 100 Chart first appeared on this date, August 4, in 1958.   This chart featured all genres of music and rated them by popularity.  The first ever number 1 single was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson, below.  The chart is still around, and is now called the Hot 100.  Just a little music trivia tidbit to start your day!

Book Spotlight and Giveaway: The Orchard at the Edge of Town by Shirlee McCoy

Apple Valley, Washington, is where starting over means surprising new chances, facing trouble always brings a helping hand—and the most unlikely hopes can forever come true…

Apricot Sunshine Devereux-Miller needs to stay lost.  Her eccentric aunt's home in Apple Valley is the perfect place to forget her cheating ex-fiancé and get her no-longer-perfect life back under control. Plus, it couldn't hurt to fix up the house and turn its neglected orchard into a thriving business.  And if Apricot can keep Deputy Sheriff Simon Baylor's two lively young daughters out of mischief, maybe she can ignore that he’s downright irresistible—and everything she never dreamed she'd find ...

Simon isn't looking to have his heart broken again.  He already has his hands full raising his girls. And lately he's thinking way too much about Apricot's take-charge energy and unwitting knack for stirring up trouble. He can't see a single way they could ever be right for each other. Unless they can take a crazy chance on trusting their hearts—and risking the courage to finally find their way home.

 Link to Follow Tour:  http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/06/the-orchard-at-edge-of-town-apple.html

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22891404-the-orchard-at-the-edge-of-town

Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/115429-apple-valley

Buy Links:  Amazon | B & N | iTunes | Kobo

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Orchard-Edge-Apple-Valley-Novel/dp/1420132393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432752709&sr=8-1&keywords=9781420132397

B&N:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/orchard-at-the-edge-of-town-shirlee-mccoy/1120137977?ean=9781420132397 

iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-orchard-at-the-edge-of-town/id936555211?mt=11

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-orchard-at-the-edge-of-town

Excerpt

          She unlocked it and pulled it off the rack, the old 1940s Schwinn as sturdy as any modern bike, its oversized wicker basket roomy enough to carry groceries from the farmers’ market she loved to visit on Saturdays.

          Used to love to visit.

          Now she planned to spend Saturdays closed away in Rose’s house until she decided what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. The life that she’d planned to spend with Lionel.

          She climbed onto the bike, bunching the dress up around her thighs, the strap of the dainty little blue purse Lionel’s mother had loaned her tossed over her shoulder. The key to Rose’s house was inside. Otherwise she might have been tempted to throw the purse into the roadside ditch and leave it there.

          If only she could do the same with the past thirty six hours.

          Actually, she’d like to do it with the past five years. Toss them into a ditch, let them be covered by dirt and time until the only reminder that they’d ever been there was a tiny little lump of nothing.

          Seeing as how she couldn’t do that, she started pedaling, her legs pumping, the poufy skirt shredding as it caught under the wheels and in the spokes of the old bike.

          All that money down the drain.

          All that time.

          All that commitment and trust and faith that things would work out.

          Gone!

          Just like that.

          Hot tears burned behind her eyes, but she’d be darned if she was going to let them fall. Lionel didn’t deserve them. What he deserved was to be forgotten, and that was exactly what Apricot intended to do. She also planned to down a quarter-pound burger and an entire batch of homemade fries. Two things that she hadn’t eaten since Lionel had moved in three years ago. He believed in organic whole foods. Raw.

          Apparently he did not believe in fidelity.

          “Better to learn that before the vows than after,” she told herself. A magpie screamed a response. Rose would have said it was a sign of trouble. Apricot didn’t believe in signs and portents. She believed in hard work and integrity. She believed in doing her best and in treating people with respect. She believed in keeping the peace and compromising.

          “And look where that got you,” she muttered.

          This time, the magpie didn’t reply.

          She pedaled like mad for ten minutes, then coasted down a small hill, her lungs burning, her ribs chafed from the built-in corset. She couldn’t wait to tear the dress off, toss it in the burn pile, and set a match to it. Couldn’t wait to send her family over to the condo to kick Lionel’s butt out, either.

          Although, knowing them, they’d already been there, and he’d already been kicked to the curb.

          She still wasn’t going back.

          Not for a while.

      

Author Info

Shirlee McCoy spent her childhood making up stories and acting them out with her sister. It wasn’t long before she discovered Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, her mother’s gothic romances . . . and became an ardent fan of romantic suspense. She still enjoys losing herself in a good book. And she still loves making up stories. Shirlee and her husband live in Washington and have five children.

Readers can visit her website at www.shirleemccoy.com.

Author Links:  Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

Website:  http://www.shirleemccoy.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/shirlee.mccoy1
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/shirlee_mccoy
GoodReads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/87925.Shirlee_McCoy

Rafflecopter Giveaway (Three Print Copies of ORCHARD AT THE EDGE OF TOWN (US Only)

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Music Monday - "Lovely Day" by Bill Withers (1977)

You know that list of Top 10 all-time favorite songs I've mentioned here before (although I still haven't put together an actual list)?   This song is on it.  "Lovely Day" by Bill Withers was released in 1977 and charted at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  A little note of trivia -- Bill Withers holds a note for 18 seconds near the end of the song.


Do you remember this one?  It is pure musical happiness for me.