FREE CONTEST: Win 5 books from A Week With GRPR!

Win All Five Free Books from GRPR!

Gone With the Groom by Janice A. Thompson

Bygones by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Crime & Clutter by Cyndy Salzmann

Fair Game by Carol Cox

Veil of Fire by Marlo Schalesky

Click on the picture at the top of the sidebar to email your entry. This contest is open to EVERYONE and only lasts a week, so email those entries in right away. I'll close the contest Sunday, June 10, 2007 at midnight.

Good Luck and spread the word,

A.

GRPR WEEK: Gone With the Groom by Janice A. Thompson

Song Stuck on the Brain: She Said Yes by Chad Brock

Welcome to a Week with Glass Roads PR!

Every day this week, I'll be featuring a great new book from the GRPR client list. Today's feature book is:

Gone With the Groom

by

Janice A. Thompson

ABOUT THE BOOK:

FICTION MIRRORS REALITY IN GONE WITH THE GROOM

Thompson’s Bridal Mayhem Mystery Series Continues

(Nashville, Tenn.) — It’s all over the news. Three company executives of the maker of the powerful painkiller Oxy-Contin pled guilty to misleading the public about the drug's risk of addiction, according to a federal prosecutor as well as a company representative. Was Janice A. Thompson listening from a closet when she penned Gone with the Groom?

The conflict of a big drug company deception is just one of the riveting themes interwoven through this novel — and could be why the groom is missing.

The best laid plans of brides and men go awry when Annie Peterson’s future son-inlaw Scott disappears. Have pre-wedding jitters caused Brandi’s fiancé to take flight, or are more sinister forces at work? Annie puts her super-sleuth powers to work, feverishly racing against the wedding day clock to find her daughter’s missing fiancé.

Has Scott been silenced by the big pharmaceutical company for which he works? Perhaps his disappearance is the handiwork of Otis, Scott’s sneaky dad. But then again it could be the shady wedding photographer or even a sideshow of the political campaign of Scott’s mother.

Will Annie solve the mystery and recover the missing groom in time for the couple to say their wedding vows? Find out in Gone with the Groom.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Author Janice A. Thompson lives in the Houston area. In 2004, her two oldest daughters both received proposals within weeks of each other. The weddings came off without a hitch! Janice has since coordinated weddings for friends and is thrilled to incorporate many of her adventures into her novels.

Q&A WITH JANICE A. THOMPSON:

1. What book is coming next?

There will be three more Annie Peterson mysteries after this one: PUSHING UP DAISIES, THE PERFECT MATCH, and CATERING TO DISASTER. In PUSHING UP DAISIES. They will all be released as part of the new mystery line at Barbour Publishing (Heartsong Presents Mysteries).
2. What book are you working on now?

I just turned in a Heartsong romance titled WHITE AS SNOW – about a young woman who can’t stand football. She lives in the Pittsburgh area, and eventually (of course!) falls in love with a professional football player. I had a lot of fun writing this one. Why, you ask? Because I’m not a football fan! Figure skating, yes! Gymnastics, of course! Football. . .are you kidding?

3. What book are you reading now?

I just really a really funny book by Ray Blackston call FLABBERGASTED. It was kind of like chick lit for guys. I ear-marked all of the pages that made me laugh out loud. By the time I got to the end, I think I’d ear-marked over forty pages! I also just read a really great non-fiction book by Lee Ezell called FINDING GOD WHEN LIFE’S NOT FAIR. In it, she talks about the death of her husband, and her bout with cancer, ten weeks later. I could relate to so much of what she was going through (refer to question below)

4. How do you deal with your other obligations (family, church, etc.) when it’s crunch time near deadlines?

This has been a tough year for me. During the writing of GONE WITH THE GROOM, I lost my father to bone marrow cancer. It was an awful time for our family. Then, the week before the book was due, my married daughter (Randi) became very ill during her 33rd week of pregnancy and the baby (Madysen) had to be delivered early. She was only four and a half pounds, but (thank God!) is just fine now. Then, about the time the book went to the edit stage, my sister passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. This week, as I began marketing the book, one of my best friends suddenly passed away. It seems like every time a tragedy strikes, I’m on some sort of deadline. I don’t resent that fact, (though at times it’s tough to keep going). I find the writing to be a blessing, particularly in light of the fact that I “need” the humor of light-weight stories like GONE WITH THE GROOM to bring a smile to my face. God always helps me with the obligations/deadlines part. I’m totally dependent on Him for those things. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

5. What’s your favorite worship song, and why?

If you had asked me this question one year ago, I would have answered “Amazing Love.” It’s been my favorite for years. But this year, I’m very drawn to a song called “Praise You in this Storm” (by Casting Crowns). The lyrics are so true of my life right now:

I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm
(Praise You in This Storm, words by Mark Hall/music by Mark Hall and Bernie Herms)

Trust me when I say that it is possible for believers to go on praising, even when the storms are blowing out of control around you.

6. What do you crave (beverage or food) when you have writer’s stress?

I am addicted to Diet Dr. Pepper. And when I’m really needing a treat, I turn to Earl Grey tea (like Annie Peterson) or even Chai Latte. When all else fails, I reach for a piece of cheesecake.

7. Where did you birth the idea for this book (and the series)? When? How did it come about? Did any of the experiences in the story happen to you personally?

I have four daughters in their 20’s. Two of them got married in 2004 within four and a half months of each other. It was a stressful time, but I always knew I’d eventually be able to use the information in a story. Just about the time I thought I could rest, my third daughter got engaged. Her wedding just took place six weeks ago. Three down, one to go! As for how I decided to turn these books into mysteries (instead of traditional romances)… I asked myself the question, “What would you do if you had to pay for two weddings and didn’t have the money to do so?” Out of that, the first book (THE WEDDING CAPER) was born. After that, I got to thinking, “What would you do if the groom disappeared just before the wedding?) Out of that, GONE WITH THE GROOM was born. And so on, and so forth.

8. If your book was turned into a movie, who would play the main characters?

Wow. Never thought about that before. Who would play Annie Peterson? If she were still alive, I might pick someone funny like Madeline Kahn. If she were younger, maybe Carol Burnett? Diane Keaton might work, (though, Annie is really only turning 50, so even Diane might be a bit too old). As for the twin daughters, I think it would be fun to have someone like Jennifer Garner play dual roles. Or, hey…what about the Olsen twins? They could split the workload, and they’re about the right age. As for the husband (Warren) I wouldn’t want to go for anyone terribly famous, because I wouldn’t want him to outshine Annie. For Sheila? Someone quirky like Bette Midler or even Kathy Bates would do – in flamboyant colors, of course.

9. Which one of your characters is most like you, and why do you say that?

I’m a lot like Annie Peterson, truth be told. I find myself “in over my head” a lot, and I tend to think I can solve most any problem. She’s going through some empty nest issues, and I can certainly relate to that. Like Annie I also find myself turning to God for the real answers. I’d like to say I’m funny like Sheila, but I patterned that character after my best friend Kay, who always keeps me laughing. Kay is always coming up with funny sayings, and all-the-more, now that she knows I need material for Sheila to use.

10. What do you want your readers to know about you?

I love God with my whole heart, and no matter what troubles come my way, (no matter what mysteries I need to solve) I will never ever give up on my faith. Never. I will keep on keeping on, no matter what!

CONTEST:

Enter to win ALL FIVE BOOKS featured in the Week with GRPR! Click the picture on the right to email me your entry. This contest is open to EVERYONE and will run for one week only. Contest ends Sunday June 10, 2007 at midnight.

Good Luck and Happy Reading,

A.

And the Winner Is...

Congratulations Dona W.!

Dona is the winner of Legend of the Emerald Rose by Linda Wichman.

Monday, I'll announce my upcoming contest. This one is gonna be HUGE! So be sure to come back and enter.

A.

FIRST: Prints Charming by Rebeca Seitz

Song Stuck on the Brain: Ticks by Brad Paisley



It is JUNE 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature is:

Rebeca Seitz

and her book:

PRINTS CHARMING

(Thomas Nelson Publishers, March 15, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebeca Seitz is Founder and President of Glass Road Public Relations. An author for several years, Rebeca cut her publicity teeth as the first dedicated publicist for the fiction division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 2005, Rebeca resigned from WestBow and opened the doors of GRPR, the only publicity firm of its kind in the country dedicated solely to representing novelists writing from a Christian worldview. Rebeca has worked with such esteemed authors as Robin Jones Gunn, Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti, Walter Wangerin, Jr., DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble, Melody Carlson, and numerous others. She has secured coverage for novelists in a variety of media outlets, including The Today Show, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Publishers Weekly, Christian Retailing, Aspiring Retail, Southern Living, Daystar Television, HarvestTV, WAY-FM, K-LOVE, and others. Rebeca makes her home in Kentucky with her husband, Charles, and their son, Anderson.

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Chapter One

"Girl, where are you?" Lydia tightened her grip on the cell phone as she wondered anew how any woman could be late to every single thing in her life. She had thought Jane might’ve changed in the two years they’d been apart, but Jane was evidently still living up to her old high school nickname of Late Jane. The woman would get to her own funeral about an hour after they started the music.

"I’m coming, I’m coming." Jane kept one hand on the steering wheel while frantically sifting through the things in the passenger seat of her Blazer. There was a brush somewhere, she just knew it, but finding anything at seven in the morning was difficult at best. Why in the world she’d allowed herself to be talked into attending a sale that started at seven a.m. was beyond her ability to fathom. Finding her shoes had been a reason for cheering. A brush might just be asking too much.

"Do I need to grab anything for you? This stuff is going fast." Lydia watched a woman stretch for the last package of Times-style foam alphabet letters and readjusted her own heavy shopping basket. In the five minutes she’d been in the store, it had already begun biting into the skin on her arm.

"Nope, I don’t think so. I’ll be there in about two minutes," Jane said, still searching for the brush while trying not to drop the cell phone from her shoulder.

"Okay, but hurry. I’ll be over in the baby girl section. I need to find something for Olivia’s first bath pages and get ribbon for Mac."

"Got it. Baby girl. Be there in a flash."

***

Jane snapped the phone together and slammed to a stop at the red light. Turning her attention to her still searching hand, she finally grasped the elusive hairbrush and quickly raked it through her long black hair. She had been looking forward to this sale all week but, of course, Mr. Wonderful had chosen to make his appearance a mere thirty minutes before she walked out the door. They had fought over Wilson. Again. When would the man get it through his head that Wilson was in her life forever?

She pushed thoughts of her soon-to-be ex-husband out of her mind as the green arrow finally appeared. Squealing her tires, she tore into the parking lot of The Savvy Scrapper. Tossing the hairbrush back into the passenger seat, she threw the car into Park, grabbed her purse, and flung open the door.

"Ouch!"

Jane looked up just as her door collided with the midsection of one very tall man.

"Ohmigosh. I am so, so sorry. I’m just in a rush. The sale is happening and I’m late and—"

"It’s okay."
Mr. Tall held his hands up as if to ward off any other car doors she might be hiding somewhere and she noticed the coffee cup in one hand and bagel bag in the other. Bagels would be so heavenly right now.

"I’m fine, really." He set the bag down on the ground and brushed the dust off of his olive-green sweater, then looked at her. "I know how women can be when there’s a sale involved." He grinned as he knelt to pick the bag back up.

She tried hard to ignore his sexist statement and not remind him of how many guys camp out at golf stores before a sale or sleep in the parking lot to get tickets to a concert.

"Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I have insurance and we can call somebody." Jane forcefully tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to focus on the problem at hand rather than the sale happening about ten yards away or the way her stomach was now grumbling for coffee and a bagel.

"Really, go ahead. I’m fine."

"Okay, thanks." She turned and made her way around the back of the car. "Really, I appreciate this. It’s just that this only happens once a year and my friend is waiting . . ." She stopped on the far side of the car and looked at him. He could sue if he was really hurt and her luck with men right now meant he would definitely sue and she would surely lose. "You’re absolutely fine?"

"Go." He made a shooing motion with the bag. "Happy shopping."

Her mother always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth and this was one time Jane would be obeying Elizabeth rather than giving in to her own desire to argue. She practically sprinted to the front door of The Savvy Scrapper, yanked it open, and burst inside.

***

"Jane!" Lydia was in the front corner of the store, surrounded by pink, yellow, blue, lilac, and pale green. She waved a die-cut of a bathtub and bubbles above her head. "I found the perfect stuff for Olivia and Oliver’s First Bath page."

"Great." Jane joined her, looking a bit frazzled but otherwise okay.

"Okay, here’s the deal." Lydia turned toward the back of the store and pointed. "All the Times letters are gone, the vellum is quickly going, and the dog section is getting riffled through as we speak. Where do you want to start?"

"Dog section, definitely." Jane stuffed her keys into her purse. "I took great pictures of the ex this morning picking up Wilson’s poop while stepping in another pile."

"You are so gross. What was he doing there?"

"Trying to get me to give him Wilson again." Jane scanned the rest of the store, making a quick plan to get the most stuff. "He’ll get the picture one day, just not today. He’s insane if he thinks I’m letting my puppy come live with him while he’s spending all hours online with his e-mistress."

"Okay, that still sounds so weird." Lydia’s eyebrows rose as she gave Jane a disbelieving look. "E-mistress? Really? That’s what we’re calling her?"

"E-mistress is the only thing I could think of that’s fit for public consumption." Jane grimaced. "Anyway, forget her and him. I’m here to shop, honey."

"Right. Go on over to the dog section. I’ll come over there when I’m finished here. Can you grab me that new paper with the red stripes and dark-brown bones? I’ve got some pictures of Otis with Olivia and Oliver from last week."

"Dale let that pug get near his precious twins? I thought you said the only thing he cared more about than SportsCenter was those babies."

"Dale hasn’t seen the pictures yet. He never comes in my scrapbook studio. Says it’s my workspace and that I spend too much money on all this junk as it is." Lydia waved her hand to encompass the store. "He’s probably right."

"Oh, please. Men are never right," Jane said and turned toward the dog section. "Dogs, on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful companions who never cheat and can’t even turn a computer on."

Lydia laughed and turned back to the wall of baby-themed paper in front of her, leaving Jane to take care of the dog paper. Stripes or flowers? She didn’t want to make the scrapbook too babyish, but she also didn’t want it to look too grownup. The papers were all on sale, so maybe she would just get both. Dale would never know since he didn’t come into her studio anyway, and she could give some of it to Mac for Kesa’s baby book. She took two sheets of the pink-and-lime-green-striped paper, then two of the blue rosebud ones.

"Men are never right," she muttered under her breath. Maybe Jane had a good point.

Prints CharmingRebeca SeitzCopyright © 2006 by Rebeca Seitz.

Let's all go to the movies!

Song Stuck on the Brain: Watching You by Rodney Atkins. This song makes me laugh and cry and scares me to death at the same time. It's scary when you realize how much little kids watch you as an example. I love that the dad CARES that he makes the right impression on his little boy - and it shows. Great song.

Last night Angel, Karen and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. We had been avoiding the theater because it's just so darned expensive anymore, but we've discovered that the AMC theater here offers cheaper tickets on weeknights. We save $3 a ticket, so the movies are an entertainment option once again. Anyway, last night was Pirates, and man was it awesome!

I read all the reviews, listened to all the (pardon my French) Crap that's been tossed around about this film, and I just want to say... Pllllbbbtth! (That's French for blowing raspberries.) I loved the film. It was long, coming in right at 3 hrs, but it didn't FEEL long. The plot was twisty with plenty of surprises, the cast was incredible and the adventure left nothing unturned.

I can kind of see why some people might find these second two movies disappointing compared to the first. I loved all three, but I also love fantasy. The first movie was much more grounded in reality, with the sequels invading Fantasy territory a great deal more. Especially this last one. But really, give it a chance. It's Epic fun at it's best.

There was one scene, where you see Captain Jack Sparrow in Davey Jones Locker for the first time, that was... well, strange. It was so stark and just completely different from the rest of the film, that it almost seemed out of place. It kind of threw me at first, but looking back at the movie as a whole now, it kind of makes a really cool contrast between this state of limbo so to speak that is driving Jack crazy, and the real world that he longs to be a part of again.

The ending really threw me for a loop. I didn't see it coming. I was just sure I was going to hate the ending, but it worked. The important thing to note here, is that you HAVE to stay and watch the clip at the end after all the credits have run. It's EXTREMELY important to the ending of the movie. So, no excuses. Even if you have to pee. HOLD IT. You'll be glad you did.

We've also seen Shrek 3 recently. My sisters and I took my 4 yr old niece, Em, and her 17 yr old brother to see it the Monday after it was released. Man, I did not think Em was going to be able to wait until Monday. She begged all weekend to go see Shrek. The child LOVES Shrek. She wants to marry him. She pretends to be princess Fiona all the time.

By the time we got settled in the theater, she was nearly bouncing in her chair. When the "This Preview has been approved for all audiences" screen popped up she shrieked, "Look, it's green like Shrek!" Of course she did the same with the dream works slide (two letters were green.) She loved the movie. She was a little concerned that Shrek and Fiona had to spend so much time apart during the film. She kept asking, "Where's Shrek goin? Why isn't Fiona goin too?" By the end though, she was dancing happilly in the aisle to Donkey and Puss' rendition of Thank you For Lettin Me Be Myself... Again. She boogied all the way out of the theater.

I know there was a lot of critics dissing this one too, but again... Pllllbbbtth! We all loved it. The voice casting is just so inspiring. The warrior princesses were great and the ogre babies of course were just adorable. I appreciate the fact that Shrek and Fiona have a very strong and loving marriage and that they aren't afraid to show that. Kids get enough of the dysfunctional everyday, so I'm glad that Shrek and Fiona are kind to one another and don't argue and treat each other badly.

That's all we've managed to see lately, but they were both worthy of the ticket price. Let me know if what you thought of the movies.

A.