Posted in contest

Giveaway ~ Drawing October 25th

The Leeward Files Giveaway— Don’t forget to use the hashtag The Leeward Files #theleewardfiles in order to be added to the drawing. The drawing is Sunday, October 25th. You have to use the # in order to be a part of the drawing.

If you follow me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sjlhollisterwriter , Twitterhttps://twitter.com/Jeanelia1964 or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/suspenseshewrites/, you simply have to post a picture, meme or GIF with the hashtag #theleewardfiles to be included in the drawing.

Social media has no responsibility in this giveaway it is solely an author contest.

The Leeward Files Trilogy is a compilation of the first three books in the Leeward Files series: Chrome Pink, White Gold and Titanium Blue.

Leeward is the fictional small town in eastern North Carolina. The town appears idyllic but dark secrets lurk just beneath the surface. It is experiencing a bit of new growth as community development grants filter in and the town begins to rebuild. A new art gallery opens in the old, abandoned shopping mall, down town is flourishing with little shops, cafes and museums but everything is built on a house of cards and they will all come crashing down once the truth is revealed.

Chrome Pink is a suspense thriller with a little romance and women’s fiction. Rae Lynne Grimes, a rape survivor is accused of killing her dates and must prove her innocence but the only way to do that is put herself in the path of a killer. She has to learn to trust herself and believe she is worth loving. Logan Birdsong is the first man who has gotten past her defenses, but can she trust a man who works for her worst enemy?

Dana Windley, the diva in White Gold, is a vivacious woman who with a little more coffee and a few more sequins could probably take over the world. While organizing a local beauty pageant two of her contestants go missing. When she discovers them being forced to turn tricks at a local mall, Dana is determined to rescue them. With he help of North Carolina SBI agent Jake Monroe and her friends, Dana uncovers a sex trafficking ring. Clues lead them back to the cold case that brought Jake to town, and even more secrets. A multi-cultural romantic suspense.

Jenna and Tar Roberts are estranged and on the verge of divorce in Titanium Blue. This second chance romance suspense thriller brings former Marine, Tobias Anthony Roberts aka Tar back to his family. His leg wasn’t the only thing he lost due to the war in Afghanistan but losing his family was his own fault. Now, back in Leeward as a Police officer, Tar is determined to get his family back, but his second chance is threatened when their son, Toby goes missing. Is Tar once again to blame for ripping his family apart? Will they ever have their fairy tale life?

If you haven’t read the first three books of the Leeward Files series, you have missed how family isn’t always about blood, it’s the ones who are there to love and support you. For Rae Lynne, Dana and Jenna, these three best friends since middle school are closer than family.

The community of Leeward is much like the one I grew up in with less murders. Each year a beautiful young woman does events to promote breast cancer awareness as well as bring attention to other forms of cancer in the community. She celebrates the survivors and recently, she became a cancer survivor.

Each year we put on a fossil festival to bring more commerce and tourists to our community. Fundraisers such as the fossil festival beauty pageant are held to help pay for different attractions, games and rides. With our main source of revenue coming from the phosphate plant, our leading attraction the fossil museum, everything centers around fossil especially sharks’ teeth.

Another event is our annual 5K run to honor our veterans and our veteran’s breakfast.

Our community comes together to raise money for our school, our churches, people in need and things we believe in like finding a cure for cancer or supporting our veterans. This is small town America but like any other place on earth there is a dark side, drugs, alcohol abuse, sex trafficking, prejudice, bullying, rape and murder, and unfortunately a thousand other crimes and immoral behaviors. I use a lot of these bad things to and escalate them to make my stories more interesting but too often they are closer to the truth than we want to believe. But I prefer to focus on the good and show how the blue-collar worker can be the hero in the story, and how average people can have their happy ever after endings.

If you like suspense thrillers with a little romance, strong female characters, blue-collar heroes and heroines set in a small town, then come visit Leeward, who knows, you might like it.

Posted in audio books, Book Review

The Lady Travelers Guide to Scoundrels

by Victoria Alexander, Read by Marian Hussey (Chirp by Bookbub)

India Pendergast had no desire to travel. She never dreamed of anything more than what she had. Content or at least she accepts her life just as it is, that is until her cousin goes missing. India cannot imagine any place better than England, anyone smarter than herself and anyway but her own. Before believing you would not like a character so narrow minded, wait, India’s beliefs are limited by the narrowness of her experience and the fact that she has been thrust into managing her cousin’s household since she was a young girl and forced to go to work.

Derek Saunders is ordered by his uncle to shape up and start taking his responsibilities seriously. He is tasked by his mother to take care of his elderly aunt. The two responsibilities threaten to derail each other when he learns his aunt and her friends have been taking money for a Lady’s Travelers Society with no knowledge of how to plan a trip and having never traveled themselves. The threat of fraud is bad enough, but Derek believes he can keep the little old ladies out of prison, or he could have if one of their members hadn’t gone missing. The woman’s cousin blames the Lady Travelers Society and threatens to bring charges against them if they don’t do something to find the missing woman.

Derek and India team up, unwillingly, to search for her cousin. They head to Paris that last place she was known to have visited. Using the letters India received, they search all of the places mentioned. Her cousin’s dream of adventure soon envelopes her and opens India’s heart and mind to new possibilities, among them friendship and love.

This was a great adventure and had a lot of twists and turns. I love the strength and growth of the characters.

Posted in my books, News

No Time to Fall in Love

Dana is the woman with a thousand jobs. If anyone wants something done in Leeward, North Carolina, she’s the one they call. From her work raising money for breast cancer research and education to her efforts on behalf of the local Fossil Museum. She is on the Chamber of Commerce and the local Junior Woman’s Auxiliary. Dana owns her own dating club, Cupid’s Zone, which is a combination online dating and real-life club. She substitutes at the local school, writes for the local paper and volunteers for everything from street cleanup to the Fossil Festival Beauty Pageant. She is a busy woman but something is missing.

Jake hasn’t been home for more than a change of clothes in months. He’s not even had dinner with his parents since the Father’s Day picnic his brother had planned. He’d talked to them on the phone but he knew, he was in for an earful when he finally showed up on their doorsteps.

Jake was a workaholic but he’d earned it honest. His parents had struggled to give he and his brother a decent life. They’d worked hard. Like people of color knew, in America, you could have the dream if you were willing to work for it. You just had to work twice as hard, to get half as much.

Jake knew how to work hard, what he didn’t know, was how to live. Could Dana be the one to teach him how to enjoy life? When Dana is threatened, Jake realizes just how much she means to him and will risk anything to keep her safe, even his precious job.

Posted in Book Review

Insurgent by: Veronica Roth

A little slower paced, this second book in the Divergent trio is just as well written. The main character Tris is suffering from grief and guilt, while it is believable it is a bit depressing. Thankfully Roth brings us out of the melancholy into another fray. It is difficult to read the perils and pitfalls of being a teen in a war-torn community but the hardest is Tobias’ lack of trust or confidence in her. It seems a bit sad that he believed in her more before she proved herself than he does in this book. I liked Insurgent but not as much as the first. I am presently reading Allegiant, the third in the series and find that at the halfway point we are still losing faith with the Tris and Tobias relationship.
Roth keeps me turning the pages, the books are well written and while I may not agree with her path for her characters I am still interested to read to the end. Some of the best stories are not the ones we agree with but the ones who make us argue and think.