M.R.: Hi E.E.! Welcome. So, let's get right to it. Tell me, is there an actress or musician who inspired Keela?

E.E.: Keela's physical appearance was inspired by actress Nadia Bjorlin from Days of our Lives.  I always thought she was effortlessly beautiful and had the most amazing eyes. However, the character of Keela was inspired by my hidden desire to want to be like her.  She embodies everything I always wanted to be. When I was younger I was also so concerned with what people thought of me. I always wanted to have multiple tattoos, but now only have the one.  What I love about Keela as a character is her sassy attitude and her confidence.  She doesn't need to be with Aaron, but she chooses  to be with him because she wants to be.

M.R.: Oh, she sounds fun! What would you say is her best physical attribute?

E.E.: Keela's best features are her eyes.  I made her eyes a shade brighter than my own green eyes, because I wanted her to have a part of myself in the book. My husband always tells me that my eyes are beautiful and that it was one of the things that made him fall for me, so I wanted the same for her. While Aaron noticed the attraction of her body when he first saw her at the airport, but it's not until she takes off her glasses and he sees her emerald green eyes.  Shakespeare said that "eyes are the window to the soul," which is so true of Keela, because Aaron always knows how Keela's feeling even before she speaks because of what he sees in her eyes.

M.R.: Oh, an inceptive man. How does Aaron describe Keela's eyes?

E.E: Aaron describes Keela's eyes as the most breathtakingly beautiful emerald green he's ever seen.  It is Keela's eyes that make Aaron's arousal for her grow. Keela also loves to wear purple eyeliner, so it really makes her green eyes pop. During their first encounter, Aaron described Keela's eyes as: 
Her eyes were a deep emerald green which popped from the purple eye makeup she wore. On any other girl that makeup would have seen cheap and tacky, but on her it seemed to make her eyes sparkle as she made her way to the turnstile. 

M.R.: I'm a green-eyed gal myself. I love being the minority. So, what does Keela do for a living?

E.E.: Keela is the head bartender and manager at  Gypsy's Bar and Grill on Long Island, NY. Keela's roommate and friend, Nick Lacomo started Gypsy's once Keela graduated culinary school, six years before the novella begins. Keela majored in Restaurant Manager and Mixology.  She also is in charge or schedules and helps with the payroll.  Keela has always loved Long Island and loves working at the summr hotspot with her second family. 
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M.R.: Being a girl of fashion, I must ask, what's Keela's sense of style?

E.E.: Keela's fashion sense is a mixer of beach bum meets bohemian. She is most comfortable in maxi dresses, jeans, tank tops and t-shirts. Short at 5'5", she doesn't care much for heels and often is known to wear flip flops and uggs, but she  does a favorite pair of zebra print wedges which she wears on her first date with Aaron.  Aaron gives her the affectionate nickname of "cowgirl" because she wears a straw cowboy hat.  Keela usually wears her long brown hair down when not bartending and is adorned with several tattoos.  She has one tattoo on her right wrist that reads Be your own strength, a celtic knot shamrock on her foot, one on her left forearm which appeared to be the Bride of Frankenstein but as a pin up girl, which she calls Pricilla, on her right hip of a gypsy dancing, which Keela had gotten after Nicky opened the bar, a 12 Stones song lyric on her rib that read “Don't deny the child living deep inside” and, finally, a dream-catcher on the inside of her thigh with the words “Free Spirit” above it. 

M.R.: The hero and heroine in Love on the Rocks sound like a couple I could fall in love with. I've added it to my TBR pile and can't wait to read! Thanks for hanging out with me today. Care to share the blurb and a few teasers?

Blurb:
Sergeant Aaron Samuels is a soldier returning to Long Island for a fresh start after more than a decade in the service. After the horrors of war and the loss of a friend, he’s left with demons that make adjusting to civilian life almost impossible. He lucks out and lands a job bouncing at Gypsy's Bar and Grill, a local place summer tourists flock to. Unsure of where is life is going, numbed by the past twelve years, he’s resigned to his misery, until he meets Keela, Gypsy's sexy manager and bartender. Suddenly Aaron sees a bright future and it all involved Keela.


Keela Harper sees relationships and love as a dangerous gamble not to indulge for more than a night, but when Aaron stumbles into her life and heart, will she finally be able to bury her past and take a chance on Aaron? Or will a blast from the past threaten to take away everything she’s worked for?

About the Author:
At 31 years old, E. E. Marino is a new writer who hails from the shores of Long Island, NY, where she lives with her husband, Andrew and their two fat cats, Pudgy and Linus. A long-time lover of romance novels, Marino lists Jane Austen, Cora Seton and Nicholas Sparks as some of her favourite writers. When she is not reading or writing her novels, Marino spends her time traveling with her husband and gardening in her yard. This is Marino’s first book and hopes for further success in the future.

And don't forget to check out my other two new releases, Staying Grounded and Smoke & Pearls.
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First it was Hulu. Then Netflix. Now Amazon Prime. Okay, honestly? I haven't a clue what came first. Or second. Or third. I may be in the minority here, but I have never "binge" watched any show. Ever. Not unless you count the dozens of episodes of Dora I used to record for my girls when they were little.

​When Thursday night's Must See TV and Friends and Seinfeld ended, so did my loyalty to any television show. It may be that those years marked the beginning of motherhood and the loss of free time. 

I'd watch the occasional Thirty Minute Meals with Rachel Ray, but other than that, the television has been background noise. For me. Unfortunately my children have too many shows they watch. Hubby isn't loyal to anything on television other than the New England Patriots. Sports Center fills the air in the morning as we get ready for work and school, and Little Guy will turn on Cartoon Network when he gets home from school.

Which I immediately turn off. Chores and homework first, then he can watch a show before practice. The girls will binge watch, though. Princess started with The Walking Dead, which she's now caught up with and waits anxiously for each new episode. Sports Girl's friends got her hooked on Grey's Anatomy, which she binged. 
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And me? I use the time the kids are glued to their shows to escape and write. I guess it's a win-win. Binge for them equals quiet time for me. 

There are times when I feel I could possibly be missing out on something big, but ignorance is bliss, I suppose. I'll use my snippets of alone time to read and write. 

Yay! Release day is FINALLY here!!! I'm thrilled to introduce the Riley siblings. You may have met Luke Riley already in Wilde for You. If not, you're in for a treat when you step into this fun-loving family of six foster children and their devoted foster mother. 

Graham Riley enjoys the laid-back freedom of a pilot’s life—until one choice puts his career in jeopardy…

Graham loves his job—it allows him to escape his troubled past and the stigma of being a murderer’s son. But after an altercation with a drunk passenger is posted on social media, he's forced to go on administrative leave until his name can be cleared. To get his wings back, he must attend anger management classes, and to avoid the media frenzy near his home base in Texas, he heads to Rocky Harbor, Maine. 

Responsible therapist Maggie O’Fallon wants a stable relationship with a man who’s not going anywhere…

Maggie grew up with parents who were never around, physically or emotionally. Needing steadiness in her life and in a relationship, she only dates men with normal jobs. But when Graham walks into her office and flashes his charming steel-blue eyes at her, she's at a loss for words. Torn between her ethics and her heart, Maggie asks Graham to see a different therapist so they can explore the chemistry between them. 

He has everything she’s been looking for—except stability… 

Maggie touches something deep within Graham and he panics, pushing her away, too scared to face his feelings. But when a private investigator threatens to discredit not only Graham, but Maggie’s practice as well, he is faced with two choices. Fight…or take flight. 

Battling a lawsuit and his heart, Graham must decide what’s more important—the life he thought he wanted…or Maggie. Maggie might be the only thing that will ever help Graham
Stay Grounded.
 
PURCHASE LINKS:
Kindle Unlimited: http://amzn.to/2jNWB9N
Paperback: http://amzn.to/2ipBMwr
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It's the last day to download Sweet on You for FREE! 
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One year ago today, our family's life changed...again. On January 14, 2016, my Little Guy was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Unfortunately we were already familiar with the disease; Princess was diagnosed in 2008 when she was seven. Back then we were overwhelmed, but we didn't know anything about the disease, so the heavy emotions came later.

When our son was rushed to the hospital, we knew. Oh, how we knew. My heart hurt, heavy and burning in my chest. I couldn't talk, knowing I'd break down and weep on his frail shoulders. So instead I cuddled. I held my forty pound nine  year-old tight while he was pricked and prodded, while viles and viles of blood were taken from his skinny arms. 

And I knew. I knew what his future would be like. I knew the sleepless nights he and I (and Hubby...but mostly me) would face for the rest of our lives. I knew the eight to ten finger pricks he'd have to do...for the rest of his life. I knew I'd have to teach my boy who struggled with math how to count carbs. How to read a label and measure food. 

"If you're having 1 1/2 cups of cereal and 2/3 cup has 36 carbs, how many carbs are in 1 1/2 cups?" Yeah, try teaching a fourth grader who was in Title 1 math those equations. But we did. "You need .5 cc of insulin for every 25 carbs and you're eating 62 carbs. How much insulin do you need?" And he learned. Every snack, every meal is a math problem. 

But living with type 1 diabetes is so much more than math and finger pricks and shots. 

Princess and Little Guy can't leave the house without their testing kits. They need to make sure they have enough test strips, their pricker has a clean needle, their meter is working (they're both on the pump). They need to pack extra insulin bottles, back up pods, and my son has to pack Duoderm adhesives because he has alergic reactions to the adhesive on the pods. They also need to make sure they pack fast-acting carbs--they carry fruit snacks or juice boxes--for when their blood sugar drops quite low. They need to carry long-acting carbs like crackers or granola bars for when they feel like they're dropping, or need to hold steady. (And I won't even go into the whole celiac diagnosis for Little Guy--no crackers and so hard to find gluten and oat free bars for him!). 

They can't go to practice or start their game without testing their finger and making sure their blood sugar is in a good range. They have to think about their pod location and where it may come in contact during their event. (Last week, Little Guy's pod came off his leg during a basketball game after he took a tumble. He had to come off the court and we had to start a new pod...which can be a process).

My two diabetics are self-conscious in the summer. Until there's a cure, they'll always have a pod stuck to their arm, leg, belly or back. Without it, they'll die. If their insulin stops working in the middle of the night, death is that much closer for them.

If they get sick, they're more likely to have crazy blood sugar numbers, which can lead to ketoacidosis, and possibly death. If they don't manage their diabetes they could lose fingers, toes, legs. They could have kidney failure and need to go on kidney dialisis. They're more apt to have nerve damage, to go blind. Already Princess's eye sight has gone from 20-20 to...not so great.

I often get asked, "How do you find time to write while working full time and keeping up with your three children?" I usually smile, laugh, snort, roll my eyes, or shrug my shoulders. That pretty much sums up how I balance it all.

So how does my family survive my writing? Well, when the kids were little, they could care less about "Mommy Alone" time. I had to squeeze it in during naps or late at night after they went to bed. Being a girl who needs ten hours of sleep at night, I only did late night writing on summer vacation. It's actually getting easier as the kids get older, mainly because they don't want "Mommy Time". They want me to ignore them so they can binge watch tv, or spend eight hours on PlayStation, or send 4,597 Snapchats to their friends in one afternoon. With Mom preoccupied with her writing, the kids aren't being nagged at to do chores or to turn off the Internet (because she needs Internet too!).

My family is surviving my writing time quite well. It's when I come out of my cave that they have to look out. It's when I see the kitchen is a mess, we have no food in the fridge, the laundry is piling up, the floor needs to be swept, that the kids need to run for cover. When I unplug the Internet, turn on the radio and dole out chores...watch out!

I'll never (please don't hold me to this) make my kids sacrifice their extra-curricular activities and sports for my writing. My writing goes on hold when I have to drive them to practices and games (my laptop comes to practices--I hide in the car or in the school and write or edit). I'll always be their biggest cheerleader and snap too many pictures during their games. I'm proud of my kids. I hope they're proud of me.

It's a nice compromise we have going. We're all surviving quite well. And the husband? Well, he knows  how busy I am carting the kids here and there while he's at work, so when I tell him I have a deadline or need to escape to write, he's pretty chill about it. The only thing getting in my way is the day job

It really is. It's all about me. What's best for me. What works for me. And it's a mentality that, IMO, we should all have. 

I don't really care about the Bradjolena break up, the Mariah Carey technical malfunction. It doesn't impact my life at all. I don't care if the person next to me is gay or straight, is black or white, is Jewish or Catholic. It doesn't change my world any. And you see, the world revolves around me. 

Celebrity couples aren't going to go to school for me and teach my students. They're not going to drive my children to their practices, their games, their jobs. The gay or straight person at the cash register at the grocery store isn't going to go home and make my meals for my family (although wouldn't that be nice?). And our political leaders aren't going to bring my children to their doctor's appointments, or hug them tight when they're having a hard time coping with their diabetes management. 

Whatever is happening on social media, whatever the "professionals" predict or don't predict, the truth of the matter is, what matters is MY family. That my children are loved and cared for. That my husband and I teach them about love and acceptance. About being humble and kind (Love you, Tim McGraw!) That we support each other, build each other up.

Are my kids perfect? Heck no! Hubby and I work hard every day to be good role models, to teach them wrong from right, to build tolerance. To love.

I'm doing what's best for me, for my children, for our family, for my friends.  To build my world and let those in who feel the same. See? My world really does revolve around me.