Sizzling summer  book sale-- 99 cents!!!!
I’m so excited to team up with 16 wonderful romance authors to offer you some of our favorite titles for only 99 pennies! These books are only on sale from August 31-September 4th so don’t delay in one-clicking! (Click on the cover---you may need to change your view settings in email) 
Because we love our readers so much, we're giving away a $100, $50 and $25 Amazon gift card! Go to our Rafflecopter Page for details. The more times you enter, the better your chances of winning. Make sure you scroll through all three pages. The first is for the $100 card, the second page is for the $50 card and the third is for the $25 card. Good luck and thank you for supporting me and these fantabulous authors. A happy ending is just a click away, and saving pennies makes a lot of cents.

I assumed all the "good" vineyards were located in California, Italy, Germany and France. Who knew they existed in New England? Not this girl. This past week I had a girl's outing with some friends and stopped by a few local vineyards. 

I'm not generally too picky when it comes to my wine. I like red, white, fruity; if it's dry, I must nibble while sipping, if it's fruity I can drink while babbling away. 

The first winery we visited is in a small town in New Hampshire. The owner was an entertaining grandfatherly type who flirted with us young ladies. The other workers were super nice and hospitable as well. They taught us what to look for while swirling and to smell. Oh the smell! After sampling eight delicious wines, we got to see how they crushed, bottled and labeled the wines. They even offered us another sample after watching the men in the warehouse bottle maple apple wine. Doesn't that sound delicious? Oh, it was. And we each bought a bottle. 

Ever had pumpkin wine? Sound weird? Oh my heavens...so delightful. We bought a case of wine choosing the flavors we've never had before: Cranberry, Pumpkin, Maple Apple, Pear, Blackberry. It was hard to settle on twelve and I'm wishing I got more. And get this...the bottles weren't the $30 or $40 we were expecting. They ranged from $10-$15. 

After consuming samples and touring the adorable vineyard, we went to another winery and discovered we'd instantly become wine snobs. Maybe it was the amazing perfectness of our first stop, but the second winery couldn't compare. In fact, we didn't even have all six samples offered us. My girlfriends and I found ourselves discussing visual appeal,crispness, color, tang, aftertaste, the "oak" factor. Mind you, we typically buy the $7.99 bottles at the grocery store so we're not really wine snobs and before this trip, had no idea what to even look for--or smell--in a wine. 

Our third vineyard was much better than the second and we didn't let our samples go to waste, each leaving with a bottle of wine. It was the perfect girl's outing and I can't wait to visit more local vineyards who use fresh fruits and vegetables (yes, there was wine with tomatoes and one with beets) from local growers. Not only was the wine delicious, the company perfect, but we got our dose of fruits and vegetables as well, all while supporting our local communities. 

I discovered I favor a semi-sweet, fruity wine. What's your wine preference?   

I've seen a lot of my Facebook friends serve some Facebook jail time over the past few months and never, ever expected to find myself *nearly* there. First, a little backstory.

I'm a good girl. I never got in trouble in school--no detentions or timeouts or anything for this girl. I'm the middle child, the peacemaker and--ask my brother and sisters, true story--I was the model child at home as well. 

I've been driving for quite  *coughs* a few years and have no tickets, no warnings, no accidents on my record. Have I been pulled over? Sure, once every few years, but my face gets flushed, my heart beats erratically and I'm honest with the officers. "Yes, I realize I was speeding." or "No, I have no idea what the speed limit is here...oh, wow, I'm so, so sorry!" My college roommates and I drove down to Daytona Beach (from Maine) during spring break one year (I had just turned 21 two days before and had finally recovered from celebrating) and I got pulled over for going 95 in a 50 in New Jersey. We flirted innocently with the cop, offered him some homemade chocolate chip cookies and went on our merry way. No warnings, no nothing. That's right, this girl has never even received a warning.

So when Facebook sent me a message last night that one of my posts had been reported, the flushed cheeks and racing heart came back. I clicked to see what post was marked, assuming it was one of the many shirtless guys you all love to see, and was shocked that it was an excerpt from my upcoming September release, Sweet on You. 

Say what???? I don't write the steamy stuff (my publishers labels the heat rating at a 2 out of 5) and the excerpt wasn't  a love scene but an inner monologue from the hero about how he wants to have sex with the heroine again but is afraid of coming off like a girl. 

I contemplated for an entire five minutes. Do I post a rant on Facebook thread about being outed? No, the Facebook police would put me on their Most Wanted list or something. Do I send a comment to the Facebook police trying to excuse my behavior? No, they may dig deeper into my thread and find pictures that could put me in jail. 

I opted for the safest route (Cowardly? Maybe. Please don't judge) and deleted the post before the Facebook monsters had the chance to review and put me on their radar. I'm upset for being on the naughty list and upset that one of my Facebook "Friends" put me there. If you don't like my posts, please skip over them (the post required reading...not a flash in your face of sexy skin...which I didn't think you all minded) unfriend me or send me a message, don't call the police. I understand we all have different tastes and I am not interested in reading every book I see on Facebook, and yes, sometimes people get carried away and are very, very, very naughty. There are political rants that I don't care to get into so I scroll through, I don't report or get ticked off at someone because they have different opinions, different views, different tastes in a politician. Take what you want from Social Media and leave the rest. Seriously, peeps. 

Intrigued? Want to read the clip? Be advised, some (one trolling person) didn't care for it. STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF THE WORD SEX IS OFFENSIVE TO YOU. If you like the excerpt, be sure to check back in with me next month to read Sweet on You. A PG-13 book. Here you go...

Trent had gone three months without sex and functioned nearly fine. But forty-eight hours without Rayne and he was climbing the walls. Was the ball still in his court? He went over to her place and screwed her brains out.

No, that’s not what it felt like. It wasn’t cheap. It was amazingly wonderful…hell, might as well sign himself up for a pedicure at the spa to help sop up the PMS oozing out of him. Sex wasn’t wonderful. Sex was great or freaking awesome. He needed to get himself some right now.

Deciding the caveman act would be the only way to build his gonads back up to par, he picked up his cell and dialed Rayne.

And then hung up. No, calling still reeked of estrogen. A simple text listing his demands would be better.

My bed’s getting cold. Come warm it up.

He hit Send before he could analyze it. Damn, he should have waited. He intended for the text to sound demanding but it sounded too poetic to him. He should have said, Give me some sex.

But that wasn’t the type of guy he was. He’d never demanded sex from a woman before. Hell, he never had to ask. Women just offered.

Allowing his inner female to take over--damn you, Rayne for thinking I was gay—he changed his sheets and took a shower. Settling into his recliner, he turned on ESPN and popped the top to his beer when his doorbell rang.

Like Pavlov’s dog, he sprang out of his chair, and nearly his shorts, and pulled open his door. Like a mystical creature she stood on his front porch haloed in the streetlight, a light mist falling like shimmer on her hair.

Forget the mani/pedi, he needed to get himself a box of tampons.

I've made it through back-to-back school shopping days with Teenage Princess (a born shopper) and Sports Girl (one-stop-shopping in any athletic store and she's done). The Little Guy hates shopping and as long as I promise to get his supplies and pick him up something cool, he's happy at home watching dad work on projects. 

Some people hate shopping. I love it. Finding new recipes to test out, outfits to try on, home projects to try. Grocery, errands, clothes, shoes, any and all kinds of shopping (except bathing suit shopping. Ick!), but I still need a drink at the end of the day. Especially after two long days of checking out every single outlet store in North Conway and the Maine mall. So what shall I drink? Something fruity? Dry and crisp? A dessert drink? 

I don't have a "go-to" drink as I love trying new recipes. I've recently discovered hard root beer. Dangerously yummy. Top it with a scoop of ice cream and I've got my crisp, dessert drink. What a delightful way to celebrate the hundreds of dollars I've placed on my credit card. 

What's your go-to beverage?