Win an ARC of my next book!

Last week I got six of these beauties in the mail. Not all of my ARCs have the full cover design, but these do. And I adore this cover, so I'm very happy with these. I think these are just beautiful ARCs.

Say Goodbye for Now will be released on December 13th, and you can read more about it HERE.

Now, I only got six of these, as I say. Usually I end up with a carton. I've already committed to give one away on the Facebook group Readers Coffeehouse (check it out if you haven't already). So of course I'm still having a giveaway, but right now there are only two up for grabs. If I can get my hands on more, I'll do another giveaway at a later date.

As always, please take a moment to read the paragraphs below. If you don't, and it results in my not having your email address, I can't enter you.

Leave a comment below to be entered. Please DO leave your email address in the comment form (even though it will say it's optional). I promise I won't use it for any other purpose but to notify you if you win. Please DON'T leave your email address in the body of your comment unless you want everybody to see it. (It will seem there is no place for your name and email. But when you hit "Post Comment," you'll see those fields come up.)

 And if you're reading this on Goodreads, please click through and leave your comment on my original blog. Otherwise I worry I'll forget you when the time comes to draw names.

I'll leave this open for about a week. Good luck!

Brand new discussion guides for book groups!

Lately I've been getting a huge number of emailed requests from book group members looking for discussion questions. Particularly for Take Me With You. This makes me very happy. It means book groups are reading my novels.

What made me unhappy was having to say no discussion guides existed.

So I mentioned the issue to my editor at Lake Union, who picked up the ball in an excellent way. She went to Andrea Hurst, the wonderful author/agent/editor who does the developmental edits on my Lake Union novels, and asked her to write questions. For all of them! For every book of mine that Lake Union published.

That's: When I Found You, Walk Me Home, Take Me with You, The Language of Hoofbeats, Worthy, Ask Him Why, and Leaving Blythe River. And my next release, Say Goodbye for Now, will have the discussion guide included with the book!

I couldn't have asked for a much better result than that!

The guides are available as links on each book's individual page on this site, and all the links are together on my new page Book Group Discussion Questions.

Happy reading, and have great book group discussions! 

Cover reveal for my next book!

For those of you who have finished Leaving Blythe River and wonder what's coming up next, here's what you wanted to know:

It's called Say Goodbye for Now, and it will be released by Lake Union (Amazon Publishing) on the 13th of December. And I have to say, this is one of my favorite covers of all time. I love, love, love this cover. Talk about representing the story and getting it right!

The book is available for preorder right now, in Kindle, paperback, and audio CD. I'll create a new book page today with the short synopsis. In the meantime, any of those Amazon links above will take you to a detail page with a synopsis.

I know it seems long, but it's less than six months. It will pass in the blink of an eye.

40 Free ebooks for my readers

Okay, so I tried my hand at Amazon giveaways. With limited success, through no one's fault but my own.

I purchased 50 ebook copies of DON'T LET ME GO to give away. First I set the odds too high. I had no idea what was right until I saw it play out, so I just took my best guess. The second time around I set the odds much lower, but figured they would go fast at that rate, so I only scheduled it for a week.

Long story short (unless it's too late for that) I ended up with ten ebook winners on Amazon and 40 leftover books in the form of free download "gift codes." As promised, I am giving them away via the old-fashioned method, right here on the blog.

So leave a comment if you would like to win one. If you already have it on your Kindle or Kindle software, this won't work. You can't have two copies of an ebook on one device. So feel free to pass this giveaway info on to your friends. And... I say it every time and it never works with everybody, but here goes: If I don't have your email address, I can't send you a gift code. So please enter it in the space that will come up after you hit post. I don't harvest your email for nefarious gains.

Good luck! The odds on this one should be great. 

"Take Two" on an ebook giveaway

A couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at an Amazon giveaway of 50 Kindle ebook copies of Don't Let Me Go. Trouble is, I had  never run one of these giveaways before, and now I think I set the odds too high.

So let's try this again.

Here is the link to the giveaway. I know of no reason why those who did not win in the last giveaway can't try again. This time your odds are one in 20 of winning--more like the odds you'll encounter when I give books away directly on this blog.

Sorry to have to say this is US only, as it works directly through Amazon.com in the US territory. When I give physical books away on my blog, I will always ship them anywhere, so please do still follow my giveaways if you live elsewhere.

I should note that if you already have the book on your Kindle you won't be able to enter, as there's really no such thing as having a book on your Kindle twice. So if you have the book, maybe tell your reader friends that 45 free ebooks are up for grabs.

Any that are not given away at the end of this run I will give away with "free codes" here on the blog. So with luck you'll have had three chances to win.

Good luck, and happy reading!

Easy subscription!

I'm getting more and more requests from my readers for a newsletter. Unfortunately, I'm not in a good position to start one. I've been promising for years that I'm not harvesting your email addresses to sell you anything, and I have no intention of changing that now.

What I have done (with the help of my fabulous, generous techy friend Bob DeLaurentis) is to create a very easy way to subscribe to my blog by email. In the past there was a way, but it didn't seem to move over to the new SquareSpace platforms, and alas Feedburner is no more. So most new people who wanted to subscribe had no idea how.

Now it's easy. We have it working with MailChimp. All you have to do is look on the bottom left of any page on this site. You'll see it says "subscribe," and there's a box to type in your email address. That's it. Then when I post news, giveaways, deal alerts, etc, you'll know. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time.

A special thanks to my Facebook friends who tested it out for me. If you're one of them, let me know how the email looks when you receive it.

Thanks for being my readers! 

Four of my Kindle ebooks for $2 each!

This is a big month for price deals!

All through the month of June I have four, yes four titles on sale in Kindle for only $2 each.

The discounted titles are: When I Found You, Take Me With You, The Language of Hoofbeats, and Walk Me Home.

Or, better yet, view them all together on this one wonderful sale page!

This deal is for the US market (sorry to those outside the US, but deals are coming up in different countries and I'm sharing them with you as I hear of them) through June 30.

If you've already read all four of these, or already have them on your Kindle, you can always share this deal with friends who love to read.

As always, happy reading! It's going to be a great June! 

Paw It Forward is available in Kindle!

Several of you asked me about this, and I said it was coming soon. And now it's here!

Paw It Forward is a book I wrote about my dog Ella to help kids change the world with kindness. It was written, illustrated, and published in collaboration with Cara Warren of Paw It Forward, LLC, whose goal is to celebrate great and heroic dogs (including quiet, everyday dog heroes like Ella). For a time it was available only through the Paw It Forward website, but now it's available for your Kindle as well!

But do stop by the Paw It Forward website. There's some wonderful Ella merchandise that the kids or grandkids in your life might enjoy if they sparked to Ella's story. And it's just fun.

Happy reading!

It's LEAVING BLYTHE RIVER's book birthday!

Today is the big day! 

My brand new coming of age novel LEAVING BLYTHE RIVER is now available in paperback, Kindle ebook, unabridged audio CD, and Audible download. 

I'm excited about this one, maybe even more so than most, so I look forward to hearing what you think.

Happy reading!

50 free ebooks of DON'T LET ME GO!

I've decided to try my hand at one of the new Amazon giveaways. You know how I love to give books away, and I'm hoping this one will be fun for my faithful readers but bring in some new people as well.

I want the readers who are discovering me through my newer books to learn more about my backlist, so the book I've chosen is Don't Let Me Go.

To enter, click on THIS LINK. You'll be asked to follow me as an Amazon author, so you'll know about new releases. (Like Leaving Blythe River, coming up in only four days!) And I'm giving away 50 ebooks, so your chances should be good!

Best of luck and let me know what you think of the new giveaway format. Don't worry, it won't replace the old one. Just adding on something new.

As always, happy reading! 

Another Derby, the same set of fools

Nyquist

I'm not sure which is harder to believe: that it's already this year's Kentucky Derby day, or that authors Brian Farrey, Kimberly Pauley, and yours truly have agreed to do the crazy bet thing again.

If you're not familiar with the insanity that comes over us each spring, you can read about the very first bet here.

My horse is Nyquist. Because I'm no fool. I'm on a two-book-a-year schedule, and I wanted to grab the horse most likely to come in ahead of Brian's and Kimberly's. Then again, it's a horse race. You never know.

If you're interested in reading the stories from previous years, last year's story, Good Enough to Play at Stevie's, is here. But it might pay to read them in order, as they are all interconnected. They are:  The Art of Being Stuck Here,  Uncle Mo Holds a Grudge, Even Pigeons Can Sing.

So if you're watching the race today, please root for Nyquist. And of course I'll keep you posted.

Time for another giveaway

When I arrived home from my Nepal trip, there were several packages waiting for me. One was a full carton of finished paperbacks of my new novel Leaving Blythe River, due to be released on May 24th. Another was a set of five MP3 audiobooks.

Now, you know my policy on audiobooks. I like to give them to my local library, but for some reason they still only loan out CD sets. Maybe that will change eventually. Meanwhile I listen to one, archive one. Five audiobooks are at least three too many.

Which means three of these babies are up for grabs.

Here is my usual plea to (please, please, PLEASE) read the following simple instructions. Otherwise I always have several people I can't enter, because they didn't leave an email address and I wouldn't be able to contact them if they won. This only take a minute. Trust me.

Leave a comment below to be entered. Please DO leave your email address in the comment form (even though it will say it's optional). I promise I won't use it for any other purpose but to notify you if you win. Please DON'T leave your email address in the body of your comment unless you want everybody to see it. (It will seem there is no place for your name and email. But when you hit "Post Comment," you'll see those fields come up.)

 And if you're reading this on Goodreads, please click through and leave your comment on my original blog. Otherwise I worry I'll forget you when the time comes to draw names.

I'll leave this open for a week to ten days. Good luck!

I'm back. With photos, of course.

Mount Everest (left) at sunrise. Ama Dablam is on the right. Lhotse is hidden by clouds.

I actually got home from my big trekking vacation to Nepal on Monday night. But I had a lot of catching up to do, and I landed home with a lousy chest cold. (I hated to break my amazing streak--it had been over eight years since I'd been sick!)

I still haven't quite navigated the time change. Case in point, last night I fell asleep at 7:30 p.m., woke up at half past midnight, and never got back to sleep. Finally at 4:00 a.m. or so I gave up, got up, plowed through my backlog of email and posted the rest of the photos.

So here they are, for any of you who are interested: This is the link to my photo site. The first twelve albums are from this trip. I hope you enjoy viewing them half as much I enjoyed taking them!

And, by the way, there's no place like home.

Gone hiking

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Which I guess is something like gone fishin' but on dry land and with a "g."

I leave today for a life-list, bucket-list trip to trek in the lower Himalayas of Nepal. Do watch for photos when I get back near the end of the month, as there will likely be two or three (THOUSAND!).

If you came to the site to send me email, please be patient. I'll still answer, but lag time applies.

This is something I felt it was important to do while I was still young enough and fit enough to gain altitude at altitude. I'll be going up to about 13,000 feet. Which by Himalayan standards is not much. But no doubt I will feel it. Maybe I'll be able to hike like this for many years to come, but I have learned not to take such things for granted.

Much more trip info when I return. And when I get back it will be less than a month to the launch of Leaving Blythe River! Woo hoo!

Worthy is a Kindle Monthly Deal!

As you may have noticed, my books have been getting great placement in the Kindle Daily Deal and Kindle Monthly Deal system. And I love that, because it not only brings new readers to the work, but provides deep discounts for my long-time, faithful readers. You deserve it, and I understand that many of you have to buy books on a budget.

So... all this month, April, Worthy will be a Kindle Monthly Deal at only $1.99!

If you haven't read it, here's your chance. If you have, maybe you know people who like a good book bargain.

Happy reading!

A deal alert for the writers among us

A couple of years ago my friend Anne R. Allen, a fellow author and publishing industry blogger, collaborated with me on a book for writers. It's not so much a book about how to write. We figured the market was saturated with those. No, this is more about how to get where you're going in this tough industry, and how to survive the challenge with relative good cheer.

That, we figured, needed addressing.

It's called How to be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide. And until March 27th the Kindle edition is on sale for only 99 cents. I think you will agree when you read it--it's a whole lot of useful advice for under a dollar. In the UK, the Kindle edition is on sale until the 29th.

Anne is the award-winning voice behind Anne R. Allen's Blog, and has a new book blog called Anne R. Allen's Books. This week she celebrated the price deal on How to be a Writer by reprinting an interview we did together about her blog and her work. (And other interesting and useful topics such as dealing with internet bullies and trolls, and the pressures of social media.) Stop by her book blog and check it out.

And I guess in this case I should say... happy writing!

Another big thank you to you, my readers!

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My new publisher, Lake Union, has done an amazing job of matching me up with the right readers. And by that I mean people who want to read the hopeful, character-driven stories I want to write.

It started with When I Found You, and I would venture a guess that a huge number of those reading this blog post found me through that book. Then there was Walk Me Home, Take Me With You, The Language of Hoofbeats, Worthy, Ask Him Why.

Yesterday the UPS guy brought me this amazing commemoration of the fact that you have now purchased and read more than a million of these combined titles.

What can I say except "Thank you"? When I say I couldn't have done with without you, I could not mean it more literally.

Physical book deal alert for When I Found You

For the rest of this month, and until the 12th of March, the paperback edition of When I Found You is on sale for only $6.99 in the U.S. marketplace.

It's part of Amazon's Physical Book Deal, which includes select books at up to 50% off.

If you haven't read it, or would like to add it to your library, now is a great time. And I'm sure I don't need to remind you that books make wonderful gifts. (Of course not!)

Happy reading!

Anyone read in Estonian?

If so, I have a free book for you.

Leave a comment if you do, or know of someone who does. We'll see how this turns out!

Deal alert: The Language of Hoofbeats

Just a quick post to let you know that When I Found You and Walk Me Home are off their monthly deals... and The Language of Hoofbeats is on!

Hoofbeats is a Kindle Monthly Deal for February at only $1.99. So if you missed this one, now is a great time to catch up.

Please pass it on, and happy reading!