More Contests and Releases!!

I am not the only Sapphire Blue Author with a new release... My friend Ann has a new release and she is also having a contest. Check out the details and support a fantastic author:

Help me celebrate my latest release from Sapphire Blue Publishing...

DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT WALL by R. Ann Siracusa
Book 5 in the Tour Director Extraordinaire Series
Genre: Humorous Romantic Suspense
Buy Link: http://www.sapphirebluepublishing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=92&osCsid=251224fd11b8c58c9e678a8be7104d50

To enter a drawing for an eBookWise-1150 book reader, come to my website at http://www.rannsiracusa.com. Go to "Contact" and send me an e-mail with your name and e-mail address and you'll be entered for the drawing. [Or if you prefer not to send the e-mail address, please give me another way to contact you if you win.] Drawing on September 20. Winner will be contacted and the name will be posted on my website and FaceBook page . Check out the reader at http://www.ebookwise.com/ebookwise/ebookwise1150.htm

Excerpt
"Get down!" Will yelled over his shoulder. He fired off a six-shot burst as he dropped prone into the tall grass and out of sight. There was no other cover here-nowhere else to go.

Oo-kay, Harriet Ruby, this is no time to lose your cool. I dove onto my stomach after him, but not before I took a heavy painful blow to the chest.

"Aii!" My body slammed into the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The soft wet earth sent splatters of mud across my goggles.

With all the air whooshed out of my lungs, I couldn't breathe and lay there gasping for oxygen. I couldn't think.

Three projectiles whizzed past my head in rapid succession.

Ohmigod! Time to get out of here. Vision impaired, I scrambled in the direction I thought Will had gone. My elbows and knees dug into the ground, dragging my body on my stomach through the wet grass, my automatic weapon clutched in both hands in front of me.

Zing.

This was no fun at all. Where was he?

My heart pounded against my ribcage. Sharp pain stabbed through me with each breath. My aching hands knotted around my rifle. Black dots cavorted in front of my eyes and everything had fuzzy edges. I sucked in a big gulp of air­¾along with it a small bug.

"Aah-ugh!" I tried to spit it out but already the critter fluttered its wings in my throat.

Coughing, I buried my face against my arm to muffle the sound. Before I could stop hacking, a hand grasped my ankle and pulled me into a pit behind a bunker.

"Eek!" I smashed down on top of a warm body. A nice hard, well-muscled body. One I recognized by feel and scent. "You did that on purpose."

"Shh." Will waited long enough for both of us to relish our position, then rolled me off onto my rear end.

I pulled away and sat up, then collapsed with my back against the dirt wall of the ditch. He studied me for a long moment¾although I couldn't see his expression through the protective gear¾then pulled some sort of spy instrument out of his backpack and fiddled.

Damn these grim-faced, efficient, military types. At least today, he didn't have a razor-sharp crease in his camos. Shaking my head, I reached up to wipe the grime off my face with my sleeve. "Ow!"

Will crouched behind the bunker, peering into the tool, which now looked like a small periscope. He whipped around.

"You've been hit." His tight voice conveyed alarm.

Jeez, did he need to lighten up, or what?

I threw down my automatic Spyder MR2, pulled off my facemask and helmet, and sent them rattling to the ground beside the weapon.

"Right. And it hurts like the devil." I stared down at the damp red stain on the front of my shirt.

So check it out because her books are awesome. Wow, releases abound :)

Siren's Song Available Now and Contest!!!

Siren's Song, Book Two of the Odd Stuff Series is available now!! Click on the link below to pick up your copy *woot*

To celebrate this excitement, I am holding a contest to give one lucky reader a copy of book one of the series, Odd Stuff.

To win no purchase is needed... all you have to do is answer one simple question :

What color are Vance, the vampire in the series, eyes?

If you haven't read the books, I will even tell you where to find the answer (it really doesn't get much easier, folks :p)

All you have to do is go to my publishers website here:
http://www.sapphirebluepublishing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=79&osCsid=4b67777e642dfca64eb4d569d339a6f0

The information you need is right in the excerpt provided.

Then email me the answer. You can email your responses to virg_nelson@...

The contest will be left open until September 5th, so enter now...

Good luck and happy reading!!
Virginia Nelson

Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!

Siren's Song Release and Contest!!!

Siren's Song, Book Two of the Odd Stuff Series is going to be released on Monday, August 30th, 2010. *woot*

To celebrate this excitement, I am holding a contest to give one lucky reader a copy of book one of the series, Odd Stuff.

To win no purchase is needed... all you have to do is answer one simple question :

What color are Vance, the vampire in the series, eyes?

If you haven't read the books, I will even tell you where to find the answer (it really doesn't get much easier, folks :p)

All you have to do is go to my publishers website here:
http://www.sapphirebluepublishing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=79&osCsid=4b67777e642dfca64eb4d569d339a6f0

The information you need is right in the excerpt provided.

Then email me the answer. You can email your responses to virg_nelson@yahoo.com

The contest will be left open until September 5th, so enter now...

Good luck and happy reading!!

Why I am single and happy I have kids who are weird

It is likely I will be single for the remainder of my days. I have accepted this with more grace some days than others. Quite simply, no real flesh and blood man will ever live up to the lovely ones I can make up.

A made up man knows just what to say at all times. He never says the wrong thing. He absolutely never says that thing that cuts you to the quick and leaves you bleeding for days or weeks. A made up man doesn't mind your flaws... actually, they usually love you for them. They love you for who you are, not who they wish you to be. They never want you to be someone else or do amazingly stupid things like cause family feuds. They resolve the century old family feud then bring you flowers.

They also love to cook and do dishes. Mostly, made up men love doing these things because I hate doing them. They also like plump women and never ask them to work out. Often, they will bring you cheesecake. For breakfast.

Made up men would love the way I shop.

My kids love the way I shop. I realized yesterday that I no longer buy vegetables. I am not sure when this transition took place, exactly. Probably right around when the kids started going to the sitter 5 out of 7 days of the week and the sitter started feeding them 3 meals a day on said days. So I only had two days to feed them. By Virginia Logic, this meant they had enough veggies so as not to need me to continue to force them on them. Fruit I buy. I bought strawberries, nectarines, plums and grapes. I like fruit and so do the kids. Veggies... nope. I occasionally have been know to grab a bag of those little carrots that don't resemble carrots but look like crayons without the paper... Justice likes those. But I certainly do not eat them. I eat spinach dip once in awhile. Or broccoli covered in cheese if someone invites me to dinner. I also suddenly realized yesterday that probably this is causing my vitamin D deficiency and wondered if it could cause skirvy... or is that vitamin C???

Things I do buy? Coffee. Fruit. Cheesecake. The makings for vampire dip (if you haven't read Odd Stuff, this is philly cream cheese, Hormel no bean chili, shredded cheddar cheese and you nuke the whole mess and eat it with nachos.) Pudding.

It is not a Mommy shopping cart. I shop like a twelve year old.

I stared in dismay at it all and looked at my son when we got back and asked him, "Why don't I buy more useful things?"

"We don't eat here much."

"Hmm."

"You don't like to cook."

I nodded and frantically wished I was more Betty Crocker. Do you know I have never in my life owned an apron?

"Most moms can't write a book. Most moms can't teach us to paint with oils and acrylics. Most moms don't know who is who in an art gallery. Most moms don't know what you can eat in the woods. You do other stuff."

I blinked at him. None of that was useful mom stuff. I felt like a failure. Some of this must have shown on my face because he stuck one little hand on my arm.

"You are good at putting on band-aids. You tell awesome bedtime stories. Most moms can't just make them up outside at night. You give the best kisses and you smell like love."

I almost cried.

Okay. I am not Betty Crocker. Martha Stewart would bitch slap me. I may be single forever. My imaginary men will probably be the only ones who ever really apprieciate me. But to three little kids... they like having me as a mom...

Unless, that is, I mention the dastardly state of their rooms.

Ringtones for a Siren

Janie is a special gal. She is a smart mouthed single mother of one kid who would do anything for her daughter... even go up against all the forces of the night and day worlds combined. Not too shabby. Aside from that, she does it with her friends. I think that is pretty cool because most super characters pick up all these super-de-uper people as they go along and Janie is still hanging with her weird (albeit witchy) best friend from highschool.

What really set Janie apart for me and made her someone I wanted to talk about, at length (come on, I wrote 90k words about her that you know about. That you don't know about is a third book and all of the back story that I had to write to create those books. Also there is a short that happened between books two and three. Not to mention blogs, etc. I have been talking about this girl since 2007.) was her sense of humor. She is the kind of girl who can date a vampire and have Bleed it Out for a ringtone
(Linkin Park is the band and the lyrics are something like this:
"Mama help me I've been cursed
Death is rolling in every verse

Candy paint on his brand new hearse
Can't contain him he knows he works

*** this hurts, I won't lie
Doesn't matter how hard I try

Half the words don't mean a thing
And I know that I wont be satisfied

So why try ignoring him
Make it a dirt dance floor again

Say your prayers and stomp it out
When they bring that chorus in

[Chorus]
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away")
And then change it to Gilligan's Island because it is, "A classic." Janie is that kind of girl.

Not that she hasn't faced personal tragedy. Her dad was murdered. Her mom is a self-centered, manipulative beastie who wants to use Janie regardless of the cost to her kid. Chance, her "soulmate," lies to her. But she just plows through it all. Wise cracking. Bull headed. Stupidly confident that at the end of the day, the good guys are going to win. Because that is how it should be. Good guys winning, bad guys losing.

I like her.

I wanna be Janie when I grow up. Even if people go buggy when I sing. Hell. They do go buggy when I sing. That is why I do karaoke at your own risk.

So, anyway, this was just a blog about Janie and why I like her. Let me know if you like her. Maybe soon I will do a blog on Vance or Chance or Mia. They are pretty cool people, too. I like my imaginary friends.