March Mayhem Days! The 19th and 20th!

You've heard of March Madness? Well, now we're into March Mayhem! 

Don't you dare miss out!

For two days only some very talented authors have come together to offer you great deals on ebooks for your Kindle ereader. All of the below Kindle books have been marked down to $0.99 for March 19 and March 20.

                                                    

The Tech Guy ~ Lia Fairchild ~ Emma Barton is a workaholic. Nothing is more important than becoming managing editor of the magazine she works for. And she has the perfect plan to achieve that goal. Then Guy Walker enters her office. Sexy, sweet, and super popular, the new tech guy takes the office by storm. Will he derail every strategy Emma has in place? If he discovers her secret, it could ruin Emma’s career and turn her life upside down.

Taking Love in Stride ~ Donna Fasano ~ Track coach Andrea O'Connor is fuming at the audacity of Ian Powers, the very attractive father of one of her students. He offered to buy school equipment only if Andrea agreed to train him for a half-marathon. Well, train him, she would. And not just in running. As a widower with a high-powered job, Ian needed some instruction in being a father to an active teenage daughter. Yet as this overbearing man opened up, Andrea found herself learning lessons--in loving. Ian knew that Andrea, with her assertive attitude and her penchant for stilettos, was some woman! But her vulnerable heart was on the run, so he'd have to prove that his love, unlike his running, had limitless endurance--and once he caught this swift beauty, he'd never let her go. 

Harvest ~ Faith Mortimer ~ Billy returns home and marries his love, while Richard has to make a decision between the two beautiful women in his life. Richard discovers he is torn between love and duty. In Sorrel he finds what he believes is his soul-mate, whereas sexy Miranda keeps Richard guessing. When Richard discovers an old war-torn photograph of a woman and two children he is shaken to the core. What was it his father did and never divulged to his wife and family?

                                                  

The Baby Trap ~ Sibel Hodge ~ When Gina turns thirty-three her body clock unexpectedly begins clanging in her ear with annoying persistence. The only problem is, having a baby isn't as easy as she thought. Whether she's feng shui-ing the house to death with fertility symbols, throwing out her husband's tight boxers in favour of baggies, swapping wine and chocolate for green tea and yams, popping fertility drugs like M&M's, or having sex so precision-timed it makes international warfare manoeuvres look unorganized, her life is turned upside down. And when nothing seems to be working, her quest for the B-word turns into an obsession. Can Gina stay sane, get pregnant, and keep her marriage together? Or will her baby trail become a baby trap?

Abigail ~ Heather Marie Adkins ~ When Abigail's supposedly immortal faery mother is found murdered, her human father sells her in to slavery. Bought by a young and wealthy landowner named William, she is whisked away to a Grecian island to play caretaker for his baby sister. However, the island has a deadly secret connected to Abigail's past. Her budding romance with William is shattered by Abigail's intimate, unwanted connection with the island's faery prince. Meanwhile, the Faery King is planning revenge upon the family. Abigail must join forces with the very race she's sought to deny, to save the humans she has learned to love.

Carpe Bead'em ~ Tonya Kappes ~ Orphaned at a young age, Hallie Mediate was raised by her (slightly) crazy Great Aunt Grace on the wrong side of the tracks in Cincinnati. Hallie dreamed of escaping her hometown and never looking back. After putting herself through college, landing her dream job in Chicago, and starting a romance with her handsome running partner Bo Pompillio, life is finally exactly as she wants it. That is, until she’s transferred back to the hometown. Not wanting her past to cross paths with her future, Hallie puts her relationship with Bo on hold.

                                                       

Cold Case Morphs ~ Barbara Silkstone ~ A wacky novella with a squirt of BEETLEJUICE, a squish of GHOSTBUSTERS, and a twist of the infamous. The newest detective agency in Asheville, North Carolina takes on their first case. The Cold Case Morphs enter the world of noir comedy as they rush to the aid of a lonely Victorian ghost. Warning… this is a soft-boiled detective romance with a Beetlejuice paranormal side.

The Time Contessa ~ Georgina Young-Ellis ~ The Time Contessa is an adventure to Siena, Italy, 500 years into the past and 100 years into the future. Something has gone wrong with an historical timeline, causing a famous painting to disappear from the world’s conscious memory, surfacing only in people’s dreams. Two members of MIT’s Chronology team, Dr. Cassandra Reilly and her colleague Jake, must go to Renaissance Siena to repair the timeline so the artist who painted the portrait of a beautiful woman known as Giuliana will ultimately live to complete it. However, the past holds many pitfalls, both dangerous and romantic.

Jealousy's Rage ~ Melissa A Smith ~ Forget everything you think you know about the Gods of Olympus and Atlantis. Both are real, and both are hidden in plain sight. Finally taking his long awaited vacation, Declan finds the one person who just might let him grow old. Although Ellie just might feel the same spark, she’s been mistreated one too many times in the past to trust. Seeing this challenge as one he knows he can win, Declan dives in head first.
But as in all things, his job gets in the way. It steals away his future and any hope at love.

                                                            

Cruxim ~ Karin Cox ~ Amedeo is Cruxim, a mysterious, immortal fallen angel. Destined to seek redemption as a vampire hunter, he quenches his insatiable hunger on vampire blood. But when the object of his passion, the novice nun Joslyn, is turned into a vampire and enters a vampire coven, Amedeo's worlds collide. Shattered by the loss of his beloved, he vows to rid the world of vampires once and for all, even if it means destroying Josyln in the process.

The Moon is No Place for a Ghost ~ Dea Lenihan ~ The ghosts on earth have a problem...they have no place to live, and the Goblin Police want to send them to Otherworld Jail!
Can Penelope the Witch figure out how to help them, or will the ghosts be running from Officer Splot forever? 

Latchkey Kid

This week I welcome author Heather Adkins who presents her story from the book Indie Chicks: 25 Independent Women, 25 Personal Stories.

 Heather Marie Adkins

Latchkey Kid

It isn’t easy being the daughter of a police officer, but it’s even more difficult to be the daughter of a female police officer. I would come to understand this early, and often, in my life.

My mom’s career has always been the whirling force of my existence.
She was sworn into the Louisville Police Department on September 10, 1990. I was five years old. For the majority of my developmental years, I bounced through a succession of caretakers—my grandmother, my father and stepmother, and a kind woman I called ‘Mama Lo’—while my mom was forging her way through her early years as a rookie officer.

I remember late nights—my mom in her uniform, her gun belt digging into my side as she bundled me into a blanket to carry me to the car. I remember mornings getting on the school bus, knowing Mom would be coming home from work just in time for me to leave. But when I remember these things, they are snippets: Only bits and pieces of the woman who is my mother. Her job was demanding and sometimes, you just have to sacrifice to make your dreams come true.

When I was ten, Mom aced the Detective test and was granted her first promotion. Suddenly, we were buying a new house in a nice neighborhood. I was in middle school, which was awkward enough, and Mom began working 4 pm to midnight.
Thus began my time as a Latchkey Kid.

I rode the bus home from school and let myself into the house around 4:30 every afternoon. Under Mom’s strict instructions, I would check to make sure all three doors of the house were locked and then I would set the alarm. Until bedtime, I was on lockdown. No going outside—not even to the backyard. No answering the door, no looking out the windows. Just me and the dog: A tiny Shih-Tzu named Cinnamon.

I was kind of an odd child. I didn’t care much for television, though I did love to play Nintendo. I could rock on some Mario Bros. I also absolutely loved to read, particularly R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Ann M. Martin’s The Babysitter’s Club. There is really only so much video gaming and reading a girl can do before she wishes she had another hobby. At least, that’s how it was for me. I was lonely. Monday through Friday, every evening alone…it sucked.

It was around this time that my daddy shared with me a novel he was writing. Daddy is a computer guru who does freelance work, but he writes for fun on the side. “Demigod” was one of the most amazing things I had ever read. Not only was I astounded that my dad had such talent, but for the first time I realized there were people behind the books I liked to read.

Armed with nothing more than spiral-bound notebooks and pencils, I began writing.
Between 10 and 16, I wrote seven full-length novels. Today, I suppose they would be considered Young Adult. Some of them were murder mysteries with strong heroines. Many of them had elements of what today is considered Paranormal Romance. Most of my early influences were from authors I enjoyed: Stine, as well as Richie Tankersley Cusick and Christopher Pike. Somewhere in the midst of all this, my mom bought me a laptop and I transferred everything to digital.

I continued to write during high school, though significantly less once I got my driver’s license. I focused mainly on short stories and built up a vast collection that I ended up losing to the nightmare of an erased floppy disk. I majored in English in high school. Earned a couple college credits. And was told multiple times by various English teachers that I had talent.

After graduation, I went away to college at Western Kentucky University. My mother had married a great man who was also a police officer. Between the two of them, I was able to go away to school and thus started several years of BAD DECISIONS. I kicked it off right, as most first-time college teens do. I drank too much and partied too hard, not making it to class, much less spending my time writing. Two years later, I came home to Louisville with my tail between my legs, no smarter than I was before.

Back at my mother and stepfather’s home, I found the situation to be stifling for the girl who had done what she wanted, when she wanted for so long. I was already rebelling—not phoning, disappearing all night—when a chance encounter on the banks of the Ohio River brought a man into my life who was not right for me in more ways than one.

Jason was an ex-con and felon. I was the daughter of two police officers. Cue ominous music.

Let’s skip the dirty parts and go to the section where I pack my things and flee into the night like a bat out of Hades. My parents change the locks, I cut off all contact, and hole up in a hovel on 3rd Street with my friend, Brent. Oh, and in the meantime, my convict boyfriend ends up back in the Slammer.

I bounced around for some time. To an apartment with my cousin, Ryan. Then to a big, fancy house outside of Nashville, Tennessee with Jason’s family. After severing ties with them, I rented a tiny studio apartment downtown. I moved a couple more times, losing money (and myself) in the process.

Not once in the years I spent chasing something, anything in Tennessee did I sit down to write.

In January 2008, I was in debt and barely hanging on to the apartment I was renting. My good-for-nothing, pot-smoking boyfriend-of-the-moment wasn’t helping with the bills because he couldn’t hold a job. My car was on the verge of repossession. I was going nowhere; the only positive thing I did have was that I was talking with my parents again.
Then the life-shattering, earth-moving event. In North Carolina, January 31st, my cousin Cory—a Marine, a firefighter, one of my best friends—was killed in a car accident. He was 25 years old.

My mom drove from Louisville to Nashville the minute she heard. She told me it was because she didn’t want me to be alone, nor did she want to tell me something so sensitive over the phone. That’s just how she is; no matter how terrible a daughter I could be, she always put me first.

Later that same night after she left, I was alone. My deadhead boyfriend wasn’t home, neither was our equally stoned roommate. I was sitting on our single mattress on the floor, looking around our bare room with its one dresser and a floor strewn with clothes. It hit me.

What are you doing? Really?

Was I just trying to prove I could do it on my own? Because I couldn’t. Obviously.
In a flash of grief and pain, I realized my life had spiraled out of control simply because I was too stubborn to admit my parents were right.

I packed my things. My dog and I climbed in the old Jeep. And we came home to Louisville.

During the upheaval of moving back, I also found something I hadn’t yet realized I had lost—my writing. Whether it was my grief over Cory or simply returning home, I don’t know—but I started writing again.

Even better…I finished the novels I had started years before and I have started (and finished) even more in the time since.

I’ve been through a lot in my life. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as some, maybe it wasn’t as rough…but it shows that a girl can make bad decisions, life-changing mistakes, and still bounce back.

My mom is a Major with the Louisville Metro Police force—the third highest ranking female on the department. She just celebrated her 21st anniversary this month. I am in a stable, committed relationship with a man who will one day be my husband. We live in a small but nice home—I’m a police dispatcher. He’s a police officer.

I was a latchkey kid and because of it, I am now a writer. I am the daughter of a female police officer, and because of that, I’m a stronger, better woman.

***

This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today.

Also included are sneak peeks into 25 novels!

My paranormal romance novel, Abigail , is one of the novels featured.

All proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer.

Abigail

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords