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Maggie Tideswell and A Convenient Marriage

Please help me welcome author Maggie Tideswell to the blog today. She’s got some goodies to tell us about.

A Convenient Marriage, releasing October 13, 2016!

The idea of two complete strangers getting hitched has always intrigued me, for one simple reason—why would they do such a thing? Could such a relationship succeed? By successful relationship, I understand not only the longevity of the marriage…but is it possible for the participants to actually fall in love with each other in such a strange arrangement? Love is found in the most unexpected places.

A Convenient Marriage grew over a number of years. The basic story was simple—a divorcee with two children, an ex-husband being difficult over visitation, as well as a fiancée unable to commit. Holly’s friends suggested that she needed a new husband, placing an advert in the paper for one behind her back. Joshua was struck by a simple plan when he saw the ad and responded to it.

Why would Holly marry a man she’d never met, and why would Joshua respond to an ad for a husband, then actually propose to a woman he had never clapped eyes on? So, in came the dawdling fiancée, Nicole. Both Holly and Joshua were justified in not planning the marriage to be a real one, because they each had an agenda of their own, but Nicole was the injured party. For their plan to succeed, they had to marry—the real kind, down to that all-important piece of paper married—and they had to seem to be totally in love with each other. That it is all a scam, only they would know.

And here comes the ‘but’. Holly and Joshua’s plans go awry from the moment they meet on the steps of the chapel where their fake marriage is to take place, when both recognize the immediate attraction. Back at Joshua’s wine estate—yes, he is a rich landowner where Holly expected him to be a pauper—Holly meets Joshua’s mother, his brother and sister-in-law, and Nicole, the fiancée, who found out about Joshua’s duplicity in a room full of people. No one can blame Nicole for being a tad upset. Or can they? To add to Holly’s woes, she seems to have acquired a ‘ghost’ demanding she tell a story.

Amidst Nicole’s shenanigans, Joshua’s mother’s disapproval, Holly’s ex’s aggression, and the ghost following Holly around, will these two accomplish what they set out to do? Or will life get in the way?

Joshua’s and Holly’s journey through the uncharted seas of a blind marriage, where no rules apply, is a stormy one. Place your order here:

http://tinyurl.com/hqfmhcu

About the Author

Maggie Tideswell lives in Johannesburg—South Africa, with her husband, Gareth. She began writing when her kids were still very young, squeezing a few paragraphs at a time between the hectic schedule of raising three children, and working full time in the catering industry. She wrote many books before considering having them published. Now that the children have all made lives for themselves, there is more time for writing.

After much experimentation, Maggie writes passionate paranormal romance, of varying levels of heat. The paranormal, things that happen for which there are no logical explanations and ghosts are of particular interest to Maggie. What events in a person’s life would prevent that person from ‘resting’ after death? The ‘Old Religion’ is another special interest. And love, of course. Why do people fall in love? What keeps them together for a lifetime when so many relationships fail?

Maggie’s advice to aspirant novelists is two-fold. Never give up, and write every day. Writing is a craft that has to be honed with practice. And the only way to practice writing is by doing it. And a bonus, never stop reading your favorite genre. Reading it and writing it is the only training for a writer.

“Maggie Tideswell’s latest novel, A Convenient Marriage, will have you turning pages as her characters cope with a marriage of convenience, well-meaning but nosy friends, a meddling ghost, jealous exes, and more. My advice: Make room on your Keepers shelf for this story!”(Loree Lough, best-selling author of 107 award-winning books, including Harlequin Heartwarming’s “Those Marshall Boys” series.)

Posted in Guest Blogger, Guests

Guest Author – Liz Crowe and Conditional Offer: Stewart Realty Book 5

Aug 26

Posted by Amber Kallyn

Please welcome the lovely Liz Crowe to the blog today. Not only is she a terrific author, but does she have some stories to tell : )

Sometimes I feel like that chick “Dharma” – you know, from Dharma and Greg? The free spirit girl married to the zipped up attorney? One of the long running jokes on that show was that Dharma had done pretty much everything. If you mentioned you liked a Led Zepplin song she’d played backup guitar for the band. She’d piloted a hot air balloon around the world and taught sign language to chimps. You name it, she’d done it.

I find myself saying things like “well, when I lived in Turkey,” or “when my passport was stolen in Southern Spain,” or “well the fourth time I saw Paris in the springtime” a lot. And many times people think I’m full of it. When my 8 year old daughter told her 2^nd grade teacher that she was born in Hiroshima, Japan and had lived in 2 other countries, and ridden elephants in Thailand when she was three the teacher called me, “worried about Julia’s tendency to exaggerate and lie.” Yeah.

Well, I’ve been blessed/cursed with that sort of life. I’ve worked in Washington D.C. for one of the largest non profit fund raising entities known to the modern world (United Way), managed a daily newspaper’s graphics and special sections department, been marketing director for a giant corporation that owns nursing homes, lived in 3 countries, travelled to many, sold real estate and now I’m a fairly successful writer and own a fast growing craft brewery. Yeah.

It’s been an interesting life and I try to channel a lot of it into my books. As a result, I have a style and sort of genre bending formula I like to call “romance for real life.” It’s full of heat, and heart but the people do not always act the way traditional romance characters do. They F%$# up in other words and I let them. They screw up perfectly good relationships by being selfish, rude, or mistrustful. I have won a lot of readers who say “GOD I threw my kindle across the room when ‘heroine’ said that to ‘hero.’ But when is the next book coming out ???”

It does not work for everyone, but it does for me so I’m sticking with it!

And check out her new release!

Available at:

Conditional Offer: Stewart Realty Book 5

Craig Robinson and Suzanne Baxter had no reason to meet, no real excuse to be friends. But when heart calls to heart…blood to blood…should two people who seem destined to be together heed the spin of Fate’s wheel?

Craig spent years floating through life on cruise control, using directionless jobs, his rock band, swimming, and a string of older women in his bed to smother feelings of loneliness and loss. He finally thought he had found his true love in one Sara Thornton — A sexy, beautiful, fellow real estate agent and mentor. But his self-doubt and innate sense of failure is only reinforced when he realizes her heart belongs to another man.

When Sara introduces him to Suzanne, a woman fighting her own demons from an abusive marriage and subsequent feelings of inadequacy and deep unhappiness, that chance moment snaps Craig’s hazy existence into crystal clear focus. A bond born of instant physical attraction is nurtured by time and shared experience, and plenty of erotic energy.

As Suzanne’s past continues to haunt her, making her push Craig away just as he thinks he’s getting closer, each of them must come to terms with their true selves and face their ultimate realities.

“Pre order” on ARe, Releases on Aug. 25.

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-conditionaloffer-907922-148.html

CONDITIONAL OFFER TRAILER (it’s awesome I love it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvlYO_zzx18

Liz Bio:

Microbrewery owner, best-selling author, beer blogger and journalist, mom of three teenagers, and soccer fan, Liz lives in the great middle west, in a Major College Town. Years of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as an ex-pat trailing spouse plus making her way in a world of men (i.e. the beer industry) has prepped her for life as erotic romance author. When she isn’t sweating inventory and sales figures for the brewery, she can be found writing, editing or sweating promotional efforts for her latest publications. Her ground breaking romance sub genre: “Romance for Real Life” has gained thousands of fans and followers, interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”)

Her beer blog a2beerwench.com is nationally recognized for its insider yet outsider views on the craft beer industry. Her books are set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch and in high-powered real estate offices. Don’t ask her for anything “like” a Budweiser or risk painful injury.