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Author Profile: Sarah Mlynowski
Chick Lit Authors

Author Profile: Sarah Mlynowski

Author Name: Sarah Mlynowski

Website: http://www.sarahm.com/sm1_home.htm
Bio: Sarah was born in Montreal, Canada. After graduating with an honors degree in English literature from McGill University, she moved to Toronto to work for Harlequin Enterprises. While she never met Fabio, she used her romance publishing experiences to fuel her first novel MILKRUN. Since then Sarah has written the teen novels BRAS & BROOMSTICKS, FROGS & FRENCH KISSES, SPELLS & SLEEPING BAGS and PARTIES & POTIONS—all in the ‘Magic in Manhattan’ series, as well the soon-to-be-released GIMME A CALL. Along with Lauren Myracle and E. Lockhart, she also wrote HOW TO BE BAD.

Sarah’s four additional novels for adults, FISHBOWL, AS SEEN ON TV, MONKEY BUSINESS and ME VS. ME, were published by Red Dress Ink. She also co-wrote a guide to writing chick lit (SEE JANE WRITE), co-edited two bestselling charity collections (GIRLS’ NIGHT IN and GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT), and contributed to various anthologies (AMERICAN GIRLS ABOUT TOWN, SIXTEEN: STORIES ABOUT THAT SWEET AND BITTER BIRTHDAY, 21 PROMS, FIRST KISS (THEN TELL), FIREWORKS and VACATIONS FROM HELL).

Sarah’s books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Originally from Montreal, she now lives and writes in New York City.

Adult Titles: Fishbowl, As Seen on TV, Monkey Business, Me VS Me.
See my review of her short story Know It All
Bio Retrieved from sarahm.com

April 19, 2011
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Debut Authors & Novels- May
Chick Lit Authors

Debut Authors & Novels- May

Debut Authors & Novels-May

Title: The Better Half
Author: Sarah Harte
Available: May 2011
Synopsis: Anita is a wife on the edge.
Thanks to her husband Frank’s success in business she has lived a lavish lifestyle at the heart of the city’s elite. However, now that the economy is in freefall, it seems the days of boozy lunches with ‘the girls’, glittering charity balls and competitive designer shopping are over.
Still, though the banks are breathing down their necks, and their marriage is far from perfect, Anita had believed she and Frank would pull through. After all, they came from nothing. That was until she heard news that shook both her marriage, and the family she thought happy and secure, to its foundations.
As she faces meltdown, Anita is haunted. Why did she walk away from her one chance to prove herself on her own terms? What happened to the love that was once so overwhelming? And how did she let herself get lost in an empty high-rolling lifestyle?
Anita has to find herself again … but how do you do that when you’re just someone else’s better half?

Title: It Happened In Paris
Author: Mollie Hopkins
Available: May 2011
Synopsis: Evie Dexter, 26, is in pursuit of a career as a European tour guide. Heart set on success and buoyed on by booze, she begins ‘enhancing’ her CV and soon lands a job with Insignia Tours, guiding their Paris breaks. Bursting with professionalism, Evie quickly checks her copy of Vogue Paris to remind herself where France actually is. Task accomplished, she’s determined to become a cultured and respected chaperone. And she would be, if only the French wine weren’t so delicious and Rob, her sexy coach driver, so deliciously distracting …Join Evie on her maiden voyage as Tour Guide Extraordinaire. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Title: First Ladies
Author: Kay Burley
Available: May 12 2011
Synopsis: What happens when the power of love challenges the love of power?
‘So, have you met the Prime Minister before?’
Suave PM Julian Jenson has just been re-elected. The nation’s darling, he has an elegance and natural charm in public. But in private the cracks are starting to show.
At his side is his wife, Valerie. Trim, tall, well educated but deeply unhappy – with her son and daughter away at school, alcohol is becoming a trusted friend.
Sally Simpson is at the peak of her game. Powerful editor of the bestselling magazine Celeb, she can’t wait to take her rightful place by Julian’s side.
Sexy TV reporter Isla McGovern has caught Julian’s eye, and she will do anything (or anyone) to get to the top.
When the three women meet, so begins a perfect storm, and only one can emerge as the First Lady.

April 16, 2011
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GIVEAWAY: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal
Updates

GIVEAWAY: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

It’s been ten years since the Wakefield twins graduated from Sweet Valley High, and a lot has happened. For a start, Elizabeth and Jessica have had a falling out of epic proportions, after Jessica committed the ultimate betrayal, and this time it looks like Elizabeth will never be able to forgive her. Suddenly Sweet Valley isn’t big enough for the two of them, so Elizabeth has fled to New York to immerse herself in her lifelong dream of becoming a serious reporter, leaving a guilt-stricken Jessica contemplating the unthinkable: life without her sister. Despite the distance between them, the sisters are never far from each other’s thoughts. Jessica longs for forgiveness, but Elizabeth can’t forget her twin’s duplicity. Uncharacteristically, she decides the only way to heal her broken heart is to get revenge. Always the ‘good’ twin, the one getting her headstrong sister out of trouble, Elizabeth is now about to turn the tables…

I have one paperback and one audio version of Sweet Valley Confidential to give away! To enter, please leave a comment below answering the two questions:
Are you a Jessica or an Elizabeth?
If this were made into a movie, who would you like to see cast?
For extra entries, please comment on Facebook or RT the contest on Twitter. Please note, this is for US/Canada resident only.

April 15, 2011
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Guest Post by Author Fanny Blake
For Writers

Guest Post by Author Fanny Blake

In my last year of university, on the last Thursday of every month, I’d be found in the same bookshop waiting for the boxes of new Penguin Books to be unpacked. By the time I left University, my ambition was to be an editor at Penguin, even though I had no real idea what that meant. I persisted until I got a break into publishing as an editorial assistant in another company. From there it took me five years until I made it to Penguin. After that I continued to work as a publisher’s editor then editorial director until my job was made redundant. Unsure what to do next, I agreed to compile a monthly books page for a national magazine. From there I started writing travel features and then interiors pieces. As a result of the latter, I was asked to write some books that tied with some of the popular TV lifestyle shows. Eventually I decided to try my hand at ghostwriting and collaborated on a number of books with high-profile celebrities. All the time, my confidence as a writer was growing as I learned from the inside about structuring material, style and voice.

Finally I reached a point where I felt I was ready to write the novel that I’d always been too scared to start. I wanted to write about women of a certain age, their friendships and their relationships with men. Gradually the characters of Bea, Kate and Ellen began to come together in my mind and I had the beginnings of What Women Want. When I started to write, I knew the three women as well as Oliver, the man who would come between them. I was familiar with where they were in their lives when the reader first meets them and I knew the rough trajectory of the journey that each of them would make to reach the conclusion of the novel. However, nothing was set in stone. I didn’t want to prevent the writing from being spontaneous and I wanted to be able to have fun with them on the way.

I spent about nine months writing. I did have other journalistic projects on the go at the same time, but I wrote something of the novel every day, sometimes as much as 1,000 words, sometimes nowhere near that amount, sometimes more. When the writing went well, I loved it, when I got stuck I felt frustrated and despairing. What helped me most was having a friend, another novelist, who I spoke to almost every day. Without her, I might have given up. With her encouragement, I negotiated the hurdles and avoided the loneliness which many writers feel, and I finished the book.

When I was told that a publisher wanted to take on What Women Want, I was ecstatic. My adult life has been always involved in books and reading, and now I’m excited to be starting in a completely new direction within the same field. Now I am hard at work on my second novel.

Fanny Blake’s What Women Want is published by Blue Door and available form April 14th.

April 14, 2011
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In My Mailbox: April 13
Updates

In My Mailbox: April 13

In My Mailbox: April 13

Title: Slow Dancing on Price’s Pier
Author: Lisa Dale
Received: Erin Galloway @ Penguin Group
Synopsis: Fifteen years ago, Garret Sorensen’s family, trust, and heart were destroyed when Thea Celik betrayed him and married his brother. Now that her marriage is ending in divorce, Garret finally feels free to mend his relationship with his brother and put the past behind him. But the quaint streets and bustling piers of Newport, Rhode Island, trigger a lot of memories—all leading back to Thea.
Navigating through the divorce, Thea struggles to keep things as peaceful as possible for her daughter. And she’s not ready to let go of the Sorensens—the only family she has—even if it means being around Garret again and risking the return of her feelings for him. As they cautiously circle around each other—drawing together and moving apart—they both realize that if they follow their hearts, their already fragile family ties could be irreparably severed—casting them both adrift…

Title: Along Came a Stork
Author: Marisa Mackle
Received: From Marisa Mackle
Synopsis: Every young girl dreams of meeting Prince Charming. But what if the prince turns into the frog instead of the other way around? Diana Kay is thirty years old, single and pregnant. A glamorous socialite, she has just landed her dream job on TV as a dating guru. But how can she advise women on their struggling love lives when she’s hiding a secret pregnancy? And why has the baby’s father, who swore he’d love her forever, decided instead to vanish off the face of the earth? Terrified of losing her television job, Diana watches her bump grow bigger by the day. How long can she keep pretending she’s developed a sudden fondness for jam doughnuts? When it all becomes too much she flees to the West of Ireland in search of peace and privacy. Instead she stumbles on a dark family secret. Diana soon forgets her own personal turmoil as she delves into the past. But is it really a good idea to resurrect a shocking scandal that has been so firmly swept under the family carpet?

Title: Risk It All
Author: Stan Stamper
Received: From Stan Stamper
Synopsis: Pitting billionaire terrorist thugs against a rookie CIA agent
would normally be the prelude to a hasty funeral. But Carissa
Johnson defied the odds to survive not one, but two years before
she had to play a trump card…a 9 mm bullet.

What not even the CIA saw coming was Tanner Stone,
the gorgeous hunk who would steal her heart. Special Agent
Carissa Johnson was stunned to learn the West Point grad
was a Special Forces Commander on direct assignment by
the President—to identify the woman who was laundering the
dirty money from power-crazed Sheiks on the Arabian Peninsula—
HER!

When the entire plan comes unraveled, Carissa chooses to
put her life on the line for a politician she despises, to save the
only man who ever touched her heart.

April 13, 2011
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Guest Post by Susan Mallery
For Writers

Guest Post by Susan Mallery

Susan Mallery, author of ALREADY HOME

Susan Mallery has entertained millions of readers with her witty and emotional stories of women and the relationships that move them. In her latest novel, ALREADY HOME, Jenna Stevens, still reeling from a recent divorce, is unpleasantly surprised by the arrival of her birth parents, who seem to want her to feel a family bond immediately. She was perfectly happy with the loving, traditional parents who raised her. Can she learn to love a second mother without damaging her relationship with the woman who raised her? Join Susan’s Members Only area at www.susanmallery.com for exclusive sneak peeks, short stories, and more.

Chick Lit Plus: Susan, what advice would you give to an unpublished writer who wants to break into the business?

The publishing industry is experiencing a lot of changes right now, but my advice remains the same: Write what you love to read.
You can only read what’s being published, meaning that there’s a market for that type of book. Now, if what you love to read are books that were published in the 1930s, for example, then you might have a tough time finding a market for that type of story today. So try to find books you love that are being published today. If no other author has written a book similar in theme, content, and tone to your book, then you might have a tough time selling it to a publisher.
Once readers discover you and fall in love with your writing, they’ll want more of the same type of story from you. That’s fabulous if you’re writing stories you love. But it would be confining, uncomfortable, and ultimately impossible if you published a story that doesn’t truly fit who you are.
Which is not to say that write the same story over and over again. What I mean is that readers will want to get the same emotional experience from reading your subsequent books. If you don’t like reading scary books, then don’t write one. If it’s fabulous, you could be stuck for years writing books that give you nightmares.
I started my career writing romance novels because that’s what I looooved to read. I still do, and I still adore writing them, too. Now I’m also branching out to write stories about the other relationships that touch women’s lives.
While ALREADY HOME isn’t a romance novel, I do fulfill the promises I have made over the years to my readers: They will get an emotionally complex story with characters who feel like real people, a lot of laughs along the way, and a satisfying ending. (There are romantic subplots, too, so readers who love love will get plenty of sigh-worthy moments.)

April 12, 2011
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In My Mailbox: Week of April 10
Updates

In My Mailbox: Week of April 10

In My Mailbox: Week of April 10

Title: Breaking Even
Author: Kathleen Kole
Received: From Kathleen Kole for Blog Tour
Synopsis: Meet Penelope Whittaker, an accountant. A sensible, do things the right way, soon-to-be-married accountant. Penelope is engaged to the wonderful, kind and caring Ben Miller … a man she has known forever.
Enter Single Dad.
While on a school run, Penelope accidentally locks her keys in her car. A seemingly boring event, until she is offered aid by a very handsome (hubba, hubba) and personable Single Dad. Shaken by the encounter, or, more to the point, shaken by her reaction to the encounter, Penelope tries to put it where it belongs: on a shelf marked “Chance Encounters”.
Life has different plans.
Just when Penelope thinks she has blown the whole encounter out of proportion, and made much out of nothing, she is thrown together by chance (or fate?) with Single Dad. Suddenly, he’s a part of her life and, even though Penelope knows it can only cause trouble, she is helpless to stop it. Besides, she doesn’t want to. At least, not until she finds out the unsettling truth about Single Dad.
Penelope is confused. Her family, friends and, most importantly, her fiance, Ben, even more so. Will she be able to find her footing and go back to where she used to be, safe in her carefully structured world? Or, will she take the path of redefining herself, possibly leaving Ben behind?

Title: Beneath a Starlet Sky
Author: Amanda Goldberg & Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper
Received: From Ann-Marie Nieves @ Get Red PR

Synopsis: Lola Santisi—CEO of a struggling fashion line, reformed Actorholic and daughter of Hollywood Royalty—is now not only bicoastal, she’s Bi-Lolar: That is the condition which causes her to swing like a pendulum between the opposing poles of the fashion world in New York and the real world with her Doctor Boyfriend in Los Angeles. She hardly knows which shoe fits her anymore: the Louboutin stiletto or the Croc. As Lola tries to launch Julian Tennant’s new dress line, it looks like they’re about to get their next big break: his wedding dresses have been chosen to feature in the top film at the Cannes Film Festival. And suddenly Lola is staging a full-blown couture show on a yacht – in the middle of the Med. Think those super models had trouble walking down the catwalks at Fashion Week? With an unexpected finale twist, this time it’s Lola who’s tumbling off the runway.

Having recently endured a disastrous break-up with Lola’s brother Christopher, Kate Woods, Lola’s BFF and CAA’s rising star agent, is newly single, and focused 24-7 on her clients. The only thing worse than thinking it was a good idea for Kate to date Lola’s brother, is thinking it was a good idea for Kate to put one of her most loose-cannon clients, Nic Knight, in Lola’s father’s movie. Among Kate’s other mega star clients is Saffron Sykes whose appearance on the cover of Vain magazine in Julian Tennant could be the difference between Julian Tennant, Inc. weathering the economy or going bust.

As Lola fights to survive the Cannes Film Festival, will she get swept into the French Riviera’s riptide of glamour and superficiality? Are real love and couture mutually exclusive? Or can Lola have it all – the good doctor and her Louboutins. With her father and brother vying for the same prize, her mother starring in her new reality show, and one heartbroken girlfriend about to declare motherhood, it’s all on Lola to come up with the answers. And it’s going to take more than one of her mother’s prosperity chants to save the day.

Title: Click: An Online Love Story
Author: Lisa Becker
Received: From Lisa Becker
Synopsis: Fast approaching her 30th birthday and finding herself not married, not dating, and without even a prospect or a house full of cats, the novel’s heroine reluctantly joins her best guy pal in a journey of online dating. The story unfolds through a series of emails between Renee and her best friends (anal-compulsive Mark, the overly-judgmental Ashley and the over-sexed Shelley) as well as the gentlemen suitors she meets online.
“The book is loosely based on my real-life online dating experiences,” said Becker, who met her husband on a popular online dating site in June 2000. They now live in Manhattan Beach and have two daughters – ages 6 and 4. “While some of my experiences did inspire the novel, they are exaggerated here for comedic affect. But I think there’s a story here that many people can identify with,” she added.
From the guy who starts every story with “My buddies and I were out drinking one night,” to the egotistical “B” celebrity looking for someone to stroke his ego, Renee endures her share of hilarious and heinous cyber dates. Fraught with BCC’s, FWD’s and inadvertent Reply to All’s, readers will root for Renee to “click” with the right man.

April 10, 2011
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Beauty Review:Biore Clay Mask
Chick Lit Plus

Beauty Review:Biore Clay Mask

I have been searching for a good mask to use in my beauty regime, as my Mary Kay was all gone and didn’t prefer to re-order it. Of course, I first turned to my trusty Biore pals, since I own almost all their products anyways. While browsing Biore products on Amazon, I found the Biore Clay Mask. It is for shine control, which I do have problems with, and is described as an “oil-absorbing clay mask with skin-refreshing extracts” that “absorbs dirt, oil and shine.” It also promises to leave “skin tingly-cool and naturally matte.”
This four ounce bottle only cost $2.99, which I couldn’t believe, and I quickly snatched it up- or placed it in my virtual shopping cart. I have used the mask twice so far, and have had great results. The green mask is easy to apply to the face, and I leave it on for about eight minutes while it hardens. It was easier than other masks that I have tried to take off, instead of rubbing vigorously at my skin, I simply dampened a washcloth and wiped off smoothly. That was probably my favorite part. My skin did feel tingly cool afterwards, and have noticed a definite cut down on the shine- which is great because I am not using my oil blotting sheets as much! One off thing though that I will point out- this item is not on Biore’s website. I have no idea why, because you can buy it on Amazon or other sites such as Overstock.com, but I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t on Biore.com. But I would definitely recommend this product if you are looking for a good mask and need help with shine.
[Rating: 4.5]

April 7, 2011
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Author Profile: Laurie Frankel
Chick Lit Authors

Author Profile: Laurie Frankel

Author Name: Laurie Frankel

Website: http://www.lauriefrankel.net/

Bio: Laurie Frankel lives in Seattle where it’s sometimes hard to find a day on which to take an author photo without an umbrella. Originally from Columbia, Maryland, she often fails to understand why it won’t stop raining here. Then it becomes summer in Seattle, and she remembers why she loves it. She teaches writing, literature, and gender studies at the University of Puget Sound. She roots for the Orioles and the Mariners (and thus is often very frustrated during baseball season). She makes good soup. She lives in the city with her wonderful husband, her wonderful baby, and her wonderful border collie. The Atlas of Love is her first novel.
Titles: The Atlas of Love
See my review of The Atlas of Love
Visit Laurie’s Blog! http://lauriefrankel.blogspot.com/
Bio Retrieved from lauriefrankel.net

April 6, 2011
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