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GIVEAWAY: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal
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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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Tales From the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell
Chick Lit Review

Tales From the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell

Tales From the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell is a charismatic novel about a group woman struggling in different aspects of their lives. Lee, the owner and instructor of a yoga studio, is having money and marriage troubles. Her husband Alan recently moved out of their home, but Lee is determined to make it worth with him. Katherine, who works as a masseuse at Lee’s studio, is a recovering addict who stumbles into what may be love, but she doesn’t feel worthy of receiving it. Graciela is a dancer who was recently injured, and is turning to yoga to try to help recover. Imani, though a successful actor and wife to an adoring husband, suffered a miscarriage and is feeling lost after her devastating experience. And Stephanie is determined to be the best screenwriter, but her namedropping and egotistical manner turns everyone away from her. The girls all meet at Lee’s studio, and form odd friendships to help each other through their journeys.
This novel seems to be getting plenty of mixed reviews, but I liked it, I really did. I love yoga, so it was fun for me to know the poses they were performing and to learn new ideas. There is a big “corporate yoga” scandal in the book, which I thought was really interesting to read about. There are essentially five main characters, and each has their own small sections to discuss their lives. I think five may be too many. Or else Mitchell needed to give more time to each character. Just when I thought I was getting to connect with one, I would be yanked into another’s world. But I thought each woman brought an interesting characteristic and authentic problem to their group, and I enjoyed watching how they would interact with one another. I really never did understand where Graciela’s injury came from though. Or why Lee was so blind to her husband’s obvious wandering eye. But overall, I thought this was a good story and I am hoping for some sort of spin-off with a few of the characters.
[Rating: 4]

April 15, 2011
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Future Tour: Little Miss Teacher by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar
CLP Blog Tours

Future Tour: Little Miss Teacher by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar

Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar is going on tour June 13-27 with her debut novel Little Miss Teacher Told through the eyes of Candace Turner, a high…

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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Future Tour: Voices on the Waves by Jessica Chambers
CLP Blog Tours

Future Tour: Voices on the Waves by Jessica Chambers

Jessica Chambers is going on tour May 2-16 with her novel Voices on the Waves. When Faye Wakefield runs a competition offering nine lucky winners…

April 13, 2011
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In My Mailbox: April 13
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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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Irresistible Forces by Brenda Jackson
Chick Lit Review

Irresistible Forces by Brenda Jackson

Taylor Steele, a professional wealth and assets manager, knows she wants to have a baby. She just doesn’t want a husband. She also doesn’t want to take the adoption route, or be artificially inseminated. But who could she convince to help her conceive the natural way, with no strings attached? Taylor knows the only man that would make her plan work would be Dominic Saxon, one of her millionaire clients. Dominic is single, wealthy, and gorgeous. Taylor convinces him to go on a “procreation vacation” with her, to resort whose purpose is to help couples make babies. But while there, Taylor and Dominic start to wonder if this will truly be a no strings attached plan, or if something more is brewing between the sheets.
I don’t often read straight romance books, but I decided to take a chance on Irresistible Forces by Brenda Jackson. I really couldn’t get into it. The plot just seemed too absurd, and it was predictable from the beginning. Both Taylor and Dominic seem to have feelings from each other before the baby plans, yet try to do something with no strings attached? We can all see how this will end. No excitement or mystery was there. The middle of the book completely falls away from any plot or real dialogue, and is basically just Taylor and Dominic having sex. When there is dialogue, it sounds so unrealistic that I couldn’t really buy it. This was a shorter book, but missed the mark for me.
[Rating: 2]

April 11, 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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