My best August purchases

Because it was summer vacation and I got to travel with my family, I picked up a lot of great things this month. My favorite items are probably the ceramics from Spain. Going back there to visit after moving away twenty three years ago, I really wanted something with sentimental value. The pieces I found were bought in the closest village to my childhood home, so I couldn't be happier and have since used both while entertaining guests at my home in the U.S.

Another purchase I'm happy with, and one which has changed my life somewhat, is my bujo journal. After a bit of research I decided to go for a red Minimalism Art journal. 

It was quite a bit cheaper than the Moleskin and Leuchtturm and the quality is really good with an option for either ruled or dotted paper. To go with it, I bought some Tanmit dual tip brush pens and Cra-z-art colored pencils which were on sale at my local grocery store in the 'back to school' section. 

I know everyone recommends Tombow and Prismacolors (LOVE Prismacolors after using them at my design job years ago), but they're also a lot pricier, so since I wasn't sure if this whole bujo thing would be a passing hobby or something I'd stick with, I chose to go cheap to begin with. 

What are your best August buys? Let me know in the comments below.

The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

If you're looking for a forbidden love romance between employer and employee with some stellar secondary characters in supporting roles, then take a look at Tessa Dare's latest release!

When Alexandra Mountbatten arrives on Chase Reynaud's doorstep seeking employment as a clock setter, she is shocked to discover that he is the very same man she developed a crush on months earlier after bumping into him at a bookshop. To her surprise, she quickly realizes that their encounter did not impact her the same, for he doesn't even recognize her. Instead, he convinces her to become the governess he so desperately needs for his two unruly charges and in spite of trying to avoid such employment, Alexandra eventually relents, leading to close proximity with Chase and the sort of temptation that could end up breaking her heart.

Chase is a duke's heir and one of London's most notorious rakes. With no intention of ever marrying and producing an heir or forming an attachment, he makes every possible effort to keep his wards and his new governess at arm's length. But Alexandra has something else in mind and Chase soon finds himself taking his wards out for excursions and becoming increasingly involved in Alexandra's life. While he continues to struggle with feelings of unworthiness and pushing the people nearest to him away, he gradually opens his heart and allows himself to do what he dreads the most, which is fall in love.

A wonderful addition to The Duchess Deal and a thoroughly enjoyable read!

Buy on Amazon

Buy on B&N

Visit Tessa Dare online

Making a comic to advertise your book

Starting my bujo opened up a whole new world of inspiration and as I was thinking about ways in which to be more creative with advertising for my latest release, I decided to try making a comic - yes, this crazy idea just popped into my head and refused to be dismissed. So I spent some time online looking at how to simplify faces for cartoons and ways to add detail. The hardest part was actually coming up with some text that wasn't too long and which would give people an overall idea of what The Illegitimate Duke is about while encouraging them to buy the book and read it. I'm not sure how successful I've been with this last part, but since it is my first attempt at making a comic, I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, though I will say it did take a lot of time!

For a step by step on how I put it all together, here is the rough text I was trying to work out along with a rough image draft to figure out how many frames I'd need and to give myself an idea of how to draw the characters in each frame:

Next, I  laid the frames out in my bujo, which was fairly simple because of the dotted pages, and then I sketched in the images and text bubbles. This part took the longest.

Finally, I went over everything with my fine point sharpie, which is my favorite bujo pen because it doesn't bleed through the pages and the ink has a nice smooth quality to it.

Hope you enjoyed. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Have you made a comic or do you have other original advertising ideas you'd like to share? Please feel free to share :)

August 28 New Historical Romance Releases

There are so many wonderful historical romance novels being released this week, including my own, The Illegitimate Duke :) And the covers...aren't they just gorgeous? I really love the one for The Heiress He's Been Waiting for. What's your favorite? Have you bought any of these or read one already? Let me know in the comment section below!

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo 

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo 

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo 

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo 

AMZN | iBooks | BN | Kobo

Summer soundtrack and Montana Heat

This summer my family's had country music playing on a loop. It's been great! I love some of these songs and the voices that sing them...sigh...

Listening to these songs now has made me think of Jennifer Ryan who writes incredible contemporary romances filled with mystery, intrigue and some really sexy cowboys. Her latest novel, Tempted By Love, recently went on sale, so let's celebrate with a couple of songs I've totally fallen in love with :)

Ready for the week ahead

I started my bullet journal four weeks ago and during that time I've played with a few different weekly spread layouts. To begin with I took some ideas from pictures I'd seen online and used those, but little by little I started figuring out what I needed to include in my own weekly spread. Starting this week I've designed a layout that gives me more space for tasks and events on each individual day with a spot for the weather & meals, includes a monthly calendar, water tracker and shopping list.

I'm really happy with it and believe it will work well for me in the long run. Plus, there's the option to add different flowers or other design elements each week or month.

Here's my first layout:

My second layout:

This week's new and improved layout:

Do you bullet journal and if so, what's your favorite type of weekly layout and what must it include?

New Content Coming Soon

I started this blog six years ago (yikes, how time flies!) with the best of intentions. Writing weekly posts seemed like a fairly simple goal at the time, but looking back it's been a struggle between adding useful/interesting content and not knowing how much to share about the non author aspects of my life. Most advise I found online suggested sticking to a niche, which would in my case be romance novels (specifically historical ones) and subjects relating to them, like research, writing experiences, book reviews etc. The biggest problem with this is the time required to read the books and get the reviews done regularly enough when I'm also busy working on my next release + being a wife and mom. As for research posts...that's a whole other ballgame since most of those take a lot more time than simply putting down my thoughts about a novel. And then there's the whole, I'd like to talk about other stuff too, dilemma.

So what's the solution?

Well, today I stumbled across Roni Loren's blog and saw the example I'd been looking for of an author mixing all kinds of subjects together in her blog. There's stuff about music, tv shows she's watching, her device free summer etc. It gives a far better insight into the person she is while allowing her to share what she loves (besides books) with her readers.

So from now on you'll be seeing a lot more variety on my blog too, from music, to movie and t.v. show recommendations, to bujo fun, travel/vacation stories, recipes, my African bush dog, and a whole lot more. I'll also be adding an "ask me anything" option for readers which I plan to post live as part of an ongoing Q&A 

Do you have other ideas? Let me know and I'll try to fit it in.