Wonderful news this week! With the help of my launch team, Glitter and the Grouch, Book 3 of my Romance in Valiant series, climbed through the Amazon rankings to reach #3 in “Hot New Releases,” and was #16 in the Bestseller category. It’s broken down by genres, and Glitter and the Grouch is Christian Contemporary Romance. Since the genre is saturated, I consider it a marvelous win.
That said, who loves to read? I do, I do! Reading became my first love when I was a girl. I was outrageously near-sighted, but no one knew it, so I gravitated toward reading because it was something I could do with confidence. So fascinating how things we have no control over shape our lives. In the third grade, I got glasses, and a whole new world opened up, but I still loved to read. I read cereal boxes and the newspaper. And, of course, books. Far more than I can remember or count. A favorite event was going to the library, and I adored the Jr. Scholastic Book Club. I pored over the little newsprint pamphlet to narrow down the number of books I wanted. Even back in those days, I learned to read the blurbs to see if a book appealed to me.
In school, English was my favorite class, and I enjoyed the writing assignments. There was a lot of emphasis on good penmanship, so I practiced a lot. Spelling was fun too. (Math was an entirely different story, as my mom will attest.) Truth be told, I was thoroughly bent in a literary direction from a young age.
Mom didn’t encourage my brother and me to sit in front of the television, but it was on when she did housework. If I’ve worked in my study all day, I often turn on the television while I work crosswords or check social media. But the closer it inches to bedtime, I’m like a homing pigeon toward my electronic tablet. Have to get my daily dose of reading in. I read in several genres, but love stories are my favorite. I like historical, mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and even some sci fi, but a romantic thread always attracts my attention.
To promote my new release, Glitter and the Grouch, I was on The Bill Pozzi Show, via radio last week. Actually, we did the interview over the phone because Bill was recovering from COVID. Ugh. But the interview was loads of fun, even if it was stinkin’ early. He’s very supportive of my writing and says he doesn’t know how I do it. (I hear that often.) My thoughts? Bill’s a former Navy Seal. He jumped out of helicopters and fought wars. There’s really no comparison. His show airs from 6:15-7:00 am on Majic 95.9 in Victoria, Texas. He brings local and national news to the Crossroads and loves for folks to call in. Check out his show on Facebook and/or YouTube. The call-in number is 361 575 9509.
One evening, we had a lovely dinner of lasagna with my son and his wife, courtesy of my husband. Carolina and I chatted on the back porch until the mosquitoes chased us back inside. It was fun to talk about Brazil, and since we were at their wedding, I could ask about her family with intelligence.
Aside from the book launch, I’m racing to finish the first draft of the last book of my series. Looking forward to writing The End on this eighty-thousand-word novel. I’ve got about seventy-four thousand written. Another six thousand words to go. O happy day!
In closing, I’d just like to say that God calls us to stand up for what’s right, fair, and true. He didn’t call us to be obnoxious about it. Christ’s instructions were to do everything in love.