In three weeks, I and more than fifty other authors will be hanging out at Brook Hollow Winery for the weekend with as many readers as we can for the 9th Annual A Day (or two) of Wine, Romance and More booksigning event! I would apologize to you that I'm going to be talking a lot more about this, but I'm not actually sorry. I'm really excited about attending this one again, and I am going to be talking about this a lot in the next few weeks, so consider yourselves warned. Haha!
Not only will we be signing books for two days, this year there is a Friday night Meet & Greet as well (I'm bummed I can't make that, so I'll plan better for next year!) where you'll be able to chat with some of the attending authors while enjoying live music and yummy food truck treats. And of course...wine.
I have more info on my Facebook page about the event, and the event itself has a Facebook page, too. And if you're a regular on my FB page, expect to see more details in the next few weeks. Also, I just sent out my first newsletter yesterday about the booksigning, and there will be more, so if you're not yet on my newsletter list, the sign-up link is at the bottom of every page here on my website. My normal mode of operation with newsletters is to only send them when I have news or an upcoming event, so I'm not going to be spamming your inbox every other day, every week of the year.
One of the things on my weekend to-do list this week is booksigning prep (one more order of books for the signing, plus getting my contributions to the event giveaways!), so before I get to that, I have a quick snippet for you today from Protecting Medusa.
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Philomena parked beside her mother’s house. She’d arrived first, and she needed to get dinner on in a hurry. Once Jason got home, she’d be too distracted to focus on cooking.
She went in the back door, balancing a grocery bag while she reset the alarm, then hit the light switch with her elbow as she continued into the kitchen.
She took her mother’s cast iron skillet from its hook over the counter and put it on the stove, turning the heat to high and dropping in some ground beef before she shed her coat. As she put away the rest of the groceries, the meat began to sizzle.
She rolled up her sleeves and dug a spatula out of the utensil drawer, but froze when she heard a creak from upstairs. She waited, then shook her head. It was a hundred year-old farmhouse.
She stirred the beef in the pan, adding chopped onions she’d picked up at the store--not out of laziness but because she knew she needed to move quickly after three days away and with an excitable six-year-old on his way home. She could take time tomorrow to do her own prep work for dinner.
The sound came again from upstairs. She set the spatula on the spoon rest and turned the flame under her pan down to low, then tugged up the hem of her long skirt to pull her dagger from its leather sheath on her thigh.
A loud thud reached her ears, and her heart beat faster.
Dear Gods, someone really was in the house.
She crept up the back steps, keeping to the edges where she knew her weight wouldn’t make the stairs creak, the smooth handle of her long knife comforting in her sweat-damp hand.
More thumping, accompanied by running water.
She frowned when she got to the top of the steps, wincing as something hit the porcelain bathtub, followed by muffled cursing.
She stuck her head around the corner, but the partially-closed bathroom door at the other end of the hall blocked her view. All she could see were shadows.
Two people? In her mother’s bathroom? She wished she’d grabbed the phone on her way up so she could call the police. No, she should’ve called before coming upstairs. Too late now.
More thumping and a crash.
Her jaw clenched, and she stepped into the hallway, her pulse pounding in her ears.
“I’ve called the police,” she lied, moving slowly along the hall. Frigid air drifted toward her. Either the bathroom window was open, or something was seriously wrong with the furnace. She frowned, holding tighter to her knife.
A dark blur went out the window, and her eyes widened. It was quite a drop to the ground, even with all the snow mounded below from the big storms so far this winter.
When a large, naked man with a gun went to look out the window, she froze in the middle of the hall, her dagger shoulder high.
Naked.
She swallowed, and then he turned around. Her lungs stopped working.
“Hello, Philomena. Have I ever told you how much I love a woman who can handle a blade?” He caught the edge of the door and pulled it wide open.
She’d know that voice anywhere, and that face, even if she’d only seen him in photos. Ryder Ware, Jason’s father.
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I really am looking forward to this event. It's about two and a half hours away from home, and I get a lovely drive through the Poconos to get there. Last year Mother Nature was cranky and it poured all weekend. I wouldn't mind more rain, but maybe not enough for flooding like last year. The winery is lovely, the event space is wonderful, and what could be better than two days surrounded by others who love books as much as you do? I do hope we'll see you there. There is no admission charge, and there are door prizes at the end of each day with so many goodies in them! And books. Lots and lots of books.
I had hoped to get some garden clean-up done this weekend, but it's a bit too breezy for that, so it will have to wait a little longer. What are you doing this week? Besides reading, that is. I'd love to hear!