Gabby Allan Brings Us the Rom-Cozy!

I have been a fan of Gabby Allan since long before she was Gabby Allan, and because I have carefully cultivated my contacts in the business of fiction (in other words, we live in the same town and I buy her tea every few weeks 😉) I got to read her debut mystery prior to its release, and it's everything I love most about her books. (I'm being a little cagey here, with oblique references to her alternate personality 😁) The humor and fun are at the top of the list, with characters who feel real and yet completely unique, and just enough romance to make all the stakes mean something. 

So without further ado *snicker* I am pleased to introduce GABBY ALLAN!

~ ~ ~ ~

Hello, and I hope you’re having an amazing day! So excited to be here and so thankful Natalie invited me to hang with you for a little while!

I’m Gabby Allan, and I’m super excited to introduce my new series to you! It’s a rom-cozy—rom com and cozy mystery snuggled up on a beach drinking a Mai Tai! If you’re into that kind of thing, I think you’ll love this book and my characters Whitney Dagner and her cat Whiskers!

Thanks for giving me a look and have a great day!

Whitney Dagner is your tour guide to a Pacific paradise that’s to die for—only to find it’s a place people are also willing to kill for—in Gabby Allan’s Much Ado About Nauticaling, first in the Whit and Whiskers Mystery series.

After far too many years in the Los Angeles corporate world, Whitney Dagner has come home to Santa Catalina Island off the California coast to help her brother Nick run Nautically Yours, the family tourism business. Between gift shop shifts selling all manner of T-shirts and tchotchkes and keeping her feline Whiskers in fine fettle, she pilots the Sea Bounder, a glass bottom boat showing tourists the underwater sights of aquatic plants, marine life—and a murder victim?

 The self-proclaimed “Master of the Island,” Jules Tisdale was a wealthy man with business interests throughout Catalina who was about to be honored as Person of the Year before someone strangled him with his own tie and tossed his body into the water. That someone appears to be Nick, who had a raw deal from Jules and no alibi the night of his murder. To clear her brother’s name, Whit will have to investigate Jules’ shady associates and not exactly grief-stricken family members—with the unwelcome help of Felix Ramirez, police diver and Whit’s ex-boyfriend, who’s looking to rekindle their relationship.

If you’d like a door hanger and/or a signed book plate for your book, drop me a line at

gabbyallanwrites@gmail.com

You can find me lots of places, but here are a few to start!

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Thanks for having me!

About the Author

After writing plays for her friends to act out as a kid, bad poetry in high school, and her high school Alma Mater song, Gabby Allan finally found her true passion—cozy mysteries. Being able to share her world with readers, one laugh at a time, and touch people’s hearts with her down-to-earth characters makes for the best job ever. This California girl now lives with her husband, daughter, and two insane dogs in Central Pennsylvania where she is hard at work on her next novel.

For Darker Paranormal Romance... Try Victoria Smith FREE!

If you like my books, some of the credit goes to Victoria Smith, one of my long-time critique partners. If you haven't read her before and like your paranormal romance creepy and dark, you can now try her FREE before her next book comes out!

Into the Fire

Free digitally May 8 - 12, 2021

In Olivia Sanders’ world, people like her don’t survive very long. Special abilities are a threat to the corrupt government. 

Olivia and those with similar abilities struggle to keep their secrets as new laws threaten them daily. Though hiding isn’t enough for Olivia. A healer and firestarter, she works with the resistance to ensure the safety of the people of her sector, toiling in an unforgiving world without freedom or hope with the goal that someday they will find

both.

Poisoned by someone she should never have trusted and betrayed by her godfather, the former governor, who is using disturbing methods to control the population and grow his army, Olivia is forced to seek help from Luke Jamison, the leader of the resistance. They join forces with his brother, Matt, and Jillian Derrick, a hard-as-nails woman leading a band of "undesirables" to safety.

As conditions in the sector deteriorate and the death toll climbs ever higher, Olivia and Luke, along with Jillian and Matt, cling to the miracle of found love while facing the horror of a future without each other.

Buy Now!

RELEASE DAY!! May 12th! 

The Shadow Guide

Challenging the Fates, Book One

by Victoria Smith

When evil comes for Alaina, bringing with it a destiny she can’t deny, can love stand against the forces of darkness?

When Alaina inherits her grandmother’s house, she gets far more than just the eccentric woman’s massive knickknack collection. Desperate for help with the increased paranormal activity around her, she calls the one person she thinks can provide it—despite the memory of the night he rejected her.

Patrick doesn’t want to get involved with Alaina and her demonic inheritance. He’s lost enough to the demons already, and so has she. If he refuses, she could be murdered just like her grandmother. Just like his wife and child. And he can’t live with that either. 

Together they must find a way to restore the balance of good and evil, while coming to terms with emotions neither of them thinks they want.

About Victoria Smith

Victoria Smith wrote her first romance at the age of nine and hid the story from her brothers to avoid being teased. Her mother recently found the folded notebook paper and, if you're lucky, one day she'll reveal the hero in that story. Now, she writes urban fantasy, paranormal romance, romantic suspense and women's fiction - always with a happy, or at least satisfying, ending.

You Know What You Can Do with 2020...

Some cats at my day job.

Hello there!

I know. It's been a minute, as they say. I stopped having so much to say, and social media took over the little bits I did have. And, I mean, who blogs anymore, amirite?

Well, today I do. Because I wanna. Because I connected with people here once, and after a year where people struggled to connect (or connected too much—Zoom OMG), it seemed fitting to go old-school.

(Let's see how much stale slang I can get into a blog post!)

Anyway. I wanted to post here because as much of a shitshow as 2020 was, nothing is all bad, and some things were really good. Like Enola Holmes! I loved that movie. And some of the final episodes of Supernatural. (We won't talk about which ones. We can each love our own.)

Probably because there was so much less TV overall, I read more. I'm at 146 books and counting. Jim Butcher and Susan Grant both had two releases! I absolutely adored King's Ransom by Suzanne Brockmann and A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Witherspoon and ohhhh, Relentless in Texas by Kari Lynn Dell was the book of the year for me, so bittersweet because she died shortly after it was released. We are so blessed to have gotten the books we did before we lost her. 

Something to look forward to!

There's a lot to look forward to in 2021, too, including Misty Simon's new paranormal mystery series. (See the first cover at right, and preorder here!) And WandaVision, The Falcon & the Winter Soldier, Loki, and hopefully Hawkeye. Plus SO much other Marvel content! I know we can't expect it all to be great, but I am a huge MCU fan and love the direction they're taking things. Miles Morales, Kamala Khan... Though I have to say the next Peter Parker movie stresses me out with the way the last one ended.

2020 may have been the year I traveled the least, but I still managed some. In January, I had one last quick visit with my brother and his family in Massachusetts when I brought Number Two to her internship in New Hampshire. And then...that was it for seven whole months! Until we went to pick her up in July. It was a bit of a blessing that she had the internship instead of being in school with the chaos of lockdown/quarantine. She was able to do her fall semester here at home, and will do the same for her final one before moving back to New Hampshire for work.

We had to cancel our July vacation but with the "settling" of the pandemic in the summer, we managed a trip to Williamsburg to get a break. There's a lot of outdoors stuff to do where you can stay away from people, and I got a day on the beach, which kept my soul going as things ramped up again. (And by "things" I mean both work and COVID. So much simultaneous 👍 and 👎.

One thing that didn't stop: Writing! I hit 225,000 words this year. Yes, exactly. I took a writing break in December but wrote 205 words so I could hit that mark. 🤣

I had a lot of new releases this year! 

Secrets Under SIEGE is the enemies-to-lovers sequel to Hearts Under SIEGE. 

It’s been 15 years since Conrad Dixson and Skye Burgeson were not-so-friendly competitors in training and five years since Dix dragged SIEGE from the rubble of corruption. When someone targets both of them personally and professionally, they struggle to overcome old trust issues and an attraction neither one has room for so they can work together to save both companies.

As their investigation shapes a puzzle they can’t make any sense of, their feelings for each other become frighteningly clear. Dix doesn’t want to fall for the smart, clever, fearless woman who could be involved in crushing the business he’s put his entire life into protecting. And Skye is terrified that letting him in will threaten the life she’s built to honor her heroic brother who died in action.

The journey leads them to a familiar enemy who’s been using prime and petty revenge motivations to cover his true purpose, escalating until threats to the people Dix and Skye love force them to face unacceptable decisions.

After that came Phenomenal Impact, a FREE short story that's very meta:

Oakley Commton has been cursed. After minor exposure to an unknown element mined from an asteroid, she’s suddenly aware of being a heroine in a Natalie J. Damschroder story. And she’s pissed. Learning you’re not in control of your own life would depress anyone. Plus, Damschroder writes romance, and Oakley can’t tell what trope she’s using. Friends to lovers? Alpha male? Forbidden love with the boss? The only saving grace is that when she’s assigned to a mission that could lead to her death—or worse—she knows the outcome will be success. Damschroder only writes happy endings. But she’s sure going to make it difficult to get there…

All you have to do to get this story FREE is to sign up for my newsletter by clicking this link. You don’t have to stay on the mailing list if you really don’t want to, but I promise I don’t send much e-mail. It’s the best way to keep aware of new releases, in-person and online events, etc.

Backstory: I’ve been writing for a long time. Decades. And after I settled on romantic adventure, I noticed some commonalities popping up in my stories. Then, while reading a book by an author I love, I spotted her doing  the same thing. Like, “someone says something about that in every book.” And I thought, “what if a character knew they were in a book by X author?” Okay, duh, X author would be me. I wanted to see what that would be like. So I wrote it. And it was so much fun. I hope my readers find it fun, too!

Next came The Reflection of Hope, the final book in my superhero trilogy, the CASE files. I think this could be my best book...

Vanessa Ripley (do not call her Vanessa) uses her rare combination of physical and mental super abilities only for consulting and training, staying out of the field after a catastrophic mission resulted in the death of a civilian. But now her old flame Evan Forgeron needs her help. His task force is this close to stopping the Citizens Against Superhero Existence (CASE), and he needs Ripley’s mental powers to do it.

When Evan’s in trouble she can’t say no, even if getting involved with him again threatens to tear both of them apart. Then CASE’s mission becomes intensely personal, ripping open secrets Ripley never knew existed and putting a target on Evan and every superhero in the country. If they can end CASE, she and Evan may have a chance at a future together. But if they fail, it will take everything and everyone they love.

Note: All of The CASE Files are in Kindle Unlimited!

So that got us into May... LOL I spent most of the rest of the year finishing The Solars Duology (which came out in October and November) and Phantom Power, a YA sequel to Manifest Destiny that I never realized I was going to write until I did it. LOL

Two new stories set in a world where people have abilities connected to the sun…with frightening and dangerous side effects and challenges.

Keegan Belcastro has always loved a mystery, even when it got her into trouble. When research for a school paper leads her to a haunted mansion full of desperate phantoms, learning who they are and how they came to be trapped there evolves into a quest for their freedom.

Shane Bitrec has been Keegan’s next-door neighbor and best friend for most of her life. High school graduation is going to mean big changes that she’s been trying to prepare for all year. But drifting away hasn’t been as easy as she thought, and when Shane gets involved in her quest, it disrupts more than just her independence. Confrontation gives rise to unprecedented feelings that threaten everything they’ve meant, or could mean, to each other.

When transitioning the spirits to the afterlife proves more dangerous than Keegan expected, Shane’s constant presence becomes both a vital tool and an emotional minefield. Investigating the mansion’s darkly complicated history leads to Keegan becoming tied to the energy of the house and its phantoms. Their desperation threatens her life, and only Shane can protect her. But who will protect him?

Whew. Blogging is more tiring than I remember it being. But then, I'm nearly 50. (I've been saying that for at least a year. In 2 days I have to stop.  😜)

Okay, one last thing. 2021. I haven't set my specific goals yet, but here are a couple things I know are in store:

A Store

Yes! A literal store! Where you can order signed, personalized print books from me at prices below the cover price, and maybe some other stuff eventually, too.

Adrenaline Shots

My next writing project. These are my short romantic adventures. Some you may already have read. Like Phenomenal Impact, which gave me the idea. Through the Void, the ridiculously named (and soon to be re-named!) The Tempest Turtle, both of which were part of The First Sentence and The Second Sentence anthologies. But then there will be Operation: Gratitude and the one I'm working on now and the three-to-five others that already have ideas. 

Adrenaline Shots are short, high-stakes, romantic, quick reads that will be only 99 cents each. 

Houseboys vs. Aliens

I think I'll leave that one as is. ;)

Please, if you want to keep in touch, or follow my work, or hear about cats and stuff on an occasional, random basis, feel free to:

Email Me

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, my other Facebook, my OTHER other Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, BookBub, or Goodreads.

Subscribe to my newsletter

Visit my website (or my other website)

And please, have a safe and healthy holiday season and bright, hopeful new year!

The Second Sentence is Available for Preorder!

As you may recall, last year I embarked on a new venture with four other authors. Misty Simon, Vicky Burkholder, Victoria Smith, Allison B. Hanson, and I all started with the same first sentence to write five independent stories.

It was really cool to see that while we wrote wildly different types of stories—from college students to married couples to space pilots—there were some overlapping themes and concepts. And of course, because they're all romances, they all end happily.

We loved it. So we made it A Thing. And on February 14, The Second Sentence will be released, and all five stories have the same SECOND (duh LOL) sentence. Later this year, we'll have The Third Sentence, and so on.

Here's the best part: Net proceeds will be donated to organizations dedicated to helping women in need, like Mary's Shelter in Reading, PA.

If you go to our anthology website, you can learn more about Mary's Shelter and even suggest additional organizations to benefit from the sale of these anthologies.

You can get The First Sentence here, if you don't already have it, and pre-order The Second Sentence here. (We can't do a preorder for Amazon, so keep an eye out for that release directly on February 14.)

Here's more about the stories in The Second Sentence:

The premise: That if 5 authors start with the same sentence, they will all write vastly different stories. The results: A series! After the success of The First Sentence, we upped the degree of difficulty. These romantic novellas run the gamut of genres but all are inspired by the same SECOND sentence.

Catch of a Lifetime by Vicky Burkholder
Maren spent her year above the waves searching for a mate before her father marries her off to a stranger. Then she meets the one. When Kai meets Maren, the water around them sparkles with magic. Then he finds out who she is. With family honor at stake, can they trust their love to the fates?

Sing to My Soul by Allison B. Hanson
Ariah Bentley’s life is all about music, so of course she’s fallen for a musician. In the past, the guys she’s dated have pretended to be into her just to gain access to her record-producer father. She’s certain Jackson Slater is different. Not only has he asked her to move in with him, but she never told him who her father was. But could he still be using her to get to the top?

Written in the Cards by Misty Simon
Lydia’s broken heart does not need to be at a Ren Faire, but her friend Penelope insists. Codpieces and men in tights shouldn’t do it for her, but when she meets a tarot card reader who seems to see right into her soul, she might just have to rethink this romance thing and see what the future holds.

In the Heart of Chaos by Victoria Smith
When the residents of her small town begin exhibiting zombie-like symptoms, Mari will do whatever is necessary to survive. She meets up with Jason, the boy-now-man she has loved forever, and they work together to help their community survive. Along the way, they discover the feelings that had always simmered under the surface are real.

The Tempest Turtle by Natalie J. Damschroder
Using time travel to right wrongs has filled Amaya and Brody’s lives for 12 years. But when they learn what The Charge, their employer, is really doing with the power they’ve tapped, everything changes. Their purpose. Their choices. And their feelings for each other.

Soul Deep up for Cover of the Month

If you like the cover of my book, Soul Deep (The Soul Series Book 4), please vote for it for the Cover of the Month contest on AllAuthor.com!

Click to Vote!

Looking for Recommendations for Positive Paranormal Stories

Hey, everybody! *waves* Remember me?

I don't like to be one of those people contributing to our ruin due to limited attention spans, but since this blog has been soooo stagnant, it's obvious I've also been corrupted by social media. I stopped having topics to talk about in this "long" form that I hadn't talked about before.

But today I was thinking about superheroes and mutants and other fictional extraordinary abilities and how I've felt about their portrayal in entertainment for a long time, and I thought, "that's way too big a topic for Facebook" and then I thought BLOG! So here I am.

I'm a longtime casual "super" fan. As in, I watched the X-Men cartoon with my husband when we first got married, and my brother and I played the Wonder Twins when we were kids, and I love "genre" TV and film and I write a lot of people with various kinds of abilities in my paranormal romances and YA.

There's been a trend I don't like over the past several years, not just with the whole "downside to being a superhero" approach that DC takes, but setting up an active negative societal attitude toward those types of characters. It used to be just the X-Men, but now it seems to be almost everything. As much as I loved Wonder Woman this year, I still felt empty when I left the theater because it was so bleak and lonely. That's one of the reasons I prefer Marvel (MCU, not TV), because they launched with Tony Stark fully embracing being Iron Man—and the world embracing it along with him.

Overall, the MCU still embraces the fun and adventure of being a superhero, even with its downsides, like in Spider-Man: Homecoming (which I loved!). But even Marvel got into the Sokovia accords and Civil War and using the premise that the world as a whole is against people with powers because we're afraid of them. I don't get why paranormal entertainment seems unable to get away from ostracizing people with extraordinary abilities. "People fear what they don't understand" is getting very tired, isn't it?

And besides...it's wrong.

Metaphor aside, let's look at how we handle the extraordinary people in our real world. People who have incredible talent like, say, athleticism or acting talent, or people who are really good at making "smart" accessible (Neil Degrasse Tyson, anyone?), or who create amazing things technologically or artistically. We revere them. We make them celebrities and toss pots of money at them. I mean, sure, we can't relate to them, but with social media and Comic-Con-type events and a million interview sources, we're trying pretty hard. We might not be able to fit into their worlds or become friends with them, but we're not running screaming from them or making laws against them.

Someone might say, "Yeah, but an actress can't hurt me with her acting the way someone with super strength can." Except...yeah, she can. She can use that talent to lie and rip your heart to shreds, or con you out of your life's savings. And despite the fact that athletes and Navy SEALs could do some serious damage to us physically, we don't treat them as if that's our first thought about them. Athletes get autograph and hug requests, not stones thrown at them.

I feel like as a society, if extraordinary people existed, we would look more to what they can do FOR us, not TO us. Take what's been happening this week. We are far more likely to react in fear and hatred toward people who can only hurt us emotionally, if at all, and celebrate those who display physical strength of some kind, for good or bad. We go after those who are vulnerable because we fear our own vulnerability. (Maybe. That's probably going way too deep for someone as shallow as I am and isn't the point of this post.)

THE POINT is...I want people to share! I want to find books, movies, and TV shows that celebrate people who have paranormal abilities, instead of shunning them, subjugating them, or otherwise forcing them into hiding so they don't get killed. I want fun stuff, light stuff, even heavy stuff where having abilities is a good thing.

Oh, and here's the big challenge: No vampires or shifters, please. I'm sure there are plenty of those that fit the other parameters, but they aren't what I'm looking for.

Ready...GO! :)

Victoria Smith Announces Into the Fire!

I had the pleasure of reading this book before release, and let me tell you, if you enjoy dark, emotional, dangerous stories set in violent worlds where survival is everything, this is the book for you! Also..OMG with that cover. I love it!

Into the Fire

In Olivia Sanders' world, people like her don't survive very long. Special abilities are a threat to the corrupt government and those loyal. Olivia and those with similar abilities struggle to keep their secrets as new laws threaten them daily. Though hiding isn't enough for Olivia. A healer and firestarter, she works with the resistance to ensure the safety of the people of her sector, toiling in an unforgiving world without freedom or hope with the goal that someday they will find both.

Poisoned by someone she should never have trusted, betrayed by her godfather, the former governor, who is using disturbing methods to control the population and grow his army, Olivia is forced to seek help from Luke Jamison, the leader of the resistance. They join forces with his brother, Matt, and Jillian Derrick, a hard-as-nails woman leading a band of "undesirables" to safety.

As conditions in the sector deteriorate and the death toll climbs ever higher, Olivia and Luke, Jillian and Matt, cling to the miracle of found love while facing the horror of a future without each other.

Buy Now

Victoria Smith lives in Central PA with her high-school sweetheart and way too many animals. She writes paranormal, urban fantasy, and dystopian—all with romance, because who doesn’t love a happy ending? She publishes with Liquid Silver Books and Soul Mate Publishing. Visit her at http://vickismith.blogspot.com