Category: contest

January 31, 2014 / A Fall of Marigolds, blogging, books, contest, Penguin / 12 Comments »

A great month is in store!

FallMarigolds_final coverOn Tuesday, my first book with Penguin NAL, A FALL OF MARIGOLDS, will be released out into the world — always a wonderful, terrifying day. I love the characters in this book and I almost feel badly for what I put them through. Almost.  I am anxious about its debut, of course, and since I aim to please, I really want you all to like it.  It’s a dual time-periods story, like my last five have been, with the majority of the tale centering around a grieving nurse named Clara living at Ellis Island’s hospital in 1911. Her story is paired with that of a 9/11 widow named Taryn one hundred years later. The two never meet, but a scarf patterned in marigolds will bring them together in a way that I hope you find compelling.

To celebrate the release of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS, on Monday a blog tour will begin and which will continue throughout the month of February. The book and me will be featured on more than 50 blogs, more than half of which will participate in a drawing for some really cool stuff!

One winner from among all those who post a comment on the blogs will win the grand prize, which includes a beautiful up-cycled infinity scarf (made from Gift basket itemsa real vintage Indian sari), a signed copy of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS, a DVD copy of the PBS documentary Forgotten Ellis Island, and a $100 Visa gift card.  In addition, one winner from each individual blogger’s commenters will win a signed copy of the book. The grand prize winner from among all the participating blogs as well as the individual book winners will be chosen by random drawing. Comments must be posted by midnight Eastern on Feb 28. (The contest is limited to those residing in the United States.)

On Monday I will post the complete list of participating blogs so that you can begin the tour. Just hop over to the blogs each day and drop a comment in the comment section (just one comment per blog) and you’re in the running. The content of the blog tour (the question and and answer part) will likely be the same from blog to blog, but the blogs themselves are all different, and hosted by gifted people whom I hope you will get to know and want to revisit in the future.  Plus you will want to check back with them to see if you are the individual winner of a signed copy of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS — there will be a winner of a book on every blog!

I am so looking forward to hearing from you in the weeks and months ahead. I love hearing back from you, even if you DON’T like a book I’ve written. It actually helps to hear why, for I very much want to make your reading time memorable. Hope to see you along for the ride this month!

January 8, 2008 / contest / 2 Comments »

Messing up the morning routine

Every schoolday morning for the last five months my teenage son and I have had the same routine commute to his high school three miles from our house.

We get in the van, we ease down the hill and we snake our way into the crush of other folks making their way to the campus.

Everyday we’ve seen the same red Corvette parked in a tiny strip mall parking lot at the corner where we turn left. Every day we’ve seen a bald man in the doughnut shop wearing a leather jacket, reading the newspaper and holding his cup of coffee while it rests on the table. He always sits by the window. He always wears the black leather jacket. He always has a cup of coffee and a doughnut. We know that red Corvette is his. We just do.

It’s become our habit to turn our heads to the right as we make our way into the left turn lane. We don’t know his name or anything about him other than he likes red sports cars, doughnuts and the Union Tribune. My son says he’s old. I say he’s in his late 50s , early 60s. My son says that’s old.

It’s comforting to see this man every morning. Seeing him there with his coffee and glazed doughnut lets us know all is right with the world and, if nothing else, seeing him assures us we aren’t running late.

But he stopped coming a few days before Christmas vacation. We’d get to the intersection and no red Corvette. No bald man at the table by the window. Yikes. The cosmos shuddered. I decided that he went away for the holidays with his wife Renata. They flew to the island of Capri and had Christmas at a seaside resort and toasted the New Year with limoncello.

But hey. It’s January 7. School started up today. No Corvette. No bald man. The table by the window is empty.

It’s driving me crazy.

My pessimistic side says he had emergency bypass due to eating far too many doughnuts and now Renata and his doctor have forbidden him to come to DonutLand and so he spends his mornings eating dry toast.

My optimistic side says he and Renata loved Capri. They loved it so much they couldn’t leave it. And now the bald man’s brother is driving his red Corvette and hoping the bald brother stays in Italy a long, long time.

I like the the second story better.

I’ve got an idea. Send me your thoughts on where my bald man went. Give him a name and a reason for messing up my mornings. You have until midnight Thursday to post your entry. Winner (chosen by my teenage son) will get a free copy of my upcoming release, “Blue Heart Blessed,” coming your way in Feb.

Let’s hear ’em!