What Hooks Readers by Joan Reeves

All the lovely covers of the novellas comprising Weddings on Main Street

As a reader, what about a book hooks you? The author’s name? The cover? The Book Description? The first sentence?

Chances are it’s a combination of the elements above. For me, the first paragraph I read will have me clicking the buy button. Or not.

When book shopping, I always open a book—whether that’s in a bookstore or online with the “Look Inside” feature—and read the first paragraph. This small amount of text should be crafted to capture a reader with an intoxicating first sentence, first paragraph, first page–followed by equally addicting pages to the very end.

Crafting a Compelling Opening

Each time I start a manuscript, I spend a lot of time thinking up the perfect opening sentences for the story and the character. In a couple of sentences I want you to meet the character and glimpse something about her personality, attitude, and emotional condition that will make you want to read more.

I measure my opening sentence against the yardstick of great story openers created by my favorite authors. Excellent opening sentences capture the reader’s attention–makes readers curious or elicits an emotional reaction: laughter, excitement, sadness, etc.

Sampler of My Opening Sentences

My most recent work is April Fool Bride in the Weddings on Main Street Box Set.

The first day of spring in New York featured the kind of weather Madeline Quinn most hated. Cold, gray, wet, and miserable— which made it perfect because that’s exactly the way she felt.

Still The One (I’m fairly certain every woman has fantasized about what she’d do if given the chance to show someone from her past how she has grown from an ugly duckling into a swan.)

Ally Fletcher had waited six years for this opportunity. Six long years. There was no way a mere thunderstorm was going to stop her. Of course, in Texas, calling this a mere thunderstorm was like saying a Texas tornado was a mere puff of wind.

Just One Look (Is there a woman who won’t identify with this paragraph?)

Jennifer Monroe shivered and rubbed the goose-bumped flesh of her arms. A meat locker would be warmer than a doctor’s examining room! Why do they have to keep it so cold? And why do they act as if you have nothing better to do than sit around clad only in a piece of paper and your birthday suit, and wait?

JANE I’m-Still-Single JONES

When she found the person responsible for this, she would make them pay. And pay big!

Nobody’s Cinderella

Darcy Benton wondered if she needed to check into a hospital. Her nervous system seemed to have shorted out, producing feet that felt like blocks of ice and hands that perspired as if it were July rather than December.

Old Enough to Know Better

If you can’t trust your friends, then who can you trust? Stormy Clarkson planned to pose that question to her soon-to-be ex-friend Libby the minute she saw the conniving woman.

Romeo and Judy Anne

By the time most people reach the eve of their thirtieth birthday, they’ve developed a philosophy of life, shaped by the experience of living. Judy Anne Palmer was no exception. She had a philosophy of life, shaped by life’s hard lessons and honed by the last eight years to a stark two-word declaration. Life sucks!

SCENTS and SENSUALITY

Men looked at Amanda Whitfield and thought she was a hot blonde who knew how to have a good time. Hot? Sizzling. Sexy? Undeniably. Men figured she knew all about flirtation and lust and sex. They were wrong.

The Trouble With Love

Every woman makes mistakes. Susannah Quinn glared at the door to the sheriff’s private office. Yep, every woman makes mistakes, but most women didn’t have to put up with a constant reminder of their not so brilliant actions. And most women didn’t have their mistake showing up at their office, flaunting tanned muscles and polluting the environment with clouds of testosterone and male arrogance.

The Yardstick By Which I Measure

Here are some favorite opening sentences that intrigue or tease with a sense of anticipation, evoking curiosity and/or an emotional response in the reader that can’t be resisted.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Mandeley again.” Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“I never knew her in life.” The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.” Carrie by Stephen King

“Death was driving an emerald green Lexus.” Winter Moon by Dean Koontz

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

My Confession

The worst thing about reading another writer’s sparkling prose is that I despair of ever being as good. The best thing is that I’m motivated to keep working on my writing, from the first sentence to the last.

Do you want to know the truth? Even though it’s hard work, I can’t think of anything that’s more fun! I’m so lucky. I make my living by writing stories about love, laughter, commitment, sex, romance, and all the funny, crazy things that happen to a man and a woman who are made for each other—but who just don’t know it. Yet.

Post Script

(Joan Reeves writes sassy, sexy Contemporary Romance. Her books are available at all major ebook sellers with audio editions available at Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free subscription newsletter for writers, and I LUV Books, a free subscription newsletter for readers. Find Joan online: Blog, Website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

April Fool Bride by Joan Reeves

Reveal: April Fool BrideFor several months, I’ve been keeping the lid on my work in progress. Now I can reveal all: cover, publishing date, blurb, and excerpt. I’m even going to tease you with a video.

April Fool Bride is my novella that will appear in Weddings on Main Street, an anthology about, well, weddings of course! I hope you love the cover as much as I do.

This Box Set by eleven of us Authors of Main Street, consists of eleven novellas of varying degrees of sugar and/or spice. April Fool Bride is a bit spicy because I like a side order of sexy in my romance novels.

I plan to publish my novella separately a month after the release of the box set. April Fool Bride is the first of my new romance novella series: All Brides Are Beautiful.

(I had wanted to embed the video here, but after working 2 hours at midnight last night, I learned WordPress doesn’t allow enough usage MB to do this. Please visit YouTube for the video April Fool Bride:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-TPf2W2Yv8

Blurbing April Fool Bride

Oil heiress Madeline Quinn needs a husband by the time she turns twenty-five in order to claim her full inheritance. Mad Maddie, as the tabloids christened her, has learned the hard way that men only see dollar signs when they look at her.

A marriage of convenience is the solution, and Maddie turns to the one man in the world she can trust, her housekeeper’s son who always treated her like a little sister when they were kids.

Jake Becker hasn’t seen Maddie since the night she tried to seduce him. Why should he help the woman who changed the course of his life? Simple. Revenge.

Or is it something else. Something that simmers between them that neither Maddie nor Jake can resist?

Excerpt from April Fool Bride

Jake drained his cup and went back to the coffee carafe for more, using the time to mull over her “offer.”

He didn’t know what was going on in that rich girl brain of hers, but whatever it was, it was definitely intriguing. And so was Maddie. He’d be lying if he said she didn’t make his pulse throb. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but her face was arresting. Striking. Appealing in its sensuality.

Her lips drew his gaze. Briefly, he allowed himself to think about covering her mouth with his. How would she taste? How would it feel to have her mouth on him. Heat uncurled within him, and he had to fight the images.

He didn’t have anything better to do at the moment, he told himself. So why not string her along? See what she wanted. He turned and faced Maddie. Crossing his arms, he leaning back against the black granite counter, aiming for nonchalance. “Okay. Tell me more. Who do I have to kill for this great financial opportunity?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Maddie said in a rush. “You just have to marry me.”

Post Script

I hope you’ll like April Fool Bride. Please join me in June for April Fool Bride and Weddings on Main Street.

(Joan Reeves writes sassy, sexy Contemporary Romance. Her books are available at all major ebook sellers with audio editions available at Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free subscription newsletter for writers, and I LUV Books, a free subscription newsletter for readers. Visit her blog, SlingWords. Watch her videos for writers and readers.

Romance Is Forever Young by Joan Reeves

Have you noticed that most romance novels are peopled by the young and beautiful? Yeah, I’m a master of stating the obvious. Sure, traditionally-published novels usually starred those under thirty-five. In fact, an editor once said to an author: “Make your heroine twenty-three years old and the CEO of a company.”

I swear that is the absolute truth. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many 23-year-old CEOs.

The point is that traditional publishing had this idea that readers were all in their twenties and they didn’t want to read about anybody much older than they were. (Is it any wonder so many authors happily deserted traditional publishers and embraced indie authorship?)

Forever Young

Still, the idea of romance and sex being for those below forty holds sway. Even we indie authors write heroines younger than our generation. I think one reason we do this is that we—people in general—have a self-image embedded in the brain that doesn’t age. That’s why you are startled when you walk down the street and catch your reflection in a store window. Ever done that? Ever thought, “My God, I look just like my mother!”

Shaking It Up

I love writing about two people who find each other in life. There’s romance and sex and passion and, in the end, commitment. But, I also love shaking things up a bit. I sometimes throw in a secondary romance between people of a certain age.

In Still The One, the main love story was Burke and Ally. Burke’s grandfather and Ally’s grandmother were scheming matchmakers who were also in love and having an affair after meeting on a cruise ship. Yes, they talked about sex! Oh, horrors. Seventy-something people talking sexily. What’s the world coming to?

In The Trouble With Love, Deputy Susannah Quinn and Special Agent Hogan are the main love story, but I get more comments and email about Susannah’s mom Tory and Hogan’s Uncle Walter. These middle-aged people fell hard and fast for each other–in lust and in love.

In Old Enough to Know Better, Stormy is an older woman, and her soul mate just happens to be a younger man, Sean Butler. Sean has all he can do to woo Stormy who obstinately refuses to become involved with him—even though she’s half in love with him anyway. In the end, he prevails. I don’t want to spoil the ending in case you haven’t read this book, but he gives her a pendant with an engraving that sums up Stormy’s attitude about finding love.

Over the Hill? Nope!

So if you’re older than 30—or 40, 50, 60, or beyond—don’t despair. The road of life is long and offers love and romance—and, yes, sex too—every step of the way. You can fall in love, and you can read about women and men your age falling in love. In this new age of publishing, authors aren’t restricted by arbitrary age guidelines. We can write all kinds of stories—even romance novels with over the hill lovers if we wish.

Love at any age is amazing, intense, breathtaking, and wonderful. When you’re older, that’s still true—sometimes all those feelings are magnified. In “The Man in Lower Ten,” Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote: “Love is like the measles. The older you get, the worse the attack.” Now that is the stuff of romantic comedy!

Post Script

No matter your age, I wish you the kind of love I write about in my romantic comedies!

(Joan Reeves writes funny, sexy Romance Novels. For your consideration, get your flirt on with any of her novels, available at most ebook sellers, with audio editions available at Audible and iTunes. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free subscription newsletter for writers, and I♥Books, a free subscription newsletter for readers. Visit SlingWords, Joan’s Blog, or her Website.)

Love at First Sight by Joan Reeves

Scents and Sensuality by Joan Reeves

Confession time. I love paranormal romance, but I can’t seem to write that kind of book. My love stories, full of romance and passion—not to mention sex and humor—depend only on the magic of love itself. That condition wherein a man and a woman discover that they are made for each other.

That Moment

That moment of recognition between a man and a woman is true magic. Anyone who has felt it will tell you that. For most people, love comes softly, grows slowly and steadily, and bursts into bloom.

But for some, true love occurs in an instant. I know many couples who have been married for scores of years who said they took one look and knew in that instant that they were going to marry that person.

Head Over Heels in Love at First Sight

Every culture has an expression meaning love at first sight. In Italy, they call it colpo di fulmine which, roughly translated, means struck by a lightning bolt. That’s what it feels like.

Does love at first sight really exist? Or is it a figment of our collective imagination? I think it exists, and there may be a sound physiological reason for love at first sight.

Exploring Love at First Sight

For my Valentine romantic comedy Scents and Sensuality, I did a lot of research about the Science of Smell in relation to Sex Appeal because the heroine, Amanda, is a perfumer by trade. I’ve always been fascinated by smell. Maybe it’s because I had a mother who wore the most wonderful perfume. I can remember thinking she smelled better than any person I knew. When she hugged me, this wonderful fragrance wrapped us in its embrace.

I couldn’t pronounce the name of my mother’s perfume then. I can now, but I won’t be purchasing a bottle anytime soon. Mom’s fragrance was by Lucien LeLong. The parfum came in a bottle as beautiful as the smell. Recently, I priced it online and was dismayed to discover it was $250.00 for a quarter ounce.

Maybe that memory created my love for fine perfumes and my interest in the science of smell.

Smell: Primitive and Powerful

Smell is the most primitive of all our senses. We inhale and odor molecules float into our noses, traveling back to the nasal cavity behind the bridge of the the nose. There, those odor molecules get absorbed by mucosa containing receptor cells on which there are microscopic hairs called cilia. About 5 million of these receptor cells fire impulses to the olfactory bulb, or smell center, in the brain.

If you kill a brain neuron, it won’t re-grow. Neither will cells in the eyes or ears, but you grow new nasal neurons about every month. These neurons wave in the air like anemones in the ocean. When your olfactory bulb detects something, it signals your cerebral cortex and sends a message straight into your limbic system, that primitive, emotional part of the brain that houses your feelings—your desires.

Smell: The Different Sense

If a visual stimulation occurs, your brain immediately starts trying to process what you saw. The same thing occurs if you hear something. Your brain goes to work immediately to interpret the sound. That doesn’t happen when you smell something. You don’t need your brain to do anything. What you smell creates an immediate effect that needs no translation, thought, interpretation, or anything. The primitive part of your brain reacts immediately. You react immediately.

This is why you can smell something and immediately be transported to your grandmother’s front porch when she served a hot apple pie on a Sunday afternoon. Smell is a sensory time machine. You smell. Bam! You remember an event, and the way you felt during that event. You can see it so clearly. Memories triggered by smell are sharper than other memories.

Love at First Smell

In Scents and Sensuality, heroine Amanda Whitfield, is a perfume designer. What a great career for a romance novel heroine because smell is so closely linked to sexual attraction. Scent goes hand in hand with sensuality. Knowledge of smell and sexual attraction is all about the science of pheromones, those below-consciousness odors we all breathe in without realizing it.

When Amanda explains smell and the science of sex appeal to Harrison, her Mr. Right, I hope you’ll find it as hilarious—and sexy—as I thought it was when I wrote the book. It may not sound romantic, but love at first sight has little to do with sight and much to do with smell.

In fact, if you want to know how to attract a member of the opposite sex, be sure and read Scents and Sensuality (available at all ebook sellers including: Amazon * iTunes * Kobo * Nook .

Since we just had Valentine’s Day, I’m giving away a belated Valentine gift: the audiobook edition of my romantic comedy Old Enough To Know Better. To be entered to win, leave your email address (not as a hot link so you won’t get spammed) with a comment. Comments are open until Feb. 24. The winner will be selected and notified on Feb. 25.

Post Script

Joan Reeves is a bestselling author of Contemporary Romance whose books are available as Audiobooks (at iTunes and Audible), eBooks (at most major sellers), and Print (coming soon). Visit Joan online at her Website, her blog, or on Twitter @JoanReeves and Facebook.

Look for Joan’s new nonfiction ebook: Little Book of Sunshine: For Readers and Writers, an Attitude Adjustment disguised as a book. Encouragement and Inspiration for only 99cents wherever ebooks are sold. (Okay, maybe not every ebook seller on the planet today, just on Amazon until the others catch up!)

12 Blog Tips for the New Year by Joan Reeves

A Book of Sunshine for Writers, Volume 1 by Joan Reeves

In April, I’ll be celebrating the 9 year anniversary of my blog, SlingWords. Once I had 2 other blogs that I published nearly every day. I also guest blogged for clients for a number of years.

I really have no idea how many posts, all total, that I’ve written. I do know on SlingWords, that I’ve published over 2,000. I guess one could say I know a little about blogging. I also know that a successful blog is one of the best marketing tools a writer can have in her toolkit.

To help you achieve success in 2014, I’ve come up with 12 Blog Tips for the New Year. Take 1 tip each month and work with that tip. You’ll be surprised how much your blog will improve and how your audience will grow with just a few changes in your blog habits.

1. Start a blog if you don’t have one or if you have learned that the one you have doesn’t serve you well. If you already have a blog, then give it a makeover. A blog, when carefully structured, will draw in visitors who are not just other authors.

2. Make a commitment to blog a certain number of times each work. More is better.

3. Write about things that stir your passions, not things that you think you should cover.

4. Set up an editorial calendar that lists the topics you’ll cover. You can keep this private or post it on your blog. This will keep you from wondering what you’ll write.

5. If you want to keep expenses low, then use a free blogging platform. Blogger is easy to customize and maintain. Others say the same thing about WordPress. I use them both.

6. Use your name as your blog URL. Example: http://JohnDoe.blogspot.com. I learned this lesson the hard way. By the time I realized I should have used my name for my blog title, SlingWords was already too well-established to make the change over. I tried to switch it over to my name, but I abandoned the effort when I realized how many portals run my blog feed.

7. If you want to shell out a few bucks, buy your own domain name and set it up to point to your blog. Make sure it’s your name, not something descriptive.

8. Be consistent. If you say you’re going to blog 3 days a week, then follow through. Consistency builds a blog audience.

9. Although the bar is set lower for blog posts, do proofread your posts carefully.

10. Interact with your audience. Always respond to a comment left on your blog.

11. If you have Comment Verification turned off, then check every day to make sure you’re not getting spammed.

12. Avoid using elements on your blog that are listed as “most annoying” by web visitors: music, wacky fonts, black or very dark backgrounds with white or light-colored fonts, broken hot links, and content that isn’t formatted correctly for web reading.

Blogging should be fun. Adopt that attitude. Never look at blogging as a chore. It should be like sitting down with a friend for a nice chat. Build your blog that way, and you’ll build an audience fast.

Post Script

I’m offering a free copy of A Book of Sunshine for Writers to all who leave a comment today. Just leave your email address (written out not as a hot link), and I’ll send you a PDF of this little book of inspiration for writers.

(Joan Reeves writes Romantic Comedy. Her books are available at all major ebook sellers–audio books at Audible and iTunes. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free newsletter for writers  and her blog SlingWords . For more information, visit Joan’s Website.)

12 Days of Christmas: Fact & Fiction by Joan Reeves

Just about everyone knows the Christmas standard, The Twelve Days Of Christmas, but do you know the fiction and the facts regarding this song?

I’m the kind of person who likes to dig for facts about things. The origin of a creative work is of great interest to me. I hope it is for you too.

In 1995, an essay entitled An Underground Catechism was posted by Father Hal Stockert on the online Catholic Information Network. Purporting to be the truth behind the popular song The Twelve Days of Christmas, the article resulted in a storm of controversy and was subsequently found to be not historically accurate, resulting in the article being withdrawn.

The article was published again a few years ago and amended to read:

“It has come to our attention that this tale is made up of both fact and fiction. Hopefully it will be accepted in the spirit it was written. As an encouragement to people to keep their faith alive, when it is easy, and when any outward expressions of their faith could mean their life. Today there are still people living under similar conditions, may this tale give them courage, and determination to use any creative means at their disposal to keep their faith alive.”

The essay by Father Stockert has been debunked by many people on the Internet through the years. As a Christian, I wish Father Stockert had posted the essay as his interpretation of the significance of the numbers from one to twelve, symbolic of the religious significance of the twelve days between Christmas Day and Epiphany, January 6, when the three wise men arrived on the scene.

I did a little research and offer you:

The True History of The 12 Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas is an English Christmas carol that enumerates a series of gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Although first published in England in 1780, the song may be French in origin.

The song, whose specific origins are obviously unknown, may have begun as a Twelfth Night “memories and forfeits” game. A leader would recite a verse, each of the players repeat the verse, then the leader would add another verse, etc. until a player would make a mistake. The player who messed up the verses would have to pay a penalty, or forfeit, such as a kiss or a sweet.

The 12 days in the song are the 12 days starting Christmas Day. In some traditions, the first day is the day after Christmas, December 26, commonly called Boxing Day in England. (This day is also known as St. Stephen’s Day, the feast day of St. Stephen Protomartyr.) The 12th day is the day before Epiphany, or the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6.

Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking.”

In 1910, the song came to the United States, courtesy of Emily Brown, of the Downer Teacher’s College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who had found the song in an English music store. She is said to have used the song for the school Christmas pageant.

This Christmas, I’d like to share with you Father Stockert’s essay. One can only assume that he must have come by this explanation of the song at some point in his life and thought it to be the true record of the song’s history. Whether you find it spiritually rewarding or just a footnote as another Internet urban myth debunked, at least you’ll be entertained and learn the true history of the song, along with a little world history and Christian history in the bargain.

Father Stockert’s Essay

To most, the Christmas song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, is a nonsense rhyme set to music, but it’s more than just a repetitious melody about a bunch of strange gifts.

From 1558 to 1829, after Henry VIII abolished Catholicism and established the Church of England in order to facilitate and legalize his marriage to Anne Boleyn, Catholics in England were banned from any private or public practice of their faith. It was a crime to be a Catholic.

The Twelve Days of Christmas was written as a catechism song to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith. A memory aid was necessary since to be caught with anything in writing that indicated adherence to the Catholic faith could not only get you imprisoned but also could get you hanged or beheaded.

The gifts mentioned in the song had hidden meanings. The true love mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, it refers to God Himself. The me who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of the expression of Christ’s sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so….”

The symbolism of the song in its entirety:

Day 1
A Partridge in a Pear Tree = Jesus Christ, Our Lord

Day 2
2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments

Day 3
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Love, the Theological Virtues

Day 4
4 Calling Birds = the 4 Gospels and/or the 4 Evangelists
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
Originally this was a colly bird. Colly means black as coal so a colly bird was probably a black bird.

Day 5
5 Golden Rings = the first 5 Books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy give the history of man’s fall from grace. Originally this was a gold-ringed pheasant, another bird which re-establishes the first seven verses as being birds.

Day 6
6 Geese A-laying = the 6 Days of Creation

Day 7
7 Swans A-swimming = the 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit: the 7 Sacraments
Prophecy, Ministry, Teaching, Exhortation, Giving, Leading, and Compassion

Day 8
8 Maids A-milking = the 8 Beatitudes
Blessed are: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

Day 9
9 Ladies Dancing = the 9 Fruits of the Holy Spirit
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control

Day 10
10 Lords A-leaping = the 10 Commandments

Day 11
11 Pipers Piping = the 11 Faithful Apostles
Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James bar Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas bar James. The list does not include the twelfth disciple, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders and the Romans.

Day 12
12 Drummers Drumming = the 12 Points of Doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed
1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell (the grave).
5. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father.
6. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
7. I believe in the Holy Spirit, 8. the holy catholic (universal) Church, 9. the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins, 11. the resurrection of the body, and
12. and life everlasting.

Please accept my good wishes for you and yours. Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to you.

(Joan Reeves writes funny, sexy Romance Novels. Make some time for you this holiday season and enjoy one of her novels, perhaps Nobody’s Cinderella, a Christmas Romantic Comedy, available at ebook sellers. Audio editions are available at Audible and iTunes. For more information, visit SlingWords, Joan’s Blog, or her Website.)

Christmas on Main Street presented by Joan Reeves

Main Street once was where everyone in small towns and even large cities congregated. People shopped on Main Street and, to the shop owners, were more than customers with money to spend. Indeed, shopping was a personal experience where the customer and owner exchanged news about each other’s family, neighborhood gossip fed the grapevine, and each person came away from the visit with a smile.

Remember how Christmas was once celebrated on Main Street? A parade with the local schools’ marching bands, decorations that spanned the street overhead, evergreen wreaths and red bows on all the shop doors, and a Santa who seemed to be everywhere, cheerily calling out, “Merry Christmas.”

This holiday season, you’ll find the Spirit of Main Street alive and well in a wonderful collection of eleven holiday romances, the Christmas on Main Street Box Set. The Authors of Main Street have poured their heart into these books, all with holiday themes. With the spirit of Christmas guiding them, they have priced Christmas on Main Street inexpensively as their holiday gift to you.

So, grab a mug of your favorite hot winter beverage, settle into your favorite chair, prop your feet up, and prepare to fall in love–with Christmas on Main Street.

May all your Christmas Wishes come true and may the New Year be full of the best Life has to offer. Merry Christmas! Joan Reeves

These popular, bestselling authors await you with Christmas stories on Main Street with a new holiday bestseller:

The Christmas Wish by Tori Scott. Merry is a long way from home and missing her family as Christmas approaches, until she falls right into Santa’s lap.

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Her Christmas Cruise by Mona Risk. The perfect fiancé is a cheater and the fabulous Christmas wedding is off. But the would-be honeymoon cruise may fulfill the dreams of Julia and her unexpected companion.

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A Snowy Christmas in Wyoming by E. Ayers. A Native American cowboy with his thirteen-month-old daughter and a national news anchorwoman have nothing in common, except for their pasts, but in this season of giving, will fate reach through time and give the gift of love?

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The Christmas Con by Jill James. Contemporary Romance. Two reformed jewel thieves, Robin and Ian, are on the job to retrieve a priceless necklace, but Santa has special plans for a reunion of the ex-lovers.

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Small Town Glamour Girl Christmas by Stephanie Queen. Small town girl Julie hates being an Audrey Hepburn look-alike. When the big city man of her dreams comes to town for Christmas will she sell out to model in the city or settle into small town life on his terms?

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The Christmas Gift by Pepper Phillips. When an opportunity to make money presents itself, eleven-year-old George faces the biggest decision of his life. Will he become a thief like his father or will he discover the fact that giving, rather than receiving, is the best gift of all?

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A Potters Wood Christmas by Leigh Morgan. A plot to steal an ancient artifact in the Bennett’s possession could be the key to opening an even greater prize. Will Cian find family and the spirit of Christmas again?

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A Baby for Christmas by Susan R. Hughes. When Ryan opens his home to Paige, a beautiful stranger who happens to be pregnant, will it take a Christmas miracle to make them realize where their hearts truly belong?

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A Light in the Christmas Cafe by Kristy Tate. A food thief, a haunted house, a matchmaking grandmother and a handsome stranger: Are the apron strings tying Deirdre to her grandmother’s café tangling up her life plans or are they leading her to love?

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What if…this Christmas by Kelly Rae. Will a marriage proposal be the end of Katie and Chris’ forever?

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A Smoky Mountain Christmas by Carol DeVaney. Falling in love wasn’t in Tina’s plans. She’d survived the snowstorm, but could she survive the love of recently divorced Hank Gordon who’s sworn off women?

Writing For Love by Joan Reeves

Do you write for love? Not love of publication, love of fame, or love of royalties, but love of writing itself. Choosing one word over another. Putting words together in a certain way that it perfectly expresses the vision in your brain.

Years ago I heard a University of Houston Literature professor, who was a published poet, say that only poets write for the love of writing. His reasoning was that poets never make any money from writing so they do it strictly because they love stringing words together.

I disagreed with him then, and I disagree now because I know many writers who have written hundreds of thousands of words and have never been published yet they still keep writing. They submitted to publishers countless times and were rejected each time — not because their writing isn’t worthy of publication.

Reasoned Rejection? Hmmm

What many people in the general public don’t realize is that authors get rejected all the time. Rejection is no stranger to authors who are already published and writers who aren’t published but who are well-versed in the necessary skills to write a publishable book.

Writers don’t get published because of myriad reasons, and most of those reasons are subjective. Perhaps the publisher just bought a manuscript with that premise or that same setting. Maybe the editor doesn’t think the marketing hook is high concept enough or the editor’s personal opinion is that no one could ever be caught in the situation that’s in the opening scene of the book.

Maybe the publisher has an author who already writes that type of book, and they don’t see a need for another author writing it. Maybe the industry is downsizing because of the rise of indie publishing. Maybe the editor disdains women like the heroine of your book. Or, maybe the hero’s name is Brian, and the editor just split from her significant other who is also named Brian. The “maybe’s” go on forever.

Sometimes, good writing just never lands on the right editor or agent’s desk. By right, I mean the person who “gets” the story. Do writers give up? Some do. Some don’t. In the beginning, writers who have just begun to fight are motivated. They outline another book and start writing. Why? Because they can’t not write. They love writing.

Writing For Love Makes One Persist

All those writers who were summarily rejected are now free to embrace indie publishing and the technology of ebook readers that allow their work to find an audience. All those authors who wrote, and kept writing, for the love of writing, and who once buried rejected manuscripts in the bottom of a file drawer now have a chance to place their work – their words – in front of readers.

The smart indie authors have their manuscripts edited, proofread, and adorned with professional cover art and then published as ebooks, print books, audio books, or all three!

Readers find the books they want to read without big publicity machines to guide them, and they can get them at a bargain too. Most indie ebooks are priced less than five dollars making them an impulse buy for most readers. Who bats an eye at paying $3.99 for an ebook when a Venti Cappuccino costs more than that, as does a snack at a food court. A movie ticket costs much more than that. Plus, you can re-read the ebook as many times as you wish.

Post Script

An ebook is a great value and a lot of entertainment for such a small investment. Try one today. I’d love it if you’d try one of mine, or grab the Christmas on Main Street Box Set coming to a cyber bookstore near you very soon.

(If you like Romance and Sex — and Romance and Humor — in your novels, try a book by Joan Reeves. Joan’s books are available at most ebook sellers, with audio editions available at Audible and iTunes. Look for print editions in late 2013. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free subscription newsletter for writers, and Wordplay, a free subscription newsletter for readers. Visit SlingWords, Joan’s Blog, or her Website. Follow Joan on Twitter: @JoanReeves)

Color Outside the Lines by Joan Reeves

Back to school time is always a delight for me because of the stacks of Crayon® boxes in so many stores. I love the distinctive smell of those pieces of colored wax. I don’t know how Craola® infuses that distinctive aroma in its products, but one sniff and I’m carried back to school and to my kids’ school days.

There are moments when I am overcome with emotion and wish my kids were little again so we could all sit at the kitchen table and draw pictures or open a coloring book and create a masterpiece.

Sure, there are all kinds of “bells and whistle” Crayons now. Markers of every description. Magic Crayons that only work on special surfaces. (If they’d had those when my youngest was a toddler, it would have saved several sets of sheets. More about that later.) Multicultural Crayons, triangular Crayons, Studio Design Crayons, and so many more. I’m a purist. I like the original ones best because they’re the ones with that smell.

That Special Smell

When I said that the Crayon smell carries me back to my school days, I wasn’t joking. Smell, the most primitive of our senses, isn’t like our other senses. When you smell something, the brain is not needed to “run interference” the way it does with our other senses. What you smell creates an immediate effect that needs no translation, thought, interpretation, or anything.

Smell Is Primitive

You inhale and odor molecules float into the nose, travel back to the nasal cavity behind the bridge of the the nose, and get absorbed by the mucosa containing receptor cells. On the receptor cells, there are microscopic hairs called cilia. They wave like sea anemones, wafting the odors onto the receptor cells. About 5 million of these receptor cells fire impulses faster than you can read this to the olfactory bulb — the smell center — located in the brain.

When the olfactory bulb — the smell center — detects something, it signals your cerebral cortex and sends a message straight into your limbic system — that’s the primitive, emotional part of the brain that houses your feelings and your desires. Boom! A memory is instantly called up by the brain.

So Crayon smell gets picked up, sent to the limbic system, and triggers the memories of those good feelings of being a kid and coloring pictures.

Smell is linked to feelings, to emotions, and the link is so strong that the memory is clearer than other memories. I’ve always thought smell was like a time machine. You smell, and bam! You’re transported back to a specific moment in time, experiencing the emotions of that event. Smell calls forth a sharp, in-focus memory.

Crayons Inspired An Artist

You may know that my daughter Adina Mayo is an artist. Her first artistic efforts were drawing designs on the sheets in her bed with a purple crayon. As she explained to me, the purple flowers she drew looked better than the pink flowers on the sheets. She was about 2 1/2 years old at the time and was supposed to be taking a nap.

When she was in 5th grade, she brought me the shavings from her Crayon sharpener and spread them out on a piece of paper and asked me to tell her what I saw. I looked at the colorful fragments and said I didn’t see anything, but that all the shavings together were pretty. She nodded, looked at me, and said, “That’s because it’s art.” That very moment, I knew she had some special aesthetic sense. So the Crayon smell has special significance for me and calls up those memories so clearly.

Cover Art

Those school days have passed. Adina and all our other kids are grown. Adina has created a volume of work using many different media. Her art created for the Master’s Degree program she completed this summer was on display the last few weeks at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Part of her art from that project is going to be in a traveling exhibition that makes a stop in Houston next spring. She teaches art in a local high school and freelances as a graphic artist with video trailers, book covers, and also as a photographer whose work is amazing.

Scents and Sensuality by Joan Reeves

Adina still picks up a Crayon every now and then and colors, but most of her “coloring” is now done with a computer. Even with her graphic art, she always “colors outside the lines,” creating something unique every time. Here is the new book cover she just created for my last book Scents and Sensuality.

Even though this romantic comedy was published in March, I was never happy with the cover — not because it was a bad cover, but because it wasn’t the picture I wanted: a beautiful blond woman holding a perfume bottle and spraying it on the pulse point on her neck. You see the heroine in Scents and Sensuality is a perfumer, and she knows all about the Science of Smell and Sexual Attraction. (Yes, those two go hand in hand. Read the book and learn what makes a person appeal to the opposite sex!)

Finally, last week, I found the photograph and Adina did a new cover that is now “live” at most ebook sellers. What do you think about the new cover? I think it’s perfect. It depicts the passion of the book and the scent that goes along with sensuality.

Post Script

Enjoy your children while they’re young. It’s a total cliché, but they really do grow up too fast.

Joan Reeves is a world-class sentimentalist who gets all misty-eyed in the Crayon aisle at Office Depot each fall. Visit Joan at her website and SlingWords, her blog.

Buy Links for SCENTS and SENSUALITY

ALL ROMANCE eBooks
Amazon US
iTunes/Apple US
KOBO
NOOK US

Christmas in September

Our Snowman from last year!

Yesterday it was 70 degrees outside and I was reworking….um I mean polishing….a Christmas novella. Writers often go back and forth in time and tell stories in many formats, but I have to say sitting outside in a lounge chair with an ice tea and sunscreen on, did make it a little hard to get into the groove of snow and Christmas. But I pressed on, as any professional would! 🙂

My Christmas novella picks up life in Pennsville Station where my hero and heroine from What If… live. It is appropriately titled, What If…This Christmas. Some time has passed and we get to take a look at what is and isn’t happening between Katie and Chris. It’s always fun to revisit old friends. My characters always live on with me and this has been a nice opportunity to catch up and add more to their life, outside my head.

The opportunity to  came about because The Authors of Main Street have decided to put together, what I am sure will be an amazing, box set of Christmas stories of varying lengths. There is an excitement in the air on this blog for sure. The group is working hard to make a very special collection for our readers. They will be funny and charming, some romantic and others just heart warming. The kind of box set you can gift to a favorite reader in your life and give them something to cozy up and read, when it’s actually cold and possibly snowing outside. I am really excited to be a part of it and we will have more information on a release date and cover reveal coming up soon!

In the meantime I will finish polishing and getting my piece of this collection ready for all of you this Christmas. There was some rain today, which helped me get into the mood a bit more. I am so excited to be with my friends Chris and Katie again, if you had the chance to read about them I hope you are looking forward to hearing about their life now and if you haven’t now is a good chance to check them out, as the book is on sale for $2.99 on kindle.

Let us know what you think about holiday themes and when you want to start reading about Christmas or Valentines Day, etc.  We always love to hear what our readers enjoy. Thanks as always for stopping by, I can’t believe it’s been another month already…or that it’s close enough to Christmas to be putting out a boxed set. 

 

Debut Contemporary Romance Novel

Click here for Amazon Kindle Version What If… and here for Barnes and Noble Nook Version What If….