New Year’s Traditions & a Blog Hop

Release Day for Wishing for a Highlander is almost here! Thank you for visiting my blog to help me celebrate the start of 2013 and the beginning of a new era as I become a *gasps* published author! I’m ringing in the New Year with a huge team of talented authors, a bushel of prizes, and a truck load of new books in the New Year’s Blog Hop.

We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

What prizes, you say? How’s this to start off your 2013?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet
2nd Grand Prize: A $300 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more! (US Only for the Swag Pack)

All you have to do to enter is leave a commment here with your email address. To enter more than once, click any of the New Year’s Blog Hop buttons above to visit the fabulous blogs of the other authors on the hop. To sweeten the deal, I’m adding in a $5 Amazon gift card to one commenter on my blog. Winners will be notified by email after Jan 6th.

So what’s going on in my world this New Years? A LOT! Including becoming a published author! There is still one week to go before the release of Wishing for a Highlander, my fantasy romance featuring a pregnant, time travelling museum worker, a Scot who thinks he’s too big under his kilt, and a mischievous wishing box.

I’ll be making several appearances on the blogs of some wonderful, supportive author friends, and I hope you’ll subscribe to my blog (look for the “Follow Blog Via Email” button on the right sidebar) so you know where and when to find me.

To whet your appetite, here’s the blurb for Wishing for a Highlander:

While examining Andrew Carnegie’s lucky rosewood box, single-and-pregnant museum worker Melanie makes a tongue in cheek wish on the artifact–for a Highland warrior to help her forget about her cheating ex. Suddenly transported to the middle of a clan skirmish in sixteenth-century Scotland, she realizes she should have been a tad more specific.

Darcy, laird in waiting, should be the most eligible bachelor in Ackergill, but a cruel prank played on him in his teenage years has led him to believe he is too large under his kilt to ever join with a woman. He has committed himself to a life of bachelorhood, running his deceased father’s windmills and keeping up the family manor house…alone.

Darcy’s uncle, Laird Steafan welcomes the strangely dressed woman into his clan, immediately marrying her to Darcy in hopes of an heir. But when Steafan learns of her magic box and brands her a witch, Darcy must do what any good husband would–protect his wife, even if it means forsaking his clan.

And here’s a teaser:

     Size might have its advantages when it came to fighting, but those few boons fell far short of making up for the problems it caused. Being the biggest and the strongest had gotten him into far more trouble than it had gotten him out of. Swallowing his regret for how careless he’d been with her, he sought to determine whom she belonged to, whom, saints forbid, he might owe.
     “Whose wife are ye, then? Not a Gunn’s or I wouldna have had to rescue you from one.”
     “I’m not married,” the lass said. “And thank you for the rescuing, by the way. I can’t believe I dropped the dirk. Stupid.” She shook her head.
     His heart warmed at her thanks. He didn’t hear many kind words from the lasses and would take what he could get, even from a dishonored woman who had caught a bairn out wedlock. Oddly, he didn’t think poorly of her. Whether it was her worried brow, her guileless, soft mouth, or her vulnerable size, he had not the heart to condemn her.
     He didn’t even mind so much that she found him distasteful for his size, although talking with her now, she didn’t seem overly upset to be in his arms. He endeavored to keep her talking, keep her distracted from her disgust.
     “Ye never answered my first question,” he said. “Who are you? And where are ye from if ye’re no’ English?”
     “Ugh. I don’t know. Is there an answer that won’t get me burned at the stake or locked up in a ward for the hopelessly insane?”
     Like most things out of her mouth, that had been a peculiar answer. “Ye could try the truth,” he offered, slowing his pace since he heard Archie’s voice not far off.
     “No,” she said flatly. “I couldn’t. At least not the whole truth. How about we just go with my name, Melanie, and with the honest fact that I’m a long way from home and I have no idea how to get back.” Her green eyes pierced his. “I’m afraid you might be stuck with me, Darcy Keith.”

I’ll see you on January 7th, RELEASE DAY for Wishing for a Highlander! In the mean time, Happy New Year!

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your email address to be entered in MY drawing for a $5 Amazon gift card and THE NEW YEAR’S BLOG HOP’S drawing for those fabulous prizes mentioned above. And visit a few blogs on the hop to share the New Year’s love.