Great Summer Reads, Day 15, with Cheryl Carpinello

Carpinello's Writing Pages Presents the Final Day of the Great Summer Reads with, guess who? Me!! Remember, I'm the bookends of this event,  and I return now with more Arthurian Legend.

So, Enjoy Day 15!

I’m a retired high school English teacher. A devourer of books growing up, my profession introduced me to writings and authors from times long past. Through my studies and teaching, I fell in love with the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Now, I hope to inspire young readers and those Young-at-Heart to read more through my Tales and Legends for Reluctant Readers set in these worlds—Ancient Egypt, Medieval Wales, and coming soon, a hair-raising adventure through ancient worlds in search of 5 rare Phoenix Feathers.

All of my books come with Free study guides and/or extensive Back-of-the-Book materials.

My husband and I love to travel. In 2008, we spent three weeks in Egypt traveling by local train from one end of the country to the other; in 2014, we spent three weeks in the UK driving over 1700 miles through England, Wales, and Scotland; and in 2016, we spent a week in Iceland. We’ve also traveled to Mexico, Jamaica, and Aruba. Our next big adventure will be to Greece and Italy.

When I’m not writing or traveling, our 4 grandkids keep us busy.

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Three Friends

Three Quests

Three Mysterious Predictions

Gavin, Philip, and Bryan bravely vow to clear their friend of murder by taking the Knight’s Oath and embarking on individual quests to save The Wild Man. In the end, each one faces their fears and even death in their determination not to fail.

And one will have to disclose the biggest secret of all.

Join Gavin, Phillip, and Bryan on their quests and share the adventures that await them in the land of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

    

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Top Ten List:

Favorites

1. Things I like to do when not writing:

I enjoy traveling—I will travel anywhere, any time; reading; spending time with my family; and working in the yard. I’m definitely not a housekeeper.

2. How I relax:

Sitting on the beach in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico!

3. My favorite color:

Blue’s always been my favorite color. It’s the color of my eyes, of the sky, and of the ocean.

4. My favorite drink:

Just can’t pass up a good margarita!

5. My favorite snack:

I devour nachos and Auntie Anne’s pretzels!

6. My your favorite movies:

Star Wars, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and The Mummy. I’ve watched each of these so many times that I’ve lost track, and my husband shakes his head when he sees one on and says, “Really?” I just smile.

7. I am a night owl:

I don’t usually go to sleep until midnight, and now that I’m retired, I’m comfortable not seeing the sun come up in the morning:)

8. My favorite food:

That would be a smothered shredded beef burrito followed by coconut ice cream.

9. My favorite concerts:

Elton John, Sting, Paul McCartney, and Mumford & Sons.

10. If I could live anywhere, it would be in Colorado.

We have the best weather—All four seasons. I live next to the foothills, and a drive up in the Rockies is a cure for any ailment. I can see the world famous Red Rock Amphitheater from my couch, and if the wind is just right, we can hear the concerts. My immediate family is all here, except for one sister who lives in Texas, poor soul. In addition to being a retired teacher, I’m also a retired airline employee. So, when I need a change, it’s so easy just to hop a plane and go to the beach.

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Great Summer Reads, Day 14, with Zina Abbott

 Carpinello's Writing Pages presents Day 14 of Loving the Book's Great Summer Reads with YA western writer Zina Abbott (aka Robyn Echols). Welcome back Zina and Robyn!

So Enjoy Day 14!

My name is Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is the pen name I use for my American historical romance novels. I’m a member of Women Writing the West and Western Writers of America, and American Night Writers Association. I currently live with my husband in California’s central valley near the “Gateway to Yosemite.”

I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.

I am a blogger. In addition to my own blog, I blog for several group blogs including the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog, which I started and administer.

 

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Roslyn Welsh is sent by stagecoach to Junction City to marry a man with whom her aunt and guardian, without Roslyn’s knowledge, had been corresponding. His requirements for a wife were that she must be at least twenty-one years of age with a family Bible for proof, and she must have no children. Only, Roslyn is not quite twenty-one, she has a baby, and her aunt has no intention of sending the family Bible with her. The marriage prospect turns into a disaster. Stuck in a strange town with no money, she is told there is no work for a decent woman with a baby. To allow herself time to figure what to do with her future, Roslyn accepts an offer to ride the stagecoach to the Ellsworth B.O.D. Stagecoach station to help the stationmaster’s wife.

        Elam Stewart survived the American Civil War, but his left leg from above the knee down did not. With no home to return to and realizing there are very few people willing to hire a man with only one good leg, he’s convinced he has no future. While working as a day laborer in the local Junction City livery, he becomes intrigued by a visitor named Ross who is anxious to spend time with the horses. Elam discovers Ross’s secret. Then he learns where Ross intends to seek work. Even though he does not have a future, he does have a Spencer repeating rifle. He can have a purpose.

        Roslyn and Elam ride the same stagecoach to the Ellsworth Station on the Kansas frontier. Between resentments among the stock tenders, difficulties with animals that pass through the station, and the threat of attacks by the Cheyenne Native Americans, is there a future for Roslyn and Elam at the station? Or will their future take them on another stagecoach ride away from Ellsworth?

        Please look for my other two books in the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series, Mail Order Lorena and Mail Order Penelope, that will be published this summer. The three stories are related and part or all of them involve  the stagecoaches and stations on the Kansas frontier in the late 1860s.

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Top Ten List:

1.  My faith and attending Church
2.  My family
3.  Writing
4.  Reading books
5.  Dark chocolate (There is a symbiotic relationship between 3, 4, & 5)
6.  Road trips with my husband
7.  Attending writing conventions (6 & 7 are also related)
8.  Quilting
9.  Digital photo-editing
10.  Genealogy

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Great Summer Reads, Day 13, with Nichole Giles

 Carpinello's Writing Pages presents Day 13 of Loving the Book's Great Summer Reads with Fantasy writer Nichole Giles. I wonder if it's true that she's ridden a unicorn...!

So Enjoy Day 13!

Nichole Giles, author of the Descendant trilogy, and the Water So Deep series, has lived in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Texas. 

She is a fan of all things paranormal and magical, and her dreams include raising a garden full of fairies, riding a unicorn, and taming the pet dragon she adopted at a local Convention. 

She loves to spend time with her grown children and two grand-babies, travel to tropical and exotic destinations, drive with her convertible top down—even when it rains—and play music at full volume so she can sing along.

 

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Caspian is looking for his mother. Snatched from the beach as a child and raised as a half-breed Mer-Prince in the long-lost city of Atlantis, his turn to rule is coming fast. Caspian learns that the Mer in Oceania have found a method to visit land—a practice forbidden in Atlantis—and later return to the sea. Unfortunately, the “magic” method involves poison so potent that only half-breeds with undamaged lungs can survive it. When his Sea King father forces Caspian’s engagement to a mermaid he can’t stand, Caspian decides it’s time to go in search of his human roots, and the woman who gave him life.

Elise has nothing left to lose, except the house she grew up in and a beat-up classic car her father had intended to restore. While her friends leave home for college and abroad, she’s stuck waitressing at The Sea Turtle, begging for enough hours to pay her power bill, and using her lunch breaks to place flowers on her parents’ graves. Not only is she not looking for love—she’s not even looking for friendship. Loss is something she knows too much of, and she can’t survive any more. But when she finds a mysterious stranger wandering the cemetery, she takes pity on the pathetic soul and brings him to her work where she can feed him a solid meal.

The innocent meeting turns into an unbreakable bond, and sets off a chain of events that leaves them both questioning their place in the world—be it land or sea—and discovering just how essential love and family can be.
     

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Top Ten List:

10 Random Facts about Nichole Giles

1.I am the oldest of eleven children: two biological sisters, four biological brothers, and four step-brothers. 
2.I don’t like to read books that don’t involve some kind of romance, kissing scenes included.
3.I must have lived during the regency period in a past life, because I love corset-style dresses and costumes. For Halloween, I’ll probably dress up, even though my kids won’t. 
4.My favorite food in the world is steamed snow crab. Even better if it’s Cajun spiced!
5.Whenever I struggle with creating or writing, I like to go for a drive with my convertible top down. I’ve even been known to do this with snow flurries in the air. 
6.Nichole’s ultimate dream house: on a white-sand beach, with lots of windows, palm trees in the yard, a huge patio, and within walking distance to a number of friends’ homes. Also near great shopping. It should also have a dedicated library where I can write.
7.I have a growing collection of fairies and mermaids. Statues, paintings, miniatures, etc. I love to be surrounded by fantastical creatures.
8.When I was in high school in Arizona, my friends and I haunted a local hangout, where I became highly proficient at playing, and winning, air hockey. 
9.During my junior year, I had the opportunity to go to New York with my choir, where we sang in Carnegie Hall. We also toured the city, largely without supervision. #shenanigans
10.I have kissed a stingray, petted a shark, high-fived a sea otter, and hugged a dolphin, and spied seahorses and lobsters in the wild, but I have never wrestled an alligator or tried to housebreak a lion—and I don’t think I ever will. 
Thanks for hanging out with me for ten random facts. You can learn more about me and my books at www.nicholegiles.blogspot.com

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Great Summer Reads, Day 12, with Donna Hatch

 Carpinello's Writing Pages presents Day 12 of Loving the Book's Great Summer Reads with writer Donna Hatch. She is a love of all arts as you will see.

So Enjoy Day 12!

Multi-award-winning author of 25 best-selling Regency Historical Romances, Donna Hatch is a hopeful romantic and an adventurer at heart. Each book she writes is filled with wit and heart and plenty of swoon-worthy romance. Donna sings, plays the harp, and loves to ballroom dance. Her family, including six children and two cats, recently left their native Arizona for the Pacific coast of the US. No matter where they live, she and her husband of over twenty years are proof that there truly is a happily ever after.

 

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The widowed Elise is a perfect English lady living within the confines of society for the sake of her impressionable young son. Her quiet world is shattered when she meets the impulsive and scandalous Jared Amesbury. His roguish charm awakens her yearning for adventure. But his irrepressible grin and sea-green eyes hide a secret.

A gentleman by day, a pirate by night, Jared must complete one last assignment from the Secret Service before he can be truly free. Elise gives him hope that he, too, can find love and belonging. His hopes are crushed when his best laid plans go awry and Elise is dragged into his world of violence and deceit. She may not survive the revelation of Jared's past...or still love him when the truth is revealed.

The Guise of a Gentleman is a wholesome Regency Romance, a.k.a. "clean" that explores finding one's true self, loyalty, honor, and trusting loved ones. With plenty of swashbuckling action, it provides a several good twists that play off of familiar situations and proudly proclaims the redemptive power of love. 

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Top Ten List:

Donna’s Top 10 Favorite Things to do in the Summer

1. Go for long walks with a friend

2. Have a tea party

3. Go to the beach

4. Build sandcastles

5. Watch the sunset

6. Visit gardens

7. Make ice cream

8. Hike with my family

9. Play miniature golf

10. Read a good book

 (Actually, I love doing most of these in the winter, too.)

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Great Summer Reads, Day 11, with Karlie Lucas

 Carpinello's Writing Pages presents Day 11 of Loving the Book's Great Summer Reads with Fantasy writer Karlie Lucas. I've heard she's friends with some mythical creatures!

So Enjoy Day 11!

Karlie Lucas is a school crossing guard by day and a writer/artist by night. 

A graduate of Southern Utah University, Karlie received a B.A. in Creative Writing, with a minor in art. She is a member of Sigma Tau Delta, The International English Honor Society, SCBWI, as well as ANWA, the American Night Writers Association.

Karlie is interested in all things magical and mysterious, especially elves and dragons. She is an avid fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling.

When not writing, Karlie can often be found drawing, baking, watching her favorite old school shows, or just spending time with her family.

She currently resides in Dallas, Texas with her husband and a cat named Kally. 

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 For hundreds of years, the gates of Tarragon have been sealed from the outside. Prophecy speaks of the day the last Key Keeper will return and wake the dragons from their spell-cast slumber, returning them to their rightful home.

Seeking to fulfill her father's dying wish, Anwen Porter travels to the Drakonii Mountains where she meets Tyler, a mysterious local with a secret. With his help, she learns more about her clouded past and her own abilities. But when Courtney, a lovesick mage, tries to insert herself into their plans, things begin to go horribly wrong.

With death threatening at every turn, Anwen must learn to rely on her newfound friends to survive. 

 

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Top Ten List:

Top Ten People I would like to meet.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien. I mean, who wouldn't want to meet the "father" of fantasy?

2. J.K. Rowling. If she can make it with an oddball fantasy series, surely I can too, and I'd love to pick her brain about that.

3. Joan of Ark - I think her life story is just fascinating.

4. C.S. Lewis - He was an amazing writer. Can't imagine what life would be like without Narnia.

5. Robin McKinley - She's always been one of my fave fantasy authors. I have a few bones to pick though, about hinted stories that never got written.

6. Mark Twain - He seems like he'd have been a great guy to know.

7. Albert Einstein - Would love to meet the man who contributed so much to how we see the world.

8. King Charlemagne - An ancestor on both sides of the family, I understand he was one of the first people to instigate a public education system for his people. That, and he had some really cool things happen in his life.

9. Harrison Ford - He's one of my fave actors of all time. He's just awesome.

10. Danny Kaye - Another childhood favorite actor, I think Danny and I would have gotten along swimmingly. That, and the fact that he sang like a dream, even though he couldn't read a note of music.

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event Page. 

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