Meet Buffy Andrews

Today we are going to change it up a little around here.

I am very excited to introduce you to Buffy Andrews - a good friend of mine and wonderful author who has a new book out - first in a series called "The Yearbook Series"

So I'm going to let Buffy tell you all about this lovely book -

Book:  “The Yearbook Series: Gina and Mike”

Summary:

Gina McKenzie is a cheerleader with a super hot boyfriend who kisses like you wouldn’t believe…

She’s looking forward to the prom, then graduation and senior week at the shore. The only thing she isn’t looking forward to is the start of college, because it means she won’t be near Mike. They are attending schools on opposite sides of the state.

But Gina’s normal teen life ends the night she is brutally raped by her math teacher and Mike’s baseball coach. Coach Smith threatens to destroy Mike’s promising baseball career if Gina tells anyone what happened. To protect Mike, Gina keeps quiet and eventually, unable to deal with the effects of the rape, breaks up with Mike.

They reconnect at their 20th high school reunion where the past catches up with them and Mike learns the truth about what happened 20 years ago.

Excerpt:

Why is it that you never forget your first love? Maybe it’s because it’s the first person you gave your heart to, completely. The first time you were afraid to breathe for fear the moment would pass and you would miss some of the seconds. Life is seldom what we think it will be. Especially when you’re seventeen and the biggest concern you have is whether someone has the same prom dress.

Review:

"This is a perfect vacation read, once you start you won't put it down until you're finished! The story keeps you entertained as the plot jumps between an event that happens in high school and the present day. It will make you laugh and make you cry, and realize the importance of friends and family - and how a secret can change your life. Can't wait for the next book to come out!"

Read more reviews

Other books coming out:

• “The Moment Keeper” by Carina UK in November
• “The Christmas Violin” by Carina UK in December
• “The Lion Awakens” by Prism Book Group in 2014
• “Ella’s Rain” by Prism Book Group in 2014

Author: Buffy Andrews

Lives in: Southcentral Pennsylvania

Family: Husband, Tom; two sons, Zach and Micah; and wheaten cairn terrier Kakita

Day job: Assistant Managing Editor of Features and Niche publications at the York Daily Record/Sunday News in York, Pa. She is also its social media coordinator.

Writes: Middle-grade, young adult and women’s fiction

Author website: Authorbuffyandrews

Blogs: Buffy's Write Zone and Buffy's World

Connect with:

Twitter

Facebook

Google+

Google+ Author page

You Tube channel

Pinterest

Goodreads

Instagram

5 quick questions:

Q. Most difficult scenes in book to write?

A. Definitely the sex scenes. For some weird reason, the brutal rape scene wasn’t nearly as difficult as the sex scenes. In fact, after I wrote the rape scene, I was shocked at what came out of my head. And I felt kind of embarrassed.

Q. First person or third?

A. It depends. I write in both. This book (and the entire series) is challenging because I have alternating POVs. When I’m Mike, I can’t sound like Gina and vice versa.

Q. Where do you write?

A. On a laptop at the table in my formal dining room. We have an office, but most of the time the kids are in it doing their homework.

Q. Ebook or physical book?

A. Both, but more and more it’s via my iPad because of the convenience and quickness. If I finish reading a book at midnight I can download another one in seconds. Just have to watch my wallet!

Q. Coffee or tea?

A. Definitely coffee (and lots of it)

Pick up a copy of Buffy's new book here -

Gina and Mike

Role Reversal

So it's been two weeks since "What Endures" launched.

And I know you all have been doing this -

And I'm sure you are now finished reading (because it's been two weeks!). And there were parts of the book where you were all -

And some parts of the book had you feeling this -

Although if that's the case, I oddly feel like this -

But see, now it's time for a little role reversal, because I've just spent all this time writing and writing and writing and well. . .it's YOUR turn.

PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW ON AMAZON.COM or RATE THE BOOK ON GOODREADS.

(Here are the links)

Goodreads

Amazon

I mean you guys don't want me to be like this do you?

(Thank you. :) )

All images are courtesy of Public Domain Images

Launch!

So I was all ready to launch tonight at midnight. . .

But then Amazon jumped the gun a bit and made my book live. . .

So. . .

We are launching NOW!

Here's the links where you can buy the book -

Paperback

Kindle E-Book

Don't have a Kindle? No problem. You can download the free app for your tablet, PC and even phone -  Just follow the link to Amazon.com and do a search for whatever device you need the app for.

Kindle Apps

So now you have absolutely NO reason not to buy this book right?!

On a serious note - I just wanted to thank everyone who has helped me in the last 5 months as I prepped for this moment. This is a dream come true. . .one that I've been chasing for a while. So thank you all for helping me get here. You know who you are!

Now go buy the book. . .read it. . .then tell me what you think!

Final Teaser Thursday!

Yes, you read that right. This is final teaser to "What Endures" because. . .

. . .next Thursday, you can buy it!! RELEASE DATE!!

Whooohooooo!

I will post the Amazon.com link for the book here AND there will be a special option for you to purchase AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY of the paperback through my blog so if you are not following this blog. . .get to it!

What else? Interviews! A book blitz with the chance to win copies of the e-book! And a blog tour!

Who's excited?!

So without further ado. . .here's the final teaser to "What Endures" It's a little walk down memory lane. . .to when Jason and Megan meet for the first time. Enjoy!

            “Hey!”

            Megan’s head snapped up from the textbook she had been reading from. She spotted the owner of the voice and groaned. A little peace and quiet was apparently too much to ask for. “What?”

            Jason Kincaid’s eyebrows rose at her curt response. She would bet most females her age didn’t respond to him in that way. If her observation of her peers at school was any indication, the usual behavior around him involved lots of giggling, fawning and other actions that made her want to barf. Sometimes Megan was ashamed of her gender. “I’m about to do some drills.”

            “So?”

            His eyes widen in surprise before they narrowed. “So you might want to leave.”

            “Last time I checked, you didn’t own this park.”

            He shrugged, coming closer. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

            “I’m sitting behind home plate,” she pointed out. “If your drills have you throwing or hitting anything behind that maybe baseball’s not your sport.”

            His face stilled in shock before he burst out laughing. “Damn. You don’t pull any punches.”

Teaser Thursday!

Time for another teaser!

Last week we had a sweet scene between Megan and Jason. In honor of this blog's title, it's time for a little sexiness. . .

           [Jason's] mind felt the need to try once again to put the brakes on things. He pushed her tousled hair from her face, trying not to focus on her kiss-swollen lips, or the way her heaving chest was causing a breast to peek in and out of her unbuttoned shirt. Somehow he found his voice. “We. . . .I don't think. . .”

            “No,” she admonished. “Don’t think. Just. . . .just feel.”

            “Megan. . .”

            She leaned in and kissed him lightly. “No regrets,” she whispered against his lips before she kissed him again. He responded instinctively and kissed her back, passionately and deeply. Then all thoughts of stopping were wiped from his mind as he let himself do as she instructed - feel.

TWO WEEKS until the book's released. It is now up on Goodreads. Did you add it to your "To Read" list?

Goodreads

Image courtesy of Public Domain Images

Teaser Thursday!

It's Thursday! Time for another teaser.

This one is a sweet and cute one between Megan and Jason as he lets her know he has. . .ways of trying to recover his memories.

Enjoy!

            “So is the interview over?” she asked lightly.

            He grinned and she caught the mischievous twinkle in his eye which should have warned her that he had something up his sleeve. “Not quite. I do have one other question.”

            The warning bells finally sounded in her head. “What question?”

            His grin widened, as he leaned forward on the table. “When did you get that tattoo on your hip?”

            She stared at him as her mind raced, trying to process what he had just said. He met her gaze calmly, as if waiting for her to put the pieces together.

            “How’d you know. . .“ Was he remembering she wondered? Something about his expression, however, told her that this particular bit of knowledge was not the result of a recollection but something sneakier.

            “Home movies.”

            “Home mov-“ she started and stopped suddenly as the answer came to her. She looked at him with wide, questioning eyes and he nodded slowly in confirmation.

             Suddenly, a mental image of the beach house popped into her mind and she realized much too late that the house was brimming with personal things of her. . of him. . .of them. And then she started to panic, doing a mental inventory of the collection of home movies that she and Jason had and how each one had been made. Which one of those had revealed her tattoo to him? For one brief, horrifying instant, she actually wondered if they had ever made one of those home movies. A part of her wanted to rush right out to the beach house that instant and start gathering up those DVDs.

Three weeks exactly until the book is released! A lot of stuff is coming up. . .including interviews, a book blitz and giveways! If you know someone who likes romance novels. . .direct them to my Facebook page and ask them to "Like" it! Let's get the word out!

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Katie-Lee-Author/156275257894007

Are you following me on Twitter? @KatieLeeAuthor

Image courtesy of Public Domain Images

The Artist

By now you've seen the gorgeous cover art for "What Endures" so I wanted to take a moment and introduce you to the artist who designed it.

Samantha Dellinger has been a graphic artist for 15 years, 13 of them spent at the York Daily Record. She is also a fine artist, who still enjoys creating works of art the "old fashioned way" - with pencil and paper or brush and canvas. I've recently taken some painting classes and I can tell you - this is not easy! I have the utmost respect for those who can take a brush and paint and create extraordinary images on canvas. . .or even on a pad of paper with a pencil because I can't draw at all!

In addition to her artistic talent, Sam is a wonderful person, with more than enough patience to work with me on this cover because let me tell you - she needed it! I basically gave her my vision of the cover like this -

"Well I'm looking for something on a beach or maybe a baseball field, maybe where they're connected, but sort of not"

Not a lot to go on but Sam was game and sent in mock-ups and then tweaked and tweaked and tweaked some more until I was happy with it. And when I was having technical difficulties on uploading the cover to this site because of a file conversion issue, I sent Sam an e-mail thinking it'd take at least a day for her to respond. It took 20 minutes even though it was the end of a long work day for her.

Truly, she's amazing and I'm very grateful to her for bringing my vision of this book to life.

If you are interested in learning more about Sam's works -

Her art blog can be found at www.yorkblog.com/artist
Her Twitter and Instagram account is - blackcat911
And she also has an Esty store -  www.etsy.com/shop/artisticbulldog

Don't forget to check back on Thursday for another teaser! And only 24 more days until the book is released! Spread the news!

First Teaser (Thursday)!

Due to the holiday yesterday - hope everyone in the United States had a wonderful time celebrating - I had to move our very first "Teaser Thursday" to today.

"Teaser Thursday" is just that. . .I'll be posting excerpts from the book, one every Thursday until the book is released on August 1, 2013 (which just so happens to be a Thursday! I hope you marked your calendars!)

Today's teaser is the set-up to the book. . .Megan talking to the doctor after Jason's accident.

"It’s really quite remarkable,’ the doctor said, his voice sounding genuinely surprised. "We never expected this. This is. . it’s really uncharted territory."

"But the. . ." Megan’s voice faltered. She was having trouble processing what he was telling her. She had been sitting in the doctor’s office for close to an hour. Much of that time had been spent listening to the doctor explain how the brain worked and how it functioned and what they knew and what they didn’t know. But she had focused in on just a few key phrases.

            Brain-damaged.
            Long-term memory loss.
            No memories of the last 15 years.
            Jason.
            "I understand this is hard to take in," Dr. Glennon said softly.
            "I just. . . .I don’t understand how he can remember his childhood but not. . ." Again she faltered. She didn’t want to sound selfish, but the question remained. How could he not remember her? Them?

The Cover!

They say not to judge a book by its cover but well. . .we do.

So I hope you love this cover as much as I do. I think it captures the essence of the story so well.

A HUGE shout-out and thank you to Samantha Dellinger for her work on this beautiful cover. . .and for helping me work out some technical issues in posting it here! She is the best!

The Setting

T-Minus 5 days until the cover for "What Endures" is unveiled!

Are you excited? I know I am!

Just to set the stage a little. . .you may have noticed my blog's background is of a beach. That's not an accident. Part of the book takes place in the fictional town of Harbor Bay, Maryland. . .situated along the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Beach is gorgeous and small, not as well known as its more touristy cousins. . .Ocean City, MD or Rehoboth Beach, DE.  But I wanted a kind of small town setting for the characters, a place where they had established roots which is so important to the story.

Plus some pivotal scenes in the book takes place on the beach. . .which I will tease as the release date of August 1st gets closer.

And if you haven't done so already. . .stop by my Facebook page and "Like" it!

Katie Lee : Author

What's it About?

"What's it about?"

That's the most frequent question I get right after, "What do you write?" when I tell people I'm a writer.

And since the book is coming out soon (stay tune for release date and cover reveal!) - I figure I should tell everyone what the book is about, right?

So without further ado. . .here is the blurb as it will appear on the back of the book. . .

Jason Kincaid is young, hot and successful.

An All-Star outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, he finally had everything he ever wanted, including a second chance with his high school sweetheart, Megan Williams.

But their hopes for a ‘happily-ever-after’ are dashed by tragedy.

A horrific car accident wipes out most of Jason's memories. Unable to recall anything from the last fifteen years of his life, Jason is suddenly adrift, his once charmed life now in ruins.

Megan finds herself in the untenable position of having to deal with the fact that the man she’s helping to rebuild his life may look, and even act, like her beloved fiancé, but in reality, isn’t any longer.

Trying to protect herself, as well as Jason, Megan fights the attraction between them. . .to no avail. As their potent connection inevitably draws them closer, Megan wonders,

With the memories of their relationship gone, can love endure?

Feel free to share this with anyone and everyone! And don't forget to follow this blog as it will be my primary way of sharing information about the book. . .including the cover and teasers/excerpts from the book!

Hope everyone has a very Happy Father's Day!

And the Journey Begins. . .

After some false starts and a lot of internal (and not so internal) debate. . .I made the decision to self publish my first novel!

And I'm thrilled to welcome you all on the journey!

There are a lot of exciting things coming up.. .like revealing the cover to my book and the launch date. . .but first. . .

The title of the book!

(If you look at the profile pic. . .you really gotta look since it's so small!. . .you'll see it)

The title of my first self publishing endeavor is. . .

. . .drum roll. . . .

"What Endures"

Please check back regularly as I tell you more and more about this beautiful book!