The Silly Season cometh

And with it, so do more and more blog hops and competitions. I feel like I've signed up for a mountain! Fun times.

Currently The Romance Reviews have their Year End Splash Party. And I'm playing. All you have to do is jump over my website - or go back there if you came from there originally (sorry!) and work out the answer to the question they'll post.
Hint - read the excerpts ;-)

And later on there'll be an Entangled Publishing blog hop - oh so many great authors, so many great books. So come along and join in the fun. Meet new authors, characters and get ready for the Silly Season and its bag of swag!

xMichele

Guest day and another contest!

Today is guest day. I love reading fellow Kiwi authors and so today a new friend Barbara DeLeo (great names start with de...) is stopping by to say hi. I hope you'll give her a warm welcome. She's even generously offered a book for one lucky commenter. Welcome!

Hi Michele and thanks so much for having me on the blog today. Congratulations on all your success with The Boss and her Billionaire and on your new release, A Talon at her Throat.

You write such gorgeous heroes – men who know exactly what they want and who are not afraid to go after it. It’s got me thinking about why there are some heroes that can make me melt into a little puddle while I’m reading, and others who make me want to poke them with a very sharp stick. And I’m also wondering if there are some traits that are universal for heroes. Honesty? Selflessness? The understanding that no matter how much your butt itches there’s never a good time to scratch it?

In the interests of full disclosure, I thought I’d do a top ten list of the traits I like a hero to have.

#10 He knows just the right moment to fill my glass and when to empty the garbage.

#9 Even a white t-shirt and jeans make him look like a god

#8 He’s kind to animals and children, and remembers his mother’s birthday

#7 He smells of hard work and sea breeze and sunshine

#6 Should I swoon, he’d scoop me up without flinching

#5 He understands that ice cream is my drug of choice

#4 He knows my bum never looks big in anything no matter how many times I ask

#3 He recognizes the business end of a fry pan and a vacuum cleaner

#2  He values friends and the time to do the things that make his eyes shine

#1 He laughs and lives and loves with gusto

Now it’s your turn! Barbara has an e copy of her debut novel, Contract for Marriage to give away to a commenter who lists the top three things they look for in a hero.

Contract for Marriage

Buy from Barnes and Noble or Amazon or Kobo

You can find Barbara at:

Website  Facebook   Goodreads  Twitter

Barbara’s Bio

Barbara DeLeo’s first book, co-written with her best friend, was a story about beauty queens in space. She was eleven, and the sole, handwritten copy was lost years ago, much to everyone’s relief. It’s some small miracle that she kept the faith and is now living her dream of writing sparkling contemporary romance with unforgettable characters.

After completing degrees in Psychology and English then traveling the world, Barbara married her winemaker hero and had two sets of twins. She still loves telling stories about finding love in all the wrong places, with not a beauty queen or spaceship in sight.

I am woman, hear me vote!

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago that us lady folk were thought unsuited to the rough-and-tumble world of public life and politics. Babies and cooking were our lot and it wasn't until 1920 in the USA that future presidents thought about what campaigning to get the women's vote might look like.
Down here in New Zealand, we like to think we're an enlightened lot. Our women's suffrage race beat the rest of the western world and the pivotal right that's being discussed infinitum at present was handed over in 1893. We've had a couple of female Prime Ministers, plenty of female judges and a fair few big company CEOs. It was Kate Sheppard who lead the charge in New Zealand, and in return we've put her on our $10 note. Nice.
Maybe that's why I'm such a fan of female characters who can. Authors like Sarah Mayberry, Ruthie Knox and Leslie Kelly in the Category Romance world and Nalini Singh in Paranormal, really know how to give a girl what she wants as well as telling a great story.
I'd like to think that were I to write a political romance, it would be my heroine running for president and her hero end up cheering her on all the way. Who knows.
Today I'm sending out a universal Thanks to those women who came before and made sure I got my chance at the ballot box. Good luck with your voting if you're in the States, no matter who you're voting for. Let me know if you're celebrating, commiserating, or just pondering the massive impact of such a small piece of (voting) paper.
x Michele

Winners!

Update! By the same super sophisticated process involving me printing out your names and Mr. One playing with them until there was only one left which I used for the previous blog hop, Susan Shapley is the winner of the Long and Short Reviews Blog hop. Congratulations to her and to Becky White, the winner of The Wild Rose Press Halloween Blog Hop!
I really appreciate the time you took to stop by and comment so thanks again, but the rules say I'm only allowed to pick one winner.
I do run competitions here every now and then though so come on by whenever it suits. I'm doing a Q&A with The Romance Reviews later on in the month and there are HEAPS of prizes to be won with that one. www.theromancereviews.com

Susan and Becky a copy of The Boss and Her Billionaire and A Talon at Her Throat will be coming your way soonest. Congratulations and I hope you enjoy. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, I hope to see you here again.
x Michele

Image thanks to freedigitalphotos.net