I love to travel through reading, and places inspire my writing. Especially cruise ships. Check out these titles:
NOVELS:
Caribbean Cruise
REAL WOMEN WEAR RED
“I may dye my hair blonde, I may drink pink drinks, but I am not doing pink toe polish. Red, that’s my color. After all, real women wear red.” – Cyn
When 40-something Kate “Cyn” Francis changes her name, her hair color, and her age in order to snag a younger man on a Caribbean cruise, the last thing she expects is to fall overboard for a Cary Grant look-alike. Sandy Brown, 20-something and eager to get over a broken heart, is also looking for love. Millie Evans, having recently sold her publishing empire, is on a succession of one-week cruises, looking to reconnect with a past love. But this is no ordinary love boat.
Three women, three generations, all connected in an unexpected way. And it’s more than sharing the same motto that “real women wear red.”
AVAILABLE NOW on Kindle and in Paperback.
Hawaiian Cruise
REAL WOMEN SING THE BLUES
“In that moment, I knew I could no longer be a Wall Street monkey, and somewhere out there Blue Hawaii was calling my name.” – Robin from Real Women Sing the Blues
When the women of Real Women Wear Red return from their Caribbean cruise, each woman must deal with the consequences of secrets shared onboard ship.
Millie’s secret sends Robin reeling all the way to Blue Hawaii, and she finds herself chasing Moondoggie and singing the Blues. This sets off the “Millie Domino Effect.”
Millie chases after Robin and Monterey Jack chases after Millie.
Cyn joins Robin and Millie on the cruise when her “Cary Grant” gets too serious too fast. And Sandy runs to Cyn for motherly comfort when her shipboard romance blows up.
Four women, four islands, and a seven-night cruise to Paradise. Is there life after Hawaii or will they end up singing the Blues?
AVAILABLE NOW on Kindle and in Paperback.
Mexican Riviera Cruise
SHE’S NOT THAT GOOD
(“Real Women Are Good Enough”)
Failing to launch an adult career, haunted by thoughts of never being good enough, Brandi Redwine searches for something she is good at. After chasing music and the exboyfriend in Nashville, she returns to San Francisco feeling like a loser.
Her best friend steps in and recommends her for an opportunity to compete for a job onboard a cruise ship. Her high school sweetheart is also on board, and his girlfriend is competing for the same job.
Will her entire future rest on a final performance, or will she finally realize she is good enough when she pursues what’s really in her heart?
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Las Vegas
LUCKY’S LAST CHANCE (AKA THE TOM JONES CLUB)
“I can tell what kind of man he is by the wine he drinks.” – Lucky
International wine director Lucky Stryker, the “Lucky Lady,” is lucky in the boardroom, but unlucky in love. But when Lady Luck throws the red hot dice, Lucky cashes in on a red hot sizzling romance. But when her past catches up with her, she is forced to answer these questions, “Can her heart keep the promises her body has been making?” and “Will she finally get lucky in love?”
AVAILABLE NOW at amazon.com in on Kindle.
Balboa Island (Southern California)
LETTERS ON BALBOA ISLAND
“When I was seventeen, I knew two things that were true: (1) You couldn’t help but meet a man in a military uniform in southern California in the 1950s, and (2) Sooner or later, men would leave. ” – Rosalie
When Rosalie Martin chooses to spend her life with a military man in the post Korean War era of the 1950s, she can’t forget another she met during the war. And when letters surface on Balboa Island years later, she realizes she may have chosen the wrong man. So when fate offers her the chance to make a different choice, will she? Or has she lived a life of lies for too long?
AVAILABLE NOW on Amazon.com for Kindle and in Paperback
Las Vegas
FRENCH MARTINI
(formerly “DEJA VU AT THE BLUE DIAMOND)
Nikki Durrance escaped the worst nightmare of her life when she fled Las Vegas for San Francisco, leaving her husband behind at the Blue Diamond Saloon to build a new life. So when the perfect Dr. Mike Fischer proposes, she accepts. But when her new Mr. Right begins to transform into a guy just like her ex-husband, she begins to question everything, including her sanity.
Nikki longs to trust Mike, but with an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, Nikki’s fear propels her into discoveries of betrayals and underworld connections that will send her running for her life again.
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Pacific Northwest
RAINING MEN
When California girl Brooke Slade, looking for love in all the wrong places, is presented with an opportunity to move to the Pacific Northwest, she turns it down, refusing to leave her life in Sunny California. But when she loses her job, she decides to give the Northwest a chance for thirty days and discovers it’s raining more than the wet stuff – it’s raining men. Wading through so many Mr. Wrongs, can she find Mr. Right?
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SHORT STORIES
Baja, Mexico
Cougars in Cabo
Spurned by the man who was supposed to be her second chance, buttoned-down Barbara reluctantly joins her “ultra San Francisco chic” friend Cherie on a cruise to Mexico. Never quite living up to Cherie’s standards, Barbara relishes being chased by a young, hot, surfer dude. Reluctant or not, Barbara learns to live in the moment as one of the Cougars in Cabo.
(originally published in the A SHAKER OF MARGARITAS: COUGARS ON THE PROWL anthology, available in Print and for Kindle by Mozark Press.)
BUY NOW on amazon.com as a standalone or as part of an anthology for your Kindle.
BONUS: Cougars in Cabo includes 4 additional short stories. To find out more about each one, see the descriptions for the following titles:
Las Vegass
Viva Las Vegas
Dumped by her husband for his gay hairdresser, Donna cashes in her cruise tickets for two for a solo flight to Sin City to celebrate her 50th birthday. Hoping to discover her true self, she discovers Habanero Margaritas, Elvis, Cilla, Ann-Margret, and the real meaning of Viva Las Vegas.
BUY NOW on amazon.com as a standalone or as an anthology for your Kindle.
(originally published in the A SHAKER OF MARGARITAS: HOT FLASH MOMMAS anthology, available on Print and for Kindle by Mozark Press.)
Laguna Beach (Southern California)
Dear Kitten…
50-something Kitty Arness hasn’t been called “Kitten” since her college days. So when a chance encounter reunites her with an old love on Laguna Beach, she realizes she longs to be “Kitten” one more time.
Still hurting from the breakup all these years later, she must make a hard choice: to hold onto her pride or forgive and forget, especially when she reads the writing in the sand.
BUY NOW on amazon.com as a standalone or as an anthology for your Kindle.
Los Angeles
LA Nights
“Some day you’ll grow up to shame us,” Kim’s mother had told her when after she’d stayed out all night, hanging out with her friends in LA, not coming home until the sun had risen over the San Bernardino Mountains. It had been an honest mistake of her youth. She hadn’t done anything illegal, wild, or immoral, not that night, anyway. Later, she left for San Francisco and vowed to never return to Los Angeles.
But San Francisco had been more than cold—it was heartless. She’d discovered how impossible it was to warm yourself when you wrap yourself in cold. Searching for the familiar and her long ago past, she follows a lead to a Burlesque club in Los Angeles, remembering those hot, LA nights where her past would finally catch up with her.
BUY NOW on amazon.com as a standalone or as an anthology for your Kindle.
Sierra Mountains
As the Bullets Drop
Debra Hunt’s mother warned her about men like her father. And now Debra is meeting her father for the first time at a remote mountainside cabin. Where her cell phone doesn’t work. And a dead body shows up on her father’s doorstep. And it looks an awful lot like her mother’s dead body.
A police investigation is soon underway and it seems that everybody’s a suspect.
BUY NOW on amazon.com as an anthology for your Kindle.