We're Back!!

 

Hey, everyone!

A big hello to you all - I know it's been awhile but I'm back, first to thank everyone for celebrating the three-year anniversary of "Rockin' Heaven Down" Volume 1 and the free giveaway last week, of not only the first book but also its sequel "10000 Lovers in One" Thank you for downloading and happy reading! Be sure to leave a review when you're done!

Both Kindle and paperback versions of both books are now back to their regular prices but be sure to check them out if you haven't already.

I also want to thank everyone for the tremendous support for the family in these last few months - your kind words, thoughts, prayers, donations, and everything else. It's all very much appreciated by me, The Colonel, the kids, the grandkids, especially Luke & Gabriel. In fact, Luke is visiting with us right now and I hope you enjoy his favorite pun! (See video!) He's been spending most of his time binge-watching "Supernatural."

And speaking of "Supernatural"....

I want to go ahead and announce my new mystery/crime series which is called "C-Watch" or "Cerebus Watch" and the release date for its first installment, "Loup Garou and Other Dogs, Too" is probably going to be August or September with a cover reveal coming up by the end of July. These will be written by J. Cyprus DeLaure (new pseudonym!) and I like to think of it as "CSI meets Supernatural with some Evanovich thrown in." And I was told quite recently by someone very special that "I'd read that!" so these will be dedicated to Cassie because she was really enthusiastic about it, as am I.

Also coming up (hopefully) is the third installment in the "Rockin' Heaven Down" series (or rather Book 2 of Volume 2), titled "Everyone's A Star", and that should be ready by Christmas or New Year's 2022. Cover reveal for that is slated for early Autumn. And I definitely appreciate the reviews for "10000 Lovers" and I'm happy to know that some readers are looking forward to the further adventures of Jon and Season and the whole hair metal gang.

Other plans: I'm looking to re-format Volume I, which is to break it up into two books for easier reading because I wasn't really pleased with the original paperback font size. All of that was done before Kindle created an option in their Create App for paperback formatting so now I can fix some of that. Plus I'm planning on doing AUDIO versions of both books, read by yours truly! I don't have a definite date for these but it's always good to have projects in mind.

I hope everyone continues to have a great summer - I know I am and there's still more to come so while you're hanging out by the pool or at the beach be sure to take a book or two! 

Have a great Father's Day everyone and I'll see you next time!

Snowmageddon 2021 & More!

(NOT an exact transcript!!)

Hey everybody! I hope everyone is recovering from Snowmageddon 2021. We did well here at Maison Mac - just lost power for about an hour on Tuesday morning - but that was our only drama. We had our pipe warmers and gas stoves going; I'd already bought groceries for the week so we had plenty of food and we did just fine. I rotated through all of my long johns, including my military grade Arkansas Air National Guard set my dad gave me all the way back in the early 80s, which was basically my wardrobe throughout the entire 8th grade when I dressed like Henry Thomas in ET every day.

The Free Promotion went well through the 15th so thank you to those who took advantage of that - I really appreciate it! I want to thank Dianna McEmfinger once again for her great review. 10000 Lovers is back to its regular price of 2.99 for the Kindle version and Rockin' Heaven Down Volume 1 is 4.99. Both books are also still available in paperback form.

I was at home all week and did some work remotely, which I'm a big fan of, so it was almost like we were back in quarantine. I got some reading done and we did some TV watching:

We watched Bridgerton all the way through and I didn't realize this series was based on books by Julia Quinn. The early 1800s is not one of my favorite time periods and the show is somewhat historically inaccurate but extremely entertaining. I'd hate to think that someone's whole existence depended on a gossip column. One of the things I noticed right away was the music, of course, that in the first episode the chamber group was playing a rhythm that was not one that would be played in the early 19th century. So of course I go to look this up and discovered they were creating chamber music versions of current pop songs. I see what you did there, Netflix. Very clever...

And the waltz in the last episode is not a waltz - it's a pepped up version of Vivaldi's Spring, first movement - but that's okay.

Also watched The Sinner - I like the second season better than the first. I watched a great movie called The Map of Tiny Perfect Things - Highly recommend it - nice little feel good movie after all of the post-apocalyptic and redneck cabin-in-the-woods movies we've been watching lately.

Bookwise - I finished Demolition Angel by Robert Crais. I thought it was one of the Elvis Cole stories but it's not, and I ended up liking it anyway. I finally finished The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice, which I started in October when I only read scary books, but this one didn't grab me as much as Interview with the Vampire and Feast Of All Saints (which I love), so I skipped through most of this one. I didn't realize Lestat was such a whiner. I've started reading Jonathon Kellerman's Private Eyes - I'm a big fan of the Alex Delaware series - and I'm reading a lot of crime novels lately in preparation for the new series I'm working on and I will have an announcement and cover reveal for that coming up in Mid-March. I'm really excited about it.

Before I go, I wanted to show off the hats and gloves I've made for all of my girls. And since I do know how to do sew and knit and crochet and whatnot...

This week has also made me realize (again) that we probably need to learn to be more prepared for...stuff. I was this close to buying a Prepper magazine at Dollar General last week.

Even though it was a nightmare for some, I really enjoyed the snow and the icicles, but now it's over and that's always a little sad as everything melts. I can hear the water melting out on my front porch. Every so often today I'd hear "SPLOOSH" like asteroids hitting the back yard.

But it looks like we made it! Until next time - have a great week!

WEEKLY VISIT - January 23, 2021

That was as close as I could get to the "Bernie" mittens, LOL!!

I made those in 1995 from an OLD knitting patterns book. I was at Henderson at the time, working on my Spanish certification and living in Oaks Dorm, which isn't there anymore. That was a LONG time ago.

Anyway, pretty interesting week with a new president and all then Bernie Sanders totally stealing the show - the memes have been pretty entertaining for the last couple of days. I got my first COVID vaccine today - no major problems there so that's good.

Daily Instagram posts started up again this week. Soundtrack Sunday featured Y&T's "All-American Boy" from their Down for the Count album which came out around 1984, I believe. Metal Monday was Living Color's "Cult of Personality". Tuesday Trivia, a new hashtag, asked which two 80s rock songs inspired "Rockin' Heaven Down". I didn't get an answer but I think it got lost in Social Media Oblivion.

Wordy Wednesday, another new hashtag, will feature quotes from 10000 Lovers. I didn't have a copy of the book with me at the time, so the quote doesn't quite match up with the post but it's close enough! I skipped Throwback Thursday accidentally, but I did repost a pic about "remember when MTV actually played music" earlier this evening.

Fan Favorite Friday featured the first review for 10000 Lovers from Dianna McEmfinger and thank you so much for that awesome review! I really appreciate it. Tonight's post is still Season Saturday and features a photo of Tarja Turenen, former lead singer of Nightwish, a really great symphonic metal band from Finland.

I appreciate everyone's likes and for your condolences regarding the recent passing of my cousin Sylvia. She was a huge music fan, played piano and loved to sing in choirs, and loved hearing about the Groovetones even though she never had the opportunity to see the band live. She fought a long tough battle with liver cancer and she will be greatly missed by all of us.

Remember that free ebook promos will be coming up around Valentine's Day and I hope you all continue to have a fantastic weekend. It will be rainy and cold tomorrow so I'm gonna heat up some apple cider and stay in where it's warm. Good time to read! AND to write!

Stay safe and be well, y'all!

JANUARY NEWS!

Hey, everyone! I am coming to you again from The Library here at Maison Mac in Texarkana and it's already been an interesting start to 2021, eh?

Are certain celebrities dead or not? Vaccine drama? Kim & Kanye? Social media bans? And a coup! Wow!

Well, here's a view of the new book in paperback form - isn't that cool? Special thanks to my mom for the red heart there in the bottom right-hand corner for a dash of color. My author copy arrived at the house 2 days before Christmas so I didn't get to see it until we got home from NOLA but I must say it looks ultra cool. I'm also very happy with the formatting. I've only found one extra page that doesn't belong and two or three teeny punctuation errors but all-in-all, it's great.

I had started back with daily posts on Instagram but there was a very minor surgical procedure (Patient is doing quite well by the way!) AND a new semester has started so that always means things are busy, but now it's time to do some promotion again for 10000 Lovers in One. I'm already getting some great feedback - so thanks so much to those readers! Be sure to leave a review and a rating on Amazon.

I also want to send a huge thank you to the reader who gave a 1-star rating to Rockin' Heaven Down Volume I - no review though. I'm sorry it wasn't your cup of tea but that's perfectly okay!

Seven-Day Free Promotions for both books will be coming up in February - just in time for Valentine's Day - and those promotions are in honor of someone who really didn't even like Valentine's Day but she did love the story as its very first reader so these are for her!

Someone asked me about Book #3, as this one is pretty open-ended, and I'm thinking that will be later this year, around the fall or even Christmas. It is in progress though. But before that I have an idea for a new series that will be announced sometime in March and I hope to have that ready by the summer time - hopefully - and I think folks will like it.

In the meantime be sure to check out 10000 Lovers and its predecessor, Rockin' Heaven Down, and if you're interested in my very first publication, it's only available in paperback: Tribute to Orpheus, which is a collection of stories and essays on music and musicians published by Kearney Street Books. It's also available on Amazon and my contribution is found on page 206.

I'll be back to posting daily starting on January 18, starting with Soundtrack Sunday. Thanks for your time, everyone, enjoy your day off on Martin Luther King Day (if you had one!) and Happy Readin' and Rockin', y'all! Bye!

 

NEW BOOK RELEASE!! (DECEMBER 5, 2020)

 New Book Release!!

From December 5, 2020

Hi, everyone! I'm Laura McChristian - some of you may know me as Ms Mac of Ms Mac and the Groovetones. My students know me as Dr. Riddle, but I'm here in the Manor House Library and can FINALLY make my announcement - after a little bit of a technical delay - that my new book "10,000 Lovers in One" is now available both as a Kindle eBook AND a paperback via Amazon!

10,000 Lovers in One

This link is not only posted here but in all my social media, which is discussed in the video.

This is the first installment of the sequel to Rockin' Heaven Down Volume I, also still available on Amazon, and this new story picks up pretty much where the first one left off, so if you're ready to read the "rest of the story", here it is!

Just in time for Christmas! So it can make a great gift for all those 80s music fans out there who also like to read.

And speaking of music, the eBook includes hyperlinks to YouTube videos of the songs mentioned throughout the story, so feel free to click on those and listen while you read if you'd like.

These same videos are on a YouTube Playlist AND a Spotify Playlist, the links to which are also listed on the "About the Author" page at the end of the book. You will also be able to find those links on all my social media as well.

I'll be posting this video and those links I mentioned on the Rockin' Heaven Down Facebook page, which has a lot of cool content not only about the books and 80s "hair metal" but also includes other music from the 80s, 70s, and so on, it has a lot of 80s nostalgia, movies, pop culture, and "throwback" stuff (so GenXers will love it!). It has some stuff about writing and books, etc., etc., etc. It's more or less my author page, but I share this with my personal page and I'm planning on creating a group page in the future so hop on to Facebook and "like" the page to either keep up to date with me or just enjoy a trip down memory lane!

I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, AND I have this blog plus some others so check those out, too. Those links are also in the ebook and I'll have them available on my social media platforms as well. I'm a Goodreads author, too, so you can always check in with there. I'm also planning on creating a monthly newsletter since that's what authors do these days. I've got some great ideas for some NEW books series so I'll keep you posted on that. The video at the beginning of this post is on YouTube (of course) and I'll also put the audio out as a podcast on Podbean.

So again, 10,000 Lovers in One is now available on Amazon, so log on and check it out! Thanks, y'all and have a Merry Christmas!