Barefoot Heroine: A Mayne Attraction Short Story

I’m excited to announce the release of a new 6,000 word short story called Barefoot Heroine.  This two part narrative provides a glimpse into the secret life of Ellery Mayne from the perspective of Ash Ryan, a member of the security team assigned to monitor and protect her.

  

The first part of the story takes place in the early days of Ash’s assignment before Ellery realizes that she’s under surveillance.  Here Ash relates the details of what at first looks like bizarre behavior on her part, but turns out to be Ellery’s version of a good deed.  This part of the short is designed to give readers an idea of what to expect from Ash’s perspective in the upcoming book “In The Shadow,” that includes scenes, conversations and action which Ellery’s account did not.  This is only logical since he spends a number of months assigned to her case without realizing that she’s on to him and his team.

  

The second half of Barefoot Heroine provides Ash’s take on that pivotal evening when he meets Ellery ‘officially’ on the night of her dinner party with Ray and Lidia Torrence.  This scene gives readers a feel for Ash’s true feelings about Ellery, his job, his boss Ray, and his colleague Lidia.  If you enjoyed this scene in “In The Spotlight,” I’m willing to bet you’ll enjoy it even more in Barefoot Heroine!

  

Did you know you may be entitled to a free copy of Barefoot Heroine?  There are two simple steps:

1. Join the Mayne Attraction Updates mailing list. The sign-up form is on the top right of the home page of www.MayneAttraction.com
   
   
2. Send me a link to your review of "In The Spotlight" on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Apple, B & N or Smashwords.  A rating and comment about your reaction to the book is all that is needed. Then email me at Mauren.Ann@gmail.com with a link to your review and I will send you the coupon code for a free download of Barefoot Heroine with all my thanks! 

Here’s where you can find the new Barefoot Heroine:

Kindle: Amazon US & Amazon UK
Nook:   B & N
Apple:  iStore

Sony & Others:  Smashwords

  

You may have noticed that "In The Spotlight" has a new cover.  I'd love to hear your reaction to that as well, so send me an e-mail or a tweet at @AnnMauren and let me know what you think.

  

Happy reading!

The Mayne Event

This past week saw the first ever promotion of my romantic suspense series “Mayne Attraction.”  Judging from the results it may also be the final promotion ever because I’m not certain we’ll ever be able to top this! 

With nearly 100 friendly tweet and re-tweeters chiming in and 10 times as many visitors to the interview and contest post it was almost more attention than my quiet little effort at book writing was prepared to handle.  

Did the book crack the Amazon Kindle Top 100 Bestseller (Free) List?  You bet!  It topped out at # 8 overall in the U.S. and #16 in the U.K. and hit #1 in both countries in the Romantic Suspense category with some 45,000 downloads and counting.  I’ll take those results any day and twice on Sunday!

Without a doubt, however, the happiest success of the campaign had to do with the kind and enthusiastic response and support of my friends on Twitter.   I kept careful track of all the tweets and re-tweets and make no mistake:  I am coming after each and every one of you with support and enthusiasm in kind!

Now for the winner of the ‘Mayne Attraction Prize Pack’ contest.  I’m pleased to announce that Enjoli Gilbert from Louisiana, U.S.A., will be opening a care package of ‘Ellery-Style’ treats sometime next week.  

Enjoli is a very recent graduate of Patrick F. Taylor Science And Technology Academy in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she was head of her school’s American Library Association affiliated book club.   Her specialties are English and Art, but she’s also been known to dabble in Speech and Debate and Model U.N. and was recognized in the Loyola Upward Bound Program as a Top English Student.  She’s also the co-founder of a book blogging website called Gilbert & Gomez.  We would both be thrilled for you to have a look around on her site.

 

Enjoli has been a vocal enthusiast of Mayne Attraction on her blog, at Goodreads, within her book club and with her school librarian.  I am extremely pleased to announce her name as the drawing winner.  Now I need to figure out a way to send her that giant chocolate bar without it melting!

Here’s a huge happy smile and heartfelt thanks for reading my blog today and tack on a hug with multiple shoulder pats if you tweeted about the “Mayne Event” over the last week.  And most importantly of all, if you downloaded my free eBook, please accept my deep gratitude for doing something really nice for me behind my back.

Oh, and if you want to stay a step ahead in the ‘Ann’s In My Debt’ game, follow this ‘Short & Tweet’ blog and/or leave a comment on my book’s website and watch what happens...

So here it is, your short and tweet review of The Mayne Event:

Thank you friends of Mayne Attraction! You know who you are. I will get you back when you're not looking...

Now for the winner of the Busken Bakery Tea Cookies in connection with the last post’s giveaway.  The deal was that I would choose my favorite contributed neologism and reward the winner with a fresh from the bakery batch of these criminally delicious tea cookies.  There were some hilarious entries and I thank everybody who participated.  

The winning entry for my favorite neologism was:

"Dreer Binking" --> The act of schmoozing (usually alongside copious alcohol consumption) in order to gain mutual or selfish benefit via co-workers or superiors.  Source: My Mom   

Congratulations Jason McIntyre for your winning entry and for promoting and preserving family coined vernacular at the same time. 

This has nothing to do with your kind, extremely generous, and good natured stint as the host of my book promotion.  Nothing at all.  Enjoy your eighth wonder of the world tea cookies that taste like donuts with my compliments!

10 Upstart Words That Make Me Happy

Pokemonetise

What’s the word for made up words?  A quick consultation with my know-it-all friend Google returned the term ‘Neologism.’  An additional click produced the following official definition:

Neologism (pronounced ne-ol´ah-jizm, from the Greek  néo-, "new", and lógos, "utterance") is a newly coined term, word or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

I have always had a special affinity for made up words, especially the kind that really fit their purpose, and most particularly the kind that make me laugh when I read them.

So I thought you might enjoy a review of some of the latest and greatest neologisms coming off the new word runway these days.  The top 10 on my favorites list include:


Herricane:  When a female becomes extremely angry.

Accitentionally:  An action which begins as an accident but the perpetrator means it afterwards (generally occurs in the wake of a herricane).

Pissenger:  Person anxiously waiting in line to use the airplane bathroom.

Slackademic:  A perpetual student who prefers the safety and comfort of academic life over the trials and tribulations of the real world.

Digilante :  A person who uses digital tools and techniques to avenge a crime.

Polarvoid:  The state of having no baby pictures, a condition that usually befalls the second-born child.

Ussues:  The issues of the individual which become the joint difficulty of the couple (such as an emotional shoulder chip produced by polarvoid).

Scumptious:  Roguish. Sleazy, yet attractive.

Bikinki:  A particularly revealing bikini.

Tumfoolery:  When a middle-aged man sucks in his stomach while being introduced to an attractive woman (especially when she is wearing a bikinki).


These are just a few of the neologisms that caught my eye as I scourered the Internet for the fun words I am now hoping to see sprinkled in your tweets over the next few days. 






So here it is, this week’s Short and Tweet Review:

Double thumb-upage awarded to makers and consumers of neologisms:  made up words with funny meanings like Carbage, Affluenza & Actorvist

Now it's your turn.  What are your favorite examples of Portmanteau, protologism and other nonce words?   Have you coined any yourself?  I’d love to hear and tweet about them so dish them up in the comments section below!    In fact, I’ve got a tin of Busken Bakery tea cookies (petite shortbread cookies with a dollop of icing on top which taste like a cookie and a donut at the same time) for the neologism posted in the comments section by a follower whose word makes me laugh the most.

May the best (and funniest) word win!

Congratulations to Everett Powers, winner of the “Guilty Pleasure Rainbow Car Wash & Spa Treatment” give away from my last post-- yes it actually says that on the gift card! 

Ev is the author of “The Mighty T, A Grant Starr Thriller” .  He’s a clever and fun follow on Twitter @EvPowers so do yourself a favor and check him out.  My favorite recent Everett Powers quote is, “A novel can take you somewhere you’d get arrested for being caught at in real life. And I like that.”  Me too Ev!  Thanks for your comment and for following my blog.  I hope you enjoy your special time with just you and your car!  Just don't forget to roll up the windows, okay? 

Panic at the Rainbow Car Wash & Spa

To follow is a tale of desperation and woe—sad but oh so true—then distilled into a cautionary review and tweet especially for you. There shall be no making fun of me about this later. Deal? Very well then. Once upon a time…

A month or so ago I was getting gas at my usual spot when I accidentally selected the “Ultimate Car Wash” option on the pump pad instead of the “No Thanks, I’m Broke” button directly below it. The upset from this frustrating twelve dollar mistake was partially soothed after my eight year-old son and I made the happy discovery that when you spend that much on an automatic car wash, your vehicle is lavished with the finest aromatic rainbow colored cleansers that are really cool and psychedelic as they glide down and sparkle up your dirty windows. Now he begs me to do the “Ultimate Car Wash” whenever we get gas or even when driving by on a full tank. Yeah, the rainbow car wash experience is actually that cool.

So today in a rare moment of errand running solitude (yes, I squander my precious kid-free time on groceries, post office and fueling up) I decided to ‘treat myself’ and go through the rainbow soap fancy shmancy car wash/spa treatment all by myself. (Hey, I’m worth it, right?)

The sun was shining through the windows in a gorgeous wide beam casting water droplet prisms in every direction.  Then the rainbow cleansers began to pour in lovely pinks, purples, yellows and greens.  Through the focused stream of sunlight on the windshield the effect was just dazzling—possibly even worth twelve dollars.  Just as I thought life couldn’t get any better I became aware of several sensations simultaneously:  a very strong soap smell, cold wetness on my hands and face, and a visible pooling of colored soap suds on the inside of the passenger door where the window meets the door frame.

As I glanced around the crisis expanded to include not just the front passenger window, but my driver’s side and the two windows behind me on either side!  Though none of the windows appeared to be open, I reached for the automatic window controls, quickly fingering all four switches into the up position, with no response.  But that wasn’t a huge surprise because the windows appeared to be up.  Were all the doors somehow ajar?  I opened and shut the two front doors securely, but still the raging, cleansing waters kept pouring in, all sudsy, multi-colored and crisp smelling. 

Just as a side note, there is really no escape from a car wash in the middle of its cycle. With the bay doors in front and behind you closed tight and the equipment squirting, brushing, and hugging your vehicle in every direction, you are committed until it decides it is done with you.


So as I fussed, fumed and climbed all over the inside of my soggy vehicle desperately trying to understand and somehow counteract this major malfunction in its previously perfectly serviceable water-tightness , I came to a devastating realization about user error. But only after the water prisms and soap rainbows were over, having ponded frothily all over the seats and carpet of my Honda Odyssey Mommy-Van.

Turns out this model offers special ‘kid foiling’ technology with a feature that locks the power windows. When engaged, even the driver cannot move her window—until she disengages this lock. There is also a venting feature, inexplicably tied to the keyless entry system, that cracks all the windows imperceptibly, which I seem to engage unknowingly on a regular basis, including, most unfortunately, today apparently.

These technological advancements and conveniences all joined forces to defeat me and ruin my guilty pleasure rainbow car wash experience in the worst, wettest, wickedest way to turn the ‘Ultimate Car Wash’ into the ‘Ultimate Panic Attack’!

Was I hopping mad? Of course! Do I wish there had been a hidden camera to catch this disaster on film because it had to have been hilarious to watch? You bet! Will I forfeit all future visits to the ‘Ultimate Car Wash’ to avoid recurrences of post traumatic post rainbow stress? No way!

So here it is, this week’s Short and Tweet Review:

Speedway’s Ultimate Car Wash with Rainbow Shine is Fabulous! Especially when your windows are in the UP POSITION! 2 Soggy Thumbs Up!

 Now for the bribe:  Follow and/or comment on this post and be automatically entered to win your very own ‘Guilty Pleasure Rainbow Car Wash’ spa treatment for you and that special vehicle in your life! 



I'd like thank all who visited and commented on last week's Blog-Warming Party. The big winner of the Oatmeal Scotchies Prize Pack is  Sonia Medeiros! 

She's a self-described writer, wife, mother, homeschooler, reader, newbie blogger, and lover of tacos and brownies.  And a fan of Oatmeal Scotchies now too, I hope!

Oh-so-followable on Twitter as @SoniaGMedeiros , you can also read up on Sonia at her beautiful blog (seriously, it's a really pretty site) called “Doing The Write Thing”.  You’ll be glad you did!

Congratulations Sonia!

Be sure to ask her about those delicious cookies, won't you?

Welcome To My Blog-Warming Party!

Hey! You made it! Thanks for checking out Short and Tweet Reviews!  The drinks are in the fridge and treats are on the counter, so help yourself.  I recommend the Oatmeal Scotchies, which I baked myself don't you know.

So as you can see it's no big deal here.  Just a spot for me to weigh in on things I like, or love, or laugh at.  My goal for each post is to introduce you to something fun, explain my sideways take on it, and hopefully make you smile as a result.  If I can get you to laugh out loud or leave a comment then I will have exceeded my mission parameters (and may decide to give myself a raise!)

In order to kick off this site properly I've been waiting for the perfect item to come along that best typifies the sort of fare you can expect when you visit me here.  And lo and behold I've finally found it!  I actually ate one of these yesterday as part of my product analysis and evaluation duty in the Marketing department of a major foodservice distributor here in the U.S.  As you'll see in a moment, I have an excellent job.

What's the 'perfect product' to launch the epic beginning of Short and Tweet Reviews?  Cheesecake on a Stick!

Do they actually make that?  I can tell you conclusively that, yes, they do and it’s delish! The fine and ingenious folks at Libby's Gourmet Desserts brought the notion to life when it became clear that there was a market among busy people who love cheesecake but just don't have time to mess with a fork, or sit down.

Solution:  Dip a slice of creamy cheesecake in chocolate (yum!), add a stick (yay!), and you're on your way!  A side benefit is that you probably won't mind if some of it drips on your pajamas as you make your way to your next class across campus.  Oh, to be young and unencumbered by personal pride again! What a sweet and unhypocritical time of life! 



Cheesecake On A Stick looks yummy but who is that fancy cup of coffee supposed be for?

 
I personally couldn’t bear for anybody to see me eating Cheesecake on a Stick, so I swiped a sample while no one was looking and conducted elicitly pleasurable (though somewhat messy) research in the privacy of the second floor stairwell.  Afterwards a very favorably disposed product evaluation form (with a drip or two of chocolate on it) was submitted anonymously.

But I thought it would be fun to bust myself on the Twitterverse.  So here it is: your inaugural Short and Tweet Review:

Cheesecake on a Stick:  Ridiculous. Also Delicious and Convenient.  Two Sticky Thumbs Up. http://tinyurl.com/3fczlp4


Now for the bribe:  Those who follow this blog and make a comment will be automatically entered to win a batch of Oatmeal Scotchies Cookies baked with love and shipped with care by your's truly!  What do you say about that?