Author, author...Marry Me Guest Post & Giveaway

...read all about it !!

Please welcome a guest post from Kristin Wallace

1-How I Got Here – This Author’s Journey

I was about 25 when I had the great epiphany that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Specifically…novel writing. I don’t know why this notion didn’t occur to me earlier. I’d always been a voracious reader (which I blame entirely on my mother). I didn’t just play Barbie’s…those dolls endured soap opera-like sagas. I’d actually started writing stories as far back as high school. But I never connected that with an actual career. I didn’t major in something useful like English or Journalism in college. Instead, I was a theatre major.

After college I drifted for a long time, unsure what I wanted to do. Then this bolt of lightening struck and told me to be a writer. For the next few years I wrote and submitted….and I got absolutely nowhere. At the same time, I was still no closer to finding a career that would let me do important things…like buy food and pay rent. I needed something where I could write and be creative, but actually get paid.

So, I stumbled on another career that I’d never considered…advertising. Specifically, I wanted to be an advertising copywriter.  So, I put the writing dream aside and went back to school for the next 2 years. Then I started working. At some point I started writing again. That’s when I had another “great epiphany”. One afternoon I was sitting at my computer working on an outline for a new book and I literally stopped with my hands on the keyboard –and said to myself. “You’ve been doing this writing thing for 10 years and it hasn’t gone away…that has to mean something.”

I knew I had to try again. I joined Romance Writers of America and my local chapter, Florida Romance Writers.  I quickly discovered that I knew absolutely nothing about actual writing.  I started to learn, though. One thing I learned is that the selling a book to an agent or editor starts with a pitch. You have to be able to describe your 300+ page book in one paragraph or less. Imagine my surprise when I realized that wrestling large, complicated subjects into a line and a paragraph of copy was exactly what I did every day for my day job.  I also got into the game at a time when publishing was undergoing a radical change.  Authors were doing more and more marketing for themselves. Then the advent of epublishers and self-publishing exploded. Both of those avenues are all about marketing, and I’d spent the last decade of my life learning all the skills I would need to sell…myself.

Of course, the awaited book contract still didn’t come right away. It took 6 more years and more “no’s” than I can count. But FINALLY…on May 10, 2013…I got a yes and sold my first book to Astraea Press. 

Marry Me

By: Kristin Wallace

Blurb

She'd vowed never to fall in love...

Julia Richardson is no fan of weddings. A lifetime of watching her parents treat relationships like the flavor of the month has taught her that love is for fools. Then she learns her former stepsister is having a crisis with her pregnancy. The crisis has Julia returning to the small Southern town – and the family – she’s been avoiding for years. Before she knows it, Julia’s been pressed into service running her former stepsister’s wedding planning business, Marry Me.

Julia doesn’t know a garter from a garden hose, but now she must navigate couples along the bumpy path down the aisle - despite wardrobe malfunctions, killer bees, and plenty of near disasters. In the midst of it all, Julia makes the most unexpected discovery of all…Love, with Seth Graham, the widowed local minister! Julia’s been running from love and everything spiritual for most of her life. It’s not until she finds the courage to stop running that she finds her own “I Do” moment.

Buy Links:

 Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Marry-Me-Kristin-Wallace-ebook/dp/B00G4UN1UQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382632992&sr=8-1&keywords=marry+me+kristin+wallace

 

Barnes & Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/marry-me-kristin-wallace/1117237787?ean=2940148391678

 

Astraea Press:

http://astraeapress.com/#!/~/product/category=662245&id=29172320

Link to Follow Tour: http://tastybooktours.blogspot.com/2013/09/now-booking-tasty-virtual-book-tour-for_5.html

Author Info

Growing up Kristin devoured books like bags of Dove Dark Chocolate.  Everything from Nancy Drew & Encyclopedia Brown to C.S. Lewis and the  Sweet Valley High series. Later she discovered romance novels. It’s no surprise then that Kristin would one day try her hand at writing them. She writes inspirational romance and women’s fiction filled with love, laughter and a leap of faith. In May 2013, Kristin sold her first novel, MARRY ME, to Astraea Press. Publication date to come!

 When she’s not writing her next novel, Kristin works as an advertising copywriter. She also enjoys singing in her church choir and playing flute in a community orchestra.

Author Links

http://authorkristinwallace.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Kristin.L.Wallace?fref=ts

Excerpt  - Opening

The past is like a revolving door, and if people aren’t careful it’ll come back and whop them in the backside. Hard.

Like Julia Richardson’s just did.

“Julia, we… Sarah needs you. It’s the baby.”

Two sentences, barely audible, as her former stepsister’s husband fought to get the words out. Those two sentences had Julia behind the wheel in the dead of night, headed back to the small Southern town — and the family — she’d successfully avoided for fifteen years.

She looked in the rearview mirror and spotted an errant, titian-colored curl sticking straight up. With a stifled groan, she mashed it down. Ah, humidity, such a lovely thing. The farther south she got, the more it curled. By the time she reached her destination she expected to look like a dead ringer for a certain redheaded, singing orphan. If said orphan was a full-figured Amazon with a bad attitude.

By the time Julia drove past the quaintly painted sign, which proclaimed she was entering Covington Falls, Georgia — Covington for the founding family, Falls for the trickle of water which emptied into Lake Rice, the name of the other founding family — the sun was blazing. Surprisingly, she knew exactly where to go. Or maybe not so surprising since it didn’t look like much had changed in fifteen years. It still looked like a small and dainty cousin of Savannah.

She turned down a tree-lined lane that could have doubled for a 50s television show and a moment later pulled into the driveway of Grace’s house. A white, two-story Colonial number with a wrap-around porch, complete with a swing. Rounding out this picture of all-American perfection was an honest to goodness white picket fence. Julia stared at the house, wondering what in the world she was doing here. She so didn’t belong in a place like this.

Before she could back out of the driveway, the front door opened, and a woman stepped out onto the porch.

Grace. Ex-stepmother #2. Mother of Sarah and the reason for the midnight run.

Julia got out of the car unsure what kind of reception to expect. Before she knew it, Grace flew down the stairs with arms outstretched.

A familiar scent of cookies and violets invaded her senses. Exactly the way an angel might smell, she imagined. When she ‘d been thirteen, and angry at the world, she hadn’t been able to hug Grace back. Now Julia did. Then didn’t want to let go.

Grace pulled back, taking Julia’s face in her warm hands. “How I’ve missed you.”

“You have?”

She smiled. “You have no idea.”

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