War Eagle Fall Craft Fair Booth

We are gearing up and getting super excited for the War Eagle Fall Craft Fair on Thursday - Sunday. Thousands and thousands of people swarm through our little Ozark Mountain area, visiting a number of different craft fairs and events. The War Eagle Fair is really special because it is outside and in a historic area, with the mill and the bridge and War Eagle Cavern right around the corner.

We have two new books to offer since last year (both Max's Wild Night and At the Corner of Magnetic and Main). It should be a great weekend! Our booth is normally located on the first aisle across from the bridge in Sharp's Field. Come on by and say hello!

Blue Hydrangeas: New Cover Reveal

New Cover Reveal!

Blue Hydrangeas

by Marianne Sciucco

Cover design by Perry Elisabeth

What if the person who knew you best and loved you most forgot your face, and couldn't remember your name? A pair of retired Cape Cod innkeepers struggle with the wife's Alzheimer's. A beautiful love story written by a masterful storyteller who happens to be a nurse.

Amazon-rated 4.7 out of 5 stars

Goodreads rated 4.11 out of 5 stars

Enter the Goodreads drawing

 to win a copy of Blue Hydrangeas.

Readers say:

Heartbreakingly beautiful.

I felt drawn to Jack and Sara from page one and find myself wondering about them even now.

The book is very well-written and believable.

A heartfelt tender story that is entertaining and emotionally gripping!

A real page turner and it gives you insights of the daily life events living with this crushing disease called Alzheimer’s.

While not a "happily ever after" love story, Blue Hydrangeas is sure to be one you will ponder for some time after you have finished reading it.

Purchase Blue Hydrangeas in ebook, paperback, and audiobook

Amazon

Amazon UK

Audible

Barnes and Noble

iBooks

iTunes

Kobo

About the Author

Marianne Sciucco is not a nurse who writes but a writer who happens to be a nurse. A lover of words and books, she dreamed of becoming an author when she grew up but became a nurse to avoid poverty. She later brought her two passions together and writes about the intricate lives of people struggling with health and family issues. Her debut novel, Blue Hydrangeas, an Alzheimer’s love story, is a Kindle bestseller, IndieReader Approved, a BookWorks featured book, a Self-e Selection, a 5-star Readers Favorite, and winner of IndieReCon’s Best Indie Novel Award, 2014. She's currently working on a YA novel, Swim Season, about the new girl on the team who challenges a longstanding school record, to be released in 2015. A native Bostonian, Marianne lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, and when not writing works as a campus nurse at a community college. She loves books, the beach, and craft beer, and especially enjoys the three of them together.

Connect with Marianne Sciucco

Why did I Write a Book about Alzheimer’s?

An Interview with Author Marianne Sciucco

Website

Facebook

Goodreads

Google+

Pinterest

Twitter

Connect with Perry Elisabeth

Website

Book Design

New Book Is Here!!

I've been waiting for amazon to sync up the kindle and paperback pages, but they are taking way too long. I at least have to blog about the fact that At the Corner of Magnetic and Main is available and beautiful and ready to order! I can be quiet no longer.

Click on the cover above for the kindle version.

Click on the cover above for the paperback version.

Click here to order a signed paperback and matching bookmark directly from Meg. The first shipment should be going out on Thursday. Yay! 

And it even has a review already at amazon, sort of. You can't see the text yet, but I found it through my author central page. Here's what Susan had to say about this book: 

"I'm so excited to see this title out on Kindle. Full disclosure, I was asked to be a beta reader for this work several years ago. Meg is a friend of friends who know we both write. I started it and then some major events in my life interrupted any "fun" reading for a long while. I lost the link and life went on. But these characters and the small town setting have stayed with me all this time. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes out for Penny and Jake. So, I'm cheating here, not having read the whole book, but I wanted to be the FIRST of what I'm sure will be a raft of good reviews. I figure any plot line and group of characters that can stay in my head for this amount of time deserve four star recognition."

Yes, it takes several years to do a book right. It has been a long and involved process. Publishing any book is. But having it ready to share with the world has been worth every step. 

My first event to officially share this book with the world starts on Friday, October 9th, at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference here in town, and I can't wait! I'll blog all about that next weekend, right before we head into four days at the War Eagle Fall Craft Fair. 

That's all for now. I just wanted to shout out that IT IS HERE!!

"Living an Alive Life" Book Review

Scrapping my career and work life and starting over is something I've done a number of times, so I was glad to see that it is part of what Tara Schiller includes in "Living an Alive Life."

Tara will be joining other bloggers on my book tour for "At the Corner of Magnetic and Main," so we agreed to a book swap since I liked the look of her book as well. Our books have similar themes: LIVE! Get out and find your life and do what you love and find love and stop worrying so much about making other people happy.

A book like "Living an Alive Life" is geared to take readers from an unhappy and confused place to one of joy and freedom and enjoyment of life. In general, I'm not Tara's target audience because I've already done much of the journeying she suggests. Maybe that's just part of what happens when you are pushing 50. I've come to terms with not worrying so much about what others think of me and worrying more about making myself happy. But I guess, from this vantage point, I can say that she is right on track.

One portion that really spoke to me was about being a bit more "selfish" and understanding that word in a new way. The expectations of wife and mother that I take great pride in accomplishing definitely butt heads with being selfish, but I'm getting better at standing up for what I want when it really isn't an imposition on someone else. Guilt. Ah, guilt. Getting over making everyone else happy at the expense of my own happiness and being "good" can be the journey for the next decade of my life. It's a slippery, mine-strewn slope--and also a theme of "At the Corner of Magnetic and Main." Yes, we write what we know.

I'm a big fan of lists and goals, and I credit them with keeping me focused on my current ten-year plan. If you are not this kind of person, this book can help you start at the beginning and break down what you really want from life into attainable goals and baby steps.

"Living an Alive Life" is a short read, but Tara adds activities and "to do" lists to create along the way. You can also follow her blog at Absolutely Tara to interact with her and other adventurers along the way. Grab a copy of her book today by clicking on the book cover above and get started on living your own alive life with purpose and meaning and joy.

Preorder "At the Corner of Magnetic and Main" Now!

The links are up from my publisher, and you can start preordering copies of my new book, At the Corner of Magnetic and Main, immediately!

Click here for the link to preorder from the publisher.
or
Click here for the link to preorder autographed copies directly from me.

Penny had been stuck in the same diner for decades—ever since she died in 1952. Her diner was comfortable and safe. Serving ice cream to those who dropped in on their way to the next level of existence, she helped to ease their transition into The Light, the one place she can't go. Her afterlife was perfect. 
      But when the ridiculously handsome, bad boy biker Jake Thatcher shows up and becomes stuck as well, Penny rediscovers feelings that she thought had been buried with her body. 
      Life is still life, and love is still love. But was her existence really perfect, or was it something else entirely?

There will be much celebrating in October and November, and I'm in the process of setting up a blog tour. But you can get in on the first copies during the soft launch in September. 

Order your copy now! 

There will be much more to follow during the craziness that is September at our house, but that's all for now. I have a first draft of Slinky Steps Out to finish if it's ever going to be ready by April. And those other books from Pen-L are not going to edit themselves. Onward!

Book Sale! "Max's Wild Night" This Weekend

Just a quick heads-up: the kindle copy of "Max's Wild Night" is on sale for 99 cents from the 14th through the 17th this month. I'm celebrating the end of the Dog Days of Summer and the beginning of the school year--and The Fussy Librarian is helping spread the word. Get yourself a copy by clicking here!

Max didn’t mean to run away, but when he found himself alone in the moonlit woods, he saw his chance for freedom. No humans to tell him what to do. No cats running the house. No one to call him Bad Dog. No fences and no rules. He could be wild and free and never have to answer to anyone again! But will that freedom turn out to be the fantastic journey he was expecting? What adventures and strange creatures will Max discover in the Ozark forest on a full-moon spring night? 

That's all. Have a great weekend!

Wagapalooza and Updates

Well, we were very excited to have a booth at Wagapalooza, a fundraiser for the Gentry Arkansas Animal Shelter. I think they made some good money, but I don't think any of the vendors did. Folks came out with their dogs and to play, but no one was buying. We have found this many times at events like this, and this was our final attempt to prove that theory wrong. My husband--the guy who does the books and pays extra attention to this stuff--begged me to finally learn my lesson. Yes, I get it. No more pet events. At least, this time, the booth fee went to a good cause. We both are happy with that.

It was a very long day and around 98 degrees. Whew. We had thought that being near the bounce house and water slip-slide thing would be good, but it only meant that I spent a lot of time worrying about dripping wet kids backing into my tables. Having fun, they become completely unaware of anything around them. Many of the kids liked the look of my books, but their parents weren't buying. Maybe a couple of kindle sales will follow. I'm not holding my breath.

This is the thing about events. It has to be a good match. We did a Jeep Festival on Holiday Island that actually led to some nice sales. You never know. Animal events have consistently been bummers. There's lots to look at. Dogs are cute and all.

This little guy, with his pony cut, was adorable. He pranced around for hours, mane flying.

But it usually eats up the entire day and my time is better spent. No one but me is going to finish that rough draft of Slinky Steps Out. We are getting pickier and pickier as time goes by. I love sharing my books, but this is a business I'm running.

Events that I am looking forward to are school visits for 2015-2016. I haven't put a lot of push into school visits. It's tricky with a self-published series. So we are reaching out to a few area school districts that are large enough to support an author visit financially and already plan them. We shall see where that leads.

Editing jobs for Pen-L Publishing continue. I just started the 15th book since December. Whew, again. I really love being a part of bringing someone else's book to the world. This morning, I finished a "brush up" job on Waiting for Paint to Dry. Sometimes production schedules mean that final polish happens later than anyone would like, but I bet most of the edits are things only I notice.

Buy Link

If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it and loved reading it again. Inherently, it is a story of recovery from the trauma of a teenage rape (never described in detail). But on this second reading, I just enjoyed the love story and watching Matty's life bloom. Wonderful book!

That's sort of my "work" reading. I usually have more than one book going. I just finished Bossypants by Tina Fey, which was delightful, but she needs no promotion efforts by me to help her success.

I also won a copy of the new release from blogger-supreme Heather Davis and am loving it. Most entries are only a few pages long, so it's great for when I only have a few minutes. I'm not saying "in the bathroom" because that's not quite true, but I'm sure the queen of TMI doesn't care where I read it.

Buy Link

Arriving hot from the library yesterday is Invasion of the Tearling, for when I can really settle in to read for a while (aka before bed). I just finished the first book in this series and feel sorry for people who had to wait for the second one. Fantastic writing and story!

Next time I will have some updates about At the Corner of Magnetic and Main. Publication has been delayed a tad due to some unexpected and completely understandable events in the life of my publisher. It will probably be more like September at this point. But we do have a cover (which I will share shortly) and the preorder page will be up next week. Yay!!

And mark your calendars to join me on August 22 in Branson for the Ozark Writers League meeting. I'll be sharing a presentation about how to make your manuscript and pitch so beautiful that publishers and editors can't help but read it. Lots of other fun speakers and presenters will be there. Join us!!