Today begins my Facebook Release Party for Silver Creek! Not Without You is book one and goes live on November 11th at all your favorite retail outlets. To celebrate, I’m hosting a party, dishing out Colorado trivia and of course–giveaways. What fun is a party without party favors?

Not much in my world! So be sure and stop by any time this week, M-F, on my Facebook page and join the fun. Know something about Colorado? Do share! My guess is there will be a bunch of new tourists to the state come 2015 after this shindig.

Also releasing on November 11th is Ladd Christmas. It’s a reunion of sorts, where you’ll catch up with all of your favorite characters as well as get a taste of what’s to come. **wink, wink** And DO try your hand at making REAL pumpkin pie this season–it’s easy & delicious! You can find full details on my garden blog.

Looking forward to seeing you this week! And please share–the more the merrier always applies to parties. :)

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and you know what that means…get ready for the pinching!  Fingers on your fanny, your arm, where ever those pesky leprechauns can get you, they will.  Me?  I don’t mind a pinch now and again.  In fact, this month is the 17th anniversary of when I met my husband.  Single, minding my own business and NOT looking for love at all (at that moment ;)), there he was, in a warm cozy bar tucked away in a ski resort.  *sigh* I do enjoy spring skiing.

It’s my friend’s fault.  As any good matchmaking friend, she was trying to set me up with someone else, an effort to which I was uninterested.  As she was describing this fabulous man she knew, my husband-to-be leaned over the bar to order a beer and I pointed, “Does your friend look like him?  Because that guy right there–that one’s my type.”

It was history from there.  She sought him out, made up a story and got the two of us talking.  We’ve been married 14 years this June and it was my lucky day in March, to be sure.

To celebrate, let’s say we giveaway a copy of my upcoming release ~ You can be the first to read Ladd Springs!

Delaney Wilkins finds herself at odds with hotel developer Nick Harris over a deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the forest.  Both are after title to Ladd Springs, a mecca of natural springs, streams and trails in the eastern Tennessee mountains, a tract of land worth millions.  But Ernie Ladd, current owner of the property and uncle to Delaney, is adamantly opposed to them both.

Felicity Wilkins, Delaney’s daughter, deserves to inherit her family’s legacy, but neighbor Clem Sweeney is working against her, ingratiating himself with Ernie Ladd.  Clem is also harboring a secret that will make him a very wealthy man—unless the others stop him before he can bring it to fruition.

Complicating matters is Annie Owens.  Ex-girlfriend to Jeremiah Ladd, Ernie’s estranged son living in Atlanta, she declares her daughter Casey is Jeremiah’s, making Casey every bit as entitled to the property as Felicity—only Annie hasn’t proven this claim.  Yet.

All are fighting to get the property, but only one will walk away with the gold.  Which will it be?  Find out in the first installment of Ladd Springs…

Next up will be Ladd Fortune, set for release this June with three more before the end of the year!  So get your hands on this one early — you won’t want to miss a single installment.  To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment!

Follow on Facebook for an added chance to win AND the opportunity to join my upcoming Release Party where I’ll be dishing out the scoop behind the novel, giving away prizes and doing so for a week!  It all begins April 10th in conjunction with my Authors in Bloom Blog Hop.

Welcome to the First Annual Authors in Bloom Spring Blog Hop!  It’s that time of year again when the sun comes back to shine, the birds begin to sing and the flowers burst with the color of life!  It’s a time where we forget about getting more Facebook likes in order to focus on what’s really important. To celebrate this momentous occasion—okay, momentous may be a STRONG word, but not for us gardeners, it isn’t!—some of my author friends and I are sharing our favorite gardening tips and spring fresh recipes.  How great is that?  It’s like a having a gardening encyclopedia and cookbook in one!  LOVE it.  But more than gardening know-how and gourmet delights, you’ll receive over 70 chances to win stuff from this shop!  Woohoo!  I don’t know about you, but I love anything FREE.  So hard to come by these days, isn’t it?  My garden-inspired giveaway for this hop includes a wax melter for your fragrance tarts (a Cilantro Clementine tart included), Vera Bradley napkins and matching pencils, sugar scrub by Deep Steep (grapefruit & bergamot scented ~ mmmm….), custom-seed saving packets, a garden “help” booklet, adorable little “cauliflower” poodle figurine from Enesco and more! ($55 value, plant & plate shown in photo not included) Now to my gardening tip:  If you’re like most gardeners, tomatoes are on your list of must-grow or must-try.  And who can blame you?  Rich, ripe, ruby-red tomatoes are not only delicious fresh, but the key ingredient to the infamous “red sauce” ~ a recipe handed down through Italian generations like Blue Bloods hand down silver spoons and Southern folk’s dish out middle names.  Italian by injection is what I am and red sauce is something I’m working to master. :) So how do you grow these bad boys without spots, blemishes and cracks?  Epsom salts and eggshells.  Yep!  Go ahead and start them from seeds indoors and then, when you transplant them into the ground, add a crushed eggshell and a tablespoon of Epsom salt mixed into the soil around your sproutling.  No more spots!  (a.k.a blossom-end rot.) Got cracks?  (We’ve all got problems, I know.)  Watch that water schedule, because cracks are due to uneven watering–something awfully hard to prevent in Florida.  Just when you have the automatic timer attached to the hose attached to the sprinkler head which is positioned just so all figured out—WHAM! Mother Nature blasts you with a good soaking.  She calls it a sense of humor.  I call it bad timing. But like I said, we’ve all got problems.  And I like to look at my relationship with Mother Nature as a challenge rather than a curse.  Helps me keep the stress levels down, if you know what I mean.  So what do you say?  Aren’t these tomatoes gorgeous?  Willing to give it a try?  For more gardening tips & fresh recipes, visit my garden blog at BloominThyme! (You’ll find the template for my custom seed-saving packets there, too!) Now, for the really important stuff:  to enter my giveaway, you have more than one opportunity.  You can leave a comment here, follow me on Twitter (make sure I know it’s you by giving me a mention along with the Authors in Bloom blog hop, ie. *Authors in Bloom rock!* @DianneVenetta), “like” my author page on facebook and fan me on Goodreads ~ be sure to leave a message regarding the same!  For all you gardeners out there, here are a couple of more ways to enter:  you can subscribe to my garden blog:   BloominThyme and like it’s facebook page.  How’s that for increasing the odds?  Six chances to win PLUS a whole heck of a lot of garden fun! Phew, that’s a lot of entries per person.  Did I mention I like free stuff?  I like giving it away, too. :)   And if you’re a bloomin’ warrior, or if you’ve already done any of the above, please let me know in the comment section of this post and you’ll get credited for the extra entries.  (No penalties allowed here.) So what are you waiting for?  Grab the phrase below and hop on to the next author—you’ll find the entire crew listed in the linky list below.  (You may have to check the blog section of their website.)  Remember:  to be eligible for the grand prize, you must visit each and every site—but you have 10 days to do so! Line 1: Springtime is the season of blossoms. Line 2: Buds burst open, leaves unfurl, Line 3: and young flowers mature into gorgeous blooms. And as a reminder, if you have any questions how this hop works, especially how to win the grand prize, get full details here:  Authors in Bloom Spring Blog Hop.  While you’re here check out my novels!  JENNIFER’S GARDEN recently received 4 1/2 stars from RT Book Reviews…  Available for $2.99 on both your kindle & nook. :)