Thank You From Literacy Suffolk

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

On Saturday, May 8, twelve generous authors donated their time and their talents at Pindar Vineyards to a fundraising event for Literacy Suffolk. At the end of three hours, we'd raised $464.00 for this worthwhile organization!

Today, I received the following letter from the staff of Literacy Suffolk:



May 10, 2010
Ms. Gina Ardito, President
Dunes & Dreams Romance Writers



Dear Gina,


I think it’s safe to say that Literacy Suffolk had never before been in the same thought-stream as “romance” before Dunes & Dreams stepped in. Thanks for heating things up!


Our sincere thanks to all of the authors who offered their time, good spirit, and craft for the benefit of adult literacy this past Saturday at Pindar Winery. Everyone’s thoughtfulness and good will has been truly wonderful. Your collective support will help fill an often embarrassing and painful void in students’ lives, and we gratefully accept Dunes & Dreams donation on their behalf.



Sincerely,


Gini Booth, Executive Director
Suzanne Smith, Community Affairs
Christine Moriarty, Finance
Susan Shiloni, Testing and Assessment
Jenn Vasell, Data and Web Manager

It's never too late to donate. The smallest pittance, (five dollars; ten) can make a difference in someone's life. Check out Literacy Suffolk's website for ways you can help!

I hope we'll see you next year when we do it all again. Until then...thank you to all who participated, visited, or helped in any way.

Meet Margaret Reyes Dempsey

Sunday, May 2, 2010

As a voracious reader since I first spoke the words "See Spot run," I know what reading has meant to me. A good book is a journey, a dream, a bit of harmless escapism at the end of a long day. Reading for enjoyment, however, is the icing on the cake. The part we take for granted is the reading we do throughout the day when we don't even realize we're reading. We find our way by reading signs, we fill out applications, read recipes from cookbooks or the lyrics to a song that everyone is singing along to. We review our child's homework, enjoy the birthday card from a relative or the love letter from the one who makes our heart melt. Think about how hard your life would be without the ability to read. Then, give the gift of literacy to someone. Come out on Saturday, buy some books, and sip some wine. It's Mother's Day weekend, a perfect time for a ladies' outing.

I'll be signing copies of The Benefactor, a novel of romantic suspense. Here's a blurb:

They say the truth will set you free...

After her parents' tragic deaths, eight-year-old Kate Barrett began receiving anonymous gifts from someone called Secret Friend. Years later, after landing a challenging job and the apartment of her dreams, she is caught off guard when another package shows up at her now unlisted address. Troubled that someone is watching her every move, she sets out to discover the stranger's identity.

The pressure rises when a coworker's flirtatiousness crosses the line and Kate makes a disturbing discovery at work. Just when things couldn't get more bizarre, love comes from a surprising direction, and shocking clues to the mystery surface in an unthinkable place. But nothing can prepare Kate for the truth about Secret Friend, the deaths of her parents, and how her destiny has been cunningly manipulated.



Meet Bertrice Small

Friday, April 30, 2010




Kathryn Falk (L) and Bertrice Small (R) at
Horton Point Light in Southold

Why do I do signings for literacy? Reading is magic. It's the key to the door of knowledge. When you can read you can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.

Reading unlocks a world of possibilities for us. Ignorance breeds all kinds of evils. I don't want anyone living in the darkness that illiteracy is. Not when I can help in any small way. Learn to read, and let your light shine forth!

I'll have the following books (and maybe more) available for purchase on May 8th from 12-3 pm at Pindar Vineyard:



THE BORDER LORD AND THE LADY
 

Lady Cicely Bowen, daughter of the Earl of Leighton, is sent away by her father when her jealous stepmother threatens her safety. Soon the exiled Cicely becomes best friends with Lady Joan Beaufort, the king's cousin--and when Joan is married to King James I of Scotland she chooses Cicely as one of the ladies accompany her north...


At the Scot's court Cicely finds herself pursued by two men--elegant Andrew Gordon, the laird of Fairlee, and Ian Douglas, the laird of Glengorm, a rough-spoken border lord. When Ian kidnaps Cicely just as Andrew is about to propose, the royal court is sent into an uproar. The queen is demanding the return of her friend and the Gordons are threatening to set the border on fire. But the border lord is difficult to tame--and the lady's heart is even harder to claim.

 


CROWN OF DESTINY
 
I want all my readers of this series to know that Lara and Kaliq remain together. Forever. This is the darkest tale in the series, but I loved writing it. It has a terrific story, and the ending will surprise you. I think it one of the best endings I have ever written. It has lots of intrigue going. And while a hundred years have past as the book begins, the stronger characters from the previous books are there. Ilona, Queen of the Forest Fairies. Kaliq and the Shadow Princes. Marzina, Lara's youngest child. And of course, Kolgrim, the young Twilight Lord, Lara's son. Charming. Dark. Villianous, and yet flawed by the tiny bit of humanity running through his blood. I think I've tied up all the loose ends, and I hope you will enjoy this last tale of Hetar.

Meet Eleanor Sullo

Friday, April 23, 2010

Reading a good book has been a treasured activity to me all my life—or at least from the moment I learned to read. Reading has taken me to meet new friends, visit new places, discover new ideas and ways of living I could not have known without good books. So I am thrilled to be part of an effort to help promote reading through the Literacy Campaign in Suffolk and the Pindar Winery.

When I gather at Pindar with the other authors assembled on May 8, thanks to the efforts of the Dunes & Dreams Romance Writers, I will be offering several of my romance, romantic suspense and mystery novels. Hostage, the first in a series of six fun mysteries called Menopause Murders, is about a group of “mature” women who refuse to let their hot flashes put them on a shelf. Not only are they solving murders and jet-setting around the world to do it, they’re having fun and rediscovering romance, at the same time. It’s a book to reach for when you want to follow the twists and turns of a good mystery, but need a laugh as well. See the review blurb and brief excerpt below.

My latest book, Too Damned Hot, introduces a couple torn apart for years, and suddenly intensely drawn together in the torrid and mysterious Tucson, Arizona desert. Family secrets and lies threaten to keep them apart, and while she’s afraid it’s just sex, he’s scared to death it’s something much bigger that they just can’t resist. Heat up your hormones with this love story full of danger, caring and a hope that’s too hot. See the brief excerpt and review blurb below.

And meet me in Peconic and tell me why you love to read!

THE MENOPAUSE MURDERS: HOSTAGE

Eleanor Sullo’s above average who-done-it, The Menopause Murders: Hostage, has enough twisting intrigue and bold suspense that you won’t be able to put this book down.

Six menopausal ladies, and long time friends, wearing gaudy accessories, set out to create a club called “The Women on Fire.” Before they can even get their new organization off the ground someone has the audacity to kill the gardener…(and) things get even stranger than just a bumbling robber when these girls start unearthing all the clues.

I found this exceptionally well crafted suspense, told in an entertaining tongue-in-cheek humor, well worth the effort. It will keep you laughing and rooting for this group of ladies as they brave their fears, and boldly strive to protect one another against the injustices of the world.


It will keep you guessing all the way to the very last page.

Review Company: Conger Books Reviews
Review Date: 1/13/2010
Review Rate: 4
Reviewer: JoEllen Conger

EXCERPT:
I’m useless, I thought, feeling my green beret tottering. I picture myself as some sort of warrior. But I won’t get on an airplane and I can’t help knock down an idiot home invader. What a laugh, Hannah. No, not a laugh, a tragedy. Those kids at the Grief Center would never call me their hero again, and, of course, I’d never deserved it anyhow. I shivered, tried to ignore my jitterbugging stomach. I’ve got to act, disarm him--and quickly. The man’s a psychological disaster, clearly unused to a gun, but his very inexperience makes him a ticking time bomb…


“Shut up, get back in your seats,” Farquar shouted, slamming his plate onto the piano and grabbing for a bite of his cold pork and roast pepper sandwich.

My heart lurched as, in reply, Lu’s hand raised the bottle of beer by its neck with a gasp of fury coming from her lips. The attacker ducked and shoved her to the floor. The beer bottle struck the piano top on the way down and sprayed a shower of the rank liquid over the room, Ada screamed as Lu crumpled to a fetal position half beneath the baby grand. An intake of breath hissed from everyone of us. I hesitated before I moved, assessing the location of the gun, and Farquar’s ragged emotions.

He was clearly sweating now. I watched him wipe his forehead with the back of his gun hand. His glance darted to Lu’s unmoving figure beneath him and Ada’s petite form a few feet from his gun. “Your whacky friends haven’t helped you, lady. Neither did your kid. I was going to let you off easy but now you get me the stuff in your safe by the time I count to three or--”

In that eclipsed hush after Farquar had given his ultimatem we heard the muffled roar of a high-powered vehicle in the driveway, the emphatic turn-off of an engine, a car door slamming. The man’s eyes widened, and he inched toward the window, gun trembling.

“Va-room,” Ramon said, hopping from one foot to the other, then flitting to his swing. “Va-room.”

“What? A goddamned cop car. Which one of you bitches--” He switched the gun to his left hand and yanked Ada up close, spinning her around until her back was to him and he had wrapped his arm around her neck.

My God, it’s Meg, I thought. Thank God. Meg here to join the club. Driving the Assistant State Medical Examiner’s car that she hadn’t yet turned in. The car with lights on the roof.

Ada’s head wobbled on her neck, her body slumped in feigned surrender. Farquar struggled to hold her up.

This, I knew, was the moment to act, this thin little crevice in the rock wall of our entrapment. I sucked in a breath, watched Farquar consider options, his glance scudding to every corner of the room, and to Lu’s motionless body at his feet.

Cornered, ready to do something drastic.

I had to do it. Now.

In one jagged motion I reached into my own open and tattered Gucci bag and yanked out the silver cylinder. In the same moment as I flicked off the cap, I leaped from the seat, so quickly I felt Dorie slump behind me. The armed gunman spun toward me exactly as my forefinger plunged the button on the hair spray can I’d purchased at my semi-annual hairdo day.

Direct hit, eyes doused.

“Eeeeuw!” screamed Farquar, arms flailing upward. The gun in his hand flew from his grip and, airborne, struck Ada’s portrait on the far wall.

“Eeeeuw!” Ramon answered, rattling the cage.

At the same moment Lucia grabbed the crook’s ankles and Ada helped her wrestle him to the ground. Lu jerked upward like a bobbing vessel, and kept him there with her three-inch stiletto heel in his back. The doorbell rang, and Dorie, roused from her faint, screamed at the top of her lungs.

It was that scream, we all agreed later, that had accomplished the deed. Farquar fought for his footing, all elbows and knees, toppling Ada onto her side. As he started moving, his glance grazed the floor for the missing weapon but Lu kicked him where he’d least want to be kicked, and he groaned and struggled upright.. But the trail of four women, one in lethal high heels, one in a flaming feathered scarf and one in a goddamn green beret began pursuit, snatching at his clothes, his hair, the skin at the back of his neck. Sticking like glue.

He ran, shouting and wriggling to disengage them, through the hall and into the kitchen. We pounded his back and ripped his jacket off, screeching, until he squirmed past the counters, slid across the tile floor to the back door and threw himself out into the yard. Dorie was excited enough to start following him out the door, then snapped to and realized she was the only one in the doorway. She collapsed on the kitchen floor, tangled in her boa.

“Very nice. Goodbye,” screeched Ramon, left alone in the living room.

Seeking reinforcements, Ada ran to the front door and opened it for Meg, whose habitually dour expression exploded into mirth when she saw the remnants of the current liberation exercise. We rushed to wrap our arms around her and give her a loud and mixed-up account of what had happened.

That changed her reaction fast.

Once she secured the gun from beneath Ada’s portrait, dangling it from a pen, and began to really hear our garbled story, Meg’s severe features assumed their usual cynical expression. But then, there was a fantastic analytical brain at work behind that look; I’d depended on it too many times in the past not to be impressed.

“Thank God you’re still driving your cop car with the little blue light on top,” Dorie gushed, draped weakly over Lucia.

“And that you’re here to guide us through this mess,” I said. My heart was racing. I tried to convince myself the whole escapade had been amusing, even in its terror. But then, I had always been the Queen of De-nial. When I noticed I was still shaking it dawned on me: my God, it would make a story--the one I’d hoped and prayed for, a free-lanced something I could sell to the paper’s Northern Magazine, thereby earning enough to fly Kevin and his family home here for a visit. Or at least to buy a train ride for myself out west. And here I was, right on top of it.

Yes!

Now if only Farquar could be caught.



TOO DAMNED HOT

"Hot and steamy as the desert sands they walk on, Eleanor Sullo's characters will take you on a journey for lovers--who fight against all odds to overcome and triumph. Too Damned Hot is a read you won't soon forget once you've traveled the journey with them." --Lori Avocato, Best-selling Author of the Pauline Sokol Mystery series


EXCERPT:
She watched his eyes dart left and right and all the way to the mountains. She grimaced. Gripping the edge of the door at the open window she growled, causing him to jump.


“My God, why are you so anxious? Why do you keep scanning the horizon like that? I know there are dangers in the desert, but what exactly are you afraid of?”

He shrugged and bent to kiss her knuckles resting on the edge of the car door. “Let me do the worrying, will you, honey?” His easygoing grin almost convinced her.

She clenched her teeth. I don’t need another man giving me orders, taking care of me—as badly as they do it. I need to be a partner here. “You’re not getting away that easy. Come on, what’s bothering you?”

“Lanie,” he said softly, reaching into the open window and gripping her chin tenderly in his fist, stroking her reddened cheeks and swollen lips. “I didn’t want you to worry. I would have told you after I check out certain things.”

“Tell me now, Teodoro Caliente,” she demanded, her heart twisting in her chest.

He puffed out a heavy breath. “It’s Jen’s grandmother. Marva just told me today, the old lady has somebody watching me—detectives.”

“Detec—! But why? Where?”

He shrugged. “Checking that I make a good home for Jenna, I guess.” He gestured toward the hills. “Out there, somewhere. Maybe with high tech spying stuff. Night-vision goggles, the works. Old man Ferand told her.”

She shivered. “But that’s…too weird. And you let me…swim naked in the hot tub?”

He shrugged. A chuckle rose up in his throat, as he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger again. “I didn’t know you’d sneak out,” he said lamely. “At least I got you indoors before things got any more graphic.”

“Sneak? You’re the sneak! You could have ‘fessed up!” she snapped. “Get in here!” She pulled him by a hank of hair until his whole head was squeezed through the window. Then she kissed him long enough to erase the worry lines on his sweet dark face.

“We’ll meet at my place then,” she decided. “He won’t find us in those identical tin boxes. Hey, I’m gonna need high maintenance now, Caliente.”

Meet Marianne Petit

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hi everyone!


My name is Marianne and I write under my maiden name Petit. I live on Long Island and any excuse to visit a Long Island winery is right up my alley! What could be better than spending time with such talented authors, sipping a little wine and signing my books? As the Vice President of my local Lions charity group, I am always willing to help a worthwhile cause, especially when it comes to literacy. I look forward to meeting all of you in May.

 
 
 
 
 
A FIND THROUGH TIME
 
Reincarnation, vision quests and self-discovery are the themes of A FIND THROUGH TIME. This Native American time travel will transport you across the sweeping planes of Montana, back to 1876 where love seeks no boundaries and love prevails despite all odds.


Forensic artist Gabrielle Camden immerses herself in sculpting the face of a young Native American woman whose parallel life leads her deep into the heart of the Sioux nation and into the arms of a Lakota warrior named Two Moons. When Gabrielle disappears without a trace News reporter Roy Prescott sets out to find her. His search brings him to the most unlikely place---his past.

 
 
 
 
 
THE GLASS ARMONICA
 
When a young woman with the gift of sight is faced with murder charges, she makes a devastating decision, destroying any chance for happiness. Set down South in 1782, witchcraft, music and family are the themes of The Glass Armonica.



Elizabeth Rose believes her greatest fear has come true. Fleeing her village, she is thrust into a strange household with a man she fears and is tormented by the presence of ghost. Will her secret past get her tossed penniless onto the streets or will her love, for the Lord of the manor, unlock his hardened heart?



For extensive research links and articles on writing, or to read an excerpt of Marianne’s books, please visit: www.mariannepetitbooks.com

Literacy Programs in Serious Trouble

Thursday, April 8, 2010

New York's literacy programs are in dire straits, thanks to budget cuts by the governor. According to the Literacy Suffolk website, "Governor Paterson’s 2010-11 Executive Budget continues the approximately $612,000 cut imposed by the 2009-10 Deficit Reduction Plan, AND further reduces funding to this vital program by an additional $2 million. Combined, the cuts represent a 38% reduction to this modest program!!"

How can you help?

The Literacy Groups of Long Island are asking residents for your support.  If you're available, consider attending the press conference on Friday, April 9 at 12 noon at the Farmingdale Public Library.
Can't make it on such short notice? Contact members of the state legislature and voice your support for Adult Literacy Programs. A preprinted script is available to help those of you who are too nervous to get the words out on your own.

And of course, come to Pindar Vineyards in Peconic on Saturday, May 8 from 12-3 pm. Buy a few books. Help another Long Islander learn to read.

Thanks so much!

Meet Thea Devine

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Hi everyone. I'm Thea Devine, (it really is my real name), and I'm particularly known for writing steamy historical and contemporary romance for the last twenty-three years. My latest, just out, is SEX, LIES & SECRET LIVES, in which Justine and her twin Jillian have carved vastly different lives from the remnants of their abusive childhood. So when Jillian uses an old code to signify she's in trouble, Justine is shocked to discover Jill has been leading a secret sex-driven, high flying life, and she must decide how far she will walk in Jillian's stilettos and whether she's willing to pretend to become Jillian in the process. But as she navigates Jilly's world of carnal extravagance and sexual excess, she discovers that she's playing a most dangerous game. And when she becomes entangled with a ruthless adversary who could be her best ally or her worst enemy, she finds she must play that game to absolute perfection if she and her sister are ultimately to survive.


I'm delighted to be part of the Booksigning in the Vineyard, particularly since my husband was an English teacher in both the NYC school system and private school for past forty plus years and we can't envision a life without a book in our hands. My to-be-read pile fills a bookcase and a side table in the living room. We really believe books furnish a room. (Only my husband doesn't think they're particularly decorative when piled waist high on the living room hearth -- I wonder why?)

We live in Connecticut with two cats, and a mini-daschund named Midgie (whom I call Munch for reasons that are obscure even to me). About a year after we moved here, the Friends of the Library asked if I'd like to be the recording secretary. I thought, hmmm -- words, books, library, author, community service -- it seemed a good fit to volunteer with an organization that helps fund reading programs in my town, and I'm looking forward as well to contributing to Literacy Suffolk when I meet you all at the signing in May.

 
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