New Fiction Series!

My newest novels, a two-book series called Second Chances, were recently released into the wild. Running Home and Alias Raven Black are Christian suspense with a little romance thrown in to sweeten the deal. I hope you'll check them out. I'm sure you'll enjoy the ride.

Ivy’s husband is a cheat and a liar, but when he gets caught up in a game of espionage and flees the country with his latest bimbo, Ivy has finally had enough. She packs up the kids and moves back to her hometown to escape the fallout. Trouble is – her problems don’t stay behind in California, but follow her all the way to Omaha, Nebraska.

Home is no safe haven for Ivy Winter. Danger lurks behind every smiling face. The FBI tracks her every move, hoping she’ll lead them to her fugitive husband, while evil men threaten her family’s safety to get what they want.

Agent Samson Sinclair is assigned to keep an eye on Ivy. He is her only ally against threats and suspicions that come from every side. But can he keep their relationship professional when he finds himself falling for the woman he’s supposed to be protecting?

Ivy’s attempt to assemble the broken pieces of her life may prove harder than she anticipated. Especially on her own. Will her husband’s secrets push her over the edge or into the arms of grace?

Seeking redemption in all the wrong places…

Brenna has lived most of her life just left of the right side of the law. While on vacation at a secluded ski resort, her past finally catches up with her. Her father, who she hasn’t seen since she ran away at sixteen, suddenly wants to reconcile.

Before she can make sense of that overture, the FBI whisk her off to Minneapolis. In exchange for a clean slate, she is recruited to work as a mole in the home of known mobster and suspected drug lord, Anthony Giordano. Under the alias, Raven Black, she becomes nanny to Giordano’s children.

Brenna’s hands are full just learning to mother two spoiled kids, while her main objective, finding information that would put their father away for life, remains elusively out of reach.

Will the secrets she discovers bring absolution from the past she’s tried so hard to leave behind or simply tear her heart in two? 

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To read sample chapters of these books or any of my other novels, visit my author webpage.


Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Two hearts + bad economy = Frugal Valentine's

Today is Valentine’s Day. You probably already know that. The gaudy red and pink hearts everywhere usually give it away.

I think Valentine’s was invented to help us all get through a long winter. Christmas is already two months past and spring is slow in coming. We’ve been hibernated indoors far too long, eating soup and watching reruns of Bones and NCIS because there’s never any new shows on. A box of chocolates and a bright bouquet of flowers can make all the difference between surviving the winter blahs or sticking a fork in the toaster just for the thrill of it.

In this time of economic decline, you may not have the money to go all out on Valentine’s and buy diamonds or flowers or even chocolates (although chocolate has been known to save lives). So I thought maybe I would share some ideas for Valentine’s Day on the cheap:

1. Dress your children up and send them door to door begging for candy as if they think it is Halloween. Neighbors may take pity on them and hand out chocolate hearts.

2. Make a dinner out of everything in your refrigerator and pantry that is red. Your husband will love your creativity. Unless all you have is ketchup and salsa.

3. Rent a movie from RedBox, turn the sound up on your stereo so loud it thumps and crackles, shut the lights off, and pretend you’re at the theatre.

4. Turn your evening into a 60's musical and sing how you feel, like Andy Williams and Julie Andrews did in the video above.

Leave a comment and share your ideas for a frugal Valentine’s Day that will still show the ones you love that you love them…or that you need to get out more. 

Profundity Made Simple

Have you noticed the many deep and profound quotes/sayings out there on twitter and facebook flashing on your monitor by the hundreds? There is just so little time in a day to read them all. To be quite truthful, I barely give them a glance anymore. Profound quotes have become the new Bazooka bubblegum comic. A quick read and then discard. Sometimes, if it seems extra profound, I pass it along by clicking RT or share, but it has to be really, really deep.

Just today I’ve read, “If you trust the winner within you, you will win.”

Win what? I don’t even know what that means. I did not press RT. Sorry. It wasn’t profound enough for me. I have higher standards than that.

Next I read, “The rainbows of life follow the storm.”

Really?! Okay, tell me something I don’t know. Like: “After the rain, it’s always soggiest.”

My personal favorite, as a writer, has to be this jewel: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this quoted and still can’t remember the name of the guy that supposedly wrote it. Not that it matters. After being beat over the head five hundred times with a broken bottle, you don’t necessarily want to feel the weight of the full bottle. So, I probably won’t look up his book and read it. It sounds a little too profound for me.

Besides, I have about five hundred books already that I haven’t read, and depleting that stack is a massive endeavor while trying to keep up on all the quotes and sayings tweeted and facebooked daily.

For those of you who really love quotes, here are a few of my own:

“A book unread gathers dust, unless it’s an ebook.”

“Pray Valentine’s Day doesn’t land in the middle of your lady’s PMSing.”

“There is light at the end of the tunnel, unless it’s a really cloudy night.”

“Never feed your dog salsa and beans.”

“Hollywood is stranger than fiction because they won’t stick to the manuscript.”

Do you have a favorite quote or saying? Come on! Share it with us.

Pre-Game Bologna!

The Big Game is almost here! I’m not really sure why watching men in short pants and big shoulder pads run into each other and grunt a lot is considered a national pastime but each to their own. I do know that cold cuts, crackers, tiny hotdogs, and chips are nearly sold out at the grocery store. Apparently, it’s also a day of continuous grazing. 

Michelle Obama should be all over that! Put a ban on Super Bowl pigging out!

 For the children.

I prefer to watch a great movie instead of sports, with or without popcorn. Or even a pretty good movie. Now if only Hollywood would make one. Waiting…still waiting…

Football does seem to be rather popular in America. Probably because senseless violence has always been a form of good clean fun for us folks in the civilized Western world. We enjoy watching men pound each other to a pulp, whether in boxing, football, hockey, or a really lively spelling bee.

Not to say that I don’t enjoy watching a little violence myself. I just prefer mine on the big screen.

Braveheart was an exception to the rule of critics being wrong. Mel definitely deserved the Oscar!

So, when the Oscars come around, I stay up to watch (most of it) and make sure I learn which pictures win the most hoopla – cause then I’ll know which ones to avoid. The movie critics are accurate with their thumbs up about as often as a forecaster is accurate about weather. Or let me put it another way. Movie critics agree with the general public’s preferences about as often as politicians tell the truth.

This is William Wallace during halftime at SuperBowl I

I really can’t tell you which two football teams are playing tomorrow. Sorry, if you came here for Super Bowl info. I’m sort of the anti-football info blog of all time. But I do know a lot of absolutely worthless facts I learned in school. Darn those teachers! Filling my head with nonsense when I could have memorized all the sports statistics that my dad and brothers learned instead.

By the way, if you’re like me and don’t give a ring of bologna for football, download one of my books instead. Now that’s entertainment!

Get Out of Jail Free Card

It seems as though everyone tries to play a Get out of jail free card these days. If you don’t have your own card or mental illness, just watch enough reality television and you will be sure and see something that will fit your needs.

Like the man who worked for the FBI with top security clearance who managed to steal thousands of classified documents and when arrested for the crime, immediately diagnosed himself with Hoarders disease. (That would be the sickness that infects individuals with the inability to throw away a milk carton, plastic bag, or rat turd, cause someday they might need it. Or maybe they’re just saving the environment for the rest of us by sacrificing themselves on the dunghill of their own making. Not sure if we should thank them or institutionalize them.)

What was this man going to do with thousands of classified documents? Probably not sell them…right? Maybe he was out of old newspapers to line the rats nest.

I personally have never watched Hoarders or Jersey Shore or Next Top Model… I’m not bragging – just admitting my dislike of so-called reality shows. The commercials scare me enough. I once watched an episode of Survivor and started having anger management problems. I don’t think I should be allowed anywhere near an island of people that irritating. After all, Menopause is a sickness too and a pretty good card to play after taking out twelve over-tanned, bug-eating, whiny weirdos, slowly and methodically with a scope and rifle.

I think it all started with the race card that O.J.’s lawyer played and it’s just gone downhill from there. 
We’ve got the Post-Partum Blues card if you murder your children, the Kleptomania card if you’re a celebrity that likes to shoplift, the Addiction card for pretty much any and every form of bad behavior these days, the I lost my job card for men that go on a shooting spree at their last place of employment, the McDonalds served my McNuggets too slow card for crazy people that jump through the drive up window and beat the poor kid working there, the Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun card for the woman who disappears for months with the guy they met on the internet and everyone thinks they’re dead, the Devil Made me Do It card for people without an imagination, and my personal favorite – My Dead Mother Did It. Oh wait, that was Psycho. But it would be a great card to use if you owned a creepy motel and murdered women in the shower.

The Shadow of Your Smile (Book Review)

                                          The Shadow of Your Smile by Susan May Warren

About the book:
A beautiful blanket of snow may cover the quaint town of Deep Haven each winter, but it can’t quite hide the wreckage of Noelle and Eli Hueston’s marriage.
After twenty-five years, they’re contemplating divorce . . . just as soon as their youngest son graduates from high school. But then an accident erases part of Noelle's memory. Though her other injuries are minor, she doesn’t remember Eli, their children, or the tragedy that has ripped their family apart. What’s more, Noelle is shocked that her life has turned out nothing like she dreamed it would. As she tries to regain her memory and slowly steps into her role as a wife and mother, Eli helps her readjust to daily life with sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-heartwarming results. But can she fall in love again with a man she can’t remember?
Will their secrets destroy them . . . or has erasing the past given them a chance for a future?

My Review: Once again Susan May Warren has written a story that is wholly relatable. Who hasn’t wondered at some point in his/her life: What if I’d done that instead of this, moved there, married that person, pursued that path… made different choices? The author has taken a well-used story arc – lost memory & forgotten family – and made it fresh again.

When Noelle falls on an icy road and hits her head, she loses more than just her memory of the past twenty-five years. She loses the middle-aged, woman she has become. She looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize the frumpy housewife and mom staring back at her. How could she have let herself fall apart like this? Her life has taken such a one-eighty from where she thought she’d be that it shocks and confuses her. How could she possibly throw away all her dreams and move to a tiny little town far from the city and the art she loves, to live with a grumpy man who doesn’t seem to get her at all? Is this really her life??

The Shadow of your Smile takes you into the hearts and souls of a family barely hanging on to the frayed edges of their lives, marriage, and commitments. Ripped apart by personal tragedy three years earlier, Eli and Noelle have been living separate lives for a long time. With her memory wiped clean, Eli thinks he may have a chance to win her back, but secrets they’ve both been keeping may well tear them apart before love can find a way to heal the brokenness.

The Shadow of your Smile isn’t just a story about starting over or second chances, but about trust, about faith, about letting go of the death grip we have on the door to our hearts, and allowing the person that God has given us to share our lives with access to our dreams, our struggles, our pain. Because we aren’t meant to walk this road alone.

And yes – this is a three-hankie tearjerker story, so get your box of tissues and curl up for a great read!

Read the story behind the story here: http://www.susanmaywarren.com/books/the-shadow-of-your-smile.
 

Blog tour schedule:http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/text/13448479) 

About Susan: Susan May Warren is an award-winning, best-selling author of over twenty-five novels, many of which have won the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, the ACFW Book of the Year award, the Rita Award, and have been Christy finalists. After serving as a missionary for eight years in Russia, Susan returned home to a small town on Minnesota’s beautiful Lake Superior shore where she, her four children, and her husband are active in their local church.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder ofwww.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota, where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!)

A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at:www.susanmaywarren.com.
 
Link to buy the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1414334834/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=sprightly-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1414334834

I was given a free copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

Celebration With A Giant Vice

Most of you think of today as Martin Luther King Day, but for me it's Mammogram Day. Or if you want the literal title, Stick Your Boobs in a Giant Vice and Tighten Down Day. 

Either way, it was a relief when it was over and they released me from my bondage. I was able to pull my string-tied wraparound shirt shut and meander back to my curtain-covered dressing room, pull up the objects of my husband’s affection from the floor and plop them comfortably back into my sexy Victoria Secret underwire bra where they could rest in peace. That heavy-duty wire does all the work for you these days. It’s amazing.

When I was younger and didn’t need underwire to hold things up and in place, life was good and Victoria Secret didn’t exist, which made life even better. I was comfortable watching underwear commercials back then. Now I feel like I’ve fallen into a brothel whenever one comes on.

Anyway...The good news about mammograms is that their machines are now much more “comfortable” than they used to be. At least that’s what the technician informed me of before shoving me up against the thing, pulling my breast out to an abnormal length, cranking the vice down on it until it was flat and smooth as a Cracker Barrel pancake, and then tightening the screws a bit more just for safe keeping. Honestly, if I were young again, that whole procedure would not even be possible. But with fifty years of gravity on my side, it did seem more “comfortable” than in years past.

So happy Mammogram day or SYBGVTDD day! Go out and get yours too. It’s an experience not to be missed.

The entrails of suspense accounting

It’s almost that time again. No – not the end of our New Year’s resolutions, although from the shrinking number of people visiting Anytime fitness, it’s that time too.

What I’m talking about is Tax Time. Everyone should soon be getting their W2’s or 4’s or whatever number they are and making appointments to visit their local friendly accountant.

I know all about tax time because I’m married to an accountant. You probably thought suspense writers were usually married to secret agents or tycoons, or at the very least, a foreigner wrongly accused of being a terrorist. But no – the best suspense writers are married to accountants, snowplow drivers, and grocery store managers. We have to do something to break the monotony, so we write.

People that aren’t married to accountants always think it would be great to have all that free tax information at their fingertips. Believe me, I don’t even have to use my fingers. He loves to tell me all the new rules, regulations, codes, forms, and conversations he has with IRS officials on the phone, without any probing whatsoever. The problem is, like with all free information, you tend to not remember any of it. And you don’t truly appreciate the gift you’ve been given. At least I don’t.

It’s not that I don’t want to understand, but that my brain is not wired to understand. I have what they call, Tax Law/Accounting phobia. Whenever I hear any of it, my brain freezes up, afraid that if any of this information is absorbed, I will automatically start speaking in abbreviations and get that sarcastic tone when I talk about people who think it’s okay to write off their Halloween costume as work-related attire because they wore it once to an office party.

Sometimes people ask me tax questions as though my being married to an accountant will make my answers legit. I could say anything and they’d believe me. Sure, you can get a refund for the money you spent on gas to drive 500 miles to pick up an old couch you bought on Craigslist for your home office naps. No problem. Can you reference me as your source of information? You betcha!

Accounting is an art form. One that I am not even close to understanding. Sort of like one of the art exhibits I saw recently at a university, where a young woman’s exhibit looked like the entrails of a cow slung across the floor and weird inner body parts hanging on the walls. Was I shocked? No. I’ve watched way too many episodes of CSI to even blink, but I just stood there wondering - Why?? Why go to all that trouble? Did it have a secret meaning? Was there actually something to learn from the ugly mess, or was it just her way of standing out from the crowd?

Okay, I just went down a really crazy rabbit trail. Or was that an entrails trail? Sorry.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: don’t ask a fiction writer for tax information. We love to make things up, but the IRS frowns on creative tax returns. And a word of advice: take a voice recorder to your meeting with your accountant, cause, believe me, you won’t remember a word that he says.

Ps. This was written as a glowing tribute to my wonderful, hard-working, accountant husband who won't see the light of day for another four months.