16th – 19th July 2014

Summer Reads Scavenger Hunt kicks off today and I’m so excited to be a part of it! Welcome to everyone and thanks for stopping by. So what is the Scavenger Hunt all about? Well…

I was lucky enough to team up with a ton of other authors and be a part of the scavenger hunt to make your summer a little more exciting. What better way for authors to do that than not only rec some great books, but to include in it a scavenger hunt with a HUGE giveaway with signed books and amazon gift cards!

Here is the info you need to participate:

The Summer Reads Scavenger Hunt will run until midnight on SUNDAY (19^th July). To enter to win FORTY signed paperbacks by a wide range of authors PLUS $30 worth of Amazon Gift Cards, simply hop around ALL participating stops, collect all of the highlighted numbers, add them together, and then go enter the requested details along with your calculated answer in the ENTRY FORM. You can find more information on how the stop works HERE. All stops will direct you to the next place to hop across to. And don’t worry if you get or join late, because the entire list of participating authors can be found HERE.

As part of the hop, I’ve been linked with author Wendy Beck who writes contemporary paranormal romance. She is generously giving away an ebook of each of her titles 9^th Life and The Forgotten.

Here is the Rafflecopter link to the giveaway. It runs until July 19^th so make sure you get your entry in!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’m doing a giveaway of a couple ebooks and signed bookmarks over on author Alex Nader’s website here alexnaderwrites.wordpress.com so stop in for a chance to win!

And now, onto my post. Make sure you keep your eyes open for that number within my post you need for the scavenger hunt. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding it.

Summer reads… summer reads. What to write about summer reads? Well, I will admit I spend most of my summer reading. I love waking up early in the morning, before my kids wake up because they’re all teenagers and don’t crawl out of bed before noon, and grabbing a book. I go out on the deck with my breakfast and read.

I can plow through a book a day, depending on the author. I do have my favorites though, books that I tend to revisit over long breaks like summer so I can savor them a little more. This summer happens to be packed with new releases that I’m excited to read, so I’m going to give you my top 21   summer reads. Odd number, right? (See the second paragraph of this post ) Some will be favorites that I’m re-reading, ones I’d take with me to a desert island, and others will be new ones I’m excited to read, or ones I am counting down the days until I can get my hands on them.

Without further ado….

Victoria Michael’s  Top 21Summer Reads

• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – what summer would not be complete without a trip to eighteenth century Scotland?
• Written in my Heart’s Won blood – by Diana Gabaldon *this is the latest in the Outlander series and just came out in June.
• Sawyer by Lori Foster
• Morgan by Lori Foster
• Gabe by Lori Foster
• Jordan by Lori Foster (can you see I absolutely love all Lori Fosters books?)
• Air Bound by Christine Feehan *this was a new release in her Sisters of the Heart series
• Cress by Marissa Meyer – This one is at the top of my TBR list for sure.
• The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness *this is HOT off the presses and is probably what I’m reading as you read this post
• Born of Fury by Sherrilyn Kenyon *this is the latest release in her League Series which I adore
• 1001 Dark Nights by Larissa Ione *this is a novella but goes with her Demonica series
• One for the Money by Janet Evanovich – I haven’t spent enough time with Joe Morelli this summer so I’m going to jump into Janet’s Stephanie Plum series so I can snuggle up to the delicious detective for a spell.
• Marked by Midnight by Lara Adrian *this is a novella that goes with her Midnight Breed Series which is a great paranormal series.
• Crave the Night by Lara Adrian – this book releases in August and I can’t wait!
• No Limits by Lori Foster – This one comes out in August and I am counting the days for it!
• Straddling the Line by Jaci Burton *The latest in her Play by Play Series
• Shadow Spell by Nora Roberts – Love this series
• The Queen of Zombie Hearts by Gena Showalter – *doesn’t come out until late September but I’m excited about it so I’m listing it! It’s the third book in her White Rabbit Chronicles
• Dark Skye by Kresley Cole *releases in early August and is the latest in her Immortals After Dark series which is fantastic. I love her writing and would read anything by her!
• Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati – love this series more than I can say. If you like Outlander, you MUST give this a try. I can’t speak highly enough of this whole series.
• Oh who am I kidding, if you know me at all, you know I will definitely be re-reading for the ten thousandth time in my like Dark Lover by JR Ward. Wrath is mine… I just can’t seem to stay away from him and really, why would I want to??

So these are my top 21  reads for the summer. Will I get through all of them? Not sure- but I think I’ll come close. I have a week at the beach so my ipad will be working overtime to keep up. Did you have any of them on your summer reads list too? If I missed something you’re dying to read, let me know! I’m always looking for new things to put on my TBR list.

More importantly… were you able to figure out what my number was??

The next stop on the Scavenger Hunt is with author Maria Landry http://sweetmarie-83.blogspot.ca Be sure you stop by her site tomorrow for the next number or, if you have all of your numbers and are ready to enter, then hop across to the Summer Reads Scavenger Hunt Entry Form.

Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway from Wendy Beck to win ebook copies of her amazing books!!

Feel free to share the giveaway info with anyone who might be interested! The more the merrier

Have a  great summer!

V

I’ve also been busy writing more of the next books in the Hidden Series and it’s felt great. Agnes Whittman still keeps me laughing every time she pops up in a scene and I can’t wait for you all to read more of her antics. CONCEALED has been getting some great reviews lately so I want to thank everyone who is taking the time to review on Amazon or Goodreads or even recommend it to a friend.

I was thrilled when CONCEALED received a rating of 8.94 from the RomCon Reader Rating committee! I was even listed in the RomCon Reader…

The comments and feedback the reader panel offered really made me smile.

• Loved the characters. All the secondary characters were as well developed as the main and made the story work. Never saw the end coming. Wonderfully done twist and well researched to make the ending believable.
• I loved this book and would gladly read anything by this author. Very well written and suspenseful.
• I enjoyed the book. Little Faith’s comments made me laugh.

Because of that, I want to do a couple giveaways to say thank you to everyone! The first giveaway is over on Goodreads. I have two signed, print copies of CONCEALED up for grabs so make sure you check it out.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Concealed

by Victoria Michaels

Giveaway ends July 19, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The second giveaway is going to be for some signed books marks I had made. I took a picture of them so you all can see how cute they all turned out!

If you want to enter to win one, I’m giving away TEN so give it a try Here’s the Rafflecopter for that giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This is just my way of saying thank you for all the support! Feel free to share!

MWAH!

V

My very first blog tour is over and what a great time I had! Thanks to all the bloggers who generously agreed to participate. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who were interested in reading Concealed and was blown away by the reviews! I had the opportunity to make a few guest posts which was a ton of fun, and I’d love to do it again.

Thanks to the ladies over at Literati Author Services for organizing the event and for all their work to make it happen. It was so fun and easy, I appreciate it more than I can say. If you are an author and are interested in doing a tour, look them up!

I also have to thank everyone who has left a review of Concealed, you’ve all been so wonderful, first and foremost for taking the time to do it, but also because everyone is taking great care to not give away any spoilers that might keep someone from enjoying the story line to it’s fullest. I cannot say how much I appreciate your kind words.

There is still a little bit of time left in the giveaway! If you’re interested in entering, better do it quickly before time runs out tomorrow

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/f229a499/ 

So what’s next? Well….

I finished the first draft of Evaded. It is still most definitely a work in progress so don’t get too excited, but it’s getting there and I’m ready to dig in and do some editing to make it the best it can be. I’ll keep you all posted as we go, but because so many have asked- Evaded will center around Melissa and her return to Elton. All your favorites will still make an appearance in Evaded, not to worry. But while Sydney and Wade were dealing with their situation, Melissa found herself in some trouble over in Europe…

I have a few fun items from Concealed that I’ll be posting as a additional fun blog tour wrap up, reviews and posts that you might have missed.

A final thanks to all the bloggers who participated in the blog tour! Be sure to stop over to their sites and give them some love  and get some great book recommendations and reviews.

BookGroupies

Deal Sharing Aunt

Reading Is My Breathing

Up all night read all day

A Trail of Books Left Behind

Black Words-White Pages

Kaidans Seduction

Twin Opinions

Becca’s book Review

For the Love of Books

Mean Girls Love Books

Pete de violet

Typical Distractions 

dear brighton

Obsession is a book

Sarah Says Read Romance

Steele Reviews

Straight Shootin’ Book Reviews

Busymomof3blog

I Feel the Need, the Need to Read

Jazzy Book Reviews

Mama’s Reading Break

Ripe For Reader

A is for Alpha B is for Books

Concupiscent Bibliophile

Cruising Susan Book Reviews

Literati literature lovers

My Daily Romance

Read-Love-Blog

Sassy Girl Books

All Romance Reviews ~ Review

Brooke Blogs

Kota’s Book Kollection

Literati Book Reviews

mustreadbooksordie

Once Upon A Page

paranormal book club

Zili in the Sky

I’m getting excited about the upcoming blog tour I’m doing at the end of the month! Thanks to Literati Author Services for all they are doing to make it happen.

I have to admit I’m also a little nervous, I’ve never done one before but I’ve got some fun things to share about myself and Concealed. I’m excited to get to know more people and answer questions about the book. There will be giveaways and lots of fun tidbits to share so I hope you will all check out the tour and join in the fun!

This has been a crazy month since the release of Concealed, but so exciting. I was absolutely shocked when Concealed stormed up the ranks and made it well into the top 100 in Romantic suspense!! What a wonderful surprise it was! It was such a great treat and once again I have to thank all of you for your support, reviews, posts, tweets and messages. Spreading the word about Concealed like that makes all the difference.

Stay tuned for more on the blog tour as we get closer to the end of the month!

I’m back from vacation and was thinking, what better way to start off the new year than with a giveaway?! I couldn’t think of one soooooo I have two, signed print copies of CONCEALED up for grabs. Tweet about the giveaway or go like my NEW author page on Facebook to enter. That’s all you have to do and you might win!

I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! I’ll be spending it watching the ball drop with my husband, the kids, and some really good friends. Be safe everyone and I hope 2014 is full of wonderful things for each of you!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Before I get completely swept up into it all, I wanted to take a minute and say thank you to all of you. Putting a book out there is a scary thing. Frankly- it’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done. There have been times this last year where I have wanted to throw up over it all, but somehow I managed to get through the the process and finally publish the book, which has a whole other set of terrors.

You all have been wonderful, supportive and kind. The messages and emails have made me smile and the reviews and word of mouth recommendations are such a huge help! I know not everyone will like Concealed because it’s not everyone’s taste and that’s okay. But the fact that people are even talking about it at all, blows me away. So a big, HUGE thank you to all of you, who have bought the book, read the book, reviewed the book, told a friend about the book, blogged about the book, put it on your ‘to be read ‘shelf on Goodreads, or simply took the time to read this post.

So as the year draws to a close and I count my abundance of blessings, I wanted you all to know know that you are included in that list. You all hold a special place in my heart and your support doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you for being a part of my life and my crazy family.

Wishing you all a happy holiday season and a new year full of love, laughter… and family!

Phew! What a crazy couple of days it’s been. Concealed is available for purchase on Amazon (print and mobi), Barnes and Noble (epub), and Kobo (epub) and I want to thank everyone who has gone out and bought a copy or tweeted, posted on Facebook or messaged about the release. I am truly humbled by the support I’ve received and can’t wait to hear what you think about it. Any reviews would be much appreciated!

Congratulations to the winners of the ebook and Holiday card giveaway! I had originally planned to give 2 ebooks away but when the entries went over 100, I decided to throw in a third. The winners were: Jamie B, Tracie B, and Shelly H. All of you should have received an email from me about the prize. Emails were sent to the address you used to sign up for the giveaway, so check your inboxes!

I also want to give a super special thank you the amazing TIFFANY over at The Novel Tease who not only jumped in to spread the word about the book to a number of people and reached out to bloggers (because I am completely inept at things like that) but she also wrote an amazing review of the book. If you haven’t check out The Novel Tease, you should! The ladies there do a great job of finding books you’ll love so go give them some love and find your next great read.

Click HERE to see her review of CONCEALED:

Thank you everyone!  You are amazing

V

So what’s up for grabs? There will be two winners and each will get an ebook of CONCEALED and a signed Holiday card mailed to them! I might even throw in an extra little treat, too

Here is the rafflecopter information:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you everyone for all of the well wishes. They truly mean the world to me.

Have a great day!

I am so blessed to have a wonderful friend named Barb who made all of this possible! I cannot even being to thank her enough for all her time and hard work in making the website and blog amazingly gorgeous to celebrate the release of my new book Concealed! So thank you Barb for being wonderful and such an amazing person. (You can also stop rolling your eyes because you’re the one who told me to go blog something I am truly grateful for all you have done for me!

So I posted the trailer for CONCEALED on Facebook earlier and it’s on the website now too. CONCEALED is also up on Goodreads so go put it in your TBR shelf! The book will go on sale Tuesday but until then, you can check out a preview here on the website. Concealed is a little different than my other books, more intense. There’s still plenty of fun and humor, because that’s who I am and what I love, but there are a few places in it that will get your heart pumping. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thanks to everyone for their support! The messages and emails I’ve been getting since putting up the trailer today have been amazing and I’m touched by your kindness.

I can’t wait until Tuesday when CONCEALED will be on sale! Stay tuned for more fun…