Simply Cheris. . .

It's release day for author Deatri King-Bey and the start of a new series! Cue the happy dance.  Deatri is taking us inside the Precious Jewels security agency starting with Amber. Here's why you should be excited; when it comes to story telling, Deatri is one of the best! Tell the readers about your new Precious Jewels series.  The Precious Jewels are a four sister security force to be reckoned with. Introduced in my Write Brothers series, these women kick butt now and take names later. Each sister is used to being in control of her life, so giving in to the uncontrollable things that go along with falling in love won’t be easy for them. Amber is the taskmaster of the group. Everything must be done according to plan. There is right and wrong, no gray. Not until Malachi comes along and blurs all the lines. Ruby is the fixer. If something is wrong or out of place, she figures out how to fix it. Pearl is the thrill seeker. She hasn’t met a mountain she hasn’t w...

My fan girl moment with Farrah Rochon in New Orleans Farrah Rochon is, hands down, one of my favorite authors. Not only can she write her face off, she is a die hard football fan. One day some one needs to research the link between romance writers and football. But I digress. Oh and she really did write "Who Dat" in one of my autographed copies of a book of hers! Got to love it! Next month, Farrah is taking us back to Maplesville with the provocative I Dare You. The novella will be released on Nov. 10, but you can preorder it from Amazon today. Author visit alert! Farrah is making her first trip to North Carolina!  Fall Into Romance 2014 November 7 & 8, 2014 Durham County Library, Southwest Regional, 3605 Shannon Rd. Join other romance fans for a celebration of the romance genre hosted by Southwest Regional Library. The event kicks off on Friday, November 7th with a party at Six Plates in Durham and continue on Saturday, November 8th at the Southwest Re...

As I left the movie theatre today following a showing of Dear White People , I was thankful for two things —my decision to attend Johnson C. Smith University and Spike Lee's School Daze . I wanted to LOVE this movie. I wanted to have the same experience that I had when I saw School Daze.  I didn't. This movie was trying to do a little too much and ended up being a confused over bloated tale of black kids on a white college campus. It's not as if they didn't have choices. They could've gone to other schools. A movie that I thought was going to be about busting stereotypes was just very stereotypical. Angry light skinned girl, who has to prove she's down for the cause. Self hating brown skin girl. Gay black man who doesn't fit in anywhere. Weed smoking black students. White kids who do what they want with no consequences. A reality show. Black guy dating a white girl to get a head. Black parent telling his black son he has to be better than the...

Book clubs keep authors in business. Book clubs keep authors motivated. And without book clubs, many of your favorite authors may have quit a long time ago. So, let's hear it for the book clubs! This month, I want to highlight a club that started on Facebook, but has branched out with off line events for readers and one of the most active pages on the world wide web! Building Relationships Around Books or BRAB is the brain child of Sharon Blount, who joins me today to talk about the club and, of course, books! Sharon Blount, founder and president of BRAB, with author Keith Thomas Walker in Atlanta at the book club's reader's retreat.  Why did you decide to start BRAB? I was reading so many books and I did not have anyone I could talk to about it. At one point time, I did have a physical book club but it did not work out with me. Being a new mom at the time, meeting up became difficult. Years later, I still wanted a place where i could talk about ...

I must have been in the fifth grade when I discovered Flowers in The Attic by V.C. Andrews. It was a haunting story that had me wondering how could a mother and grandmother be so cruel. With each book, Petals on The Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday and Garden of Shadows , I fell deeper in love with this author and the world she created. My favorite V.C. Andrews book has to be My Sweet Audrina. I'm thankful that Andrews legacy has been continued by writer, Andrew Neiderman. Neiderman, author of one of my favorite books, The Devil's Advocate, joins me today to talk about the upcoming Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth  and some exciting news about the Landry series. What was the first full series you wrote as VC Andrews?  Neiderman: I completed the Dollanganger series by writing Garden of Shadows and completed the Heaven series and everything since.   Tell the readers about the upcoming  Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxwort...

You know what makes a book review amazing, when the reviewer isn't afraid to tell it like it is. We as writers can learn from all book reviews, the good ones, the bad ones and even the ugly ones. Today I have the pleasure of talking to a woman who knows good books and isn't afraid to talk about them. Orsayor Simmons of The Book Referees   calls it like she sees it. (Yes, I stole her tag line. LOL) She spoke to me about books and reviews as well as a secret project. When did you decide to start reviewing books? 2008 - I wrote my first “review” on Amazon after reading a Carl Weber book.   That book was so good – I couldn’t keep it to myself.   It wasn’t until 2010 when I started Book Referees and the rest is history. What is the worst way an author can try to get you to do a review? The worse way an author can try to get a review from me is to friend me on Facebook – then start sending me purchase links to their book(s).   Of the book...