Spotlight on The Carrot Marmalade Murder

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome award-winning author Meg Benjamin. Today, Meg shares her new release, The Carrot Marmalade Murder.

Blurb

Roxy and Nate are finally getting married, but murder wasn’t on the program. In the midst of her wedding prep, Roxy has to deal with Nate’s trouble-making ex who thinks she can rekindle their romance. But things get serious when the ex ends up dead in a Shavano back alley. Now Roxy needs to clear Nate’s name, sell her customers on her carrot marmalade, and find herself a wedding dress. All before it’s time to take a deep breath and confront her own wedding jitters.

Excerpt

I headed back to the kitchen to get the next bunch of trays and platters ready to go.

Nate and Kevin picked up the hotel pans with meatballs and filo packets to place on the hot trays they already had in place. I followed with the artichoke dip and crostini. We were making good time, and the waitress for the night, Evie, had just arrived. Everything seemed to be falling into place. I felt like patting someone on the back.

“Nathan?”

I heard the woman’s voice as I stepped through the door behind Kevin. Ahead of us, Nate stopped dead in his tracks, which made it sort of difficult for Kevin and me to get around him and put our food on the table.

“Nathan? That is you, isn’t it?”

I turned toward the woman’s voice, noticing that Nate was staring rigidly toward the side of the room near the posters. As I watched, a tall blonde stepped forward with a brilliant smile.

Calling her a tall blonde doesn’t really do her justice, though. In her stocking feet, she was probably about my height, but she wasn’t in stocking feet at all. She wore bright green three-inch spike heels with open toes that showed purple toenails. The skirt of her vividly green minidress ended a good two inches above her knees, while the neckline dipped low across her considerable cleavage. Her tumble of curly hair was a kind of honey gold that I doubted very much was natural but looked terrific.

She was spectacular, and apparently, she knew Nate.

Author Bio and Links

Meg Benjamin is an award-winning author of romance and cozy mysteries. Meg’s cozy mystery series, Luscious Delights from Wild Rose Press, concerns a jam-making sleuth based in the mythical small town of Shavano, Colorado. Her contemporary romance Konigsburg series is set in the Texas Hill Country and her Salt Box and Brewing Love trilogies are set in the Colorado Rockies (all are available from Entangled Publishing and from Meg’s indie line). Along with romance and cozies, Meg is also the author of the paranormal Ramos Family trilogy from Berkley InterMix and the Folk trilogy from Meg’s indie line. Meg’s books have won numerous awards, including an EPIC Award, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Holt Medallion from Virginia Romance Writers, the Beanpot Award from the New England Romance Writers, the Carly Crown Jewel of Books from the Mid-America Romance Authors, and the Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers.

Website | Personal Facebook | Author Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky | Goodreads | BookBub | YouTube | Amazon Author Page

Giveaway

Meg Benjamin will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow Meg on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

The Carrot Marmalade Murder is the seventh book in Ms. Benjamin’s Luscious Delights Mystery series, and it delivers all the ingredients I’ve come to enjoy in a cozy mystery—intrigue, romance, murder, and a charming Colorado Rockies setting.

Add a trouble-making ex, wedding jitters, and scrumptious food, and you have the perfect recipe for an entertaining read. From the start, I found myself completely immersed in the story. The characters—both delightful and not-so-delightful—pulled me along, and I kept turning pages, eager to uncover what would happen next. I found myself becoming surprisingly invested in their choices, relationships, and tangled lives, which made the twists and turns all the more satisfying.

This is the kind of book that makes you want to put everything else aside and settle in for “just one more chapter”—only to realize that several chapters have disappeared. My advice? Set aside a large block of reading time, because once you begin, you may find it difficult to stop.

Well done!




Spotlight on Heidenröslein: The Little Rose on the Heath

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author Christopher Whittaker. Today, Christopher shares his new release, Heidenröslein: The Little Rose on the Heath

Blurb

Two men. Two worlds.

One war that will remake them both.

Peter Schiller, a disciplined officer from privilege, is trained to lead—but not for what war truly demands.

Günther Klein, a working-class recruit, is thrown into the trenches and forced to learn fast or die.

In the mud and ruin of the Great War, rank and class begin to dissolve. Orders blur into instinct. Honour bends under necessity. What remains is survival—and the thin, unspoken bond forged between two men who should never have met.

But war does not end when the guns fall silent.

Heidenröslein is a powerful, unflinching story of war, brotherhood, and the quiet, irreversible cost of becoming what the battlefield demands.

Excerpt

1914

The kitchen was small, but it carried the quiet dignity of people who owned little and cared for everything.

Against one wall stood a heavy sideboard of dark timber, polished by years of careful hands rather than luxury. Fine China sat arranged behind glass doors, each piece positioned with deliberate precision. The plates were reserved for Sundays, feast days, or visits important enough to justify the risk of using something fragile. Crystal wine glasses hung above them, catching the weak morning light and holding it in muted amber reflections.

Nothing in the room was fashionable.

Everything in it was treasured.

In the center stood a small round table worn smooth at the edges where elbows, plates, and years of conversation had rubbed away the varnish. The stove and icebox stood side by side beneath the far wall, black iron beside chipped white enamel, both old enough to have become part of the family itself. Beneath the kitchen window ran a long washing trough, damp to the touch, carrying the faint scent of soap, starch, and boiled cabbage that seemed to linger permanently in the wood.

At it stood Frau Klein.

She held a cup beneath the water, slowly moving the cloth around its rim although it had already been cleaned twice over. Her hands worked from instinct now, broad and reddened from years of labour, fingers thickened from kneading dough, wringing cloth, hauling water, carrying coal, and doing every invisible task required to keep a household alive.

She had once been handsome in the soft, rosy-cheeked way of country girls.

Now life had settled heavily upon her.

Author Bio and Link

Chris lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife Dianne.

Amazon Buy Link

Giveaway

Christopher Whittaker will be awarding a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow Christopher on the rest of his Goddess Fish tour here.

Sameness Is Not Sustainability

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

In a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog, writer/photographer Kelsey Allagood shared the following insights:

We writers talk a lot about sustainability. About how to not burn out, how to protect the work, how to make space for our creative selves while also having to pay rent and answer emails. We talk less about how dynamic that process actually is. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that sustainability is a state I can achieve, or an end goal, like once I’ve figured out my morning routine or my word count goal or my relationship to social media, I can then stay there. I will have achieved it: the State of Balance™.

Unfortunately, the writing life (mine, at least) has never been still. We get jobs. We lose jobs. A family member moves in. A season shifts. Our relationship to the work shifts—sometimes we’re deep inside it and sometimes we’re circling it from the outside like maybe we’ve forgotten what it’s for. And maybe the balance we worked so hard to build a year ago might not even be the right balance for who we are now.

What I’ve had to learn, repeatedly, is that the adjustments themselves are the practice. Noticing that the work has gone quiet and turning toward it again without self-recrimination (personally, this is the hardest). Or noticing that I’ve been in production mode for so long that I’ve stopped reading, stopped dreaming, stopped absorbing anything, and choosing to open a window. Noticing that I’ve been waiting for inspiration and actually what I need to do is just sit down. These are micro-corrections. They’re so small that sometimes I don’t recognize them as acts of craft.

But they are. They’re the same intelligence that keeps us upright on one leg.

I don’t think we master balance in our writing lives any more than we can master tree pose. I certainly haven’t mastered either. What I’ve gotten better at—slowly, inconsistently, much like my yoga practice—is recognizing when I’m starting to tip. Making the adjustment a little faster. Stopping expecting the stillness to last and starting to trust that I can find it again, not because I’m stable, but because I’ve practiced returning.

I keep coming back to yoga the way I keep coming back to writing. Not because I’ve gotten good at it. Because every time I come back, I remember what it feels like to be in the body I actually have, in the life I’m actually living, making the small corrections that keep me here.

Source: Writer Unboxed

Book Blast: The Tale of the Prince and the Spider

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author Sasha Hopkins. Today, Sasha shares his new release, The Tale of the Prince and the Spider.

Blurb

Prince Alexander is a boy filled with courage, laughter, and light, until a chance encounter with a mysterious new “friend” changes everything. Trapped in a web of fear and silence, he must find the strength to fight back against a dark trickster who wants to steal his voice, his joy, and his future.

The Tale of the Prince and the Spider is a modern fairytale for children, parents, and anyone who has faced fear in silence. Told with warmth, honesty, and hope, it reveals how secrets can poison, how love protects, and how even the smallest voice can grow into a roar.

Through Alexander’s journey, readers discover that pain does not define us—courage does. His story is both a thrilling adventure and a gentle reminder that you are stronger than your fears, your voice matters, and you are never alone.

This is more than a tale of princes and monsters. It is a story for every family who longs for healing, resilience, and light in dark times. Beautifully written to spark conversations between children and adults, it invites readers to talk openly about bravery, truth, and the power of standing tall.

Excerpt

One sunny morning, Alexander started an adventure. The sun shone bright like a golden bell, lighting up hills covered in green grass, and wildflowers—yellow, purple, red—spread out like a painter’s canvas. The wind carried scents of dirt and sweet clover, tickling his nose as he rode Menace, his brown horse, whose fur coat gleamed like a soldier’s sword. Menace’s hooves thumped the dirt road, kicking up dust that sparkled. Alexander held the reins tight, feeling them rub his hands, the breeze messing up his hair as his saddle creaked along with the swaying trees above.

Bushes shook—a rabbit darted past; a hawk’s shadow soared overhead. The road stretched on, but where trees grew thick, shadows moved, hinting at a forest full of secrets. Menace huffed, ears twitching, and Alexander patted his warm, scratchy neck. “Keep going, boy,” he said quietly, his heart beating with excitement.

Through the kingdom he went, past roads busy with familiar smiling people who stopped to cheer, their voices lifting him up. But farther out, it got quiet, the land wide and free. With a lion’s bravery, a fire’s strength, and a heart full of love, he rode into the unknown.

Author Bio and Links

Sasha Hopkins is a father of five and a storyteller from Melbourne, Australia. His journey has been shaped by both love and hardship. As a child, Sasha endured trauma that left deep scars, yet he chose not to remain silent or let those experiences define him. Instead, he transformed his pain into a story of courage, resilience, and hope.

He wrote The Tale of the Prince and the Spider during a period of recovery in Western Australia, creating it as a gift for his children, Winter, Hunter, Hudson, Navy, and Orion. What began as a father’s offering of love became a timeless fairytale for families everywhere: a reminder that even in life’s darkest moments, light can be found, voices can be heard, and healing is always possible.

Through his writing, Sasha shares a powerful message: your past does not diminish you, and speaking out is an act of bravery that can inspire others. When he isn’t writing, Sasha is adventuring with his kids, encouraging them to embrace adventure, laughter, and the strength within themselves.

Goodreads | Amazon Buy Link

Giveaway

Sasha Hopkins will be awarding a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow Sasha on the rest of his Goddess Fish tour here.

The Uniqueness of You

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

Here’s a thought-provoking reflection from international speaker and bestselling author Joyce Meyer:

Nothing good comes from comparing yourself to someone else—trying to imitate, compete with, or outdo others. The more you compare your life to that of those around you, the less you’ll enjoy the life God has given you.

God didn’t create you to be like someone else. He created you to be unique and special, so why would you try to be anything other than who you are?

You are handcrafted—fearfully and wonderfully made. God has specially and uniquely qualified you to do something no one else can do. Stay encouraged. God has something special planned for your future. Resist the temptation to compare yourself to other people. Trust God and allow Him to use you in ways that are unique to you.

Source: Quiet Times with God by Joyce Meyer

On Letting Go

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

A long-time fan of bestselling authors and coaches Marc and Angel Chernoff, I look forward to reading their emails and blog posts. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post:

A big part of practicing letting go is gradually renewing your own faith in yourself. This “renewed faith” means finding the willingness to live with uncertainty, to feel your way through each day, to let your intuition guide you like a flashlight in the dark. It’s about standing firmly on your own two legs in the present, without the crutches you’ve been holding on to, and gradually taking small steps forward.

You are strong enough to take those steps!

You’ve got this!

So what if, for today, you choose to believe that you have enough and you are enough in each and every moment? What if, for today, you choose to believe that you are strong enough to move forward one step at a time? What if, for today, you choose to accept people exactly as they are, and life exactly as it is? What if, as the sun sets on today, you choose to let go and celebrate your daily progress? And what if, tomorrow, you choose to do it all over again?

Practice making those choices…

Practice letting go and renewing the faith you once had in both yourself and the world around you.

Note: I highly recommend subscribing to Marc & Angel’s website.

Blurb Blitz Tour: Cops in Space

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome back author Gail Koger. Today, Gail shares her new release, Cops in Space.

Blurb

Once upon a time, I was a “normal” teenager. Now I’m a galactic cop with a deadly predator as my boss. I get to deal with flesh eating monsters, alien babies, hunky warlords, space battles and not so bright bad guys. Plus, the fate of the universe rests in our hands. What could possibly go wrong? Did I mention the baby? (It’s a boy).

Excerpt

Jaxor let out a hungry wail.

Crap. I pulled his bottle out of my side pocket and held out my arms.

Qa’a plucked the baby out of the bassinet and handed him to me. Jaxor’s tentacles wrapped around my wrist as I popped the bottle of milk in his mouth. “Such a hungry little guy.” I looked up at Kaelen. “We’re gonna need more milk.”

“Xylar will provide for him,” Uncle Zarek said.

I frowned. “Who?”

Uncle Zarek gestured at the glittering blue light blossoming in front of us. “His father.”

The light faded and there stood an enormous Askole warrior in battle armor. His tentacles squirmed wildly about his snakelike features as his gaze locked on Jaxor.

“Your son is unharmed, but very hungry,” I said.

The Askole warrior carefully picked Jaxor up and a short tug of war ensued. The little guy wasn’t going to let go of the bottle or my wrist. I winced when he stung me. “Do not sting Aunty Lexi,” I admonished.

“His mother died with honor.” Kaelen inserted and helped peel off Jaxor’s sticky little tentacles.

Xylar held Jaxor against his chest like he was the most precious thing in the galaxy. “I welcome you to our clan, Lexi. I will accept you as my mate.”

“Uh. What?”

Kaelen pushed me behind him. “Lexi is my mate.”

“She is not wearing your ownership band.”

“Ownership band?” I squawked.

Uncle Zarek suddenly stood toe-to-toe with Xylar. “Lexi is blood of my blood and not yet twenty-one. She has bonded with Kaelen.”

“Jaxor marked this female as his mother. That mark allows me to claim her,” Xylar stated with absolute finality.

Author Bio and Links

I was a 9-1-1 dispatcher for the Glendale Police Department and to keep from going totally bonkers – I mean people have no idea of what a real emergency is. Take this for an example: I answered, “9-1-1 emergency, what’s your emergency?” And this hysterical woman yelled, “My bird is in a tree.” Sometimes I really couldn’t help myself, so I said, “Birds have a tendency to do that, ma’am.” The woman screeched, “No! You don’t understand. My pet parakeet is in the tree. I’ve just got to get him down.” Like I said, not a clue. “I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t get birds out of trees.” The woman then cried, “But… What about my husband? He’s up there, too.” See what I had to deal with? To keep from hitting myself repeatedly in the head with my phone, I took up writing.

Goodreads | X/Twitter | Facebook | Website | Instagram | BookBub | Amazon Buy Link | Smashwords | BlueSky

Giveaway

Gail Koger will be awarding a $15 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow Gail on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

Book Review: Theo of Golden

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Allen Levi did not expect anyone beyond his family and close friends to read this novel. A lawyer, judge, and musician, he simply wanted to test his creative limits and discover whether he “had the muscle to write a piece of long fiction.” If he succeeded, he planned to tuck the manuscript away in a drawer and return to his regular life.

Fortunately, his friends had other ideas. They persuaded him to release Theo of Golden, which he self-published in the fall of 2023. The novel sold 3,000 copies that year, followed by 24,000 in 2024, before its popularity exploded. A word-of-mouth phenomenon, its remarkable trajectory has surprised readers, booksellers, and publishers. Theo of Golden has spent 34 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List in the Paperback Trade Fiction category.

Levi has crafted a beautifully written, character-driven story that tugs at the heartstrings. Set in the fictional Georgia town of Golden, the story revolves around Theo, an elderly gentleman with old-world manners, quiet wisdom, and a genuine interest in others. From the start, an air of mystery surrounds him. The townspeople are curious about his past, but every attempt to uncover it is met with deflection.

The storyline begins when Theo visits a local coffee shop and notices ninety-two framed pencil portraits adorning its walls. Moved by the faces before him, he is inspired to connect each pencil drawing with the person represented. He buys each portrait, invites the subject of the drawing to a park bench, gifts the portrait, and then encourages them to tell their story. Theo possesses that rare gift of looking into a person’s eyes, listening without judgment, and walking alongside them through seasons of joy and sorrow, hope and regret.

A colorful supporting cast appears, among them a night janitor whose daughter is hospitalized after a tragic accident, a gifted young cellist, a homeless woman struggling with mental health issues, a bookstore owner facing bankruptcy, and the prolific artist who created the original portraits.

Levi has a wonderful eye for detail and an extraordinary gift for creating a strong sense of place. I could easily imagine myself walking alongside Theo as he wandered through the sidewalks of the Boughery, a gentrified neighborhood of “vintage homes and tastefully pampered lawns that like the rest of the city awaited the full pastel explosion of springtime. The fuse of that explosion was burning shorter and shorter as new blossoms opened each day in abundance.”

The following evocative passage transports the reader into Theo’s childhood:

“If Ellen had been able to see the picture in his mind at that moment, she would have beheld a little boy on a simple child’s bike, painted red with a basket on the front, pedaling vigorously through Pinhão, en route to the local baker for bread and cheese. The scent of crushed grapes is rich in his nostrils; his feet, ankles, and calves are stained slightly purple; and his elbows are spread wide, like bent wings, as he speeds by tile-fronted shops and houses under the Portuguese sky.”

The ending caught me off guard. After rereading the final six chapters and epilogue, I realized how skillfully the author has woven together the many storylines. What initially seemed like separate threads reveal themselves to be part of a richly textured tapestry.

Theo of Golden is a deeply moving novel about compassion, human connection, and the ways ordinary lives can become extraordinary. It is a book that will linger long after the final page is turned.

Highly recommended!

Author’s Website: https://www.allenlevi.com

Anything is Possible

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

Award-winning author Greer Macallister shared the following inspirational post on the Writer Unboxed blog:

You can do anything. You can write a book. You can get an agent, if that’s what you want, a real powerhouse. You can get a great advance. You can click with your editor in a life-changing way. You can emerge from the editing process with a beautiful book, a wonderful book, a book readers will love. You can write a bestseller. Then you can write another one, a second book that readers embrace just as warmly as the first. You can do this over and over. You can be a career writer for the rest of your life.

Is it hard to believe statements like this? Impossible? Well, in some cases, of course it is. Things like selling thousands of copies aren’t truly within our control. When I say “anything is possible,” I don’t mean it literally.

But I want you to believe it, for yourself, just for a while.

Writers seeking publication go through so many tough times. The “query trenches” can be so disheartening, so full of rejection. Once you’ve published a book, things aren’t much better: you still spend so much time worrying about whether your book will be well-received, and even if it is, the chance for disappointment with your second book is right around the corner.

The world will tell you that you can’t have the dream you want. Writing your book will be demoralizing, slow, rocky, or worse. Life will get in the way. Agents will reject you. You will have disappointing experiences with editors or other people important to your process. Your life’s work may be met with either a sea of negative reviews or resounding silence. Copies of your book will sit unpurchased. The odds are against you at the beginning, in the middle, the whole way through.

More than likely, you will hear, over and over, that what you want is impossible.

So, for a while, don’t listen.

Try the exercise. Tune out the voices saying that you can’t and tune in to your own voice telling you that you can.

Believe that you can make it happen. Believe that your mind is capable of a masterpiece. Believe that your book will find a grateful waiting audience. Believe that rejection is temporary, because it is. Believe that no one can stop you but you. Believe that your work deserves publication as much as anyone else’s. Believe that your idea will rise above the fray. Believe that a world is waiting for you, a community of writers, that will welcome and celebrate you as one of their own. Believe that no matter what obstacles life throws your way, you will persevere, pushing forward again and again to pursue your ultimate goal.

Believe that anything is possible.

How does that feel?

Source: Writer Unboxed