Guest Post with Author Brenda Novak and Giveway

Please welcome author Brenda Novak to RFTC. Brenda is celebrating her newest release, Home to Whiskey Creek and is here to chat.

New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author Brenda Novak is the author of more than forty-five books. A three-time Rita nominee, she has won many awards, including the National Reader's Choice, the Bookseller's Best, the Book Buyer's Best, the Daphne, and the Holt Medallion. She also runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com (her youngest son has this disease). To date, she's raised over $2 million. Brenda has a brand new small-town contemporary series out. Come meet the long-time friends who have made Whiskey Creek the “Heart of Gold Country,” with WHEN WE TOUCH (prequel novella), WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES (Book #1), WHEN SNOW FALLS (Book #2), WHEN SUMMER COMES (Book #3), HOME TO WHISKEY CREEK (Book #4) and TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (Book #6 due out October 29, 2013).

Places to find Brenda:

| Site | Facebook | Twitter | 

Day 8. 

Now we're getting pretty deep in the blog tour—and in my new Whiskey Creek series as well. We've covered the prequel novella, WHEN WE TOUCH; Book #1, WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES; Book #2, WHEN SNOW FALLS (winner of RT Book Review Magazine's Best Contemporary of 2012); Book #3, WHEN SUMMER COMES; Book #4 - HOME TO WHISKEY CREEK; Book #5 - TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and Book #6 - COME HOME TO ME. The last two books aren't out quite yet, but they are written and on the schedule for November 2013 and April 2014 respectively.

Now I'm launching out into the unknown, giving you a bit of information about where the series WILL go. But just to get everyone on the same page, you should have found SEVEN gold mining related items so far (since Whiskey Creek is located in gold country), one for each of my previous stops. You should also have noted the name of the character that was most prominently featured in each of the past posts. A perfect score wins a Whiskey Creek Fan Pack* so follow me through the whole 10-stop tour and claim yours! (If you're starting late, you can get instructions at www.brendanovak.com, where you will also find the scorecard you can update and save each day.)

Although I'm not sure what order the next three books will go in—I may change them up—I'm definitely planning to write a story about Riley Stinson. If you've been reading the series, you know he's one of the core group of friends who meet at Black Gold Coffee every Friday, and that he's a hunky building contractor who's been raising his son Jacob since he was eighteen. He and Jacob have been on their own (with a little help from his folks) because Jacob's mother went to prison before he was even born. Riley and Phoenix Fuller were seniors when they dated. They weren't together long, only three months, but those three months were hot and heavy and resulted in a pregnancy that neither one of them expected. Riley didn't even know Phoenix was pregnant when, in a jealous rage, she ran down the next girl he dated with her mother's Buick.

Now, after fifteen years, she's getting out of prison, so he's going to have to face her return to town—and her desire to get to know her son. She's been writing Jacob all along and sending money, too—what little she's been able to earn at a dime per hour in the laundry. She says nothing means more to her than her son, but Riley wishes she'd just go live somewhere else. He's not sure she's the type of mother that will be good for Jacob, and he certainly doesn't want to deal with visitation and the awkwardness of running into her all the time.

But everything that happened that day might not have gone down the way it seemed. When Phoenix returns to town, she is still insisting she was innocent, that she hadn't hurt anybody. She claims it's her innocence that gives her the strength to fight for a relationship with her son. And, at some point, Riley begins to wonder if she might be telling the truth. The facts as everyone knows them might not support her innocence, but…sometimes it takes listening with your heart to hear the truth.

As I said, this book isn't written yet, but it will be coming (and may change a great deal in my mind before I actually get it down on paper). I'm anxious to work with Riley and Phoenix and the mystery of what really happened the day everything went so wrong. I need to think of a good title for this book and the next two in the series, so if you have any suggestions, please send them my way!

So far, the Whiskey Creek series goes like this:

WHEN WE TOUCH (Digital prequel novella)

Book #1 - WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

Book #2 - WHEN SNOW FALLS

Book #3 - WHEN SUMMER COMES

Book #4 - HOME TO WHISKEY CREEK

Book #5 - TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Book #6 - COME HOME TO ME (To be released April 2014—not yet available for pre-order)

Book #7 - Possibly Riley's story

And there will be more!

Follow me on https://www.facebook.com/BrendaNovakAuthor?ref=br_tf, and visit my website at www.brendanovak.com to join my mailing list and enter my drawing for an amazing 7-night stay at a luxurious resort OR an iPad!

*Blog tour prize consists of a mug from Black Gold Coffee (fictional coffee shop in my series where the group of friends who people these stories meet every Friday), a black Amos Auto Body T-shirt (Dylan's fictional auto body shop), a free digital download of WHEN WE TOUCH (the prequel novella that kicks off the series), and autographed Whiskey Creek poster and autographed cover cards for all the Whiskey Creek books released so far!

Sometimes home is the refuge you need—and sometimes it isn't....

Adelaide Davies, who's been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She's there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran's restaurant, Just Like Mom's. But Adelaide isn't happy to be back. There are too many people here she'd rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible night fifteen years ago.

Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she's wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible—men now—are punished. But she can't, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it's better to pretend….

Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won't have anything to do with him. He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she'd rather forget. He only knows that he's finally met a woman he could love.

Purchase: | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository |

Follow the directions in each of Brenda's posts along the tour. Keep track of your answers because at the end of the tour, you'll be asked to submit them. Perfect “Character Mining Score Cards” will get a fabulous Whiskey Creek package! Full Tour Giveaway details can be found at http://brendanovak.com (as well as the “Character Mining Score Cards”) This contest is open to all US & Canada residents of the age of majority. Please see full Terms & Conditions at http://events.litconnect.com/virtual-book-tour-home-to-whiskey-creek-by-brenda-novak/