I’m back after an AMAZING weekend with my readers in Newport and Block Island, RI. We had such a great time at the Friday night Tiki Bar party and after a little bit of drama with the ferry company (they canceled the Newport boat for Saturday! ACK!) we rounded up some buses and took our friends to Point Judith, on the other side of the state, to grab the big boat to the island. We had a fun lunch at Ballard’s Inn and then the readers were set loose to discover the island that inspired the Gansett Island Series. On Sunday, we held a question and answer session for the readers to ask about the books, writing and anything else that was on their minds. It was a lively session with lots of laughs that we all enjoyed very much. We closed the weekend with a book signing and have already set our sights on next year. Thank you SO much to everyone who came to Newport this weekend. We’ll be posting some pictures here later this week and my friend David is working on a video of highlights from the weekend that we will post when it’s finished. Thanks to everyone on Team Jack, including Julie, Lisa, Holly, Isabel, Nikki, Cheryl and Dan for all the hard work this weekend to pull off such a great time for the readers. It takes a village to support an author and my village is THE BEST!

In addition to all the other excitement this weekend, we unveiled the cover of
Love After Dark, Gansett Island Book 13, and welcomed our cover model friends, newlyweds Ashley and Bryan Lopez, to the weekend along with Ashley’s identical twin sister Courtney, who designed the cover from the photos of her sister and brother-in-law. My friend Pam Sardinha took the photos, with supervision from my assistant, Julie Cupp. All in all it was a family affair! The readers loved the cover as well as the opportunity to take photos with”Paul” and his love interest,”Hope.” Yes, Hope Russell, the nurse Alex and Paul hired to care for their mother, is going to be Paul’s love interest in
Love After Dark! I’m working on the book now and how to have release and preorder info soon.

In other news, yesterday
Fatal Deception hit the stores in mass-market paperback for the first time. We also celebrated the Fatal Series’ one millionth sale yesterday! A very exciting day for Sam, Nick and me! I just found out that Harlequin is including the Fatal Series in its new Harlequin My Rewards program! Harlequin My Rewards is FREE, easy-to-use loyalty program designed to reward readers for buying Harlequin books online and in stores. During the month of July, Harlequin My Rewards members will earn 5000 bonus points when they purchase the print version of Fatal Deception. That’s enough points to redeem 1 Free book! Join today to take advantage of this bonus offer.
www.Harlequinmyrewards.com.
Finally, I want to close on a personal note by mentioning that someone very near and dear to me suffered a medical emergency yesterday that served as a reminder to all of us of how fragile and precarious life can be. Thankfully, she is going to be fine, but it was a scary day. Make sure you tell the people around you how much you love them. I’ll take my own advice by telling my faithful readers how much I love you all.
xoxo
Marie