Winners of the Alison Kent Giveaway

Now it's time to announce the winners of Alison Kent's giveaway. I used the True Random Number Generator at Random.org to draw the winning numbers and here they are:

The winners of Tex Appeal are...

Commenter #15: flchen1

Commenter #5: Valerie

The winners of One Good Man are...

Commenter # 4: tweetybrd22

Commenter #2: tetewa

Ladies, please send your mailing information to amber@amberleighwilliams.com! Thank you to Alison for offering such great prizes and thank you to everyone who participated in Cowboy Lovin' Day 1! If you didn't win today, there's still a chance to win Cindy Spencer Pape's All the Way Back and Carol Finch's The Kansas Lawman's Proposal. Scroll down to enter each! Both winners will be announced next Tuesday, January 12th.

Cowboy Lovin' Kick-Off with ALISON KENT!

Welcome to Day 1 of January's Cowboy Lovin' event here at The Cozy Page! To get the party started, I'm very pleased to welcome my first guest of honor (and someone who KNOWS her cowboys), author Alison Kent! Take it away, Alison....

The first book I ever wrote was about a Wyoming cowboy. I came to romance reading through Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Lowell, and I loved their wild western men. Contemporary or historical, it didn’t matter, and so I wrote my own. I loved him. He was heroic, a man of the land, courageous, brave, hardworking, but passionately tender with the heroine, and a role model to her son. That book never sold. I didn’t know enough about making a story work. I was the queen of clichés. But I did know cowboys.

Though I live in urban cowboy country, I also live in REAL cowboy country. The odors from the pasture edging our neighborhood waft strongly at times, reminding us that we neighbor with horses and cows and goats as well as with people. As many driveways sport pickups as cars. Drive another twenty minutes, and there are any number of small ranching operations scattered around. When I was a kid, my best friend’s family had horses, and my favorite thing to do was spend Friday nights at her house then spend Saturdays riding. (This is probably where I should mention the scar on my right thigh from going completely over a horse’s back once and landing on a piece of rebar.)

Though I’m a city girl in reality, I’m a country girl at heart. Just ask the husband who had to spend a vacation week with me in West Texas where there was nothing for him to do. Me? I soaked up the heat of the day, shivered in the cool desert nights. I found settings to use in future books, and any number of the people we ran across will end up with cameo appearances.

My first book for Harlequin Temptation, CALL ME, had a cowboy hero, as did my second, THE HEARTBREAK KID. Gardner and Tyler Barnes were brothers. Wyatt Crowe in TEX APPEAL was my third true cowboy hero to write, though most of my heroes are cowboys at heart, rough and tough. Kell Harding, my Texas Ranger hero from my September 2009 Blaze, ONE GOOD MAN, was law enforcement, but still pure cowboy through and through.

Willie Nelson urges mamas not to let their babies grow up to be cowboys. Paula Cole wants to know where all the cowboys have gone. So what’s the appeal? One of my favorite blogs is Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, and Ree captures a lot of it in her posts about this hardworking, honorable breed of man, and then getting to the female heart of the matter:

And all I know is that if I ever did ponder the kind of man I’d eventually end up with, “Cowboy” wasn’t anywhere in the picture. Neither was “Rancher,” for that matter, but before I met Marlboro Man I’d never distinguished between the two. Not that there’s really any difference when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty business of the All Time Most Appealing Activity a Woman Can Possibly Witness a Man Doing — Riding a Horse.

And whew. This one’s bad, ladies. It didn’t take me but two seconds once I saw Marlboro Man on a horse to decide that there was absolutely no going back for me. And consistently, throughout the ten years we’ve been married, just one glance of him on his horse has always been nothing short of an instantaneous revival of every ounce of love, lust, respect, and adoration I’ve ever felt for Marlboro Man. He gets on a horse? It all comes rushing back. I get busy and bogged down with laundry and temporarily forget all about the butterflies and hiney tingles that caused me to drop everything and move to the boonies in the first place? I see him on a horse and it all makes sense. It’s a magical, powerful feeling.

No doubt she’s got a point, though I think sometimes it’s just about the clothes . . .

I’ve got copies of both TEX APPEAL and ONE GOOD MAN up for grabs – two of each – so four people (with US mailing addresses) who comment here can be in the running! What do you guys love about cowboys?

ALW: This contest runs until midnight (EST) of January 4th and winners will be randomly drawn and posted here at The Cozy Page the following morning, January 5th. Please check back in to see if you won. Winners depend on the number of entrants and you must be 18 years or older to enter.

Thank you, Alison, for kicking off Cowboy Lovin' and the new year in a fun way...and for bringing the butt! I LOVE it! Those are some fantastic prizes! Readers, be sure to come back tomorrow for more fun with yet another Texas lady who knows her cowboys!

My 2010 Horoscope

Taurus Year 2010 Overview



Taurus always gets tagged with things like "pleasure-seeking" and "materialistic." That's probably unfair, in most cases. You're just as good at dishing out the pleasure as you are at seeking it, and who doesn't like a few nice things around? Sadly, there's been just too much struggle in your life the last couple of years when it comes to those two very important parts of your life. Thankfully, 2010 marks the end of that long uphill struggle. Your pleasurable pursuits have been a little more restricted than you'd like over the course of the last two years or so. That's over with now, so ... game on!

The big events this year will not so much be a matter of major happenings as they will be things that have been in the works and are slowly revealing themselves. In the last two years, you've put a lot of work into what makes you happy, while Saturn transited your solar Fifth House. Now that those pressures are finally being relieved, you'll find you are finally gaining traction. Certainly, your love life and your career will feel the difference, but beyond that you'll notice things going a lot better in other departments of your life. You may have already noticed some of these changes starting to kick in; the real results start happening around your birthday in 2010.

I love reading my horoscope, especially now that I have begun in-depth research on the zodiac for an upcoming paranormal series. And...hm...I don't think I'm all that pleasure-seeking or materialistic. Though, true to Taurus characteristics, I am resistant to change. And I am told I grow horns when having a tantrum. Oh, and I thought the Reasons You're A Taurus (seen above) was fitting, too. I don't know who came up with this...and I'm not admit to any of the following. Haha.



10. One Word - Stubborn

9. Your motto: Better to fight than switch.

8. You love practical shoes. ALW: Will be wearing my cowgirl boots all January. I think those count.
7. We always know what you'll do.
6. You work too hard.
5. You've never won the "tactful" award.
4. You'll eat anything.
3. Giving up is a foreign concept. ALW: I like this one.
2. You're oh so romantic. ALW: And this one.
1. You were born under the sign of the bull!
To view your 2010 Horoscope before the new year, visit Yahoo Shine!



And don't forget to check back in on New Years Day for an exciting giveaway and post from Alison Kent to kickoff Cowboy Lovin'!

And good news on the coming soon front: the third book in my western romance trilogy, Bet It On My Heart, now has a gorgeous cover (thanks to TWRP artist Tamra Westberry) and galleys have been sent off to production. My editor tells me I should expect a release date soon. Looks like it will be a late February/early March launch so readers of Bluest Heart won't have to wait long for the complete Ridge family saga! Yay!!!

January's Cowboy Lovin'

New Years is almost here and those of you here at The Cozy Page know what that means: 30 Days of Cowboy Lovin'. It begins on New Years Day with the first in an awesome western author line-up - Alison Kent! It continues with cowboy excerpts, eye candy, Tuesday round robins, and tons of great western giveaways!

And while we're on the subject, on January 6th be here for the launch of Bluest Heart, the anticipated sequel to 1st Place More Than Magic Novella Blackest Heart. Also be the first to get a glimspe of the final story in the Ridge cowboy trilogy, Bet It On My Heart!

I'll also be making the web rounds for my Bluest Heart book tour, which means even more giveaways. Check back in for appearances!

Hope to see everyone on January 1st with Alison Kent and Cowboy Lovin'!

Happy New Year!!!

Freebie!

Howdy readers! I'm giving away a copy of Blackest Heart today at Terry's Place. Contest ends Thursday. Comment between now and then to win!

I'm also busy arranging January's festivities! Don't forget that Casey's story, Bluest Heart, launches on January 6 and plenty of friends and guest authors have decided celebrate with me with the Cowboy Lovin' event. Don't miss it! Alison Kent kicks it off on New Years Day!

*Ooh - fun side note: my editor and I have finished edits on the third book in the Ridge trilogy. It is now going to the formatting department then I will be getting a release date! Squeee! Soon, too, I should have a cover. I can't wait to introduce everyone to that naughty cowboy Keefe's story! Stay tuned...