Carmen DeSousa

Ebooks make great Christmas gifts. You can have Amazon email your friend or relative on Christmas morning, or you can print off the gift and stuff it in a card or stocking! Furthermore, if they've already read it, or it's not their taste, they can easily return it to Amazon at no cost and get something else. If you need some ideas ... here are some of my 'firsts' in collections or stand-alone stories. When Mark Waters decided to be a detective, he didn't plan to investigate ghosts.  The Library (Where Life Checks Out)  is $2.99 In every myth, there’s a modicum of truth. Prepare to believe in the unbelievable. Creatus  (They Exist)  is $2.99 A passionate romantic -suspense of love, betrayal, and obsession, She Belongs to Me will have you falling in love and wondering if you can trust anyone right up to the last page.  She Belongs to Me is $4.99 The  Creatus Series Boxe...

About ninety minutes west of Ashville, North Carolina, set in the midst of the Great Smokey Mountains, rests Nantahala, a quaint little town known as Land of the Noonday Sun . A beautiful backdrop with waterfalls, forests, whitewater, romance, passion,  family secrets,  betrayal, and murder ... W ell, in my stories anyway. If you've read any of the books in the southern romantic-suspense collection, you'll know that each novel is a stand-alone story that can be read on its own--no cliffhangers! But, I pull supporting characters who have proven their worth to star as protagonists in the follow-up stories. If you've read Land of the Noonday Sun and When Noonday Ends , you'll know that one of those characters was set with a choice at the end of the last novel. And as always, I left it to my avid-reading friends to let me know if they wanted to read her story. I'm happy to say there was a resounding YES ! So for those of you who've been waiting to see...

Before I start this post, allow me to preface by saying that by no means am I an authority on writing and editing. However, I've learned many tricks of the trade in the last few years, so since aspiring and new authors always ask, I decided to write a blog post about my process. Before I wrote my first novel, I used to be a proofreader for several publishing companies. So when I sat down to pen the next great American novel—insert laughter—I thought, "I got this!" I mean, I did this for a living. I had edited theses for graduate students, dissertations for doctorate students, blog posts for highly-respected speakers, and proofread nonfiction books for authors who held PhD's, and of course, hundreds of fiction books. But, man, was I wrong! The problem is ... like looking over my girlfriend’s shoulder while she plays chess or Scrabble, it's easy for me to   spot   her next move, whereas she’s so wound up in the overall game, she might not see the...

Amazon   sent   the book-loving world into a tailspin with its announcement of Kindle Unlimited. This service isn't the first of its kind, but  this is Amazon, so you know it's   gonna   be awesome. That's my opinion, of course, but I'm very happy with the benefits and service I receive from Amazon. I've had several Kindles, and they just keep getting better and better.  And now ... they have Kindle Unlimited, which gives me an unlimited supply of books for $9.99 a month! Considering that I read three or more books a week, with a price tag up to $9.99 (I don't pay more than $10 for an eBook), this is an awesome deal for someone like me. Oh, and I listen to another two to three books a month on Audible, so that's AWESOME! I didn't even have to do anything special. After I borrowed a book, the audio book popped into my Audible app. So, I'm reading one book at night ... I'm listening to another book while I run errands. AND, if I want, I...