It’s honking huge giveaway time. HUGE. Forty copies of Erin McCarthy’s Hot Finish between Smart Bitches and Dear Author because Jane and I, we loved this book. Oh, my gosh, I re-read the series so I could enjoy this book more. I’ve got twenty copies here to give away, and the book isn’t out until 3 August.
This is part one of our Save the Contemporary campaign for Hot Finish. It’s in mass market, unlike the previous first releases in the series which were in trade (although they are now re-released in mass market). In the week leading up to the August release date, we will be giving away an iPod Touch to anyone who spreads the good word about Contemporaries and Hot Finish.
So why should you want this book? Well, Cindy Hwang describes HOT FINISH by Erin McCarthy thusly:
I love love love Erin’s smart, sexy Fast Track contemporary romance series, and from the moment she introduced Suzanne and Ryder in the first book, FLAT-OUT SEXY, I knew their romance would be something special. And it absolutely is—Suzanne and Ryder have a sexual chemistry together that practically leaps off the page, and what’s so wonderful is how funny they are together too. If you love second chance romances, you’ll love HOT FINISH!
What I liked about this book, I have listed in numerical order:
- Suzanne is courageous and scared, brave and gutsy and vulnerable and determined.
- Ryder wants Suzanne back, bad. And he’s not an ass about it.
- It is HOT. SERIOUSLY. Fan ye yourself hot.
- I laughed so hard I spit my gum out. In public. It was disgraceful. The opening chapters alone hurt my abs.
Want to read it a month early?
Leave a comment and tell me: what’s one unforgettable thing you never thought you’d get, that you worked your ass off to achieve? I’ll select 20 winners and books shall be yours. You have 24 hours.
Standard disclaimer: I’m not being compensated for this giveaway. I do not have a thing to do with hot studs who drive cars fast except for my husband. Machine wash with like colors. Close cover before striking. Shake well. Ribbed for your pleasure. Standard penalties for early withdrawal.
Inner peace & self-esteem. I spent my teens and twenties practically begging people to like me, burying my own wants and needs to make others happy. Then in my 30’s after a disastrous relationship with (guess what?) a super-user, I decided that I had to become the person that I wanted to be instead of what everyone else wanted or expected me to be. I read every self-help book on the market. I did yoga and Tai-Chi and Reiki. I learned how to meditate and get in touch with the parts of me that I had hidden away for fear of being disliked. And now, ten years later, I am blissfully happy, have more friends – REAL friends – than I ever had before, and I find real joy in every day of my life. So yeah, I worked my ass off to become who I really am.
YOU ARE ALL AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I worked my ass off academically as an undergraduate—literally at the library every evening right after dinner. Skipped parties and other wildness…to be rewarded with a high GPA which won me a scholarship for grad school tuition. I only ended up paying about $2K in tuition for my Master’s from University of Michigan!
This is maybe going to sound silly or cheesy (or both), but respect from my coworkers.
I was, oddly, hired at a deli. I had zero food experience and do not, in fact, cook at home very often beyong throwing some meat on the grill or making spaghetti. And yet, I was offered the job. The first couple weeks at that job was a nightmare. I was terrified of the heat from the ovens. I had no idea how to do anything, and had to look everything up, which meant I was extremely slow.
My coworkers hated me.
I was underfoot. I slowed down production. I asked a lot of questions. I couldn’t hear the answers half the time because I was still getting used to the sheer level of volume produced in a deli (they are so noisy). I was accident prone. I wanted to quit. I was on the verge of quitting so many times.
For some reason, I never did. Instead, I spent time memorizing things. I rode my bike to work to build my stamina faster. I developed systems so I could work faster. I set myself time limits and then worked on beating them. I got home every day thinking I could not survive this level of exhaustion for much longer, but I did.
And I started making friends. I think it really sunk in that I had done it, that my work paid off, when the other ladies included me in one of the many food fights that started up when the manager was not around.
Work became fun. And the respect and friendship I earned from the ladies in the deli, that’s something I treasure very much. It’s something I still use to motivate myself. Many things are possible through sheer effort.
I’d have to say that the hardest thing I’ve ever done was to make a complete career change at age 32 – I spent my 20’s and early 30’s trying about 3 dozen careers, only succeeding in finding out what I *DIDN’T* want to do with my life. After some soul searching, I decided to go to nursing school. I put in 2 1/2 grueling years of classes, clinicals, studying all while working full time. I managed to graduate with decent grades and pass my Boards on my first try. It was hell at times, but I now have a great career to show for it.
For me it’s being a foster mom and adoptive mom of kids who were neglected and abused. I don’t know that I ever thought we couldn’t do it, but that’s because I didn’t really understand how hard it would get. But when (well meaning) friends were saying “send them back” we didn’t. When years passed and my kids still struggled, I realized that it was a life-long journey, not just something we could “get them past”. It’s still a rough road with all the extra baggage we have in the house, but I’m awfully proud of what we’ve done and are still doing.
Is it bad that I can’t think of anything? I can think of a bunch of things that I worked hard for. But I can’t think of anything I worked for thinking that I would not get it.
But I’m still young. I’ll come across it eventually 🙂
I knew I’d get the B.S. degree, the newspaper job, the book contracts—worked my backside off for every one. REALLY worked my backside off for the farm I thought I’d never have, and am literally working it off to keep it and still find time to write at the same time. It’s a great life – damn close to perfect. Never thought it would happen, yet here I am, not yet 50, with mountains yet to climb. Woo hoo!
I started to say that my master’s degree, as a single mom of two, was the thing I wanted most and worked hardest for. My father, always my mentor, assured me that I could do it (I was desperate to teach college instead of high school), even though it meant going thousands of miles from home to a university that would take a chance on me. So I took the plunge, accepting a graduate assistantship that exactly covered daycare, finding a second job, and taking out huge student loans.
I got the degree, and I have been a college teacher now for more than 20 years. But having written the above, I realize that it isn’t quite right. Because for all the work I’ve put into and satisfaction I’ve gotten (and still get) from teaching, I’ve worked harder as a parent. I have raised four amazing human beings (my youngest is a high school senior), and the satisfaction of seeing them marry, get jobs, go to college and grad school, and work hard pursuing their own dreams and ambitions is hugely rewarding.
Hmm. Dad was right about that, too. What a smart man. I miss him.
I was attending the Police Academy. I had to do chinups which for me seemed physically impossible. I would go to the gym everynight and just hang there and try and try to pull myself up. We had a physical agility test every 8 weeks. The first test I only had to accomplish one measely chinup. Dya think I could do that? Heck no! Now the second test was rapidly closing in on me and I now had to do 2 chinups. Also as an incentive to completing the agility test every Friday those who failed had to be retested and if you failed you got to stay at the Academy for the weekend. Well the Friday prior to the next agility test I failed to do that 1 chinup. I was so frustrated since I was in the gym every single night. The Sunday before the next agility test which was on Monday
I went to the gym deflated but still determined when lo and behold I not only did 1 chinup but 2. I was amazed I thought it was a fluke. I kept the accomplishment to myself because who knew if I could do it again. The next day I was waiting in a line of about 30 cadets and I was the next to last person in line. Everytime a female would accomplish her goal my Sgt said Rodriguez look at that. It was finally my turn and I actually DID it!!!!! Yeah! The only comment from the Sgt was well why didn’t you do it on Friday so you could go home. UGH!! I absolutely despised the man but truly in hindsight he was my driving force to accomplish all my physical goals so kuddos to him.
Love & Hugs,
Pam
The two proudest achievements that come immediately to mind are 1. going to Oxford University as an undergraduate ( had to fight for it against administrators who didn’t think I could hack it) and 2. getting my Masters degree at NYU while working full time, which ended with me writing my thesis while working, dealing with my father getting remarried and my mother loosing her mind over it (long distance) and finding a new place to live a month after graduation. I worked my donkey off for that degree.
Private universities cost a lot where I live, and an unfortunate B grade was the reason I didn’t qualify for any scholarships. After seeing the huge wads of cash my retired father had to part with for tuition, to get me into the university of my choice, I was determined that I would never pay the full amount for tuition again. So, while my batch mates spent their freshman semester skipping classes and partying, I never missed a lecture, quiz, or tutorial, basically working my ass off to keep my grades up.
My GPA knocked my socks off. I got that scholarship and secured a spot on the Dean’s List.
Next semester, I did it again.
Completing a half marathon. I went from being a complete couch potato with no running experience/ability to running a 1/2 marathon in 4 month. Took many, many hours of training. At times it felt like I was taking over my life. But it was all worth it when I crossed the finish line. And I would so (and am) do it again. You are capable of so much more than you think you are.
I never thought I’d be able to write a 20+ page thesis paper, but one year into graduate school I have written four. I even read one of them at a conference. Now if I could only find a way to write a term paper about romance novels…
Well, I haven’t finished achieving it yet, as I am still plugging through the second draft, but I wrote a romance novel. AND I let other people read it! That was the hard part.
And it’s not bad! It’s getting there, I mean. Slow but steady, which is not generally how I operate. Turns out it works real good!
I worked my ass off to finish my degree and keep a high grade point average. Trying to work full time, take classes at night, and still have time for my husband and baby just about killed me.
I work my a$$ off as a parent, why is there no test for this? They make me work my a$$ off, laugh my a$$ off and make my a$$ bigger (I mean, who else is going to eat the leftover mac n cheese?)
Uh, I mean bottom, we don’t say a$$. 🙂
8 years of drought in an ag community on top of the recession pretty much sank our business- we’ve gone without the most basic of necessities, scrambled daily for food, walked everywhere we had to go and paid off staggering amounts of debt- and we made it- as a family, as a business, as a marraige- we still can hardly bear to look back and remember but it brought us so close to our children and each other and let us all know how strong we are and what we are capable of handling-
my captcha is values 43- wow-
What Anony Miss said. Word.
Buying my first post-divorce house, all by myself. The ex and I always made about the same salary so the divorce 1/2’d the household income. Took four years of saving, getting the car paid off and working very hard in a new job to finally get a promotion. And now that I’ve been in the house (46-years-old and sat empty for two years) for three weeks I’m definitely in the ‘come home from the job and work on the house till midnight’ routine. And of course that’s on top of everything involved with being the single mom of a nine-year-old daughter. All the hard work is starting to show and the house is finally looking like ours. Still several weeks of work to go to get everything done, but I would definitely take a break to read Hot Finish. Been waiting for that book!!
And since I’ve had hardly any time to read lately, I’ve been listening to Suzanne Brockmann’s Trouble Shooter series in audiobook form (while working on the house). Contemporary fiction rocks!!!!
But I am sad about Erin’s new book not being published in Trade Paper size. I prefer books in Trade format and they won’t match the first two from the series.
P.S. With SEP’s football players, Erin’s racecar drivers, Gibson’s hockey players and Foster’s extreme fighters, the genre is thoroughly missing a similar series about soccer players. Especially after the World Cup. Have you seen how excited those guys get when they score?
I worked my ass off to get my Senior 911 Dispatcher certification. Being a dispatcher is BEYOND hard, but being a senior dispatcher means you have to prove yourself under fire, in test conditions, and make 95% or better score. I did!
Worked my ass off on my own company for 10 years and then I SOLD IT, WOOT!
I literally worked my ass off to get into my wedding dress. I was in college ordered my wedding dress off ebay after never trying one on before in my life. Well I cried, it didn’t fit! So I said screw it, I can do this and busted my ass on the treadmill at the college gym and lost 25 pounds. I lost so much weight that the dress actually had to be taken in:) I was very proud of myself and felt great on my wedding day!
I work 60-80 hours a week between my day job and my freelance gigs here and there (because I am a workaholic), and I make time to make dinner from scratch 99% of the of time.
People ask me how I do it, and straight up it’s about making time for what’s important to you. (Granted, I start my day at 5 so I have time to do this in the evenings. But, you know. Whatever.)
Of course, I don’t do the dishes afterwards. I’m too busy reading. 🙂
My degrees. I worked 30+ hours a week during my undergrad to help pay for my private school. And my master’s degree. Working full time and traveling for work made it a challenge. Getting my adviser’s signature on my thesis and the bottle of wine from the department was one of my happiest moments.
Doing my entire Masters in 10 months, while I was working full time, and had a family.
I worked my ass off to get into publishing, and now I work for a company that I’ve been reading (and loving) my entire life. Plus, I get to work with some of my all time favorite authors!
Weight loss….as of today I have lost 83 pounds! Thanks for the chance to win this book! 🙂
I never thought I’d get into Columbia for grad school. I did. I finished, and I walked away knowing I wasn’t the fraud I’d been afraid I was. Those two years changed my life.
Go school while being pregnant , all my grades where good but because I made the baby and didn’t call to tell them I had my baby, they kept me back a year , the following year I wanted to give up but I didn’t and I graduated from High School.
Apparently, there haven’t been many things that I really wanted that I thought I couldn’t get. I couldn’t think of a thing until someone said “self-esteem” and I thought, “Yeah, that’s a big one.” That was the root of what I was missing, though, not the goal. For me, it was a general sense of well-being, happiness, and contentment. A really crappy childhood can lead to some pretty terrible life-choices as you subconsciously punish yourself, over and over, and seek out similar relationships to those that shaped your past so that you can “re-work” them. After a lifetime of zero self-esteem and falling the hardest for those who would use me and abuse me, I finally found the right therapist at the right time and got my head mostly right and then I got my life mostly right. I’m in the best relationship of my life and in the best place, mentally, that I’ve ever been in. I am happy. Who knew that was possible?
So, go me and everyone else that’s gotten what they’ve striven so hard for!
Getting my black belt. To this day I use that to motivate myself—“I got through my black belt test, I can do this, too.”
When I was a little girl I read Congo and the hero went to Berkeley. Being the impressionable young thing I was, I decided I wanted to go to Berkeley too.
Several decades later, here I am finishing up my BA at good ol’ UC Berkeley. 🙂
Never thought I would get that first job.
I’m only going into college this fall, so I think I haven’t really been through the Important Life Events most people seem to be bringing up … but I do have one accomplishment that took forever and that I frequently thought I’d give up on. I knit an entire sweater in a complicated Fair Isle pattern, with steeks (which are, for knitterly reasons, terrifying)! And I made a video of it for part of my Tufts application (I got in, but decided not to go, if you’re curious):
I don’t have it yet…but I am working my ass off to prove to my parents that I can make it on my own, that $47,000 worth of college dept for a degree they find to be useless (History and Religion) will pay off. I am interviewing for the step one toward my dream job in one week. So I don’t have my dream job quite yet…but I can tell you I work my way toward it everyday. 30 job applications and counting.
My two major accomplishments came at the same time in my life. The first was getting my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. I really looked up to my older brother who, at the time, worked for Boeing. I followed in his footsteps mostly because I wanted to prove I was smart like him, more to myself than to anyone else.
I almost didn’t make it…Junior year was really, really tough. I was loaded with classes and overwhelmed. I worried and cried a lot at the thought of failure (which for me was not maintaining a 3.0 GPA to keep my scholarship). Many times I’d walk to campus not sure if I would end up in class or at the counselor’s office to quit the program. Somehow, I always ended up in class.
The real miracle, though, was that I got engaged at the end of Junior year. I’d never dated in high school and had only been out with 2 guys in college. I was an emotional basket case, but guy #3 saw something in me…I don’t know why he didn’t run for the hills, but I am sure glad he stuck it out! We got married the weekend after our college graduation and celebrated our 17th anniversary earlier this year.
Ever since I could read, I’ve wanted to write. It was my gig, the thing I did best. But I never had the courage to pursue it. I hate rejection, and I hate to fail, and writing seemed like a foolproof way to fail often and spectacularly. So I went to college and majored in Anthropology, worked on Wall Street, earned an MBA in finance, married and had four kids. I did some writing in my off hours, fiddling around with ideas, and finally joined the RWA to learn the craft of storytelling.
Last year, just before my youngest turned one, I decided it was time to take my dreams off the shelf and make them reality. Every night, after the kids were in bed, I sat down and wrote until midnight, 2am, 4am, knowing I’d have to be up at six to get everyone ready for school. While my body was doing the laundry and ferrying the kids around town and shopping for groceries, my brain was composing scenes. Within six weeks, I’d written a novel and developed a crippling addiction to Dunkin Donuts coffee (black, no sugar).
I spent the rest of the summer editing, found a brilliant agent in the fall, and last winter sold my manuscript in hardcover to my dream editor at Putnam. We’ve now sold foreign rights in four countries and signed on with a film agent.
Still pinching myself. Still trying to catch up on my sleep.
I was an aspiring runner, mostly in my head, and I heard about the Rock-n-Roll marathon in San Diego. I had never been to California and had always wanted to go so I started running and running and then running some more. At first I could only run 15 minutes and when the marathon came around I actually finished. It took me close to 5 hours to complete the 26.2 miles. I worked and ran my ass of to a satisfying finish!
I am heading to Japan in October, which I can do now because I worked hard at my degree and worked my ass off to get a great job in my study field. And it’s all paying off now!