Christmas Around the World Giveaway Video and Blog Tour

Christmas Around the World Giveaway Blog Tour

Happy Holidays from my home to yours. I'm very excited to share with you something special for the holidays. I'm fascinated by the traditions we have in the United States with all the different cultures represented here. With that in mind, I hatched the idea to grab a few of my favorite author buddies from various countries to have them share what makes the holidays special to their families.

I handpicked five amazing authors from around the world to join forces with and created the Christmas Around the World Giveaway and Blog Tour.

All last week we featured one blog post a day with an accompanying video from each author sharing their Christmas traditions and gave you a peek inside their books and what one of the characters would experience in their time and place.

Today is my day to share my Christmas traditions based on my Grandmother’s love of the holiday and overabundance of gifts and family fun in a split family. Also, I will paint a picture of what life was like in England in 1752, the year featured in my book, Stealing Time, which was the year they skipped 11 days to jive with Europe’s Gregorian calendar. Check out my video to learn more.  

You can enter the giveaway here: 
Christmas Around the World Giveaway

Click here to enter!

Grand Prize

Enter to Win 1 Grand Prize of These Five Star 

Dramatic Books from Around the World 

Plus 6 Additional Winners of Each Book

Books by Suzanne Kelman, Seumas Gallacher, Gloria Casale, KJ Waters, David P. Perlmutter, and Thomas J .NIchols. 

Ends December 16, 2019

Join us for an incredible journey around the world through the eyes of our authors and their protagonists starting in WWII Holland and continuing from to the Middle East over to Hong Kong, through the hills of Pennsylvania and deserts of Mexico, ending back in time in eighteenth century London. We are excited to share with you our own holiday traditions and what life was like for the characters featured in our books. 

More about my "breathtakingly original" time travel novel set in a hurricane. 

Stealing Time: Book 1 - A Time Travel, Historical Fiction Adventure

A devastating hurricane. A time travel betrayal. Will Ronnie survive the witch hunt or forever be lost in time?

Link: https://geni.us/StealingGiveaway

Stealing Time is the first book in the best-selling "Breathtakingly original" time travel series that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

As Hurricane Charley churns a path of destruction towards Orlando, Florida, Ronnie Andrews scrambles to prepare for the storm and seeks shelter at her boyfriend’s weather lab. What she finds there is more terrifying than Mother Nature's destruction.

During the peak of the hurricane, Ronnie is hurtled back in time to eighteenth-century London where she is caught in a web of superstition, deception, and lies in a life and death struggle to return to her own time.

Her best friend Steph is thrust into the middle of the hurricane where it quickly turns into a living nightmare as she is faced with losing everything.

Stealing Time is the first book in the “breathtakingly original” Stealing Time Series of time-travel wrapped in a hurricane. If you like strong-willed modern women and gripping stories that transport you back in time, then you’ll love KJ Water's Books.

Don’t miss the next book in the series, Shattering Time, available now, set during Hurricane Frances tossing Ronnie back to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island in a fight for her life and for those facing the mysterious disappearance of our first colony in America.You can find it here.

Other Authors in the Giveaway and Tour

I'm excited to share the blogs and videos of the other authors here. I have the full blurbs and links here to all the books in the giveaway.

Suzanne Kelman: A View Across the Rooftops

On Monday December 2 we began our journey in 1941, Nazi-occupied Amsterdam with Suzanne Kelman in her international best-seller A View Across the Rooftops. Suzanne is a British author who lives in Seattle and delights in her English Christmas traditions every year. Please visit Suzanne’s video and blog post here: https://suzannekelmanauthor.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-book-giveaway-books-from.html.

Seumas Gallacher: The Violin Man's Legacy

Then we pop over to Seumas Gallacher’s blog featuring his international crime novel The Violin Man’s Legacy. Seumas was born in Scotland and lives in Abu Dhabi. His main character, Jack Calder, investigates a murderous diamond heist in Holland that leads him to Hong Kong and South America. You can visit blog here: https://seumasgallacher.com/2019/12/03/christmas-joint-blog-tour-and-giveaways-o-come-all-ye-faithful-readers/.

David Perlmutter: Five Weeks

David P. Perlmutter took over on Wednesday, December 4 sharing his Jewish upbringing in London, and will detail the true life and nearly deadly adventure in the hills of Pennsylvania where he spends Christmas with his boss in his book Five Weeks. David spends a decent amount of time in the #1 spot on Amazon with his soon to be movie, Wrong Place Wrong Time. You can visit his blog and video here: http://thewrongplaceatthewrongtime.blogspot.com/.

Gloria Casale: Bioterror: The Ultimate Threat

Thursday, Gloria Casale shared her holiday memories from her youth in New Jersey in a strong catholic family where they celebrated the tradition of St. Nicklaus on December 5th every year. 

Her book, Bioterror: The Essential Threat, while fiction, covers an all too real situation of bioterrorism and brings us on a harrowing journey beginning in Washington, DC and carries us around the world from Russia and Eastern Europe, to Indonesia, England, Syria, and the White House, as we chase the outbreak of a mysterious small pox-like illness. You can find Gloria’s blog here: https://www.gloriacasalewrites.com/post/blog-1.

Thomas J. Nichols: Color of the Prism

Chief Thomas J. Nichols was featured on Friday, December 6, where he spoke about his poor upbringing in Missouri, some of which was spent in an orphanage. As a former police chief, he writes crime fiction with teeth and will detail what Christmas is like for his characters in the dry dusty backdrop of Mexico. His book, Color of the Prism, follows an undercover agent who spearheads an investigation into a violent Mexican drug cartel. You can find Tom’s blog and video here: https://thomasjnichols.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for joining us on the journey! I'd love to hear your comments! 

Don't miss this other Giveaway I'm running.

I'm excited to announce 2 exciting giveaways I'm running this November.

1. Rewards for following my social media accounts!

Win a $25 Amazon Gift Card or 1 of three book bundles for following my social media accounts! Ends December 11, 2019.

Click Here to Enter KJ's Follow Me Giveaway

Sign up for my newsletter to receive a free book, Blondie in the Water - True Tales of a Water Loving Mom. Sign up here: 

Kids Holiday Book Extravaganza #Giveaway

Kids Holiday Book Extravaganza Giveaway

Join the fun and win (1) grand prize of 10 incredible books, plus a chance to win one of each book from these amazing authors. Ends December 13, 2019.

Enter the giveaway here!

Barbara Garrett's Mo Banda

Mo Banda is a serious, fearful little boy who overcomes his fear by facing it. Once he does this, he discovers fear can become a friend who might have some things to teach him about life! 

Check it out here on Amazon.

David P. Perlmutter’s Alaina's (NOT REALLY A DIARY) Diary

Alaina is just like lots of nearly-9-year-olds, excited for her upcoming birthday and a party with all her friends. BUT there is one girl who is NOT invited. In her diary Alaina records her everyday experiences with her many friends in the lead up to her party.

With tales of tomatoes, teachers and Taekwondo, stories of swimming, shopping and slime, anecdotes about animals, Ariana Grande and Alisha, Alaina's diary gives us a vivid insight into the world of school children growing up in Harrow, Greater London.

A fictional work inspired by real life stories of primary school children in Harrow. 70% of the profits from the sale of this book will be donated to Coram Beanstalk to fund literary support for primary school children in the London Borough of Harrow.

This book has been produced by St. George's Shopping Centre as part of their commitment to serving their community.

Check it out here on Amazon.

Scott Tree’s A Tree Story: Choose Your Course

We all make choices in our lives.  Some are good and some are bad, but we are the ones that make the choice.  A Tree Story shows how the choices we make can affect our future.  It is a great telling of the life of two tree brothers, their adventures, their joys, and their sorrows.  They had great hopes and dreams.  Their dreams do come true, but do they last?  It may not be a true story, but it is a tree story. 

Check it out here on Amazon.

                             

Karin McCay: The Magic Mommy Series

Marvin and the Magic Bubble

The Magic Mommy series is destined to become a classic. Book One, Marvin and the Magic Bubble will leave kids giggling over this backyard adventure that gets out of control. Parents will enjoy it too, especially the whimsical twist at the end that gives Mommy the ultimate edge.

Check it out on Amazon.

Marvin and the Big Race

Marvin considers himself a very fast runner, perhaps the fastest in the school. So, when Principal Diddly calls for a school race to the drug store, Marvin plans to be the first at the finish line. But when the race begins and all the kids run like ants into the street, something happens that changes Marvin forever. Unique to all the Magic Mommy Stories, Marvin and the Big Race begins with a tribute to motherhood and ends with a twist. The final thought will make parents and children want to snuggle up and talk about the message after the last page is turned.

Check it out on Amazon.

                              

 

Debra Addison Steffens: The Adventures of Shadow

The Adventures of Shadow the Almost Black Kitten - This is the first in a series of stories about a kitten's adventures through her eyes. The story is based on the life of the author's cat and is a true story. It is a positive, feel-good book for all ages. It shows that values such as responsibility and kindness matter. This book teaches us that love and caring make the difference in all lives.

Check it out on Amazon.

Shadow’s Utah Adventure: Have you ever gotten lost when you were visiting a new place? It is a scary feeling when you don't recognize anything that will help you find your way out and get back home. Join Shadow, the almost black kitten on her next adventure, or should I say misadventure during a family trip in Utah. While playing a trick on everyone, it backfires, and Shadow gets lost while she and her family are camping near Arches National Park. She meets many new animal friends that try to help her get back home. Join Shadow and see if she finds her way home or has to find a new home.

Check it out on Amazon.

M. Schmidt and Gene D. Donley’s Sammy: Hero at Age Five

“Kids can get hungry sometimes while on chemo,” says five-year-old Sammy, having a good day despite the malignant tumor invading his brain. Based on true events from the 1980s, Sammy’s story is imagined by his mother and brother as if the young boy might tell it himself. The result is gripping. Told in two parts, Sammy’s account first invites us into the everyday middle-American lives of a mom and her two boys. Sammy is a sweet, good-hearted kid, even as he faces the most difficult challenges in Part 2: “Cancer Arrived.” Here Sammy talks us through hospital trips and procedures, the hardest parts as well as moments of simple joy. It is not always possible to survive such a grim diagnosis, so Sammy and his family must embrace the smaller victories from one day to the next. Finally, our young hero is given one last opportunity to find his own unique path toward triumph. Listen closely as Sammy tells us all what matters most.

Check it out on Amazon

Dan-Dwayne: The Land of Neither Here nor There

Magic and faraway places that are at your fingertips, this is what the

‘Land of Neither Here nor There’ is made of. It‘s a place that exists

between the sea and the shore. It's where monsters climb out of the sea and talk to children sitting on the sandy beach. It’s a place where you can find great adventure. Little boy’s dogs can talk, and mirrors can transport you to fanciful places.

It is a place where adventure exists on the very edge of your most prized possession. It’s a certain country not too far to the East and not too far from the West, which is neither near nor far away. It is in a time when the world was neither young nor old and creatures of yore still roam the earth there. It was a forgotten time and yet not long ago at all. It is a place where creatures of all kinds are full of wonder and magic. Open the pages of this book if you dare. For adventure awaits the one who can find the Land of Neither Here nor There.

Check it out on Amazon here.

Denay Hooks: The Adventures of Bug and Boo Under the Sea

Come join Bug and Boo on their amazing adventure under the sea. Bug has a rare disease and uses a wheelchair, but when she and her brother are on these adventures, she is able to do things her body doesn’t typically allow. They swim with colorful fish, find an old pirate ship, and still manage to make it home by dinner. It is an engaging story that inspires adventure for all children.

Check it out on Amazon.

November #Giveaways!

I'm excited to announce 2 exciting giveaways I'm running this November.

1. Rewards for following my social media accounts!

Win a $25 Amazon Gift Card or 1 of three book bundles for following my social media accounts! Ends December 11, 2019.

Click Here to Enter KJ's Follow Me Giveaway

1. Goodreads Giveaway

Join this Goodreads giveaway to win one of 100 copies of Stealing Time! Ends November 30th. 

Thank you for all of your support! 

If you're curious about my books you can read the first five chapters of Stealing Time and Shattering Time by signing up for my newsletter here! 

I also have a Free Non-Fiction story for free exclusive to my newsletter followers for signing up. Sign up here!

Sign up here!

Strangely I'm Still Here!

Strangely I'm Still Here

A Journey With a Brilliant Author, Blogger of the Year, 

and All-Around Great Guy 

I am very excited to bring to you a dear friend Seumas Gallacher, who has just released his autobiography. He is a fascinating Scotsman with an intriguing background in international banking and finance, then corporate troubleshooter turned best-selling author. Please check out his post to learn more! I'd love for you to follow him over on his blog here. 

A Journey to Myself – Writing my Autobiography

 By Seumas Gallacher

   

For authors, the old maxim is often quoted, ‘Write about what you know.’

I’ve been at this writing game properly for over a decade now, with a back list of five crime thrillers, a book of my poetry, a self-help marketing and promotional guide for authors, and almost 2,000 blog posts. Add to that a catalog of half-a-dozen ghostwriting assignments for other people’s ‘autobiographies’, and it’s of little wonder that the thought occurred to put my own life story and experiences to print. ‘Write about what you know.’

What happened next was a sometime bewildering, sometime painful, sometime joyful, but always exhilarating, writing trip of discovery. I now understand more clearly than ever before just how much I am truly an amalgam of everything, everybody and everywhere with which and with whom I have ever been associated.

Were there regrets? Of course. Probably far too many to register. I doubt if more than a handful of people on this planet have led a flawless, blameless existence. But I do know that every single incident and experience, good, bad and indifferent, was necessary to bring me to this moment in my life. And I would not seek to change one second of it.

It is amazing how memories bring back not only the plain telling of the story, but for me, it also recalled the feelings and emotions that I had in most of them. I felt them again, and again, and again, some with laughter, but also many of them attended with a quiet tear.

I believe, at this age, finally, I am aware of who and what I am as a person. I like the man I see in the mirror each morning, although it was not always thus. I have acquired a tolerance of myself and my own shortcomings, but more importantly, I have learned to ‘live and let live’ in relation to others whom I meet day to day.

What surprises me, is that having published the book just a few weeks ago, I find that I am remembering many other things which could have been included in the memoir. I will resist the temptation to edit online the Amazon Kindle version, which is easy to do, on the same premise that once I finish writing my novels, I leave them finished.

To all my author friends and even those who have not yet caught the writing addiction, you may want to consider a similar project. It is a wondrous journey to yourself.

Here’s the book blurb:

Fact is often more incredible than fiction. 

Seumas Gallacher has survived long enough to savor places, characters, and events for more than forty years in the Far East and the Arabian Gulf.

He started life in Scotland traveled far and wide as a wannabe Trainee Master of the Universe, but the Universe had other plans for him.

From a career in banking, he escaped to become a corporate troubleshooter.

He discovered the joy and torture of becoming a wordsmith, writing five best-selling crime novels, a book of poetry, and being hyper-active on social media.

‘Strangely, I’m Still Here’ is his story.

Amazon Kindle universal link: mybook.to/StrangelyImStillHere

Other Amazon books by Seumas:

Find Seumas' Crime Books Here

Find his self-publishing book here:

Find Seumas' Poetry Book here

  

Outlandish Dreams Come True! How I Made the Best Seller List With #Outlander

#Outlandish Dreams Come True!

When I first read the Outlander series from Diana Gabaldon in the early 2000's, I fell in love with the characters, the richness of the storytelling and the details of how people lived back in the seventeen hundreds before the Scottish uprising. 

I never imagined that I would write a book, much less that if I did, it would end up on the best seller list with her novels, but that happened this week! Squeee!!

Check it out here!

Eventually, I read her book, the Outlandish Companion where Diana discussed her somewhat haphazard way of writing chapters and later connecting them to each other and it really inspired me to consider writing a novel. I always thought you had to be super structured, which I definitely am not. 

I took a while deciding on what to write about but after experiencing 4 major hurricanes in six-weeks in central Florida in the summer of 2004 I felt I had the perfect backdrop for an exciting series. 

It wasn't until a decade later that I finished fiddling around with Stealing Time and took the plunge publishing it. Later published Shattering Time. I'm currently working on the third book in the series, Killing Time. You can hear me talking a bit about Killing Time in my latest video chat on my website here.

Watch the video here!

Living History

What fascinates me the most about Outlander was the concept of living as a modern woman in the past, and the living conditions and social norms of the times. I had a lot of fun researching all of those historical details and in a way living there vicariously through my characters, albeit it in the comfort of my writing cave, and not subject to the horrors my characters are put through. 

One of the shocking things I learned about 1752 London was that as a wedding gift in a lower class society, the woman's family would have all her teeth pulled and give her dentures. This way the husband wouldn't have to pay to have her teeth removed as they rotted in their mouths over time. Can you imagine that? So glad I'm living now and not then!

Time Travel Romance Best Seller Category on Amazon

I placed a BookBub ad, and if you know what that is you know it's really hard to get a spot. I finally did and the results were incredible! All three of my books ranked on the Best Seller List on Amazon. 

In the top ten best sellers in Time Travel Romance, 

9 of them were from the Outlander Series, 

and at #2 was my book, Shattering Time!

Time Travel Fiction Best Seller

Also, last week I outranked Stephen King's Time Travel Fiction book, 11/23/1963, one of my recent favorite time travel novels!

Best Rankings Ever!

I set Stealing Time (book 1) for free and it spent 3 days at the #1 spot in both categories (Time Travel Romance and Historical Fantasy) and ranked as high as #16 in the entire Free Kindle Store.

Shattering Time (Book 2)

I put my second book on sale for 99cents and it ranked the highest it ever has reached --  Time Travel Romance #2 under Outlander. 

Three Books in the Best Seller Categories!

Now that my books are back to regular price my books are still ranking really well with all three in the bestseller category!

Here is the breakdown Saturday afternoon, Shattering Time (book 2) ranks at #7 in Time Travel Romance, Stealing Time (book 1) is ranked at #29 in the same category and Blow is ranked #6 in One Hour Teen and Young Adult Short Reads!

 Blow's Ranking the same day!

Thank you for all of your support! 

If you're curious about my books you can read the first five chapters of Stealing Time and Shattering Time by signing up for my newsletter here! 

I also have a Free Non-Fiction story for free exclusive to my newsletter followers for signing up. Sign up here!

Sign up here!

Review for Stealing Time:

Buy it here!

Review for Shattering Time

Buy it here!

For a limited time, I'm offering a free copy of my best seller short-story Blow to the first ten people who comment on this blog post. 

Review for Blow!

Buy here!