Books are food for my soul! Pull up a beach chair and stick your toes in the sand as the Jersey surf rolls in and out, now open your book and let your imagination take you away.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Cupid's Christmas by Bette Lee Crosby (Book Promo Blitz / Book Review)

In association with Reading Addiction Blog Tours, Jersey Girl welcomes back Bette Lee Crosby, author of Cupid's Christmas!







About The Author

Award-winning novelist Bette Lee Crosby brings the wit and wisdom of her Southern Mama to works of fiction—the result is a delightful blend of humor, mystery and romance along with a cast of quirky charters who will steal your heart away.

Born in Detroit and raised in a plethora of states scattered across the South and Northeast, Crosby originally studied art and began her career as a packaging designer. When asked to write a few lines of copy for the back of a pantyhose package, she discovered a love for words that was irrepressible. After years of writing for business, she turned to works of fiction and never looked back. “Storytelling is in my blood,” Crosby laughingly admits, “My mom was not a writer, but she was a captivating storyteller, so I find myself using bits and pieces of her voice in most everything I write.”

Crosby’s work was first recognized in 2006 when she received The National League of American Pen Women Award for a then unpublished manuscript. Since that, she has gone on to win several more awards, including another NLAPW award, three Royal Palm Literary Awards, the FPA President’s Book Award Gold Medal and most recently the 2011 Reviewer’s Choice Award and Reader’s View Southeast Fiction Literary Award.

Her published works to date are: Cracks in the Sidewalk (2009), Spare Change (2011), The Twelfth Child (2012), and Life in the Land of IS (2012). Life in the Land of IS is a memoir written for Lani Deauville, a woman the Guinness Book of Records lists as the world’s longest living quadriplegic.

Crosby's newest novel Cupid's Christmas was released in September 2012 and following that, What Matters Most will be released in early 2013.


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Bette Lee Crosby ~ Cupid's Christmas ~ Virtual Book Tour Page ~ Reading Addiction Blog Tours



Book Review


Cupid's Christmas by Bette Lee Crosby
Publisher: Bent Pine Publishing
Publication Date: September 14, 2012 - 1st publishing / October 17, 2012 - 2nd publishing
Format: Paperback - 197 pages / Kindle - 509 KB
ISBN: 0983887985
ASIN: B009AM58FG
Genre: Contemporary Christmas Romance / Women's Fiction


BUY THE BOOK: Cupid's Christmas 
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE


Disclaimer: I purchased a copy of the book and will provide my honest review in addition to participating in a virtual book tour event hosted  by Reading Addiction Blog Tours.


Book Description:


Cupid's Christmas…A love story for both the young and the young at heart. In a spot somewhere between Heaven and Earth, Cupid is trying to overcome the forces of lust, jealousy and the events brought on by his nemeses—Life Management.

Cupid matched John and Eleanor thirty years ago, but Life Management stepped in and fouled things up. Now they are both single and back together again, but before Cupid can give them the happiness they deserve, he’s got to come up with some magic, a few miracles and a dog for John’s daughter.

In a fun Christmas Romance, Cupid is charged with making certain an older couple gets the love they've been waiting for and a young woman who’s far too attracted to handsome men with sexy eyes finds her perfect match. And, he has to make it happen by Christmas.

If you’re a Debbie Macomber fan, you’re gonna love Cupid's Christmas!


Book Excerpt:

                                                      Cupid

The problem with humans is they’re in love with love. Even worse, they’re determined to find it themselves. They stumble in and out of relationships that simply were never meant to be and then wonder why it didn’t work. Females are infinitely more complicated than males. Lindsay Gray for example, she’s dead-set on doing this her way and four times she’s ended up with the wrong male. She’s the kind of female who makes my job a nightmare.

Contrary to popular belief, love isn’t a result of me shooting an arrow into some human’s heart—that whole bit is a lot of hooey. I get my orders from Upstairs. The Boss gives me a rundown of matches then it’s my job to make sure the male and female get together. When things go wrong I’ve got to come up with a Plan B. Unfortunately Lindsay Gray has already used up B through E, I’m now working on Plan F and she’s dangerously close to being reclassified as Love-Challenged.

Her problem is she can’t tell love from lust. She sees a pair of heavy-lidded dark eyes, or a rippling muscle and thinks she’s in love. This started when she was only ten years old and caught sight of the boy who lived two doors down. The lad was twelve and wanted nothing to do with her, but that didn’t stop Lindsay from developing a preadolescent case of lovesickness. She followed that poor boy around like a faithful puppy until she saw him kissing Sara McLachlan. Once that happened she swore she’d never love again and she didn’t, until she was eleven.

Lindsay’s mistaken love more times than I can count, and every time it ended in a disaster. She can’t understand why this keeps happening to her, but the answer is obvious—humans with do-it-yourself determination are not equipped to identify true love. They inevitably mistake passion for love. Elizabeth Taylor is a perfect example. She refused to let me handle things, so eight times she got married and seven times she got divorced. One poor chap was killed in a plane crash before she had a chance to divorce him—that was not my doing, that unfortunate event came from Life Management. Not one of those gents was included in Elizabeth’s plan which goes to prove what I’ve been saying.

But I’m digressing, so let me get back to the subject at hand.

One of the advantages of this job is my ability to see the future and I can tell you Lindsay’s got a lot of problems ahead of her. Problems far worse than her bad boyfriend choices. Most of those problems are coming from the guy over in Life Management. Me, I’m a lovable fellow. But Life Management—well suffice it to say he handles things like car crashes, bankruptcies and heart attacks.

Right now my primary assignment isn’t Lindsay—it’s her father and Eleanor Barrow. But if I don’t step in and take control of Lindsay’s life, she’ll ruin theirs. Eleanor and John deserve better, they’ve been waiting a long time.

This isn’t the first time for Eleanor and John Gray, they were a perfect match back in high school. If Eleanor had gone to Penn State instead of Kentucky, she and John would have had four daughters and a lifetime of happiness. I set up that first match, but once she left the North East, she was out of my region. Raymond, the fellow she married was from Seattle—North West region—and they met at the University of Kentucky—Central region. You probably know where this is going, right? She was out of my region, Raymond was out of his and my counterpart in Kentucky was busy fending off the nineteen girls who thought they were in love with the same basketball player, so Eleanor and Raymond got married and became what we call an MM. (Migratory Mistake)

Despite the fact that I’d let her down, Eleanor made the best of it. If you were standing on the outside looking in, you’d actually think she was happy. Of course I knew the truth because I go to the inside of a person’s heart—I have to, it’s my job. Eleanor was a good wife and a good mother—a bit overindulgent with Ray Junior maybe, but still a good mother. Papa Raymond was another story. It was bad enough that he had an eye for the ladies, but he also had a great fondness for beer and the business sense of a turnip. An insurance salesman who sold life insurance to everybody but himself, how crazy is that?

When Life Management stepped in and did their dirty work, Raymond got an illness nobody wants and it was two years before they finally gave the okay for him to die. Eleanor took care of him that whole time and once he was gone, she worked two jobs so Ray Junior could go on to college.

Eleanor’s a woman with a big heart, lots of grit and steadfast determination, which is fortunate because when it comes to dealing with Lindsay Gray, she’s gonna need all of it. If Eleanor’s got a flaw it’s that she’s blind to the faults of those she loves, which is why Ray Junior is such a problem.


My Book Review:

Cupid's Christmas is an adorable Christmas romance story about a lovable pooch who is charged with the challenge to match the right people in a relationship meant to last a lifetime. But when life circumstances get in the way and mess up the matches, Cupid is once again called upon to reunite an older couple, while matching a young woman with her prince charming, and finding a lost dog a forever home.

Narrated by Cupid along with alternating points of view by Lindsay, John and Eleanor, author Bette Lee Crosby weaves a warm and fuzzy tale of love, romance, family drama, life circumstances and puppy love. You can't help but be captivated by Cupid's story as he works his magic with a few miracles added in to unite two couples: Lindsay and Matt, and Eleanor and John; while also providing a lovable stray dog a forever home with John's daughter.

This is such a warmhearted story filled with love, humor and a dose of wisdom that is perfect to read during the Christmas holiday season, but it can also be read all year long. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the adorable Bichon Frise on the book cover. As a momma to two rescued Bichon fur babies, I instantly fell in love when I saw the book cover, and knew that I was going to thoroughly enjoy this story, and I was not disappointed!

Cupid's Christmas is one of those lighthearted feel good stories that could easily be a Hallmark Channel movie, I know I would watch it. Cupid and author Bette Lee Crosby has earned two paws up for providing the reader with a delightful story that will simply make you smile!


RATING: 5 STARS *****





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