The Waffle House

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So, I forgot that I was supposed to blog today and instead used my few minutes of writing time to write a scene where two of my characters go to a Waffle House.  But as a west coast resident, I’ve never actually been to a Waffle House.  As a result, I spent way too much time looking at the Waffle House menu on line and now I want hashbrowns and waffles.  Sometimes we hear authors say that their characters speak to them.  My characters wouldn’t deign to do that.  They’re too busy talking to each other. And honestly, if I left them to their own devices they would talk until my fingers cramped up from trying to transcribe.  I frequently have to cut off the conversations so that the story goes somewhere.  That’s part of the editing process, but these conversations are excellent at helping me understand the characters.  When I discover what they find funny, what they hate, what annoys them, and what their hard line stance is on Christmas decorations after New Years, I can plunk them down in any situation and know how they’ll react.  Which is how I know that Jackson Deveraux would be quite happy at the Waffle House, but that he would be shocked that his hoity toity grandmother Eleanor Deveraux knows to order Waffle House hashbrowns scattered, smothered, and covered, but not chunked.  The Deveraux family is full of secrets and surprises, but when I started writing about them I never would have thought that hashbrowns would be one of the surprises.  The Deveraux family, from my Deveraux Legacy, has become one of my favorite group of characters.  They’re a very fractured family that is struggling toward reconciliation while attempting to overcome the periodic interruption of mercenaries, bank robbers, and greedy CEOs.

If you want to find out what the Deveraux family thinks about Christmas décor you can check out book 1, The Second Shot, and pre-order book 2, The Cinderella Secret (both currently ¢.99). Or you can…

Enter to win a paperback copy of The Cinderella Secret on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Cinderella Secret by Bethany Maines

The Cinderella Secret

by Bethany Maines

Giveaway ends October 17, 2020.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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Or you can join the Bethany Maines / Blue Zephyr Press Newsletter mailing list and get a free copy of the prequel novella, The Lost Heir in October!

Fall! Bombs Away!

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Does anyone else feel like Fall just hit with a sledgehammer?  The weather shifted, everything started getting colder and book release dates started cropping up faster than weeds in my lawn.  My friends in the Stiletto Gang have several new releases. Debra Sennefelder put out the fashion / Halloween themed mystery What Not to Wear to a Graveyard (see her post here) and we’re still celebrating the late summer releases of Debra Goldstein’s latest Three Treats Too Many and the newest Stiletto Gang member Gay Yellen with Body Business.

My next book releases in October, but that just means that all the marketing is happening now, now, now (use your used car salesman voice for the last part). Marketing for most authors, including me, is a somewhat painful process in which we attempt to interest the greatest number of people in our precious book baby. The Cinderella Secret is book 2 (of 4) in my Deveraux Legacy series. With a series, book 1 sets the tone and while marketing can be increased for subsequent books – if an author did a terrible job on book 1 then book 2 doesn’t have much of a chance. This kind of high-stakes “hope you got it right” marketing pressure is what drives many authors to hate marketing.  We’re already responsible for inventing these characters, putting them through hell, hopefully letting some of them make it out with a happy ending, and now we’re responsible for making them a success in the world?  It’s too much! My poor babies deserve more!  But, of course, we saddle up and go out there and do our best for our imaginary book friends because we really do love them. Fortunately, it is a bit easier with assistance from friends, marketing professionals, and having some pretty sweet giveaways and incentives in my back pocket.


The Cinderella Secret: Hot-shot lawyer Aiden Deveraux holds the key to unlocking the dark secrets of Ella Zhao’s past and Ella holds the key to Aiden’s heart. But a murderer wants to stop those secrets from ever seeing the light of day and Aiden and Ella may have to trust each other with their secrets if they want to make it out of this fight alive.

Release Date: 10.19.20

Pre-Order now from iBooks for ¢.99!  (Price goes up after release week!) Buy here → https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-cinderella-secret/id1528407978?mt=11&app=itunes

Have a netgalley account and want to get an advance copy? Blogger/Reader Sign-Up → https://bit.ly/ReleasePromotionTheCinderellaSecret 

Want to win an e-copy and a $40 Amazon giftcard? Enter to win → http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/2a9f3a7480/

Want to get the Deveraux Legacy prequel novella, The Lost Heir, for FREE? Learn how → https://bethanymaines.com/the-deveraux-legacy/