Since the print version of A Fiery Secret became available just last Tuesday at Amazon and My Bookstore and More, I’m going to give a $10 Gift Card to Starbucks to the winner of my new contest! Why Starbucks? Investigative reporter Catherine Steel goes frequently to her mother’s coffeehouse. Her mother’s place is called Leslie’s Coffee House. For the second prize, the winner can choose a free download of one of my three Samhain books - No Greater Loss, A Fiery Secret, or Never The Same!

You can do one of two things to be entered in this contest. Read the excerpt and email the answer by using the contact link on my website OR post in the comment box about a school employee that was important in your life. It doesn’t have to be a janitor. It can be a teacher, cafeteria worker, coach, school secretary…you get the point. Or just post a comment to say hello or about anything is fine! Posting a comment or emailing me the answer to the excerpt question will get you in the drawing for a chance to win.

I want to mention that some might think it’s a bit strange to have the dead person in A Fiery Secret be a janitor instead of another school employee. I know some schools have cleaning crews come in, and the students never really get to know these people. Well, when I wrote this book, I thought of my friend, Archie. He was a janitor in my elementary school. Archie was kind to everyone and loved children. He even gave me candy bars and always had something nice to say to me as I stood in the lunch line. Being the youngest of five children and very shy, he made me feel special. My own children have liked the janitors at their schools as well. My youngest daughter, Amanda, talks to her janitor, Jimmy, at her high school. He’s always takes the time to listen to her.

EXCERPT:

About Max from Ch. One and QUESTION at end of the excerpt!

Because everyone loved Max, our class had dedicated our yearbook to him. The decision had been unanimous among the seniors. As yearbook editor, I still remembered one person’s opposition to our selection. The school secretary, Miss Evelyn Kent, flung open the door to the yearbook room, shouting, “The yearbook shouldn’t be dedicated to a janitor. Mercy, students, think. Teachers, administration, coaches…All have had positive influence on your lives. How could you choose Max for this honor?”

EXCERPT:

I walked into Mom’s coffeehouse on Thursday night wearing an awesome black skirt with black knee high boots and a cream colored sweater. Mom was beside me instantly and gave me a hug.

“You look terrific,” she said, wearing a black skirt herself and a pink sweater with her pearl necklace. Her hair was pulled back in a chignon. She smiled. “We were thinking alike except your skirt shows more.”

I returned her smile. “We both have impeccable taste.” I took a quick glimpse around the room. “Looks like you have a nice crowd for Mr. Jansen’s reading.”

“I hope they buy his poetry book. Would you like coffee?”

“I’d like a cappuccino.”

While Mom got cappuccinos for both of us, she said, “Let’s sit down and chat. I haven’t talked to you since Tuesday.”

We sat at an empty table with orange and yellow mums in a vase with a yellow ribbon around the base. I leaned over to sniff a fat orange candle. “It smells like pumpkin pie.”

Mom nodded. “I wanted to set the right atmosphere for Dale’s reading, and I’m going to dim the lights when he starts. He has a few Halloween poems about ghosts so I decided to put orange candles on all the tables.”

“That’s cool. Did you tell Mr. Jansen I’d like to talk to him tonight?”

“I did. He’s glad you’re interested in finding out more about Max’s death. I guess he tried to tell the police he didn’t think it was an accident. Actually, Dale knew Max better than I realized. He said they were good friends.”

“Max touched many lives with his kindness. If he was murdered, I want to catch the killer and get him or her behind bars.”

Mom leaned forward and said, “I liked Max and want to find out what really happened. If you need my help, you have it.”

I cringed inside at Mom’s suggestion, remembering the last time I was investigating a big story and she went with me. We carefully dodged the surveillance cameras and snuck into a building where I needed to find information to prove what I suspected about a prominent CEO. Keeping hidden was crucial, so when Mom’s ankles made a cracking noise as we tiptoed around, I lived in fear the security guards might hear us. It was so bad that I wondered if she had a calcium deficiency. That’s right… I meant to pick up some calcium tablets for her and never did.

And I also realized why Dad never takes her fishing with him. She can’t be still for more than a few minutes.

I knew better than to get into a discussion again about why she shouldn’t go with me if I did some undercover sleuthing. She’d say, “What should I do in my spare time? Knit booties for grandbabies I don’t have?” On second thought, she’d only said that once. She doesn’t knit. But she frequently has talked about me meeting the right man and getting married.

Thinking of babies and marriage reminded me of Ricardo so I told her, “I talked to Ricardo last night and he’s getting married to a girl named Anita.”

Mom raised her sparse eyebrows. “I bet that was a surprise. How do you feel about it?”
I noticed she’d gotten better at coloring in her brows. When they first were thinning, she told me how intimidated she felt using makeup and hated that she no longer had nice, full brows.

“I was sad when he told me. I still have strong feelings for him. And Angie’s told me I’m too picky when it comes to men. She didn’t mean it about Ricardo, but just in general, and I started thinking how Ricardo did treat me well and we had fun together.”

“I know you two did have fun. Your dad and I liked Ricardo a lot.”

I shrugged. “I guess I had my chance to marry him. I shouldn’t whine now about losing him. It’s just that I might not meet anyone as good as him.”

Mom patted my arm. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll meet someone you love and want to marry.” She grinned. “And you won’t have to settle. Anyhow, you’re not the type to settle.”

“I like being single except when I see Angie so happy with Connor and Brian, then I start thinking how nice it’d be to have a husband and a family.”

Mom took a sip of coffee. “I have a stipulation. Your future husband should live close enough or move here. Then when you have a family, I can help you out when you need me to. It’s best to live close to the wife’s mother.”

I knew why Mom said that. Her family lived a few hours away, but my dad’s family lived in Park City. When Adam and I were small, Grandma Steel said, “I already raised my family so don’t expect me to help with your children.”

I grinned. “I guess Costa Rica wouldn’t have been close enough for your help with the grandbabies.”

“Not in a million years.” Mom stood. “I better get this show on the road.”

QUESTION: What is the name of Catherine’s old boyfriend from Costa Rica? Email answer to question OR leave a comment to be in the drawing.

CONTEST ENDS: March 2nd at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time - Will post here on blog!

I survived my first book signing. Approximately fifty people came to Author Day so that was nice to have this size of a crowd. I learned that one of the authors, Pam Lewis, lives only two miles from me. I enjoyed talking to her and meeting the other authors. I have been emailing Heather Webber for years, and she’s always taken time out of her busy writing schedule to answer my questions. It was fun meeting her in person. This was the first time the library put on something like this, and they were happy with how well it went so I think they might do it again next year.

I was impressed by all the speeches given by the other authors. It was great to hear their struggles and triumphs as writers. I liked hearing how I’m not the only author without enough time to fix dinner and have to resort sometimes to Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I hope our paths cross again and I’m sure they will. I know some of us will be attending Lori Foster’s and Dianne Castell’s Reader/Author Get Together in June.

I really appreciate all the people who turned out for Author Day. Also the authors received gift bags - that was a pleasant surprise!

I was happy to see friends, Esther Carlier, Janel Schmid, and Jennifer Schmid from church. Thank you for giving me so much support. I also appreciate Jennifer publicizing my books on MySpace. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about Jennifer in the future when she’s a published author. She’s a very talented writer.

My daughters, April and Emily, were a big help. I have to admit that I was more nervous about the signing than the speech. It was great that my sister-in-law, Mary and another sister-in-law, Denise came to hear me speak and stayed for the book signing.

Thank you to everyone who bought my books. Happy Reading!

Okay, here is your chance to buy my books in print! Several of my friends and relatives said they didn’t want to buy No Greater Loss & A Fiery Secret in the ebook format back in November when they were first released. And I understand. It is nice to hold a paperback in your hand. Not only was today Fat Tuesday, but my big release day for my first print books by Samhain publishing. Don’t worry if you don’t see them yet at your Borders or Waldenbooks because the books usually take a few weeks to arrive at the stores after the release date. This is true for both the New York published books and the smaller publishing companies.

I actually have copies of both for my book signing this Saturday. The book covers look gorgeous! I’m very pleased with the quality of the printing. I was surprised at how thick each book is. Here, I complained to my editor, Linda, about making me cut too much when we did revisions. Now I’m glad she did!

If you want to order No Greater Loss, it is available at Amazon, or go to Samhain’s site to buy it at My Bookstore & More

A Fiery Secret is also available at Amazon, or My Bookstore And More.

Hope you enjoyed your Fat Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Valentine’s Day and it is filled with love and laughter!

Amanda and Sara are home today because of the icy roads. They were also home yesterday. Even University of Cincinnati closed yesterday so my hubby Tom was home, too. Amanda is disappointed and wanted to go to school. She loves school and misses her friends. She wasn’t happy when our electric went off yesterday evening at 6:00. 100,000 homes were without electric in our area and still 60,000 today. Our electric came back on at 10:30 last night after Tom built a nice fire.

Here is an easy recipe to make for Valentine’s Day or for any occasion:

Oreo Cookie And Pudding Recipe (sometimes called a Dirt Cake or Dirt Pudding)

1 package of Oreo cookies (I think the cookies are in 20 oz. packages)
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 c. powdered sugar
3 1/2 c. milk
2 small (4 ounces) French vanilla instant pudding boxes
1 (12 oz) Cool Whip

Cream the butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar together. Beat pudding together with the milk for 2 minutes with mixer, add the Cool Whip to pudding mixture. Then blend in with the cream cheese mixture.

Crumble the Oreo’s in a blender or food processor. Or do what I do and put the cookies between two sheets of waxed paper and use a rolling pin. Don’t remove the creamy centers of the cookies, leave in.

Put 1/4 of cookie mixture in the bottom of your serving dish, then 1/3 of pudding mixture. Keep layering this until you end with cookie crumbs on the top.

Some people use a plastic flower pot that looks like a clay one. If you use a clay pot, line the inside with foil. Refrigerate for a few hours. Before serving add gummy worms “crawling” out of the pot and stick a silk flower in the center. That’s too much trouble for me. LOL If you do it this way, serve with a plastic trowel.

If you love lots of oreo cookies, you might want to use more than one package. You can substitute chocolate pudding for the french vanilla.

Enjoy!

Today is release day for my women’s fiction/mainstream book, Never the Same. If you would like to buy the ebook format, go to My Book Store and More to purchase. By the way, I never liked the original rust/tan color of the cover and my daughter, Emily, suggested I see if I could get the print books in blue. I spoke to the art director about it. He switched it to blue over the weekend, and I love the cover now. But if you purchase the ebook, it will have the old color on the cover. It was too late to switch it on the ebook, but the print book releasing in August will be in blue.

I have 3 different excerpts for you to read. Here is an excerpt at my website:
http://www.dianecraver.com/neverexc.php

This link is for the exciting excerpt at the Samhain site:
http://samhainpublishing.com/excerpt/never-the-same

And there’s a different excerpt which I just posted yesterday here at my blog.

Because Samhain is getting so much traffic at their site, they will be switching to another server on Friday night so their site will be down over the weekend, but you can still buy Never the Same at My Bookstore and More. It is on a different server so there won’t be any problems using it. My ebook is a special price for this week at $4.95.

The flowers and card you see here were actually for my very first release day at Samhain for No Greater Loss in November 2006 and given to me by my daughter, April. I wasn’t able to get it transferred from my camera in November to post so I am happy to put it on here now. I was so touched that she thought to get me this beautiful vase of flowers because she was busy moving right then. Never the Same is dedicated to April. She has always been so supportive of my writing and reads everything I write whether it is an article for a publication or a draft of a book. I appreciate all her encouragement through the years when I thought about giving up on writing as a career.