NEW RELEASE! RETURN TO PARADISE RANCH WITH LIZBETH SELVIG IN "HEATING UP PARADISE"

Hi GLIAS Family!

I’m thrilled to be here sharing my brand new novel, HEATING UP PARADISE, with you. It’s my first new book in a year—and the first “Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys” book in two years. My long “sabbatical” was filled with writing discoveries and a few sweats and tears—but I’m really pleased with the book that resulted and I hope you will be, too.

HEATING UP PARADISE is the fifth of seven books in the Seven Brides saga—the stories of the Crockett sisters, who inherit their family’s 50,000-acre Paradise Ranch in western Wyoming. Each woman left home years before and now has a career and a career path far from ranching. What could possibly convince them, one by one, to stay in Wyoming and change course? Why, true love. What else?

So, the men who become part of Paradise Ranch have to be worthy of the challenge and the legacy. And I truly believe each one is!

The first three books in the series feature the oldest Crockett girls—Harper ("The Bride Wore Denim"); Mia ("The Bride Wore Red Boots"); and Joely ("The Bride Wore Starlight") and their strong, worthy heroes Cole, Gabe, and Alec. 

 The next three books feature (and will feature) the Crockett triplets:  Grace,
Kelly, and Raquel--named for their father's two favorite movie stars!).  BETTING ON PARADISE told Grace and Ty’s story. (Coming early 2022: SEARCHING FOR PARADISE, Raquel’s story.)

But today we're celebrating HEATING UP PARADISE—Kelly and Damien’s story! What could a chef and a smokejumper firefighter possibly have in common? Here’s a little about the book:

She has dreams as big as the Tetons of her home. He can’t unlock the dreams that haunt him. Neither has time for love. But, this is Paradise…

Kelly Crockett longs to be known for her culinary skill. But achieving her dream seems impossible when Fate insists on sabotaging every idea for transforming her award-winning Denver coffee-and-sandwich shop into a top-tier restaurant.

Kelly’s life’s-a-party attitude helps her stand out from her triplet sisters, but it’s useless when a fire at her restaurant sends her appearance on a career-building cooking show up in flames. Devastated, she heads home to vast and beautiful Paradise Ranch where, while helping in her sister’s new restaurant, she conceives a bold plan for rescuing her dreams. But Fate isn’t done throwing obstacles in her path, not the least of which is a gorgeous but troubled man who’s all wrong for her.

Damien Finney believes that after three years as a firefighter, two tours in Afghanistan, and one year in PTSD therapy, he’s ready to leave hell and start the next chapter of his life. After rigorous training, he’s earned a spot on an elite smokejumper crew, but then a failed jump lands him right back on the Devil’s doorstep.

After Afghanistan, Damien found healing at Paradise Ranch in a program that paired veterans with wild mustangs. With his smoke-jumping career in jeopardy, he returns to the ranch and the horses, seeking a miracle cure to save his future. The last thing he needs is a bubbly extrovert-of-a-woman invading his refuge and throwing his plans off course.

Although they fight it, the heat between Kelly and Damien’s opposite personalities builds, but there’s trouble in Paradise: Kelly’s plans cause strife with her sisters. Damien’s past haunts him. And when wildfires threaten the land they both love, each must decide if the heat will forge a new future or tear them apart. Are they brave enough to see that buried beneath the dreams they hoped for is the dream they actually need—one that’s theirs together?

This book is filled with so many adventures as Kelly and Damien struggle to learn what’s important to them. One of the major themes in this book is the healing power of horses. Fun fact: Damien appeared in Book 2 “The Bride Wore Red Boots” as a veteran struggling with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. In that book, his mare Panacea
was his healing grace. Pan and her colt Apollo play huge roles in this new book—and Damien spends a lot of  time looking for Pan’s roots and hoping for more healing strength. I loved writing about the horses again—pure magic. 

 For her part, Kelly thinks she knows exactly what she wants in life – to work with a
Michelin-starred chef and become a top-tier chef herself. She does get her chance and what she learns surprises her and makes her rethink her relationship with her triplet sisters.

I love when my characters teach me something as I write and learn about them. I think HEATING UP PARADISE has lots of life lessons about trust, patience, loyalty and love. But it also has some plain fun moments! I hope you’ll check it out and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! 

You can find HEATING UP PARADISE in e-book at the following e-tailers. The paperback version will be available within a few days as well!

                 AMAZON        BARNES & NOBLE         APPLE         KOBO

I have a signed, paperback copy of BETTING ON PARADISE, the book that precedes HEATING UP PARADISE. Just let me know below why you read romance novels.  Do simply want to escape into love? Do you like books that touch on important themes? Do love romantic comedy? I’d love to know what makes you fall into a good romance! And I'd love to keep in touch -- here's how to find me practically anywhere!! 

(Be sure to include your email address if you want to be in on the drawing for the book!)

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Lizbeth Selvig - Character Interview with Grace and Ty from Betting on Paradise

Hi again GLIAS Friends!

Thanks for joining me today to celebrate Release Day #2 for Betting on Paradise.  I was excited to write this story because I’ve been in love with the three Crockett triplets from the beginning of the series. Grace, Kelly, and Raquel were named for their father’s two favorite movie stars, Grace Kelly and Raquel Welch. Since true identical triplets are literally one-in-a-million rarities, I’ve been fascinated with these three and couldn’t wait to explore their differences in light of how close they are. Since they’ve lived and worked in Denver, far from Paradise Ranch, they weren’t featured predominantly in the first three “Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys” books. The chance to get to know them is the best fun for me!

BUY BETTING ON PARADISE

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Grace is the first of the triplets to separate herself from the others. She’s underappreciated in her role as part owner of the sisters’ successful Denver restaurant, and she wants to try out some ideas that Kelly and Raquel have voted down. She’s also different from the other two because she has a reputation as “the good girl.” So, who does Grace fall for? A man who’s definitely had his stint as “the bad boy.”

Only, by the time the story starts, Ty has turned over a new leaf—because of his daughter, Teagan aka Lucky. She was unceremoniously dumped in Ty’s life by a women he’d dated and broken up with three years earlier. Although her mother disappeared, Lucky has literally changed her dad’s life. The only “bad” thing Ty is doing nowadays is taking advantage of his new position at Paradise Ranch. He feels guilty about lying to the family – he has plans to try and take away some of their land, for the most legitimate of reasons, he believes—but he has no intention of getting close to the people. And he plans to tell them as soon as he can.

Long story short:  he fell in love. And that messed up everything.

I could go on and on about Grace and Ty’s love affair—but, then, that’s what the book is for. Instead, I thought you’d get a kick out of an interview with Grace and Ty—conducted after the end of the book. So I picked out a handful of GLIAS questions and posed them to our heroes. For your enjoyment—welcome Grace Crockett and Ty Garraway!

LIZ: Welcome you two! You can take turns answering the questions you like. Let’s start with Grace. What was your favorite book as a child?

GRACE: My Friend Flicka and The Black Stallion. I think both of those books made me look at the wild mustangs we see once in a while on Paradise Ranch in a really romanticized way. I always wanted to have my own wild horse to tame, even though we had plenty of broke horses to choose from. Since then, my sisters and I have trained many mustangs—and it’s always a thrill.

LIZ: What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?

TY: I can’t seem to help that I still enjoy a small stakes poker game with friends. I’ve never gotten stressed out by gambling and I’ve managed to stay away from any kind of game where I could lose my shirt. But more than that I love spending time with my daughter, Lucky. She was such a surprise, coming into my life the way she did (her mother just dropped her off and disappeared) but she’s the reason for every decision I make. Of course, there’s spending time with Grace—that, I figured just went without saying..

LIZ: If your house was on fire and you only had time to save three objects, what would you save?

GRACE:  1. Assuming all the people were safe—my computer—it has all my business  plans on it; 2. my grandmother’s old recipe file box—it contains all the special recipes I want to include on my new restaurant menu; 3. a painting my sister Harper made of the old family cottage we turned into our restaurant—it’s a one-of-a-kind that gave me my inspiration for this whole endeavor.

TY: 1. Lucky’s dog Rupert—don’t tell her, but after all the complaints I made about having a dog, I’ve fallen for the crazy mutt; 2. my great-grandmother’s journal—Grace and her sisters found it and it proves to me that the way I treat my family is far more important than what I give them; 3. Lucky’s three-year-old portrait—the first one I had taken of her after she came into my life.

LIZ: You’ve been granted one superpower for one week. Which power would you choose, and what would you do with it?

TY:  I would choose Superman’s ability to fly so fast he turned back time. There are a lot of things I’d like to go back and change in my family history. I’d maybe slap my great-grandfather upside the head for the kind of life he led back in 1910 and the way he treated my great-grandmother. I’d also change things so I could have known Lucky from the time she was born rather than the time she was three.

LIZ: Grace, can you write us a haiku about Ty!

GRACE (laughing): I’m kind of a dorky girl so, yeah I’ll try one:

Ty loves his daughter

He’ll risk all for those he loves.

I’m the lucky one.

LIZ: Ty? How about you?

TY: Oh, heck no. I don’t do poetry. Flowers is the best I can do. I will say, though, that if I ever did write a verse or rhyme it would be because Grace inspired it. She can give me the power to do and believe anything.

LIZ: Time for a mini blitz!

Ty:

a)Favorite color? Green

c) Movie? – The Magnificent Seven

d) Summer or winter? Summer

e) Morning or night? Morning –I have a daughter who’s a morning kid, so I have no choice.

f) Rain or shine? Rain

g) Sweet or salty? Sweet – I’m a sucker for anything with ice cream or frosting.

Grace:

a)Favorite color? Lavender

c) Movie? – Love Actually

d) Summer or winter? Summer

e) Morning or night? Night—Ty and I are rarely in agreement about this, lol.

f) Rain or shine? Rain – Ty and I are always in agreement about this!

g) Sweet or salty? Sweet – Chocolate chip cookies are my downfall.

LIZ: What’s on your bucket list for this year?

TY and GRACE: To get the new restaurant up and running. To take Lucky to DisneyWorld.

QUESTION FOR YOU:
i have a choice of e-book from my back list for one commenter today. Since this blog is all about books, let me ask you what I asked Grace above:   What was your favorite book as a child?

Thanks for spending time with me the past two days. I hope you’ll get a chance to enjoy Betting on Paradise. And contact me anytime by email or social media -- or join my online STREET TEAM or REVIEW SQUAD. We have nothing but FUN both places!

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Betting on the Brand New Seven Brides Book from Lizbeth Selvig

Hi GLIAS friends,

It’s been a while since I’ve had the joy and fun of coming to you with a new release. I’m so excited to share the birth of this story—it’s a saga in and of itself.

Betting on Paradise is the fourth book in my series “Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys.” For a little while I wasn’t sure it would see its way to life much less pave the way for the three books I planned to follow it.  The three books that started this series (The Bride Wore Denim, The Bride Wore Red Boots, and The Bride Wore Starlight) have done well but, to be blunt, not well enough for the bean counters at HarperCollins. Since indie-publishing was NEVER on my bucket list, I nearly gave up on my seven book plan and went on to a different kind of novel completely.

But I LOVE this series. Plus, I actually had people who were not my mother begging for the next book – and if you want to know a big truth about authors it’s that one of the things that swells our heads the most is readers asking when the next installment in a series is coming.

So I took up the story and started attaching myself to very smart friends who know a lot about the self-publishing world. Thank Heaven for them. I would have no book without their help.

I did all the things that needed to be done:  hired an editor, secured a copy editor, and found a cover designer. All went well, and I had a lovely cover I adored, until just after I revealed said cover, we discovered a nearly identical, duplicate cover already on a book for sale on Amazon. NO WAY! The books are the same genre and would have shown up at the same place. I had to change it.

Serendipity! My glorious cover artist changed background colors, changed font colors, and changed my heroine’s dress color—and the vote was unanimous. The new cover was better than the first. Here’s the original photo we used. It’s stands out. It pops. But it’s not nearly as pretty as the final product. It makes me happy every time I see it. And it’s perfect for this spring release, for Easter, and for standing out in a crowd!

Tomorrow I’ll talk more about the story between the covers – come back for an interview with my hero, Ty, and my heroine, Grace. Until then, here’s a little more about Betting on Paradise. Welcome back to Paradise Ranch, everyone!!

STORY BLURB

From birth Grace Crockett has been part of an unbroken set: one-in a million identical triplets. Twenty-six years later, however, feeling unappreciated in her role as part owner of a successful Denver restaurant, Grace longs to break away and fulfill her own dreams. But to do so she must learn to trust in her own judgment.

Small-time poker player Ty Garraway is determined to break his family’s legacy of abuse and abandonment, and give his young daughter a hope for the future he’s never had. But that means taking on the Crocketts—one of the most powerful ranching families in Wyoming—and taking back a part of Paradise Ranch stolen from his family eighty years ago in a poker game he believes was rigged.

Grace’s relentless honesty and devotion to family—not to mention the way she turns him on—has Ty thinking too much with his heart. Ty’s passionate love for his daughter and his encouragement of Grace’s half-baked ideas—not to mention his knee-weakening kisses—has Grace wondering if she’s found her unlikely match in a rough-around-the-edges cowboy. But when Ty’s plans are exposed, can Grace forgive the liar who manipulated her and her family and forgive herself for being duped?

Love has raised the stakes, requiring Ty to bet everything he has to win Grace and his future, but will it be enough?

BUY BETTING ON PARADISE

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EXCERPT

Ty gave the corner of the sheetrock a pull and a chunk three feet square broke off like limestone and powdered the floor. The space behind the hole was empty.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Grace.

“Yeah. What do you think, Alice, do you want to see what’s behind here? A portal to Wonderland? Maybe a doorway to Narnia?”

“You know about Narnia?”

He scowled. “I have a kid, remember? Who reads already and likes to listen to books above her age level. I’ve probably read more children’s stories than you have.”

She nodded in concession. “That’s pretty likely true. But I have read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Alice in Wonderland, so at least I got the references.”

He smiled, warmed by the easy camaraderie they suddenly shared. It shouldn’t be that surprising, he supposed. They were searching for treasure together after all. “Well, we’re more like the Goonies than like Peter and Susan,” he said, turning back to the wall and grasping another edge of sheet rock.

“Or Alice, for that matter,” she replied. “Because I’m telling you, if we find something with a tag on it that reads ‘Drink Me,’ it isn’t going to be me who tries it.”

“Why does that not surprise me in the least?” He swiveled his head slightly to glance back and wrinkle his nose. “Grace Crockett, try an unknown substance?”

“Unless it’s a good Scotch.”

A grunting laugh burst from him as he won the battle with another chunk of wallboard. “I think I like you, Miss Grace. You don’t take yourself too seriously.”

This time the snorting laughter came from her. “You’ll never ever convince my sisters of that. And, I admit, one of the reasons I’m okay with pulling this down is that I could never leave that hole in the wall. It would bother me in my sleep.”

“Seriously?”

Another piece of sheetrock hit the floor.

“Think Big Bang Theory.”

“You’re telling me you’re that OCD?”

“I like no mess.”

“Aha. That totally explains why you want to clean this place before you get bids on remodeling.”

“I guess.”

She used her good hand to join him in the demolition. After fifteen minutes, they’d cleared a section of wall about ten feet square. Ty held up his hand to stop them and stepped back.

“Look at that,” he said.

“A second fireplace!” Grace bent and craned her neck to look into the brick firebox. “Somebody covered it up, and really quickly, too.”

“A quick guess is that it was old and drafty, and this was a stopgap to warm up the room.”

They both rocked forward at the same time and stuck their heads into the fireplace. As if they’d choreographed it, Ty turned his head right and Grace turned hers left so they could look up the flue. It was black as a well.

A gentle waft of flowery scent filled his nostrils. Without warning his heartbeat accelerated and he turned slowly back, shocked to meet her eyes just inches from his. Her nose nearly brushed his cheek. He could have kissed her. She didn’t move.

“I think it’s blocked.” Her breath feathered his lips. He couldn’t take his eyes off the action of her mouth as she swallowed.

“Yup.”

“What’s this, some kind of new voodoo ceremony?”

The bright, southern-accented voice from behind them made Ty flinch as if he’d been stun gunned. When his forehead crashed into Grace’s she collapsed onto her side, hit her elbow and let out a yelp that ended in a choked sob.

“Grace!” Ty was out of the fireplace and had Grace in his arms before he could even rub the sore spot on his own head. “I’m sorry. So sorry. Your bad elbow—”

“I only bumped it. I’m fine, Ty.” Her forced half smile couldn’t hide the pain in her eyes.

He didn’t look toward the door; he’d recognized the voice. Instead, he bent his head closer to Grace. “We should go have it checked again.”

“Oh for crying out loud. No we should not.”

Grace was first to look at their guests. Ty continued to hold her, unwilling to trust her balance, not wanting to let her go. She felt right and safe in his embrace.

But before he could ask once more if she really was okay, she gasped and wrenched free of his arms.

“Lil!” she said.

 In full-fledged annoyance, Ty turned, too, and met a pair of sparkling brown eyes.

“That looked like it hurt, baby,” Lil said.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ty shot back.

Grace popped him on the shoulder with a deep scowl and gave the slightest incline of her head toward the door. He looked more carefully. Lucky stepped away from Lil’s side and gave a suspicious little wave.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Lucky?”

“You gave Miss Grace a bad bump. I think you should kiss her owie.” She crossed her five-year-old arms and waited.

QUESTION

In this scene, Ty’s daughter, Lucky, an extremely precocious five-year-old, ends up being the smartest person in the room – or at least the most honest. I love including kids and animals in my stories. Just as they say in the movies—they’re usually the ones who steal the limelight. I want to know what baby, child, or animal steals the scenes in your life. Tell me all about your favorite kids and/or pets. I have an e-copy of your choice of any one book from my backlist for a commenter today.

Remember to come back tomorrow for more fun (Ty and Grace answer GLIAS questions) and another giveaway!

Here’s how to contact me—I love hearing from readers:

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See you tomorrow!