Holiday Cafe Giveaway: Kindle Paperwhite and Amazon Giftcards!

To celebrate my Halloween Contemporary Romance novel Masked Hearts

MaskedHeartsI’m giving away a Kindle Paperwhite!

Four other lucky winners will receive a $5 Amazon giftcard.

You can enter starting 12:00 AM October 24 until 12:00 AM November 1.

Due to sweepstakes laws, this giveaway is only open to US residents who are 18 years of age or older (sorry international readers).

There are four ways to enter:

1. Click the free entry once per day. Come back each day from Oct. 24-Halloween to see what exciting new blog post I have up.

2 Follow me on Twitter. If you already follow me, just type in your handle so I can match it to my followers list.

3. Follow my blog. Again, if you already follow my blog just enter your email address so I can check it with my list of followers.

4. Leave a comment for this post letting me know what your favorite coffee based drink is. Masked Hearts is the first in The Holiday Cafe Series, and I would love to know what my readers enjoy drinking most.

Have fun and come back often! Also, check out Masked Hearts on Amazon, All Romance, Smashwords or Barnes and Noble. You’re gonna love it. I can’t wait to give my prizes away!

Evelyn Aster is sole sponsor for the Holiday Cafe Giveaway.

Click on the picture below to be taken to my Rafflecopter Page for the Holiday Cafe Giveaway!

giveaway

 

Single Nights: Top Five Favorite Book Covers

Anouncement just for my blog readers: I’m guest blogging at the ARe Cafe tomorrow! Masked Hearts is being discounted to $1 Oct.20-21, but I’ve already put the discount in! So you can get it on sale a little early! On with the blog…

One of the best ways to spend a night alone is reading, which makes Larissa’s Top Five Sundays’ topic of Fave Book Covers perfect for tonight’s blog.

I’m going way old school for my first pick:

Evelyn Anthony was one of the first romance authors my mom let me read. I like this cover because the couple is in an embrace and the blurb says it all.

Another old book, but I love this new cover.

When my novella was published with Jupiter Gardens, I had to go through their covers and find what I liked about them for my own. Blown Away was one of my favorite covers, even if the style wasn’t suitable for my own story.

I love the fairytale dress.

Who doesn’t love a violet gown? Hopefully I’ll have a heroine wear a purple gown 🙂

Hot Links!

Welcome to the redesigned Evelyn Aster site. More changes are on the way, including a mature rating so I can post steamier content. In the meantime, please enjoy my erotic romance Masked Hearts which you can puchase at the below sites:

Amazon

All Romance

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

Kobo Books

You can also read my interview at Smashwords!

Have a great weekend!
Have a great weekend!

Slight Indulgence: Salted Caramel Popcorn

I live day to day on small indulgences whether it’s a bite sized piece of dove chocolate or my favorite coffee drink. One of my favorite snacks is popcorn because it’s light and healthy if fixed right. Recently I discovered an easy way to give it big taste without adding a ton of calories. And it’s way easier than traditional caramel corn.

Large bowl of popped popcorn
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon Smuckers Salted Caramel Topping
Dash of salt

I use an air popper to pop my corn because it really reduces the calories from traditional oil poppers and even microwaved popcorn. In a small bowl place butter and caramel. Heat in the microwave for thirty seconds. Stir caramel mixture until smooth. Drizzle caramel over popcorn. Sprinkle with dash of salt. Use two forks to toss until popcorn is tan. Enjoy the big flavor in this slight indulgence!

As you can see, my jar is almost empty. It's a great addition to coffee :)
As you can see, my jar is almost empty. It’s a great addition to coffee 🙂

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I poured it into a bigger bowl to make tossing easier. See the nice tan color?
I poured it into a bigger bowl to make tossing easier. See the nice tan color?

What do you indulge with?

Becoming a Romance Heroine: Yoga

Dear Readers,

I do intend to finish Becoming a Fantasy Romance Heroine soon! I didn’t like one of my pictures and wanted to retake it. Please enjoy getting back to contemporary times for a bit 🙂

It seems to me that contemporary romance heroines take Yoga or Pilates. I don’t know anything about Pilates, but I have a couple of acquaintances who teach Yoga–one teaches Hot Yoga even. Yoga or Pilates, the point is a romance heroine keeps herself in good shape. Please note that I say “good shape” and not super thin or model perfect.

I have always considered myself to be fit, but definitely not super thin or model perfect. Between the ages of 3-18 I took some form of dance lesson every year, mostly tap but I dabbled in ballet and jazz. That was a great foundation for my adult health. And for quite a bit, as an adult, I kept myself very active.

But recently, not so much. For the first time I have slipped over from “healthy weight” to “overwieght.” I’m not very far over the line, but I haven’t told you the worst.

The worst is I have the stupidist injury ever: from sitting on my butt all the time writing and from sleeping on the same side every night, I injured my T-band which is a band that runs from hip to knee. When my doctor prescribed physical therapy as my treatment, I thought I’d be there with senior citizens recovering from hip replacement. There were a few senior citizens, but mostly there were super athletes who over extended their muscles doing their super exercises and making me feel super pathetic.

Fortunately, my trainer was super cute 🙂

So now my physical therapy is over, and I feel much better. But I’m still a little overweight and my leg strength is definitely not what it used to be. I am not a romance heroine 😦

This morning, I took out the old Wii Fit board, dusted it off and started up the program. I know it’s so 2008, but it’s a good start. Unfortunately, my scores have really dropped from when I did it the first couple of years I had it–especially my Yoga scores. The only good report was I’m still 4 years younger in Wii Fit age than my real age.

My goal is to lose 15 pounds in three months and to build up my balance and strength again. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. Wish me luck!

Single Nights: 5 Favorite New TV Shows

Tonight at Larissa’s Life, she’s doing your Top Five New TV Shows. I have fallen behind with TV due to getting my book Masked Hearts out, so I only have 4, and one of them I stole from Larissa.

My First pick is Garfunkle and Oats on IFC. Thay are smart funny women, and I’m so glad they landed a TV show:

http://www.larissaslife.com/2014/10/top-5-sundays-212-favorite-new-shows.html

My next pick is Selfie. It’s a new My Fair Lady. It’s cute, but I hope they aren’t growing the characters too fast.

http://abc.go.com/shows/selfie/episode-guide/season-01/101-series-premiere-pilot

My third pick is already over, but I hope they do another season: The Quest.

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-quest/episode-guide/season-01/101-the-quest-begins

And then my last pick is A-Z. I tried it because it was on Larissa’s list. Wow! I have to watch it now! I’m glad “the mother” from How I met Your Mother has a new gig.

http://www.nbc.com/a-to-z/video/b-is-for-big-glory/2816143

I hope you enjoy some of these. What are your favorite new shows?

New Release Celebration!

Last night we celebrated as soon as Masked Hearts showed up on Amazon!

First we toasted with St. Germaine. If you have never had St. Germaine, go out and buy it now!

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Then my lover took me to the bar featured in the second chapter of Masked Hearts.

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I had this drink called Lavendar Blossom. So smooth with St. Germaine and lemon vodka and a hint of lavendar. Two of them made me totally buzzed! It was a great night!