#WriteWed Asbury Park Inspiration for Under the Boardwalk

When we first moved to our little piece of the Jersey Shore, Asbury Park was still attempting to recover from the malaise of the 1960s and 1970s. For decades, people were hoping the city would be revitalized and over the last six or so years, there has been an amazing change in the city. In fact, in a recent NY Times article, a local lawyer dubbed it “Brooklyn on the Beach.”

New restaurants and a new hotel as well as cornerstones like the Stone Pony, Wunder Bar, the Convention Center, and the Paramount Theater have made Asbury Park the “hip” place to be!

It was that new sense of energy that inspired the choice of the Asbury Park boardwalk for my UNDER THE BOARDWALK novella.

Here are some photos of the boardwalk for you!

You can purchase UNDER THE BOARDWALK at these retailers!

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ae3AU8
B&N: http://bit.ly/2a6vKPc
iBooks: http://apple.co/2a9fZ9X
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2a6xdES
Page Foundry: http://bit.ly/2a6wkfO
Scribd: http://bit.ly/2a6vM9A

#TeaserTuesday Under the Boardwalk

Happy Tuesday! You know what that means: a teaser!

Today I’m sharing a teaser from UNDER THE BOARDWALK. I loved exploring how two people who truly love each other go about repairing a marriage that’s gone wrong. I truly believe that with love, you can fix something that’s broken. It just takes time and patience and in this case, a little bit of passion. Okay, maybe a lot of passion, not that passion alone is enough necessarily.

In UNDER THE BOARDWALK, Chase and Natalie have lost the passion as their lives have pulled them apart. The love is still there, but caught up in a lot of other things that are keeping them from being real with each other. In this story, they get real again and try to rekindle their love and marriage, but also find themselves again.

Teaser

Natalie Ramirez has spent less and less time with her husband over the last year and more and more time alone. She longs for the happy days of summer when she and Chase would pass the time together on the beach and under the boardwalk, exploring the passion that simmered between them as hot as any summer sun.

Chase Smith had to work hard for everything he ever had, including his wife Natalie. His wife had never wanted for anything in her life and Chase didn’t want to disappoint her. But somewhere along the way, Chase lost sight of the most important thing she wanted: his love.

A passionate night under the boardwalk brought them together, but can Chase and Natalie rekindle that lost love and save their marriage?

Excerpt

Click here if you cannot see the excerpt below!

Additional Info

You can purchase UNDER THE BOARDWALK at these retailers!

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ae3AU8
B&N: http://bit.ly/2a6vKPc
iBooks: http://apple.co/2a9fZ9X
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2a6xdES
Page Foundry: http://bit.ly/2a6wkfO
Scribd: http://bit.ly/2a6vM9A

4th of July #JerseyShore

Hope you all had a great 4th of July! We had lots of fun down the Shore! Beautiful beach days, being a part of the 4th of July Parade in Ocean Grove and fireworks. I love fireworks!

So today I’m sharing some photos from the weekend!

Day at the Beach

Bradley Beach

Sunset over Ocean Grove

Sunset over Ocean Grove

The OG Surf & Skate Gang at the Parade

OG Surf & Skate Crew

Waiting for Asbury Park Fireworks

sunsetsmall

Fireworks Bradley Beach, New Jersey

If you can’t see the photos below, click here to see the photo album.

#WriteWed Jersey Girl Bridemaids #JerseyShore Mansion

I love my little part of the Jersey Shore and you’ve seen lots of it in various stories, like the Sin Hunter series and the Take a Chance series. The heroine of the first book in the Jersey Girl Bridesmaids may live in New York City, but her heart is on the Jersey Shore in the mansion where she used to spend summers with her grandparents.

That mansion is going to be set in Sea Girt, an absolutely lovely community in Monmouth County, New Jersey. It has a restored lighthouse, a National Guard Training Center, the beautiful Beacon House Inn, and many wonderful beach homes, including ones with direct access to the beach (something you don’t have in many of the other towns in this area).

Both the hero and heroine have homes here, large ones with lots of space around them. I imagine the homes being built right around the time of Prohibition, with a Victorian feel. Who knows if their ancestors even made some extra money running rum or other alcohol along this part of the shore!

For my #WriteWed this morning, I’m sharing with you some photos of homes in the Monmouth County area so you can get a feel for the architecture of this part of the Jersey Shore.

#WriteWed Inspiration for Under the Boardwalk #JerseyShore #NJ

I love the towns and beaches along the Jersey Shore in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. They each have their unique flavor and interesting facets. That’s why I’ve set so many books there in the past (like UNDER THE BOARDWALK) and why I’m setting the 2017 Jersey Girl Bridesmaids books there.

In UNDER THE BOARDWALK, which is part of the SUMMER HEAT box set, I’ve set the story in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, two of my favorite towns. But there are lots of other fun places in New Jersey and today I am sharing with you my Pinterest board of interesting spots you may want to check out in my home state.

Ocean Grove Inspiration for the At the Shore Series #WriteWed

I am busy working on the first book in the Jersey Girls Bridesmaid series, tentatively titled SINCE WE WERE 18. This is a Romeo-Juliet kind of story about the son and daughter of two wealthy families that have had a feud going on for a couple of decades.

The heroine, Maggie Sinclair, is trying to save her family’s chain of upscale department stores while the hero’s father would love nothing more than to see them fail so he can gobble up the prime real estate where the stores are located.

The hero, Jax Pierce, can’t understand his bitter and very unhappy father nor the fight with the Sinclair family. If anything, Jax has kind of been in love with Maggie since a moonlit kiss on the Jersey Shore when they were both 18 (hence the title).

The two family businesses are in NYC and Jax and Maggie live there, but both families have homes on the Jersey Shore and at heart, Maggie is a Jersey Girl as are Maggie’s two BFFS, Connie and Emma.

There will be lots of scenes in New York, but also lots of time spent on the Jersey Shore as the three friends come to terms with always being bridesmaids and never brides, and try to find their own happily-ever-after.

Today I’m leaving you with some photos of the Jersey Shore locations that have inspired me as I write this book.

The Jersey Girls Bridesmaid series will be available starting in 2017.

#ThrowbackThursday My Little Shore Baby

As I mentioned yesterday, we are truly shore people and of course, we had a little shore baby. LOL! This is a picture of my baby during a visit to a friend’s place in Long Beach on Long Island. Notice the Atlantic City hat, courtesy of her grandparents who went there often.
shorebaby