Love the Wine You're With (Vineyard Pleasures, #2) is ... almost ... done! It's in the final stages of editing, and I'm hoping to launch it November 1st. *Fist pump*

So, without further ado, here's the cover reveal:

I spent this past summer with the AC on full-blast, combating 110 degree weather in sunny California while penning Love the Wine You're With (Vineyard Pleasures, #2)--the standalone continuation centered around Blanca Grazia and Julien L'Angevin from Whine with Cheese (Vineyard Pleasures, #1).
Picking up where Max and Chase had left off, we land right smack dab at the Halloween Party ... and then scoot on into the Christmas Season. While my RomCom is debuting in time for the holidays, crammed full of all kinds of holly-jolly good times, the plot does play fair to the other seasons, as well, for a holiday read. In other words, enjoy it any time of the year, but it'll be available this November on all major eBook retailers and in paperback, too.

Whine with Cheese (Vineyard Pleasures, #1) Nuts and Bolts:

Whine with Cheese is wrapping up its run on Net Galley on October 28th, so, if you're a book blogger and would like to read and review the novel, you still have about a week left to receive a free copy. My RomCom is by request only through my PR queen, Giselle, who will hook you up with a copy of the novel--just let her know directly through Net Galley. 


 WHINE WITH CHEESE (Vineyard Pleasures, #1) is also coming to a BOOK BLOG near you October 23rd-27th! I had an overwhelming response for a Book Blitz of my RomCom, and I am ecstatic about getting the word out about my quirky, heart-warming, and deliciously sexy romance.

Love the Wine You're With (Vineyard Pleasures, #2) will be making its debut in a Book Blitz November 13th-17th. Book bloggers sign up HERE if you'd like to be included in that event.

A quick head's up for next month, Love the Wine You're With (Vineyard Pleasures, #2) will be all yours to read and review, again by request only, on Net Galley starting November 21st thru December 21st.

Busy much? You betcha. But I love it.

Speaking of which, did I mention that I'm all in for NaNoWriMo this year? Yep. I signed up and made it official. My third book is tickling my fingertips and itching my brain. Stay tuned...

NEW RELEASE Contemporary Romance - Romantic Comedy, WHINE WITH CHEESE by BROOKE E. WAYNE

NEW RELEASE ON AMAZON

WHINE WITH CHEESE by BROOKE E WAYNE
 

SWIRL A HOT MESS, a savvy vintner, and a meathead ex into a chaotic adventure and indulge in a taste of humor when a sensual journey of self-discovery collides with true love.

Twenty-five-year-old Max Novaline just had her heart ripped out by her meathead ex-boyfriend, Bart Moore. 

Determined to bounce back, she heads to Napa Valley’s Angel of the Vine Winery, maker of her favorite Moscato, to scout out tours for work and—let’s be honest—catch a glimpse of the owner’s drool-worthy son, Chase L’Angevin, as seen on YouTube.

Chase, who likes a pin-up girl with an ample derrière, starts to pour on the charm the moment he meets Max. When their first date rolls into a long, romantic weekend, their chemistry ignites faster than a matchstick in hell.

But after their second date is interrupted by Chase’s work-related obligations, Max bides her time wine tasting awaiting his return, which is no biggie, until a drunk tourist catapults her into a whirlwind of chaos, that dumps her right back into the clutches of her manipulative ex.

Not only that, determined to reconcile with Max, Chase keeps sneaking around, insisting they had a hotter connection, only to come off looking like a stalker with only one thing on his mind—his own ax to grind.

Even more adventures arise when Max has to deal with what she wants and what she has. Not only does she need to do major damage control with the entire L’Angevin family thanks to Bart’s shady deeds, but she also has to convince Chase she’s worth a second chance despite her antics having practically snuffed out their flame.

WHINE WITH CHEESE is about a young woman discovering her full potential while falling in love one sweet wine tasting at a time.

***This novel is a classy, passionate, sexy, funny, feel good CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE - ROMANTIC COMEDY full of twists and turns that will have you laughing out loud from start to finish. Grab a bottle of Moscato, kick your feet up, and enjoy the ride.***
(Heat Level: Sensual but Closed-Door)

Although a full-length standalone as book #1 in the Vineyard Pleasures Series, Max’s BFF, Blanca Grazia, will have you belly-laughing in book #2 with her own crazy romance in LOVE THE WINE YOU’RE WITH, Coming this Holiday Season 2017.

Enjoy reading an eBook on ANY electronic device or computer with one of AMAZON'S FREE eREADER APPS.

Beauty Hacks

I’m not a vain person by any means, but I do value my self-maintenance and spend my money wisely on products most of the time.  I’m not above cutting corners with certain things in my beauty regimen.  For example, I went for a power walk yesterday--also known as chasing my lil’ princesses around and around the block on their bikes for 40 minutes--and called it good.  They had fun, and I worked up a sweat.  Workout Hack accomplished.

When it comes to beauty products, I’m also willing to try out just about anything before I commit.  When I do though, I’m fiercely loyal.  If I like it, regardless of the price, I’m sold forever and ever.  Case in point, I’ve been a Wen Girl for years.  (It’s okay to laugh, but I have frizzy/curly hair and nothing else works as well, you see…).  If I’m shopping around, I’ll try the frugal route first and buy anything and everything to vet out my possibilities before I do the same with expensive products.  I use word of mouth, online reviews, infomercials--you name it--because I’m always in pursuit of that perfect beauty product that will miraculously transform my life.  Then, I’m sold and will stock up on it like a doomsday survivor.

Makeup is optional for me on the weekends and vacations, unless I’m headed out the door going somewhere other than the grocery store.  Unfortunately, in my case, sporting a natural look still requires some prep work.  I’m not into a lovely glow unless I’m at the gym, so I achieve the matte finish that I want when I’m not wearing makeup with PRIMER.

Once upon a time, I had this one particular primer that I absolutely loved.  I could only get it through a distributor and had hoarded enough of it to the point that the company discontinued the product for a few years before I realized it.  How could they?  It was ‘the one’.  You know, that perfect primer that mattified your skin to a soft, dull, mono-toned shade of baby’s butt smooth.  They left me wandering the aisles of Ulta helplessly in search of a primer replacement.

For the past few months, I’ve been accumulating several under $10 primers in search of something to get me by until I find ‘the next best thing’ product that I can sell my soul to in exchange for the natural look.  My pursuit has been some of the best girly-girl fodder for my RomCom writing I have tangled myself up in for a while now.  I even tried one $5 product, that not only made moisturizer unnecessary, it managed to turn my face into a shimmering night club, rivaling Edward Cullen basking in the sunshine on any given day.  So much for being a true primer.  Other products I’ve purchased are, at best, good enough to put foundation on top of, but that’s about it.

Then, I did something very typical of me recently.  I fell for an unusual Beauty Hack.  I had seen it around on Pinterest, but I never thought of trying it until my primer crisis.  Someone was claiming that Monistat’s Chafing Relief Powder Gel was comparable to Smashbox’s Primer.  I was intrigued.  Is it possible that a clear gel intended for inner thighs, bikini lines, and other intimate areas prone to chafing could be a suitable replacement for an expensive primer?  I had to try it, if anything, for another good laugh at my own expense on this mission of mine.  I even giggled a little when I found myself at the store facing an awkward moment while I was scanning the products in the angry-v section by the condoms looking for this mysterious elixir that I could slather all over my face in order to look pretty.

The punch line…I’m still using it regularly while I keep looking for ‘the new one’.  I wear it naturally with or without moisturizer, and, either way, it dries to a silky matte and keeps my skin tone and shine in check all day long.  Given its intended purpose, it’s also non-irritating.  Forget having the soft skin of a baby’s butt, my face now mimics the fleshy inner thigh of a desperate woman, and, for the time being, I’m okay with it.  My primer pursuit is definitely going in a scene in one of my romantic comedy books someday, and you can laugh and say it’s true--you heard it here first.  But, if you happen to know of a good primer, I’m all ears--I mean face.

Living Present Tense

I tend to live in the Future.  Most people live in the Past.  Not me.  I plan for everything with my endless To-Do Lists and fine-tuned Schedule of Events Calendar.  There is always something happening soon, and, I assure you, I have meticulously prepped for its arrival.  But, sometimes, things don't quite go as planned.

A couple of weeks ago, I had bought a box of macarons and a bottle of pink 'champagne'--both prominent elements in my novel that I'm about to pitch.  My plan was to partake of these scrumptious delectables as soon as I finished editing the novel in its entirely--query and synopsis included--in about a week per said scheduled event.

Then, I did something yesterday that I had to do. I departed from Scrivener and took on Microsoft Word for Mac to satisfy a particular submission requirement.  Now, if you have no idea what Scrivener is, then jump to the next paragraph, but, if you do, then, you know.  Oh.  How.  You.  Know.  It's the most genius and complicated friend or foe known to any writer.  In summary, the export did not go well.

After shedding a few tears from battling saving and renaming the file, bizarre margins, and pop-ups that made no sense to me--just to name a few angsts--I clamped my computer shut and sent it up stairs to serve a time out for the rest of the night.  Instead of sulking about possibly missing my deadline because of the countless hours I would need to wade though instructional videos to figure out how to fix my growing list of problems, I decided to live in the Present Tense.

I marched into the kitchen, grabbed the box of macarons, started passing them around to my family like a fish monger, and handed over the bottle of 'champagne' for my husband to uncork for me.  It was time to celebrate.  It didn't matter that things weren't going as planned to me anymore.  I was done.  Maybe my manuscript still had some editing needs and creating a .docx submittal was going to provide me with all kinds of valuable lessons in patience to solve them in my near Future, but, nonetheless, I was finished, and I had been for weeks.  Why hadn't I acknowledged it, yet?  What was I waiting for?

The future is always going to be out of reach for me, yet I still clamor towards it with my explicit plans.  But, yesterday, I went all spontaneous on myself, and, by the end of the night, I was laughing instead of crying.  Maybe the 'champagne' helped, but still.  We had a party, and it couldn't have come at a better time than in the Present Tense.      

    

2 Out of 3 Trees Agree--Christmas is Over

A lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth happened earlier today as we dismantled the decorations and packed up the Christmas trees...two out of three of them, at least.  The pink one gets to stay.  It became our shrine to all things girly during a season of more dramatic colors after my young daughters begged me to buy it for them when they saw it on the shelf among all the garlands at Target.  I admit, I was just as thrilled to bring it home as they were.  It's a dinky, little, sparkly statement piece that begs for attention, so we doted on it like a princess.  Being a mere two feet tall, she traveled well, migrating between two bedrooms, mine and the girls'.  Wherever we were hanging out, we brought her along and found a way to help her fit in.

Today, we dressed her up in heart-shaped ornaments and tucked her into the corner of our dining room, insisting that she should stay awhile as Valentine's Day is just around the corner now, and the occasion wouldn't be complete without a festive Christmas tree in disguise.  Letting go of Christmas is never an easy accomplishment, especially in this household, but we managed today to make the best of it by convincing ourselves that our little, pink princess still belonged.

The whole situation reminds me of the editing process.  You know the one precious scene that you doted on for weeks...the one that you adorned with fancy words and kept close to your heart as you tried to fit it in somewhere because it was just too cute to delete...yeah, that one.  But, no matter how much you want it around, everyone else wants you to get rid of it because it just doesn't belong in the story anymore. Only you just can't quite give it up yet, so you cram it in the corner of a polished chapter and change it up a bit, hoping no one will mind.

I am in the process of adjusting my manuscript to suit the word count requirements of a few publishing houses and collaborating on which sparkly, little princesses get packed up and put away.  It's a painful process with plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth, just like earlier today.  Letting go of something we adore is never easy, but just like the other two Christmas trees, the edited material may find its way back into another season of writing someday.  For now, though, I will keep editing as needed by the light of our little, sparkly, pink tree, at least a little while longer before I finally put her in a box in the garage once and for all.  (Then, of course, I'll unpack the gumdrop tree, as soon as Easter rolls around.)

This Writer's Resolutions List

New Year's Resolutions make me cringe.  It doesn't matter how committed I am to abiding by the list, it always seems to lose ground sometime around spring when even I, a dedicated teacher, look towards Heaven and scream, "My God, when will this school year ever end!"  As my tendency towards slackery overrides my actions, I slip into a robotic daze until June, pushing all things personal aside and focusing solely on the finish line at work.  I bring hundreds of essays home to grade, I hibernate from the allergies swarming outside, I even stress eat like it's the day before starting an HCG Diet. It's a perfect storm for writer's drought.  But...here I go again scratching out another To-Do List for 2015 because I'm a habitual list-maker by nature, and, if I don't write it down, I'll go mad.

#1  WRITE EVERYDAY

Whether it's blogging, journaling, or pecking out pages of a novel, I am going to practice a Dr. Seuss writing approach by breaking free from my desk at home.  I am going to find a variety of locale to spill words all over the page at, such as, in a coffee shop, or under a tree, or on a bed, or anywhere else I can unload my head..., and I am going to do this on a daily basis, no matter what.

#2  EXERCISE MY BODY WHILE ENGAGING MY MIND

I tend to listen to music when I work out.  Doesn't everybody?  It always prompts me to want to write, though.  My thoughts race right alongside my pulse when I am in motion, and I fumble with my Notes App to peck out any inspiration that manifests, often times breaking my pace, so I resolve to start accessing my Voice Memos App while I am exercising.  I also kind of look forward to creeping out the people around me at the gym when I start prattling into my cell phone about, "So 'n' so's caramel colored eyes glancing coyly across the crowded room of sweaty strangers, in search of such 'n' such....'  Romance novels are supposed to get the heart racing to a certain degree anyway, right?

#3  BROADEN MY CIRCLE OF WRITERLY FRIENDS

Since I have set out on my journey to accomplish the ultimate and ongoing goal of publication, I have gathered a handful of cheerleaders, proofreaders, and coffee-drinking scone eaters to surround myself with for inspiration and assistance.  (Darn you, Dr. Seuss.  I'm probably going to be like this for the rest of the night!)  I commit to finding other romance novelists, veteran or just beginning their adventure like me, to glean advice from or have a good laugh with as we compare notes on how to tackle our individual Writer's Resolutions Lists.  And, just like my To-Do Lists, I need more.  Who's with me?

On the Last Day of the Year 2014

It doesn't snow where I live because once every twenty or so years doesn't count.  A few miles up the highway, on the other hand, is a proverbial winter wonderland.  Inspiration abounds as countless trees provide every breath of fresh air with a crisp sweetness, and the landscape beckons snow angels as soon as winter comes around...or so we thought when we squeezed in a day trip to the snow with the children today to close out 2014, and what I mean by snow is the hard ice in the shape of snow that blanketed the landscape like a twice-baked nail salon lacquer.

I'm pretty sure it made no difference to my children, though.  As soon as they were slipping and sliding around on the illusion of snow, my seven-year-old found out the hard way that she didn't need a sled to ride down the slope.  Then, she kept on trudging back up the slight hill and riding it back down again on her bottom, laughing all the way.  My four-year-old kicked and clawed with all her might through the crusty layer until she uncovered enough loose ice crystals she could scoop it all up and throw it over her head and pretend that it was snowing.

It made me think of how important it is to have that childlike determination to kick and claw my way through the illusion of the life of a romance novelist.  Behind every well-penned line that can spiral a reader into her own kind of wonderland, any number of setbacks may have occurred for the author--rejection, revision, even a horrendous book cover.  I am realizing that I have to be willing to slide down the pile of disappointments to come with realistic expectations as I am just beginning this adventure, and I know that I have to turn around and climb back up again with a smile on my face because the journey requires an attitude of childlike determination and joy if it's going to be worth it, laughing all the way.

I welcome the new season in my life.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Hello. My Pen Name is Brooke E. Wayne, and I Am a Writer.

Sometimes, it takes an accumulation of devastating life-changers to send someone sprinting back into the comfort of writing.  To borrow the words of one of my characters, "Beneath the tumultuous sea of tears, there came a revival in her soul, gasping and spitting out the mire from her heart in wicked wretches of laughter."  Over the past couple of years, I have come to the realization that life really is too short to waste one breath NOT doing what I am meant to do.  My love for writing began when I scribbled out my first novella at eleven years old and set my heart ablaze.  I even earned my BA in English after surviving my poetry-writing teens, and I went on to earn my MA in Humanities with an emphasis in Literature.  I have also been teaching English Language Arts full-time since 1996, inspiring others to write nearly everyday.

Funny though, I had only managed to wade in the depths of writing as an adult with just a handful of unfinished manuscripts to be ashamed of.  I had allowed circumstances, self-doubt, and the overwhelming fear of where to begin in the publishing industry to keep me on the outside looking in. I finally learned, though, that some things are destined to be in my life, no matter how long I had gravitated towards the wordless, mundane world I had created for myself over time.

Almost three years ago, my dying mother came back to life, and then, several months later, my brother died.  When I could finally cope, I turned everything around--for my parents, for my children, for my husband, and for myself.  I made some dramatic changes in my life, including snagging my brother's middle name (Wayne) and embracing the sleeping writer inside of me awaiting the kiss of life after all of these years.  I dusted off an old manuscript that I had barely begun over a decade ago and rewrote it from beginning to end with some self-induced writer's drought in between.  And, like the baby that it is to me, I finished developing it in nine months, and I am almost ready to start pitching it.

At my core, I am at peace with the tragedies on my journey, and my cup overflows with joy.  I only wish to be contagious with love and laughter, spreading smiles across various platforms as I keep moving forward in my pursuit of becoming a published romance novelist.  I am not afraid anymore because I know that my big brother is watching over me, whispering, "Stop wading, Brooke. Go ahead and dive head first with all of your heart!"