#2013 New Year's Blog Hop: Fireworks galore + a chance to win my very first book, WALKING THE EDGE (Corpus Brides: Book One)

Hey beautiful people!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Can you believe it's already 2013? I'm like, OMG, because this is the year when my 5-year writing plan concludes (and when I need to write up a new one *Gaaahhhh!*), and also the one where I'm gonna hit the big 3-0. Getting old...? Only just *wink* We are as young as we believe ourselves to be, innit?

Something that always wins me over at new year's time is the fireworks that go off at midnight on January 1. I don't think I'll ever stop to marvel at the display of amazing colours and light no matter how old I get!

And yes - just like the US folks have July 4th for fireworks, and the British have Guy Fawkes Night to get the fancy rockets blasting in the air, in Mauritius, we have New Year's Eve. Around every street corner as from December 20, you can see fireworks vendors selling their wares.
While it used to be mainly about ear-splitting fire crackers in the past (did you know that firecrackers are a Chinese tradition to usher in a new year, the noise supposed to scare away evil spirits?), over the years, more and more fancy fireworks and other light fountains have come on the market. As a kid, I lived for December 31, when my big brother would buy a huge array of those (dangerous!) stuff and set them off in our yard. There were light fountains that shot 5-feet in the air; flower-shaped little bowls that twirled like brightly-lit lotus when set off; never-ending sparklers that we kids would hold and write our names in the air with the fancy light effect.

Is there anything more marvellous than fireworks? I don't think so...

And when fireworks, albeit of a different, but none less dangerous, kind happen in romances, many of us are happy readers.

This brings to my mind Book Two of my Corpus Brides espionage/romantic thriller stories. Young love that never died... like banked embers that just needed a whiff of oxygen to burn bright again. Magical connections between a woman who had given up on love but finds it, like a second chance, with the man who never left her heart... their coming together like the roaring explosions that light up the darkest of nights. Lethal danger because of the life she left behind in the name of love... a life that is not ready to let her go, threatening to explode under her and shatter everything she's ever built like a lit sparkler atop a barrel of gunpowder...

Rayne Cheltham, aka Kali - a deadly, mastermind clandestine assassin - has never wanted anything more than ending up with the man she's always loved, her childhood best friend, Ash Gilfoy. Circumstances compel her into enrolling into the cut-throat and lethal spy world, until the chance to be set free appears before her and she grabs it.
But a spy should know that she can never leave the life, the profession, and the mindset, behind...
Nobody knows her secret, none less her husband. Those same secrets will be her undoing... unless she can neutralize the threat that's biting at her heels, and save her marriage in the process...

You can find Before The Morning (Corpus Brides: Book Two) here, and the print version is also available on Amazon.

Happy New Year, everyone! What better way to celebrate the crossing into 2013 than by scoring a ton of goodies? You can do that by visiting the many, many blogs signed up for this hop (find the list here).
There are giveaways at every stop, and 3 Grand Prizes to be won! Don't forget to comment with your email address for a chance to win.

My favourite moment of the New Year celebrations are the fireworks. What's yours?

Answer me in the comments (don't forget your email address!) and enter to win an ecopy of Book One of the Corpus Brides series - Walking The Edge.

A romantic suspense novel, wherein an amnesiac woman is on the quest for her forgotten memory... Escape from London all the way to Marseille, France, and discover the secrets, deceit, danger, & the powerful love, she uncovers during her search!

(Remember to check out the other participants in the hop!)

From Mauritius with love,

Zee