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Entangled Under the Mistletoe Blog Hop

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Don’t forget to check out what the other authors participating in the hop are giving away!
 

In celebration of the Season of Ho-Ho-Ho, I am one of 50 Entangled authors participating in our first annual blog hop. The hop starts today and runs through December 14th, so plenty of time to visit some fab authors and win goodies and prizes.

For the Entangled Hop, I am giving away one copy of my Suddenly Cinderella Series winter holiday novella, A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL. Christmas curmudgeon, magazine managing editor, Cynthia “Starr” Starling has reason to bah humbug the holiday, especially since it’s also her birthday–her 35th. Sexy seven years’ younger Matt Landry, the new art director, senses Starr may well be The One but getting her to give in and go out with him will require some serious Divine intervention–a pair of vintage red Cinderella slippers once belonging to a legendary Hollywood starlette and a Christmas spirit guide who happens to look, sound, and smell exactly like him!

Readers first meet Starr as Macie’s boss in OPERATION CINDERELLA, the series launch, available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes&Noble Nook Stores.

And while you’re visiting me, please take two ticks to enter my other two giveaways, independent of the Blog Hop. Prizes are: a Cinderella-themed gift basket (one winner) and three Amazon gift cards (three winners).

Wishing you a holiday season brimming with fairytale dreams come true!

Celebrate the Season with A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL

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A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL, my Suddenly Cinderella winter holiday novella, released a few days ago, huzzah!

Think Cinderella meets the Dickens’ classic, with several storyline twists, notably the heroine, Starr, is Cinderella and Scrooge!

Many of you have met Starr, Macie’s magazine editor boss, in the series launch, OPERATION CINDERELLA. The holiday novella gives Starr her own shot at Happily Ever After with sexy seven years’ younger art director, Matt Landry–assuming she’ll set aside her Scrooge-like ways in time. Fortunately she has a visiting Christmas Spirit on her side as well as a great pair of traveling–and possibly magical–vintage red shoes.

I hope readers will enjoy A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL, available at the Amazon Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble Nook Store for just 99 cents.

Wishing you a holiday season brimming with fairytale dreams come true!

Hope

 

More Suddenly Cinderella Giveaway Goodness: Cinderella Basket

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Suddenly_Cinderella_Gift_Basket_12-27-12

Congratulations to my winner, Melinda H of Miami, Florida! Melinda, your giveaway bag o’ Cinderella themed goodies is en route!

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I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. What better time than the proverbial Season of Giving to celebrate my Suddenly Cinderella Series launch with a Cinderella-themed gift basket of goodies. See deets below:

Happy Happy & Merry Merry!

Hope

PS Look for my in-series winter holiday novella, A SUDDENLY CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL, releasing later this month as an Entangled Flirt.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

OPERATION CINDERELLA Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

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My Suddenly Cinderella Series launch, OPERATION CINDERELLA, is coming up on it’s one month release milestone — woot!

To celebrate, and to thank all of you who are sharing the love for this book, I will give away three $25/each Amazon gift cards to three lucky winners!

There are several ways to enter:

  • Be my Fan on Facebook (extra easy entry)
  • Follow me on Twitter @HopeTarr
  • Tweet about the giveaway
  • Like the OPERATION CINDERELLA Book Page on Amazon
  • Share a review about OPERATION CINDERELLA on Amazon or Barnes & Noble!

To enter, just use the Rafflecopter Form below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hope

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Operation Cinderella HEA Release Week!

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October has been a good month for me, a very good month.

Off the bat, October 2nd was my birthday!

October 2nd was also the Blu-ray DVD release of Walt Disney’s “Cinderella,” my foremost favorite among the animated fairy tale film classics!!

And October 15th was the release for OPERATION CINDERELLA, the launch of my new “Suddenly Cinderella” contemporary series for Entangled Publishing!!!

Currently the book is available for download, $2.99, on Amazon & Barnes & Noble with additional e-tailer links coming soon…

Reviews will be rolling in over the coming weeks and months but for now please join me in celebrating this scrumptious cover quote I received from #1 New York Times Bestseller and Lady Jane Salonâ„¢ guest author, Susan Wiggs:

“This is not your mother’s Cinderella story. Hope Tarr’s rendition is funny, sassy and sexy, a fast-paced treat that strikes all the right notes. I loved it!” –Susan Wiggs

Many thanks, Susan, and thanks to all of you, my readers, who’ve patiently waited for my next contemporary romances to be born.

Happily Ever After–it’s about time, don’t you think!?!

As always, with warmest wishes for fairy tale dreams come true,

Hope

 

 

 

 

Suddenly Cinderella Series & RT BOOK Reviews

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So the super secret shadow side of being a writer is that we, meaning me, are eternally behind on our reading. Alas, it is so. By reading, I mean not just all the great books piling up on our night stands or now our e-readers, but also industry publications including the ever-popular genre fic review magazine, RT BOOK Reviews.

And so even though September is still more than a week away, my RT BOOK Reviews September issue has been in my hot little hands for three weeks now. Unread. ((Pausing to hang head in shame)).

In the spirit of “better late than never,” I just cracked open the mag and found my own self included in staffer Audrey Goodson’s wonderfully informative article on the pop culture resurgence of fairy tales, “Still Happily Ever After,” RT BOOK Reviews, pp-10-12.

Author Hope Tarr believes that fairy tales endure “because they are so wonderfully helpful.” Tarr, who says she “grew up breathing, eating and dreaming fairy tales,” is currently working on a contemporary Cinderella-themed series that will be released by Entangled, beginning with OPERATION CINDERELLA in October. “Fairy tales teach us that we cannot only improve our lives but create the lives we want,” she adds. “The protagonists in fairy tales are sometimes flawed, but they’re also bold and brave and strong. Cinderella could have skipped the ball and cowered at home, only she didn’t. When her breakout chance comes, when her fairy godmother arrives, she seizes her ‘Cinderella Moment’ and ventures into that scary, glittering larger world that the ball represents.”

While it’s always lovely to be quoted, or at least usually so, this one is super special. For years now, I’ve been signing off on blogs and literally signing my books with “Wishing you fairy tale dreams come true…”

Thanks to Audrey and to RT for decades of making HEA dreams come-true for romance readers and authors!

Hope

Back from Paris

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I’m back from my work trip to Paris, a whirlwind week if ever there was one. In my just six days in the city (one day spent in travel), I toured the offices of three French publishers: J’ai Lu, Bragelonne, and LeDuc, met with the senior editors at each house as well as their art and marketing staff, and had multiple meetups with a bevy of lovely and enthusiastic French bloggers including those from Au Boudoir Ecarlate and Onirik.

The meetups were held at the J’ai Lu offices and coordinated with help from the French romance review site and webzine, Les Romantiques. Merci a tous!

A dinner at La Fresque, a charming laid-back bistro situated on the site of a former open air market in the first arrondissement, followed the Monday meetup. Delicious wine, food, and conversation — e.g., the romance industry in France vs. America — kept us at the table well into the night.

Hope with Margaret Calpena, Responsible editoriale, of J'ai Lu.

As some of you may remember, J’ai Lu bought the French print rights to my Men of Roxbury House trilogy. Vanquished, renamed La Rose de Mayfair, released last spring with the publisher’s Aventures & Passions romance line. The lovely translator, Viviane Ascain, with whom I also met, will soon be hard at work translating books #2 and 3, Enslaved and Untamed, into the French as well. Bon courage, Viviane!

I also gathered photos and information for my upcoming travel articles for EuropeUpClose, including one focused on Bastille Day or, more properly, La Fete Nationale as it’s referred to in France. Viewing the shimmering spectacle of a light-bedecked Eiffel Tower and later the fireworks display from a rooftop restaurant in Monmartre was a rare and special moment, a memory for a lifetime, as well as research for my travel tips piece.

The meetup at J'ai Lu on July 16th drew nearly 20 romance bloggers from Paris and its surrounds.

Now it’s nose to the grindstone time, or at least posterior planted in the office chair, as I finish up edits on Operation Cinderella, Book #1 in my new contemporary romance series with Entangled Publishing, complete my travel articles–and occasionally take time to dream of my next trip to Paris.

Many thanks–un grand merci–to my new French friends for making this American (romance author) in Paris feel utterly welcomed and at home.

And yes, there was cake, les macarons, as well as other treats.

Hope

Happy Friday, New Video!

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Today is my first day back from a truly delightful mini-break at the beach in Ocean Grove, NJ where I celebrated the Fourth with my sweetie basking on the beach and giving all creatures crustacean a true run for their lives! (I have the seafood tower photo posted to my Facebook Page to back up my claims).

While I was away, I picked up a lovely bit of bric-a-brac, a mermaid hanging ornament with the saying, “Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale.” Indeed.

With my recent Suddenly Cinderella Series sale to Entangled Publishing, lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the fairytale front. Fairy tales allow–promote–not only the possibility but the probability that extraordinary, wonderful things will happen when we least expect them–especially when we least expect them.

Please check out my latest unexpected bit of wonder, my video interview for the Author Learning Center. I gave the interview last winter and then forgot about it in the  hectic rush of holidays and deadlines. Behold, the interview went live within the last 24 hours. Please enjoy–it’s super short, promise! Likes and Shares are, as always, much appreciated.

Wishing you a fairytale weekend…

Hope

If the Slipper Fits…

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Photo: "Cinderella," Disney, 1950.

OK, so those of you who keep in touch with me via Facebook and Twitter know I’m all kinds of aflutter over selling my Suddenly Cinderella Series to uber fab digital-first publisher, Entangled.

Even so, there comes a time once deals are struck and contracts are inked that as writers we must descend from our swirling pink clouds to terra firma and well, write some stuff.

But before the writing, mes cheres, comes the research and depending on your subject, that can be the very best part. In the case of my Suddenly Cinderella Series, the plot device that connects all three books is shoes!

1930's vintage velvet peep toe heels from Saks Fifth Avenue. Photo: Etsy.com.

Behold my very own take on Cinderella slippers, late 1930’s vintage red velvet evening shoes from the legendary Saks Fifth Avenue. In the spirit of “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” these princess worthy heels will be passed among my three heroines, starting with women’s magazine editor, Macie Graham of OPERATION CINDERELLA, coming this October ’12, then going to fashion photographer Francesca St. James (PROJECT CINDERELLA) and lastly to plus-size personal chef Stefanie Stefanopoulos (THE CINDERELLA CAPER).

How can one pair of high fashion heels fit all three heroines? Well, for starters, they’re magical shoes. (In the words–word–of ever-eloquent actor Charlie Sheen, “Duh!”) Secondly they’re strappy, not enclosed, so there’s more wiggle room, so to speak. Lastly, if we can suspend our disbelief and accept that a single pair of jeans–jeans for gosh sake–can be worn by multiple women, shoe sharing should be a snap.

For now, join me in playing dress up!

Hope

Suddenly Cinderella Series: It’s Official!

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Who doesn’t love a good Cinderella story? (Note: not really a question).

I love the Cinderella story so much that writing one such themed book wasn’t going to be enough for me, not nearly. So, instead, I’ve signed on to write three of them!

My “Suddenly Cinderella” Series (Operation Cinderella, Project Cinderella & The Cinderella Caper) will be published with Entangled Publishing starting this fall 2012. As per the deal report on Publishers Marketplace:

“Three unlikely Cinderellas are helped along by uber-cool fairy god friends and princess-worthy red stilettos as they meet their matches in these contemporary re-tellings of the classic fairytale beginning with OPERATION CINDERELLA, wherein a goth-girl editor is paired with a sexy conservative radio talk-show host, to Stacy Cantor Abrams at Entangled, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, for publication starting in fall 2012, by Louise Fury at the L. Perkins Agency.”

Bonus: the books’ digital releases will be followed by audiobooks with Dark Desires Audio, my wonderful audio publisher for Tempting! I’ll be sharing sneak peak snippets from the series in the coming months, so please check back. For now…

Huzzah to Happily Ever After!

Hope