It’s Valerie Clarizio!
Happy Tuesday. I’m excited to introduce you to Valerie Clarizio. I met Val when I joined WisRWA and since then I’m proud to call her a friend. Val writes fabulous Romantic Suspense books and is currently including a story in the box set I’m in, Stories of Sun, Sand & Sea – 11 Beaches, A
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Hello everyone! First, I’d like to thank PJ Fiala for allowing me to visit her lovely blog to share my story with her wonderful followers. Today I’m going to talk about the first novella I published. When Melange Books first released Cookies for Santa it was released right before Christmas and had some pretty decent momentum, but then comments started coming in regarding the cover. Here’s some comments we heard:
1. I almost passed on the book because I thought it was a cookbook and I have plenty of those.
2. Judging from the cover, I thought it was a children’s book (FYI – you don’t want your kids to reading this!)
3. I never saw the handcuffs or gun on the cover until you pointed it out. All I saw was milk and cookies.
Here’s the Cover for Cookies for Santa, check it out for yourselves.
After several discussions with my publisher we decided it best to rename and recover the book; hence, Covert Exposure, a Nick Spinelli Mystery was born, and the series has grown into three novellas. Novella number #2 is Craving Vengeance, a Nick Spinelli Mystery and number #3 is Crazed Reckoning, a Nick Spinelli Mystery. Each novella takes manly-man, Detective Nick Spinelli, on a crazy holiday adventure involving chaos, kidnapping and murder. First he’s forced to dress as Santa to save his new love interest, then he’s forced to dress as cupid and then there’s Saint Patrick’s Day…you can figure it out from here. The problem here is that Spinelli is over six feet tall.
Here’s the new cover – Covert Exposure, a Nick Spinelli Mystery:
What do you think?
We all know that cops are supposed to like doughnuts, and though Spinelli does, his real pleasure is cutout cookies and his love interest, Shannon O’Hara, knows just how to make them. Here’s the secret recipe that helped Shannon win Spinelli’s heart:
Cutout Cookies
3 Cups Powdered Sugar
4 Cups Flour
2 Cups butter
2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Eggs
Dash of Salt
Dash of Vanilla
Bake at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes.
Though I love these cutout cookies, they are not my favorite cookie. I’m more of a white chocolate macadamia nut gal. What’s your favorite cookie?
Commenters will be eligible to win a signed copy of the limited edition of Cookies for Santa (Covert Exposure, a Nick Spinelli Mystery).
Thanks for visiting!
Valerie’s Bio:
Valerie Clarizio lives in romantic Door County Wisconsin with her husband and two extremely spoiled cats. She loves to read, write, and spend time at her cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
She’s lived her life surrounded by men, three brothers, a husband, and a male Siamese cat who required his own instruction manual. Keeping up with all the men in her life has turned her into an outdoors enthusiast, of which her favorite activity is hiking in national parks. While out on the trails, she has plenty of time to conjure up irresistible characters and unique storylines for her next romantic suspense or sweet contemporary romance novel.
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Oh I love the peanut butter cookie with the kisses in the middle