Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Guest Blogger Cynthia D'Alba - Breaking the Rules

This post is proudly a stop on the TEXAS TWO STEP Blog Tour. For a complete listing of all stops on this tour, please visit here. All contests are for U.S. residents only unless otherwise noted. Comments left on this blog will be counted toward the Texas Two Step Faithful Follower Gift Certificate. To see a complete listing of Blog Tour Prizes, click here. Be sure to check out the freebies. Yours for the asking as long as they last.

Thank you to Meg Benjamin and the other eight Naughty Novelists for having me here today. I confess to being a little intimidated by all the talent these nine authors have. I feel like a first grader standing with the big kids in the sixth grade! Gulp!

When I was trying to come up with a blog topic applicable for this blog and its readers, I realized the theme for Nine Naughty Novelists is breaking the rules between the covers. Snap! Breaking the rules and being naughty. Could anything fit these ladies’ worlds better? I think not. So that’s our topic for today…breaking rules and being naughty.

I was always an obedient child. Just ask my parents. (*wipes sweat from brow relieved that my mother will never read this.*) But then, what my parents don’t know won’t hurt them, right? So let’s share some fun stories. I’ll start then you chime in with a few of your own.

Starting about the fourth grade, I used to forge my mother’s signature on notes to my teachers stating I was sick and could not go out for recess. Why? Well, I wanted to read! I’d sit in the gym risers with all the other sick kids, except I’d make sure I was far, far way from the really sick kids. I wonder now if those teachers even looked at those notes or question that signature or even really cared.

When I was in the ninth grade, all the girls I ran around with used to sneak out our parents’ cars when they weren’t home. I bet some of you did that too, right? Somehow I’d get my hands on my mother’s set of keys (which of course had the car key on it) and once the parents were gone, so was I! The gas prices back then were cheap. I can remember putting $0.35 to $0.90 in gas back in the tank so the gas needle would be where mom left it. That was probably two or three gallons of gas. We’d usually cruise over to a boyfriend’s house or do the popular drag down Central Avenue. Sometimes we’d just drive around the neighborhood. Just being behind the wheel made us special

We “discovered” alcohol by our senior year of high school. Any girl who could sip a beer or put Slo Gin in their Coke was hip. ☺ One night we had a beer bust way out in the middle of nowhere. The road was dirt and almost single lane. Car after car filed down that road into the middle of a field. There was a bonfire and lots of beer. Not liking beer at that time. (My taste buds have grown to love a cold Rolling Rock!) I hadn’t had anything to drink. When it came time to leave, I was riding down the hill in a car with a couple of guys and another girl. As we reached the road, two flashlights came running toward us. Cops! The little old lady on the road had called the cops because of the extra traffic. The cops were busting everybody as they came down the hill to exit. The problem for the cops was that the “everybody” was comprised of the football starting line-up, most of the cheerleaders and many of the dance/drill team. Our football team was in the running for state champs so no one was arrested and no police record of this night exists. My friend and I were the only two were who NOT hauled into the police station and were let go on the spot. I’m sure it was all my clean living.

In my debut, Texas Two Step, my heroine, Olivia, is definitely a rule-breaker and an excellent secret keeper. In fact, she’s able to keep her most important secret for almost six years until a fateful weekend when her old lover, Mitch Landry, comes to town and discovers what she’s not told him. Tempers and emotions flair as each struggle to adapt to the changes that will be required in their lives.

Melinda B., Fallen Angels Review gave Texas Two Step 5 angels and a recommended read. She said Texas Two Step is packed with passion all the way to the end.

Didi, Guilty Pleasures Book Review gave Texas Two Step 5 stars and a recommended read. She said Texas Two Step kept me on an emotional roller coaster...Texas Two Step is an emotionally charged romance.

So now you know a couple of my naughty stories and know that my heroine Olivia is a rule-breaker, tell me about a time your broke the rules or were naughty.

If you’ve stumbled across my Texas Two Step blog tour over the past month, you may be aware that many of my author friends volunteered books for me to give as prizes. Today’s Blog Tour Author Sponsor is best selling author Myla Jackson. Myla will send One Up On You to one lucky person who leaves a comment. To find out more about today’s Blog Tour Sponsor, you can visit her Website, Twitter or Facebook.


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Remember! Leave a comment for a chance to win Myla’s book!

Texas Two Step is available at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble and other online outlets.

Don’t forget I have freebies just for the asking. If you want a Texas Two Step Romance Trading Card or a boot-shaped jar/bottle opener, just send your name and mailing address to me through my contact page.

Thanks for coming by and leaving a message. And thanks again to the Nine Naughty Novelists for having me here today.


19 comments:

Joanne said...

I remember being a junior in high school. My friends and I walked everywhere. Good thing too. My figured out how to open my friends parent's liquor cabinet. We would get empty bottles and pour liquor in them, then replaced what we took with water. We would walk around all night and drink. Our parents never figured it out.
Congrats on the new release. Can't wait to read it. I can't believe the blog tour is almost over. I've had a lot of fun.

e.balinski(at)att(dot)net

Cynthia D'Alba said...

Hi Joanne! The old water in the booze bottle trick. I think everyone did that. How did our parents not realize how watered down the liquor was?

The tour is over this week! YAY :) I'll be bringing the Faithful Follower contest up to date today

Margery Scott said...

Great post, Cynthia. I have a few stories of my own, but they shall remain secret :)

Voirey Linger said...

I was disgustingly well-behaved as a teenager. I never snuck out and was always home on-time.

My sister was another story. I remember one day when my parents were gone and she took the family car (she didn't have a license yet) and managed to drive it into a ditch. She left it there and walked home to ask me what to do. I still have no idea how she got it out and home, but everything was where it belonged when our parents got home.

Cynthia D'Alba said...

Margery! WHAT! Why, you can trust us to keep your secrets, right gang?

Thanks for coming by. Appreciate your support.

Cynthia D'Alba said...

Hi Voirey. Disgustingly well-behaved? That's probably what's behind all those hot, steamy, sexy books you write. It's your wild child finally getting loose! :)

Good luck with your new release, AND SHE LIKED IT.

Thanks for coming by and leaving a message

girlygirlhoosier52 said...

Excuse me... your mother KNOWS! They choose to pick their battles. I was a model child, especially since I was the youngest and learned from others mistakes.. besides my boyfriend had a curfew for sports and didn't drive [2 years younger than me] and even before the advent of cell phones..... there was a secret mom hot line that worked faster than the speed of light in my hometown.

Lynne Marshall said...

Hi Cynthia!
I see it's confession time around here. I really was a wuss as a kid. I remember being in 7th grade and walking to school with my girlfriends. One of them got the bright idea to skip school. I joined in, though got very nervous about it. We went to a gas stationed bathroom and decided we'd hide out there until after school started. The three of us crowded in the bathroom with nothing particular to talk about got really boring fast, and I wondered what the heck we'd do the rest of the day. We all must have had the light bulb moment at the same time because we broke out of that bathroom and ran to school, and we all wound up doing dtention for being tardy.
See? Crime really doesn't pay. LOL

Cynthia D'Alba said...

GirlyGirlHoosier - HAHAHA Yeah. My mom knows A LOT! I was a horrible secret keeping. :) Thanks for leaving a message.

Hi Lynne - How's the blog tour going? Skipping school...oohhh, dangerous! LOL Thanks for coming by

Anonymous said...

Hi Cyndi, I'm loving these stories. I was the good one...for the most part. However, I had some mischievous friends who kept me in trouble. We did the car thing, only we didn't just sneak out one car. We'd each take a car to play chase/hide and seek around town. We got caught. Then, there were the many times we weren't always where we said we were. Yep, caught, caught, and caught. You'd think we would've learned our lesson. We didn't.
I applaud your successful blog tour!

StacieD said...

I was too busy to be bad. I had to help out on the farm and take care of my 3 younger siblings during the evenings. The only time I was bad was when my older cousin let me have a watered-down margarita when I was 16. I was too much of a good girl to get into any real trouble. :)

geishasmom73 AT yahoo DOT com

Barbara White Daille said...

Like Margery's stories, my rule-breaking tales shall remain secret.

And naughty escapades? Me??? Nope.

But I do love these stories.

kelly said...

Welcome to the Naughty Nine, Cynthia, you naughty girl, you!! :-)
Your adventures sound amazingly like my own...including the run in with the cops on the way to the bush party. Awesome blog tour you have organized and good luck with Texas Two Step, sounds like my kind of book!

Meg Benjamin said...

Hi Cynthia, so glad you joined us. Good luck with Texas Two Step!

Cynthia D'Alba said...

Hi June. I sort of dented my mother's car during one of my escapades. To this day she thinks someone hit her in a parking lot. Shhh.

Hi Stacie. A watered-down margarita? That's a crime against nature! Thanks for being a faithful follower of the tour.

Hi Barbara - you NEVER spill any beans about your growing up which is making me very very suspicious. I love a gal who can handle herself in prison! LOL

Hi Kelly - Thanks for the welcome. I ADORE this blog. Thanks for the nice compliments on the tour. I hope you get your hands on Texas Two Step. I think you'll enjoy it.

Thanks everybody for leaving messages

LKF said...

The walk down memory lane is too funny. I have stories but I think there the same as everyone elses just different small town. Water in the liquor bottles is a good one, I must check my liquor cabinet and see if my kids knew of something I didn't. :}
Great post
Lynda

Sue MacKay said...

I remember the borrowed bottle of beer at boarding school that went round and round the circle because no one really liked it but daren't say so.

Fedora said...

LOL! Awesome stories, everyone! Cynthia, thanks for sharing your Texas Two Step release with us all--I can't wait for a little more time so I can actually keep reading!! As for rule breaking, I was kind of a rule keeper... except the time I tried shoplifting when I was in junior high. Clearly I wasn't very good at it, because the store owner stopped me right away, and the thought of him calling my parents was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow from then on out!

Cynthia D'Alba said...

This post is now closed to comments for the Faithful follower contest.

The book winner was Voirey Linger.

Congrats Voirey!