Tuesday, October 30, 2018

*Book Tour & Giveaway* Gravedigger by Ceeree Fields-GUEST POST


Gravedigger
The Rayburn Mysteries Book 1
by Ceeree Fields
Genre: Romantic Suspense

There's no time for love as the Gravedigger's taken his next victim. 


Josephine 'Jo' Rayburn has no luck with love. Between the demands of her job as a homicide detective, finding the perfect yarn for her knitting projects, and her nosy family, she doesn't have time to find her happily ever after, nor does she really believe it exists. Until she's assigned to the Gravedigger task force where she meets Rhysian 'Rhys' Harrison, the sexy coroner's assistant.

Rhys Harrison thought he'd found love with the perfect woman. But when his parents' deaths forced him to choose between his fiancĂ©e and caring for his brother, he chose his brother. His only regret: the medical degree he's abandoned to work in the coroner's office. 

When the Gravedigger leaves his latest victim at the gates of a cemetery, Rhys and Jo are thrown together. Her prickly personality interests him, but it's her deeply hidden romantic side that captivates him.

After one of the task force members is shot, Rhys's fear of losing Jo threatens to rip them apart. Can she convince him that love is worth having no matter the risk? Or will he play it safe, leaving before his heart becomes too attached?








CeeRee Fields currently lives in Groningen, the Netherlands with her husband and cat. Since she was born in Alabama and moved to the Netherlands, Dutch is not her first language which gets her into mischief in various stores around town when she tries to speak it.

She loves writing, building worlds that her characters can explore and break if they feel the need.

 Action, adventure and love are her favorite things. And when stuff gets blown up who says the guy is 

the only one who gets to do it?



GUEST POST
What is something unique/quirky about you?
Oh, Lord we'll need a whole month of blogs for this. Let's see. I don't consider myself unique, just average, but gosh do I have a lot of quirks. =D But so do others so again... average.

Let's start with my love of gaming. I love games and am willing to try any of them at least once. Card games, board games (though I hate Monopoly because I played it daily at my grandmother's house as that was the only board game she had), gaming station games, games that use your imagination like Snake and I-Spy, and computer games.

I even met my husband on a game we've been playing for almost fourteen years.

I'm also addicted to books. I LOVE a good story, heck I LOVE a bad story if the world building or characters are fun. I've been reading by myself since I was eight/nine when my grandmother gave me Kabumpo in Oz. It was the best story ever with moving countries and gnomes turned into giants wearing the Emerald City as a hat. That in turn led me to the entire Mrs. Pollifax series which led to David Eddings and moved along from there. If I'm on vacation, I can read a book a day. I don't get tired, don't get bored unless the world building or the characters throw me off then I might swap out books and come back. Otherwise, leave me in a corner with my ebook and I'm golden.

Tell us something really interesting that's happened to you.
Probably the biggest thing people find interesting is I moved from a small town in Alabama to the Netherlands to marry and live with my husband. I've also, taken the equivalency test for Dutch (Staatsexamen I) series in order to become a dual citizen of the Netherlands and America. And that test is not easy, especially, the speaking portion as you're in a room with 20 other people, everyone has headsets on with built in microphones. And your neighbor is probably taking a TOTALLY different Staatsexam/test than you are. So you listen and have to respond to either what is said or what you see on the computer while your neighbor and 20 others are doing the same and you have to do it within a set time frame in almost perfect Dutch. Almost perfect as you need a score of at least 400 out of 500 to pass. I passed that section with a 401, while the writing, reading comprehension and listening were all well above 400.

I will share a secret... Dutch grammar is NOTHING like American English grammar which I'm sure drives my editor nuts. Probably drives my critique partners nuts too, now that I think about it.

What are some of your pet peeves?
My biggest pet peeve is when I'm gaming with a group and one of them needs a bathroom break.

Now, I don't mind if they need the break, however, my issue comes in when they take the dang headset into the toilet and chatter while they're doing their business. Do NOT do this when I'm on the headset. I hang up immediately. I don't care if we've paused the game halfway into a dungeon. I won't get back on the chat at all. I just won't. I'll do the same thing when someone calls me and are on the phone in the bathroom, because ew... just ew.

Where were you born/grew up at?
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama in the Roebuck/Woodlawn/East Lake area. The hospital isn't there anymore, but I still hear stories.

I grew up in Birmingham until I was about seven/eight. My family and I used to go to Cascade Plunge which is also not active anymore, but OMG the pool was HUGE olympic size with these three diving boards, a baby pool attached to the big pool and around the entire thing were lounge chairs, refreshment stands. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it since.

https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Cascade_Plunge

After eight my mom remarried and we moved out to Cropwell, Alabama and lived on Logan Martin Lake where my parents still live for those who know the area they live near Harmon's Island. It's gorgeous as they live in a sort of inlet so where their pier is located, not many boats can drive past as there's a sandbar before you hit our pier. It was hilarious when we'd get boaters who didn't know the area stuck on the sandbar because they'd drive like mad through the inlet and swing around our way. Our dad would have to wade out and help free them.

If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?
I live like I'm always going to die since we never know when that will happen. So everyday is a fun adventure from chattering with shop owners to teasing the nieces and nephews and checking in with my online friends. I make sure to tell my hubby I love him even when I'm angry, it might come out in a snarl, but I said it so it counts. And I tell my mom to 'Have a cow' because in Dutch to say 'I love you' is 'Ik hou van jouw/je' and my mom heard 'Have a cow' from it, so we roll with it.

As you can see I try to always find the positives, there's enough negatives floating around.

Who is your hero and why?
I have no idea how to respond to this as I don't really have a 'hero' per se. I have a husband who's amazing and rescues me from online trolls along with our group of online friends.

But if I had to choose someone I look up to... that would probably be the cast of Star Trek and Star Trek:TNG as both of these groups had strong female leads, pushed the boundaries of acceptance and always tried to handle things peacefully until the gloves needed to come off.

Otherwise, it'd be my family. They're quirky, loud and total rebels and I learn a heck of a lot from them.

What kind of world ruler would you be?
I'd totally kick rear as my group, from mine and my husband's online gaming friends, would say. We've led a social group within the game for going almost thirteen years now. I think what makes a strong leader is loyalty, consistency, and knowing when someone is just having an absolute horrible day and acting out. Then confronting them about it in a separate conversation. We've had explosions within the clan chat, we've had other clans attack us, or our members, verbally and we've been trolled on forums for some of our thoughts.

However, even in the thickest fight the four hundred members of our group constantly pop on to help, if one of us is being bullied. Whether we have what's called a froob-busting event. This is when high level players are doing the bullying, the members of our group, that can, will go to the place it's happening at and intervene. Sometimes it's not pretty. Sometimes the bully is having a bad day and is taking it out on our member. Usually between our core members we can calm the waters and get the other guy to apologize, or if it turns out it's one of our members... get him/her to apologize. There have been one or two instances where the bully is just that... someone who just has to make everyone miserable because he thinks it's funny.

Those we handle much differently and usually with a lot of force in that, again depending on the resource or area our clan member is in we might need 20-30 people. Then we spread out and literally take all the resources the bully's trying to get until he either changes to a different server/world or leaves the game altogether.

I'm not sure if I answered the question, but that's how I'd rule the world. And yes, we do have alliances with other clans in the game the same as each country in the world have alliances/agreements with other countries. It's just beneficial in my opinion.

What are you passionate about these days?
Writing and gaming.

Mostly writing. I love writing. I love creating worlds and then thinking... huh, how can my character break this and which character would do it with some attitude?

Gravedigger, that's my current release, is set in Birmingham, Alabama and even though it's a Romantic Suspense set in present day, I still have the characters break things. Totally my imagination at work, but I like action.

What do you do to unwind and relax?
Read and game and sometimes watch a movie.

How to find time to write as a parent?

Describe yourself in 5 words or less!
Quiet. In person I'm quiet. I like to sit and watch people interact, it fascinates me. What the different cultures do compared to how I was raised, I like seeing the differences and finding the similarities that connect us. My husband on the other hand is a talker. He loves to interact and chat, so we balance each other well in that respect. There are times when I'll talk quite a bit, but for the most part I love to sit in a corner and take notes on body language, idioms and so on.

Fun. I'm willing to try anything once. I've bungee jumped and I'm terrified of heights. I've parasailed even though the theme music to jaws played in my head the entire time. I love playing with the kids, we'll do various versions of Let's Dance and when we hear the songs in public we end up doing the dance steps from the video game. Which is hilarious.

I'm friendly. When I'm in town, while my husband teaches, I do the shopping. In the Netherlands, they have shops you buy different things at so for instance to find the specific vitamins I need to take I have to go to a vitamin shop (that's not what it's called, but essentially that's what it is), for a larger selection on bath products I go to shop that reminds me of the old Big 'B's not sure if anyone will remember those stores... lol. And for groceries we go to anywhere between 2-4 shops depending on what we're buying. So for a lot of it, I walk with a backpack and get the small things. As I do this I talk to people, my Dutch is decent. I studied for two years, so I can communicate, however when I get flustered I'll literally translate English into Dutch. So instead of saying schoonmoeder for mother-in-law I've said moeder in de wet several times which literally means mother-in-law as wet means law.

Dependable. I try to always do what I say I'm going to, sometimes life interferes but for the most part I'm there.

Imaginative. When I'm doing chores around the house I can get lost in my head easily. It's why I don't cook, there've been many a times when I'll get a story in my head and forget to flip the hamburgers or set the dishtowel too close to the gas burner. Luckily, my husband's a chef so I do the cutting, cleaning and fetching and he does the heavy lifting.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I first considered myself a writer when I wrote my first story. I finished it at seventeen and then spent the next year trying to get it published. It didn't work out back then, this was the early nineties and none of the publishers wanted a strong female character.

Do you have a favorite movie?
I have movies I gravitate towards, the Lethal Weapons series are among my favorites. Demolition Man I broke three VHS tapes re-watching it. And A Christmas Story, I'll watch it over and over without blinking an eye, my little sister loves this one as well.

Which of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?
Any of them. I write them as a movie that plays in my head. I can see the characters move and interact, I can see them spring into action or their facial expressions when they're snarky. The majority of mine are action/adventure with romance so there's shooting, fights, death, more fights and drama as the villain is unmasked.

What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
I'm not sure I understand this question as life is my journey. I take bits and pieces that I've experienced and sprinkle them throughout the story. It's why Gravedigger, my latest release, is set in Birmingham, Alabama. I know that are, I know the hole in the wall Chinese restaurant with the absolute best food. I know the Harbert Center, I used to meet my mom there for lunch.

It's also why I set my futuristic series in America. It's a VERY different America, but I left some landmarks scattered through it so readers can imagine where the Mutant Free Zone city of Icaria is, near Norfolk where the Lonely Sailor statue is. There are a few other 'Easter Eggs' to be found in the books as well.

As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

I've no idea, but it'd be purple and maybe have some bright pink polka dots as a warning. Aren't things you warn kids about brightly colored? =D


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