Thursday, June 16, 2016

Kayla the Bibliophile Does New Orleans (Sherrilyn Kenyon Tour)

On my four year wedding anniversary, April 17, 2014 we went to my favorite city in the entire world: New Orleans. And on this amazing trip, my hubby Jason humored me and joined me on the Dark Hunter tour, even playing photographer for me! Enjoy!

 Sanctuary

Home of the Howlers and Limani for all preternatural being.
688 Ursulines.



Peltier House

Shape-shifting dragon in the attic and Carson's hospital on the second floor ;-)


Erzulie's Voodoo Shop
You bet your sweet ass I bought Acheron's scent!


Boutique du Vampyre, one of Sherrilyn's favorite places!

Pere Antoine Alley, where lots of action scenes take place in the series!


From her website: If you look up, you’ll see the blue Ethel Kidd Realty sign. Right under it is where Stryker, Acheron and Nick meet in One Silent Night and walk together down Orleans to the St. Louis Cemetery.
 

From her site:
Another favorite haunt of the characters. Jean-Luc is often found at the bar, trading drinks and stories. Janice will often pass by to say hi on her way to get ice cream at the shop on the corner. At one time, the Boutique Du Vampyre was located here too.
But the most interesting thing about Pirate’s Alley is this. If you look up directly over the Old Absinthe House bar there on the corner of the top floor is the condo that belongs to none other than Acheron Parthenopaues (Pahr-thin-oh-
pay-us). That’s right, that’s where our favorite eleven thousand year old god chose to set up a location so that no one would get suspicious since he was spending so much time here and staying at no one’s house.
Yes, he could have continued to stay with Kyrian and Amanda, but he wanted to come and go without their getting suspicious. So he bought himself the tiny little condo up there that you’ll remember from his book. 

From her site:
Here it is... this is where the series began in Fantasy Lover with Selena and Grace having lunch on that fateful day. This site was chosen for one simple reason. This was where Sherri ate the very first time she came to New Orleans. It was here that she tasted Red Beans and Rice for the first time, and here she fell in love with the sights and sounds of the city.
She’d been studying for finals at the University of Georgia when her best friend Rebecca Baker who’d been coming here for years looked up at midnight and said, “We need a road trip.” Sherri had declined, saying she was out of her mind.
But within half an hour, Rebecca had talked her into it. The next thing she knew, they were headed out and the arrived just as dawn broke over the city. Sherri can still remember the first time she laid eyes on it. They could only stay a few hours, but here they ate and afterwards, they went for Beignets at CafĂ© Du Monde and they stopped at Laura’s Candies (just like Vane and Fang in Night Embrace) and picked up chocolate for the ride home. BTW she did make it back for finals. And she passed with an A.
From here you can see Jackson Brewery which was also featured in Fantasy Lover. Sherri worked at the Limited which had a store there when she lived here. And she would often come over here for lunch.
The corner right there with the street light is where Julian saved the little boy from being hit by a car and if you look at the mules and buggies, that’s where Zarek walked down the line of them in Night Embrace.
By the way, Sherri had put that they were mules, but the copyeditor on the book replaced it with horses. Sherri pitched a fit, but the book has horses in it and Sherri cringes to this day because New Orleanians know they have mules and buggies. And it was there that Vane and Bride took their carriage ride. Although, the did, for a very brief time use horses for the rides. But mules are more heat resistant and unlike a horse, a mule will stop when it’s overheated. A horse will go until it drops. So after about a year, the city returned to using mules. 


And saving the best for last, Cafe du Monde:
My daughter Avary, raising her hand for service. She was ready for her "donuts" <3


And more cool stuff I went to see:





Monday, April 25, 2016

KD Robichaux Guest Post: Author Inspiration. Blog Tour for The Blogger Diaries Trilogy

I have author friends who tell me they go on Pinterest and Tumblr to find inspiration while writing. They find a picture or a gif that inspires them, and they keep it close so they can have it fresh in their mind while they're creating their scene. 
Me? I had MySpace.
Since my trilogy is the true story of how my husband Jason and I got our happily ever after, it spans across almost a decade. I've always been a social media junky, so I was very happy to have thousands of pictures to look back on, not only to help me remember dates and timelines, but to jog my memory and help paint the scene in my head so I could make it as real for the books as possible. 
Here are a couple of excerpts from Wish Come True, along with the pictures that inspired them. Enjoy!


From Chapter 9:
It’s pitch black outside, but for once, I’m not petrified walking over to the wooded side of our yard to my car. 
Normally, even at twenty-three years old, I have my mom stand in the doorway and talk to me while shining a flashlight in my direction if I come home when it’s grown dark, after calling her and letting her know I’ve arrived. I think it’s some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after my evil-ass big brother hid in the woods one night, when he knew I was due back home from my first job at the car dealership when I was eighteen. That asshole had put on his Friday the Thirteenth hockey mask—which he got, thinking it was funny since his name is Jason too—and when I got out of my car where we all park along the treeline, he started making the infamous Ch-ch-ch sound, then burst out from the tall oak and pines, waving my dad’s chainsaw around like a nutcase as he ran toward me.
My throat hurt for three days I screamed so loud, and to make things worse, when he caught up to me—I’m not a runner, and if you ever see me running, you better run too, because that means something is after me—he set the chainsaw down and tackled me to the ground, tickling my sides until I peed. Yep, eighteen years old, and my stupid big brother held me down ‘til I pissed myself. Fucker.

(My big brother Jay and me when I was 18)

From Chapter 11:
The next day, we grabbed Tooty and went on an overnight trip to Myrtle Beach. (I know, I know! But it’s soooo much fun down there!) I cannot even describe how awesome it was. When we first got there, Jason pulled the new floaty we got her out of the box and blew it up, and I snapped the cutest pictures of her pudgy little self sitting on the bed watching him as the yellow plastic expanded, her face mesmerized, like he was working pure magic. 




The hotel we stayed at was awesome. It had an indoor waterpark, with a lazy river we floated in for a couple hours, a few kiddy slides Jason took her down, and even I had a great time in the water! Well…the pool, that is. I still didn’t go into the ocean. But let me tell you, seeing Jason’s tattooed sexy-ass body in his bright white swim trunks, holding my daughter in just her little swim diaper and a shit-load of sunscreen as he introduced her to the ocean for the first time—OVARY EXPLOSION. If he could make babies, I would definitely give him one.





From Chapter 19:
“Did you bring the stuff?” Buffy asks conspiratorially, raising her eyebrow and glancing down at my hands. 
“Yeah. We need to get it on before Jason’s mom comes in. If she catches us before it’s all done, she’ll throw a hissy until we wipe it all off,” I say quickly, rummaging through my makeup Caboodle until I find what we need. We hurry out of the dressing room and into the main room of the bridal parlor, and I run over to the door to lock it. “Whatever you do, do not open this door. Especially if it’s Jason’s mom. Everyone allowed in here right now is already here, so please don’t unlock this door for any reason until we’re done getting dressed and ready.” The girls around me, including my photographer and her assistant, all nod.
“First order of business…this.” I hold out the gleaming bottle of black nail polish for everyone to see, and the first thing I notice is the mischievous look in my niece’s eyes.
“You know she’s going to shit herself, don’t you?” she asks, receiving a stern, “Brooke!” from my mom.
“What? It’s true.” She shrugged.
“You’re in a church, Tadpole. Watch your language,” Mom tells her, reaching over to swat her playfully on her butt.
“That’s why we have to hurry up and get it on and dry, then get completely dressed, bouquets and all. That way she can’t make us take it off. We wouldn’t want to risk getting nail polish remover on our dresses, now would we?” I smirk.
I love my soon-to-be mother-in-law. God knows I do. But that little woman can be one controlling, opinionated bulldog when she wants to be. If she knew I wanted all my bridesmaids and I to have matching black nails, which I thought looked super cute against the cream-colored calla lilies, she’d throw a tantrum. Shit, she even gave me hell when she saw it on my toenails the night before, knowing I was wearing open-toe heels today. I was able to cool her jets a little by telling her no one would see them since my wedding dress is floor-length, leaving out the part it would soon be on my fingers.



(My sisters-in-law Renee and Buffy hurrying to paint their nails black in the bridal parlor, hehe!)


From Chapter 5:
The rest of the meal is perfect, and we follow it up with dessert before Jason pays the bill and we stand to leave. I hand him his black pea coat from beside me, and he puts it on before sliding Josalyn’s carrier out of the booth. I follow behind them and my heart clenches at the sight. Quickly, I pull my digital camera out of my purse and snap a picture of the sweet scene: Jason looking manly and sophisticated in his structured wool coat, contrasting adorably with Josalyn’s baby pink car seat as he carries her effortlessly with one hand.
I pull my jacket more tightly around me, and when I glance up to see Jason has turned to reach into the diaper bag hanging on my shoulder to pull out Josalyn’s blanket, I come ridiculously close to crying as he tucks it around her. As if I could love him any more than I already did, I feel my heart grow an extra chamber for paternal Jason. After watching over his shoulder as he buckles her into the car flawlessly, when he closes the door, I grab him by the bicep, turn him around, and use every ounce of my much smaller body to shove him up against the car. I feel absolutely savage as I wrap myself around him, and within seconds, I don’t feel the slightest bit chilly. I kiss him with a passion I’d forgotten I could possess, throwing every bit of the new level of love I feel for him into the embrace.
I don’t let him go until he finally starts to gently push at my shoulders and begins to chuckle, and when I do begrudgingly release him, I’m breathing heavy, little puffs of white forming before me with each exhale.
“Woman, if you don’t control yourself, I’m going to end up bending you over the trunk of the car, and that’s not the way I want to have you for the first time as my girl. Plus, the baby is rear-facing, and I don’t want to scar her for life,” he jokes, bending his head down to kiss me lightly on the lips before sliding out from between me and the door. I watch him circle the car, feeling like a cat ready to pounce, but as he opens his door and disappears inside, I snap out of it and get in my side.


 Passion, heartache & love: The Blogger Diaries Trilogy by KD Robichaux is complete! Check out this amazing trilogy today! ♡

Friday, April 22, 2016

THE TRILOGY IS COMPLETE! KD ROBICHAUX'S THE BLOGGER DIARIES


The highly anticipated third and final book in the Blogger Diaries Trilogy.
 Title: Wish Come True
Author: KD Robichaux
Series: The Blogger Diaries Trilogy, Book 3
Release Date: April 17, 2016
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Editor: Becky Johnson, Hot Tree Editing
Cover Designer: Perfect Pear Creative Covers
 Add to GR
The highly anticipated third and final book in the Blogger Diaries Trilogy.

Kayla’s Chick Rant and Book Blog
April 17, 2016

They say when you quit trying so hard, things will finally fall into place. So, I let go of my failed marriage to Aiden, focused all my attention on my daughter and finishing school while working a full-time job, and suddenly…
Barely breathing turned into surviving.
Surviving turned into being content.
Contentment turned into happiness.
All just my girl and me.
But there was still something missing, something I truly never thought I’d have. 
My happily ever after.
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 Other Books in the Series 
Wished for You
(Book 1)
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Wish He Was You
(Book 2)
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KD Robichaux wanted to be a romance author since the first time she picked up her mom's Sandra Brown books at the ripe old age of twelve. She went to college to become a writer, but then married and had babies. Putting her dream job on hold to raise her family as a stay at home mom, who read entirely too much, she created a blog where she could keep her family and friends up-to-date on all the hottest reads. From there, by word of mouth, her blog took off and she began using her hard-earned degree as a Senior Editor for Hot Tree Editing. When her kids started school, and with the encouragement from her many author friends, she finally sat down and started working on her first series, The Blogger Diaries, her very own real life romance.
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