Carmen DeSousa

Ebooks make great Christmas gifts. You can have Amazon email your friend or relative on Christmas morning, or you can print off the gift and stuff it in a card or stocking! Furthermore, if they've already read it, or it's not their taste, they can easily return it to Amazon at no cost and get something else. If you need some ideas ... here are some of my 'firsts' in collections or stand-alone stories. When Mark Waters decided to be a detective, he didn't plan to investigate ghosts.  The Library (Where Life Checks Out)  is $2.99 In every myth, there’s a modicum of truth. Prepare to believe in the unbelievable. Creatus  (They Exist)  is $2.99 A passionate romantic -suspense of love, betrayal, and obsession, She Belongs to Me will have you falling in love and wondering if you can trust anyone right up to the last page.  She Belongs to Me is $4.99 The  Creatus Series Boxe...

One of my few, in person, living and breathing, reach out and touch, friends (most of my friends are online or imaginary), is also one of the most loving, sweet, and, here’s the most important quality, honest women I know. I’ll get to why that last characteristic is important in just a moment … as I think you wouldn’t be able to read through your tears because you’ll be laughing so hard. Anyway, what also makes her quote so funny is that people who don’t know her, might think she’s a prude, just because she’s such a strong Christian woman. I’m going to back up to 2004 for a moment, the year I walked away from a six-figure job to spend more time with my sons, who were seven and twelve at the time. One of the things I also gained from stepping down was time to read. I’d been working sixty to eighty hours a week for fourteen years, so reading, something I’d loved since I was old enough to hold a book, had taken a back-burner in my life. When I was in college, I’d re...

Different men, different backgrounds, different lifestyles, all searching for the same thing. Of course ... when I say meet my men, I mean ... let me describe them to you.  I've always been adamant about not having men on my  book covers . To me, the best thing about reading is that my imagination builds up in my mind what I believe the leading character looks like, and my image will always be different from the readers ... one of the reasons I believe movies fall short  for  avid readers. Yes, I do have a lot of male readers, but men are visual. So... Men, enjoy the covers!  Ladies, Happy I magining ! :) Meet the rugged detective and construction company owner from She Belongs to Me Jordan is also in... Split Decisions Excerpt: At that precise moment, the man sitting in her booth looked up from his menu, acknowledging her presence. Wow! Now she understood Amy’s grin and offer to assist. The man at her table was a...

As I was doing my final read-through of She Belongs to Me eighteen months ago, I realized I’d left several options open for a new story. Like my real life, my female protagonist had many options to fail or succeed in her life. Every choice she made--good and bad--brought her to a crossroad. Some situations, of course , were out of her control, just as they are out of our control in real life . We don’t always see what awaits us on the other side of the door, and that can be scary or thrilling, happy or sad, wonderful or horrifying. One of my favorite quotes to deal with all of these choices—good and bad—is… “I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.” ― Mother Teresa I liked the quote so much I used it in my newest novel, Split Decisions , as I discussed this very issue of the choices we make and the situations others thrust us into without our approval. As I considered my life, at all the horrible t...