Happy Birthday, USA!

A statue of George Washington outside Federal Hall National Memorial, Wall Street, New York City, New York
Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

I recently returned from my high school reunion – and plan to blog about that next Monday – but on our country’s birthday my thoughts have turned to my roots, to where I began. Though the hubs and I live in a big city now, we both grew up in small towns. The flag, apple pie and baseball values are very real to us. (And I still love the pie!)

Spending some time at home really brought it all back to me and I returned to my city home with a deep gratitude for my life, for my freedom, and for all of those who have stood in the breach, who fought for our freedom over and over again.

My life has definitely turned out different than I expected when I graduated all those years ago. Though one of my dreams – to become a published author – did come true. 🙂 And I’m also celebrating five years of blogging (two of the years were on LiveJournal, not here, unfortunately).

While I was traveling, ACX sent me a bunch of download codes for most of my books (for some reason they didn’t include Byte Me in the mix), so I’m going to continue the Thursday audio book giveaway celebrating my blogoversary, but now I can open it up a bit. Each week the winner can choose which book they want (as long as the codes last), instead of me deciding which book to give away.

Something else happened while I was strolling down memory lane (you can actually stroll in a small town). My Mystery Collection released in audio book. It’s a very short collection (like, 3 ) of mystery stories that appeared in different anthologies and was collected (hence the title) by my publisher. I also got some download codes for it.

Includes DO WAH DIDDY DEAD, DO WAH DIDDY DIE ALREADY, and DELETING DENNIS

So that’s the deal. To enter my “pick-which-of-my-audio-books-you-want” giveaway, just tell me which book you’d like to win in the comments and you’re entered. Now that I’m home, the winner will be announced each Thursday in a Taking the Scenic Route post.

And that’s not all I giveaway on this blog. All comments for the month are entered into my monthly drawing for $10 AnaBanana gift card. Winner is announced in the first blog post of the new month. So that’s (mentally counts) five chances to win something this month. 🙂

So how are you spending the day? I know some of you aren’t in the US, so you might not be having a party, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing something fun. So do leave some blog love!

Perilously yours,

Pauline

Pauline Baird Jones has staggered back to the city and collapsed at home. While she recovers and catches up with all the crap, er, stuff that didn’t get done while she was gone, she is also mulling the next projects in her Big Uneasy series. Relatively Risky has released in digital and print and will release in audio book this month. Or it should. Sometimes crap happens. And if you go out of town, it can really happen…

New Orleans. A girl. A guy. Bullets and bad guys. A normal day in the Big UNeasy. Well, what passes for normal…