First, thank you to the authors who agreed to be a part of this tour. I am eternally grateful to you and I wish you great success in all that you do!

Secondly, I have to give a big thank you to all the readers who came by and supported the authors and this tour! It was a great success, and I owe it all to you. And to show my appreciation to you, the readers, I am giving away a wonderful goodie box, filled with all kinds of treats, including a Kindle!

So how do you become eligible to win? Well, I’m sending you on a scavenger hunt! There are four questions that need to be answered, and you need to visit each author’s site to get the correct answer. I’m not giving any hints, either! LOL

Here goes! Please submit your answers via the form below. The contest ends tonight at 11:59 PST, so get your answers in quick. A winner will be chosen at random on Sunday, December 12th and the winner will be notified via email and on the site.

#1 – Which author said their ideas for books mostly come from her dreams?

#4 – By 1996, which author sold her first novel to Kensington?

Please submit your answers via the form below! Any answers posted in the comment section will automatically be deleted and you will not be eligible to win.

My Fantasy Superstar By Adrianne Byrd

I have a feeling that I’m about disappoint a lot of my romance fans with this blog post.  Everyday, I sit before the computer and I cut open a vein and pour out dramatic romantic fantasies in book after book.  And maybe it’s me or a sign of some considerable years slipping by, but I don’t fantasize about the new batch or even the old batch Hollywood and music sensations.  None.  Nada.  Zip.  I just don’t.  I, like most of my friends, get a peculiar thrill waiting for their personal demons to start leaking onto the gossip blogs.  Whether it’s coming out of the closet (let’s face it: most of the gorgeous ones are gay.) or they have an insatiable drug habit or are inflicted with the latest and greatest craze: being a full blown sex addict.

So this is hard.

But then I turned my television set onto the Food Network.  Here I have to admit from time to time I do get a few….tingles.  C’mon there’s really something sexy about a man who knows his way around the kitchen.  In my opinion, nobody does that better than Patrick Neely.  Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.  Yeah, it’s a little awkward, checking him out while his wife Gina is buzzing around the kitchen too, giggling and doing whatever she’s doing—but damn.  Did he just make Peach and Blackberry Cobbler?  Before you know it, I’m crossing my legs and reaching for a cool drink.

I can just picture me coming home in a slinky, black halter dress (because that’s how I dress every day, didn’t you know?) My hair is swept up and I’m blinging diamonds on my ears, neck and wrists and wearing six-inch Christian Louboutin that, let’s face it, I can only manage to walk in in a fantasy.

Like I was saying, I’d walk into the house and instantly be seduced by an array of lips smacking aromas.  Patrick is right there, wearing nothing but a white apron and smiling at me with those warm brown eyes and adorable, pinch-able cheeks.  He lists the evening meal that he has slaved away over all day and I can barely walk straight to the candle-lit table.  And let’s face it, a palate orgasm is different from an actual physical orgasm and it’s potentially stronger for women because…well, to blunt you’re more likely to climax several times in one meal.  But for added measure, I’d love for Patrick to sit his cute butt down and spoon fed me every delicious morsel while some Luther Vandross croons about how a house is not a home…unless there’s a man in the kitchen.

Whooo.  That sounds like the beginning of a sermon.

Now y’all can judge me about coveting another woman’s husband if you want—but this is my fantasy.  I could go on and on about what I’d do to that man with strawberries and a certain alcoholic whip cream…but if you’ve read any of my erotic sex scenes…you get the gist.  All and all Patrick leaves me quite sated and satisfied—I’m probably even a borderline diabetic with a heavy vase of the itis by the end of the night.

I can’t imagine anything beating a night like that…then I turn the channel to HGTV and see a team of handing men building things.  Ooooh.  Who’s that guy with the hammer?  I wonder if he could build me a new deck?  I get that tingle again.

Yeah…my fantasy men have definitely changed over the years.   Don’t judge.

So who is your secret superstar fantasy?  Be sure and leave a comment below!

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About Adrianne Byrd

National Best-selling author Adrianne Byrd has always preferred to live within the realms of her imagination where all the men are gorgeous and the women are worth whatever trouble they manage to get into. As an army brat, she traveled throughout Europe and learned to appreciate and value different cultures. Now she calls Georgia home.

In books, Adrianne found a way out of her awkward teenage years and into a world of fictional friends that would stay with her for a lifetime. It wasn’t long before her imagination took flight and she was writing her own love stories. Within a year, she completed her first book, which she vowed would never see the light of day.

Ms. Byrd has won many awards, including RT’s 2004 Best Multicultural Romance, Romance in Color’s Readers Choice Awards, and Slam Jams Emma Award. She also writes Women’s Fiction as Layla Jordan, Street Lit as De’nesha Diamond and Young Adult as A.J. Byrd. She has also been featured in many national publications, including Today’s Black Woman, Upscale, and Heart and Soul. She has also won local awards for screenwriting. For the future, she looks forward to continue creating characters that make people smile, laugh, and fall in love.

Visit Adrianne online at:

Website – http://www.adriannebyrd.net/

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/#!/adrianne.byrd

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Adrianne’s latest release – Lover’s Premiere

Limelight Entertainment is Sofia Wellesley’s whole life. So she’s fit to be tied when she discovers her agency is about to merge with Limelight’s biggest rival—run by none other than Ram Jordan. Sofia had a major crush on gorgeous Ram growing up…until her childhood friend became her worst enemy. So why is her traitorous heart clamoring for the man she hates most in the world?

Ram knows what caused the rift between the two Hollywood families, and he’s determined to protect Sofia from the truth. But now…he wants more. He wants all this lovely, sensual woman has to give. But getting Sofia to trust him will take his most persuasive powers of seduction. From L.A. to Vegas, the spotlight’s on passion as Ram fights for a future together—and the love that could be theirs at long last….

Click here to purchase the book from Amazon

Be sure and stop by every day to support the tour! One lucky winner will win a Kindle courtesy of A Hopeful Romantic, as well as other great prizes courtesy of the participating authors!

A good man can be hard to find, and curvaceous Jalila Goodwyn has had enough bad dates to know. But while Jalila is describing the hilarious details over her latest encounter over brunch with her girlfriend, another diner overhears her story and makes her an offer she can’t refuse. Television producer Keenan Armstrong believe’s Jalila search for love would make a hit reality show. Suddenly, Jalila is the start of QUEEN OF HEARTS, with a string of bachelors vying to win her attention—though it’s really Keenan that’s turning up the heat. But before the big finale, Jalila will have to figure out what’s real, what’s fantasy and what’s truly worth fighting for…

The One that Got Away by Adrianne Byrd

When I sat down to write this blog, I thought that it would be a fairly simple assignment. Until I realized that I didn’t really have a guy in my past that I necessarily thought got away. The truth is closer to the ones I’ve kicked to the curb and how I prayed that they would never show back up on my door again. Okay so that may sound a little harsh, especially coming from a supposed hopeless romantic. Sue me. I can’t help it that I’m just as picky about my men as I am about the heroes in my novels. I have my own ideals of what defines a good man and frankly the characters that have crossed my path just aren’t cutting it.

Okay…so I haven’t always had that view.

Once upon a time, I did think this one guy was supposed to be The One. And for awhile I even thought that I was the one that had screwed things up. I was too strong. Too independent. Too loud. Too anything and everything. Whatever the heck he tried to make me believe at the time. After a few years of pulling and tugging-we broke up. In between that time, I started thinking I had a good thing and messed it all up. I started thinking those just so-so dates were really the things that fantasies were made of. I tried to convince myself that all those annoying habits were just adorable characteristics. So what he was always broke. He was a man struggling against the system. A woman should stand by her man through good times and in bad.

I started pouring my heart out on page after page in my diary. Proudly counting the days I had managed NOT to call him. But those made up fantasies kept chasing each other in my mind. Then of course the inevitable wondering if he was seeing someone new which cause me to panic at the thought of him jumping back into the pool before I did.

During that time, my grandmother gave me more eyes rolls and impatient sighs than Florence Johnston gave George in the entire 10 seasons of The Jefferson’s. The whole melodrama lasted five months.

I called.

Another woman answered the phone.

My fantasies took a dark detour—something about me, him and a gun with a silencer. I’d change it up every once in a while and the weapon of choice would be a sawed-off shotgun but I think you get the point. Suddenly, I had to have him back. In my mind, I had put waaaay too much blood, sweat and tears into him to just let the next woman benefit from my hard work.

My grandmother just shook her head and told me that once you threw something in the trash you don’t go back and dig it out. It was my turn to do a couple of eye rolls with that one. So I dusted off my shoulders, put on my best freak’em dress and went out and got my man back.

Big mistake.

Once I had him, I quickly started remembering why I didn’t want him. The arrogance, the ego and that constant…breathing thing he always did.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Would it be too much to ask for him to stop doing that? So in the end, I was right back at giving him The Talk. You know: “It’s just not working out. I want to say it’s not you but it really is you. Please don’t call. I’m changing the numbers in the morning. I wish you nothing but love, yada, yada, yada. Waiter, check please.”

So like I said, sometimes they don’t get away.

They get thrown away.

So, do you have one that got away or that got thrown away?  Leave a comment to win an autographed book from Adrianne Byrd!

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About the Author

National Best-selling author Adrianne Byrd has always preferred to live within the realms of her imagination where all the men are gorgeous and the women are worth whatever trouble they manage to get into. As an army brat, she traveled throughout Europe and learned to appreciate and value different cultures. Now she calls Georgia home.

In books, Adrianne found a way out of her awkward teenage years and into a world of fictional friends that would stay with her for a lifetime. It wasn’t long before her imagination took flight and she was writing her own love stories. Within a year, she completed her first book, which she vowed would never see the light of day.

Ms. Byrd has won many awards, including RT’s 2004 Best Multicultural Romance, Romance in Color’s Readers Choice Awards, and Slam Jams Emma Award. She has also been featured in many national publications, including Today’s Black Woman, Upscale, and Heart and Soul. She has also won local awards for screenwriting. For the future, she looks forward to continue creating characters that make people smile, laugh, and fall in love.

Visit Adrianne online

About the book – click cover to purchase

A good man can be hard to find, and curvaceous Jalila Goodwyn has had enough bad dates to know. But while Jalila is describing the hilarious details over her latest encounter over brunch with her girlfriend, another diner overhears her story and makes her an offer she can’t refuse. Television producer Keenan Armstrong believe’s Jalila search for love would make a hit reality show. Suddenly, Jalila is the start of QUEEN OF HEARTS, with a string of bachelors vying to win her attention—though it’s really Keenan that’s turning up the heat. But before the big finale, Jalila will have to figure out what’s real, what’s fantasy and what’s truly worth fighting for…