Tag Archives: NYT & USA Today best-sellers

College Application Responses

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We’re done with Valentine Day and Super Bowl. Monday is President Day. But these are not important days for three young adults in my family.

“February 25 and 26 are the most important days of my life, Nonna,” my granddaughter declared this past weekend, her voice shaky.

This young girl who’s seventeen and two of her relatives who already turned eighteen are anxiously waiting for college application responses, the emails that would change their lives, or at least decide of their futures, and announce if they have been accepted or rejected by the colleges of their choices.

  • Review for college admission is based on:
  • Secondary School Academic Performance
  • SAT or ACT scores.
  • Extracurricular Activities: Consistent involvement throughout high school that demonstrates a student’s interests and passions, as well as how applicants contributed to their school, community and/or family.
  • The quality of thought in the admission essay.
  • Personal Background and Experiences: Students who show the potential and desire to succeed in an academic environment. Students who can be learners, leaders and thinkers.
  • No one single factor determines an admission decision.

I remembered my own children receiving the famous long-awaited letters with admission decisions from various colleges. Now everything is electronic.

So here I am, waiting and fretting with my first grandkid who is about to leave the family nest.

While the children are worried about the next steps in their lives, their parents are tabulating their bank accounts. “Do you realize how expensive colleges are now?” they often complain, conveniently forgetting that their own parents have gone through these anxious moments to pay their tuitions. “Oh, but now, fees are outrageous. They better get some scholarships to help.” Do they realize how much pressure they put on these young ones?

As a loving grandmother, I’m siding with my grandkids and praying they get accepted to the colleges of their choice, and start the next phase of their lives on the right foot.

I still have my tassels worn on graduation day caps, the yellow from Northeastern University in Boston, and the blue one for my Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Cincinnati. They are proudly displayed in our home office.

Wishing our young ones good luck for next week and best wishes for a successful and happy future.

FOR SARAH’S SAKE (The Senator’s Family Series, book 3)

FREE on February 19 and 29, 25 and 26

FOR SARAH’S SAKE: A broken marriage. Second chance at love. And a precious little girl trying to escape danger and hatred to get herself a loving family. https://www.amazon.com/ebook/dp/B07CTH8DJC/

Hurricane Irma by Mona Risk

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For days we watched TV and prayed that Hurricane Irma would not come toward Florida. Twelve years ago, I survived Hurricane Wilma and watched the devastation it inflicted to South Florida and my building: broken windows, snatched shuttered, cars smacked on top of each other, uprooted trees. We were left without electricity and water for a week and spent a year repairing the damage.

The mandatory evacuation order annihilated our hope to avoid the hurricane path. Evacuating was a big hassle.

Not sure if we should leave–to go where?

The airports were crowded with stranded tourists trying to go home. The three airports within a two-hour distance responded with a “sold-out”. We couldn’t just take the car and drive north, and risk being stuck for hours on a cluttered highway.

In addition, I was dealing with a fractured kneecap and a big brace to wear 24/7 and had trouble riding in a car for hours. At first, we decided to stay and brace ourselves to cope with the hurricane.

We stocked on water and food, and filled the car with a full tank. Remembering that big buildings can shake under the impact of high winds, we removed frames from walls and delicate bibelots from shelves.

Not sure if we should stay here. We live on the beach–first line of defense.

I spent hours researching Google for “How safe are high rises during hurricanes?” High rises are built to sustain 185 mph wind. The safest place is the stairs, completely built in steel and concrete. The safest apartments are those on the 7th to 10 th floors. Floors higher that the 20 th are exposed to horrible wind. Floors lower than the 6th face the risk of flood and flying objects.

We live on the 22 th floor. Back to watching Irma’s news. The Governor of Florida urged us several times to leave: “We can replace your material possessions. We can’t replace lives.”…”If you live in a mandatory evacuation zone and don’t leave, you will be stuck on your own. No one can access your place. The bridges will be open and we won’t answer an emergency call.”

Enough to scare the heck out of us.

Our daughter insisted we should stay with her family. All our friends in high-rises on the beach were staying home, claiming that these buildings are 50 years old, quite sturdy and have survived their share of hurricanes in previous years. Praying for their safety and for Irma to get lost over the ocean.

On Friday morning, we drove to our daughter’s house, an hour away, northwest from our high-rise on the beach. It was good to be with family. Surprisingly I-95 had little traffic that morning. The calm before the tempest.

The house was all shuttered and we had electricity. We couldn’t see what was going on outside, but we could hear the noise, the wind, the rain. Strident alarms on my cell phone alerted us to the danger of tornadoes and raised panic in my heart. My grandchildren decided they needed a break from bad news and made us watch eight Harry Potter movies over three days.

And we survived Hurricane Irma.

On Monday morning, we welcomed the sun and nice breeze and opened the doors for a peek outside. Fallen branches in the driveway and yard. A few broken or uprooted trees. My son-in-law cleaned the driveway.

In our area the bridges were now accessible and the elevators of our building functioning. We returned home. At the entrance of our evacuated zone, police cars patrolled to protect us from looters and asked for ID to check that we lived in this area.

Our hurricane high impact windows resisted the strong wind. No leaks. I sent a thank you note to the man who did a great job on the installation ten years ago. Many of our neighbors had to cope with buckets of water leaking under the windows or from the sides.

We stayed without TV and Wi-Fi for three days. The Comcast box supplying the building was smashed during the hurricane.

All in all we are grateful we survived without damage. Others were less lucky in Miami, Fort Meyers and the Keys.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

A BRIDE FOR PRINCE PAUL                                                                                           

We found the nicest way to please our readers – Authors’ Billboard #mgtab

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Authors are always looking for ways to please our readers and… new avenues to sell our books, especially our back list. Most of those older, yet still wonderful stories had their time in the limelight and then faded, which is a horrible shame.

So… the ladies at Authors’ Billboard have come up with a fabulous way to combine those two purposes that we think will delight our fans. We’ve formed groups of anywhere from 6 to 9 writers and started box collections.

***We decided to keep them exclusive to Amazon where each of these fabulous sets are priced at only 99 cents. And… because they are in the Kindle Unlimited program, those buyers will get them free.

First we separated them in genres like Historical Romance: Rebels, Rogues and Romantics 

Or Contemporary Romance: Unforgettable Romances, Sweet and Sassy and Kiss Me, Thrill me


 Or Romantic Suspense: Risky Encounters and Love on the Edge

Even Paranormal Romance: Mystic Lovers

And then we each chose work that would fit those sets. Because some of us have a lot of product, we were able to add our creations in more than one collection. For instance, I have written over 40 books and was happy to join in with several of these bundles. We have other prolific writers with the billboard who make my inventory look puny. Rebecca York and Carole Mortimer’s accomplishments put mine to shame – they’ve both been honored with RWA awards for their incredible achievements. It’s mind-blowing how many amazing stories have been conceived in the minds of these talented women?

As a group… our aim is to get this wonderful work out to as many people as possible. Make it affordable so everyone can enjoy these seasoned novels. And hopefully find new readers who like our writing and will come back for more.