Tag Archives: USA Today Bestselling Authors

Chocolate Lovers by Mona Risk

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According to a study from the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, eating something sweet can lead to heightened feelings of romance. The researchers found that after getting a taste of sugar, participants who were single were more interested in starting something romantic.

Terms of endearment such as ‘‘sweetie,’’ ‘‘honey,’’ and ‘‘sugar’’ are commonly used with close others and especially in reference to romantic partners.

In “Sweet Love: The Effects of Sweet Taste Experience on Romantic Perceptions,” the results showed that sweet taste and romantic perception are entwined. 

Overall, people were more romantically inclined if they were in the group that had their sweet tooth treated. When talking about their made-up loves, the singles expressed that they’d be more satisfied and committed. The sugar also upped the singles’ interest in the people in the dating profiles and how attractive they thought they’d be. 

Moreover, chocolate turns on happy feelings in our brains. The sweet treat has been shown to cause the brain to release the “feel-good” chemical dopamine, a pretty decent explanation for why our love for the delicacy can sometimes reach the level of sexual attraction.

Are you a chocolate lover? My husband is. In addition to a full drawer he’s appropriated in the fridge, he safeguards more chocolate in secretive locales that I can’t access. He checks his stock daily, and hastens to replenish if the drawer shows empty corners. With all this chocolate around, you’d think he’d binge on it. No sir, he takes one little square a day with his afternoon tea.

I’m not a chocolate person. More of a nut person–hmm… My good-mood stock consists of almonds (without salt) and pistachios (with little salt). The problem is that when I start nibbling on my favorite nuts I can’t stop. I also discovered that ginger candies are excellent remedies for the stomach. I managed to discontinue all my prescription drugs for stomach problems from the day I started taking 4-6 chewy ginger candies per day. Try it, you’ll thank me.

Yet there are moments when I need my chocolate taste, and I found the perfect formula: dark chocolate covered Espresso Beans and the decadent chocolate covered almonds. With these I really don’t need regular chocolate.

While my heroines are too busy pursuing their romantic heroes to eat chocolate, despite my above advice, the older mothers and mothers-in-law in my romance novels regularly help themselves from a silver or a crystal bowl, and sing the benefits of chocolate.

https://books2read.com/DrsInLove1
https://books2read.com/DocLove2
https://www.amazon.com/ebook/dp/B083QLFQPV/
http://bookShow.me/B07XWS211W

No New Resolutions by Mona Risk

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May the New Year bring you health, joy, success, and many books. Have you made any resolutions for this year? Walk more? Eat less? Read more if you are a reader? Write more if you are an author?

Good books offer the best entertainment and vacation, sometimes even an armchair trip in the comfort of your home.

As I was reviewing my last year’s efforts and achievements, I discovered I wrote SEVEN new books. Seven?!  I was the first one amazed by the number! That makes more than a book every couple of months. Any short break was used for promotion, or editing and formatting.

Let’s count them:

Prince Philip’s Cinderella — Modern Princes Series, Book 4

It was also part of Sweet and Sassy Cinderella

A charming jogger saves her from danger. But he’s a prince… And she comes from nothing. Do fairytales exist today?

Not Ready Yet — The Senator’s Family Series, Book 4

It was also part of Unforgettable Charmers

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High school sweethearts separated by life… They meet years later, Successful but different, Each with a heavy baggage.

A Complete Family — Love You Doc Series, Book 1

It was also part of Unforgettable Christmas Dreams

Nurse Melody has an adorable four-year-old girl, a vicious German shepherd, a meddling neighbor-nanny. But Dr. Aidan wants to give her a complete family.

The Captain Christmas Leave –Sweet but Sassy Series, Book 2

It was also part of Christmas Shorts

Wounded and almost divorced, Dr. Joshua Alexander lost his medical career and any chance of happiness…until his sassy wife takes matters into her own hands.

A Dance for Prince Eric–Modern Prince Series, Book 5 Not published individually yet, but part of All That Glitters Box on pre-order

Love in the ER– Love You Doc Series, Book 2 Not published individually yet, but part of Doctors in Love 1 -Passionate and Dedicated on pre-order

Love on the Slopes– Love You Doc Series, Book 3 Not published individually yet, but part of Doctors in Love 2 -Sexy and Determined Coming soon

The Complete NY State Trooper Series AND a New Release!

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For a limited time, I’m offering the complete NY State Trooper Series as a collection for only .99. The first book in the series: In Two Weeks is the first book I’ve ever wrote and it was also the first book that I ever published back in 2007. It was originally published with Triskelion and was titled Right In Front of You. Sadly, only days after release, the publisher went bankrupt.

That was my first lesson in resilience in publishing.

I have had to reinvent myself a couple of time and just as soon as I think I’ve got it covered, something in publishing changes, and I find myself having to adjust my plans.

But there is one thing that has never changed and that is the reader. Without the reader, I don’t exist. I’m constantly trying to give back to my readers. That’s why I put the NY State Trooper Boxset together. When I worked with NY Times Bestselling Bob Mayer at Cool Gus Publishing, we ran on the philosophy that backlist isn’t backlist to readers who haven’t read it before. Wow. That’s a mouthful, isn’t?

One of the things I often do in my books is use a setting that I’m intimately familiar with. In the NY State Trooper Series, I set all the books in Lake George, NY (except the latest novella). In the first book, our heroine lives in the cottage house that my family rented when I was a young girl. Her brother owns the local pub that was in our backyard. In Dark Water I have our heroine living in a trailer park up in Hauge, NY where I’ve been many times. Deadly Secrets is set in the village of Lake George and I have the heroine living in a row of houses that my family rented when I was a teenager. Murder in Paradise Bay, well, I have a dead body in Paradise Bay, a bay in Lake George that my family often hung out in. But also, the heroine’s family home is model after a big white house on Assembly point that friends of ours used to live in. I sort of take a detour in the next book To Protect His Own because our hero and heroine live on a farm not far from Lake George. This farm is not based on any farm that I know of. But as we move on to Deadly Seduction I take us back to the village of Lake George and to a restaurant that I used to love to go to when I was a kid. I put an apartment over the top that in real life doesn’t exist. Hey. It’s fiction. Finally, in When a Stranger Calls, I bring us back to the original location of the first book. Only, the house our heroine lives in was an old abandoned cottage when I was a girl and the mobile home the hero lives in was actually my next door neighbor, only in the book I moved it to a different street.

Recently, I wrote a novella that I set in Florida, but it’s about a NY State Trooper. The title is His Deadly Past. It is included in the complete boxset.

Last up, I have a new release coming up on June 11th that is up for pre-order. I’m super exicted about this novella. It’s the 4th book in the Out of the Wild series. It’s titled: Rough Edge. I hope you’ll check it out!

Winter Flu by Mona Risk

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Winter may evoke beautiful scenery of snow and Christmas time, but winter is also the time when cold and flu spread; the time for sweaters and coat; and probably hat, gloves and snow boots on certain days.

We spend more time indoors in the winter, meaning that we are in closer contact with other people who may be carrying germs. In planes, buses or trains, at work or in school, we are pressed against spluttering commuters, misting up the windows with their coughs and sneezes. It is easy to see how this could send us over a tipping point that allows nasty germs to spread through a population.

A cold can leave us with the strange feeling that we’ve swallowed a scratchy throat, a running nose and a mild headache; if we’re unlucky, our body is wracked with a high fever and aching limbs for up to a week or longer.

The flu season arrives so predictably when the mercury drops that it is an integral part of winter. In the short days of winter, without much sunlight, we run low on Vitamin D, which helps power the body’s immune system, making us more vulnerable to infection.

This winter season brought a virulent epidemic of flu. I heard that a hospital in California put tents in the front yard to accommodate the flow of patients rushing to the ER and organize an efficient triage.

I was sick too. After three days on home remedies, my cough escalated and I visited my doctor who put me on antibiotics, cough medicine and even steroids. Stay on bed rest and a lot of fluid.

How can you protect yourself and avoid becoming one of the flu victims? I have developed my own preventive system based on doctors’ recommendations, on reading various books and on my grandmothers’ wise advice.

  • Get a flu shot I have been taking it for twenty years. It doesn’t guarantee that you won’t catch the flu but it helps avoid complication such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Avoid shaking hands and hugging too many ‘friends’ and young relatives. Children spread germs much faster than adults!
  • Keep a scarf in your handbag to wrap around your throat if it’s suddenly cold. When I fly I surreptitiously cover my mouth to avoid breathing the germs that the plane fans generously distribute.
  • Gargle with Cepacol morning, night and during the day. When I worked as a pharmaceutical analyst at Dow Chemical, the company placed bottles of Cepacol in the restrooms and insist that all employees gargle after washing their hands. I haven’t been sick during my years at Dow Chemicals.
  • Swallow a Vit C 500mg daily. It boosts your immune system.
  • Swallow a pill of Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc. Excellent to improve your immune system.

And now a few tips from my grandmothers —useful tips that really, really work:

  • Suck on ginger candies such as Ginger Chew from Trader’s Joe. They may taste bitter the first time. Some of my friends spat them right away and yelled at me, but others got used to the taste and liked them.
  • Snack on pumpkin seeds from Publix or Kroger supermarkets–very rich in zinc that boosts the immune system.
  • Savor a tablespoon of honey with a few drops of lemon before you sleep.

Do you have any special suggestion to avoid catching a nasty cold? Please share with us?

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While you rest and relax enjoy a few good books by New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors.