It’s Memorial Day in the States today. Since it was first known as Decoration Day and started as a tradition to honor the more than 600,000 dead of the Civil War, it’s highly appropriate that my blog tour for The Vacant Chair kicks off today.

At the end of the tour I’ll be giving away a $50 gift certificate to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and there’s also going to be a Twitter party on June 4th where I’ll give out lots of prizes for participants.

Today I’m a guest over at Ex Libris, talking about my strange obsession with the Civil War. Come by to enter the draw for the gift certificate!

Wherever you live, please remember your nation’s fallen warriors today.

The print copies of The Vacant Chair arrived last night and I was so excited to hold the book in my hands! Since I started writing this book back when I was 14, that makes it my first book and thus Justin was my very first book boyfriend. And so I thought it only fitting that I slept beside him last night :).

I woke up big weasel to show him the book. He smiled, studied the cover for a second and said, “That’s supposed to be you and Dad, isn’t it?”.

O_o

I can understand why he’d think that, since his father dressed up in a Yankee cavalry uniform for our wedding reception and I wore a white lacy wedding gown. I love that kid!

Here’s a shot of DH and I just after he proposed in the military cemetery atop Marye’s Heights at the Fredericksburg battlefield in Virginia. We look like babies! He caught me completely by surprise by popping the question there, and it’s still the most romantic memory of my life. I caught myself a good one :). (I said yes, by the way.)

The Vacant Chair is live and available in both digital (only $2.99) and paperback! I’ve already ordered a few copies for myself and can’t wait to hold them in my hands :). (It’s an author thing.)

I got the most extraordinary e-mail from a reader the other day. She sent me the link to a Youtube video of a book trailer she’d made for The Vacant Chair. I was astounded that she’d go to such trouble, and extremely grateful that she did.

Here it is:

So cool! I plan to post many interesting things about the research I did for the book in the next few weeks leading up to my blog tour which kicks off May 27th.

Hope you enjoy it!
Kaylea 

May 1st is supposed to be the official release date, but I uploaded the files for The Vacant Chair yesterday and it’s already up at the Kindle store. I’m in the process of formatting it in paperback version as well, but that will take a while still, as will the e-book version appearing in other retailers such as Kobo and Barnes & Noble.

But hey, it’s out!!!

I put so much work into the research for this one, more than in any other book, including my Bagram Special Ops series. I can’t wait for you all to learn about the Michigan Wolverines and the ugly part of the war they were involved in. You’ll also learn a lot about medicine during the Civil War, and what it was like for the citizens of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, when the city fell to Union forces.

I’ll be doing a proper blog tour at the end of May as well as a Twitter party, but in the meantime if you know any historical romance fans, I’d sure appreciate it if you helped spread the word about The Vacant Chair.

In other news, I finished up the first book of my new romantic suspense series (Incendiary), which I’m going to publish in July. This week I’m starting on the second of the series, so stay tuned for more details.

Happy reading!
Kaylea 🙂