DIANE VALLERE

#todayimobsessedwith #shoescluesclothes #weeklydiva "Today I'm Obsessed with..." is a new feature on my blog. I fall down a lot of rabbit holes in my daily writing/research, and now that I've given up computer card games for Lent, I need a new distraction. One might argue this defeats the purpose of giving up time-wasting internet card games, to which I will refer you back to "daily writing/research." Technically, this is work. Today I'm obsessed with outer space sneakers. Sn

I like to listen to personal growth podcasts. I see this less of an admission of a weakness than a statement of fact; I have never claimed to be perfect and I like to think of myself as constantly striving to improve. The theme of personal growth trickles into my fiction, most present in the characters of Madison Night and Samantha Kidd, but really, it's in all of my series. The way I see it, if someone finds a dead body and ends up solving the related murder mystery, there's

Find out more about UNION JACKED here (plus get a sneak peek at chapter one!) #samanthakidd #2019 #unionjacked #shoescluesclothes #video

Confession: I'm not all that into football. I haven't watched a game in over ten years. But on Sunday, Feb 4, I'll be rooting for the Eagles. Here's what being an Eagles fan says about me (and probably a lot of people): 1. I'm eternally hopeful. Rooting for the Eagles is like saying even if I don't succeed today, I'm going to try again tomorrow. Listen, we've been here before, and things haven't gone our way. But that doesn't mean they can't change. 2. I will always consider

Chances are, you already know I have a new book out today, because I've splashed it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and somewhere else I can't remember. I also have a book on sale today, #1 in the very same series. Which means, for a limited time, you can get all four books in the series for $15.96, which seems like a pretty good deal to me, but let's break down exactly what you'd have to sacrifice in order to afford this? 1. Four bottles of cheap wine. (maybe five, dependin

By now everybody knows about the whole La La Land/Moonlight mixed-up envelope snafu that capped the 89th annual Academy Awards. That's not even close to my favorite talk-about-it moment; the brouhaha between Meryl Streep and Karl Lagerfeld is. You can Google/Bing it or ask around the water cooler, but in short, Karl told the press that Meryl requested a dress and then canceled because she found someone else who would pay her to wear their design. His exact quote about her to

A business colleague from my retail buying days says that ideas are in their most fragile and vulnerable while we are still working on them. She's right. When we tell people about an idea that we're still playing with--plot points, or new ideas, or concepts for next book in a series --we can't help but be affected by how they react. Maybe they love it--great! Until it's time to write the book and we decide the original idea needs tweaking. And we tweak, because we're the on

It's that time of year: goal setting time. And truth: I love goals! I love the feeling of setting challenges, tasks, mapping a road plan for getting somewhere that I am not. I love thinking "what else could I do?" and stretching to see if it's achieveable. BUT. I don't always achieve what I set out to do. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, sometimes I feel like my feet are being held underwater, and sometimes I get frustrated by the lack of control I have over what

I've joined up with 31 other authors to offer a giant promo: 32 free ebooks. Find mystery (my giveaway is DESIGNER DIRTY LAUNDRY), suspense, and thriller among them. Click here to be taken to the promo and here's hoping you find your next great read! #dianevallere #free #freeebooks #instafreebie #promotion #shoescluesclothes

When I started blogging again, I did so for the main reason of holding myself accountable for personal growth in a public forum. This wasn't because I thought my life was all that interesting, but because a) that way I can't be lazy or lie, and b) maybe my efforts will inspire somebody else to identify their own areas for self-improvement. This particular post deals with my need for a non-writing hobby in order to be a well-rounded person. When I worked full time, writing wa

I have a fear of flying. When I was a retail buyer I traveled regularly, and I wrote my first book during flights to and from market week. The distraction helped but it was a temporary solution; I wanted to write so instead of dreading flights, I anticipated them. (Okay, there was a little dread. I'm not going to lie.) Last year one of my friends and I were brainstorming ideas to promote my various series. I said I was limited to events that I could drive to because of the ex

Just like the concept of perfection, I have a hard time with the concept of failure. To me, it's like giving the world an excuse to notice my flaws and shortcomings. Growing up as a competitive swimmer, sometimes not winning felt like failing, while in reality, failing probably should have been not completing an event. Still, failure. Not something I've ever embraced. Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx Hosiery, recently landed on the cover of the June 2016 Forbes Magazine as one

It's release month for GRAND THEFT RETRO, #5 in the Style & Error mystery series! I'll be celebrating all month long (after all, May IS Samantha Kidd's birthday) with giveaways and fun trivia about the book. This book was particularly interesting to write because it finds Samantha not unemployed or job-challenged like previous books, but in a work-intensive position that affords her (and her cat) some of the nicer things in life. Wasn't that what she had way back in Designer