Little Red's Book Reviews : **RELEASE DAY** WILD HEART by Jennifer Culbreth

YouTube Trailer for Wild Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohOPf-lgnvo

Guest Blog Bio

Hi everyone! My name is Jennifer, I am a 26 year old wife to a panty dropping US Navy Sailor. I am an active advocate of a sarcasm font and snarky remarks. I was born and raised in North Florida where we are lucky enough to get the best of both worlds. We have island life where our beach is at and the great outdoors covered with towering hard pines. I like to consider myself a small town girl with big world dreams, and have used that motto throughout my writing.

Never being one for change (yes it is true that I picketed changing our yearly Christmas dinner from turkey and ham to steaks and lobster… I can admit that) after graduating college and being in the banking industry for several years, change seemed to become the only thing I could think of. I had graduated college with a very expensive piece of paper that I proudly hung in my $3.00 Wal-Mart frame, however crunching numbers just never seemed enough, I had to find something to satisfy the creative beast knocking around in my head. So I embraced reading more than I ever had before in an effort to escape the norm.

Little did I know that reading is a gateway drug to writing! Not only did I find that reading got my mind off of the 9-5, the endless deployments of my husband overseas, and the drama of my friend’s dating lives, writing took it to a whole new level. I began embracing my passion for journaling and even ventured into the world of creative writing. As I am sure many other authors can agree, there comes a time when the characters and story just starts coming together and before I knew it my 1000 word story began flowing uncontrollably into a 380+ page novel.

My love for my book goes deeper than an accomplishment, it is also a piece of myself. I used the experiences and encounters over the years to bring together a story that I wanted people to be able to relate to. A character who’s overly trusting, who feels trapped, and needs to find her way in the world. Once you let your imagination take hold you can truly find your inspiration, and by using your imagination you get to bring life to something that was once only words on a paper.

Within two months my story had been written and the real fun began. Bringing together models, photographers, and creative ideas across the board has been an amazing experience. It took a lot of brainstorming… and pinteresting… to come up with ideas behind the cover and I can only hope that what we brought to the table will help to inspire my readers and spark their imaginations. As the visual representation of the cover is truly your means of accessing my thoughts when writing Protect Me, I can only hope that you can see and feel the same things that I did along the journey.

Inspiration/work/designer behind the cover:

The inspiration behind the cover came from a few different ideas. The first thing I knew I wanted was for it to have the pride and support of the military background. Coming from a long line of military members, as well as being married to an active duty Sailor, I wanted to portray that background of Ryan’s character; so in the cover you will see the American flag along with the dog tags. The second thing I knew I wanted was for it to be similar to an office setting. The desk, the chair, the books/credenza, those were all the pictures that flittered through my head. I wanted that feel to support Ryan’s character in the book. I wanted to bring forth his no nonsense business driven characteristics and his CEO/ Alpha male traits. I also wanted to show Abbi’s character, though coming from a small town, emerging into a woman who was confident and sexy. Most importantly through this journey was that I wanted to use the cover of my book as a way to give back to my community who have shown an outpouring of support along the way. I held a local model search, used a local building to shoot in, and local photographers. Even if we had placed a large budget onto the cover, it would still look exactly the same as it does. I didn’t want to worry with spending tons of money on a cover that looked high dollar. I wanted to worry about giving the opportunity to others to have the experience and credit along with the success of the book. My amazing models were Rex Peters and Tabetha Jade Ashley Lowe. Tabetha’s make-up services were provided by Hillary Warren. The space was provided by Chris Duffy and Jason Orr with A-1 American Bail Bonds, and the two photographers who took care of the photos and editing were Lizzie Holland with 917 Photography and Nita Laurendine of Lynn Lauren Photography.

You can find all of their links below.

917 Photography: https://www.facebook.com/pages/917-Photography/441342125940994

Lynn Lauren Photography: https://www.facebook.com/LynnLaurenPhotography

A-1 American Bail Bonds: https://www.facebook.com/americanbonds

Tabetha Jade Ashley Lowe: http://tabethajadeashley.com/

Hillary Warren: https://www.facebook.com/hillary.promua?fref=ts

When it goes on sale: The live release of Protect Me will be August 1st, 2013

Where it goes on sale: It will be live on Amazon (kindle and paperback), Barnes and Noble, and Kobo