All right, we have out last New Years resolution for Weekly at Vivi’s.

Today with us is Karen Cino, multi-publish and has been writing since she was fourteen years old. She started her career by writing poetry, short stories and writing articles for her high school newspaper. Her daily walks down at the boardwalk are what gets her muse going. It clears her mind and helps her find realistic plot ideas and the characters boosting up her muse. Karen loves writing about local places that people can relate to.

Karen loves the summer, loves the beach. Her previous books were written and take place in various places across Staten Island. Karen relocated to Barnegat, New Jersey in 2015. She traded in the Staten Island Boardwalk for the shoreline in Long Beach Island. Her Camp Mirage Series takes place in Barnegat, NJ.
    Karen is a member of Romance Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writing Association and Liberty States Fiction Writers. She was Vice President of the New York City Chapter for four years and President for three.
    Karen has two adult children, Michael Giordano who’s a singer, songwriter and producer and Nicole Giordano who works in Retail Management and is also a photographer. In 2014 Karen married John Gatti. Her husband is an actor, teacher and attorney.

If I kept every New Year Resolution I ever made, I would weigh the same as a new born. But the one resolution I made, back in 2003 happened five days prior to the New Year. Every year, my resolution was to lose ten pounds and quit smoking. The ten pounds has never come off, but quitting smoking did. I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, sometimes more for years. I tried everything possible, but used every excuse in the book to light up again.

My biggest concern was that I wouldn’t be able to write. Let’s face it I always had a cup of coffee and cigarette when I wrote. Sometimes I had the cigarette hanging out of my mouth as I typed away. No way would I be able to write without my cigarette, my constant companion.

But then it happened, that day, the day after Christmas. I was puffing away and working on my book, while coughing and gagging away. I had gone downstairs to get my laundry basket. On the way up the stairs, I had shortness of breath and my son yelling at me for leaving my cigarette lit in the ashtray. He kept on saying that if I was smoking, so was his sister and him. He told me the whole house smelled of cigarettes.  At the time he was fourteen and my daughter eleven.

I don’t know what happened to me, but something made me put that cigarette out. I lifted the pack and all I had left was a couple of cigarettes. I took the pack, brought it out to the car and buried it in the glove compartment. This way I had my security blanket if I needed it. Fast forward to 2020, I did have those urges to smoke through the years, and I did throw out that pack of cigarettes when I got a new car.

That was the turning point in my life. I no longer get out of breath when carrying my laundry basket and I make it a point everyday to get some sort of exercise. Whenever I feel tension and anxiety I go out and take a walk no matter what the weather.

I choose to share this story because if I could do it, anyone can. My house and clothes don’t smell like cigarettes anymore and the air in my home is clean and fresh for everyone who visit. To this day, I still can’t believe that I was able to do it. Now about those extra ten pounds. Well, seventeen years later they have turned into twenty. This year my New Year resolution is to lose them. Let’s hope my willpower will help me to achieve that resolution finally this year.

Website:  http://karencino.com

Blog: http://karencinobooks.com

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008LCG31Y

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4444484.Karen_Cino

Newsletter: http://us8.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=372e9cad72e3faf1c0a8b9a4e&id=9ac84ba873

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karencino

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Karen-Cino-296585170371401/

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Karen brought us her collection Cookie Cutter Cozy Mystery Series.

Find them on Amazon

New Beginnings (Cookie Cutter Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) After a traumatic event in her life, Connie Acosta heads down to the Jersey Shore to stay with her friend, Sara Mazza, who lives in a fifty-five and over community. For Connie, this is a temporary stop until she figures out what she wants to do. 

Connie and Sara have a brief discussion and decide to start the baking business they had spoken about decades before. But things take a dramatic turn when Sara gets Connie involved in a mysterious adventure at the clubhouse.

Chaos at the Compound (Cookie Cutter Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) Connie Acosta is officially a resident in the fifty-five and older community her best friend Sara Mazza lives in. Her baker’s kitchen is almost complete and she has met Vic, another resident who is crazy about her. Meanwhile, Sara finds herself in the mist of a love triangle with Vic’s friend Jack and Warren, a police officer at the local station. 
When Sara received a call from her friend at the clubhouse saying there is a dead body floating in the outdoor pool, the women rush there to check things out, getting themselves involved in another investigation, especially when Sara finds a few blue pills scattered in the grass that she didn’t turn into the police. 
Who said seniors can’t get into trouble and fall in love again.

Drama Club Chaos (Cookie Cutter Cozy Mystery Book 3) All is quiet at the fifty-five and older community where Connie Acosta is running her illegal bakery out of best friend Sara Mazza’s garage. Both women swore off getting involved in any police business at the compound. Just as the two amateur sleuths are enjoying a night out in the clubhouse ballroom, a scream from the lounge draws them into the middle of a police investigation with Warren and Brett, their current partners. Who said seniors can’t get into trouble and fall in love again.