Cate Ellink on Secret Confessions: Down and Dusty

Rachael Johns couldn't make it today so she sent her friend Cate Ellink to chat with us!  

Thanks so much for joining us, Cate.  :)

Do people ever share secrets with you? When I was young, a family friend nicknamed me Mother Confessor because people always seemed to be sharing their deepest secrets with me. I didn't have to question them, for example, strangers would sit next to me on the train and share all manner of personal details. I heard about finances, love affairs, relationship problems, lies they'd told in the past and still felt guilty about, job issues, family problems, career hopes, and lots of thoughts on the world, life, pets, animals, business, politics. You name it, I've probably heard it.

Secret Confessions, especially to a stranger, must be cathartic. Secrets have a habit of swelling inside you, filling every thought, consuming you. Maybe when you tell a stranger, it's no longer a consuming secret but, because of the anonymity, it remains safe.

Escape Publishing has been putting out some Secret Confession series. The first was Sydney Housewives, then Back Stage featuring rock stars, and now Down And Dusty, set in an outback Queensland town. I've been lucky to have been involved in the first and third of these series. In both cases, I've tried to give an insight into a character that others around them may not know (a secret).

Lana, in the Housewives series, liked younger men. Those were the guidelines I was given for the story. I then pushed this so Lana not only enjoys a young man, but she enjoys a secret none of her friends know. The other housewives are unaware of this secret side of Lana.

Lucky, in Down and Dusty, is the local publican. I wanted her to be well-respected but tough. I created her and Dare, the new cop in town, and I liked them, too much not to give them a future. Lucky’s secret is about her holiday life. In a small town there aren't a lot of secrets she could have, but she keeps secrets from Dare. He knows because she's guarded, so he pokes holes in her wall. 

My friend Rachael Johns, who kicks off the Down and Dusty series wrote the story of Casey and Joel, two estranged lovers who are secretly still madly in love. And there are plenty more secrets among the rest of the stories as well.

Secrets are interesting things. Sometimes you can blurt your secret out when you don’t mean to. And maybe some people are secret magnets and drag these from unsuspecting people.

If you like secrets, you might find the Secret Confessions stories an interesting mix. Pick a series, or grab one story that catches your eye, and get ready for a steamy read…you might want to read it in secret ;)

You can find Cate on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/CateEllinkAuthor/?fref=ts and Twitter: https://twitter.com/CateEllink

Rachael Johns: So… who exactly are THE DEACONS OF BOURBON STREET?

In May 2014, I went to the Romantic Times conference and roomed with two of my favourite writing people – Megan Crane and Maisey Yates. It was my first ever US convention/conference and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. In fact, it was my first ever time to America at ALL and it just happened to be in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Aside from the fact there were some amazing sweet things called beignets there that I HAD to try, I didn’t have any idea of what RT or New Orleans would have in store for me.  But making the decision to go turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done.

If I hadn’t gone to RT in New Orleans and hadn’t roomed with the fabulous Megan and Maisey, I wouldn’t be one of the Deacons of Bourbon Street bitches? You see, wandering around the French Quarter, the three of us fell totally in love. Not with each other (of whom we are already enamored enough) but with everything that encapsulates the place! We couldn’t take enough photos, visit enough boutiques and galleries, eat in enough restaurants, people watch for long enough. Everything from the history to the buildings to the quirky residents that currently inhabit the French Quarter captured our imaginations and we knew we HAD to write books set there.

I think we all imagined we’d go home and come up with our own single title stories that somehow included New Orleans, but then one editor mentioned to Maisey that since we got along so well and obviously LOVED the place, maybe we should write a co-authored series set there. We jumped on that idea straight away and somewhere during our brainstorming we decided it would be fun to write about an outlaw motorcycle gang. Now, the others will tell you that this was MY idea but I adamantly deny that. Needless to say, we decided we couldn’t write a biker series without our other friend Jackie Ashenden (http://www.jackieashenden.com) who had already written a biker dude and without a doubt wrote far hotter and far grittier than any of us.

Of course, Jackie said ‘Yay, I’d love to be involved,’ and we went from there. We brainstormed an overarching mystery plot and a red-hot sexy biker hero for each of us. I think the wonderful thing about a multi-author series is that we all bring our unique ideas and voices to the series. Although we each wrote one book, there was a lot of discussion about the characters and plot before and during the writing.

Each book has a different flavor – reflective of the writer and the different heroes and heroines. Megan Crane has this theory that we are each our biker heroes but you’ll have to read the books to see what she means.

Which, speaking of are:

1)     Make You Burn by Megan Crane (http://amzn.com/B00PEPS8TG)

2)     Fire Me Up by Rachael Johns (http://amzn.com/B00R04OX0W)

3)     Hold Me Down by Jackie Ashenden  (http://amzn.com/B00S3RK7NC)

4)     Strip You Bare by Maisey Yates (http://amzn.com/B00TCI48XG)

Just a few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to meet up again, re-live our memories of the French Quarter, have dinner with our lovely editor (see picture below) and discuss the possibility of writing another series together!

Pictured above: Megan Crane, Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Rachael Johns and editor, Shauna Summers

 

Contest: Win a pack of FIRE ME UP playing cards. To enter, simply leave a comment below answering this question: what is your favourite romance series?

Rachael Johns: It’s Always Time For Ice-Cream

I’m an organic writer (aka I don’t plot) and occasionally things appear in my writing and they become much bigger than I ever imagined they would be. In one of my rural romances, MAN DROUGHT – this was a vibrator, given to the heroine by a friend of hers. What I thought would only be a bit of fun in one scene, kept cropping up throughout the whole book and eventually caused for a very embarrassing moment for the hero and heroine right near the end. 

In my most recent release, KISS THE BRIDE, ice-cream became an unexpected feature – and a bit of an in-joke between the hero, the heroine and her daughter. Jake, the hero is an ice-cream connoisseur and he believes the way to a woman’s heart is through her sweet teeth. He woos Magdalena with an impressive ice-cream sundae and then later gets her daughter onside the same way.

There’s more than one scene involving ice-cream in the book and it even creeps into the epilogue, although I won’t tell you how as I don’t want to give the happy ever after away.

Anyway, needless to say I craved a lot of ice-cream during the writing of KISS THE BRIDE and I may have visited my favourite ice-creamy a few times in the name of research. This is The Junction Ice-creamery (http://junctionicecreamery.com.au), which has been in business for as long as I can remember. I have fond memories of my mum and grandparents taking me here on hot days when I was a child and I now frequently drop in with my own children.

The Junction has a HUGE range of homemade ice-cream flavors, but not all of them are always there. I must admit to being HUGELY disappointed if my favourite flavor PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE isn’t available. Nothing else quite does the trick, although in the name of being a good sport I always try something else.

So I’m curious… do you have a favorite ice-cream shop you like to visit with your family and friends? And what is your MUST-HAVE flavor of ice-cream?

Extract:

                “This is a big kitchen,” Magdalena commented as he scooped three different flavors of ice-cream into the bowls. “If fact, it’s a big house… for one person.”

                He glanced up and raised an eyebrow. “You think I might be hiding a family in the basement or something?”

                She laughed. “No. I just wondered…” Again her voice drifted off and pink flushed in her cheeks.

                Man, she looked hot when she blushed. And he had nothing to hide. “It is a big a house. As I mentioned before, I never had a home and I wanted somewhere special. One day, I hope to fill these rooms with a family of my own. I’m just waiting for Miss Right to happen along.”

                He didn’t want to scare her but he reckoned he might have just found her. Magdalena loved music as much as he did; she was gorgeous, funny, and obviously smart. Just looking at her made his jeans shrink three sizes.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of ladies in waiting for that position.”

                “Maybe.” He shrugged and looked right into her eyes. “But I’m a very fussy guy.”

                “I’m glad to hear it.”

He gestured to the toppings on the counter. “Chocolate, salted caramel, or strawberry? No, let me guess, you’re a blueberry kind of girl?”

                “You have blueberry topping?” She sounded skeptical.

                “Sweetheart, when I said I was an ice cream expert, I wasn’t over exaggerating.” He turned and opened a cupboard to reveal a whole row of different ice cream toppings. If his muse didn’t return and he never wrote another song, maybe he’d buy the local ice cream parlor.

                Her beautiful, blue eyes widened. “Okay. I’m impressed. Don’t let my daughter see this. She’s already got enough of a crush on you.”

                He laughed. Bella was a good kid but it wasn’t her he wanted, and he planned on making sure Magdalena knew this before she left today. “Well?” he asked, again gesturing to his not-so-secret topping stash.

                “Surprise me.” She took another sip of her soda.

                He grabbed a bottle of choc-mint sauce and made an elaborate show of squeezing it on top of her ice cream. It was sweet with a bit of bite, exactly how he imagined she’d taste. And then he sprinkled his creation with tiny choc drops, chopped cashew nuts, and little marshmallows, before pushing the sundae across the counter towards her.

                She smiled. “You are full of surprises. I’d have pegged you more as a beer man than an ice cream connoisseur.”

                “Hey, I love my beer as much as the next guy but ice cream is good for my soul. Of course, it’s not that great for the throat so I have to abstain at least twenty-four hours before a performance. Sometimes this makes me a little cranky.”

                In reply, she lifted her spoon and dug it into her dessert, her lips crinkling upwards at the edges. He watched, mesmerized as she lifted the spoon to her mouth and slid it inside. She moaned her approval, her eyelashes fluttering as she swallowed. Jake’s jeans grew tight again and heat rose within him, so he shoved his own spoon into his ice cream and relished the coolness as it hit his tongue.

Rachael Johns – www.rachaeljohns.com

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