Just One Thing

As of Tuesday, Just One Thing is out!

I got my start in straight up romantic comedy with books like I Waxed My Legs for This? and Not Precisely Pregnant.  I slowly moved into sweet humorous romance, like my Perry Square series for Silhouette Romance, and my Everything But…Series for Avalon/Montlake.  Over the last few years, I've added comedic mysteries with my Maid in LA Mystery series and emotional dramas for SuperRomance.

Just One Thing is the most emotional of all the stories I've ever told.

Someone asked me if it was hard moving between comedy and drama.  I said, no.  To be honest, in many ways, comedy and drama are mirrors of one another.  I wrote a book, Ready, Willing and…Abel? that opened with a woman staring at a catalog of potential sperm donors, trying to pick out a father for her someday baby because she wasn't in a relationship and was tired of waiting for true love in order to have the baby she longed for.  That was a story that could have been written as a comedy (which is how I wrote it) or a drama.  I mean, that kind of longing pulls at the heart strings.  Yet, I set the tone for the whole book with the opening line, "Sperm 'R Us."  LOL  Heinlein wrote a book about a Martian trying to 'grok' human behavior with Stranger in a Strange Land.  The character mastered pretty much everything about being human except for humor until one day at the zoo he finally starts to laugh so hard he can't stop.  When he finally gets himself under control he explains, “I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.”  I think that's why I love writing both comedy and drama…for me, it's just two sides of the same coin, the same emotions.

But back to Just One Thing…I never even considered comedy with this story.  From the moment it started tugging at me, I knew how it needed to be told.  The heroine over a period of years, suffered a series of heartbreaking tragedies.  She's withdrawn from everything and everyone…except on Mondays, when she goes to the local bar, has exactly one beer and then walks home.  For weeks, she doesn't say a word to anyone, but then one Monday, the bartender says the words, "One thing?"  Those two words end up being her salvation.  Monday after Monday, Lexie's story unfolds, and she begins to heal.

I could have chosen any day of the week, but all my online friends know about my strange love of Mondays.  As someone who works from home, weekends are loud and busy and not overly conducive to work.  But Mondays…ah, Mondays.  The family goes to work, or school and the house is…silent.  So on Mondays I share my Glee with all my online friends, and it seemed like the perfect day for Lexie to share bits of herself with Sam.

I'm so grateful for the positive feedback so far.  And I'm equally thankful that readers seem to be willing to follow my writing whether I'm writing comedy or drama.

Do you have a favorite type of story…comedy or drama?

Holly

Books in my Past - And Present with Kate Walker

If you were to take a look at my (overcrowded ) bookshelves, you’d find, in amongst all the  romance novels, the detective stories, thrillers, historical novels,  there’s a very small separate section  that has  three – no four books all on the same subject.

There’s A E W Mason’s   Clementina  ( A grand Tale of Loyalty and Betrayal).  Then there’s The  Escape of The Princess by Jane Lane.  These two are fiction. There are two other, factual titles. One is The Life of Chevalier  Charles  Wogan ,A Soldier of Fortune [1922] by  J.M.Flood and another, reproduced in a modern paperback but that is a copy of the original  dating from  1719. It’s called  The Rescue of Princess Clementina (Stuart): A 1719 Adventure of the Irish Brigades – and this one was written by Charles Wogan himself.  I’ve collected these books over the years and I keep them on my ‘specials’ shelves.

Why? 

  Well, the answer to that is that the Charles Wogan that these books are written about – or who writes his own version of the story in The Rescue of Princess Clementina (Stuart)  -  is a long ago ancestor of mine. My mother’s family is descended from the Wogan family and I’ve grown up with the story of this Irish soldier  whose tale is something of a delight for any romantic novelist – here is a brief summary.

"The Chevalier" (Knight) Charles Wogan was born in Rathcoffey.   Wogan was a staunch supporter of the Stuarts. He initiated the alliance which led to the marriage of James Edward Francis Stuart (the Old Pretender), son of Charles II, to Clementina Sobieski, daughter of John Sobieski, King of Poland. She was apprehended, however, on her way to marry the Prince in Bologna. She was held captive in Innsbruck in the Tyrol. Wogan arranged false passports with the Austrian Ambassador and along with a small group feigning to be a Count, Countess, the Countess’ brother (Wogan) and her maidservant, managed to gain access to the princess. Following a quick exchange of clothing between the princess and the maidservant, the party escaped in high winds and blinding snow through the Alpine passes into Austria.

It’s rumoured that in fact Charles Wogan and Clementina fell in love on their journey but that his loyalty to his king meant that he didn’t press his own claim for marriage.   

I always felt it was sad that if Charles and Clementina did fall in love, that his loyalty and sense of honour meant that they had to be separated so that he could fulfil his duty to his king. For a long time I’ve wanted to rewrite the story so that Clementina and Charles could have that happy ending.  

Charles Wogan

This is the story that was at the back of my mind when I wrote my current release for Harlequin Presents -  A Question of Honor.  Instead of Charles, I have Karim who is sent to bring Clementina home to go through with the marriage that has been arranged for her  ever since she was  a child.   Karim thinks that this will be an easy  and quick job  - until he meets Clemmie.   That’s when sparks start to fly.  And things get a whole lot more complicated.

But I was determined that Karim and  Clemmie had their happy ending – so if you want to know how that happened, you’ll need to read the book.

The trouble is that  now I’ve been talking about this past story, it’s made me want to go back a reread all the historical stories I have about my great – great- great ..  (I don’t know how many greats!)   long ago

Clementina Sobieska

ancestor.

Do you have any interesting stories from your family’s past?

PS I’m so glad that the designers of the cover of A Question of Honor didn’t ask me for a picture of the original Charles Wogan. He might have been a hero, but neither he nor his Princess Clementina were exactly lookers!

A Question of  Honor  is on sale in Harlequin Presents  this month.

You can find out more details about it on my web site   and read all my more up to date news about my books and what I'm doing on my blog   or my Facebook page.

Childhood Treasures!

by Anna Campbell

2014 is going to be a year of many changes for me, not least the fact that I'm putting the family home on the market and moving to something much smaller and much more central.

Please take note of those two words 'family home.' That means family junk reaching right back into childhood for my brother and I. So downsizing is a mammoth job.

So far I've tackled a lot of the easy stuff - books, papers, sheet music, CDs. Some of it in fact, has been really pleasurable to see again, especially the childhood books. This month on my website in My Favorite Things, I talk about some books from the 1930s that my mother won as academic prizes. Check them out!

Today, I'm talking about a real treasure that brought back so many memories. THE GIFT BOOK OF NURSERY RHYMES was my baby brother's book (his name is neatly inscribed inside in my father's lovely handwriting) but I placed dibs on it pretty much straight away. You can't see it in the picture above, but I wrote my name all over the cover - I was a possessive young wench!

The minute I opened this book I remembered my childhood fascination with the beautiful historical costumes in the illustrations. I really think this book may have in the end resulted in me writing historical romance!

The illustrations are the work of two English twin sisters, Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, who were active in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s until Anne was tragically killed in a fire. You can read about their amazing partnership here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_and_Anne_Grahame_Johnstone

So I thought today, I'd share some of these beautiful illustrations with you. I think the costumes are just exquisite!

So did you have any books illustrated by the Grahame Johnstone sisters? Perhaps even this one? What was your favorite childhood book?

Love Those Cowboys! : : Anne McAllister

After a dozen years – which is a long time to be in a desert, believe me – I have come home to a cowboy hero.

Today, I hope, my new book, Last Year’s Bride, will be released -- the last of eight In the Montana Born Bride Collection (except I believe we will now have a novella by Sarah Mayberry answering the question: Who won the Great Wedding Giveaway. Stay tuned.)  I sometimes wondered if I would ever get to write a cowboy again.

And then Jane Porter offered me a chance to do so – and you can’t believe how fast I said yes.  It isn’t that I don’t love my Greek guys or my Caribbean guys or even the ones who don’t know a saddle from a bridle.  They are all capable of making my heart beat faster because, in their own way, they are closet cowboys (don’t tell!).  They are competent, capable men who get the job done and get on with things with a minimum of drama.  And they like women who are as capable as they are – and sexy, too.

But, still, I missed my cowboys – the ones who were just a little rougher around the edges in some ways and more gentlemanly in others than the rest of the bunch.  So I was thrilled when Cole McCullough decided I should write his story.

I wasn’t so thrilled when he told me he was already married and was getting a divorce because it was The Right Thing To Do. 

“Sez who?” I asked him.

He looked started, as if it weren’t a matter for discussion. He’d decided. End of discussion.

But I thought Nell might have something to say about that. And she did. But Nell knows her man. She knows that arguing never solved anything with Cole. She had to Show Him that them spending forever together would work.

And that is exactly what she set about doing because, stubborn and bull-headed as he was, Cole McCullough was a keeper. He was a man to have on your side til the end of time. Nell knew that. She just had to convince him that she’d still be there – no matter how long it took.

I’d refer you to my website for an excerpt, but somehow amazon is even faster than my webmistress. So . . . excerpt right here:

Chapter One

"It's only one blessed night!" Sam McCullough smacked his hand on the old round oak dinner table as he rose and glowered across the meat loaf at his son. "You're not going to tell me you've got a date.”

“No.” Cole had plenty of practice keeping his voice even. “I just don’t like the notion of doing business at a Valentine’s Day dance.”

“It’s not a dance,” his sister Sadie corrected. “It’s a ball.” She used her fingers to put quotes around the word, as if her enunciation weren’t enough. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat from the old storybook she used to lug around when she was a little thing. Now she was nineteen and read fashion mags.

“The ‘ball’ –“ Sam’s voice made the same quotation marks his daughter’s had “ – is a business proposition itself. You reckon Troy Sheenan is in it for the pretty music? You better believe he’s got his eye on the bottom line.”

“And it’s a damn sight blacker than ours,” Cole muttered. He forked in another bite of his grandmother’s meat loaf, but he didn’t take his eyes away from his father’s. Under the grizzled stubble on Sam’s cheeks, Cole saw the wash of red that meant the old man was getting riled. He knew his grandmother saw it, too. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that her fork had stopped halfway to her mouth. She pressed her lips together, but then after a brief moment the fork continued its journey and she took another bite and kept on chewing.

“Ours won’t be red much longer. I’m workin’ on it,” Sam said, both hand pressing down against the table as he leaned to ward Cole. The cords in his neck stood out.

“So’m I,” Sadie chipped in cheerfully. “Got an interview Sunday afternoon.”

Sadie’s job prospects – she was a marketing major at MSU whose work experience was largely confined to waiting tables at the diner in Marietta and writing ads for the Copper Mountain Courier and the Bozeman Chronicle -- were not going to save them from foreclosure, and they all knew it.

Cole wasn’t convinced anything was going to save them – and wasn’t sure he wanted it to. As much as he loved the ranch that had been in his family for a little over a hundred years – and had been his life for virtually all of his own thirty years – he knew the pain of fighting a losing battle, of watching his father die a little more each day as their financial ground eroded beneath them. It seemed to him that his dad’s new plan, running cattle for his old friend – and now millionaire several times over – Tom McKay, wasn’t much better than any of the others he’d come up with over the past dozen years.

“One Saturday night,” Sam pressed him. “One little dance. It’s not like you have better things to do. It’s not like I’m askin’ you to marry the girl!”

Cole’s jaw went tight. Good thing, too, he thought grimly. He rolled his shoulders and tried to ease the feeling of carrying not just the ranch, but the entire Absaroka mountain range on his back.

“You might have fun,” his grandmother remarked, her tone mild. She smiled at him over the cup of coffee she cradled in her hand. “Been a long time since you’ve had some fun, Cole.”

It wouldn’t be fun to go a fancy “ball” at the old Graff Hotel which in his youth had been a rundown flea bag joint and had recently been “restored to its former glory” by local-rancher’s-son-made-good. Troy Sheenan, the older brother of one of Cole’s classmates, Dillon Sheenan, had parlayed his smarts into millions of bucks in the California technology market and had decided to spend a lot of it locally, restoring the Graff. Cole had always liked Troy, and he admired his decision even though he wasn’t sure he understood it. And maybe it was just envy that had him squirming at the thought of turning up at the Graff as if he belonged there with all the rich folks.

But he couldn’t see any way out of it. Not if his grandmother was sticking her oar in. Emily McCullough rarely voiced a comment when he and his father locked horns. She watched worriedly, but she didn’t speak up unless she was worrying about Sam’s dodgy heart. He’d had a heart attack in his mid-thirties, right after Sadie’s mother had upped and left.

“Congenital defect,” the doc in Bozeman had said. “But we can do something about it.”

Or they could have if Sam had agreed. He hadn’t.

“No time,” he’d said succinctly, checking himself out of the cardiac unit as soon as he could pull on his boots and slap his hat on his head.

“You’ll have all the time in the world if they bury you,” Cole had argued often since, and his older brother Jeff had shaken his head and muttered, “Damn fool.”

But no one told Sam anything, least of all his sons or his mother. Only Sadie could occasionally worm her way through a chink in the Sam McCullough armor.

Now she tossed her dark hair and said stoutly, “I’d go, but I don’t suppose Tom McKay’s daughter would want to dance with me.”

A faint smile flickered across Sam’s hard face. “Don’t reckon,” he said drily. Then he turned his gaze back to Cole. “It’s a real live cowboy she’s hankerin’ to meet.”

Cole had heard a lot about Tom McKay’s daughter in the last week or so. The opposite of his sister who had never been sick in her life despite growing up teething on spurs, Lacey McKay had been frail and sickly for much of her life. Her father’s rough-and-tumble Montana childhood had been the stuff of fantasies. A liver transplant two years ago had given her a new lease on life. And a promise from her father had brought her to Marietta to see the stuff of her fantasies in person. That apparently included meeting “a real live cowboy.”

“I ain’t pushin’ you to marry the girl,” Sam pointed out. Again.

No chance of that. Cole couldn’t count the number of times he had heard his father hold forth long and hard about the foolishness of thinking “hot-house city girls” could survive the wilds of rural Montana. He could recite Sam’s diatribes by heart, had grown up on them. The words ground together like stones in the pit of his stomach.

“What do you say, Cole?” his grandmother asked quietly. “I won’t even put much starch in your shirt.” She gave him a gentle coaxing smile.

She knew he’d do anything for her, so she rarely ever asked. She had been the shelter of his youth, the one he had always been able to count on, who had kept him steady and strong when so often he had wanted to go right off the rails. If she hadn’t protected him from every bit of his foolishness, it was only because she hadn’t been there at the time.

She worried about his dad. Sam was her only son. He was hard and stubborn and could argue a fence post into the ground. But she loved him. So did Cole – when he didn’t want to hit the old man over the head with a shovel.

Now he wiped his mouth on his napkin, set it beside his plate, then pushed his chair back from the table and stood up so that he could meet his father’s gaze eye to eye. It was gratifying that, for the last decade, he had an inch and a half on his father and it was Sam who had to look up.

Now their gazes locked, Sam’s blue eyes as hard as the ice on the Yellowstone River. Cole knew what they were saying: It’s for the ranch. It’s your duty. A man does his duty. Always.

He let his breath out slowly. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Right. There’s a dinner beforehand." Sam was breathing easy now. "Be a good time for you to talk to him about how many cattle we can run. I’ve been thinking Angus from that spread down in Utah. Or there's a place in Idaho – the Bar Nine Hollow – that would be a good place to pick up some.” Confrontation over, foreclosure forgotten, business at hand, Sam moved right on.

But Cole hadn’t forgotten. He carried his plate to the sink. Sam was still giving orders when Cole walked out of the room.

#

Matters of the heart – Kandy Shepherd

 As a romance writer, I enjoy spending time with my daughter and her early-twenties friends. Falling in love and the emotional ups and downs of dating are, I believe, timeless. But contemporary life can bring different slants on matters of the heart and I like to keep in touch. Luckily the girls have no inhibitions about chatting with me!

The other night we were talking about unrequited crushes.

“What about when you’ve had a crush on someone for years and years and finally something happens between you and the guy?” I asked.

“Never ends well,” said one girl.

“Usually a disappointment,” added another.

So I told them about my new book for Harlequin Romance The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner (out on July 1.) We met Kate Parker in my first Harlequin Romance story The Summer They Never Forgot and knew she’d had a huge crush on Jesse (the hero from the first book’s brother) ever since she’d been a teenager.

When the new book starts, Kate is reeling: she finally got to kiss Jesse and felt nothing, absolutely nothing. She’s now left feeling embarrassed being around Jesse and doubting her judgment about men. So what happens when Jesse’s friend, gorgeous Sam Lancaster, arrives in Dolphin Bay to attend the wedding Kate is organizing and Kate finds herself attracted to him? Sam is drawn to Kate too, but both Kate and Sam have secrets that threaten to stop them from ever getting the happy-ever-after they deserve.

Of course the girls went home with advance copies of The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner…

Kate is organizing a special wedding in the book and she wants everything to go right. Do you have a wedding story to share—when things went well or things went wrong? I’d love to hear about it!

I’m giving away two signed copies of The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner. To be in the draw, please include your snail mail address in your comment.

 

Kandy’s second Dolphin Bay story for Harlequin Romance, The Tycoon and The Wedding Planner will be released on July 1, 2014.

Kandy Shepherd is an award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com  and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter

Kate Hewitt: The Emigrants Trilogy

This month marks the release of the third volume in my historical Emigrants Trilogy, based on the lives and letters of my ancestors. It’s been a long time coming, because I wrote the first volume, Far Horizons, in 2001.

Far Horizons is the most true-to-life of the three books; it was inspired by the letters exchanged between my great-great-great aunt and uncle. Allan MacDougall asked Harriet Campbell to marry him in 1819, on the eve of his departure for Canada from Scotland. This meant he was asking Harriet to wait for his return sometime in the future, and when his father learned about this he felt it was dishonorable and forced Allan to set Harriet free, although he pledged to remain constant himself. It would be seven long years before they were reunited, and Far Horizons is about what happened while they were apart.

One of Allan’s letters that has been passed down through my family begins with the sentence: ‘How can I account for the long silence on your part…’  and I was intrigued by it, wondering why Harriet had not written. Far Horizons imaginatively answers that question!

The following two volumes in the trilogy, Another Country and A Distant Shore, depart from family history as I take the MacDougall and Campbell families to far-flung places, from Boston to Hong Kong to Burma. It’s been great fun writing their stories, and although the trilogy is complete I foresee more Emigrants books in my future!

I hope you enjoy the trilogy. Do you like books that are based, even loosely, on real events of people?

Happy Reading,

Kate

Any excuse for a kitten pic...

I'm writing the third in my "ice cream" trilogy at the moment.

Tempted By Trouble was Elle's story. Anything But Vanilla saw Sorrel finding not only a happy ending, but a great new beginning.

This is Geli's story - she's the one who looks like a skinny vampire and collects stray animals.

Well, the vampire has grown up and she's no skinny any more, although she's still addicted to wearing black. And she hasn't been in Italy for more than an hour before she finds a stray kitten. That's gattino in Italian. Or rattino, as the hero insists on calling it.

One of the best bits of writing is research - especially when it's someone glamorous like Milan.  And hero is Dante Vettori. It's all fashion, art, style and although I can't actually get away to the city for a long weekend of walking the ground at the moment, I am having the best fun buying gorgeous travel magazines, watching stuff on YouTube, researching recipes.

Here's a link to Delia Smith's risotto alla Milanese. Enough said!

Addison Fox: Summer's Here!

Like most people, I’m more a slave to my circadian rhythms than I want to admit. While I love all the seasons for different reasons, I truly enjoy the longer, warmer days of summer. It’s a little easier to get up in the morning and a little more fun to stay up late.

While I’ve recognized this in my own life, I’m often surprised how often it finds its way into my writing. A book set in the winter has a different feel than one set in summer. Harsh, cold winds work their way into a story far differently than warm, sultry nights. And my characters’ behavior often follows.

It’s yet another observation on this journey as a writer that’s surprised and delighted me. When I place my characters in a situation and wrap an external, physical element around them, it takes them to scenes with each other they’re not expecting (and while I may be the driver, it’s often a major discovery for me, too!)

In BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE, my hero has a major emotional moment with my heroine while they’re huddled together in the cold watching the Northern Lights. And in the most recent book I turned in (working title: SILKEN THREATS), my hero’s run on a hot, sweaty morning puts him in close contact with my heroine as we open the book.

These settings provided a specific and deliberate backdrop that advanced my story and provided immediate context for my readers. They also provided context for me as I was writing. Does my heroine huddle against my hero for warmth? Or does she notice the slim T-shirt molded to his body, outlining his strong, capable form?

Hmmm….I think another system just woke up and took notice!

Thanks for joining me today! I’d love to hear about some of your favorite scenes in some of your favorite books. Did the broader atmosphere contribute to the book in some way? You may be surprised when you think about it!

XOXO,

Addison

Lilian Darcy: My Sister, Myself

I’m older, she’s younger by three and a half years. I’m a brunette, she’s a red-head. Her kids are all boys, I have boys and a girl. I’m creative and scatty, she’s efficient and practical. She lives in a warm sub-tropical climate, my lawn has frost on it.

You’re starting to get the picture. My sister and I are different in all those ways, and many more. As we were growing up, there was quite a bit of tension in our relationship at times, but in our twenties we became close and have stayed that way, despite the geographical distance between us.

I’m not sure if it’s because of this real-life sister relationship, but I’ve written a lot about sisters, and I loved reading about them, too. It’s a frequently used convention in romance mini-series to create a whole family of three sisters, or five brothers, or a gender mix, and then follow each of their stories as they find love. Right now, Tule Publishing has two of these mini-series going. C J Carmichael’s Carrigans of Circle C is about sisters.

Jane Porter’s Taming of the Sheenans is about brothers. As a reader, I’m loving both of these and hanging out for the next instalments.

My own River Bend series, also for Tule Publishing, has a strong sister theme to it. There’s a prequel novella called Late Last Night that doesn’t have a sister theme, and the third of the longer books doesn’t so much either – it’s more about daughters and choices - but The Sweetest Thing (out now) and After The Rain (which will be launching soon) both have very knotty and troubled sister relationships at the heart of them.

In The Sweetest Thing, what do you do when you discover that the big sister you’ve always loathed is actually your birth mother?

  And in After The Rain, how do you find peace in your heart when your difficult sister dies in her teens and you never had a chance to grow close to her?

Big questions, long journeys.

There are some challenging sister questions in two of my other women’s fiction titles, also. In Café du Jour, how do you learn to build a relationship with the beloved sister whose personality changed so much after her serious accident?

In All Dressed Up, what happens when your sister cancels her wedding the day before the big event, and you know exactly why, but the groom doesn’t have a clue?

 Both of these books are available now on Amazon, and All Dressed Up will be having a big re-launch later in the year.

Many other authors have tackled the sister theme in their women’s fiction, too. There’s Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, Megan Crane’s Names My Sisters Call me, Kristin Hannah’s Between Sisters… too many to name.

And if we look to the classics, we find more sisters. The five Bennet girls in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the two very different sisters in Sense and Sensibility, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

 And then there are those amazing Bronte girls, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, who didn’t write about sisters but lived a particularly tortured experience of sibling relationships, along with their troubled brother Branwell.

Maybe I’ve inspired you to pick up a sister-themed book today, whether it’s a classic piece of literature, a biography, a contemporary romance, or one of my own women’s fiction novels.

CJ Carmichael: On This Side of the Summer Solstice

I love being on this side of the longest day of the year. Knowing that while the days are warmer and longer, there are longer, warmer, better days to come. I’ve long admired those who manage to be organized enough to celebrate the actual solstice. For me it seemed something was always getting in the way—whether it was one of the kid’s soccer games (in earlier years), a deadline at work or simply being too exhausted from daily life to get out and celebrate.

In the book I’m working on right now my main character and her two closest friends are celebrating the solstice on a rooftop patio in Seattle. I’m making every detail perfect, from the beautiful teak furniture, to the long gas fireplace, to the plate of samosas with spicy mango chutney that’s being served with delicious cocktails.

See, what I can’t organize in real life, I get to have in my fiction!

And speaking of my fiction, one of my books, the first in the Frost Family & Friends series, What Child Is This is currently available FREE for Kobo and Nook readers. If this is you, please download now and tell all your friends.

If you’re a Kindle reader, please report the lower price to Amazon—and hopefully they’ll match the price soon. (You can report the lower price right on the Kindle book page, under Product Description.) 

Hopefully they’ll match the free price soon.

Finally, tell me how you plan to celebrate the Solstice. Or, how you’d like to celebrate if you had the time and energy. We’ll choose one name at random to receive the next 3 books in the Frost Family & Friends collection: Home For Christmas, by Roxy Boroughs, The Holly & The Ivy, by Brenda M. Collins and More Than A Feeling, by yours truly.

- Happy Solstice! 

CJ Carmichael

***CJ's winner is Abhand2! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing details!***

Tales of the Unexpected - Berlin, with Annie West

As you read this I'll be in Europe. I'm attending the Loveletter Convention for romance readers and writers in Berlin, in north Germany. After that I'll get to travel a little, researching locations for future books. Doesn't that sound marvellous? Sigh. Sometimes I just adore being a writer.

 

I'm so looking forward to meeting other romance fans in Germany. I gather there are attendees from all across Europe! I've heard great things about this Convention and it should be lots of fun. I'm also looking forward to visiting the city of Berlin, even just for a few days. What do you think of when Berlin is mentioned? For me it used to be something like this: the quadriga statue on top of the Brandenburg gate. Or the Berlin wall, the Cold War, global politics and all sorts of very serious historical events.

But not now. You see, I've visited the city once before (again on a short visit) and I was surprised at what I found, in addition to the serious monuments, historic sites and marvellous museums (if you're an archaeology fan, go to Berlin!). So, in the interests of armchair travel, and a little fun, here are just a couple of the surprising things I found in that serious city.

 

 

Yes, that IS a giraffe made of Lego. And instead of horns, he/she has sprouted daisies on its head. NOT what I expected to find in the centre of the city.

 

 

On the theme of animals, how about this cute little outfit spied in one of the biggest department stores I've ever seen. My informant told me it's the biggest in Europe and certainly its gourmet food floor was impressive enough to be just that. Back to the photo though - how do you fancy a pair of real leather lederhosen, embroidered with eidelweiss flowers for your dog?

 

 

As a romance writer I was particularly thrilled to find this frog prince in a well-known chocolate shop. Honestly, just the scent of cocoa-laden richness in that place was enough to make me feel faint. Yuum!

 

And, having visited one chocolate shop, how could I miss the chance to visit a second? If you happen to know Ritter Sport chocolates, you'll recognise these as giant-sized blocks of chocolate, piled from floor to ceiling. Enough to make any chocolate fan salivate.

 

Have you ever visited a place expecting to find one thing, only to discover something completely different and surprising? What's your favourite surprise find in a new place?

 

If you're after a surprise find of another sort, you might want to check out my first ever romance novella. It's got all the emotional punch and sizzle of my full length novels but in a bite-sized chunk. BACK IN THE ITALIAN'S BED is on sale now for just 99 cents from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Here's a taste:
                                                             

No woman walks away from billionaire Fabrizio Armati’s bed. No woman except Jenna MacDonald. Now he’ll stop at nothing to get her back, and keep her there.

 

It’s love at first sight for Jenna when charismatic hotelier Fabrizio Armati sweeps her off her feet in Venice. That chance encounter sparks a sizzling affair that lasts until she discovers Fabrizio sees her as no more than a convenient, expendable mistress. Then her world falls apart.

Six months later Jenna tells herself she’s moved on. Until Fabrizio walks into a meeting to find her working for his greatest rival. She’s about to discover just how far he’ll go to get her back in his bed.

When revenge turns to passion, will surrender be on his terms, or hers? 

Amanda Ashby: First Loves

No, I'm not talking about men, I'm talking about books. Recently the divine Anna Campbell was clearing out her bookshelves and posted a photo of one of her old Trixie Belden books. Just seeing the cover took me straight back to when I was ten. Someone had given me the first two books as a birthday present and I immediately fell in love (and by falling in love I mean that I used all of my pocket money to buy every Trixie Belden book in existence). And I read those books over and over again because they just made me so happy.

After Trixie, I won’t deny that I flirted with many other books but my next true love didn’t come until I was nineteen and I discovered Jane Austen. I was doing an English major at the time and had forced myself to read (and hate) all of the classics so when my dad put Pride and Prejudice into my hands, I didn’t hold out much hope. Oh, how wrong I was! It ended up being love at first sight but the only problem was that after two weeks I'd read all of her works and realized that my chances of ever getting another Jane book were non-existent. Step in a friend who casually suggested that if I liked Jane, I might like an author called Georgette Heyer. Let's just say that this was a huge turning point in my life. Since then Georgette Heyer has given me so much joy that I get scared to think of what my life would be like if she hadn't written her gorgeous books.

There have been other loves since then. Raymond E Feist, Jilly Cooper, Jill Mansell and Janet Evanovich. These are the authors who never fail to make me happy when I pick up their books. So my question is what was your first book love and does your heart still pound with excitement every time you pick them up?

Amanda

www.amandaashby.com

Hart Johnson: The Energy Involved

You know, I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure energy units are SUPPOSED TO be equivalent across the board. But I'm here to tell you BALDERDASH!

I just finished the LAST first draft in a huge serial project that has taken me two years to finish (26 months by the time the last couple are polished and out there). It has been a major marathon requiring carb loading, constant effort and not a few tears. But I did it. Twelve books, serially released, 100 pages at a time—that is 350,000 words—5 normal books. I just kept swimming and survived.

But if I think about the energy required for ONE query letter? There aren't enough carbs in the WORLD to prepare me for that! It's like you need rocket fuel for that one.

Editing? That is more like a really long boring walk than a run... Not as much effort, but MAN it seems to take a lot of time to go the distance, and it is really hard to keep the focus.

The REAL Challenge, Though?

Changing gears. When your brain is in shape to do one of them, the others just really seem like a lot of effort. And after that MARATHON, what you REALLY want to do is just rest for a while. (don't do this—it's a bad idea—getting going after a break, in whatever form of GO you want to be going, is MUCH harder than changing to a new speed).

I almost think we need to come up with writing energy units.

Last weekend I wrote the most words I've ever written in one day: 7,600. That's a lot of words. Thirty pages of words. But it was probably four hours of writing. I had ALL DAY and that was all I could produce. Between sprints I had to rest, do something different, regroup. I mean I HEAR of people who have managed ten or even twenty thousand words in one day, but I just don't think an ordinary brain can DO that.

People suggest to me all the time that I should get dictation software. You know what? My typing speed isn't my limitation. Sixty words a minute for an hour is 3,600 words. My maximum sprint is probably 2,300. MAKING STUFF UP IS HARD WORK.

But MAN it's a good workout. Is there anything more satisfying than that BRILLIANT scene you've been building too all book? Certainly not much. A rush of writing that drains you? A joyous thing even if you end up sobbing.

So what writing tasks suck the life out of you? Which ones build strength? Endurance?

My dream is to get to a place where an agent thinks about selling it, a publisher thinks about promoting it and I can just alternate the writing and the editing. Those of you more into cross-training, more power to you.

Hart Johnson is the author of The Garden Society Mysteries under the pen name Alyse Carlson and is currently serially publishing A Shot in the Light, the first set of which is a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (and available for 99 cents until she is kicked out of the contest, at which point it will return to $2.99: feasibly this is June 13--the first quarter of it is actually free today). She also blogs as the Watery Tart, because she needs still more names to keep track of.

Carol Burnside: Small Town Romance

There’s an old saying of “write what you know” and I know small southern towns, so when I first began writing, my characters lived in the setting I’m most familiar with. I’m from a small Texas town, but I’ve lived in small towns of Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Georgia and Virginia, as well. You could say “southern” runs through my veins. It’s either that or all the sweet tea I’ve consumed.

As small towns go, Sweetwater Springs is not the tiniest, nor is it spreading into a bustling metropolis, but in my fictitious world, it’s located southeast of Little Rock, the real life capital of Arkansas. There, the Baxter family has lived for decades. John Thomas and Reba raised three kids in a rambling house along the meandering banks of Sweetwater Creek. J.T., Travis and Rosie had largely idyllic childhoods, but events in their adult lives were not all rainbows and roses. Their struggles to find the kind of happiness their parents found are the first three stories of my Sweetwater Springs series:  A Suitable Wife, Her Unexpected Family and His Small Town Princess.

If you like “sizzling romance with heart and humor,” give my Sweetwater Springs series a try. A Suitable Wife is available in ebook and print. Her Unexpected Family is available in ebook (print coming soon) and His Small Town Princess will release by summer.

Leave a comment for a chance to win an ebook copy of A Suitable Wife or Her Unexpected Family!  (winner's choice).

Here’s what others are saying about this series:

A Suitable Wife

“From friendship to love . . . a bumpy ride, but so worth it.” – Shirley Buchanan, Romance Book Haven 5/5 stars Goodreads review

“a perfect afternoon read not to be missed.” – Susan May, 5/5 stars Amazon review

“This book was well worth the sleepy morning. A Suitable Wife has it all. Passion, friendship, a villainous ex (or two), picturesque settings, heart touching back-story, dedicated family, and some great love scenes.” – Tami 5/5 stars Goodreads review

“a love story that satisfies in every way. Five enthusiastic stars! Very highly recommended!” – Pam Asberry, Amazon review

I loved this book...! can't wait to read more in the series from this author. –Anon, (B&N) 4/5 stars

Author Carol Burnside's beautifully written love story had my heart strings working overtime. – Stephanie Lasley, The Kindle Book Review 5/5 stars

Simply excellent...she brought out the nuances of emotional vulnerabilities so very well. The story tugged the heart and I read it in one go.– Monica, Amazon 5/5 stars 

Her Unexpected Family

“Ms Burnside's books are always fun, always carefully crafted to maintain the readers interest and keep the pages turning.” – S.Weeaks, 5/5 star review, Amazon

“I laughed at the humor, cried with the heartbreaking parts and sympathized with their plight as they tried to find their lasting love. Well written characters meshed with a well developed plot for true reading pleasure. Real page turner. I look forward happily to the next book in the series.” – Shirley Buchanan, Romance Book Haven  5/5 star review

 “I recommend this read for readers that don't mind pulling out the tissues and looking like a fool when crying over a book and if you don't mind laughing out loud in the middle of nowhere whilst reading.” -- Desere 4/5 stars 

“Be prepared to have tissues at hand. This is one roller-coaster of an emotional story. It is tender, heart-warming and at times heart-breaking. But I loved it.” – Laura 5/5 stars

- - - - -

Carol Burnside is an award-winning author of the Sweetwater Springs series of “sizzling romance with heart and humor.” Her personal second-chance-at-love story resulted in a marriage to her high school sweetheart of thirty-plus years. Also published in short stories, Carol’s novel length manuscripts have placed in numerous contests and won five, including the prestigious Maggie Award for Excellence.

Writing as Annie Rayburn, she produces soft sci-fi and lite paranormal erotic romances which have been favorably received. Talk about cross-genre! Enjoy excerpts, review snippits, and more about her sexy Crainesian characters on her website  or connect with her on www.PetitFoursAndHotTamales.com.

Connect with her via: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Newsletter / Goodreads / Pinterest

***Carol's winner is Cindy Hamilton! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your details!***

Amy Raby: Writing the Nerdy Heroine

As a lifelong geek girl, I’ve always had a soft spot for nerdy heroines in romance novels. Whether she’s a gamer, or a scientist, or a computer programmer, or a fan fiction writer, I identify with the nerdy girl. So when I sat down to write the third book in my epic fantasy romance series, Prince’s Fire, I decided to write one.

The fantasy world in my series is at roughly a late 18th-century level of technology. There are no computers, no gaming conventions, no fan fiction that I’m aware of (but who knows?). There is, at least, a burgeoning science movement. But my stories in the Hearts and Thrones series always have an adventure component to them. What practical skills would a scientist heroine have that would aid her in a fantasy adventure story?

Fortunately, history gave me a lot to work with in solving that problem. Scientists and engineers have played a pivotal role in a number of military conflicts over the last couple of millenia. Consider the engineers of the Roman army, who could break into walled cities. Consider chemical inventions such as Greek fire.  Consider medieval siegecraft, the scientists of the Manhattan Project, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. All of these are cases of science and ingenuity triumphing over military might.

For my Prince’s Fire heroine, Celeste, I chose code breaking, since that fit my story of adventure and political intrigue. She’s a mathematician and a code breaker, and in order to help her husband-to-be track down the assassins who are after his head, she’ll have to use brains rather than brawn.

Do you identify with nerdy heroines? What are some of your favorite books/movies/TV shows that feature them?