Rebecca Hunter's Blog, page 8

Story Wanderlust – The Writer’s Version

In my 20s, I was dogged by what I now can see was wanderlust. It started with a semester abroad in Cáceres, Spain, and a healthy dose of European travels afterward, but it quickly expanded. After college I returned to Europe a few times and also had my first visits to Mexico, China and Venezuela (Mr. Hunter and I  were there just before Chavez came into power!). My wanderlust wasn’t just limited to travel – in that decade, I lived in Michigan, New Hampshire, San Francisco, New York, San Francisco again, Sweden, San Francisco again… you get the picture.Enter kids. Mr. Hunter and I quickly realized that traveling with kids – one of ours, in particular – wasn’t quite the free-spirited experience as it was when just the two of us went exploring. We didn’t shut down travelling all together, but our priorities changed. Mostly. Sometimes I still get a little bug for a trip to Paris, sometimes just a trip to an isolated mountain cabin with the family.But for the most part, the travel bug has morphed into a creative spark for my writing. My first books are set in Sweden, a country close to my heart, and my new Harlequin Dare books are set in Australia, where my sister lives with her Aussie husband.However, lately I’ve detected another trace of wanderlust in my writing – my tendency to fantasize about/glorify the next book I want to write, not to book I’m writing now. This story wanderlust seems to hit me the hardest at the beginning of a new book.Beginnings are actually the hardest part for me – I struggle to get the characters just right. My contract with Harlequin has built-in support for this problem: I turn in my first three chapters for comment before I actually write the rest of the book. Right now, I’m on that step, writing Chapter #3 of Max and Natasha’s story. It’s coming together, but it’s not quite there yet.And on days like this, I find myself in story wanderlust fantasy.Usually I try not to follow it. If I did, I'd leave a trail of unfinished stories in my wake. Instead, I write out a long summary/brainstorm and try to let that idea go until my present story is finished. But. But.Today, I was feeling especially restless, so I took a few minutes to write what I imagine to be both the blurb and the prologue of a story I’ve tentatively called The Next Best Thing. It’s my current wanderlust story, the project I’ll be working on as soon as my Harlequin chapters are in.Ready for draft #1? Here it is...****THERE ARE A lot of things people never tell you about living abroad. Like the fact that no matter how much you love the food in your new home country, you’re going to crave some crazy, semi-disgusting tastes after a while, like Ho-Hos and Pizza Hut. Or the fact that a few month into your immersion plan, you might start to hate the new language that’s making you sound like a seven-year-old.            But here’s the worst one: If you have a child overseas, you can’t take her back to your home country without the father’s permission. Even if that father is a cheating asshole.            No one told me that before I moved to abroad. So when things got bad with that cheating asshole, I got desperate. And that’s what started the whole mess that I’m in right now.

Loving the White Liar by Kate Stewart

I was so impressed with this book. It's exactly what I hope in a story. All the sexy, dreamy, falling-in-love parts were there to satisfy my love of a good romance, but Stewart takes on a more serious subject, too: what it might be like to have a long-term relationship with someone with ADHD.

Detailing all Jayden's struggles would be a spoiler, since we discover them along with Hilary. But it's enough to say that this is a book about the hard work of loving a real, imperfect person. What I love best is that Hillary is not perfect in her love either. She snaps and has her own moments of weakness, and they both need to work so hard to get it right.

Two Giveaways for You!

Hi everyone!Release day is coming in a week!! I wanted to share two places where you could win a signed paperback of my upcoming release, One More Night. First, there's a Goodreads giveaway going on that ends on September 14th - enter here.  Second, my books are being featured on the blog, The World Was Hers for the Reading, where my books are featured and is hosting another giveaway:https://www.facebook.com/hersforthere... Stop by one or both, say hello and enter. Good luck!  xo, Rebecca

One More Night Giveaway

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share two places where you could win a signed paperback of my upcoming release, One More Night. First, there's a Goodreads giveaway going on that ends on September 14th - enter here:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Second, my books are being featured on this blog, which is hosting another giveaway:
https://www.facebook.com/hersforthere...

Stop by one or both and enter. Good luck!

xo,
Rebecca

One More Night and related news

One More Night is coming on September 14, and it's up for $.99 pre-order. This book contains all four episodes of the Stockholm Diaries, Alice series:One Night in StockholmOne Night in ParisOne Night in New YorkNew Years in StockholmStarting September 1, Episodes #2-4 will no longer be available individually. Instead, One Night in Stockholm will be for sale as a "starter," and you'll be able to read the rest of Jonas and Alice's story in their full book, One More Night.Have you started the series yet? Episode #1, One Night in Stockholm, is free for newsletter subscribers. This is also your last chance to read the series on KU!

Summer Deal - August 3-17

Have you checked out Stockholm Diaries, Melanie yet? It's $.99 at all retailers right now! Here's a short, fun book trailer to get you in the reading mood...

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

You know the feeling at the beginning of a good relationship where you just can’t get enough of someone? It can be little… um… obsessive. You notice every little thing about them, want to know every detail about their past, what makes them tick. You might even, say, secretly research their ex-girlfriends and then compare, thinking things like, “She has bigger boobs than I do. Does he like that better?”It’s going to be pretty funny if my husband reads this post. I realize he probably doesn’t know some of the slightly obsessive things I did when we first got together. Not because they're secret but because it all goes down at the point when you’re playing the Who Likes Whom Better Game, where you don’t let on just how crazy you are over the person. In case they’re not just as crazy over you.Well, I had mostly forgotten all about all this kind of crazy until I read The Hating Game last night. It was the most fun book I’ve read in a long, long time – on par with Jennie Crusie’s Bet Me, one of the best romantic comedies I’ve ever read. Yep, it’s that good. And what I think works so well with this book is that, while Lucy and Josh are a little over-the-top, it took me back to the days when I might have acted a little crazy.But these Lucy and Josh take crazy to a whole new level, since the premise is this: What if you get caught in some sort of competitive obsession with your arch nemesis at work, whose desk is just a few feet from yours? How close is this kind of obsession to a twisted version of falling in love?These two go at it, trying to make the other look bad at work, reporting each other to HR, mercilessly teasing, and doing all kinds of other funny/malicious things to each other. For a good portion of these games, we only get Lucy’s perspective, and her goal is this: to make Josh smile, to crack his façade.As I was reading, a little feminist voice in me chimed in from time to time, protesting: Isn’t this the ‘he only teases you because he likes you’ kind of mentality that has been used over time to excuse some really bad behavior towards girls? After all, Lucy genuinely breaks down in tears because of Josh’s torments. It made me think back to my Geometry class in high school, where I sat next to a very funny guy who teased me mercilessly about all kinds of things, like how many pairs of shoes I had (not that many, actually) and other stupid stuff. I was not nearly as good at teasing him back, which resulted in a complicated kind of hate-crush on him. It makes me think that these Teasing Games are all in the nuances – and that someone will inevitably step over the boundaries into hurtfulness when real feelings are at risk. So when (spoiler, but not a surprising one) Josh apologizes later in the book, there’s so much remorse in it that I really believed his regrets in taking it too far and in playing the Hating Game in the first place.There’s another well-done piece in this book, and that’s the way that loneliness factors into their interactions. As the plot progresses, we see more and more that this is a story of two, lonely people fumbling their way to each other. And when they finally get there, it’s so, so sweet.

FREE This Week

Just a quick note to let you know that One Night in Stockholm is FREE this week until June 1! Why? To celebrate the release of One Night in New York this Wednesday! Check out the Giveaways tab on my website for details on how to get involved.As I write this, it's currently #1 in short romance in the free Kindle store - yay!Curious? Check out the book trailer - and be sure to turn on the (smexy) music:)

FREE Book :)

If you haven't read it yet, One Night in Stockholm is free on Kindle today until June 1. As I write this, it's currently #1 in short romance in the free Kindle story - yay!

Check out the book's trailer here - and be sure to turn on the (smexy) music :)
https://youtu.be/hbtWyZ4NJcM

Enjoy:)
xo,
Rebecca

New Book Trailer

I went to a workshop last weekend by the fantastic Melissa Blue, and she showed us how to make book trailers.

It looked like a lot of fun, so I thought I'd give it a try for One Night in Stockholm. I enlisted Mr. Hunter's help for some of the tech side and spent some time looking for video clips for the creative side and... well, here's what we came up with - what do you think? Let me know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeXV-...

xo,
Rebecca