Mina V. Esguerra's Blog, page 33
September 27, 2015
Tempting Victoria
Victoria Bennett is in control and in charge all day every day, but sometimes she needs help. One of those times is when she needs to organize a romantic proposal weekend for her client, and the only person available to help her is the notorious heartbreaker Nathan Grant.
Victoria knows she shouldn’t fall for guys like Nathan, but that hasn’t prevented her from lusting after him all these years. It’s just one weekend on the beach, away from everyone they know, alone with the guy who could cause her perfectly coordinated world to crumble. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
My new book Tempting Victoria (previously titled Rules We Like Breaking) has an Amazon page up! It’s out on September 29 (30 PH time). Hope you can get it yay!
September 24, 2015
Playing Autumn, the Flirt Publishing edition
So this happened.
Playing Autumn’s Flirt Publishing edition is out! Same story, new cover. It’s also now the first book in a new series called Breathe Music, which means more stories about the Houston gang!
About Playing Autumn
The last thing Haley Reese wants to do is head home to Houston. It’s been years since she pursued a career in music and mentoring at the annual Breathe Music Festival makes her feel like a fraud. But after sharing a plane ride with her idol, rock star Oliver Cabrera, things start looking up.
Oliver hasn’t called any place “home” since he started touring professionally in his teens. With his career just about over, he decides to accepts an invitation to mentor at the Breathe Music Festival. Helping Haley just might be the distraction Oliver needs.
Get it on Amazon.
Here’s a paperback giveaway for Philippine residents! Click to join!
September 16, 2015
Peyton Riley by Bianca Mori [Excerpt and Giveaway]
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Peyton Riley by Bianca Mori!
“Bianca Mori” is the pen name of one of my author friends. She’s an established author of chick lit and I’m thrilled that she’s writing romantic suspense/edgy fancy crime stuff. It’s a bit hard to describe, but I’m so into this stuff!
Read on for an excerpt from Peyton Riley and a giveaway!
About the book: She’s the girl with the very specific skillset and he’s the guy out to get her to do a job she doesn’t feel like doing. Can she get away from him — and can he get it together to pull off the job?
Excerpt:
“Gustave!” Carson cried as the older man lunged.
He gripped her arms, bound to the chair, with such force that she yelped in pain. “You caused my sister’s death, you witch!” he screamed in her face. “Was it worth stopping the acquisition that a poor woman had to lose her life?”
“I—I didn’t mean for her to die!” she yelled back, the panic that she’d been mastering surging through her body, a lunatic tide, burning and acidic. “I’ve never—in all my time—no one’s ever been hurt—”
“Ha!” Gustave cried, and then he laughed maniacally. “‘No one’s ever been hurt’? Do you truly believe that, cheri? That when you destroy a person’s livelihood, they are not ever hurt?”
They stared back at each other—she watching every flicker of muscle in his face for an approaching strike, he as though at something unpleasant stuck under his shoe. The revulsion in his face was clear. “Nagore may have been the first woman who’s life you ended, but you have killed others before, oh yes, cheri, scores of them—killed their worth, killed their estimation, killed them in their minds so they walk among us like zombies—and you have done it all, Mademoiselle. You have blood on your hands!”
“What do you want from me?” she cried.
He gripped her arms again and shook her. “You owe me my sister’s life!”
“I cannot bring her back!”
“Then you are in my debt!” He stood and appraised her, a dead calm stealing over his face as he looked her up and down. “Oh yes, dearest. You are in my debt.”
Click here to join the giveaway!
Bianca Mori is the author of “One Night at the Palace Hotel” and “Tame The Kitten.” She is interested in exploring power in romance and enjoys reading about demimondaines, pin-up girls and Jazz Age personalities and hopes to reinterpret these in her stories. She lives with her family and a hyperactive pug. Sign up for Bianca Mori’s newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/3BfSb, follow Bianca on Twitter (@thebiancamori), add her on Facebook and on GoodReads.
Links Goodreads Twitter Facebook
This blog tour was organized was Bookish Diaries Book Tours.
Buy these books at MIBF 2015!
It’s a good year for people who write contemporary romance — and their readers who like print editions! Two major publishers in the Philippines have picked up a lot of indie and small press titles and are giving them wider distribution in the country. I’m so excited!
They’re debuting at the Manila International Book Fair at SMX MOA and there’s no bigger debut than that when it comes to books. When you drop by this weekend, I hope you pick up…
Photo via @tellytabachoy on Twitter
From Anvil/Spark Books:
Kate Evangelista’s Savor
Dawn Lanuza’s The Boyfriend Backtrack
Agay Llanera’s Once Upon A Player
Chrissie Peria’s The Kitchen When It Sizzles
Bianca Mori’s Tame The Kitten
Camilla Sisco’s Submission Moves
(Oh look! My books Welcome to Envy Park, The Harder We Fall, and Never Just Friends are there too at Anvil and National Bookstore.)
Photo via Kat Sales @saberkite on Instagram/Facebook
From Visprint:
Stella Torres’s Save The Cake
Chris Mariano’s Cover (Story) Girl
Agay Llanera’s Vintage Love
Have fun at the book fair!
August 31, 2015
Talking dirty and the Queen of Dirty Talk (We had a Tessa Bailey book discussion)
I love reading Tessa Bailey’s books.
If you’re into steamy romance and hot alpha guys, she should be at the top of your reading list, if she isn’t yet. I discovered Tessa when her third book with Entangled Brazen, Officer Off Limits, came out, and I’ve been reading each new book on release day since.
I know I’m not alone in this fandom. She has a Facebook group called Bailey’s Babes, where Tessa readers from all over get to enjoy “check-ins” with her characters and the miracle that is “Fat Tuesday” (go join the group, will not tell you here what it is). But how about fellow Pinoy readers? I know some friends who are totally into reading Tessa too, but we’ve yet to do a proper sit-down, book-club style, to discuss all of this.
So we did.
Photo from Jothee
This was on August 29, the same weekend as the Philippine Literary Festival. While literature was being celebrated in Raffles Hotel Makati, we were a few blocks away talking about our favorite Tessa Bailey heroes (Beck and Bowen are tied for top spot!). And, to be fair, seriously and intelligently discussing romance and heat and what makes one story work for some and not for others. (Because naughty teachers ick some people out, turn some people on.)
Tessa was the perfect first subject for this kind of romance discussion! Her books are so easy to get, if you don’t mind buying ebooks. And Tessa herself is so easy to talk to on Twitter and Facebook and everywhere.
We’re doing this again! Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is on the sked, for October. Contact me if you’re in Manila that time and want to drop by.
Tempting Victoria, and a Nathan reborn
Sometimes, it doesn’t work out between me and The Story.
The Story was something I had meticulously planned and worked on, before I began writing a word. It required a new style of writing so I wanted to be prepared, and I had to think about the characters and spend more time with them than I normally would.
Nathan was part of The Story. Not as the main guy, but as a supporting guy who would have his own story later on. The kind of guy Nathan was couldn’t have worked in The Story as the main plot, but I liked having him around so I kept him there.
Then The Story needed to be set aside, for a number of reasons. I knew Nathan needed to be in a book no matter what, and when I found the chance, I let it happen.
TEMPTING VICTORIA, #2 in my Breathe Rockstar Romance series with Flirt Publishing, is a novella that can be read as a companion to PLAYING AUTUMN. The draft was posted on Wattpad as “Rules We Like Breaking.”
It’s available now, part of the 8-book romance anthology Love’s A Beach. Check it out and let me know what you think of Victoria and Nathan!
Love’s A Beach on Amazon. Available for a limited time only.
August 23, 2015
We’re all in this together
From my Amazon author page today
This is something I check every now then. Who are my readers buying lately? And when I see that they’re fellow indie authors, fellow romance authors, fellow Pinoys, authors I admire…I feel that I’m doing something right.
August 6, 2015
August 29: Tessa Bailey discussion, Philippine Literary Festival panel
It might not be so obvious because I never blog about it, but I too read a lot. Romance novels have taken up probably 80% of my reading list for the past three years, and it makes me so happy to geek out with fellow readers about books and authors I love.
I’m going to try and do that in a more social way this month, by hosting a book discussion in Greenbelt, Makati, on August 29. We will be talking about the books of Tessa Bailey, one of my favorite romance authors. There’s an ongoing online discussion on Facebook, set to private because of adult content. But if you love Tessa’s books and want to discuss #TeamBrent, “approachable abs,” and hot cops, send me a message on Facebook (Mina V. Esguerra) and I’ll add you!
Later that day, I’ll be in Anvil’s “How do we write sex today?” panel at the Philippine Literary Festival, Raffles Hotel. (The spoilery answer: with coffee, and margaritas.)
July 31, 2015
August Events
My bookish event sked this month!
Writerly things in August (wheeze)
A photo posted by Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra) on Jul 31, 2015 at 9:40am PDT
July 24, 2015
Feisty, flawed and all
It’s rare now that I’m in a position to read or edit someone else’s story before publication, but if I am, I tend to champion the “feisty female main character.” Feisty of course could mean anything from quirky to flawed and whatever else comes in between.
I like female characters who are a bit…out there.
You know what this makes me, right? Not your ideal editor or beta reader, if what you want to do is find that right mix of female MC qualities that will keep her “likable,” “relatable,” and all those synonyms for “just like everyone else.” Even as a reader I can go through a romance book and dislike its MC, and everything she does, and yet I can’t bear to wish that she change for me. As a reader I strongly feel that those books should still exist.
We authors know why we have to make our MCs “accessible” though. We don’t want her to be the person at the party that no one wants to talk to. We want people to like her, and sympathize with her journey. It takes as much skill and energy to create that character as it is to be that person at the party that everyone likes. I have a lot of respect for authors who pull it off so well and consistently.
I guess the point of this post is…if you’re ever in the middle of a manuscript and suspect that your MC will not be liked because of who she is…maybe that’s okay? I mean, write her well, love her heart and convey to us how people can love her too, and all. That’s the challenge for us and where true talent comes in. But if the challenge gets to be too much at times, remember that there are readers who love this stuff? Readers like me who will love her more because she’s flawed, or at least respect her right to exist even if I don’t like her?
Please?
I often say this but not with as many words: I deliberately write “difficult” characters, and then I sit and wait to see who will like them. Not if anyone will like them, but who. And then I treasure those readers because they’ve helped more than they know. They’ve proven that we don’t all have to be the same, and that we can tell the stories of difficult people. (Or we just share the same dark heart, but that can be our secret, friends.)
Can we be okay with this? I mean, even my “nice” characters get called names. Jasmine (My Imaginary Ex) is “dense” as much as she is “reliable.” Ellie (Fairy Tale Fail) is “flighty” as much as she is “determined.” Carla (No Strings Attached) is “immature” as much as she is “self-aware.” You are questioned about your character and motives anyway, even when you paint her as a good girl. I’m mentioning the characters from my Philippine-setting series but the expectation of “good girl” is not limited to this country and our culture.
So I’ve written a book about Kimmy (the My Imaginary Ex villain) and tried to keep her exactly as villainous. And then there’s a series starring Jane (Young and Scambitious) who steals and cheats. And now I’m writing a new and longer book about Andrea (Wedding Night Stand) the same girl who slept with a guy the same day she met him.
After that it’s going to be Iris (yet to be introduced in any of my books), who…I can’t say yet, but many of my difficult people will converge in this one, because this story has been in the back of my mind, and even though it needs the “feisty”/”difficult” people in it, I’ll write it because I need to get it out.
Maybe we can’t do books about these characters all the time, because that would be exhausting. But if you are, right now, please know that I’ve got your back. I think we need this.
