Ginger Voight's Blog, page 2
November 8, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 8
I've been waiting for this giveaway, as it is as Mevember as you can possibly get: THE LEFTOVER CLUB.
This timey wimey tale of romance and the long, arduous journey to self-acceptance allowed me to play in many sandboxes, reliving several eras of my own personal timeline going all the way back to 1976, when our heroine Roni Lawless loses her beloved dad. I lost my dad a little later, in 1980, but there were other deliberate Easter Eggs hidden all the way through the book, from the music I listened to, the shows I watched, the movies I loved. Gay best friend, check. Bullies at the school bus stops, check. Mother and Roni rooming with another single woman to make ends meet, making pseudo siblings of their kids, check. Painful crush on the popular, good looking boy who kept the chubby girl locked up safe in the Friend Zone, checkity check check.
That scenario has played out MANY times in my life, all the way till adulthood. I literally wrote a book on the subject.
Truth be told, I did get my first crush in 1976, with a smart, popular, cute boy who would remain my friend for the next several years to come, who would kiss me on a dare on a playground. In TLC, I was able to put his face on several of the encounters I faced throughout the 1980s, when I ping-ponged through every Mr. Wrong in the book to fill the bottomless hole left by my dad's passing.
I was much, much kinder to Roni, because she actually got to have those encounters with the boy she wanted most.
Needless to say, 15-year-old Ginger had a ball with this story, especially indulging all that delicious angst with the hottest boy in school - Dylan Fenn. Dylan was all crushes rolled into one - and Roni got to LIVE with him throughout her formative years, having a domino effect on everything that followed - including some of the girls who befriended her JUST to get close to her hot guy friend.
I've actually written several books on THAT subject, but today's offering tops the list. The whole social construct was based on those who could capture Dylan's attention, and those who couldn't... i.e., The Leftovers.
Things get complicated as everyone graduates and moves on. Roni matures into womanhood and marries a Mr. Wrong because it isn't Dylan Fenn. She has her beloved daughter Meghan and six years later the marriage (thankfully) implodes, leaving Roni a lonely single mom with a bitter child all the way up in to the 21st Century. That's when all the Leftovers get a chance to both reunite at a high school reunion AND get a chance at the hottest boy in school... something Roni has been virtually running away from her entire life.
There's only one thing more frightening than having an unrequited crush. That's taking the chance to ever find out if they are crushing back.
If you ever had that one unrequited love you can't forget, this is the book for you. If you are a Gen Xer who wants to go on a trip down memory lane, this is a book for you. If you're older and want to read about second chance romance, this is a book for you. In fact, whether you're new adult or a divorcee, we cover it all.
If you are a Groupiephile, this is DEFINITELY a book for you, as Meghan will be playing a huge part in the next three Groupie Books. If you read BEAUTY AND THE BITCH, you already know she is going to slide into Vanni's inner circle. If you read PEACHES AND THE DUKE, you know what complications it's going to bring that Meghan has a massive crush on him.
Is she going to get to the hottest guy in the Groupieverse? Or will she repeat her mom's legacy as a Leftover? Only time will tell. This book will introduce you to her and the backstory making her a prime target for hope and heartache in the Renown series coming in 2021.
Get your copy today for free and enjoy THE LEFTOVER CLUB.
November 7, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 7
Today's giveaway is a hometown fave, BACK FOR SECONDS,
I basically wrote a love letter to my hometown, Abilene, Texas, in this story, with so many lovely little personal Easter Eggs that mean most to me and nobody else - which makes me kind of love it a little more. That it's a testament to the strength of Texas women makes me love it best.
I had a lot of fun writing this Woman Gets Her Mojo Back story, not just because it has strong women (three generations in fact,) and not just because a jilted woman gets to have a sexy romp with a hot younger dude (although, yes.) But also because Xander Davy was my very first Brit and it was a helluva lotta fun having his voice in my ear.
Haven't we all wanted a little Xander in our lives?
Just me?
Mmkay.
Joely Morgan has just been dumped on her extra-padded keister, left by her successful husband for a much younger woman. Joely returns to her mom and her grandmother, both of whom successful businesswomen in their own right, using their guidance to help her heal and get back on her feet.
She also has to deal with her three kids, each of whom reeling from the divorce in different ways and at different stages of childhood.
Then, here comes Xander Davy, a sexy alpha who decides Joely needs to be reminded of her womanhood.
She also gets to learn how to bring her unique whole self to the world, which she is free to do now that she doesn't have to identify as someone's wife.
It makes me feel cozy and happy every single time I read it, so naturally I want to share it with you. Enjoy your free copy today! It's the first in a connected series, but you will find out what happens between Joely and Xander in this book.
Feel free to read and enjoy now :) It's not one of the Groupieverse...
Yet.
You just never know who might pop up again one day...
Until then... get to know Joely and Xander in BACK FOR SECONDS.
November 5, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 5
Today's giveaway is a sentimental favorite, PICTURE POSTCARDS.
This is a book I wrote in 1995, just after my youngest son passed away. I wrote two books during this time, one was the original Entangled that would one day become THE FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA. The other was a simple romance, complete with a HEA. At the time, I really, really needed one.
It was also the first book I wrote for a contest. One of the romance publishers back in the day had issued a call for romances focused on the written word. Somehow or another, the love story had to come from something being written.
I liked the challenge of that and mulled it over, coming up with a concept that turned me on enough I actually started writing. It was my idea of a romcom based on a simple premise: When a young woman moves to Los Angeles to begin her new career, she figures romance is close behind. When her real-life dates leave her disappointed, she begins to pine for an anonymous writer of romantic postcards that still come in for the former occupant of her new apartment. Then a mysterious new man falls into her life and she begins to wonder. Is her own fairy tale about to come true?
It was a lot of fun to write at a time when I needed it to be fun to write. I write on the nights where I couldn't sleep, which was basically all of them. It took me about five months to write the two books. The first, an emotional saga, helped purge. The second, a lighthearted romance, helped heal.
Though I never sent Picture Postcards to that publisher, it earned me my first agent. She shopped it around and the feedback I got was that my heroine was too "perfect," which was what I thought my heroines needed to be after so many years reading my aunt's old white-covered romance novels.
Thanks to life and other things, I shelved my romance writing career till the 2000s. In 2007, I began writing imperfect heroines because let's face it... write what you know. By 2012, I was ready to revisit Picture Postcards. I finally had the imperfect heroine down pat, but then I faced a whole new challenge: the thing that made the first plot plausible was no longer timely 16 years later. The mystery man would not have been away from his love for two months, where she could sneak out of his life in the dead of night, leaving behind all these romantic postcards for another girl to find. By the 2000s, we all became super connected. Did people even SEND picture postcards anymore?? How was I going to rewrite this and make it work?
It remained a challenge, and I was ready to meet it yet again. I even managed to keep one of my favorite scenes, involving lots of beer and a heightened moment between two good friends where a kiss hung in the air, the ultimate temptation whether or not to cross that line.
Delicious angst. And I love it.
Picture Postcards is one of my romance one-offs, a sweet story with a cinnamon roll book boyfriend, complete with a HEA, a true-blue romance book that helped me through one of the darkest parts of my life. My affection for the story runs deep, even though typically it is a much quieter title.
But it's so much a part of my history that you can't have Mevember without it. I'm pretty excited to share it with you.
I hope you read it. I hope you like it. Get your copy of PICTURE POSTCARDS today.
November 4, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 4
Well, we can't have a Mevember without Vanni, can we?
Y'all probably already know the story of my first bestseller. As a lifelong groupie myself, I wanted to indulge a bit in the fantasy of romance sparking with a sexy rock star. I meant it to end on one book after a relationship grew after hooking up with said rock star over a cross-country tour, but the characters had their own ideas of how things should be done. And Vanni was a fixer-upper for sure. Maybe that was why I couldn't resist him and had to keep going back for more.
I'm still going back for more. Vanni pops up in my newest book THE DUKE TAKES A BRIDE for a special performance in a royal wedding. If I can find a reason to write him in somewhere, I'm going to take it.... which is why he's already outlined in THE DUKE BECOMES KING.
I kinda love him. And having him in the periphery enables me to help built the foundation for how his story continues next year, ten years after the publication of GROUPIE. For those waiting to see what happened after FFF, the answers are coming thanks to a missing piece of the puzzle that introduced itself to me two days ago. Pin the name Aidan Knight, s'all I'm sayin.
The Groupieverse is vast and keeps on growing, much to my joy.
GROUPIE is where it started. It also remains a painfully honest book, because I was working out a lot of personal angst as I wrote it. I guess I still am. I'm still a Groupie Gal at heart, maybe even more so. Is it perfect? No. Is it full of over-the-top, Kindle-breaking angst? Oh, yeah. But I tend to think that's why it's been a reader favorite for over a decade.
Today, enjoy GROUPIE for free. If you've already read it, maybe entice your new book friends to join along for a re-read.
Because next year, the RENOWN series is coming....
Mevember Day 4
Well, we can't have a Mevember without Vanni, can we?
Y'all probably already know the story of my first bestseller. As a lifelong groupie myself, I wanted to indulge a bit in the fantasy of romance sparking with a sexy rock star. I meant it to end on one book after a relationship grew after hooking up with said rock star over a cross-country tour, but the characters had their own ideas of how things should be done. And Vanni was a fixer-upper for sure. Maybe that was why I couldn't resist him and had to keep going back for more.
I'm still going back for more. Vanni pops up in my newest book THE DUKE TAKES A BRIDE for a special performance in a royal wedding. If I can find a reason to write him in somewhere, I'm going to take it.... which is why he's already outlined in THE DUKE BECOMES KING.
I kinda love him. And having him in the periphery enables me to help built the foundation for how his story continues next year, ten years after the publication of GROUPIE. For those waiting to see what happened after FFF, the answers are coming thanks to a missing piece of the puzzle that introduced itself to me two days ago. Pin the name Aidan Knight, s'all I'm sayin.
The Groupieverse is vast and keeps on growing, much to my joy.
GROUPIE is where it started. It also remains a painfully honest book, because I was working out a lot of personal angst as I wrote it. I guess I still am. I'm still a Groupie Gal at heart, maybe even more so. Is it perfect? No. Is it full of over-the-top, Kindle-breaking angst? Oh, yeah. But I tend to think that's why it's been a reader favorite for over a decade.
Today, enjoy GROUPIE for free. If you've already read it, maybe entice your new book friends to join along for a re-read.
Because next year, the RENOWN series is coming....
November 2, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 2
Today's giveaway is a book I consider to be one of my best-written, the most "me" book I've written. It has everything I love, sexy romance, a strong woman, a hot guy, humor, a message and heart. This fun lil sandbox married my two strongest tropes, millionaires and rock stars, with a unapologetic Big Girl at the center of all the attention. It also stars one of my bad boys only a good woman could tame.
The taming is still in process, but Eli Blake grows a lot in the first book.
“So I take it you think you’re impervious to all my tricks.”
I laughed again. “I know I am.”
He ran his hand along my back until it rested on my hip. “What makes you so sure?”
I shrugged. “I see through the bullshit. There’s glitter on your web, Eli, but it’s a trap all the same. I’ve seen it. I’ve always seen it. When you see it for what it is then you can’t get caught up in all it’s not.”
He swung me around. “You sound so confident. Care to make it interesting?”
“Any more interesting than it already is?” I countered.
He laughed. “I guess you have a point,” he conceded. “But I still think I could make you fall in love with me.”
“Gee,” I said, completely in character. “And I thought I already was.”
It made him laugh again. “Touché,” he said before he kissed me on the lips. He deepened the kiss, and I responded. His eyes were cloudy as he straightened. “So tell me, OGWO. What am I thinking now?”
He kept me flush against his body, which I could feel come to life. “You’re thinking that you haven’t fucked anyone in a few months, and maybe I’ll do.” His eyes met mine. “But I won’t do. Not for one million dollars.”
I smiled and exited the dance.
I absolutely loved how Carly could stand toe to toe with him. She surprised me in so many ways. In fact, the whole book was full of fun little surprises. Some fun tidbits:
1. "Glitter on the Web" likely would never have happened had it not been for Macklemore.
The bestie and I share movies and videos with each other every weekend, which is pretty cool that even 35 years into our friendship, we find new things to share between us. We're still teaching each other things, and he, inadvertently sometimes, purposefully other times, has inspired more than one story doing it. Many months back, he sent me the video for "Downtown" by Macklemore.
In the video, Macklemore shows some love for a bigger girl:
Now do you or do you not wanna ride with me
I got one girl, I got two wheels
She a big girl but ain't a big deal
I like a big girl, I like 'em sassy
First thought: "Aw, that's cool. Hope he means it." So, being me, I dug a little deeper as I'm known to do, to find a pic of his wife to see if she, too, was a big girl. She wasn't. It got the gears turning. What if a popular singer showed love for bigger girls, endearing him to that particular audience, but it was all a marketing ploy? Hence, Glitter was born.
2. GLITTER is my unintentional homage to Purple Rain.
This one happened by accident, really. It's Eli's fault. He started playing an instrumental piece early in the book, and it just felt right to give it the Purple Rain treatment. That movie makes the list of one of my favorite closing scenes ever, given the emotional payoff at the end. To have a musician struggle with an important piece of music, to figure out what he wanted to say, and say it when it had the most emotional payoff, made sense. I had already given Eli a few Kid/Price-like qualities, including his teaching himself to play the piano, and producing/writing/performing all of his earliest work. So really, it was unintentional, but in the end I was proud to pay tribute to one of my idols, especially one who taught me so much how to be my own kind of artist. Little did I know at the time it would be a memorial. :(
3. It took me a long-ass time to title this book.
Names come to me relatively easy. It's not so much a choice as it is a discovery. When I name my characters, I generally know who they are before they have a name to go with the character. So I go down a list of potential names that I keep (and add to,) until I find the one that feels right, like I'm looking for someone who already exists and I'm just waiting to have them step forward for roll call. (This is also why I generally don't change names easily when I've found the one that clicks, and why working with anyone else creatively is so challenging because they typically want to change these names first thing. It's like taking your kid to school and introducing them, only to have the teacher say, "Hum, we already have a Justin. Can I just call him Doug?" Self-publishing allows me the freedom to allow my characters to be who they were supposed to be, something I got to know very early on in the creative process.) Book titles are even harder, because if you inadvertently name your book after a book that already exists, you can risk suffering from comparison. I knew I had to think outside the box with this one, because I really, really wanted it to stand out. With GLITTER, I had my concept and my characters, but I had no idea what to name their journey. Finally I circled around to the "web" idea, given the story is about a big lie. What's the only thing that could entice someone like me onto a web? My husband doesn't call me a magpie for nothing. Also, GLITTER ON THE WEB leaves a little wiggle room if I ever want to revisit the story... like... GLITTER DOWN THE AISLE, or GLITTER IN THE CRIB... that kind of thing. Y'know... just in case... ;)
4. Eli is based on real men I've known.
If you're really close to me, you probably recognize Eli. I really didn't hide what I was trying to do with this character. While reading it, my husband turned to me and said, "You think So-N-So will recognize himself in your book?" My first thought was, "Probably not, because anyone who would really Eli me wouldn't read the book in the first place." Which is true. All I can say is I hope so, even though the So-N-So Steven referred to isn't *technically* the whole inspiration for the character (though bad experiences involving him definitely worked themselves out in the book, as they tend to.) Truthfully, I hope every guy who has ever Eli'd me sees themselves in the book, because they're all represented in every nasty thing Eli said or did. I threw it all into an Asshole Bouillabaisse as my way of saying, "How you treated me was not okay, and I only wish I had had Carly's ovarian fortitude to tell you that." Everything Eli did or said to piss you off has happened to me at some point, just like it has probably happened to many, many women of size reading the book. Typically, these were the things I accepted and excused when I was too stupid to recognize my own value, and this was my way to rewrite things, to let someone else know that it isn't okay of if someone treats them this way. Stand up for yourself. You can. And if the guy is worth having, he'll cowboy the fuck up. (Many don't, but that's okay. If they can't see your worth, they don't deserve you anyway. Trite, but true.) Honestly, it gives me great satisfaction when I hear that people hate Eli. I wanted you to. I wanted you to see how unacceptable this behavior is, so that we learn to nip that shit in the bud in real life. He is the voice of our media... he's the voice of our society. It's *our* job to stop accepting it as some kind of given and demand the respect and human courtesy we deserve.
5. Eli's and Carly's story isn't over.
A lot of people wanted an epilogue but there's a reason I didn't include one. Their story isn't over, and you get to see them in books like MASKED IN THE MUSIC, my first M/M romance, and FFF, the book that marries my Groupieverse and my Glitterverse. Their story will also continue in a brand new trilogy coming in 2021.
Grab your copy today and allow Eli and Carly to surprise you, too.
Enjoy GLITTER ON THE WEB free today only!
November 1, 2020
Mevember Giveaways, Day 1
Since November is my birthday month, I've decided to celebrate with three weeks of giveaways, to share some of my favorite stories with everyone. First on tap, Beauty and the Bitch.
I originally wrote this adult fairy tale as a protest. The live-action Beauty and the Beast had been announced and I was frustrated that the most commonly accepted trope was a beautiful girl saving a broken man, rather than the alternative. I decided to write the alternative. In doing so, I ended up writing one of the most powerful love stories I've ever created, and it wasn't even the A-plot. It was something I uncovered quite accidentally as I got to know the characters begging me to tell their stories. My B-plot romance between Rose and Vincent took me by complete surprise, offering love, beauty and hope even in the face of tragedy. That I was able to work out so many things from my own mother's dementia and death only made it more special to me. It contains one of the hardest, yet most rewarding, chapters I have ever written... one that managed to bring me peace and closure. It is one of the most important stories I've written and I'm truly so proud of it, despite it being one of my quieter titles that never generated much buzz. Maybe I'm the only one who needed this story to be told. In truth, that makes it even more special to me. And today you can get your copy for free. Enjoy my modern-day retelling of a popular fairy tale with Beauty and the Bitch.
August 15, 2020
You know what 2020 needs? A Prince.
If there's a year that ever needed a Happily Ever After, badly, it's 2020.
As a writer of romance, I needed a HEA. As a sufferer of anxiety, PTSD and depression, I was afraid I wasn't going to be capable of creating one, even with total creative control.
In fact, I spent the first few months of 2020 in a critical balancing act of both needing to create and being terrified of the creative space, where I normally work out all sorts of societal ills in my narrative. Instead, I was creatively paralyzed, unable to use my usual coping skills to manage as I watched the world come apart.
How do you work through your emotions without commenting on what's going on right now, yet not comment on what's going on right now because everyone you write for (including yourself,) needed an escape?
While I reserve the right to one day delve into this new world in which we find ourselves, 2020 was not the year for me to explore how much everything had changed or how difficult it has been. In fact, I had a great deal of sympathy for most folks who, for the first time ever, perhaps, were dealing with the world blowing apart. That I've had lifelong experience was both a comfort and a challenge. For many of us, the road has been littered with painful, emotional debris that has been impossible to dodge as it kicked old traumas back up in our faces. Everything, and I mean everything has changed, assigning a big ol' question mark if it will ever go back to normal.
We had to walk gently. Out of compassion and out of self-preservation.
For me, the Covid-19 crisis was a terrifying return to January 2018, when I first got the cancer diagnosis. Everything changed with the terrifying prospect of a life-threatening illness, an aggressive foe that wanted to kill me quickly and steal me away from those I loved and rob me of the long life I had previously envisioned for myself, where I could watch my kids get married, have kids of their own, and grow old with my husband.
Instead, everything was punctuated with a question mark, including immediate future plans. Would I make it to the five year mark? Even the one year mark? With a uterine sarcoma, that was no longer an easy assumption to make.
I didn't even want to take down my Christmas tree because I worried I wouldn't be around to put it back up again.
January 4, 2018 threw everything into a blender. Then, ten days later, my husband had a heart attack. Five months after that, I was laid off from my job, right when I needed my insurance the most.
2018 was a year where I saw my world turned upside down. When 2020 came along, and I saw the actual world do the same, it was painfully and frighteningly familiar. And I hadn't even fully healed from the first bout in the ring.
I needed an escape when all the stuff I normally used as an escape were no longer available. All I had was the inside of my brain, but none of the stories brewing around in my noggin were going to provide that for me. I had several WIPs (works in progress,) in various stages of completion, waiting for me to take the time to write them. Though I still maintained my job working from home, which helped provide stability for 40 hours a week, no longer did I fill my free time with all the stuff I used to. There was no going out, there was no regular noise to take up space in my head. There was nothing but me and a big ball of jumbled emotions playing havoc with my anxiety and my depression.
Because I need to be creative, I resorted to paint-by-numbers kits to find a way to do SOMETHING.
But in the back of my mind, the challenge lingered.
I needed to write something, something with a HEA, something to escape the walls of reality closing in. I knew it would have to be a romance, because I needed the excitement of falling in love. I wanted the promise of a happy ending.
Scratch that... I needed the promise of a happy ending.
Rewind to December of last year. I flew to Florida on a business trip, so I had a book on hand to keep me occupied on the long flight across the country. I picked up THE BEAUTIFUL ONES, by Prince, because Prince.
Except it wasn't by Prince at all. It was written by a guy hired by the enigmatic star to write his memoir.
I was enthralled from the first paragraph:
"I last spoke to Prince on Sunday, April 17, 2016, four days before he died. That night I was lying in bed when my phone shuddered and lit up with a 952 area code. He'd never called my cell before, but I knew at once it was him. I scrambled for a pen and paper and plugged my phone into the wall--my battery was almost depleted. But my charging cord was only a foot long, so I couldn't stand up when I used the phone. I spent our final conversation hunched in a corner of my bedroom, taking notes by pressing the paper to the floor."
As a writer, and as a life-long fan of Prince, I couldn't imagine what getting that phone call must have been like.
I went on to read about how this writer got this gig of a lifetime, and how he had to win over the elusive rock star. As someone who has written a fair amount of rock star fantasy, I couldn't help but think about how this story might have gone a little differently if written for a romance audience.
Basically I stopped reading that book on page 25 as the seeds of my own story started to quickly take root.
I talked it over with my bestie, Jeff Mayo, as I tossed around several ideas. Because Prince's writer was a male and Prince himself was a male, my first thought was another M/M romance, so I wanted to get some feedback on if that would be a story that would work.
That was when Jeff threw a huge curveball at me. "What if you made the rock star an ACTUAL prince?"
He had just come off nailing a college course on British history, so things like kings and queens and princes and dukes were all fresh in his mind. I was at once intimidated AF. How could I pull this off with ACTUAL royalty? Imagine the kind of homework that would take and all the rules it would involve.
And it's not that I'm adverse to research. It's a skill I've honed since a producer told me I had to set one of my stories in Romania when I'd never once stepped foot in that country. But I'm a writer. My greatest skill is making things that aren't as though they were.
Still, it promised to be a lot of work and I put it on the backburner.
Then.... March 2020 happened. The entire world shut down and I was in desperate need of an escape from our painful new reality.
This story continued to whisper in the back of my brain as I waited to see which idea would revive the muse and force my hiney into the chair to write.
It happened around May, when the pieces of the puzzle began sliding into place. And it all started with a girl named Peaches.
I had her name before I had a clear vision of who she would be. Like any girl named Peaches, she quickly filled in the rest. She couldn't be like anybody else. Likewise, neither could her romance, nor her Prince Charming.
Jeff and I tossed around the notion of researching existing countries from which to pluck our regal hero, before settling on the daunting task of creating a country of our very own. Both of us have Irish/Scottish roots, so we decided early on our Prince would have a Gaelic ancestry right to his auburn locks. (My first ginger fella... I was super stoked.)
Jeff and I spent so much time building this world for our prince that it quickly became one of the most healing moments of 2020. We couldn't leave our houses, but in our minds we traveled to this amazing new country almost every single time we talked. It was kind of eerie yet really, really cool how all the pieces fell into place. One of us would make a suggestion, then, when we did the research, we found that what we wanted to do with the story fit exactly.
"What if they had some kind of export that was directly tied to the country? Maybe something like a mineral that is exclusive to the country, making it a highly desirable export," he said.
"It could be something they could sell on a small scale for souveniers," I agreed. "Something beautiful on the inside, but ugly AF on the outside." (Y'all know me, this sort of thing is my jam.)
He sent me an article on geodes right as I was mulling the idea over about volcanoes.
But could volcanoes actually come into play in the vast open ocean west of Ireland?
Turns out, they totally can. Iceland, just north of where we wanted to plop our little island kingdom, is known as the land of Ice and Fire. It has not one, not two, but 30 volcanic systems.
The introduction of Iceland brought the presence of Vikings, which I wondered if this would fit with the Gaelic ancestry we were attempting to build off of. Turns out that the Norse were first recorded in Ireland in the eighth century, where they began raiding and occupying and intermingling with Celts.
We spent much of late spring building a whole new world with history reaching all the way back to 800AD, but in reality I think it was all there just waiting to be discovered. Whatever we had the instinct to do, the history and science was there to support.
It was wild. And a true joy. I watched the kingdom of Aldayne come clearer and clearer into focus with each passing day. We had maps and cities and history and economics, all interlinked and entwined. We even created regional cuisine. I stopped just short of making an entire language, but only because Peaches was whispering in my ear that I needed to get started on the modern stuff in the US.
Once we had all that in place, I knew I could handle the rest. And what came next brought me so much joy it actually healed many of my open, emotional, wounds.
I was a damsel in distress, locked in my lonely tower, waiting for a hero to ride in on his noble steed, the world at his fingertips, to make me whole again.
I was entranced the first time he said hello.
And I mean that literally. From the first scene, every time he said "Hello," I was a swoony puddle of goo.
Audra lead me through one of the arched doorways to one of the many colorful parlors that branched out from this main foyer. I was assisted to The Red Room, which, as you might imagine, had dark red paint on all the walls. The molding was stark white, to take away some of the darkness, as did the huge picturesque window facing an ornate garden full of impressive topiaries. Plants and flowers gave the room some color, as did the floral rug on the floor. Taking up one wall was a tapestry mural with a huge family portrait of Prince Roan, Princess Sofie and young prince Augustine. He couldn’t have been more than maybe five years old at the time. The same age as Dash, but unlike my little brother he wasn’t free to dance around in a rainbow tutu. He stood stoic and straight, with no smile to be had on his sweet little face.
It painfully mirrored the unhappy faces of his parents, the burden of royalty dragging their shoulders down despite how desperate they were to keep them lifted.
I was so lost in the painting I had already forgotten that Audra was beside me. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go get The Duke.”
I nodded at her; slightly embarrassed how awestruck I was by my surroundings. I needed to every bit as stoic. I needed to be professional. Their story needed to be told and I wanted to be the one to tell it. If not for any reason than that sad little boy staring at me from the portrait.
As the minutes dragged by, I busied myself by walking along the ornate surroundings. They were right about the statues and the busts. There were also old books and silver candlesticks, Fabrege eggs, marble urns and Chinese vases; everything you’d expect from a palace. Historic, valuable pieces that demanded one’s attention and reverence. The only thing out of place was a huge ugly black rock that sat atop a gold stand in the middle of the room. I spent an inordinate amount of time studying the rock, trying to figure out why this ugly piece was being showcased. I wrote it off as one of the Duke of Mayhem’s royal eccentricities and moved along. I was drawn instead to the pictures lining the bookshelf. Unlike all the royal trappings, the pictures gave me a sense of who this family was at the core. One photo that struck me in particular was the picture of Auggie as a child, hidden back behind all the official portraits of the Royal family taken at various events, with various world leaders. Instead, this hidden snapshot in a tiny 4x6 silver frame predated the portrait on the wall. He was probably about three, and laughing up at the face of his beautiful, happy mother as they sat cuddled on a picnic blanket.
I reached for the frame, which dared to show just a bit of dust because the photo itself was hidden back behind the larger photos, overshadowed by the larger, looming official family photos. (Fitting, I thought.) I used my sleeve to buff it to a shine, taking my time to get anything off the glass of that precious picture, which made me smile despite myself.
I don’t know how long I stood there staring at that photo, but I guess it was long enough.
“Hello,” I heard this deep voice say behind me.
I turned right into the gaze of Augustine Seamus Whitley Quinn Agassi, the Prince of Alasdair and Duke of Iver, last heir to the throne of Aldayne. He was also a mega rock star, but like Monica had warned, his regal air was undeniable.
If I thought those green eyes were piercing in photos, they were damn near lethal in person. I felt immediately exposed, like I was standing naked in front of him. His long hair curled around his sharp features, and that beard was trimmed high and tight around his sensual full lips.
I was so taken off guard I took a step back, losing my footing and stumbling right into the bookshelf that held so many golden and silver frames. Like dominoes falling in slow motion, they all went down in a clatter, one even toppling right to the floor.
“I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, mortified. I tried to retrieve the fallen soldier, but I was so discombobulated that my hands shook like crazy and I dropped it twice more. Just as he reached around me to take it from my hands, I backed up again, this time into what was likely a Ming vase. I managed to capture it, but barely.
I was flushed and embarrassed as I faced him. I realized I had that tiny silver frame with the candid photo clutched to my chest. With shaking hands, I tried to replace it without destroying anything else. “I’m… I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, unable to look him right in the eye.
“No damage done,” he said in that warm, hypnotic voice that poured over my senses like honey. Then, like out of a dream, I saw him reach out a hand to me. “I’m Auggie,” he said, quite unnecessarily.
I stared at his hand for a long, uncomprehending moment, fixated on the opal-like ring he wore on his finger, with the familiar crest I’d seen throughout the castle. That ring meant the rules were different, right? Shit, should I bow? I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to touch him, but he was reaching out to me. What were the rules in this scenario? Where the fuck was Audra?
Truth be told, I kind of fell in love with Peaches around the same time. He was so dashing, she was so awkward.
It was just the right mix to bring into chaotic 2020.
These two swept me up in a whirlwind that kept me glued to the pages as I churned out Book #37 like someone who was obsessed. Obsessed to escape the confines of 2020 to this brand new world where anything was possible. Obsessed to get to that HEA, which loomed greater than any conflict. Obsessed to tell this story that had been nagging at my brain for months, and with the players in place there was no excuse left to avoid it.
It was Non-Stop.
And now I have a story I can share with all of you.
On August 25, 2020, I am so pleased and proud to bring you PEACHES & THE DUKE, my first ever royal fairy tale. It's done Ginger Voight style, which means it has a lot of twists and turns, a few familiar faces, plus a sexy rock star hero to lead the way.
I hope Auggie brightens your year every bit as much as he has brightened mine.
Pre-order your copy now for the discounted price of $0.99. It will go up to it's normal price of $2.99 when the final prices and final edited copy are locked in by August 21st, so act now.
You won't want to miss this book boyfriend. Add PEACHES & THE DUKE to your TBR list today.
And brace yourself.... for Auggie.
February 1, 2020
Music, Book Trivia and the chance for a $100 Amazon Gift Card
It started with my Birthday Playlist, which I created to play in the background of my intimate family birthday party. It's no question that music has played greatly into my life (and still does,) so I got this wild hair that I would create a playlist that plays one song from each year of my life. I researched all the Billboard lists from 1969 on, picking a song that I either loved, or was reflective of the era, (preferably both) to take the fam and me on a musical odyssey Through the Years (and that was what I named the playlist.)
Turns out it was such a hit, not just for me but for my fam as well, who got some insight into my taste and the music I loved, as well as introduced to the 70s and 80s culture, that I decided to keep going. Once I got to the current year, I started over again with one more song from each year (which was a little harder the second time around, I won't lie.) This kind of forced me to be a little more creative, which I love. I'm working next on a Through the Year - Favorite Videos list, which I'm not going to be as religious about with only one song per year, because it's video and some years between 69-78 don't have them and some years I didn't really have video favorites, while some years I can't really choose between a handful of great ones I can't bear to leave off the list.
All of this put a bug in my ear to do a TTY list for all of you, featuring all the music that has driven my writing. I wanted to start this in February, since I always like to do heavy promotional stuff in February. Over the next month I'll be sharing this list daily (hopefully, cuz, y'know - life,) and over the month I'll be doing free books and all kinds of goodies, like Amazon giftcards etc that will be directly related to the information provided on this list.
Basically, there will be a test. But I'll make it totally worth it. ;)
ANYHOO.. we'll get this started right where it started: at the beginning... in the 1960s.
One of the earlier influences, literally, came for one of my earliest books. I always had a love/hate relationship with Country Western music due to its prevalence in my childhood. My parents LOVED Country/Western music (which, you should understand, looked a LOT different than today's Country.) It was twangy and COUN.TRY, and I (mostly) rejected it as my parents' music.
From a very early age I preferred things with a more rock feel, so much so that initially I didn't like the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia, because I felt like it was reinforcing this idea that rock music was inherently evil. I rejected that as a nine-year-old. I reject it now. But there were some songs that got through my Rock Snob filter, and one of them was from Patsy Cline.
Technically I think the reason it got through was that it was written by Willie Nelson, and he's just cool no matter what type of music you like. But this song is the epitome of unrequited love. It's a theme I have explored at length in my books, so I leaned on it heavily to create a mood for UNDER TEXAS SKIES.
I initially came up for the concept for UTS in the 1990s, which was when I started to write it. As a lifelong reader of romance, I explored all the tropes I had come to love as I pieced together my story. There was the angst of not knowing if the person you loved loved you back (because I'm a freaking scholar in such things.) I made their relationship contentious because I personally dig the fight for power between two strong characters. I grew up loving the rogue-vs-the-stubborn-good-girl and wanted to bring that to life in this story, complete with a marriage of convenience AND surprise baby. I threw it all against the wall because I really wanted to write a romance honoring all those books I grew up loving.
I finished writing it as the 20th century wound to a close, and tweaked it later for publication. It's a one-off in that it resolves in the first book, but I did bring a character from this book into the Groupieverse. Not so ironically, it was the one who sang Patsy Cline's iconic tune at the ill-advised wedding:
Imagine dancing close with a sexy someone that you can only love for a moment, where forever isn't guaranteed. That's what this song meant to me and to my protagonist, Jessica, and that's what I wanted to bring into the scene.
Enter Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson.
We also had to reach into the 1960s for the next little ditty. I say we because honest to God, it wasn't me doing the reaching:
Here's the thing about writing, at least for me. It comes with a LOT of discovery in the process. I can outline every sentence and every letter, but eventually - particularly if I've done my job right - those characters will take shape and live and breathe and often tell me their secrets in beautiful and surprising ways.
Such was the case in my book MASTERS FOR HIRE.
For those who don't know the story of this book, it all started because my bestie asked me the moral hypothetical question: Would you ever hire a male escort?
I think I may have balked initially, but it was brief. Instantly I started to think about it. Can you imagine hiring a person to do everything you want them to do and having them ACTUALLY do it? Any scenario you want to play, any service you want performed - you could have it all, no questions asked, no strings required, IF the price was right.
That's got a certain level of appeal, rather than tossing the dice on regular guys who quite often don't understand what you need and don't care enough to find out. My past is littered with disappointing encounters because in our culture quite a few guys are conditioned to believe that their pleasure is paramount. In my lifetime, we've watched sexual culture change from women begrudgingly performing wifely duties to women both liking, pursuing and owning their own sexual satisfaction.
Women are no longer giving in to their spouse because men like it more than us and if we don't want them to stray, we have to keep them happy. We've come to the place where we can love it every bit as much and pursue it every bit as freely.
Unfortunately this still comes with some cultural backlash in many circles. Sadly the concept of slut is still alive and well. So, when the bestie asked me this question it became something I really wanted to explore from the female perspective. I didn't want a whole Pretty Woman thing, where the "lady of the night" was trying to find true love. I wanted a story where a wealthy woman wanted to get hers and was surprised by love along the way.
Instead, I was the one who was surprised by Devlin Masters, the male escort who wedged his way into my protagonist Coralie's life and made all her dreams, seemingly, come true.
When I started, I didn't know much about Devlin beyond the fact he was Irish (as in, born in Ireland and has the Irish brogue) and he had a complicated history that brought him to his unconventional profession. I knew going into it that he would be behind the eight ball a little bit, with the scars to show for it. But I had NO idea the details that would flesh him out into an interesting 3D human until they just happened to be in a hotel suite complete with a piano and the guy sat down on the bench and expertly played this for Coralie's best friend, Lucy:
My honest-to-God reaction was, "Oh, you're a pianist! Look at you!"
Honestly, Devlin had plenty of surprises up his sleeve that included LOTS of music (including classical!) You'll be seeing his influence in the coming month, including one of the coolest writing song moments of my entire life - but we'll get to that story later. Stay tuned. (It WILL be on the test.)
The last song from the 1960s is from the I was born, 1969, and technically kicks off our Through the Years - Writing Edition. You can't be a sixties baby girl from Texas and not be influenced in some way by rock goddess Janis Joplin. And I totally was inspired by her and her famous diddy, which absolutely brings out the frustrated wannabe singer in me:
Normally I write about sexy rocker boys. It's a preference and I'm quite shameless about it. But this song helped me create a SOUTHERN ROCKER CHICK in Lacy Abernathy, who was born with rock and roll in her soul.
We meet Lacy initially in SOUTHERN ROCKER BOY, where she is the tough as nails rocker bitch that our protagonist Jonah finds himself drawn to. This country boy finds himself on a big music stage in Austin with this reluctant star, who doesn't want people to tell her what to sing or what to wear... she just wants to perform because singing is life to her. He was never supposed to be part of the plan, and doesn't take it too well when she finds her professional life tied with his.
Because I was exploring the concept of "Three Sides to Every Story: His Side, Her Side and the Cold Hard Truth," we don't find out what has made her so hard around the edges until Book 2, which some folks might skip because they think it's the same story in SRB but from her perspective. (It isn't, at least... not until the last third of the book.)
To be quite honest with you, SRC is one of my favorites of all of my books.
I mean, they're all my favorites to a certain degree, but when I read SRC I feel like I'm reading all the books I grew up loving, kind of a mix between Danielle Steel and VC Andrews, both of whom I read like a maniac as a YA. Their influences are strongly felt in SRC. It honestly breaks my heart more people haven't read it or lightly skip over it, because I love Lacy and going on her journey with her was one of my favorite writing experiences.
Which is kind of true of so many of the books we're going to talk about in the coming month. Those books where I have definitive soundtracks are my most unsung.
Welcome to February, folks. I'm about to start singing. Follow along and check out my official Facebook page for upcoming details how to earn a $100 Amazon Gift Card.
Music, Book Trivia and the chance to win $100 Amazon Gift Card
It started with my Birthday Playlist, which I created to play in the background of my intimate family birthday party. It's no question that music has played greatly into my life (and still does,) so I got this wild hair that I would create a playlist that plays one song from each year of my life. I researched all the Billboard lists from 1969 on, picking a song that I either loved, or was reflective of the era, (preferably both) to take the fam and me on a musical odyssey Through the Years (and that was what I named the playlist.)
Turns out it was such a hit, not just for me but for my fam as well, who got some insight into my taste and the music I loved, as well as introduced to the 70s and 80s culture, that I decided to keep going. Once I got to the current year, I started over again with one more song from each year (which was a little harder the second time around, I won't lie.) This kind of forced me to be a little more creative, which I love. I'm working next on a Through the Year - Favorite Videos list, which I'm not going to be as religious about with only one song per year, because it's video and some years between 69-78 don't have them and some years I didn't really have video favorites, while some years I can't really choose between a handful of great ones I can't bear to leave off the list.
All of this put a bug in my ear to do a TTY list for all of you, featuring all the music that has driven my writing. I wanted to start this in February, since I always like to do heavy promotional stuff in February. Over the next month I'll be sharing this list daily (hopefully, cuz, y'know - life,) and over the month I'll be doing free books and all kinds of goodies, like Amazon giftcards etc that will be directly related to the information provided on this list.
Basically, there will be a test. But I'll make it totally worth it. ;)
ANYHOO.. we'll get this started right where it started: at the beginning... in the 1960s.
One of the earlier influences, literally, came for one of my earliest books. I always had a love/hate relationship with Country Western music due to its prevalence in my childhood. My parents LOVED Country/Western music (which, you should understand, looked a LOT different than today's Country.) It was twangy and COUN.TRY, and I (mostly) rejected it as my parents' music.
From a very early age I preferred things with a more rock feel, so much so that initially I didn't like the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia, because I felt like it was reinforcing this idea that rock music was inherently evil. I rejected that as a nine-year-old. I reject it now. But there were some songs that got through my Rock Snob filter, and one of them was from Patsy Cline.
Technically I think the reason it got through was that it was written by Willie Nelson, and he's just cool no matter what type of music you like. But this song is the epitome of unrequited love. It's a theme I have explored at length in my books, so I leaned on it heavily to create a mood for UNDER TEXAS SKIES.
I initially came up for the concept for UTS in the 1990s, which was when I started to write it. As a lifelong reader of romance, I explored all the tropes I had come to love as I pieced together my story. There was the angst of not knowing if the person you loved loved you back (because I'm a freaking scholar in such things.) I made their relationship contentious because I personally dig the fight for power between two strong characters. I grew up loving the rogue-vs-the-stubborn-good-girl and wanted to bring that to life in this story, complete with a marriage of convenience AND surprise baby. I threw it all against the wall because I really wanted to write a romance honoring all those books I grew up loving.
I finished writing it as the 20th century wound to a close, and tweaked it later for publication. It's a one-off in that it resolves in the first book, but I did bring a character from this book into the Groupieverse. Not so ironically, it was the one who sang Patsy Cline's iconic tune at the ill-advised wedding:
Imagine dancing close with a sexy someone that you can only love for a moment, where forever isn't guaranteed. That's what this song meant to me and to my protagonist, Jessica, and that's what I wanted to bring into the scene.
Enter Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson.
We also had to reach into the 1960s for the next little ditty. I say we because honest to God, it wasn't me doing the reaching:
Here's the thing about writing, at least for me. It comes with a LOT of discovery in the process. I can outline every sentence and every letter, but eventually - particularly if I've done my job right - those characters will take shape and live and breathe and often tell me their secrets in beautiful and surprising ways.
Such was the case in my book MASTERS FOR HIRE.
For those who don't know the story of this book, it all started because my bestie asked me the moral hypothetical question: Would you ever hire a male escort?
I think I may have balked initially, but it was brief. Instantly I started to think about it. Can you imagine hiring a person to do everything you want them to do and having them ACTUALLY do it? Any scenario you want to play, any service you want performed - you could have it all, no questions asked, no strings required, IF the price was right.
That's got a certain level of appeal, rather than tossing the dice on regular guys who quite often don't understand what you need and don't care enough to find out. My past is littered with disappointing encounters because in our culture quite a few guys are conditioned to believe that their pleasure is paramount. In my lifetime, we've watched sexual culture change from women begrudgingly performing wifely duties to women both liking, pursuing and owning their own sexual satisfaction.
Women are no longer giving in to their spouse because men like it more than us and if we don't want them to stray, we have to keep them happy. We've come to the place where we can love it every bit as much and pursue it every bit as freely.
Unfortunately this still comes with some cultural backlash in many circles. Sadly the concept of slut is still alive and well. So, when the bestie asked me this question it became something I really wanted to explore from the female perspective. I didn't want a whole Pretty Woman thing, where the "lady of the night" was trying to find true love. I wanted a story where a wealthy woman wanted to get hers and was surprised by love along the way.
Instead, I was the one who was surprised by Devlin Masters, the male escort who wedged his way into my protagonist Coralie's life and made all her dreams, seemingly, come true.
When I started, I didn't know much about Devlin beyond the fact he was Irish (as in, born in Ireland and has the Irish brogue) and he had a complicated history that brought him to his unconventional profession. I knew going into it that he would be behind the eight ball a little bit, with the scars to show for it. But I had NO idea the details that would flesh him out into an interesting 3D human until they just happened to be in a hotel suite complete with a piano and the guy sat down on the bench and expertly played this for Coralie's best friend, Lucy:
My honest-to-God reaction was, "Oh, you're a pianist! Look at you!"
Honestly, Devlin had plenty of surprises up his sleeve that included LOTS of music (including classical!) You'll be seeing his influence in the coming month, including one of the coolest writing song moments of my entire life - but we'll get to that story later. Stay tuned. (It WILL be on the test.)
The last song from the 1960s is from the I was born, 1969, and technically kicks off our Through the Years - Writing Edition. You can't be a sixties baby girl from Texas and not be influenced in some way by rock goddess Janis Joplin. And I totally was inspired by her and her famous diddy, which absolutely brings out the frustrated wannabe singer in me:
Normally I write about sexy rocker boys. It's a preference and I'm quite shameless about it. But this song helped me create a SOUTHERN ROCKER CHICK in Lacy Abernathy, who was born with rock and roll in her soul.
We meet Lacy initially in SOUTHERN ROCKER BOY, where she is the tough as nails rocker bitch that our protagonist Jonah finds himself drawn to. This country boy finds himself on a big music stage in Austin with this reluctant star, who doesn't want people to tell her what to sing or what to wear... she just wants to perform because singing is life to her. He was never supposed to be part of the plan, and doesn't take it too well when she finds her professional life tied with his.
Because I was exploring the concept of "Three Sides to Every Story: His Side, Her Side and the Cold Hard Truth," we don't find out what has made her so hard around the edges until Book 2, which some folks might skip because they think it's the same story in SRB but from her perspective. (It isn't, at least... not until the last third of the book.)
To be quite honest with you, SRC is one of my favorites of all of my books.
I mean, they're all my favorites to a certain degree, but when I read SRC I feel like I'm reading all the books I grew up loving, kind of a mix between Danielle Steel and VC Andrews, both of whom I read like a maniac as a YA. Their influences are strongly felt in SRC. It honestly breaks my heart more people haven't read it or lightly skip over it, because I love Lacy and going on her journey with her was one of my favorite writing experiences.
Which is kind of true of so many of the books we're going to talk about in the coming month. Those books where I have definitive soundtracks are my most unsung.
Welcome to February, folks. I'm about to start singing. Follow along and check out my official Facebook page for upcoming details how to earn a $100 Amazon Gift Card.
