Ute Carbone's Blog, page 39

I'm at Coffee Beans and Love Scenes

I'm over at Coffee Beans and Love Scenes today. Stop by and enter for a chance to win one of my books.

http://www.coffeebeanslovescenes.com/...

Weekend Writing Warriors: To the Wind

Click image for more WeWriWaWell, another week has passed and I'm still busy working on the Sweet Lenora Sequel, To the Wind. It's been fun researching the nineteenth century.

This week's sample comes from the end of chapter three of the novella:




  I stared at her with mouth agape. I could not have caught her meaning clear.  She turned her eyes from me, her hand continued to offer out the coat. “I have given you my heart, Anton. I own that I do not want it back. But it is difficult for me to fathom why the man that I love would rather keep a deal with the devil than lay hope in the woman he professes to love.” Tears ran down her cheeks and I would have taken her in my arms had she not so completely set me asunder that my own heart bled. I could not allow a woman to run my life, even if I loved her more than I did that life. I took my coat and my leave.
For a list of all the great WeWriWa samples, click the image at the top of the page. 
Sweet Lenora is coming out in July. For more on this historical romance novella, click on the cover image.

Sweet Saturday Samplers: Schoedinger's Cake

For more on Toba Garret, Click Image

Hi Sweet Samplers! It's nice to be back on Sweet Saturday. This week, I got the galleys for The Wedding Collection. My short story, Schoedinger's Cake, is one of eight stories in this anthology  about weddings. It's so great to have a galley at hand.

 A wedding cake features front and center in the story.  The amazing cake at the top of the page is the work of Toba Garret. It was the inspiration for this story.   For more about Toba Garret and her cake designs, click HERE or on the cake image at the top of the page. For more Sweet Saturday Samples click HERE


The opening of Schoedinger's Cake:



As the van thumped forward, nearly sending her head through the dashboard, Gina Bennetto’s first thought was that the cake was ruined. Her second thought was more of a plea: please, please, let the cake be okay. The van was solid as an armored truck. Sure, it was older than Fort Knox itself, the odometer had clocked 120 thousand miles before retiring, but it was solid. The crash, though. The crash could not be denied. There had been, following the thump that had sent her body back then forward, a distinctive crash and clatter from the back.“It’s going to be fine,” Gina told herself again as she pulled the Van into the parking spot at the In-N- Out next to the intersection where she’d been waiting for the light to change. “It’s fine. It’s nothing.” To believe otherwise would be to court disaster. The cake in the back, a four-tier wedding cake done in a replica of the bride’s dress, had taken her a week to create. Eight prototypes had come and gone before she’d managed to get it just right. And it had been just right. It had been perfect. The kind of perfect that made for advertising no money could buy.If the cake was ruined, her reputation would be ruined along with it. Bonnie DuPont would sue her for ruining the wedding of the century. Because the DuPont-Edison wedding was the biggest thing Hancock Falls, New Hampshire had seen since, well, since forever. Four hundred guests had been invited to the gala affair. The guest list included the governor of the state.Gina got out of the driver’s seat and walked resolutely to the back of the van. She took a deep breath and curled her fingers around the back door handle. Another deep breath came and went. Then another.

The Wedding Collection is coming to Turquoise Morning Press in June.  

Shared Whispers

You can download a copy of Shared Whispers for free today at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Shared-Whispers...

Weekend Writing Warriors: Sweet Lenora sequel

Hi all and welcome to my first weekend writing warriors post. Weekend warriors is a new eight sentence meme where writers post eight sentences of a current work in progress or a published novel. For more weekend warrior posts please click HERE 

I've been doing lots of promo of late.  I've got several books out in the world and it goes without saying I'd love it if you would go and check them all out. But for this meme, I thought it might be fun to give a glimpse of what I'm currently working on.


Right now, I'm deep into a writing the draft of a sequel to Sweet Lenora. Sweet Lenora is my very first historical romance novella. It's a love story between a sea captain and the daughter of a wealthy ship builder. I wrote it as part of Champagne Books "dark heroes" series and you can see more about the novella by clicking on the cover image. You can't read it just yet, it will be released this summer.

Sweet Lenora is written from the first person perspective of the heroine, Lenora.The second novella, with a working title "To the Wind" continues their adventures in the hero, Anton's,voice:



 After we fled, I kept my council because I did not want to cause my love a moment’s worry, nor did I want to remind her of the night she and I sailed from Rio, leaving Mr. Settle in a pool of his own blood. His death at her hand had already caused her far too much grief. There were times she would cry out in her sleep and I knew Settle was the source of her night terrors. How could I add to them?            Yet as we came into the Pacific and drew closer to San Francisco, the meeting in the public garden weighed heavily on me. I did not want my marriage to contain secrets. I had seen firsthand how secrets could devour trust and cause more grief than any truth uttered. So it was that I vowed to tell her all that had transpired.



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Sweet Lenora Book Trailer

Here's the book trailer for Sweet Lenora, a historical romance novella due out in July. Hope you enjoy it!

Interview with Nancy Badger

I'm over at Nancy Badger's blog today. Come say hi!
http://nancyleebadger.blogspot.com/20...

Cover Reveal: Sweet Lenora

 
Don't you just love my new cover?  Me too! I love writing love stories of all kinds and Sweet Lenora is a bit of a departure for me, writing wise. It's a historical romance novella, set in the 1850's on a clipper ship. 

Here's a what the books about:
Lenora Brewer’s family owns the largest shipyard in Salem Massachusetts and Lenora, as her father’s only living child, is given free rein to learn the business. When Lenora’s father is killed in a carriage accident, her relatives arrange a marriage to a wealthy investor who is rumored to have beaten his first wife to death. Lenora devises a scheme to stowaway on The Sweet Lenora, a ship named for her.  The last thing Anton Boudreaux needs is a naïve young woman stowing away on his ship. The dark and daring captain has secrets of his own to protect.           
When Sweet Lenora encounters a dangerous storm off the coast of Brazil, Lenora and Anton find in each other the courage and tenacity to brave the elements. As their love for one another grows it becomes a force to be reckoned with—and it will be sorely tested. 



And here's a sneak peek:
His fiery countenance turned my knees to water. He walked to the desk and closed the ledger, then stared at me with a scowl for a good long minute that seemed to stretch to an hour. I wilted under his gaze. He was far taller than I, with broad shoulders and I was frightened of him and desired him at the same time.
            One suitor of mine had been daring enough to kiss me in the apple grove. I remember the kiss as stirring, and though I protested it at the time, a warm feeling had overcome me. It was nothing compared to the feeling that inhabited me now. Heat stung at me and left me feeling pliable in body, my face flushed.            Yet what choice had I but to stand my ground? I straightened my spine and with all the bravado I could muster to my bones, I returned his unflinching stare.            It gave me the opportunity to examine him. He was, I could see, not much older than I. His hair was black as a raven’s wing and waved back from a high forehead. His face was bronzed; chiseled and handsome with lines about the eyes from days spent in the sun. And those eyes! Dark as midnight were they, with a depth one could fall into.  

Sweet Lenora is part of Champagne Books Dark Heroes Series. It will be released in July.

Swept Away Blog Hop

Click on Image for more Blogs and Prizes!Ahh, February. Month of hearts and valentines. Or, here in the northeastern part of United States, month of ice storms and blizzards. Maybe we all need some hearts and flowers to warm us this time of year. A good book can warm a winter's day faster than a blazing firelog.

Here's a little love to warm your heart from my new romantic comedy, Afterglow.
The heroine, India, has a bit of a crush on a much younger man. She's not so sure the feeling is mutual. Until this happens:

I was nearly too embarrassed to face Mitch. Upending a suture kit had been bad enough, but this… I mean, here we were having a friendly dinner. And here was Red, turning it into something sordid. I did face Mitch though. I owed him an apology.
“That bit about…You’re not a boy,” I said.
Mitch smiled. “Nice of you to acknowledge that.”
“And Red Lansing is an idiot. An idiot who jumps to conclusions.” I could feel my face go hot. Mitch grinned at me. “I guess it is kind of funny,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s funny at all.” Mitch took my hand and kissed the place where the cast had been. Which, had I wanted to delude myself, could have been misconstrued as a friendly kiss. The next kiss, though, was a direct hit. On the lips, with feeling, and there was no misconstruing that at all.
Mitch took my chin in his hand. “I’ve wanted to do that ever since you showed up in my ER,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered out.
“Maybe you should think about it,” Mitch said. “I’ll go home and you can think about it.” He fished his car keys from his pocket and let himself out the door. Halfway down the stairs he stopped and turned. “Don’t think too long,” he said. Then he was gone.



More Swept Away Blog Hopping here

Win an e-copy of Afterglow!

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River Run with Karen Stivali

I'll be at River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth NH on February 13 with friend and fellow author Karen Stivali.

Karen, a multi-published author, will be signing copies of her new book, Holding On.







I'll be on hand to sign copies of Blueberry Truth.










Join us 7pm-9pm for an evening of books and stories. And really, what could be better than books and stories?

For more about the event, please visit River Run Bookstore online