S.C. Mitchell's Blog, page 32
June 17, 2014
Romance Weekly – #LOVECHATWRITE
Do you like to read romance novels? Wouldn’t you like to know more about your favorite authors? Well you came to the right place! Join the writers of Romance Weekly as we go behind the scenes of our books and tell all….. About our writing of course! Every week we’ll answer questions and after you’ve enjoyed the blog on this site we’ll direct you to another. So come back often for a thrilling ride!
If you found me via Elizabeth Janette’s wonderful blog, 
or you’re just starting your Romance Weekly journey here, welcome. Some probing questions and fun answers lie ahead as you make the rounds.
Jami Denise is the author of this week’s questions:
1. When writing your novel, do you know how it’s going to end before you write, or do you write from start to finish?
When I start a new story, I usually start with two characters and a scene in mind where they interact. It’s usually the opening scene, but not always. The first scene in Son of Thunder I envisioned was Jord and Meghan on the motorcycle, riding up the rainbow bridge to Asgaard. Everything flowed from there.
I let the characters lead me around for a while, with no real ending in sight. Eventually they find a direction and head toward it, and the ending becomes clear.
2. How do the people you know impact your writing? Are you influenced by friends and family for your characters?
I’m pretty sure bits and pieces of real life friends and acquaintances slip into my characters, but there are very few instances where I can point to a character and say “That is 100% so-and-so.” I do occasionally slip family members into my stories, just cause I love ‘em.
3. Describe the hero in your current WIP in three words.
Tough, caring, and brave.
I hear you out there. Yes, I have spies all over the interwebs. You’re wondering what the other authors of Romance Weekly answered. Start (or continue) the tour by visiting the wonderful Sarah Hegger at http://sarahhegger.wordpress.com/
June 16, 2014
Hanging with the heavy hitters. #wisrwa14
I just returned from an incredible weekend at the WisRWA Write Touch conference (#wisrwa14). It was an inspiring meet-up with romance authors from all over the country (a couple flew in all the way from California). The conference also included some industry heavy hitters.
Here’s an agent-editor panel that included Liz Pelletier (Entangled Publishing), Adam Wilson (Gallery Books), Michelle Grajkowski (3 Seas Literary Agency), my editor Cheryl Yeko (Soul Mate Publishing), Eric Ruben (The Ruben Agency), Leah Hultenschmidt (Grand Central Books), and Rebecca Scherer (The Jane Rotrosen Agency).
Authors included:
We also had some great workshops:
And there was plenty of fun.
Here Gina Maxwell and I find out we have something in common.
The highlight of the weekend for me was having Son of Thunder receive 2nd place in the FUTURISTIC/FANTASY/PARANORMAL/TIME TRAVEL category of the 2014 WisRWA Write Touch Readers’ Choice Award Contest.
It finished just behind A Soul For Vengeance by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Christa McHugh. My congratulations to her.
Now I have to come down out of the clouds and get back into my writing.
June 10, 2014
Romance Weekly – #LOVECHATWRITE
Do you like to read romance novels? Wouldn’t you like to know more about your favorite authors? Well you came to the right place! Join the writers of Romance Weekly as we go behind the scenes of our books and tell all….. About our writing of course! Every week we’ll answer questions and after you’ve enjoyed the blog on this site we’ll direct you to another. So come back often for a thrilling ride!
If you found me via Leslie Hachtel’s wonderful blog, or you’re just starting your Romance Weekly journey here, welcome. Some probing questions and fun answers lie ahead as you make the rounds.
Kim Handysides poses to this week’s questions and they’re more focused on the female authors, but I’m up to the challenge (with a few changes):
1. What’s your ideal: alpha or beta and why?
Looking at the heroes I write, I wouldn’t classify them as alphas or betas. Personally I think I fall somewhere in between. There are times I’ve had to rely on my inner alpha, and he can rise up to the occasion when needed, but for the most part I’m probably more beta. So my ideal mate would be a confident woman, secure in her own strengths who complements my own strengths and weaknesses (which is exactly who I found ♥)
2. Do you have a male buddy or mate you use for confirmation or inspiration when crafting your heroes?
I’m changing this one to female of course, and the answer is yes. My wife has been indispensable in helping me craft strong, confident heroines for my stories.
3. What does any hero have to do to win your heart?
Again, changing the gender on this one. The heroine who wins my heart in any story is above all else smart. I once entered an early version of one of my stories in a writing contest, and one of the judges told me my heroine was TSTL, (I had to look it up: Too stupid to live) and that judge was right on target. I reworked that story like no one’s business, making Meghan as smart as she was strong, and Son of Thunder is now a finalist in the Write Touch Reader’s Award contest.
I like a heroine that’s sassy, sexy and strong as well, but for my tastes, the most attractive part of the female body is the brain.
I hear you out there. Yes, I have spies all over the interwebs. You’re wondering what the other authors of Romance Weekly answered. Start (or continue) the tour by visiting the wonderful Meggan Connors http://megganconnors.wordpress.com/blog
June 7, 2014
The Demon Summer begins!
Today I’m kicking off my #DemonSummer with a special price on There’s No Such Thing As Werewolves. Just 99¢:
There’s no such thing as Werewolves
Demons Rising: Book 1
Just because Jack turns into a hairy, wolf-like creature every full moon, doesn’t mean he’s a werewolf. Anna knows there’s no such thing as werewolves.
Anna Brown is a sorceress, and one of the leading experts on demons for the Arcanists. She knows how to help Jack shed the curse that plagues him, if he’ll let her, but the local demons are after Anna. She has a power they want to control. Does she have enough magic to save Jack and to keep the local Demon Lord at bay?
Jack Hughes trusts Anna to free him from his curse, but he doesn’t realize the danger she’s in until it’s too late. When Anna is captured by demonic creatures Jack realizes that the only way to free her is to embrace the beast he so wanted to be rid of. Can he save her under the bright, full moon or will demons from a dark dimension destroy them?
There’s no such thing as Werewolves is the opening salvo in the Demons Rising saga. It’s a love story between two special people who live in a very dangerous world.
June 5, 2014
Write Touch Readers’ Award Contest Finalist!
They just announced the finalists in the Write Touch Readers’ Award Contest and on the list under FUTURISTIC/FANTASY/PARANORMAL/TIME TRAVEL is Son of Thunder!!!
Needless to say, I’m thrilled!
Check out all the finalists here: http://www.wisrwa.org/contest.html
Thursday Threads
Today we feature another cover reveal, and a generous blurb from Linda Bennett Pennell’s upcoming Soul Mate release, Confederado do Norte:
Title: Confederado do Norte by Linda Bennett Pennell
Genre: Women’s Historical Fiction due for Release July, 2014
Other Books:
Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel now available from Soul Mate Publishing
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLindaBennettPennell
Website: http://www.lindapennell.com/
Twitter: @LindaPennell
Back Cover Description for Confederado do Norte:
October, 1866.
Mary Catherine is devastated when her family immigrates from Georgia to Brazil because her father and maternal uncle refuse to accept the terms of Reconstruction following the Confederacy’s defeat. Shortly after arrival in their new country, she is orphaned, leaving her in Uncle Nathan’s care. He hates Mary Catherine, blaming her for his sister’s death. She despises him because she believes Nathan murdered her father. When Mary Catherine discovers Nathan’s plan to be rid of her as well, she flees into the wilderness filled with jaguars and equally dangerous men. Finding refuge among kind peasants, she grows into a beauty, ultimately marrying the scion of a wealthy Portuguese family. Happiness and security seem assured until civil unrest brings armed marauders who have an inexplicable connection to Mary Catherine. Recreating herself has protected Mary Catherine in the past, but the latest crisis will demand all of the courage, intelligence, and creativity she posseses simply to survive.
Excerpt from Confederado do Norte
Chapter 1
I dreamt the dream again last night. In the small hours, I awoke in a tumble of bedclothes and bathed in perspiration despite the howling snowstorm blanketing the city. I rearranged quilts and plumped pillows, but sleep remained elusive. My mind refused to be quiet.
As often happens after such a night, I felt unable to rise at my usual hour and remained abed long after the maids cleared breakfast from the morning room. My daughter-in-law, bless her heart, meant well. I told her it was ridiculous to bring the doctor out on such a frigid day, but apparently the very old, like the very young, are not to be trusted in matters of judgment. After the doctor listened to my chest, a studied sympathy filled his eyes and he gently suggested that perhaps I should get my affairs in order. No doubt he wondered at my smile for he couldn’t have known I have no affairs other than my memories and the emotions they engender.
Unlike most elderly persons, I don’t revel in slogging through the past. It isn’t wrapped in pretty ribbons or surrounded by a golden aura. Instead, its voices haunt my dreams, demanding and accusatory. Until recently, I’ve resisted their intrusion into my waking life, but I now believe the past can no longer remain buried in nocturnal visions. It must be brought out into the light of day. From its earliest moments onward, the past’s substance must be gouged out, pulled apart, and examined bit by bit until its truth is exposed. While total objectivity may not be possible, I have concluded that committing the past to paper is my best hope for sorting facts from imaginings. Perhaps then I will achieve the peace that has so long hidden its face from me.
You see, when I was quite young—only a girl really—I killed four people. Two were dearly beloved, one was a hated enemy, and the last was a dangerous criminal.
Chapter 2
My story begins at the end of a terrible war, one that destroyed many lives and much property. But for that war and a handful of newspaper editorials and advertisements, my life would have turned out quite differently. Sometimes it seems no time at all has passed since I was a nine-year-old child standing on the deck of a ship watching home disappear over the horizon.
Warm Gulf breezes tugged at the brim of my bonnet, setting its ribbons dancing. Leaning over the Alyssa Jane’s railing, I stared back in the direction of Mobile Bay and pretended I could see the dock where my beloved Bess stood, probably still waving. Mama, her pretty features marred by a furrowed brow and down turned mouth, paced beside me.
“Mary Catherine MacDonald! Get down before you fall overboard. All we need right now is another crisis. And stop wiping your nose on your sleeve.”
Mama didn’t seem to understand anything anymore. Before we left home, she was calm and kind. Afterward, she snapped at the least little thing. I threw her a hateful glance, but she had already turned away, so I stubbornly leaned a little farther out over the railing. The wake trailing behind the Alyssa Jane looked like a blue-green path lined on either side by mounds of ginned cotton, a path pushing me away from the only life I had ever known. Only my sniveling broke the silence of that October morning.
A swish of crinolines brought Mama beside me. She grabbed my arm and whispered through clenched teeth, “Mary C., I told you to get off that railing. Go below and stay there until you can do as you’re told!”
I stomped across the deck, pausing once beside the mainmast to scowl over my shoulder. It was all so unfair. I hadn’t asked to be dragged along on this blasted trip. I wanted Bess. I wanted to go home, no matter how damaged it was, no matter who ran the stupid government. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But Mama turned away from me. She wasn’t even going to watch to see that I did what she said. Her indifference was like a slap in the face.
As I jumped through the open hatch leading below deck, the pungent odor of pine tar mixed with burning kerosene assailed my senses. I hated the smell. Besides making me slightly queasy, it reminded me of how final my losses were. Nothing at home smelled like the interior of that old tub. I hit the steps at a near run with plans to fling myself into my hammock and stay there forever. It would serve them right if I just upped and died. I bowled along toward the sleeping area blinded by tears and the sudden gloom of the narrow passageway.
Without warning, I crashed headlong into a pair of wool-encased legs. The trousers’ owner and I struggled momentarily in an awkward dance. With a standoff in the making, he harrumphed once, picked me up by my arms, deposited me on the other side of him, and stepped toward the hatch.
Tears forgotten, I tugged on his retreating coattails, ready to let him see my displeasure. Hooded eyes with ink black irises stared down in return. He didn’t look particularly angry, but authority hung about him like a mantle.
I swallowed, choked back what I intended to say, and instead muttered, “I’m sorry for running into you.”
He gazed at me for a moment and then simply nodded before turning away. The Reverend Jonas Williams might be a man of God, but his unsmiling countenance raised the hair at the nape of my neck as though someone stepped on my grave. Mama often fussed that Bess planted too many of her superstitions in my fertile imagination. I was now old enough to understand that some of what Mama said was true. But the Reverend Brother Williams still affected me like a haint. A slight shudder slithered down my spine, as though my body was trying to rid itself of his effect. I turned and fled down the hallway toward our sleeping quarters. Many months later, I would come to see this encounter as an omen, a foreshadowing of all that came afterward.
We passengers, immigrants one and all fleeing the defeated South, slept in a large open area that most likely was used as a cargo hold in the Alyssa Jane’s younger, more prosperous days. Most of the canvas partitions separating the fifteen or so families from one another had been drawn back in hope of allowing fresh sea breezes from the few portholes to circulate. Unfortunately, the plan wasn’t meeting with much success for the air remained stale and fetid with the odors of sweat and bodily functions.
I slumped on the edge of my hammock and kicked at the floorboards, allowing tears to drip from my chin unabated. Life wasn’t at all how it was supposed to be. It hadn’t been since the day Papa rode away to war. He looked so handsome in his gray captain’s uniform. He sat on his favorite stallion at the head of his unit and rode toward a conflict that everybody said would be over by Christmas. Everybody had been terribly wrong.
My ruminations, while sad and haunted, didn’t last long, for my mind turned to more immediate indignities and irritations. I hated staying below deck. I hated the stench. I hated the isolation. I hated the boredom. When I figured enough time had elapsed that it was safe to go above again, I bolted back into the fresh air. Mama now leaned on the stern railing, her gaze fixed on the faint line where the sky’s lighter blue met the Gulf of Mexico’s deep azure. She sniffed once as I approached and turned unusually bright eyes on me.
“Are you feeling better, child?”
When I nodded, she gripped the railing and resumed her observation of the horizon slipping away behind the Alyssa Jane. I eyed her for a moment, before sidling up beside her.
“Mama, why couldn’t Bess come with us?”
Her arm slipped around my shoulders and gave a little squeeze. “Why, darlin’, you’ve been told at least a thousand times. Bess has got to stay in Georgia.”
I jerked away from Mama’s grasp. “That’s not fair! She’s part of our family.”
A pained expression filled her eyes and her lips parted, but no words escaped. Her head lifted slightly and her gaze locked onto the space behind me.
“Mary Catherine MacDonald, you will not raise your voice to your mother.” Mama drew a quick breath as Papa strode to her and took her hand. His attention then returned to me. “No slave has ever been part of our family. It’s unthinkable! Furthermore, Brazil doesn’t allow slaves to be imported anymore. ” The more he spoke, the harder his voice sounded and the more clouded his face became. He concluded with sharper words than I had ever heard him use before. “So stop whining about that nigger mammy of yours and learn to live without her.”
Surprise made me momentarily mute, but my heart pounded and the sun was suddenly much hotter on my upturned face. I drew a couple of rapid breaths so hard that my cheeks puffed in and out. “Bess is too part of our family. I love her and she loves me. You love her too, don’t you Mama?”
A rosy flush crept over Mama’s face and her gaze darted around at the other people on deck. I ignored the warning in her eyes. “Bess took care of me all my life. That makes her part of our family.” Heady with righteous indignation, my eyes narrowed and I delivered my coup de grace. Jabbing an index finger in Papa’s direction, I yelled, “And besides, Bess isn’t a slave anymore and you damn well know it.”
My words rang across a suddenly silent deck. People turned from their own conversations, shook their heads and stared at us. The only sound I could hear was the blood thumping against my eardrums.
Papa’s face blanched. He stooped down until his eyes were level with mine and gripped my upper arms, nearly lifting me from the deck. My head snapped back and forth while he hissed, “You will not speak to anyone, most especially your mother or me, in that manner. Do you understand?” My hands went numb as his grasp tightened. “Now, stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Only when he stopped speaking did I notice tears streamed down my cheeks.
As we swayed in silence on the Alyssa Jane’s deck, Papa’s grip slackened and the fire in his eyes burned less brightly. “Besides, your aunts need Bess to cook and clean their house in town. At least that’s one thing that escaped Sherman’s destruction.”
Papa got a far off look in his eyes. His hands released me and dropped to his side as he straightened to his full height.
I knew better than to speak again. Spying a cargo box lashed to a railing on the main deck, I slunk down the steps and made my way to it. I wanted to stay up top rather than breathe the stale air below decks, but I also couldn’t bear being near my parents at that moment.
Papa’s present personality still caught me off guard. Before the war, he rarely raised his voice or hand to me. In truth, I was rather spoiled and cossetted. I begged for pretty dresses and china faced dolls by the dozens. Sometimes, I actually got them too. Now, we were on a ship bound for a place where they didn’t even speak English just because some stupid newspaper advertisements promised defeated Southerners free land. All I wanted was to go home, to have life the way it used to be.
Home. The way it used to be before Papa and Nathan decided they would not endure Yankees and carpetbaggers, our former enemies, being in charge of everything.
I was only five when the War Between the States began. Our old way of life now seemed like a gauzy dream—pleasant upon waking, but dissipating when you reached out to grasp it. Afraid of losing the last tenuous hold on that dream, I invented a little ritual, hoping it would glue fading images to the pages of my memory. Now that Papa and my mother’s only surviving brother were dragging us away from Georgia never to return, the ritual’s importance had taken on the stature of an obsession. I closed my eyes and once again conjured up my earliest memories.
In my mind’s eye, I looked down on the Oconee River from the deep porch of an unpainted dogtrot farmhouse. Cotton fields that came right up to the house stretched out as far as I could see in every direction on our side of the river. The house and the farm wouldn’t have been terribly grand by most people’s lights, but it was home and, therefore, my whole world. The clapboard house and outbuildings existed only in shadowy visions after the war. While I retained only a few hazy memories of the farm, one stands out clearly. It is of Mama’s favorite rose bush to which I did some considerable damage one spring by picking off all the buds before they even broke color and for which I received the first spanking of my life.
A few other people lived on the farm in tiny houses out back of the barn. They were the colored slaves, most of whom worked in the fields, but of their faces, it was only Bess’s that mattered to me. My Bess, who lived in the house, and who took care of me, and whom I loved as much as I did my mother.
My clearest memories of my parents before the war were that Papa spent his days with the field hands and that Mama loved music. Beautiful music filled the house when she played her pianoforte. Sometimes when Bess brought me into the parlor to say goodnight, Papa would be sitting beside Mama, kissing her neck as she played and she would be smiling at him in the special way she reserved only for him. I think they must have been very happy. They laughed a lot back then. Then, the war came. Nobody and nothing was ever the same again.
Papa had come back from the war haunted by what he had seen and the losses he had endured. For a time, we thought he had permanently lost his mind. These days, it didn’t take much to rile him. Mama said not to mind, that he just had so many worries it made him harder to live with than before. Even so, I still couldn’t understand why he spoke so cruelly about Bess of whom he’d always been so fond. My papa’s sunny nature was the most important thing destroyed by the war.
As the days under sail passed into weeks and America became nothing but a memory, Papa’s disposition evolved. To everyone’s relief he seemed more like his old prewar self. The farther we traveled, the more his mood lifted so by the time we docked in Jamaica to take on supplies, his good days outnumbered the bad. I even saw him and Mama kissing under the stars one night when they thought no one else was on deck.
The Alyssa Jane was an old clipper fallen on hard times, reduced to ferrying passengers and commodities along the trade routes extending from ports in the southern United States to destinations in the other Americas. Its confined space provided limited opportunities for me to get into trouble, so I was allowed unaccustomed freedom. The morning we sailed toward Kingston Harbor, I hung over the portside railing from the moment the city’s outline came into view.
Footsteps running up behind caused me to turn and I lost my balance. Papa grabbed a handful of my skirts. “Mary Catherine, you’re going to topple into the water if you keep this up. Get off that railing and put your feet squarely on the deck or you can go below and stay there.”
Instant compliance and a sweet smile seemed to go a long way these days, so I did as I was told. I didn’t want this new/old version of my papa to disappear again.
We passed through Kingston Harbor’s narrow mouth with sails snapping, pushed along by Caribbean breezes. In the distance, I could make out the familiar marks of human habitation trailing along the waterfront, but nothing in my experience had prepared me for Jamaica. Low emerald mountains surrounded an oval bowl of aquamarine water that rolled gently forward to kiss sand the color of cotton just breaking from the bole. Within minutes of entering the harbor, the city’s buildings became distinct and grew in size. A little thrill swept through me as the old clipper bumped against the dock and the sights and smells of Kingston spread out before us like a feast awaiting revelers.
“Papa, please, why cain’t I go with y’all?”
His mouth became a thin line. “Because Kingston isn’t particularly safe.” Then he placed his arm around my shoulders and pointed to the opposite side of the harbor. “Did you know that a wicked pirate city used to be right over there? An earthquake destroyed Port Royal. The whole city simply fell into the sea.” Papa grinned and his eyes grew big. “Why, I’ve heard you can see pirate ghosts rising from the water when the moonlight is just right.”
This was my old Papa, the one I hadn’t seen since war was declared. I slipped my arms around his waist. “Oh, Papa, you’re just so silly sometimes. Everybody knows there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Papa smiled and picked me up, swinging me around like he used to when I was little. When he placed me on the deck again, I pressed my advantage.
“Please cain’t I go? Please?”
“You’re cutting me in half.” Papa pulled my arms away from his middle and smiled. “If it means that much to you, I guess it won’t hurt for you to go into town. But you absolutely must stay by your mama’s side. When she says it’s time to return to the boat, there will be no arguments. Understand?”
As I stretched up to plant a kiss on his cheek, angry shouts and the percussive report of a pistol rang across the harbor.
June 4, 2014
Cover Reveal – Sweet Bea
Today I’m honored to be part of the cover reveal for my good friend and fellow Romance Weekly author Sarah Hegger.
Her upcoming novel, Sweet Bea:
Blurb:
Is anything sweeter than revenge?
In a family of remarkable people, ordinary Beatrice strives to prove herself worthy. When her family is threatened with losing everything, she rushes to London to save them. Unfortunately, she chooses as her savior the very man who will see her family brought low.
Garrett has sworn vengeance on Sir Arthur of Anglesea for destroying his life when he was a boy and forcing his mother into prostitution for them to survive. He has chosen as his instrument Sir Arthur’s youngest daughter, Beatrice.
Can Beatrice’s goodness teach Garrett that love, not vengeance, is the greatest reward of all?
A little about Sarah Hegger:
Born British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A hot Canadian engineer, whose marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met. Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese, even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.
Mimicking her globe trotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations, settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a wife and mother.
She currently lives in Draper, Utah, with her teenage daughters, two Golden Retrievers and aforementioned husband. Part footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s restless heart is most content when reading or writing books.
I love to hear from readers and you can find me at any of the places below.
Website
June 3, 2014
Romance Weekly – #LOVECHATWRITE
Do you like to read romance novels? Wouldn’t you like to know more about your favorite authors? Well you came to the right place! Join the writers of Romance Weekly as we go behind the scenes of our books and tell all….. About our writing of course! Every week we’ll answer questions and after you’ve enjoyed the blog on this site we’ll direct you to another. So come back often for a thrilling ride!
If you found me via Mishka Jenkins’ wonderful blog, or you’re just starting your Romance Weekly journey here, welcome. Some probing questions and fun answers lie ahead as you make the rounds.
Victoria Barbour belongs to this week’s questions and here they are:
1. Have you always written Romance?
Nope. I started out writing Science fiction and Fantasy, but it was an easy transition to Romance. Adding the romantic elements into a story always seemed to make it a better tale, with deeper characters to write about.
2. How do you deal with critiques about the romance genre?
I kind of laugh it off. If Romance isn’t for you…fine. I’m not a big fan of Literary Fiction. Occasionally I encounter the literary snob type, who thinks only what they read is true literature, and everything else is trash and not worth reading. I feel sorry for them, living is such a small world, but I know there’s not much I can do to change their minds. Arguing with these people is rarely productive, so I just smile and move on.
3. What’s the one thing about our genre you’d like people to know?
That guys read Romance, and it’s okay to admit that. There is nothing uniquely feminine about a good story with a happy-ever-after ending. There’s a ton of great Romance out there with big explosions, hot sex, creepy monsters and other ‘guy stuff.’ I’d like to see us move away from the ‘this is for women/this is for men’ mentality. Books are for people.
I hear you out there. Yes, I have spies all over the interwebs. You’re wondering what the other authors of Romance Weekly answered. Start (or continue) the tour by visiting the wonderful Leslie Hachtel at http://lesliehachtelwriter.wordpress.com/
And check out the Romance Weekly Blog Hop & Giveaway:
May 29, 2014
Thursday Threads
Hot off the presses, this week we feature Collette Cameron’s sensual historical, The Earl’s Enticement:
Title: The Earl’s Enticement
Genre: Regency-Scottish
Heat Level: Sensual
Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KLO64S2/
The Earl’s Enticement Cover Blurb:
She won’t be tamed.
A fiery, unconventional Scot, Adaira Ferguson wears breeches, swears, and has no more desire to marry than she does to follow society’s dictates of appropriate behavior. She trusts no man with the secret she desperately protects.
He can’t forget.
Haunted by his past, Roark, The Earl of Clarendon, rigidly adheres to propriety, holding himself and those around him to the highest standards, no matter the cost. Betrayed once, he’s guarded and leery of all women.
Mistaking Roark for a known spy, Adaira imprisons him. Infuriated, he vows vengeance. Realizing her error, she’s appalled and releases him, but he’s not satisfied with his freedom. Roark is determined to transform Adaira from an ill-mannered hoyden to a lady of refinement.
He succeeds only to discover, he preferred the free-spirited Scottish lass who first captured his heart.
Excerpt:
“Halloo,” he hollered. “Is anyone there? I’m the Earl of Clarendon. I’m being held prisoner.”
She shook her head, sending him a contemptuous scowl. “Stop shouting, you dolt. It’s but a weasel or a stoat, perhaps even a squirrel. They come in through the drains or gaps where a stone’s gone missing in the wall.”
She motioned with the pistol for him to move away from the door once more. “I’m surprised none have paid you a visit as yet. As for Ewan, he’s away in London, just now.”
With what could only be described as a derisive grunt, Marquardt obliged her and sauntered away from the door. He rested against the far wall, ankles crossed, crunching on the apple.
A muffled thud, as if someone had bumped into something, echoed through the lower chambers.
He perked up. “That was no pest.”
Adaira whirled to peer into the gloom.
“I say, can you hear me? I’m locked in a cell.”
She spun back around.
He’d moved to the door, his hands fisted around the bars. Drat it. She was losing control of the situation. His presence mustn’t be known to anyone other than Brayan yet.
She bent to retrieve the sack. No doubt Brayan had come looking for her at one of her parents’ behest. Marquardt absolutely must not see him. Brayan would boast he’d helped lock the man up. From the sound of the crashing about, he’d sampled the flask a good deal more and was utterly bosky.
“Blast and da—” She stopped as Marquardt’s eyebrows flew to his hairline in obvious disapproval.
Lowering her voice, she hurried on. “Ewan’s expected back any day. When he returns, I’ll tell him I apprehended you. He can do with you what he wants. I’m quite sure it will involve the authorities.”
“Apprehended?” He shook his head. “You’re still sticking to the absurd notion that I’m Edgar?”
He tossed the apple core between the bars. It bounced before rolling to a stop barely three feet beyond her. A rat promptly appeared, scrambling to snatch the core in his pointed, yellow teeth. The little beast raced down the passageway with two other rodents squeaking their outrage in its wake.
Marquardt had done that on purpose, the lout.
Connect with Collette:
Website Blue Rose Romance Blog Twitter Facebook
May 25, 2014
New covers
I just finished putting up the new covers and internal changes (More readable fonts, formatting fixes) to my Demons Rising Trilogy:
The stories remain the same, so nothing really changes in the long run, but I did want to share the new covers.
