Xio Axelrod's Blog, page 16

An interview with Duff for Romance Writers Weekly

Welcome to another installment of Romance Writers Weekly, where we give you insight into our process, motivation, and inspiration as writers. This week, I asked my fellow RWW members to interview a character from one of their novels or works-in-progress.

Did you catch the lovely Leslie Hachtel‘s entry? If not, don’t forget to check it out.

Since Calum Me Maybe is on its way to you soon, I decided to sit down with my hero, Duff, and pick his brain. Always an interesting undertaking. He may have enjoyed a dram or two during our chat, so…consider yourself warned. Also, you may need a glossary.

Huge Freakin’ Giveaway!

Over at  Romance Writers Weekly, we’re having a HUGE giveaway!

Enter now through MAY 10th, 2015 (MOTHER’S DAY)! Grand Prize is a $100 Amazon gift card. 2nd and 3rd prizes are $20 gift cards. Plus you could win one of 14 prize packs full of great titles from the Romance Weekly authors. Check it out!

And there’s more! Enter now.

Vote for The Calum!

I want to thank the academy. Okay, maybe I’m a bit ahead of myself, but I certainly want to thank you – the fans. You got The Calum into the running for best new adult/college romance over at Love Kissed Books!

Can I get a woot!?

We haven’t won yet, though. Cast your votes now through May 14th and let’s bring this puppy home.

Thanks!!

The Flashiest Flash Fic – Romance Writers Weekly

Welcome to another installment of Romance Writers Weekly! This week, we have the shortest flash fiction challenge I think I’ve ever been a part of. Super fun!

In 10 words or less, describe a kiss. Include the words pink & sweet.

Did you catch what the fabulous Mikki Cober wrote? Don’t know if I can match her creativity, but here goes.

Her perfectly pink lips were sweet.

Addictive.

And definitely lying.

Yay! Ten words exactly. That was hard, ehehe.

Don’t forget that Romance Writers Weekly is running a huge giveaway! Enter now through MAY 10th, 2015 (MOTHER’S DAY)! Grand Prize is a $100 amazon gift card. 2nd and 3rd prizes are $20 gift cards. Plus you could win one of 14 prize packs full of great titles from the Romance Weekly authors!

Now hop on over to see what the wickedly talented Veronica Forand wrote for this challenge. See you next time!

Mirror, mirror. Do you write you? – Romance Writers Weekly

Welcome to another installment of Romance Writers Weekly. This week, I wanted to know how much of a writer’s personality ends up in their characters. If you’re a reader, do you ever wonder if an author is anything like the characters he or she creates?

Hopefully you landed here from immensely talented Carrie Elks and read her take on it. Will you find bits of Carrie in her fantastic Love in London series?

As for me and my writing, it’s hard to say. Allow me to ramble a bit.

I’ve been told, by those that have read The Calum, that one of the things that sticks out is the humour. I’m proud of the one-liners in particular.

It weird, though. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly funny or witty. Despite evidence to the contrary, I’m a rather shy individual. Maybe it feels safer to let my characters say and/or do things that I’d never feel comfortable doing myself?

Nah, that’s not it.

I think all of the snark seeps into my dialogue and inner-monologues because it’s endemic to the characters themselves. They come from me, so there have to be bits of me in there, right? Right. So, I must have a decent sense of humour. Or a twisted one. Depends who you ask.

When I write a villain or someone of questionable morals, I’m still drawing from my own personality. I call that the “what if” side of me. I’ll ask my mirror: What if I were in a similar situation as this character, and had a similar background. Would I make different choices? The same? I’d like to think I wouldn’t do some of the things my villains do.  But I’m human. Humans are capable of just about anything. The goal is not to do wrong. As a writer, I get to explore what happens when we do.

For me, it’s less “write what you know” and more “write what you want to learn more about.” That’s one of the things I love about writing. I get to examine any aspect of the human condition I choose, even the very essence of  what it is to be human, without getting into (too much) trouble. Wee!

Now head over and check out how much of the lovely Dani Jace ends up on the page. I know her love for the Outer Banks of North Carolina certainly does.

By the way, we at Romance Writers Weekly are doing a huge giveaway for Mother’s Day. You could win book bundles and Amazon gift cards!

Win OODLES of books and big (Amazon) cash!

See you next time!

FoX Friday – Nobody’s Angel from Sarah Hegger

Welcome to another FoX Friday!

I’ve been waiting, WAITING, for this book to be unleashed upon the world. My incredibly talented and inspirational critique partner, Sarah Hegger, starts off her Willow Park Romance series with a bang! This book is emotional, grounded, sexy and swoon-worthy. You will love Lucy and Richard, trust me.

In this evocative new series, a woman returns home after a long absence—and wonders if two wrongs really can make a right…

Nine years ago Lucy Flint ran away to Seattle, taking her friend’s boyfriend and leaving her high school sweetheart without a word of explanation. Now she’s back in Willow Park, Illinois, to help care for her ailing father—and it’s no surprise that her ex, Dr. Richard Hunter, is still angry.

Still, she’s a different Lucy now. Sober, wiser, ready to make amends to the long—make that very long—list of those she mistreated during her wild younger days. Falling for Richard all over again would mean wreaking havoc in both their lives and possibly squandering her opportunity for redemption. But here, in the place where everything went wrong, is the one person who always felt right, and a second-chance that could be the best mistake she ever made…

I was thrilled when Sarah asked if I could create a trailer for the book and jumped at the chance. Check it out!

Pick up a copy of Nobody’s Angel on Amazon – Barnes & Noble – iBooks – Kobo

Enter the Nobody’s Angel giveaway, which includes: (1) $20.00 Amazon Gift Card, (3) $10.00 Amazon Gift Cards, Five Print Copies of Nobody’s Angel (Or Digital for Int. winners)

Sarah’s touring all over the web in celebration of this release, so be sure to follow.

More about the author…

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.

She loves to hear from readers and you can find her at any of the places below.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

You can also catch Sarah and I over at the Spice Aisle. So much deliciousness, you won’t know what to do!

See you next time!

Xio oxo

100 word drabble – Romance Writers Weekly

Welcome to another installment of Romance Writers Weekly! The fabulous Veronica Forand, author of the riveting Untrue Colors, wanted a bit of flash fiction this time around. The challenge is a 100-word drabble featuring the words: spring, coffee, and lizard. Did you land here from the lovely Susan Scott Shelley‘s? If you haven’t read Rekindled, you need to get on that right about now.

Alright, here goes 100 words.

Spring forward my ass. Karen gave the clock the evil eye. She could’ve sworn more than twenty-two minutes had passed, but nooo!

Why her boss insisted on having the Monday meetings at four, she’d never understand. She cursed every minute of the hour she’d lost to daylight savings. Plus the ten-minute wait while he “drained the lizard.”

Ugh.

There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to keep her focused. Pick up the dry cleaning. Renew your registration. Dry hump Craig from IT.

What? He was freakin’ hot.

He grinned like he could read her mind. “Riveting, eh?”

Oh yeah. “Totally.”

Head on over to see what the delightful J. J. Devine cooked up for you today. See you next time!

FoX Friday with Veronica Forand!

Hey gang! I’m so excited to the brand new release from my friend, the lovely and talented Veronica Forand, Untrue Colors.

Brilliant art appraiser Alex Northrop’s ex used stolen art to fund his nefarious activities. Now he wants her dead. But it isn’t just herself she’s worried about – if he discovers who she really is, he’ll kill her family.

Professor Henry Chilton is shocked to find a beautiful stranger passed out in his bed, and even more so when she reveals a priceless painting is a forgery – the painting he’d planned to use to fund a woman’s shelter. She’s mysterious and frightened, and he is determined to discover why.ca

Alex’s knowledge of art is undeniable—just as Henry’s attraction to her is irresistible. But in order to help him recover the real painting, Alex isn’t just risking exposure…she’s risking her life.

A Bostonian by birth, Veronica Forand regrettably lost her Boston accent while moving from state to state and country to country. Cleveland probably had the most profound effect on her ability to pronounce the “r” in the word “park.”

She does try to return now and then to visit family and eat long neck clams and lobster. Summers on Cape Cod are also high on the priority list.

Her experience in crime involves time as a court appointed attorney. Eventually, she switched fields to where bigger crimes take place, corporate tax. The allure of spending mornings in her pajamas homeschooling her children and writing fascinating fiction caused her to change careers again. Now that the kids are out of the house (in school), she writes romantic thrillers by day and is the perfect wife and mother at night.

Her experience in romance is limited to one man. Luckily, he’s still finding ways to charm her by taking her on vacations to the south of France, Fiji, and the Green Mountains when time is short. Avid travelers, they love to roam with their kids across continents in pursuit of skiing, scuba diving, and the perfect piece of chocolate.

She’s lived in London, Paris, Geneva, Washington D.C., and the accent destroying city of Cleveland. She currently resides outside Philadelphia. Not far from yours truly! =)

Visit Veronica on her website, Facebook and Twitter. And don’t forget to grab a copy of Untrue Colors!

FoX Friday with Carrie Elks!

This week we welcome back the lovely and talented Carrie Elks with her newest release, Broken Chords. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Here’s a bit about the book.

Lara knows she should feel lucky. Married to the man of her dreams, with a gorgeous new baby, she should be enjoying her happy-ever-after. But she never expected motherhood to be so difficult, or for her life to change so dramatically.

Alex has it all: hot, tattooed looks, a beautiful wife, and a band that’s finally getting noticed. A lucrative offer of a US tour should be the icing on the cake. But as he leaves the country, distance isn’t the only thing that starts to pull their relationship apart.

With half a world dividing them, Alex and Lara have to battle for a marriage they once took for granted.

Broken Chords is the second story in the Love in London series but can be read completely as a stand-alone.  Though it’s a series, it’s not a serial and there are no cliffhangers, each book features a different couple!

Available at:  Amazon Amazon CA Amazon UK Amazon AU B&N Kobo iTunes

Sounds great, right? Here’s an excerpt!

“You want one?” he asked, cupping his hand to shade his match from the slight breeze.

“I don’t smoke. It’s a disgusting habit.” I smiled, letting him know I was flirting more than anything. Trying to wind him up.

He stared at me, throwing the burnt-out match into the ashtray. Already, I’d noticed Alex had this intense way of making me feel as if nothing else mattered. That I was the only interesting thing in the room—or in this case, the street.

“You’re one of those, then,” he said.

“One of what?”

“A crusader.” He inhaled deeply, then let the smoke drift out of his lips. Even I had to admit he looked sexy.

His words made me grin. I was anything but; smoking rarely bothered me at all. “I don’t kiss boys who smoke,” I said.

The corner of his lip twitched up. He leaned forward, still staring intently. “That’s good. I don’t want you kissing them.”

“You’re a boy who smokes,” I pointed out.

This time a full-on smirk broke out on his face. “I’m the exception that proves the rule, sweetheart.”

The way he said it made my heart hammer against my chest. There was something about Alex Cartwright that made me feel breathless. I wasn’t used to boys like him, ones who oozed sexuality out of every pore. Until then my boyfriends had been more friend than boy. Low key, almost feminine

Alex didn’t have a feminine bone in his body.

“What makes you think I want to kiss you, anyway?”

“You’re the one who brought up kissing, not me.” Another cocky response. “Not to mention the fact you keep looking at my mouth and licking your lips. I can tell you want to eat me for breakfast.”

The image his words conjured up made me choke on my coffee. I spluttered the hot liquid out. Alex started to laugh.

“Kissing. I was still talking about kissing.”

I’ve already got this one on my Kindle and I can’t wait to dig in. =) Thanks for sharing your latest with us, Carrie. And don’t forget to enter the giveaway, folks! You could win an Amazon gift card.

Carrie Elks lives near London, England and writes contemporary romance with a dash of intrigue. At the age of twenty-one she left college with a political science degree, a healthy overdraft and a soon-to-be husband. She loves to travel and meet new people, and has lived in the USA and Switzerland as well as the UK. An avid social networker, she tries to limit her Facebook and Twitter time to stolen moments between writing chapters. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can usually be found baking, drinking wine or working out how to combine the two. Find her on:

 

 

Special thanks to:

All the pretty, pretty covers!

I suck at these. I get so excited when I finish a cover that I throw it up online without any preamble. Usually my street team, The Xiomaniacs, gets to see it first. Then I roll it out to my Tumblr playground, where the Maniacs were born, before everyone else gets a gander.

The one thing I don’t seem to do is put them here. Why, Xio, why? Forgive me. I’m still learning the ropes. This is the cover for book two in the Calum series, Calum Me Maybe.

I’m particularly proud of it because I finally found someone that looks close enough to Duff’s inspiration for me to feel comfortable putting him on the cover. That’s Justin. Justin is very pretty, in a rugged sort of way. Don’t you think? I love the expression on his face.

Justin, I don’t know you yet but thank you for being you.

Many of you have been waiting – and waiting and waiting and waiting – for me to release Starstruck in book form for-freaking-ever. I apologize for the wait, but it is almost over. I promise.

There have been some changes to the story, not the least of which is the title. Search for Starstruck on Amazon, and you’ll get a gazillion results. To be fair, I wasn’t thinking about publication when I first wrote it, so the title wasn’t an issue. Now it is.

Falling Stars isn’t the most original title, but whatevs. I wanted something that set the tone for the series and that one fits perfectly. So, here is the cover for book one.

It’s different, right? I ran it by a few author-friends to get their take and they all said the same thing. It doesn’t ‘read’ as a romance.

It occurred to me that this book may not be a romance. It’s a love story, absolutely, but it doesn’t follow many of the traditional “romance” rules. For that reason, I have some decisions to make as to how I will categorize it at the booksellers and how I will market it. We shall see.

So, there you have it. Not one, but two “cover reveals”. The plan is to get both of these books out in the spring, first Calum Me Maybe and then – at long last – Falling Stars #1.

Stay tuned!