Veronica Forand's Blog, page 7

Romance Weekly: Favorite Holiday Song

This week Xio Axelrod of Romance Writers’ Weekly, wanted to know our favorite holiday songs.

Have you come from S. C. Mitchell’s blog at http://scmitchell.wordpress.com/? If not, go back to it. Not only will he reveal his favorite holiday song, but you can see the book he released this week,

  

My favorite Christmas song is “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.” This moving song was written before the end of the Civil War by Henry W. Longfellow. A series of family tragedies inspired this sombre holiday carol. His wife Fanny died in the arms of her husband despite his frantic attempts to save her. Her death devastated him. The next year, his son died of a gunshot wound in battle. With his family in shambles, Christmas was not a happy time for him.

Deep emotions run through each verse, reminding me that Christmas can be a day of heartbreak and loneliness for some and peace and joy for others.

I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

By  Henry W. Longfellow, 1864.

 

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,


And wild and sweet the words repeat


Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 

And thought how, as the day had come,


The belfries of all Christendom


Had rolled along the unbroken song


Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 

Till ringing, singing on its way


The world revolved from night to day,


A voice, a chime, a chant sublime


Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 

And in despair I bowed my head


“There is no peace on earth,” I said,


“For hate is strong and mocks the song


Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:


“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;


The wrong shall fail, the right prevail


With peace on earth, good will to men.”

 

Then from each black, accursed mouth


The cannon thundered in the South,


And with the sound the carols drowned


Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 

It was as if an earthquake rent


The hearth-stones of a continent,


And made forlorn, the households born


Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 

Head over to Carrie Elks’ page to see what song she chose. Probably more cheerful than mine!  http://carrieelks.com/blog/ And check the release she has coming out on Christmas Day!

Romance Weekly: Holiday Cookie Swap

Today is a huge day for Romance Weekly. We not only are giving you all awesome cookie recipes, but on our FB page we’re having a huge Romance Weekly’s Stocking Stuffer Christmas Event. https://www.facebook.com/RomanceWritersWeekly with lots of giveaways all day long.

Did you come from Eden Ashe http://edenashe.com? If not, head back to find out what she’s cooking.

Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies

Prep time

60 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

1 hour 10 mins

Serves: 10-12

 

Ingredients

▪   2.5 cups almond flour

▪   ⅓ cup ground flaxseed

▪   ½ teaspoon baking soda

▪   2 tablespoons ground ginger

▪   1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated

▪   1.5 teaspoons cinnamon

▪   ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

▪   ½ teaspoon ground cloves

▪   ½ teaspoon vanilla powder

▪   ¼ cup coconut oil, melted

▪   ¼ cup honey

▪   1 egg, lightly beaten

▪   Icing

Directions

Combine almond flour, flax seed, baking soda, ground ginger, fresh ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and vanilla powder in a large mixing bowl and stir until blended
Add coconut oil, honey and egg to the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until well combined
Roll mixture into a ball and wrap in cling film. Put in freezer for 30 minutes and then transfer to fridge for another 30 minutes
Remove the dough from the cling film and place between two large pieces of baking paper. With a rolling pin roll the dough out to around 1/8” thick
With a gingerbread cookie cutter, cut into shapes. The dough is delicate so it is best to remove the remaining dough from the outside of the cut out cookie and take a sharp knife or metal spatula under the cookie and carefully place on a tray lined with baking paper
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. They should still be slightly soft when they come out of the oven
Allow the cookies to completely cool
Decorate with icing!

Hop on over to Jami Denise http://jamidenise.com/blog.

 

3 Seas Literary Agency Holiday Recipe Contest- $300 Gift Card!!!

Thanks for visiting my site!  I hope you enjoy sharing my recipe with your family and friends.  Please feel free to pop back in to share stories here on my site – I would love to hear from you.   However, comments left here will not constitute an entry to the 3 Seas Recipe Holiday Contest.  In order to enter the contest for your chance to win a $300 gift card to Amazon, B&N or iTunes, be sure to enter my name and my recipe name into the official contest form on the 3 Seas Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/pages/3-Seas-Literary-Agency/75205869856?sk=app_228910107186452.  If you have any questions about the promotion, please contact Kurt at admin@threeseaslit.com.  Thanks for participating, and good luck!

French Canadian Tourtière

My mother in law makes the best Tourtière for Christmas Eve every year. This meat pie is served with mashed potatoes and vegetables.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground pork

1 pound ground beef

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 cup, mashed potatoes

3/4 cup vegetable broth

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt

         Pie Crust:

2 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup cold water

Egg Wash

1 egg

1 Tbsp. water

Directions

In a large skillet, combine the onion with the olive oil and sauté for 10 minutes on medium heat, until onions are soft and golden. Mix the ground pork and beef together in a bowl. Add the mixed ground meat to the onions and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring it.
Add all the remaining ingredients (broth, spices, mashed potato, salt and pepper) and mix together. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat.
Cool in the fridge for about 2 hours, until completely chilled.
To make the pastry, cut the butter into small cubes and chill them so they are very cold. Using a food processor or a pastry blender, chop up the butter into the flour and salt until it is small and crumbly, the size of very small peas. Pour in 1/2 cup of the ice cold water and mix into the flour. Add more water, 1 tablespoonful at a time, until the dough comes together into a ball. Wrap and cover them in wax paper or plastic, and let them rest in the fridge for 1 hour. Remove from the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. Roll out each disc on a floured surface to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.
Line a 9 in. pie plate with the first disc of dough. Spoon in all the meat filling, patting it down lightly to compress it a bit. Brush the pie rim with water and place the second circle of dough on top, pressing the edges together to seal.
For the egg wash beat the egg and water together and brush the mixture all over the top of the crust and around the edges.
Cut a few vents in the top of your pie.
Bake at 375F for about 50 minutes or until the top of the crust is golden.

Yield: Makes 1 pie, about 8 servings

Romance Weekly: Thanksgiving Edition

If you came from Jo Richardson http://jrrichardsonfics.wordpress.com/blog/. Fantastic. Did you check out her book

Cursed Be The Wicked? It’s about a writer coming home to Salem, with a lot to hide!

This week we’re writing about Thanksgiving…

I was never great with school writing tasks, especially Thanksgiving essays where I needed to tell the world what I’m grateful for.

But I took on this assignment, so I shall prevail!

 

Here’s a few unique reasons that this year has been especially good…

1)   My husband’s inventive, creative side as well as his outstanding skill and bedside manner have made him one of the most sought after surgeons in his field. His work ethic is unbelievable. Seriously, I’m unsure how he does so much and can use coherent sentences at the end of the day.

2)   My children are growing up into amazing individuals. I love their company and their ability to laugh at all the absurd things life throws at them. Their inability to clean the kitchen will be discussed in another post.

3)   My dog’s tumor is benign. And the weight he gained while recuperating is forcing me to exercise more.

4)   I’m published. Three books have hit the Amazon “stacks” in 2014. Two with my sometime writing partner Susan Scott Shelley. We made a few lists along the way, but even more important, we’ve gained a few fans. Next year, Susan and I are publishing a few books separately. Read her, she’s awesome!

5)   My parents are about to celebrate fifty years together. And fifty years of traveling the world together. They are not only healthy this year, but they’re tearing their way across the golf courses of Southern Florida.

6)   My brother’s business is thriving, and his wife loves her job where she truly makes a difference to kids in the classroom and at her house every day. And her ability to live with my brother makes her a saint (I lived with him for 16 years…I know).

7)   Snow on ski slopes.

8)   Almost all music, except that song my daughter keeps playing over and over and over again.

9)   Landlines, especially when my iPhone decides it doesn’t feel like putting a call through.

10)  And chocolate…no exceptions.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Next, head on over to visit Collette Cameron - http://blueroseromance.com. She’s the author of The Earl’s Enticement. If you like historicals, you’ll love her books.

Release Day secrets from “Flirting on Ice” (Shhh don’t tell Susan I’m talking about her!!)

The release of a new novella by Susan Scott Shelley and me is today! OMG. What started out as a lark, turned into a pretty cool novella.  Susan and I spent hours in my kitchen and hers plotting and revising “Flirting on Ice.” We’re damn proud of the result.

After all that time together, I’ve discovered a few things about Susan you may be interested to know.

Susan takes sports seriously. She’s crazy smart about players, stats, and rankings in both football and hockey. I can’t tell you the number of times she rewrote a few plays I created for our fictional hockey team the Atlantic City Hustlers. Thank God she did or the team would have been playing four quarters and skating over the end zone.

In addition to her sports expertise, she can make a heroine likeable, probably because she is likeable herself. While this may not seem like a feat to some people (and yes I’m talking to all you “nice” people out there), I tend to make my heroines unlikeable to the extreme (and no, I don’t think there is a parallel with me and unlikeable heroines. Do you?) Working with Susan, we created a heroine who is truly a person I’d want to hang out with.

The villain in the story is not evil to the core, but he is selfish and greedy. Just enough evil to make you root for the hero. I would have had him kill a few people and kick a puppy or two, but Susan was opposed to random violence in a romance. That’s not to say there’s no tension in the book, just less blood than I’d like.

 

In celebration of the release, we’re doing a Release Day Power Play. Whoever gets the most likes or tweets from their hockey social media posts will make a donation to Hockey Fights Cancer,and we encourage all of you to donate too. It’s a great cause.

http://www.nhl.com/hockeyfightscancer/donate-now.html

 

And we may publicly humiliate the loser too, although I hate being publically humiliated, so that part is optional!

Romance Weekly: Uncontrollable Characters

 

 

‘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! 

This week’s questions are from Eden Ashe.

If you came from LaNora Mangano’s blog, welcome! If not, head on over there to see her answers!  http://jeanne1965.wix.com/finding-lanora#!blog/c112v

 

How much free reign do you give your characters during a story?

My character Simon, a secondary character in my book “Untrue Colors,” took over the series and attempted to take over the first book as well. His personality was so strong that his POV ended up in every story, despite being the primary hero in only one of them.

His elevated position as the main character of the series helped make the stories better. His position as an embedded agent in MI-6 gave him access to information and resources I couldn’t give to my civilian characters. In addition, his love for the women in his life went to the extreme, and the feelings he brings into the books are more powerful than in my other heroes. Ironically, he doesn’t want to love as deeply as he does, it’s his biggest flaw and most endearing characteristic.

Jason Statham, my vision of Simon

Here’s one of his scenes as the not quite hero in “Untrue Colors:”

The knock continued, more rapidly and aggressively. Simon placed his finger on Valerie’s lips to keep her quiet and then pulled out his gun.

“Who is it?” he called out in English, stepping to the door clothed only by the Beretta in his hand.

“Open up, lover boy.” Nicola’s voice penetrated the wood and scorched his veins.

What the hell did she want? He opened the door, knowing she’d never leave until she gained entry. Nicola, wearing black leggings, knee high black boots, and a long gray transparent shirt, pushed her way past him without so much as a glance at his naked body until she arrived at the foot of the bed. If he had to choose at that moment between Valerie and Nicola, he’d have to flip a coin. They both oozed sex.

Not one to be disturbed by his state of undress, Nicola examined him from shoulder to toe, making his manhood retreat at the indignity, and then she turned to Simon’s last bit of sanity, the beautiful woman lying in the bed. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Not anymore.” He slipped on his jeans and threw Valerie her little black dress.

I’ve started a new series that deals with a police officer named Bob. His brother Dex has begun to take over the series almost like Simon did. Some men just crave the spotlight!

 

Have your characters ever done something so out of the blue that not only changed your story, but changed the tone and maybe even the genre you were originally going for? (Like your contemporary romance turned into a spicy paranormal)

Suspense slips into almost every story I write. I can’t help it. My characters crave action and danger. My first novel, however, was women’s fiction. As I wrote the sequel, I added blackmail, murder, and kidnappings. Not exactly women’s fiction. The third book in the series had even more intrigue and soon I was addicted to adding suspense to my stories.

The women’s fiction book is lost under my bed forever, but the two sequels I colored with suspense are both on their way to being published.

 

Do you have one character in your head that is sort of boss over all the rest? Or do you decide who to work on and when?

I’m fairly rigid about what books I’m working on at any one time. Mostly my own self-imposed deadlines force keep blinders on me so I can finish a project by a certain date.

Characters are free to give me any ideas they want at any time and I respect the process enough to take five to ten minutes to write down the ideas or even the bits of dialogue that come through my head. Each story has a Scrivener file and has spots for research. Characters, and plot ideas. I prefer full immersion into a story, however, and will leave those pieces until I can delve into the whole book for a period of time.

Head over to Mishka Jenkins’ blog and see how she answered… https://awriterslifeformeblog.wordpress.com/

Romance Weekly: Book Boyfriends

Welcome from Mishka Jenkins’ blog.  https://awriterslifeformeblog.wordpress.com/

It’s all about the Book Boyfriend! 

Book boyfriends don’t live in my house. They’re not invited. They tend to be control freaks. Yet, there is always room in my reading list for a re-read of my favorites.

 

Who is my ideal book boyfriend?

He has ambition.
He doesn’t complain about problems, he fixes them.
When he falls for a woman, he falls hard.
He knows his way around a female body.

 

You want names?

JERICHO BARRONS, the Fever Series, by Karen Marie Moning

 

 

ROARKE, In Death Series, by JD Robb

 

JAMIE FRASIER, Outlander Series, Diana Gabaldon

 

 

I am dying to know who Xio Axelrod chose… Let’s go check it out… http://www.xioaxelrod.com.

Get Wicked With Entangled Blog Hop

 

 

Welcome to this stop of the Entangled Wicked Blog Hop. Connect to the other blogs for more contests and great prizes by clicking on the logo above.

I’ve decided to wear a costume to this party. I’ve always loved black hair and Halloween is the perfect time to morph into someone new!

 

I’m one of the newest authors at Entangled Publishing. Everyone from the publisher to the editors and the publicists have been so supportive. My book “Flirting on Ice” written with Susan Scott Shelley will be released in November. It’s a sexy novella about professional  hockey player who can’t away from the team owner’s daughter.

Mr. Perfect has found his kind of trouble…

Professional hockey player Zac Elliott is in top form. He’s having the best season of his career, the local fans can’t get enough of him, and he’s in the middle of the most successful contract negotiations of his career. When the sexy little spark between Zac and the team owner’s daughter blazes to life, no matter how forbidden, he can’t resist.

Philanthropist Heather Ryan can’t keep her hands off of Zac. If her father finds out, it could end Zac’s career and ruin her reputation. What they share is deeply passionate and intensely private…until the press exposes their illicit relationship.

Now the fans have viciously turned against Heather, Zac’s game is faltering, and even his team has deserted him. The only way out of the penalty box is for Zac to play hockey like life— and love—depends on it…

I can’t wait to reveal the cover.

Veronica Forand, Susan Scott Shelley, Tackled by the Girl Next Door

In the meantime, Susan and I have published a fun football novella, “Tackled by the Girl Next Door.” Jason Black is a newly retired professional football player. Forced off the playing field due to an injury, he returns to his hometown to contemplate his future and finds solace in his relationship with his best friend, Samantha O’Brien.

Sam has spent the past five years caring for her younger brother. Home from college for Thanksgiving break, he parties hard and bullies his sister. When Jason comes to her defense, protecting her from a crowd of drunken college kids, Sam begins seeing him as more than a friend. Yet, she fears acting on their attraction could ruin the friendship she’s grown to depend upon.

Just one kiss changes everything for Jason. Sam is no longer the girl next door but the woman of his dreams. Now, he just has to convince her that his feelings are real. But when the football world comes calling again and career decisions are on the line, both sacrifice all to put the other’s needs first. They must decide whether to follow their hearts and make the catch of a lifetime.

 

I’m giving away a $10 gift certificate, a gift copy of “Tackled by the Girl Next Door,” and a gift copy of “Code Red” my romantic suspense short story. Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NEW RELEASE…Tackled by the Girl Next Door

I’m excited to announce the release of “Tackled by the Girl Next” a novella co-written with Susan Scott Shelley. So far the reviews have been great and the response super positive!!!

Veronica Forand, Susan Scott Shelley, Tackled by the Girl Next Door

 

Dating Disasters: #LoveWriteChat

 

Welcome to those who came over from Leslie Hachtel’s blog.

Today we’re discussing date disasters. I could write a book about those, but I’ll limit this post to my first. Thanks to Collette Cameron for the topic.

My dad coached several high school teams when I was younger. He tended to keep me separated from his athletes, especially when I hit adolescence. One summer, however, I needed a sports physical to play soccer at my own high school and his high school had a physician come in to do quick physicals and sign forms. This was long before the days of EKGs for heart murmurs and MRIs for concussions. They took our pulse, blood pressure, slapped us on the ass, and sent us to the field. Never being great with names and faces, I met a lot of his students and remembered none.

A few weeks later, I received a phone call from one of dad’s football players inviting me to the homecoming dance. He’d asked my dad’s permission at practice, but his name drew a blank. I said ‘yes’ anyway, because my dad said he was a nice kid, and I had nothing to do on Friday night.

When he arrived, he was a decent looking kid and, as my dad had said, nice. I would have been fun, except we both were shy and never managed to get deeper than the most simple of sentences during our conversation on the way to the dance.

If the ride was bad, the dance was worse. Maybe it was my complete inability to function in a crush of strangers, or maybe I was just too far outside my comfort zone, but I had a miserable time. I knew no one and everyone kept referring to me as the coach’s daughter.

The date ended as it had begun… awkwardly. No sparks flew and nothing even remotely romantic arose from our date. He dropped me off, and gave me a simple, sweet kiss at the door, more out of obligation than anything else, and then we said our goodbyes.

I figured I’d never see the guy again. Not so. About ten minutes later, he knocked. When I answered, he looked over my shoulder toward the kitchen. I thought he was hungry, but he wasn’t. He asked to see my dad. His car had died, and he couldn’t get it started. He and Dad spent the next hour fixing his car, laughing, and male bonding over the edge of his engine. I think he smiled more with my dad than he did with me.

Never went on another blind date again.

Move on over to Raine Balkera’s blog to read her take on dating disasters.