A Regency Romance Fairytale

[Shereen]

I just received my first look at the cover for my upcoming Regency paranormal romance inspired by the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. The 1st of 4 full-length fairytale inspired books.

This one is called A Beastly Scandal and is set to be released by ImaJinn Books on March 2013.

Head's up: Once this book is released, I plan to do a giveaway on Goodreads.

For now, I wanted to share the cover because, between the title (hope someone asks me how I came up with that one) and the picture, this cover accurately captures the tone of the story - an odd combination that I call "lighthearted Regency gothic."

I love that yellow gown (I want one!), the heroine's posture and those white gloves. :)

If I knew the artist's full name, I'd send her flowers as thanks. All I have is, "Jo."

A Beastly Scandal

[Christine]

Thanks for posting.

[Jalilah]

It is a beautiful cover! I look forward to reading your book Shereen!

[Shereen]

Thanks, Jalilah and Chris.

Feels like I've been waiting a long time for this one and still 3 months to go :)

[Tracey]

That is a lovely cover! Congratulations.

And I'll oblige - How did you come up with the title? :)

[Shereen]

Thanks, Tracy,

As to the title, I discovered a new on-line word trick to help me, since normally I'm terrible when it comes to title. This idea came to me after seeing the 'tag cloud' that Amazon uses on their site. I've even used this tool for work (since my day job is analyzing data).

Back to the title...I wanted one that had a "Regency" flavor, so I copied the titles of about 50 Regency novels currently on sale and put them into a world cloud tool. It spat out the most commonly used words in those titles. From that, I mixed and matched between the fairy tale I was editing and the Regency term that best fit the story. I believe it helped me come up with original relevant titles.

I did this for the other three books in this series coming out, as well, and the publisher has approved them all. Yay! Next book, probably come out in the summer, will be a Sleeping Beauty Regency tale called A Devilish Slumber.

Very cool device. I even used it recently to build a "Review Cloud" from words people used when they reviewed my short stories. It gave a nice flavor of my style of writing (from a reader's perspective). That's now on my website.

These are the two tools that do this FREE on line:
Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/) - more complicated pictures
Tagcrowd (http://tagcrowd.com/) - simple pictures

Try it, it's fun. You need a bunch of repeated mix of words, like an essay or a blog post, and plug that in, and it will show you what the main point of that stream of words was by showing in bigger sizes and/or colors, which words were repeated most often. (ignore 'the', 'a', 'and', etc)

Yes, I am a geek, because I thought that was fun!

[Shereen]

I noticed in my last answer, my analytical side came out a bit much, sigh. Keeping that side of me down is like trying to bathe a rabid dog.

Well, thank heavens for my publisher (ImaJinn Books), because they've produced a wonderful book trailer that focuses solely on this fairy tale's mystery and romance aspects. :)

It also gives a good overview of the storyline.

I hope you enjoy it.

A Beastly Scandal

[Shereen]

I promised I'd give you a head's up when the giveaway began for this book. It began today.
GR's Giveaway for A Beastly Scandal

[Christine]

Thanks!

[Shereen]

This book is now on the market and I couldn't be happier :) - my very first full-length novel. And the first of 4 fairytale-inspired Regencies. :)

Inspired by Beauty and the Beast...allow me to present A Beastly Scandal:
ImaJinn Books
Kindle

And for pre-order Trade Paperback size at Amazon (though it's available at a sale price at ImaJinn Books right now)

Sneak look ahead just for this Goodreads group: My next book will be a Sleeping Beauty-inspired Regency romance called A Devilish Slumber. This second book starts a new series (The Rue Alliance) with shifters in it (but not of the usual shift into animal shapes) - the next three novels lean more toward fantasy, than paranormal.

[Jalilah]

That is great to know Shereen,
I will look for it!

[Shereen]

Great, Jalilah :)

[Shereen]

A review has come in for A Beastly Scandal:
All Fantasy Worlds - 4 scrolls

[Shereen]

I'm only posting this review link here because the reviewer talks about the link between A Beastly Scandal and its inspiration: the Beauty and the Beast tale.

Rated 4 out 5
Once Upon A Book

Thank you, Goblin (http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/19...)

Totally made my day! :)

[Jalilah]

I have placed a request that my library buys A Beastly Scandal.
I can't buy many books myself these days. I read too much and have no more room in my shelves.

[Shereen]

Jalilah,

Great minds must think alike! I had just sent an email this morning to my local library asking them if they would be interested in ordering A Beastly Scandal for their fiction collection.

I'm all for library reading. Sad but true fact: most of the books I read is from my local library.

And placing an order for this book for your local library to get is the best gift you could have given me. Thank you! :)

[Shereen]

Head's up that an ebook of this Regency romance is on a giveaway until June 3rd, 2013.

Giveaway at Clean Romance Reviews

[Jalilah]

Shereen, as I mentioned already, I made a request that my library buy A Beastly Scandal in April. I just ordered it and there is already a cue of 14 ahead of me!

[Shereen]

Wow! You just made my day, lol. 14 people? Consider me gobsmacked. :)

[Jalilah]

Oh and I forgot to mention my local library bought 6 copies.

[Shereen]

You are making me way too happy these days. :)

I'm currently working on a new novella, this time it's inspired by Goldilocks and the Three Bears and is tentatively titled: Just Right for Christmas.

Anyway, while doing some research for it, I found this old but fun article on dating, Regency Style:
http://romanceuniversity.org/2009/09/...

Loved this part:
"The gentleman precedes the lady going up the stairs and follows going down."

Note to self: "Remember that if you ever have a couple going up or down stairs." :)

[Jalilah]

My that was a fun read Shereen! Thank you so much for writing it! I would highly recommend this book to everyone who wants a different take on Beauty and the Beast!

[Shereen]

Ah, thanks Jalilah, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it. :)

[Shereen]

Oh, and I recently did an interview about the inspiration behind this book, in case anyone wants to check it out. I talk a little bit about the Beauty and the Beast theme in one of the questions: Interview at Coffee Time Romance & More

AND A Beastly Scandal's cover is in a cover contest - Check out my competition and if you like my cover, I'd love your vote!

What can I say, August has been a busy month and it's only the 5th!

Jalilah's recommendation, though, is the icing on this cake. :-)

[Shereen]

Halloween Sale!

If you're up for a fun Gothic ghostly scare this Hallows Eve, and enjoy reading romances, A Beastly Scandal is at $0.99 on Kindle (limited time offer). Download your copy today!